member of the human race

I woke up to the sound of people making noise, it was just before fajer, people where praying tahajud around me, some where collecting pebbles, it was nice and calm, and believe it or not i had one of the most relaxed and nicest sleep in a long time, i know who would have thought sleeping in the outside in a desert would be so nice??? amazing subhannalah.

i kinda just sat in my sleeping bag watching the world of hajj around me, completely mesmerised by the scene, one of my mums friends grabs me from the back and gives me a big hug and says 'kul sana wintee taybah' translation - 'may you be well every year, i was confused as to why she said this then it dawned on me, today is eid.....

every one was hugging one another and congratulating each other, it was really nice, we all huddled together in our sleeping bags and hugged each other, the feeling of unity was sooooo strong at that moment and a hope that you may not have had enters your heart and optimism replaces pessimism, waking up to eid in muzdalifa is certainly an all together different experience.

all this time in the back of my head i kept thinking i gotta venture out and do wudu for fajer, i asked someone where the washing facilities where and they pointed across at a huge mass of people, thankfully i only needed to do wudu, could you imagine standing at that que, no way, so i managed to find a tap that wasn't being occupied by 10,000 hands and did my wudu, here are what the wudu facilities look like in muzdalifa after the people had gone:


its an interesting experience, and you know whats amazing is that with so many millions of people no one fights for the toilets or wudu areas, people really do wait patiently and some even throw you a smile...

so i went back to my group, by then fajer had come in, we grouped ourselves with a Syrian group who where praying and joined them in congregational prayer, after fajer that's when all the madness started, we where told we should pack our stuff and meet at the gate at the entrance so as to board the coach to take us back to mina.

sounds good yeh? simple enough yeh? no problemo yeh? yeh right more like, we get to the entrance and find people having nervous breakdowns, shouting at one another, a coach would come and people will get on, but for some reason people can no longer wait, they are in a rush like no ones business and they will get on the coach no matter what, they mean business, we stood there for like an hour then decided to go and sit down away from the crowds and wait until it calms down. watching the crowds was my favourite past time at muzdalifa, at one point a coach came and a man stood at the entrance of the coach and stopped any men from getting on and would only allow woman, sounds cool the only problem was that the men where not listening to him and where trying to force themselves onto the coach, the coach body guard was having none of it, he was Algerian and he had a temper, he basically turns to one of the men and punches him, gives him a right smackeroonee on the upper cheek hmmmmm.

well the man who got punched, his wife was horrified so she gets involved, the result oh dearest bloggers is that her hijab gets taken off, traumatic but i have to admit hilarious in a sick sort of way. see what i mean about the madness, we thankfully where not in a rush and our group sat down in the shade watching this episode from afar. what was sad was the fact that these people had just completed arafat, why would you put yourself in a position where you will accumulate sins. a question that kept popping into my head was 'why are people in such a rush?' walahi there was no need to escape muzdalifa, it wasn't like we had to be back at mina before duhur or something, there was plenty of time and plenty of coaches, it just meant waiting for a while, but people where acting like they where being chased by a million carnivorous camels.

some men decided they weren't going to wait for the next coach and took it on themselves the mission of getting onto the roof of the coach, one man was really struggling and at one point we all thought he was going to fall either that or his ihram was going to fall, he stood on one mans head to balance himself and it took 3 men to pull him onto the roof crazy!!!!

muzdalifa was becoming a ghost town just like arafat, people where slowly leaving and the numbers where decreasing, i bought a cup of good old coffee and watched the world of muzdalifa


after the crowds die down i always notice the amount of plastic bags left behind, why do people do that its not like there are no bins around, Saudi has supplied enough bins to throw the worlds rubbish into so why do people litter? it was soooo annoying to watch people drinking water from bottles then throwing the bottle on the ground, so many times i would pick the bottle up and chase after the culprit who threw it and make them throw it in the bin, i didn't need to speak there language, the power of my sign language was more than enough in giving the message.

people where still lingering around doing there own thing, it was sad watching the numbers decreasing although we would meet again at mina but it indicated to me that time was passing and that soon hajj would have ended.


one thing i kept noticing through out mina as well as muzdalifa, was the babies, they are so adorable its unbelievable, sersiouly, the mother would tie the baby up behind her back so that its little feet where sticking out as well as the head, kinda like a diy baby carrier, the result is you get one hell of a cute adorable baby mashallah, i kept chasing them for pic, i was there stalker..

every so often i would look up across to the gate to see if there was any chance for us to grab a coach but still people where waiting then the unbelievable happened, a coach drives right up to us and just parks, seriously, some how it had gotten into the area and just drives up to us, for like a few seconds we just continued to sit down staring at this random coach, then our leader goes up to the driver and asks him if he can take us to mina to which he agrees subhanallah, withing seconds we where sat on the coach making our way back to mina without having to stand and fight for a place on the coaches at the entrance.

I'm reminded of when Allah swt says that reward will come to those who are patient and when he 'be patient, for Allah is with those who are patient' subhannallah...