Solo Trip: Umra "Small Pilgrimage" To Mecca (Part 3 of 3)
Note: This is the second installment on a series of posts. Read: Part 1, Part 2.
By the next morning the trauma of having a razor scrape against my head (and the abnormally hot skin that came along with it) had subsided, but the brown tan-stripe remained. Having parted my long silky locks down the middle for so long, a tan-line ran the full length of my head. If you’ve just joined us on this multi-part account of my trip to Mecca, let me fill you in. The night before, I had topped off my ‘umra rituals by shaving my head. My head wasn’t as pointy-shaped at I thought it would be. Praise be to God.
After taking a quick shower and throwing on a white galabiya, I left the hotel in search of a kufi, or cap to cover my striped head. Eventually, I settled on one of the white, crocheted varieties that closely resemble doilies. As soon as I reached the beginning of the marble floor, I removed my sandals and let my toes touch the smooth, cool surface. I continued into the mosque and took a leisurely stroll around the Kaaba seven times. It is customary, when one enters a mosque, to pray two units of prayer, with the exception of the Holy Mosque, in which one circumambulates the Kaaba instead. By the time the noon prayer finished, it was safe to say that I had absolutely no idea what to do with my time. There are only so many units of prayer one can do! Besides, with my wandering mind, excessive units of prayer just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Shopping wasn’t an option either. Instead, I sat on the steps at the edge of the first level of the mosque asking God for something to do, beyond units of prayer, circumabulation, and the occasional mango icecream cone.
During my stay in June the prayer mats as well as the water coolers filled with zamzam water were removed, so that the marble floor could be cleaned with machines resembling mini zamboni machines.Ten minutes passed, and a fully veiled woman and her husband each filled four plastic cups with zamzam water at the edge of the courtyard. They walked carefully to the steady stream of pilgrims making their way around the Kaaba and held out the cups for thirsty pilgrims in the middle of their ritual.
I had found my purpose.
A few feelings of hesitation and insecurity prevented me from speaking to them right away, but I eventually mustered up enough courage to ask the young man, in English, if I could serve water with them. He replied in the affirmative. My hands shook uncontrollably as I filled up several plastic cups with the cold water. I was nervous, but I knew this was the way I liked to worship God. This was God’s gift to me, and I wasn’t about to throw it away. I pressed on, and walked cautiously, not wanting my tremor-ridden hands to make the marble floor slippery from a spill.
“What if I disturb their ritual? What if they get angry with me?” The voice in the back of my head wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried to remind myself that these thoughts were unworthy of fear, that I should just “go with God” and do it. It made sense to do it!
“It’s 120 degrees outside, the marble is hot, and these people are circumambulating the Kaaba at noon, several meters away from the nearest source of water. This is common courtesy!” I told myself. I cast my gaze downward and stuck out my hands. Within seconds, four people had taken the cups and handed them back while wishing blessings upon me, “jazak Allah khair.”
I always did want to be one of those people who hold out drinks for marathon runners! Returning to fill more cups, I found out that the man’s name was Shahid. They were from Kenya, but they looked to be of South Asian descent a few generations back.“I wish I had some sort of a serving tray, Shahid. ”Within moments, he had fashioned a serving tray from a piece of cardboard he had just happened to come across and handed it to me with a smile. Now I could fit ten cups on the cardboard and two in my free hand, thus tripling my productivity! Despite having never been a waiter, I did quite well compensating for the shifting weight as people lifted cups off the cardboard.
I felt like Mr. Bean, narrowly escaping a huge blunder.This time some Iranian women wished me blessings. Ain’t no better feeling that being blessed in 10 different languages! This time some people preferred to take their cups with them. As they returned from another round, they placed the cups into the other dirty cups I had collected. I deposited the dirty cups on the left side of one of the water coolers and picked up twelve more cups. (Each water cooler has two stacks of cups. Those on the left have been used, and those on the right are clean.) Shahid and his wife had left, and remained as the sole water dispenser.
At this point, I realized that my fears were unfounded: People actually wanted to chat with me during their ritual. People actually smiled! God gave me a job that I loved, and God gave me the company that I had asked for. As I served them water, some women wearing full face veils flung their veils back and exposed their faces. As an American Muslim man with a veiled-women phobia, this caught me by surprise and made me slightly embarrassed. They only smiled, however, and thanked me as they took a cup. Some passersby caught my gaze but didn’t stop. An African woman was one of those who did not stop. She was also fully veiled, but would look in my direction with every round she made. It wasn’t the last time I’d see her.
While some just looked and continued walking, other pilgrims stopped and engaged in short conversations with me. Others tried to give me money, thinking I was poor. It was definitely a quick way to make both male and female friends:
“Pakistani?” a man asked.“Aywa, Yes,” I answered.
“Speak Urdu?”
“Shwaiya, a little bit.”
“Bohat bohat shukria! [Thank you very very much!],” he exclaimed with a chuckle. May God be pleased with him.
I continued until the call to prayer for afternoon services sounded, when the custodians of the mosque began to return the prayer rugs to the marble floor and put the water coolers back. I settled under a covered section of the mosque at the end of a row and used my cardboard serving tray as a place to put my head during prostration.
After prayer, I heard the two men next to me speaking English.
“Assalamu alaikum, where are you both from?” I couldn't resist.
“England!”
It turns out that a famous Muslim boxer, Prince Naseem, from the United Kingdom sponsored their trip. One was Turkish, and the other was of Jamaican heritage. We decided to make our rounds of the Kaaba together. Afterwards, as we walked outside of the mosque, I stuck out my hand and wished them well, not wanting to wear out my welcome.“No, no, you must come to our hotel!”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Hilton.”
Well, can’t say no to that, can I? I was led to the suite on the top floor of the Mecca Hilton where I met MyNippleItches, the brother of the Prince Naseem and one of the funniest men I’ve ever met. Alhamdulillah, I found myself among men who I adored. These weren’t young men seeking to prove their masculinity as many men are. They were a group of humble, older men who had softened with age. They were so comfortable with their cultural and intra-religious diversity that it caught me off guard. What’s more is that these men shared my Islam and body-centric sense of humor. Quoting a tradition of the Prophet that maintained that one should not sleep on one’s left side, MyNippleItches, the very large, effeminate, British-Arab man remarked, “But tha left side is so bloody comf’table!”
God bless him, and the man who cleaned his bathroom, to whom he remarked (while waving his hand in front of his nose), “Bruva, you should wait bout half-an-hour before you go in there… Wooooo!”
I later heard him repeatedly complaining that his “Nipple itches,” hence the name. Some of my readers may be put off by this type of humor, but this was just what I needed! These were men so comfortable with themselves that they could talk (and joke) about nearly anything. I guess that’s why they took a liking to me, and acted as my older brothers. They took me out to eat at a Saudi-owned fast food place (the only time I broke my no-fast-food rule) and then decided to return to the Kaaba and pray together.Entering the holy mosque with the group, I removed my cap and bent down to wipe my head with water. MyNippleItches immediately pointed at my head, and chuckled, exclaiming [to be read with a British accent of the Sheffield variety]:
“Brotha, you goh' tha Yue-ni'ted Naeshuns on yoh’ head!”
I obviously couldn’t take a look at my own head, but I knew what had happened. I received my first sunburn in Mecca. It wasn’t just any sunburn though, it was a geometric shaped (remember the crocheted kufi? It had holes in it!) sunburn cut straight down the middle by my hair-part tan-line.United Nations is right!
I was worried that I would look funny with my head shaved. Now I looked ridiculously funny. And Surely God has a sense of humor we couldn’t possibly comprehend.It was just another lesson in the classroom of life, and God can teach you in some pretty fascinating (and funny) ways. After our tawwaf, praying together, and sharing some dates, we walked back to the Hilton hotel where Riyadh and I sat down for a 10 riyal-cup of chai, and talked about life. Just then we were briefly joined by a man who ran into some trouble trying to buy some fake, authentic rolex watches. Of Jamaican descent with some gold caps on his teeth, he exclaimed repeatedly,_
"Everybody wanna go ta heaven, nobody wanna die!"
