The Call to Prayer…or When things are going my way

Yesterday I started my day with a walk around town. It’s very comfortable here in the morning as the sun rises. In fact, I’m able to wear my favourite Baja hoodie on my morning stroll. When I returned to my room to shower up and get ready for work, some guy down the hall was standing there with a big smile and a towel wrapped around his waist; he had just finished showering up. When I went to grab my shower…there was nothing…drip drip drip. I knew access to a reliable source of water was going to be an issue so I was prepared for this. It’s not going to happen everyday but I couldn’t get that guy's smile out of my mind. So I devised a plan.  

As I mentioned, the Grand Mosque is just down the road. It provides a beautiful audio overlay to the Yako ambiance as the Iman’s call to prayer can easily be heard, even in my room, as I lay in bed.This morning at 4:35am as the call to prayer started, I jumped out of bed and straight into the shower.  I had water.  Now when I say, I jumped straight into the shower…no one in there right mind jumps into a shower that has only one lever (on and off).  There is no hot and cold….well I guess you could look at it like there’s a cold, but I prefer not to.  You tend to spend a little bit of time (especially at 4:35am) standing in front of the mirror asking yourself…”Okay, are you ready…are you going to do this?”. It’s just the get’n in part that’s a dog.

 

My second victory of the morning was finding a boulliere (electric kettle) to make my Tim Horton’s coffee.  That’s right, I brought myself a tin of Timmy’s and some filters.  Back home, I don’t actually drink Tim’s too often (expect when out on the motorcycle), but this was one luxury I afforded myself.  Goooood coffee.

My next pause for celebration was when Salimatra arrived with my breakfast.  I uncovered my plate and saw that she had prepared me an omelette.  This really was something that I had to close my eyes for as it filled my mouth with so much good flavour.  You’d think, by the way I had savoured every mouth full, that I had been here for 6 months ….I’ve only been here 4 days. LOL.  I think it’s because I had already mentally prepared myself to be eating a baguette and coffee every morning.  That’s not a bad thing, but this omelette was so good.

Finally, when I walked in to my office (a meeting room), there was Adjia, with her laptop plugged in and ready to work with me.  Come on….can anybody beat that morning?

After lunch, I headed out for my 2.5 hr daily walk through town, in the afternoon sun.  I hope this counts as good exercise.  The sun is strong, so I’m start’n to get why they take the “repose”.  I continued to make my way through as many roads and paths as I could.  To be quite honest, I haven’t been taking many photos at all.   I get lots of messages from back home saying “can’t wait to see the photos” and “take lots of photos”.   It’s tough to explain.  I don’t feel comfortable yet, snapping pictures of people, their homes, their struggles.  I know I’ll get there but I think I’d like to establish a bit of a rapport first, so that they at least see me first…and not the camera….and trust me they do see me “Nasaraaaaa….”  can be heard from every direction as I stroll down every road.  The “Nasara” or “Nasara Bonbon” doesn’t feel like a bad thing and it doesn’t bother me.  You should know that, EVERYBODY along the route greets you with a “Bonjour. Ça va?”.  Back to picture taking.  On the Myers Briggs Personality Type model(MBPT), I consistently, over the years, land as an INTP (Introvert,Intuitive, Thinking Perceiving).  People in this model typically prefer to listen more than talk, think about things longer and use Intuition and Perception more heavily.   We are heavy into the conceptual aspect of most things.  None of these are absolutes.  Non of these are strengths or weaknesses.  They simply demonstrate a preference over other MBPT combinations.   I think this is what’s at play here for me.  I’m wanting to establish a bit of context before I try communicating a reality.  Hey now there’s a concept….but maybe Marshall McLuhan has already nailed that one.

I spent some time at night chatting with the French couple.  A very pleasurable night.

Regrettably that’s all I have in my notes for Thursday….might have something to do with not respecting the insight of the repose.