Eid (11/27)

Today was the Muslim holiday of Eid, which is kind of like the Muslim version of Christmas. Yesterday, someone had told one of the boys in our group that there would be a big prayer service in the morning and that he should come and take pictures. I thought that this would be such a cool idea, but it seemed a bit weird and intrusive to take pictures of a big religious event that I wasn’t part of – especially because the Somalis are so religious. So last night, we asked someone on our way back from dinner at our usual place whether it would be ok to take pictures. He said that he would ask the organizers and meet us there in the morning a little before the start of the prayer session. At 7:30am, I was waiting on the playing field. It looked like the guy wasn’t coming, but then I bumped into the son of a woman I had interviewed. I explained what I wanted to do, and he said he’d go ask and see what he could do.

A couple minutes later, he came back and explained that it would be fine for me to take pictures, but that since I’m a woman, my head had to be covered for the ceremony. The boy took me back to his home, and his sisters did me up in full Muslim garb. As in, a full-length black robe, a dark brown cloth tied around my forehead, covered by an elbow-length black headscarf.

It was really bizarre to be dressed like that. The hole that my face fit through was a little tight, but otherwise the whole outfit was really comfortable. I got fewer stares and more encouragement than I expected, and for a brief time I could almost pretend that people didn’t notice this outsider – I almost felt anonymous, like I blended in, for the first time since I came to Africa. But it wasn’t the depersonalizing anonymity that people sometimes ascribe to headscarves (especially the burkha, which I don’t think I could ever wear), or other uniforms. Rather it was the sort of anonymity one feels when walking down a city street in the U.S. – i.e. exactly the kind of anonymity I’ve been craving. It’s been really frustrating to me that I can’t go anywhere without everyone staring at me, yelling “muzungu! How are you!” 29 times at me, and wanting to tell me all their problems. (Of course, now that I look at the pictures of me, I’m struck by how unlike myself I look and by how much I still stick out.)

The prayer session started around 8, with a line of men in long white gowns at the front of the field and a line of women in their flowing, colorful robes at the back of the field. I awkwardly pulled out my camera and hoped that no one was glaring at me as I started to take pictures of the women. A cluster of children – adorable girls in their best clothes with painted arms – came up and clamored for me to take their pictures.

Obviously, I couldn’t really understand any of what was happening in the service, and to be honest, I don’t know much about Islam. But especially standing back with the women, I was struck by what a distant, all-powerful being their God seems to be. I guess because I believe so much in holding true to personal, internal values and finding ways to make the basic values of any religion have meaning to you, personally, it seems very strange to me to stand in a line and bow down to a line of men in front of you, and to a loudspeaker blaring a prayer in front of them. It doesn’t seem to me to be a very personal religion. But as I said, I really don’t know much about Islam, and I definitely don’t mean to be criticizing their beliefs in any way – just that I don’t understand them and need to learn more.

After about 45 minutes, the winds were picking up, blowing the light, silky fabrics in the air and lifting the dust on the football pitch. Clearly a rain storm was about to break. We all hurried off the field and into Somali town, where I got to take more photos. At this point, anyone who hadn’t noticed me during the prayer service or who had been praying in one of the mosques instead got to see this muzungu in Muslim clothes taking pictures of everything with her fancy camera. For the rest of the day, people have been coming up to me and telling me how surprised they were to see me dressed as a Muslim or how beautiful I looked, or, in the case of many of the women, smiling at me in a confidential way as though to say that I’m one of them now. I guess it’s similar to the way people appreciate it when you make an effort to learn and use at least a few phrases of their language – I was trying out a part of their culture, and they seemed glad.