5:33. The alarm did not go off. All four phones and two watches did not go crazy this morning. Maybe they let us sleep a bit more because yesterday was a bit hectic with umrah and no sleep. I had a big late night snack of nasi and kari kambing hahaha that settled pretty good. Also took care of my little friends that came along in the luggage till late morning.
Long story short, we missed the Fajr prayers and the rest of our morning routines. That made someone really furious….I went back to sleep for the rest of the morning. Hahaha a typical model husband.
Zuhr crowds were huge as I hurried myself to escape the heat. It’s unbearable to stay on in the sun.I guess that what the head scarf is for — to protect from the searing heat. Inside the aircond was full blast, the heat immediately dispersed.
Catching up with my Quran reading was pretty hard as my head started to doze off. The afternoon nap looked so nice as everyone stretched out and covered up. I stayed on and ended up doodling my phone to keep myself alive. Soon the azan came on the air and we were back on our feet.
After the prayers I gave up my space and everyone looked up and gave the expression “Why?”. Someone was more than happy to take my space. It was that precious for everyone. But I knew a better place and needed to get there asap before the evening shadow started to show up. The rooftop.
Since covid men without ihram are not permitted to tawaf or solat downstairs near Kaabah or at the dataran. They can do tawaf sunat upstairs and pray elsewhere. I think that is fair enough. Found an empty spot and get settled. The crowd is different in this corner of the rooftop—- many locals seemed to converge. This one man reserved the whole carpet and no one seemed to challenge him. The unwritten social status played well and understood by everyone. So we just gave ways.
Interestingly, I developed a taste of simplicity. For iftar nowadays, I could settle with just a few dates and some water. No exotic item on the menu and so far do not crave for any kueh or nasi either. Alhamdulillah. Maybe later on after teraweeh eat some nasi for the fun of it. Not a good habit to eat late at night but , you know, just to be fair to my old me. No life without nasi (hahahah). Whatever.
Maghrib came on and the place immediately tranformed into an open cafe— with chai and qohwah. We shared and we ate like a big family on a dine-out. I smiled to myself enjoying some kind of bread with cream cheese, handed out by someone, a stranger. Plenty of food today, alhamdulillah.
By 10:15 pm, we finished the qiam(taraweeh) and dashed out. On the way down, with the crowd pushing and rushing someone did a terrible crime that could not be forgiven …. someone farted! Uugghh the shit smelled…..an uproar followed by some words…. I guess those were curses in different languages…. It sounded the same. We laughed and at the end of the stairs we went on our separate ways.
