Wow, Monday, what a day. A very, very, very long day. We got started early and set off on the bus for the 3 hour ride to Touba. As do most very long bus rides, ours started off with lots of enthusiasm and lots of Disney songs, which slowly faded... We had another pick-me-up along the way with a mango stop. That's right. Mango city. Haha. I bought 9 mangos for like $2.50... so good. That made me happy.
Four hours later, we made it to Touba, la ville sainte des Mourides (the holy city of the Mourides). 
But instead of going to the Mosque, we went to visit the Mouride Headquarters, which is a "brotherhood" of Islam here. They gave us a tour of their buildings, showed us a mosque that they are currently building, 
and some other projects they are working on, a tour of the classrooms (all the little girls with their little veils were so adorable), 
and then had us go into this huge room where they did a question/answer thing and spent a half an hour answering the first question. We thought we were going there just for lunch... so Britt and I were pretty convinced that they were kidnapping us, especially after we saw all our BYU student ID pictures on one of their computers... freaky! Oh, and they were filming the whole thing to put on their TV channel... we're hoping they'll send us the DVD in the mail. We eventually did eat lunch, which was pretty good, and I talked to the fourth wife of the head guy there, and she was really nice... But then her husband started being creepy and saying that since we were friends, I should be his fifth wife. Non, merci :) 
But instead of going to the Mosque, we went to visit the Mouride Headquarters, which is a "brotherhood" of Islam here. They gave us a tour of their buildings, showed us a mosque that they are currently building, and some other projects they are working on, a tour of the classrooms (all the little girls with their little veils were so adorable), and then had us go into this huge room where they did a question/answer thing and spent a half an hour answering the first question. We thought we were going there just for lunch... so Britt and I were pretty convinced that they were kidnapping us, especially after we saw all our BYU student ID pictures on one of their computers... freaky! Oh, and they were filming the whole thing to put on their TV channel... we're hoping they'll send us the DVD in the mail. We eventually did eat lunch, which was pretty good, and I talked to the fourth wife of the head guy there, and she was really nice... But then her husband started being creepy and saying that since we were friends, I should be his fifth wife. Non, merci :) Okay, finally got out of there and headed over to la Mosqée, but no. We first had to stop by at this library across the street and get a tour of that. It took forever, and no one was paying attention by this time. Ugh.
Finally made it to the Mosque, and it was very impressive!
Afterwards, we drudgingly got back on the bus for the last leg of the trip, which was supposed to take like 2.5 hours... 4 hours later, we got there. So our five hour trip took about 8, and we got to our hotel pretty much dead. We ate a mango and went to bed-- sleeping under mosquito nets, which my roommate finds extremely adventurous. This morning we've just been walking around Saint Louis. I bought a watch because my watch stopped, good timing, and we've been dying not ever knowing what time it is. I'll try and post more pictures soon!
1 comment:
I have to wonder if part of the reason they began wearing scarves/veils is because it's so much cooler. Maybe it just started out as a convenience and was made into a symbolic icon of their faith? Just an errant thought. But was it not cooler?
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