Editorializing the Everyday. : Worship

Hello once more from Senegal. We had a good day today, and luckily, some extra time to relax, so it was great. This morning we had a class about Islam and mostly talked about the different "brotherhoods" that exist here. It's a little bit confusing to understand, because it's not like different sectes of Islam, it's just groups... "it's a practice, not a teaching," so said our teacher this morning. In any case, it was interesting.

Afterwards, we were able to go to this Quranic school where the students are learning Arabic and French (they speak Wolof natively). The director of the school was really welcoming to us and was really nice, and then they had his son recite some verses of the Quran, which was cool. We talked with some of the students (this group of girls here), and they were cute. It's so funny, because everyone you meet wants your address and phone number and all that... random. But they were cute anyways:

This cool statue thing that we always pass on the road:

Today is Friday. To most people now a days, all that means is that we play that song over and over to annoy those around us, but for the Muslims, it is a very different thing. We got back from the school, grabbed some lunch, and headed over (Chelsey and I). It was about 1:40 when the loudspeakers came on from the top of this Mosque, with a man reciting the Quran. We didn't need directions because we could just follow the flow of traffic. Literally everyone was headed there, and at 2:00, the prayers started. There's not enough room in the Mosque for everyone, and the overflow is out in the streets. Pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen. It was as if you could just feel their faith and their devotion. We loved being able to watch how these people worship God. Very life-affirming. Here are some pictures that we tried to take inconspicuously...