It’s 7 PM. Do you know where your prayer rug is?

I am happy to say that my time in Indonesia has already taught me a lot about Islam, and I have developed a much deeper understanding of the faith. For example, yesterday I discussed wearing a hijab with my friends. Their reasons were thus: if a man sees a woman not wearing a hijab and short shorts and a tank top, he will desire her. Therefore, women wear hijabs and long clothing. I asked if it made them upset that they had to do something that would make them hotter and sweater just because men had a problem controlling their thoughts, and they said, no, they are used to it. It’s just normal. And there are various teachings. Some women must be completely covered, everything but their eyes. It depends on the imam’s teachings. The Muslims in Mojoagung with me are in the middle, not uncovered but not totally covered.

The more I thought about it, though, I realized that I do the same thing in the US. I do not wear shorts that are too short and I do not wear low cut tops a) because let’s face it I’m not stick thin, b) because I do not feel comfortable, and c) because I do not want unwanted attention. Just like the women here, I choose to dress in a way that respects my body while protecting me from unwanted stares. The level to which we cover up is simply different. Asking me to come to school in short shorts, where I would clearly be uncomfortable with glances, is like asking a Muslim woman to go to school and not wear a hijab. She feels too revealing. We have the same intentions, Muslim women and I, but manifest this with different levels of covering ourselves up.

Last night I spoke with my host sister-in-law and received a really big compliment. She said that her parents were really surprised by me. “How can she eat our food?” “How come she wants to learn about Islam?” “How does she feel at home here?” They didn’t think an American would want to do all of these things, yet here I am, always going for the shock factor (Sam, think cockroach!) This is a really big compliment to me, that they are surprised (yet presumably pleased!) that I am learning about their faith and culture.

This being said, it was only natural to “go native” as we say in anthropology, and go pray at the mosque with my family!

Allaahu Akbar. Allaahu akbar. Allaahu Akbar. Allaahu akbar Asyhadu an laa ilaaha illallaah. Asyhadu an laa ilaaha illallaah. Asyhadu anna Muhammadar rasuulullaah. Asyhadu anna Muhammadar rasuulullaah. Hayya ‘alash-shalaah. Hayya ‘alash-shalaah. Hayya ‘alal-falaah. Hayya ‘alal-falaah. Allaahu Akbar. Allaahu akbar. Laa ilaaha illallaah.

God is Great! God is Great! God is Great! God is Great! I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God. I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Come to prayer! Come to prayer! Come to success! Come to success! God is Great! God is Great! There is none worthy of worship except God.

This is the call to prayer that I hear 5 times a day, at approximately 4:30 AM, 12:30 PM, 3:30 PM, 5:30 PM, and 7 PM. Oh yeah, I can’t forget to mention that this call to prayer is blasted over a loudspeaker that, while about a block away from my window, magically sounds like it is 1 foot from my window. Miraculously, sometimes I sleep through the call to prayer at 4:30 AM. Sometimes.

The Islamic faith has five pillars, one of which is to sholat, or pray, five times a day. The other four pillars are: proclamation of faith (“There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet”), tithing, fasting during Ramadhan, and visiting Mecca at least once as an adult if financially able.

Naturally, my interest in understanding the manifestation of God in other faiths led me to ask my host family if I could follow them to the mosque on Monday night and sholat with them. I borrowed a prayer rug, slipped on my host sister’s long skirt (that I’d pull down over my feet once entering the mosque to pray) and a hijab that went down to my waist. This skirt and hijab were so long because women’s feet and hands can’t be showing during prayer. Simply a rule!

I told my host mother, “Ibu, saya tidak bisa lebih siap untuk ikut ke musholla! Saya selesai menstruasi, sudah mandi, dan pakai jilbab!”  Of course she cracked up, because I had just testified, “Ibu, I could not be more ready to follow you to the musholla (small mosque)! I am done menstruating (not allowed to enter the mosque if you are), I already showered, and I am wearing a hijab!”

I’ve only been inside a mosque a few times in my life, and I have watched Muslims pray approximately three times in my life, including two Eid al’Fitr service sat Carleton, and once during high school when I visited a Muslim camp with my God camp (Youth in Theology and Ministry, shout out to St. John’s and St. Ben’s in Collegeville, MN!) I may have prayed with the women at that point, but I don’t recall…

Anyways, this was the first time I was doing it right! Excuse me, Lauren and Danielle, this was the first time I was doing it correctly. After dawning my prayer clothes and slipping off my sandals outside the mosque, I lined up in the last row of women (women in this mosque prayed on the right side of a curtain, men on the left, but it can also be women on the left, men on the right, OR men in front, women in back), I placed my prayer mat facing Mecca, and was ready for action.

Usually the 7 PM prayer is about 10 minutes long, but it is Ramadhan, so I was attending the regular prayer time followed by Teraweh. The next 40 minutes basically consisted of standing, bending at the waist, prostrating with my forehead touching the ground, and sitting. The Isya’ prayer time (the regular night prayer) consists of doing this 4 times, so it’s a repeating system.  Teraweh is the same series of motions and prayers, but done in sets of 2, up to 11 times. At each stage of the prayer, people say the Arabic prayer to themselves, so I just did my own prayers.

So logistics aside, how did I feel being there?

I loved it!

One of the hardest things about leaving the Christian community at Carleton (though it was easy to leave behind the feelings that I had to hide my liberal identity and silently disagree with some people’s conservative theology) was the lack of Christian community after graduating. I thrive in community and moving to St. Paul lacked the built-in college community of young people seeking how to be better people. Or at least I didn’t find the right group in St. Paul. So being here at the mosque among believers was so comforting. So natural. Everyone praying together, moving in sync.

The only critique I have about the experience is the lack of time for personal prayer. As Christians, we have a lot of freedom in how we pray, when we pray, why we pray. During this exercise of ups and downs at the mosque (putting our Catholic calisthenics to shame, I may add!), there wasn’t much time for personal prayer. Or if there was, I missed it trying to make sure I wasn’t standing when everyone was sitting and vice versa! Praying with one eye open is not my preferred way of prayer, but that’s life for a first-time mosque-goer!

Anyways, I love being in a country where God is so present. God’ s power is different, here, though. I have gleaned (mainly from a conversation with my host mom and host sister, so sample size n=2) that Muslims can lead a somewhat stressful life of trying to please God by following all the rules and doing good because God will judge you after death. This reaffirms for me my freedom in being a Christian. I don’t have to do anything but believe in who Jesus was and what he did. While this is liberating, I also experience some guilt about this free pass. Does believing in Jesus’ sacrifice make Christians lazy and complacent? We know that we are always forgiven, so what is stopping us from doing bad things over and over again? I suppose the idea is that the more we don’t do bad things, the closer we become to God and the more we want to please God, therefore resulting in us striving not to be bad. Still, I think that the humility that Muslims practice is something to be better explored by Christians. Though the fear of God’s judgment is something I can live without…

From the Classroom:

Frustration begins to arise in the Indonesian classroom. My 10-2 class was interrupted yesterday for an administrator to come in and make the students clip their nails.

Naughty student? While Ms. Prather in Central High School would stop the class and wait for the student to be quiet, and occasionally send a student out of the class to think about their behavior, Indonesian teachers simply tug their ear. Reminiscent of the USA elementary school classroom in 1850? I think so! 

The ability to write what is on the board and listen to the teacher at the same time escapes Indonesian students. (Though to be fair, they never learn to do this in the first place.) I should start a stopwatch of how much teaching time will be sucked up by standing there in silence waiting for students to copy what’s on the board… today, 7 minutes to write 10 phrases.

I may take to just walking out of the classroom and not coming back when students just laugh nervously and take more than 10 seconds to respond to the simply question, “How are you?” I will try to be patient, but I don’t care how poorly you were taught English through all of elementary and middle school, you should be able to respond to this one question as a 10^th grader.

Goal number one with my counterparts? To encourage them to go to class on time when the bell rings. Usually we are between 5-10 minutes late, because they are still chatting with other teachers, no big deal.

In other words, there is a lot of work to be done here in Mojoagung…

In other news:

I think I prevented my principal from being stalked by a foreigner. He received a Facebook message from an alleged “Peter” from the UK. My principal isn’t fluent in English, just words here and there. So he used Google to translate Peter’s English message, which asked for Indonesian contacts because he is coming to Indonesia on business. My principal wrote a response, graciously including his name, phone number, and address. Thank the Lord he showed me the message before he sent it, or Peter could have shown up at his house! I explained to him that this Peter was probably not legit. Businessmen from the UK do not ever start a message with “Hello dear” and use poor punctuation.

Indonesians do not drop everything and watch the Olympics like we Americans do, and I miss it! I tried to find out when I could tune into watching gymnastics and swimming here, but it is simply not aired. What is aired, you ask? Why, soccer and badminton, of course! Indonesian favorites! But they air live at 1 AM, so I’m not doing that. I guess that the Olympics is not as bit a deal here when your country only has 22 athletes as compared to the US’s 530 athletes. I still miss it, though! 

I visited a neighboring village the other day to check out the shoe production…all made by hand, wow! When we asked around if they could make sandals for me, everyone said, “Size 43? No! We don’t make shoes bigger than 40!” Well shoot! Finally, we found who would, and I picked out the size, color, style. Then she asked, “How many do you want?” I said, “Just one pair, for me!” She said, “Oh, you can’t! You must order at least 20!” Turns out, this is a village that mass produces shoes. No one wants to make one big pair (excuse me, size 9-9 ½ is not THAT big!!) for the bule!