Another London study for our culture class (this is from Friday, February 19th...a few days late on the blogging!) The Central London Mosque is where we met Omar, the public relations supervisor and our guide for the day! I felt really bad because we forgot to bring scarfs to cover our heads...they had some they lent to us but for the rest of us we just wore our hoods. I felt like an ignorant American. Once inside, we took off our shoes and followed our man Omar into the prayer room. There were only men in the room and we found out that there are separate spaces for men and women to pray in order to respect everyone's privacy and modesty. We got to watch the congregation pray, they repeat the sequence of prayer 4 times and then can pray individually if they want. Omar said every mosque should have a library because learning is crucial, so he took us up to the library and told us a bit more about their beliefs and answered some questions we had. My favorite was when he started blushing and sweating when Mary asked him about their dating and marriage customs. It's so wonderful learning about these different religions...I love it! Getting to talk to Omar made me realize how little I know about other cultures, religion and...the world in general.
After leaving the mosque, I went to Nando's and got a chicken wrap and corn with Sarah. It was nice getting away from a big group of people and not having to worry about keeping everyone together in transit. I didn't used to like corn...but it's one of the few things I crave constantly here (ope, I almost wrote "hear"!) We walked back to the Centre after our food disappeared (it was gone too fast) and let our stomachs digest...then we played Deck of Pain! We got a deck of cards, assigned an exercise to each suit (ie hearts=pushups, clubs=running up a flight of stairs, spades=lunges, diamonds=situps) and went through the deck until we were panting...a result of us working out and the bad ventilation. What a good way to end Friday.
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