Day 14 – Moving Into Mina

It’s 9:50am, the bus is finally here to take us to Mina. Not much goin on today, just sittin around, waiting. Lots of talbiyah, a little napping, trying to rest. I started feeling sick again this morning, like something was up with my stomach too. I definitely have a cough now also. None of it is serious, you just get accustomed to not being 100%.

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We’re in Mina. It’s 12:15pm, we’ve been sitting here for almost an hour, in the bus. The group chemistry has gotten alot better. There’s always nice, entertaining interactions between the Somali sub-group and the Punjabi sub-group. There’s actually a brother named Ahmed, Somali dude, who lives in Hyderabad, India – so he speaks Urdu. Makes for some great humor with the Desi uncles. Especially, when he gets into explaining the Indian bobble-head syndrome. He does a killer impression too, it’s dead on :). There’s another brother, Fiyyaz, who’s actually from Hyderabad. Watching them go back and forth is a riot, such good hearts mA. They make the whole environment much easier for everyone.

Sometimes, I envision my journal as a screenplay for a film. Cool idea – since there’s so many languages being spoken around me, it’d be interesting, visually, to only show subtitles for specific words that are understood, leaving the rest untranslated. This might illustrate how bewildering everything can be sometimes.

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We got into tents at around 2pm. There was a huge discrepancy with the lady…

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Sorry, got caught up. Things got heated in the tent and I got distracted. Basically, we showed up to Mina & had no tents, so we waited on our bus for 2 hours, where there was A/C. Then, the bus driver was complaining because he’d been up since 3am and had to leave, so we finally got off the bus to let the poor guy go. They still had no space for our whole group. The entire group had paid an extra $245 each, for a private, air-conditioned tent, with foam mattresses and 3 daily meals, for the entire duration of the stay in Mina, with the entire group being together. We showed up and they split up our group. The ladies got put in a room with women from another group. 5 of the men were split up and given spots in a few different tents, with other groups. The rest of us, 17 guys, were led to a small tent and told to stay there. The tent was tiny, smaller than a college dorm room, with 4 fold-up cushion beds, but no meals. We were like…um…ok…kept our heads down, and started to settle in.

We had all barely sat down when an unknown woman came into our tent, yelling and complaining in Arabic about our group leader, Muhammad Hirsy, saying he was ordering her around and being rude. We later found out she was the organizer from our Hajj group, through whom all of the local arrangements were made by the group leaders. She was complaining that he had not paid her any money for the upgraded tents and that she offered to extend some help to him out of her own generosity and kindness, but he was making too many demands and being overbearing, taking advantage of her hospitality. We were like, ok…chill…work it out, cuz WE definitely paid him. It all turned into a really big issue. All of the men in our group got together in our tent and had many meetings to try and figure out what to do. So, now there’s like 22 guys, all chillin in this tiny space – tired, hungry, frustrated, starting to lose their tempers. The lady came by again and dropped off 9 meals, as “gifts” to our group.

Most of the men were pissed at this point. They tried to take a stand to make a statement about how they were going to get what was owed to them, in full. No one had eaten all morning though…and those meals were just stacked high…in the middle of the tent. The men were so fired up about going to the Ministry of Hajj and complaining about not getting what they paid for, and getting ripped off…as they continued eyeing the hot food, untouched and unclaimed. Those boxes of biryani were calling out to us as we huddled around in a disjointed circle, meeting to strategize how best to make our stand. We couldn’t fight it any longer, the meals got passed around and split up – 2-3 people per box. Once we started eating, everyone calmed down and completely lost steam haha. Some guys went and talked to the lady again, to try reasoning with her. She said she would work things out for us, though it may take time. So, we’re all just hanging out in the tent, indefinitely.

Man Meeting, The Biryani Beckons

It’s funny though, everyone gets so fired up about the simplest things. Every registered Hajji is guaranteed a tent with carpet and water, that’s the basic provision. Even with just that, we woulda been chillin, no biggie. People already paid though, so I guess they have reason to be upset. My pops paid the upgrade for my whole family, so it’s not like I’m really feelin the pressure. He was up and at it though.

I think it’s also an American thing. We have so much less patience, it’s actually alarming. I was just making wudhu and there was a guy doing his wudhu outside of the drainage area, so he wouldn’t have to wait in line to use the faucet. There was another man there, stopping people from doing that exact thing because all of that water would run down into his tent. He told the man to stop and not make wudhu there, said it twice. The other man got so pissed, like “ok! I understood you the first time!!”. I’m like, dang…he just gave a simple admonishment. Peeps need more patience. That’s the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of this so far. Life, as well, is about being patient with your tests. It’s like enduring smaller tests here, in a controlled environment, to help you get practice at developing patience. Every hardship is resolved practically the same day, though it feels like forever til you get there. Patience training wheels :) Just remember to keep pedaling, junior :P