Some rqndom thoughts from my hut

Ever wonder why Muslims pray 5 times a day? Well… ok, neither had I, really. But I was sitting at Fousseynou’s the other day when he got up to go pray. He washed his hands, head and feet in a ritual that is never forgotten before praying if it can at all be helped. He didn’t go to the mosque as he usually would, since most everybody else was out in the fields. He simply rolled out his prayer mat to face east, towards Mecca, and went through the usual succession of standing, kneeling, bowing his forehead all the way to the ground, and then doing it all over again. When he was finished I started asking him about it:
“Does everybody out in their fields pray, too?”
--“Of course, people pray everywhere” (Including stopping the bus at sundown to get out and pray, but I digress.)
“5 times a day?”
--“Yeah.”
“Everyday?”
--“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot.”
-- “No, it isn’t.”
“OK, why do you do it then- pray 5 times every day?”
--“Well, Balla, people need to remind themselves often about God. We wake up in the morning and pray right away to remember God. Then maybe one forgets during the morning, so we pray to remember in the middle of the day (after lunch). Then maybe one forgets during the day, so we pray to remember at sundown. (He left out the one at ~4pm, but I was getting the point so didn’t press him about it.) And then we remind ourselves one more time before we go to bed (just in case). If we remind ourselves about God many times, then we won’t do bad things. If one is having bad thoughts, a prayer time will come up and remind the person to be good.”
“I see,” I replied.
--“How often do Christians pray?”
Uhh… I might not be the person to ask about that, I thought. :)

Mali recently had elections, so a mildly amusing conversation kept coming up with my friends in Madoubougou:
--“Balla, we’re going to vote”
“That’s great.”
--“Well, come with us.”
“I can’t vote.”
--“Of course you can. Don’t you live here?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t have an ID card.”
--“That’s OK. You just need to tell them your name and that you live here. Then they’ll let you vote!”
One group of guys even went so far as to offer me a fake ID card- never mind the fact that Fousseynou was the one in charge of the voting site in Madoubougou and knew very well I couldn’t vote. Everyone else would understand after I explained that I’d already voted in America, and I can’t vote in 2 places even if I do live here. And they were impressed by the absentee voting system:
“I told the ‘voting people’ my address here, and they sent me my ballot. Then I filled it out and sent it back to America. And, voila, I voted!”
Actually, I’m pretty impressed with that myself. :)

Side note to all of you (Kelsey…) that thought my story about Lazy was going to end with her being eaten by someone in Madoubougou. No one in Madoubougou eats dog; they’re all relatively strict Muslims. But it’s funny you mention it, ‘cause you only have to go to… the village Lazy now lives in to find people that eat dog. I have been assured, though, that she won’t get eaten; the guy I gave her to wants her to catch small mammals out in the bush for him. I choose to believe him, no matter what anyone else thinks (Kylee…). In this case, ignorance is bliss. :)