Call, interrupted

I’m going to try to write this without committing blasphemy, but it may not be possible. I got the giggles during the call to prayer the other night. The Muezzin had started his call and suddenly there was a huge amount of feedback. Anyone who has been in a Muslim country knows how loud the call to prayer is. The speakers used by Mosques must be better than Bose. The amplifiers in Mosques must be the envy of rockstars around the world. The call to prayer is LOUD. So you can imagine how loud the feedback was. I’m pretty sure it shattered windows.

Anyway, I got the giggles, because the Muezzin of course did not give up. After all, it was the call to prayer, the evening “salat”. He’d start with the familiar, “Allah Akbar,” and then there was something like a mini-explosion, then feedback and then the very familiar sound of fumbling with the mic. You can just imagine the scene…panic that the window for salat was closing and this call would have to be skipped. He kept trying though and twice the power went out. The force of the amp was so great it took out what could have been about 10 city blocks.

Giggling to myself locked away in the ARC guest house (perhaps entertainment came a bit cheaply given my isolation), I thought, “TIA (this is Africa.)” Only in Africa and never in the Middle East would the salat be thwarted by technical difficulties. Only in Africa and never in the Middle East would the most reflective time of day be interrupted by a willful struggle to right this malfunction. Only in Africa…