Just Because

I remember the first time I heard a muezzin. It was in Jerusalem, August 2000. I was staying at the hostel that Mark Twain stayed in when he traveled there in the mid 1800's. It got to be evening time and everyone started going up on the roof. I went up there and the sun was going down, to our backs, and we were looking to the east, with a real close view of the Dome of the Rock, on the Haram al Sharif or, if you like, on the Temple Mount, adjacent to the mosque of Omar. It was shining brilliantly gold in the setting sun and right then, all the muezzins in the city started their calls to prayer. First one, then the other, till there was a veritable symphony of prayer calling going on. I'm sure some of them were recordings but one could tell that most of them were live. It was beautiful. We stayed there for an hour, then one by one, we all retired. Later in my stay there, I was staying at a different hostel, just outside the Damascus Gate. Early one morning, all the muezzins started their daily ritual and this girl, from Australia, was woken up. She was getting all pissy, tossing and turning in her sleep, "for fucks sake!" she was saying. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and jumped out of bed to fix this ruckus. She threw open the balcony doors and proceeded to yell at the cab drivers down in the street to "please turn off your fucking music!!". I was up and started to laugh, well, giggle really, as there were other people sleeping in the room. I heard them tell her, "it's not music, it's the muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer". She uttered an expletive and slammed the doors shut. I suppose you can travel all around the world, see all kinds of things and still, not really get it. Doing as the Romans do when you are in Rome isn't always easy. But it's usually good for a laugh and who knows: you may actually learn something! The small point here is, although we are in the middle of what many people call a war, daily life continues, simply and perfectly. 5 times a day, the muezzins in this city call the faithful to prayer and many do answer the call. Life just goes on and on. Simple, beautiful and just because.