Prayer on the sidewalk

Source: Protagon

By Naim Elghandour

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Ramadan in Athens for the 37^th time. It started on August 11 with the sweltering heat and will end on September 10^th. The first days of adjustment are always harder as the rhythms of life do not change despite the fasting from sunrise to sunset.

Late evening before August 15^th, after having iftar at home, which is the dinner that breaks the fast, I took Sheikh Mohammed, a respectful imam from Al Azhar university to go and pray at Piraeus. Al Andalus is the name of the praying place but it does not remind me anything of the glory of Andalusia as it is an underground warehouse on Filonos street in the heart Trouba where we pray for the last 17 years.

As we go down and go inside, in the first five minutes the sweat is running like a river. My breath stopped and the 60 year old imam who came from upper Egypt who can [usually[ bear the heat was ready to collapse. He told me that his sweat was dripping under his face all the way down to his socks. Why???

I was in despair because I am responsible for all these people who come to pray. I prayed that the temperature falls a bit to avoid the ambulances. You cannot put ventilation in this place nor air condition because it has no window. It is a hole under the ground.

We finished our prayer as [best] we could and when we went up to the surface I realized that this cannot happen again. The temperature at 11pm was 37°C and who knows about the humidity, it was suffocating even in open air.

The day after, I informed the state security that we were going to pray on the sidewalk outside of the “mosque” and that it is better to bring us a police car than to be taken by ambulances.

Sunday at 10 in the night all prayer mats were laid down on the sidewalk of Filonos street and the few people that walked by were surprised. Of course we did not bother anyone, all stores were closed. But we were alert, you never know what could happen, but the prayer was more humane in those hot days.

And I am thinking: What does a man have to go through to praise God as He deserves? My little kids were crying to take them with me earlier, but where can I take them?

Sometimes I take them to the Neos Kosmos garage that has better ventilation and they play with the other kids. There, the older kids are learning how to pray and the little ones imitate the grownups and then they start chasing each other and laugh, but we are always underground. When we finish, I buy them ice cream.

This is how Ramadan is in our great city.

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Translated by: Anna Stamou