Hajj: Leaving in a few hours
There is so much I want to say.
There is so much going through my mind right now.
Five years ago when my elder sister made hajj, I was impressed. I never thought I would be ready.
Four years ago when they talked of us making hajj soon…I mentally scoffed (I didn’t think I was ready, neither did I think I was able).
Three years ago when we were planning to make hajj (when Chennette got ill), I didn’t think it would actually happen.
Two years ago, it still wasn’t concrete in my head and we only cancelled some time in October after Chennette’s convalescence.
One year ago…well we intended to make hajj but…we knew about these babies beforehand. You know, they give you about 8 or 9 months notice so we knew although we planned and my brother’s parents-in-law planned to go that we wouldn’t. That would be fun. We all make hajj while our family in Saudi Arabia come back here to empty houses. And my sister in Guyana.
This year, it was still rather…unbelievable but when I left my job last July, I made sure of one thing, that I had my hajj money set aside…waiting…for whenever it would be…waiting…
Well, Insha Allah we are leaving home in three hours to catch a flight in seven hours. We have three flights. We finally have our passports with visas and hopefully everything will go smoothly for us.
I am very excited.
We have Chennette’s sony camera phone, mom and I have motorolas with funky so-so cameras for “snaps” and … elder sister’s point and shoot camera! with only 1GB of storage…so we shall judiciously take pictures because we have no computer!
Don’t expect to see us online…maybe we’ll be able to say hi but who knows…internet cafes? My brother’s phone line is down so no internet…unless he gets it fixed.
We’ll be gone until the end of December…so a whole month!
I’m going to keep a written journal and try to transcribe it when I come home. Wish me luck.
The only sour note is that half our group left Tuesday morning for Caracas on the same flight plan as us and are still in Caracas. The visas were only issued Friday for all of us. And they’re hopefully flying out of Caracas on the same flight as us (hopefully I say because there seems to be penalties for flight changes and I am praying hard we all make it)! We will share our food/snacks/money with them and Insha Allah both halves will make it to Jeddah Hajj terminal on time and able to complete the rites of Hajj this year!
I wish us all who are making Hajj a Hajj Mabrur (I hope I got that right…it means simplistically an accepted Hajj).
I’ll miss you and if your comments go into moderation, I’ll check them when I come back. If you’re not spambots and it goes into the black hole I apologise.
Also published here, Chennette and my hajj blog!
