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By Nasser Sharief, The moro times
In 1992, I made my farewell circuit round the
Ka’aba after working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for 13 years.
Last month, I received notice that I would be joining the
supervisory team for the Filipino pilgrims this year. I immediately
dusted off my jogging shoes and renew my membership at a gym. I know
how rigorous the hajj can be. I was flabby and out of shape, a man
past forty, and busy working to get his kids through college.
Immersed in the details of life in Manila, the
Kingdom seemed to me a faraway world. So ill-prepared was I for the
shock that awaited me.
Al-Haram: The old and the new
Entering the holy city of Mecca—barred from
non-Muslims—is like getting through the cracks of an eggshell. I
lost my bearing because the old markers I was counting on were gone.
The good old zouqs (shops) surrounding the holy mosque Al-Haram,
where expatriates and exiles used to hold congress in small cafes,
had given way to high rise hotels and sleek shops. They have chipped
off the mountain cliffs for more space. Famous hotels now ring the
holy mosque—the Hilton, Sofitel, Sheraton, Intercontinental,
Novotel, etc. Hobbit-type tunnels now worm their way in and out of
Mecca going to and from the plains of Mina, Arafat, Muzdalifa and
the Rhub Al-Khali desert beyond.
“This can’t be Mecca!” voiced an elderly
hajj veteran who sat besides me in the bus, which has Star Trek-like
interior consoles.
From your stool at a McDonalds you can watch
people emerging from the hastening ritual at the Safa and Marwa
hill-mounds. Yes, you can have Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky fried
chicken at a to-go counter just across the square. My feet were a
bit sore from the hastening that commemorate Hagar’s plight
looking for water for her baby Ishmael some thousands years back, so
I went inside a Starbucks cafe and ordered mocha latte.
When the balls of my feet felt healed, I
window-shopped. I went inside a GUESS shop and had to retreat just
as quick when I saw the price of a low-ride jeans for Saudi riyal
1,697 (P18,000). There were not many people milling around these
chic shops, so I concluded that the moneyed sheiks, the princes and
the princesses had simply packed off to Palma de Mallorca,
Torremolinos or Monaco for the holidays.
Cellphones: Don’t leave home without it
The most important possession that a pilgrim
must have is the cellphone. Thanks to it, missing persons were
drastically reduced. In a place where the tents all look alike,
where every pilgrim is garbed in white, cellphones make the
difference that Saudi Boy Scouts had to do less work in herding
people who lose their way going back to their camps. You can now
take pictures to your heart’s contents. I see upraised hands
holding aloft their 3G phones for the people back home to view the
Al-Haram. The only hazard is taking pictures at the Jamarat. Many
cellphones have been cracked from the hails of pebbles that the
pilgrims throw to stone the devil at the Jamarat.
But I feel that pilgrims should be discreet with
their mobiles especially during the circuit round the Ka’aba—the
Cube. I was on my fifth circuit when suddenly a cellphone from
another hajj rang with the ring-back tone of the Police’s Every
Breath You Take. This could befuddle your concentration.
Easiest hajj
For years, the worst accidents happened in the
Jamarat area. The stampedes that claimed lives seemed to be a thing
of the past. If the success of managing the throwing of stones at
the Jamarat is to be taken as a gauge, then this is the easiest and
most convenient hajj so far. The Hajj authorities of the Kingdom
have to be commended: they are close to reducing the hajj routine to
a science. The flow of the people was orderly, with one-way routes
that redistribute the pilgrims back to their tents. For those who
wish to go to Al Haram for the tawaf (circuit), there is a 1.4
kilometer tunnel that leads through to the holy place. To
demonstrate their confidence, the authorities have allowed people on
wheelchairs to cast their stones at the Jamarat.
Lodging
The Philippine contingent was dispersed in many
buildings near and far from the holy mosque. The Philippines is
always late in putting up the needed deposit in getting lodging
contracts with the service providers. Apartments which are a walking
distance from the holy mosque are at a premium. Because the decision
to go on hajj among Filipinos is always done in the last hour, the
lack of funds for billeting reservations relegated many of our
hajjis to the outskirts of town. The service provider had promised
to ferry the hajjis to and fro Al-Haram on shuttle bus which held
good only for a few days.
The Saudi government has constructed new
apartments for the pilgrims, a far cry from the cramped and old
lodgings we used over a decade ago. In fact, the elevators were so
new in one apartment that the contractor obviously had forgotten to
apply grease along the runners. We had a hard time opening and
closing the elevator doors. This was corrected only when a hajj was
trapped and a little drama ensued.
Nostalgia
I tried to mingle with the elderly and get their
stories and views on the new Makkah. An old man lamented the speed
in which technology has taken over. He said that in the past when
pilgrims traveled by boat, they use to bury the pictures of their
loved ones in the plains of Mina and Arafat. They would call from
atop the hills, the names of kin echoing along the valleys, inviting
them to go on hajj, on the belief that this would hasten their kins’
going on hajj. “Nowadays,” he went on, “you simply dial your
cellphone and in seconds you are talking to your wife. The
conversation, mind you, are not the tear-jerkers ones. It could be
as mundane as reminding her to look over the pockets of your
trousers before laundering it, because you have some receipts or
money left in it.”
After the third-day of stoning the Jamarat, the
2.5 million pilgrims started dispersing out of Mecca after
performing their farewell circumambulation (tawaf) of the Ka’ba.
Some went to Medina some 600 km away to visit the Prophet’s
Mosque. Some went straight to the airport for their flight back
home. Others go to the seacoast of Jeddah to buy things to bring
back.
I went to the Holy Place to snap up some
pictures. Flocks of birds, chased away by millions of pilgrims, were
now returning to the square. I was lazily ambling along the edges of
the square when I saw a familiar figure setting on the edge of a
marble hedge along the stairways of Ben Dawood. It was Toni Leviste,
the famous equestrienne, her feet dangling and swaying in a playful
mood. Sweat beaded her forehead after performing the Farewell Tawaf.
I had met her and her father, Ex-Governor
Leviste, earlier at the Jeddah International airport when I
discovered that we were together on the same incoming flight. My
editor Amina Rasul had asked me to get an interview with her some
few months back, but I was never successful. When she recognized me,
Toni smiled. She said she was waiting for her Dad who was doing his
Tawaf. I said, “What about the promised interview?” She said,
“Okay, why don’t we do it in Jeddah. We have to catch our breath
first.” I said, OK.
In a while we saw her father emerging from the
Grand Mosque, his head freshly shaved. He gave me a wide grin. Toni
sort of complained what took him so long. He only smiled. They waved
at me and mingled with the throng until they were just a smear in
the landscape.
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