3/25

Great day yesterday. After teaching, the English teachers took me out to lunch. Then I returned to to school meet with the students I knew from the CDLS conference in Delhi for a tour of the campus. It turned out the Girl's basketball team was practicing at the time, so I got the opportunity to play basketball with the girls (they play in their hijabs, and I had trouble telling apart the team I was playing on and the team I was playing against, so I suggested different colored hijabs). After the game, we did "air high-fives." the team ends each practice, like most sports teams, by getting in a circle with all hands in the middle, and chanting some cheer. They asked me to join their circle (with a cushion of air between my hand and theirs).

My tour continued after basketball practice. As soon as I stopped playing, it was as if every pore in my body decided to explode, and I was literally covered in sweat. I learned during the tour, and experienced while I have been here, that the students basically run every event, from the prayers before and after every class to the assemblies to the all-school Sports Day. Even the prayer sessions (held five times a day for Muslims) are run by students - you can hear a sweet, student voice over the loud speaker during the "Call to Prayer." I also learned that all their prayers are in Arabic. Every Muslim in the world will say their prayers in the same language at basically the same time (taking into account time zones, of course). They even all use the same tunes, for there are marks, like musical notes, which explain how to chant the prayer. And then I realized that it is the same for every Jew, who will sing their prayers in Hebrew, no matter where in the world they are from, with basically the same tunes, due to the little marks that Jews have (called trope). I am finding so many similarities between the two religions, from the focus on ethics to the little "hats" that men wear.