Trip to Washington, D.C.

Today everyone at orientation took a trip to Washington, D.C. The main purposes for the trip were to observe people from other cultures, share our faith with someone, learn how to find our way around a big city, and try new ethnic foods.

Since the predominant religion in Africa (other than African tribal religions) is Islam, we thought it would be interesting to visit a mosque. The mosque was beautiful inside and out. However, the atmosphere was very oppressive. They are used to visitors so we did not feel unwelcome, but it was strange and unsettling to observe so many people worshipping a god we do not believe in.

Since it was Friday (the Islamic holy day), the mosque was particularly crowded. In fact, the women from our group originally sat upstairs in the main part of the mosque, but someone asked us to move downstairs because that is where the women must go on Fridays, in order to make more room upstairs. The prayers and sermon could be heard below through a sound system. The service lasted about 1 1/2 hours. As the people walked in they bowed in prayer several times, then they sat on the floor and read through the Quran (holy book) until the service started. It began with a call to prayer, which was performed in Arabic in a sing-song voice, then a sermon in Arabic and English. Then there were prayers in Arabic, in which everyone stood in rows and bowed and prayed together.

Afterward, we were able to briefly talk to some people, including two women from Abidjan (the city where we will live in Cote d'Ivoire)! They told us about a street with some West African restaurants, so we walked there. Unfortunately those restaurants were closed, but we found an Ethiopian restaurant and went there instead. Everyone ate off two common platters, and we did not have any utensils. Instead, we tore off pieces of spongy, flat bread and used the bread to pick up bite-sized pieces of the sauces, meat and vegetables.

Below are pictures of the food and of our friend Emily Peters getting some bread alongside Deron. It was actually a pretty tasty meal! All in all, we had a really interesting trip to D.C. and, even though we didn't have time to visit any of the national monuments or museums, we enjoyed the new cultural experiences we had.