Thursday, April 28, 2011

On the lighter side-Travel- Iraq-6

The next day we had to travel to one of the cities outside Najaf called Kufa and the guide people were giving us face masks. I asked one of the guides why are you giving one and he said that it is because there may be a chance we may encounter a sand storm. Well I took one for each of my family members and then headed towards the bus taking us to Kufa. We went to one of the mosques where it is said that the pillars of the mosques bended because the body of Imam Ali (A.S.) was passing by. We went to another one where one of the companions of Imam Ali (A.S.) was buried. All these places we pray and gave our respects to the mosques. Then we went to one of the Mosques where it is believed that Imam Mehdi (A.S. our Current and final Imam comes every Tuesday to pray with the faithful and meets them though no body has known to see him as such but by the time they figure, he is not there. And at this mosque, we were at about after seven thirty we were hit with a sand storm. The signs had started to emerge early on and so I was already wearing the cloth mask on my face but when it started to hit hard that is when I was unable to see anything ten feet in front of me.

I was just getting blinded by this sand storm and since it was the first time I was encountering it, it was a new experience for me. In spite of having a face mask it was hard for me to see things in front of me and our guide told us that we should better start leaving early rather than get further caught up with the sand storm which did not seem to be ending and we had to leave without doing some other essential prayers. We were glad that we reached our buses which were parked nearby but going back to our hotel was a hassle since the buses were driving slowly due to very poor visibility. Reaching the spot where the buses were supposed to be parked, we had another walk trip back to the hotel and then we had to endure the same sand storm till we reached our hotel which was also covered in sand.

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