To trail the footsteps of the Prophets.. (4)

(cont’d)

Overall, I found that our journey to get to Urdun aka Jordan from Egypt was among the most remarkable moments in our trip. Due to some internal problems, the ustaz that was meant to accompany us to Jordan has been replaced with another ustaz named Ustaz Ala’, while Ustaz Mujahid had exams to give his priority.

That night we headed off to Cairo Bus Station (if I’m not mistaken of the name) to catch a bus to Nuwaiba Port. After waiting for perhaps half an hour, we got our baggage into the bus before we went to get our seats. We’ve been let known beforehand by Kak Ika (our mas’ulah) to prepare ourselves psychologically with any unpredictable situation that can be caused by other passengers, e.g they might smoke in the bus itself although it’s prohibited. So I just prayed that such incident wouldn’t occur this time at least when we’re in.

Everything went well, the bus left Cairo at about 10pm something I think, and we recited the travel prayer as the journey began. Most of us fell asleep until suddenly we’re waken up to know that we had to change the bus as according to Kak Pija the bus had been moving too slow, perhaps due to some mechanical problems. So we had to get all of our baggage out of the bus and waited by the roadside for another bus to arrive. It was at about 12am! Fortunately the next bus didn’t get us to wait for long, about 10 minutes I presumed. When the bus came we immediately got ourselves in and of course, we fell asleep again. A couple of hours later I was waken up again to realize that the bus actually stopped at a restaurant, so we went down to get our wudhuk, just in case if the bus wouldn’t stop for Subuh prayer. Honestly the WCs were horrible. But what to do, we just pretended to close our eyes and tried to get everything done asap.

Yes, it was definitely disappointing to realize that a bus in an Islamic country wouldn’t stop for Subuh prayer. Their people’s attire seemed to reflect that they’re very pious but when it comes to practice, it was an utter paradox. I was and am frustrated with that. Also when it comes to hygiene, especially with the WCs. Too bad. I thought every Muslim knows how much the religion emphasizes the importance of keeping us and our surroundings clean or at least not dirty. Anyway we had to watch the sky to identify whether the Subuh time had begun; actually I think ustaz determined that. And we just prayed in the moving bus.

We arrived in Nuwaiba in the morning with heaps of Arabian men chasing our bus as the bus was about to stop and I was like “what’s going on?”. Then only I grasped that they actually voluntarily helped us to get our baggage out of the bus and wanted to carry our baggage to get paid. That’s the way they earn for their living. And they competed with each other to grab most bags. The situation was very pathetic.

Next we had to get our stuff passing the immigration. Alhamdulillah everything was okay until suddenly one of us realized that her bag was being held by the immigration. Actually she brought with her a number of boxes of food supplements from Egypt to be passed to somebody in Jordan, and she got caught for that. So ustaz went to negotiate with the officer; alhamdulillah again it was all settled down. I remembered the critical moment when ustaz solemnly sort of repeated in front of us what the officer had said since only the two of them were there when they talked; “You know what he said? He said to me, you just leave this girl here, I want to put her in jail for what she has done”. Sounds terrifying right? Huhu.

We waited at the bench eating buns and toblerone for our breakfast as ustaz went to get the ferry tickets when the office opened. We had the chance to recite Mathurat too. Then when the time comes we went to enter Nuwaiba Port where we got our passports checked. As we got into the port, we found some seats and waited for the rest to finish. After that suddenly came this guy telling that we shouldn’t sit there bcos they were seats for guys. Fine. So we moved to the other side. No empty seats that were sufficient for everybody, so we decided to just sit on the floor where ustaz offered his flight blanket as a mat. We were told that our ferry was scheduled to arrive at 12pm and it was near to 8am I think, or probably 8 something. Wutta do? We recapitulated what we’ve gone through before; starting from the first day we arrived in Middle East. We also discussed about some issues and took out the morals as guidance.

The time went by like it always does leaving us with growling stomach plus boredom. We filled the time with anything we felt necessary. Then the midday turned up. I was hoping to get into the ferry asap but at that moment it was hopeless, and helpless too. At about 3pm we were informed that the ferry will only come at 7pm. Are you kidding me? But whatever it was we had to wait, no options. Kak Ika was joking, let’s just leave those who’ve put their baggage on the lorry and the rest can get a speed boat. Actually some of us including me had given our baggage to be put on the lorry which later will send them to the ferry when it arrives, so we’re sort of ‘tied’ to the ferry, couldn’t get a speed boat bcos the bags weren’t with us.

The time for Zuhur prayer came and we’ve got no place to pray other than on the floor itself. At first we planned to pray in the ferry but now not anymore. The frustrating part comes again; it was too defeating that no surau was provided in the port, there might be one but was far enough to go. Let me just repeat, do you truthfully expect such situation could occur in a Muslim country? *sigh*. Most of them were staring at us as we prayed but no actions were taken. Maybe some of them went to pray in the surau, maybe. Unexpectedly ustaz had with him quite a lot of foods and he ‘donated’ some of them to us to break our hunger. Many thanks.

I think it was about 8pm when we finally received good news, the ferry has come. Too tired to say yay! But first they need to clean the ferry so we had to wait for quite a while. Then we had to get on a chartered bus which sent us to the ferry. On the ferry itself the process wasn’t that smooth, they really needed to confirm with our passports, need to ensure that we’re good people especially as the place we’re going to was another country. In the ferry we went to have our supper or actually dinner. Then not knowing where to sleep, we asked that matter to the restaurant guy and personally I was pretty surprised to know that we can sleep wherever we want, yes anywhere in the ferry. So we chose to just rest ourselves at the table where we had our dinner, just in the open air. For me it was weird. The ferry started its journey to Jordan across Red Sea at about 1 in the morning.

Okay let me cut the story or else it would be way lengthy. Alhamdulillah we arrived in Amman Port, Jordan safe and sound. We were greeted by two ustazs, Ustaz Fakhrur Razi and Ustaz Syahrul who had been waiting for us since the day before, if I’m not wrong. So sorry, the situation was not predicted to be that bad. Ustaz Razi suggested us to visit two interesting locations not far from that port on that day itself. As we’re actually not following the itinerary due to the delay, we should and had to concur with the recommendation so that our plan for the consecutive days would be fine.

We headed off to Wadi Rum.

(to be cont’d)

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