When we allowed off of the ship, Heather, Jessica, and I walked to the Hassan II Mosque. It was so tall! It is 200 meters tall, which is 600 feet! Part of it was built over the ocean, because the Koran says that the first church was on the water. It took 6 years to build the mosque and was worked on by 12500 people! 25000 worshipers can fit into the mosque. 5000 of those people are women, and they sit up on hanging mezzanines above the men. More men come to the mosque, because women are typically expected to worship at home where they care for the children. We were taken on a tour of the mosque, and our tour guides common phrase was “Yella!” This means “Keep up; Hurry up,” in Arabic. The three of us wore our headscarves around the mosque, just because all of the other women did.
We stopped at a nearby café for lunch. The waiter spoke in Spanish to us, because he spoke very little English. I got a beef panini, which was delicious. The beef came in tiny little patties that looked a lot like meatballs. It also had peppers, onions, and cheese on it. It also came with macaroni salad, which was cold and served with cheese as well.
At around 4:30 an announcement was made from the mosque, which has over 300 speakers in it. The point is for people to hear the call for prayer across the city. We thought it would be cool to see everyone going there to worship, so we put on our headscarves and went to the mosque. We weren’t allowed to enter, so we just sat on the steps outside. We watched everyone flocking to the mosque, and after about 5 minutes they all started leaving. The services are very short, but that is probably because they have five a day: one at breakfast, lunch, 4:30, sunset, and dinner. Friday is their holy day along with the holy month of Ramadan, and on these days, the services run for 2 hours.
From the mosque, we took a petit taxi over the Habous market. The petit taxi only takes three people in it, and the drivers are very adamant about that fact. There were so many shops that were selling trinkets, jewelry, bags, clothes, blankets, cookware, magic boxes, and more. One of the sellers was trying to get me to buy a leather bag, but I wasn’t too sure I wanted it, so I told him if I did I would come back. Once again, they are always saying that looking is free.
We stopped at a café quickly to use wifi and get something to rink. I tried their tea and it was delicious. It tasted just like spearmint gum. It was a tea that I actually liked.
From here we tried to find a taxi, but after half an hour of walking through the market the only taxis we could find were full. Everyone was heading home for worship and dinner. The three of us asked a police officer to help us, and finally we got a taxi. The man tried to charge us 150 Durham though, which is more than 15 dollars! It was crazy, and not worth that much. Especially since he told us it would be 45. The price went up apparently because he took us through the port to the ship, which was a 3 minute drive. We gave him 65 Durham though, and got out of there fast!
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