Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Ramadan in El Paso

Well, this week I've been in El Paso. Remember the jingle, "pass the old el Paso" salsa commercial? I really didn't think I'd have much to write about. El Paso is just a small town that sits on the Rio Grande. Across the river sits Juarez, a much larger Mexican city. The thing that surprised me is that El Paso is in the same time zone as Utah.

Okay, now for some things a bit more interesting. We are coming up on the end of Ramadan. One of the guys that I was teaching this week is Muslim and so after we finished today he invited me to their break fast at the mosque. I don't know if we have any mosques in Utah. I'll have to check. We went into the main prayer hall and I sat in the back and watched. There were a few small children running around during the prayer. It kind of cracked me up. There were about 50 men/boys saying their prayers. The room was quite plain and kind of reminded me of a cultural hall in and LDS church house. After a while, the prayers were older and we went upstairs to eat. Lots of yummy Arab food. Similar to Indian food but not quite the biryani taste. Abdul Aziz introduced me to several people. The funniest thing was to see this Mexican Muslim. In addition to the food he was also eating a can of jalapenos. Afterwards, we went back to the University where I helped him with his research work. Now, it's time to head back to Utah. Is El Paso a vacation destination? Hardy. Although the Stones are performing here tomorrow night at the Sun Bowl.

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