Journal 9-2-2010

Journal 9-2-10

Today we met the students at the ICSA school and went to the Islamic Foundation Trust. It was very fun to meet the students at ICSA. We have seen them walking around the campus but haven’t gotten to meet them until this morning. The students take a two year course in electrical engineering. They seem to be fairly advanced with the work but the things they are studying seem to be almost obsolete. For example one of the books shows how to design and build a Old-fashioned rear projection TV. Another thing that they built is a light board that says the word welcome. We tried to ask them about what other things they had made but they didn’t seem to understand the question. The students all seemed to be energetic and very excited to see us.

It was very fun to meet with these guys but it was also very draining. It was a challenge to communicate with them. For the most part, only about three of them spoke English well enough to hold a conversation. We found that we had to ask simple questions in order to get a response. They also had to ask us simple questions because of their limited English vocabulary. The students are also much older than they look. They said that they were between the ages of 18 and 20.

            At about 11:20 we left to go to the Islamic Foundation Trust. Which is a Islamic foundation that tries to promote Islam by publishing books and magazines aimed at correcting misconceptions about the Islamic Faith. The people at the Islamic Foundation Trust were extremely nice to us the held a discussion about Islam and invited us to ask any questions we might have. Then we went to the afternoon prayer at the mosque across the street. This was a really amazing experience! It was my first time visiting a mosque, I really appreciated the gracious way they treated us. After prayer the Immam greeted us and gave us copies of the Qu’ran and other reading materials on Islam.

The Mosque was a really amazing environment. Unlike in church there was a feeling unity and closeness to the other people there. I also thought that it was nice that they were able to move during prayer. This standing and kneeling would be a welcome alternative to sitting in a church pew for hours. Prayer also only lasted about 10 minutes. The men and women at the Islamic foundation trust were very helpful and were wonderful hosts. They also invited us to their end of Ramadan feast and we plan on attending it. After prayer we went back across the street and continued our discussion with the people from the foundation. Then they served us a lunch of Biriani. It was very good! Apparently we are the first St. Olaf group that has been served lunch. Irene said that they must have really liked us. 

            For the rest of the afternoon we pretty much just hung out at ICSA. I found a couple spots where I could steal some wireless internet. Possibly the most entertaining part of the day was after dinner when the kitchen staff, lead by the night watchman Stephen Soloman decided to teach us the Tamil word for every item and color that was on the table. We were all yelling in Tamil and pounding on the table. It was very loud and fun.

The mosquitoes are terrible here. Every night we have to try to find and kill as many as we can in our room before we go to sleep. Hunting the mosquitoes has really reduced the number of bites we get at night.