A Muslim-filled Sunday

Sunday dawned lovely and warm (as per usual), the sun comes up here a blood red colour, I am told this is because of pollution but I prefer to just think of its loveliness and ignore the reason. We planned to leave the hotel at 8:30 to get to church for 9:00. Things went slightly askew when we hit the train crossing, they close the gates about 5-10 minutes before a train comes through in preparation for its passing. Yes. We were late for church and we have not one but two pastors with us.

Church was an incredible experience, to be able to celebrate freedom in the Lord with our brothers and sisters over here- moving to say the least. It was a special Sunday too because 8 or 9 of the congregation had been baptized in the morning before church. We got to see them receive their certificates of baptism and brand new Bibles to commemorate the day. The service that we went to was in English so it was easily followed by all of us,

We had some downtime between church and lunch so we spread ourselves around the base chatting with some of our brothers and sisters and playing with kids on a small playground near the dining hall. It was nice to have time for extended conversations.

After lunch we headed out in two vehicles to go to an old Muslim fort on a hill in the city of Hyderabad. This was our first experience (for most of us) out of the bus and seeing the traffic at street level was exhilarating for some and even more terrifying for others.

To get to the fort and to see a different part of the city, our drivers took us right into the heart of the Muslim quarter. What we were unaware of was that it was the day of celebration of Mohammed’s birth. As you can perhaps imagine this translated to chaos on the streets.

Everywhere we looked people on scooters were standing on the running boards holding flags and streamers aloft. The Indian version of the pickup truck, were jammed with crowds of people in the beds of the trucks chanting, singing, shouting. There were times when our vehicles were so surrounded by the sea of humanity that we dare not move an inch. The crowds were about 95% male.

Our drivers decided that it would be better to turn off on a side street and attempt a different route after about 40 minutes of being stuck in the melee. The smaller vehicle ended up in an alley. We toodled along fine until what should be facing us but a large van-type Toyota! There was no way both of us could fit in the alley at the same time and there was no backing up because of all the motorbikes and scooters that were coming behind each car. Luckily, there was a tiny spot to our left where our driver did some fancy maneuvering to get out of the way and voila- we were past each other. We were excited to only have to do that once, we met no more cars until we were out of the very tight alleyways.

Slowly but surely we made our way out of the area and to the fort. What a sight to behold high on a hill. It was an extremely touristy thing to do, we knew this because we weren’t the only white people around.

On the way in we collected a tour guide and he originally told us the tour would take an hour and a half. Scott told him it needed to be shorter and so we got him down to an hour and ten minutes. However, this meant that he went into drill sergeant mode and was unhappy with any sort of picture-induced lollygagging. And believe me, there was lots (and I mean lots) of picture-induced lollygagging. Not only were we taking our own photos but once again we were being asked to have pictures taken with us. Our tour guide angrily tried to shoo those people away but to no avail because whenever one of us fell behind we usually gave in.

After our hour and ten minute tour we went out for dinner to a restaurant with a metal detector and pat down on the way in that come free with any meal purchase. The restaurant had four levels, all serving the same food with varying levels of décor and service. We chose level three, the gold level.

We ordered a group meal called a Buryani, which is a famous Hyderabad dish. It was delish! It was also a chance to show off our newly perfected eating-with-our-hands technique. Ask any of the team to show you what it is when we’re home. Most of us are pro now.