Prayer
By Colin O’Hara
Gostivar is a city of complementary opposites. What is my
place here? Removed from it? Leaning to one side, or the
other? Objective observer? Or partisan proponent? The
truth is I am stuck in the middle. Right in the middle.
One hundred meters to the south of my apartment
is a 19th century orthodox church. One hundred meters to
the north of my apartment is a 15th century mosque. They
each have distinct and also distinctly similar messages.
They each wake me up early every morning to remind me
of this. At 5:00 am, in the predawn darkness, a lone voice
calls out: “God is the greatest; I bear witness that there is no
lord except God; make haste towards prayer; prayer is better
than sleep.” The birds wake. The city shakes its slumber.
And just a little while later, the bells of the church begin to
ring. Another reminder, “Make haste towards prayer; thank
you for another day.” They continue throughout the day,
each issuing its own reminder; different mediums carrying
the same message.
On Thursday evenings, I am honored to share my
time with joyous classes of eighth grade students. They
come to my organization to learn English, though the classes often turn into Turkish and Albanian lessons for their
teacher. These students may be learning some English, but
much more importantly, we laugh together, we enjoy each
other, and we share our culture in simple ways. There is that
odd mystery of service: that I always seem to get more from
them than I could ever hope to give back. I leave the class
energized, and with nothing less than a huge smile. They
leave the class very happy, and they keep coming back. I
am humbled by this.
One evening, I asked my students what sorts of
buildings and places they have in Gostivar. In order to jog
their memory, and to add a visual element, I drew stick figures on the board. This person wants to go shopping; where
does he go? This person’s house is on fire, who does he need
to call? This person wants to play catch with his friends,
where does he go? This person is ill, where does he need to
go? Market, fire station, park, hospital. Then I drew another
person on the board, but something wasn’t right with it and
I wasn’t sure what. I erased it, drew it again; it still wasn’t
right. I turned to my class, confused. How do you draw a
person who wishes to speak to God? Thankfully, after a few
seconds inspiration struck. I clasped my hands together in
a steeple shape, and slowly raised my eyes upward. After
the hint, I looked back to the students, and was met with ten
confused looks, and silence.
Then one young girl smiled in understanding, and
stretched both her hands out in front of her, palms towards
the sky. Mosque, church. Everyone nodded in agreement. The girl who made the connection laughed, and said,
“Teacher, we pray… we pray differently.”
spring/summer 2008 -