Keep That Purple Hijab

Location: Stadium Transit Centre

Time: 2:10pm

Bus number: # 125

I come out from Stadium LRT Station headed to one of my work meetings. I follow the arrow signs directing to the bus stops area. I start looking for #125 bus stop. From afar I see a habaryar (an aunt) seated, hiding in the shelter of the bus stop from the sun heat. I come closer. She sees me. I smile

“Asalamu Alikum habaryar” I greeted her.

She is wearing a purple long hijab. Round face. when she smiled the wrinkles around her eyes deepened as if they’re about to fall off, except they didn’t. They were kind wrinkles that added a beautiful mystery into her face almost like a soft glow but more of a distinct Noor. Subhanallah!

“Walikum salam” she replied.

I stood next to her. Anxious. I check the time on my phone. “Oh its 2:20pm, the bus isn’t here yet. Bus ride will be almost 16 minutes-Thanks to ETS trip planner- I’ll be at the hospital by hmmmm, lemme go to my calculator-nowadays my math  skills are on life support- okay. So  I’ll be there by 2:36 pm plus 2 minutes walking to my location. I’ll make it before 2:45” I assert to myself.

Bus #125 arrives. We queue. Habaryar signals to me to go before her. She says she wanna ask the driver a question. I get in. I hesitate, “what if she needs my assistant to talk to the driver? What if she doesn’t need it and I end up embarrassing myself?” I walk slowly to my seat, alerted to scoop in if she needs me.

I choose a seat. She came sat next me, we started sheeko sheeko like Somali people do.

She told me that she originally came out of her home at around 12:30pm but she missed the first bus, so she waited for the next one. Then it became 1:00pm, while waiting. There were only 40minutes left till Salat-Al Dhuhur time so she went back in to wait and pray.

She said she was going to check a place downtown she was told were hiring. That her actual work shift was starting at 4:30 pm.

I asked her “ Habaryar, are you sure you have enough time to go check that work and still be back on time for your shift riding all those buses that are time consuming?”

“I need to go there and check the job opportunity, it’s okay” she said “if I’m late for like 30 minutes. They wouldn’t mind I was never late before. I couldn’t delay my Salaat while running here and there and end up praying us at 5pm”

I heard the woman operator announcing my street. I buzzed the bell. I greeted habryar and I got down.

My thoughts during the 2 minutes’ walk from the bus stop to my location:

1-If I was running late and had 40 minutes left to Salaat would I wait for Salaat? Or just jump into the bus and postpone my Salaat until its convenient to pray?

2-When did we lose our life compass? Are we created to worship Allah or to run after Dunya? Yes we are instructed to do Tawakkul; putting our trust in Allah while also implementing the means that have been permitted to us, on the other hand we can’t, we shouldn’t prioritize the affairs of Dunya before our Islamic duties such as Salaat.  When Allah sees us putting him before anything else, communicating with him and resisting the Sahytaan’s(devil) waswas (insinuating whispers) into our heart telling us to catch the bus, to sleep, to rush to school because we have no time for Salaat, because we can always pray it with the next one, because “the deen is ease and not hardship”, because Allah will forgive us., because Allah will understand. Then we indeed responded to the waswas of the shaytaan over the call of prayer. We end up getting used to delaying Al-Salaat. We end up weighing in favor of Dunya on the expense of our Deen and that’s when we become astray and lost.

3-There are things in life that should never be compromised and Salaat is one of them.

4-Many Somali mothers are on the go. Always, tirelessly, looking for new doors of income to single handedly support their family here, send money back home and still save some to sponsor other family members. They embody the true definition of Tawakkul , rocking their purple hijab they still manage to get hired! Whoever said -immigrants need to assimilate to get jobs- was justifying his/her weak sense of identity and his lack of believe in himself. And we as Somali girls should take the torch, sustain our identity and lead the way for our younger sisters.

5-People need to stop painting the whole Somali community with the same brush. There are always many challenges that arise in the first generation of immigrants, Somalis are no different.  ie: broken families due to the new environment, shift of typical gender roles and much more. However, we will come together as a community and strive. Inshallah.

6-I just l LOVE how spontaneously our people can bond. If someone saw us seated there, just talking and talking, they would have assumed we knew each other for so long. Let’s not lose that beautiful trait in us and let’s not wash it away with cadaan coldness. We are naturally warm and welcoming. May Allah bless us always.

Then I entered the hospital and looked for the pediatric wing.