Friday, October 07, 2005

Nak tarawikh kat mane ni?

Yesterday was the first day in this Ramadhan that I was able to tarawikh with jamaah. I was already picturing myself and my housemates at the Taman Pekaka musolla. One thing I like about this musolla is that they sometimes let foreigners be the imam, then we'd get a chance to listen to different 'rythms' (boleh ke nak kata rythm?) of Al Quran recitals from different countries. Very interesting, if you ask me! However, there's a saying (that everybody is quite tired of) that goes, "Not everything wll go as planned!"

I had my tuition until 6.30pm. After my class, I rushed to kak Zura's house to help around with our buka puasa. Kak Zura and kak Zai were in the kitchen with their ayam masak taktau (as opposed to the black peper and soy sauce chicken initially planned) while kak Kathy and kak Shima were at the Pasar Ramadhan. I came just in time to cook the sayur campur (Aisehh, ingat leh rilekkk..). Kak Shima and kak Kathy arrived just a few minutes before azan and we sat down to eat la, nak buat ape lagi time bukak pose kan?

After clearing up, I went back home to take a shower before getting ready to go for Tarawikh. By 8.15pm, me, kak Kathy and kak Shima were ready in our telekung, waiting for kak Zura whom, until 8.33pm hadn't arrived at our home. Apparently, there was a miscommunication. She thought we were picking her up while we thought she was picking us up so we rushed to her house, knowing we were already late, and headed straight to Taman Pekaka. However, as predicted, the musolla was full. We couldn't even squeeze in.

Knowing we hadn't performed our Isya' prayers yet (while the whole musolla had already completed it), kak Zura's first thought was USM. Hahah, ok, a few bad experiences we had last year has made us a bit weary of going there but it seemed like we had no other choice then. Another reason is that, when kak Kathy asked about going to the USM mosque, kak Shima blurted out, "Malam ni tak bleh, ade CSI!" Hahah.. okay, at least she gave an honest reason!

But then, me and my big mouth just HAD to tell them about my book on Tarawikh (which I've been referring to the past two nights) and suggest we prayed at home with one of us as the imam. I instantly regretted the suggestion when all of them agreed to ask me to be the imaam. Ade ke adik yang jadi imam? Ampehhh!!!

Anyway, at the traffic light, we suddenly remembered the Ampang Jajar musolla so we thought of checking first to see if they had started or not. Luckily, the elders were still lepak² outside the musolla so we still had time.. or so we thought! Almost jumping towards the musolla, we started our Isya' prayers.

Halfway through, the imam was already starting the tarawikh, making all of us go from a relaxing pace of solat to a very-rushing one. It must have been hilarious seeing us praying as fast as we could, just so we could catch up with the imam.

We finished just in time, right after the imam had already recited the first AlFatihah. However, it seemed that our fast paced solat Isya' was just the beginning. The imam for Tarawikh read all the surahs pretty fast, that I nearly couldn't follow him.. and I thought Pekaka was fast! Just imagine, by 9.10pm, we had already finished 8 rakaat of Tarawikh. But the imam's voice was loud and clear enough for a relaxing solat, especially if you compare to some imams who's voice is so soft and likes to, what we say, baca meleret! <--nope, not putting names here! C'mon la, everyone has experience with this kind, right?

Anyway, that was my first Tarawikh with jamaah for this years Ramadhan. I hope we get to Tarawikh at Taman Pekaka tonight though, I miss the place!

P/S
Reminder to self: For tarawikh, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE by 8.15pm, or you'll regret it!!

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