Patricia Engler's 360 in 180 Adventure Around the World
Desert Touchdown - Introduction to Islamic Nation
Season 1, Episode 16
•
01-May-2020
Beyond the airplane Plexiglas, I watched the sandy sheet of scattered lights, miniature palms and whitewashed cubes below growing ever larger. Above the scene, a pale crescent moon hovered stark against the twilit sky.
Just like the crescent on the Islamic flag.
Suddenly, I felt the plane's wheels touchdown in Dubai‚ the next stop along my mission to backpack 360 around the world in 180 days, documenting Christian students' university experiences. But I realized, upon disembarking, that I had no idea what to do next. My friends here had said they'd arranged for me to stay somewhere, with someone, but I didn't know where, or with whom, or how I'd be tracking them down.
I scanned the crowd in the terminal, hoping against hope to glimpse a sign with my name on it. No signs, no signs‚Ķ Hey look‚ a family holding a sign with my name on it!
Soon after we greeted, a deep chant began reverberating from somewhere overhead.
What's that sound? I asked.
It's the Islamic call to prayer.
The haunting tones, rising and falling, filled the terminal. How different from the airport in the Philippines, I thought, with a statue of Jesus in the lounge. Perhaps, the United Arab Emirates would be unlike any nation I'd visited yet.
Up Next in Season 1
-
Discipling Christian Students - Pract...
It can't be THAT hard, I reasoned, paddle in hand. I'd once managed to stand-up paddleboard (SUP) across a Canadian lagoon, so paddling around a man-made island on the Arabian Sea should be practically similarright?
Ditching my shoes, I waded into the saltwater, stepped atop my noble craft, an...
-
Lost in Turkey - Seeking Christian ...
This can't be right, I thought, ascending the worn stairs, 17, 18, 19how can there only be 19 apartments?!
Holding my breath like the trespasser I feared I may have just become, I retraced my steps downstairs.
Now what?
The airport taxi driver had seemed satisfied when, after reading my Tur...
-
Falling for Athens - History and Ch...
I've never been in a grocery aisle like this in Canada, I mused, strolling along the Athenian meat market's wet concrete floor. Beyond a stack of sheep heads, I could see tables piled high with a scaly riot ofumfragrant sea-foods, dead and alive. As I looked closer, scanning the tangled tentacles...
