Bumpy Salah
Praying on a bunk in a moving vehicle was akin to balancing on a surfboard. The buoyancy betrayed any feeling of solidity as I ebbed and flowed with the bounce and rumble of a 80,000 thousand pound vehicle. I hoped I wouldn’t hit my head on the bunk above me, or topple into sajdah before I had acknowledged the greatness of my Lord.
My focus, concentration, and all that muslims might identify as kushu, was disturbed every other second by bumps in the road jostling my body, and the noise swirling around me like the muted roar of a lion cub. The blessing was that since I was not driving I did not have to worry about navigating the road along with the myriad of other things interrupting my prayer. She was driving.
Living on the road is a test in perseverance. I was no celebrity making large sums from entertaining anyone. I didn’t have people to cater to me. This was not that kind of road trip. Most times I simply arrived at a yard, dropped a trailer, hooked my vehicle to another, and rode away. This description is missing the boring particulars of transferring paperwork for one load to another. Perhaps that would have the added detail of someone asking for my license to document who picked up the load. Other than my co-driver, who I shared a sleeping cab with as we rode day and night, this is the only interaction with other humans that I had (truckstops excluded). There is only one other entity that should be that close to us and breaking to make salah became difficult when the next truck stop was more than a half hour away. While I strive to make salah at the end of the adhaan being called, now was the time I gave thanks that I had a window of time to work within.
The whole earth was a masjid. That realization came every time I was in a different city and could not carry a trailer of goods into a masjid parking lot, if I could locate a masjid. Some states are better in that regard than others and Islamicfinder.com will tell you where. We visited every state (obviously Hawaii is not included). Ever heard of Ice Road Truckers? They have Alaska covered. Seeing the inside of a masjid was a luxury seldom afforded while on the road. Salah would be made at truck stops in an empty TV room, a laundry room, in the actual cab of the truck itself or on the blessed occasion that I had a stopover of a day or two, you could seek the nearest masjid after trying to make sure that it accommodated women and would be open for the 5 prayers. Good luck getting there! You can’t roll all 18 wheels every place you would like. In 28 days there was only one occasion that I was not tied to a trailer on the end of my tractor. Bobtailing, a tractor separate from the trailer, creates less worry about accessing certain places but it did not happen often. Sabr, became my mantra and I realized that life goes on and so must prayer.
It is a small space. A sleeper truck is a smaller living space than the tiniest of bedrooms. We did everything in there except relieve ourselves. For that we pulled into a truck stop and use the public restrooms. I imagine from the jail cells on television that an inmate has more square footage to work with than a sleeper truck gives its drivers. I considered myself blessed to have gotten the side of the storage that had the pullout drawer. It had doubled as a desk when I wrote, a laptop station when I went online, or a dining table when I took my meals. Rarely did I eat a meal behind the drivers seat, but snacking was motivation. Bored with highway: straight or curved, hills or flat, fast or slow, eventually boredom kicked in. I had nothing to see but the road and the terrain. Interstates are not the most interesting of places, and the slower the speed limit the more boring it was. Snacking provided the incentive to stay awake. Crunching on some almonds or delighting in the sugar of a date stood in between me and the drowsiness of the driving doldrums. Maybe it was the physicality of people not being able to eat and sleep at the same time. Whatever the reality, having food nearby spared me many moments of falling asleep at the wheel out of sheer monotony.
When I got back to the city, I noticed the things that I had not missed. I rode the metro after departing Amtrak and I wanted to ask the man sitting across from me, how long he had been living on the Metro. He had his feet up on the seat in front of him as if he was lounging at home. I did not miss the Target super store, the Burger King, or hosts of other chain stores that are sprinkled all over the country like nuts in a candy bar. You know with candy you can’t take a bite without getting past one. It made every part of the country feel the same. Only two things were different, the interaction of people and the landscape.
In places like Arizona, which is not known for being friendly towards immigration, I wondered what people thought of this tiny woman with this headscarf dressed as she was. Maybe the lack of a foreign accent saved me. I suffered no ill treatment but it was not the friendliest of states.
I have nothing against anybody from anywhere but why do I have to be Somali? A number of men that dared to speak to me while I was fueling the truck asked if I was Somali. As if Somali women are the only African women that drive trucks. I laughed. He kept guessing countries and eventually he got it right. Then I thought,” haram” why am I talking to a man I am not related to?” I laughed at the fact that came to mind. This is America, and when Muslim women are forced to be in the work place that is what we do — talk to males and females and get the job done. What I would prefer is a different story. What was a funnier experience was when I would run into Muslim male drivers. Some would ignore me, others would stare in disbelief and then give salaams, while the last group would just stare. I must be the only Muslimah on the road. That was confirmed by the nice Texan drawl that came from a man who held the door to the store open for me.
I never imagined making salat from the jalsah position because I was in a moving vehicle and could not logically or lawfully stand at the moment. This is when you are reminded that you may pray standing, sitting, kneeling, or laying down if you must. I have done most of these things. You make the call whether praying on time is more important than waiting till your co-driver stops and you can pray the prescribed way, or you chose an alternative that allows you to be as on time as this way of life provides. At times, flexibility is key.
Yes, it was a challenge and driving over-the-road OTR, is not my preference. It was and is a good living example that prayer must happen regardless. That you must be forgiving with yourself if you cannot pull over on the shoulder of an interstate to make salat and be grateful that you can get it in within the required window. It was and is a good example that prayer starts with your intention and where you are and the little space to make sajdah are things that you accommodate as the situation occurs. It gave new meaning to not sweating the small stuff. All those aspects of not being able to make salat the way I was accustomed to went out the window. It will always be an example that this entire earth is a masjid whether your travel is on foot, by car/truck, plane, or boat. All day everyday you must be planning to make that next salah no matter where, when, or how.
