Lindsay's experience on JUA

The first day here we visited the mosque of Roxbury in Boston. We went there and it was closed but we still got to look around the mosque and notice that it was going to be the biggest one in the Northeast. Just looking at it from the outside it was very interesting. From there we got back on the T and traveled to Cambridge and went to the Islamic society of Boston. We talked to a lady Fatima the way that she greeted me and the other girl in my group was very different compared to the way she greeted the guys because she is only aloud to touch 5 guys in her family and everyone else is considered a stranger to her. I feel that she felt more comfortable around us that she did around the guys because we each had the chance to watch them pray where the guys went and watched the guys and Katelyn and I went and watched the girls. She told us that there are some circumstances that she is allowed to sit out and not pray one which was when a woman has there period. Also you are allowed to sit in a chair if you have a reasonable excuse like for example the lady that gave us the tour had a broken foot. She answered many questions and I think that she was very happy to have a group of students like us because she was very helpful and answered a lot of our questions we had for her. She was very nice and I think that she respected us as Americans to come and talk to her because it’s know that Americans hate Muslims and Muslims hate Americans but she told us that she didn’t hate us because there are good and bad people in every culture. Which I respect that very much. I never really thought about the Muslim life or anything like that until I joined the group “why do they hate us.” Today I learned a lot that I never thought I would learn