Upon hearing that, my friends and I took two bottles of water and a packet of juice. I can't fit those bottles in my bag and had to carry additional bag to carry these bottles. When my hubby saw what I had packed, he just shook his head, as I had to carry my chairs too. Since my bag was heavy, I swapped with my husband and carried his lighter bag. Oh yeah, he also carried additional bag, but it was not food in there, but mats.
The trip to Mudzalifah was not long. It took about 15-20 minutes to reach there, but our bus had some problems. Along the way, we smell burnt tire. Either the driver didn’t know how to drive, our something wrong with the brake. We prayed that we reached Mudzalifah safely.
When we reached Mudzalifah, other pilgrimages from other countries were already there. The bus dropped us at the roadside, and we have to walk about 200 meters to our designated place. As we walked by, there was food distribution. Everyone was given a packet that contained bread, biscuits, apple and a packet of fruit juice.
Mudzalifah didn’t have any tent like Arafah nor bench or chairs for us to seat. Only toilets are there, and they laid tarps for us to sit and lie down. The place is not a flat land but hilly and rocky.
We chose a place that was not far from the exit gate. We laid our mat and sit under the sky with moon and stars shining above us. In Mudzalifah, our activity is to collect pebbles. After taking a ten minutes break, we started looking for pebbles. We have to collect seventy to eighty pebbles for us to use in Mina.
We were reminded to bring our torchlight for this activity, and the size of the pebbles that we need to collect is small. It is only as big as a green pea. Since everyone was collecting for pebbles, it took some times to gather seventy pebbles.
After we had enough pebbles, we went back to our place and counted it to make sure we have more than seventy pebbles. I kept these pebbles in a sachet that we bought from home.
We were told to continue to zikir and to get some sleep. At the same time, we were also to do some reflection on what we have done, what we have lacked in our ibadah and to continue to seek forgiveness.
After two hours of sitting, and with nothing much to do, my husband fell asleep. Heh! I took a picture of him sleeping in his ihram, lying on the mat using his bag as a pillow, but I can't share that with you. I leaned onto my bag and after some time, I fell asleep too, but I was more of dozing on and off.
I'm not sure at what time the buses came because I didn’t bring my watch with me. We were woken up by an announcement that the buses had arrived. Collecting our things, we started moved to the exit gate and waited patiently for our turn to board our bus to go to Mina.
The short time that we spent at Mudzalifah was one of the best times. It was breezy and not too cold and peaceful. I felt so relaxed, and I have not felt that in years. Such a great feeling before heading to Mina, which has it, own challenges.
Okay, I’ll stop here and will continue with Mabit di Mina.
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