Muslims, Bowling

So, most of the weekend I was cooking this awesome post about our outing with the Muslim Youth Group on Saturday, and how when I walked into the bowling alley with my little posse – we didn’t know anyone…but by the time things were in full swing, we actually did know a lot of people.

But today is my daughters’ first day back to school and I had this mini-breakdown this morning after walking back to my car.  The only thing I was able to think about for a while this morning was that I miss them.  It wasn’t soo terribly bad when I sent my son off to school last week because I still had 2 little people here with me, but now the house is so very quiet.  I may have to listen to the radio until I am used to the quiet again.

A few weeks ago, we got invited to the Muslim Youth Group Eid bowling outing.  My son does not know many Muslim boys his age, and I have made it my mission to push him to befriend other Muslims so that he will have more of a community and not feel so awkward about his religion.

When we got the invitation, I told my son to ask the 2 Muslim boys he knows to go with us bowling, because we were going even if they could not.  One of the boys ended up being able to go, and he brought his parents with him!

The event was very fun! (Okay, it was as much fun as you can have bowling, and being terrible at it, but doing it anyways.) There was a good mixture of boys and girls from ages 8-adult.  The majority were in high school, but there were a few parents that stayed, and a few college age kids there.  In that mixture, there were girls that were hijabi and non-hijabi.  None of the girls wore jilbab or abaya, but all were modestly dressed.  The boys dressed, well, like boys.

The thing is though, that I didn’t see anyone staring at us (us being the collective whole.)  Given my past experience, when a group of hijabi women are gathered together, there is staring.  This time there wasn’t.

At one point, I was standing outside of the group looking at everyone bowling, laughing and having a great time and I thought.  “Look – Muslims Bowling!”  Then I thought, “This is awesome…someone needs to see this.”  Why?  Because I have noticed that outside of sanctioned Mosque activities, you don’t see a lot of Muslims doing activities together.

It gives me hope that things went so well on Saturday.  Happy Tuesday.