Grandma entries

Our daily routine usually begins with my grandmother waking me up for prayer at dawn. During my early days I believed I could pretend to sleep and she would leave me be. But her gentle, cajoling calls never failed to make me rise and sleepily fumble through the mosquito netting that enclosed our bed and head for the bathroom. I would rush through my prayer and fight to salvage what little sleep was left in my eyes. It was always a race to fall back to sleep before the light of dawn crept up from the horizon and filled the sky. Often the voice of my grandmother, still on her prayer mat, chanting her zikr, would be my lullaby. Soft, rhythmic, soporific, her voice had a hypnotic quality and often I would fall asleep thinking I was still awake, listening to her prayers.