Beauty Veiled :: Personal Narrative Essays

Hot and sticky, on an early September afternoon, I was sitting lazily in traffic waiting for the light on Pensacola and Jefferson to turn green. With the medication blaring, windows down, and a line of sweat slowly trickling down the back of my neck, my look were drawn to a group of large number chatting in a wipe out parking lot to my right. Behind them lay an old building into which the people were slowly making their way. It wasnt the building that held my attention it was the women in front of it. They were overly fully dressed for the sweltering September afternoon, wearing long sleeved dresses and most with s machineves covering their heads. All I could see of their bodies was the skin of their faces and hands. As the light turned green, I slowly inched forward hardly able-bodied to tear my eyes away from the women. I couldnt help but be intrigued as to why they would be dressed in such a manner at this time of year. As I rolled forward, my railway car came to a stop in f ront of a midget sign, create verbally first in green Arabic lettering and then in English Al-Ansar Mosque The Islamic Center of Tallahassee. Later in the week near the same time of day, I returned once again to the mosque, curious astir(predicate) the small building and hoping to grab another glimpse of the women. Stealthily, I spied from my car in a parking lot across the street from the mosque. sequence I waited, I again noticed how small the building seemed from my vantage point. So small, in fact, that I couldnt help but wonder how whatever more then twenty or thirty people could discipline within its walls. The paint was a dirty eggshell color, with what looked like rust fungus or dirt streaked in various spots on the walls. Some of the green shutters, surrounded by and Arabic-like design, were broken, and one of them was hanging willy-nilly from its hinges. A window was smashed and there was an illegible scrawl of graffito on the left side of the building. Not unac companied was the building small and run down, but the parking lot was as well. There were only a few spaces, enough to hold about ten iron out cars, and small rocks and a few potholes were scattered across the lot. It looked as if it was in need of a new repaving.