it's a holiday!

In the past few months we have had the normal (i.e. Christian/Political) holidays, but have also had a few last minute ones.  It seems that if you feel a certain day should be a holiday (which means you don't legally have to go to work) you can petition the government to make a certain day a holiday!!  Talk like a pirate day as a holiday anyone?  

Mostly this has been taken advantage of by the muslim minority here in Bujumbura.  Since Burundi's holidays revolve around Christian holidays (which they usually work through) and political dates, they have asked the government on several occasions to make some muslim sacred days national holidays.  So today in Bujumbura we now have a holiday! The streets are deserted and the internet is just a bit faster! 

Today is the muslim festival Eid-al-Adha.  The day that muslims world-wide celebrate the willingness and obedience of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as Allah had commanded him to. (As his namesake I feel I need to insert that it was actuality Isaac that was going to sacrificed, but was saved when God provided a ram...)  

Approximately 10% of the Burundian population is muslim.  Their numbers are growing though as new converts are offered free education and other economic benefits upon their conversion to Islam.  Muslims make up a large percentage of the shop owners and merchants in Bujumbura and are thus influential in the economic direction of this struggling country.  I feel they are yet another part of the population that the church in Burundi has not yet attempted to reach.  In a country that claims 90% christianity, they are indeed very unreached.