Dear Journal,

I live in Ghana near the niger river in my grass hut. I live in a

small town that is unknown. Our town is made up of 10-15 other
grass huts. It is warm and dry here. Life is good but I have heard
of a new life that I could possibly make a reality. All I have to do is
travel to Medina. Medina is near the western part of Saudi Arabia.
But it is going to be hard to leave this beautiful place, full of
grass, zebras, and the beautiful river. I will also miss all of the
amazing people that live in this town. Like the awesome
merchants that have great prices and the locals in this area that
are always nice. Before leaving this place I made a trade with an
arab merchant ,named Jahmal, that made a quick stop in our town
to make some trades. I traded him 2 pounds of yam for the
knowledge of the five pillars. He told me this,The first pillar is
that the Islams follow is that not one person has the right to be
worshiped except Allah and Muhammad. The second pillar that
they follow is that you have to pray five times a day. The third
pillar is to give charity to the poor. The fourth pillar is that you
have to go to the Mosque and pray at the Kaaba at least once in
your lifetime. The fifth pillar is fasting and that is when you don't
eat at all when the sun is up. Then when the sun goes down they
have a feast. They do this for a whole month. Those were all of
the five pillars. Once I get to Medina I will follow these 5 pillars.
He also told me that if I give him 1 bottle of salt than he will give
me an arab dictionary so I can learn how to speak Arabic once I
get to Saudi Arabia. The other items that I will bring on my
journey to trade is gold, salt, yams, steel tools, and rubies.
I have decided that I will leave tomorrow and I will stop in
the southern side of algeria and in the city of Cairo. In both of
these cities I will refuel on food and food for my 6 camels that I
am bringing in a caravan. The Arab merchant has wanted to go to
Saudi Arabia for such along time that he is traveling with me to
medina. I will write another journal if I make it to Cairo. Wish us
luck.

Dear Journal,
As of right now I am in the city of cairo while I make a pit stop to
re-fuel on all of my necessary items that I need like more food, water,
and clothes. It is 4 months later since I have done my last journal entry
and I have many cool things that have happened along the way. First,
when I left my home town we reached the northern end of mali, the
sahara desert, and we hit a sand storm. The sand storm was the most
terrifying thing I have experienced in my life. During the sandstorm it
got dark and you could barely see anything. This meant that I was not
sure if my camels were around or not. Luckily I had all of my camels
and only one of them got sick. The camel got a bad infection in its eye
from all of the sand hitting his face.
After we got out of the sandstorm we had no problems for 3 more
days. Then we reached Algeria and that is where we got robbed. The
robbers ended up stealing about 2 pounds of yams and 1 bottle of salt.
Luckily I had my steel tools on me or else they probably would have
stolen more stuff. I could tell that there goal was to steal my gold but
they could not find that so they only stole the yams and the salt. At
least they did not steal a lot of things.
That was not too bad until we reached the north east side of
Algeria. When we got there we met some Islam nomads and they let us
stay there for a night and they let us also have dinner with them. That
next morning when Jahmal and I woke up we noticed that we only had
5 camels when we knew that we started off with 6. Then I realized that
the one that was missing was the one with the infected eye. That was
pretty bad at first but then it got worse. When we left we started
walking for a half an hour then I got out one jug of water but I saw that
their was only 6 bottles of jugs of water. When we spent the night with
the nomads we had 8 jugs of water. Weve been robbed, is what was
going through my head when I saw all of the water gone.
Finally we got to Libyan desert which means we were only about
a week from Cairo. Almost instantly when we got to Libyan desert we
met a merchant that was willing to trade me a prayer rug for my steel
tools and I accepted the trade because in Saudi Arabia the praying

rugs cost much more than a couple steel tools. After that we left the
merchant and went to Cairo.
So far in Cairo we have bought more water for 1 coin of gold at
the bazaar. Then we bought a tent to sleep in over the night. Now it is
the morning and we are about to make our way to Medina. Wish us
luck!

Dear Journal,
I have made it to the town of Medina! Medina is the Emirate
capital and it has many people living here. Here in Medina I have
learned to speak the Arabic language fluently and I even had a
conversation with an Islam in Arabic. I have also bought a house
here in the town of medina and I follow all of the five pillars that I
learned from Jahmal. The first pillar that I followed was that I
prayed 5 times a day and I prayed towards the Kaaba. The next
thing that I did was that I told myself and learned that not one
person has the right to be worshiped except Allah and
Muhammad. After doing that I gave charity to the poor, according
to the third pillar. The fourth pillar that I followed that I visited the
Mosque and prayed at the Kaaba. I only have to do that once in
my life but I probably will go another time. And finally I did
fasting, fasting is when you don't eat at all when the sun is up.
Then when the sun goes down they have a feast. I did this for a
whole month and in the daytime it was so tempting to eat just a
little bite of something, but I waited until the sun went down. So
far my life in Medina has been amazing and I suggest you use the
same route that I used if you ever decide to go to Saudi Arabia. I
am officially an Islam.