Los Feliz headline goes here

Block by Block
Throughout 2008, the California section will produce a series of weekly dispatches, each one a postcard from a different community in Southern California. •

Everyone is absolutely shattered. The men are all limping around comically with blistered feet and chafed thighs, laughing as they compare freshly shaved heads.

Nobody told them it would be this hard. In all their preparations, all their conversations with veteran hajjis, nobody had mentioned the mountains of garbage they walked through in Muzdalifa, or the prospect of marching six miles in cheap sandals through choking crowds desperately trying to keep your group leader’s flag in sight.

Several pilgrims have wondered whether there’s some sort of conspiracy of silence at work among hajj survivors.

Maybe people just don’t want to discourage prospective pilgrims; maybe the experience gets rosier upon reflection. Or maybe it’s simply impossible to do these experiences justice with mere words and you simply have to experience it yourself.