Sunset

I am poised here in the middle of my month long vacation. I have never had a vacation in Egypt before. Studying and working have been my life here, so breathing in the extremely polluted air of Cairo has never tasted so sweet as now, when I have no obligations but enjoying her and showing off her charms to people I love.

Instead of feeling restless or out of place like I half-expected taking such a long break from my obligations and routine, I feel a sort of deep contentment and sense of belonging. It seems like I'm existing in a long exhalation, a sunset moment of my life.


This month, but more importantly, this world, seem to be a sunset, the boundary between light and dark, wakefulness and sleep, the sun and the stars, productiveness and rest, this world and the next, reality and dreams. In that moment when the sun goes down, when you look for that green flash that is the fleetingness of our life, maybe seen, maybe not, here and then gone, withered like the green grass, things just seem to make sense, the world seems to just shimmer in the beauty of its transience, a transient beauty which somehow points to eternity. But you can't take up residence, or stay or belong in the instant of the sunset, as much as it seems to promise a beautiful eternity.

We pull up into the "new desert" in our converted jeep/van just in time for the sunset. It is complete silence out here, except for what noise we can make and maybe hear from the other campsites. The instinct of our new friend, like most Cairenes, is to blast music. That idea is abandoned. We look around us, the pink-red-orange sky is in the background, white, ridiculous looking rock formations that have survived the intense erosion of the desert wind. Most of them look like mushrooms or fake clouds or snow. This is really weird, let me tell you. The Christmas in the desert picture to the right pictures us pretending we were in snow (kind of convincing right). But anyway, suffice to say, watching the sunset while peeing behind white mushroomy rock formations and gathering other people's discarded firewood and chasing desert lizzards was a pretty weird vacation, but once again it amazed me with the variety and beauty but also transient nature of this world. My friend asked, "I wonder if in thousands of years the rock that we are now walking on will be new mushroom things?"

And even the pyramids. Yes they've been here thousands of years, but they're run down and empty and they couldn't keep anyone alive for eternity. Khufu's barge was left under the pyramids, ready to assemble for the passage to the afterlife. A mere fifty years ago or so, archeaologists finally assembled it to show to tourists, it never made it to the afterlife.

We climb the minaret of Ibn Tulun mosque at sunset and we see the whole brightly colored city of Cairo fading fast in front of us in contrast to the bright orange sunset clouds. Flocks of pigeons and doves are circling among the hundreds of other minarets and highrise apartment buildings with children dangling power cords off the roofs and schools and restaurants that make up life here. Here on top of this city, in the middle of this city, in this moment of sunset, I feel a continuity and a contentment. Somehow an acceptance of the fleeting nature of life, and the inability to repeat a single instant, and the utter unpredictability of the colors of this sunset that is life, but still trusting that you will be taken care of even more so than those pigeons, gives you a deep feeling of rootedness.

I ride a train to Alexandria watching the sunset over the rich Nile fields, going to the Christmas concert of one of my former students. I'm having an approximately ten hour conversation with one of my good friends who's visiting here. The concepts of hope and faith and the uncomfortable, unsafeness of the gospel are resurfacing just when I need to hear them.

I've said goodbye to so many people in the last year or so and yet these people seem to resurface. Visiting me in Cairo during this month are my family, one friend from home, one friend from college, and three friends from studying abroad. How could I know this?

My whole life, as a sunset, seems to be reflecting and refracting colors of eternity, but it is all existing in one moment, and in a green flash, like the grass, it will be gone. I can hope in only something more permanent than this sunset world.

"All men are like the grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord stands forever."

1 Peter 1:24-5

What is the meaning of the word 'random'?

Its approximately 2:30 in the morning. Its freezing. I have just taken a joyride through Cairo with my friend A and his friend. We are now ascending the stairs to said friend's house. I turn to A and say, "do you know the word random?"
"What is the meaning of the word random?" he asks
Alissa chimes in, "like without plan."
"No organization, everything is just crazy. My life is very random."
He kinda laughs nervously...(as he should have given the fact we were about to be force fed date desserts and basically held hostage in a suburban apartment belonging to a sketchy police officer armed with a fishing knife, far from home in the middle of the night).

So in case you can't tell from my blogs so far, life in Cairo, particularly my life in Cairo, is freakin RANDOM. For instance, just this minute, I found out that probably the most famous contemporary Egyptian author (wrote The Yacoubian Building, Chicago) is running a dentist office with a window directly across from our window. His office staff has seen me and my roommate doing Bollywood Burn exercise videos half naked. We have wondered about him keeping his office hours around 1 AM.

This randomness of my life in Cairo to the point of irony has come out more during this long Aeed weekend since I am free from any kind of my regular routine, and holidays are always just weird.

So Friday night I headed to Old Islamic Cairo (somewhat near our apartment) with my roommate to the engagement party of the sister of our first friend from our second time in Cairo (the driver who picked us up at the airport). So we drive around these crazy alleyways, observing sheep tied to the roof of a taxi, my roommate pretty much so sick she's dead. We end up sitting in some chairs belonging to a coffee shop against the boundary wall of the Ibn Tulun mosque (one of the oldest mosques in Cairo) and wait for random 13ish year old cousin of our friend to come fetch us. We end up going up to their house (our friend is actually at the coiffeur) and after seeing some sort of pornographic materials on TV with the women and children and one man, we are escorted into a bedroom to eat (while they are all fasting). We then make our way to the party hall, where we proceed to wait a couple hours, killing our time trying to name Egyptian pop singers, talking to the surprisingly very respectful little boys of the family about school and the random pictures of this old fat man plastered on all the walls, while Alissa looks the color of leben sukhen (hot milk) and is staring at a tile on the floor. The beautiful bride finally gets there amongst much ululation, then we are ushered out to see our friend, he realizes Alissa's sick, and takes us down the winding road past the ancient mosque to get a cab. Random.

Saturday morning I spent seeing the Nilometer (an ancient roman Nile level measurer) and laying on a patch of grass with my friend F and her sister. I somehow sort of half-successfully explained 9-11 and the consequent American change in opinion towards Arabs in Arabic to someone who had never heard of it. I also taught two Egyptian women how to duck-call with pieces of grass, that finding a four-leaf clover was lucky, what a roly-poly was, and how to play "down by the banks." They taught me the Egyptian version of "down by the banks" and heads up seven up, and that I should NEVER EVER EVER touch a roly-poly or ANY kind of insect.

After this, I head to church in Maadi, where I watch the lighting of the advent calendar and sing some Christmasy songs, and discuss the angel tree. Then we head to our family in Maasara. We end up watching Beauty and the Beast dubbed over in Arabic, then this weird Egyptian soap opera set in southern California with some sort of prison escape plot. We learn that part of our Egyptian family is leaving for America on Wednesday. WEDNESDAY!

My friend M calls because he NEEDS to talk to me. I rush home in the morning to meet him, and hear his story of woe. His ex-fiance called him (they haven't talked in months) and told him that she was on her lesser pilgrimage to Mecca and she prayed for him the whole time, and she dreamed about him and she knows they will always love each other but she now wears Niqab (the thing that covers everything but the eyes) and wants to be with God all the time, so she knows they can't be together. He wants to tell her everything, all the suffering I've seen him go through these last months being depressed without her, but doesn't know if he should, and he can't ever be with a woman wearing Niq'ab, even if she is the best in the world. He also informs me that tonight is "Hash Feast."

Then back to Maasara to translate between our Egyptian family and my roommate's family where we are urged to eat more and more chicken and sweet potatoes with sugar. Among the constant mentionings of Mama Egyptian and Mama American and Baba Egyptian and Baba American all being together, our translation skills were not that necessary.

Then Alissa and I head downtown to meet my friend A who appears to not actually be coming. So we do a little shopping, make some friends with some sweet girls in the shops, get creeped out by the men in the shops, and head to the cafe where we had tea the first week we were in Cairo and have gone back to ever since. There is a sense of coming full circle as she orders Sahlab (a traditional winter drink involving coconut) and I get warm tea with milk. Its cold. We're about to leave, A finally comes, and the joy ride around Cairo begins, Madonna and the Eagles on the stereo. This culminates in the weird parking lot and suburban apartment as well as a strange car chase involving mistaken identity, then an excuse about picking a mother up from the airport at 3:30 AM (at which time Cairo is still completely awake) which allowed us to escape to a taxi.

I get home and its time for morning prayer. Today is Aeed al-Adha. The slaughter day. This means at sunrise there is a huge community prayer. My roommate, her family, and I, head to a mosque far from our house, fully Islamically veiled, although clearly not convincing anyone that we're Egyptian. We end up early, so we go into a donut shop! Haha. We then situate ourselves multiple times around the mosque of Mustafa Mahmoud. Thousands and thousands of people flood the street in greater and greater numbers as the sky pinkens and lightens. Balloons and plastic to kneel on are the sales items of the day. After an hour of call to prayer, one cycle through the stations of prayer with a collective murmur of Allahu Akbar is simultaneously made by thousands at this mosque alone (on this day gender separation is too difficult, so families can all stay together). And then its over, a collective shout of celebration is issued, and the feast has begun! Candies fly in the air, we flee to a side street and catch a taxi.

Ten minutes later I'm in a 5 star resort hotel with my friend's parents, munching on the open buffet, being offered coffee or tea from a young man named Mohamed in a black vest and name tag. I'm looking out the panoramic windows over the Nile, and discussing social research and non-profit organizations, slipping into the comfort of what feels like a past life in another world.

Twenty minutes after this meal I'm watching the clean up of the blood in front of a garage on our street following the animal sacrifice. Twenty minutes after this, I'm warm in my bed contemplating what meaning I can take from the utter lack of continuity that is my life.

Aeed el Adha vs. American Christmas

The sheep, and occasional massive cows have taken over the streets.

The makeshift pens full of docile furry, animals with pink spray-painted stripes have been erected in almost every alleyway. Anyone will tell you, the smell of Cairo has gotten much worse this month, for this reason and because its black cloud of air pollution season (the smog literally rolls over and coats the city with this weird yellow dry fog).

A few days ago, in one of these pens in the middle of a major street, I saw a sheep sneeze, twice (this is probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen an animal do, and I felt the need to utter, "bless you" under my breath as I let out a little laugh, causing more people to think foreigners are nuts). Tonight I saw three live sheep tied to the top of the fully occupied moving taxi in front of my taxi, driving down a major street. One little kharoof (sheep in arabic) was looking straight back into my eyes, I swear.

These sheep are remarkably calm for their impending bloody mass slaughter. If they had any wits about them they would probably notice that every year sheep are taken; Maybe because none ever return, the sheep all believe their comrades have gone somewhere much more wonderful. Maybe the sheep consider it an honor to be chosen for the sacrifice of Aeed el-Adha.

Aeed el-Adha is the holiday commemorating Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son. In the Judeo-Christian story, the son is Isaac. In the Islamic story, the son is Ishmael. The story is almost exactly the same. The tortured father climbs the mountain with his son, and is about to sacrifice him as God has requested, when God provides a sheep instead. In commemoration, every year, Muslims who can afford to should slaughter an animal. I haven't seen this day in Egypt yet, this is coming up on Monday supposedly...

As sheep and cows and their smell are ubiquitous throughout Egyptian society right now, the rich foreigner Island of Zamalak is a different story (literal Island, in the middle of the Nile, with a huge proportion of ex-pats). The smell and sight of animals hasn't quite reached this place, no one wants that there. Instead, the Christmas stores have opened. You know those creepy stores that somehow make a living only selling Christmas paraphernalia? Those actually exist in Egypt, in Zamalek. They have Christmas trees sitting out on the sidewalks. My roommate and I, perhaps a little guiltily, kinda really wanted a Christmas tree. So we took a taxi, got a fake collapsible scrawny little tree and lights for around $15, and then headed back home. We made three trips to the paper man to get green paper, then pink and blue and yellow paper and markers, then white paper. Then we decorated. We listened to Christmas music and cut out colored shapes for our tree and for our Christmas cards.

I now walk into our apartment to the sight of twinkling lights among convincing dark green plastic branches, and pomegranate like construction paper ornaments.

Being in Egypt has brought out a lot of feelings about holidays almost more than anything. Maybe this is because holidays are such a visible expression of culture and so socially engrained into our understanding of the passing of time. I have celebrated holidays here with more excitement and passion and thoughtfulness than I have had regarding them in a long time. Now as I see these two holidays, Aeed el Adha and Christmas, coinciding with each other, I can't help but be intrigued by the images.

While walking through Maasara at night, we encountered a block of the city near our family's house where the power was completely out. This meant that on the eve of Aeed al-Adha, the streets were plunged in pitch-darkness. We could hear the sounds of people and animals crowding and moving around us, but couldn't see them until they were practically in our face. This whole feeling of a living, breathing unseen city around us on the eve of a holiday was amazing. As we walked down the main street, we saw about one candle in each shop lining the road. The pharmacy, the supermarket, the cafe (where the backgammon game had been centered around this tiny candle). The tiny lights in the dark, and the coldest night I've had in Egypt yet, made sure that al-Adha eve and Christmas eve were now further tangled up in my mind.

Merriness and jolliness and excessive amounts of light and cookies and construction paper crafts don't really make any sense for Christmas if you think about it. What makes more sense to me are these pens of sheep, dwelling in their filth, stinking up the streets, about to be slaughtered, and the few solitary candles in the pitch-black darkness.

On Christmas day the trinity had decided it was best that Jesus squeeze himself through a birth canal, come out squirming, bloody and screaming into a pile of hay or some manure perhaps amid a bunch of stinky animals and the woman's terrified new husband.

My Egyptian sister asked me, on the eve of the sacrifice, "Do you know why the Muslims kill the animals?"
It told her, "yes because of Abraham and his son."
She tells me, "yes, you're clever! But do you know what else?"
"What else?" I ask.
"Its because of Jesus. Because he died, like a sheep also, to give us all life." And once again I am more surprised than I probably should be that she sees the same connections that I do.

And so, 'tis the season... for the adorable stinky sheep of Cairo.

Warm feelings

So last night sitting at a cafe after church, my friend described his first visit to church as "warm feelings."

I love this. Warm, fuzzy feelings but without all the annoying, confusing fuzz. Just warm.

A friend of mine who is also abroad said she heard that November is the hardest month in a year abroad. But as the weather is getting genuinely cold at night, and a winter cozyness is somewhat in the air, I'm feeling some lovely warm feelings.

You all know I love this city, but this city isn't just a city anymore. This city has embraced me, folded me up in her arms. I have found a belonging and a contentment as part of this world that I haven't felt in awhile. But its not the city, its not the crisp air or adorable skinny Egyptian men in their adorable little turtleneck and cable knit sweaters. Its not the smell of roasting carmelized sweet potatoes on the street carts or sitting in a patch of sunlight in Al-Azhar park overlooking a man-made lake, thousands of years of mosques and a crusader fortress before you.

Indeed the warmest feelings that I have felt in awhile was walking to the metro, kicking myself for not having a jacket tonight, shivering and eating ice cream. After six hours straight of pouring my heart and mind as thoroughly as possible into my current seven total amazingly wonderful students, my oldest student, an extremely hard-working mother of two / computer programming teacher wanted to buy me dessert. I got nescafe (mmm fake Egyptian coffee) icecream. Wow.

As she turned into her alleyway to go up to her apartment she of course invited me in even though she had just complained about how she could barely keep her eyes open one more minute. I of course declined, fondly smiled and shook her hand, I'll see her in three days, and I am supremely happy about that. As I freeze to death walking to the metro eating nescafe watered down ice cream with chunks of ice in it, I can't help but think this is the best, happiest ice cream I have ever had. None of this thermostat heated strip mall Golden Spoon crap. I am thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying this, the group of teenage boys attempting to block my path and follow me doesn't even phase me today.

And I am beginning to experience how little contentment has to do with comfort. Or maybe that it does have something to do with it but (forgive my Soc language) its an inverse relationship. The harder that it is for me to get coffee ice cream, true the more I appreciate the coffee ice cream when I get it. But not only that, the anticipation of someday having coffee ice cream is also much more sweet. And not only that, but coffee ice cream has no sweetness in itself.

Here is where the sweetness and the warmth of my life comes from: people. I now have my people. I have old friends, all over the world and here in Cairo. I have students that I haven't seen in months showing up in my life. I actually kissed my male friend on the cheek in the middle of the street in downtown Cairo (talk about scandal) I was so happy to see him when he showed up unexpectedly as a "surprise."

I was sitting in church with my Egyptian "brothers" to my left, they are completely out of their comfort zone but wanting to see how and where we worship, my American "sisters" to my right and in front of me, and our whole congregation singing hymns together in the soft yellow light. I have memories here, I have continuity, I have people here, right here in the pew next to me. And I love them all to death. And we know each other. The hardest part of moving here was feeling like I couldn't trust anyone because I didn't know anyone, and that no one really knew me. But now, over the stretched out minutes of laughter and annoyance and mosque and church and traveling and working, we have built something that I can stand on, that I trust to hold my weight. Warm feelings, not really fuzzy at all, very clear and very warm.

Like the collection of pashminaish scarves I now wear every day. They're not fuzzy and itchy, just warm. But they are the warmest when I just get them back from my friend A borrowing them, or when I somehow manage to wrap them around both my and my roommate's neck in a very awkward two headed scarf monster huddled for warmth kind of way.

Walking around Al-Azhar park with my friend F. She asks me, "how can American people be unhappy? To tell you the truth we think they took all the money, all the beauty, all the power, and even all the ability to help other people. Egypt said they chose religion instead of these things, but we don't even have that, we are getting worse in morals. We -- what's the verb again? -- envy America. The whole country envies the whole country. So how can Americans be unhappy? They have money and food and an easy life." I tell her I think they're lonely, they can be surrounded by people and wealth and still be lonely. She asks why the government doesn't make a law that children stay with their parents when they grow up, then people wouldn't be lonely. I say its not that easy. Its a matter of tradition, not of law, and those things don't change so quickly. Besides, its not about people being there, its an attitude, an attitude of independence and needing to be on your own, even when surrounded by people.

She agrees this might be it but then she has her own idea. "I heard this story that this boy who got all the money in the world, got the girl that he wanted to marry and did everything he wanted with her whenever he wanted, he got everything that he wanted but then he had nothing to look forward to so he committed suicide. He had nothing else to want or work for and so had no point to live. I think Allah knows we need the rules to keep us from taking everything we think we want."

If you gain everything but forfeit your soul, what have you gained? I realize that not getting what I want when I want it has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, as cheesy at it sounds. But its not just that God knows what's best for me, its that God knows that not being able to have exactly what you want sets you free to pursue other things that matter more, and set you free to really see what is around you without always thinking how you can get more, because its not an option. Kudos to those who can moderate themselves, but for me it seems I must put myself somewhere that forces this from me. Here, the lies of needing to be completely self-sufficient and of materialism and taking the easy path can fade away because they aren't possible.

And the ice cream was delicious because, and the unusually warm fall day and the sunlight reflecting off the water was so beautiful because, and the murmuring voices of three girls with the wafting smell of burnt grilled cheese filling up the apartment was the warmest, most amazing sound and smell I could hope for because I know these people. Because I am no longer indifferent to my surroundings, because I have been folded into my life here in an embrace that I love almost just for the reason that its stifling and smelly and awkward, a too familiar strange relative. Because I know that there is not a thing I can do to escape this Egyptian mother bear hug short of my own volition. I nestled myself in here, and materialism and self-sufficiency and self-consciousness and fear of rejection have no place in an Egyptian mother's bear hug.

And I know I go through these ups and downs, feeling like Cairo is giving me a massive bear hug and feeling like Cairo would just give me the boot if I didn't speak such a damn useful language and distract their men from harassing their own women. But for now I am content. I am content being me, with all the privileges and disadvantages that come with being a white girl in this city. Yes people stare at me and yell at me and make judgments based on my every move, but on the bright side there's no way to bring more attention to myself than I already have and I can't control wrong assumptions of those who aren't willing to see or hear me as I truly am, might as well run around in the street, might as well wear bright orange pajama pants with fish on them around the neighborhood, might as well ask random merchants how to cook their crispy bread, might as well show off how much I suck at Arabic. Yes I'm a foreigner, yes I do have some moral standards despite that fact, yes I'm odd, yes I'm a 22 years old girl living in a strange country without her family, yes I'm human, yes I'm happy.

Ilhamdulilah

Genie in a Bottle

I'm listening to Genie in a Bottle while driving through the streets of Cairo in my severely-jaded-from-love friend's new car. The layers of hilarity and irony wash over me and I start uncontrollably giggling in fits and starts. Do you know what a genie is? Its an English corruption of the word jinn, according to Islam, a spirit made of fire by God. These spirits can be good or bad (some are on God's side, some on Satan's, some still neutral). They can shape-shift, tempt and trap good humans, or sometimes they can help. They are invisible spirits, or ghosts as the word is sometimes translated. I think back through the layers of years of my life... (I remember reading a story once, one that's stuck with me, about how people are like onions (this is not Shrek), they have layers of the years of life that they've been through, and all those younger stages of each person are in there a little deeper, but can come out in certain circumstances.)

I'm at the mall with my seventh grade best friend. We're in Claire's, judging each others' choices of hair and jewelry accesories (I would never wear something that clunky), picking out yet another set of matching BFF necklaces (butterflies, half of a broken heart, or flowers this time?) and watching a Britney Spears music video, while discussing the merits of Christina Aguilera vs. Britney Spears. O Christina totally has a better voice! You have to agree!

I'm at a highschool dance. I love dances. I don't usually have a date, but that is definitely not the point. If you have a date, you don't have that kind of nervous anticipation at the beginning of the slow songs, and you don't get to make an idiot of yourself dancing with all your social outcast friends during all the other songs. And they're playing Genie in a bottle! I look to whoever of my best friends is next to me, our eyes light up in mutual recognition of the importance of this song to our young lives, we run as quickly as possible in our heels and miniskirts off the courtyard into the gym, or the cafeteria, the room shaking with Christina's voice. We scream at each other two feet away, "Come, come, come on and let me out!"

Two years ago in Cairo, I'm staring, literally staring at my friend Mohamed's computer screen background. A scantily clad Christina poses for the camera wearing a low cut, tight fitting white dress (the color of innocence, right?), heavy make up, and a giant cross necklace nestled in her bosom. Here we see the picture of Western Christianity, stunning and jarring and appalling to me after a few weeks in this city of newly awakened conservative Islam. I despair a little after seemingly fighting a battle every day to be seen as something different.

I'm sitting in a classroom at Calvin College. Three hours a day of creative writing class. I'm hearing critiques about my story. My story is about a minibus haunted by a jinn in the streets of Cairo. Comments of my colleagues range from, "you need to tone down the "god willing," it gets repetitive" to "this seems completely implausible" to "this is very interesting."

And now, here I am. Mohamed and I have just turned off the bridge into Shara Sitta w Eishreen Julio, and his stereo is pumping a somewhat more raspy and loud version of her voice than I would prefer. He turns to me with that little grin and says, "I love this song so much." He then proceeds to sing along.

So I am riding around in my friend's car on an island in the middle of the Nile, while he quietly sings, "my body's saying let's go, but my heart is saying no! If you want to be with me, baby there's a price to pay. I'm a genie in a bottle, gotta rub me the right way." And while my roommates here are writing their statements of purpose for International Relations and Middle East Studies graduate programs, I know that I am seeing East-West, Muslim-Christian relations all right here within the three minutes of Christina's vocal gymnastics, and I divulge in giggles over the irony, the complexity and the simplicity of it all.

The Islamic religious concept of Jinn has morphed through Arab folklore of thousands of years ago into the concept of a genie (see 1001 Nights). This concept, popularized in America through weird television shows (I Dream of Jeanie) and Disneyizations (Aladdin), comes to Christina's consciousness as a song. And she sings her little Latina-American heart out about how her body (as a supernatural spirit in Islamic belief) is saying lets go, but her heart is saying no.

And my buddy Mohamed (named after the prophet, like at least half of Cairo) grins and says he loves this song! And I love this song! And we both have a lifetime of memories built around this song. Ahh globalization. Sometimes I just love you.

My First Arabic Poem

An Arabic Haiku --

Dedicated to watching the sun sinking over the water, sitting on a bench overlooking the Nile on a fall afternoon --

Il shams agouza khadra
heyya boosy min ilshagara
aynha maful abadan

Translation:

The sun a yellow old woman
she looks at me from the tree
her eyes are closed never

Approximately third grade level haiku (and probably even incorrect arabic), but I am extremely overly proud of this my first forey into arabic literature. Yet another way that my extreme distate for traditional educational methods has led to some creative deviations.

Internal monologue:

Procrastinator Kirsten - but I don't want to study!
Motivator Kirsten - But you want to learn Arabic, you can't learn without even trying.
Procrastinator Kirsten - O yes I can, eventually, and besides I'm finished with school, and its a beautiful day.
Motivator Kirsten - Yes its a beautiful day, perfect for studying.
Procrastinator Kirsten - I want to write a poem about it instead of studying, and there are too many words to study I'l forget them all anyway.
Motivator Kirsten - Ok fine, write a poem in Arabic.

I'm in Love

"Nobody in his right mind would've left her.
I had to be crazy to say goodbye.
Nobody in his right mind would've left her.
Even my heart was smart enough to stay behind."

-George Strait

So I think I'm in love.

Why do I love her you may ask? Her faults and annoyances are overwhelming, and yet that's what love is right? I can't really help it, I love her despite it all.

I'm sitting in Al-Azhar park with my Egyptian 16 year old sister and my roommate. The group of veiled woman near us send a two year old boy over to give me a raw onion, complete with plant.

I'm waiting in the metro station. A father, his young daughter, and very young son are discussing the word water very loudly and close to me. I smile, the daughter smiles shyly back. The little son looks at me expectantly. I ask if he wants water, they say yes, he drinks some, they thank me. They leave. A woman draped in a beautiful red scarf walks up to me and asks me a question I don't understand. We talk a little in Arabic, she's Sudanese and squeezes my hand saying something about how America and Sudan are together and she leaves. I wait a little longer...

I'm sitting in a cafe and my friend F peers earnestly out from under her higab into my eyes and asks,"why did God have to die, I still don't understand?"

I'm walking along the Nile, and tiny white puffy clouds are everywhere, the water is sparkling, the men sit on the benches reading newspapers, families are strolling, and so am I, strolling home.

I'm eating a ridiculously sweet tiny banana that G bought in the suq while I held the baby. I am sitting on the floor of my family's home, G next to me, baby M on the bed, Grandmother and her son on the couch, Arabic swirling around my head that I can half understand now, and I can't even imagine how amazing the whole concept of this banana is, let alone the tiniest atom of the existence of these my mother and brother and sisters and this baby, a tiny, growing human soul, or the fact that I belong here in this home despite all factors that say I don't.

I am leaning against a cement column in the El-Maasara metro station. My muscles are slightly sore and twitchy after carrying an infant through the entire neighborhood. I can see one star through the wires above the tracks. I can feel a genuinely cold breeze through my hair, and I can hear crickets. I love crickets. I close my eyes and imagine I'm in a forest, in my backyard in Grand Rapids, or a summer night camping in the Californian desert, but then all of a sudden I don't want to be any of those places. I want to be here with my beloved, leaning against a cement column, looking at the smoky factory, enfolded in the murmuring voices of some 20 million people belonging to her.

I hear the metro pull up to the station, this sound is a murmuring, rumbling, screeching brakes, no longer grating on my nerves, its deep in my bones.

I step onto the metro. We lurch forward and the murmuring, rumbling, screeching brakes is right below me, even deeper down inside me. I get up to give up my seat for one of the old women that get on about half way through, as all good Cairenes do. The train lurches forward and I fall against this niqabi (eyes showing only)woman. We grab each other's hands, she pushes me back up, and I'm on my way.

I love her spontaneity, I love her helping hands reaching out to catch me, give me a seat, welcome me, show me, I love her secret passageways and ruined buildings, I love her gaudy lights plastered over mosques and churches, I love her bananas and figs and pomegranates, I love her overdone sense of fashion. But really I just love her.

I am in love with this city. And I start singing George Strait knowing that my heart will be staying behind.

America the Beautiful

Remarks of President Elect Barack Obama
Tuesday Nov 4, 2008

"And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."


Obama is the new president of America.

The first black man, and the first American politician I, along with most of America and the world, have been excited about in a long time. I don't know much about politics, and frankly I don't really care most of the time, but something about this man just drives the cynicism and apathy right out of you, just hearing him speak and hearing about him.

My roommate Alissa made an Obama cake (this was a multi-racial cake - chocolate cake with half cinnamon and half coconut frosting), and we all stayed up for good portions of the night (although me probably the smallest portion, I knew Obama would win anyway). So I woke up to the sound of the TV at 6 AM and he won!!!!

Since the first time I have come to Egypt I have wished to God that I was capable of white lies and could just say I was Canadian, every time I utter "Amreeka" as my country, feeling ashamed and wincing a little in anticipation of the reaction. Very few people outright condemn me for being American, but its always kinda like, "O ok, we can like you as a person, but your country sucks, and because you have real elections there, its kinda your fault an idiot is in charge of your nation and has screwed the world over."

But then, the day Obama won I dressed in Red, White and Blue (subconsciously, I didn't realize until I was leaving), I picked up an Obama sticker at my Arabic class and wore it proudly. Every inquiry about my nationality I now relish the opportunity to proudly state that I'm American and discuss Obama. I received congratulations from my entire non-profit office, I was like the celebrity of the day, with a constant cycle of people coming through to tell me how happy they were. I attempted to make my students listen to his speech in class, gave the printout for homework, and read it myself on the metro.

I cried... in the metro, in Cairo... about a political speech....

And I am beginning to see America, somehow more clearly from the outside (this was called the exo-something view in Anthropology). When all the people, none of which are American, in my office, had to tell me how excited they were about Obama as the new American president. When I picked up an Egyptian newspaper with Obama as the cover story (translation of headline: "Obama improves the book of American history"). When I miss all the little things I used to be able to do and get and experience in America. When I hear Obama tell us, "we as a people will get there."

And last night, I went to stay with my adoptive Egyptian family for the night only to be shown the one year immigration visas that a brother, his wife, and their two year old daughter have for the U.S. They are almost bouncing around with excitement, while the mother cries. This Visa means hope. The hope that Obama talks about really is what we are. America is a symbol. It is a chance, an opportunity, an ambition, and and undying hope. We are a child of a country made of immigrants, and we are still hopeful, after how many stories of failure.

This country is still the reason why two Egyptian women in this family sold their personal gold so that they could try this opportunity. The economy in the U.S. sucks, these people know approximately three words of English, they will have no money to start with, and America is not so kind to Middle Easterners, or immigrants at all, but maybe now, things will change, anything seems possible now,and God goes with them.

But then I have hope, and I try to stay excited with them because no one would turn this opportunity down. Money and work and a new life. The American Dream is tugging on them, and this is our strength, "that while we breath, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can."

And tonight I watched American Beauty, about the overwhelming beauty that overflows the most mundane of lives. How we push each other away and live in misery, but I have often thought this as well, there is too much beauty for us to really even see, we would be blinded if we opened up our eyes enough to take in all the light. Our hearts would burst from the beauty of a single moment if we truly comprehended, so we must protect ourselves. And the pain and the beauty of our nation, in all the tiny little details that I miss, its there.

America the Beautiful.

All Hallows and All Saints

So I love Halloween. You don’t have to worry about presents or religious differences or some kind of deep significance to the day. As we learned in anthropology class, this is a ritual of reversal. You purge yourself of the stress of a whole year of working on being a consistent, good person. Every society has this and needs this. Halloween comes along and the children get to be in control for once, demanding “trick or treat” from the adults. Everyone gets to be something completely different from them self. You can wear ridiculous amounts of gaudy make up and the sluttiest clothes you can find, that you would never wear otherwise because that’s obviously not who you are, but hey it might look good.

While the whole year I’m trapped inside this one human existence, its Halloween and you can suddenly free yourself from that a little tiny bit, suddenly there are endless possibilities – seen and unseen. Endless windows to other worlds are opening up before you, like two mirrors facing each other – you can look into one and see reflections smaller and smaller and smaller, and you know that they keep going for an eternity, it is your sight that is the limit. While the whole year I’m supposed to be striving to be good and saintly, this eve before all saints day, I’m supposed to embrace the complete opposite, be demonic and unpredictable. The paradox of human existence is tied up in this holiday: You have this imagination, you can conceive of things you’ve never seen or experienced, you can think of abstract ideas, supernatural and fantastic ideas even, you have empathy and therefore think you can feel what another person is feeling, and yet you have one body, one soul, one mind and one life on earth. It seems a little unfair, but at the same time perfect irony. And this is Halloween.

This holiday is not at all explainable, especially to people who haven’t seen it before (i.e. most Egyptians). It wraps up fall, harvest, rituals of reversal, pagan, Christian, American, fear, the supernatural, empathy, imagination, demonic, angelic, debauchery, excitement, anticipation, childhood, and so many things that can’t be named. And there’s candy, lots and lots of candy.

So Halloween in Egypt has actually been one of my favorite Halloweens of my life, although it only involved a little candy. There’s something almost glowing about your country’s holidays when you’re outside your country. You have all these ideas about what this holiday is like “back home” when you’ve probably actually never experienced it. This has to do with movies, childhood associations, smells, all rolled into this one day. Full moons, cinnamon, pumpkins, windy nights.

So we had a Halloween party, at the insistence of one of my roommates’ (J) coworker’s insistence. This party ended up with me, my three roommates, our family from Maasara, and one of J’s coworkers. So I made spiced cider and chai and bought a massive pumpkin from the market (yes we found a massive pumpkin). Three of us dressed up – as a flight attendant, jazzercise girl, and I was a sort of asian woman. We did well with what we had, although all night my Egyptian sisters were making references to me being dressed like a sheep with little horns because of my hair chopsticks, haha. With our guests there we listened to jazz music, ate a great meal, tried to force them to try the weird drinks we made even though they hate cinnamon, and forced food down their throats for once (talk about a ritual of reversal, we got to be the overbearing, force-feeding hosts for once).

Then we carved the pumpkin! I’m not sure the last time I’ve done that. In the middle of our bedroom we laid down plastic bags , took out our kitchen knife, opened it up, us Americans scooped out the guts, and made a very happy Jafar the Jack O’Lantern while four very confused Egyptian women, and one baby, watched and took pictures. N, J’s co-worker remarks, “no I’ve never seen anything like this before.” It was evidently a very fascinating cultural experience, but no one actually wanted to help with the gut scooping, and that’s the best part. The class divide between the guests was extremely clear, but we all came together, and somehow it worked. We roasted the pumpkin seeds and I realized that I felt the most at home and the most truly festive I have felt about a holiday in a long time. I understand now why ex-pats tend to cling to their culture even more than at home.

So then we had made plans to hang out with my American buddy B from work after this party, so A and I head over to his place down the street. We end up taking a taxi to a French party with a guy from Niger who worked for a French division of a company (still don’t know how to say from Niger in English cause he only knew how to say it in French) and a Canadian girl dressed as a pregnant Egyptian door woman. So evidently they don’t have Halloween in France, but these people knew how to do it. We take the elevator up to the French double doors, behind which salsa music is unmistakable. There were two Bedouins (complete with authentic knives and swords), two girls and a boy draped in silky stuff, we think they were supposed to be a harem of some sort, a Minnie mouse, the son of King Farouk (that was our friend), and then a lot of cool not costumed people (Egyptian fashion designer who was still wearing the gloves from his mother’s full Muslim dress that he was wearing earlier, French guy who followed his girlfriend here, British guy studying Arabic who’s visiting his brother in Qatar soon, the old French man at the party with a kitten in his trench coat).

At the end of the night, looking at my ridiculous “Asian” black liquid eyeliner in the elevator mirror going back up to our apartment I tell A, “my life is just weird. When I get back to America, how am I going to explain this place to myself, let alone other people? What stories am I gonna tell my grandchildren?” (hey do you want to hear about the Halloween I was in Cairo? ) haha. Will I be here for another Halloween some day? Will my grandchildren be living in Cairo for that matter? Will I be sitting in a flat in Cairo and have to teach them about Halloween, as their crazy American emigrant grandmother? Or will I be sitting on a farm in Wisconsin and have to teach them about Halloween in Egypt and how when I was there back in the day, people had never seen a jack o’lantern before? Or will the world even have pumpkins by the time I’m a grandmother? Strange to think about. But this Halloween was one of the best.

And then we come into All Saints’ Day, ready for it. We’ve gotten all that out of our systems and now we want to be like Mother Theresa, caring for the poorest of the poor, glowing with the spirit of God or St. George, slaying the devil with his foot on his throat, or St. Joan of Arc, dressing in armor and leading the armies of France, then bravely roasted to death. As our pastor narrated these stories tonight, I wanted to be among them, not actually have their life, but I want to be myself, following in their footsteps. And I want to be living out the joy and hope and promise that I believe in, grounded in the reality and the personhood that I’ve been given.

So we have a night of possibilities of demonic and supernatural and other worlds opening up before us, and then morning comes and that possibility of truth and goodness and other worlds opening up before us, but now its deeply personal and deeply grounded in our own self, our own relationship with God, our own reality.

Adventure

Adventure...I could not explain to my students what this word means, but I know that I love it.

I try to keep in mind that I don't love the kind of adventure where you're impersonally and by yourself doing strange things just for some sort of story to tell later. One of my favorite verses of the Bible that I constantly tell myself: "if I fight wild bulls in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained?"

When people used to tell me that it would be an adventure going to Egypt, I'm not sure anyone including me, really knew what that meant, but as I'm here I'm beginning to put together what it could be.

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#1: The closest I will get to being James Bond

I talk to my Egyptian sister G walking from the metro to my office in the morning. We're all trying to check on her as much as possible when her husband's at work. She turns up the television so her mother in law can't hear her talking to someone. She's not allowed to have friends, and as much as her mother-in-law acts nice, she always reports back to her son, and G will probably get beaten over it. G sounds extremely tired, and like she can't focus on the words I am saying (while she usually is extremely intelligently focused on understanding my crappy Arabic) or the fact that I'm talking to her. I ask her if she has food, no she doesn't (this creep starves her). I ask her if her baby's ok, she's ok, but she has no milk. I want to scream out of frustration! What the heck can I do? Ok that's it, I'm going, I don't care if I can't come to her house and we have to sneak around, and I have work, the woman needs food, for God's sake, and she has a baby.

So it turns out being pretty easy to get the morning off the next day. I'm kinda shaking as I get ready to go. She gave me instructions to meet her next to this big department store near the metro. I'm shaking as I eat my sweet roll and yogurt drink and read this massive form for work on the metro. I've never taken this line before. I get off at the end of the line only to ask a woman for directions and be informed that the store I'm looking for is like five stops back, hmmm. I get back on the metro, get out, find the store, call G, she turns up the TV again and says she's coming. I wait. I see her, tiny, so much smaller than she was before, wearing all modest black and carrying her tiny baby. We walk quickly down a side alley past a church, across the main street, and down a few side streets. She is feeding her baby "baby juice" out of her bottle because she has no milk, from stress or no food or both. We sit on the curb between two cars so that we hopefully won't be seen. She is not allowed to go out, especially if there are friends involved. She is out on the pretense of buying lingerie for her mother in law. We get to talking.

The good brother in her husband's family just died. He was the only one that would tell her husband he shouldn't beat her, that she was a good woman. G took hope from this, and now he's dead, hence her wearing black. All of the visitors including her husband's ex-wife have come through their house demanding laundry, tea, food, etc. while G is not fed enough and has a newborn baby. She showed me where she was clawed by her husband, explained how her husband shook her baby, and gave her baby to her young sister to hold, not caring if she was dropped.

G is miserable, I make the money and food drop. We talk a little more, but she tells me I need to go to work, and I can't tell how much of that is concern for me and my job and how much is her worrying that a foreigner is bringing attention to her and what if HE finds out that I'm here. She tells me to stuff the food at the bottom of her purse, under the underwear and bra she evidently bought, and put the money in another secret pocket. I walk her back halfway, kiss her four times on the cheek (that's usually the max, if you love someone very much), and watch her cross the street, still so tiny, especially compared to these speeding cars rushing past, baby clutched very close. I turn away and walk quickly to the metro entrance, off to work.

I get to work, am slightly chastised for coming in really freakin late, but I realize that if I would not have gone I would have been giving up delivering food and comfort to a despairing woman because I might have been slightly chastised. Even if I would have been fired for it, could I have not gone? I hope I am never the person who is so concerned with their job or with avoiding discomfort or chastisement that they won't do what they should for someone when the opportunity is staring them in the face. May I never be a coward, although the temptation is always there. I am naturally a lazy coward, but may I fight that the rest of my days.

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#2: The closest I will get to being a Bond girl

My best friend M has a new car. Now I have been riding public transportation for the last four months. I have been in a private car I think four or five times during my time in Cairo. The entire world changes when you're in a private car. I always loved driving and road trips, but just being a passenger in a car with the windows down, although I always have appreciated, I never appreciated enough until this week.

I get picked up at my house and the new stereo in this tiny little red hatchback is blaring. The two guys let me have shotgun and M drives extremely cautiously, his best friend serving as back seat driver. We drive past downtown, the street where I've taken many a taxi and minibus, pedestrians weave between us (haha, not me today, suckers!). I rest my arm out the window, neighboring cars stare at the foreigner in the car with the Egyptian man blasting Arabic music, and I feel like a millionaire in this little red hatchback. M is extremely proud of his stereo system.

We drive over the Nile at night, the lighted hotels speed by. I'm not worrying about haggling with a taxi driver, if I have change for him, if he's going to hit on me. I'm relaxed, with a friend. The entire night while M apologizes profusely about being more focused on the driving than me, I am smiling so big that my face hurts, soaking in this city. And now I understand why people want to be rich, at least a little.

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#3 Why I should become a Muslim

One of my students has been trying to convert me for a few months now. In fact I have a sneaking suspicion that's the only reason he's in my class, considering he doesn't seem to like my teaching methods at all. So after class he shyly approaches me and hands me a big gift bag. I open it to find several books. He says, "you must read them."

I answer, as I always do, "Ok I'll try, I don't have much time" while laughing. So later, I finish my last class and I open the bag to inspect my loot. I have 8 new books and 3 pamphlets entitled (in order of fattest to thinest): 'An Islamic Perspective on Legislation for Women,' 'The True Message of Jesus Christ,' 'How to Become a Muslim,' 'A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam,' 'Is the Trinity Doctrine Divinely Inspired,' 'Women in Islam,' 'Principles of Islam,' 'The Truth About Jesus,' 'Reflections on the Divine Directive: READ!' 'Islam and the Aim of Life,' and last but not least, 'Islam and Family Protection.' Subtle huh?

So then during my metro ride down town with my friend A, he takes a peek at my new goodies. He then turns to me and says seriously (I think, although he's one of those people that is always kind of joking so its hard to tell), "you must read these." I laugh and say I'm going to read the Qur'an first. He says, "no these first, because they're for foreigners."

"I thought the Qur'an was for all people," I say

"No, no, no, books first. You must read."

"Ok ok, I'll read them some day. I want to read them."

"Good because you don't have religion."

"A, I have religion, just not yours, even the Qur'an says Christianity is a religion."

"No no no, Kris, it is not a religion. Islam and Jewish are the only real religions."

"This is not what the Qur'an says," (strange that I am holding up what the Qur'an says, huh?)

"Jesus is a Jew? How? And then Christians? How? All the prophets are Muslim."

"ok, and most of them are Jewish."

"no no no. Islam is the truth."

"Ok how do you know?"

"I know, believe me."

"But I could say the same about my religion."

"no you couldn't, yours is not a religion, and Islam is the only truth."

"A! It is a religion, just not yours."

"You can't come to Paradise. On the day of judgment you will see."

"ok"

Then A turns a little more sad and says: "Who will be with me in paradise? no one will be there, you and A and B and R will not be there. I will be all alone, what will I do?"

I remember thinking the same thing when I was younger. He is going through his own experience of the fact that there are other religions in the world that have good people following them. This is one part of maturity of faith and living that most Egyptians can avoid in current times by living within their own religious cliques. Its strange to see my friend going through this process that I went through in high school. I can see the anguish that he goes through because he truly loves people, and all people, and this makes it hard to hold onto hard-line doctrines that exclude those people.

The conversation ends with us agreeing that I will read the books if he will read the Bible, and the mutual agreement that if I were Muslim he'd marry me and if he were Christian I'd marry him, then him saying, "ok I'm Christian," and me laughing at the same time I was angrily sputtering that he just ruined everything he just said, haha.
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And its raining!!!! Praise be to GOD!

Muslim-Christian relations

So my new job is working for an organization which studies Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt. I am copy-editing countless articles going into the Arab West Report about this subject. It seems on one hand somewhat grim, with countless rumors being perpetuated throughout Egypt leading to violence or rumors of violence, leading to convictions that there is a religious battle going on leading to more violence. But at the same time, most Egyptians deny a problem in this area, saying that Muslims and Christians get along fine. However, most Egyptians means Muslims. Almost all Christians will tell you there is some sort of strife between the two religious groups. However, peace, forgiveness, and sound judgment of incidents in Egypt is being called for by almost all Egyptians.

Here's part of of the translation / summary of one of my favorite articles I edited, highlighting some of the issues surrounding conversion in Egypt, that is also pretty funny:

"Hishām Nājī Nazīr had filed a lawsuit before the Administrative Court, demanding cancellation of the decision of his conversion to Islam. He mentioned that he had a disagreement with his wife and that he threatened her that he would convert to Islam. The same day, he went to the fatwa committee of the Azhar and he found himself receiving a certificate indicating that he had become a Muslim. Nazīr said that he is still Christian and goes to church.

Nazīr alleged that the declaration made that he had converted to Islam should be considered a misuse of power, as the fatwa committee did not ask him about the reasons for his conversion. Also, no medical investigations were performed to investigate if he was drunk. Nazīr said that Article 49 of the State Council Law 47 of 1972 stipulates that the court may rule cancellation..."

Also on this subject, a recent somewhat discouraging conversation I've had:

This girl says she can tell by looking at someone that they are ugly and without peace, and therefore they are Muslim. All of them are bad, she says. “All of them?” I ask incredulously. Yes, she confirms, all Muslims are bad. They take girls. Muslim boys are paid by Sheiks to take Christian girls. "The ones with the beards", they’ll pay five thousand pounds and tell you are very clever if you take a Christian girl. I somehow doubt this is true.

“This happens a lot?” I ask

“Yes a lot” she says.

I remember studying this phenomenon in Anthropology of Religion class. The Satanic Panic of the 80s was like this, pagans supposedly taking all the children and brainwashing them. Before that, Christians alleged that Jews were taking their children and eating them, sucking their blood for sacrifice. And yet do these stories do well by children? To keep them thinking that their group of people is the best? That any other idea or group of people must be avoided because of the terrible danger they will be in otherwise. Perhaps the only way that parents can achieve this aim of isolation is by perpetuating, and believing themselves most likely, the rumors of things to be irrationally feared. Fear gives you an excuse, and consuming fear is the thing that could keep good people from making good progress. Fear is the most powerful tool for evil and for stagnancy that I have seen.

“There have to be good Muslims, right?” I ask, she answers that there are maybe a few, but very few. “Was it better before?” I ask, and she recounts what her parents have said about the time before her when there was no Net, no mobiles, and people were better towards each other. But Muslims weren't ever really that good. She agrees that people in Egypt say there is a lot of love between Muslims and Christians, but these are empty words, its not in their hearts.

This saddens me because I have seen a lot of love transcending religious lines in Egypt, and I have met beautiful, peaceful, loving people, Muslim and Christian. However, I am lucky. Because I am a foreigner I don't have the Egyptian predetermined categories or fears or prejudices that I have grown up with (although I have my own set), and I don't have a place in this society. This is when being a social floater is a good thing. I don't have to choose a side just yet.

University Life

I spent yesterday at Cairo University. I had a lunch date with my new friend from the metro who's a teaching assistant there, and was hoping to run into my other friend who was supposedly working there for the week. I walk over a couple bridges, and start down the long major street which ends with the main door of Gamaa al-Qahirah, the best University in Egypt.

As I start down the street, I notice about three of the armored police trucks. These trucks are slowly spitting out low-level police in black uniforms. As I continue down the street past this massive garden I think, geeze, maybe they're making the police clean up the garden because there's no other work, as I can see another legion or so meandering inside and outside the garden's fences.

As I continue farther down the street the trucks and the people inside the trucks are increasing in density. Its a little uncomfortable being the foreigner walking through what appears to be a military zone. However, I continue. I am about to cross the street to the University's main door and a block of police in full, black riot gear is right in front of me, and oh look, there's another. I walk between the two, find myself a place on a planter's wall, and wait.

I look up at the giant old archways and dome that is an institution of learning, I watch the colorfully clothed young people coming and going, laughing and scowling, alone and in groups, walking and in taxis and in minibuses. Ya there are probably 300 riot police across the street but hey, we're in college, and what do you expect in a police state.

My friend finds me (the only white person, and standing directly under a giant statue). The security demands of me "where are you going?" My escort says I'm her friend, we both smile, and we make it inside. I soak in the impressive architecture and the clean, paved paths and the groomed garden and the English and Arabic labeled direction signs This is a University. You can feel the newness of the school year in a little tiny crispness to the hot air, the eagerness of the students, and the beauty of the campus (evidently its not always this beautiful).

I ask my friend why all the police are here. She explains, "O there is a college here. All the men have what's the word again? (while motioning a pull on her chin) beards yes. And the women all cover themselves. They might make a problem."

I ask, "so the police are here every day?"

"No just at the beginning of the year. And they cannot come inside the University, absolutely not."

OK this seems strange even for Egypt. I learn later that the day before there had been a huge Muslim Brotherhood demonstration at the University. My other friend had been there that day, and booked it out of there ASAP.

So we make our way to the cafeteria, my friend is hungry. On the way, she points out all the booths for the student organizations who are recruiting for the new year. We make it to the cafeteria, order shistawook (chicken kabab) and batatas (potatoes), each of which come in a sandwich. I watch the old potato frier man joke around with some students. We get our food and sit on a bench in front of the tiny university mosque. My friend, I'll call her F, almost forgets to pray, again. Evidently I am a bad influence in the praying department, although this is the last thing I want.

We make our way up through the narrow hallways of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, this is her faculty, and the best department in the best university in Egypt. We make it to her office, she prays, she helps some evidently very confused students (that actually weren't even studying her field), then we make our way to a meeting. This meeting is a panel discussion of the Financial Crisis in America, which is now evidently the Global Financial Crisis, in Arabic. F wishes I knew more about this, or economics in general. I sit through two and a half hours, listening to an Economics lecture, in Arabic, in a very comfortable chair, close to falling asleep several times, but never quite there. I am in a University. The intellectual vibes are just seeping out of the walls. All the bright, motivated students. Young women in beautifully coordinated higabs and outfits, young men in glasses and high-waisted pants. All the ideas and theories floating around. F laments the fact that for the question and answer session they must listen to all the questions and then pretend to answer some instead of doing 1 question, then 1 answer like in America. She asks her own question, which even I can tell is extremely well-informed, detailed, and brilliant, and is so excited that someone answers, although she thinks their answer doesn't help at all.

After the meeting she apologizes for it being so boring, she gets me some nescafe and bake rolls, and we talk a while longer. Eventually I must leave, she walks me to the door. Now even more students are out, most of them sitting on the lawn. I think about how we used to study people in groups on the lawn in high school and middle school. She tells me about how she used to sit on the grass eating kosheri with her friends but now that she's a teacher she absolutely cannot eat kosheri or sit on the grass, everything must be sophisticated and serious, usually she doesn't eat at all. I see the young man sitting cross-legged strumming the guitar that you must see at every University, surrounded by his circle of admirers. And the sun is going down over the giant dome of Cairo University, and I leave this island of academics and hopeful youth. The University seems to be a universal. This is not where I belong anymore though, although sometimes I can fool myself for a few hours. I walk out the gate and make my way home. The police seem to have dissipated.

The Metro

The Metro and I have a love-hate relationship. It is my time to think and process what will happen and has happened during my day. 1 Egyptian pound to get to work every day, and almost anywhere else I need to go. It is my time to people watch, my window into Egyptian society. I can stand still and yet be speeding past palm trees and old buildings, open windows and marketplaces. It is an hour of being squished between sweaty, grumpy, shuffling fat women and sitting across from teenage girls who love to come up with oh so original ways to gossip and laugh about the foreigner. It is my time to relax in public in usually completely female company, reassured that most likely that hand that brushed up against my ass didn't mean anything, and if I accidentally am smiling it does not constitute a sexual invitation. And when a man does show up in the car, I get the satisfaction of seeing him publicly shamed by shouting, angry women defending their estrogen-saturated transportation. Ah the empowerment of women.

I now feel like I truly live in Cairo. This is in large part because I'm actually able to answer people's questions about the metro. I have now, in Arabic, successfully given a family directions to the metro and discussed with people the coming stops on the metro and when I and they are getting off.

I've met a new friend on the metro (she was reading a book in English and asked me about the meaning of some words). I've met a woman that had supposedly seen me before on the other side of town like two months ago, who kissed me and gave me a ring off her finger from her friends in Libya (which my roommate promptly made me return). I've been adopted by a massive family during the metro ride who shielded me with their bodies and then shoved me off the train.

I've given water to countless thirsty women and children who have no qualms about asking for water from a stranger. I've run into people I know in the metro, exchanging the customary kisses on the cheek (although I still haven't quite figured out when what number of kisses is appropriate, it seems to depend on the person). And now in shah Allah, this weekend I will have a metro pass! Good for unlimited rides for three months on the entire metro line that I ride. I am a local, it is settled, haha.

I love it and I hate it, but its the life blood of Cairo. The days when it breaks down, the commute triples in length, like that day that the I5 was shut down in San Diego. Anyone remember that? O the Metro.

The Church...continued

I am sitting outside the church with a baby in my arms. Her face is round, her eyes are closed now. She had been crying, I had been awkwardly trying to shift her and bounce her around like I’d seen mothers do, I think that was supposed to make them stop crying. But finally she cried herself out and now she lies in my arms, too tired and scared to be awake any longer.

And I pray with all my heart that somehow she is protected, that somehow that tiny round head won’t feel any more blows or shaking or fear, and won’t hear all the lies. That she will be safe enough to grow up and know truth. The power of innocence, moving us all to tears and utter desperation and deprivation. The power of innocence, breathing hiccupy breaths in her sleep, too small to struggle against my arms. And I love her with all my heart. I can’t help it, something this small is only made for love.

And this is the body of Christ. I, without even thinking about it, want to take this baby in my own arms so that her mother can take communion. Afterwards I think it’s because Gigi needs it and that’s what Christ would do right? look out for the spiritual well-being of his sister before his own. But at the time it wasn’t a thought, it wasn’t a need, it wasn’t my conscience, it was my arms thrusting out and grabbing this innocence. This innocence named Myrna that came from my sister, that is my sister. And this innocence was calm and beautiful, and then this innocence cried her little heart out in spasming sobs and my heart couldn’t help but spasm along with her.

And I try to cover her face, as I walk around the empty courtyard with small steps and small shifts of her position in my arms, as we make revolutions through darkness and garish orange and then soft white light. And as I step into another shadow, she can’t cry anymore. Her limp relaxing as her eyelids droop closed feels like a defeat, not a victory, and yet I rejoice that she can sleep in my arms, and that although she is scared, I couldn’t hurt her like her monster of a father, and that God cares for the oppressed and the fatherless. And this is my sister’s child, and my child also, there is no difference. For one of the few times in my life I can see the church, with this Egyptian baby, and it all seems clear, strangely because I am not taking communion.

Now silence. Then Gigi and Sara and Rebecca burst out of the church doors in the midst of the communion hymn, Gigi shuttles me in. Now I am kneeling before the altar with the body and blood of Christ dripping from my hands. Now I am sitting in the pew, in soft yellow light. Rebecca turns to me and says, “Gigi said she wants the numbers for the womens’ shelters.” Just like that. And one heart breaking smile grows across our faces.

Independence Day

So its the 6th of October. In 1973, Egypt pushed Israel and all its allies out of the Sinai, regaining it as their property. This is a national holiday, celebrating the strength of Israel. Last night, while being dragged around a friend of a friend of a friend's wedding by a friend of a friend who insisted on introducing me as his girlfriend, I observed a lovely wall statue of the Egyptian conquering soldier surrounded by fighter jets. Strong and pained and sacrificing. O Egypt, most important nation in the world with the best soldiers in the world as all Egyptians will tell you.

So today I feel free. I feel happy and I feel free, appropriately for this Independence Day. I woke up, I talked to this girl I met in the metro a few weeks ago. I walk to the zoo to meet her. I spend a lovely day with a huge chunk of the population of Cairo staring at animals and enjoying a national holiday. Being there with a very generous Egyptian girl was awesome. She bought my tickets, my water, even though she herself was fasting for the holiday, and discussed with me on any possible topic. She's an Economics TA so told me all about why America is having a financial crisis, she told me about her fellow TA that she is pining for and who she changed her higab style for but who is not giving her very good signals. She told me about how Muhammed the prophet says woman must wear a larger higab and skirts, but that she knows Christians can wear pants and what does the Bible say about this? She told me about Condoleeza Rice's report on religious freedom in Egypt, we talked about how we must remove the log from our own eye before removing the speck from our brother's. We talked about how Egyptians say "if God is willing" when they really mean no but don't want to be impolite. We talked about teaching, how easy and difficult it can be, and how I must visit one of her classes. How she was given a full scholarship for her masters at a top school in London but her mother made her turn it down because she won't let her travel even one night within Egypt, let alone abroad. And we took pictures with monkeys and bears and elephants and birds. We talked about peafowl. We talked about children and illiteracy and bad men.

Then she realized she forgot to pray, the zoo was closing, and so the day came to a close. I got 2 giant sweet potatoes from the sweet potato mobile oven cart (my favorite snack in the world), took them to the bridge and ate them while watching the sunset over the Nile: faint call to prayer from all sides, then lights coming on a few at a time, slight fog and fall breeze, and red green and white sail boats under me. Beautiful.

And I thought to myself, in the words of Keith Urban, "I'm young and I'm free, who wouldn't want to be." And I prayed and I realized, I am exactly the best place I could be, in the city I love, surrounded by great people in Cairo and back home and with my whole life ahead of me, in shah allah. I am free from whatever could hold me down (mainly myself), and not because I deserve it, but because I've been set free.

Things I wish you could see

So here are a few images from my last few days.

• Laying on cushions propped on the ground, being sprayed by the surf of the Red Sea, listening to Jack Johnson, looking across ridiculously clear turquoise water at Saudi Arabia, drinking iced coffee and eating a chocolate crepe.

• Defending the ongoing existence of my facial hair and chastity to my co-worker during an eight hour bus ride, in which my co-worker refused to believe that every American woman didn't have sex starting at age 14 with multiple people every night and that American woman were alright with having a little blond hair on their faces. As I've heard from a few people now in Egypt regarding my very blond, decidedly female sprinkling of hair on my upper lip, "Da wahish. Li ragala bas." / "this is ugly. For men only." But since last time I had it removed here (pulled out with a looped piece of thread), crying and wincing the whole while and afterwards feeling like my face's skin was grafted from a Seaworld manta ray, I will defend my ugly facial hair fiercely.

• watching the sunset over the mountains surrounding the Sinai peninsula

• being pinned down on a bed and force fed excessive amounts of thermus beans by a two year old and her grandmother, who thought my ability to have more and more of these in my mouth hilariously funny, while simultaneously feeling the need to yell habibti (beloved one) and slobber kiss me repetitively.
  

• making friends with random Korean girls. One who was making desperate gestures for me to trade seats with this man next to her and then when I obliged was very friendly out of some sort of deep gratitude and bond that came from saving us both from an overnight bus ride next to strange Egyptian men. The next, her friend, needed an English teacher and is coming to check out our school, its too bad I'm not paid on commission like the other guys. Unfortunately, these other guys, who were there, can't help but calling any Asian girl they see Eunice (in memory of our Korean American friend who was here earlier in the summer) or asking if she's related to Eunice or has the same last name. A little awkward.
  

• being chased by a galloping camel (that looks really funny) while shoved into the back of a jeep returning from our trip to the Blue Hole (one of the best snorkeling spots in the world) between four Egyptian men and my two roommates, conversing on the strangeness of camels' mouths in Arabic and American historical trivia in English.

• eating a Family Chicken Meal in Kentucky Fried Chicken in Cairo, commiserating as best as possible in Arabic with a sixteen year old Egyptian girl and her wishes and that her father would loosen up a little with this guy she likes, and can't help liking even though he's not quite the most respectable (i.e. he only calls her and leaves missed calls, never actually comes to talk to her parents or even talks to them on the phone AND his parents refused to let him get engaged).
  

So I was in Dahab this weekend where relaxing is everything, laying on cushions and the beach, dress code anything you want. Now I am back in Cairo and it is impossible to fathom these two places are in the same country. Relaxing is not really possible here, and so everyone has to be laid back just to stay at a tolerable level of sanity. Cairo Habibi. (my beloved). We have such a love hate relationship, but she's pretty deeply imbedded in my soul now it seems.

The Function of Bodily Functions

As it turns out, we have a little garden club at work that consists of four of us young people. Discussion involves: "Why does Israel kill children?" "How can you think that Jesus drank wine?" "Music is the sound of Satan." "If you steal my brother's land I must defend him" And various other weird political and religious and personal topics.

So you have these intense topics of discussion and moments of political and religious tension, but that is not why I'm here. I am chilling in the Middle East for awhile mostly to work on humanizing the demonized. I lose a little hope in this endeavor when I hear my friend say that he was happy 9-11 happened because it wasn't people who died, but Americans, however much he says he's joking, or when my Muslim Egyptian co-workers all think its hilarious to pull a knife out of the kitchen and ululate while mock slitting the throat of my co-teacher. At these points I kinda can't help but laugh, but I also can't help but be a little concerned for the future of this world. I am once again reminded that while everyone seems to value peace, it doesn't just happen, the practice of it requires intense mental and spiritual strength, and some very personal need to see peace, there must be people and relationships and love involved for it to be pursued. And when these personal bonds are in place, the pursuit is still a very long, rocky, risky road to travel with your enemies.

But why I am here is to look at similarities, to look at humanity across the supposedly insurmountable divides of culture and religion, and to see something and to show something universal. I see this in humor, and the way that everyone laughs at a joke. I see this in the way that mothers carry around their babies and kiss them on the head, the way that fathers proudly walk their daughters around from age 3 - 23. I see this in the way that women are almost sleeping on their feet in the metro after a long day of work. I see it in the school girls giggling together about some new music, about the strange foreigner on the train, or about a cute boy. However, there is one way of humanizing others that never fails.

Have you ever wondered why exactly God created farts? or burps? or hiccups? What function could they possibly serve besides smelliness, discomfort, and embarrassment? I can tell you that I have never been more aware of the common bonds of the human race as when I hear an Egyptian woman fart, then see her subtly look around hoping that no one heard. Or when a burp bubbles up from an Egyptian man's stomach after a hastily consumed Iftar, only to be released right in your ear. Or perhaps when trying to explain what the word hiccups means to a Level 7 grammar class by demonstrating, resulting in the entire class of young Egyptian women in headscarves, a teenage boy, and an older man, crying from laughing so hard. Or when an Egyptian co-worker asks if you can smell what he did in the bathroom, with a mischevious little grin. In light of this, bodily functions like this, while usually thought of as unseemly, in my opinion are some of the most ingenious and beautiful parts of creation.

You who know me will find this hilarious I'm sure.

Oh and P.S. I have a new job / internship. I will be working for the Arab West Foundation

http://www.arabwestfoundation.com/

doing copy-editing and setting up an NGO in the US for this Dutch organization working on promoting understanding between Western and Arab and Muslim and Non-Muslim societies. O I can't get away from the Dutch mafia, however much I try. But I am super excited. I start after Aied.

Disappointment, Frustration, Conflict, Honesty, Belonging

So this week has been pretty major. I've been balancing out the parts of my personality and trying to get to a life that I feel is truly mine. This week I decided to stop being friends with my friends from work because of their sketchiness and damage to my reputation and not exactly trustworthiness. So I had this talk with my co-worker about how I wanted to live my life in a straight line, he lived his life in a crazy curvy zig zag pattern so we couldn't really be good friends. I finally got this slightly self-righteous point across when he broke it all down by saying, "ok no problem, you are the metro (going straight), I am a minibus (going all over the city), I will meet you at Ramses (square downtown where all the minibuses and the metro go)." Hahaha!

So I got a new job, working as a copy-editor and setting up an NGO in the U.S. I cut down my hours at my teaching job. I reconciled with my friends from work again, realizing that we loved each other too much, my issues with them had something to do with what time of the month it was and other people's judgments, not my own, and since when do I get rid of friends or decide to avoid someone based on my reputation or their sketchiness in the eyes of society? As Alissa indirectly reminded me, "that's un-Biblical." I would even say, anti-Biblical. Luckily they easily forgave me without me even asking.

So anyway, sitting in our lighted garden at work during Iftar break after downing my pomegranate seed juice with the guys at work, I confessed the fact that I took a new job and was cutting down my hours at our center. An awkward silence settled, you could hear the wind in the small trees behind us. One understood my reasons, the other was being passive aggressive, "whatever you like Miss Kristin" and called me out on being selfish while pretending I'm not. And then it comes out, one is leaving at the end of the month, the other will leave then too. Then my co-teacher comes outside and makes his own personal confession. So then we all of a sudden know that this is over soon. All of a sudden honesty and affection and disappointment and impending change are all out floating around us, and savoring this moment, sitting in this garden together, becomes very important, and the humid air seems thicker. My co-worker gets the Qur'an and recites to us the Sura of Mariam (Mary, mother of Jesus). I could sit and listen for hours to the sound of the Qur'an being recited (which is a good thing because I hear it several hours of the day here, from our neighborhood mosque, from radios in every store, home, and taxi, and from the pious Muslims around me). I make some after Iftar tea. The guys "drink" a couple cigarettes (that's how it translates from Arabic), we breath in the heavy air.

Last night the guys, my co-teacher, and I got to have restaurant Iftar because our resident cook went home to eat with his wife. We take a taxi to Mo'men (an American style fast food restaurant, the name means "very good Muslim," which is why me and my co-teacher couldn't work there, haha) We order our food right before sunset and the crowd kept amassing. We get our food about 15 minutes after Iftar and eat out on a planter outside. Mmmm. My first fast food Iftar, thoroughly satisfying, and thoroughly strange culture clash. Came back to the center and I went out shopping. One of the guys went looking for me because I was gone so long he thought I was lost. I bought everyone some sweet potatoes.

Later last night I make my way to Masaara to see my family. I brought them some figs and I finally got to hear what is up with their sister in law. The father told us never to go upstairs where the sister-in-law lives. I found out why from the women. She doesn't like us being around for various reasons having to do with reputation, time, envy, and money. She was also bribed by a cousin to convince her sister-in-law to marry him, at age 16. I knew at some point that we must be a burden to this family, but it saddened me to hear this. On the bright side I heard about the family's approval of Alissa's friend as her husband and the story of the father and mother in the beginning. I also got to hear about how the family thought I was very shy and quiet and slightly unfriendly at first but now I am much much better. This morning Julianna, Gigi and I went to church at this church / monastery on the Nile. I successfully handled money changing in the mini-bus since I was next to the driver even though Gigi was convinced I couldn't.

Tonight my host family couldn't have me over for Iftar because the Mom and middle brother were involved in some kind of extended duel with their uncle in their village so Rebecca and I headed out for a nice dinner. On the way back on the metro, we must have hit the last train of the night because the thing was packed to the people bouncing off point. Luckily I was squished in the corner in the middle of this very funny, very happy, very big Muslim family. I asked them where they were getting off, we struck up a little conversation, they said I must live here because my arabic accent was so good (haha, very funny, but much appreciated), and then when my stop came up they successfully shoved me through the crowd to the door on the other side. Rebecca and I finally pretty much fell out of the metro as if we were coming home from a long night of drinking because of the sheer pressure built up inside that metro car. I get to the exit turnstile, put my ticket in and it won't let me through. Now this happens to me ALL THE TIME and I am no longer amused. I start mildly cursing / hitting the machine and jump over the turnstile. This is a pretty common Egyptian way to get away with not paying for the metro. The metro guy comes out of his office and yells at me. I throw up my hands, Rebecca's ticket in one, my ticket in the other in exasperation and yell, "feeh itneen!" (there are two!) "maksoor!" (its broken!) He smiles and waves me on. I walk out the door and all of a sudden I can't believe I just did that, cavalierly yelled at the Metro monitor man in Arabic after jumping over the turnstile. I'm toughening up and my temper is shortening.

So I have started to feel that I belong here, I have roots here. People are being more honest with me, I'm being more honest with people. This honesty is often the painful kind involving hurt and disappointment, but this seems to be necessary to be part of life and to have any kind of real relationship. You can't be part of life anywhere without experiencing a large share of hurt and disappointment it seems. The pain and frustration almost makes it real. It hurts to hear that our sister-in-law doesn't like us around. I hurt others by saying that I'm leaving and their life is not correct. Others hurt me by not following through on their promises and not meeting my expectations. So we have the point in life that conflict arises and then we have the point in life that the opportunity for honesty arises, and then the point where we move past it all together. Laazim (we must).

The First Day of School

So yesterday was the first day of school and university here. This means the metro is crazy as heck. Now usually I am squished between women in pretty tight quarters on my way to work, but yesterday I attempted several times to even get inside the metro car and just bounced back off the mass of females and had to wiggle my way into the next train. Yaksarra (what a pity).

The school children where uniforms here. This involves usually blue button down shirts or white button down shirts with navy blue long skirts for the girls. The shirts and skirts all can have a little variety, maybe a little embriodery here, a little number there, a little buckle on your hip. And then of course the girls get to decide on their choice of tastefully matching head scarf. This was probably one of the most adorable things I have ever seen, despite it being hot, crowded, and everyone being grumpy.

In my C5 class we talked about how "cute" the kids in their uniforms are and compared our experiences of school uniforms and uniform violations. I regaled them with my stories of plaid pleated miniskirts (how this was condoned by a school was beyond them, especially a religious school) and taught them the term detention, while telling them how I managed to get detention for a straight month in eight grade. We commiserated about getting in trouble for wearing a non-uniform jacket when its cold in the winter and about little ways to make yourself look different while wearing a uniform, and having to wash them so often (or if you're me or some of my friends just not washing them and keeping your plaid pleated miniskirt in the trunk of your car to put on over your pajamas in the school parking lot). Haha. Anyway, for one of the first times I was truly glad I had had a school uniform and could share this experience.

And now the year begins in earnest...

What is Egypt?

So this weekend, as almost every day, I ponder, "what is Egypt?"

A general disorganization, a pervasive apathetic laziness, a warm welcome, force-feeding, an elitist attitude, a hopeless attitude, a trust-in God attitude, a street brawl, the people who intervene to stop the street brawl, a ridiculous multitude of cats, the most ambitious people in the world, a giant problem composed of a million little problems, sheep grazing in the garbage piles, a display of religious piety, double standards and hypocrisy underlying it, a world drenched in sugar and honey and diabetes, a giant family composed of multiple little families, a network of gifts and favors, vanity, modesty, tight clothes with headscarves, the place where the world began, an obsession with color, an imitation of western culture, a staunch pride in Egyptian culture, a rich elitist separatism, a poor desperate separation, a propensity for gossip, a protection of what is private life while appearing completely open.

I have no idea. One thing I know is that Egypt, as in life in general, but perhaps more than most places, is full of ridiculous contradictions. Teaching my students oxymorons was quite an easy task, Egyptian arabic is full of them. My favorite Egyptian Arabic phrase is Mushkilla Lazeeza (delicious problem). I learned this phrase when my co-worker told me with a mischevious grin that Alissa and I were a mushkilla lazeeza. I like that. When Gigi was complaining over how much her new baby was a problem because she cried all the time and never let her sleep, I reminded her she was a mushkilla lazeeza, she smiles and kisses Myrna on the head. As I've written before, this baby has caused immense difficulty for this family, and especially Gigi (for this child's sake she has had to stay with her abusive husband and now go back to live with him), but its all worth it, this child is beloved. Mushkilla lazeeza.


This weekend I found myself caught between Egyptian worlds again. Thursday night I filled in as substitute wingwoman for my roommate who found herself attending an Iftar with this perhaps too interested male co-worker for the sake of talking to his grandmother. I couldn't miss this. This home involves pueblo style architecture and the grandmother is fluent in Spanish! She showed us her Qur'an that she personally wrote and decorated in Spanish from hearing the Qur'an recited in Arabic. Weirdest experience ever to be downing pomegranate juice, talking over fish names and American politics with this old woman in Spanish! (I didn't know how much I knew)

Maasara, where I saw a dog carrying around a dead cat (Julianna: "its the circle of life"), said goodbye to my sister maybe for a very long time because she is being forced to return to her monster of a husband, heard about the men vying for my sixteen year old sister as their wife, and was given an excellent hair cut and curl styling as well as a jelly jar full of tea.

The weirdest thing ever was experiencing the "house party circuit" of Cairo. I was on a houseboat on the Nile, listening to American pop music, candles burning, all speaking in English, watching people drink beer (delivered for a fee) and hip hop dancing, even some mild grinding. Besides the mild rocking of the house boat and the fact that the people were mostly Egyptian and I was able to sit on a railing and look out on the freakin Nile, it was like being back in college, exactly. I found myself sociologically studying this phenomenon while I was there, as I often do when I find something strange, and conducting qualitative and quantitative studies in my head. I started interviewing these upper class Egyptian guys about how this house party thing works. Evidently its kind of like a cultural event / club. Everyone knows each other and they send out word about these American style imitation parties through text messages. One guy said that he got involved through his friend and now he goes like every week. The house boats are a prime location for this. Now in my over-simplified mind, Egyptians live with their families, they don't drink because its forbidden in he Qur'an (which during Ramadan has a little more credibility), and they don't socialize this way. This world should not exist in the Egypt in my mind, but it exists! Everything exists here evidently, o the contradictions.

And then last night I went to see my host family. This family is a ridiculously welcoming, sort of conservative but not at all legalistic family. I love them to death, also because each personality is so different. Let me describe them: The father is dead since a little before I met this family, but I hear about his integrity and sense of humor and love for his family and neighborhood all the time. The mother is laughing all the time. She loves to spend her time cooking in the house and standing on her balcony looking out on the neighborhood, saying hello to everyone, taking care of the widowed woman who lives alone in the apartment with the balcony directly across from her. She knows everyone on thes street, says they are all good people, Muslim and Christian. Last night she was on her way to a funeral for her Christian neighbor at the church. The oldest brother, works in a bank and feels guilty about the whole charging interest thing that banks do because its forbidden in the Qur'an, but not guilty enough to give up his job that he loves. He is the head of the family now without his father there but he hates his neighborhood and wants to live where it is quiet. He loves his family immensely, but thinks his youngest brother is the only one with a really good mind. The sister is hilariously funny, loves to make fun of everyone while simultaneously displaying her love for you. She was engaged a while ago but the man was bad so she broke it off. She's also mellowed considerably in the last two years, her brothers love to beat on her. The middle brother is three months younger than me. He is the reckless rebel of the family. He works as a bartender and loves it. He is out with his friends all the time, but thought that it was good advice from me not to put that on his resume. He recently asked a girl to marry him but his mother and older brother would not go to talk to the girl's family and so he is stuck. He's throwing me a birthday party next week (birthdays last forever here it seems) and he will finish tour guide school in October. The youngest brother is probably one of my favorite people in the world. He's 14, but small for his age. He stays home most of the time, and is very close with his mother. He is very good at English already. He had heart surgery when he was a baby and his mother constantly reminds him to be careful. He has absolutely no problem blatantly making fun of me (my Arabic pronunciation, grammar and spelling, my hand writing "this is very bad", my soccer skills, my earrings "why do you have plants on your earrings? that is ugly,") while obviously still enjoying my company and this makes me happy and comfortable and laugh more than anything. We speak the same language on many fronts (English/Arabic and making fun of each other).

So from simultaneously watching the falucas ride by on the Nile and people consuming alcoholic beverages while discussing my Arabic name (which is now Salma, which means peace) to discussing funeral happenings, market locations, and fashionable headscarves overlooking the small alleyway in Embaba with my Mama and her neighbor, I have no freakin clue what Egypt is, and maybe its time I stopped trying. Oversimplification is something I hated about academia, MESP, and is a major but I guess necessary weakness of sociology. May I not cheapen humanity by categorizing.