The worst days yet + death and dying

Ok so to counter the last entry...

The last couple days have been the worst ever. Yesterday I was sick, had terrible chills in a ridiculously air conditioned work place, wasn't able to eat much, had to teach eight hours straight yesterday, had a little bratty snot-nosed kid in my last class of the night who told me I reminded him of legally blond and one of the four teachers at our school quit with no notice, leaving us having to deal with her students. But on the bright side (probably the only way I made it through the day), Egyptians love to give gifts, and were feeling especially generous, they must've known. So one of my favorite students gave me a peice of candy, Mr. Arabee who runs the kitchen at work, gave me an instant coffee packet and told me how to make it (usually this is 2 lbs) and wrapped up my extra food for me. The guy who runs the snack stand next to our metro stop gave me my chocolate bar, knock off oreos and water for free, and so I survived.

Today, I'm still sick, its one of the hottest, sunniest days yet, I heard the ridiculously sad story of my sister here being beaten by two husbands in a row, the first time to the point where she was unable to speak for six months and the second time starved and beaten so that she wouldn't have a child, and yet she still needs to spend time with her husband so that he will sign the birth certificate for her child (you need this in Egypt). Then left for work and the metro wasn't working. I waited a half hour at our stop then shoved my way on the ridiculously overcrowded ridiculously slow train. I don't think anyone understands quite the resemblance to a cattle car that these train cars have when crowded, like squished up against each other, smelling each other's head scarves, ten hands on the same pole kind of thing. I was on there for an hour, my sight blurred into light like three times so I couldn't see what stop I was at, and I had to crouch on the ground between the massive bodies of robed, smelly women who seemed perfectly content chatting away with each other in this situation. The worst part was stopping between stops (no breeze, doors closed, small crowded entrapped space, which is my biggest fear and like clinically makes me sick). Like an hour later I fell out of the door amidst shoving at my stop and sat on the ground for like 10 minutes, at this point I'm an hour late for work. Oh fun. Now I'm doing alright, got some cookies from another one of my favorite vendors who waves at me everyday and tries to talk to me. I'm sure I looked like a ghost, but still he was excited to see me. So I bought the cookies, ate half, and then still passed them off as birthday cake for my coworker since I forgot his birthday yesterday, we sang happy birthday and pretended a pen was a candle, great.

So on to death and dying meditations.

I was suddenly aware a few days ago that people must die here. I heard intense wailing, the kind where someone must've died coming from a house on our street, and saw a woman sadly close the window shade. I all of a sudden thought, as much as I've romanticized this place, people die and are dieing, and then what happens? People here are so attached to each other, our younger sister here is crying that we're moving across town after she's known us three weeks. What if someone in their family died? Life expectancy can't be so good in Egypt as America, and the population density is much higher, how many people must be dying in just my neighborhood in one day? or one week? I knew that there was the everyday tragedies of poverty, sickness, and boredom, but for some reason I forgot about death, although I've heard about people who have died all the time. Maybe its just too overwhelming to think about.

Ok that's all.