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.