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!