A sinking feeling

It's a sinking feeling to know that your home has been attacked. I was about to head from a restaurant to Hurreya (the bar I mentioned in my previous post) not to drink but to socialize and people watch, when my roommate R gets a call, she puts her head down and starts saying, "O my gosh."

She looks up and tells us. "A bomb went off in the Khan el Khalili."

Bombs don't happen here. Not in a long time. Look through my pictures on facebook, the Khan el Khalili features prominently. We went after work almost every week the first few months I was here, I've gone there to personally shop, got lost in the alleyways, taken all my friends who have visited to see it, see the huge, old beautiful mosque there.

My stomach starts sinking and we start walking faster and faster home. Suddenly the streets that have absorbed me as a member of this society seem a bit hostile and scary, as they never have before.

We get home and read a little more. It turns out that two people in full woman's Islamic dress threw something like a hand grenade near a hotel and mosque and the market. 1 French woman is dead, French, Germans, and Egyptians are wounded (around 17 people I think). Check out NY Times, its on there.

Anyway, I went down to get ice cream to calm all our nerves and had a talk with my buddy the supermarket man. He was watching the news on TV. I could hear certain words like "bomb", "mosque", "hotel" and "America", "Iraq." The screen alternated between the throngs of people and the cordoned off areas next to Hussein mosque and ambulance lights, and the political analysts in a well-furnished room talking about why. Who the hell knows why? Evidently something about America and Iraq.

Grocery store man has a very rare stony expression. He tells me, "I'm sorry," informs me how it happened and draws me a diagram, makes sure I've called my mother to tell her I'm ok. He says he's very upset. We talked about how it was next to a mosque, how can they do that?

And the jittery feeling is starting to ware off (maybe the ice cream helped) but I am angry and I'm sad. How could people do something like that? It helps no one. People are dead, the economy (about 75% based on tourism) of Egypt will be severely hurt, and a kind of depressive fear has settled over this city, and now how will I convince all the already prejudiced people that Egypt and the Middle East are full of nice, welcoming, non-violent people. Although ya, as my friend M pointed out, much more people die in drive by shootings in Chicago probably in a month than have ever died in terrorist attacks in Egypt, that is not going to matter to the majority of people. A bomb is a bomb and somehow much scarier and much worse and much more memorable. And we have to keep on living as if it doesn't matter, kicking at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

Hurreya

Hurreya means freedom. It is the name of one of the only Egyptian bars here in Cairo (cheap Egyptian beer, tea with crusty spoons, moldy-looking walls and open windows and always crowded). Hurreya is something I have thought and talked about a lot here. Its somehow probably the thing I love the most and miss the most here. I have the freedom that comes with being so far from home and not even knowing how to conform even if I wanted to, but I also have less freedom that comes with the society in general and my own very visible place as a representative of my country and religion.

------------------------

My friend O asks me, "Its true that everyone in the U.S. must have sex by the time they're 15 right?"

Me: "Um no O, you don't have to, its your choice. That's the idea in the U.S., you have freedom."

O: "O FREEdom, yes, haha" (evidently its a funny idea of us Americans)

--------------------------

My friend F: "Its ok for girls and boys to do really anything in America right?"

me: "well it depends, but usually yes, its the choice of the boy and girl what they do."

F: "So the society doesn't have morals. There are no morals. What do you think is better, Egypt or America?"

me: "well, I think ya maybe the morals of America are bad, but I think if you choose to be good, and its not because you have to do something, that means you're really good. I think this is good, to have the choice."

F: "Hmm I think maybe you're right, if you choose to be good when you have freedom, you are better, but still, many people don't choose good if they don't have to."

-------------------------

Me: "I can't believe that woman on the beach! She was practically naked and that random guy was giving her a massage and they were like making out in public. She ruined right there any progress I've made in convincing people foreigners aren't all sluts."

My brother: "Kirsten, you can't judge her like that, she should be able to do whatever she wants to do without people passing judgment on her."

My mom: "Kirsten, what happened to you? You never would have said that when you were in highschool."

-----------------------

My Egyptian mama: "Egypt is better than America because here boys and girls can't just walk around together. If they want to be together they love each other and they get married. This is right."

Me: "they can't be just friends?"

mama: "no, not close friends. Maybe see each other in church or something, but you can't just go around together. In America this is normal right?"

me: "yes its normal."

mama: "boys and girls can do anything without marriage."

me: "well it depends. People who are very religious say no. But it has to be inside your heart, not the government or people in the street telling you what to do. There is more freedom (feeh hurreya akhtar)."

mama: "America is unlike Egypt completely."

me: "yes, very different."

mama: "Egypt is much better, people are good here."

--------------------------------------

This weekend started off with a foggy Thursday morning. You know those days when everyone's a little subdued, everything's a little quieter because this kind of dense cloud has descended, and its kinda exciting almost. Especially here where every day is sun in the desert, fog is cause for celebration.

So anyway, I'm walking down the alleyway to the metro, past the duck cages and kleenex vending women with their babies and the vegetable stands and the house where the crazy man sometimes yells as me in Italian in this foggy calm and I come to the major cross street and I look up at the foggy sky above the buildings and I suddenly feel that I am not being pushed around by rushing time and circumstances, but that this world is open. I'm not trapped underground but free to wander or march or walk where I please at whatever speed under an endless universe.

Its strange that this sense of freedom comes along with my current state of having absolutely no money and the restrictions that that brings. Now I've always been bad with money, but I've always been rich at the same time. In that sense I mean I have never really felt like I missed out on anything because of money. Yes, I'm kinda spoiled. Now, however, with no daddy to call when I mess up and a struggling non-profit salary that really does not provide for luxuries, I don't have these options. If I buy a coat, I don't get to go out for dinner. If I go out to dinner, I don't get to go out next week, things like this.

Currently I have budgeted for myself less than $1 / day to get me through the month. This means I am taking up the Egyptian practice of sneaking two people out of the metro on one ticket (to save 15 cents or so), not being able to drink anything but water, I am not even able to help anyone who asks me for money, and waiting for two hours for my friend so that she can pay for our taxi home.

During these two hours of waiting I sat along a wall alongside the Nile because paying for a drink in a cafe was definitely out of the question. I watched the rich Egyptians on the sunset dinner cruise yachts go by. I was thinking, hey I used to be like that, private yacht parties, private beaches, things of this nature that go along with prep schools in southern california. However, with all these "opportunities" and conveniences that seem to be taken from me now that I don't have money flying around me, there comes a certain freedom. I am free to sit in the sun on the edge of the Nile and not worry about what people are thinking, because really I don't have a choice. And really, the sun and the Nile with my feet dangling over the wall, listening to the mingling music from the falucas makes me happier than the stuffy cafes with overpriced cappucinos and elevator music any day. Even when teenagers somehow managed to dangle over the bridge directly above me to hiss and yell at me about what I'm writing, even then.

So anyway, hurreya, its a great word, and these are my thoughts.

amusing

I was crossing the crowded Qasr el Aini highway near my house with my roommates, on the way to church. We sort of gaged the fact that a horse cart was crossing the highway behind us and the cars rushing towards us, picked up the pace a little and my roommate A barely missed being hit by the cart. While we emerge safely on the other side of the road, we hear a "BABOOMP BABOOM BOOM!", followed by collective sounds of surprise from the hundreds of men sitting around on the street. We all turn to look behind us only to see a horse, legs flailing in the air, on top of the hood of a car. We collectively draw in a shocked breath, before we can exhale, the horse is on its feet and cantering the rest of the way across the street... And the whole street breaths a sigh of relief and laughs at the same time. Yep, that is my first witnessing of a horse-car collision.

Humanity

I spent my first few months here observing the differences between America and Egypt, being amazed at things I would absolutely never see back home. I was particularly prone to thinking of all the ways that Egypt was better than America, partly because it really is an amazing place, but also partly because I was trying to remind myself why I traded home for this craziness.

Now that I've been here awhile, I guess that I'm not seeing things as strange anymore, as I said in my last blog, the romanticism is gone, everything seems so freakin' normal now. I guess this is good. One thing that it has allowed is my finer perceptions to come out. Another thing it has allowed is me getting the urge that its time to move on again. When things start to get boring or difficult and I start putting down roots, my instinct is to leave. Fortunately, I don't have the money for that to be an option, for once in my life. So I'm here for another three months, despite my instincts to cut and run.

Another thing that this has allowed is me to start to see the similarities, the universals, that pervade cultures and places on this earth. Seeing these similarities has sometimes made me so ridiculously happy to be a human being at times, and at other times, particularly recently, made me angry and depressed.

For instance:

1. All human societies set up some sort of hierarchy, some sort of way that certain groups are higher than others (in America and even more so in Egypt, its all about class, with other hierarchies thrown in). Everyone fights for the top positions (to stay or to get there) and everyone avoids getting to know people in other groups too well because then it would be more and more impossible to keep fighting without sullying your conscience. Every society has rich people and poor people ghettos, so that rich people can keep themselves and those under them believing that they are normal, that there is nothing else to see in life but how they live.

Today I left Maasara, a crowded, noisy, lower class area with trash mountains in the dirt streets and I entered Maadi, the rich, foreign enclave suburb of Cairo. It was beautiful, green trees, mansions, sprinklers, birds chirping, quiet. I loved it. The occassional begger broke my seemingly heavenly world outside of Cairo and I was glad I left my wallet behind so that I had nothing to give and therefore didn't have to feel guilty about refusing. When I started to walk to the edge or caught a taxi out of this area, I sighed in sadness that the trash and poverty and face of normal Cairo were showing once again. I say that I hate the class system, the isolation of the rich from the rest of the world, and yet this is how I think, how I act, what I appreciate. How depressing.

2. People are afraid so they protect themselves and those they love from exploring. Why does this so often seem to be the overtly religious people too? Is it that these people are scared that they are wrong, that God really doesn't exist the way they think he does, that he's really not that powerful and true and so therefore they make a big show to convince themselves and others of the truth of their statements, and then go about protecting themselves and others they love from anything that might challenge their fragile faith?

My sister here burst into tears spontaneously today and I could only figure that it had something to do with being trapped in her house, not allowed to walk to streets, have any communication with the opposite gender, ever oppose her family or disobey an order. I wanted to cry with her. Then I tell my Egyptian mother and father that I can't come next week because I'm going to the Cinema with friends from work. Father says: "who, are they girls or boys?" in such an insistent way that I just say girls, even though I'm really not sure of the gender make-up of the group. He nods his head and says yes. Mother says: "Jesus will be angry at you for going to the cinema."
WHAT?! I ask,"why?" She says, "because." I inquire, "because of the film or the cinema?" She tells me both. At this point I just am itching to fight. But at least I can fight, and I don't have to listen to these things, for my sister, this kind of thinking is her reality, and I can see her not liking it.

Why is it that my Muslim friend here is told by several of her friends that she should stay away from me because I'm a Christian and I'll try to convert her. I won't, but even if I was trying, so what? If you really believe your faith, people with other ideas and opening yourself up to see the world can only strengthen it. A pursuit of the truth will unveil truth. God's truths should be stronger than the worlds' lies.

3. People judge people artificially. We look at a person's skin, the sound of their voice, the place that they live, the tightness of their clothes, the group they belong to, and the money they make and we categorize them. We fit things into boxes, that's how our brain works, so we fit people into boxes for reality to make sense.

4. Injustice. Life just isn't fair. Life is fraught with double standards, hypocrisy, betrayal, prejudice, inequalities and the like. I, as an upper class, well-educated American citizen, have seemingly everything. I have freedom to go almost anywhere in the world, get a good job, be respected and well-fed, live according to the moral standards and faith that I choose. These things are categorically denied to most of the world, for example.

But then I look at this and see the other side of the coin. Humanity, along with acting and thinking and living unjustly, also shares a sense of justice, and an idea that it should be pursued, that its the way things should be. We share love, we share humor, and we share beauty and the acknowledgment of beauty in a deeper way, and although we are often selfish, we also sometimes act with self-sacrifice. And so perhaps there's hope for us that we can someday live not like this.