Beni Suef

I just had one of the best weekends and best vacations of my life. Now, you might say this is strange considering I'm living in Egypt, and considering all travel books and resources will inform you that the only reason to be in Beni Suef is to be en route to somewhere more interesting, but this weekend feels like the first adventure I've had in a long time. It was also the first time I've felt completely taken care of and relaxed in that knowledge since I came to this country. Independence has its joys, but dependence does as well, especially when you've been running on independence for months.

My roommate J and I discovered that to get to Beni Suef to visit our friends we could catch a bus from Moneeb, the end of the Giza metro line. We get there and find a bus station, which evidently is not what we want, we walk up and down a line of about 50 microbuses yelling at us and finally find out we need to walk all the way down the street to the station under the bridge. We get there and ask about tickets from a smart-ass ticket man who tells us tickets are 7, except for us its 10. I guess at least he's honest that he's overcharging the foreigner, but then, in response to our inquiries as to why, he answers the Egyptian equivalent of "because I said so," multiple times. Ick. 2 hours later, after finally paying the foreigner price and waiting for the bus to fill up, we make our way to Beni Suef, past green field after green field that J is begging to roll in, trucks stacked full of garlic and water buffalo.

We disembark one stop too early at the Beni Suef zoo and the guys come pick us up. We head to the best restaurant in town, and then the club on the Nile (where the taxi driver argues with our friend M about him wanting to be dropped off in front of a hospital). We sit next to the Nile and look across at the green fields and the monastery where we're gonna be staying, and we just sit and talk for hours, far away from all our stressers.

Next we head to a youth meeting at the new, beautiful, gigantic church. Youth meaning our age. We face the wall with everyone as they pray, they sing chanting hymns while we try to read the hymnal in arabic, and then we come to a bible lesson and then the real lesson, the title is "sexual culture." I'm excited. The woman presenting really mostly just describes child development through adolescence. There is a brief detour into sex changes and homosexuality and people who feel like they were born the wrong gender. Evidently all these things are the same problem, and the fault of parents who don't indoctrinate their children with quite enough gender stereotypes. And now that the newest science has discovered that homosexuality is a mental disease... Wow, so I did not agree with most of what was being said (with the exception of giving ur adolescent children some privacy is a good idea), but it was freakin interesting, and I loved how these women were free to challenge the authority and discuss these issues at this meeting. They voted to continue the sexual culture topic and I really want to go back.

Then we got to look around the new cathedral. Its half built, with only stained glass windows and the dome in place, but standing in the middle of it in the dark was beautiful, and exciting. Maybe partly because this amazing church is in the process of being built, and maybe because I was in this half built church in this random Egyptian town with good friends.

We then made our way to the monastery where we were staying. We are driving literally through the middle of nowhere where our taxi driver is telling our friend about how he loves a Christian girl but her church father told her that she needs to move to America to marry him. Then we get out, M asks taxi driver to wait (and God preserve you, you are honey!), we go in, finally get the father to approve a room for us, and we find our room with a balcony overlooking green fields, crickets, palm trees swaying in the breeze, and lit up mosques in the distance. The most beautiful sight I've seen in a long time. I sit for probably an hour writing and just taking it in. I sleep as close to the window as possible to hear the crickets. Unfortunately that meant that when the deafening dawn prayer was called throughout all of Beni Suef, I was definitely awake, although so was J. Evidently this is why M wears ear plugs every night.

In the morning I spent some more time on the balcony, this time watching the farmers and their donkey carts and buffaloes go by. J and I head out for a walk, we walk down through the fields and buffaloes and farmers and donkey carts, and mudbrick farming sheds, the sound of birds having replaced the crickets. I can breath real air here, and people here seem much more polite here, they don't stare and they don't yell at us, even though foreigners are completely non-existent in Beni Suef (except for M and his two colleagues, due to aforementioned lack of travel destinations). After coming back to observe the sniper tower and mote that give this monastery a sort of fortress feel, we have a nice breakfast, pay, and head out to the middle school where M teaches. The kids all rush to greet him and we as the visitors are treated to tea and a sit in the school admin office. We also get to observe a collection of posters, art, a ribbon dancing ceremony, and a talent show, on this, special visitor day. We get to see first graders do a skit about stealing money from parents, a skit about women being able to work alongside men, a story reading, and a collection of English songs. My personal favorite was when ten kids with monkey pictures on their chests stand in front of their class as the whole group sings, "ten little monkeys jumbing on the bed, one fell of and bumb-ed his head" in heavy Egyptian accent. I'm a little tea pot was a close second.

We head off for Kosheri and then concluded our wonderful time waiting in the bus station. After being told at the office the bus for Cairo will be leaving in ten minutes, twice (we all know what ten minutes means in Egypt: anytime today) we meet some people headed there too. After a while we've been waiting and we don't see our fellow Cairo passengers. We head over to the office and ask again when the bus is leaving. The same guy who told us ten minutes now looks at us seriously and tells us no buses are going to Cairo today. We all question how he can tell us this after he said ten minutes not so long ago, he acts like he has no idea what we're talking about. He asks random other people, they all confirm no buses to Cairo today. Now, we are in Beni Suef, there is really nothing here as we acknowledge, and Cairo is nearby. Where the heck are buses going if not Cairo? So M tries to look angry and tell them he's very angry and will never ride a bus again! Unfortunately M just emanates pacifism and goodwill, and anger just does not really work for him. So we find a shared taxi and make it back to wait on a bridge, catch another taxi, and find our way to see our fam in Maasara, where I listen to the fears and jealousies of a 16 year old girl trapped in an unfair society (as are all societies), nursing a love interest for a man she hasn't seen in eight months and has been rejected by her parents, and feeling alone. I wish I could help, but even I am leaving, and even I am not around all the time.

And so, this weekend was a ridiculously lovely balance between independent adventure and allowing myself to be dependent on others. It was great to be on the easy end of that situation, and it was great to see where my friend spends his life and has somehow fit himself into the most unlikely of places as a beloved member of the community. It makes me feel hopeful.

MABRUUUK!!!!

My Egyptian best friend is getting MARRIED!!! This is a big deal for Egypt! He's not even thirty yet, and he's getting married THIS SUMMER!!! To the love of his life, after a long, tragic love affair! O my heart cannot hold this much happiness! Just when I was getting jaded and cynical....something as AMAZING and joyful as this happens.

Colonialism

I think I have finally found a word for a collection of uglinesses I find around me. Colonialism.

Supposedly the UK declared Egypt’s independence in 1922. Egypt didn’t even get to declare it itself. And Wikipedia says, “British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypt's political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, and governmental reforms.”

As my roommate started talking about this "colonialism" concept the other day I started to thinking and since then I’ve been feeling sicker and sicker about it all to the extent that I even want to leave this country just to stop being a part of it. But it still has a hold on the world, no matter which part of it I sit in. And while I’m seeing it so clearly here from where I’m sitting, which makes me exceedingly uncomfortable, maybe my uncomfortable situation here is making colonialism a tad bit uncomfortable as well. I hope so.

Every word that I utter in Arabic seems to be fighting a little for the home team, every conversation in English seems to be another point for the colonial power. My friend told me that people here respect foreigners more than they respect each other. He told me this because I was complaining about how no matter how stupid and poor and young and ugly and inexperienced and unskilled I am I will always be pampered and paid attention to and catered to, just because I’m a foreigner. I have been more and more happy about the fact that I can speak English to so many people, but then I’m getting more and more sick to hear the stories of my friends who say that they can’t get a job without good English, and they can’t get English without money, and this is for a job that pays an average 800 Egyptian pounds / month. If you want the real good jobs, you’re gonna need flawless English, the kind that comes from private foreign schools (American, Canadian, British) for your whole life (=uber rich). And as A reminded us, there are millions of people with flawless native English in the world, those with any flaws need not apply.

My roommate J works in a world of people who have learned English, but at the expense of their Arabic. The top of society is being trained to be dysfunctional and illiterate in their own language. Oftentimes they are dysfunctional in Arabic and English, in a kind of limbo between the two languages, this is the system. Me and two of my roommates have procured jobs here which are expressly for foreigners. Foreigners here are paid more and respected more in the work place. With absolute abysmal Arabic and no qualifications or knowledge of me beyond my foreigner status I’ve been asked to work in marketing a few times. This preferential treatment makes a little more sense in a country like America where I am the WASP majority. Here though, we are very much the minority, and yet, we walk in a room and we’re automatically important. We are an accessory for our friends to show off, kinda like a designer bag, foreigners classy. It will be an adjustment to go back to the U.S. where I am frumpy and normal.

People just ask us questions, we are assumed to be knowledgeable on any subject, even as scrubby just out of college kids on an extended year of travelling. Where is the justice? This world has been set up for us by our ancestors. They wanted a world where they were always able to feel smart and have an easy time navigating and ordering people around wherever they went. Heck who doesn’t? It’s easy, and I’m not gonna lie, if I felt only the utter inferiority and stupidity that comes with being in a strange country with a strange language and never felt the trust in my abilities and respect of my status that comes with being a foreigner here, I might not have made it so long.

But this superiority is cheap, it rings so hollow and painful. You can almost hear it in the voices of the men yelling at you: “Talk to me! Why won’t you talk to me?!” “F*** you!” It’s not just a sexual thing, it’s a fascination with the exotic and maybe a subconscious way to bring you back down to the level you should be at, an anger at the unjust distribution of power. I see it in the way that the police and security service here let the foreigners get away with whatever they want with a smile, while harrassing their Egyptian friends. I hear it in ex-pats telling me that Egyptians are just lazy and unreliable. I hear it in my friend F explaining to me that Egyptian are actually envious of the U.S. because it took all the power and beauty and morality even, and left Egypt with nothing. There's a hopeless sense here among so many, a sense that leaving the country or leaving the culture is the only way to move up in life. Some reject these ideas, some chase them vigorously, but Colonialism is living.

Mt. Sinai

Mt. Sinai. Gabel Moosa (Moses' mountain). This is supposedly the mountain that Moses climbed to get the commandments. The mountain covered in cloud where God stayed and talked to Moses, told him what to write. Its in a beautiful red mountain range. Usually people climb it at sunrise or sunset. At the top sits a mosque and a church next to each other. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe that Moses was a prophet. This mountain is one of the top religious tourism destinations in the world. The bedouins in the area have set up quite a business with hotels, guides, selling overpriced chocolate bars, camel rides, charging for tiny huts to go to the bathroom in on the mountain face, books and souvenirs.

I've climbed this mountain three times. It has meaning, that is sure for anyone who climbs it. The meaning can be so many different things. The first time I climbed it was two and a half years ago as a study abroad student. Like everything the whole semester I was thinking to myself, "This is so freakin cool! I'm walking where Moses walked maybe! I have to tell my friends, my family, random strangers about this!" As I walked through several switchbacks I started to mellow and truly tried to feel what Moses felt as he climbed. How scared did he feel? How special did he feel? How excited? Did he ever succumb to pride that he was the one hanging out with God? Or is that why he was chosen, because he was entirely humble?

The second time I climbed was a couple months ago with my family. This time the meaning faded into the sociologist, academic part of me. I was thinking, all the way up and all the way down, about how this felt to religious tourists. Interesting I don't consider myself one of them although I probably am. I started trying to empathize with the hymn singing, horn blowing crowd, started thinking how they would remember this place when they went back home. What will it mean to them?

This third time, this weekend, I was used to this mountain. I know how long it takes, how hard it is, how dark it is, generally how to avoid getting run over by a camel, and I just wanted to climb the mountain. I started thinking, the beauty, the meaning of this mountain is that its a metaphor. The endlessly climbing up to meet God, the knowledge that God is there to meet us. The call to "rejoice my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything," has an experience to match it when you think of this mountain as life. We are always climbing, climbing, but why? Because we meet God at the top, and because we are on holy ground. We know that climbing the mountain is tough, but somehow enjoyable. We know, without seeing, that what we see at the top will be more beautiful than we can imagine. And then, we get there, and it is.

Here I am reminded of a conversation I had with two good friends the other day in which we discussed miracles. Miracles, what are they? Why do they seem not to really happen for us anymore? At least us Western Christians seem to have accepted that the age of miracles is over. We say that this saddens us, we say that if we just all saw miracles all the time we would be so much more able to believe, like during the early days. But what's to say we aren't all seeing miracles? What's to say just because something is common in our lives, something is ordinary in that it happens all the time to all kinds of people, that it isn't a miracle. Birth, sunrises, singing, flowers, acts of mercy, floating on water, mountains. And what's to say that seeing God makes life easier? The burning bush ruined Moses' life. But he ended up on top of Mt. Sinai, where his life no longer mattered.

On the ledge

Tonight, after a lovely night of sipping a massive yogurt, fruit tower beverage with my roommate in the romantically lit hookah / coffee shop, I made my way home feeling a little adventurous, a little sick of my routine. So my first few steps into the house I immediately have the idea to climb the rickety winding staircase only used by the garbage man up to the roof. The roof is covered in old cement and wiring and a giant satellite dish.

I ducked under a wire to sit on the ledge at the edge of this roof. Its quiet up here. By this I mean, the horns and shouting are muffled because I'm several stories above it all. I lay down on this ledge, somewhat carefully. To my right, one of the giant mosques of Cairo is visible a few miles away through the gap between the other high rise buildings next to ours, a Christian family with religious art posted all over their room visible through a window, the satellite dish looming over my head. If I roll or fall over to this side, I would land on the roof, safe.

To my left, a much larger portion of the skyline is visible. The trees on the side of the Nile, the medical school, a lit up building that looks like something important in Washington D.C., and the Islamic moon (a crescent that looks kinda like a boat) above it all. If I roll or fall over to this side, I fall at least a couple stories before I hit a balcony, potentially to the ground.

I try to keep my weight shifted to the right side as I lay balanced on this narrow ledge, one shoulder blade on each side, my hood beneath my head, my legs crossed. I feel a little precarious here as I look up at the few visible stars and shift my head slightly to see the Islamic moon.

But I stay on this ledge, and I think about the whole concept of ledges. My life feels this way at the moment. With two months left, I am balanced here between Egypt and America, belonging and being an outsider, investing in friends and pushing them away.

But the stars are still there.

And then, I walk down the rickety, winding, garbage man staircase, push open the door, and its like the Wardrobe in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I see the kettle on the stove in our lighted kitchen, and its a different world, my world here, opening up before me. Its still there, somehow completely separate from the world above that I've been visiting.

And everything comes down to these ledges, these boundaries between worlds again, but what is it that pervades all these worlds? And what is it about laying balanced on a ledge that's so exciting and stressful at the same time?