New Life

The weather has unexpectedly taken a leap into the 90s (farenheit) and it leaves me remembering summer, when I first got here, thinking of the "circle of life" as my roommate put it, things coming back to the beginning, working in cycles.

For example, M, my best friend here, is getting married. I have been with him through his tears and heart ache and depressive episodes over this girl, since they had just broken up right before I arrived in Cairo this time, and now he got her back! It was like the happiest day of my life to hear this, it restored my faith in miracles and happy endings, but that means there's no space in Egyptian culture, and probably universally, for another girl that he's close to. I have gotten to have him in my life for this brief cycle, but now its over, and we all move on to the next cycles.

I have seen my baby Egyptian niece come from in my friend's womb to alien like tiny creature to fat baby that makes noises and facial expressions (she can say dada, but that isn't a word here so they try to pretend its tata, which means gramma), all with me as part of her life, part of her family. All of this is one of the most miraculous things I have ever experienced. Today she was baptized.

I have never seen anything like Coptic baptism. Last night the women of the family planned their outfits, hair, and make-up. This morning they woke up early and in a flurry of color and hair curlers, they prepared themselves amid (loving) shouts of, "why do you care how you look, you're not the mother" and "I want a BLACK shirt, why aren't you listening to me!" We made it the monastery and there were probably over a hundred babies there, all with multiple family members, crowding the baptism room, the church hall, the church, the patio, and overflowing through the monastery. The largest concentration was outside the door and windows of the baptismal chamber. The grandfather of our baby (father refused to come) politely worked his way to the table to get a ticket. He clutched and waved that ticket until he could shove his way into the sacred room through the mob. We made our way in for a little bit, it was stiflingly hot today and church officials kicked us out, so I walked around the monastery with my 16 year old sister.

We came back into the hall to see a shouting/screaming match arise after someone being trampled near the door to the baptismal chamber. My sister almost makes her way inside the chamber when her father pokes his head out the door for her. "I'm coming" she yells, and bravely pushes her way to the front. She doesn't make it, eventually, being too sweet, she just bounces off the crowd. This crowd reminds me of what someone wise observed about Egypt, that lines don't work because the society is always worried that there won't be enough, so they fight to get there's first, as fast as possible, in case whatever it is runs out. Its like they are all subconsciously conditioned to worry that maybe the priest will get tired and stop baptizing. We have to be first. Then my little Egyptian sister, after not making it through this crowd, spends the rest of the day disappointed saying, "I want to see [her]! I should've gone to school instead, school is better than this." But then, the baby and its mother and grandfather and grandmother all emerge, baby in her huge white dress and bonnet, cranky and tired. The dresses and some freakin adorable mini priest outfits are popping up everywhere (only to be put on after the priest dunks them in water three times) and small family groups cluster everywhere for pictures.

Baptism, all these babies in white dresses, surrounded by their families, is the craziest picture of new life and hope, but a clear one. My cycle here is drawing to an end and these babies I hope are all beginning their walk of faith. Will she remember me if I come back in a couple years? If Idon't? Will her family show her pictures and talk about me? Will she vaguely recollect how I smell or sang to her in English or pretended she was flying or took pictures of her? Probably not. I hope I get to see more of her life somehow.