getting gutsier or getting tired? Settling in or settling?

I have a little over three months left here. I've been here about seven months. I've just been appointed Intern Coordinator at my NGO, which is probably the perfect job for me (in Cairo, hanging out with and mentoring college students, emailing people, working at an NGO dedicated to understanding between Arab and Western societies, in an office with great people, and getting paid for it!). I love this new job, even though I haven't technically started yet, but at the same time I am stepping back to look at my life.

While I am uncontrollably excited about this job I have to wonder, who am I becoming? The pieces of my life seem to be falling into place more and more but I would never want to be one who just goes with the flow. I feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life and am choosing who I want to be. Along with the responsibility of this job comes the ability for me to quit my teaching job. I have been told before (by co-workers back in college) that my spiritual sin is sloth (haha). The lazy part of me is all about having one job, being able to have absolutely no responsibilites outside of 9-5, and the lazy part of me also is now kind of burrowing away, spending days and nights in comfort instead of forcing myself to look at and do things that make me uncomfortable.

I believe that discomfort and risk are the ways that people grow. I also believe that living to be safe and comfortable is a grievous sin and waste of a life. For these reasons (among others) I came to Egypt, and I've told myself that I will never settle for an easy life, never give up on my ideals and pursuit of righteousness. I tell myself that I refuse to become a coward, because the cowardly life is not worth it.

When I first came here, surviving and absorbing the world around me seemed like an endless task. Now I am getting tired... I am tired of seeing essentially the same multi-colored higab coordinated outfits ever day. I am tired of hearing and seeing the same lude things from young men and boys and occasionally old men. I'm tired of always being self conscious of my body and where it could be grabbed or commented on. I am tired of people laughing at me for no conceivable reason. I am tired of not being able to understand, of people thinking I understand everything or nothing of what's happening around me, usually the latter. I am tired of having to bumble through a second language that I'm nowhere near fluent in. I'm tired of being judged by Egyptians, foreigners, and mostly myself for my degree of integration into the culture. I'm tired of constantly feeling incompetent. I'm tired of being away from my best friends and family and not being able to call them. I'm tired of eating greasy food or paying too much for it. I'm tired of being cold because there's no heating. Most of all though, I'm tired of being tired.

I kinda hate myself because I'm hear to push my limits and my comfort zone, avoid a life of easiness and isolation. I am not a person that really likes routines, predictability, cleanliness, staying at home, and yet I find myself turning into an old lady now. I like going to work and coming home every day around the same time, stopping in the morning to buy a water and a snack, swiping my metro pass, listening to music while I ride and walk to work, sitting at my same desk, talking to the same people, in English, going to the same sandwich stand with the same people every day for lunch, talking on gchat with my friends back home in the afternoon, walking back to the metro, riding it home, hanging out with my American roommates, going to bed. Occasionally my days will include hanging out with friends, but I don't want to stay out late (even though I don't have to get up early for work I just don't like being out late anymore). Ocassionally I'll go see my Egyptian family and love the routine of eating, drinking tea a half hour later, talking, watching Egyptian Christian television, sleeping, eating, talking, and going home. I love Saturday mornings going to the orphanage where I can play with babies who demand absolutely nothing from you.

I'm trying to decide if all this old-people-like routine is a good thing or not. On the one hand, yes I've made a comfortable life and community for myself here. My roommate says this is an accomplishment in itself. On the other hand, I really am not here to make myself comfortable, that's in fact the exact opposite of what I want. However, I am also realizing the value of making life sustainable and feeling like I have meaning in it. In my new job and in my life with the people I already have relationships with I feel like I am able to contribute something, which I need to feel. On the other hand, vulnerability and humility I value deeply, but I also think are two of the hardest things in the world. I am starting to realize that its so much easier to forge a life for yourself where you are "doing something" than a life where you are vulnerable and humble to what God wants from you and to the people and world around you. I want the latter, but I grasp at the former. We all want to do something, we all want to make our mark on the world, that is not in itself a difference.

I also have noticed that along with myself feeling comfortable has come more confidence in being my own individual within this society. Gone are the days of swallowing my host culture completely in an attempt to impossibly fit in. For those of you who have known me as a pushover I think that things will be a little different when I get back. I have somehow found my inner strength to push back on things I don't like. I have decided I can give people dirty looks if they're being dirty, and I can say no if I don't want to do something, confront people on their prejudices, challenge people to think about Egyptian societal conventions. For example, today I argued with my Egyptian mother about which was better - Egyptian society which doesn't allow boys and girls to interact at all outside of engagement and a little in church, or American culture which lets anything go. She maintains that here there are no bad girls. I said she just doesn't see them, because I do know they exist. And I mean, are guy friends really that bad of an idea? As one of my roommates said, maybe if more guys had friends that were girls they wouldn't roam around in packs harassing girls, and they would think about the fact that girls are human beings and don't like being treated that way.

So anyway, I am at a crossroads and a paradox. I have settled in, but have I settled? I'm getting more able to assert myself and call people out, but am I less humble and vulnerable about my place here? I'm getting really used to and comfortable with my surroundings, but does that mean they're getting boring and my eyes aren't open to new possibilities? Hmmm

Kolena Gaza (we are all Gaza)

This slogan (Kolena Gaza) has popped up all over facebook, the news, the streets, the internet. I think its a pretty good one honestly, reminding us that these are human beings who are being killed, their lives being ruined, people just like us but extremely unfortunate, living in fear and squalor and deprivation and injustice under normal conditions and now, its unimaginable, that is if they aren't one of the over 1000 Palestinians who are already dead.

I am actually surprised how normal life has been here, despite this crisis. I expected perhaps more angry glares instead of friendly smiles and welcomes, especially when it comes out that I'm American (therefore my tax dollars are funding the bombs falling on Gaza, and I'm doing nothing to stop it). However, while I have been looking for hostile reactions, I really haven't found them, or any real differences in the rhythym of life here.

However, here are some things I've seen / heard.

Taxi Driver #1, driving me and my family to my apartment (day 2 of attacks): "Did you hear about Gaza?"
Me: "O ya I did hear"
TD1: "this is very bad."
Me: "Worse than before, right?"
TD1: "yes. Why is America doing this?"
Me: "I don't know, but we have a new president soon, maybe it will be better."
(he seems unconvinced)


Taxi Driver #2 (my favorite, driving De and I to dinner): "Where are you from?"
Me: "I'm from America, she's Canadian."
(long silence)
TD2: "Everyone in the world hates America right now."
Me: Hmm, ya, because of Gaza?"
TD2: "yes."
Me: "and you do also?"
TD2: "for sure."
De: "what's your opinion on Hamas?"
TD2: "It doesn't matter about Hamas, it matters that any people are dead. For example, if you have children, and they do something bad, you don't kill them. Do you understand?"
De and me: "yes I understand." (while really thinking this is sort of a weird analogy for the situation)
TD2: "For example if I marry you, and then you do something bad, I wouldn't kill you. I shouldn't do that. I would raise my voice maybe, but not kill you...."
Me: "hmmm ok, I understand."
TD2: "In sickness and in strength, hot and cold. I shouldn't kill you."
(I think on these odd analogies and wonder, is he saying that Israel is the parent and the husband? Or America, or Egypt, the army? or all humanity? Do these analogies extend to all human interactions which should not end in murder? Was my Arabic comprehension just completely off? Interesting...)

Me: What do you think of Gaza?
My friend A: "I don't care. Palestinians here in Egypt, they don't care about Gaza, so I don't care."
Me: "What, Palestinians don't care?"
A: "No, they don't care about Gaza."
Me: "But they are people, lots of people dying, they don't care?
A: "Oh but I care."
Me: "Really?"
A: "no not really. And they keep asking why Egypt doesn't make a war with Israel." (shakes his head)
Me: Ok

Article I read at work from an Egyptian newspaper summarizing the opinions of one Sheik:

If Israel heard the shouts of the Egyptian people at an Ehely (the most popular Egyptian club team) football match, they would leave Palestine. Palestine will always be occupied as long as football exists in Egypt because people care more about football than their suffering brothers and sisters in Palestine.

We drive past hundreds of people spilling out of the Medical Union building on the main street by our house, surrounded by 4 rows of riot police. (This same Medical Union apparently is heavily tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and sympathetic to Hamas. They have recently held many meetings about Gaza, plastered the main street with approximately 50 feet of giant blown up pictures of bloody, crying men, women and children and metro cars with posters about Gaza and collected aid donations to send there.)
Taxi Driver #3: "That's because of Gaza"
J: "There were people in the street before"
TD3: "Ya but there aren't now."
Me: "Because the police are everywhere."
TD3: "Because of the government, if you say anything, they will take you."


News I heard from my roommate: Progress is being made in negotiating a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel here in Cairo. As my roommate said, "YA Egypt!!"

Coming Home

My family has been here for the last approximately three weeks. I can't really describe it all, but it went really well. We went ALL OVER Egypt and had some good bonding time. Here are some memorable moments:

- Seeing my American mama crying with my Egyptian mama over her son having emigrated to America.

-going to Christmas Eve service with my whole family and all of my MESP friends, trying to reenact our Palestinian dance lessons in the church courtyard, then realizing the metro was closed so having to walk in a crowd of approximately 10 foreigners to catch a micro-bus.

-watching my 4 ft 8 in 14 year old host brother guide my 6 ft tall father through a massive, crowded Egyptian market

- discussing with my brother theories of morality, God, and humanity in our cruise ship bunker at 3AM.

-Cuddling in bed with my parents in the morning for the first time in approximately 15 years because it was so flippin cold in St Katherine's!

-Discussing with a stranger at 7 AM on the shore of the red sea why he should attempt not to be hung over every day like he has for the last eight years and his future as a body guard or gym proprietor in Dubai and agreeing to be his life coach over e-mail.

- receiving as presents from my Egyptian family to my American family: one purple be-jeweled bow (for me), one large purple headband that induced my mother to a massive head ache (for my mother), one letter B keychain (stands for Patrick, obviously, there isn't a P in Arabic), one letter M keychain (they couldn't remember my Dad's name so took an unlucky guess).

- Watching in horror as bombs fall over Gaza for the 15th day on TV in the supermarket with mom and my two favorite shopkeepers.

-watching my brother carry a giant blanket on his head through the streets of Cairo, looking for all the world like a very clever Egyptian woman.

-listening to 10 stanzas of my father's improvised rhythmic poetry composed to my best friend's car, nicknamed "little red chicken."

BUT the best part of all the traveling, as I'm realizing each time I do it, is coming home. And realizing that I have a home to come home to. I almost burst into tears when after two weeks of new places and faces I saw the back of my favorite supermarket guy's head, and I recognized it. I breathed in breath after breath of disgustingly polluted air of the city I love (for some reason leaving Cairo gives me respiratory problems). I called my friends, I ran along the Nile. I know this city, and I have a life here, I have a community.

I went back to work today as my family was heading to the airport. I caught up on the office drama, the new favorite lunch sandwich stands, met some new people.

I don't really care about seeing the temples and the bedouins and the camels and the sea and the mountains. But its beautiful and its worth it to leave if you can come back to something and someones, and to realize that you missed them, and they missed you. A rolling stone collects no moss, but maybe I really like the moss, moss is natural, moss is green and squishy and beautiful actually, rocks are meant to have moss. But real relationships are way better than moss, and I'm a lot less tough than a rock. I have been ridiculously blessed, I love my moss, but its not gonna wipe off so easily.

I've been having a lot of good thinks and good talks (particularly with my Dad), about what I'm gonna do when my plane leaves here. I have the ticket, I leave May 5 back to LAX. My mind refuses to picture or contemplate that day, and more still, I can't conceive of ever leaving here without knowing I'll be back soon and for a long time. However, I can't conceive of not going back to the part of me that is still in America. The part of me that is my relationships there but also my culture and language and roots. The way that several Americans I think are scared of the Middle East, I now feel scared, almost terrified of America. Its maybe even more terrifying because its my own country. What if I can never fit in there or live there again? Will I ever be content there? Or anywhere? I should be content with my life, but does that mean being content with everything around me? I want to keep growing the way that I grow here, but I think maybe I need to come home again, that larger homecoming, to realize what has changed, where I've been, who I am now. But what will I do? Will I be able to hold onto the life and hope that I want to? Will it all be a disappointment? Will I be able to relate to anyone? Will everyone have moved on without me?

And Gaza, over 900 dead, these are civilians. Do these things even register in the U.S.? If you're in the U.S. I would be curious to hear what you know about it and what you feel about it.

Sunset

I am poised here in the middle of my month long vacation. I have never had a vacation in Egypt before. Studying and working have been my life here, so breathing in the extremely polluted air of Cairo has never tasted so sweet as now, when I have no obligations but enjoying her and showing off her charms to people I love.

Instead of feeling restless or out of place like I half-expected taking such a long break from my obligations and routine, I feel a sort of deep contentment and sense of belonging. It seems like I'm existing in a long exhalation, a sunset moment of my life.


This month, but more importantly, this world, seem to be a sunset, the boundary between light and dark, wakefulness and sleep, the sun and the stars, productiveness and rest, this world and the next, reality and dreams. In that moment when the sun goes down, when you look for that green flash that is the fleetingness of our life, maybe seen, maybe not, here and then gone, withered like the green grass, things just seem to make sense, the world seems to just shimmer in the beauty of its transience, a transient beauty which somehow points to eternity. But you can't take up residence, or stay or belong in the instant of the sunset, as much as it seems to promise a beautiful eternity.

We pull up into the "new desert" in our converted jeep/van just in time for the sunset. It is complete silence out here, except for what noise we can make and maybe hear from the other campsites. The instinct of our new friend, like most Cairenes, is to blast music. That idea is abandoned. We look around us, the pink-red-orange sky is in the background, white, ridiculous looking rock formations that have survived the intense erosion of the desert wind. Most of them look like mushrooms or fake clouds or snow. This is really weird, let me tell you. The Christmas in the desert picture to the right pictures us pretending we were in snow (kind of convincing right). But anyway, suffice to say, watching the sunset while peeing behind white mushroomy rock formations and gathering other people's discarded firewood and chasing desert lizzards was a pretty weird vacation, but once again it amazed me with the variety and beauty but also transient nature of this world. My friend asked, "I wonder if in thousands of years the rock that we are now walking on will be new mushroom things?"

And even the pyramids. Yes they've been here thousands of years, but they're run down and empty and they couldn't keep anyone alive for eternity. Khufu's barge was left under the pyramids, ready to assemble for the passage to the afterlife. A mere fifty years ago or so, archeaologists finally assembled it to show to tourists, it never made it to the afterlife.

We climb the minaret of Ibn Tulun mosque at sunset and we see the whole brightly colored city of Cairo fading fast in front of us in contrast to the bright orange sunset clouds. Flocks of pigeons and doves are circling among the hundreds of other minarets and highrise apartment buildings with children dangling power cords off the roofs and schools and restaurants that make up life here. Here on top of this city, in the middle of this city, in this moment of sunset, I feel a continuity and a contentment. Somehow an acceptance of the fleeting nature of life, and the inability to repeat a single instant, and the utter unpredictability of the colors of this sunset that is life, but still trusting that you will be taken care of even more so than those pigeons, gives you a deep feeling of rootedness.

I ride a train to Alexandria watching the sunset over the rich Nile fields, going to the Christmas concert of one of my former students. I'm having an approximately ten hour conversation with one of my good friends who's visiting here. The concepts of hope and faith and the uncomfortable, unsafeness of the gospel are resurfacing just when I need to hear them.

I've said goodbye to so many people in the last year or so and yet these people seem to resurface. Visiting me in Cairo during this month are my family, one friend from home, one friend from college, and three friends from studying abroad. How could I know this?

My whole life, as a sunset, seems to be reflecting and refracting colors of eternity, but it is all existing in one moment, and in a green flash, like the grass, it will be gone. I can hope in only something more permanent than this sunset world.

"All men are like the grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord stands forever."

1 Peter 1:24-5

What is the meaning of the word 'random'?

Its approximately 2:30 in the morning. Its freezing. I have just taken a joyride through Cairo with my friend A and his friend. We are now ascending the stairs to said friend's house. I turn to A and say, "do you know the word random?"
"What is the meaning of the word random?" he asks
Alissa chimes in, "like without plan."
"No organization, everything is just crazy. My life is very random."
He kinda laughs nervously...(as he should have given the fact we were about to be force fed date desserts and basically held hostage in a suburban apartment belonging to a sketchy police officer armed with a fishing knife, far from home in the middle of the night).

So in case you can't tell from my blogs so far, life in Cairo, particularly my life in Cairo, is freakin RANDOM. For instance, just this minute, I found out that probably the most famous contemporary Egyptian author (wrote The Yacoubian Building, Chicago) is running a dentist office with a window directly across from our window. His office staff has seen me and my roommate doing Bollywood Burn exercise videos half naked. We have wondered about him keeping his office hours around 1 AM.

This randomness of my life in Cairo to the point of irony has come out more during this long Aeed weekend since I am free from any kind of my regular routine, and holidays are always just weird.

So Friday night I headed to Old Islamic Cairo (somewhat near our apartment) with my roommate to the engagement party of the sister of our first friend from our second time in Cairo (the driver who picked us up at the airport). So we drive around these crazy alleyways, observing sheep tied to the roof of a taxi, my roommate pretty much so sick she's dead. We end up sitting in some chairs belonging to a coffee shop against the boundary wall of the Ibn Tulun mosque (one of the oldest mosques in Cairo) and wait for random 13ish year old cousin of our friend to come fetch us. We end up going up to their house (our friend is actually at the coiffeur) and after seeing some sort of pornographic materials on TV with the women and children and one man, we are escorted into a bedroom to eat (while they are all fasting). We then make our way to the party hall, where we proceed to wait a couple hours, killing our time trying to name Egyptian pop singers, talking to the surprisingly very respectful little boys of the family about school and the random pictures of this old fat man plastered on all the walls, while Alissa looks the color of leben sukhen (hot milk) and is staring at a tile on the floor. The beautiful bride finally gets there amongst much ululation, then we are ushered out to see our friend, he realizes Alissa's sick, and takes us down the winding road past the ancient mosque to get a cab. Random.

Saturday morning I spent seeing the Nilometer (an ancient roman Nile level measurer) and laying on a patch of grass with my friend F and her sister. I somehow sort of half-successfully explained 9-11 and the consequent American change in opinion towards Arabs in Arabic to someone who had never heard of it. I also taught two Egyptian women how to duck-call with pieces of grass, that finding a four-leaf clover was lucky, what a roly-poly was, and how to play "down by the banks." They taught me the Egyptian version of "down by the banks" and heads up seven up, and that I should NEVER EVER EVER touch a roly-poly or ANY kind of insect.

After this, I head to church in Maadi, where I watch the lighting of the advent calendar and sing some Christmasy songs, and discuss the angel tree. Then we head to our family in Maasara. We end up watching Beauty and the Beast dubbed over in Arabic, then this weird Egyptian soap opera set in southern California with some sort of prison escape plot. We learn that part of our Egyptian family is leaving for America on Wednesday. WEDNESDAY!

My friend M calls because he NEEDS to talk to me. I rush home in the morning to meet him, and hear his story of woe. His ex-fiance called him (they haven't talked in months) and told him that she was on her lesser pilgrimage to Mecca and she prayed for him the whole time, and she dreamed about him and she knows they will always love each other but she now wears Niqab (the thing that covers everything but the eyes) and wants to be with God all the time, so she knows they can't be together. He wants to tell her everything, all the suffering I've seen him go through these last months being depressed without her, but doesn't know if he should, and he can't ever be with a woman wearing Niq'ab, even if she is the best in the world. He also informs me that tonight is "Hash Feast."

Then back to Maasara to translate between our Egyptian family and my roommate's family where we are urged to eat more and more chicken and sweet potatoes with sugar. Among the constant mentionings of Mama Egyptian and Mama American and Baba Egyptian and Baba American all being together, our translation skills were not that necessary.

Then Alissa and I head downtown to meet my friend A who appears to not actually be coming. So we do a little shopping, make some friends with some sweet girls in the shops, get creeped out by the men in the shops, and head to the cafe where we had tea the first week we were in Cairo and have gone back to ever since. There is a sense of coming full circle as she orders Sahlab (a traditional winter drink involving coconut) and I get warm tea with milk. Its cold. We're about to leave, A finally comes, and the joy ride around Cairo begins, Madonna and the Eagles on the stereo. This culminates in the weird parking lot and suburban apartment as well as a strange car chase involving mistaken identity, then an excuse about picking a mother up from the airport at 3:30 AM (at which time Cairo is still completely awake) which allowed us to escape to a taxi.

I get home and its time for morning prayer. Today is Aeed al-Adha. The slaughter day. This means at sunrise there is a huge community prayer. My roommate, her family, and I, head to a mosque far from our house, fully Islamically veiled, although clearly not convincing anyone that we're Egyptian. We end up early, so we go into a donut shop! Haha. We then situate ourselves multiple times around the mosque of Mustafa Mahmoud. Thousands and thousands of people flood the street in greater and greater numbers as the sky pinkens and lightens. Balloons and plastic to kneel on are the sales items of the day. After an hour of call to prayer, one cycle through the stations of prayer with a collective murmur of Allahu Akbar is simultaneously made by thousands at this mosque alone (on this day gender separation is too difficult, so families can all stay together). And then its over, a collective shout of celebration is issued, and the feast has begun! Candies fly in the air, we flee to a side street and catch a taxi.

Ten minutes later I'm in a 5 star resort hotel with my friend's parents, munching on the open buffet, being offered coffee or tea from a young man named Mohamed in a black vest and name tag. I'm looking out the panoramic windows over the Nile, and discussing social research and non-profit organizations, slipping into the comfort of what feels like a past life in another world.

Twenty minutes after this meal I'm watching the clean up of the blood in front of a garage on our street following the animal sacrifice. Twenty minutes after this, I'm warm in my bed contemplating what meaning I can take from the utter lack of continuity that is my life.

Aeed el Adha vs. American Christmas

The sheep, and occasional massive cows have taken over the streets.

The makeshift pens full of docile furry, animals with pink spray-painted stripes have been erected in almost every alleyway. Anyone will tell you, the smell of Cairo has gotten much worse this month, for this reason and because its black cloud of air pollution season (the smog literally rolls over and coats the city with this weird yellow dry fog).

A few days ago, in one of these pens in the middle of a major street, I saw a sheep sneeze, twice (this is probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen an animal do, and I felt the need to utter, "bless you" under my breath as I let out a little laugh, causing more people to think foreigners are nuts). Tonight I saw three live sheep tied to the top of the fully occupied moving taxi in front of my taxi, driving down a major street. One little kharoof (sheep in arabic) was looking straight back into my eyes, I swear.

These sheep are remarkably calm for their impending bloody mass slaughter. If they had any wits about them they would probably notice that every year sheep are taken; Maybe because none ever return, the sheep all believe their comrades have gone somewhere much more wonderful. Maybe the sheep consider it an honor to be chosen for the sacrifice of Aeed el-Adha.

Aeed el-Adha is the holiday commemorating Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son. In the Judeo-Christian story, the son is Isaac. In the Islamic story, the son is Ishmael. The story is almost exactly the same. The tortured father climbs the mountain with his son, and is about to sacrifice him as God has requested, when God provides a sheep instead. In commemoration, every year, Muslims who can afford to should slaughter an animal. I haven't seen this day in Egypt yet, this is coming up on Monday supposedly...

As sheep and cows and their smell are ubiquitous throughout Egyptian society right now, the rich foreigner Island of Zamalak is a different story (literal Island, in the middle of the Nile, with a huge proportion of ex-pats). The smell and sight of animals hasn't quite reached this place, no one wants that there. Instead, the Christmas stores have opened. You know those creepy stores that somehow make a living only selling Christmas paraphernalia? Those actually exist in Egypt, in Zamalek. They have Christmas trees sitting out on the sidewalks. My roommate and I, perhaps a little guiltily, kinda really wanted a Christmas tree. So we took a taxi, got a fake collapsible scrawny little tree and lights for around $15, and then headed back home. We made three trips to the paper man to get green paper, then pink and blue and yellow paper and markers, then white paper. Then we decorated. We listened to Christmas music and cut out colored shapes for our tree and for our Christmas cards.

I now walk into our apartment to the sight of twinkling lights among convincing dark green plastic branches, and pomegranate like construction paper ornaments.

Being in Egypt has brought out a lot of feelings about holidays almost more than anything. Maybe this is because holidays are such a visible expression of culture and so socially engrained into our understanding of the passing of time. I have celebrated holidays here with more excitement and passion and thoughtfulness than I have had regarding them in a long time. Now as I see these two holidays, Aeed el Adha and Christmas, coinciding with each other, I can't help but be intrigued by the images.

While walking through Maasara at night, we encountered a block of the city near our family's house where the power was completely out. This meant that on the eve of Aeed al-Adha, the streets were plunged in pitch-darkness. We could hear the sounds of people and animals crowding and moving around us, but couldn't see them until they were practically in our face. This whole feeling of a living, breathing unseen city around us on the eve of a holiday was amazing. As we walked down the main street, we saw about one candle in each shop lining the road. The pharmacy, the supermarket, the cafe (where the backgammon game had been centered around this tiny candle). The tiny lights in the dark, and the coldest night I've had in Egypt yet, made sure that al-Adha eve and Christmas eve were now further tangled up in my mind.

Merriness and jolliness and excessive amounts of light and cookies and construction paper crafts don't really make any sense for Christmas if you think about it. What makes more sense to me are these pens of sheep, dwelling in their filth, stinking up the streets, about to be slaughtered, and the few solitary candles in the pitch-black darkness.

On Christmas day the trinity had decided it was best that Jesus squeeze himself through a birth canal, come out squirming, bloody and screaming into a pile of hay or some manure perhaps amid a bunch of stinky animals and the woman's terrified new husband.

My Egyptian sister asked me, on the eve of the sacrifice, "Do you know why the Muslims kill the animals?"
It told her, "yes because of Abraham and his son."
She tells me, "yes, you're clever! But do you know what else?"
"What else?" I ask.
"Its because of Jesus. Because he died, like a sheep also, to give us all life." And once again I am more surprised than I probably should be that she sees the same connections that I do.

And so, 'tis the season... for the adorable stinky sheep of Cairo.

Warm feelings

So last night sitting at a cafe after church, my friend described his first visit to church as "warm feelings."

I love this. Warm, fuzzy feelings but without all the annoying, confusing fuzz. Just warm.

A friend of mine who is also abroad said she heard that November is the hardest month in a year abroad. But as the weather is getting genuinely cold at night, and a winter cozyness is somewhat in the air, I'm feeling some lovely warm feelings.

You all know I love this city, but this city isn't just a city anymore. This city has embraced me, folded me up in her arms. I have found a belonging and a contentment as part of this world that I haven't felt in awhile. But its not the city, its not the crisp air or adorable skinny Egyptian men in their adorable little turtleneck and cable knit sweaters. Its not the smell of roasting carmelized sweet potatoes on the street carts or sitting in a patch of sunlight in Al-Azhar park overlooking a man-made lake, thousands of years of mosques and a crusader fortress before you.

Indeed the warmest feelings that I have felt in awhile was walking to the metro, kicking myself for not having a jacket tonight, shivering and eating ice cream. After six hours straight of pouring my heart and mind as thoroughly as possible into my current seven total amazingly wonderful students, my oldest student, an extremely hard-working mother of two / computer programming teacher wanted to buy me dessert. I got nescafe (mmm fake Egyptian coffee) icecream. Wow.

As she turned into her alleyway to go up to her apartment she of course invited me in even though she had just complained about how she could barely keep her eyes open one more minute. I of course declined, fondly smiled and shook her hand, I'll see her in three days, and I am supremely happy about that. As I freeze to death walking to the metro eating nescafe watered down ice cream with chunks of ice in it, I can't help but think this is the best, happiest ice cream I have ever had. None of this thermostat heated strip mall Golden Spoon crap. I am thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying this, the group of teenage boys attempting to block my path and follow me doesn't even phase me today.

And I am beginning to experience how little contentment has to do with comfort. Or maybe that it does have something to do with it but (forgive my Soc language) its an inverse relationship. The harder that it is for me to get coffee ice cream, true the more I appreciate the coffee ice cream when I get it. But not only that, the anticipation of someday having coffee ice cream is also much more sweet. And not only that, but coffee ice cream has no sweetness in itself.

Here is where the sweetness and the warmth of my life comes from: people. I now have my people. I have old friends, all over the world and here in Cairo. I have students that I haven't seen in months showing up in my life. I actually kissed my male friend on the cheek in the middle of the street in downtown Cairo (talk about scandal) I was so happy to see him when he showed up unexpectedly as a "surprise."

I was sitting in church with my Egyptian "brothers" to my left, they are completely out of their comfort zone but wanting to see how and where we worship, my American "sisters" to my right and in front of me, and our whole congregation singing hymns together in the soft yellow light. I have memories here, I have continuity, I have people here, right here in the pew next to me. And I love them all to death. And we know each other. The hardest part of moving here was feeling like I couldn't trust anyone because I didn't know anyone, and that no one really knew me. But now, over the stretched out minutes of laughter and annoyance and mosque and church and traveling and working, we have built something that I can stand on, that I trust to hold my weight. Warm feelings, not really fuzzy at all, very clear and very warm.

Like the collection of pashminaish scarves I now wear every day. They're not fuzzy and itchy, just warm. But they are the warmest when I just get them back from my friend A borrowing them, or when I somehow manage to wrap them around both my and my roommate's neck in a very awkward two headed scarf monster huddled for warmth kind of way.

Walking around Al-Azhar park with my friend F. She asks me, "how can American people be unhappy? To tell you the truth we think they took all the money, all the beauty, all the power, and even all the ability to help other people. Egypt said they chose religion instead of these things, but we don't even have that, we are getting worse in morals. We -- what's the verb again? -- envy America. The whole country envies the whole country. So how can Americans be unhappy? They have money and food and an easy life." I tell her I think they're lonely, they can be surrounded by people and wealth and still be lonely. She asks why the government doesn't make a law that children stay with their parents when they grow up, then people wouldn't be lonely. I say its not that easy. Its a matter of tradition, not of law, and those things don't change so quickly. Besides, its not about people being there, its an attitude, an attitude of independence and needing to be on your own, even when surrounded by people.

She agrees this might be it but then she has her own idea. "I heard this story that this boy who got all the money in the world, got the girl that he wanted to marry and did everything he wanted with her whenever he wanted, he got everything that he wanted but then he had nothing to look forward to so he committed suicide. He had nothing else to want or work for and so had no point to live. I think Allah knows we need the rules to keep us from taking everything we think we want."

If you gain everything but forfeit your soul, what have you gained? I realize that not getting what I want when I want it has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, as cheesy at it sounds. But its not just that God knows what's best for me, its that God knows that not being able to have exactly what you want sets you free to pursue other things that matter more, and set you free to really see what is around you without always thinking how you can get more, because its not an option. Kudos to those who can moderate themselves, but for me it seems I must put myself somewhere that forces this from me. Here, the lies of needing to be completely self-sufficient and of materialism and taking the easy path can fade away because they aren't possible.

And the ice cream was delicious because, and the unusually warm fall day and the sunlight reflecting off the water was so beautiful because, and the murmuring voices of three girls with the wafting smell of burnt grilled cheese filling up the apartment was the warmest, most amazing sound and smell I could hope for because I know these people. Because I am no longer indifferent to my surroundings, because I have been folded into my life here in an embrace that I love almost just for the reason that its stifling and smelly and awkward, a too familiar strange relative. Because I know that there is not a thing I can do to escape this Egyptian mother bear hug short of my own volition. I nestled myself in here, and materialism and self-sufficiency and self-consciousness and fear of rejection have no place in an Egyptian mother's bear hug.

And I know I go through these ups and downs, feeling like Cairo is giving me a massive bear hug and feeling like Cairo would just give me the boot if I didn't speak such a damn useful language and distract their men from harassing their own women. But for now I am content. I am content being me, with all the privileges and disadvantages that come with being a white girl in this city. Yes people stare at me and yell at me and make judgments based on my every move, but on the bright side there's no way to bring more attention to myself than I already have and I can't control wrong assumptions of those who aren't willing to see or hear me as I truly am, might as well run around in the street, might as well wear bright orange pajama pants with fish on them around the neighborhood, might as well ask random merchants how to cook their crispy bread, might as well show off how much I suck at Arabic. Yes I'm a foreigner, yes I do have some moral standards despite that fact, yes I'm odd, yes I'm a 22 years old girl living in a strange country without her family, yes I'm human, yes I'm happy.

Ilhamdulilah