Thursday was another day of monasteries, which I could detail but I will instead bullet-point:
--1.25 hour bus ride turned into almost 3 hours of bumping through dirt road villages and then miles of the empty Western Desert
--monastery for St. Samuel, the monk we all had first thought was winking in his icon pictures... turns out he only had one eye because of being tortured for his faith... oops.
--another unexpected hike up some stairs to a mountain cave, not so high this time-- but, this time we were battling a sandstorm. Half the stairs were covered completely by blown sand, and I climbed with fingers plugging my ears.
--got harrassed all day by a busload of kids on a fieldtrip, plus some desert-monastery-visiting shebaab. Just when you think you're in a safe zone... think again.
--on the way "home" through the desert, we find our bus stopping in a village, and all of the occupants piling out (the others being an assortment of Copts from the Beni-Suef area). Turns out we were stopping to visit the home of a woman who had a miraculous childbirth. She was told by several doctors that she was barren; went home and cried in front of a picture of the Coptic Pope, and then had a vision of him (the Pope) telling her she would become pregnant with a daughter in 12 days. She didn't believe it so she asked for a sign, and he said an oil would come from his picture on the wall. Sure enough it started to produce oil, and still does to this day. The small room was full of Christians coming to receive some of the oil as well as a blessing from the 9-year-old miracle daughter, Maryam. I got some of the oil, though I'm not sure I understand what we are to do with it.
--on this same stop I also saw my first hoopoe, a mystery bird I found in the Arabic animal coloring book I bought in Cairo. I knew how to say hoopoe in English and Arabic thanks to the coloring book, but I sure didn't know what color to color it... until NOW!
--we pooped out before the last 2 churches/monasteries on the agenda, and jumped ship to find our own microbus back to Beni Suef. Made it back in time to meet Ben and John (two of the others from our GC group) at the train station, because they had planned a last-minute visit from their village 3 hours south. Ended another long day with crepes, a Beni Suef specialty, at a cafe along the Nile.
Today: Friday. Asmaa, another friend from my English classes, picked me up this morning to go to her house and bake cookies. She really wanted to learn some American recipes, and I am getting homesick for my own family foods, so I was happy to oblige. :) Asmaa is the oldest of three sisters, all of which are near my age, so I had a fun time hanging out with them all day. We made gingerbread cookies, a classic favorite from my grandmother, and they turned out wonderfully--much better than the chocolate chip cookies I made for Ehab and Jackleen a few days ago! (among other complications I ran into, most importantly: there is no acceptable substitute here for semi-sweet chocolate chips.)
After baking the cookies we spent about 3 hours teaching each other cooking words in our respective native languages. Chop, blend, pour, sift... I may never get to use these Arabic words much, but it was a really good time!
And now, I will take myself to bed so I can get up and work on my research project all day tomorrow...
Friday, November 19, 2010
Al-Eid, part 2
Tuesday: I woke up (very) early again to meet Noura, a friend I met through my evening English classes here. She came to pick me up and take me to spend the first day of Al-Eid celebrations with her family, which was a great honor and experience for me. She apologized for being a little late, as she had had trouble getting a taxi on the holiday... oh, and also the cow that her family had bought for sacrificing was blocking the door of the house, so she couldn't get out for a few minutes until it moved. What!? But I got to see for myself when we arrived and the cow was once again solidly blocking the entrance to the building, where it was tied. We called for Noura's dad, a good-sized man who threw his whole weight into the cow's backside so that we could dash through before it overpowered him again.
...and that was only the first excitement of the day! After clearing the door, I was ushered upstairs to meet all of Noura's extended family who were gathering there to spend the day. Some spoke a little English, but most patiently asked me questions slowly and then waited either for me to comprehend or for Noura or her sisters to translate. Soon though, one of the male cousins came up to announce that the butcher had arrived, so they were about to sacrifice. We all hurried downstairs... and yes, I watched.
I assured them that I had seen animals slaughtered before, but when I really thought about it, my history of "animals slaughtered" is limited to chickens. A much different story than a whole cow--bull, actually, so even bigger. I won't go into details here about the excitement of getting this huge and frightened bull tied and on the ground, but soon enough the deed was done; the men of the family shouted "Bismillah!" and "Allahu-akbar!" and ceremoniously cut the throat. We didn't stay to watch the rest-- my host and most of the other cousins preferred not to see the butchering process.
I spent the rest of the day with Noura's family, which reminded me a lot of my own family Thanksgiving gatherings--lots of cousins and aunts and uncles crowded into a few rooms of a house, without much to do except talk and wait for food. It made me slightly less sad about missing Thanksgiving at my grandparents' in Kansas this year... or maybe a little more sad, or both.
We ate "fatHa" for the main meal, which consisted of a huge bowl with bread in the bottom, covered with rice and a small percentage of the sacrificed meat, which the menfolk had been in the sitting room chopping all morning from a hunk of beef hanging from the ceiling. What wasn't eaten by Noura's family would be distributed to friends and poor families around town-- not every family chooses to or is able to sacrifice an animal every year.
I left Noura's early enough to come home, shower, and get dressed for an engagement party for (my host dad) Ehab's cousin. I knew it would be a big deal after seeing Ehab & Jackleen's engagement video, but had no idea it would be almost exactly as extravagant as a wedding-- complete with a service in the church, video recording of every move the future bride and groom make, cutting the cake at the reception, the big expensive dress (this one colored, though), and dancing until the early hours of the morning. It was... a very long day for me.
Wednesday I slept late, then leisurely read in my bed for about an hour before getting a surprise phone call from Besem, one of the English course teachers and one of our coordinator/companions. He would be here to pick me up in 10 minutes to go hang out with the other four from my group. !! I jumped into some clothes and took off again. This day was much more low-key, which was needed... and it consisted of a nice short boat ride across the Nile, my first ever donkey ride, and teaching Besem and Teresa to play Dutch Blitz. A successful day, I think. :)
...and that was only the first excitement of the day! After clearing the door, I was ushered upstairs to meet all of Noura's extended family who were gathering there to spend the day. Some spoke a little English, but most patiently asked me questions slowly and then waited either for me to comprehend or for Noura or her sisters to translate. Soon though, one of the male cousins came up to announce that the butcher had arrived, so they were about to sacrifice. We all hurried downstairs... and yes, I watched.
I assured them that I had seen animals slaughtered before, but when I really thought about it, my history of "animals slaughtered" is limited to chickens. A much different story than a whole cow--bull, actually, so even bigger. I won't go into details here about the excitement of getting this huge and frightened bull tied and on the ground, but soon enough the deed was done; the men of the family shouted "Bismillah!" and "Allahu-akbar!" and ceremoniously cut the throat. We didn't stay to watch the rest-- my host and most of the other cousins preferred not to see the butchering process.
I spent the rest of the day with Noura's family, which reminded me a lot of my own family Thanksgiving gatherings--lots of cousins and aunts and uncles crowded into a few rooms of a house, without much to do except talk and wait for food. It made me slightly less sad about missing Thanksgiving at my grandparents' in Kansas this year... or maybe a little more sad, or both.
We ate "fatHa" for the main meal, which consisted of a huge bowl with bread in the bottom, covered with rice and a small percentage of the sacrificed meat, which the menfolk had been in the sitting room chopping all morning from a hunk of beef hanging from the ceiling. What wasn't eaten by Noura's family would be distributed to friends and poor families around town-- not every family chooses to or is able to sacrifice an animal every year.
I left Noura's early enough to come home, shower, and get dressed for an engagement party for (my host dad) Ehab's cousin. I knew it would be a big deal after seeing Ehab & Jackleen's engagement video, but had no idea it would be almost exactly as extravagant as a wedding-- complete with a service in the church, video recording of every move the future bride and groom make, cutting the cake at the reception, the big expensive dress (this one colored, though), and dancing until the early hours of the morning. It was... a very long day for me.
Wednesday I slept late, then leisurely read in my bed for about an hour before getting a surprise phone call from Besem, one of the English course teachers and one of our coordinator/companions. He would be here to pick me up in 10 minutes to go hang out with the other four from my group. !! I jumped into some clothes and took off again. This day was much more low-key, which was needed... and it consisted of a nice short boat ride across the Nile, my first ever donkey ride, and teaching Besem and Teresa to play Dutch Blitz. A successful day, I think. :)
Al-Eid, part 1
Hello again!
I'll publish this post in parts to avoid being overwhelmingly long... I'm writing towards the end of a week of vacation in Egypt, in honor of Al-Eid, a Muslim week of feasting and celebration. "Al-Eid" is probably a complete slaughtering of the Arabic name (no pun intended... seriously.) and I don't know exactly what the word translates to, but it is a holiday commemorating Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son to God. Of course, since Muslims trace their ancestry through Ishmael, their version of this story is that Abraham was going to sacrifice Ishmael instead of Isaac. But God stopped him and instead provided an animal for sacrifice, so in honor of this most Muslim families also sacrifice an animal each year on the first day of Al-Eid.
For the 10% of the country that is not Muslim, this week is not of religious significance, but it is a much-deserved break from the constant work and studying that is Egyptian life. So what have I been doing during this week of no service at my service location? Well, I have not been sitting in my house... let me tell you.
Monday this week: our Beni Suef coordinators, fearing that we would be bored all week, planned several day-trips for us to "local" Coptic monasteries. The first of these was a monastery built near the Red Sea, where St. Anthony lived (the creator of monasticism). It was slightly chilly when I woke up early in the morning, so I dressed in a nice pair of jeans and a long cardigan and went on my way--only to find out upon arrival 3 hours into the Eastern Desert that we were going to climb a mountain at this monastery. !! Apparently the main attraction was not the actual monastery so much as the cave where St. Anthony hid himself away from the world... which was a good several hundred steps up a desert mountainside. I wasn't counting, I was too busy wheezing. The cave, once we finally arrived, I will admit was less than thrilling. Since we are not Coptic, it is not quite as meaningful for us to see icons or pray where a Coptic saint once lived, but judging by the mob of people waiting to get in, I thought maybe it was worth the effort. 20 minutes of being pushed over by said mob of people leaning all their weight on my back, I did get to crawl inside... and wished I hadn't taken up that space at all. Once again, it was truly not as meaningful for me as for others. Ah well.
...I think we may have also visited another monastery on Monday, but it was such a tiring day for me that I honestly can't think of it right now! Yikes. I do remember sleeping most of the ride home, though. I had a one-day illness this day as well, which contributed to my shortness of sleep and physical exhaustion from the hike... I made it home thoroughly tuckered.
I'll publish this post in parts to avoid being overwhelmingly long... I'm writing towards the end of a week of vacation in Egypt, in honor of Al-Eid, a Muslim week of feasting and celebration. "Al-Eid" is probably a complete slaughtering of the Arabic name (no pun intended... seriously.) and I don't know exactly what the word translates to, but it is a holiday commemorating Abraham's almost-sacrifice of his son to God. Of course, since Muslims trace their ancestry through Ishmael, their version of this story is that Abraham was going to sacrifice Ishmael instead of Isaac. But God stopped him and instead provided an animal for sacrifice, so in honor of this most Muslim families also sacrifice an animal each year on the first day of Al-Eid.
For the 10% of the country that is not Muslim, this week is not of religious significance, but it is a much-deserved break from the constant work and studying that is Egyptian life. So what have I been doing during this week of no service at my service location? Well, I have not been sitting in my house... let me tell you.
Monday this week: our Beni Suef coordinators, fearing that we would be bored all week, planned several day-trips for us to "local" Coptic monasteries. The first of these was a monastery built near the Red Sea, where St. Anthony lived (the creator of monasticism). It was slightly chilly when I woke up early in the morning, so I dressed in a nice pair of jeans and a long cardigan and went on my way--only to find out upon arrival 3 hours into the Eastern Desert that we were going to climb a mountain at this monastery. !! Apparently the main attraction was not the actual monastery so much as the cave where St. Anthony hid himself away from the world... which was a good several hundred steps up a desert mountainside. I wasn't counting, I was too busy wheezing. The cave, once we finally arrived, I will admit was less than thrilling. Since we are not Coptic, it is not quite as meaningful for us to see icons or pray where a Coptic saint once lived, but judging by the mob of people waiting to get in, I thought maybe it was worth the effort. 20 minutes of being pushed over by said mob of people leaning all their weight on my back, I did get to crawl inside... and wished I hadn't taken up that space at all. Once again, it was truly not as meaningful for me as for others. Ah well.
...I think we may have also visited another monastery on Monday, but it was such a tiring day for me that I honestly can't think of it right now! Yikes. I do remember sleeping most of the ride home, though. I had a one-day illness this day as well, which contributed to my shortness of sleep and physical exhaustion from the hike... I made it home thoroughly tuckered.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Home life, and Kookoo
So much for my plans of writing at least once a week now that I have internet access! I've been getting spoiled and lazy by this, so instead of writing blogs, I've written more personal e-mails in the last week or two. During the days I store up all kinds of things that I think I should share in a blog, and then I promptly forget them when I get home and see my bed.
To be honest, the bed wins an easy victory over most things right now... I still cannot seem to adjust to the Egyptian schedule, which starts early in the morning with work and ends around midnight or later with... supper. This has proven to be one of my most difficult adjustments in Beni Suef. In Cairo at Eman House we were served dinner at 7:30 every evening, which I assumed was on the early side of normal for Egyptian suppertime. Turns out, at least according to my host family's schedule, 7:30 p.m. is more like the late end of lunchtime. !! Most nights I struggle to decide if a third meal is even worth staying awake longer, and usually my decision to stay up for supper is more out of a desire to be social than a desire to eat.
This schedule means, of course, that I am getting only 6 hours or so of sleep a night... which, though it is very normal for me during the school year when I'm on campus, is not sufficient for adjusting to a new culture. I'm doing much better this week than the last two, but still my days at school are often a struggle--(how can I actually doze off sitting in a room full of active preschoolers? Yet I seem to do this rather often.) so basically what I'm saying is... that is my best excuse for not writing blog posts: complete exhaustion and little desire to stare at a screen when I get home. I'm so grateful to be able to check messages daily, though, not complaining about that.
As far as the rest of my home life is concerned, I'm also settling into that much better by now. I attempt to help Jacqueline in the kitchen most days, which usually results in a lot of laughing (on her part) and confusion (on my part). As with most kitchens, my mom's included, the main cook has a specific way of doing things and I try to follow suit and not mess everything up... so it makes me feel pretty much at home to have Jacqueline show me the correct way of cutting cucumbers in her kitchen, etc. :) Today I learned to make kofta (sausage shaped meatloaf-ish things), and other than the spices being some mysterious premixed Egyptian concoction, I think I could recreate it at home pretty easily... this makes me really happy and was one of the things I was hoping for most in a host family setting--learning to cook Egyptian foods directly from the source. I'm also learning a lot of cooking terms to supplement my extensive knowledge of Arabic fruit and vegetable names. Hooray!
On to something new: I feel I did not give Kookoo sufficient time in my first post, and she is a character worthy of a lengthy description. So here we go. My first impression of her was that she looked somewhat like a baby Lauryn Hill-- the same big brown eyes and delicate features, though obviously a 2 1/2 year old, Egyptian version. Her hair is short and curly, but it poofs at the top, Jimmy Neutron style... mostly this is because she goes to school every day with a little ponytail on top and comes home without it--> poof.
The first few days that I was living here, she eyed me skeptically at best, or more frequently ran from the room crying when she saw me. With my limited vocabulary and limited small-child skills, I decided to just bide my time, and sure enough, she stopped crying by about day 2 or 3, and by about day 4 I had a major milestone when at school she was crying for Jacqueline and couldn't find her, so she consented to come to me instead. Major confidence boost for me! By this time Kookoo had also started calling me "Tant" (though not to my face, because we were still not on speaking terms)... which, as I understand it, means "aunt" but also can be used for roughly any female who is older than you and of some sort of relationship that calls for a descriptive word rather than a name. As a strange woman in her home I fit this ambiguous relationship. I believe Kookoo now fully accepts me as part of her household--she speaks to me, "bothers" me like an appropriate little sister (i.e. poke in the leg while I'm on the computer), and asks for me occasionally instead of mama or baba. I'm flattered, of course. :)
More to come, but it's almost midnight already...
To be honest, the bed wins an easy victory over most things right now... I still cannot seem to adjust to the Egyptian schedule, which starts early in the morning with work and ends around midnight or later with... supper. This has proven to be one of my most difficult adjustments in Beni Suef. In Cairo at Eman House we were served dinner at 7:30 every evening, which I assumed was on the early side of normal for Egyptian suppertime. Turns out, at least according to my host family's schedule, 7:30 p.m. is more like the late end of lunchtime. !! Most nights I struggle to decide if a third meal is even worth staying awake longer, and usually my decision to stay up for supper is more out of a desire to be social than a desire to eat.
This schedule means, of course, that I am getting only 6 hours or so of sleep a night... which, though it is very normal for me during the school year when I'm on campus, is not sufficient for adjusting to a new culture. I'm doing much better this week than the last two, but still my days at school are often a struggle--(how can I actually doze off sitting in a room full of active preschoolers? Yet I seem to do this rather often.) so basically what I'm saying is... that is my best excuse for not writing blog posts: complete exhaustion and little desire to stare at a screen when I get home. I'm so grateful to be able to check messages daily, though, not complaining about that.
As far as the rest of my home life is concerned, I'm also settling into that much better by now. I attempt to help Jacqueline in the kitchen most days, which usually results in a lot of laughing (on her part) and confusion (on my part). As with most kitchens, my mom's included, the main cook has a specific way of doing things and I try to follow suit and not mess everything up... so it makes me feel pretty much at home to have Jacqueline show me the correct way of cutting cucumbers in her kitchen, etc. :) Today I learned to make kofta (sausage shaped meatloaf-ish things), and other than the spices being some mysterious premixed Egyptian concoction, I think I could recreate it at home pretty easily... this makes me really happy and was one of the things I was hoping for most in a host family setting--learning to cook Egyptian foods directly from the source. I'm also learning a lot of cooking terms to supplement my extensive knowledge of Arabic fruit and vegetable names. Hooray!
On to something new: I feel I did not give Kookoo sufficient time in my first post, and she is a character worthy of a lengthy description. So here we go. My first impression of her was that she looked somewhat like a baby Lauryn Hill-- the same big brown eyes and delicate features, though obviously a 2 1/2 year old, Egyptian version. Her hair is short and curly, but it poofs at the top, Jimmy Neutron style... mostly this is because she goes to school every day with a little ponytail on top and comes home without it--> poof.
The first few days that I was living here, she eyed me skeptically at best, or more frequently ran from the room crying when she saw me. With my limited vocabulary and limited small-child skills, I decided to just bide my time, and sure enough, she stopped crying by about day 2 or 3, and by about day 4 I had a major milestone when at school she was crying for Jacqueline and couldn't find her, so she consented to come to me instead. Major confidence boost for me! By this time Kookoo had also started calling me "Tant" (though not to my face, because we were still not on speaking terms)... which, as I understand it, means "aunt" but also can be used for roughly any female who is older than you and of some sort of relationship that calls for a descriptive word rather than a name. As a strange woman in her home I fit this ambiguous relationship. I believe Kookoo now fully accepts me as part of her household--she speaks to me, "bothers" me like an appropriate little sister (i.e. poke in the leg while I'm on the computer), and asks for me occasionally instead of mama or baba. I'm flattered, of course. :)
More to come, but it's almost midnight already...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
about time for a Beni Suef update
I'm here! I'm alive!
(now that I say those words, I'm laughing at myself because those are the exact phrases some tourist-vendors have used to get our attention here in Egypt...)
but really. I am here now in Beni Suef, and have been for over a week already. And contrary to what one might assume since I haven't written a thing on my blog until now, I actually have a computer with internet access in my home! A computer with a littllllelllllllllllllllllllllll bit of a sticky "L" key issue.. so bear with me.
Let me back up though.
More important than the computer, I have a home with a host family! Just when we thought there was no hope for living in Egyptian home settings, several of us ended up getting hosts for the service portion of our semester.
I'm living with a Coptic Christian family made up of host parents that are about 10 years older than me, Ehab and Jacqueline (not sure how she spells that in English letters, but... it sounds like Jacqueline), and their small daughter Clara--aged 2 1/2, and informally known as "Kookoo."
Their flat is on the fourth floor of Ehab's family's building, with his parents and sister one floor beneath us. The other floors are empty due to the other siblings/their families living outside of Beni Suef right now.
Both Ehab and Jacqueline speak English-- Ehab very fluently, and Jacqueline not fluently but much better than my Arabic still! Both of them are also teaching and encouraging me with my Arabic, which is great and exactly what I was hoping for.
Their home is really nice, definitely much homier than Eman House. I have my own room with 2 double beds, because Kookoo doesn't sleep by herself yet. Those of you who know me well will understand how great this is for me-- I really enjoy having a space that is mine, and being able to retreat to a quiet place when I've had too much extrovert-time. And Egypt is certainly a setting for lots of extrovert time, especially when you are a foreigner in a city that barely sees any!
As for my service placement, my main volunteer work is helping at a church-run nursery school just a short distance down the road from my home. Jacqueline also works there as a secretary and Kookoo attends, so we three go to school together every morning. I don't have too many official duties there, but since it is a "language school" I occasionally help with the English lessons. More commonly, though, my post is as an official lap to sit in, someone to blow up pre-slobbered balloons for all the kids on the playground, and as a funny big person participating at 3-4 year old level in the Arabic lessons and songs. I'm not the world's greatest kid-magnet, but I really love it. :) Every day I can feel my Arabic improving bit by bit-- like today when I celebrated to myself being able to understand a few new baby-Arabic requests: "I want to play." (that's infinitive form grammar right there, yay me.) "I'm sitting by you!" <--(present continuous form!) and "I want a drink of water please" <--(mix of Arabic and very accented English... which threw me off for a second). This is a vast improvement from my first couple days, in which kids asked me all kinds of things but I could only understand "I want mama/baba." And for lack of a more helpful response, I told them mournfully..."I want mama and baba too!" Luckily my spirits have been improving day by day as well as my Arabic skills. This week I think I'm past the point of almost having a stressed/homesick meltdown right along with the preschoolers. (Al-hamdu-lillah... Thank God.)
In additional to being at the nursery school (or "baby class" as they call it) from about 7:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day, I am also helping Ehab teach 2 adult English classes twice a week in the evenings. Most of these students are around my age, which is really great because up until now I have had very little opportunity to make friends with Egyptian women my age. Same as with the nursery school and the population of Egypt in general, the majority of the students are Muslim-- which is really exciting and interesting for me since we've primarily only had contact with the smaller Coptic population before this.
The combination of these two very different settings is really interesting and keeps me on my toes, though I think it is a lot more hours of work than I was initially expecting. This is why they tell us not to compare our settings with other SST groups... I'm trying not to think about all my friends who told me how much spare time they had at their service location! That said, though, I'm enjoying what I do and I appreciate every opportunity to try new things and socialize with all kinds of hospitable local people. The people in Beni Suef are wonderful!
I already have a long build-up of stories from the past week, but I'll go ahead and post this... more of those to come. Thanks for reading, and I miss you all!
(now that I say those words, I'm laughing at myself because those are the exact phrases some tourist-vendors have used to get our attention here in Egypt...)
but really. I am here now in Beni Suef, and have been for over a week already. And contrary to what one might assume since I haven't written a thing on my blog until now, I actually have a computer with internet access in my home! A computer with a littllllelllllllllllllllllllllll bit of a sticky "L" key issue.. so bear with me.
Let me back up though.
More important than the computer, I have a home with a host family! Just when we thought there was no hope for living in Egyptian home settings, several of us ended up getting hosts for the service portion of our semester.
I'm living with a Coptic Christian family made up of host parents that are about 10 years older than me, Ehab and Jacqueline (not sure how she spells that in English letters, but... it sounds like Jacqueline), and their small daughter Clara--aged 2 1/2, and informally known as "Kookoo."
Their flat is on the fourth floor of Ehab's family's building, with his parents and sister one floor beneath us. The other floors are empty due to the other siblings/their families living outside of Beni Suef right now.
Both Ehab and Jacqueline speak English-- Ehab very fluently, and Jacqueline not fluently but much better than my Arabic still! Both of them are also teaching and encouraging me with my Arabic, which is great and exactly what I was hoping for.
Their home is really nice, definitely much homier than Eman House. I have my own room with 2 double beds, because Kookoo doesn't sleep by herself yet. Those of you who know me well will understand how great this is for me-- I really enjoy having a space that is mine, and being able to retreat to a quiet place when I've had too much extrovert-time. And Egypt is certainly a setting for lots of extrovert time, especially when you are a foreigner in a city that barely sees any!
As for my service placement, my main volunteer work is helping at a church-run nursery school just a short distance down the road from my home. Jacqueline also works there as a secretary and Kookoo attends, so we three go to school together every morning. I don't have too many official duties there, but since it is a "language school" I occasionally help with the English lessons. More commonly, though, my post is as an official lap to sit in, someone to blow up pre-slobbered balloons for all the kids on the playground, and as a funny big person participating at 3-4 year old level in the Arabic lessons and songs. I'm not the world's greatest kid-magnet, but I really love it. :) Every day I can feel my Arabic improving bit by bit-- like today when I celebrated to myself being able to understand a few new baby-Arabic requests: "I want to play." (that's infinitive form grammar right there, yay me.) "I'm sitting by you!" <--(present continuous form!) and "I want a drink of water please" <--(mix of Arabic and very accented English... which threw me off for a second). This is a vast improvement from my first couple days, in which kids asked me all kinds of things but I could only understand "I want mama/baba." And for lack of a more helpful response, I told them mournfully..."I want mama and baba too!" Luckily my spirits have been improving day by day as well as my Arabic skills. This week I think I'm past the point of almost having a stressed/homesick meltdown right along with the preschoolers. (Al-hamdu-lillah... Thank God.)
In additional to being at the nursery school (or "baby class" as they call it) from about 7:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day, I am also helping Ehab teach 2 adult English classes twice a week in the evenings. Most of these students are around my age, which is really great because up until now I have had very little opportunity to make friends with Egyptian women my age. Same as with the nursery school and the population of Egypt in general, the majority of the students are Muslim-- which is really exciting and interesting for me since we've primarily only had contact with the smaller Coptic population before this.
The combination of these two very different settings is really interesting and keeps me on my toes, though I think it is a lot more hours of work than I was initially expecting. This is why they tell us not to compare our settings with other SST groups... I'm trying not to think about all my friends who told me how much spare time they had at their service location! That said, though, I'm enjoying what I do and I appreciate every opportunity to try new things and socialize with all kinds of hospitable local people. The people in Beni Suef are wonderful!
I already have a long build-up of stories from the past week, but I'll go ahead and post this... more of those to come. Thanks for reading, and I miss you all!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Leaving Cairo
Since I am leaving on Saturday morning to start my Beni Suef adventure...
Things I Will Miss About Cairo:
--riding the women's car on the metro-- safe place for people-watching and being people-watched.
--Otta ("Cat"), my calico BFF at the compound... I was elated to find that there are resident cats at the church compound, especially since our leader Tom forbids us to pet the many feral cats in the streets. And I mean, they are pretty mangy to be honest. But Otta is different... slightly bug-eyed, perhaps, but endearing and mostly tame (thanks to Adel the cook, a fellow cat person who very soon caught onto me and started giving me frozen bones for Otta feeding time. Crazy Cat Woman strikes again.) Many days I'm disturbed from journaling or reading in my room by the sound of lonesome yowling down the hall. I answer the call and spend a few minutes of quality time with Otta in my lap.
--Adel the cook. Started out as a minor character in our Cairo lives, but is now the bodyguard big brother you always wanted to have. He alternates between beating all our guys at arm wrestling using only 2 fingers, and making us watch his favorite movies, like "Up" or "Spirit, Wild Horse of the Cimarron". He's taking cooking classes right now and already we've noticed a very appreciable improvement in our meals here. When he is not cooking or entertaining us with epic stories from his past, he is watching our backs in the streets like Spiderman. A few days ago he clocked a shebab in the back of the head just for looking at me wrong (There are a hundred more shebab where that one came from, but that's the way it is. It was a nice gesture and at least this one guy will think twice next time)
--Amer. Adel's second-in-command in the kitchen, who has a gravelly voice and the best laugh ever. He is about our age and lives here in the compound with Adel, who summons him from any corner of the building with a booming "ahMEER!!"
--the calls to prayer (sort of). And I do mean calls, plural, because there are at least 5 that layer over each other in our immediate neighborhood. Not to be sacrilegious but some are... let's just say... more pleasing to the ear than others. Every so often an imam who seems to be suffering from a severe cold fills in for the regular, which never ceases to amuse us throughout the entire cycle of croaking phrases, always at top volume. Of course.
--my room and roommates at Eman House. Already our population is dwindling, with Elizabeth gone and Summer already in Jordan for service. But we 5 had a good run of it, lots of laughs and failed attempts at Cairobics and multi-colored hairballs in the shower (black, dark brown, reddish brown, medium brown, and blonde--never any question whose was whose).
--and of course I will miss all 14 members of the group that I will not be on service with. Despite coming from an impressive range of majors, social circles, and classes at Goshen, we've gotten along and developed friendships with each other with very little conflict and drama so far in these past 7 weeks. Most of my group are people I had never had classes or much interaction with before other than Arabic class but now they know me better than most people at Goshen ever will. It will be fun to see what kind of stories we will come back with from our separate service locations, but still we will have the shared experiences that no other SSTer from Goshen has had so far... Egypt SST group #1. :)
Things I Will Miss About Cairo:
--riding the women's car on the metro-- safe place for people-watching and being people-watched.
--Otta ("Cat"), my calico BFF at the compound... I was elated to find that there are resident cats at the church compound, especially since our leader Tom forbids us to pet the many feral cats in the streets. And I mean, they are pretty mangy to be honest. But Otta is different... slightly bug-eyed, perhaps, but endearing and mostly tame (thanks to Adel the cook, a fellow cat person who very soon caught onto me and started giving me frozen bones for Otta feeding time. Crazy Cat Woman strikes again.) Many days I'm disturbed from journaling or reading in my room by the sound of lonesome yowling down the hall. I answer the call and spend a few minutes of quality time with Otta in my lap.
--Adel the cook. Started out as a minor character in our Cairo lives, but is now the bodyguard big brother you always wanted to have. He alternates between beating all our guys at arm wrestling using only 2 fingers, and making us watch his favorite movies, like "Up" or "Spirit, Wild Horse of the Cimarron". He's taking cooking classes right now and already we've noticed a very appreciable improvement in our meals here. When he is not cooking or entertaining us with epic stories from his past, he is watching our backs in the streets like Spiderman. A few days ago he clocked a shebab in the back of the head just for looking at me wrong (There are a hundred more shebab where that one came from, but that's the way it is. It was a nice gesture and at least this one guy will think twice next time)
--Amer. Adel's second-in-command in the kitchen, who has a gravelly voice and the best laugh ever. He is about our age and lives here in the compound with Adel, who summons him from any corner of the building with a booming "ahMEER!!"
--the calls to prayer (sort of). And I do mean calls, plural, because there are at least 5 that layer over each other in our immediate neighborhood. Not to be sacrilegious but some are... let's just say... more pleasing to the ear than others. Every so often an imam who seems to be suffering from a severe cold fills in for the regular, which never ceases to amuse us throughout the entire cycle of croaking phrases, always at top volume. Of course.
--my room and roommates at Eman House. Already our population is dwindling, with Elizabeth gone and Summer already in Jordan for service. But we 5 had a good run of it, lots of laughs and failed attempts at Cairobics and multi-colored hairballs in the shower (black, dark brown, reddish brown, medium brown, and blonde--never any question whose was whose).
--and of course I will miss all 14 members of the group that I will not be on service with. Despite coming from an impressive range of majors, social circles, and classes at Goshen, we've gotten along and developed friendships with each other with very little conflict and drama so far in these past 7 weeks. Most of my group are people I had never had classes or much interaction with before other than Arabic class but now they know me better than most people at Goshen ever will. It will be fun to see what kind of stories we will come back with from our separate service locations, but still we will have the shared experiences that no other SSTer from Goshen has had so far... Egypt SST group #1. :)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Aida at the Pyramids... or, Microbus Night.
The first part of this blog post is dedicated especially to Kate Walker and the rest of my Barcelona travel companions. :)
Part I:
Last week the majority of our group threw down 50 LE to see a performance of the opera Aida, at the pyramids. Literally on a stage set up right in front of them. In order to get there we rode the metro line as far as we could and then piled into a microbus for the rest of the trip. I was frustrated that we got way overcharged for the bus--for some reason there was a miscommunication between our fearless leader Ben and the driver, who saw an easy opportunity to trap us into renting the entire microbus, etc..-- anyway... grumpy Rachel recovered significantly from the 400% price inflation when the driver decided to put in a CD of "Western music" for us... which ended up being almost entirely made up of songs that played constantly on the one and only working TV channel (Mola TV) in my Barcelona apartment during May term. !! After headbobbing to a French song I recognized but couldn't understand, I screamed with happiness when the second song was... "Parachutes" by Cheryl Cole (a Brit-pop singer that of course no one else was as excited to hear as me) . But... noticing the excitement in the backseat, the driver turns his radio up to a ridiculous volume. So... here is the scene:
Driver and random other guy in the front seat. In the second seat, Summer, myself, and a random Egyptian guy in a suit who is also going to Aida (and who proceeded to attach himself to our group for the rest of the night). Back seat crammed with Ben, Nora, and Phil. The vehicle a small VW bus with a blue flashing heart on the windshield, faux fur across the dashboard, a baby-doll head on top of the fur (yes, just the head. ?? I know!) and a plushy heart hanging from the rear-view mirror. I'll never understand Egyptian vehicle decorations. All 5 Americans and the tagalong Egyptian singing and dancing loudly to Kesha, Usher, Lady Gaga, more Kesha, and Beyonce as we weave and jolt along the Cairo highway. All laughing with embarrassment at how loud and stereotypically American our microbus is, which only gets worse when Egyptian Tagalong Man gets hot and we have to stop so that the driver can run around and open the sliding door from the outside (because they don't open from the inside)... and then we carry on with our music-blasting, careening voyage.
When we finally reach the destination we each pay 8 LE while our Egyptian pal pays only 5 and explains that it is fair, because we are tourists. Right. But what can you do...
We rush off to find our seats in the opera crowd, and Egyptian Tagalong Man gives up his 100 LE seat to sit by us, because, as he says, he "doesn't know the people up there." But we are now his friends, so...
The performance was beautiful--costumes, sets, music... though I didn't know the storyline at all. In a perfect world I would have looked up a synopsis online before going, but with the rush and stress plus computer situation... didn't happen. Instead, Egyptian Tagalong Man explained the general idea of the scenes he recognized, or when that was insufficient we made up our own interpretations. All of this was passed telephone-style down the row, prompting us to get shushed by European Tourist Man in front of us who had arrived 20 minutes late (hmmph) but so it goes.
PART II:
We had to leave early because the metro doesn't run all night, so we caught another microbus and negotiated a ride for half the cost of the first one. Once again a fur-lined, plush-decorated, careening bus, with a driver who (as I thought to myself) didn't make me feel all that comfortable as a passenger. But I've had about one taxi/microbus driver so far who did seem safe in the Cairo traffic, so I shrugged it off and tried to ignore the constant lurching and braking and incessant honking that is part of average Cairo driving.
Not so fast.. only a bit down the road we pull dangerously closely alongside a taxi, and sure enough the next thing we know there is an awful crunch and the shrieking tear of metal, annnnd...
Nice Taxi's back end has been owned by Not-So-Nice Microbus's fender. Taxi Driver stops and leaps out of his car, followed by Microbus Driver. Lots of screaming and pointing and lifting by the back of the shirt ensues. We, by now the only passengers in the microbus, look at each other in terror--finally decide to just get out and quietly leave, but realize of course that the sliding door... doesn't open from the inside (see Microbus Story #1, above). A random guy appears outside to let us out, but as soon as we get out, Microbus Driver yells at us to get back in and he'll take us, don't worry. We follow orders and the bus continues on...
Only to be chased down by still-angry Taxi Driver, whose back end is hanging and scraping all the way. The two drivers are yelling at each other as we drive along, all the while lurching and braking and honking. I think we're probably not going to get to the metro by midnight and start to feel like a hostage. We pull over again for another round of yelling and shirt-pulling, while being pointed at, waved at, and laughed at by a microbus full of Egyptians on our starboard side...
Finally, finally, Microbus Driver finds a solution. The best we could figure was that he played the "I Have Americans In My Bus And I Have To Take Care Of Them" card and told Taxi river to meet him at the metro stop, and THEN they could fight it out. Whew. So, long story short, we made it to our destination intact, paid our far and scooted off.
But so far I have not yet felt the need to ride another microbus.
Part I:
Last week the majority of our group threw down 50 LE to see a performance of the opera Aida, at the pyramids. Literally on a stage set up right in front of them. In order to get there we rode the metro line as far as we could and then piled into a microbus for the rest of the trip. I was frustrated that we got way overcharged for the bus--for some reason there was a miscommunication between our fearless leader Ben and the driver, who saw an easy opportunity to trap us into renting the entire microbus, etc..-- anyway... grumpy Rachel recovered significantly from the 400% price inflation when the driver decided to put in a CD of "Western music" for us... which ended up being almost entirely made up of songs that played constantly on the one and only working TV channel (Mola TV) in my Barcelona apartment during May term. !! After headbobbing to a French song I recognized but couldn't understand, I screamed with happiness when the second song was... "Parachutes" by Cheryl Cole (a Brit-pop singer that of course no one else was as excited to hear as me) . But... noticing the excitement in the backseat, the driver turns his radio up to a ridiculous volume. So... here is the scene:
Driver and random other guy in the front seat. In the second seat, Summer, myself, and a random Egyptian guy in a suit who is also going to Aida (and who proceeded to attach himself to our group for the rest of the night). Back seat crammed with Ben, Nora, and Phil. The vehicle a small VW bus with a blue flashing heart on the windshield, faux fur across the dashboard, a baby-doll head on top of the fur (yes, just the head. ?? I know!) and a plushy heart hanging from the rear-view mirror. I'll never understand Egyptian vehicle decorations. All 5 Americans and the tagalong Egyptian singing and dancing loudly to Kesha, Usher, Lady Gaga, more Kesha, and Beyonce as we weave and jolt along the Cairo highway. All laughing with embarrassment at how loud and stereotypically American our microbus is, which only gets worse when Egyptian Tagalong Man gets hot and we have to stop so that the driver can run around and open the sliding door from the outside (because they don't open from the inside)... and then we carry on with our music-blasting, careening voyage.
When we finally reach the destination we each pay 8 LE while our Egyptian pal pays only 5 and explains that it is fair, because we are tourists. Right. But what can you do...
We rush off to find our seats in the opera crowd, and Egyptian Tagalong Man gives up his 100 LE seat to sit by us, because, as he says, he "doesn't know the people up there." But we are now his friends, so...
The performance was beautiful--costumes, sets, music... though I didn't know the storyline at all. In a perfect world I would have looked up a synopsis online before going, but with the rush and stress plus computer situation... didn't happen. Instead, Egyptian Tagalong Man explained the general idea of the scenes he recognized, or when that was insufficient we made up our own interpretations. All of this was passed telephone-style down the row, prompting us to get shushed by European Tourist Man in front of us who had arrived 20 minutes late (hmmph) but so it goes.
PART II:
We had to leave early because the metro doesn't run all night, so we caught another microbus and negotiated a ride for half the cost of the first one. Once again a fur-lined, plush-decorated, careening bus, with a driver who (as I thought to myself) didn't make me feel all that comfortable as a passenger. But I've had about one taxi/microbus driver so far who did seem safe in the Cairo traffic, so I shrugged it off and tried to ignore the constant lurching and braking and incessant honking that is part of average Cairo driving.
Not so fast.. only a bit down the road we pull dangerously closely alongside a taxi, and sure enough the next thing we know there is an awful crunch and the shrieking tear of metal, annnnd...
Nice Taxi's back end has been owned by Not-So-Nice Microbus's fender. Taxi Driver stops and leaps out of his car, followed by Microbus Driver. Lots of screaming and pointing and lifting by the back of the shirt ensues. We, by now the only passengers in the microbus, look at each other in terror--finally decide to just get out and quietly leave, but realize of course that the sliding door... doesn't open from the inside (see Microbus Story #1, above). A random guy appears outside to let us out, but as soon as we get out, Microbus Driver yells at us to get back in and he'll take us, don't worry. We follow orders and the bus continues on...
Only to be chased down by still-angry Taxi Driver, whose back end is hanging and scraping all the way. The two drivers are yelling at each other as we drive along, all the while lurching and braking and honking. I think we're probably not going to get to the metro by midnight and start to feel like a hostage. We pull over again for another round of yelling and shirt-pulling, while being pointed at, waved at, and laughed at by a microbus full of Egyptians on our starboard side...
Finally, finally, Microbus Driver finds a solution. The best we could figure was that he played the "I Have Americans In My Bus And I Have To Take Care Of Them" card and told Taxi river to meet him at the metro stop, and THEN they could fight it out. Whew. So, long story short, we made it to our destination intact, paid our far and scooted off.
But so far I have not yet felt the need to ride another microbus.
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