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...
No comments:
Post a Comment