Yerushalayim!

My homestay added a whole new level of poverty to my vision of Egypt. The family had their own apartment, with 6 beds for 8 people, and could feed their 6 children well. The three oldest all worked, and the three youngest were in grammer and middle school. One of the older boys is an engineer, the other in school to be a family councelor but drives a small, 3-wheeled taxi called a tuktuk, and the older daughter works as a translator and secretary--so by any country's standards, they're doing well. But each of the family members has about 2 outfits that they wear outside the house. Now, those outfits range from neat to nice-looking, but imagine having only two changes of clothes. Once they get back to the house, the women change into galabeyas (loose dresses). Getting a big bottle of Sprite to share after dinner was a treat, and we would share bowls at dinner, though not forks, since they were concerned with cleanliness. They were sad that I was leaving them for Jerusalem, but as soon as I get a chance I'll go back to visit, because they're just such a wonderful family.

The first thing that struck my sleep deprived brain after the 15 hour trek from Cairo to the Holy City was boys with earrings and women looking pretty and not feeling bad about it. Israel is so not Egypt. It's not as if you've taken something out of Europe and dropped it in the Mid East, but it is a Western country. And the tacky souveniers here--much nicer and more tasteful than their counterparts in Egypt. The buildings only a couple stories, which creates a much different look than Cairo's predominant apartment towers. And that white stone they use everywhere here...cement can't possibly compete as a building material. It's just lovely here--I'm thinking of extending my stay. I should probably be doing the good little anthropological thing and describing more details, but I want to tell stories about my adventures.

Saturday was day two in J'lem, but my first full day here. While I was eating the YMCA's continental breakfast and reading the Bible, I noticed an old man at the next table looking over at me. I was super nervous, but I took a chance and went over to his table and said hello. He didn't seem surprised or confused at why I was speaking to him, and we wound up talking for over an hour about a lot of things--my education (hooray, someone who believes in liberal arts and studying abroad simply to make yourself a better, more educated person!), religion (I think he'd been looking over because I'd been reading, and he's an atheist and wondered what was going through my mind), ourselves (I described the AUC jaunt and he described coming as a baby from Austria to Israel). It was really great, and I felt very blessed to have gotten to talk to him. After this, I thought I'd go find an internet cafe in the Old City and email my advisor. I found one, though to get into the Old City I had to flash my American passport and tell the police that I was just trying to get to my hostel (when I'm actually at the Y outside the old city) but I naively thought that I'd go say Hi to my AUC friends who were planning on staking out a space in Holy Sepulchre for the service of the Holy Fire. I should have realized that there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people trying to get into Holy Sepulchre at for that same service. That was the reason there was a police barrier. But I started going toward the church, and then I got swept up in the crowds, and then suddenly I was in the church, and I didn't know what to do or where to go look for them. But I knew I was in a desirable place, so I sat down against a wall for a while, staking my claim on a little floorspace. But then the police/Israeli army decided that the hall I was in was not allowed to have people in it, at least not yet, so they forced everyone down some stairs into a chamber without any other exit. They were pushing very roughly, including all the old ladies and being scary. I later found that we had been sent down into the Armenian chapel. There were maybe 300-400 people down there; it wasn't crowded, and it wasn't as hot as upstairs, but I was stuck. Between the soldiers and the pilgrims crowding the stairs, there was no way I wasn't going to be staying for the service. I didn't really know what it involved, and everyone around me was Orthodox, meaning mostly from countries where they don't speak English. So I napped a little, did a little homework. After 2 or 3 hours of waiting, there were noises of excitement from upstairs, and all of down in that room crowded toward the stairs, people holding their bundles of 33 candles in the air, ready to receive the Holy Fire. And then we waited for maybe another hour, with moments of noise from upstairs getting people all exicted down stairs. But finally there was cheering from upstairs, and a bell started ringing. From mass this semester, I've learned that chimes indicate the miracle of transsubstantiation, and I knew that the bell meant that the priest had come out of the tomb with the miraculous fire sent by God. I was so excited along with the other pilgrims, and when the fire finally made it down to us, I was crying and laughing because it was so beautiful and wonderful.

People passed the fire around, and then passed their hands through it, for blessings I guess, and then put out the candles. I didn't have any candles, but some people let me put my hands over their flames. People said it wasn't as hot as regular fire; maybe. God was very present in that moment, as He has been for me since the beginning of this trip. When we made it out of the church, I went and bought some candles to light later. The size of the flame from all the candles bundled together was very big, and when people had been carrying it around, it made my think of God's flame in my heart, and how seeing a fire that I could imagine sitting in my chest and burning was very inspiring.

I found a felafel place and had lunch, with my third Turkish coffee here finally being the most like they have in Egypt. Now I'm worried I won't be able to find it in the US--I don't want espresso or something that tastes like regular black coffee grounds sitting unfiltered in the bottom of my cup. Anyway, I got a little work done there, and as I was setting out once again to find that internet cafe, who comes down the street by my friends from AUC. So I went off with them as they got lunch at an Arab restaurant, and then we went back to Holy Sepulchre, where the Orthodox kids explained some things to the Protestant kids. So we touched the annointed stone where Christ's body was laid before he was put in the tomb, and we prayed, and saw the rock that the cross stood on. While we were at the cross rock, a priest was fixing a chandelier with oil lamps, and he moved his ladder too quickly and one of the lamps fell to the floor and smashed. So since Al, who's like non-denominational/Protestant, and I were in the mood of venerating objects in holy places and being open to signs, we went and picked up a piece of the lamp and put our fingers in the oil. It wasn't super meaningful, but it couldn't hurt.

Also, people were lined up to go in the Sepulchre itself and ligth their candles from the Holy Fire. We didn't go in, but I got my candles lit from someone who had just walked out of the tomb with the fire, before he put his out in this little cone next to the exit. I feel like I'm forgetting something else that happened, but we visited the chapels next to Holy Sepulchre--the one on the right was Ethiopian, very solemn.

We spent a little time in the hostel where my friends are staying and then, 12 hours after I had originally set off looking for an Internet cafe, I finally landed in one and was able to get some work done. I had carried my laptop around the entire day--my headphone and microphone had unsurprisingly broken at some point. It's hard that God is not interested in my deadlines and the things I feel obligated to do--when there is a spiritual experience for me to have, God never looks at my calendar to make sure it's convenient for me. Actually, the hard part about that is saying, "No, today I'm going to stay away from people or places who I feel God is drawing me to, because I have a paper due tomorrow and I'm going to make that a priority." But hopefully I'm answering a larger calling by investing in my education, even if the immediacy of a spriritual experience beckons more forcefully than meeting a deadline I've committed to. I think that if I strike a balance between the two, I'll be good. I certainly feel the need to justify fulfilling my obligations when the alternative is Jerusalem out there waiting for me.

Homestay family, but just for a week

With AUC's spring break upon us, I've got a homestay for the first week and a trip to Jerusalem for the second, just in time for Othordox/Eastern Easter. I've been with the homestay family for two days and just stopped by the dorm to clean out the fridge, shower, check the email, and, I admit, briefly bask in the air conditioning.

I was very apprehensive about the homestay, but the family is part of a network used by an organization here does a semester abroad for Christian college students, and I should have known that they wouldn't send their students to families that weren't good. Mine consists of a mom, a dad, two boys and a girl older than me, and two girls and a boy younger than me. They're great; of course they stuff me full of food, as host families ought, even when I say, "It is not possible!" they tell me to quite whining and eat up. They've all studied English, but it's nothing like AUC. It's basically all Arabic, all the time. "Mish fahma" مش فهمة or "I don't understand" is my biggest line, though I know already that this is really good for my Arabic. The apartment is nice and doesn't feel crowded--three bedrooms. The first day we (meaning mostly the mom) made aish baladi عيش بلدي or what we'd probably call pita bread back home, which was a really cool process to watch, and yesterday we visited the schools that the three younger kids are in. The littlest one and I are friends, and she's showed me how to eat lib لب seeds and has written Arabic tests for me and we even played Connect 4. The TV's almost always on, but they keep the sound below voice level. The goal for today is not to get tired and nap, but it's warm and the family has let me get away with it the past two days. I have to get ready to go to Jerusalem, but it makes me feel like I'm acting all-important to whip out the travel book since the other members of the family are content to just sit and talk or watch TV. But getting to see the day-to-day of a family here is exactly what I've been hoping for.

Weekend plans

Easter weekend my travel plans (Jerusalem, anyone?) fell through, so I stayed at the dorms and am planning to go to the Holy Land for Eastern Easter, with a kid I met here who's Greek Orthodox. So I staying in Cairo and worked on my grant proposal for this summer (!!!) and did some little things. One morning I hung around the room of some friends of mine who are roommates (Hala, who's Palestinian, and Jessica, who's American) and Hala made us Turkish coffee and we sat on their balcony. Turkish coffee, Hala explained to us, is not like a cup of American coffee--it's not to be drunk on the run, and you drink it in company. Hanging out with them was lovely and probably the highlight of the weekend.

Because I stayed in a lot, I felt kind of disconnected from Egypt and being here during the week following Easter, and I was trying to just wrap up a couple assignments so I stayed in and just went between the dorms and campus. The weekend following was nice, and I feel back on track as far as trying to engage with the culture and the people I meet. I went with some friends (mix of Americans and Arabs) to "Islamic Cairo", which is a touristy market in the midst of important Islamic buildings that are about a thousand years old. We went to a park...which is not a common or natural occurrence on the Cairo landscape. It was huge, green, lit up after the sun went down and was full of young happy Egyptians. Afterwards, Enas (my roommate) and I were going to go home and do homework, but then decided since it was a Friday night to give it one more hour (we're such wild girls; we stay out until 8:45) and go on with the group to an Egyptian coffee-and-hookah cafe called an "'ahwa," which is one of the richest, simplest pleasures for me here. It was even better because I've been buckling down on homework and Grinnell requirements recently, so I haven't gone to one of these places in 3-4 weeks. I love Turkish coffee and باشرب شيشة احيانا and the atmosphere is so relaxed and social and unrushed. It's always mostly older and middle aged Egyptian men at the other tables, and they're interested in talking to their friends and drinking their tea or coffee, just like we are. The best 'ahawi (plural of 'ahwa) in my opinion have been in alleys between other buildings, so it's like there are walls on two sides but you're open to the air above and there's thoroughfare and activity at either end of the "premises." Chris called while we were at this 'ahwa, so I got to talk to him a little--the best of both worlds.

Saturday was also an out and about day, with an architectural field trip to some early Muslim shrines and religious schools. I've started asking my architecture professor more questions about Islam, and it's great to talk to her because she's so smart and knowledgeable. I asked some questions about fatwa-s and the mufti (apparently there is one for Egypt, but a group--دار--of scholars here who discuss that kind of religious interpretations stuff) because we had discussed it in my Anthropology class Thursday. There's so much interesting stuff about Islam that I don't know anything about!

I had my first Formal Arabic (aka Modern Standard Arabic aka فصحى) lesson Saturday, which I'm getting through a language school downtown separate from AUC that a friend here recommended. It felt really good to be doing some formal study again, and I don't think it'll be nearly as hard to move between Formal and Colloquial as I thought. Enas has it down and knows which words are formal and which are colloquial and which are both, so why can't I? I'm managing, on the low level of Arabic that I do have under my belt. Immediately after the Formal lesson, I had a talkative cab driver back to the dorms, so no threat of loosing my colloquial. I still don't have a good answer to the question of what I'm going to do with my Arabic. But I like languages too much to just let learning them turn into a personal passtime.