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.

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.

The neighborhood

I went on one of my very rare excursions out by myself last Sunday (seriously rare--I'd ballpark the number of times I've tread outside the path from the dorms to campus and in between classes by myself, as in completely unaccompanied, in the single digits and that was at the end of Week Three) walking around the island that my dorm is on. The Nile flows around the neighborhood-sized island, called Zamaalek, which houses a large number of embassies and classy, international places like that, so it's predominently upscale and definitely safe. One of the other dorms is called Kenzy, and a friend of mine who lives there says she likes that it's in a grittier neighborhood than Zamaalek because it seems more like the real Egypt instead of the sterilized, internationalized Egypt. However, I guess because this is the third world (whatever that means), you've got the very poor mixed in with the very rich. So getting off the beaten path in Zamaalek reveals a much different view than I'm used to. Actually getting off the beaten path is pretty easy, considering that the AUC shuttle picks us up at the library on campus and drops us at the door of the dorm. Furthermore, my usual walks around Zamaalek (all accompanied, mind you) are either to A.) a nearby street that has a currency exchange, my favorite felafel shop, the Vodafone store, a supermarket, and Cinnabon or B.)mass with the Notre Dame faction here.


But today I walked to 26th of July Street, which is a major street as far as the entire city is concerned, and then I took a winding way back. I ran into shops that are much more practical than luxuious. There were real clothing stores instead of boutiques (whose whole inventory is about 15 shirts and 10 pairs of shoes, period) and grocery stores and snack shops with cheaper wares and fewer brand names that I recognized than at the stores that know they'll get tourists or wealthy students passing by. There wasn't anything too mind blowing, but I could tell the audience was different. It was a little more private, particularly since it was morning. It was a little more mundane, less advertised and flashy. The content wasn't captivating but I liked the slight change in atmosphere.

The walls of the dorm don't seem so thick when you know how close the real world is, and how your fortress is smack dab in the middle of something different from itself.

First few days

Today marks my fourth full day in Cairo, what has so far been confusing but good. Since there's no class or structured time (until later today when my Survival Arabic class starts at 4:30pm) I've been wandering around the neighborhood, called Zamaalek, with other American students. There have been a couple great finds for shops, including a place where you can get one delicious felafel (called tameeya here) for 0.18USD (1 LE, Egyptian pounds). Prices range greatly--we found a bag of Sunchips for 40LE ($8), which was exorbitant, but good food on the cheap abounds when you hunt it out.

The light mist (or is it smog?) in the morning also adds to the beauty of the city, making it seem a little enchanted, like a city in the clouds. Architectural trends so far include:

• tiling the sidewalk directly outside your shop and no further, so that as someone walks down one block they step on many different colors and tectures.
• depressing the level of the floor of the shop about three feet below street level, so that customers open your door and take a couple steps to get the ground. I imagine this regulates tempurature in the store, but I haven't asked.
• having glass doors, even glass walls. At my dorm, the ground level seems very open even though the space is divided into different rooms because some of the walls are made of sheets of glass or have glass sections. It would look pretty ritzy if our grubby fingerprints weren't all over them.
• Because of the climate, buildings can be more open, so some places have no doors at all, or leave them perpetually open. Even if you can't go in, you can peek in.
• This one's not really an architectural trait, but compact fluorescent bulbs are all over the place here. They're a hippy thing in the US, but according to the wikipedia article on CFLs, they're quite a big deal internationally, particularly in big cities like Cairo where their low energy draw eases the strain on the power plants here (and where people are out and about at all hours of the night, and not just to go to mosque).

The population is in the vicinity of 17 million people, and the metropolitan area covers about 25 square miles, or so I read today. Because of this, it's difficult to regulate certain things like traffic (lanes are painted on the road, but ignored because you can fit 5 cars abreast if you ignore the fact that three lanes are painted on the road). I think this happens in other areas too, but traffic is the most obvious.

I'm doing well. I'm trying to drink a lot of bottled water--which you can find here for what I think bottled what should be sold for in the US at 0.25USD (or 1.5LE) for a half liter. I brush my teeth with the tap water. I eat Egyptian food at every opportunity, and my stomach has been shockingly strong. I haven't been sick at all , which I'm so grateful for. I've realized that my Arabic is nearly non-existant, and I'm not upset about it. I've been told that if I take a colloquial class, I'll get it easily. Many people selling food know relevant English words like "Spicy?" and "Two pounds," and I'll try to ask as often as I can "bilarabia?" to get them to tell me the word for whatever they said in Arabic. So far I've learned the words for spicy, change, fare, water, and cat. I excell at one word sentences. I travel almost exclusively in groups of other American students, which has many advantages. It helps my social life, but it also more socially acceptable to the residents here. I feel like I'm getting looks when I walk alone, although there's no way not to get looks. Also, the American students are all really excited about getting to know the neighborhood and learning about new places, whereas the Egyptian students who I've talked to already know the neighborhood and prefer to get delivery (everywhere delivers) and eat in the comfort of the dorm, even if the place they're getting food from is literally around the corner. I think the Egyptian students like foreign food, just like the American students do, but foreign for them includes McDonalds, and foreign for us is Egyptian food.

The dorm looks like a palace on the outside, and upstairs from the lobby on the residence floors, it is simple but complete in what it offers. I carry soap with me to the bathroom because there are the Islamic toilets here, where you clean yourself with water from a small hose or pipe, and not toilet paper apparently.

I feel like a wimp wearing a warm jacket here since it's the Middle East, but I've pulled out the sweaters because it is brisk outside and in, like early spring. I wear a hoody outside once it gets dark, which exposes me as even more of an American, but is necessary, along with gloves.

My roommate is not here yet, but should arrive by the end of the week. I am excited to meet her, and to describe academic life to you guys as soon as it starts. Pictures to come soon as well.

"Asalaam aleikum! Where are the frauenbathrooms?"

My paltry Arabic did me no good in the Frankfurt Airport, where I had about 3 hours layover between Chicago and Cairo. (For the record, frauenbathrooms are called "toilette," just like in French but say the final e, and they're right over there, just more discretely placed and with fewer indicating signs than in the US.) I took some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Christ Jewelry and Watches International

Goethe Bar--if you click the picture, in the background you can see a big white statue of what is assumably the man himself reclining ina big hat

On the way to Frankfurt I sat next to a couple from Wisconsin going to visit their family in India, and on the way to Cairo I sat next a Finnish couple going to Egypt for a meeting. At my gate in Frankfurt, I saw a group of kids whose Georgetown hoodies and guitar case gave them away as American college students. I sat with them and sure enough they were all enrolled in the American University in Cairo (AUC) this spring. One girl mentioned that she felt loud and American in the Frankfurt airport and I felt the same, but ignorant too. It's kind of presumptuous to be in a place where your only vocabulary in the local language comes from "Sound of Music." Although some things are universal; Mom will be pleased to hear that I saw "Das Goldene Sudoku" stocked in the business class section of my second plane.

There were a couple moments on the plane when I thought, "Wow, I'm actually on the plane. I've been planning this for over a year and it's on the brink of actually happening." I think it would have taken me about 20 more years to pull this together if it hadn't been for Mom and Dad helping me so much. So many other people have prepared me, but it's not quite the same as late night faxes, endless phone calls on my behalf, and sacrificing their bedroom to serve as ground zero for my packing efforts.

Everything went smoothly getting from our house in Chicago to the dorm in Cairo, and the few glitches are not worth mentioning. All the AUC students were corralled and put on a bus going to our dorm. The drive from the airport was about an hour, which gave us the opportunity to see the city. It was a little before sunset as we were driving, which bathed the whole scene in a golden light, revealing a city looking quite like Metropolis (the new anime version), with a hodgepodge of buildings mixed together. It was stunningly beautiful architecturally. There was laundry hanging out of a lot of windows and satellite dishes on the roofs of crumbling buildings. Billboards are everywhere. There are palm trees and a lot of other greenery just mixed in. I even thought the sand next to the runway was beautiful. It's just so not-grass. Most everything in the city is paved, but even in that way there's just so much variety.

There's a lot more to describe but I'm very tired and quite jetlagged, so more later.