Mmmm, Coffee

There's something so familiar about coffee. It's one of my go-to comforts, especially after having worked in a café for 5 years. The smells, the sounds, the murmur of customers...  I often crave afternoons just sitting in a coffee shop. 

I'm in one today, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, "born and brewed in Southern California" according to my plastic cup, but somehow managed to sprout on a tiny corner of City Center mall at the edge of Cairo in Nasr City. I could breathe in this aroma of freshly ground beans all day. 

I came here to enjoy my favorite creature comfort and spend the price of 5 bowls of Koshary on one iced mocha latte, but it's providing me with much needed head space. I'm waiting on my friend to finish an informational interview and until my phone starts buzzing and playing "Com você," I have an unknown amount of time on my hands to contemplate.

Egypt, after eight months, is tragically beautiful, cracked, flawed, hotter than I could have imagined, frustrating, alive, pulsing, volatile, behind the times, dusty, lovely, romantic at all the wrong times, hilarious at all the right ones, and so often I feel like me and the donkey carts are swimming through mud in our attempts at progress: me, wishing reliable internet was more readily available and them probably longing for their owners to discover flat bed pick-up trucks. I saw one particular donkey today biting his cohort's ear in hot frustration, the latter barred from escape by the attached wooden cart and the three surrounding cars parked every which-a-damn way. As often, I felt sorry for the beasts, languishing in the heat, lazily flicking flies from their ears. I, myself, was languishing in the back of a vinyl upholstered taxi cab whose driver, like so many others, was declining to turn on the AC. This, of course, before my relaxation time in the blessed, cool oasis of The Coffee Bean. 

At The Pump

It was 11:43 in the morning, and the gas station still was not open. Mini-buses and cabs and mass transit vehicles were lined up almost to Ramses Square which is approximately a mile distant. It was hot, even in the shade, and the drivers were camped out on the sidewalk on their grass mats, set in for the long haul because until the attendants pulled down the barriers to the tanks, the line wasn't going anywhere. The drivers seemed to be accustomed to this routine. Some had coolers and water and an unending supply of cigarettes. 

I imagine the States looked something like this during the gas crisis of the 1970s. I've seen black and white photographs of cars lined up at the pump. Of course, life here now is a bit different than it was then and there, so I'm not sure if the comparison is quite accurate. At times, I get the impression they're all living on a tight rope. Most of the problems are attributed to the new people in power. If the lights go out, it's because of Morsi. If traffic is backed up a mile in both directions, it's because of Morsi. If a dog leaves reeking poo in front of your doorstep, it's because of Morsi.

For lack of knowing a good way to end this post, I'll leave it at that. 

El Aazelle el Aarousa

There was another pre-wedding celebration Wednesday. Not surprising considering engagements and weddings happen here every 2.5 seconds. When I arrived at the school today, I found myself weaving through large silver trays laden with shiny dishes and pots & pans, fuzzy blankets, boxes of mugs, buckets filled with brooms, and baskets of laundry detergent and dish soap. All of these things, save the blankets spread across chairs and outdoor wooden sofas, were spread out on the dusty ground in wait of the parade of trucks that would carry all of the bride's pre-purchased wares to her future husband's villa. This pairing, in particular, was one of the richer ones. This is tradition here. The groom's family provides the finished apartment, and the bride's family provides every tiny little thing that goes in it. A week before the nuptials, all of her things take up residence in his house and every extended family member and available truck goes along to attend the moving in. There's beating of drums (pots turned upside down into makeshift instruments), children throwing noisemakers and small handheld fireworks, and a middle aged man in a gallabeya shooting a pistol into the air. The latter somewhat alarming considering the amount of children and people in general milling around. 

After the first ten minutes of novelty wore off, I and the rest of the teachers moved inside to listen to the chaos from our wooden kiddy chairs. Some of the teachers then asked me if I wanted to get married so I could have something like this, and if we do things like this in America. I laughed. 

"No way," I said. "All of the presents come from everyone else, all the people that come to the wedding. We actually go into stores, decide what we want, mark it down on a list, and then send that list to all of our family and friends." 

"Really?" they said, incredulous. 

"Yeap. It's kind of awesome." All of them just looked at me and then broke into quick, chatty Arabic as they discussed how cool that idea was and how they would have liked to have gotten married like that. 

"It's a beautiful thought," said Hannan, the one I've deemed the most spunky. I've seen her give as good as she gets, especially to the older boys who have since graduated the school but come back occasionally to volunteer. One of them accidentally hit her in the head with a soccer ball once, so she waited about half an hour until he wasn't paying attention and threw one right back at him. I laughed so hard and instantly added her to my list of favorites. 

The hubbub outside gradually diminished and all the attendees boarded vehicles and drove away to continue the celebration at the home of future wedded bliss. The only traces left of the party by the time I was walking home were a few glittery pieces of confetti, and some round, tray-shaped indentions in the muddy earth. Just another day. 

Hummus

Not just your average, run of the mill, wonderful garlicky spread in a small plastic tub, this is also the Arabic word for chickpeas themselves. Often, if not always, sprinkled in with Koshary and as I found out tonight, one can also steep them in hot water and drink it like tea. What??? I have had many firsts here, and tonight was my first time drinking chickpea water. They even serve it with small cups of salt, hot pepper powder (when the wind blew too hard, said tiny pepper flakes decided to lodge themselves in my eyeballs... NOT a pleasant experience), and half a lemon to add some zest. I literally sipped on spicy chickpea broth as my after dinner beverage. It's 2 hours later, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the experience, but wanted to share. I think in the future I'll be sticking to my hot tea with milk. Safe and warm and fuzzy in my tummy leaving no place for invasive, partying garbanzo beans. 

The 6th Food Group

My apologies in advance for a rather meaningless post about potato chips. Bygones : )

I looked at my bag of chips yesterday and found that the list of ingredients read as follows: cut potatoes, palm oil, lemon, salt, and cumin. Oh my wonderful. My first bag of chips without hydrogenated fats, random chemicals I can't pronounce and who knows what else mixed in. Or maybe these Arabic food companies are just lying to me. All I know is, they are fantastic at making fried potato products from scratch. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen french fries bubbling in a huge pot of oil on the stove. They have a strange affinity for creating sandwiches out of french fries (literally french fries and maybe some scraps of lettuce and tomato in a pita) and they can add a bag of potato chips to any meal, especially breakfast. It's not uncommon to see a table spread with bowls of mixed eggs, a plate of white cheese, some chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, and a large, silver lined bag of chips ripped down the middle and set among the plates for general consumption. At first, I thought this incredibly odd. Now, since potato chips are one of my favorite food groups, I find myself grateful for a culture that eats them with almost anything. My favorite flavor is Seasoned Cheese, but I won't turn down Tomato or Chili & Lemon. The Kabob flavored ones still make me pause as I can't wrap my head around chips that taste like meat, but if I'm in a bind and hungry, as I recently was on my 9 hour bus trip back from the South Sinai coast, I may end up finishing a bag of Sish Tawook flavor despite myself. YUM. 

Watching

The last several weeks I've been watching: watching at the school, watching the streets, watching people be themselves. There's no pretense here, a refreshing change to never knowing quite what people are thinking. Outside of the GTA game on the computers (a particularly violent game of car theft), I've seen things lately at the school that amaze me and make it hard to keep a slow smile from spreading on my face. I've had nothing to do with their development, but I'm so fiercely proud of this community and the people I get to be around every day. 

One of the teachers, Sameh, is responsible for teaching the boys about their health. The other day, she gathered a group of them around a table to talk about the possible skin or throat diseases they could contract here. She showed them slides of the afflictions on a computer and talked to them about what they should do if they feel anything strange under their skin, what to say to the doctor and when to go. It was cool to watch. Because especially in this community, it's a great thing to learn young how to take care of oneself and recognize things before they get serious. 

Another thing that makes my heart smile is watching the boys that have grown up here teach the young ones coming up under them. They learned to read here and now they teach what they know to the ones just coming through the doors. All of the male teachers here now are graduates of the school. It's a beautiful cycle. They may only be here for a while before they pursue other things, but it's amazing what they're doing with their in between time. 

I love this place. I had no idea how much I would when I first stepped off the plane months and months ago. My experience here isn't always quantifiable. I can't tick off a lot of to do's. And I'm not so sure that that matters, because my world is changing. 

A Funny Thing Happened...

In the office of the Association today. I was sitting across the room on my computer, half waiting for the internet to load pages, half playing with my phone, when I hear Remone say from the couch against the opposite wall, "Is that a banana?" (the entire sentence in Arabic except for the last word). I'm looking around for the random piece of fruit when I realize his friends sitting on either side of him have started laughing hysterically. 

He says it again, deadpan, not quite realizing his mistake. "Is that a banana?" I am still in search of yellowish-brown fruit when one of his English speaking friends says through his laughter, "He means is that an Apple." He looks over at Remone and says to him in Arabic, "The word is Apple, you idiot. The computer is an apple, as in 'tuffah'." Tuffah being the Arabic word for apple. After this, it took me a while to get my breath back. 

This may have been/probably was one of those you had to be there moments. But one of the things I love about this place is when the miscommunications between languages are downright laughable. Besides the one above, here are just a few I've had the privilege of hearing: 

"Pedesterians" (I'm guessing these are Presbyterians who like to walk)

"I'm an addictive." (This after having discovered where something was located. It took me quite some time to figure out he wanted to say "detective.") 

ob-STACK-el  (this also took several minutes of me wracking my brain. This one was in the middle of a paragraph about something else so was repeated several times before I realized they were saying 'obstacle.'  emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle.)

Yet to be fair, I've probably said 'I need to go to the pigeon' instead of bathroom, 'I've been here a hair' instead of month, and 'No, I just live in a cat, there aren't a lot of cats, just one cat' instead of saying I live in a room. I guess all's fair in love and foreign languages. 

Ashraf

I was 2.5 seconds away from writing about my crappy cab driver yesterday. Either my Arabic is terrible or he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm going with the latter considering the majority of the people in this country understand me at least 75% of the time. 

But just as I was going to put my pen to paper, Laila, the school director, said my name. "Jenniferrrr...." I laughed and told her, "That's just how Ashraf says it. With the long rrrr." 

She smiled and asked, "Ashraf at the school?" 

"Yeah. He's always saying my name like that." 

She told me then that they recently discovered that he's developed lung cancer. At age 9. The doctors said that it had most likely been caused by some of the components found in an improperly disposed of computer. Something from the electronic waste had been broken and released chemicals to which he was exposed at some point in his young life among the waste. My heart broke a little. Ashraf usually has a runny nose, dirt smudged on his cheeks, and I've never heard him say much more than my name. Now I see this kid who may not make it past twelve or even that long if his parents can't move him to a cleaner environment with fresh air and clean food. 

I wish knowing someone was ill didn't change the way I look at them, but it's as if all of the sudden I want to make his life beautiful and tangible in a way it might not have been before. Yet as I was thinking this, I thought that it shouldn't take knowledge of a terminal illness to want to make someone's life beautiful. I should do it just because he's a little boy who laughs and wrestles and lives and breathes. Because maybe if I talk to him a little more, or make a funny face when he rolls my name off of his tongue, or hand him another Kleenex to wipe the green goo off from beneath his nose, he might smile an extra time that day or at least know he's also loved by the foreigner who keeps randomly showing up at his school. 

I'm learning lessons in love all the time, but the thing that's left the most lasting impression is that love kind of hurts. It's kind of uncomfortable and it changes the way you see things. It makes your current routine unacceptable. And it usually quickens the blood to some sort of action - action that is rarely convenient. I guess I always knew I'd probably learn more from being with them then they would from being with me. But it still catches me by surprise when a snotty nosed kid calling my name from the back of a passing garbage truck makes my heart sing and cry all at the same time. 

"Ashrrrrraaf!" I yell back and wave. And he's still rolling his arms and pointing at me as the truck rolls away into the twilight distance and turns the corner out of sight. 

Sharpening Pencils

The boys were processing the shampoo bottles at the school today, which means the big green machine in the back was running, chewing up Pantene scented plastic and spitting it out in confetti sized pieces. The noise was loud and constant, making conversation, English or otherwise, rather difficult. So I decided to sharpen all the colored pencils in the room.

But as I was sharpening the pinks and yellows and blues, I realized that I was creating a rainbow array of yet another weapon the boys could use to stab each other with. I know at normal elementary schools, small incidents are bound to pop up. Here, it's almost every day. Everything's fine and dandy, the room is dark and the boys are watching yet another American or Hindi movie from MyEgy, and the next thing you know, chairs are scraping linoleum, voices are bouncing off the walls, and one of the 'peacekeepers' as I call them, is pulling one of the younger boys out of the fray- said culprit flailing his arms and half shouting angry words in Upper Egypt accented Arabic. Half the time, blood has been drawn, and more than half the time, the skirmish continues as three or four older students begin shouting as well in their attempts to subdue the defiant anger sparking throughout the room. 

My first week or so I thought, "This is nuts-o!" Now it's just run of the mill. I've occasionally ripped a broom handle out of somebody's hand as they were brandishing it in their pursuit of someone out the door, and I've sternly said "BAS!" more times than I can count to two who were just beginning to argue heatedly over something silly. I think the word 'enough' coming out of the foreigner's mouth has a bit more shock value. They stop at least a moment longer than usual before resuming their pettiness until crazy Ibrahim comes up to one and drags him by the collar back to the green machine to get to work. It's fascinating, this dynamic. Working, learning, yelling, laughing, dumping gargantuan bags of shampoo bottles onto the floor... Today was one of those days where I wouldn't trade this for anything. 

93 Degrees

I woke up to the sound of water splattering the concrete in the courtyard garden area. I looked up to the roof and saw my friend Hanna (who's nickname for me is 'strong one' in Arabic) apparently attempting to water the plants on the ground from four floors up. Curiosity getting the better of me, I climbed one flight higher and emerged into summertime on concrete. One of the men who works at the organization asked me why I had short sleeves on (short as in hitting my arms just above the elbows). "It's still winter," he said, gesturing from his leather jacket. I had been on the roof for less than 60 seconds, and I was almost sweating. "Well," I said, "It's hot outside." He still looked at me like I was a bit nuts. Really? I thought. Because it makes no sense to me why people are walking around in sweatshirt hoodies just because the calendar says it isn't even spring yet. All I know is my thermometer says it's 93 degrees, and the really intense sun ball tells me it ain't lyin', so call me crazy, but even observing the rules of modesty here, I'd rather dress for the temperature, not the season. 

It's been one of those days where everyone has been moving around like molasses, sluggish and tired. Even my mind hasn't been working as sharp as usual. I spent an hour trying to decide whether or not to put a border around an image in the organization's newsletter, and afterwards almost flushed my flash drive down the toilet. Bravo a liki, as they say here. Had that happened, I seriously would have cried. I cried a little last night because I let my friend cut my hair with a pair of safety elementary school scissors. It wasn't until I was able to work on it with my curling iron and pair it with make-up this morning that I realized things weren't quite so dire as they appeared last night. All that to say, losing my flash drive to the bowels of the Egyptian sewer system would have just been icing on the cake especially with the heat sapping all of the energy I have for emotional defenses. 93 degrees. NINETY. THREE. Geez oh Pete's. And as my friend Rania says, "This is just the beginning." 

Intangible State

I take long weekends. One reason is because much of the communication work I'm doing for the Association is much better accomplished in the relative quiet of the guesthouse as opposed to the ebb and flow of chaos that rolls through the office in Manshiyet Nasr. Also, the internet is much more reliable at 'home' and a thousand times less frustrating than walking into the office and being unable to do anything but sit and watch people. As a result, every time I'm away from Garbage City for three days, on my first day back, it seems as if I've been gone for weeks. The smell is as pungent as the first time, the waste is shocking, the slow, exhausted gait of the people is hard to watch, especially when I'm being chauffeured through in my clean, white taxi. There's a small part of me that thinks I should be living like the people. Yet in all honesty, if I were, I wouldn't survive this place. I couldn't do this, I couldn't be here if I were waking up every morning in this atmosphere, if I didn't have the escape that is offered to me every day at 3 o'clock. 

There are things that feel wrong about this. Why even though this is an uncomfortable country, compared to almost everyone I meet, I am quite comfortable in comparison. I meet people at the guesthouse who's entire life for a family of four fits into five suitcases. I used to marvel at the amount of clothes and shoes in my friend Christie's closet when I was in college. Now I feel like the one with the unending wardrobe for the simple fact that I don't have to start wearing the same thing after three days. And the several pairs of shoes on my floor are almost embarrassing. I can see someone coming in to replace a light bulb and thinking, why in the world does one person need more than three pairs of shoes? The funny thing is, most of my wardrobe, actually most of what I own regardless of where it may reside on the planet at the moment, was free. Or found. Or given to me as a gift. I'm not sure telling people that makes my excess any more acceptable. Then they wonder at the generosity of my friends and the state of income that must exist if people are just giving this stuff away. Some of the kids in Manshiyet Nasr already think I'm a digital camera Santa Claus, since I had three donated ones with me when I came the first week. I tried to be as discreet as possible in distributing them to their new owners, but word gets around quickly in a place like this. I had kids I'd never seen before telling me they wanted a camera. I wanted to say, "no, you don't understand." But what else are they supposed to think? Tourists come here and walk through their streets practically reeking of wealth. Even though by US standards I'm rather poor and made so little last year I'm pretty sure I could have qualified for food stamps, even I, in my cleanliness and restedness, look like I should be able to hand out dollar dollar bills ya'll without even blinking. 

I know I write about this a lot: the dirt, the disparities, the absolute inability words contain to describe what this feels like. It's because it strikes me so often. There is no getting comfortable with this. There is no getting used to how much better off I am than them and how everything I say, every opinion I have, is coming from a mentality that was developed in a world of ease and relative prosperity. I don't know what it's like to be from here. I don't know what it's like to live here every day knowing that regardless of how much I may want to, it would be really difficult for me to leave and change my circumstances. It's easy to sit on the outside and say, 'Well of course there's a choice. There's always a choice.' There may, indeed, always be a choice. But having grown up in a place where choice is on every corner, I cannot understand the difficulty it is to break deep, ingrained cultural responsibility. From the outside, it looks easy. From the inside, I imagine it looks as if the picture will never change. What good does a room with a view do if all you're looking at is a brick wall?

Mo Gamma Gamma

It seems a bit silly to say the traffic was crazy today, because duh, it's Cairo. I'm sitting at the guesthouse after my slightly harrowing trip to the Mogamma (oh place of wonders and delight that is the dense crush of foreigners in every square inch of space around me). The Mogamma is always a circus ride of back and forth between windows, waving money above the heads of everyone in front of you like somehow the guy behind the glass is going to call you out even though you're 4 human bodies deep in the pulsing sardine can. Luckily, as a female, I do receive some sort of privilege as there is a man that just takes the stamp fees from women. Some guy tried to shove his money around in front of me and the official was having none of it. He just ignored the man's outstretched hand and beckoned me to hand over my guinea. Hurrah! Take that, you pushy menfolk. 

What kind of visa they will decide to bestow upon me is yet to be determined. I have a contract of work this go round, but who knows whether this will carry any weight to get me a longer term of stay, or if they'll just blithely ignore it and issue the standard 3 months I received last time. I have to return tomorrow to discover the outcome. If the latter scenario happens, I'm scootin' my tail off to Malta at the end of the term, and re-entering via Cairo International Airport, a method which is slightly more expensive yet not involving nearly as much physical contact with strangers. Which in my book is a HUGE pro. 

Arriving back at Shera Ramses (RAMASEES!!) and our neighborhood corner stand, I took note of and considered the fruit smoothie concoction chock full of vitamins and goodness, but still opted for the can of Coke and sugar wafers, making yet another bad decision regarding crap that I have put into my body over the last week. Ehh, bygones. If someone offers me sugary tea, chocolate on rice pudding, and a tub full of Koshary, who am I to refuse? It's all about accepting people's hospitality. If the visa gurus are kind, and I'm to stay here as long as I am hoping, familiarizing myself with the intricacies of courtesy is going to be a must. 

Sundays

A friend of mine who has studied Egyptian history says that this used to be a place of thriving culture: dance, song, beautiful and classy black & white films, tourism, and glamour. And now, it seems a place of decay. Still beautiful underneath but in perilous danger of losing it. 

Sunday mornings for most people here mean getting up and going to start their work week. But I'm still a product of my Southern upbringing in that Sundays are church days and otherwise left for moving slowly, taking naps, and absorbing as much sunlight as I can stand. Since they don't have church on Sundays here, I had my own version, downloading a sermon from one of my favorite speakers, Dr. Dick Foth, and afterwards finishing my laundry before heading down to the kitchen for breakfast. The boys were having tea and watching a great black and white movie on the cafeteria TV. The picture was crisp, the actors and actresses glamorous, the songs soft and lovely. And Adeeb was glued to it. At least until he had to get back to work that is. It made me smile, these guys from this dusty earth, usually with cigarettes dangling from their fingers like extensions of their bodies, watching the Egyptian equivalent of Turner Classic Movies over tea. Hence my waxing philosophic over the culture that's been buried beneath the dirt and turmoil. 

I wish I could have seen this place in its heyday. It's possible they will one day get back to it, but it will be a long journey. And even if they do, will it change the way of life for the people I spend most of my time with here, the garbage collectors and recyclers who live in unfinished tenements bordering unpaved roads? I don't know. I hope they will be remembered. I hope they'll soon have enough money to paint their walls and provide their daughters with all the things they need for their future marriages. But all these things take time, something most of us are not willing to befriend quickly. Time tends to elbow its way into our lives until all we notice is how long we've been waiting. It helps us find our way back while helping us find our way better. I think Egypt can return to its glory and improve all at the same time. So long as it never loses its heart. 

Community

I cried in the taxi on Monday. There are times when I reach my emotional limit and I feel like I just can't do it anymore, but I have to because I'm in a taxi and even though he's taking the long way, through parts of downtown to get somewhere that's simply south and slightly west of me, I have to stick it out and wait until we get there and see how much the meter has run up and how much of my meager allowance I'm going to have to shell out this time before I can breathe a sigh of relief until the next time when I have to do this all over again. It's the silly female part of me that couldn't stop the floodgates once they opened, and then, because my taxi driver could see my tears in the rearview mirror, I found myself having to once again explain my overactive emotions in Arabic. The only place I felt comfortable that day was Manshiyet Nasr. I immediately met Moussa at his bakery and then, after munching on a discus of bread fresh from the oven, I headed to the school to throw myself into what I'm doing so I could remember why I'm here. I felt at home in a millisecond. No sooner had I dropped my bag on a dusty table when I was being made a large cup of tea and being shuffled over to the computers so Bola could show me how to type in Arabic. 

"See?" he said. "You put your hands like this," showing me a pattern of fingers-on-a-qwerty-pad that I've been more than familiar with since 6th grade. "You see the letter on the screen, and you type it here." 

I figured this was the time to wow them with my fancy American typing skills, so I switched the language to English, flew through the intermediate typing test, became the most popular person in the room for the next three minutes, turned to Bola and Ibrahim and said, "Yeah, I get the idea. Just not in Arabic." From that point on, life made sense again. Bola learned and remembered his animals in English like a pro, and Moussa FINALLY grasped the difference between "I am eating" and "I will be eat." Al-hamdulilah. Which came back to bite me when I arranged my word cards to form the sentence "The monkey wants to eat a mouse" and Moussa said, "NO. Monkey will not eat mouse, monkeys don't eat meat." Thank you, sir, for completely missing my grammatical point.  

But today was amazing. I had to steal myself before leaving the guesthouse for the next taxi encounter, but I arrived without a hitch and for only 10 pounds 50. Then later, although my English tutoring was somewhat discouraging, I was filmed for a Greek television piece that's being put together about Egypt after the revolution. They wanted to show the disparity between the different classes and expositing how life is in a place such as Manshiya. They were impressed with me - that I was there on a regular basis, that I was eating the food and not getting sick ("No seriously," Panos, the Greek director, asked, "what medications are you taking?"), that I was doing something to try to give the kids an opportunity to dream bigger and give them a chance. I shrugged, not real sure what to say. For the first time in my life, I didn't mind being in front of a camera. It didn't matter that the light was practically in my eyeballs, or that my hair was in disarray or that they were all up in our grill while I was helping Bola read his English book. I was just doing what I do here. And I didn't feel self-conscious at all. Even when I realized I'd probably just moved my bag into pigeon pee on the roof of Bola's house right before my interview. I didn't get nervous when they asked me questions, and I didn't hesitate when they miked me for the camera. I didn't even think twice about it. I was part of the reason they were on a roof in Manshiyet Nasr below the outfall of a vaulted pigeon coop. Panos wanted my take on the place, wanted me in one of the shots in the street, wanted me sitting with Bola and his dad and uncle and sisters in their living room. As he was telling the members of the camera crew to get out of the shot, I looked at him and asked, "Do I need to get out?" He said, "No. You're a part of the community." 

Dirt With a View

I spent the afternoon sitting in a brown plastic chair next to a white plastic table watching the cars go by beneath the shadow of the mountain that houses Saleh el-Din Citadel and the concrete frame of what will soon be the Egyptian Treasury opposite. It was my day to reward myself with a glass bottle of Coke, and I sipped it slowly while Moussa drank his tea and smoked shisha from the water pipe. Soon he stopped and started throwing rocks at a glass bottle lying on its side a small ways down the hill. I joined in with large chunks of brick. Both of us kept missing until finally he lodged a small stone perfectly and it shattered the glass, leaving shards of dangerous sharpness sticking out of the sand. This is the closest I think I'll get to a terrace café. 

We were sitting on the edge of Manshiyet Nasr. It was a short day for me, but my first day back in the school and seeing the boys. They're doing well, all of them, and all happy to see me. I gave Bola his gift - a small, digital Kodak camera that I got for Christmas about eight years ago. It's been sitting unused on my mom's desk for the last four, and he had asked me for one before I left. It wasn't until I was home during the holidays that I saw it, something I had completely forgotten about, and knew it would be perfect. We're so blessed with wealth that we're up to our ears in digital apparatuses that we no longer use. Even after some time here, I'm still startled by the contrast. 

Moussa showed me his bakery today. It opened on the first of this year, but when I say bakery, I mean nothing akin to warm, fluffy croissants, muffins, and chocolate drizzled doughy confections. Bakeries in Manshiya are as utilitarian as it gets. They buy flour from a monastery in 50 kilogram bags which they mix with water, yeast, and some salt before letting it rise for half an hour. They then roll balls of dough in tiny seeds before setting them on long wooden flats that are shoved through a gargantuan metal oven. This creates the discs of bread that float through the streets atop lattice trays in sandy abundance. The tiny seeds rub off on hands like gritty dust, so the circle is usually folded and rubbed together to dislodge all that's loose. It doesn't keep the tan powder from sprinkling over table tops and all over my black sleeves, but it helps a little. 

Moussa tells me the 50 kilo bags cost 100 pounds apiece. One bag makes 70 flats of bread, sold at roughly 2 pounds each which adds up to 40 pounds profit. With today's exchange rate, that is about $6.35 made on each bag of flour. That doesn't include the cost of machinery or the salary of the baker or any equipment repair costs. I have to wonder if they even sell 70 flats of bread a day. 

But he has big dreams, this Moussa. He hopes to study recycling practices in England or America for a few years to learn and share what he knows before coming back to help improve his community. He's building out his apartment for his fiancée whom he would marry tomorrow if her family would allow her too without insisting she acquire all the furniture and everything needed for their life together before she walk down the aisle. He hopes after my being here for 5 months, he will speak perfect English and I will speak perfect Arabic and maybe the two of us can open an office of translation on the edge of Manshiyet Nasr to serve all the tourists. The safest response to things like this is "God willing." He's a pillar of his community: self-educated, entrepreneurial, ambitious. I have yet to pass a person on the muddy streets who doesn't know him. Anytime I have doubts about meeting someone new, he says, "You are with Moussa. Do not worry." His family has been in Manshiya since the beginning 60 years ago. His father put his hand on the dirt where we sat and claimed it as his own, and so now it is so. I guess the café is just using it on loan. I asked him why his father wanted it, and he said, "Because it is beautiful."  

En Route

Color me sheepish. I was so occupied staring out the window at the huge expanse of northeastern coastline that the flight steward had to throw two napkins at me to get my attention for the beverage service. I had caught his eye when he was at the row behind me, so I have no idea how I managed to zone out and forget that we would be next. He flashed a grin at  me though, and I laughed and said, "Sorry," and for two seconds we were besties. 

And then... I arrived at JFK. I am a veteran traveler and mere hours after discussing with my mom how good I am at navigating strange airports (yes I'm awesome), I found myself wandering around JFK Terminal 7 like a dingbat with a broken radar. There were no signs indicating the location of my second airline, so I had to go back to my arrival gate and, shock and horror, ask.  

"Oh you can take the Air Train. Get off at Terminal 4. Just follow the signs here to Ground Transportation."

Okie dokie. Which I'm pretty sure means I have to go back through security. Oh delight. But before I can get to the metal detectors. the pre-security kid who appeared to be half my age informed me that I had to exchange my US Airways boarding pass for one issued by Egypt AIr. As if my joy wasn't complete by having to re-go through security. Be still my heart, JFK! It's not as if my carry-on bags weigh upwards of 20 pounds apiece. No way! Light as a feather. I can think of nothing more I'd like to do than haul them over every inch of this place to ensure that they get the full tour. 

I'm rewarding myself by sitting at a bar-top table at an Irish pub, partaking of the last hard cider I'll be able to get my hands on for a while. A little girl just walked by wearing multi-colored striped leggings and pink, fuzzy boots. I am being completely serious when I say I wish I could. No one ever appreciates the freedom of fashion one has as a child. 

Oh! I almost forgot! My plane has been delayed by an hour! I do love Hall A... good thing I get to spend a lot of time here. 

Travel

I find I write best in airport terminals while I'm waiting on my various flights. I've survived the stress of security checkpoints where I always get a little nervous even though I have nothing to hide (except that rogue bottle of conditioner left over from my color-in-a-box that failed to make it into the Ziploc baggie. Woops.); I successfully checked two bags with no charge and no hassle (good thing because I'm not sure I could have lived without my box o' brownie mix and Shredded Wheat); and Starbucks miraculously managed to nail my double over ice with vanilla making it 8 different kinds of delicious, a vast improvement from their usual offerings. 

Let me just say, for the record, that Charlotte Douglas International Airport has morphed into a sunlight and glass wonderland since the Democratic Convention was held downtown last year. There are welcoming white rocking chairs scattered throughout, including the one in which I'm sitting located on the lofted balcony just outside the USO Conference room. I'm afforded a view of a whole host of parked and taxiing planes and one or two taking off if I glance to my right at the opportune moment. There's a new clock tower at the epicenter between Terminals C and A-B that is one of the most creative I've ever seen. On the very top, above the clock, is a small air traffic control man whose arms, complete with fluorescent sticks, move up and down at regular intervals. Below the clock faces, there are four tiers of revolving flight craft all created from thin painted metal. The Wright brothers are on the bottom tier and apparently, there was a guy on a small bicycle strapped on top of the foremost wings. Odd... don't remember that part of history. 

Flying with them on the same level are Icarus complete with waxy bird wings and the dangerous sun, a hot air balloon which must have been invented by the French if the flag flying behind it is any indication, and a weird platform in the sky with a double set of propellers and an open, elongated body below where passengers sit - this also flying a French flag. 

The other tiers include a paper airplane with every genetic combination of white girl playing jump rope on top (my paper airplanes were never good enough to host PE activities); a bi-plane with a chorus line of dancers on the upper wing called the "Ace Air Stars" (did these things really happen? Because I feel like one misstep in those routines was a bit more than just an ankle sprain... "Oops! We lost Janice... keep going girls, the show must go on."); a German blimp with a concert pianist on top (what I call a true feat of German engineering); a US space shuttle with dangling astronauts (one of whom in turn is dragging his dog through outer space on a leash); and an 8-blade old-fashioned helicopter where a late commuter appears to have grabbed on to the bottom and is flying through the air dangling his briefcase behind him. Truly flights of aeronautical fancy, all of which are contributing to my current moment of zen. Bravo, Charlotte Douglas, bravo. It is now truly a pleasure flying with you. 

Teaching English

“I want to learn English,” he said to me. “Can you help me?” This was during a rare moment of peace at the Recycling School for Boys in the heart of Manshiyet Nasr. I could feel intimidation and panic creeping up behind my eyes as I contemplated this task that felt herculean in scope. 

“Umm, sure... I’ll try,” I replied. 

I wasn’t even sure where to start. How do you teach someone an entire language, especially when they aren’t the incommunicative toddler walking around that shares your DNA? Yet I knew I really wanted to help him, this teenage boy who would never get the chance to go to government school and may never have another chance to choose a future besides his family’s recycling business. If he could learn to speak English on a conversational level, it could open doors that would otherwise remain locked and unexplored. But where to begin? 

I know my language well. I’m a writer and an editor, and I understand my native tongue and its idiosyncrasies better than most. I picked up German after 8 months of self study and another 8 months in country; I began teaching myself Egyptian Arabic this summer after feeling compelled to return. Yet throughout all of this, I had never considered teaching until the day I realized that I could use some of this innate ability to help improve someone’s circumstances. I’ve never cared much about advancing a career per se or climbing a corporate ladder or rising through the ranks of government service. I just wanted to find something that made my heart sing and do that. The search has proved long and my goal elusive until I showed up at a dusty school in the middle of a garbage collectors’ community, and after a few impromptu English lessons, watched with pride as my student successfully navigated his first real world English conversation. Every time comprehension dawned in subsequent lessons, I knew that not only had I found a previously unexplored gift within myself, but I had also managed to make someone else’s small, littered world a little bigger. 

For some of us, the world and all its possibilities lay wide open. For others, it is dull and exhausting, and dreams of better things are squelched by the realities of circumstance. But I’ve seen the lights in their eyes when they begin to realize that this might be possible, that they may learn how to communicate and understand a world outside their country’s borders. And then I, too, begin to understand just a little bit more...

Returning...

I'm returning pretty soon to the land that challenges me, frightens me, woos me and sneezes dust into my hair. I'm being asked a lot of questions about it though, from friends on both sides of the pond. 

"What are you going to do there?" 

"How long will you stay this time?"

"Did you find a job?"

"You should have a plan."

"How does your Mom feel about this?"

"We miss you too much, but why are you coming?" 

The answers to these things are murky at best. Friends on this side understand somewhat better than friends on the other. There isn't a whole lot of process of self-discovery and journey for purpose over there. All of this choice we have to decide - who it is we're becoming and how it is that we're becoming and whether or not God is in charge of that process or we've taken it upon ourselves - is missing from their vocabulary.  

What I know for sure is that Egypt is part of my future - the immediate part of it anyway. It's in my gut, has been since last April when I was standing 60 to 70 concrete stairs up in an auditorium carved into the side of a mountain. But the path isn't always clear. There's a great quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. that I feel I need to adopt as my mantra: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." The last decade or so of my life has looked like this. And God never shows me the whole staircase. 

So I'll go and I'll serve and I'll wait and I'll become. I'll join alongside other brilliant dreams as I wait for my own. I'll gain fluency and understanding and experience in navigating the undercurrents of being human in different circumstances. Perhaps I'll be a part of someone else's dream coming true. It's a step. And even in the not knowing, it's a step upwards. 

Comparisons

I have been back in the states for over two weeks now, and I'd like to make note of a few comparisons.

1) Cleanliness. My mother scoffed at this statement as we drove by two pieces of litter on the side of the interstate, but Cairo makes the US look like a freshly scrubbed hospital room. If this were Charlie Brown, they would play Pig Pen to our Lucy. 

2) A serious decrease in the amount of autotune on the radio. It happens here, mostly in R&B and hip-hop abundance, but omg, in the middle east it seems that somebody has duck-taped the 'record' and the 'auto tune' buttons together. DJ Mahmoud, have you been messing with the sound equipment again?

3) Comprehension. I don't have to run everything my friends say through an internal translation service. Of course, part of the fun with my Cairene friends is trying to slow down space and time so that I can put the sounds I'm hearing into familiar patterns. Usually there was somewhat of an awkward silence after I was asked a question before I was able to offer forth an answer that made sense. I think they got used to me staring intently off to the side. 

4) The presence of an amalgam of cereals other than unsweetened Corn Flakes. Oh amazeballs, I forgot how colorful and downright fun a walk past the rows of cereal could be. The fact that this food group has it's own entire aisle makes this the place where dreams come true. 

5) Yeast. Maybe it had much to do with ancient and/or Biblical tradition, but I sorely missed bread that fluffed and bounced back when I grazed it with a butter knife. I learned that bread shaped like a frisbee goes with everything... except peanut butter and jelly. And cream cheese. And cold cuts. 

6) Cars in neat, single-file lines. There have been several times since being home that I've been caught in what we hilariously call a 'traffic jam' when I thought, "Dude, there's room for at least 55 more cars in this space."

7) A lack of large groups of people in the streets. People are protesting here, but on a much smaller scale as in only on the radio, or in their living rooms, or in response to yet another news broadcast attesting to the inefficiency of Congress. Maybe we should scream a little louder because people on the Hill seem to be walking around with cotton balls stuffed in their ears.

8) Real coffee. And I mean the stuff that comes from dark crunchy beans that are ground into a fine powder and shot through with hot water. It's dark, it's smooth, it tastes like hot caffeinated goodness on the tongue. Not Turkish coffee (sludge in a cup with cardamum) or Nescafé (gross). How they call the latter anything that even sounds like coffee is one of the mysteries of the universe. 

9) And last but not least, transparent, breathable oxygen. Air, by definition, should be something you can't see, but Cairo's complete lack of emissions regulations ensures that this invisible element is constantly tainted with a grayish - brown haze in the off chance that one would begin to doubt its existence. 

Despite all of this, Egypt has left its dusty fingerprints all over me and my boots that were made for walking (through refuse and animal guts), and I can hardly wait to return and discover more of its idiosyncrasies. So glad you guys are with me for the ride.