Just another day... or month! in Cairo

Some Point a Week Ago From 25/2/09….
Hello Everyone!!
I hope everyone is doing well… I/we are doing wonderful here in Agouza. Today was our first day back from our homestays! I think it is safe to say that a majority were very happy to come home to Agouza and each other, guys and girls alike!

Valentine’s Day was absolutely delightful! It started with a bittersweet goodbye with my host family… who would have expected parting after only a week would create a trail of tears among us! Saying goodbye to Mona was very difficult and I wish so much that I could stay longer with her and Mai, and Noha.

After departure I headed out with my backpack all the way down the metro line… A group of us went out to Helwan (which is at the end of the metro line… about an hour long metro/subway ride to the outskirts of Cairo) to have an Egyptian picnic with Ramy & Amgad. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and Helwan has a beautiful green park area in its possession… which wild puppies and all!! We made lemon chicken and koofta (a spicy beef mixture) and slowly ate, while enjoying the sunshine and semi-quietness of the area. Some of us came straight from our homestays and so were ready to go home in the evening… So Carolyn, Nat, me, Hannah, Sam, Bryan, & Aaron started the trek home. If there’s one thing we love about living in the city it is being able to walk everywhere! So it works well to take the metro to the opera house and walk from there, maybe a 20-30 minute walk down the Nile to Agouza. This is probably one of my favorite things: just walking with the guys, enjoying each other’s company!! So much!!

Let’s see… where to begin… I don’t know if I have written since Alexandria? Or maybe just Siwa… but both were wonderful… and Siwa even more wonderful than Alex.
In between the two was a wonderful time… busy but great. Filled with classes, tabla, cooking in the flat, going out with Hodan, Fanheih, & Eman (some of my wonderful Egyptian friends!) Another night was spent traveling (a dang long time!) to City Stars Mall in Nasr City with Adham & Amen, my super sweet Egyptian guys that just loooove going around Cairo. They are great and so much fun… more pictures later (for everything actually!!)





25/2/09 Wednesday
Hello Everyone!!! Here we are, alas. Getting down a pattern seems to be a constant pattern and one that should be conquered before going places. It is about 1 AM here. Carolyn, Mary Kay, and I are sitting in a very clean living room!!! Carolyn just made a delicious pot of black coffee. We (+ Nat) just got back from going out with Adham to a concert at the Culture Wheel (a beautiful place right on the Nile where a lot of concerts are performed). One of his friends is the lead singer for the band. And for all who care… I have now been to my first real concert, a short and sweet rock concert. And I will break my concert virginity once again this week by going to….. YES! AKON IS INDEED IN CAIRO! And some of us are going to his concert at the opera house on Thursday… we’ll see how it is. I am brushing up on my Akon, compliments of Bryan (who is by far the most excited to go!!) as I type this… and as Carolyn sits across from me, trying to figure out what devo to do for Sunday morning before classes… slightly contrasting…

Tomorrow we do not have classes, which is unusual for a Wednesday, but this week is a little different… and what a beautiful week though!! Tomorrow morning

… … … … … … … … … … …
Saturday we got back from Luxor around 6 AM, on the overnight train. Most of us slept a bit more once arriving home in Agouza, and then we kicked off the day with my favorite meal: cooked peppers with feta!! Hannah and I then went running over on Zamalek… before doing some homework… and then going to Suffi Dancing!! Suffi dancing takes place over by the Khan, near downtown Cairo. It was a wonderfully sequenced day and suffi dancing was beautiful. It consists of a group of men dressed in cinched white galibayah’s that fly wonderfully while spinning. Some of the men play tabla, or tambourines, or sing, or electric violin. It was just so fascinating to watch and so beautiful… AND the man in the middle was probably spinning for 30 minutes, just insane! He was probably also the oldest of the group!

Sunday
Il hamdu li laah that the majority of us were not at the Khan on Sunday night instead of Saturday. A bomb exploded in the Khan, near the main drag of cafes, killing a 17 year old tourist and injuring a number of others. How awful and dreadfully real it is to be near something so completely fatalistic. The Khan is a huge attraction for tourists in Cairo, and really is quite a lot of fun. To imagine though, that a bomb exploded right where we were the night before is staggering. For most of us it is a flash back to reality, to where we are in the world, to the reality of the consistency of this world.

Instead, on Sunday night the ladies gathered in flat 5 for a belly dancing/dinner party. What a wonderful evening we had downstairs! Eman, Fanheih, Hodan, Zem Zem, and Hagger came to join us. Hagger is the lady who taught us how to belly dance and she was awesome. I cannot even begin to explain how fascinating it is to see the transformation of a conservative Muslim woman on the streets to a sexual belly dancer in the house! To be able to see this transformation and actually knowing the being who is going through the transformation is one of the most intimate insights into the culture that you can have. It was so touching and so endearing. Many may see Muslims (primarily the women) as very oppressed… which may be true in some cases… but not here! This is a beautiful example of an average Muslim woman! Hagger’s story is actually very interesting. She is 27 years old and grew up in Cairo. She just got married in November 2008, to a man who grew up in and lives in America. He found her through one of her mother’s connections and called her up one day after both parents approved…. They talked… his parents came to Egypt to meet her parents and her. They approved. Then he flew out to Egypt… met Hagger… they approved of themselves… and then they got married. He left a couple days later to go back to America, and they have not yet consummated their marriage… because she is waiting to be able to move America. So here she is, a 27 year old Muslim woman living with her parents, she doesn’t work, she likes to sleep in every day, she doesn’t get to talk to her husband very often and says she forgets she is married some times. Yet, here she is ready to move in an instant’s notice to America, to the other side of the world, leaving everything familiar behind, forever.

Monday
This was also a beautiful Monday in Egypt. Every day is so beautiful here… you don’t need to worry about not having sun because it is always sunny here! This day, however, actually turned quite windy later in the day… cloudy & windy & sprinkles of rain. This is all very abnormal for Cairo but was quite a treat to have. A treat of weather from home!
On Monday, after Arabic class, all of us piled in taxis to ride over to the Dutch Institute on Zamalek. Here we had the awesome opportunity to meet students from all over the Netherlands and have discussions in small group settings. It was very interesting and enlightening to be able to meet these students… all of who are Arabic majors back home. Their program is quite different than ours and most aren’t Christian, so it was very refreshing being introduced to the European point of view on: Islam, Egypt, Iraq, female/male roles, UN issues, and etc. Some of the students actually live in Agouza, so Krista & I will be getting together with them soon, In sha allah!

Tuesday & such…
Shout out to all of my fellow lovers & runners!!!
Mr. Kruse & Coach Timp I hope you are reading this at some point!
And for all of you that know me… being outside & doing something active & partaking of the place is what I am all about. So I am just loving it!!
Lindz, Kels, Erica, & all who love running in the rain (which almost happened yesterday! & probably now never will)… and just running/exploring in general… I wish you were here to run/explore with me! So much so! I am not a big fan of living in the city, but having some perception of freedom with the ability to run through the city and fly freely is a wonderful thing and a connection with God himself!! Thankfully, Bryan also enjoys running… exploring… and delving into random things that occur… and even is humble enough to accommodate my pace! So exploring we go… none of this I ever even dreamed of being able to do in Cairo, with the role of women, and so I am being fairly culturally inappropriate running around town… especially with a guy. Just embracing my foreigner label per say.
Running along the Nile is probably my favorite… and let me tell you… running here is not always easy. There are always obstacles. ALWAYS. Awful roads with potholes, strange obstructions. People everywhere. Cars everywhere. Awful sidewalks with weird steps everywhere. Basically everything everywhere. So it is easiest to just be able to run in the road… while dodging people and cars.
Today we ran over around Cairo University and thought we would just cut across campus for a variety of reasons. They don’t just let anyone on campus though, but a professor was driving out of this entrance… and noticed what we were trying to do so he told us to hop in his car. His name is Dr. Belal, and is a professor of pesticides in the agriculture faculty. He has taught there for 30 years and actually started up the agricultural faculty part of the school, so much dedication and intelligence!! He ended up giving us a tour of his labs and telling us a little about his life. And guess what?! His daughter actually lived in MN for 5 years, studying O’Chem at the U of M. It was a great sidetrack & just reminded me a little too much of O’chem back at Bethel…

LUXOR
Luxor was a very interesting… perhaps slightly disappointing, but a beautiful and relaxing weekend. It was an 11 hour train ride to Luxor. We arrived around 7AM on Wednesday morning… to a hotel that was absolutely gorgeous and luxurious! The Emilio Hotel was very western accommodating, which we all warmly embraced, putting money thoughts aside! The roof deck had a very cold pool and wonderful lounge areas… where we managed to spend a good amount of time… a break from the culture and the dust down below.
Wednesday morning and into the early afternoon we lounged on the roof deck and managed a quick dip into the pool. Relaxing and napping in the sun was a dose of the best medicine we could have hoped for at the moment. The day got even better… after realizing we could take a felucca to Banana Island… So we ended up taking a beautiful felucca, under Captain Noobi, to Crocodile Island. The name obviously entitles that there would be crocodiles on the island… one the size of his arm, and the other the length from his fingers to his elbow!!!
I will finish off Luxor later… and catch up soon. Love to you all!!