So much word for you!

WELL...

It's been a very long time since I posted, and an even longer time since I gave any idea of what I'm doing here.  Since my life right now is pretty much wagib all the time (homework), here's just a quick rundown of my last couple weeks.

We began in Cairo with our program orientation in the lovely (read: air-conditined) IFSA-Butler offices, getting presentations on Egyptian music, Egyptian art history, Egyptian ecology, and of course, Egyptian colloquial Arabic.  Just so you know, Arabic isn't just one language - oh no.  There's the classical fusha (pronounced "foos-ha"), which is Qur'anic Arabic, and then every region has its own colloquial amia dialect.  Here at Alexandria University, we're studying both every day.  It's totally not confusing at all.

On the night of Sunday the 12th, a group of us went out into downtown Cairo, hungry for some experience of authentic Cairo (our housing had us a little isolated in the suburbs).  We definitely found it, as we stumbled through the oppressively crowded streets, overrun with Egyptians celebrating the last night of Eid el-Fitr, the three-day holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.  It was wild and exciting, noise and smells and lights everywhere.  Every riverboat on the Nile was covered with colored flashing lights and banners, and for a while we just stood on a bridge and soaked in the scene.  It was madness - and frisky Egyptian men made the experience less than pleasant at times - but it was exciting!  At the end of night, all of us simultaneously feeling wired and exhausted, we settled in for some delicious peach sheesha at a local restaurant and celebrated our successful adventure.

The next morning, I was not feeling very celebratory.  I had been feeling a little sick the two days before, but on Monday morning I was completely non-functional.  We were scheduled to go to the Pyramids of Giza (you know the ones) and Sakkara that day, but it just wasn't happening.  My wonderful roomies called our student services director, who came straight over and took me to the hospital.

The hospital was an experience.  We went straight to emergency, paid a hundred fifty pounds ($30 US), waited 10 minutes and I was in.  They pulled up screens all around me and we waited another few minutes for the only female doctor in the place to come in and see me.   Looking around, I noticed that the bed and pillow I was sitting on were stained and that the few instruments lying around looked a bit unclean.  Mostly, I was struck to see flies buzzing around the ER.  I'm really not in Kansas anymore*, I was thinking, underwhelmed.  But when my doctor came in, she spoke to me directly in broken, but clear, English.  She listened to me and understood, spoke kindly and slowly, and made me feel more comfortable than I had imagined possible when we walked through the hospital doors.  She prescribed me medication that had me back on my feet by the next day, and kissed me on the forehead as she left.  An American hospital would have been quiet and reassuringly sterilized, but no hospital in America would have taken an international student straight into ER without her insurance card, for $30, in 10 minutes and then spoken in her native language.  Egypt was very good to me at my first need.

The next day, we visited the Citadel of Old Cairo, originally built by Salah al-Din.  It was from this strategic location that Salah al-Din kicked Richard the Lionheart's ass for most of the Third Crusade.  Today though, what stands is the famous Mohammad Ali mosque, a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture.  All that is left of Salah al-Din's mighty citadel is curtain wall, a deep well and a strong aqueduct.  The Muhammad Ali mosque is beautiful - what you feel in a mosque is different from what you feel in a church or a synagogue.  You feel space.  There are no chairs, no pews, no altars.  There is open space and light everywhere, reflecting off the names of the Prophet and his Companions painted in gold on the ceiling.  I held my hand on head to keep my veil respectfully in place, and I kept looking up, trying to read the ornate calligraphy and discerning a few familiar names.

After the Citadel, we went for dinner in the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, which is visually everything you've ever imagined when you read about the great souqs and bazaars of the Thousand and One Nights, but in reality is not much more than a tourist trap.  Still, dinner was excellent - I had grilled pigeon, an Egyptian delicacy!

The next day, 9 out of the total 18 students headed out early in the morning along the Desert Highway to Alexandria, where we would move in and begin our semester.  We stopped at one of the few Starbucks' in Egypt (I was relieved to hear that is no Starbucks next to the Pyramids), and arrived in Alexandria in about three hours.

Alex is a dream compared to Cairo, and if leaving here for 10 days has dulled my first impression a bit, there is no doubt that the first sight of the Mediterranean and the smell of the sea was a shining moment.  Breathing deeply and driving slowly, we went along the Corniche of Alexandria, snapping pictures of Bibilioteca Alexandrina, the Mamluk fortress of Qaitbey, and anything and everything we could see of the sea.

Moving into our dorms was a little complicated, and we were in temporary housing for the first few days, but everyone's settled in now (even though we don't have the promised Egyptian roommates).  Our dorms are pretty bad, even for dorms, but we're all getting used to the ups and downs of the lifestyle, and hoping that it will get easier with each passing week.

Classes are good - mostly Arabic language, split between fusha and amia, but we also have two classes on Islamic history and culture.  We have class from 9:00 to 1:30, Monday through Thursday, which gives us a nice long weekend for short travels.  I like my classes and professors and classmates, but it's kind of hard accepting that I'm back in school, when it feels nothing at all like Kenyon.  Still, WAGIB ALL THE TIME, and I'm trying hard to keep up and procrastinate as little as possible.

My roommate Lauren and I just went back to Cairo for the weekend to see our friends there, and so I could go see the pyramids at last.  The weekend was epic, but this blog post has already gone on long enough, so I'll save that for another day (hopefully soon).

Life is hard here and every day is a battle, but I'm getting through it and waiting for the day when I just wake up and find that some things have gotten easier.  I miss you all, friends and family, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has time to drop me a line.  But life is exciting here too, and there are good people around me, so we get each other through.

And after all, there's not much that a long sunset walk along the Mediterranean can't fix.

Salaam,
Helen


*Sorry for the Kansas reference, Caitlin.

New blog post...

...tomorrow.  I promise (insha'allah).

I promise I'll have a real blog post for you soon - explaining everything from why I missed the pyramids to the beauty of the Mediterranean to the horror of language placement exams and the thrills and chills of Egyptian hospitals - but for right now, I have homework, so I'm leaving you with a quote that inspired me today to just keep on keepin' on.


My professor, Ustaz Sayed, said, by way of an introduction to our classical arabic class:


"One million Arabs speak this language.  But also you know one and half million muslims take care of this language.  It is the language of their holy book, of Holy Qu'ran.  They use it when they pray - when they speak to God.  So they take care of this language."


And as old Leonard would say, "There's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah!"


"If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless momentIs England and nowhere. Never and always. "
           -- T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"


Words are holy here, and tongued with fire.  Language is a struggle and I'm learning quickly the humbling fact that my current knowledge of arabic is essentially useless.  But I learned today that I've come to the right place.  They do not just worship words here - words are the pure path to god.  Speaking with the earthy taste of falafel and mango juice on my tongue, and the mangled grammar of 'arabi on my lips, I'm praying every day.

Cairo in little soundbytes

"Egyptians aren't terrorists.  They're just careless."

              - Dr. Ahmad

Helen: "Did you see those shacks by the Nile?  I think there were people living there."

Marisa: "At least they have a nice view!"

"I'll sniff anyone's nipples if I want to.  Just because it's Egypt doesn't mean I have to stop sniffing people's nipples."

"You nipplesniffer."

"I just can't resist your Omani perfume."

Crossing the street in Cairo is seriously dangerous.  It took us over 10 minutes to cross a seven lane road.  We made it across 5 lanes, screaming and running.  Then we were stuck on the divider strip for a while before we could cross the other two lanes.  The thing is, cars don't stop.  Running in terror or walking confidently, it doesn't matter - the cars DO NOT stop.  Ever.  We've all been hovering and then bolting at every street corner, but Egyptians just stroll nonchalantly into 6 lanes of oncoming traffic.  So what we've learned is that "Walk like an Egyptian" really has nothing to do with dancing.  It's all about having the balls to walk straight in front of a moving car while carrying groceries and holding your toddler's hand.

"Allo!  I love America!  You are so very beautiful!"

       - Every Egyptian male, from age 7 to 50.  

I swear, the first man who gets an aspirated "h" before his "allo" gets my hand in marriage.

And my favorite, 

"Salaam out, guys."  

   

Although...

...I guess I can't complain too much.  A bunch of us just went out for a wander in the few blocks around our hotel, and after a beautiful walk, a stop in a mosque, and a BOAT RIDE DOWN THE NILE, I'm really feeling okay about everything.

September 11

Today is September 11, nine years since the most important September 11 in America.  Nine years ago, I was in my sixth grade classroom in Philadelphia, watching the twin towers fall on television, and hearing what were probably my first Arabic words - al-Qaeda, madrassa, Taliban.

Today, I'm in Cairo.  I just had a two hour Arabic lesson, and most of what I've learned is coming back to me - I can ask questions, speak pleasantries, excuse myself, and ask everyone's age.  We've been around our neighborhood, we're going to the pyramids on Monday, and the weather has been surprisingly comfortable.

But we can't go out tonight.  Because this ignorant, hateful pastor in Florida has apparently communicated with the State Department that he might still go through with his Quran burning, and our program has to follow the State Department travel advisory warning, which currently tells all Americans abroad in Arabic countries to be very careful and confine their movements.

On this day, which is certainly a sad memorial, but also to me in so many ways a celebration of how far I have come, and how far my generation is going, it makes me angry and sad that we are all being held back by this man.  He is wielding fear from an ocean away that keeps all of us from exploring, communicating and learning.

I've arrived!

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
     flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
     went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy 
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. 

- Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

It's been a very long day - two days really - but I and the other 17 students on the program have made it safely to Egypt!
We met as a group for the first time in JFK airport and had a few hours to kill ("Hi!  I'm Helen!  Where do you go to school?  What's your major? Have you taken Arabic before?").  The 7 hour flight was long and hard, and the 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany wasn't exactly fun, but once we got on the plane from Frankfurt, destination Cairo, it all felt real.  I sat next to a really interesting guy from Seattle who was on his way to Alexandria to build boats for the Egyptian Navy - he was covered with tattoos and had some crazy ear piercings, but he and I both squealed like little children as we finally came back down under the clouds and saw Cairo for the first time.
And saw the Nile.  I swear, to see that river with my own eyes was the tonic to all my aches, pains and tiredness.  The ancientness and the epic scope of that ribbon of green water, cutting through ancient temples and modern slums, brought home to me what it is that I'm doing here....
...I can't verbalize it yet, but I know now that I am here, that I have truly arrived, that I ought to be here, and that I am in for a hell of a year.

"Like Nilus, it disdaineth bounds."
                  - W. Shakespeare, "Antony & Cleopatra"

Tomorrow!

It's 10:30 pm on Wednesday, September 8.  That means that tomorrow is Thursday, September 9.  I've been counting down, looking forward to, and waiting up for that particular date for almost a year, and tomorrow it finally arrives.  It's been on every piece of paperwork I've had from the wonderful people at the Institute for Study Abroad-Butler, and it's been on my mind every minute this summer.

My mind is full of things to come, straining to imagine the sight of the pyramids, the smell of 20 million people in a 100 degree fahrenheit city, the sound of the Cairo muezzins calling the faithful and the atheist bystanders to prayer five times a day.

My heart is full of my family, those people who love me who rode 4 hours on a motorcycle to see me off, and took the time to call and give me strength and courage and love, or sent me news to encourage me in my path, or helped me pack and kept me company with humor and kindness, and cooked me the most delicious and beloved food in the world, or stayed up late with me to read the wisdom in an old deck of cards.

My heart is full of my friends, scattered across the world, living with passion and creativity and courage wherever they are, enriching the worlds of those around them, as they have always enriched mine.

But tomorrow, I and everything I am will be in the air.

Salaam,
Helen