Fumbling toward self-sufficiency.

One of my Egyptian co-workers turned 21 yesterday. While eating cake and wishing her a happy birthday, she explained that turning 21 in Egypt means that she is now officially an adult: she can move out of the house, withdraw her own money from the bank, and marry without her parents' permission.
If this is the definition of adulthood, then I suppose I reached it at 16, or 18, at the very least, and should be a well-seasoned, confident, mature adult by the ripe age of 23. I mean, right? I've signed a lease on an apartment before, successfully managed to pay off my credit cards, I have a college degree, and I'm fairly confident I know how to check the tire pressure on my car. All of this says "adulthood," yes?
Now, I know what some of you are going to say. "But Alissa, isn't it true that you thought you could live off a diet of hot pockets, scrambled eggs, and bloody marys for a year?"
Yes, it's true. My one remaining hurdle towards true self-sufficiency is nutrition. It seems like the mark of a true adult is being able to consistently feed yourself without developing scurvy or diabetes. If I struggled with this in the States, where my impatience with cooking led to developing a taste for preservatives and Microwave-ready packaged meals, I knew I had my work cut out for me in Egypt. Tellingly, my old roommate handed me a bottle of multivitamins as a going away gift. "Good luck," she said, with the total seriousness of a NASA control center scientists packing freeze-dried meals for an astronaut. You're going to need this.
So I rejoiced this week when, for the first time since arriving nearly 14 days ago, I managed to feed myself nearly all the food groups in regular portions at regular intervals. I ate watermelon and couscous with cheese, pita bread, strawberry yogurt, juice, water. Real food, like a real adult. (True, I had just finished washing my clothes with dish soap in the same tub that I shower in since I haven't managed to find any detergent yet and that tub is really the only option we have, but we'll stick to one challenge at a time.) I won.
Feeling fancy and self-confident, I decided to make myself a glass of cinnamon tea before bed. Uh, and I should point out that making tea in Egypt really isn't any different than making tea anywhere else. Heat water and go, right?
Like my old apartment in Seattle, I have a gas stove top. No problem. Turn on the gas, light it with a match, and we're good to go. Our teapot is metal, though, and as you can imagine, heats up really quickly. We don't have a top on the teapot, either, so the steam rises up and heats up the handle. Knowing this, I grabbed a towel to use as a pot holder as I poured the water into my glass. While I was pouring it, I realized that I had lit the towel on fire. I drop the teapot back onto the stove top, which splashes the boiling water. The towel is in flames. I quick drop it into the sink and put the fire out.
I nurse my wounded ego for a moment, ashamed that I had managed to botch something so simple as pouring tea.
I pick up the towel again, being careful this time to keep it out of the flame. In wrapping the towel up more tightly, however, I exposed my fingers to the steam. The water had been at a full boil for a good 10 minutes, and the steam burned my hand. I dropped the teapot again, and ran my fingers under the cold water. I give up. Stupid tea.

Yesterday, I forgot to carry any water with me throughout the day. I didn't drink any until I had come home from work and the language school where I'm studying Arabic. In total, I had been on 4 micro buses and 3 metros in the heat of the day. When I got home, I drank a liter of water and fell asleep around 7pm. I was so exhausted, I didn't wake up until 7 this morning.
So, we're still working on it! Today I'm sufficiently armed with food and water, so I'm expecting good things. Now, if I can just find some laundry detergent, I'll be good to go…