a lesson on leisure from Egyptian families.

According to a thermometer on my travel alarm clock, the temperature in my bedroom has not dropped below 91.4 degrees in the past week.

In my air conditioned office, I can wait out the heat of the day without much difficulty—even if the spontaneous-sweat-pufferfish phenomena continues to plague me during my morning and (even worse) afternoon commute via metro and microbus, walking a few blocks down a tiny dirt-paved alleyway as I weave past donkeys and boys riding their bicycles. You get used to the heat surprisingly quickly, however. And, as our Egyptian friends and neighbors often point out to us—this kind of heat lasts only through July and August. There are somewhat distinct seasons here, and the fall cools down to a really enjoyable temperature.

But on the weekend (Friday and Saturday here), left to loll about in drowsy heat of our apartment without respite, I wasn't sure how I would pass the time.
Happily, my old host sister from my study abroad program, Nesma, gave me a call after work on Thursday afternoon. Would I like to hang out with her family on Friday?
So in the (relative) cool of the morning, I slipped out the front door in some of my best Muslim-appropriate clothing and made the trek to Imbaba. Raucous, crazy Imbaba, with some million inhabitants, always at the brink of anarchy. It resembles my current neighborhood of Maasara in some ways, such as in the relatively high donkey-to-human ratio, the narrow unpaved streets, the labyrinth of alleyways and buildings as you go deeper into the heart of the district. Only in Imbaba, it's all heightened to the nth degree:
Tea and hookah shops spill out into the street, shanty tv screens broadcast soccer games and comedy shows, open air markets appear unexpectedly behind walls and corners, 4 foot speakers are dragged into the alleyways after dark to blast arab pop music for Egyptian teenagers, mosques mark nearly every corner, colored plastic bags cut into strips and tied onto clothes lines wave in the hot air as decorations, 3 wheel "tuktuk" taxis nearly crash into the people and cars on the road. To walk the streets of Imbaba is to feel truly alive.

On Friday morning, though, it's relatively quiet. No one works on Friday, so people are sleeping in. I arrived around 10am, waking up the sleepy members of my host family (they told me to arrive at 9, but I knew better….no one in my family goes to bed before 4am!). Though most of them were still sleeping, bollywood films were on tv. We sat around watching the Indian movies and drinking tea. They loved it, watching with a kind of confused but enamored curiosity. The hindus! Look at what they're wearing! So strange! So beautiful!

By eleven, we're eating a huge breakfast of falafel and cheese sandwiches, tea with milk, pita bread with jam. Eat more, they insist—your American stomach is too small. Eat! Finally convinced by my protests that I was going to erupt if I ate one more piece of falafel, we all put our pajamas back on (I was loaned this terrific Egyptian mumu) and lounged in the coolest bedroom in the house. As the ceiling fan circled overhead, I taught the 8, 11, and 14 year old how to play Go Fish, learning the Arabic word for Jack, Queen, King, and Ace in the process (walad, bint, shaeb, and wahed, for those keeping track at home). It was a huge success. The 8 year old is wicked good at cards, and kept beating all of us.

We all dozed off after a while. By 6pm, it began to cool down, and the family started to come alive again. More cards, more songs, more games. In this family, the 8 year old and the 25 year old and all of the siblings in between hang out with each other, no problem. To be an honorary member of the family is simply to bask in all of the affection they have for one another.

The problem is that the oldest brother just got a job as an electrical engineer in Qatar. It's an excellent job and phenomenal opportunity for him. The problem is that he's never lived away from home before. As he explained to me, Egypt does not help people be independent. Every morning, he has woken up to his mother, father, and siblings. With nervous excitement, he asks me about airplanes, about culture shock, about living away from home. "You'll do wonderfully," I assure him.
He's just one of the tens of thousands of Egyptians who have to find work in the Persian Gulf. In my current host family in Maasara, two of the men in the family are currently living in Kuwait, one is living in America. Their wives, children, and siblings are all back in Egypt. It's hard on everyone.

Later in the evening, I was told that they had a surprise for me. I closed my eyes. They turned off the lights. When I opened them, they had brought in a huge chocolate cake with a big candle in it. "Happy Birthday to you…" they started singing in Arabic and English. "But it's not my birthday!" "Nevermind, Alissa, this is just our 'Happy to See You' party." I guess there isn't a better song to sing! It was sweet.

I spent the night with them and left fairly early in the morning, after drinking tea with milk and practicing my Arabic with the father and the oldest brother. I left feeling revived. I have loved living with friends here, but there's something about having a whole family to take care of you when you're away from your own. Getting to be a guest in their affectionate community, with multiple generations to enjoy and draw from….from the 8 year old girl doing my make up to the 14 year old holding my hand down the street to the 50 year old mother fussing over my food….having all ages around is something intrinsically important for the human soul. Again and again I'm so grateful to have a supportive community here in Egypt.
Even though our apartment in August will have air conditioning and hot water, I'll be sad to leave the watchful care of the host family. I think Essam is right—Egypt doesn't teach you to be independent. But instead, it teaches you about the importance of interdependence, which—for a fearless American woman as myself—is a lesson I need to learn.