News and Notes.

"Lissa" means "Not Yet" in Arabic. I haven't decided yet what I want to read into this, but I rather like it.

In any case, "Alissa" (or, with Arabic pronunciation, "Eleesa") serves me rather well here in Egypt. Bringing American names into Egypt can actually be a bit trickier than you'd think...there are some that don't translate well. Examples:
My friend Matt, which means "dead."
Or Eunice, which sounds just like the name Yunis…which is a man's name here, the equivalent of Jonah.
Or Anna, which means "I." There was also a story of a girl named Anna ("I") from Iowa (which means "yes") which confused all the Egyptians to death.
"What's your name?" "I." "Where are you from?" "Yes."

There's actually an Arab pop star from Lebanon named Elissa, so I get some cred by association. One of my co-workers obviously used this as a mnemonic device to remember my name, however, and has repeatedly called me Nancy…as in Nancy Agram, another pop star from the region. Whatev. I roll with it.

In other news:

1. I successfully made myself a tomato, cucumber, and lemon juice salad last night, and it didn't even taste like bleach!
For those of you who remember the saga of the bleach salad, the last time I attempted to make salad I had a sore throat for 3 days after neglecting to wait until all the bleach I had used to clean the vegetables had evaporated….

2. I dreamt of Arabic grammar last night as I was tossing and turning. The past 2 days have been oppressively hot. According to weather.com, the high yesterday peaked at 99 degrees, and my room seemed to be acting as an insulated oven. The word I was conjugating all night: yuaad. To sit.

3. My roommates and I are going to an Egyptian wedding tonight for one of our neighbors! Preparing for wedding requires intensive beauty treatment. All week, our host sisters have been waxing their arms, giving each other facials, practicing with their make-up and trying on outfits. My roommates and I didn't really pack expecting to be attending a lot of weddings, but we have at least 2 more within the next month!
I'm wasn't even planning to shave my legs for the party tonight, right, since my legs won't be seeing the light of day for the duration of my stay here.
Last night, one of my host sisters (who used to work as a beautician) insisted on 'threading' my eyebrows to shape them. For those who haven't spent much time preening your eyebrows, threading is kind of like tweezing, only you use thread to rip out each hair. It sort of feels like having lasers scrape at your skin. But hey, for the sake of joining in the festivities, right?
I should say that when one of my roommates underwent this treatment a few days ago, it ended in weeping.
But, mustering up all of my zen concentration (after all, I've gotten 2 tattoos, I should be able to handle a little thread, right?), I managed to endure the whole procedure without biting through my lip or kicking my host sister. Flinching, but no tears. Just like a fierce, independent woman should.

4. My painful eyebrow grooming happened at the end of a long and difficult day after my roommates and I decided to face down the formidable and infamously anarchical Mugamma, Egypt's central bureaucracy building. Back in the 1950s, the Egyptian president promised every university graduate a job. Whoops. Mugamma has deliberately been turned into a maddening, over-staffed and inefficient maze so as to create as many jobs as possible. For every one person working behind a numbered window, you can see 6 or 7 sitting behind them, doing nothing.
Our temporary tourist visas were set to expire within another week or so, and we needed to apply for 6 month extension. 2 applications, 1 photo, 2 photocopies, 5 government employees, 100 Egyptian pounds (to pay for 9 stamps which had to be licked and affixed to our application by 2 very irritable ladies prone to forget to give you change or the correct number of stamps), 3 separate trips to the building and 22 hours later, I now have my passport back in my hand. If I can do this, I can do anything.