Religious revelation.

There are times when I think I have the religious climate in Egypt all figured out. Then, there are days like today that leave us all--Egyptians and myself included--all a little bewildered.

I had a private English conversation lesson with a 14 year old girl today, as I have for the past 3 weeks. She's a bit shy and has been hard to figure out what will really get her talking. We start doing hypothetical situations today, and it's doing the trick. "Would you rather be the most wealthy person in Egypt, or the most beautiful?" turns into a lecture on the Evil Eye and why we should watch out for it in America, even if most people have never even heard of it.

Then she asked me (a bit out of the blue) if I prayed, making the Islamic gesture when she asked me.

"Sure," I said, "but I pray a little bit differently than you. I don't make the prostrations."
She looked at me quizzicly. 
"You know, there are Muslims who veil and Muslims who don't."

"uhh.. right," I said, a bit confused why she brought that up. "Is that ok?"

"Sure, that's ok. Are you fasting?"

"No, I'm not fasting in Ramadan, but there's a time of the year when Christians fast called "lent." It comes before Easter."

At this point, her eyes bugged out as she realized for the first time after 3 or 4 weeks of class that I am not, in fact, Muslim. This seemed to be a complete surprise to her. What? Then again, she's only 14, might be a bit too sheltered to figure that a foreigner from the West probably isn't a Muslim, too.

Then she asks me what Easter is. Hoo boy.
"Ok. you know 'Jesus' ? "
"Yes."

I drew a cross. "You've seen this before?"
"Yes."

"ok. So Christians believe that Jesus died and was buried. After 3 days, he became alive again."

"What??!!" She flipped out. Clearly, this was tantamount to telling her I worshipped aliens.
She tried to take this all politely in stride, but it was pretty funny. When I relayed the experience to another Egyptian co-worker, he explained that for many Egyptians, when they come to really like someone, they only naturally want to invite them to share their religion. Sure, I understood that--I think many evangelical Christians are driven by the same sentiment. But I think the shock today came when my student had already come to like me, assuming all the while that I was a Muslim--only to realize suddenly that she liked someone who was quite different than what she thought! Always a pleasure to see people's nice categories ruffled a bit.

Then our dear friend Amir (of the crack house escapade) found out today that Jesus was a Jew. He hit the wall. He loves to debate religion, and for the most part, is enjoyable enough to discuss it with.
He had just finished a rant about how he likes Jesus, but hates all Jews everywhere. He especially liked Jesus because he was a Palestinian, and that there were no Jews in Palestine then.

Bret--our slightlty dense and definitely non-religious co-worker--was the one to pipe up and point out that there certainly were Jews in Palestine at the time ,because Jesus was one of them.
 Oh man. Amir didn't buy this for a moment. "impossible! impossible!" he kept shouting, while frantically double-checking with us to see if we weren't mistaken to think that it said as much in the Bible. Sorry, Amir. Jesus was certainly a Jew.

In the meantime, I've taken up the task of reading the entire Qur'an by the end of Ramadan--I figure that I've been meaning to read it forever, and that this time of year is as appropriate as any. My 14 year old student assures me that finishing the Qur'an in Ramadan gets me special rewards. Hey, I'll take it.