Despite my recent food poisoning spree in Egypt, I would like to posit that American germs (fittingly, in an 'up-by-the-bootstraps' capitalist country) are much more aggressive than their Middle Eastern counterparts. I don't know if it's the crumbling economy that's making our patriotic microbes so gung-ho and desperate, but I do know that every time I return to the USA after a stint abroad, I get leveled by some mean little virus every time. When I came home from Egypt 2 years ago, I was laid out by a spinach salad for a week. Now, you could say, "Alissa, but isn't that because that spinach salad was your first fresh fruit and/or vegetable in 4 months?" Details, my friends, mere details.
Yesterday I woke up at 3am--after a trifling 72 hours stateside--with the stomach flu, courtesy of my little sister. 7 hours on the bathroom floor, 6 episodes of the BBC's "The Office", 18 hours of sleep and 5 pounds later, I'm once again back on my feet (minus some occasional and bizarre gurgling sounds from my belly, but they've yet to manifest themselves in any scary way). American germs be damned. I'd be happy if I'm never that sick again.
The past few days have just melted together, like the delectable cheese of Chicago stuffed pizzas...(of which I've eaten 3 pieces since coming home). Now, this is the nature of vacations in general, but I'm having a hard time demarcating time. I can't hear the Muezzin's call to prayer slink up to my window, counting off the hours of the day. My roommates aren't here to bustle around at their appointed hours after coming home from work, grad school, or Arabic class. The propane tank vendor can't wake me up at 6am every Saturday by banging on his cans in the street. (Ok, so I don't necessarily miss that!) Rather, the days just sort of gently drift by me, unaccounted for.
Actually, I suppose this is exactly the sort of vacation I was looking for, one where I didn't need to be thinking constantly about how I was going to meet my needs: feed myself, clothe myself, clean myself, shop for myself, navigate the sidewalks and the traffic, communicate, dodge the screeching cats. Two brimming refrigerators and an overstocked pantry (why do we have so much food??) sit here like ripe figs for the picking. I can just sort of help myself to whatever I want, whenever I want it. Bizarre. Luxurious. Bizarre.
Not to be a total glutton, I have spent the past few days doing more than munching: playing viola, plunking out the 4 songs I know on the piano, reading George Orwell's essays and Salman Rushdie's 'enchantress of florence', preparing Christmas gifts, making phone calls that don't involve 15 second delays on skype, going out to Caribou Coffee with old friends. Writing an analysis of chapter 31 of Huckleberry Finn for a T.A. at Cairo University I forgot to do before I left Egypt...
As much as the normalcy of life in Palatine has been very welcome after 6 somewhat frazzling (though lovely) months in Egypt, I'm grateful that I'll be returning to the bizarre and mundane adventures that come with life abroad. I always think back to my saga of the Tetanus shot...true, if I stepped on a nail in America, I would have a much better idea of how to take care of it, and could have done so with less hassle (but paid a lot more!). But you just learn a lot about yourself when you're dependent on strangers and a shared set of 30 vocabulary words, and in the end, you feel like you've lived just a little bit more.
Now, I don't want to become one of those weird ex-pats-for-life, who become so addicted to that sense of adventure that they don't realize 1. they've completely romanticized their host culture and generally look like doofuses as they live from "cultural moment" to "cultural moment" and 2. they've completely lost the ability to live a normal life and connect with people back in their home culture. I'm leaving Egypt, and if all goes well (isa) I'll be in grad school in the fall. The more I'm away, the more I really love America. Like, the real, daily life America, not the romantic paintings of bald eagles and VFW parades. I miss knowing all of the different subcultures, I miss the inordinate love of "family values" in my native Midwest, I miss sitting around kitchen tables or reading local newspapers or going to hipster concerts or simply having the same general worldview as the person I'm talking with, I miss making jokes with an American sense of humor.
One thing I forgot about, though: Americans seem positively neurotic compared to Egyptians. For better or for worse, Egyptians have a very, "If you can't change it, laugh about it" attitude. The ideal of having youthful beauty your entire life is non-existent. The high point of most Egyptians' day is to be able to go home, put on your pajamas, and just hang out with your family all night. Certainly my foreigner friends and I are immune to other social pressures that exist, simply by virtue of the fact of being outsiders. But because Cairo is so crowded and so ineffecient, Egyptians spend most of their time trying to avoid stress, rather than create it.
At the local Safeway a few days ago, my eyes were riveted to the magazine rack by the check-out line. "Oh my God," I thought. "We're freaking out." As an entire culture, we are freaking out all the time. What if we're late? What if we're old? What if we're ugly? What if we're fat? What if we're not funny enough? What if we don't make a good first impression? What if we're not thinking one step ahead? What if we're stagnating? The stakes seem really high.
Now, a lot of Egyptians would gladly trade in their relaxed lifestyle for a functional economy that actually allows them to do more than sit at home, but provides enough career jobs to open up their futures. Our neuroses function in part to keep us competitive, which keeps our economy working (well, until recently), which in the end, we've decided is worth the mental stress. It's anyone's call. But perhaps why I enjoy life abroad--aside from a glut of bloggable moments--is the lack of pressure, and especially the lack of pressure I have as a foreigner. I don't have to impress anyone, because I'm operating outside of their social script. That being said, I already impress most people, by virtue of my citizenship and English skills. It's an easy life, if you can get over some of the daily hassles.
Now, I'll leave you here, gentle readers, so that I can get back to enjoying my Christmas holiday at home. I'm going to hope that my stomach bug is indeed gone, and go splurge on another American favorite: eggnog.
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