An eloquent cram for the GRE.

Gentle readers—

I (with more than a touch of indolence) fervidly desire to obviate a protraction in studying for the verbal portion of the GRE by undertaking the travail of incorporating GRE vocabulary into a single (albeit erudite and pedantic) blog post, hoping that the memory of this post will serve me as a mnemonic device (or, at the very least, that writing this post is better than a self-inflicted cephalic bang against a wall as I hurl imprecations at my inchoate thoughts and circumscribed vocabulary). I hope to be exculpated for this egregious breach of blog decorum. Those of you who do not find this post conciliating may be mollified by the fact that torpor will soon prevail again over even my most self-aggrandizing tendencies and that the use of the vernacular will resume with subsequent postings.

At the moment, dear friends, I feel a touch phlegmatic, having been enervated by an inundation of preparations for the GRE and graduate school. Though I have a proclivity towards higher education—even with its propensity for florid, tawdry and ostentatious rhetorical flourishes, as this post itself demonstrates—I feel diffident in the face of the stolid ivory tower. The sanguine among us will suggest that I have husbanded my opportunities for academic growth well, which should mitigate the effects of these trenchant thoughts of self-doubt. While my anxiety is slaked some, I do not feel much abetted by these diaphanous and turgid words of empty encouragement. Fueled by a half pound of imported lindt chocolate and copious cups of Turkish coffee, I find myself more often maudlin and reduced to a lachrymose state.

Rather, I prefer to inure myself to the view of the sardonic among us, whose vitriol and perspicacious, invective remarks on the entire higher education system remind me to be impervious to any rejection letters that may come my way. These impudent and insolent among us, for example, rightfully lampoon and deride standardized tests as a basis for admission. They also note the degree to which irascible and ossified academics (cosseted by the well-funded administration) often foment the very same insipid punditry higher education seeks to jettison, or at least, to attenuate. Speaking with candor, I see that many graduate students are obsequious dilettantes, showering one or two key academics in their field with blandishments and lionizing their achievements—achievements which may not engender much in the “real world.”

Now, I will be the first to admit that, as I have been garrulous and voluble in making this argument, it may not be fully cogent, and may have been a touch impetuous in the making. It may also be true that I am ignoble for writing this prolix and precipitate posting as a rejoinder to a system that, in one year’s time, I hope to be joining myself. With luck, I will find a disparate type of academic—a hoary soul who can disabuse me from simplistic analysis and burnish my critical thinking skills while showing me salubrious ways to approach the world’s most exigent problems so that I can propitiate myself to the system with a pure conscience.

In the meantime, I cannot attest to the veracity of anything in this posting--it is true that I may have prevaricated in order to accommodate the plethora of vocabulary words. I only hope that its content was not soporific.

All my best—
A.W.

on a halloween faux pas.

You learn something new every day.

After exactly (happy anniversary!) 7 total months in Egypt, I have made more than my fair share of rookie's mistakes. There is something of a learning curve to cultural adjustment, though, and I've been fairly gaffe-free in the past few months.

Minus the time, that is, when I invited two small Egyptian children to play "Pass the Pigs" with me--a cheesy game from the States that involves rolling rubber pig-shaped dice to earn points for whatever position the pigs land in. They begin playing with great enthusiasm and gusto, rolling the little twin porkers hoping for the prized 40-point "double leaning jowler" position. Then their aunt came by and, while smiling, asked me if I happened to know that pigs were unclean in Islam.

To my credit, I did know this. But I figured that rubber replicas hardly constituted an unclean offense. It didn't really—the kids continued to play without any problem. But still, a slightly awkward mini faux pas.

Now, as you all know, my gentle readers, Halloween is nearly upon us. I heart Halloween. Playing dress up, eating candy, drinking hot apple cider, the sharp fall air, roasted pumpkin seeds, dressing up the concrete goose on my mom's doorstep in its pumpkin Halloween costume… I love it all. [The concrete goose's name, incidentally, is Lucille H.H. Goosey, and it has some half dozen country-cute outfits: an American flag sweater, a little sailor's hat, a Mrs. Clause outfit for Christmas, a raincoat for the spring, bunny ears for Easter, and so forth. Yes, welcome to the Midwest, with all its charms and occasional oddities.]

In my enthusiasm and nostalgia, I may or may not have been talking about Halloween for the past 2 months to my Egyptian friends. Now, try explaining Halloween to Egyptians. For that matter, try explaining Halloween to anyone. To go the Druidic-origins route is to alarm and, ultimately, misconstrue what the holiday is really about for most people. It's not quite a Latin American Dia de los Muertos day to honor our own dearly departed, either, however. I usually try to pass it off as a kind of children's day. In all, that's not too far off. Or, if I'm feeling a flair for the dramatic, I present it as a day when we commemorate the epic battle between the forces of good and evil. Anyway. Something like that.

Snicker miniatures being unspeakable expensive and the classic Mr. Goodbar mix not existing, I opted to buy some packaged brownies to distribute to my co-workers last night at the language center where I teach. "Happy Halloween!" I greeted them, plunking down brownies on little Kleenex squares, grade school style. Most of them smiled, thanked me, and began munching down on their little squares of fudgy goodness.

One of my co-workers, however, quietly followed me into my classroom. The conversation was in Arabic, but went something like this:
"Um, excuse me, Miss Alissa, but is this cake for Halloween?"
"Yes! It's for you—Friday is Halloween in America."
"Yes, but you see, Islam has only two holidays: eid al-fitr (the end of Ramadan) and eid al-adha (commemorating Abraham's near sacrifice of his son)."
"Right, but this isn't a religious holiday—it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's just American."
"You don't understand. We are prohibited from celebrating any other holidays. So, I need you to tell me that this isn't a Halloween cake. It's just a gift."
"Ah. Ok, then. This isn't a Halloween brownie. It's just a gift!"
"Ah, thank you very much," he said, with a big grin on his face, and promptly bit into his brownie.

Whoops. I suppose it would be a bit uncomfortable for most Americans if an exchange student burst through the doors and started plunking down symbols of a holiday we didn't know about, didn't celebrate, and seemed vaguely demonic in its origins (as, to be fair, Halloween kind of is)—something like, "Happy holidays! Here's your voodoo-doll shaped cupcake." It might give us pause as well.

In any case—Happy Halloween to all of you, at the very least!

Not to be left out, I will be attending a tiny Halloween party in our apartment as a flight attendant—something that may be lost in its effect as 1. most Egyptians have never flown anywhere and 2. uh, it's actually an outfit I wear to the office normally.

Until next time, my friends--enjoy eating the pumpkins out of the candy corn mix for me.

campaign dreams and another fast food nation.

Another autumnal greeting to you, my gentle readers.
This morning found me bundled in fleece pants and zip-up hoodie, drinking hibiscus tea and eating oatmeal on my balcony under a pleasantly overcast sky. Distressingly reminiscent of Seattle, I found myself channeling the gloomy gem of the northwest with an ample dose of nostalgia.
(Nostalgia that has been fueled, in part, by recent calls and emails with friends back home. A grateful shout out to all of you, my dear friends—and also to the parents of my friends who I've discovered have also taken to reading the blog. Here's to you, Mrs. Castle).

Then, in my nostalgic haze and with a weak spot for commemorating milestones, I found myself thinking back to what I was doing this time last year, at the end of October 2007. Then I remembered: going on a match.com date with Apollo the Ugandan refugee navy engineer, and convincing Marla to let me dress her up as Leila Khalidi, the first female hijacker, for Halloween. It looks like I'm in a better place after all.

In other news, the fall weather is also bringing an end to the historic 2008 Presidential campaign season. As the unofficial American campaign correspondent at work, I've ironically found myself following the election even more closely than I would have if I were in the states. At least, I hope I wouldn't be reading campaign articles 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, if I were back in the States, or I'd be undergoing diagnosis for an obsessive-compulsive tick.

But so much campaign coverage has started to affect my dreams. Example. Last week, I had a dream that John McCain and I were riding in a space-shuttle-for-tourists gig. I actually had the sensation of floating in space and looking at the moon, which was neat. Then I was grateful that in my dream, I wasn't nearly as claustrophobic as I am in real life—a surprisingly lucid moment while moon-gazing with John McCain.

When we came back to earth, a meeting had been arranged for me to sit down for a few minutes with Sarah Palin (I'm apparently moonlighting for the Obama campaign in my sleep). As two pantsuited women with sharp and saucy wit, we sat down for a few folksy, winky minutes of thinly veiled sparring, emerging for a quick photo-op and a return to our respective camps.

Last night I dreamt that I was with Obama—not for the current election, but for his election to President of the Harvard Review. He was nervous and fumbling with the microphone cords. I flashed him a thumbs up and helped him untangle the cords as he went on to address the school auditorium-ish crowd (and onto presidential candidate-glory, it goes without saying).

Right. So either I have some weird megalomaniac streak in my dreams, or I've bonded a little bit too much with the eloquent hope-monger. Or maybe it's just a sign that it's nigh about time for this election to come to an end. Perhaps all three.

Now, in all fairness, the strange dreams could have been induced not so much by the strange working of my brain, but by the unfortunate churnings of my stomach. Yesterday I was defeated once again by yet another insistent Egyptian mother.

Now, I've already documented the dangers of this particular character within Egyptian society—the women who will shove you out of the way on the metro car, marry you off to their sons, and force feed you fried gristle to fatten you up for said son—all while balancing a rack of pita bread on their head. They are a formidable adversary.

I spent last evening at the house of my lovely and sharp-tongued Egyptian friend Sally. I arrived at her house around 6:30 or so. Knowing that 6:30 doesn't equal "dinnertime" on the Egyptian food schedule, I had made sure to eat a small snack before I arrived [Egyptians eat breakfast at 11, lunch at 4, dinner at 9pm]. Around 7:30, they brought in a snack: roasted sweet potatoes, a favorite of mine and the sole source of nutrients in my diet at this point.
They didn't bring me one sweet potato, of course. They brought me three.

Happily, they seemed content when I ate one and a half—"Alissa," I counseled myself. "Remember the fish-induced misery from two days ago. Don't be swayed by their protests of hospitality. Be reasonable." One and a half sweet potatoes as a snack is, in the context of Egyptian portions, perfectly reasonable. So far so good.
By 9pm, there was no sign of food. "Whew," I thought, prematurely. "Perhaps I made it through unscathed."

Around 9:30, Sally's mother barged into the bedroom carrying a plate almost comically piled with a large pyramid of hamburgers. For the two of us, the platter was artistically arranged with a mound of no less than eight, full-sized burgers. With a plate of fries.
"Wow," I thought to myself. "What a display of hospitality, providing so much more food than anyone can possibly eat."

O, how naïve I can still be after so many months in Egypt!

Hungry—this, after all, being 9:30 at night and I hadn't really eaten since [American] lunchtime—I quickly put down one burger. Then another. I munched on a few fries contemplatively ["Alissa," I hissed to myself. "Take it easy. Two burgers? You're going to regret this later. Don't even think about a third."] Still, I was kind of hungry…

I resisted my worst inclinations and held firm at two. Sally stopped eating and looked at me incredulously.
"Alissa. Eat."
"What? Impossible! I just ate two!"
"Only two?"
"What do you mean—'only'? I ate two burgers!"
"We brought you four."
"Four?!"

Two burgers at a go is usually reserved for 6'6" football players and the like, or at least, boys with unnaturally high metabolism. My little 5'5" frame, which (except for the occasional Cardio Salsa or Tahitian Burn workout) rarely gets more daily exercise than my 15 minute walk to work, I hardly thought that three burgers for dinner was justifiable or healthy.

The haggling continued. Her mother returned after a few minutes. Sally immediately reported to her mother that I had "only eaten two" burgers.
"Only two?" she immediately exclaimed. "We brought you four!"

Fast food nation, you've met your match.

Fried fish and fall leaves.

Dear readers. 

I'm writing this post to you from beneath a pile of blankets on my bed on a dark, cozy Saturday evening. This means a few things.

1. Fall has finally come to Cairo, complete with rain. True, it lasted maybe 5 minutes, and never got beyond a Seattle sprinkle, but this was the first time I had seen the heavens open since sometime in June. After 4 years in the PNW (that would be the Pacific Northwest, for everyone living east of the Cascades who aren't savvy on the acronyms), 4 months without rain was starting to make me tweaky. When you actually long for your jeans to be in a perma-wet state from dragging through puddles, remember when you had to replace your windshield wiper blades every year from overuse, and become genuinely giddy to wear sweaters and scarves again, you know that something might actually be wrong with you. 4 months of pure sunshine next to the Nile certainly isn't something to be taken for granted! 

But the trick about autumn and winter in Egypt is that the houses have all been built for the 100+ degree summers, not for the 50-60 degree winters. No insulation. No heaters. So we pile the blankets on and putz around the house in fleece pants and, thus far, love every minute of the cooler weather.

The only downside is that there aren't any trees here that are changing color--at least, not yet, but the many palm trees aren't looking like a likely option. Pumpkin spice lattes are also non-existent. On the plus side, I can eat a roasted sweet potato just about any damn time I'd like, thanks to street vendors with little portable ovens on wheels. True, they usually wrap it in some kid's used notebook paper from school (my last one was wrapped in someone's trig notes), but for 20 cents, you can't complain.

2. I'm in bed at 6:30 not becase it's cozy, but because I'm recovering from my second bout of food poisoning in as many days. Since no one else I've eaten with has gotten sick, I'm left to assume that voodoo dolls are likely involved, or that my body has suddenly gone sissy on me. Thursday night I was done in by a chicken (with mayo) sandwich from the Egyptian McDonalds dollar menu (or, as it were, the 5 Egyptian Pound menu--there's less of a ring to that).

Last night I went to Maasara to spend the night with my old host family. Knowing that we were coming, they splurged on Nile fish, which they fried and stuffed with garlic. Having been shown how to properly de-bone a fish by the esteemed Mr. Razi while traveling through Alexandria, I was eager to show off my new skill. 

In my enthusiasm, however, I wound up eating two fish--this on top of a mountain of food that the family was, with all hospitality, shoving down my throat.

I've spent the last 24 hours regretting that fish, but still, with no relief. Normally I would welcome a day in bed to work on my grad school applications or read the Carlos Castaneda book I picked up yesterday, but neither deciding my future nor reading about psychotropic experiences with a Mexican Shaman sound particularly good under severe gastronomical duress. 

So, my friends, I will leave you here to curl up once again under the blankets. Here's to fall and stomach health.

embracing a fully awkward ex-pat existence.

It's official.
We've become those kind of ex-pats.
Early indications of our transformation into socially odd, "third culture" misfits began with my purchase of a pseudo-African embroidered tunic shirt in early September. It was a fateful purchase—one that began with ridicule from my roommate and ended with ruining an entire load of whites. RIP, H&M pants.

But the warning signs continued. Next was the complete breakdown of our native tongue: the increasing frequency with which we spoke in Arabish (not quite English, not quite Arabic) to one another. In fact, we soon noticed our complete inability to speak anything but Arabish, even with friends and family back home who couldn't appreciate the sprinkling of Egyptian expressions into our English.

Not only this, but it has become steadily more difficult to speak like real Americans. Listening to the stilted, awkward English of even our most fluent Egyptians, we have begun to imitate their unnatural diction. "This is the point," which I now say at the beginning of most every sentence. And "I miss you too much!" I often exclaim, kissing both cheeks of my female friends. "It has been long time since I see you!" All of this, of course, is also said in an affected Egyptian accent, imitating the heavy R's and difficult ur's of my friends who are speaking English as their second language.

Extra enunciation further differentiates me from my American compatriots. "I need to use the in-ter-net. Where can I find the in-ter-net? Connection? Is there? Wireless?" I inquire of the café owners. Yesterday, I taught my students "Whadjya do?" and "Whatcha doin'?" only to realize that it had been 4 months since I had allowed myself an uninhibited "Whadjya do last night?" in Egyptian company. My tongue felt immediate relief at the sloppy syllables. Ahh. Home again. So much for the verbal section of my GRE—whatever gains I make from studying prefixes, I'm losing more every day to the steady erosion of my American syntax by Egyptian English speakers.

Language, however, is only one of our many concerns. Our newly revealed tendency to clutch greedily at fresh ex-pat meat is perhaps the more disturbing. At the whiff of a new foreigner's arrival, my roommates and I circle like wolves, eager to hear fresh drama from someone's life other than the girls I live with. Viewed as a mix between a new issue of People Magazine and a counselor to unleash all of our stories to from a reclining couch—it is true that we can be a bit aggressive.

For example. At church last week, we met another American girl in her mid 20s who arrived just 3 weeks before to do work with infectious diseases in the Middle East and North Africa. The 4 of us immediately gathered in, an uncomfortable (but Egyptian) foot away from her face, interrupting each other to pelt her with overlapping questions and offers to help her with everything from laundry to grocery shopping to buying a mobile phone (note: not a cellphone, a mobile) to finding her Egyptian friends. While she did seem grateful for the aggressive offers of hospitality, she also was trying (in vain) to back away from us a few inches and get herself a bit of breathing space.

If this were the first time we had swooped like seagulls to a corndog, I wouldn't be so concerned. But in fact, the pattern of behavior has been clearly established. In Dahab, we cited a middle aged American woman dining by herself at a beachside restaurant. Not only did we invite her to join us for dinner, we also invited ourselves to eat her grilled fish, told her all of our adjustment-to-Egypt stories for nearly two hours, and ended with advice as to how to make your clothes softer with Egyptian washing machines (tip: add vinegar during the rinse cycle).

Or when the esteemed Mr. Razi arrived (himself an ex-pat in Ethiopia, nearly a year out of the American motherland), we nearly out-ex-pat-ed each other out of our eagerness to share our travel stories with a fresh audience. You know you're an ex-pat when you start interrupting each others' stories with "Oh yeah? That reminds me of that one time I raced donkey carts and almost got hit by a bus…" or "Well, the last time I had a parasite/foodpoisoning/fleas/abacterialboilonmyhead…" and "That reminds me—Did I ever tell you about the time we were nearly robbed with machetes when we were hitchhiking through the Ecuadorian jungle?" or "Oh sure, that's just like when I was led into a Qat den after exchanging money on the Ethiopian black market…"

Last night, all four of my roommates chanced to be home at the same time—a rare treat with our busy and often contradictory schedules. As we sat around the dining room table in our flat in Cairo, each of us clicking away on our computers or dinking around with some papers, drinking tea and eating okra with pita bread—we each began interrupting each others' work to share some fairly uninteresting anecdote from our day. I laughed to myself at the endearing ritual—no matter how mundane the moment, the recounting of our day's frustrations and bizarre interactions always puts us all in stitches. And, it's just as well that it should—the three of us are often the only audience that these stories will have.

So, here's to a fully awkward ex-pat life. Those of you I'll be seeing over Christmas, get ready: I'll start wrapping your pseudo-African embroidered shirts now to get them ready to put under the tree.

A pause for spiritual reflection.

I went back to church yesterday.

Now, I don't mean this as the announcement of a turning, or the marking of a milestone, the way that this phrase might have been uttered in past phases of my occasionally erratic life. It's true that over the past four years, I've often deconstructed and reconstructed my faith in a way that, a bit humpty dumpty-esque, didn't always add back up to an even sum. I left and rejoined the Church in fits and lurches, fitting with the pendulum swing of my soul.

That was true until a year ago, when the pews and kneelers of St. Ignatius in Seattle became a fitting nesting place, and I slowly grew back into the goodness of the faith I had been raised with.

Since moving to Egypt, however, a few factors combined to make it difficult to find a church to pray in every week. First of all, weekends here fall on Friday and Saturday, not Sunday. Inexplicably, many of the English-speaking congregations (of which there are few) persist in meeting on Sunday, when I'm at work. Another time I attended a mass that was technically conducted in English, but the priest's thick Polish accent and the poor acoustics of the church rendered the mass completely incomprehensible. All this to say that, excepting a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, participating in Christian community has been something largely limited to the occasional spiritual conversations with friends and roommates.

That changed yesterday with a visit to an Episcopalian church in Maadi—which, in terms of liturgy, felt just one pope shy of the masses I had attended at St. Ignatius. It was coming home. Inexplicably significant was taking communion for the first time in four months. Now, maybe this is just evidence of Catholic teachings leaking into my Protestant theology, but after so much time gone by without it, the bread and wine felt somehow more powerful, somehow more holy, than mere symbolism would suggest. For whatever dualists might maintain, it seems to me that the line between the physical and the spiritual is increasingly doubtful. Body is soul. Soul is body.

I came across an NPR "This I Believe" essay today as I was preparing lesson plans for an English class where the author relates her relationship to communion. I thought I'd include it below.

by- Sarah Miles
Until recently, I thought being a Christian was all about belief. I didn't know any Christians, but I considered them people who believed in the virgin birth, for example, the way I believed in photosynthesis or germs.
But then, in an experience I still can't logically explain, I walked into a church and a stranger handed me a chunk of bread. Suddenly, I knew that it was made out of real flour and water and yeast — yet I also knew that God, named Jesus, was alive and in my mouth.
That first communion knocked me upside-down. Faith turned out not to be abstract at all, but material and physical. I'd thought Christianity meant angels and trinities and being good. Instead, I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.
I came to believe that God is revealed not only in bread and wine during church services, but whenever we share food with others — particularly strangers. I came to believe that the fruits of creation are for everyone, without exception — not something to be doled out to insiders or the "deserving."
So, over the objections of some of my fellow parishioners, I started a food pantry right in the church sanctuary, giving away literally tons of oranges and potatoes and Cheerios around the very same altar where I'd eaten the body of Christ. We gave food to anyone who showed up. I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians, schizophrenics, gangsters, bishops — all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people.At the pantry, serving over 500 strangers a week, I confronted the same issues that had kept me from religion in the first place. Like church, the food pantry asked me to leave certainty behind, tangled me up with people I didn't particularly want to know and scared me with its demand for more faith than I was ready to give.
Because my new vocation didn't turn out to be as simple as going to church on Sundays and declaring myself "saved." I had to trudge in the rain through housing projects, sit on the curb wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, take the firing pin out of a battered woman's Magnum and then stick the gun in a cookie tin in the trunk of my car. I had to struggle with my atheist family, my doubting friends, and the prejudices and traditions of my newfound church.
But I learned that hunger can lead to more life — that by sharing real food, I'd find communion with the most unlikely people; that by eating a piece of bread, I'd experience myself as part of one body. This I believe: that by opening ourselves to strangers, we will taste God.

On a nearly bungled wooing.

Those of you who know me well are undoubtedly wondering how it is that Alissa—in all her full-fledged awkwardness, with credentials like "history club president" and lifetime orchestra membership—managed to summon up enough womanly wiles to snag a half-Japanese, half-Iranian Seattle hipster, Farsi/Japanese/Amharic/Oromifa speaking Peace Corps Volunteer/health worker/yoga instructor/massage therapist/classical pianist/mountain climber with known talents for making homemade lemon meringue pie and truffles.

Lest you think that I suddenly found my inner suave seductress while in Cairo—rest assured, dear readers, that my recent change in relationship status happened more or less in spite of my clumsy attempts at boy-snagging, not because of it.

Never the queen of subtlety, I decided early on that whatever I lacked in charms I could make up through sheer persistence (a strategy, I'm happy to say, worked better here than it currently is for McCain). Now, most anyone would suggest that maintaining contact with the esteemed Mr. Razi during his stint in Ethiopia would be necessary to get my foot in the figurative door. Not one for moderation, however, I hoped that my daily 8 page emails and $40-in-postage care packages wouldn't reveal my cards.

Once Nod was safely within Egypt, I knew I had one shot to win him to the cause. This was not a time to be shy. Time to pull out the big guns.

Smooth wooing tactic #1: dehydrate him and feed him greasy, fried pigeon in the hopes of weakening his defenses.
Honest to God, the first night Nod was in Egypt, we went for a walk through downtown Cairo. Now, this might sound romantic, but in reality, involves dodging death as you run head-on through traffic, shouting at each other over the roar of traffic, sidestepping dust, garbage, and stray cats, and realizing that—genius, Alissa—I had no actual destination in mind when we set out. At the end of it all, we had walked for two hours in a high-stress environment without any food or water (thanks, Ramadan), and did nothing more than make a big circle. Smooth.
Nod was beginning to wilt from starvation, so we set out for some authentic, Egyptian food. Now, I hardly ever eat out at restaurants in Egypt, so I had a very short list in mind of places we could go to. Oh, right, and all of those restaurants were closed for the entire month of Ramadan, even in the evenings.
Wandering around downtown, Nod spotted a colorful tent with tables lined up to serve sprawling plates of Egyptian street food to those breaking the fast. "Let's go there," he suggested. My stomach clenched. I had never eaten as a tent like this, and didn't know protocol. But, not wanting to seem anything less than a fierce and independent woman, I fronted nonchalance. It was only after my earlier blog post about this dinner (see below) that I found out Nod was dry heaving in the bathroom after ingesting too much greasy pigeon skin. Way to go, Alissa.

Suave moment #2: My host family in Maasara knew that Nod was coming and that I had had my eye on him for months. To my Egyptian family, though, there was no framework to communicate things like, "crush" "dating" or "a non-relative boy is coming to visit me so that we can travel together." So, to put things in terms they could understand, I told them that he was visiting so that we could see if we wanted to "get engaged." I bit my lip, hoping this wouldn't blow up in my face once Nod arrived, but I didn't really have any other options if Nod was going to get to meet my family.
I thought I'd better pave the way for Nod before he actually arrived in Maasara and started fielding questions about our would-be marriage. So, day #2 in Cairo, after we hadn't seen each other for one year and were still getting used to each other..
"So, Nod, you should probably know that the family thinks we're getting married." Points to Nod for not choking on his baklava right then. "Um, you see, they don't really have a framework to understand a guy friend coming to visit—because, right, we are just friends—so I had to tell them that you were coming to propose. But don't worry—I told them it was a secret and that we hadn't actually discussed marriage yet, so hopefully they won't ask us any questions to our face about it at dinner."
Riiight. Smooth again. Nod took it all in stride, thankfully. Considering that the family set up a full-blown engagement dinner for us and my host sister Sara pelted Nod with questions like, "So, do you have a girlfriend?" "No? That's interesting…what kind of qualities would you want in a girlfriend?" "What age do you think is best to marry at?" all the while winking at me furiously—I was glad that I had prepared Nod for this a little bit.
In the meantime, my host mother kept hissing at me to put more food on Nod's plate, chastised me for not wearing more make-up, and told me that I should have worn new clothes. My host father took Nod out on the balcony for a manly heart-to-heart…never mind the fact that it was all in Arabic and Nod couldn't understand a word he was saying. The whole time the family kept flashing me thumbs up signs. If you ever wanted an Egyptian family to act as your wingman, I have excellent contacts in Maasara.

Add to the fact that I may or may not have played a small role in Nod losing both his iPod and a hat during our busrides, and at one point made him stay in a hotel room with my completely crazy Egyptian friends (who, under the influence, woke him up at 4am to pelt him with questions about his personal life and make him sing eminem)—and I can safely say that, without any doubt, all the credit belongs to Nod for putting up with a complete lack of class or charm.

It only improved from here. Day #3, we boarded an evening bus for Siwa, a desert oasis in western Egypt. I might deserve slight points here for having brains enough to realize that a desert oasis under the stars in the Saharan might be a setting romantic enough to make further in roads into the affection of Mr. Razi. 12 hours of travel later, we showed up sleepless and bedraggled at 7am to the small town of Siwa. The streets were empty, save one kind soul riding around on a golf cart who directed us to the illustrious Palm Hostel.

After--I kid you not--a one hour nap, I thought it would be a good idea to wake Nod up and go for a walk in the blistering heat. Siwa hasn't become completely touristicized, however, making long sleeves and pants necessary for me to keep within the bounds of local modesty. Right. So now we have the perfect conditions: noon in the Saharan desert, Ramadan (no drinking or eating in public), stuffy, uncomfortable clothes--and lots and lots of mosquitos.

Happily, Nod took the reins a bit from there, and suggested that we spend the evening biking out to desert hot springs at sunset, where we watched the sun set and the stars come out. At least one of us knows how to pick a romantic setting, hey?
But, lest things go too smoothly-- once he popped the relationship question, I spent nearly two hours hemming and hawing, my penchant for over-analysis and overly thorough explanations making what should have been a 30-second DTR into a conversation that took us well into the early hours of the morning until I finally came to my senses and simply said, "yes."

All this to say, my friends, don't worry—I still remain the completely awkward prufrock crab you've always known and loved.

Teaching the enemy.

There are times when we are asked to represent something larger than ourselves: Alissa, please give us the viewpoint of Christians, Americans, or Women on such-and-such topic. While not always comfortable to speak on behalf of an impossibly large number of people, it can also be an important time for advocacy, correction of wrongs, and reconciliation.

Since my time in Egypt, I have been asked on a number of occasions to begin the monumental work of reconciling Christianity to Islam, reconciling the West to the Middle East. Drinking tea in the homes of Egyptian friends or sitting with my office mates at work, we have put our toes in the water, feeling one another one with increasing trust and frankness. From differing views on gender relations to the validity of including the apostle Paul in the Bible and explanations of how Americans could have possibly voted Bush into office a second time, there are times when you feel that the whole of the "Clash of Civilizations" is present in the microcosm of these intimate discussions.

But none of these sensitive and fruitful conversations have matched the intensity or significance of what happened last night. I returned last night to my language center after nearly a month break from teaching. In addition to enjoying chattering with my co-workers there, who are all bent on getting me fluent in Arabic by the end of the year (so help me God), and enduring lots of teasing and pointed questions about Nod's recent visit, I was also looking forward to meeting my new students.
I was perhaps most nervous about a private, 2 hour class I would be teaching to a man who had tested in at a Level One--Level One, as in, teaching the alphabet. My co-workers assured me my Arabic would be enough to get him going on the basics of English. Yeah, right. They told me his name was Gasim. What? I had never heard this name before in Egypt.
I walk into the classroom to see a balding, bulbous man shyly slinking down behind his round, silver-framed glasses and folding his arms across his bulging stomach. His voice was muffled as I practiced some basic greetings with him in English. "What's your name?" I smiled. "Jasim," he responded. Hmm, I thought. That didn't sound like an Egyptian accent.
His English was clearly better than his level would indicate. So much for my alphabet lesson plans. I started drawing verb charts and listing pronouns on the board, trying to gauge exactly how much English he had down. After a few minutes, he interrupted me.
"Excuse me, Miss, I need to tell you something." Of course, I motioned.
"I am an Iraqi man. I fought in the Iraq-Iran war, from 1980 to 1988. I fought in the war with Kuwait in 1992. I live here alone as a manager for a bank. My family is in Baghdad. I studied English twenty years ago so that I could talk to the foreign officers and translate messages. I am here to remember."
I let out a long, slow breath. Jasim is not the first Iraqi I have met, though he is only one among a very small handful. I know several Iraqis at my internship, including one office mate that I am fairly close with. But something felt different with Jasim, this portly 50 year old shifting his weight back and forth in front of me.
According to the BBC, the confirmed death toll of Iraqi civilians since the 2002 invasion is nearing 100,000. Jasim stared at me intently. I stared back, my mind racing. What is he thinking right now, with an American in front of him? What does he think that I'm thinking right now, to be confronted with an officer from Saddam's Iraqi army?
I was dying to know more, but afraid to open my mouth. I returned to diagraming subject and object pronouns on the board. Later, I tested the waters as part of our conversation practice. "So, what do you do after work every day?"
"I watch TV."
"What programs? News programs?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you think about the American elections? Obama or McCain?"
"That's not my problem."

Cut short, I decided not to risk anything broaching politics again.
Still, my mind was churning: What does it mean that my uncle fought in the Gulf War? That my student fought on the other side? That soldiers I know in Iraq right now may have killed his relatives; that his relatives may have killed soldiers I know? Do I take responsibility for the toll my country has taken on his? Should any of this affect my relationship to my student--should this mean anything at all?
I felt as if the Iraq war were suddenly in my classroom, and that reconciliation between our two countries had to begin here or not at all.
Vacillating between guilt and wariness toward him, I couldn't tell you now what I would have asked him even if I had the chance. Perhaps grammar lessons alone are enough of a step for now--preparing him to return to Baghdad with new language skills necessary to thrive in a post-war Iraq. And yet, at the same time, I wonder what use he will put his language skills toward--whether benign or malevolent--and then feel guilty for my skepticism.

This man is not my enemy. I don't believe in enemies. Nor do I have any inclination to consider Jasim as such.
But, in the Gulf War, he quite literally was an enemy--an enemy of America, and personally, an enemy of my uncle and others who were fighting. Never before confronted with a situation like this, I find myself with too much to digest easily.

coming home to Cairo.

Today is a day of quiet.
It's only natural, perhaps—coming back from two weeks of vacation, with its busy and colorful moments, changing landscapes, wide-eyed explorations and constant companionship—it's now time instead to sink back quietly into the familiar rhythms of my city and quietly consider all that has happened in my life.

Sipping a spicy cup of Turkish coffee this morning back inside the office, I feel myself reconnecting again with the ordinary rituals and familiar characters of my daily life— the sticky keyboard I slowly punch out my daily reports on, the café man who delivers coffee to our office and shyly refuses to make eye contact with me, my Spanish-speaking Algerian co-worker spraying axe around his desk while insisting that I eat the snack food he's brought, watching the staff of the Semi Ramses hotel clean their balconies through my office window.

These things are insignificant of themselves, but vacation for the past two weeks has shown me how easy it is for me to pull up my roots here and leave behind what I've invested into Egypt. With the exception of my host family in Maasara and a handful of Egyptian friends, it was the easiest thing in the world to shut off my cellphone and leave behind Cairo for half of this month. Coming back to work, choosing to return to the ordinary rhythms of my life here, signals for me a renewal in my intention to stay put for a while. I didn't have to come back to my job. I didn't have to come back to Cairo at all. I felt that temptation on our last day in the Sinai, before taking an 8 hour bus ride from a beautiful resort on the red sea, with bouganvilla flowers punctuating the desert landscape and lights from Jordan twinkling from across the water. Part of me dug in its heels and refused to go back, didn't want to interrupt the serenity with the blaring horns and bustle of Cairo. But I did come back. And for now, it feels right.

My Egyptian friends began calling me today—where have you been? Why haven't I heard from you in three weeks?—and I realize it could be possible that, for all of the love I have for them, I haven't yet been fully present here. It means something, I think, that I could simply pause my life here without the slightest difficulty. Some day I will pick up all of my roots and leave Egypt. But for my Egyptian friends, this is their life, and I need to carefully remember that they have embraced me as more than a passing character, but as a friend. Even with all my intentions to open myself fully to Egypt, I realize now that I am not yet there.

And now, reading the New York Times for my reports on the American election, getting ready to meet new English students tonight at the language center, looking forward to seeing my co-workers there for the first time in nearly a month, my heart is warmed a bit. Even imperfectly, Cairo is home. It is good to be back.

Upon returning from a boy-induced absence

Gentle readers:

I am indeed fine and well. I'm not sure whether the concern some of you expressed over my lack of blogging these past 7 days reflects more on the bonds of our friendship or on the fact that I was becoming a bit too attached to broadcasting every detail of my life to you on a daily basis.

But, after proving definitively this past week that I am not addicted to blogging, I'm ready to start feeding the monkey once again. Worry not, dear ones—the blog posts are back.

I'm tempted to spend this blog post recounting the many and harrowing adventures from my travels with the esteemed Mr. Razi over the past two weeks—which included interrogations and bomb scares at the Israeli border, going broke in three different north african cities, pounding baklava, learning to play backgammon in the old city of Jerusalem from Nod and a Palestinian teenager (who dominated both of us), staying in both hostels cockroaches and unidentifiable stains and hostels with views of the red sea, trying unsuccessfully to sneak a glance into the Dome of the Rock, and getting pulled into a dance circle with Nod at an Egyptian street wedding (which may or may not have concluded with a brief bellydancing display and money showered over me…awkward?). But. I feel these stories will come out with time.

The amiable Mr. Razi is leaving Cairo tonight, however, heading back to life Ethiopia and a bit more serenity and greenery than we've had in Egypt. So, with my mind elsewhere, I'll save all my stories for another day. All this to say that yes, I am safe and well, and no, I haven't forgotten you. Pictures are in the process of being posted to facebook.

Until tomorrow-
A.W.

Interrogations and border patrol.

Dear and gentle readers--

Please forgive my unprecedented neglect of the blog. Distraction from present company not withstanding, my travels over the past week haven't let me access the internet with much frequency.

The past 10 days of travel with the esteemed Nodair Razi (see: cheesy facebook relationship status I swore I would never use should I find myself in a committed relationship, but find myself succumbing to in the current state of twitterpation) have had the appropriate balance of beauty and bizareness. Two nights of trekking through the Siwan Oasis, watching the stars come out by oasis pools in groves of date palms and sleeping in the Saharan desert were followed by realizing we were completely broke by the time we go to Alexandria on our journey back to Cairo. A friendly American-educated Egyptian named Mohammad drove us from the bus station to downtown Alex, but it took us a good 2 hours walking through the dark streets with our heavy backpacks on before we were able to find a way to withdraw money and find a place to crash for the night. We almost called Yusef of the crackhouse escapade, but thought better of it...

After a load of laundry and a few hours' sleep in Cairo, we got on the bus with my roommates and some Egyptian co-workers and began to make our way to Dahab, a chill beach town on the Sinai peninsula. I was hoping that Nod would enjoy a little guy time with my co-workers, and since Nod looks perfectly Egyptian (thanks to his half-Iranian blood, which we will return to in a moment), I figured they would take him in as one of his own. 

Taking him in as one of them barging into his room one night at 4am, trying to get him to smoke hash with them, singing bad Arab rap loudly, and pelting him with questions about his personal life, while simultaneously admiring his shaving job that day and calling him their "love." Not quite the male bonding I had in mind, but hey, none the worse for the wear.

After two days of sitting on floor pillows and drinking milkshakes by the red sea, looking at the rising rocky hills of Saudi Arabia just across the narrow strait, we got on a bus and headed for the Israeli border. Dahab is a mere 2 hour drive to the border crossing at Taba. A 5 hour bus ride from there to Jerusalem, we figured that, even with passport control and potential delays at the crossing, we should be in Jerusalem well before prayers and dancing at the western wall marked the begining of Sabbath.

One glance at my Middle Eastern passport stamps and Nod's name and complexion, and the first Israeli security personnel to take our papers got on her walkie talkie. Two other security officers emerged from the shadows. "Follow me," they said, and separated us to begin the first interrogation of the day. I had the easier job of the day--"Why do you have so many stamps in your passport? What are you doing in Egypt? Do you know anyone in Egypt?" (Um, yes, my co-workers? the vegetable vendor?)--questions that were easy enough to answer. 

I could hear the questions float over from where Nod was standing, though--"tell me about your father. What is your religion? who planned your trip? who paid for it?" And on and on. They pulled our bags aside--x-rayed them, searched them, checked our pockets for traces of explosives. We were finally given clearance. Whew, thank God--we felt relieved to be done with all this.

Now, there are some twenty countries or so who don't recognize Israel and won't let you in their country if there's an Israeli stamp on your pages. Israel understands this, and will stamp a separate piece of paper instead, on request. With 5 years left on my passport and a desire to go to Damascus sometime soon, I asked her if she could avoid stamping my actual passport. "Why?" she snapped. She took a closer look at Nod's passport, with his Arab sounding name. "Come with me," she said to him. 

This interrogation lasted even longer, though they let me stay outside for this one, leaving me to devour kitkats out of nervousness as I watched Nod disappear into an empty room and Israeli soldiers pass in and out. This time he was made to draw a complete family tree, defend his ties to Iran (most of which he denied, and was luckily able to get away with), explain his relationship to me for the umpteenth time.

When he finally emerged from the battering ram, we were told to wait for an hour or two while they entered all of his information into some kind of database. Neither of us had eaten for a long time, and the snack counter inside passport control was beckoning. I had yet to change over my Egyptian pounds for shekels, though, but the girl said I was fine to use whatever money I had. 

"How much was the sandwich?" I asked.

"36 Egyptian pounds," she answered after punching some numbers into a calculator, the equivelant of about $7 USD. Yikes-I have never seen a sandwich priced so high in Egypt, even at the ritzy hotels. But, hey, border food is like airport food, and you just have to pay.

I give her a 50 pound note--$10 USD.

She gives me back a few Israeli coins--the equivelant of maybe $2 USD. 

Hmm, I say. That doesn't seem quite right. Whatever--Nod and I go out to sit on this balcony overlooking the red sea and try to decompress after a difficult day.

I should mention that the last time I attempted to cross an Israeli border two years ago, I inexplicably had hundreds of shekels placed inside my passport after it was examined by security officials. Is it to frame me? for sex? I never could figure it out--and I promptly handed the shekels back to the man that had given me my passport. Nothing was ever said about it.

Nod and I had just about finished our Salami sandwich which another plain clothes security officer (one we hadn't met yet--though after going through two shifts of workers that day, we had pretty much gotten to know them all) barged out onto the balcony with money in his hand.

"Here, " he said, handing me the money. "This is for you." He left the balcony as abruptly as he had barged onto it.

77 shekels--about $13 USD. Right. So I paid $10 USD for my sandwich, and got $13 USD back, plus a sandwich. Strange, but hey, I'll take it.

Two hours went by. Nod and I were starting to get fidgety. The sun had set, Sabbath had begun, and we already knew that we had missed the last bus into Jerusalem. It looked like we would be spending the night in the Israeli resort town of Eilat, known for its glass bottom boat tours and "bikini clad bods," according to my Lonely Planet guide. 

Just then, two security officers brandishing their Ak-47s sprinted past us. "Everyone out!" We grabbed out bags and walked out behind the passport control building. Bomb scare. We sat on the curb with a busload of Indian tourists, watching the sun set over the red sea. Hey, what else could go wrong?

As soon as the bomb squad had cleared the building, we went back inside. Nod was finally given his passport back ("Are we done now?" he asked, after 6 hours of interrogations and waiting around. "Oh, sure, go ahead," the guard said nonchalantly, as if anything about the day could be prefaced with an  "of course.")

We walked about 2 miles toward the town until we finally gave up and grabbed a cab. We found the cheapest hotel in the town, where the manager preferred to work out of Room 107 instead of the reception area, and was apparently prefering to spend his evening watching tv pantless and eating bread out of a plastic bag. But hey, for a cheap room and an end to a long and difficult day, we weren't going to put up much of a fuss.

So after 10 days of desert oases, evenings spent under the Saharn stars, relaxing by the crystal-clear red sea, and withstanding the endurance test of the Israeli border crossing, we decided to have a normal, American evening that neither of us had had in months: we went to the hotel room, sipped on a beer, and watched tv. Perfect.

Well, Shabat Shalom, my friends--the country doesn't start moving again until 4:30 or so, which is when we can catch our first bus into Jerusalem. We had planned to make a visit to Bethleham in the West Bank, but our interactions with Israeli security have been so fun, we think we're going to take a pass. It's just tricky being half-Iranian in Israel at this point--in fact, we're lucky that they let us in at all.

I'll keep you posted as I'm able, my friends. Until then, take care.