Epilogue: The Adventure of the Tetnus Shot.

But so during a lull in the food poisoning storm, I decided it was time to figure out how to get a tetnus shot. It had been almost 24 hours since I had actually stepped on the nail, so I was getting nervous about how much time was going by and if it was getting infected.
I'm not sure how many people in the history of the world have had both tetnus shots and food poisoning simultaneously, but I'm not it's not too many--especially after I found out where they inject the vaccine.

I figured I'd start with the pharmacy. Armed with my pocket dictionary and the Arabic for "Tetnus vaccine" (Tataeema tetnus), I figured I could make some progress. I went to the Pharmacy.
"Excuse me, I need a tetnus shot. I stepped on a nail yesterday." (my real blundering attempts at Arabic actually went more like, "Yesterday I walked in the street. There was a nail. And then, my foot. inside.")

The man at the counter turned to ask the on-duty Pharmacist. "Do we have the Tetnus vaccine?"
"Sure we do."
What? It's this easy? I was elated.
She brings a small glass tube labeled "tetnus vaccine" and puts it on the counter.
"That will be 70 cents."
The man wrapped it up in a bag for me.
"Wow, 70 cents, seriously? That's great. But, uh, there's a problem. I need the vaccine..." I pointed to my arm. "Inside. How?"

The man at the display counter looked at me and proceeded to give me a very lengthy and detailed answer--of which I understood not one word.
I looked blankly at him.
"I don't understand."

The on-duty pharmacist went next. She gave me an even longer explanation, with elaborate gestures...pinching the skin on the back of her hand, pointing to her arm...saying the words "ten minutes" a few times.... then she finished. she looked at me expectantly.

I fought back tears. I turned back to the man at the counter. With rare candor, I confessed to him, "I don't understand anything. I want a doctor. Where do I go?"
"To the hospital."
"What hospital? where?"
"Any hospital."

My shoulders slumped. I felt defeated.

There's a private hospital across the street from our apartment. I was sure this was going to involve hassles and complications and questions about insurance...but I wasn't about to give myself the vaccine. I didn't even have a needle if I wanted to, and I most certainly didn't want to.

I walked to the first entrance I saw, which seemed to be the patient waiting area for the emergency room. A security man stopped me at the door and asked me what I wanted.
I shoved my vaccine baggie toward him.

"I have a Tetnus vaccine in my bag. I don't know what to do. I want a doctor. Where do I go?"
He proceeded to explain, among other things, that I couldn't come into this part of the hospital, but that I needed to go somewhere else...using words I didn't understand...
He stopped when he saw that I wasn't tracking with him.
He brought me inside and I explained my case to two other security guards. We weren't getting very far.

Finally, the first security guard asked me where I was from. "I'm American," I replied.
"Good," he said. "I love America. Come with me."
He took me back into the hospital, to a nurses' break room. Four or five nurses were in there, eating chips and talking. He asked one of them if she could help. She smiled at me and took me to an empty room, with just an examining table and a small counter.

She explained that she needed to test first to see if I would have a bad reaction. Ok. Got it. She gave me a small injection on my arm, then drew circles around the red splotchy area. She came back 5 minutes later--yup, all good.

She then made handmotions around her waist. Um...do you need me to lower my pants? I gulped.
Yup--she stuck the needle right in my bum, then declared me good to go.

From leaving my apartment to getting the shot, this whole episode took maybe 20 minutes, max. If it wasn't for that security guard taking me to the nurse, I'm not sure what would have happened.

Before she opened the door of the exam room, I asked her who I should pay.
"No one? Me?" She responded. "The doctor doesn't know you're here."
I handed her 20 pounds ($4) and thanked her profusely.

And with that, my tetnus shot was complete.

Before I left, the security guard wanted to know if I could help him get a visa to the U.S. and if there was work for him there. I told him what I know about the visa application process (not much, admittedly), assured him that I would not be a useful connection to him at all, told him that I myself had worked in a security office so I was sure there could be work for him there, and wished him all of God's help in his quest.

So. That is the saga of my tetnus shot.

A comedy of self-inflicted errors.

As I feel my stomach churn in queasiness and rub the wounds and bruises on my feet, I suddenly remembered a favorite childhood book, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Only, bad days are funnier when you bring your own calamaties upon yourself, which is the case we have today. Clumsiness can be charming in moderation, and social blunders forgiven, but when they happen in such rapid fire order that in 24 hours you find yourself scorning a would-be Egyptian lover, arranging for a tetnus shot, bleeding on your roommates towel, and keeling over with food poisoning--all unrelated--well, you just have to pat yourself on the back for outdoing yourself once again!

Episode One: The Spurned Would-Be Egyptian Lover.

I was approached the other day by a former student of mine who wanted some lessons for him and his buddies. Sure, why not? I gave him my number so we could arrange a time for all of us to meet.
He calls, and we arrange to meet at a metro station north of me at 3:30 pm on Saturday.
The next day, he called back the next to ask if we could meet a little bit earlier. Sure, I say--that's actually better for my schedule. I suggest 2:30 instead.
"Fine," he says, and then adds, "Do you know where the bowling center is?"
"Uh...no, let's just meet at the metro station as planned." (in my mind..."bowling center, that's odd. hmm... oh well.")
He calls again on Saturday morning to confirm. Still, everything was professional. No warning sirens in my head yet.

I packed up some lesson plan materials to show to his friends so that we can figure out what kind of lessons they need. I get on the metro. I was running a bit late, though, so I was still 3 stops away when 2:30 rolls around.
He called again. "Yes, yes, I'm coming."

I get off at the station. He's there waiting.
"Hi, Walid, are we going to meet your friends?"
"Yes, they're coming, and they know where to meet us, too."
"Great." We start walking.
"Do you like bowling?"
"That's a strange question" I think, and freeze.
"No, actually, I don't like bowling very much."
(True fact, unless it involves cosmic bowling, a pitcher, cigars, and my old high school crew)
I go to test my suspicions. "What time are your friends meeting us?"
"4:00"
"Walid, why are they meeting us at 4? You said that we were meeting at 2:30."
I cop a big tone in my voice, and he starts to look panicky.
"No, no, miss, I am sorry, I am not good on communication on the phone, maybe you misunderstand me."
"Maybe, but I have to be in Maadi (12 stops away) at 4pm (another true fact). So if you want me to meet your friends, they need to come now."
"ok, ok." He calls them. I eavesdrop the best I can, and it seems like it's legit. In my mind, I give them one hour to show up before I bolt.
He apologizes profusely for what is now quite obviously a "bad start" to the meeting. We kept walking.
Finding myself with an unwelcome social hour with this student, I became a snow queen. No smiling, no laughing, no asking questions or soliciting information. I came to have a meeting about English classes, not to go to a bowling alley.
After 10 minutes or so, sure enough, we end up at a Military-only posh bowling club.

We walked in--it was surreal. Marble floors, 6 pristine bowling lanes, not another soul in sight. He asked me if I wanted to play.
"Nope," I reply curtly, and take a seat at a cafe table. As soon as we sit down, he tells me that he has a gift he wants to give me in order to compensate my time. He pulls out 3 CDs of "Teach yourself Russian." What? He pulls out a pen and dedicates it to me: To Alissa, from Walid. I stonily put it in my purse. After some more strained conversation, it was finally 3:45. I told him I needed to go, and basically got up and left the table.

He caught us a cab back to the metro station, since it had been a 15 minute walk or so. I stared out the window, lost in thought, and actually almost forgot that he was there.
Finally, he broke the silence and apologized for the umpteenth time for the "misunderstanding."

I turned to him and said very slowly and clearly so he could understand exactly how angry I was, "Walid, I am a professional. I have a boyfriend. I don't think meetings like this are appropriate. I can't meet with you again."
"So you are canceling the idea?"
"Yes, I am canceling the idea."
"Miss, this is very difficult. Remember, I have to tell my friends that the idea will not work. This is very hard."
I had very little sympathy. Yes, Walid, you can tell your friends that they won't have lessons because you tried to date the teacher.
We got to the metro station, and I bought my own ticket. He followed me into the station, continuing on with his speech about how he isn't good at communicating on the phone--nevermind the fact that the problem was not the phone, but that he thought it would be a good idea to take me bowling in the first place when we were supposed to be having a meeting about English classes.
He then follows up with this gem (boys, remember this next time you're turned down):

"Well, I guess this simply wasn't pre-destined by God. It's not God's will that we have you as our teacher."
Buddy, God didn't call this off--you botched it.

He took off, and I got on the train to head to church. Once he was gone, I started laughing in exasperation. The first time ever in my life, I thought, "I wish I were a man!" That's all I could think yesterday as this was happening. If I was a guy, and an English meeting turned into a 5 hour affair with bowling in between, I would just shrug and say that this is how business is conducted in Egypt. But as a woman? I wasn't going to give this guy an inch.
Still, I scolded myself for not realizing what I would be walking into. Lesson learned: next time someone casually mentions a bowling center in their phone calls, find out why...

Episode Number Two: An Unintentional New Piercing
After leaving Walid heartbroken at the metro station, I went to church to watch the Christmas Pageant--yes, that adorable if odd Christmas tradition in which we dress children up like sheep and stars to recount the story of Jesus' birth. My mood brightened considerably. Afterwards, I went home with my host sister to Maasara.
As we were walking, taking in the beautiful, crisp Cairo night scenes under a bright moon...I suddenly felt a crunch and a sharp pain in my foot. I started yelping and hopping on one foot until Gigi could see what was the matter--a nail had gone through my shoe and all the way in the ball of my foot. She yanked on it twice before she could get it out.
In true Egyptian fashion, though--after politely offering to get a taxi to take us home, they then proceeded to mock me for my yawps and howls. Why feel bad about something when you could laugh at yourself instead?
Unfortunately, the bottom of my foot is still puffy and tender, making it a little hard to walk. Tonight's project: learn how to say "Tetnus shot" in Arabic.

Episodes Three and Four: An Epic Display of Clumsiness
This morning I sort of hobbled home from Maasara, trying not to put too much weight on my sore foot. I love early mornings in Egypt, though, especially in Maasara, where you have the feeling of a whole community coming to life. With the dusty alleyways, the small pens of goats and cows, the school kids emerging behind hidden doorways in their myriad colored school uniforms, the morning light streaming between the brick buildings, the refreshing bite of the cool air... it's lovely.
I should mention that in my purse I was carrying both a gallon of maple syrup and all of my English class materials.
The gallon of maple syrup was in the form of two large bottles brought to Egypt from Ethiopia courtesy of Nod. If you were ever wondering, Egypt and Ethiopia are like the ying and yang of north African countries--perhaps a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde inverse, if you're feeling a little more bitter about it on any particular day.
Egypt has decent internet, skype, but no international text messaging; sugary deserts, but no maple syrup, and generally pretty poor meat selections. Ethiopia has terrible internet, skype is illegal, but allows for international text messaging; no desserts, but cheap maple syrup, and good meat everywhere. If the two countries could just get together...

Anyway. So the maple syrup was a long-awaited, much-anticipated gift that had finally made the several hundred mile journey to Cairo. And it weighed approximately 80 pounds in my purse.
I finally arrive home at my apartment at 8am. As I was getting ready for work, I went to take the maple syrup out and stash it away on my personal shelf.

As I reached into my purse, I felt another crunch and a sharp pang. I pulled my hand out--I had stabbed myself with a pencil. To be more specific, a long, sharp bit of lead had jammed underneath my fingernail like a knife into an oyster. Blood began to get on my hands. Sigh. I hobbled into the bathroom, now with a sore foot and bloody finger.

Wiping my hands dry, I went back to actually retrieve the large bottles of syrup from my purse. As I was reaching to put it up on my shelf...bang! I dropped it on my foot. The other foot--the one that wasn't previously in pain.

My roommate looked at me. "Maybe you shouldn't leave the house today."

Episode Five: The Revenge of the Scary Beans
Those of you who have followed my travels know that I have yet another arch-nemesis here in Egypt: the scary beans. At my old host family's house in Imbaba, I used to get food poisoning every time I ate there--which one time was so bad it had me using a plastic bag to clean up the walls. Awesome. After such frequent digestive problems, I was able to conduct a fairly systematic study. The culprit? A pan of baked falava beans that they ate at nearly every meal. In between meals? They just left the pan of leftovers out on the table to fester, even though the fridge was just two feet away. The whole thing was covered in this yellow layer of grease. Scary beans, I curse you.

My most recent host mother is an excellent and sanitary cook--we adore her food and eat there often, usually without any problems. This morning she made me breakfast before I left (that would be post-nail, but pre-maple syrup and pencil stabbing): baked beans with scrambled eggs, to be eaten with pita bread. No problem, I've eaten her beans before.

O, sneaky scary beans, taking on the form of goodness! Around noon today, I started to feel some strange rumblings. Then the bad taste in my mouth. Sigh. Time to go home.

Then again, this was quite the feat. In an epic 24 hour span, I managed to wound myself in 4 unique ways and tell off a man in a bowling alley. Unfortunately, I have only myself to blame for most of that! So here's to Alissa's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day...I plan to spend the rest of it in bed and away from sharp objects.

An (almost) normal (day after) Thanksgiving (in Egypt) meal

I lay in bed this morning, eyes closed, with my ears greeted by a strange sound--not the chorus of screeching cats, the melodic cadences of the call to prayer, or the stupid birds I curse every morning around 6am--but by the sound of my friends cooking and laughing in the kitchen.

I wrapped the blankets around me. Ah, Thanksgiving. If you had told me that there was snow and a touch football game outside my window, I would have believed you.

But no, like every day in Egypt, life goes on normally but just....well, slightly differently than it would back home. Like, we were celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday, since Friday is the Islamic day of prayer and our day off. Or that I bought my sweet potatoes for the casserole from a man on the street wearing a long white galibaya who wheels around a portable roasting oven, and you just have to sort of hope that you run into him when you want some. Just little things that like that remind you you're not going to spend your Thanksgiving waiting in line at Safeway with a bottle of Reddi-Whip in your hands.

Another one of those moments came while I was waiting for my casserole to bake (2 words I never thought I'd say together: "my" and "casserole." Wonders never cease) and I killed time by listening to the Axis of Evil comedy tour instead of watching the Macy's parade or pretending to take a sudden interest in football. The tears were rolling down my cheeks from laughter. When you intimately understand jokes about airport security (my passport stamps from Syria haven't helped me much when it comes to avoiding "random" security pat downs on my travels), headscarves, and West Bank politics, you know that you've been in the Middle East too long. 

Today's Thanksgiving was really special, actually. Aside from the fact that I neither burned myself nor any of the food I was responsible for, which itself was a miracle, we had our entire host family over to our house. This itself was quite a feat, since it involved assembling three generations from two different neighborhoods and a lot of women who don't ordinarily like to leave their comfort zones. But when all was said and done, we had a dinner that resembled--in spirit and in form--the Thanksgiving meal. Too full stomachs, funny stories and banal banter, kids running around the "adult table," a pile of dishes and lots of leftovers... it felt genuine.

But I'll be damned if I know how to be a proper Egyptian hostess! We've gotten better. Our first attempt was over Halloween. 

Points gained for: politely and repeatedly insisting that they eat more than any human could possibly ingest.

Points lost for: trying to get them to serve themselves buffet style (initially, at least); serving them apple cider and chai (baffling), and hacking a pumpkin to death to make Jafar the Jack o'lantern (alarming).

If we've gotten better, it's only barely. Our persistent problem--aside from knowing how to actually put the food onto their plates, which is trickier than it seems--is keeping them out of the kitchen when the meal is over. They insist on washing the dishes. Today actually dissolved into (friendly) hair pulling and a 5 minute shouting match until we forcibly dragged our host sister away from the suds-filled sink. 

This time, they were prepped for the buffet style service, having encountered it once before. Now, perhaps we should have learned the first time, but there simply was too much food to fit on the table or on any one person's plate. And since it was mostly American food and strange to them, we didn't want to assume that they necessarily wanted to eat all of what was in front of them, either.

We came to an awkward impasse, however. On Halloween, only women came. Now they were there with the grandfather and husband. We tried to get them all in a line, to pick up their own plates and get their own food. The awkward tension that followed left us scrambling for plan B. Luckily, the Egyptian women swooped into action, working their own assembly line and getting the men served before helping themselves. Whew. Alright, as long as everyone's happy. 

Dinner itself was full of pleasant munching and pangs of indigestion from overeating--and, in all, I think they liked our food alright.

Another slightly awkward moment came as we were lolling about after dinner like beached whales, waiting to digest dinner before we could launch into the pies. I pointed to my full stomach.

"Look," I showed my host sister. "A food baby." I said the phrase literally in Arabic.

"What? You have a baby?"

"No, a food baby, see?" She laughed, getting the joke.

"But if you had a baby," she said, "They would do this," and she proceeded to make rapid fire poking motions at my stomach. 

"Um, you would tickle me?"

"No!" she corrected me, and then make a big slit motion across her throat. "Kill you!" She was laughing. Um...ha, ha... honor killings?! 

(Now, for the record, honor killings are very rare in Egypt, especially in Cairo. But she was right to suggest that the social consequences for pregancy out of wedlock would be grave, to say the least. Happily for everyone, however, this indeed was a pumpkin soup and greenbean baby, so I didn't have to push the boundaries on that one!)

After we were convinced that the family really couldn't eat another piece of dessert, they eventually said their goodbyes and headed out for the night--after a big round of kisses on both cheeks, of course.

Once the dishes had been cleared and the mashed potatoes put in its tupperware container, we did what any normal American house of roommates would do the night of Thanksgiving. Er, the night of the-day-after-Thanksgiving-in-Egypt. We snuggled in together on this cold, desert night to watch a movie--nay, the greatest film of all time: West Bank Story, the musical. That's right--a Palestinian sweetheart and an Israeli soldier, the Hummus Hut vs. the Kosher King gang, all set to glorious music and with the sweetest fastfood headgear you have and will ever see. Then again, perhaps watching Hasidic Jews and Palestinian militants in song and dance numbers is one of those things that you only find funny after living here this long. Apparently you can find it on iTunes. I promise you: it will change your life.

So, with this posting concludes my Thanksgiving season. A lot like home...er, only a little different.

leftover turkey and sweet potato pie and...

Thanksgiving has come and gone. The appointed time has come. Now there's only one thing left to do...

sucking at pop culture.

It seems to me that it might be better to be completely cut off from the outside world--Peace Corps hut-in-Africa style--or completely immersed in it. To have limited access, as I do in Cairo, always makes you feel inadequate on the home front, but it doesn't push you hard enough to go ahead and simply embrace the popular culture around you, either.

As a result, I am left downloading sporadic Daily Show episodes (one 20 minute episode=8-9 hours to download, thanks to my tease of an internet connection), occasional podcasts, and reading NY Times movie reviews--charting out all of the films I'm missing, but will probably never get around to watching.

At the same time, I never watch Arab TV, rarely turn on Middle Eastern pop, and haven't yet put down the $4 to see an Egyptian movie in the theaters. The latter is a particular travesty--Egypt is the Hollywood of the Middle East. Like Hollywood, most of the films are formulaic or feel-good, but no matter. They're well-done and would be great Arabic practice--to say nothing of increasing my ability to relate better to my Egyptian friends. I mean, the Cairo International Film Festival is going on right now, with a bizarre smattering of foreign actresses, like Susan Sarandon and Alicia Silverstone, in attendance. But many of the films showing right now will likely be appearing as Oscar entries for foreign film.
So why am I not sitting in the audience? Or attending the Egyptian opera or watching Sufi demonstrations or even just watching heartthrobs like Amr Diab or Tamer Hosni croon to the swooning upper classes at pop concerts?

There's that word again: inadequate. Ex-pats, nearly by definition, suck at straddling two cultures. We dabble in one, we're disconnected from the other, and in the end, hope that we have somehow been transformed through it all.

But in trying to eck out a sustainable daily life here, we inevitably fall into the same trap that exists in America, too: daily life. I have to work. I have to budget. I have friends to visit and adopted "family members" to see. Sometimes we're too busy, too strapped for cash, have other responsibilities, and so we pick our battles.
But will I ever get to see Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" or Sean Penn in "Milk"? Will I become conversant in the hottest Egyptian sitcoms or see the Egyptian film "Sorry 4 the disturbance"--whose billboards have been tempting me for months?

Probably not. It may be that this year in Egypt adds up to one big black hole of pop culture. And that's alright. I'm not sure why it's suddenly irritating me today, but I think it was finding out that there's a Baz Luhrmann film lurking out there that I can't watch. I <3 Baz Luhrmann. Yup--fierce, independent woman--and completely cheesy sentimentalist, all in one. Humans are complicated creatures.

Happily, however, feelings of inadequacy and disconnect don't extend to Thanksgiving this year. Though we'll be Turkey-less, we've got the mashed potatoes and green beans and sweet potato casserole to make up for it. And with friends and our Egyptian host family scheduled to be in attendance, it will absolutely capture the spirit of the holiday and the sense of "home" that we've created here.

On the other hand--Thanksgiving does involve me venturing into the kitchen. I'm crossing my fingers, but you can probably expect to hear another post in the coming days about how all of the kitchen appliances in my apartment are conspiring against me. I still have a small scar on my hip from my last run in with the iron.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, dear readers. I'm certainly thankful for all you've been in my life.

A culinary wishlist.

I ate a bean paste sandwich for lunch. To be more precise, this was the 5th bean paste sandwich I have eaten for lunch in as many days. 

Every day, I pack my bag for work: computer, check. Water bottle, check. Notebook, check. Then I walk to the sandwich shop. They immediately reach for a piece of pita bread, slop in the bean paste, and wrap it in a piece of discarded homework paper. Every day at 11:05, I reach into my bag, unwrap, and eat. A bit mind-numbing, but filling.

It could be worse.

Thinking back to a particularly traumatic scene in Life of Pi I read last night in which another castaway attempted (unsuccessfully) to cannibalize the main character, I recognize that I still have a long way to go before I reach levels of real desperation. A steady diet of bean paste sandwiches might eventually lead to a sort of insipid insanity, but I don't think I'll start gnawing on my roommate's forearm anytime soon. 

Preparing for my trip back to the Motherland for Christmas, I have already begun daydreaming about the vast culinary variety afforded to me by my mother's Mary Poppins-style pantry and the wonders of imported vegetables. Flipping through a book of ESL curriculum last night, I actually lost my train of thought as pictures of fajitas, pizza, and apple pie tantalized me from the glossy pages under the heading, "Lesson 5: What do you eat in your country?" 

Oh, what I could eat!

Less than a month away from touchdown at O'Hare international airport, I would like to officially register my culinary wishlist with Baba Noel:

-Anything that once had a cute curly tail and cloven hooves: ham with brown sugar glaze, a BLT sandwich, Bacon waffles, sweet and sour pork, pigs in a blanket--I'll even take a full-on Hawaiian pig roast. Bring on the unclean meat.

-Chicago Pizza (preferably with a Guinness)

-Cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, Swiss cheese, and--most of all--fresh mozzarella. 

-While we're at it, a dozen bagels with aforementioned cream cheese. Blueberry bagels sound nice. Actually, blueberries sound nice, too. Add a side to the order. 

-American filtered coffee. Pumpkin spice lattes. Eggnog lattes. Eggnog. Eggnog with rum. 

-Muffins. Big muffins, bite size muffins, muffins with the crumbly sugar stuff on top. Blueberry, almond poppyseed, bran, apple cinnamon--and a muffin pan to bring back with me to Cairo.

-Waffles. with maple syrup and butter. 

-Steak. Not fried, not boiled, not with any bones still included. Fresh from the factory to the frozen section of the grocery store--not hanging from a meat hook in the street.

-Frozen peas that I did not shell myself. (True story. I am now shelling my own peas. To all my doubters who never believed I could make it in the kitchen--may you forever keep your peace. AND... I used a mortar and pestle to grind my own cloves. How bout that, hmm? As an aside: mortar and pestles might be the most BAMF and useful kitchen appliance ever. I'm bringing one back to the States with me. Hear me roar.)

So, with the help of Baba Noel and my mother's grocery list, I will hopefully be sampling all of these great American foods I have been missing here for the past several months. What, that's a lot of food, you say? Oh, I am disciplined.  In nature, the relationship between a female and food rivals only the relationship between a mother and her offspring.

So, a Bon Apetit  to all of you, dear readers. For now, please hand me another bean sandwich. 

Romance in the Internet Age.

"Go West, Young Man!" blared the newspapers of an earlier century. Single and adventurous, young American men rode off to the prairies and goldmines of the American West, forgetting one inescapably important thing: women. Call them brave, but call them stupid. The male/female ratio in San Fransisco in the late 19th century was something like 17:1. 

Fortunately, this allowed the women to make a financial killing doing things like washing laundry and holding bake sales--but I think we'll all agree that the brothel system isn't necessarily good for society. 

If you need further persuasion on this point, I suggest you read the trashy romance novel my roommate recently finished, Silver Lining, in which this tragic Western Frontier love triangle developed between a female goldminer, her arranged-marriage husband and his jilted lover, who went on to marry the first woman's husband's brother. The whole thing ended in attempted suicides and dead babies and God knows whatever mayhem. Proof is in the pudding.

Now, our generation has proven just as mobile and adventurous--heading off to all corners of the world to do Peace Corps, internships, development work--or maybe just to escape the economic woes of the US right now. Let me tell you, it is a good thing to be living in the Egyptian economy right now. 30 cents for a sandwich? $80 for a 3 day all-inclusive vacation into the western sahara? This is the good life, my friends. 

But in a weird historical reversal, our migration abroad seems to be heavily female. Women are flooding study abroad programs and internships abroad. I'm not sure which is better-- colonies of men getting into bar fights over the one eligible bachelorette in town, or scores and scores of women watching "Pride and Prejudice" every night, waiting for an Egyptian Mr. Darcy to sweep them off their feet. Both are pretty painful phenomena to witness. 

But thanks to the recent marvels of modern technology, our generation is in infinitely better shape than our goldmining lonely hearts club. I would like to propose that Cheesy Christian Press issue a new edition of "The Five Love Languages," updated for our times. The 6th love language? Email.

Yes, my friends--I've found that it is possible to develop a love language preference that desires to express itself in emoticons and late-night emails, facebook messages and twitter updates.

Already emotionally crippled by my Swedish genes, I find that words of endearment flow out easily when typed in Times New Roman font, that sighs of longing seem that much more palpable when represented with a little : ( face.  Indeed, the very deepest of human sentiments seem to pour forth when prompted by google's targeted ads bordering my email screen--"Looking for love? Dr. Phil explains all"--as gmail's search algorithms correctly sense that a love letter is being typed across the screen.  And who can deny the real relationship growth that comes from posting profile pictures posed with one's significant other, commenting on each other's facebook status--posting videos on each other's walls? It is the backbone of many a long-distance relationship. The 15 second delay while talking on Skype only increases the sense of mutual suffering for the sake of romance. 

Someday, we will tell future generations how we used to spend hours waiting for an emailed photo to download, how Skype turned our sweetheart's voice into a nearly unrecognizable robot that took 10 seconds to transmit across the ether, how "new mail" notifications nearly made us swoon. 

The downside of all of this is the way it has rendered some of us completely incompetent when we're actually given the opportunity to express our feelings with words. Like, real, spoken words. 

I'm already imagining a rash of disappointing marriage proposals:

"Honey, I love you, will you marry me?"

"Ah... Um, ya..... Uh, honey, will you give me a second?" (Whip out blackberry)

Typed: "I love you! Yes, yes, yes!" 

After marriage, of course, it only gets more complicated-- twitter'd pillow talk, loveydovey conversations by text message while sitting in the same room together, anniversaries commemorated by looking over old emails together.  Don't pretend you haven't done that before. 

No better, no worse--it's simply romance for the internet age. 

evening thoughts from Cairo.

I'm sitting at my favorite coffee shop in cairo--a locals' spot, where the only things on the menu are tea and sheesha. From when I pass by on my way to work at 8:45, until I walk home again at 11pm, Egyptians are slouching in the standard wooden chairs around a low glass-top table, reading newspapers, smoking, warming themselves during these cool autumn days and nights. It's one of the rare local cafes where you see women puffing on water pipes as well. Clasically Cairene, it bridges the epochs as well, offering wi-fi along with your mint tea and apple scented hookah. 

For no reason in particular, I haven't been here in a few months, even though it's only 3 blocks from my apartment. I came tonight to break out of the seductive stupor of my cozy apartment, which has succeeded in keeping me in most nights--but has definitely contributed to my cagey feelings lately. I brought my applications, The Life of Pi, and a small notebook. I wasn't sure how long I would last tonight. If the cafe is quiet, you can't find a better ambiance-- the ceilings are tall and the walls are a soft amber color. Fake ivy hangs from wooden rafter beams, sparse enough to avoid tackiness while quietly suggesting-in this city of dust and desert-that the color green does still exist somewhere in the world. When darkness envelops the city after sunset, the lights feel warm, and the couples and colleagues talking animatedly or serenly smoking create a sense of security and community.

When it's loud, it's garrish. Three unfortunate tv screens hang from the ceiling, and are known to blare Arabic pop videos or 1970s Egyptian cinematic favorites at mind-numbing levels. You can tell how bad the collective hearing loss is in Egypt just by how loudly they insist on keeping the music in cafes. I suppose it is a self-perpetuating cycle at that point.

Tonight was even better than I could have presupposed. An hour ago, a musician came in with an Oud--a quintessentially Middle Eastern stringed instrument, something like a guitar or a mandolin. Listening to him, you cannot help but hear the deep Middle Eastern roots of flamenco and the heartbreaking wail of Portuguese fado. The servers are adding their own percussion by using the hookah tongs like castanets. This is the Arab music, brought to Andalucia, that textured the rich culture of Spain. As an American sitting in a cafe in Egypt, it's a globally rich moment.

I put away my applications and pulled out my colloquial Egyptian Arabic dictionary. 3 members of our host family from Maasara miraculously received American visas. They were approved on November 2nd--they hope to fly to their new home next week. It's an impossibly quick transition for them, but then again--I'm not sure they will ever be prepared to start their life again in the green hills of Tennessee, no matter how much we help them first here in Cairo.

I've been in the process of creating my own emergency dictionary for them, transliterating English phrases using Arabic script. I wonder if it's possible that, even with my bouts of culture shock, if I have made a full circle. Having been welcomed and acclimated to life in Egypt by my host family, I'm now ready and able to do the same for them. 

I worry about their transition, though. Not only do they not know English, but this is precisely the worst time to search for jobs in the U.S. Then again, immigrants have succeeded in America time and time again. I'm just praying that our reputation as a welcome land for immigrants once again proves true. This is one time in particular that I couldn't bear to watch that promise fail.

Breathing in the scent of sheesha smoke one last time, I think it's time to bring this post to a close. Just a little note from a warm little cafe in Cairo. 

Courtship rituals of the modern Egyptian male.

Marriage is a sore topic among 20-somethings in Egypt.
"Dating"--following a loose definition of the western practice--is socially unacceptable for most segments of society. Daydreams of romance, then, are generally reserved for thoughts of engagement, when the whole courtship ritual gets a chance to unfold.

Marriage is also the path to social legitimacy and social security. Families take care of each other through thick and thin; without a family of one's own, life becomes infinitely more difficult and expensive.

But engagement is easier daydreamed about than done, and not for a lack of interest on the part of either Egyptian men or women. The bottom line is that it's expensive to get married.

Before any reasonable in-law would accept an offer of marriage to their daughter, they want to know if the man:
-has a good job
-can pay for an apartment
-can pay for the wedding
-can buy the daughter gold jewelry
-can furnish the apartment with new furniture, curtains, cups--you name it.
-can buy the wife a new wardrobe.
This is in addition to all of the usual background questions about his family, upbringing, education, and so forth.

Remember that the average income of an Egyptian is around $100/month, and housing costs are extremely high even by standards of the local economy.

I heard a recent statistic that 40% of men from 18-35 are single. This doesn't include those who were married briefly, but are divorced and single once again.

Now, I usually hear this all from the angle of my female Egyptian friends. For them, it adds up to a whole lot of waiting. The plus side is that Egyptian women graduate with university degrees and are in the workforce in fairly high numbers, if for no other reason than to kill time until a man finally has enough money to marry them.

I had a conversation with a male co-worker last night, however, that offered a different insight into the whole process.

Walking to the metro station last night with two co-workers (both named Ahmed), one of them abruptly announced: "I'm going to get married."
"What? Ahmed, congratulations! With who?"
"No, no, not yet."
"What?"
"I am getting married."
"Yes, congratulations! But who is your fiancee?"
"No, I don't know yet."
"But you're getting married for sure?"
"Yes, for sure!"
"Ahmed, I don't understand."

At this point, we both dissolve into laughter from the cultural gap and misunderstanding. Even when you understand all of the words, sometimes communication just doesn't work!

"Um..ok? I'm confused."So this is apparently how it works. Ahmed took tally of what he has: job, check. money, check. university degree, check. Yup, looks like he's ready.Then he goes around searching for recommendations of nice girls.
This is where I came in last night--he wanted to know if I had any suggestions. So I asked him his criteria. Here was the list:

Muslim or Christian? - he's open. But the kids would have to be raised Muslim, so a Christian
wife would have to agree to this. Not likely.

Veiled or unveiled? - Either is ok, but they'll need to talk about whether she'll be willing to veil
after they get married. But, whatev, he said. He'd be willing to work with her on that point.

Age? - He initially said anything between 15-24, until I pointed out to him that it might be fully
awkward to help your 16 year old wife with her math homework at night!
For the record, it is extremely rare for Egyptians to marry in their teens. He
amended his answer to 18-24.

Appearance? - "Beautiful." Not too picky about the specifics.

Personality? - Not Crazy. He was very firm on this point. No drama, no hysterics. Rich, poor,
educated or not, veiled or unveiled--but he wanted a woman that wouldn't
drive him batty. I could appreciate his concern.

Right. Ahmed, you've now narrowed it down to virtually every young woman in Egypt.
"Ok, she must like Bryan Adams."
Ok--every young woman with a thing for 1980s love ballads. I tell him I'll look around and let him know if I find anyone.

Now, if he finds a pretty young woman with a Bryan Adams poster on her wall..

Step 1. Try to talk to her. See if she's more or less in agreement with his various conditions for marriage, and if she's interested. If everything goes well..
Step 2. Talk to his parents. Make sure it's all kosher.
Step 3. Sit down and talk together with her parents, too. If it gets the final seal of approval..
Step 4. Engagement! Chaperoned dating until the wedding, maybe a year later.

Now, both the Egyptian courtship process and Western dating have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither system is perfect. And hey, for Ahmed, I think he could find someone pretty good. But give me the West any day! For the women, the waiting alone might drive me batty--and, as we've seen, battiness is a sure disqualification.

But to the amorous in Egypt, a toast to you--best of luck in your searches. And if anyone knows a nice woman with a Bryan Adams collection...let me know.

culture shock and pastry shops.

As I caught myself glaring at a pita bread vendor yesterday, it occurred to me that I am still going through culture shock after so many months in the Middle East.

Yes, yesterday from 3:05 – 3:28pm, there was no target too small to receive my unfettered and irrational ire: rusted Peugeot taxicabs clogging the double-parked street, too-sweet clouds of hookah smoke billowing across the cracked and dirty sidewalks, the low smoggy haze hanging over the Nile, the crowds of pedestrians clogging my path—pedestrians who speak a language I still don’t know, eat food I’m tired of eating, wear clothes I wouldn’t feel natural putting on, and overall, behave in crowds in a way that strikes me as inefficient and pushy.

At 3:28, I had iPod headphones jammed firmly in my ears to let the lofty conversations of a Radio Lab podcast carry me above the chaos of Cairo’s streets, and I was glowering in the crankiest mood to have hit me since I moved here in July. To be more precise: I was loathing Egypt. I didn’t like it. I wanted to go home.

Just then, I walked by the open storefront of a bakery. The smell of sweet, warm dough wrapped around me, and melted away my defenses instantly.

I stepped inside. The bakery—like most in Cairo—simply contained metal racks and large trays of biscuits and breads. No gentle display lighting, no doilies and delicate arrangements. The industrial racks remind you of a hospital supply room—only filled with fig cookies and flaky croissant bread rather than linen and backless gowns. It didn’t matter. In one moment, my mood had swung back to its usual position, and I was inspecting the piles of pastries before me with a calm and careful love.

Never mind that at the exact moment I stepped in the store, a worker poured a mop bucket of sudsy water all over the floor, soaking the bottom of my pants. Never mind that the man who rang up my quarter kilo of biscotti-style biscuits had his mouth stuffed with his own afternoon treat and sprayed crumbs all over me. Maa’lish, as the Egyptians would say—never mind. In that pastry shop, I felt at home and peaceful in Egypt once again. Even the sudsy puddles on the floor and the clerk’s spattering of crumbspittle were endearing. I knew these people. I’ve been living among them for ¾ of a year now, and I was glad for it.

So by 3:30pm, my half-hour hate session had ended, replaced with an almost blissful euphoria as I dunked my biscotti baladi in a cup of Turkish coffee.

This emotional yo-yo has been yanking me around all too frequently lately, causing concerns about my sanity. Neither unrelenting crankiness nor pastry-induced euphoria are probably all that healthy, nor particularly sustainable.

I fretted about this. Am I in a seasonal funk? After all, November has never been my best month, and daylight savings exists as much here as it does in the U.S.
Or is the daily grind perhaps beginning to wear me down? Have I gotten into a rut with my work routine?
Or maybe it’s grad school applications. The additional work and stress hanging over my head might be taking a larger toll than I consciously realized.

All of these things have their minor role to contribute, I’m sure. But no, I realized yesterday that I had forgotten the most obvious thing: I’m living in Egypt. I am not home here yet. As someone recently reminded me, there’s a certain loneliness that comes anytime we live outside of our home culture. Even with the comforts and community I have here, I’m not immune to that.

Slowly but surely, I’ve been disengaging from the people around me—dropping Arabic class for the moment (in the name of finishing grad school apps), staying home in the evenings, visiting my Egyptian friends only rarely. It’s a hermit phase in the process of cultural acquisition that’s certainly forgivable, but not particularly recommended. The momentary comforts of cocooning myself away are ultimately harmful if they take me so far out of “real” Egyptian life that I no longer feel comfortable there.

At a certain point during my stay here, I had assumed that cultural adjustment in Egypt was a “Mission Accomplished.” It looks like I was about as correct as Bush was when he made that regrettable and early announcement in 2003. Instead, it’s time to acknowledge that I still need training wheels. Almost 8 months into Egypt, it’s still not home yet—and that’s realistic. Fierce and independent, maybe, but I’m still not superhuman, and it may be time to remember that.

A detox day in Alexandria.

Gentle Readers.

I'm writing this off of the slimmest of all internet connections, plucked out of the air on one tiny bar from someone whose last name appears to be "Thompson." God blesses those who don't password protect their wireless networks. At least, I bless them. I'm sure God does, too.

More importantly, I am writing this from the seaside city of Alexandria--beautiful Alexandria where the air is clean, the Mediterranean Sea sparkling, the traffic slow--and even the cats are plump and calm. 

I needed a day out of Cairo. Gradually, my tolerance for my beloved but overcrowded and polluted city of 20 million has been growing. When I first came to Egypt to study, I found that I could only last in Cairo two weeks at a time before needing a vacation. It was also at this time that my eyebrow developed a twitch that was to last for my entire four months in the Middle East. 

Now, nearly eight months a Cairene veteran, I can push it out to about six weeks before I notice the daily bustle of the city taking its toll on me. Having returned from my travels to the Siwa Oasis, the Red Sea, and Jerusalem well over a month ago, I decided it was time. You know that Cairo must be bad when you retreat to a city of three million to get some peace and quiet. 

I took the train this morning (3 hours Cairo to Alex: $6) at my favorite time of the week: Friday morning. Friday morning in Cairo is the Midwest's equivalent of Sunday morning: peaceful, quiet, and prayerful. The streets are empty, the horns aren't honking. The sunlight was streaming down through the buildings. Taking my seat on the train, I watched the Nile delta pass by me and took in all the pastoral scenes you could never see in the city: children riding donkeys through fields of lush, green crops, men washing their livestock, women taking care of the mudbrick pigeon coops on their roofs. It's a place in Egypt quiet enough to finally hear your own thoughts.

I arrived in Alexandria at noon on a sunny, crisp day, with my bag filled with graduate application materials, a Carlos Casteneda book, mashed potato and babaghanoush sandwiches, sweat pants, and my Bible. After walking a while, I found a hotel room 50 feet from the Mediterranean--with a balcony with a view--for $10. I dumped what I didn't need out of my bag, and set off for the Alexandria library.

Now, this isn't the Alexandria library of the Seven Wonders of the World fame--that one was destroyed centuries ago. But the new one is beautiful in its own, modern right. It's a large glass and steel building with lots of light--and lots of security. So much security, that this might be the one library in the world where you can't bring a laptop or a notebook inside with you. What?! 

So, I settled for the library's cafe, instead. In the end, it was a better deal--Turkish coffee makes applications that much sweeter. Watching the sun set over the Mediterranean harbor from inside the cafe, I felt a deep peace and relaxation that's hard to find within the cement maze of Cairo. Best of all, I haven't heard any screeching cats. Yet.

So, now supplied with half a pound of melt-your-face baklava, I'm going to enjoy a quiet night inside my hotel room. True, I haven't done anything in Alexandria that I couldn't be doing in Cairo--most of my day was spent inside a cafe, after all. But, that's just the point: I'm not in Cairo. As much as I love my city--today, it's a welcome change. 

Banshee Cats

From my first day in Egypt, almost two years ago, I quickly identified two mortal enemies:
Elevators and Cats.

The decrepit elevators housed within nearly every crumbling concrete building in this city often amount to little more than a 3-sided box pulled through the air with a pulley. While these elevators do make full use of the marvels of modern technology—such as electricity—the ancient metal gates you must pull shut behind you and the rickety ride give you the sense that the Hunchback of Notre Dame could just as easily be the one pulling you up by a fraying rope, and that you are only a prayer away from plunging to an early end.

But I’ve told you all of this before.

No, my dear readers, the enemy of the day is the ever-present, ever-screeching, ever-diseased and mangy street cats of Cairo.

Now, I should preface this all with a disclaimer that I was traumatized by cats from an early age. It all began with cat-sitting the obese Cali—my friend’s calico cat—for a Christmas vacation. I’ve never been a cat person. Or, rather, I’ve never had the opportunity to be a cat person. Hailing from a dog family, I was used to pets that 1. Love you unconditionally 2. Have low IQs and no crafty agenda of their own and 3. Have a bone structure.
Cats were too shrewd, independent, and limp for my tastes.
Cali smelled the fear.

One cold December day, I punctually arrived to add Meow Mix to her bowl and dutifully scoop the litter box (one cred point to cats for their hygiene).
Cali was waiting, lurking in the shadows.
For whatever reason that possessed her feline brain, she suddenly sprang out from behind the door, hair raised and hissing, and sunk her cat claws into my arm. She dug her talons in so deeply that she actually hung there from my forearm for a moment or two before I dislodged her and she ran off screeching.

For the rest of Christmas vacation, I made my mom go to feed the cat, too afraid of another unprovoked attack.

So, from that day forth, cats and I kept a respectful distance. Claiming a mild allergy, I’ve been able to dodge the little demons fairly well. The exception to this was when our upstairs neighbors in Seattle decided to force their housecats to become “outdoor” cats—a decision the two little monsters resented deeply. They would sneak in through our windows and cracked doorways and take up residence under my bed (or in the arms of my more accommodating roommate, who objected to when I insisted on addressing the creatures as “Cat” when I knew their pet names perfectly well). In such instances, I would stare into their soulless, yellow eyes and yell “Cat! Out!”—as if cats responded to such yelling.

Rather, they would return my stare and casually saunter out of my bedroom—letting me know that it wasn’t that they were impressed with my reprimand, but simply had better things to do than hang out in my boring bedroom anyway—proving once again that cats have the exact personality of 13 year old girls.

Now, cats in Cairo are another breed entirely. Equally creepy, but doubly diseased and much jumpier. As strays rather than pampered pets, they slink around nervously, pawing through garbage and dodging cars. Ordinarily, I would prefer to simply ignore them.

Except I can’t. It seems that my roommates and I inadvertently moved into a rough neighborhood in Cairo.
“But Alissa,” you protest. “Isn’t it true that you live a block away from the Nile, and can almost see the Four Seasons hotel from your balcony? And what about your claims that Cairo has one of the lowest crime rates in the world?”

Yes, all true—but I wasn’t talking about humans.
My apartment building is actually in a little quad, with patches of concrete and plants in between the neighboring units. The noise, I should mention, echoes terrifically as it bounces back and forth off of the concrete towers.

I began to notice trouble about a month ago, when I was woken from my sleep by the screeching sound of feline banshees coming in from my balcony window. “My God, what is happening to that cat?” I gasped. Soon another cat joined in the fray—an honest to goodness cat fight. I never saw the damage, but if you told me that neither one was left with a single bit of fur afterward, I would have believed you. The sound is awful.

Then the next night. The sound of a screeching cat is kind of like that comical Fred Flintstone yelp when a cartoon character suddenly finds themselves sitting on a fire or pot of boiling water: yeeeeeOWWW!
Just knock it up a few dozen octaves.

Soon, I was woken up almost every night by the sound of cats in agony—gashed, slashed, and freaking out. I can only conclude one thing: gang wars.
Now, I try not to know anything about cats—what they eat, if they’re nocturnal, if they live alone or in packs. Don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to know.
But it seems to me that this kind of violence can only be attributed to some kind of turf battle or cat muggings or some crime-crazed situation in which innocent bystander cats wandering between the buildings on my street are getting jumped. There is no other way to explain the incessant screeching at all hours of the night.

A few nights ago, it was the worst it’s ever been. One cat was wailing and wailing, pitching its voice higher and raspier each time. It went on for an hour. Now, I can’t promise that this actually happened, or if I had merely lapsed into a half-dream state—but in my mind, someone threw something at the cat to put it out of its misery, and all of the neighbors started clapping.
Sounds like wishful thinking. But this is exactly how bad it’s gotten—that I, quite uncharacteristically, have begun wishing for the death of one of God’s creatures. Maybe all of that particular species of God’s creatures. God save us from the banshee cats of Cairo.

An open letter to the GREs.

Dear GRE,

I hate you. I want you to die a slow and agonizing death.

Sincerely,
A.W.

In truth, it's simply a relief that they're over. Once the rattled emotions cooled, I found that I could live with my results--though they are results that in no way reflect the 30 hours of math practice I had logged over the past 3 days. No, I’m not bitter.

Honestly, I choked. I had hoped to go down swinging, at the very least, feeling like a champ—even if a bit of a math-challenged champ. But computer tests be damned. I’ve spent my entire career as a test taker employing all of the PSAT, ISAT (Illinois, anyone?), ACT, SAT techniques of writing in the margins, crossing out answers, and skipping around questions. Nope, in the last standardized test of my life, they put it on a computer and disarmed me of all of my big gun test taking techniques.

As the math questions began popping up on the screen, and the little timer in the corner ticked away the seconds, I panicked, clicking “c” like I had an OCD tick for it. Shortly after that, panic gave way to feelings of defeat, defeat gave way to fatalism, fatalism was countered with a string of obscenities under my breath (humorously, I found out later that each test cubicle is miked, so the Egyptians test administrators definitely heard me), followed by an internal pep talk to get my act together. This cycle of emotions circled around for nearly 4 hours of test taking, leaving me exhausted by the end.

So exhausted, that I failed to realize that I had written down my final score on a sheet of official scrap paper, and dutifully turned that precious piece of paper into the proctor to be shredded. So exhausted, that I managed to walk for 30 minutes and take a cab for 10 until I realized that I had managed to leave the test center without the one thing that I had come there for. I had forgotten my score—not only forgotten it, but shredded it.

Another taxi ride later, I was begging the proctor to let me rummage through her garbage can, which contained the shredded, identical looking official scrap paper for no less than 8 different test takers. As I pulled each shred one of the garbage, one by one, looking for a score-looking number in my handwriting, I began to giggle to myself. So much for the ragings of my wounded ego! Pawing through the garbage has a terrifically humbling effect.

By the time I came home and made a batch of rice pudding for myself, I was feeling much better. (So what? It’s just a silly, standardized test) So much better, in fact, that I decided to cook dinner and dust my apartment—a bizarre display of domesticity that shows itself only after such situations of duress.
So, the GREs be damned. If grad school doesn’t work out—hey, I’ve always wanted to be a Seattle barista. Even better, I could return to my first love: Ben and Jerry’s. In this economy, that’s probably the best job I could get anyway.
In the meantime, I never have to think about FOIL or 30-60-90 triangles again—and that is a comforting thought.

Egypt for Obama.

Gentle readers and compatriots—

A happy, bipartisan post-Bush greeting to you all. I have to tell you—to be in Egypt the day after Obama’s election was an incredible thing. Without any exaggeration, the world has fallen in love with the American dream once again.

My election all-nighter began with a VIP party with the American embassy and select Egyptian invites, such as my department at my internship, Amideast, and the Egyptian government’s Ministry of Information. I was invited as part of the entourage for our three-member North American File. On that front, my job was to smile and shake a lot of hands and seem generally pleasant. For my co-worker, though, this was something of a Diplomatic Debutante ball, as she only recently took over the file and had yet to meet many of her American diplomatic co-parts. So, power-dressed in lipstick and heels, I spent the first half of my night as a wingman for her, munching on loaded potato skins and cheesecake bites (God bless American food!). There was free alcohol being served, but that’s a little touchy when 75% of the guests in attendance don’t drink alcohol due to a prohibition from their religion. I waited until my diplomatic responsibilities were over to sip a glass of wine before returning home to my apartment to watch the results come in.

The plus side of such functions is that there are fascinating people in attendance—I spent a half hour or so listening to the Minister of Information discuss Egypt’s historical transition from a Mediterranean orientation to an Arab orientation. A director at Amideast regaled us with stories of rescuing trampled students out of mass demonstrations in Cairo that had turned ugly once riot police had arrived on scene. Another diplomat wanted to discuss the history of interpretations of Islam, and how the Muslim Brotherhood did not represent “true” Islam.

I returned to my apartment around 1am, happy to kick off my heels and dig into the pan of Obama cake with my roommates. We switched between Al Jazeera and BBC world for coverage of the election, since CNN and other American news channels don’t come in on our satellite channels. Al Jazeera provided stunning election coverage, actually: with 30 correspondants from all over the globe, the theme of the night was, “The World is Watching.” Suddenly I felt the weight of this election and all of its significance for the 6 billion inhabitants on earth. The whole world was watching—staying up all night, from TVs in Cairo to radios in Ethiopia and internet cafes in India, everyone was waiting to see the results. Text messages started flying across international borders as soon as results began to be announced.

After Pennsylvania was called at 3, I decided to take a nap, figuring it would be hours before the votes from Florida, Ohio, and other swing states would be tallied. I woke up at 6am, just as the sun was rising over Cairo. Moments after I turned on the TV, McCain announced his concession in what I thought was one of the most eloquent and stirring speeches of the campaign season. Obama’s speech had me teary-eyed.

But what stunned me is that, arriving at the office a few hours later, my Egyptian co-workers told me that they had cried all the way through Obama’s speech. “Why?” I asked, a bit perplexed. “You’re not American—I mean, I can understand you’re excited. But crying?”
They searched for words. “America is great again. We always used to believe this about America, but we lost faith during Bush. But now, we know it’s true.”

All day, co-workers burst through my office door, offering me congratulations with big kisses on both of my cheeks. My English students started clapping (for me? For Obama? It wasn’t quite clear). I'm not sure there really is proper protocol for such a moment, really. So we shared our relief and excitement with exchanges of hugs and congratulations, and, while difficult to articulate, we understood what was meant.

It was a proud moment to walk through the streets where, in 2006, graffiti near my apartment used to read: “U.S. out of Middle East.”--where now, I was now being congratulated by complete strangers for the greatness of my country and the ideals that it inspires. Tomorrow will be for analysis and real politik, as the promises of the campaign season undoubtedly transform as the ideal meets reality.
But today, it's for change the whole world can believe in.

When the domestic and political spheres collide.

On this most historic of days, I thought I would venture out into new and risky territory--the kitchen--to prepare for what promises to be a long and emotionally-fraught evening as we wait for news to trickle out of America about the election. The first results from the early, eastern states will roll in around 1am--California's poll won't close until 11 in the morning of the 5th. 

While the first part of my evening will be spent mingling with diplomatic folk, I intend to watch most of the closing tallies curled up on the couch with my roommates with al Jazeera and a bottle of wine.

Clearly, some quality midnight snacks are in order for an election all-nighter.

 So, I decided to bake Obama a cake.

Now, one of my roommates had managed to find a box of chocolate cake mix for a bargain $1.25 (see post below), so I started asking around our neighborhood vendors to see if they had any.

"I need to buy cake for Obama."

"Obama! May God protect him. Anything for you, Habibi. Do you want 'ready cake'?"

[They pointed to a box of ho-ho's.]

"No, not 'ready cake.' I want half-ready cake."

[puzzled silence.]

"Ah, you want flour and baking soda to make a cake at home."

"Ah, no. I want a box of chocolate cake."

"A box." [puzzled silence. Another offer of ho-ho's.] "Are you sure you don't want to buy flour?"

"I don't know how to make cake."

"You don't know how to make cake! You must learn!"

Yes, yes, thank you, Mr. Egyptian shopkeeper--I know my own domestic shortcomings. I was admonished to go home and crack open a proper cookbook by no less than three different vendors. In my next life, maybe.

After a quick call to my roommate to find the shop that does stock them, I marched back triumphantly, swinging my plastic bag o' cake mix like a hunting dog with a duck in its mouth. The hunter-gatherer instincts are hard to suppress in such moments.

My shopkeepers examined my purchase admiringly. 

"Oo--look at that! A box to make ready-cake at home! Clever girl." 

Thank you, Mr. Cucumber Seller.

I came home and, feeling fancy, decided to try sticking random ingredients into the powdered sugar icing. So I frosted one half of the cake with cinnamon icing, and one half of the cake with coconut icing, just to try something new. Hey, why not, right? Sounds good to me.

It was only after the cake was finished that I realized, with a bit of an internal eye roll, I had successfully make a symbolically multiracial cake fitting for the election: chocolate cake, white icing, cinnamon, and with the coconut, even a bit of Hawaiian flair for Obama's old home state--an pastry picture of a multicultural democracy. God, I'm a nerd even by accident. 

That being said, I was genuinely moved and a bit emotional when looking at pictures from voting booths back home. I'm so glad that I had a chance to send in my absentee ballot and participate in the election--I felt a heightened sense of connectedness to the American people, and even a sense of homesickness for the entire country. Seeing pictures middle aged and elderly voters, who can remember vividly the bigoted realities of Civil Rights era America, was particularly gripping for me. Whatever the result of this election, it's had an effect on me much deeper than ordinary politics should. 

A blogger for the BBC suggested that many people view this election as a "cleansing." I think that's come the closest as anything to describe my feelings about it. 

In any case--have a wonderful election day, all of my American readers! Many in Egypt will be staying up through the early hours of the morning to follow the results--and, as I eat my Obama cake, I'll be thinking about all of you.

eating myself into poverty.

Having just been blindsided by payments for rent, electricity, the phone, the door man, the trash collector, flat food funds—as well as finding that my laptop bag was broken and needed replacing—I thought I would take you for a brief jaunt through the economic realities of daily life in Egypt.
And, you know, this post is also just to get my financial woes off my chest in a bit of a cathartic exercise—though it is true that I may have brought some of my money troubles upon myself with my insatiable sweet tooth. My fairly wealthy co-workers at my internship like to order in paninis and cheesecake from a delectably delicious café nearby, and I have a tendency to play the devil on their shoulder in this regard.
Even though I had dutifully and frugally packed my PB & J pita and a bag of sugarsnap peas to eat at work yesterday (I also might be on a bit of a diet..), my co-worker was complaining of fatigue and a touch of PMS. Jonesing for a brownie myself, I slyly suggested that she might be able to better concentrate on her report if she had a chocolate fudge cake to help her. $4 later (this cost to be put into perspective shortly), I was happily snacking on my own sugary goodness thanks to the modern convenience of door-to-door delivery.

Alright. Now to break this all down.
Each month, I make $200 from my English teaching job. Given that I only work as a teacher 48 hours each month, this is actually a pretty decent salary. Almost minimum wage, right?

This $200 quickly gets eaten away by the following monthly bills:

Rent: $136
Doorman: $10
Garbage: $3
Flat groceries fund: $20
Internet: $6
Phone: $3

This leaves me with a whopping $22 of disposable income each month.

Now, this only works because I do have a bit of money saved up that I can tap into—but after a 3 week trip through Egypt and Jerusalem, with another trip to Morocco, Spain, and Istanbul in the works, and Christmas presents still to buy—I have better things to spend this money on than PMS brownies.

So, starting with today, I’m putting myself on a $1 a day budget until Christmas.
Now, a $1 a day budget is something out of a UN flies-on-face humanitarian commercial. But on a whopping $1, I can buy two sandwiches on the street (today’s selection: egg plant and hardboiled egg with tomato, representing a variety of food groups, thank you), 2 metro tickets, AND still have 10 cents left over for a package of Kleenex to use in the TP-less bathrooms. This supplemented with PB/J pita sandwiches and scrambled egg breakfasts funded out of our flat-fund groceries, I shouldn’t be suffering in any significant way. And, having just turned down my co-worker who walked into my office with a delivery menu in hand, I’m hoping that this heralds a good omen for the strength of my self-control over the next two months. Until the next time the scent of a fresh brownie wafts my way—wish me luck.

a nearly American Halloween.

My friends.

That is, those of you who are still my friend after the verbal assault of my last post. 

I offer no apology; that was the best studying technique for learning all those vocab words that I can think of. 

In any case! Halloween indeed visited the Mother of the World (that is, il-Um il-Dunya, Egypt). And we did our damndest to bring a little piece of Apple-Pie-America to our Egyptian friends, even if they didn't quite appreciate our antics. 

We opted for an admittedly untraditional Halloween Dinner Party--but in full costume. We startled and bewildered our darling family from Maasara by greeting them at the door as a jazzercise instructor, vaguely Asian woman, and flight attendant, respectively. This despite the fact that we tried to warn them about "costumes"--but really, try to explain the concept of a costume, much less the rationale behind it. My 16 year old host sister Sara, thanks to some reading she did for an English class once, was the most with it. 

"Ah, yes, Halloween. You will dress strangely. Like a cat?" Still, they apparently weren't quite prepared for the spectacle.

Without candy corn (ah, how my heart pines...) and fun-sized snickers, we did our best to recreate a homey, festive ambiance. We made some legit apple cider and chai, and--goodness knows where she found this thing--one of my roommates came home carrying a 20 pound pumpkin from the open-air vegetable sooq. 

Our Egyptian guests were decidedly anti apple cider ("what? Hot apple juice??" they sputtered), and completely baffled when we got out 3 large kitchen knives and started hacking into our enormous pumpkin, scooping out seed guts with enthusiasm with long orange pumpkin strings sticking to us up to our elbows. They loved our Halloween cake, though, and--once Jafar the Jack o' Lantern was complete--decided that the whole pumpkin-as-lantern thing wasn't so crazy as they first thought. And hey, even a little cute. 

After our dinner guests left, we decided that we needed to venture out into the ex-pat partying community--just this once. We found ourselves at a French Halloween party, courtesy of an invitation from a French-speaking guy from Niger (prompting a furious discussion whether the adjective of Niger in English is Nigerian or Nigeran--a dilemma we did not solve to anyone's satisfaction). 

While France apparently does not normally celebrate Halloween, there were apparently some 20 French people in Cairo eager to dress up as Bedouins and/or harem girls, and we soon found ourselves crammed in the midst of them, shouting over the music to see if anyone in the room spoke any English at all (Although, I find that if you try speaking English in a french accent, you actually get further along in French than you'd think).

We ended up spending most of our evening chatting with an English-speaking Egyptian who's working as a fashion designer for Tommy Hilfiger, an amiable French man who had followed his girlfriend down to Cairo and was actually wearing a wedding ring to get past Egyptian social mores, two Brits, an American from Arizona, and a variety of young French guys who have apparently been buying daggers and old-school sultan swords across the Middle East. One brief drunken sword fight took place, but luckily, everyone emerged unscathed. 

So, a Happy Halloween to you all. Jafar the Jack o' Lantern is sitting happily on our balcony, awaiting his eventual reincarnation in the form of a pumpkin pie. 

The parties aren't over for us in the city of sand, however-- the U.S. Embassy is throwing an all-night party (9pm-9am) at the Hardrock cafe for election night. The 6:30am breakfast with a bunch of diplomats following an all night party seems a little "morning after" and awesome--I don't think I'll be able to resist the invitation.