Donkey carts and Death to Busyness.

My roommate and I are lounging in our somewhat moldy but cheerfully homey apartment, discussing our acclimation to Egypt.

“You know what I realized today?” mused I.

“What’s that?” Kirsten responded, as she debated whether she should retrieve a glass of coconut juice from the fridge or simply lay on her lumpy, sawdust mattress a little longer.

“You know you’ve nearly become Egyptian when you’re not only used to seeing donkey carts crossing through busy intersections, but when you start to think to yourself, ‘you know, a donkey cart is a pretty sweet ride. Maybe I should get me one of those.’”

“I’ve stopped smelling Cairo,” came the response. “That's one way I know that I've gotten used to life here. The smell of sheesha used to hit me every time I walked in the street. Now, if I catch a strong whiff of it, I flashback to my first days in Egypt, when the smell overwhelmed me.”

I will mention here that my beloved roommate, who quickly turned distracted from this conversation thanks to a new email from a boy, also decided to stop using toilet paper in the name of cultural acquisition. Perhaps some western traditions are still good to be maintained.

Deeper questions of identity will be left for another day, but for right now, all I know is that my inner monologue sounds once again like a Persian carpet vendor and I’m considering joining my Egyptian friends in becoming a “fan” of “The Nile River” on facebook.

By the way—just a little bone to pick. I just saw an ad for the “snuggie” blanket that people are apparently wearing back in the U.S.? I might be considering buying myself a donkey cart, but it seems to me that America becomes equally strange every time I leave. Just as an aside.

In any case. This week I have declared Death to Busyness. Nothing could be more glorious. Right now, I’m working 5 days a week, but from 5-10:30pm. The result? Soaking up glorious sunshine, peace, and quiet, all the day long. Leave work for the gloomy nighttime hours anyway--just give me lots and lots of Egyptian sun.

Another roommate and I decided it would be a good thing to use our morning free time to learn Modern Standard Arabic—a different beast entirely than what they speak on the street. The first day, we rolled out of bed and managed to show up ruffle headed and a bit bleary eyed for an 8am class for the 2nd hardest language on the planet. We were greeted by a balding, 50-something man who has a bad habit of dabbing his lower lip with a Kleenex as he talks, quite unnecessarily. Although he awkwardly insisted from our first 5 minutes of class that we consider him “like our father” and feeds us peanuts by hand during class sometimes, he is an excellent teacher. I can now say, read and write such riveting captions to workbook pictures as: “Is this is a girl? No, this is a bucket.” The sense of progress and accomplishment almost makes me giddy after class. Ah, finally—I’m getting a systematic grasp on the language.

We leave class at 10:30, when the neighborhood has warmed to a pleasant bustle and the sun is warm. Like a true Egyptian—I am also wearing a sweater and scarf in 75 degree weather, in fear that I will be cold and unleash a plethora of diseases upon me.
I would like to note for the record, however, that the weather in Cairo on February 4th is as warm as any day in Seattle in July. The next time I try to tell someone from the Pacific Northwest that you have cold summers, please believe me.

After Arabic class, I have the glorious sensation of complete freedom ahead of me, knowing it will still be hours until I need to go to work. Today I celebrated by doing the nearly unthinkable: I cooked for nearly two hours this afternoon. For those of you awaiting my domestication, don’t celebrate quite yet. The whole affair was more of an sensory experience. I will maintain until my dying day that if the point of cooking is to feed yourself, it is never worth it to spend more than 15 minutes preparing anything. Two hours of kitchen prep for 10 minutes of enjoyment is simply a bad investment. Cooking as an activity, though? That’s something I’m willing to concede.

I set out this morning in search of ginger, which my Arabic teacher swore would help my cough go away if I drank it as tea. I’m not sure if it’s helping my cough at all, but the spiciness is fun. I wandered into the sooq this morning to find the spice vendor woman to buy my ginger. She flashed me a huge smile as I paid her my 20 cents for a packet of ginger powder, which lifted my mood even further. Hmm… it was a beautiful morning. It couldn’t hurt to meander through the vegetable stands, could it?

After a run-in with an amicable incense-burning gypsy who tried to chat me out of a few pounds, I emerged triumphant with potatoes, cilantro, red and yellow peppers, dill, and eggplant, all for a whopping $1.20. Now, call me a granola Seattle hipster, but how did we ever get away from shopping for groceries at farmers markets? There is something incredibly refreshing (and delicious) about eating produce that’s local, organic, and in-season…not because it’s hippie, but because that’s how people have eaten their food for thousands of years. It’s only in the past 50 years we’ve let people artificially ripen our food and sell water back to us in bottles. Strange, if you think about it.

In any case, I put on some cooking mood music, shut the kitchen door, and just let myself enjoy the tastes and smells and textures of all the food. My roommate and I had a good lunch out of it—but again, it’s a big let down for me to eat what I make. It’s just over way too fast. I probably won’t cook again for another month, but hey, it looks like the gods of the kitchen gave me a freebie for once: nothing burned. But, then again, I did just ruin yet another sweater in the washing machine, so it seems that the domestic gods are still after me.

For now, those are my notes from Cairo—a city I seem to be absorbing whether I want to or not (I do). Although, according to my Egyptian colleagues, no matter what I made for lunch this afternoon, I still can’t get married to a local if I don’t know how to cook rice. It looks like I’m safe for now.

All my best—take care!