a fond farewell.

And so, dear readers, this is it: my last post from Egypt. Twelve months and two days ago, I touched down on the tarmac in Cairo, wide-eyed and excited as I took in all the tangy, dusty, flourescent sights. From interrogations at the Israeli border to slowly becoming part of an Egyptian family; sweating out intensive Arabic courses, sitting in the grand Arab League assembly hall as a gangly intern; spending a night in a crack house in Alexandria and lounging at my favorite cafe by the red sea and traveling with my best friend to three continents--it's been a full and wonderful year.

The last two days were spent undertaking hard goodbyes and riding out an emotional roller coaster, packing my bags, and putting all the last minute bits and pieces of life in order. I spent most of my time in Maasara, trying to say goodbye to my host family there. Only, my host family recently gutted their entire apartment to undo damage from leaky plumbing and had recently brought back home my host sister from her abusive marriage, so they had more things on their plate than a slightly weepy foreigner--in a loving, you're-part-of-the-family kind of a way. As they scurried around feeding babies and taking tiles out of their floor, I decided that I would rather have it that way: to simply be part of their lives, and them part of mine, up until the last minute. When there are crying babies and leaky pipes, the best thing to do is simply to pitch in.

The day certainly had its charming moments, however--like when I was fed pita bread and bbq sauce for lunch ("Here, this is American, you'll like it!"), or when I learned that my Christian host sister's birth certificate lists her name as "Jihad" instead of "Jihan" because her father mumbled when he was telling her name to the government official. The evening ended with lots of hugs and tears and reminders from my host mother that there is no such thing as a "foreigner" since we're all God's children. Now that's a sweet note to end on.

Today, though, was a much more typical summer day--running errands, hopping metros and taxis, stripping down to your skivvies the second you run back inside to the refuge of air conditioning, eating gorgeous fruit for only pennies, then following it down with some fried 'n fabulous Egyptian food. I bought my friend Sally a new headscarf as a going away present; she told me about the most recent developments in her world of arranged marriages. I called up old friends and co-workers to say goodbye--luckily, facebook now unites the whole globe in one common webpage, so you don't have to worry about losing touch. Tonight I'll say goodbye to my ex-pat friends over crepes and nutella. Then, in one last typical Egyptian gesture, I'll meet up with my friend Alaa at 2am, since Egyptians don't really sleep in the summer. Alaa's been rocking a full nocturnal schedule since he got out of exams. Luckily, shops and cafes are all open late, so we'll have time to grab one last sheesha before I head to the airport around 5am. And thus ends a beautiful chapter of life.

Thank you, dear readers, for following all of the sagas of this past year and forgiving my occasional lapses in publishing posts. I expect that I may have a new blog up and running for this fall... I'll keep you posted.
Until then--take care, and I'll see you all back in the states.

reflections on an impending farewell.

What an uncomfortable and unsettling time--the time waiting for a transition. Counting down the days, anticipating the emotions you'll feel once the time comes, not sure if you should allow yourself to feel them yet. I find that I greet transitions with consumption, choosing to stuff in the unsettled weirdness with unnecessary gestures of preparedness: buying travel irons, socks, plug adapters. At the other end, as I prepare to come home again, purging all of those frivolities I packed along with me but never really used, finding homes for them now in the closets of friends. I start sleeping--long, glorious naps, lazy mornings--accompanied by insomniac nights. I read. I buy books I won't ever get around to reading.

I began worrying yesterday about the elasticisity of my mind, about whether or not it's up for the rigors of grad school. I wonder if I should pick up sudoku. I read two issues of the New Yorker yesterday by the pool (brought to me by my sister and brother-in-law), in part because my brother-in-law was reading the only available novel, in part to clue in to the current thoughts of elite american circles that i've been away from for so long, in part to check in and test my reading stamina. I was pleased. Then I read an article about Adderall and all the young professionals and students of my generation using neuroenhancing drugs. I worried. Though the temptation of instant clarity and focus danced before my eyes on those pages, I pushed the thought from my mind. Or tried to.
In the past few years, I've come to embrace the natural thresholds of my body--to sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, to exercise because it's healthy. I wear sunscreen now. I plan to buy running shoes as my first act on American soil. No, whatever I accomplish--or can't--next year, I want it to be natural.

And now--one last day of this extended vacation, of these five weeks with loved ones by my side through Egypt. One last day until my own goodbyes begin in earnest. It's better, I think, that I actually have so few friends around in Cairo right now--some have left before me, others are traveling, some won't be in town. I'd rather slip away, boarding an airplane alone with Egypt as a pleasant memory, rather than endure an onslought of big fleshy hugs and teary goodbyes beforehand. Though, I know it's better that way--after all, so many Egyptians here have been so good to me this year. It's only fair to say goodbye one last time.

Final moments in Egypt.

My apologies for such a long lapse in blogging! My mac abruptly turned its face to the wall to die when I was checking my email whilst lounging at a beachside cafe on the red sea. Perhaps it felt it was as suitable a place to die as any. While frantically trying to resuscitate it, a fellow traveler--who happened to have made his life in silicone valley--glanced over at my lifeless laptop. In its death throes, my poor and mistreated mac was wheezing from the layers of dust that have slowly caked onto it over the past year in Egypt. "How old did you say that mac was?" he inquired. "Um...a little over a year..." I sheepishly admitted. His eyebrows shot through the roof. Ok, so maybe I'm not so gentle on electronics. Luckily, that apple care protection plan should get her back on her feet in no time.

For the moment, however, I'm completely dependent on my brother-in-law's ageing dell with 45 minutes max of battery life. You'll have to bear with me.

Yesterday I checked off exactly one month on the road, with exactly one week between me and O'Hare international airport. It was a strange place to find myself after so many heartfelt memories and bizarre misadventures in this colorful part of the world that has, despite so many moments of confused miscommunication and infuriating frustrations, become home.

The last month on the road has treated me well--at least, once I finally buckled down and shed some of the extra weight I had been lugging around in my backpack. To Nod, a seasoned climber who refuses to ever pack more than 25 pounds, no matter what the destination or duration of the trip, my bulging and overstuffed bags were sometimes a source of embarassment. True, I had started out with no less than two Arabic textbooks, a computer, a complete collection of all my dvds, a blowdryer, 3 sweaters (in Egypt in July), a blanket, a wooden painted bird, a large bottle of Victoria's Secret strawberry scented shampoo, two pocket dictionaries, three novels, and an assortment of what I affectionately call my "hippie shit"--namely, oversized earrings and wooden necklaces. Two weeks into the trip, I couldn't actually bear the thought of lugging all of that around and found gracious friends around Cairo who have let me stow away some of my excess baggage. Since, I feel have finally gained my backpacker stripes.

Nod arrived at the end of May to a whirlwind of packing and errands as I attempted to finish work, my intensive Arabic class, move out of my apartment, and otherwise end what has been a wonderful 11 month chapter of my life. At least, I thought it was a wonderful year. When my landlord came to check us out of our apartment, she wasn't so sure that the new cockroach infestation that occured during our tenure there added up to anything 'wonderful.' I will say, though, that Julianna gave those cockroaches hell--I've never seen someone wield a Raid can with quite so much righteous conviction.

With a month on the road, of course, it was only a matter of time before a steady diet of bean and falafel sandwiches off the street would do me in. In the meantime, Egypt tricksily proved it did have one last surprise in store for me: this time, when digestive disaster struck, it manifested itself in the form of bright, kryptonite-green poop. I've never seen anything like it. Unforunately, the solyvent green struck when we were touring the gorgeous and whimsical rock formations of the black and white desert--which meant that I more or less had to treat the great Sahara as one oversized litter box; my apologies to the White Desert Egyptian National Park. Sigh.

After technicolored gastro-intestinal displays in the black and white desert, Nod and I hopped a janky cargo boat across from the Sinai Peninsula to the carved wonders of Petra, Jordan--home to an ancient caravan trading site and, more recently (and famously), to the film crew of Indiana Jones' Last Crusade. We were joined by flocks of ageing and overweight European tourists--mostly white haired ladies still tough enough to beat the desert heat. Being one of the few women under 30 made for some interesting moments, however, as nearly every Jordanian we passed in Petra insisted on very sensually arranging a kind of bedouin scarf on my head. Amusing; a little creepy.

Nod left a little while ago to return to Ethiopia and finish up his work there in order to be back in the States by the 4th of July. In the meantime, my sister and brother-in-law arrived for a two week tour through Egypt, putting my hosting skills to the test. All in all, it's been a really delightful trip--long days of snorkeling through multicolored reefs in the red sea, enjoying the pyramids almost entirely to ourselves (the benefit of touring a saharan country in the summer!), and cooling off by the Mediterranean with a stopover in Alexandria.

Proudly, we have gotten off the beaten tourist path a number of times, all in the name of soccer. My brother-in-law has been intent on watching the recent matches hosted in South Africa. Fortunately, in the soccer-crazed culture of Egypt, it hasn't been hard to come by cafes showing the games. Unfortunately, those cafes are generally male-only types of hangouts, where sheesha is smoked and sweet tea poured by men in galibayas and the clacking sound of dominos adds another soundtrack to the soccer commentary blaring from the mounted tv. Undeterred by the usual social norms--or perhaps simply oblivious to them--the three of us have ventured into several very local ahwas to watch the games. Perhaps uniting over a common love of soccer, or in part because we brought our own scrabble board to join into the game culture of the backgammon and domino games around us, we've been invited in as peculiar, but welcome guests.

Now we're braving 115 degree heat and gusts of hot wind down the Nile in Luxor, where we'll be seeing the grand Karnak temple complex and the valley of the kings. Since the heat limits our siteseeing to the early hours of the morning, we're more or less "forced" to relax throughout the rest of the day in our air conditioned room. I celebrated yesterday with a 3 hour nap. Hallelujah.

But it's been surreal to think that I'll be flying back in less than a week--5 days, actually, and counting. By this time next week, I'll be watching firework displays in Washington, D.C., where I'll be apartment hunting for the weekend (And if any of you know of any leads for affordable housing the DC area--let me know!).

Last night I sat on the roof of our hostel as the hot air whipped around me, watching the sun melt behind the sandstone cliffs and the calm Nile waters turn grey in the evening light. Sillohetted palm trees struck against the skyline, and the call to prayer echoed out across the valley. I sat quietly to soak up the moment; there are so few of these left.