a little light, a little peace

This is dedicated to my family, friends, and homies in the slam.

Monday, March 31, 2008

my previous week

last week was a day of fun and litle homework, this week is the week of work except for aikido! time to buckle down. which is why i am going to read some zombit lit for a minute or two now. ah, the story of my life well college at least.

for my birthday i went and and had a stella with my coteacher Ariel at Cafe Hurriya. It was nice. Then thursday I went to the hard rock cafe with some of my American roommates (current and former) and celebrated there. We ate chicken wings, huge burgers, and drank Sakarra beer. We all commented on how nice it was to do something American again after having been engulfed in Egyptian culture for two months. When we first arrived, we felt underdressed. It was at this really nice hotel, the Grand Hyatt, which is right on the water of the Nile. Our window in the restaurant looked out onto a walkway next to the water. Inside it was the typical hard rock cafe, big and loud with lots of memorabilia.

i have stopped worrying about how much i am fitting in, basically because i will almost always stick out. i used to be frustrated that i had to carry my backpack around (backpacks never caught on here) but now i just do it. also, i have developed some skills to blending in or at least make myself look less noticeable, i have some clothing options that are more used by egyptians and i know how to cross the street.

i still get welcomed now and again. today for instance, one guy said welcome to me. i said thanks but i have been living here for two months now. i know that it is not a lot of time but i have walked up and down that street i can't say how many times.

i fear that my first package of letters has gotten lost, so i will recommence the writing of these letters very soon. sorry about that.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

finally fitting in

today was a very good day. i established my self on wordpress.com. http://timtheyounger.wordpress.com and i am excited to begin that project.

but it was even better because either today or yesterday i realized that all the time before today i had been living waiting to go home. it was as if this study abroad was a rupture in my life (which it was) but that it was not a continuation merely a break which when over I could go back to how things were. that will never be the case thankfully, but now i am living to just live. i still miss home but all things come in time. egypt is here and now. i figured this out in writing some letters to others, so thank you.

3 month blog-life crisis

did some serious thinking about whether i wanted to stay on blogger.com, ultimately said yes just because it is easier for everyone and myself with you all having this address and such. i did create a new blog on wordpress.com found at http://timtheyounger.wordpress.com/. easy, right?

what is this for? one to try out a new platform, i have here good things about wordpress. two, to hopefully post some writing i have been doing. i have always wanted to, i don't think i am very good, but i look forward to your comments if you feel like taking it on.

we'll see, first i have to get the words onto this computer thingy, so the new blog will be pretty sparse right now. in sha' allah i will be blessed with time, creativity, and inspiration to get it done.

let me know what you think of this new look. i am trying it on for size, the jury is still out. are the colors right?, the sections where they need to be? thanks.

Friday, March 28, 2008

ahoy! a storm

today is the first evidence of the khamseen-the sandstorms. though not violently blowing, the haze in the street is worse than on normal days. at first i thought it was just a bad day for pollution but it really is very fine particles of sand just everywhere. if you look at something not moving then you see a fine layer of dust covering everything. and when you walk you have to blink your eyes every couple of minutes to remove the grit that keeps getting into them.

Troubles of the world

The news seems to be mostly bad in the world today in terms of the economy and in food prices. It has got a lot of people worried and got us worried here too. If you just read the newspaper you get a sinking feeling in your stomach, not just for the US but for the rest of the world too.

This is the first big problem in the US economy that I will be most affected by, not having grown up during the 70s oil crisis or any of the other problems before I was born. Also, when I was younger I was never exposed to any major economic troubles enough to be aware of them or for them to have an effect on my life. Now that I am older, I read the paper and talk about what is happening today with people my age. We are going to be getting out into the job market when we get out of college and it is going to be tough. People all over the world will be suffering more too.

One of my friends here has had his parents lose their jobs in the computer industry and now they are struggling. Milk prices have risen dramatically. My mother talks about the rising gas prices and the effects on our family.

I think the biggest thing for me is that these things from the news have now had a personal effect on me and people I know. For the first time that I have been aware of, the bad news of the newspaper has come alive and entered into my life. This is not a complaint about that, just more of a realization of reality as I continue to get older and more aware of myself and the world.

There have been people killed for bread in Egypt last week too.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23825670/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23832071/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23781864/

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Cave by Jose Saramago

quotes from said novel:

"Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying or that were worth saying once but not any more, each word that we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word, not deserving in its own right, but because of the possible consequences of saying it." 28

"he spent the whole time sitting on a log in the woodshed, sometimes staring straight ahead with the fixitiy of a blind man who knows that even if he turns his head in the other direction he will still not see anything, at other times studying his open palm, as if looking for a route in those lines and crossroads, either the shortest of the longest, generally speaking, choosing one or the other depends on how much or how little of a rush you are in , not forgetting, of course, those cases when someone or something is pushing you from behind, and you don't know why or where they are pushing you." 30-31

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

LUXOR PART II

to continue my rambling:

we woke up very early 730 and had a very good breakfast this is the list of food that each of us was served-cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, white bread, pancakes, apricot jelly, honey, butter, sweet lemon juice, yogurt drink with fruit in it. what a great way to start the day.

next came the bikes, this vehicle was central to our plans today, unofortunately, it seems as if all the bikes owned by happy land are old and waiting to fall apart, especially if you push them like we did riding to valley of the kings. WARNING: you must have a bike mechanic with you if you take a bike out. just kidding but some knowledge would help, but there are lots of people here who can fix bikes for you. it is a bike town. my chain popped off i don't know how many times and i even broke it once. my suitemate's bike back wheel somehow got out of alignment and couldn't go anywhere. thankfully there are some very nice people in luxor who fixed these problems for us.

we biked to valley of the kings 8km. all a slow uphill, not to bad a ride if you have gears and it was a cool day. it was neither for us. but it was worth the ride and we saw three tombs. rameses ix, tuthmosis iii, and ramses i. in these tombs i really felt like indiana jones. to get to them was sometimes small and cramped down steep passageways and opening into sometimes large tombs. the coolest one was tuthmosis iii. he did not want his grave touched by robbers at all, unfortunately it was 3000 years is a long time to not try and get robbed. he built his tomb at the very end of the valley up in this crevice and then from the crevice steeply down into the rock. you have to cross over a 15-20 pit 10-12 feet in diameter to get to the antechamber. from there is was down another steep slope into the burial chamber itself. the painting in many of these tombs was very well preserved and we made up stories about what was happening in some of them.

after leaving hear we went to the temple of hapshepsut in which ws this huge temple carved out of limestone embedded in the the rock walls itself. it was too stories with lots of columns and carvings. and walking up the steps to the temple's second floor i tried to imagine that i was there thousands of years ago making an offering to the gods or glorifying my leader.

valley of the kings and temple of hapshepsut were dead, dead, dead. nothing grew, there was scorching sun, and lots of sand and rock. it was blearily oppressive. you could disctinctly see on both sides of the nile the deliniation between where there was and was not water.

leaving these places of death we returned back, turned in the bikes showered and laid around for 4 hours recovering from this mighty adventure. then we went out for dinner at surprise surprise a koshari joint. not bad and then walked around. i bought some stuff at the fair trade shop, which i was very happy to see, and then we tried to find the church in which we were going to go to easter mass for. we walked out to the catholic church which was not the one we were planning on going to and was therefore closed. greg was not feeling well so him and ahmed went back to the hostel. i found the church it was the holy family latin catholic church in luxor and had church. it was a pretty neat service, with the normal procession that is done on easter but it was in french, arabic, and english, but mostly french.

then i called home to some family to wish happy easter after church and walked along the corniche (road along the nile) at 1130 at night it was peaceful quiet and mercifully free of touts trying to get me to go on a carriage ride or felucca to banana island. (i will never forget that phrase). we slept ate breakfast the same delicious thing again and then returned home on the day train.

the best drink i had in luxor was aseer asub. it is a juice made from pressing the liquid out of sugar cane, naturally delicious (no pun intended). it quenches the thirst and is green.

the one thing i didn't like about how the run the trains here is that they allow more eople on then there are seats. i understand why they do it (i think), my guess is because you can buy a cheap ticket but not reserve a seat and just hope you find an empty one, which is good for people with less money but it means that often many people i saw children men women and old men and women forced to sit or stand behind the seats at the end of each car. and nobody would let me give them my seat (especially to the older women). my roommate was able to but i wasn't, frustrating, because i didn't have the language skills to tell them except to point to them and say you and then point to my seat and say chair here. and my roommate as a good hospitable egyptian i was not insistent on my behalf to get them off the floor and into my seat.

i returned home got to my 1.5 hour english class 45 minutes late, of which they were still there (one of the others led a discussion for me) i was so happy that this happened and very grateful. we talked of piecharts, priorites, and emotions. the emotions were the hardest to explain in english to a group with a limited english vocabulary but they are bright and got it.

this weekend was also notable for the fact that i finished and read most of ernest hemingway's for whome the bell tolls. it was the first of his that i read and was very good. i like his style of writing and the way he creates the imagery in the book. i became heavily invested in the characters and couldn't stop reading for about six hours or so on the train.

long enough, today i am 21 and ready to become a man. i will celebrate by having a beer with my coteacher after class, watching jericho, doing hw, and talking to my brother (the only one of my brothers and parens in maryland at the moment) it should be great. low key and relaxing, just the way i like.

peace

LUXOR PART I

hey all,

here is what i did this weekend (it ties nicely with how everything is travel travel travel entry a couple of days ago):

on thursday we had off and planned to go north and east to sinai and dahab. it was going to be a two night trip. seven hours before we were supposed to leave one of our roommates who was helping organize it came in and said, the trip has been cancelled because they couldn't organize security for us.

go mad scramble for us trying to not lose the advantage of a four day weekend. i almost went to germany but instead ended up going way south to Luxor. a town that i could only live in if i was a native to luxor, because it is very touristy and get calls all day long for carriage rides and felucca rides to banana island.

we go to the train station to book our tickets and have to travel first class because we booked them so late and couldn't get second, it was an overnight train. this was around 5 oclock and we were at the train station for about an hour trying to get these tickets. as i have mentioned before, lines are not big here. our train was or 1230 or so we thought.

1015 rolls around my roommate runs into the room after coming back from giza saying there was a mistake, we need to leave now, the train leaves at 1000. his hair was the best part about this, mad panicked rush as it was sticking straight up and he looked like someone who had escaped from an asylum. as you can be late for anything in egypt, you cannot however be late for your train. we were egregiously late arriving at 1050 because our taxi got stuck in traffic and the driver decided to take the long way around and at the end talked us out of more of our money. but khalass. we get to the train station, and go to the tourism office and start talking to the guards whom i am very grateful for. they helped us switch our tickets, going to the point where they took greg the other american to the director, telling him to act completely lost and dumb about egypt and having ahmed lie that he was not from egypt to be able to make the switch for the 1230 train.

we depart, it is a long ride to luxor 10 hours this way which was mostly spent sleeping and turning and sleeping when one side starts to hurt. at one point i woke up and had this huge pile of drool pooling on my jacket (pillow) with more coming out of my mouth (very attractive).

we arrive at 1020 and begin our trek encoutering the touristiness of the city by having to pay a ten pound taxi fee which may have cost 4 or 5 in cairo. this day was for temples. we went to karnak in the north by foot-should have biked-but the walk was worth it. think a big temple, old temple, forever temple and then think bigger, older, and foreverer. it was glorious as a human being and historian. the walls of the first pylon were so big i felt as an ant does coming up to a curb. the coolest part was the hypostyle hall which had enormous columns in 8X4 rows which would have all been roofed and painted. and i think of the biggest construction project i have done (which was a fort in my backyard-which was awesome).

by this time we were exhausted and decided to go for a felucca ride, sadly not to banana island as everyone offered us time and again and again. we hung out on the water (with no life jacket) for about an hour and then beached near luxor temple which being somewhat rested we explored no less impressive but just think karnak lite.

this basically is what we accomplished day one because afterwords we went to the hotel and conked out by 1130/1200. for food we had surprise surprise tamiya, ful, and massa'a (i will go through withdrawal when i leave this country) and dinner was shaksouka (vegetables with egg cooked on top) delicious plus lots of aish baladi, think pita bread and guava juice.

to keep it short i will stop here and do part two next.

we slept at happyland hotel in luxor http://www.luxorhappyland.com/ which i would strongly recommend for anyone who goes to luxor. it is not too far from the center of town, the staff are great, the rooms clean, and it felt safe. it was also not too far from the train station. other people i have talked to also have had good experiences here. they will also arrange trips for you (which we didn't do) and we rented bikes (more on that later)

Monday, March 24, 2008

letters from home

not a lot of time just yet, but i will post a lot longer later. had a wonderful trip to Luxor this weekend, celebrated easter there and came back and taught english. more details at 11.

i received a couple of envelopes today, birthday cards and letters. thank you for sending, them, they really made my day especially since my birthday is tomorrow. i sent a package of letters and envelopes out maybe three weeks ago, and i am losing hope that they will arrive, so that is why none of you have received anything. i will give it a little bit longer and i am working on the next batch, like a printing machine.

love and miss you all
and thanks for reading
and happy easter

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

the foreigner's drug problem

walking up the stairs to my hotel room i was stopped by the guard who wanted to check my bag. they have been doing this for a while and i asked them why once. he told me it was because drugs and alcohol aren't allowed into the dorm room and that often foreigners try to sneak things in.

he asked me if i had drugs in my bag and i said no and then he looked through my bag. then he asked me if i take drugs. i was out of breath coming up the stairs and breathed out a no. maybe he misheard me and heard yes but he said you take drugs? why? he gave me back my bag and i replied no i don't take drugs.

pulling the cigarette from his mouth he said, good they are very bad for you.

this was also the same guard who asked me why i take the stairs and not the evelator. and i told him because i liked to. then he said i don't think that it is very healthy because it makes your heart beat fast.

he is a really nice guy and a very good guard, just says some interesting things is all.

what do you do on the weekend

one thing that is different here is that weekends don't mean a break from school, a chance to sleep in, and chill with friends.

weekends here mean, go go go. travel as much as you can, scramble to do homework and get little sleep. at least that is what they seem like. i know i haven't been traveling as much as other people who leave cairo every weekend but i still feel busy.

i look foreward to coming home and not having anything to do on the weekends at least for a little while. and to go camping again.

just one more obseration-they don't have m&m's here. twinkies but not m&m's

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

st. patty's day

i have successfully made it through the first hurdle of the semester finishing all my tests and everything with hopefully good marks.

yesterday was an amazing day at aikido. after returning from a week.5 absence it was nice to be back espcially after doing homework for days straight. it still has its theraputic benefits even in cairo. we did a lot of breath and timing throws today which were fun to try when you actually end of throwing the 250 pound guy to the ground.

one thing that is different about auc than umbc is that when you need to go on a trip with the school they require your parents signature even if you are over 18. maybe the legal age is different but even my roommate who is 21 would have had to have his parents sign it if they were here. being study abroad we got out of it which was fine but they still required my parents id. this is kind of frustrating having to go through all that because i am used to not having to do this, being over 18 and soon 21! maybe it is different here one because of school policy but culturally because sons and daughters stay with their parents for longer in Egypt, usually until they get married.

my english class is going well. last week we did the health unit, where we went over emergency vocabulary and how to dial 911. the only thing i don't like about this syllabus is that it is oriented towards the united states. for example it gave the example of how to dial 911 and how the system worked. we (my coteacher and I) felt that this did not apply to them, because altough they are learning english they may or may not go to the united states. so we went over the emergency system hear which is 122. however, i was told not to call this number because no one will come and help you for a long time. they said they would call their neighbor. that is a completely different concept than what i know because in the us we are always talking about response times and criticizing them for taking so long to get somewhere. i was also a substitute teacher for the first time ever two weeks ago. it was great just being able to call myself that!

i was walking home yesterday through this alley of shops and was approached by a young guy probably around my age. he started talking to me in arabic and i just said no and kept going. that is what i ususally do when someone starts talking to me on the street because i don't understand what i am saying and the people talking to me are touts or trying to sell me something. when i walked by him he also said either games or gince. games as in to sell me some games like video games/board games or gince which means sex. so i may have been propositioned for sex yesterday, which kind of threw me off.

other than that i had a good day and if the catolic church hadn't changed it a good st. patricks day

Sunday, March 16, 2008

a breathe of fresh air

i've been under water for too long and will only surface for now before i take the plunge again in about 5 mintues (as soon as this blog is done). this weekend was dedicated to homework. i read 230 pages that could have been done over a month.5 but instead was done in 3 days. this was on top of the pressure that the reading was for a test on the fourth day. but no biggie, the test went well, i don't think the teacher was looking for much at least she didn't seem to be. she said we could bullet our ids and bullet our essays! kindo of clues me in that she is not looking for that much synthesis. though my hand is tired. first time i did 2 essays in 50 minutes. though not so much good writing.

i told myself this weekend while staying shut up in my room that next weekend will be fun and it will there is some sort of trip to sinai and maybe dahab. i was never told the details just generalisms. and we started planning our trip to turkey for spring break. first time i have ever done something like that on my own. quite a bit of work.

not much has been happening here except schoolwork, homework, listening to my roommates alarm playing the clips of lips of an angel by hinder 5 times at 5 in the morning, listening to my own boring beeping alarm a couple of times at seven in the morning, and feeding cats who i found do not like eggplant. pretty quiet and the school work should let up after this thank for a little bit. it is just that first hurdle where everything gets due at one time. all college kids know what i am talking about.

Monday, March 10, 2008

the egyptian eyebrow

what is the egyptian eyebrow you ask. it is a facial technique perfected by the local egyptian used in conversation. it takes years of practice to master the timing, pitch, angle, duration, and intent of the egyptian eyebrow.

it is a visual cue that is used in conversation. it consists of an eyebrow pop. the varities possible are the one, one and half, and two eyebrows. the one is most common with two being the rarest form of the egyptian eyebrow. it consists of a quick raise and lowering of the eyebrow in response to a part of the conversation which will be discussed below. i believe it is conducted to the dominance of your hands. if you are right handed you will most likely use the right eyebrow, but this bears further study.

the following instances are the most common use for the egytian eyebrow:
-at the initiation of the conversation to indicate acknowledgement
-at the beginning of the conversation when the listener realizes the speaker is asking a question
and this indicates understanding allowing the speaker to continue
-used to create a dual conversation of physical and verbal cues, often guiding the conversation in ways that a verbal conversation could not do
-at a point in the conversation which is visually stale or requiring a response but not a significant enough one to require a verbal exchange

i found that the timing is key, because when used improperly it can throw the speaker off if used too early or too late. it also helps express the mood of the listener guiding the conversation as i mentioned before. (in recording these notes i was party to the double eyebrow) i was also just caught trying to watch for the use of this technique. i look forward to using this pop on my friends when i return from the field.

for those of you who knew me well enough in my middle school days, this is for you:

can you smellllllllllll what the egyptian is cooking? (cue camera close up and obnoxious egyptian eyebrow)

p.s. i in no way intend to compare egyptian culture to professional wrestling. that just hurts my brain and soul.

but seriously, know your role, jabroni.

Zombie eh? (What zombie?)


IMG_0485 me
Originally uploaded by LifeinGeneral
Whats up with the zombies in 501. Not much they are just hungry and eating dried spaghetti. (don't worry not starving mom) Listening to an a cappella version of new york new york. In other words just chilling waiting for fresh meat...vegetarian meat that is....watch out my next victim could be you. The breezy weather here on this perfect day could blow your scent my way and then you would be in trouble. We've got an army growing.

Enough silliness, back to work!

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

zombies, mosques, and rappers oh my!

i have already told you how i discovered firefly fanfic, now i have discovered zombie online fiction. hog heaven. oh its so good. right now i am on this website with three story trilogy about the end of the world it is a different take on the zombie genre with the zombies being all linked together in one unit. there is no mall last stand at least in the first book and there are undead mummies. totally cool you should check it out. http://www.brokentype.com/davidwellington/ if youre looking for the zombie trilogy the first one is monster island.

i went to aikido for the first time in a week after being sick. i have finally understood and accepted my place there. i am a beginner. i have realized this and happily accepted it. it has allowed me to take advice from those who have had less time in aikido than me and actually use it and appreciate. after all they have been there longer than i have. today's class was good we did a bokken class (sword) for two-two and a half hours. i have a feeling i will be getting more weapons experience than i have gotten at umbc.

i have had another cultural realization, this time about myself. I was in the pottery cafe and american style cafe where they serve good spaghetti and was planning my english class with my coteacher another american girl. its a hip place and they were playing music videos on the flatscreen tv. i was watching for a few minutes and they were playing a video by some rapper with almost naked girls dancing or dancing with each other mostly in aqua environments. i felt distinctly uncomfortable watching within myself and within the prescence of the others there both american and egyptian. back home i would be in the gym and these videoes would not bother me, either i would tune them out or watch them while working out. no problem. but here they were getting to me. i mentioned it to my coteacher and she was said she had a friend who was in morocco or maybe it was her my memory is kind of fuzzy on this but she said that when the person be it her or her friend went back to the states she saw all the girls wearing what they normally wear and thought they were dressing really scandously, slutty was the word she actually used. then she also said something about this is the kind of image being projected to the world, stuff like this in these videoes marketed to the world. that thought depressed my because to some extent it is true in that it is shown around the world but that all of my life has never been and never will be a rappers music video.

this weekend i went on a field trip with my architecture class to a cool area of cairo. we saw the mosques of al azhar (the really famous and important one to sunni islam), al aqmar (a tiny one) and al hakim (a really big but plain one). These were really cool and I love going to them. The archictecture is great and so different than what i am used to seeing when i look at churches. we also walked through khan a khalili during the day not when it was crowded or overwhelming and past the shrine for hussein at the mosque of al hussein. then we walked the streets of this area to the gates and walls of cairo. men-you would like this gates, i can think of the people that would interested that i can name them off the top of my head (pete matt alex eric steve (constantinople) mike, and many more) these walls were about two stories high and when they were built sometime in the 1000s i think they would have probably been twice as high? the ground level has risen as people keep building on top of everything. the two gates i saw were bab al futuh and bab al nasser. they were huge imposing and military fortifications. there were arrow slits and hole for pouring oil. oh and if they had strong doors and the walls around the city were still intact completely it would be good for keeping zombies out.

being on this zombie fix, i now think wherever i am, what would happen if zombies appeared. i look for weapons ways out and places to hide. it is getting to be an obsession. but the good thing is if it ever happens i may have a chance. not really though, i will just end of joining the ranks of millions of undead and then eat you. i'm hungry!

plus, as always, there were cute egyptian girls on the field trip. i talked to them a bit too (didn't mention the zombies though that might have weirded them out) oh and there are cute egyptian girls all over the city. go figure

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

tissue overload

fatuous-foolish, silly, unreal

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fatuous



A word I did not know.



Do you have permanent fatal errors? like my returned mail



Chaos in my world as the ful and tamiya shop by radio shack has raised their prices from 50 to 60 piasters. This is a true money making scheme becase very rarely is change given in less than25 piasters. So when I want to but 2 sandwhiches they make an extra 5 piasters, 3 sandwhiches and extra 20 piasters, 4 sandwhiches an extra 10 piasters, ect. In reality it is not that much more money and still the best deal for ful and tamiya in town. But now is it no longer easy bills like half pounds. As I said-chaos.

My friend who lives in Zamalek told me about a certain type of egyptian pizza where they make the dough in a cool way. They take a thing of thick flattened dough wrap it in a thinner layer of flattened dough, and wrap that in an even thinner layer of flattened dough put toppings on and then cook it. The result-a new pizza sensation. You have really crispy outside and chewy on the inside. Pete you know where we are going to eat at least one of your nights here.

This country has an addiction to tissues, specifically the little packets of them. They are sold in all the stores that sell them and by almost all the homeless people in the streets. I believe everyone has a least one pack, I have three, though I use a hankerchief. They sit unloved in my backpack or in the hotlel only to be taken by someone who needs one who is not me. The hotel also likes to give us tissues and the people in our hotel love to use them. Since coming here we have always had at least four boxes of tissues open in the main room and that doesn't count those in the bedroom. And if we were ever to run out there are usually two to three other unopened boxes waiting on the little table by the bathroom. It is overload I tell you and I wonder if the tissue companies are like some evil but incredibly powerful corporation working within the Egyptian government to ensure everyone's reliance on tissues. It could happen. The only reason I can think of for the popularity of the tissues is because of the pollution. Everyone may have sinus problems or at the very least a runny nose. The whole thing is humorous to me.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

spaghetti is my favorite food

things i am grateful in no particular order:

home cooked meal
spaghetti
friends
love
arabic (yes i said it)
family
cookies
farms
letters
other countries

Today was a good day for arabic; I think I actually understood it. It was a good feeling after days of frustration. Not much happening here because yesterday I spent the entire day holed up in the hotel doing homework. I finally was able to talk to my family over skype after a weeks hiatus because of travel and the fickle god of the internet. It was good to talk to them again. I think my homesickness has changed; it hasn't gotten less and I still miss my family but it is now chambered away to where it has become manageable. This makes daily life just more pleasant. I think what helped with that transition is the fact that I recently cleaned the dorm at least the kitchen (mom it was so disgusting you don't even want to know) and cooked my first meal. It means that I am settling in here.

The weather here is great but I am waitng for the first sandstorm to start rolling in. I can't wait though I know I won't be saying that when I have to walk to school in it and everything.

I still think about that village that I saw a good bit, still taking it all in and dealing with what I have in my life. It is a complicated process that is hard to put into words.

I am reading a book about monsters now. It is very interesting to have a scholarly approach to them.

I read over this post and marvel at how the human mind can jump from so many different topics and still be considered normal.

Now I go to do battle with the grammar warlords and take on marking up the news paper with case endings. I am looking foreward to it oddly enough.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

new views for me

i had a good weekend this weekend though it is over too fast. i get home from class and after writing that marvelous cat cow poem and my roommate says he is going down to Manasoura for the weekend to visit his friend and he invites Greg and me to come along. we say yes.

leaving we head to the metro whish is mobbed because it is a thursday, then head off to the bus station. apparently in ramses station area there are bus stops for everywhere in egypt. thankfully we had an egyptian around who spoke the language. we arrive at the proper stop and go to the back of the line. yes i said line. there were actually lines here but they were long. we waited in line for a half hour then ahmed went looking for a microbus station. a microbus is a probably somewhat unreliable bus filled with 8-13 people that drives around. often their will be a guy yelling out the cost of fares as they swing by weaving in and out of traffic. we had a unevenful ride, nothing crazy except lots of traffic. by the mansoura is about a two hour drive north west into the delta.

we reached the city and found his friends home. mansoura city is like cairo except smaller. that is the city proper. we get to his place and it is entered through a gated fence and up some crumbling stairs into a second floor apartment. it was cold. we watched the axis of evil comedy show and ate junk food. mostly american junk food. then went to bed.

after rising the next morning we ate breakfast. we ate on the floor of his living room which was great. we had eggs, cheeses, breads, yougurts, and meats. we ate then ahmad and ahmad, the roommate and the friend, went to prayer. upon return we left for the countryside. we walked down the city street, the reached the city-country mix (which i thought was odd-high rise poor housing right next to farms), then the country proper. the country was interesting, at the same time incredibly beautiful and filled with local people, but sometimes sad because of all the trash. we walked on a dirt road all the way down to a ferry crossing crossed the delta waters and then walked back along the opposite bank. on this 4 hour jaunt we saw much. i saw lots of trash in some of the canals and along a lot of the paths, a wonderful dirt road traveled by people walking, donkeys pulling carts, tractors, and bicycles. i saw a lot of farms that used irrigation and grew lots of different things from bananas, to rice, to other unnamed things. we passed by an abandoned military base which saw fighting in the 1973 war and was now a place for people to throw trash and play soccer. we crossed the river by a boat that was pulled back and forth by a rope tied to each side. it was peaceful. we also passed through a poor village. this was eye opening. i got to see the way poor people living as they do, which is much different from city life. the buildings were similar and some were made of mud bricks and stuff. there were also a lot of cows, goats, chickens, and dirt. we got stared at by a lot of people, the children and some of the younger guys were very interested in us. i had one guy yell agnabey at me which means foreigner. we were pretty much stared at or ignored. walking back on the other side the admad who lives in mansura said we should hurry to get home it getting dark and the dogs and wolves will be coming out soon.

we ate dinner at a pizza place called pizza party. it was good food because we were hungry but it was like frozen pizza. we then ate rozz bi-laban (rice with milk pudding) and um alee (bread milk, sugar, goodness) then we returned home and watched next with nicholas cage. interesting concept (by philip dick) okay acting. the trip home was uneventful except i am getting sick.

while walking around i was struck by how little people had and if they were happy. i thought why would they not want to move somewhere else and have more money. then i realized that people probably would want to live a little easier but that they were probably happy people. i am not sure. i am working hard to get out of my usa-raised mind set. i was also upset by the copious amounts of trash and spent a good amount of time pondering why this was. whether it was because they didn't care or they didn't know better (but that doesn't respect them and is condescending) i spent some time trying to think of ways to get information to these people about the environment.

i will walk away from this weekend seeing a new side of cairo and the world. i have seen poor people in baltimore but never a whole community of poor people working to get by. i saw how difficult it was for a people to live and how much of a good life i have lived and been fortunate to have. i won't take my life for granted as much as i have before. also, it has shown me how much i am able and in a position to work to help other people. i can't see wasting or squandering the environment or resources even less than i could before. i know i will screw up many times but i have seen that i need to be able to make more of myself to accomplish something good in this world. i don't know how i just know i need to try. i am having trouble articulating these thoughts but i just wanted to try and share what i have experienced and how i am trying to process it. what i am going to do with myself in this world?

Below are some links to some newstories and my rommates blog. The first story is about the trouble in cameroon and is followed by alex's blog. His adventures have put my troubles here in cairo in perspective and while not making them easier at the time can help make them more bearable. Please keep Alex and the people of Cameroon in your thoughts and prayers. The second article is about a kid who was studying abroad in Cairo and almost starved.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7268861.stm

http://camerounpourmoi.blogspot.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23375427/