Istiqrar ~ استقرار

istiqrar - settling down

I've failed, these past two fridays, at providing any sort of blog post. Apologies for those actually paying attention to the blog title. Still no internet in the homestead. Ma'alesh. Both fridays were busybusy with trips to two coastal locales: a-SaHal a-shamaliyah (North Coast) and the town of Rashid the week following. Ghada is my language partner and her family invited me to a seafood lunch at their beach home in the North Coast, which consisted of 3 types of fried fish, two types of grilled, fresh crabs, enormous shrimp, shrimp soup (similar to étouffée), calamari stew, fisherman's rice, bread, salad, juice, tea, coffee, etcetera. I don't know that I've ever eaten that much in one sitting and I KNOW that I've never had fresh fish like that before. They may not have breakfast tacos in this country (WHY? El Chilito was literally in my dreams last night. Embarrassing.) but they have seafood down to an art. 

Rashid is a fishing town on the Eastern edge of the mouth of the Nile, where the fresh water mixes with the Mediterranean Sea. We toured the windmill and Ottoman-era buildings after passing through a Moroccan-ish market (goat carcasses hanging next to unsuspecting live rabbits, bread baking next to platters of half-empty tea cups, shrieking boys leaping over hooka pipes, all swept up in a haze of smoke, dust, sand, and unplaceable, oft-unpleasant smells). We visited the 'ala and enjoyed views of the Nile, before a meal of fish, tahini, salad, fisherman's rice, and pepsi, followed immediately by boat rides on the Nile. In short, a pretty exhilarating day.

I love Egypt this week. I did not love it the first week, nor the second; in fact, I was mostly just confused or exhausted, now that I look back. Jet lag, culture shock, dragging my feet into another year of language classes, all rolled up with the inevitable fatigue drawn from "new Egyptian germs coursing through our veins," footnote (thanks for the phrase, Zack) equalled a ditzier than usual Emily (FRIGHTENING, I know). But my clothes are put away, I've learned how to buy large amounts of vegetables quickly and cheaply, I can navigate the trams, taxis on my own, (not the buses. hell no, not yet, not the buses), I've used enough minutes on my phone to have to recharge it (yessss, I have friends!) and I slipped an Arabic proverb into conversation today. In short, I feel settled, or at least well on the way to settling down. 

In addition to the trips, the past couple weeks entailed lots of class and homework, falling asleep with my kindle, turkish coffee, falafel/egg/eggplant sandwiches (anywhere from 20-50 cents! I kid not!), lots of conversations on the revolution, a lot of Amr Diab, Shireen, and Nancy Ajram, and a couple early morning jogs alongside the corniche (just khali balik to dodge the trash and feral egyptian kitties).

The start of regular classes in the university this Saturday resulted in a big increase in demonstrations we can see and hear from the windowsof  our little air-conditioned American box (AKA the center for teaching Arabic language to foreigners). We have strict instructions from multiple sources to not go close (Emails from the Cairo Embassy basically say "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT"), but I'll get some pictures of what we see every day, eventually. I don't take a ton of pictures when I'm out and about because I already feel like I'm a blinking beacon in crowded places. Today on the tram, one question from the girl next to me ("haDritik min ayn?" "miss, where are you from?") turned into fifteen minutes of question and answer with about 8 of the girls around me. Which is fun and good language practice, but is still ridiculously difficult to get used to. I find myself staring at people just because I forget why they're staring at me. Ghada likened my riding the bus in Alexandria - a blonde, too-pale person wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and shibshib (flip-flops) - to what it would be like if a women dressed in a full abaya strode onto an Austin, Texas capitol Metro bus. It would just be odd enough that people would unwittingly stare.

Everyone's unsatisfied with the political and social changes being made post-revolution, but a lot of people also acknowledge that it's going to take time. The presidential elections are likely to be postponed until 2013, but parlimentary elections, and the subsequent writing of a new constitution, will be a process that starts pretty soon, either the end of this month or in November. 

Fortunately, in our classes, we discuss pre and post-Revolution as well as other hard subjects like the unnavigable bureaucracy the handicapped education system. I'm so grateful for that. I'll never forget that after my first year of French, in middle school, all I could remember was how to say "I like pizza" and "During vacations, I ski with my family." That wasn't even true. I just had no vocabulary. Not so, here, they're actually giving us high quality stuff to read and work through, and so far, I'm impressed with the instruction we're getting. It's hard and I'm annoyed at it, which usually happens when I'm being challenged in all the right ways.

A final part of settling down: There are lots of churches to go to, and I already feel welcomed at one of them, in Ibrahimiyah. There's also a house of prayer with alternating worship in English and in Arabic and other languages too. It was a sweet, sweet place and I hope to return.

Herearesomepictures:

Ghada and I at the North Coast

Ghada and her gentleman of a brother

Foods. Sea foods.

Enas, Amira, Kelsey and I, Ahmed, and Ahmed's buds at Ahmed's graduation from Pharmacy School. Alf mabruk yaa Ahmed.

Handcarved, topsy-turvy woodwork in Rashid

Rashid

Egyptian zabala (trash), an unfortunate, oft-seen problem

The Nile

Racin' boats

Laura, myself, Kelsey, Leila, and Lauren at the end of our Rashid ramblings.

Rashid