متشكر - Grateful

Grateful, thankful ~ mutashakar

In Egypt as of late, there's been a whole lot of crazy going on. If you haven't seen the news, just open up NYTimes, CNN, Drudgereport (whatever floats your ideological boat), click on through to the Middle East page, and ta da, you'll find a smorgasbord of confusing tales of aging autocracies and police states committing atrocities against their citizens. In places like Yemen and Syria, the violence is often unthinkable. Places like Kuwait and Morocco are making changes, thankfully with less bloodshed. When the dust settles from the nightmare that's happening in Syria right now, it's going to be a bloody and impossible event to understand. Here in Egypt, Tahrir square in Cairo last week became the site of a renewed revolutionary spirit, carrying demands unfulfilled since January and February. Though united by a deep desire for positive change in their beloved Egypt , Egyptians' opinions on demonstrations, on who to elect to Parliament, or how to reach lasting transformation all differ considerably.

The closest I've gotten to a demonstration. See mom? No bullets! The yellow banner in the foreground is an advertisement for a Muslim Brotherhood funded and organized Eid celebration. 

Places where you'll hear politics discussed in Egypt : The nut roaster, the coffee roaster, the bakery, the falafel and ful joint, the public plaza in front of the library, over your forehead between two arguing coiffeurs busy threading your eyebrows, the juice bar, coffee shops, the newspaper vendors.... Yes, really truly anywhere, and people are excited, curious, nervous, apprehensive, and unsure about the future of Egypt. The term "silent majority" is the stupidest thing I've heard used to describe the millions of people in Egypt not expressing their opinions loudly in the press. Sure, maybe not in the press to a foreign journalist, but between their friends, families, and coworkers, favorite fruit-cart man, EVERYONE is talking! 

The elections Monday and Tuesday of this week went as calmly as could be hoped for, and a number of runoffs will take place this week. We've just learned that the Islamists, if one combines the the Salafist Noor Party and the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, have taken upwards of 60 or 65 percent of Parliamentary seats. Many of my friends and professors here are upset about that, not because they won, necessarily, but because these are the candidates who will be writing the constitution of the country in March. Yep, the constitution. Which will remain forever. Regardless of who is elected into power every four years. Forever. Such a constitution might include imposed restrictions on movies, clothing choices, tourism, etc... But I realize that the university population I speak with differs from the majority of Egypt, so many people will be pleased with the new Parliament. The majority of Egypt wants stability, ease in feeding their family, steady work, and a smoothly running society. The Justice and Freedom party and the Noor party have promised this and more. 

Egypt could look very different in the near future. Oh lordy.

Noor party (Salafist) campaign banner on my street. They be everywhere, yo.

But for now, it's an encouraging place. Here's a widely circulated picture of Alexandrians waiting in the rain for hours to cast their votes in the first free elections in Egypt since, well decades? Centuries? Ever? Opinions differ.

We celebrated Thanksgiving last Friday with upwards of 50 people, crowded into an apartment in Ibrahimiyeh. The food was random and delicious (an overwhelming assortment of Egyptian and American delights. Deep fried eggplant and cauliflower, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes of all sorts, turkey, chicken, meatballs, and an entire kitchen full of desserts. We ran out of surface space to place food.) I felt all warm and fuzzy and grateful, thankful, blessed to still be in Egypt. (Tuesday of last week, it wasn't clear if we'd be able to stay, and coming home that day felt honestly a little creepy, as all my familiar storekeepers and vendors told me to "go home, now!" No one knew what to expect concerning the demonstrations that were popping up throughout the city. In the end, the violence was very localized and occurred in two places in Alexandria. We enjoyed a few homebody days in pajamas, holed up in our apartments. My nescafé consumption doubled, and I learned that Twitter is a very dangerous way to follow news. I thought the whole city was going to explode in a shower of bullets and tear gas canisters during one particularly uneasy 2 AM hour. In the morning I saw that it was all smoke and mirrors and that I still had class at 9 AM.)

Prepping sweet potatoes and green beans with Kelsey and Laura, night before Thanksgiving. (OK, when American holidays occur and you're NOT in America, the holiday becomes even MORE important. Thus, many pictures.)

Robert (our resident director) made our turkey!

He also made some questionable decisions concerning the turkey's head, which wound up in the stuffing.

Turkey head before cooking on the right, and after cooking on the left. Sam found it. Sorry Sam.

Nada and her beautiful fattoush, Corey and his beautiful cornbread. All homemade!

Thank God for unfinished apartment rooftops, great for party overflow.

During the Thanksgiving feast (which we timed around the start of the marches so that we wouldn't get our little foreign selves in the way), we watched large demonstrations march down the street, seven floors below. We witnessed a particularly beautiful scene when the demonstrators stopped to pray and from open windows up and down the facade of the nearest apartment building, newspapers cascaded through the air. Egyptians in their homes were tossing out the papers, to give the praying demonstrators a clean surface upon which to pray (not a requirement but a much preferred way to pray in Islam.)

Our view from the roof.

Random joyful experiences of the past couple weeks include:

Sitting for coffee (which always comes with a brownie at this one place. Um, oui? très bien) next to the Corniche with a friend, in the beautiful midday winter weather of this Mediterranean city.

Accidentally stumbling into museum galleries underneath the famous library. The tiny yet carefully curated Anwar Sadat museum showcases his bloodstained clothes and Rolex from the day of his assassination, which is ew and impressive. At once.

Dance parties and trips to the Greek club in Ibrahimiyeh both do WONDERS by way of catharsis and stress relief. The Egyptian word for tension or stress is "tawater" and as fun and fulfilling as life often is here, I also often feel so wound up by the time I'm home from homework, pollution, or harassment, that it's sometimes almost a physical act of unfurling my tense little self. As such, it's important to take any chance to get rid of that tawater. As such, talking, coffeeing, strolling with my Egyptian friends, drinking Stella at the Greek Club, or working up a sweat to Jeremih at a dance party are all very, very good things, for which I am very, very grateful. 

It also helps that Alexandria can be downright beautiful. :)