نجاح - Success

Success = NajaaH
Stupid teenagers = Muraaha'een ghubeeyeen

I'll probably regret this post tomorrow, but it bears typing.

Living here is never boring nor dissatisfying, and as I've said before, I'm usually either thrilled to be living in Egypt and in a state of giddy "Ican'tbelievetheUSgovernmentPAYSmetolearnthislanguage" bliss or in a moody state of "Ican'tbelieveIsignedupforayearorlifetimeofthis" annoyance. It's always always always more often the former, I swear, but in the middle of a fabulous run along the Corniche today, I almost lost it.

Exercise is not a huge value among Egyptians, it seems, and so running outside in public is often strange even when an Egyptian man is witnessed in the act. So I do understand how, culturally, it's odd when a foreign woman is jogging, even if she's clad in long sleeves and long black pants, as I always am. I get that. It's something unusual. Okay. But, my hair is tucked up tightly into a baseball cap, all my skin save for hands and neck are covered, and I try to get in no one's way. Usually my runs are great and nothing happens, other than a lot of whispers, the occasional catcall or hiss, and a lot of pretty hilarious "run, go, run!" "yallah! yallah!" and the occasional spat of applause which is actually nice and encouraging. It reminds me of that man who perches with his accordion and harmonica on the Austin hike and bike trail on Friday mornings and yells out encouragement to all who run by. He grew used to the sight of Megan and I on Friday mornings, and I welcomed the familiar calls he'd throw out between harmonica interludes.

But today, when three little teenaged whippersnappers decided to run alongside me, trying to trip me, hissing and yelling disgusting things, I grew annoyed. I decided to just ignore them, per the usual, as we are taught and advised to do. (I know, Jamie, and Maggie, and all the other wonderful feminists in my life, that that's just communicating that the behavior is alright, but seriously, the culture is broken in this respect, and my trying to do something about it isn't going to change the system, which for generations has NOT taught many of the young men respect for women, khaaaaalas).

I was content with just running and ignoring them, hoping they would grow bored, but when one reached up to grab my hat, while another threw a BIG rock at me, and the third reached to touch me, I surprised myself, whipped around on my right foot, feigned a backhand toward the little jerk who had his hand nearly around my ponytail, and screamed. The language that tumbled out of my mouth veered on hysterical, even though I wasn't actually losing it, I just wanted to startle them. In an exasperated, LOUD mix of somewhat incoherent Arabic and French, (I think my brain was pulling whatever it could think of from the 2nd language spot which does indeed exist deep down somewhere, according to my personal language expert and friend, Dylan) I shrieked various things like "what do you want from me? what do you want from me? you think this is funny? you think it's funny to do something dangerous like throw rocks at people's heads? You're disgusting, you're disgusting. Find something better to do." At first they laughed but as I sped up and made to grab them, and threatened one with a (tiny) rock myself, the tallest one started WHIMPERING and begged me to stop following, and started asking a passerby to help him. I am not kidding. A COMPLETE success and a total surprise to me as well.

So in short, today I scared an Egyptian jerk-in-training and I've never been happier. (And the run that I completed afterward was the sweetest and longest, yet!)

Lovin' Egypt, y'allllll.