Acclimation - تأقلم

Ta'aqlum - Acclimation

Too much time has elapsed to write anything  to make up for a 2-month blog lag. Hmm. Bloglag. Surely someone has proposed that word before. When you can't keep up with new vocab in Arabic, just make up new ones in your native tongue! Same diff!

Since the last post, (in April, whaaaat?) we've taken two trips to the Red Sea (Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh, respectively) which both have different flavors and fall on different sides of the Red Sea (the latter is located in the Sinai) but share a similar penchant for attracting Russian tourists (who, in turn, LACK a certain penchant for sunscreen and swim suit cover-ups). Both trips offered spectacular snorkeling, boating, relaxing, unwinding, debriefing, gossiping... All the good things vacations give you. They also get strangely emotional sometimes; perhaps we have time to focus on the stranger bits of group dynamics, the crushes and the unspoken stuff, without immediately falling back on the "welp,, time to go study!" excuse. For the second trip (just this past week), feeling the one-month-til-the-finish-line crunch, I dragged a lot of work with me and managed to get through a tiny bit of research in my (AIR-CONDITIONED) hotel room... as I got up periodically to, ahem, throw up. Guess I'm not as immune to Egyptian tap water as I thought I was. (It's a running joke in our group that "Immunity to Egyptian drinking water and street food" is a bullet point we should proudly list on all our resumes).

As the end of the program draws closer and closer and the date of our final show-us-everything-you've-ever-learned-in-Arabic exam looms, the dynamics in our group (down to 16 folks!) has cinched and tightened. My Plan II crew was out of this world and are still my closest college friends. But these Arabic nerds, man (m3 kul i7tiraami, ba2a!). I want to see where everyone in this group ends up! Throw a bunch of easy-going but driven American twenty-somethings into post-revolutionary Egypt for a year, and I think it's natural that the resulting bond will feel a bit irreplaceable. Walking to dinner at a ful and falafel joint last night, I asked a friend if he knew the word for withdrawals in Arabic. We couldn't arrive at a suitable translation, and just got distracted by Egyptian drug vocabulary instead, but we both agreed we'd be feeling withdrawals, and howww, with respect to our friends and from the language.

In May, I visited Texas for two weeks and got to spend time with my grandpa, my aunts, my immediate family, and a smattering of college and church friends. It's hard to describe how precious that first cup of morning coffee felt, with my grandpa Jack right there to talk to. After a whole day of just bouncing around the house, and an afternoon visit to Amira in Georgetown (still my favorite Egyptian, no contest), I met some Austin friends for Zocaritas, like we used to nearly every Wednesday in college. When I arrived, I momentarily sat in my car listening to Brandi Carlisle and panicked about the sure to be awkward dynamics I'd encounter with my friends after having not seen them for 9 months. But in the end, nope, after a squealy sidewalk reunion, we're just... friends! Good friends! And I dunno what I was thinking. Of course we're still friends. People come and go, people move away and come back and pursue lives and friendships persist when you give them a little bit of care from time to time.

It's clear to me after the two weeks in Austin that I love. love. love America. I slipped right back into my little Austin niche. But it's a devotion steeped over in the assurance that it will always be there, and that my citizenship doesn't expire. I wrote in my journal while in Austin "I've seriously never felt more satiated and restless all at once." And, moreover, I'm pretty sure that the gifts and desires God has given me are better used abroad. I feel more vibrant and aware while traveling, and while setting up shop, home, and routine while abroad. Part of the purpose of living in Egypt, as I mentioned to some peeps before coming, was to see if I could enjoy life and thrive and find community while not in my own culture. i.e., could I do this for longer than the 10 months I've been here? The answer seems to be a strong yes, though likely not in Alexandria. Too much sexual harassment, yo, and not enough happy hours! (kidding. kind of.) Austin is a spectacular place to be landing at the end of August, but it'd also be neat to get off that plane in Senegal, China, Tunisia... new places! (Indicative of the two weeks of self-indulgent introspection that Austin break became, I also wrote in my journal: "America's always pretty ugly on the way home from the airport," "people really just want to make sure you're safe, no matter where it is you go," "old friendships persist," and "can't make dem summer watermelon jokes in Texas :(")

It'd be silly not to mention the recent presidential elections, during which we were all just trying to go about our lives, amidst the excitement and tension. Our second day of summer session class was set to happen on runoff results announcement day, for the contest between Ahmed Shafiq and Mohammad Morsi. It was an exciting afternoon, (even though yes, the military council is still definitely in control of Egypt), but honestly, most of us were bummed not to be going to class. (See previous reference to "nerds").

Regardless, pretty quickly we heeded our director's warning, left class, and were all scattered across the city in our various apartments. As I always do the second I get home in the Egypt summer heat, I tore off my outer layer of clothing and sat sweating in front of our new fan (it's white and made in China and says "Rose" in red letters on the front and I think we're in love) while scanning twitter for updates, so long as our awful internet would allow. When our internet cut out at the very moment the elections council announced "And the new president is..." my roommate Kelsey and I panicked for a few moments, gauging from the ruckus outside that the scene might get ugly fast. Screams rose from the street and the rowdy café on the corner rumbled with yells and applause. A man tore off his shirt and kissed the ground, shrieking. When I understood he was shrieking "Morsi, morsi, morsi!" and wasn't crying out in dissatisfaction, our momentary fears of evacuation evaporated. Had Shafiq been elected, many people predicted we'd have been evacuated, due to the potential anger that would have rippled through Tahrir and the rest of the country. Egypt wouldn't have dissolved or gone into chaos (Egypt's nearly 90 million people don't all fit in Tahrir!), but the demonstrations could have gotten ugly and the disappointment (based on the assumption that a Shafiq win was a sure indicator of election tampering) would've soured this country's hopeful outlook.

I sort of understood the importance of finally having a president, from the Egyptian mindset, a week later, on a day trip to explore Islamic Cairo with a couple friends. We were stuck in traffic in a taxi in a particular congested and polluted section of old, old, old Cairo. A fist fight erupted on our right, and our taxi driver yelled out his window to add his two cents. Women carried precarious loads of clothing and groceries on their heads, paying no heed to bakery deliverymen squeezing their way through crowded foot traffic, wooden trays of fresh bread balanced above the crush. A young boy smiled at me from behind my car window, as he thrust some tissues toward my face in a well-practiced sales offer. We passed a church, then a mosque, then another mosque, then all manner of stores. Nice cars, junky cars, trucks full of young men moving to another construction job, wealthy Egyptian women talking on cell phones tucked into their hijab. In short, regular Egyptian life, playing out on all sides. And through it all, as our taxi inched along, Morsi's second official presidential address sounded through the scratchy taxi speakers. When the driver turned up the volume, and we listened intently to his words about cooperation and hope and jobs and youth and the fight ahead for Egypt, I felt thrilled to be in mixed-up, hodge-podge EGYPT and not in Tahrir, not in my airy apartment in Alex, not in a hotel in Sharm, not in America watching from afar, but in Egypt, in the middle of the daily fray.

One month to finish research and class. One month to say a lot of goodbyes. One month to finally master slipping in elegant Arabic phrases into normal speech. One month to eat my fill of Alexandrian seafood dinners. Oh dear. The excitement for the next phase is currently a lot weaker than the mounting panic setting in from knowing that I have to leave my Egyptian life and friends!

Below are pictures from the 2-week Austin break and the following brief trip to Amsterdam and Italy with Sophie sister.

family!

Barton Springs and Pedernales swimmin'

Lone Star loveliness

Austin food, oh boy.

Barbarella Thursdays seem to still exist

Michael visits

tunes and mojitos and redheads back from the Delta

 JAEbird reunions

If you'll note carefully, this is a Taco Deli and Houndstooth combination. Poolside, on a Saturday morning with the gorgeous Amira Jensen. If only every Saturday were so blessed.

Amsterdam. Beautiful, simply put.

On second though, I'll save the Italy pictures for the next post. I'm doing my summer research on Italian architecture in Alexandria and MAN is it crazy how many of the gorgeous buildings in Alex are similar to some Roman beauties! Until then, salaam, good readers.