Busy week ahead...time of transition

Transition seems to be a permanent adjective of my life. Transition from work to school, school to work, one country to another, one place of living to another, new friends, old friends, etc...this week it is time for transitioning again. 

The end of the semester here at AUC has arrived. Which means almost all of the study abroad students (including my current roommate) will leave to return to the states sometime this week.  The majority of the friends I have made in my short time here has been with these study abroad participants, so unfortunately that means I will be saying goodbye to almost all my friends.  And since my roommate is one of them leaving, I am also moving to a new flat (apartment). It is just down the street from where I live now, but there is still the process of packing, moving, etc. 

The point of transition though is to move from saying goodbye to the former and look in anticipation for the future! 

I have met with one of my new roommates! (It is a 3 bedroom flat so there will be three of us!) She is from Germany and a super sweet girl! I am excited about getting to know her over the next two months (when she leaves to return home). My other roommate will arrive here in Cairo on June 2. She is from the states and will be here until the end of July. (So yep I will be doing this transition thing again in August :-). We have emailed back and forth, and all of us are looking forward to spending the summer here in Egypt! 

I started attending Arabic class today! Finally! It went very well and I was encouraged by how much I understood and where I was at in the material.  It seems by the end of next week I will be advancing to Level 2 already! It is my goal to make it to level 5 or 6 by Christmas, which is the late intermediate level.  If I acheive this I will be fluent in everyday situations! 

Pray for me as I say goodbye to friends and build relationships with new ones, as I move to a new flat, and of course with my Arabic...the sooner I learn it the easier my job and getting around the city will be. 

a very short post :-)

Today is THURSDAY!!! (the last day of the work week here!) Humdililah! 

Word of the week: Ossify (thanks to my interviewee for expanding my vocab)

And for the record, my hot water still only works intermittently :-( sorry mr. professional (he actually came back yesterday when we complained it hadn't worked the  next morning, he turned on the facet, pointed at the water coming out, laughed at me and left :-(, so much for getting it fixed before we leave...) 

Tonight is dinner party with friends! Yipee! 

That isn't logical...

The past few weeks have been full of mishaps and lots of not fun unfortunately. I am hoping soon my life will be filled with joy and laughter...but to share with you how the grass isn't always greener...here is a few stories. 

The other day a friend posted on her website about enjoying a beach in a foreign country. I turned to my roommate to comment "A trip outside of the county sounds really nice right now" in midsentence I realized the irony of the statement. I live out of the country! The urge to travel comes from a want to escape the mundane, or overwhelming issues of life for just a little while and immerse myself in a culture full of opportunities to learn and be inundated with something besides "me" for awhile. Happens even while I live abroad apparently :-). 

One of the strong attributes I know about myself is that I am a very linear thinker, meaning I connect my thoughts directly from one point to another until a solution is reached.  Egyptians as most Arabs tend to not be linear thinkers.  They think more in circles, each circle growing until a solution is found, but inbetween there can be many unrelated subjects, thoughts, statements, or even the solution may seem unrelated. This is very confusing for me when conversations or solutions are translated to me.  I am always asking the question "how is this logical"? Confused yet? Let me give you an example.  I awoke yesterday to find our shower no longer had hot water. It wasn't that the water wasn't hot, there was simply no water coming from the hot spiget or shower head. A man arrived this afternoon to fix it. He changed the "hot" knob on the shower and said this was the problem. I tried to get him to explain how the knob on the shower made no hot water come from the hot water heater to any of the facets in the bathroom. But all I got was "I am the professional". 

The same type of situation has come up multiple times, always leaving me with a very confused look. I must admit two nights ago when two boys showed up to put cement down one of our pipes because it was leaking to the flat below us, I am sure this was one of the most confusing. Pouring cement down pipes? I wish I had taken some classes on home repairs!

Today I was in an unfamiliar part of the city, and due to bad directions and banks with the same name being located in the same area, I arrived at the wrong one.  When I called a friend for directions and she couldn't help me I gave my phone to an officer (which I have been told not to do before, but my friend insisted this is correct- this is an example of how everyone gives you different instructions on what to do and not to do).  The officer told her he knew where I needed to get, but it was to far to walk, so he would put me in a taxi.  We walked to the end of the street one direction, then turned around and walked down the same street the other direction. I stopped a taxi, the officer waved him on to leave us. Needless to say I was confused and not happy with the situation as the officer didn't speak english and wasn't explaining anything. So I walked off leaving him. I phoned another friend who helped me arrive at my destination 1.5 hours after I started my journey and 40 minutes late for my appointment. But I am thankful for my friend who helped me arrive safely and for the cooler weather today since I was walking a lot. (Yesterday it was 104 degrees F, today it is suppose to be closer to mid-90s! Yipee!) 

Okay so that is it for a quick post. There have been other good things recently, like meeting some new friends that are staying long term and not leaving in 2 weeks to return to the states! And I am looking into a language school to learn arabic! Oh and I move sometime next week to my new place! So lots of fun and busyness! Hope you are all doing well! 

the rest of the mosh pit...

Okay so the quick run home to finish the last blog didn't quite work out, as is typical here in Egypt! My boss was just telling me the other day, "Lauren, we are not going to make any plans from now on, they never happen".  Well, unfortunately this is true! (Although I am slowly adapting to this way of life, it is so different than in the states, and I am sure when I return to the states even for a visit I will frustrate those around me with my disregard for time, appointments, etc.) 

The mindset I find here is that if something doesn't happen, it is because God didn't will it to happen, and if it isn't God's will than there must be a reason for this. (Now I know there is a big theological debate about this in the US, I am simply stating what I observe to be the belief that is apparent here.) I think my landlord said it best last night when she said in her broken English, "We leave what happen to God, he do a better job of it". 

Time has such a different feel here. Even when I am in a hurry, I feel as though I am in a time warp moving at slow motion.  I live in a city of 20+million people, and it has all the hustle, bustle, noise, pollution, etc that one would expect from a city that large (St. Louis is 3.5 million, and Wichita 350 thousand roughly? to give some comparison) and yet the busyness of it feels so unfamiliar.  People walk faster here than anywhere I have been in the world, partly because so many people walk at least 5+ miles a day here (and I climb over 300+ stairs a day here), but even with the fast pace of walking, there is a lack of urgency in the steps. There is an attitude of I will get there when I get there, no hurry. (Maybe this is one reason my nickname for Cairo is the city of contradictions.) 

On the other hand, once you leave the city limits of Cairo and cross the threshold onto the Sinai Peninsula, time evaporates and ceases to exist. You arrive in Sharm, Dahab, Basata, etc and you forget there is such a thing as a clock or watch. Even when you have an appointment (like boarding a yacht or getting your diving gear from the diving center) a watch is not a governor demanding your obedience, but simply a device that gives the slightest hint of what exists outside of your current world; time. 

so to finish up the mosh pit, here are a few random facts, or funny instances that I wanted to share....

1) I was riding a bus with 12 Egyptians and 1 Sudanese guy on my way to Dahab for a weekend. When a cell phone began "ringing" with a unique ringtone...it was President Obama's voice and a clip from his inaguration speech "America, it is time for change. Answer this call" LOL! I died laughing the first time I heard it. The owner of the phone (an Egyptian) would look at me and say, one sec I need to take this call to change America...LOL! 

2) I have been interviewing a Dr. who works with an NGO here in Cairo.  He was born and raised here in Egypt, spent some time studying in England and married a British woman. He has been living here in Egypt again for the last 50 years.  His English astounds me, and I learn new English vocab every time I meet with him. I was going to post one of the words, but I can't remember them right now.

3) Another thing I have learned is hope much of an impression JFK made on the world.  One person here said "He gave hope to the world, not just the US." That is definitely not a viewpoint I was taught in school. Regardless of political party affiliation, I can never get over how active Egyptian people are in seeking out information and being involved in American politics.  (I think more of my friends here have memorized President Obama's inaguration speech than friends in the US.) 

4) okay and last little tidbit of mosh pit for today...a quote from a recent interview that I am still pondering..."Dictators are established out of love.  People are so captivated and dependent on them as leaders that they force the person to higher and higher levels of power. Saying "we can't do this without you. You can't quite we need you. There is no one who can do this as you can." It is this dependency/love that gives them the power to dictate." Not sure what I think about this yet, but it is an interesting perspective to think about. 

Alrighty, I am off to grab some Cinnabun and coffee for breakfast :-)! Enjoy your day! (Oh and I have more pics for the slide show, but I have to upload them. They are on Facebook already if you want to see them now.)