Another month...another year

Although the weather is warming up nicely here, it is not quite warm enough yet for diving but I never turn down the chance to visit either of the seas or to the desert. So this last month I had a lot of travel opportunities. Here are some photos from recent trips to Alexandria and the Sahara Desert...

And so it happens another month has passed...spring has arrived (with temperatures bouncing between mid 70s and mid 80s) with flowers blooming and trees budding...and the anniversary of my move here...it has been one year since I packed as many of my belongings as I could into 3 overstuffed bags and boarded a plane to Egypt. The year has been packed with learning experiences, laughter, sadness, difficulties and joys...but rarely a dull moment :).

I always have a list of topics to write home about...so here are a few to share with those of you that have been faithful in continuing to follow my undisciplined blogging...

I live in an area of the city (Maadi) that has a lot of foreigners (or expats as we are known here). There is a large American population as well as German, French, Italian, British, etc. Because there are so many foreigners in this area, the vendors speak English better and are familiar with the requests for strange items cheetos, dr. pepper, microwave popcorn, poptarts, fuses for convertors; where as in other places in the city a request for these items would just draw blank stares or even frightful looks (unknowing how exactly to respond to these alien words), here in Maadi you are rewarded with a polite smile of understanding and a negative shake of the head, BUT on occasion you are rewarded with even more...the item you are seeking...the small taste of home...the taste of comfort in familiarity. I find it is the small joys in life that make the big obstacles seem smaller.

I have many little places I like to go when I am craving a piece of home. One of them is a little restaurant around the corner from my flat (apartment), Lucille's. It is world famous for having the world's best hamburgers (according to Time magazine). The building is made of concrete as most buildings here and painted a mustard yellow with dark wooden shutters and doors. The neon red Lucille's sign written in a cursive script is the first hint that this restaurant is different from the others that line Street 9. The second hint is the wafting smell of grilled hamburgers, beaconing you to enter the restaurant every time you pass. As you enter, you feel as Lucy must have felt when she entered Narnia for the first time. It is a different world from the chaotic streets of Cairo. Highback dark wooden booths with cushioned seats, wooden tables, and wooden wall paneling decorate the small restaurant immediately giving you the welcoming feel of a diner...and then you realize it is country music playing over the speakers. Now whether you are a country music hater or lover, you should know that music is a huge part of the Egyptian culture whether it is the traditional arabic, modern arabic, or borrowed from western culture, rarely do you ever go anywhere that music is not blaring, but only in Lucille's is it country music. The best part of Lucille's is the food of course ;-). The menu has a plethora of American treats ranging from the world famous burgers, pies, cornbread, and even southern sweet tea. In the end, yes it is just a restaurant...with American prices included, but it is a taste of home on those days when that is just what you need.

In my last blog I wrote that I had been interviewing at a multinational company. Two weeks ago I signed a contract with them and my first unofficial day was today! Because of some paperwork for the work permit (please pray that there are no problems in getting it) my first day in the office will be next Sunday, but I am excited for this new change in my life. My new job is on a different side of town, so I am currently looking for a new flat with the help of some friends. I have until August before my current lease is up, but the commute will be 1.5 hours one direction...maybe I can use this time to study Arabic? :)

If you want to see more photos of my recent adventures...check out this link....Western Sahara Desert.

Quick Catch up...

LOL! I always say it has been a long time since my last post...unfortunately I have just not been disciplined enough to write as regularly as I hoped. Every day here is an adventure, and so it seems if I let one day pass, then another, then another, by the end of the week or month I am so daunted by figuring out what to post or what stories to share, that I continue to procrastinate and let that bullfrog stare at me .

So in a nutshell...just to catch up and then hopefully I can stay caught up....

1) After the last post I went to spend the weekend with some friends on a dive trip. It was the last one I have been on since it is too cold for me to go diving right now. Some of my friends have been gutsy enough to endure the cold, but I will wait for warmer waters :)

2) In mid-December I went home to KANSAS! It was freezing, but a beautiful time with my family and friends. Andrew (my little brother) and Nora got married on January 2nd! It was a beautiful wedding and a great party! It was nice because it gave me the chance to spend a lot of time with my family as well since everyone was off of work!

I returned to Egypt about 3 weeks ago. I have been interviewing at an international company here in Cairo...it looks like I may get the job! Will know for sure next week! I am excited about it as it is actually in my degree field and a great place to start a career. This means I will be staying here for awhile though. :)

Life here has settled into as much of a routine as possible here. Things have become "normal" so to speak. Friendships are made, and I am learning more and more how to interact with the culture around me so that it is no longer foreign but I am apart of it or at least understand some of it.

My job

This is an old post that didn't get posted for some reason...but here it is anyways...

A few of you have asked what exactly I am doing....so I thought I would post a video of me giving a presentation just 2 months after I arrived here about my research project. It is now 6 months later, and I will be giving another one in just a few weeks before heading home for Christmas! Hard to believe I have been here almost 10 months....

Another holiday weekend is fast approaching here, it is Eid Kabeer or the Big Feast. This year it happens to fall on the weekend after Thanksgiving Thursday, so my friends and I are planning to combine the celebrations into one long holiday! The weather here is starting to get cold, actually the other night I was freezing while watching the qualifying games for the world cup between Egypt and Algeria. Although the match was here in Cairo, because of safety reasons my friends and I decided to go to a cafe to watch it instead of the stadium. After the win though we went near the stadium to celebrate with the city... here are some videos I took while we were out....

It was so exciting being in the midst of the celebrations! I must admit when they scored the goal needed to win in the last minute of the game I was jumping and screaming as loud as my Egyptian friends around me. I will update the slide show on this page with some of the photos from the last few months, including ones from that night.

*Okay sorry the videos are not posting for some reason. If I get them to work later I will post them again.

Culture differences

After 8 months of living in Egypt, I can say somewhere around month 7 I realized that I was adapting more and more of the culture around me.

Riding on the metro a few weeks ago I realized that I was now staring at the foreigners on the train rather than being the one stared at. While waiting in the customs lines in the airport (I took a quick business trip to Amman, Jordan for a few days), I was asked twice if I was "masyrain" (egyptian) because I was responding in arabic to the conversations around me. (No my arabic is not that good yet, but I am able to understand about half of what is being said in simple conversations and respond with a few broken phrases with an Egyptian accent apparently :-). Although my skin, eye and hair color all are dead giveaways to my true genealogy, I can tell my mannerisms, thought process, dress style and minuscule habits are beginning to reflect the society around me.

It is sometimes a struggle to find the balance between the culture I was raised in and the new culture. Sometimes habits, values, or ideas need to be reinforced, discarded, or replaced. Though sometimes, it is just plain missing some piece of home. :-)

Here are some examples...

Inshallah....translated it means something close to "if God is willing". If you are asked by a friend to meet for coffee later that night (plans are rarely made more than a few hours in advance, most of the time they are made in the moment), the appropriate response is inshallah. Will you be at work tomorrow...inshallah. I asked my roommate for rent this morning...the response...I will be paid this afternoon inshallah. This phrase is used for just about every occasion, but more than just a lofty ideal it is a realistic part of life here. Sometimes it is used just to avoid commitment to an event or not wanting to ever give a negative response to someone. But more and more I am realizing that the lack of efficiency in systems tends to feed this idea of "inshallah". My roommate wasn't using it as an excuse today, sometimes she receives her paycheck on the 1st, and sometimes on the 15th, or sometime in between, depending on when the manager, finance person, etc all happen to get around to preparing the checks. As an American I find myself saying...it is my right for this or that...and then I realize I have no rights here (okay maybe a few since I hold a US passport, but even that is limited in its reaches). The options are for me to cling to my "rights" or learn that "rights" don't get things done here. They only get done in God's timing, and if it is not God's timing then what can a person do about it (this is a strong opinion here in Egypt).

So along with the attitude..."inshallah"...comes another piece..."mafeesh mish kella"...no problem or no worries...kind of like the Lion Kings "akoona matada". In order to survive without pulling your hair out, or having daily arguments with every social encounter you have, it is necessary to adapt a somewhat "mafeesh mish kella" attitude. The easy thing to do is become quite complacent then. "inshallah" and "mafeesh mish kella" do not really work well with the overachieving, goal oriented American society. So how do I as a person of both cultures now learn how to blend the best of these societies into my own lifestyle now.

Sometimes it is the simple things like greetings that make me homesick. Coming from a small town in Kansas where the front door is only used for strangers (even the UPS guy/gal delivers to the back door) and everyone except strangers are greeted with a hug, I grew up a "hugger" :-). I know about half my friends in St. Louis shudder at the thought of hugging someone in greeting, but it is a habit that runs deep in me. Here however any PDA (public displays of affection) are unacceptable between opposite sexes. Greetings between girls are usually two/four air kisses on the cheeks, between guys sometimes a brief hug or the air kisses, and occasionally you will see a limp handshake between a guy in girl during an introduction (ooops I can't tell you how many hands I have wrangled with my firm business handshake out of habit). So I miss my "American hug" greeting as my friends here have come to call it. My closest friends have adapted to it for me and I have adapted the greetings of Italy and Germany for my roommates :-) into my routine for them.

The hardest one for me though is the "I'm sorry" difference. My friend and I were laughing the other day because after a disagreement we were apologizing. I responded with "I forgive you" as I was taught growing up, and they responded with "words are not enough show me with your actions" as they were taught. Now before you are offended at one or both of these responses, you should understand that my response provoked the same reaction from them, that their response provoked in me. We both viewed the responses as being very arrogant. We were both familiar with the differences in the cultures prior to this exchange so we were able to laugh about it, but although I know and understand this element in the culture, I struggle to see past what I think is arrogance to the heart of the matter, especially since "I'm sorry" is not usually used in pleasant emotional situations already.

Daily the realization becomes stronger in me that the more I adapt to this culture and way of life, the more I will not fit when I return back to the states. Currently I am trying to decide where to call home for the next year or so, but the more I look at my options the more I realize no matter where I am, I will just not quite fit anymore.

There are strong points and weak points to any society and culture...living here in Egypt has definitely brought a new dimension to my life and who I am...

Ramadan...

Time has flown again, my visa expired a few days ago...means I have officially been here 6 months! Wow! Just a little over 15 weeks until I will be home for Christmas! That is really crazy to think about now!

The summertime here was full of visitors :-) Yipeee! And good times with friends! I have two new roommates since my last blog! Vale- an Italian girl working here in Cairo, we have known each other for about 2 years now, and Kayla- an American girl who just arrived in Cairo a few weeks ago to study for a semester (the same thing I did 2 years ago). Both of them a fabulous ladies, and we have a lot of fun and laughs!

Now that summer has ended, work has resumed back to its normal pace. I am writing a piece to be published in our annual journal called "The Chronicles". It is based on a 5 part interview I had last spring with a Dr. here in Cairo. I am excited to see its completion! I will also be conducting a "round-table" discussion or conference on microfinance or tourism here in Egypt sometime this fall, as well as presenting my research topic of microfinance to a group of scholars in late November. So a lot of work to come :-), which is exciting and challenging for me!

Arabic class is still going well! I am so happy with the progress I have made in the 3 months! I can understand so much more of what is being said and am able to communicate very very brokenly in conversation (I know about 80 verbs, past, present, present continuous, and future). The plan is to be able to communicate clearly in conversation by December! So far I am on track for this! More and more of my Egyptian friends are resorting to having at least one conversation completely in Arabic when I meet them :-), this is good as it forces me to practice and learn new vocab :-). Because of this I learned the verb for diving :-) so now I can talk in arabic about my trips to the Red Sea!

Ramadan began here on August 22. It is the month that Muslims believe the Qu'ran came to the prophet Muhammed. Muslims spend the month (lunar month) fasting from sunup (here around 4 am) to sundown (6:30ish), no food or drink (including water) during daylight. They spend the month reevaluating their life, trying to live in the way they know is right, helping the poor, visiting the sick, etc. Living in a city of 20 million, where 90% of the population is fasting, creates many interesting dynamics. The entire city changes for the month. Colorful lights are strung on houses, mosques, and buildings (reminds me of Christmastime), Ramadan lamps are hung from awnings, and there is a sense of celebration as the month begins. Work and class schedules are adjusted for the month. Each night families and friends gather to break fast together with Iftar (breakfast). So, normally people are released from work between 2:30-3:00 to prepare the evening feast. Sohour, the second meal of the night, is usually served around 2:30 am, but can start as early as 11 pm. So a typical schedule during Ramadan looks a little like this...

8:00 wake up and head to work

9:00-10:00 arrive at work (chat with friends, check email, etc and start real work around 11)

11:30ish 2nd prayer of the day

2:30-3:00 begin the long drive home (traffic is always bad when the entire city is on the same schedule)

3:30ish 3rd prayer of the day

6:30 Prayers then IFTAR! After fasting all day and eating a big meal, many people sleep for an hour or so to prepare for a night out with friends

8:00-9:30 5th prayer of day (they read the entire Qu'ran during the month of Ramadan, so each night a section of the Qu'ran is read over speakers across the city)

10:00 head out to hang out with friends and share Sohour together

3:30 head home if out with friends

4:00ish 1st prayer of day then head to bed

Yeah if you do math, it means little sleep and lots of time with friends! Even for those not celebrating Ramadan everyone seems to get caught up in the schedule. haha like my roommates and I went to Cinnabon (which closes at 2 am during Ramadan) down the street from our flat at 1:00am last night for a late night sandwich and cinnamonrolls! Oh I will miss the late night openess of everything :-)! I can say these last few weeks I still am learning so much about this culture. Life here is always an adventure!

Small things that go un-noticed

First of all new pics! here are the links...they are on my facebook page, but for those of you who don't have facebook, no worries just click on these links and you can still view them without signing your life away to the electronic beast of connections...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058620&id=71906336&l=f070522fc1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058618&id=71906336&l=09875cb712

now for the good stuff :-) I enjoy writing, just wish I did it more often.

The other day my roommate and I stopped by the metro supermarket about a mile from our house to pick up some groceries. When I went to check out the lady in front of me was obviously new to the system. From her accent I could tell American, which means in Maadi (the area of town I live in) the probability of her being in a military family is high, though she could be a teacher, or a skydiver (joke), but I like to try and guess. :-) As she was going to check out her total came to 102.10 LE (Egyptian pounds). She looked through her money a few times and finally settled on giving the cashier 102.50, with the explanation that she simply did not have any smaller change. The cashier tried her hardest not to laugh, she was a very sweet girl (I must admit I was tempted to break out a laugh as well, I am sure a grin did escape). The lady looked very concerned and explained it was her first time going shopping for groceries since she arrived. The cashier welcomed her and explained the amount of money she had given her was perfectly fine. I have long since forgotten the days of trying to pay to the penny (or piaster in the case of Egyptian money).

Here we usually round up to the nearest quarter, even then most of the time there is not change for those small amounts, so a few sticks of gum or a "mafeesh mishkilla" (no problem) is exchanged. If you go to the same shops frequently, one day they may be short a pound, the next day you are...so in the end it usually all washes out. The funny thing is I don't remember when a few pounds here or there stopped being a big deal, but the incident at the market reminded me of a change that has occured in my life without me even taking notice. It makes me wonder how many other things, perhaps even larger things, have changed without me noticing.

Wow...way too long

Okay...okay...I know it has been awhile. That one busy week turned into a crazy month of drama and happenings. Both good and bad. While I can't catch you up on all the happenings, I will at least attempt to pick up from here...

My Arabic classes have been going really well! I am so excited about continuing. My goal is to be at level 5 or 6 by December, and I am already down to just 2 lessons left in level 2, just 6 weeks into class (I meet 2 times a week)! My Arabic has improved so much that I notice even a difference on the street. People respect you more, and it is a lot easier to avoid getting lost.

My friend Joanna came to visit for about 10 days, and we had a ton of fun traversing the city and the Sinai Pen. I think she may have experienced more of life on this side of the ocean than she was planning, but it was great having her here! God knows what you need when you need it, and He sent her at the right time.

During Joanna's visit we went to Dahab for 3-4 days (one night we spend climbing Gebel Moses- moses's mountain). It is a quaint little village on the Sinai pen, situated between the mountains and the Red Sea. On clear days you can see the mountains in Saudi Arabia on the other side. Joanna quickly saw why I have fallen in love with this little resort. Usually I travel with small groups when I go, this is the same place I go scuba diving, but this time it was just Joanna and I. It was a very relaxing weekend, laying on the beach chairs, reading Harry Potter (book 4) and absorbing as much free vitamin D as we could :-).

Summertime is flying by here. Hard to believe the hottest part is already gone (temps of 110 everyday almost). In just over 5 months from now I will be home for Christmas and my little bro's wedding. I have officially been here longer this time than I ever have been before. And everyday Egypt becomes more like home.

Tonight one of my roommates and I are going out to Chili's for dinner, on a boat on the river. It is one of her last nights here in Egypt, so we are celebrating her making it one year and still maintaining sanity and living. I am sad to see her leave. In such a short time we have become good friends. I look forward to Christmastime in hopes I can visit her in Germany on my way home.

My new roommate will move in on Sunday. I am excited because it is a girl I met almost 2 years ago when I was here before. She is Italian and always tons of fun! And a good cook too!

I know I need to be more diligent about writing updates, stories, adventures, and customs from here. Hopefully this next month is a little less dramatic, and I will get a chance to write more. :-)

New pics to follow soon!