When we first arrived here and were settling into our borrowed flat, I took special note of all the yummy offerings on the bookshelves. There is a delicious selection of literature centered in the Arab world, including several titles I already had on my “must read” list. And since the flat is owned by English speakers, we found several books to help us learn Arabic.
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As part of the Eid week, most people were still off work yesterday, including Kevin. We decided in the late part of the day to go check out a park that we were told is really lovely and a great spot to watch the sunset. It was all that, but a little more than what we bargained for. I am in a nice car with two lady friends and a tour guide named Ramez, cruising back to Cairo from Alexandria, a city that has been on my bucket list ever since some history teacher long ago said something about a huge library. The oud music is playing, the air conditioning is fine, and there is almost no traffic because it’s the first day of Eid al Adhar. Ramez: “Can you dig out a new CD? Maybe Abba?” Me: *sucking all the air out the car* “You have Abba?!?” “Dancing Queen” for me is the musical equivalent of a really nice Pinot Grigio, second only to “Word up” by Cameo, (which is like Dr. Pepper and Cheetos). And Ramez has a pretty sweet set of speakers in his nice car. He actually said to me, “Great music can really make Cairo better, am I right?” We also listened to “Dust in the Wind,” “Shape of My Heart,” and some Adele covers featuring traditional Middle Eastern instruments. Sidebar: Abba was in concert here on September 15. True story. No, not Christmas. It’s Eid al Adhar, a very important Islamic holiday. This is when they kill rams and cows to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son. It officially began yesterday (Sunday), but the first day is for preparation. The sacrifices happened this morning. For the last several weeks we have noticed a few things:
I am sitting here, fruitlessly attempting to describe a day viewing an indescribable thing. I don't even know how to start. I've seen some really crazy cool stuff and I've even blogged about it, so I am tempted to go back to those posts and see how I started them. Probably with a few bad puns. And there are really no good puns for this stuff either. If you haunt social media long enough, you will eventually come to realize that by and large, people only post their daily highlight reel: the photos and status updates that are fun, pretty, impressive, or feature nice puppies. I could fall into that trap in a hurry here because I am living in a place most of you will never visit, so my life seems a bit exciting right now, eh? So I could balance that by posting a healthy selection of basic life photos. But let's be honest, do you really want to follow an Instagram account or a blog that features me clipping me my toenails or folding laundry? I don't. Unless you know how to fold a fitted sheet, in which case, post away, sistah. I need a tutorial. It's Thursday here, but that's like Friday here. No, not because we are about 8 hours ahead of most of you. It's because the Egyptian work week is not Monday through Friday. It's Sunday through Thursday. Sunday is like our Monday, thus Thursday becomes Friday. But Friday is the day we go to church leaving Saturday as the "play" day. Sunday is the day the kids take their enrichment classes at the school, which is something we always did on Fridays in the US. Also, many businesses are closed on Sundays, much like in the US, which leaves me scratching my head still further because I thought Sunday was Monday. Are you lost with me yet? Egyptians like fireworks. They light them to celebrate everything: weddings, birthdays, finding a parking spot. But I survived a trip to the grocery store and no one launched any bottle rockets for me. Maybe because I did not announce my personal triumph. I like to play it cool like that. But I did not play it cool in the condiment aisle. Nooooo. I just about had a meltdown, nice and smooth, like so much Velveeta. I’m sitting on the balcony and I just heard Prince. It’s 9:30 p.m. and the temperature has dropped to levels that do not make one pant and sweat a pint per minute. It’s quite nice out here on the balcony, but it’s the noisiest it’s been all week. Yup, we’ve been here in Cairo one week already. I can’t say it’s flown by or that I feel like it’s been less time. Time loses it’s meaning when you’re dealing with such nasty jet lag. When we arrived last Thursday we crashed at about 9:00 p.m. and slept until 12:30 p.m. the next day. So on the one hand, this should be easy. We have a fully furnished flat all ready and waiting for us. All we really have to take is school books (80 lbs), camera gear (5,211 lbs), and clothing. And since my wardrobe is severely limited by cultural norms and Joel only owns like 2 pairs of shorts, there is not even a whole lot of that to take. But on the other hand there is what we leave behind. |