A journalist's blunder

Just finished drafting this e-mail to a friend in Journalism school in Minnesota, and thought it worthy of re-posting. Enjoy:


AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

...were my exact words at work today when I realized what a huge, stupid mistake I'd made.

I thought of you at that moment, because you're a fellow student of journalism, and in my first class in the J-school at Madison we were given a couple strict pointers. One that always stuck with me was "if you misspell the interviewee's name, you automatically fail the assignment." Luckily I haven't made that blunder...yet. But I do remember how relieved I was to receive my acceptance (e-mail) to the school. I think I told you this story: after submitting my writing samples and application to the school, I made the mistake of re-reading what I had submitted. Material that I had, of course, edited and re-edited until I was blind reading it. And not until a day or so after submitting it did I look back over and see that I had ended a sentence with a period, followed immediately by a comma.

AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

Today at my internship, I wrote an e-mail on behalf of my boss - the executive director of this non-profit law center - to be sent to all the congressional reps' staff members in Minnesota and the Dakotas. And a few key people who head similar organizations and are interested in attending an event we're planning. Anyway, big folks. The pressure was on. I had to write "like" the director, but also not be a bumbling idiot. (As you probably know, not all heads of organizations are the best writers. But their interns MAKE them great writers.) So I edited, re-edited and triple-edited this two-paragraph e-mail. I even called in another intern to proofread what I'd written - and he found TWO GLARING mistakes. So I re-re-re-read it and was SURE that it was absolutely tight. And sent it.

I immediately checked my e-mail, because I'd BCCed myself. There it was, in my inbox, bright and bold and new: an e-mail from the director...

..
Get this:
.....
............

WITH NO SUBJECT LINE.

So I leaned over my shoulder and let loose with a heart-wrenching "AUUUUUUUUUUGH!" ... right into the waist of my director, who had just returned from a lunch meeting and was approaching me to see how progress on the letter was coming.

*sigh*

I eagerly await the tale of YOUR most egregious writing biff.

A mouthful

I was chatting with my Dad yesterday and mentioned a recent development on my end: I FINALLY got an e-mail address at the organization I've been sort-of interning at for almost a year!

Now, before you go about congratulating me for circumventing the nonprofit org slow-growth attrition tendency and adding me to your contact list, let me present the problem. I worried this might happen when I saw that everyone else's e-mail addresses followed the template of [firstname].[lastname]@[organization].org And sure enough, the other day I was presented with this monstrosity:

elizabeth.shaffer-wishner@organization.org

It's bad enough trying to spell that name over the phone ("S as in 'Sam,' S-H-A no 'C!' F-F, as in 'Frank Frank,' E-R, hyphen, W-I-S as in 'Sam,' H-N as in 'Nancy' E-R.") Now, imagine this: "Elizabeth dot Shaffer hyphen Wishner at [organization] dot org. Do you need me to spell that for you?

Dad sighed, and opined that it might have been better to just pick one name or the other back on that warm summer day in July of 1983. I remembered my friend Dustin's unique question posed when we subletted an apartment together back in 2002: "Do you ever wake up and feel more like a Shaffer than a Wishner?" I realized: not at all. It's become one lump sum - and quite a lump at that!

I told him of my idea to combine the two: Take the SHA of "Shaffer" and the W of "Wishner" and become the classy Elizabeth Shaw. (Classiness, of course, subject to certain conditions.) In procrastinating just now, I took a look around the Interwebs and found this gem on Wikipedia. Thought you all might find this amusing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Shaw

Leaving Egypt Part VIII: An Egyptian Send-Off

Relief flooded our weary bodies, and we would have cried with joy had there been any spare fluids in our dehydrated body-sacks. Our flights had been re-booked for the following day – now only 12 hours away! – and we could leave Egypt at last.

We loved Egypt. But we loved home more.

Just for kicks, I called our program coordinator who had spent the last two months with us in Alexandria. I didn’t really know why – I didn’t know what I expected her to say or do. But I wanted to let her know SOMEHOW that the advice she gave us was faulty. It had NOT been a piece of cake reissuing those lost paper tickets. The three of us should have traveled from Alexandria to Cairo a day early to work with our excellent Lufthansa agent to reissue our tickets BEFORE we missed the flight. At the least, our coordinator should have given us (all) some last-minute emergency advice. Perhaps: “I’ll be waiting here in the terminal until your flight leaves. If for some reason you don’t make your flight or there’s a problem, find me here!” Some thoughtful saint made sure to provide us with all the important numbers we (and our parents) might need over the summer. And some thoughtless person (me) had not thoughtlessly tossed away this sheet along with my ticket at some unknown point in the summer. So, using Lufthansa’s loaned phone, I called her.

She answered trepidatiously, undoubtedly because the number I was calling from was unknown to her phone book.

“Hi, it’s Liz,” I started. “The three of us didn’t make the flight, because we didn’t have our tickets. We’re still in Cairo. We’ve been here all day getting our tickets rebooked.”

I didn’t say: It's been hell. We stayed up longer than we thought humanly possible (except maybe the marine). For a couple hours, we didn’t know how or if we would be able to get out of Egypt. We all, at one point, faced the possibility of shelling out $1500 each for a new ticket. We’re famished. We’re dehydrated. We’re incoherent. We don’t know what to do with the coming 12 hours we face free but homeless. Wish you had given us some better advice. I didn’t say this, but oh, I thought it.

“We finally rebooked our tickets,” I added, in real-speak. “We leave in 12 hours.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding weary. After all, she delivered us to the airport awfully late last night. I bet I caught her sleeping. I wish I could be sleeping right now. “I’m so glad that everything worked out.”

Right. Me too. I’m glad we kept our wits and danced around silly but nearly insurmountable barriers like having no phone with which to contact the appropriate people, a lack of appropriate language proficiency (from now on, if I’m asked on self-assessment surveys “Can you adequately navigate yourself through airport incompetence using the Egyptian colloquial dialect?” I guess I can answer “Been there”), and nearly incapacitating exhaustion.

I hung up. So much for that.

Flashing credit cards, one by one we paid our rebooking fees. These were no insignificant fees. But compared to the cost of buying an entirely new ticket it was a drop in the bucket of student loans.

Rebooked, we were facing 12 hours completely open and relatively worry-free. I had one more trick up my sleeve. Or rather, one more friend to call.

Using the loaned computer to scour my Facebook messages for the one out of hundreds in which my classmate at the University of Minnesota, who was on a similar scholarship in Cairo, sent me her mobile number, I finally got ahold of Jamie. And like Nagham, she got it. I didn’t even have to say much – she JUST GOT IT. We're in Cairo. Without phones. Without a place to stay, or eat. Help. HELP. And she did.

So we hauled on our battered baggage and took a cab to Zamalek, the Nile island home to many expatriates and AUC (American University of Cairo) students. Our cab driver was furious for only paying him 30 Le. Because we were tired and our defenses were low, we shelled out another 10 and walked off. He got out of his car to yell at us – wallahi, he proclaimed, this is absolutely offensive! It costs fifty to come from the airport!

Here's what we thought (Parental Advisory: Material may be inappropriate for children): Look f*ckwad, we’re three very pissed-off foreigners with enough Arabic to get ourselves AND YOU in trouble, and this guy right here - see him? - he was a marine. Every one of us would like to gnaw open your tires right now, and then start on your face. F*ck off before we f*cking f*ck your sh*t up, f*ckface.

Here's what we said: Look, we’ve lived in Egypt all summer. We know the deal. We’re not paying you any more, so deal.

We waited in the parking lot of a Misr (=Egypt) gas station until my beautiful, angelic friend Jamie met us, and we followed her like lost lemmings to the hotel that our Cairo counterparts spent their summer in. Lest we forget the incompetence and difficulties we had surmounted and become lulled by impending comfort, my suitcase rolling along the at-times cobbled street was clipped by a car. Luckily my muhajjaba dolls came away unscathed.



Jamie is great. I love Jamie. Hop on pop. Jamie let us store our suitcases in her already-stuffed hotel room filled with towering stacks of Arabic books just like ours. She brought us next door to a European restaurant where we ordered copious amounts of food and ATE IT ALL (or rather, ate until some of us [me] felt sick to our stomachs), then returned to her hotel for a nap. A glorious, succulent, couple-hour nap. We compared our view at the hotel we had stayed at for the summer:



With her view:



Less ocean, more smoldering Cairo echoing with the call to prayer.

Most importantly: We played with the CUTEST KITTY IN THE WHOLE WORLD which Jamie and some fellow conspirators were scheming to adopt into the U.S. I mean, ZOMG:






I woke at 1 a.m. and shared a sedated chat with Jamie over stolen internet and the view of western Cairo over Zamalek. At 1:45 a.m. I woke my classmates. We grabbed a cab for the return trip to the airport. Our tickets got us past the blue-eyelined b*tch who denied us passage 24 hours earlier, and through sleep-sick eyes we watched the clock tick down the minutes until we left.

Though really, what would our final, actual departure from Egypt be without one more plastic spork to the kidneys? Briefly: We had two hours to kill once we passed security, having arrived three hours early for this flight. Resting at a coffee shop, we stared blearily at one another over tepid drinks and indulged in rampant program-related gossip that, until that point, we had respectfully withheld. I wanted nothing more than a steaming, creamy hot chocolate as big as a convenience store soda, and ordered accordingly. “Do you want that made with milk?” asked the less-than-impressive barista. “Uhh, yes?” “That’ll cost extra, then.” “Uhh, no?” Six unnecessary minutes later I was handed room-temperature water flavored like chocolate. Really? I mean, really? My kidney throbbed just a little from the last-ditch spork attack, and I checked the time once more.


We boarded that big-ass plane and dreamed of Germany once again. CAI-->FRA-->IAD.

This time, we made it.



Thank you all for staying tuned for these eight harrowing chapters. Check in soon for a stateside update, including my final thoughts on Egypt and what I’ve done in the month since returning. It’s been one hell of a summer. Thank you all for reading, commenting, encouraging and tolerating my slow but steady decline into vulgarity. Sarcasm is the best coping mechanism, as Zeke, Basha, Goldy (Shevsky) and I have learned.

Leaving Egypt, Part VII: It's Looking Up

It was 4:30 p.m., the Lufthansa office was closing, and our agent Nagham had to leave to pick up her kindergartner from school. We had waited all day – literally – and even that wasn’t enough time. Despair rose the pitch of my voice to a whiny E minor, but Nagham cut in –

Don’t worry, she told us. I’ll come back after I pick my kid up. I’ll come back and finish this job.

So we left our suitcases – two months worth of desert clothes and pyramid figurines in increasingly battered bags – in the office, and climbed to one of the upper-level cafes. We looked across the half-mile terminal, and could see Burger King on the other side. Twelve hours earlier we despaired over there.





To kill time, we told travel stories. Our worst travel stories. Like, that time we got stuck in the Cairo airport for an entire day…

But seriously, my classmate C – a former Marine in Iraq – told one of his worst travel stories, about driving a convoy across a highly dangerous desert stretch and the flat tire one of the trucks rolled up with. The replacement Humvee tires were huge, and unwieldy. After about five minutes of unsuccessful attempts to replace it, one of the Iraqi officers ran up and asked frantically what the holdup was. After all, they were in one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq, sitting like cattle. When he saw the flat tire, he dropped to his knees, spun the jack like a top and had the new tire on in 90 seconds. They made it through their trip unscathed, despite the holdup, despite the incredible danger inherent in their route.

Our unexpected layover didn’t seem that horrendous anymore.

Really, we weren’t missing anything back home. We’d arrive – if Nagham pulled through – a mere 24 hours after scheduled. We were now just spending a day of our lives waiting. And hungry. We were really hungry. And tired. God, were we tired. But it could have been worse.

Just as she promised, Nagham came back an hour later with a curly-haired moppet in tow and some apple juice to pacify this pre-schooler during what would certainly be a boring experience for a three-year old. Back inside the Lufthansa office, we resumed our positions: perched on an oversized bench chair, elbows projected forward onto our knees, chin in hand, eyes anxiously on our thin-framed agent as she logged back into her computer. She poured some apple juice for her kid. Then poured some for us. The sugar rush was magnificent.

“Oh,” she said as she glanced at her computer. “Your flights have been confirmed.” AL HAMDULILEH!

(Stay tuned for the final part, coming soon. Real soon. I promise. Complete with more photos!)

Leaving Egypt, Part VI: Pipe Dreams

For the first hour, we stared at each other across the Formica table at Burger King and shared our thoughts. Any thoughts. There weren’t many, for it was 6:30 a.m., the sun had risen, and we’d been up for almost 24 hours. The ups and downs had exhausted us.

We shared pipe dreams of Germany. Our tickets had us flying from Cairo through Frankfurt on into Washington. If only there were some way for the diligent travel agent in Kentucky to get us on the first leg of the flight. We could spend the night in Germany. Anything to GET US OUT OF EGYPT.

I love Egypt. But on this day, I hated Egypt.

Our stories turned to naps on the Burger King booth-benches, and we took turns watching the luggage.

I visited the restroom, and remembered to bring a crumpled, rumpled 50 piaster note with me. To tip the toilet lady. She smiled graciously at me – a foreigner in the airport at this hour knew to tip the toilet lady! I smiled. I knew to tip the toilet lady! I considered myself to be building culture karma.

One and a half bleary naps later, at 9:30 a.m. (not at 9, as the sign outside stated. This is, after all, still Egypt) the Lufthansa office opened. I swooshed in, exhaustion mixed with angst on my face, and spoke to Nagham, the woman who would help save our lives.

Well, you know, not SAVE our...I mean...you know what I mean. She helped us a lot.

She just GOT it. I told her our story ONCE, after asking in Arabic if she spoke English. Once through, and she got it. Simply GOT it. She was a polar opposite of The Blue-Lined Bitch who ran us in circles while failing to inform us that our quest was futile. Ran back to the Burger King benches, its stench now reminding me of psychedelic hours hallucinated away wondering what the next step would look like, I informed my classmates of this latest development.

Despite Nagham’s help, everything remained a struggle: I offered classmate C a piece of gum, and the tinfoil container sliced open his thumb. We heaved two months’ worth of luggage onto the elevator that separated Burger King from the main floor of the terminal, pushed the “down” button and went up. We bounced back and forth between floor 1 and 3 until some hungry flier requested the elevator and brought our sweating, trembling bodies to floor two. In the Lufthansa office, Nagham offered her spare computer to us to use the internet, which we soon discovered required entering a password. The password had to be re-entered when bringing up ANY new page. An hour later, after waiting for breaks in her workday for her to type in the password, she finally GAVE the series of letters and numbers to me. A phone sat just a swivel away from the computer, and she graciously offered it to us to make any calls we needed. When making my first call to Washington D.C. (where it really WAS 3 a.m. by that point) she picked up the phone on her desk and began dialing a separate call – into MY phone call. Our D.C. correspondent’s first moments on this land-line call with me went something like this: “Hi, it’s *beeeep* Liz *boop boop* again *BEEEP*.”

So we sat then…in the office. We napped then…on Lufthansa benches. They were surreal naps nuanced by occasional meaningless but exciting updates. Nagham connected with our Kentucky travel agent! Oh, but we have to wait for another e-mail to arrive. So tired. The travel agent found us alternate flights! Oh, but we would have to pay for them out of pocket…not a possibility. So deeply, deeply exhausted. And hungry. And hopeless.

Around 1 p.m., nine hours after our classmates left Egypt behind in dual turbine-trenches of dust, we regretfully realized we wouldn’t make our overnight vacation in Germany. The afternoon passed waiting for pre-dawn e-mails from the States, faxes that never arrived, and our Washington coordinator who worked through a battle with food poisoning.

4:30 p.m. arrived. We had literally spent all day in the travel agency. Nagham informed us regretfully that the office was closing, and she had to leave. Her kindergartner had to be picked up from school, and the office was closing.

Leaving Egypt, Part IV: Bargaining

I returned to my classmates and we formed a small circle of anxiety and despair, waiting for that phone call, on a borrowed phone, with no familiar faces in sight. The digital clock on a far wall flipped forward. A few moments later, the call came in:

Neither the D.C. coordinator nor the travel agent several states away have copies of our plane tickets on them. They both are going to head to their respective offices in D.C. and Louisville to fax the copies. At 10:00 at night. It will be 10-15 minutes.

We watched the clock count forward some more. Tried not to let our imaginations carry us away to irreparable insanity. Could we possibly make this flight? Leaving the borrowed phone with my classmates, I go to the bathroom. Mostly to kill time, also to move my limbs. Would the call have come in by the time I returned? It hadn’t. We continued to sit on our suitcases on the floor in front of the ticketing stations. This shouldn’t have been so difficult.

Finally the call comes in. The copies have been faxed. I return the borrowed phone to its amused owner, thank him graciously, and inform him that he probably has 15 pounds remaining from the 20 I loaded. So no skin off his back for loaning us his phone.

We run to the ticket booth at 5 a.m., 25 minutes before the departure time. The copies should be there! We would like our tickets reissued! But…no one is hurrying, why aren’t they hurrying?! We need to catch this flight and have only 25 minutes!
The ticket agent shrugs. “It is too late,” she says, and turns blue-lined brown eyes back to her nightly schedule. “The gate closes 45 minutes before departure.”

Wait. Really? Like, really? Y3ANY, REALLY?! What are our options? “You can change your flight and leave tomorrow, but that will be a $200 rebooking fee. Or you can buy a new flight.”

We look at each other. And look back at her. And beg. Please. PLEASE, can we get on this flight? We’ll run, we’ll take one of those fat-people carts that drive from gate to gate. We’ll do anything. ANYTHING. Just get us on that flight, that flight which doesn’t even leave for 20 minutes!

She shrugs. “I am very sorry.”

Fuck.

Leaving Egypt, Part III: Making the call

It was 4:30 in the morning, and my two classmates and I had one hour to catch this plane. We were no longer with our Egypt-specific program director, all but a few of our remaining classmates had picked up their tickets and proceeded to customs, we didn’t have cell phones, and it was 9:30 p.m. on the east coast of the U.S. What the HELL were we to do?

The three of us without tickets spun in circles and blinked frantically between the digital clock that counted on toward 5 a.m. and our last classmates clearing ticketing.

Okay. First. We needed to call the scholarship overseer in D.C. She had explicitly instructed us to call her on her cell phone 24 hours a day with problems. I hope she was ready for us to take up her advice…

Okay. Next. How to call her?

I walked up to an employee, one of about six men standing nearby wearing lanyards around their neck and watching us sweat. Where could I make a phone call? He shrugged. Okay. My 3amiyya stretched a little more. We lost our plane tickets. We need new ones. I need to call America. We need a phone right now. He looked to his friend, as if for support, and then offered us his cell phone. But he didn’t have any money loaded on it. This man obviously did not sense the URGENCY behind my sleep-starved, anxious trembles.

Okay. Need to get some money loaded on his phone. Where can I buy phone cards? He tells us: Outside security, downstairs, down the hall and through the cafeteria.

Okay. Need to get down there. The Tourism and Antiquity Police stopped me at the checkpoint – why was I leaving? they asked bemusedly. As my anxiety increased, my Arabic buckled and sputtered. Hand gestures and a look of impending supernova in my eyes conveyed most of my message. They were amused, and offered their laziest (and therefore, most unoccupied) coworker to go get my phone card.

Okay. I turned to him – I need an etisalat brand phone card RIGHT NOW. Alright, he says, for what balance? I don’t care. Twenty pounds. Thirty – I don’t want to have to go through this again. He agrees.
We stare at each other. Dilwa'tee, I say – RIGHT NOW. Okay, he says.

Why isn’t he… argh…bisur3a, QUICKLY. Okay, he says. And continues to look at me.

Finally I asked “can you please go now?!” and it’s then he conveys to me that he wants me to give him the money for the card first.

*Sighhhhhhh*

I do, and he takes off at a gentle lope. When he thinks he’s out of eyesight, he slows to a walk. I think I’m going to melt down.

Okay. I think ahead – once I DO get that phone, what information will I need to provide? The airline wants copies of this plane ticket, and they’re going to need them faxed. I’m going to need a fax number. I head back to the ticket counter and approach the sharp, small woman who had originally informed the three of us that we would need to buy new tickets. Where can I fax copies of our tickets?

She ignored me.

Excuse me, to what number should I send the fax? She tells me to wait one moment, and continues chatting with another woman at the ticket counter. I give her five seconds, and ask again. One moment, she tells me, and walks off slowly. A few minutes later she returns and continues her conversation with her friend.

EXCUSE ME, WHAT THE [BLOODY HELL] IS THE [^&$%&$] FAX NUMBER HERE?

“One moment,” she responds, and finally points to the screen and reads off a number. Thank. You.

I return to wait for the man with the phone card. Five agonizing minutes later, I see him scurrying down the long terminal hallway, with a 20 Le phone card and eight pounds in change. I collect these, and hand him back five pounds as a tip, although, judging by the amount of change I was given, it looked as though he’d taken a tip already.

Okay. I get that phone. Time to make this phone call.

The screen doesn’t illuminate.

*One more hair goes gray.*

The phone owner’s friend woos it, and now I can see the screen. I load the balance. I call the coordinator in the U.S. And she answers. Al hamdulileh.

Ten seconds of explanation, and she’s got a grasp of the situation. At this point, I do love Arabic. BUT I LOVE ENGLISH MORE. I gave her the fax number. Next: she needed to call the travel agent several states away, who had ALSO offered herself to be contacted by cell phone 24 hours a day. We end the call, that sweet, momentous call, and my classmates C and E and I wait.


Photo courtesty E.

Leaving Egypt, Part II: Oh So Egyptian

In Egypt, a timed departure can take place anywhere from half an hour before an appointed time, to two and a half hours afterward. Luckily our departure from Alexandria fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. The bus that arrived was more or less on time, but was the wrong bus. It was only about half the size of the charter bus we expected, with no room below for our bulging suitcases. We stood on the Corniche for a half hour, and vendors tried to take advantage of our situation to surround us and offer rugs, bubble blowing machines and squeaky squeezy puppet things that we will NEVER FORGIVE TOM FOR BUYING.



To make matters more complicated, we had turned in our cell phones and had no way to contact classmates who hoped to use the extra time for a last cup of tea at a seaside café.

I double-checked with our sweet program director: I would be able to reissue my ticket at the airport, right? Right.

We ultimately decided to take this short bus, and classmates formed a prison line to pass suitcases packed to capacity down the length of the bus and stack them ceiling-high in the last two rows of seats.



At 3:30 a.m. we arrived at the Cairo airport. Grabbing our belongings, we took off for the first security checkpoint, which “screens” us before we check in for our flights. (I say “screen” sarcastically, because every metal detector you will walk through in Egypt will be ignored. It will beep and wail and scream, and the Tourism and Antiquities Police will wave you through.) However, once coming out on the other side of this checkpoint, I realized that we left behind two classmates who were off to other destinations, as well as our Egypt-specific program director. I waved. Our numbers were down from 25 to 17.

In line to check in and heave those heavy suitcases on the conveyor belt that would eventually feed them into the plane, our southernmost-accented classmate, with the best 3amiyya skills, called me and two of my fellow ticket-less classmates to the front of the line so we could have more time to fuss with reissuing our tickets. He had no authority to call us past the 15 people between us and him, but did. And no one questioned it, because he acted with authority. Because this is Egypt.

The man checking me in was floored. I was checking in with a PAPER ticket? Why had I chosen a PAPER ticket?

I didn’t. It was provided. To me and my 24 classmates.

Well, where was it?

I don’t know. I must have lost it sometime in the last two months.

So where is it now?

SEE PREVIOUS ANSWER.

Do I have a copy of the ticket, or the issuance information from the travel agency?

NO.

*Scoff* Well then. I’d need to buy a new one.

Leaving Egypt, Part I: Preparation

We’re leaving. We’re leaving. We’re done with classes, tests and Egypt. We’re leaving.

I’m happy, but I’m also just getting to know this place. I know to toss “tsks” at overzealous young (and old) men on the streets and in a keshk (كشك), or storefront kiosks. When one is particularly egregious, I now know two phrases that will stop them in their tracks: “Respect yourself,” and “Haram to you.”

The approximate translation, as provided by my brother: “Boy, you best chiggity-check yo’self before you wreck yo’self.”

I know to precede every sentence with “MUMKIN,” which can translate as “maybe,” “yes” or “is it/it is possible,” as well as “YA3NI,” which translates to “I mean…”, and “so I says to Mabel I says…”

Our last day of class also encompassed a presentation in our Media class, and our written 3amiyya exam. Which is somewhat of an oxymoron. More ironically, this written exam testing our ability to understand colloquial Arabic encompassed listening to a recorded biography of the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Not exactly café and shisha conversation. After class, my roommate and I retired to the hotel for an epic nap, and then proceeded to visit two highly-lauded cafes in town that I had never been to. We had a lovely evening with the classmates whose company we knew we only had days left to enjoy.

Friday evening I met with my language partner for the last time. As usual, my nervousness arose from a particular mix of social anxiety, cultural buffoonery and inadequate language ability. This time it was also nuanced by those sweet, familiar Egyptian stomach cramps that three times now have crippled my ability to exist peacefully. So M, her mother, my roommate and I met at 9:00, walked for about ten minutes, and paused while I considered whether to throw up right then or back at the hotel. M walked me back, and we parted ways for the last time.

Saturday was a doozy. Our FusHa final was cut short for a listening portion, which I wrote about on this blog immediately afterward. However, thanks to the hard work and creativity of some of my classmates, we all relaxed before our oral 3amiyya exam over a 25-minute slideshow. I went into the 3amiyya exam not nearly as infuriated and indignant as I had been coming out of the FusHa exams.

From the language center, my roommate and I met up with our bicultural friends from Café R. She waddled up and gave us a grumpy hug, then apologized for being grumpy and informed us that the doctors moved up her due date to about two weeks from now. After lunch, we invited the two of them back to our hotel, where the staff had organized a lovely party and ordered what we have determined to be Egypt’s standard Celebratory Cake.



An hour later, when the party dispersed and our throats were sore from talking, they drove us to the Manshaya Souq, known for its twisting, narrow walkways lined with nothing but jewelry shops.



I had heard about this souq (market) from classmates, but hadn’t visited until this, the day before leaving Alexandria and Egypt. Er, the supposed day before leaving.

We walked the length of Alexandria's shopping district on the way back to the hotel that night. Visited the 20-story shopping center that I had walked by dozens of times but never before entered, and supported the healthy black market and purchased handfuls of scarves off a street vendor loudly advertising them for 3ashara giney wa nus, or 10.5Le. We returned to our home-not-home and packed two months’ worth of sweat-stained shirts, classroom notes and handouts, and Egypt swag.

My roommate noted to herself where she was packing her plane ticket. I noted that I seemed to not have said plane ticket. Good thing airports will reissue tickets – I’m sure I hadn’t seen that sucker since the day we arrived in Cairo!

And then came Sunday.

By noon, the remaining classmates were knocking at our door, for ours was one of three rooms set aside for storing luggage for the day. We officially checked out of Hotel E.



I accompanied my sweet kosher classmate to the train station, where she departed for Cairo and ultimately a 24-hour journey by train, bus and probably taxi for the country north of this one. On the way home, walked past Alexandria’s greatest ruins, the Roman Amphitheater. I explained to a classmate my reason for not having gone out of my way to see it sooner: I spent four months in the global capital of ancient societal ruins, and grew accustomed to the prevalent excavations that sprung up any time a new building had been contracted and groundbreaking lead to new archeological discoveries.

That night, I had my last meal of kosharee,



visited our favorite keshke for a bottle of water,



bought my last book of hilarious Engrish,



and waited in the hotel for our departure.

Awkwards are always goodbye.

The following is an ad-hoc guest blog from former contributing blogger "Zeke."

I have spent the summer admiring Liz for her very determined speech. You can almost watch the wheels turning in her head as she thinks, word by word, of what she will say next (in both English and Arabic). So it was a clear indicator of how worn down we all were when she started her thought with this quote. And that was before we even left Alexandria, before our uncomfortable micro-bus ride to Cairo and before I never got the chance to awkwardly say goodbye.

This is a story about a story. Liz and two companions have their own story to tell, and I cannot describe what they went through. But word of their story (or, the bare details of it) led to a story of our own. This is the story of The Three.

We traveled to Egypt on Paper Tickets. In Washington, we were each given an envelop of tickets. On the flight over, two tickets were torn out of this packet. Despite three sheets still being in this envelop (Cairo>Frankfurt, Frankfurt>DC, receipt), The Three did not grasp the importance of keeping track of -- or of not throwing out -- this envelop. It was about as important as knowing where your passport was at all times.

It should be said that The Three included one of the most organized people on the trip and also the person who was most looking to get out of Egypt. I was sitting in a cafe next to the Gate when rumors started to circulate about "Those Who Had Misplaced Their Tickets." Liz was "The Organized One" (and, let's be honest, she was itching to get home too... not to mention her busy time crunch before she starts school). As our good friend, she became the central character in a long joke: we knew both that she would be able to take eventual razzing, and that she should have known better.

The joking starting to be less funny the closer we got to boarding the plane, and the more unlikely it appeared that The Three would make it on board. Indeed, they did not. As far as we knew, the Program Director had gone home, The Three were without mobile phones, and they were stranded indefinitely at the Cairo Airport. What actually happened will have to come straight from Liz.

An Egyptian countdown

The last three days or so have been an ongoing countdown in my head. The last day of class in Egypt. Our exams, and the last day in the language school. My last shower in the hotel. My last nap in that tiny bed.

Nine of us wait in the hotel lobby for our last half-hour of interneting. We load up the bus around 11 p.m. local time to go to Cairo. From there, we fly to Frankfurt, then to D.C. And then we disperse in a spider's web of flights that covers the country, delivering us to Boston, New York, Atlanta, Austin, Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle and San Francisco. And half a dozen of the group have already dispersed for reasons of their own.

I'm going to most miss seeing Arabic every day. It has forced me to struggle through the different shapes these letters can take, to overcome my classroom clumsiness and scan the storefronts as they whiz by outside the bus/taxi/tram.



I'm going to second-most miss hearing Arabic every day. Silly little phrases, "b't'kelimni 3arabee kwayyis!" ("you speak Arabic well," meaning "I want to flirt/sell you something/inquire into your origins and then flirt or sell you something"); the classic "al-hamdu lileh," which thanks god and can be invoked to mean "thank goodness," "it's ten o'clock," and "my, you're pretty."

I'm going to miss my favorite Egyptian dish, kosharee. It looks a little bit like what's left in the drain catch of your sink after you've finished washing the dinner dishes, but it's utterly, thoroughly delicious and satisfying and CHEAP.

I'm most NOT going to miss the ever-present taxis, and their incessant honking. To quote a classmate: "They come up right behind you and honk to scare you out of your mental world, just to inform you 'I'M A TAXI.'" -Basha.

I'm second most not-going to miss the under-the-breath statements I hear on the streets, and the unwanted attention. From the minibus driver who makes kissing noises as me flies by me on the Corniche, to the man walking with his 2-year-old-daughter who mutters "very nice" as he passes me, and more recently, to the woman about my age who carries a small child and comes up to me, bubbling in broken English while she paws at my purse. I was sad to experience that, although I can only imagine what situation must drive her to stalk foreigners.

Absolutely, I will miss most of all the fabulous people I spent this trip with. The 25 of us were in this together through comfort and through heat stroke, through hunger and through lavish buffets, through test preparation and hotel celebrations. We have all shown to each other our best and worst sides, and I'm pretty impressed with how everyone's fared. I will miss these precious people dearly as we scatter around the world. You remind me daily of why I'm studying this language.

Though there are other days when I remember why I'm taking Arabic. This photo was reprinted in the local newspaper Al-Misri al-youm:



In case you need a reminder of the actual geographic placement of Egypt, here's a map.

Ya3ni, Iraq, Egypt, same thing to Fox News.

Dark nights

As I (wrote this in my journal four days ago), a flashlight is packaged between my chin and chest. The balcony doors sit wide open, as well as the door leading to the hallway. This serves two purposes: to let in as much light as possible from the cafe across the street, and to invite any blind soul in the hotel to spend this dark night in my company. Also, in the company of the only flashlight in the building.

The power went out when I was about three seconds from the shower. It didn't stop me, either. Perching this tiny LED flashlight on the glass shelf in the bathroom conjured memories of showering in candlelight at the co-op after the electrical fire.

The power is on across the street. A few of the occupied rooms at the B Hotel are illuminated, and their occupants lounge on beds and chairs in front of wide-open balcony doors. Only three floors up, I stand in darkness with wind from the ocean drying my hair. Then again, maybe I'm being observed by someone else even more invisible.

Occupying the ground floor of B Hotel's building, Cafe P serves dozens of loungers, regulars and families at its busiest time of day (11 p.m.) The power is not off in their homes, but it may as well be. They would be at Cafe P under neon light or candlelight.

I should be out there, too. Enjoying the breeze, oblivious of the electrical state of this temporary resting house, cooling this overheated body with winds from Greece. But...I just showered. And need to catch up on sleep. Ya3ni, there's always a reason.

No one's returned yet from their evening excursion to join me in chasing away the shadows from this small circle of light. Time for bed, then.

What have I been doing?

"Šodienlielbritānijāprotestuspietrīspadsmitapcienājumuunpriekšsēdētājsnoplūktiemviņadeguna."

Question 1: Where did the protests take place and [WORD] their [WORD] dog kennel?"

"Danas je u Velikoj Britaniji protesta dovesti do trinaest ДнесвъвВеликобритания протестидоведедотринадесет. äta mina shorts och skal mina bananer och flubugate den wonderflonium."

Question 2: Where did the space ants get their bananas?

This is more or less how the listening portion of our final exam transpired today.

Rather than testing the ability to listen to our teacher, as we have been practicing diligently for 8 weeks, our listening test submitted us to a buzzing television broadcasting Al-Jazeera news that included lots of shouting (from this I determined there was a protest going on) and dubbed-over English. We were then to answer questions like those I wrote above, with equal comprehension of the quoted portions. I wasn't sure where one word in the broadcast ended and the other began - it was like those sped-up recordings of English that make the announcer sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I wasn't even sure the announcers were speaking Arabic.

Halfway through the exam, we determined that the announcer was indeed speaking fusHa Arabic - but using 3amiyya pronunciation. Hence, we weren't being tested on our ability to listen to the Arabic that we had practiced all summer long either.

By the end of this section, I cast my cares into the desert and circled answers that looked visually appealing.

The written exam that took place before this was a three-hour test of patience. The 20 of us who remain (for some have left the program early) were grouped in one classroom. Half used dictionaries, the other half wondered if they, too, were allowed to use dictionaries. The door squeaked open and slammed shut about once every 20 seconds...for three hours. With one hour remaining, our program director entered the classroom, walked up to the front and whispered and laughed with the woman proxying our exam. I, sitting in the front of the classroom, asked them to keep it down because we WERE STILL TAKING OUR EXAMS.

Then Al-Mudeera, the director of the language school, squeaked open the door. "Why haven't you finished the test yet?" she asked incredulously. "Because we still have a half-hour," I responded. "No, THAT'S for the listening section! You have three more minutes."

So I returned to the last page of questions:

"Based on the previous text, why was the [WORD] racist speech [WORD] killing at-human-like-[WORD] until stop for [WORD] space ants? President Obama."

Have...I really just spent the last eight weeks in Egypt studying this language?

Guest blog: Half-truths and cultural learnings

Two blog posts ago, I copied what was in actuality a "guest blog" I wrote for my classmate "Zeke's" blog. In response, he has offered the following reciprocal blog. Please enjoy - any comments you see fit to share I will pass along!

"For an example, [Student A] says to me, 'I love your clear method of teaching,' but what I hear is her say, 'I love you.' The words are correct: she said that. But I took her true words out of context and therefore erred in my understanding."

This is how our instructor introduced yesterday's lesson. We were reading from al-Kitaab a cultural lesson on "Arabic sayings" and when to use them. Our teacher wanted us to know one of the major problems in learning about foreign cultures, and about al-Kitaab in particular.

There is SO MUCH to learn but we're given just little snippets of information from time to time. At one point he attempted to explain his issue with al-Kitaab visually.

This box contains everything you need to know:



You could cover everything this way, growing in stages:



You could cover everything this way, crossing everything bit by bit:



al-Kitaab covers it this way:



He's not wrong. I'm constantly frustrated that we'll learn a concept in al-Kitaab and think we've got it down until six chapters later when we learn there's more to it (and just wait 'til you see it again in Book 3, totally revamped!).

Our instructor continued, making the extremely rational point that Westerners must view Arabs through the eyes of Arabs and Arabs must view Westerners through the eyes of Westerners: we won't properly understand anything if we attempt to view the actions of others through our own eyes.

We have gotten used to our instructor going off on political rants when talking to us: especially when talking to us about culture and politics. This time was no different, and -- like in the past -- his pace quickened as he got more passionate and we tried to keep up.

As we were talking about Arabic sayings he brought up a very important one: "Tawakalt ala Allah" ("I rely on Allah"). This phrase was uttered continuously by Gamil el-Batouti, the co-pilot of EgyptAir Flight 990 on October 31, 1999, as his plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean south of Nantucket, killing all 217 on-board.

This phrase, our instructor informed us, is said by Arabs as they seek the assistance of Allah in their daily tasks. Viewed through Western eyes, however, this Egyptian pilot was viewed as a religious fanatic, purposely taking down the plane.

Our instructor made an excellent point. How often are we concerned about the actions of others, because of our own prejudices and worldviews? I really felt I learned a lot yesterday!

... Then I did a little research for this post. It turns out that, two years later -- and over Egyptian protest -- the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board officially blamed el-Batouti for the crash.

Well, it was still a good lesson learned!

Colloquializing the colloquial

Aah, to play with language. Arabic is delightfully logical, and infernally complicated. We tickle ourselves when we make connections, and draw the occasional connection necessary to make a joke. For example: To say “Thank you” in Arabic, one must:

First: Conjure the verb “sha-ka-ra” or “to thank.”

Second: put it in its gerund form “thanking,” and

Third: make it into an adverb: Thanking-ly.

In Arabic, this comes out to شكراً , or “Shukran.”

To revert momentarily to English, let’s examine the colloquial use of this phrase. “Thank you” is a commonplace expression, stated in honesty, sarcasm or in passing dozens of time a day. Hence it’s been shortened colloquially, from “thank you” to the simple “thanks.”

One astute classmate – a linguistics major – noted this adaptation and introduced it to Arabic. Now, instead of this cumbersome “shukran,” we toss to one another a casual “shuks.” “Thanks.”

*

One day three or so weeks ago we spent the first half of 3amiyya class learning fruits and vegetables. It was fun – reminded me of first-year Spanish class. (Although I can muse about the role of the United Nations in the developing world in Arabic, I can also still remember how to say “carrot” in Spanish. And until three weeks ago, hadn’t learned “carrot” in Arabic.) Oddly enough, the widest-used fusHa Arabic textbooks don’t teach fruits and vegetables. Perhaps because fusHa is a language of newspapers and the Qur’an. Now, I haven’t read the Qur'an, so please feel free to comment and correct me if I make a presumptuous statement. But I would venture to guess that mushrooms don’t come up much in the Qur’an.

After we flew through our teacher’s fruit and vegetable picture cutouts (really, can anyone distinguish between a cucumber, a zucchini and a pickle in any watercolor cutout? Why was I the only one in class to despair and make dying sounds after an hour of utterly incorrect guesses?!) our teacher opened up the floor for us to name ANY fruit or vegetable that we wished to translate into Egyptian Arabic. One classmate tried describing the fruit sold on every street corner out of a wooden cart usually pulled by a donkey. (Guys. I am not the person to romanticize non-U.S. locations and say something like that if it weren’t true. As a reminder of sights from this trip:)



First we tried describing what a prickly pear is in Egyptian Arabic. This didn’t work. I made my way up to the board and drew what was OBVIOUSLY a pear with death-spikes erupting from its skin, which also failed to convey the idea. Finally we looked up photos on the internet, which our teacher recognized immediately.

So get this. The word for prickly pear in Egyptian Arabic is تين شوكي, “teen showkee.” Teen means “fig” (like, the fruit) and showkee takes the word “fork” and makes it an adjective: fork-y. So it's a fork-like…you see where I’m going with this…

A forky fig.

Tact: Hindered somewhat by a language barrier.

I have this friend. In the interest of anonymity I’ll call him…Zeke. Zeke and I are friends in cynicism on this eight-week immersion program in Alex. Occasionally, his cynical shell cracks and looses a surprising gesture of less-cynical sweetness. And once in a great while my politically correct framework of fairness and politeness slips and reveals a dark, sarcastic, most un-politically correct side. Zeke feeds off moments like this. We feed off each other.


At any rate. Two days ago in Media class, our teacher – good-naturedly, no doubt – asked the class as a whole what we do on December 25th. Zeke and the other two (and a half) of us shared a sideways smirk. The smirk turned to giggles when the teacher called on Zeke for his answer.


“Ya3ni,” he began.


“Ya3ni” literally means “mean,” so in good Egyptian form, he began his sentence with “I mean…”


“Ya3ni, I go to the movies. And then go to a Chinese restaurant.” Slowly the rest of the class caught on. “And then I go home and watch A Christmas Carol.”


The teacher didn’t get it. “Why??” She was baffled to hear an account that didn’t fit her stereotype of American Christmas pastimes.


This is where Zeke’s dry wit and cynicism came in handy. There are five (and a half) people on this program who have been very tactful about sharing details of their ethnic heritage with locals. Not because we’re AFRAID of the repercussions, for numerous taxi drivers have ensured us that “We’re all people of the Book. So you’re okay with me!” while, as our classmate Goldy puts it, we “smile and nod and sweat.”


Five (and a half) of us drop our voices when we mention Passover in Egyptian company. We simply reference “youm al-sept” as the time between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday, and leave it to the listener to fill in the blank. Goldy has taken to referring to one country in particular as “the country north of this one.” And we’ve gotten FAIRLY good at talking around certain issues. Though it gets tricky. Try not-explaining “kosher” to an Egyptian who wonders why you won’t eat the rice. Try not-explaining why you can’t carry your backpack to class on youm al-sept.


So Zeke proceeded to not-explain National JEWS Go to the Movies Day. “Ya3ni, it’s just what my family does.”


“Aah!” said our Media teacher, who had made the connection at last. “You get together with your family on December 25th. Meshi.” Washing her hands of Zeke and his non-traditional “Christmas,” she turned to another classmate, eager to hear a more traditional story that fit her Christmas schema. “And you, Basha, what does your family do on Christmas?”


This young man perked up, eager to satisfy our teacher. “MY family eats pickled herring and goes skiing.”


At this point she gave up, and we listened to an Al-Jazeera broadcast instead.


And, on an unrelated note, here are two videos I recently uploaded to YouTube.

The first is a shot down the aisle of the bus that we took from Sharm El-Sheikh, on the southernmost tip of the Sinai Peninsula, through a tunnel under the Suez Canal.

The second is a video of the oud player at our summer house visit two weeks ago. It was a crowd-pleaser.

Egypt: Predictably unpredictable. Arabic: Usually predictable.

In six and a half weeks of class, I’ve picked up some aspects of Egyptian teaching styles that differ markedly from that ingrained in me by 20 years of U.S.-based education.

The most notable of these cultural differences is the approach taken by our teachers at the language center to test taking, and what’s permissible mid-exam. In U.S. classrooms, a hush settles over test-takers, and every gurgle of an anxious stomach can be heard for those 50 weighty minutes. In our classroom in Alexandria, the eight or so of us may be silent, but across the street a car alarm whines dissonantly with the melodic call to prayer. It may be a suitable day for construction, in which case our floor will rattle from the jackhammer next door. And without fail, one of the receptionists’ cell phones diddles its 8-bit tune on the quarter hour, piercing silence and cacophony equally. If our own teacher’s cell phone doesn’t chime during class, it’s a rare day.

What threw me off most was our teacher’s tendency to talk DURING our exams. He’ll inquire as to our progress, ask what’s giving us trouble, and occasionally head to the board for a mid-test mini-lesson in grammar. There’s a 70% chance that, if asked during an exam for clarification on the meaning of a word, he’ll give it to us. (In my U.S. Arabic-language classrooms, any word on a test that we didn’t know was a word that WE FAILED TO STUDY ADEQUATELY, and therefore were doomed to wallow in not-knowing until submitting the exam.)

Finally, my coup de grâce: On our last test, a two-chapter examination of how well we had memorized the vocabulary (DAMN me for thinking there would be silly concepts like GRAMMAR on the test. I could have spent those precious two hours beforehand in robotic word memorization which would have helped significantly more than conceptualization of what happens to the vowels in “weak” verbs under every conjugal necessity!) I sat for a solid five minutes in front of ten sentences with big, fat blanks, in which we were to fill in the appropriate vocabulary word from one of the two chapters we had last studied. With no suggested words to be found! THERE WERE SO MANY OPTIONS! The two chapters alone constituted maybe 130 new vocabulary words, and we were to pull the TEN APPROPRIATE WORDS from those 130 to fill these blinking blank lines!

I raised my hand. Our eager teacher, who eyed us throughout the entire test hoping for such an opportunity to be put to use, eagerly called on me. In Arabic: “Is it possible for you to give us a bank of words for this section?” Six out of seven of my classmates breathed “Yesssss,” and the teacher agreed. So on the board, in his immaculate handwriting (right guys? It’s absolutely immaculate) gave us options like: to be committed to, indicators, to exaggerate, exceptions, issues, the elite, possibilities, and disengagement.

But that didn’t solve all our problems. The sentences themselves, and my tenuous grasp on their meanings, made me dizzy: “Despite the agreement of Israel much of agreements with Arabs except that she doesn’t want (BLANK) at-her.” Umm…exaggerate?

Or “Continues danger nuclear weapons and striving for achieving for-it threaten the world [WORD] that there is (BLANK) to the role [WORD], and the danger not consist of the together.” FML.



This morning I woke up with what felt like a hangover, except made of homesickness. I was SO homesick. I felt suffocated by the amount I had to learn and memorize and prepare for class in such insufficient time. My guts gurgled through the remnants of whatever surprised them yesterday and sent me running to the bathroom in the middle of class. I remembered steaming heaps of delectable Indian food consumed so many times with friends in my home town, and the homesick hangover got worse. And oddly enough, it doesn’t help to have such wonderful friends who are SO DAMN ENCOURAGING of me and say stupid things like “Liz, I support you and miss you and think you’re doing an awesome thing.” THAT’S NICE. BUT I JUST WANT TO EAT CHEERIOS IN MY UNDERWEAR AND READ THE STAR TRIBUNE FOR AN HOUR WITHOUT THE DANGER OF BEING STARED AT BY HALF A DOZEN MEN WHO SMOKE AND TAKE PHOTOS OF US IN THE HOTEL LOBBY. (Fact: Yesterday half a dozen of us were photographed by a hotel patron who walked by with his camera phone.)

But then it was time for class – or rather, time to study in preparation for class. I cracked open volume three of Al Kitaab (literally, “The Book”), to chapter two in which we’re learning words that mean “to cite as an example or proverb” (that’s one word in Arabic), “to hold someone accountable for,” “to seek the help of something/someone against someone or in doing something” (that’s one word, with a preposition), and “to dance.” I flipped through a few pages in which rules for conjugating verbs with “weak” middle vowels were presented systematically and comprehensively, tying together lessons woven throughout the previous two books. And I banged out a couple simple exercises that were due later in the day. And I felt…FANTASTIC.

The predictability and systematization of Arabic grammar is remarkable. We juxtapose this daily with the unpredictability of life in Egypt – rather, how predictably life here is unpredictable.

And finally, here are a couple photos of what makes my roommate and me awesome:



How we plug in.



We agree as to the best use for the TV.

Arts and crafts and culture (and stuff) Part II

Two days later, in the evening after class, we were rounded from the corners of our hotel rooms and herded back on the bus. We drove about 10 minutes down the cornice and unloaded at an unidentified street corner. Proceeding to walk into an unidentified apartment building, we were mildly comforted as to the purpose behind our trip when we saw the support column in the entryway of this apartment building covered from floor to ceiling in mosaic tiles. Our guide chose the plain-looking door with the plain-looking nameplate that read “Moh. Shaker” and herded us into a brightly-lit gallery of oil paintings.

Across the building entryway we entered another ill-labeled apartment and snaked through the artist’s multimedia pieces – portraits of blended hues accentuated with keys, or circuit boards, or ceramic pots overflowing with pasta, or rainbow-colored shoelaces. An initial impression was redefined by a closer look, and we placed our noses inches from the canvas to reveal the logistic pieces that created the larger art. (Like, circuit boards! And cylinders of coral!)

Three floors up we entered another unmarked apartment, full of photographs of the artist’s work. He has, apparently, created EVERY work of art in Alexandria, including the intricate mosaic that hangs above the “gate to Alexandria.” He told me it took him months to create. And he did it on-site, hanging above traffic.

Into one more gallery, we were greeted to Moh. (short for Mohammed) Shaker’s office. Every wall was covered entirely either with photographs of his work, preliminary sketches of other pieces of work, awards and shelves and shelves of books and collected pieces of art.

Although we whined and dragged our feet getting into that bus again after our sweaty, hour-long ordeal two days prior, we were pleasantly surprised at the artistic tinge we could then able to apply to our understanding of our host city.

Arts and crafts and culture (and stuff) Part I

Two Fridays ago we spent our only free day for two weeks at the summer home of the director of our language school. Let me start this post by saying I AM EXTREMELY GRATEFUL WE HAD THIS OPPORTUNITY AND I ENJOYED IT IMMENSELY.

I’ll continue and describe the hour-long 110 degree bus ride to her house. Then I’ll go on and discuss the hunger that gnawed at our bellies as our director encouraged us to use her pool and the nearby beach – lunch would be ready soon, like, in two hours! Finally, I’ll expound on our top-notch teachers who came along and “uh-uh”ed us when they caught us speaking English, and sought us out in unsuspecting moments so as to corner – er, catch – er, guilt – er, encourage us to converse with them in either classical or dialectical Arabic. (I really, really wanted to listen to the man playing the oud…)

Well, upon reflection, perhaps I’ll discuss other aspects of this day-trip. Our director Al-Mudeera’s* house is beautiful – absolutely beautiful. It’s an entirely closed-in compound, started 40 years ago from a sandy plot of land next door to Al-Mudeera’s father’s house, about an hour away from the area we live in along the cornice. (We discovered at the end of the day that there’s a more direct route to her house on the highway – that passes right by the 6 or 7 oil refineries that ring Alexandria.) Every year, as she and her husbands’ incomes could afford it, they added on. First sat just the house. Then the second floor of the house. Eventually a pool was added, and arranged artfully. Eventually the second building was added, which sits perpendicular to the first, and acts as an arm delineating the boundary of the property. It stretches for 30 or 40 feet, 2 or 3 rooms in a row, with 2 or 3 beds in each. The second floor is one long room with 6 or 7 beds, and storage filled to the brim with ancient childrens’ toys. Bikes, Big Wheels, jump ropes, dollhouses - EVERYTHING I WANTED AS A CHILD.

The decision was unanimous: We’re going to adopt Al-Mudeera as our Grandmother from Another Mother…and Another Continent.

*Al-Mudeera is Arabic for "the director." It would be unwise of me to name any actual names. Y'know?

Very, very, very, very good face.

Tonight I took the plunge and took my language partner – M – up on her offer to visit her house here in Alexandria.

In retrospect, I didn’t have much of a choice. When our language partners ask “Ya [unwilling American student]: do you want to [do this thing which is potentially fun but requires you to use your embryonic 3amiyya in situations that far exceed your ability]?” we instinctually respond “N3am. Er – aywa.”* Then mentally slap our foreheads and start thinking of how we can get out of it.

Maybe that’s just me.

M met me at the language center immediately after class today, so I didn’t have enough time to develop a cough, plague, swine flu or family emergency and get out of our language date (which I’d put off twice this week already). We took a taxi to her house, and I learned tonight that “house” is Egyptian for “apartment.” By this I mean nothing pejorative – in the U.S. we distinguish between a flat in a building shared with other families and a box on a piece of land that we own or rent. M does not.

Her mother, father, sister, aunt and later, brother were delighted to meet me. Her mother sat on a chair across from me and looked me up and down, speaking rapid-fire 3amiyya which M translated for me. I didn’t need M’s assistance when her mother looked at me and patted her own hips, but I was told fondly that “she says you are very fat.” I held my tongue in responding to her mother’s own physical condition, for know that I am fortunate enough to be living in a country in which meat-padding is a good thing. Afterward I was encouraged to sing along with mp3s downloaded on their cell phones, dance to the same music while they collapsed in giggles, and ask them how to say any part of the body in Arabic. ANY part, they reiterated. M looked through my textbook and giggled at the mistakes I’d made. “This is very, very easy” she stated, waiting for my agreement and an appropriate excuse as to why I’d made so many mistakes. “Uh,” I managed. “You know, it’s a difficult language.” “You are a slow learner, no?” she inquired. I then suggested that we name all the fruits and vegetables in her fridge.

“You like my house?” she asked after I’d been there for about an hour and a half. This is a tendency I’ve noticed in my language partner. I lie in wait for a compliment. She inquires as to the existence of a compliment – and I can’t deny her! I told her that her house, and its yellow reception room with creaking box-couch, and corner room with two beds and the olive-pit green refrigerator, and kitchen smaller than our bathroom, all of which could fit in our room here at Hotel E, was the most beautiful Egyptian house I’d been in. And it is. Because the only other Egyptian house I’d been in was the kind of house that sits in a rectangle on a plot of land, and M lives in the kind of house that shares a building with many other families. So I was telling the truth.

*

Every day that I’m out on the streets I am acknowledged. It’s in the snickers of muhajjaba girls who notice my boy-like clothing, the young boys who notice the non-muhajjaba girl on the streets, the old men who use their English to garner our attention and vie for our tourist dollars. Or pounds. I hear “Hello, welcome, come in” every day. Most days there’s a “Welcome to Egypt, what’s your name?” And yesterday my roommate and I were saluted by the owner of a mango juice shop who called to us as we approached and passed “very, very, very, very" (by this time we're past his shop and wondering where this is going) "very good face.” Some days I smile inside. Most days I’m annoyed – for purely selfish cultural reasons. In the States, we don’t want to be noticed when shopping, or walking a route we need to take taily. We want it to be an anonymous experience in which we are not pressured. We don’t want to be picked out of a crowd for physical differences that identify us as outsiders.

At this point in my stream of consciousness, it hits me that I’m pretty damn privileged to experience this racial differentiation only when leaving my home country. Specifically, to travel to a non-western, eastern or northern European country or any country established by the monarchies or those western, eastern or northern European countries. My roommate put it well the other day: We could have it worse than to hear men mutter to us “very beautiful,” or shop owners ask “hello friend, where you from? I give you special discount!” when we're not at our most culturally sensitive. We could be hearing “go home, terrorist” or “damn nigger.”

I’ll take “very, very, very, very, very good face” any day, now that I think about it.


Finally, here's a video I took in class a couple weeks ago. Don't tell the teacher I was filming. As you can see, Arabic grammar is riveting.

* "N3am" (remember: the 3 represents the letter "ayn," which suggests a throat contortion English doesn't have) means "yes" in classical Arabic. In Egyptian Arabic, one says "aywa." Now that we've learned both, we use the appropriate word without fail. In the entirely incorrect situation. Never fails.

“It’s like trying to drink through a fire hose,” said a particularly insightful member of my program.

Every day in each class, we scribble hundreds of new vocabulary words. (Remembering them is another issue.) Two days a week, we have a 12-hour turnaround time between classes - 12 hours which may or may not comprise of a 10-page homework packet, and informational sheets (entirely in Arabic) given to us as an OPPORTUNITY to prepare for all-Arabic lecture the following day. Then there are life necessities. We find places to do laundry, and schlep our laundry there. We secure meals – maybe two a day, or one if swimming upstream through the streets of people seems particularly exhausting. Homework and keeping up with our classroom topics could easily comprise 50% of our non-class hours. And occasionally, our families like to hear from us.

A fire hose, or intellectual boot camp. Analogies make the stress more comprehensible.

*

We met the most interesting people at our favorite hang-out-and-eat spot in Alex last week. Because we go there about three times a week, we noticed that this western-looking couple had also graced the large wooden booths three times that week. As they headed for the door, I offered a pleasant salutation. We wound up talking for a half hour.

She is half Egyptian, half Greek, and pregnant. He is half Egyptian, half Argentinean, and owns a hotel. I spoke for that half hour with the woman, and my roommate spoke with the man. We had wildly differing conversations, and came together after the four of us parted ways to share notes. All in all, it was hugely insightful to meet these two and hear their experiences being both insiders to Egyptian life and culture and language, and members of other ingroups.

She told me about growing up in Greece and visiting Egypt as a child. She told me about the visit she thought would be her last, which happened to be the visit on which she met her now-husband. She told me about how her experience has been as a woman in Egypt, married to a businessman. If she attends a meeting with her husband and wishes to express an opinion, she tells her husband first and he then relates it to his partners, so that she doesn’t “hurt his honor.” That’s not the wish of her husband; rather, after a lifetime living on two sides of a culture, she’s determined it’s the most effective way for her thoughts to be entertained.

He told my roommate about the lack of accountability among business owners in Egypt. “If I want to buy a box of 100 pens, and I pick out ‘that pen please,’ I may get back a box of 50 ballpoint pens and 50 fountain pens. Or maybe 50 pens and 50 pencils. The shop owner asks me, ‘What’s the problem? They all serve the same purpose,’ but I answer, ‘It’s not what I want!’” He told her about a serious problem with lack of foresight when planning new buildings or construction projects – an area will be identified, cleared and prepared. A building will be designed. But no thought goes in to the sewage line that must reach the building, or how electricity will reach every room, or where its visitors and patrons will park. Granted, it’s not as bad as some recent structural mishaps, and it’s also worth noting that this was one person’s opinion that I heard second-hand. Regardless, I find that his concerns fit with some curious sights I’ve seen in Egypt so far. The best example thus far: in Siwa – the oasis in western Egypt we visited a couple weeks ago - an entire Olympic sports complex sits on the edge of town, surviving the sun and the wind and only occasionally used by the military base. As far as I know, there are NO SCHEDULED OLYMPIC GAMES in the works for Egypt.

*

If you have not had the pleasure of conversing with an Egyptian, you might notice that your future conversation partner finds a lot of what you say to be questionable. Example:

You: “Hey man. You want to see a movie tonight?”

Friend: “Uh.”

You: “Er, okay. Instead, maybe we could go grab a bite to eat. Do you like pizza?”

Friend: “Uh.”

This is not to say that Egyptians don’t have a lot to say, but I’ve finally picked up on a crucial cultural nuance to conversation here. “Uh” accompanied by falling affectation (similar to the way a person in the U.S. might indicate uncertainty or doubt, though not held for quite as long as a full “Uhhhhhh…”) indicates “yes,” or a more analogous “uh-huh.”

Five weeks down. And I just learned how to say “uh-huh” to an Egyptian. *sigh*

*

There’s a newspaper kiosk on a busy corner by our school. This is one of those intersections with traffic lights – a somewhat rare occurrence at intersections. However, as I mentioned a few posts ago, drivers take stoplights as indicators of how MANY people will be coming from the other direction when they drive speedily through the intersection, rather than indications that they should stop. Hence, traffic police are found at almost every controlled intersection.

A few days ago I stood on this corner, next to the newspaper kiosk, with a few classmates as we waited for a gap in the traffic that would allow us to dart through. The man selling newspapers greeted us warmly – he knows our schedule by now. A car approached his kiosk from the street I faced, and the woman inside honked her horn with increasing urgency. This struck me immediately, for the majority of the times a car approaches me honking, it’s a taxi offering a ride or a man indicating that he has spotted someone foreign and female who interests him. (Egypt and Kentucky have that tendency in common.) The man selling newspapers heard this fervent raucous and turned just as the woman’s car approached the kiosk. She leaned out her window and sputtered the name of a newspaper. As she crawled slowly around the corner at the pace of prevailing traffic, the newspaper seller hurriedly snatched up the appropriate paper and handed it to her through the driver’s side window, as she handed him the payment she had prepared.

Huh. Egyptian drive-through.

*

One of the fusHa teachers has taken it upon herself to direct a play. Specifically, a passage from the Quran that she has assigned to several suckers – er, volunteers – in the form of a play. From what I’ve been told, this is the passage from which Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was derived.

On the first day of play practice, I was secretly relieved to have been cast as the BEST part of any play – the chorus. Two classmates and I sat on the floor and, for three lines, cackle over our imaginary breadmaking in response to Joseph’s (Yusuf’s) ironic misfortunes. On this day of play practice, we mostly followed the direction of the fusHa teacher, for Arabic plays, from what I can tell, seem to violate the U.S. standard of placing its dialogue AND ONLY ITS DIALOGUE after a colon. Hence, we Arabic learners are often confused. The text (which I’m feigning in English here) looks something like this:

JOSEPH TAKES A SEAT AT THE TABLE AND IS PROPOSITIONED BY HIS MASTER’S WIFE. HE LOOKS TO HER.

Joseph: In a voice quiet as the crumbs under his grandmother’s armoire, looks around nervously I am not sure we should be doing this, m’am.

Chorus: They stir their brew and exchange glances Boy oh boy is he going to get it!

Hence, my classmates and I, having come to the part that said “Chorus,” went ahead with our lines as they read after the colon. We didn't understand why the fusHa teacher was waving her arms and pleading with us to stop until we were informed that we had just read “They stir their brew and exchanging glances Boy oh boy…”

I’ve strayed from my point. Here it is: Halfway through play practice, one of my chorus-mates picked up her iPhone and reported back what it was we would be saying in our upcoming lines. Looking over her shoulder, I saw that she had DOWNLOADED A QURAN APPLICATION and had brought up the EXACT SURA WE WERE PERFORMING, complete with full voweling (so that we knew how to pronounce all the words) and the ENGLISH TRANSLATION.

For the first time since their creation, I kind of, sort of wanted an iPhone.

But I hopped online and read this, and was cured of that desire. Instantly.

*

I’ll end this update with a brief admonition about this fair country I spend these days imbibing like sweet, soft okra imbibes and becomes saturated with its olive-oil-tomato- stew: Take every fact you know about modern Egyptian culture and life with a grain of salt. This includes facts like arrival and departure times of varying forms of public transportation and ingredients of restaurant items. Today I actually had this exchange (in Arabic) with a gentleman caterer standing by a table of food I was about to choose from and consume:

Me: Is this vegetable dish bidoon lahma (without meat)?

Gentleman: Oh yes.

Me: Oh good! So it’s vegetarian, then?

Gentleman: Whoa whoa whoa, vegetarian? No, no. *Looks at me like I'm crazy.*

*sigh*