say it isn't so

..that there is less than a month remaining on this adventure

"adventure" it has truly become, as we've not successfully journeyed through 3 countries and are currently getting to know the city layout of our fourth stop- jerusalem.

unfortunately, i have never been very directionally-savvy and cannot for the life of me tell you how to get to the western/wailing wall from here. that is why i have friends, my, i am so blessed by them (not just because they can read street signs).

i will attempt to sum up the last 3 weeks a sentence per location: we'll see if this is possible.

istanbul:a turkish form of a european town, amazing toast, wonderful hills to jog up&down in the wee hours of the morning.

ankara: a little less vibrant and "hopping"than istanbul, but has some wonderful historical places (aka ataturk's center).

first place we stayed in syria: it was only for one night, hence my lack of memory of its name, but we spoke with an orthodox "abuna", or rabbi, there and it was highly interesting...and convicting...and informative.

damascus: great ice cream, we participated in a turkish bath, i ran on "straight street"(acts 9 anyone?), and visited many churches overflowing with beautiful icons.

amman: jordan was not our home long enough to establish a firm relationship, but i did enjoy the safeway grocery strore there because i was able to buy peanut butter!

jerusalem: so far so good- dylan was here for the first 4 days and we traveled all over the city with his guide book, katelyn and i discovered an amazing bohemian store, the falafal is heavenly, the people intriguing, and the hospice in which we stay is beautiful.

today we were supposed to add "bethlaham"to the list but bc of securiy cautions, we had to cancel last minute. tel aviv, anyone? i'll keep you posted, but it's looking good for next week.

my mind continues to wrestle and throw punches at the other side about this conflict and i have come to this:

please, oh my goodness. i don't want to be pro-israel or pro-palestine, i'm going to just dang be pro-peace. (although that decision doesn't make the debate any simpler...my oh my)

hope all is well with you lovely readers, see you in 3ish WEEKS!

road trip...

...through the Middle East that is.

don't worry, we won't do anything trecherous. i'll dress modest, look both ways before crossing the street, and learn an essential vocabulary in turkish & hebrew before bargaining.

homestays were amazing. living with 5 girls, a mom, and a handful of various relatives easily tops the charts in egypt-moments. it was a relief to halt the brain cramming of culture and settle into the actual living. other than the huge portions of rice and aish (bc i'm a vegetarian, they thought perhaps i needed 4xs the other staple foods), my family did not necessarily go out of their way for their new american daughter/sister.

and that, my friends, is exactly how i hoped it would be. i went with them places (a signing of the wedding papers at the mosque, a bachelorette party of sorts, shopping, meandering through town, errands, etc), but i spent most of the evenings just hanging out in my polka dot pajamas. my sisters and mama would be in and out between classes and working and visiting, but there was always someone to talk/gesture with. one of my sisters, rania, spoke english well (and spanish, in fact. we had fun.) & the rest of the girls definately improved their repetition skills. they would say something, then repeat it slower, then throw in some exaggerated hand motions...& on a good day, i would recognize what they were trying to say to me by that point. it was so much fun.

in half an hour, i'm planning to cheer on my friends in their tabla (egyptian drum) concert & then hunt down some watermelons in agouza for our halloween party this evening.

i'm sure you are all intensely curious as to how my friends and i will adorn ourselves with costumes in cairo?  i'll indulge you. my 5 friends and i are going to be the legit CAIRO, EGYPT... or in arabic, il-qa-hair-ah mas'r. thus, we will be just that. an ILL person, a raven (which will CAW), some big HAIR, and a philosopher (with a constant UH question) for the city and then a MA (mom) and SIR to represent the country name. of course.

tomorrow we leave bright and early to travel from a warm climate to crazy cold turkey. from there, we'll gradually make our way (by car, by boat, by plane) back to cairo. in the course of the month, we'll hopefully be paying visits to...everywhere. i don't have the schedule close to me at the moment, but its lengthy and full-looking. i'm rather looking forward to the adventures we'll have...

on the other hand, it's only a month and i don't want to leave this newfound enjoyment i have found in cairo. i am comfortable going around town now, comfortable with asking for directions in arabic, comfortable waking up and putting on long sleeves and pants/skirt even though its summertime weather, comfortable with my flatmates...

by the time i return to this comfort of agouza, it will be a sped-up 2 week version of madness. so much to do, so many people to see, and so much hugging of this culture to do.

let me know how your lives are. thank you for all of those who have sent love in the form of letters... my, they make me smile. for the next month, i'll be out of touch via phone/mail (and for the most part, email), but expect a bundle of letters to be hitting home about the same time i do!

have a beautiful month of november. i'll be in touch(ish)!

packing & unpacking

welcome to the world of not ever fully unpacking. until we leave to go, almost.

we arrived back home last night from the cruise (after narrowly escaping the train) & leave tonight to be dispersed all over cairo with families.

i am indeed looking forward to this week with great anticipation. we are all wondering the nature of our families, our new siblings, our homes, even our locations. will we have to leave at 7am to fight traffic? will we just be across the street?

i hope to become more acquainted with the metro system this week...& my arabic vocabulary words.

every time my fingers press into the keyboard, i feel as though the impact should be felt on the screen. what can i say that will truly encompass life here? all my brain can muster is a smattering of paradoxes, such as:

1)i eat the same things everyday...& i love it.2) the pollution is absolutely terrible...but i can stare straight into he the sunlight and grin because of it.3) it takes almost as long to walk to the track & back as it does to actually jog (& we have to pay for it)...but i have made close friends with my jogging partners and would not trade those hours for anything. 4) 10 and 12 hour train rides are strenuous on the patiance...but it provides a time of solidarity (or, in yesterday's case, a time to practice arabic vocab cards with 10 year olds who can act out the words faster than i can read them) & relaxation. 5) sometimes we get so lost in the questions...but it brings us back to the humility and hope found in Christ.

can i just say...i love my flat?

also, i've been reading "the body and the blood" (an excellent read if you have 3273 free hours bc its a bit lengthy) & was struck by a snippet of the author's thoughts. in it, he is describing part of a "christian pilgrimage" through the holy lands and he says that more often than not, the lands are viewed through the semi-blurred windows of an air-conditioned tour bus & the truth of the region is easily concealed behind the trinket shops & age old landmarks. that idea pinched me and i shifted uncomfortably on the deck of our nile cruise ship...

we plowed through those upper egyptian towns like there was no tomorrow, hopping from roman temple to greek temple. it was amazing, yes. informative, most definately. an accurate portrayal of egypt today? not so much...that requires much more than temple-hopping. thanks be to God that it is not our only snapshot of egypt. all that to preface this: yesterday while rumbling through who-knows-where in egypt (on the train from luxor to giza), i would find myself staring out the window with a slight scowl, thinking that i was seeing it through the "a/c tour bus" view that the author described. then, i would turn around and my scowl would curl upwards-- a group of us were in second class & surrounded with egyptians. i was able to share food with my egyptian neighbor, have fun with a number of the younger ones, and exchange welcoming smiles with a few of the other passengers. it was indeed a wonderful thing to come back to.

so i'm sending the official invite: does anyone want to come live with me here? ...not cairo, sorry. but a green patch somewhere near the nile? (truthfully though, i hope the nile is in my future somewhere. uganda?)

7 weeks & i'm homeward bound. what a strange sensation that will be...

hope all is well in the midwest! let me know if you desire anything specific from this region (egypt/turkey/jordan/etc).

& i must confess, i'm debating. nose ring or dreads?

the update:

oh man. a burden was lifted from our shoulders today: we took our islamic thought and practice final.

*il-hum-do-li-la. (praise be to God.)

in celebration, my friends and i are going to a circus in agouza tonight. what better way to usher in a new wave of adventures?

tomorrow night we're packing our bags and heading on a 12 hr train ride to ultimately jump aboard a boat & cruise on down the nile... destination: valley of the kings (among other historically signifigant places, i'm sure).

ramadan has ended...eid has begun...fireworks are popping like mad...galloping of horses & donkey hooves can be heard every few moments...food is on the streets again...it's festive.

so what else do you lovelies want to hear about? any specifics? i'm vague today...my mind is too busy wrapped around potentials for the rest of the day (dabka is canceled due to eid. it costs more to run due to eid. hmm.) to pour energies into one funnel.

ooh i just found this, maybe it will spark questions or explanations:

Currently snacking: m&ms brought from brittany's mom & sister who are here visiting Currently listening: to kayla sharing stories Currently wearing: polka dot skirt & rachel sander's gray tshirt Currently reading: about to start "body & the blood" Currently obsessing: ...arabic vocabulary? Currently looking foward to: nile cruise(!) Currently procrastinating: writing an essay on globalization Currently memorizing: the Lord's prayer in arabic Currently glancing at: my roommate, aly Currently dreaming about: turkey. getting dreads. Currently sighing over: having an afternoon of freedom Currently rejoicing over: see above: having an afternoon of freedom Currently sore from: the brain? using my brain too much? Currently wishing: that egypt sold reeses Currently remembering: that i ought to begin that paper...

new days & old people

its beginning to pop up in conversations with greater frequency...life as we were beginning to know it is about to change.

after this week, we won't have any two weeks that match. next week we'll be floating down the nile for the latter half, the week after i'll be living with a muslim family somewhere in the depths of cairo, and the 4 weeks after we'll be venturing all over the middle eastern region & leaving cairo behind us. that is, until we return at the beginning of december to have a jam-packed two weeks of essay-writing, debreif-doing, and farewell-saying. weird.

today team squeege (dan, jk, tara & i: the geriatics troupe on tuesdays) had a relatively usual day with the lovely enderly. tante blanche (grandma blanche) let me video her as she gave me her best advice... so in a beautiful, 70-year-old-ish voice thick with a french & arabic accent, she commanded me to drink a glass of milk everyday so that i will have strong bones when i grow old. :) note to self. we also had a mini-concert with tara on the guitar and me with a camera attached to my eye- together we documented the whole 10 minutes of it & it was a delight. i hope the nurses and the ladies enjoyed it as much as we did!

speaking of that girl, i'm jogging with her & karen in a few moments. thats what we do a few times a week- jog at the nearby, just-across-the-nile sports park. half of the park is for horses and their riders, so most of the time we find ourselves dodging trotting mares stallions on the sandy path.

ramadan ends soon- eed is coming up...a week long feast, so i'm told. i'm excited to see it first hand. i must admit, it will be tough to get used to the "regular" cairo schedule now- the majority of my time here has been during ramadan and the idea of having traffic between 530-630pm is unheard of (that's when breaking fast happens & the streets are deserted bc everyone is with their familie at the dinner table)... now i'll really have to pay attention when i cross the street during that time. speaking of streets (oh those calming things), our taxi got hit today. no big deal, just a bump from a motocycle (not even a dent on either party) but it was enough to invoke loud shouts and shaking of fists through the open window. the four of us just looked at each other, gave a few lopsided grins, and went back to our respective studying.

so that was the day, in a nutshell. OH! yesterday i went to the arab league. amazing. more on that later.