Jerusalem

Well people, I'm here in Jerusalem, home to the three Abrahamic religions. I floated in the Dead Sea yesterday, touched the Wailing Wall today, gazed at the Mount of Olives, met some guys from Chile, crossed three borders in one week, drove across the West Bank, listened to a woman speak Aramaic (what Jesus spoke), saw Jericho, and some other things I'm sure, can't remember right now. I'll be here in Jerusalem for the next two weeks before returning home to Cairo. We're staying in the Arab quarter of East Jerusalem, about a stone's throw from the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall. I feel such a stronger connection with the Palestinians here, as I've obviously been in an Arab context for the last two and a half months, know basic Arabic, etc. The Israeli people seem so foreign and strange to me. We'll see how the next two weeks go. I miss everyone and hope things are going well.

Off to Turkey!

Well kids,
I'm leaving, on a jet plane, don't know if I'll be back again.... !!

I'm leaving in the morning for a short one and a half hour flight that will take me to Istanbul, Turkey. I just finished (and am printing here at the internet cafe) three papers for one of my classes, and recently finished (last three days) my Arabic and Islam final. It feels good to be done with 7 of my units for the semester :) We haven't really had time to process/relax before we get on a plane tomorrow, but I guess that's ok. I'mreally excited about the schedule we have and speakers and people we get to meet with, but be in prayer as it's a pretty intense schedule timewise. I'll be returning to Cairo April 11.

Much love!

All of this to say....

Is it ok that everything I have stood on in the past is seemingly crumbling? That I don’t know what to believe and what to laugh at? I think it might be. Do I think I’m the only person to have ever questioned things before or been shocked at their government? That’s laughable in itself. And they still get up and go to work. It is tempting, however, to ask how work matters when everything I know I don’t know. Well since I’m not paying for my own food I can’t really understand this, but most people would say “because we need a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.” There is still beauty in life, still sweet love that is waiting for me, still sunsets that rise and moons that sink, the call to prayer still goes on, and papers still have to be written. I think it is very modern to want black and white in all issues (“there is so much more in love, than black and white….”), and we have not been taught how to live with degrees of uncertainty. It’s ok not to know all the time – we’re never going to know everything anyhow! I think I escaped this concept so much because I was so entrenched in the sciences. Opinions don’t matter there, only facts. A deeper learning in my theology classes was probably one of my first encounters in living with tension. We cannot place God in a box, claiming we know whether His sovereignty or our free will plays out more in the world. This is just one of things we must live in tension of not knowing – celebrate even. So is religion and politics, it seems like. While some things can be absolutely true (“Will currently lives in Quito”), there are others things we will probably just never know or even claim to know (how does the trinity really work?). This is ok, I’m beginning to understand more. The world is not held together by me, so it’s not necessary that I know everything. There’s a song that talks about beauty being found in a breakdown, and I think this is an excellent assessment. No one likes being beat up (except masochists) or having things stripped from them, but I think this might be another place that we can find beauty if we are looking. The more we allow to be defined as beautiful, the more beauty we experience. Some things will never be beautiful (sin, genocide, assassinations, etc), but perhaps there are more elements of beauty in what most humans experience on a daily basis than what we normally acknowledge. I was told that marriage can either be a constant fight about who is right and whose childhood was better, or a celebration of differences and a journey to discover more about those variations and what works best for both of you. While it’s a little difficult for me to think about learning that Will might think it’s the woman’s responsibility to always take out the trash and then approaching that situation as “oh, well isn’t that an interesting difference!”, I think that is can be an overall approach that constitutes a healthy marriage and a healthy life. I realized this more fully today as dusk is falling, the call to prayer is sounding, and I am standing on my balcony. Yesterday I hated Egypt in the sense that it is keeping me from being where Will is, and today I looked out over the street I call home and realized how blessed I am to be here and experience what so few are able to. The same concept applies as well in my reaction to the plethora of attention from men here (I was asked to get married last night on my walk home). It’s my choice – I can choose to be upset or to laugh it off. I am in control of my own response and emotions (well, theoretically over my emotions, I suppose), and why would I choose to be upset? It’s like greedily eating the servant’s porridge and ignoring the feast set for a king. And so the same attitude can be applied to what I’m experiencing now. I can either lose my sanity coming to grips with a world I was blind to before, or I can marvel at the adventure my mind and heart is on, realizing few people are as privileged as I am to even contemplate such notions unrelated to substantive living.

What's Up Everyone?

Make sure you look at the post before this, as I posted a ton of pictures I should have done a long time ago. They're awesome!

I had a fun night last night. It's our last weekend here in Cairo before we leave for travel component, and it was Steve Kool's 24 birthday, and we have a ton of stuff to do this weekend for finals and essays and stuff next week, so we all decided to go out last night. So some of us went to Applebees on a boat, and it was nice - very American feeling. Then we went to a movie theatre where we met the rest of our group, and they saw The Last King of Scotland and The Queen, but we weren't really excited about any of them, but one of the girls I had dinner with, Esther, was really excited about seeing "Ghost Rider" so soem of us saw that, and it was pretty much the worst movie (short of As Good As It Gets and most other films with that one guy) I've ever seen. It was creepy and bad, but we had fun.

Oh yeah and then earlier yesterday we watched a movie as part of class called "The Yacoubian Building," a really famous movie by Egyptians about Egypt (I read the book a couple weeks ago). We watched it with about 6 Muslims from the website www.IslamOnline.com, writers and editors and such. Then we had lunch with them and spent time talking with them, about life and Egypt and such. We had a really great time. One of the women I talked to was wearing the full necab (face and hand coverings), and she was the first woman I've talked to like that. It was really interesting, as she's 24, very very confident and forceful (in a personality type way), and is a full blown feminist (we realized this once we started talking to her). It was fascinating. She's the editor for the Family/Women section of the website. Hopefully we'll be able to take a tour of the place after we get back.

I slept in this morning til noon, which was nice. I LIKE SLEEPING! I'm at an coffee shop right now, and had some french press coffee for the first time in my life. I really like it!

So I think I'm really going to miss Egypt. Today is their holy day and they broadcast over loudspeakers their sermons from the mosques (they all start at the same time) around noon and I was laying in bed, forgetting that this is what's going on. So I was laying there thinking "there's NO way the call to prayer can be going on this long! (about 20 minutes into it). Finally I got up and went into our living room and the girls mentioned it was the sermon. I sat on our patio with a cup of tea listening to the broadcast and the sounds of the birds chirping and the cats meowing, the people yelling “aaeeeeeyyyyshhhhhhh” to sell bread, and all the cars honking, and it hit me that I will wake up in my quiet room in Rio Rancho and truly miss the chaos that is Egypt. I knew this feeling of attachment would probably happen, but there have been enough times I’ve woken up and hated it all, so I wasn’t sure I would end up really loving it. I felt that way last night too as we walked across a bridge over the Nile and there were cars everywhere and we walked by a wedding party taking pictures on the bridge, and there were lights everywhere and boats floating along the Nile, and the city felt so alive. Have you ever seen the first episode of 6 Degrees? I felt a lot like that girl, like I was a part of the whole city around me. What a beautiful feeling! The woman I spend time with at the Geriatrics Center told me that anyone who drinks of the Nile water comes back. I feel this way, as though I am falling in love with Egypt, like it is my country, my city, my home. I have always hesitated calling myself Irish because I’m not really – I hadn’t been to the country before last summer, and how can someone call a place home if they’ve never even been there? Well, now I think I’m not Irish anymore, I’m Egyptian. Sure I don’t know the language or have a drop of Egyptian blood in me, but I feel so invested in this place. Maybe it’s just enchantment, but that’s alright with me. If I had to choose enchantment over nothing, I’d take enchantment any day.

Lots of Pictures

Well, I guess I should just post pictures instead of waiting to type blogs about trips. It's too crazy here to expect to find time before I leave for Turkey to write long blogs. Enjoy!


My most recent weekend in the Sinai Peninsula:

Dahab 3.1.07 - 3.3.07

Before that, my cruise down the Nile:

Nile Cruise Day 1

and

Nile Cruise Day 2

and

Nile Cruise Day 3

And my homestay week, which I really should blog about sometime...

My Egyptian HomeStay 2.10.07

If you don't know - well now you know!

I have just been told by my Islam teacher (a Christian from the States) that one of three things generally happen to MESP (Middle Eastern Studies Program) students after they leave....

1) The issues here are too difficult to deal with, and so they go home, reject all that has happened, and assimilate so well back into American society that it is almost if they never came here.
2) They go home, stay active in what's involved in the Middle East (ME), possibly come back here to be involved in social work (most likely not religious affiliated), but generally do not. Or
3) They lose their faith all together.

In case you're wondering, the majority of alumni fall in the first and third categories, with a significant portion being in the third. Doesn't sound very appealing, does it? Why come here at all if you're going to either pretend it didn't happen or treat it as you would a weekend retreat to San Diego or to drop stories like "Oh this one time I was in Istanbul..." or if you're going to lose your faith? Faith in this context I would loosely define as one's previous worldview or paradigm of how the world functions, what America is, what Christianity is, who we are, who the Other is, and various similar things. The unveiling of one's ignorance and prejudice might be another accurate explanation. Why come if all this happens? Is ignorance truly bliss or is the hard truth better?

I don't know what I expected coming here. I think I thought I would have a great cross cultural experience, have some sweet stories to tell in my intercultural studies classes for examples, learn a little Arabic, see awesome places, wail at the wailing wall, and come home happy and educated about the world. Did you know that most of the world's revolutions come when those with raised hopes are not fulfilled? Luckily I'm not a volatile person. ;) Will and I were discussing that idea that if people do not come back from a semester abroad in a different culture significantly changed, then they didn't pay enough attention to things other than themselves. I think this is bizuupt (exactly).

The world is not as I thought it was. The good guys are rarely such, the bad guys are more than what meets the eye, truth is not black and white, Muslims are not our enemies, and my hope and trust in the American government is rapidly deteriorating. Generally when ideas and facts enter someone's worldview that contradict what they know, they reject it. I don't want to do that. Legitimate facts deserve recognition and consideration, and I think this semester will begin a life long pursuit in that direction.

If I didn't know then, well now I do!

Politics and Religion.... any other controversial topics for today?

So I'm a little disillusioned with both politics and religion and realizing that I'm pretty agnostic about a large majority of both these areas. There's such a large area of these that we can't ever know and things we will just flat out never understand over the course of our lifetimes. We are so sure we know what we know, but what about the rest of the world? Sure, you're a semi "expert" on Christianity, but what about the rest of the world religions? People that are born Buddhist stay Buddhist, people born Christian tend to retain their values and beliefs, and if I had been born in this area of the world I would 95% live and die a Muslim. What constitutes religion? How do we know we hold truth when the rest of the world claims to as well? All of this can be said about politics too. Does the average American have any idea what is going on in the Middle East today, or in the last thousand years? Why don't average Egyptians concern themselves with China's gross abuses of human rights? We are all so wrapped up in our own regions and interests that little attention is paid to terrible situations occurring all over the world. How can we claim to know what US foreign policy should be? How can Candice Mercer in 10th grade claim to have any total grasp on why America invaded Iraq? We speak with such small knowledge of amazing intricate and complicated issues involving social orders, different religions, different world views, different conceptions of life and peace and truth. Do we even have any idea of how our own religion of Christianity has been shaped by politics? Why did Augustine's view of human nature win out over Pelagius? Was it actually based on moral truth or just political interests? I think we would be shocked at how many of the things that we believe and take for granted were actually largely politically determined. Who are we to say we have any grasp of who Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is and what his interests are in Iran? We would need to know the political history of Iran, the concept of Shiite Islam and how it functions in contrast to the government and how ironic it is that there is any sort of Shiite government anyhow, what the Iranian relationship is with Syria, historical and current, and an immensely cast number of other aspects. Oh the immense amount of pride and simplification that happens all the time! In both America and the rest of the world, although arguably more in United States.
I have to run, so I'll finish this thought process later I suppose.