Salaam wa Hubb

Aftermath

2011-05-03T05:47:00.000+01:00

How do I write this post? How do I put into words the horrors of the past week? I will try.

On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, I found out a friend of mine had committed suicide. I was shaken, but went to class, where I gave a presentation. I walked home and decided that a nap would be the best way to clear my head. Bad weather was predicted for later in the day and the tornado sirens were blaring in the distance, but that isn't unusual for spring in the south. So I went home and went to bed.

Around 4pm I heard Sam run up the stairs, and groggily looked up. "You need to come downstairs. Now. It's coming." I had heard this so many times before that I lazed around in bed until he came up to get me a second time. I got up.

We found ourselves out on the balcony of our house, and that's when we saw it- huge swirling clouds half a mile wide. Heading straight for our house. Clutching our kitten to my chest, we ran downstairs, into the closet beneath the staircase. I called my mom and told her we were bracing for the worst. I heard a crash, and, chest pumping, decided if I was about to die, I did not want my mom to hear it. I hurriedly told her I loved her and got off the phone. The radio, which we had put on to hear updates on the storm, blurred to static. The power went off. The noise of a freight train began to pound all around us, and all I could think was, we're about to die. I clutched Prime to my chest with one hand and held Sam's with the other. I kissed him, and told him I loved him over and over again. For several heart-pounding minutes, we waited. The crushing noise of the tornado passed, and we left the closet to find the world completely changed.

It would not be until hours later that we could finally access the internet on our phones and see a video of the tornado that literally shows it jumping right over our house and continuing its path of destruction, where it would ultimately take dozens of lives and leave thousands homeless. We didn't understand the scope of the destruction then, just that we were very lucky to be alive.

Entire neighborhoods of Tuscaloosa were wiped out. Over 100 tornadoes were confirmed making ground in Alabama alone that day. The University of Alabama went largely unscathed, but at least 5 UA students lost their lives. Every single house we had considered living in, other than the one we ultimately decided on and took cover in, is gone. If we had chosen differently, we would surely be dead. Tuscaloosa is unrecognizable. The tragedy is unfathomable.

That night, gunshots sounded around our house as looters took advantage of the power outage which would last for nearly a week. Terrified, we crouched in our bedroom with a large steak knife and waited. There was nowhere else to go, no other options. Nowhere was safe. We were truly all alone in the world.

In the darkness we left our home to drive to a different town to find gas for our car, in case we decided to leave town, which we ultimately did. As we pulled out of our pitch black neighborhood, we saw Bryant Denny, UA's football stadium and Tuscaloosa's main landmark, lit up against the night, the only light for miles. And in that moment, I had hope. In the terror and tragedy of that day, there was Bryant Denny, proclaiming in the darkness, we are still here. Tuscaloosa is still here. We will go on.

Please send your thoughts to Tuscaloosa and all of Alabama as we recover from our loss. Over 30 were killed in Tuscaloosa alone and hundreds are still missing or unaccounted for. Donate to the Red Cross. Send items for those who lost everything. I am very, very lucky to be alive, but so many others were not as fortunate. Please give, so that we may rebuild and recover.

2011-03-23T21:17:00.000Z

Today it finally happened.

Since I came back from Egypt in early November, I've felt like my heart has been enduring a long winter. Where I used to feel vital, infinite, limitless, I felt only doubt, worry, and the slow withering drain of depression. It should have been the happiest time in my life- I had just gotten engaged to the love of my life and we were beginning our lives together in the town where it all began. But I was lonely, bitter, and painfully insecure. I've spent the past several months wrapped inside this cloak of insecurities and fear- of what, I'm not sure. Fear of the assault that brought me home, and all of its repercussions. Fear of losing the most precious thing I have in my life, my darling sweet fiance. Fear of coming back to the place that broke my heart- Tuscaloosa, with all its hierarchy, antiquated ideologies and deep-seated hate. Fear of losing the beautiful person that I felt I had become in Egypt. Ironically, all of this fear and anxiety robbed me of just that. The carefree, open spirit I posessed in Cairo became little more than a memory to me, a shadow of a girl who had now become tethered down by responsibilities and realities far beyond her maturity level or emotional threshhold. I worried every day that Sam would realize I was no longer the girl he had asked to marry him and leave me, disillusioned with the sad, solitary person I had become.

But today, it happened.

A week ago today I quit smoking and started running. I started eating healthier and cut sodas and energy drinks almost completely out of my diet. I felt like I was opening a door to let a little light into my dreary world. And then today, as I was driving in the afternoon sunlight by the flowering Tuscaloosa wisteria, I felt a slow bloom in my soul. I felt a surge of pride as I took the University of Alabama exit on the interstate- a surprising feeling. I glanced in the rearview mirror of my new BMW and saw the simple American University in Cairo decal, and instead of feeling a desperate longing, I felt a slow, glowing nostalgia. Shafts of sunlight danced through the car as I pulled up to Academy Sports and treated myself to a new running outfit. I walked out of the store and into the light and I felt like I was walking into a bright new place. My heart was blossoming, opening itself again to the beauty of life and the world and yes, even Tuscaloosa. For the first time in months, I felt full and innocent and integral- like I was worth of the love Sam showers on me, like I deserved to be happy and healthy, like everything was going to be alright again. This long-absent sensation literally feels like someone injected pure light into my veins. I feel like I have things to look forward to and strive for again. I feel confident that Sam and I are going to have a long, happy life together. I feel healthier than I have in two years. I'm starting to feel comfortable in my own skin after spending much of the past year hiding behind extra pounds in a desperate attempt to be invisible and unoffensive. I feel like nothing's missing. And I feel like life is starting over for me- in a new, exciting way. I think I've finally learned that I can be as excited and passionate about life as I was when I was constantly gallivanting around the globe, simply by finding adventure in the simplicity of life in this funny little town.

I'm so excited to start over.

I'm so excited that the longest winter is finally over. The snows are melting, and the world is springing back to life. And I'm ready.

Why am I marrying him?

2011-01-18T02:34:00.003Z

In a huff of frustration, as the hands on the clock ticked past 3am and I carried the big, soft comforter to the guest bedroom across the hall from the one I share with Sam, I asked myself, why am I marrying him? Like clockwork, reliable as the minutes ticking past one at a time, never ceasing despite the ebb and flow of humanity, he stalked into the room where I had settled in to the partially deflated, queen size air mattress, kneeled at the side of the bed, nothing visible but his figure silhouetted by the light from the streetlamp streaming in through the window behind him. He refused to leave, he asserted, until I came back to bed with him. To our bed. I prickled. This is my bed now, I growl, even as I turn over in my mind that this bed is uncomfortable. I want to go back to my big, comfy bed and melt into the down comforter and sleep and forget all of this. But I can't. It's my pride, my damn pride, that has exiled me into the guest bedroom. My feelings have been hurt, and, damn you, this will not stand. He eases his hand into mine, somehow finding it in the dark quiet of the early morning hours, his thumb instinctively caressing the ring on my left hand. I snatch the hand away, roll over, will him to leave, and then, pray he does the opposite of what I've willed him to. To stay here, in the dark and the quiet and the angry and to stay with me. To fight for me, and to love me despite my damn pride. So the question remains, why am I marrying him?

Daytime. The same bed. He's flopped down, cycling kit half stripped off after an invigorating, exhausting afternoon ride. I've come and laid down, perpendicular to him, stroking the disarray of thinning hair as he draws in heavy, satisfied breaths. He rolls over onto his stomach, his face squished between the air mattress and the weight of his shoulder. Golden soft afternoon sun streams in the windows and the quiet is light and effortless. Quiet but for the soft scrape of three day old stubble on the vinyl of the mattress, until suddenly he shifts, extends his arm, slowly intertwines his fingers with mine, kisses my fingertips. "I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you." He says, his eyes locked on mine, gentle but serious as sin. His earnesty disarms me. As I lay on this mattress, in our first house together, half sick with the flu, hair ratty and face pale and plain without makeup, the first thought that springs to his head is I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you? This, I think, this is why I'm marrying him.

Home, let me go Home

2010-10-30T00:25:00.002Z

This is both the hardest and easiest thing I've ever had to write.

About a month ago, I decided that I was going to leave Egypt for good in December and transfer back to the University of Alabama. I wasn't waking up excited about being here anymore. I wanted to be near my family. My newborn nephew was having health issues, and I wanted to meet him and be there for him. I didn't want to miss my entire engagement to the man who will be my husband in less than two years. The list goes on and on..

Most of you know that last Thursday I was sexually assaulted in Dokki. Suddenly I felt as if the world was constantly in danger of falling apart around me. Walking down the street became a Herculean task. There were panic attacks. A lot of them. I found myself sobbing in class on several occasions for no apparent reason. I could not focus in class because all of my strength was used as I willed myself not to fall apart completely. This Thursday was my breaking point. I was nauseous with stress and anxiety all day. Finally, on the bus home from school, I found myself vomiting into a plastic bag, lacking even the energy to be embarrassed about it. My emotional distress had reached a level where I was no longer able to keep food down. Something had to give.

I had been willing myself to be just a little stronger, just strong enough to make it to December. I was not strong enough.

I was up until 4am last night sobbing to Sam. Honey, help me, please. I felt like I was drowning, struggling to keep my head above water.

In the three years since we've met, I've never asked for help with anything. I've always thought it was a sign of weakness. Last night, I was weak, defenseless, defeated. After a week of putting on a brave face, I had no energy left to muster. And in my weakness, he was strong. Sweetheart, I'll handle this. I'll get you home. Don't worry.

He called my parents. And, like they always do, they swooped in to save the day- no questions asked. My mom is flying in on Monday to help me tie up loose ends. On November 9, we're leaving Egypt. I'm going home. Home, to a family that loves me. Home, to a nephew I've yet to meet. Home, to a man who would move mountains for me. Home, to parents who make me feel safe.

I am not writing this to garner sympathy. I am writing this for two reasons: to tell my friends in the easiest way I know how that I am leaving them, and to break the silence about sexual abuse. In Egypt, in America, everywhere. I am done being quiet, and I am done being a victim. Sexual assault is not shameful. It was not my fault. I did nothing to deserve it. NOBODY deserves it. I refuse to be ashamed; I refuse to be embarrassed. Today, I am choosing to be empowered.

I am not going home with my tail between my legs. I am going home proud of what I've done in the past 3 semesters, of the friendships I made and the life I created. I'm going home excited to start the next phase with the man I love. I'm going home full of love and gratitude knowing that I have a family that will help me carry a heavy burden when I've no strength left to do it myself. I'm going home knowing that I have not failed, but rather succeeded in the most glorious way possible: something terrible has happened to me and I have survived; but more than that, I have taken the steps that were necessary to begin to heal. I will never be the same- I will be better, stronger. I can promise you that.

Mom and Dad, Sam, Dana, Samantha, and everyone else who has helped me survive the past week:
Thank you for standing in the center of the fire with me and not flinching. Your strength and love have been all that has kept me going. Thank you for being my shoulders to cry on, my voices of reason, my calm in the storm. I love you all more than you will ever know.

How could anyone ever understand these mascara scars?

2010-10-23T05:02:00.000Z

It's in the dark of the night that the monsters come out. My best friend Dana is snoring softly next to me; she's spent most of the weekend here subtly making sure that I'll be okay. I lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I cannot sleep. Like two mismatched reels of film, the fresh scene plays in my head, but soon gives way to a deeper hurt, a fuzzy, stilted slideshow that is best not remembered. I roll over, face the wall, try not to wake Dana as I sob quietly into my pillow.

On Thursday, I was attacked by a group of street kids on my way to the bus stop. I say kids because none of these boys were older than fifteen. And I say attacked because this was sexual harassment taken to the extreme. Every day, I am confronted with cat calls, inappropriate remarks, men grabbing my ass, taxi drivers showing me porn, and strange phone calls from Egyptian men whispering disgusting words to me in Arabic at 3am. These occurrences, though annoying, have never actually caused me much distress; there's never any intention behind any of it- it's all talk and posturing. On Thursday, however, there was intent, and it was unmistakable. The evidence is in my torn clothes. I am still reeling.

I usually try not to post negative things about Egypt. I love Egypt, and I love Egyptians. I would never want to give anyone a bad impression of the place I love. But writing is how I deal with things. So obviously, I'm dealing with it. Or trying to. Stand by.

Meet the three most important people in my life

2010-10-10T14:43:00.001Z

Today, I am spending some time thinking about how truly lucky I am. I live in a country I love, studying the thing I'm most passionate about, living a life of adventure and unpredictability. I have a family who loves me and supports me unconditionally. My quasi-fiancee (it won't be official until he sees fit to give me a ring! Hint, hint, Sam) accepts me for who I am, and loves me despite my myriad of flaws. I am surrounded by brilliant, talented, beautiful friends, and there are more who are just as fabulous on the other side of the world. I have a lot to be thankful for. But today, I want to introduce you to the three people who keep me going, day after day, month after month. I do the things I do to make life better for me and for them, to make them proud of me.

This precious little man is my new nephew, Sawyer. I've never even met him in person, but I already love him more than I could ever possibly put into words.

This is Parker, Sawyer's big brother and my oldest nephew. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day is the thought that one day, before they hit puberty and decide I'm old and uncool, my nephews will brag to their friends that their Aunt Dan lived in Egypt for three years and has all sorts of awesome stories and rode camels. Hearing Parker say "I love you, Aunt Dan" warms my heart like nothing else and never fails to bring a tear to my eye. He's already becoming the most incredible little person.

I am in awe of my future husband Sam every day for so many reasons- not the least of which being that he is willing- nay, eager- to spend every day of the rest of his life with me. He is hardworking, honest, loyal to a fault, adventurous, spontaneous, caring, and- let's face it- sexy as hell. I have no idea how I was lucky enough to find my perfect man my first semester of college, and how I was silly enough to let him slip through my fingers once before. The one thing I'm sure of is that it will never happen again. This month marks three years since we met, and every day since I have been becoming a better person simply because I have him in my life.

These are just three of the people who inspire me to live a life that I am passionate about, and who encourage me, each in their own way, to be more. I am so incredibly thankful.

The Crossroad

2010-10-07T18:50:00.001Z

I'll wrestle with these shadows alone
Try to illuminate some long-neglected
light within myself to cast them out
In spite of that naive organ
Haphazardly thumping away
ensconced within the birdcage
that I've been battering, clubbing
with all the strength I've left.
And yet, moment after moment
It beats out the rhythm to song
You've never heard, cannot sing
Because it was written in a tongue
that escapes you, that you cannot
decipher through the static hiss
of crossed wires, missed connections,
fuzzy reception, mixed messages.

I do not want to go back to that place
because it is somewhere you cannot follow
Though I know you'll try.
I know that path leads back in time
to a place I fled from in fear
that the warm complacency
would consume me and extinguish
forever that desperate ember.
And yet I amble on, mesmerized
by the thumping, flitting thing inside-
my very own pied piper,
my very own double agent
leading me back to the beginning.
You're calling to me, I know
but you've been drowned out by the din
the cacophonous echoing of that
hard, hollow, terrifying thing.

And then out of the dark thunder
the white noise of your mind overwhelms
my ears and I lose the sound of
that ill-fated caravan, fading beat by beat
into the oblivion of missed opportunities,
of could've, should've,
next-time-I'll-do-betters.
Yet now there is no next time, there is
no next step, nowhere to go.
For there's nothing in this forgotten place
except a signpost with two crooked little arrows
"to the end", "to the beginning"
pointing toward opposite horizons.
..........I can't decide.

So with crossed legs, I sit there
in the growing evening shadow beneath
two crooked little arrows, one of which
will be my fate, the other my regret.
So here I sit, to wait, until I can
decipher the answer, slowly repeated
by that curious little creature, whispering,
crouching in its cage, in a language
that I used to understand.
I'll keep listening if you keep talking.
Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump.

Walk Like an Egyptian

2010-10-05T15:14:00.001Z

Isn't it funny how in the most mundane of moments you realize that you are changed?

The other day I was walking with Andrew to the bus stop in front of the National Research Center here in Dokki. We were walking, as many people here do, shoulder to shoulder in the middle of a tiny, dusty alleyway lined with piles of rotting garbage and rain puddles that are dubious in the fact that it has not rained here since January. As we were walking and talking, from behind us there came a car horn. Like Pavlov's dogs, we immediately veered to the far left side of the road in single file, hugging the parked cars as we went, never breaking stride or looking back at the approaching car. The tiny Fiat rumbled by, casually bumping my hip as it did so. I did not flinch.

A few seconds later I realized what had happened, realized I had not even been conscious of the honk, the move, the bump.

Car horns have become my proverbial ringing bell.

PS..Y'all have been waiting for over a year for a post with this title. Eat it up.

Throwing stones at the window with the light on

2010-09-26T15:31:00.002Z

About a month ago, I adopted a Siamese kitten. I named her Optimus Prime. I call her Prime for short. My roommate, Andrew, just calls her "kitty" or "cat". He refuses to acknowledge either that she has a name or that she is female. But she is clean and loving and typically well-behaved so we both love her.

I bought Prime from a dubious little pet kiosk in the basement of Metro Towers. She was in a cage clearly not meant for a cat. She couldn't even stand up, and was having to use the bathroom on a piece of cardboard. It broke my heart.

In the past week, she has discovered the wonders of the window. I've been leaving the curtains and the windows open in the living room for her, and she sits on the sill, looking through the screen and the bars out into our bleak backyard, watching the world pass her by.

Today I sat watching her as she sat enthralled by a funny little bird perched on the limb of a fig tree which had been sawed off during Ramadan and has yet to be disposed of [thanks, Landlady]. Peering out at something new and exciting, I could almost feel her desire to be on the other side of those bars. It's the same way she looked at me when I saw her in the pet shop. Once we had her outside that tiny little cage, I couldn't bear to put her back in, seeing her big blue eyes widen at the world beyond.

I understand how she feels. In Alabama, I felt like I was in a tiny cage, a place where no one understood that I wanted something different. So I moved to Egypt, and, as much as I love it, as lucky as I know I am to be here, sometimes I feel like it's simply a bigger cage. There's something beyond it, I know, bigger and more extraordinary, and I find myself pacing in front of the bars, constantly looking out, waiting impatiently for the next big adventure.

So today, I will sit with Prime in front of the window and look out, in case some new life should alight just beyond the bars...

Life List Update

2010-09-19T19:52:00.001Z

If you've been reading Salaam wa Hubb for a while, you've heard about the Life List. It's a list of things I want to do before I die. It's my daily reminder to live with passion- to live a life that is constantly challenging me, thrilling me, inspiring me to be more than what I am currently. I thought I'd give you guys a picture update of the terribly few items I've checked off the list in the past year.

-See Petra, Jordan

-Float in the Dead Sea

-See Alabama win a National Championship.

That's it so far you guys..isn't that sad? In my defense, it's a little difficult to find a place to take trapeze lessons in Cairo. But still, I need to get to it! Anyone have any ideas for a book?!

Care to share your life lists?

Home is Wherever I'm With You

2010-09-18T16:32:00.002Z

I always find myself writing about this sense of otherness that came along with my move to the Middle East. I'm always waxing romantic about how different everything is; singing the praises of the alien, the unusual, and the foreign.

Today I'm going to do something different.

Today, I've revelling in the beauty of constant, unchanging sameness. Care to step out of my comfort zone with me? Yalla!

Growing up in an Army family where the conversational prelude of "We have something we need to tell you, dear" didn't lead into the typical 90's "We're getting a divorce" soulcrusher, but rather the devastating "We're moving. Again."talk, a framed cross-stitch always hung in the entryway of every house we occupied. Carefully stitched into the white cotton was a quant blue tudor overflowing with cardboard boxes. A moving truck was parked in front. The words "Home is where the Army sends us" were stitched across the top.

My parents raised my brothers and I with the phrase "home is where the heart is" etched into our brains. It was their way of combatting the post-PCS "I want to go home" tearfests.

"But you are home," my mother would placate, "because you're with me, and your dad, and your brothers. Home is where the heart is, and I hope your heart is with us."

My heart has since been divvied up and dispersed to dozens of people in dozens of different countries over a period of many years. Ever now and then, a piece makes its way back.

If you've been reading for a while, you're probably familiar with Romani. He was my adorable Sudani Resident Director in the Zamalek dorms last Spring. In fact, one of the first nights I went out in Egypt, we stopped to wait for the bus back to campus in the dorms and saw his picture hanging on the Res Life bulletin board. I said, "I want to be his friend!". Call me a creep, but a few months later, he was one of my best friends. Most every night of last semester was spent clubbing, smoking shisha, or watching movies with Romani, his best friend Ahmed, and Becky and Megan.

Romani graduated in June, and, before I got a chance to say goodbye, moved back to Khartoum. I spent a lot of time this summer trying to come to terms with the fact that one of my best friends had gone somewhere I could not follow and I hadn't even gotten to say farewell. I had nearly accepted that I would never see him again.

Yesterday, I checked my cell phone upon waking up after a particularly blurry night on a felucca. At first I thought my eyes deceiving me- still too punchdrunk on sub-par Egyptian beer and the flashing neon lights of the boat to be trusted. I blinked once, twice, three times and the name was still flashing on the screen: Missed Call from Romani.

Emotions crashed over me in rapid succession. Elation. Disbelief. Confusion. It was his Egyptian number I had a missed call from, right? Right. Are you sure it's not his Sudanese number? Positive. Only fools are positive. Shit. No, he definitely called from Egypt. Why is he here? Is he staying?

I called him back. We made plans to meet up. I got ready, and bided my time at a house party until we were set to meet to go out. Suddenly, there he was. Lots of hugging ensued. Were it not for the four Stellas pumping through my system, I'm sure there would have been tears as well.

And then there we were, in Purple, a club we used to frequent with our old group of friends. Me, Ahmed, and Romani, sipping Belvedere-spiked Sprite, chainsmoking, and dancing to David Guetta. Romani is moving back to Cairo. I leaned my head on his shoulder to hear his voice over the throbbing techno. I laughed with he and Ahmed as we recounted the crazy nights we had shared before. We drank to the two members of our group who had moved on. And then it hit me.

Despite everything that had changed since we had last seen each other- the engagements, birthdays, graduations, ups and downs-everything suddenly felt the same again. Here we were, in a familiar place, with friends who had turned into family, watching yet another Cairene night segue into morning...together.

I'm a girl who likes things to be different, to be strange, to be new and exciting. But I welcomed that deep, comfortable familiarity that warmed my veins more thoroughly than the vodka ever could with open arms. I looked at my friends and smiled. A piece of my heart has come back to Cairo.

And it feels like home.

Pieces of Me

2010-09-14T20:42:00.004Z

Travel is revered as the Great Enricher; that endeavor of all endeavors which somehow makes you more of a person: more than what you were, more self-aware, culturally sensitive, worldly, empathetic, knowledgable. This is not to say that travel has not done these things for me: I would be a radically different person were it not for growing up all over the world, and spending most of the past few years in North Africa. It has made me more than that which I consisted of before, broadened my perspective, given me a much-needed dose of humility. At times it has left me breathless, speechless, in tears, embarrassed, confused- a multitude of emotions, some of which I have yet to pinpoint with an arbitrary name which would only detract from their complexity.

But sometimes travel does more than that. It opens your eyes to a world you had only dreamed about before. It absorbs you into itself, makes you a part of it, of the journey, of the heartbeat of a world beyond the scope of the world you knew only moments before. Therein lies the problem.

Africa- North Africa- has captured my heart in so powerful a manner that sometimes I feel as if my very soul has been split in two. A part of me knows that my home, however long I am away from it, is in America. I was raised to be a Southern belle, woman who stands behind her country, her family, her values, and her football team at every turn. One half of my soul will always belong to the haze of booze-imbued fraternity parties, of sundresses on Saturdays, of family dinners and vintage cigars on the back porch with my dad as we gaze out over the twinkling lights of the Tennessee valley below. But half of my soul has been led away to the barren corners of the world, sandy wastelands stretching as far as the eye can see, the suffocating crush of humanity as hijab-clad women and chainsmoking men hurry from here to there, a world where the language dances, lilting on the night air until I am left with a sing-song headache. I have chased the proverbial dragon here to live a life of adventure, of constant boundary-pushing, nerve-wracking, heart-wrenching discovery. It was been wonderful.

But sometimes, like Saturday night as I watched the grainy image of Trent Richardson streaking down a football field 5,000 miles away, I begin to wonder how much of myself I gave up for this adventure. It is a sacrifice than can never be undone. Whether I like it or not, I have given so much of myself, of my former self, to this region that it can never be reclaimed. When I am here, I miss the part of myself I left behind in America. When I am in America, I spend nights lying awake wishing for the clamor of street vendors and car horns and calls to prayer that never come. It seems to me now that I will always be missing half of myself, no matter where in the world I am. It is in these moments of introspection that I have to shake myself awake from the dreamlike possibility that I may never be whole again. Until it is possible for me to be in two places at once, to be two people at once, to wholly embrace two conlicting lifestyles at once, I may never be a complete version of myself.

And yet, looking at a rare patch of empty inky black sky, unmarred my the reflection of city lights, of airliners, of skyscrapers, as I walk down the dusty alleyway that leads to the front door of my house, I can't help but think that I would much rather be half a person, if that half a person can have the best of both worlds as I do. There is a man and a family waiting for me in a country far away, where Wal-Marts dot the highway and football dominates autumn headlines. There is a campus in the desert of one of the most ancient, historically rich civilizations in the world where I feel that anything is possible. Rather than make me more, travel has torn me into two halves of what was formerly a whole person. But each half is better than what it was when it were whole because of the places it has been and the things it has seen. And, if one day I can figure how to reconcile those two halves into one complete, capable adult...well, I'll be pretty damn cool.

Parable

2010-08-24T00:25:00.006Z

When I was five, weekends were spent at the Carolina Lakes community pool. Countless hours were spent investigating what creatures had found their way into the filters, getting yelled at by lifeguards for tampering with said filters, learning to do back tucks off the diving boards, getting yelled at by the lifeguards for doing back tucks off the diving boards, wearing really embarrasing swimsuits (I'm talking color blocking in purple, orange, pink and yellow with cutout peekaboo holes for my belly button, you guys. Horror.), and trying to be cool like my older brothers. I never did figure out what those terrifying creatures with two claws and tiny round bodies that swam around in the deep end were.

My brother, at 16, would typically let me sit on his lap and "steer" the car on the way to the pool, until I nearly ran us into a ditch (My kids will never do this. But it was the 90s, and it was fun. I support his decision.). Anyway, the point of all of this rambling is that the pool rocked. It was very rarely a place where I was unhappy. In fact, the only bad memory I have from the pool has turned out to be a valuable lesson for me.

It was summer, and I was swimming around, inspecting filters, doing backflips, and flaunting my terrible color-blocked one-piece/bikini hybrid. I approached a group of girls and asked if I could play with them. Not only did they say no, they began taunting me, laughing hysterically...as if they would ever hang out with me. (In retrospect, I couldn't really blame them for laughing at my bathing suit. I know I'm harping, but that thing was awful.) Nothing like that had ever happened to me. I was inconsolable. But then...I was angry. I decided to get revenge.

I stormed out the gate and into the wooded playground area beyond the pool. I had a plan. Soon, I located what I had been looking for: a tiny cactus- small enough to fit in my hand like a baseball. Somewhere in my five year old mind, the best course of action was obviously to uproot this baby cactus with my bare hands and throw it at the offending group of girls. Yeah, that would show them.

So I wrenched the cactus out of the ground and began walking purposefully back to the pool. I hadn't made it far when I noticed blood streaming down my arm. I dropped the cactus, and realized my hand had become a pincushion- covered in tiny, nearly invisible yet incredibly painful spikes. I ran back to the pool area, and my mother drove me home. She spent the next five hours using a magnifying glass and tweezers, plucking every last spike from my tender little palm (Do you remember this, Mom?) while I sobbed that I hated those girls, that I would never forgive them and how could they do that to me? Somehow it was their fault that I had gotten hurt, never mind that I had intended to hurl a baby cactus at their sneering little faces.

The point of this absolutely ridiculous story jumped out at me while I was telling it to Sam this evening: whenever you carry hatred in your heart, it is always you that ends up being hurt by it. Hate, revenge, jealousy...all of these emotions do so much more to harm you than they do the objects of your negative feelings. And in a very literal way, this story from my childhood is a great illustration of that.

Case in point: I dated my First Love for a little under two years. We grew up together, we taught each other so much, and we were desperately in love. Eventually I left him for That Boy (see earlier posts) and our paths diverged. When the First Love started college, we tried to rekindle the relationship, but it didn't work out. Immediately afterward, he began dating a girl that I have absolutely loathed since I was 15. I was devastated- come on, I yelled at him over the phone, she sucks! You didn't want me, but you wanted her?!

I stopped talking to him.

I defriended him on Facebook.

I cut him out of my life completely.

There, that'll show him, I thought. I let my anger fester for two years. And you know what? He didn't give a damn. He went on happily living his life, dating that girl, never giving me a second thought. Rumor is they will be getting engaged soon. And because I harbored so much animosity towards him for so long, I was never able to properly move on. My hatred for him was ruining my life, not his. It was only this summer, when I finally let go of That Boy, that I also let go of my ill will towards the First Love. Who was I to resent him for being happy? All of those negative emotions were hurting me, making me miserable everytime I thought of him. So, I let it go. And it felt so good.

My point is this: I have been absolutely horrified reading the news lately- it seems to be filled with people hating each other. Everyone hates the gays, and the Muslims, and the Jews, and on and on and on. People don't realize that their own hatred turns them into monsters. Hate begets hate, but love begets love. I know, I know- I sound preach-y, and I'm sorry. But this simple concept has really changed the way that I interact with people, and it has made me so much happier. Today, decide to let go of the those festering grudges you hold. Given the choice to hold onto the cactus in your hand, bleeding you dry, or to let it go and let the healing begin, what would you choose? It's simple.

Embrace love.

P.S.

Those terrifying little pool monsters are called Dytiscus beetles. Somehow, their "claws" don't look nearly as life-threatening now that I'm a grown woman. Imagine that.

Out for a Walk

2010-08-20T01:57:00.005Z

I pull the front door closed behind me and amble out into Sharia' Musadak. It's dark except for the glittering multi-colored Ramadan lamps hanging in every doorway. A mother in a black abaya and niqab waddles past, a dirty child clinging to each of her hands. Her eyes crinkle, almost disappearing, and I can tell that under her veil she is smiling, content after having just eaten iftar, the meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan, the breaking of the daily fast. A shopkeeper has placed chairs in the middle of the sidewalk, where he and his friends sit lazily chewing kanafeh, chatting amicably about this and that. Two teenage boys make their way down the road, each laden with a flexible woven basket filled to overflowing with small fireworks for Ramadan. Every now and then, there is a soft bang! and a colorful spark shoots a few inches off the pavement, quickly replaced by a cloud of smoke. Passers-by smile good-naturedly and keep moving; there are places to go: errands to run now that the sun is down and the shops are open, friends to visit and to wish a happy Ramadan.

I've slept most of the day- an easy way to keep the fast in a city where so many eating establishments are closed until sunset- but despite the fact that I've only been awake for a few hours, I'm suddenly fatigued. Conversations is hurried Arabic buzz around me, assaulting my eardrums; my brain is too overwhelmed to translate today. For the past few days I have kept myself isolated in the oasis of my dusty house: a place where the internet sites I visit and the TV shows I watch are in my native tongue, and while I am in that cocoon I nearly forget the strain of constantly translating everything I hear twice over in my mind: Egyptian Arabic to formal Arabic, formal Arabic to English. When I reach the kiosk that is my destination, I meekly place my purchases on the counter atop the displays of Twinkies and Chipsies. I can offer nothing more to the owner than a crisp one hundred pound note and a weak smile. Through the fog of my ennui I can only manage a feeble "shukran" for him today. I start the two block walk back to my house, faster than before, eager to reenter my bubble of comfort. A rickety black taxi clips my swinging arm as it edges down the street crowded with double rows of parallel-parked Peugeots and Fiats on both sides. I barely notice. I keep my eyes straight ahead as an oversized SUV slows down and the two teenagers inside call out to me in broken English, telling me I am beautiful. I don't feel beautiful in my baggy green Phi Mu t-shirt and wrinkly jeans.

The smell of freshly-grilled corn and overripe fruit fills my nostrils, wafting over from the corner of Ansar Street, manned by two old hijabi women who invariably greet me with disapproving looks day in and day out. I carefully step around a pile of rotting garbage and another of black sludge. Another bang! followed by a pop and raucous laughter from a group of teenage boys perennially perched on the hood of a car parked conveniently in front of a convenience shop, just in case any gastronomical needs should arise during the course of their laborious catcalling and generally innocent-enough hoodlum-ry. Finally I pass through the ancient gate of my apartment building, down a brightly lit alleyway, and fit the key into my comically tiny door. I walk inside and am greeted by the smell of stale cigarette smoke and the sound of Sublime lamenting their inability to remember what they did the previous night. I sigh contentedly and collapse into my armchair.

Tonight, I am happy to be alone in the calm clutter of my house. Tonight I will take a break from cultural sensitivity. Tonight I will listen to music sung in English and laugh at websites detailing the stupid antics of college kids. Tonight I will order Hardees and drink Coca Cola. Tomorrow I will get back to the mental strain of constant translation, of appreciating the culture and the history of this country.

But tonight, I'm content to idle.

Sawyer

2010-08-18T22:42:00.004Z

Today is a hard day for me to be living in the Middle East.

On August 16, my second nephew, Sawyer Reynolds Broome, was born in Tennessee. When his older brother Parker was born, I missed out on much of his infancy. Now, I'm on the other side of the world, and I will be missing out on much of Sawyer's as well. Today, Sawyer came home from the hospital and I met him for the first time via Skype. I did not think that I would have enough room in my heart to love another little boy, because Parker is the light of my life. But the second I saw his precious little face, I knew that in that instant, my life had changed. Now, two little boys take up the whole of my heart.

I love them both more than I ever thought possible.I would give anything to be able to hold that little person in my arms and tell him that I love him more than anything else in the world, that I miss him even though I have never met him. How lucky am I to have two such perfect nephews? My precious boys, I love you so much. You make me want to be successful and accomplish all that I can. You make me want to be the best person I can so that I can be a better aunt to you both.

This is an oh-so-flattering picture of me sobbing as I met my nephew for the first time. Oh Skype, thank you for existing so moments like these can happen.

Yin and Yang

2010-08-17T22:33:00.007Z

Life, as I realize more and more everyday, is about balance. It is a constant ebb and flow, a give and take, about giving one thing up in the hopes that you will gain something even greater.

Right now, I'm learning to balance the things I want out of life. to change the image of myself I've created without leaving behind the passion I had for the image I used to have. It's something I've been learning to do ever since I left Alabama: there, I was a snobby, elitist princess in a prestigious Old Row sorority who filled nearly every night of the week with binge drinking, indiscriminant flirting, grinding on some random fraternity boy with too much of daddy's money at his disposal to the sounds of middle-aged rockers singing in a giant concrete garage of a fraternity house while wearing a dress that cost far too much money to have beer haphazardly spilled across it and shoes that would, by the end of the night, be covered in some unknown gooey black substance which seems to only reside on Bourbon Street and in fraternity band rooms. It was all incredibly excessive and unnecessary. But you know what? It was a shitload of fun. And even when I knew I had had enough of it, it was so hard to give up the carefree University of Alabama Greek life in which I was so comfortable, despite knowing that it was absolutely, 100% not for me, not who I was anymore. I felt like I was stagnating- even though there was a new boy every night, a new dress, a new hangover remedy, a new horror story of a date gone horribly wrong or a drunken encounter with a hobo, essentially I was just repeating the same day over and over, and it was no longer fun or exciting, it was exhausting. And expensive. And finally, by my sophomore year, it all just seemed completely stupid. So I gave it up, and took a giant leap of faith and moved to the Middle East.

In so many ways, it was the best thing I ever did for myself. I landed right in the middle of a giant city, with a new culture and a new language and a thousand sights and sounds to stimulate me out of my Natty Light haze of the previous two years. But even the greatest feat of balance has a few instabilities, a few unexpected this and thats which swing the scale back out of equilibrium and dangerously toward the mistakes of the past. Somehow, in a conservative Muslim country, after five months in Egypt, I found myself back in the same pattern I had fled halfway across the globe to escape, only this time the fraternity house was an upscale Cairo club, the open bar became hundreds of pounds worth of Stellas, and none of the many boys I filled my days and nights with spoke with a Southern drawl. And as happy as I was with my location geographically, I was not happy with where I was personally. I had gotten one piece of the puzzle right, but there were other scales that needed to be tipped, other sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of happiness.

Just as I gave up the football-imbued glory of Tuscaloosa for the grimey, smoggy cacophony of Cairo, I need to give up the thrill of the chase of a momentary conquest for the stability and enduring comfort of monogamy. This is a transition which both excites me to no end, but also makes me break out into a cold sweat. Monogamy takes work. It takes work when you are sleeping in the same bed with your partner every night. It takes even more work when you live 5,000 miles apart. Panic sequence initiated. Wandering eyes, booze-soaked inhibitions, instinct to run before anything can go wrong? Fully operational.

But this is where another balancing act comes into play.

I want adventure. I thrive on it- which probably explains why I moved to a new continent and began a new life in a place known for its unpredictability and dubious safety. But being adventurous is lonely. At the end of the day, I'm a woman. I'm a twenty-something woman whose heart is positively screaming for domesticity, whose bioilogical clock has been electrified into overdrive, whose body aches to have someone -not just any someone, the same someone, day in and day out- hold it as sleep laps around the periphery of my mind each night. I had always thought adventure and monogamy were mutually exclusive; to have one I would have to forsake the other. To satisfy my wanderlust, I would have to be alone with no deep-rooted love digging into the earth somewhere, tying me down and chaining me to another person, to a home, to a job, to a place I knew I could not belong because I don't belong anywhere...I don't belong to one place or house or country, I belong to the journey and the thrill of going somewhere...everywhere. Balancing my need to go with my need to be deeply loved and appreciated was something I aspired to ultimately, but never thought feasible.

The funny thing about life is that when you stop looking for something, it usually shows up on your doorstep. The great equalizing force of my balancing act showed up in my dorm room on the arm of my roommate when I was barely 18. I will gladly give up the unfulfilling pipedream that has been the Tuscaloosa/Cairo dating scene, the procession of men who fail to move my soul, to share my dreams, to chase that elusive I'm finally here feeling of my journey with me for the one who doesn't want to end my adventures, but rather to join me on them- to be a teammate, a partner, a co-pilot in my obsessive wandering. And somehow, in him, I have found the weight that counterbalances my journey to be loved with my love of the journey.

And balance is restored to the universe.

Important Calculations

2010-07-23T07:23:00.003+01:00

My first class on Sundays for the Fall semester is at 11:30am.

That means I will be taking the 9:30am bus from Mohandiseen.

In order to be ready, I will have to wake up at approximately 8:30.

A significant portion of scheduled Alabama football games begin at 6:30pm Central Time.

Take into account the time difference, Ramadan time changes, and the obligatory postgame Skype calls, tears, and beverages, I will be lucky to be in bed by 6:30am Sunday mornings.

Which basically means...I'm screwed.

So, Tide players, I expect the same level of committment from you this season. I want another National Championship this year. ROLL TIDE!

43 days until I am sleep deprived once again.....

If I'm free it's because I'm always running

2010-07-21T06:43:00.005+01:00

Caulk in the crevices quick as you can
Fetid water stands waiting, fill the dam
Cheap construction that could never last
The landfill lies empty so fill it fast
Substandard materials to decay within me
But I'd rather it was full of shit than f----ng empty
And somehow it keeps beating,
Thundering on despite me.

Spectre

2010-07-18T19:44:00.004+01:00

Sometimes I feel like a ghost, wandering through the places that meant something to me a lifetime ago, stopping in to visit old friends, my stays so brief they're often left wondering if I was ever really there. Like a shadow of my old self, a figment of humanity, I've spent the summer lingering in a world I've moved on from. It's been a strange two months, walking the line between my old self and my new self, wobbling on a tightrope, trying to keep them both intact, both a part of me- trying not to let one destroy the other.

My weekend in Tuscaloosa sent me rushing back in time, and with every familiar face I ran into, the hurts seemed fresh again, the memories like they had happened yesterday, the drama like it actually mattered.

I woke up this morning in a familiar bed, but as the $1 draft and Baby Bomb stupor of the night before began to evaporate, nothing looked the same as it had before the sun came up.

I am not that girl anymore.

Realizing that was a revelation; a relief.

However, with that epiphany comes a new a puzzle. That girl got lost somewhere along the way- perhaps on some trans-Atlantic flight, or in a blazing orange desert, or in the arms of a man from a faraway place; perhaps she disintegrated into the lingering laugh of brown-skinned teenagers carelessly hurling clumsy sexual advances in her direction in a crowded bazaar, or in the backseat of a rickety black cab streaking through narrow openings on an overflowing freeway. But if she and I are not the same person anymore, the disturbing question remains: who am I now?

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Two

2010-07-12T06:36:00.002+01:00

So I’ll give you a piece of myself
That was never mine to give
One day someone will come calling for it;
Something that belonged more to him
Than ever it had to me
But it hasn’t happened yet
He’s not come, but here you are
So take it.

Hot and sticky, and too green
This is the world that I knew
But I don’t belong here
Not any more than I belonged on
That hardwood floor
Cold and bare though I was wrapped
In a strange embrace
That used to mean home.

Worry and doubt and suffocating fear
Consume me. But come sixteen
And I cant afford the luxury
Of fretfulness, sleepless nights
Only lights and sounds and
The crush of humanity
Where survival and smoke
Is the only answer.

He’s wrong but he’s there
Another needless tumble,
Another silent morning.
I could cry but rather
I just wrap myself around
this breathing thing; because in
the strangeness and the loneliness,
he’s wrong but he’s alive.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

2010-07-12T05:36:00.003+01:00

It's one of those cliche quips that gets tossed around on people's Facebook profiles all the time- and yes, I'm speaking from experience. It's been on my favorite quotes since my freshman year of college. And every now and then, I sit down by myself, no distractions, and ask myself that question. I don't get up again until I've answered honestly. What do I want to do in life so badly that I get teary-eyed-excited just thinking about it? What do I want to do, but am too afraid to try? Why am I afraid? When you think about it, those are all scary questions, and, I've found, they get scarier as you get older. When you're 18, the answers tend to be simple: settle down, get a job, get married, have kids. But the longer I've been in college, on my own, learning, and growing, my answers have changed radically. Now I'm in my twenties and my answers get me excited, but they're also terrifying.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

I would finish my last two years at AUC, graduate with my degree in Middle East Studies and a minor in Rhetoric with an emphasis on nonfiction writing; join the Peace Corps, where I would serve others while being dirty, growing dreadlocks, earning my Masters in Peace and Conflict Resolution, and gathering tons of experiences to write about; I would really pursue travel writing as a career with no fallback plan, and eventually get my own show on the Travel Channel where I would travel around the Middle East and Africa and shed real light on the beautiful cultures there that are all too often misunderstood.

Sounds like a tall order, right? But WHY can't it happen? What makes me believe that I want more out of life than I actually deserve? Unforunately, I haven't figured out the answer to that last question yet. Because until I decide that I won't -that I CAN'T- fail, none of my dreams are going to come true. So I'm spending these last couple weeks in America at home in Huntsville and doing some soul searching; some "working on myself", if you will. Because other people believing in me isn't enough anymore. It's time I became my own biggest fan.

What about you, readers? What would YOU do if you knew you could not fail?

Just a Boy, Just an Ordinary Boy

2010-07-06T18:00:00.007+01:00

That Boy. You know the one. We all have one. For me, That Boy is my high school sweetheart. I cheated on my first real boyfriend with That Boy and we have been on again-off again-will we-won't we-we're perfect for each other-we're totally wrong together ever since then: six years of a complicated, nearly indecipherable web spanning between Old Friends and Current Lovers. He's That Boy who I swore I would marry one day. He taught me, for better or worse, things about myself and about life that felt so good and hurt so badly I thought I would burst. He taught me how to lust, how to really love someone, how to be hurt and betrayed and how to sob into my knees for two weeks straight. He taught me how to move on and to forgive but never forget.

Winter 2005: Norfolk, VA

Every summer, That Boy and I somehow ignite again. I keep coming back to that spot in my life where we made sense, and we try the relationship on again, one year older, adults, different now. Things are always different. Last summer, after our relationship simmering into ash for so long, years of indifference and "what if"s spontaneously combusted and suddenly I realized we were in a healthy adult relationship.

Spring 2006: Norfolk, VA

In the summer, no matter how we've changed or grown apart in the previous year, we're somehow reduced to our high school selves: naive, impatient teenagers who were little else but crazy about each other. Last summer we made the difficult decision to not attempt to continue our relationship when I moved to Egypt, and parted ways.

Spring 2007: Virginia Beach, VA

Now here I am, back in my high school town, just back from a trip to DC with That Boy to see my friends from Egypt. But something has changed. Unlike every other summer, this summer I couldn't go back to who I was in high school. I couldn't make myself be that girl that he loved anymore. I don't know that girl anymore. I hardly remember her. I hardly remember anything before the sand and the noise and the endless deserts and blazing heat. I don't remember the girl who loved That Boy, either. She seems like a stranger to me. Because, for the first time in my life, looking at him, I don't feel lust or passion or an intense need to be near him and hold his hand and to love him and be loved by him. I only feel a smoldering, comfortable affection: he is an old friend who I used to be in love with- nothing more, nothing less.

Senior Prom 2007: Fort Monroe, VA

I don't understand him or his goals, and he doesn't understand me or my life or why I have made the decisions I have. With nothing in common but our shared history and a deep, newly-platonic love for one another, it is finally clear: it will never be just he and I. The future for the two of us is something we never could have anticipated, but it finally feels right. That Boy is like a relic from a past that doesn't seem like my own in its distance from my present.

Summer 2009: Atlanta, GA
As always, That Boy taught me something new this summer without even realizing it. He's shown me that sometimes letting go feels good, and falling out of love with someone isn't necessarily a bad thing- sometimes it's healthy and necessary. You can't move on until you know for sure that That One Person really isn't the one for you. I finally know....this boy isn't going to be The Boy. That Boy is finally just that...just a boy.

Summer 2010: Washington, DC

Ma Salaama, Masr

2010-06-01T15:42:00.003+01:00

Tonight I leave CAI at 4:15am to fly back to Atlanta via Amsterdam.
I'll be in the States until July 28, and I get back to Cairo on July 30 [ughhh].

In the meantime, I'll be bouncing around all over the States.
I'll be between our two houses in Atlanta and Huntsville, and on June 18 my mom and I are flying to Las Vegas to celebrate my 21st birthday with 4 days [in the desert; cuz yall know how much I love it, haha] of alcohol, fun, and sun [mumkin gambling and a few hookers too? Just kidding, I think.].
Then I'll be heading to Virginia Beach the last week of June, and up to DC for an AUC reunion with Katie, Becky, Megan, Will, and Jake. After that, I'll go back to Virginia Beach for a few more days of fun with my best friends from high school/the high school sweetheart.
Finally, at some point in July Dooler and I will be meeting up and going down to New Orleans to see Frankie and Peter and hang out on Bourbon Street [legally!].

It's gonna be a great vacation, and I'm so excited to see my family and friends in America.

I'll be updating every now and then, but probably not as much as I do while I'm in Egypt. Of course, I'll catalog all the culture shock that comes with going back to such a liberal place from Egypt. But other than that, you can expect a lot of silence.

I'll see y'all in July, readers! Have a great summer!

History repeats itself

2010-05-28T22:55:00.004+01:00

It's kitten season in Cairo.

Cairo is a city of 20 million people and 20 billion cats [I counted]. When I decided to get an apartment with a backyard, I unknowingly adopted a family of cats as well.

There is a humorous assortment of abandoned furniture in my backyard, and the other day I was sitting in my living room, smoking no doubt, when I heard frenzied mewing coming from outside. I rushed to my backyard, and discovered a litter of kittens milling about the base of an old dresser on unsteady little legs. Since then, I have been the vigilant protector of the kittens, most notably acting like a ridiculous white girl waving my arms and yelling to keep away the evil, gigantic, kitty-hungry crows who live in my backyard tree and frequently inch up to the kittens trying to look inconspicuous and un-hungry, much like a stranger in a car offering a 3rd grader candy.

Last night I decided the best way to send off my two best friends would be to have a small get-together at my apartment. After a few frenzied shopping trips, four of us arrived in Dokki piled down with beer, Kahlua, ID vodka, milk, and aluminum foil [or "silver paper"..Egyptians get straight to the point when they name things, don't they?] for my brand new shisha. As soon as we opened my apartment door, I heard an urgent mewing from the backyard. Called again to serve and protect, I grabbed Megan and sprinted to the backyard. But this kitten was not in the dresser, or anywhere around in it. After playing a bizarre interspecies game of Marco Polo, I was led to an old cardboard box on the opposite side of the yard from the dresser. Inside was a tiny white kitten, one of the adorable babies I have spent the past week protecting. In true Cairo alley-cat style, it was dirty beyond belief, so much so that its little eyes were crusted shut. Because I have little to no self control, I scooped the pathetic little thing up.

Upon further investigation, it seemed the [utterly negligent] mother cat and the other kittens had disappeared from the backyard completely.

So the little kitten set adrift in a tattered box came inside. We named him Moses.

After spending several hours musing over how he possibly could have gotten into the box by himself, trying to keep him warm, and Googling furiously, we realized we had no way to keep Moses alive. Kitten formula? Pshh. This is Cairo. Eyedropper? You might as well ask for a teleporter [which, coincidentally, I have asked for on several occasions since moving to this side of the world..] in this city. Tears sprang to my eyes as the realization dawned on me: Moses was a runt, and had been abandoned, and there was nothing I could do to help him. Sipping on my beer and taking a drag of shisha, I tried desperately to think of something we could do with him.

Just as all hope seemed lost, a scratching on my living room door alerted us to the reappearrance of Mother Cat, who will henceforth be known as Dina Lohan. Quickly, we raced outside with Moses and pushed him under the dresser, crossed our fingers, said a prayer that Dina Lohan would take him back, and went back to sipping our beer with our ears open should tiny Moses call us.

Two hours later, his tiny mews pulled me from my shisha stupor and all four of us bolted to the back door. There was Moses, toddling around by the dresser with his sister as Dina Lohan looked on from a few feet away. Relief flooded me, and I sent up a silent "thank you" to Bast [Google it; this is Egypt, people] and returned to the living room with my beer.

"Well, this was certainly not on par with our wild nights in Cairo..taking care of an orphaned kitten is hardly the appropriate sendoff, is it?" Said Megan as I hugged her goodbye for what turned out to be one of the last times as she picked up her things to go shortly thereafter.

Wiping away a tear and hugging the other two hard, holding on to the smell and the feel of them for as long as I could before they vanished into the dusty night, I looked at Megan and let out a tiny laugh, "It's the most appropriate ending there's ever been. Moses came to lead you out of Egypt."

It's very nice to just wander
The camel route to Iraq
It's oh so nice to just wander
But it's so much nicer, yes it's oh so nice, to wander back

Dooler, Frankie, Megan, and Becky, I love you all. Thank you for being such strong, inspiring women, each in your own way, and helping me to grow and learn so much this year. Know you always have a home in Cairo.

[Welcome to all of my new readers who found their way here via Yes and Yes!]

this may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to..

2010-05-27T01:31:00.002+01:00

The Cairene night is warm and stagnant, the air so still that my cigarette smoke hangs lazily above my head, a cyanide halo. Suddenly I feel as if I am drowning in it, the smoke engulfing me until it mingles with the tears fogging my vision. What is this feeling?

Everything is about to change. The people who helped me to make Cairo home have all left, and I'm still here...still sitting in my backyard, listening to the dogs fighting in the distance, wondering about the Egypt I will come back to in July. I miss you all already. I miss Port Said, and Turkey, and everything in between.

And then, a breeze blows through the night and carries the smoke away, along with everything I have known about life here. Suddenly everything is new.

!...أخيرا

2010-05-25T22:10:00.003+01:00

I just turned in my last paper for Advanced Scientific Thinking. This means...

Spring Semester 2010

Dunzo!

Reflections on my first year at AUC

2010-05-16T05:25:00.005+01:00

I smoked too much.
I drank too much.
I didn't cry enough, even when I needed to.
I didn't find my Prince Charming- American, Egyptian, Mauritian, Honduran, Indian, or otherwise.
[...but really, who's looking?]
I didn't study enough.

But I did gallop an Arabian stallion fast as it could go through the desert, in the shadow of the pyramids at sunrise.
I held a lion cub.
I went to Dahab three times.
I went to Alexandria, Hurghada, Bahariyya, and Port Said.
I spent Thanksgiving in Jordan and Easter in Turkey.
I learned how to navigate my way through Cairo.
I camped in the desert.
I camped on my bedroom floor.
I mummified a chicken.
I caught swine flu from an ostrich.
I went spelunking in a pyramid that dates back to before Christ.
I saw my first Egyptian obelisk...in Istanbul.
I had my heart broken by someone I thought would be in my life forever.
I fell in love.
I fell out of love.
I missed home.
I stoped missing home.
I started missing home again.
..and then, Egypt became home.
I stayed out dancing until sunrise- alot.
I got alcohol poisoning.
I swam in the Red, Dead, and Med[iterranean] Seas.
I rode lots of camels, a stallion, a donkey..and a giant tortoise.
I met people who would give me the shirts off their backs.
I made friends who will be in my [proverbial] wedding.
I realized I'm stronger than I ever knew.
I learned a little about history, a little about literature, a lot about bureaucracy, and even more about myself.
I was changed.
I will never be the same.

Thanks, AUC. It's been an amazing, incredible, heartbreaking, eye-opening year.

Two more years of this? I think I can live with that.

So I guess this is growing up

2010-05-15T19:26:00.003+01:00

I looked at her face flickering on my computer screen and laughed as I said,
"Are you crazy? There's no one I would rather go with than you."
And as the words escaped my lips, I realized that I actually meant them.

I say this with love, I swear.

2010-05-09T20:40:00.003+01:00

To all of my 20-something friends who just can't seem to stop getting married/impregnated:

Guys, I love you, and I suppose I'm happy for you, and I will pretend that the rock on your finger/parasite growing in your uterus is the best thing ever, but to be honest...

....you're all really creeping me out.

Love,
Danielle

Maturity

2010-05-05T19:11:00.004+01:00

Ok, I officially feel like a grownup.

Today, I negotiated and signed a lease in Arabic for my first grown-up apartment in Cairo. That's right- after a year of no booze and no boys allowed, I am finally moving into a real apartment!

I found a great place in Dokki: a groundfloor 2 bedroom/1 bath flat with a private entrance and a private backyard. It has brand new furniture, a brand new oven and washer, AC, and satellite TV. It also has a full dining room set, is pet friendly, and the master bedroom is huuuuge. It's also a two-minute walk from a Metro station which will take me to the AUC bus stop in Tahrir, or a fifteen-minute walk from the Dokki bus stop.

I feel so grown up, and so in awe that my parents trusted me to find and negotiate on an apartment halfway across the world. I am so blessed that they are so supportive of me, to the point of rushing around last-minute making sure the funds were in order for the downpayment from half a world away. I am absolutely dumbstruck that I was somehow lucky enough to be born into such an amazingly supportive family. Also, my friends Becky and Megan were great about going apartment hunting with me, and being my voices of reason when I got too swept up in the excitement of a new place.

My landlady doesnt speak much English, but I'm trying to see that as an added bonus: by having to communicate with her on a semi-regular basis, I will be improving my Arabic since I don't have room in my class schedule to take Arabic classes anymore.

Have I mentioned I did this all after not sleeping for 30+ hours? I hate to sing my own praises, but I'm really proud of myself.

Anyway, I move in tomorrow at 3pm and will probably spend the rest of the weekend getting settled. And if you were wondering, yes, this means I will be spending most of the summer in Cairo. At the end of May I will go home and stay for about 5 weeks [my mom is taking me to Vegas to celebrate my 21st birthday!] before I head back to the sandbox in the first half of July.

Phew! That's a lot of news! Yall take some time to digest that, readers, while I start packing up my dorm room [I might actually miss it a little] and then promptly pass out.

Pictures to come soon!

salaam wa hubb,

Danielle

ps- completely unrelated, but i officially must have these leggings.
http://www.veinticuatrodientes.com/mediaspalabras02.html

Here's to Pretending

2010-05-02T02:30:00.003+01:00

So I'll pretend that I was made for you
while we're here.
I am so tangled.
And the sun will come up and
I will take the stairs instead.
Step into the street where
the sun brings all my mistakes
into blazing, brilliant clarity.
And I will swear to change, to be
different.
But I won't.
I will do it again next time-
Answer when I shouldn't; go when
I know better.
And slowly, slowly you will chip
away at me, until there is nothing
left to give, and nothing
left to say. But I'll
still answer,
still go;
Because what more is there to do?
I am so bored, and we are so tangled
Here, where there is nothing but
breath and dark and feigned affection.
You'll never give me what I need
But I'll take what you have.
My face is raw from scrubbing
the makeup from last night.
As if that erases things.
I know better, but I'll pretend.

Update

2010-04-09T14:12:00.005Z

I'm back from Sinai and Turkey and it was amazing. Will try to get back to regular posting ASAP, but school is crazy right now, and the Cairo nightlife is constantly calling my name. In the meantime, hopefully this will tide you over:

An Apology

2010-03-21T21:24:00.003Z

Sorry for not writing anything in a while, guys. Unfortunately, I've been very ill for the past few weeks with a parasitic infection [the joys of living in Africa?] that just won't clear up, no matter what I do. I won't go into the details, but it is unpleasant, to say the least.

Aside from that, I'm just finishing up some papers and other miscellaneous schoolwork before spring break starts on Thursday! If you're interested, here's the itinerary for the next two weeks:

March 25: Night bus to Dahab
March 26, 27, 28: Lay on beach, drink beer, get tan, be a hippie.
March 28: Night bus back to Cairo.
March 29: Rest all day. Evening flight to Istanbul.
March 29-April 4: Adventures in Istanbul, Bursa, Princes Islands, etc.
April 4: Fly back to Cairo.
April 6: Class resumes [boo].

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures!

سلام و حب

Neofeminism, in regard to relationships

2010-03-07T18:45:00.003Z

DISCLAIMER: This really has nothing to do with Egypt. I know this is supposed to be a travel blog, but it's become much for than that since I started it in the summer of 2008. If you don't give a damn about my relationships, or my beliefs, or anything other than interesting facts about the pyramids and the state of affairs in the Middle East, feel free so skip this post.

In case you don't know me, or haven't talked to me for more than ten minutes, I'm something of a feminist. Not so much an "I hate men, don't shave my legs, think Hooters is degrading, and never want to get married" feminist...rather than pointing out negative aspects, I would rather take a more ambitious approach. Girls rule [I'm a child of the Spice Girls generation]! Men and women are equal, and I will fight for women's rights to prove it. If women can use their bodies to exploit men's weaknesses, whether in Playboy, or James Bond, or Hooters, and they feel okay about that, more power to them! But all of that has nothing to do with the thought that occurred to me on the bus tonight.

In light of a recent failed romantic endeavor, which I spent nearly six months laying groundwork for, constantly flirting, hinting, and overall enjoying the slow, torturous chase, I came to a conclusion: As much as I enjoy pursuing men, as much fun as it is, no relationship which began with me initiating the chase has ever gone much of anywhere, been healthy or fulfilling. The problem therein is that I've always felt as if me choosing a man I know I must chase will prevent me from becoming some sort of a prize; if a man chases a woman, once he succeeds, hasn't she merely become something that he has won, thanks to his persistence and charm? Watching entirely too much Aladdin as a child [which probably contributed to my love of the Arab world, distorted as the facts in that movie are] taught me that I as a woman am "not a prize to be won". So, what goes wrong when I engage in the chase? What makes things go awry? The answer is simple..much the same as a woman who has been pursued feels when she finally acquieses to the persistent male, a man who has been pursued feels as if he has done you a favor in giving you a chance, and when things do not work out, the pursuer often bears the blame.

I am not referring to any one incident, but rather my collective romantic experience. But which is preferable? Feeling as if you are a trophy, or being treated by a man as if he had done you a favor? I'm not entirely sure. But if you look at my personal history, all my great loves have been men that pursued me, and all of my biggest failures have resulted from me taking on the traditional role of a man- pursuing, initiating the chase. As much as I hate to admit it, maybe some of my forward-thinking ideas about women being able to assume men's roles do not, can not, apply to every aspect of life. I am not entirely comfortable with this idea. In fact, it is making my head spin. Perhaps it's just me. At any rate, we'll return to this subject when I've thought more on it.

The Burden of Knowledge, The Bliss of Relief

2010-03-04T19:00:00.002Z

I wrote this a while ago, but I thought about it again today, and thought I would share it with you guys.

This morning, I got to talk to my friend Weaver. I’ve known him since I was 16; he worked at the Army recruiting station next to the tanning bed where I worked. He would come in and visit us at night, and sometimes I would whine enough and he would vacuum for me. I haven’t seen him since right after my 17th birthday. He’s in Iraq right now. This morning, I finally asked when he was coming home. When he said it was less than a month, I felt a feeling wash over me…something like….relief.

I grew up with what my dad calls the “burden of knowledge”. He was in the Army until I was 18, and in those 18 years, we moved well over a dozen times and I attended about as many schools. I always adjusted faster and fit in better at schools on post, where I was surrounded with others who shared the burden of knowledge. To this day, I have a hard time identifying with my peers who weren’t raised the way I was.

The burden of knowledge is that concept that most people choose to ignore; but that we couldn’t: the knowledge that there is pure evil in the world; the acknowledgement of those hovering on the periphery of humanity, the rim of sanity, who are constantly threatening our safety, our freedom. The “burden of knowledge” is found in those who grow up knowing this, coming face to face with it everyday, as we watch our neighbors, fathers, brothers don their ACUs and board Chinooks bound for the other side of the globe, unsure every time of whether or not they will come back. We grew up knowing that true peace is not necessarily a realistic concept, because men are inherently wicked, as evidenced each time that black government vehicle pulled up to a neighbor’s house, uniformed men handing an envelope over to a sobbing newly-widowed Army wife, a woman who, like any other, wanted nothing more than a happily ever after with the man of her dreams. I felt that reality every time I heard about a helicopter crash on the news growing up, felt the familiar clenching in my throat, the sinking in my stomach, hoping it wasn’t my father, but knowing that if it wasn’t my father, it was someone else’s. I know it every time I see my ex-boyfriend, and see the dog tags dangling from his neck, knowing that they’re little more than aids in death, one destined to become a toe tag, the other heading to his commander, and eventually to his parents. I know it every time my brother and I put joking wagers on who will be injured in the Middle East first; me, working in an embassy, or him, flying helicopters above the chaos. I know it because really, we aren’t joking.

I grew up on various forts, posts, and bases, surrounded by walls and fences, kept segregated from a society I didn’t understand, and who in turn didn’t understand me or the way I was raised. And I wish I could describe it to you and do it justice. It's amazing to me, to think that I grew up on a street surrounded by America's heroes. I could be surrounded by the biggest movie stars in the world and it wouldn't come close to the sheer GREATNESS that I was so blessed to be around every day of my life. I am so grateful for that. To lay your life on the line for people you don't even know--that is noble. To go into a war that you might not believe in or agree with but still be willing to die to do your duty....that is loyalty.

Because it's sick when Lindsay Lohan is on the front page of the newspaper...and a story about soldier deaths in Iraq is on the back page, at the bottom, in a teeny little box that no one will pay any attention to. Because once a certain amount of soldiers die, 2 or 3 more...so what? Right? WRONG. Because any one of those men could be my father. Or my brother, my ex-boyfriend, neighbor. Or someone I know. Someone my parents know. But does anyone care??? No. Why don't you care when these are the men who are keeping you free? You should care wholeheartedly. You should be GRATEFUL for that.

I can't describe what it was like when my dad retired. Looking around at that ceremony, at all those soldiers in their ACUs, and looking at the American flag, and thinking, this is what my father chose to do with his life, was one of the most amazing feelings in the world…and suddenly I found myself sobbing uncontrollably; I can’t imagine what it was like for him, the loss he must have felt leaving what has been his home since he was a teenager..I felt the loss, I felt the pride, I felt more things than I could keep track of. He has made a real difference in the world. Bono makes a ruckus about everything..but has he DONE anything??? NO. I'm so proud. I have been an Army daughter, sister, and girlfriend. The sad part is I don't think half of you could understand that. I have faith in this government. And I have faith in our military. I'm so thankful that that was my way of life, despite all the hard parts of it. Despite watching my daddy go away to war. Despite having to move every year. It was worth it. It's worth it to know what it costs to be free. It's worth it to know with every fiber of my being that I am lucky. That I am truly, truly blessed to have grown up like I have. I wish that all of you reading this could know that feeling. Because it is incredible. There's so much ceremony and tradition and prestige in every part of that life.

The last time I felt relief like I did talking to Weaver this morning, I was standing in an air hanger in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I had been there for hours, shaking wildly. It had been a year since I had seen my dad, and I was angry. I had just finished my freshman year of high school. He had moved my family to North Carolina, and left for Iraq days later. He had missed my first day of high school and innumerable other important things. For the entire time he was gone, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him on the phone. And then there I was, standing there, surrounded by hundreds of other family members and friends, waiting. The plane landed. The troops marched in, and there he was, in front. My mom and I were standing literally ten feet from him, but there was a ceremony to finish before the troops were dismissed, and he was in charge of it. I could have reached out and touched him. But as always, duty came first. I can’t imagine what it was like for him, seeing us, but not being able to go to us right away, after so long. As he was giving orders, I heard his voice crack and falter, and suddenly, I was shaking and crying in a way I can’t remember ever doing before or since then. The next thing I knew, I was squished in between my parents, everyone crying and kissing, and I felt it. Relief. It washed over me over and over again. It was over.

That feeling, knowing what he had done, what he had been through…that relief makes the burden of knowledge worth it. The pride makes every sleepless night, every missed birthday, every tearful Thanksgiving prayer worth it.

The burden of knowledge is nothing compared to the bliss of relief.

To Kill 2 Birds with One Bottle of Vodka..

2010-03-04T00:00:00.005Z

Sometimes you just have to laugh about it...because my life is so absolutely ridiculous.

There's nothing to do but laugh. Sometimes it's only to keep from crying, but after that, it's because I realize that my "problems" are silly, and I should really have my own reality show.

My heart is broken, but I'm pretty sure it'll get better.

But for now, I will lick my wounds and wait out this hangover.

Chins up, little ones!

"Hey! Guys! No touching the ancient inscriptions!"

2010-03-01T10:29:00.003Z

On the 20th, I took a field trip with my Egyptology class to Dahshur, Memphis, and Saqqara to play in the pyramids. Of course, spending half of my weekend on a class trip was not ideal for me, but I suppose if you have to, spending Saturday spelunking in pyramids dating back thousands of years before Christ isn't terrible. First, we visited the Red [or Northern] Pyramid at Dahshur. We rode an hour into the palm tree forests, through rural villages, and finally out into the desert to one of the lesser visited pyramids, which was blissfully almost tourist-free. Looming in the smog, one could just decipher the famous Bent Pyramid on the horizon. We hiked about a third of the way up the Red Pyramid, built by King Sneferu. Standing at the entrance and already panting, I cursed my cigarettes and chugged water. It would only get worse.
Upon entering the pyramid, one begins a gradual descent through a passage roughly three feet high and three feet wide, at a 40 degree angle. This causes one to crouch in a terribly uncomfortably position and shimmy down a ladder-like ramp into the hot, dank dark for hundreds of feet. I was not prepared for the heat. It has nearly 100 degrees outside in the desert, but for some reason I expected the tomb to be chilly. Instead, it was hot and humid and I was pouring sweat. The smell that greets you as you step out of the passage into the corbelled receiving room is terrible: something like rubbing alcohol and mothballs; it is certainly not a stretch to believe that a dead body lay here and decomposed for thousands of years. In addition, as one might expect, it was difficult to breathe. Beyond the smell and the humidity, the shaft we had just come down was the only source of air, and my breathing was labored. Panicking slightly, I made my way to the tomb, but there was not much to see; much of it had been torn apart my earlier explorers who were sure there was more to the tomb than what met the eye..but they were wrong, and sadly, desecrated the ancient tomb for no reason.
I never imagined the scorching desert heat would be a welcome sensation, but after emerging from the heat of the pyramid, it was a relief. My legs were already on fire from the descent and corresponding climb back to the world of the living. Grateful for rudimentary air conditioning, I boarded the bus for Memphis. Honestly, Memphis, once the capital of ancient Egypt, was not very interesting. We toured a statuary garden and then headed to Saqqara. There we toured a museum, where I had my first run-in with a mummy [I know, I know, I've been in Egypt since August and just now saw my first mummy..it's a shame]. Afterwards, we toured the Step Pyramid complex. Built for King Djoser, it was the world's first pyramid, and though not a "true" pyramid, was also the first man-made structure constructed completely of stone. Finally, we continued to a small, collapsed pyramid, which we entered. This was not as taxing as the Red Pyramid. The descent was shorter and the passage larger, and there is believed to be another air source lying undiscovered somewhere within the tomb, so it is cooler and easier to breathe. The draw to this otherwise unremarkable, and even pitiful looking, pyramid, is the hieroglyphs which are still beautifully intact on the walls and ceilings of the tombs. It is literally awe-inspiring to look at something long-dead hands etched into solid stone to act as a resurrection machine for a king. Stars dot the ceilings, etched there to recreate the night sky to which the king would ascend to become an "imperishable star" and also to denote royalty.
Finally, we entered the mastaba of Mereuka, filled with beautiful carvings depicting every aspect of life, and beautiful Nile scenes, where hippos and crocodiles battled and men fished and sailed. In some places, the original paint used by the ancients was still visible. The urge to touch something so old and enduring was almost overwhelming, but I controlled myself. Others didn't, and our teacher was not thrilled.
"Hey! Guys! No touching the ancient inscriptions!"

Sweaty, smelly, and covered in dust older than Christ [...literally], I got off the bus in Tahrir Square, where Becky and Megan were waiting on me to go to Khan al-Khalili, our favorite market, and also the site of a terrorist attack last year. We had a special errand to run. You see, we have a ghost. His name is Gus, and he comes to visit every other day or so. He knocks things down, breaks things, pulls my posters off of the wall, and hangs out with Becky when I'm not around. No, I'm not kidding. So there I am, disgusting and all Lara Croft:Tomb Raider-ed out, in Khan al-Khalili shopping for the biggest evil eye I can find to keep the ghost out of our room. Really> This is my life.

Only in Egypt. Oh, Masr.

Updated Book List

2010-02-25T09:04:00.003Z

I just wanted to add two more books to my list of those which have been particularly influential in my life. You should read them.

-The Lemon Tree
I hate to admit, before I read this book I had only a superficial understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is so difficult for anyone to take a neutral stance on this issue, and Sandy Tolan gives the best effort I can imagine. He doesn't take sides or convey biases, but rather leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions instead of leading them down a path of his own personal feelings. It acheives two ends: it humanizes the conflict through the story of a Palestinian longing for the right to return home and a first generation Israeli girl who moved into his "abandoned" house, but it also explains all of the political posturing that took place, giving thorough accounts of various resolutions that were passed and individual conflicts that occurred.

-The Memoirs of Cleopatra
I chose this book for my flight back to America in December because it was 1500 pages and I figured if anything could sustain me through 24+ hours of travel, 1500 pages could. Granted, I didn't touch it on my flight because I was too deep into my complimentary wine-induced stupor and subsequent passing out, but I did turn to it when I started to get homesick for Egypt at my parent's home in Huntsville. The end result is that I am now completely obsessed with Cleopatra. She was a mother, a lover, a wife, a queen, a daughter, a warrior, and so much more. She is a strong, independent woman whose sole goal in life is to live on her own terms and preserve her country above all else. She handled difficult situations with grace and poise, and her creative strategies always gave her an edge. Even in her suicide, she was creative and fearless, outwitting the conquering Caesar Augustus. She always tried to take the high road, choosing dignity and honor above courses of action which would be easier for her own person. Even after growing up surrounded by deceit and treachery, she maintained a high moral character til the very end. Aside from that, she bedded two of the most powerful men in history: Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. A real go-getter, that Cleopatra.

So, that's that, my dears. If you have any extra time, both of these books are incredible. Plus, for all of my friends back home, an understanding of conflict in the modern Middle East or of ancient Egypt could prove enlightening. Just sayin. Enjoy.

Constructions of Masculinity in the Modern Middle East in Comparison to the Western World

2010-02-22T10:20:00.001Z

When someone refers to a man who is inherently masculine, what vignette is conjured in your mind? If you are from the West, particularly America, chances are that a physically fit, morally sound, silent-but-strong, somewhat reserved man with few effeminate characteristics springs to mind. For me, I picture my father: a soldier, solidly built, reserved, quiet, yet inherently intimidating; a silent enforcer, well groomed without particular attention to sartorial pursuits, who engages in "manly" activities: physical fitness, a steady job, fixing things, being the head of the household and ruling with a firm yet gentle hand. Of course, as American society evolves and changes, this concept of masculinity changes- for some, masculinity means a rustic-type man who hunts, drives a truck, and enjoys hands-on tasks. For others, the word can evoke a Wall Street banker: successful, busy, who wears a smart suit and carries a briefcase as he earns the salary which will provide for his children, wife, and any mistresses he may have, a la Tiger Woods. While the details are interchangeable, depending upon one's social status, income, and geographical location (one is much more likely to associate owning a rifle with "manliness" in the southeast United States than someone from the West Coast, who may tend to associate a Bluetooth headset and a Rolex wristwatch more with the masculine identity).
However, after having spent the better part of the past few years in the Arab world- Morocco and Egypt with excursions to Jordan and, very shortly, Turkey- my idea of masculinity is slowly changing. Some of the most innately masculine men I have encountered here share very few of the attributes I once considered essential to the characteristic repertoire of a male. Masculinity here means something altogether different than in the Western world. In America, would a man with oil-drenched hair, a prominently displayed pot belly, chest hair spilling out of his open button-down, tighter-than-necessary pants, a unibrow, glittering jewelry- especially in the form of rings, shiny black dress shoes, gingerly smoking a water pipe be considered the archetype of a "man's man"? Probably not. In fact, most of the men I have recently found myself drawn to here in Egypt would be considered "metrosexual" at best in the context of American society. They belly-dance in public; sing at the top of their lungs; hug, kiss, and even hold hands with other men in public; they have no problem straddling another man, very closely, in close crotch-to-butt proximity, on the back of a dilapidated motorcycle weaving through Cairo traffic. But somehow, these are some of the most inherently "manly" men I have ever encountered. How is this? I have been pondering this question for quite some time, and I'm not sure I fully understand it yet.
For one, these men are, cliché as it may sound, completely comfortable with their sexuality. Of course, this is the way in which they have been raised, but beyond that, they exude such an innate bravado that posturing or acting "macho" is rendered completely unnecessary. There is no societal taboo on holding another man close in an embrace. This could be for several reasons:

1. Such close public contact between men and women is prohibited- since this kind of public affection is forbidden, or haram, who, then, can you share your affections with? Should one live a solitary public existence, completely devoid of physical contact or expressions of warmth? Of course not! There's Mohammed, the shopkeeper; and Mostafa, the doorman, and Ali, the friend of your cousin's wife who you met once, at their wedding.

2. The post-colonial remnant of European occupation- France and the British Empire at one time or another controlled large portions of North Africa and the Middle East. When a people are colonized, it is inevitable they will adopt some of the customs of their colonizers. This comfort with what could, in other spheres, be construed as evidence of sexual deviance from the norm, may perhaps be a mannerism introduced into the Middle Eastern social scene by their European conquerors. Which raises another point: if the Middle East is (mistakenly in large part, might I add) considered archaic, backwards, and stagnant socially, politically, and economically, why do they retain European traits, which are considered too "progressive" or "liberal" for many in the United States? But I digress..

3. The alleged "lack of homosexuals" in the Middle East- if there are no homosexuals in Muslim countries as the governments claim, there is no fear in being accused of being gay ifyou act on familiar terms with another man in public. After all, the posturing that occurs in America between men is restricted largely due to a machismo desire to avoid being called "gay" or having their sexuality, their most prized possession, questioned in any way. Without that threat, why not express your fondness for your friend Ahmed in the public domain?

But without regard as to the reason for this social anomaly, how is it possible that even to me, a woman raised in the US and filled with American concepts of sexuality and the like, these Arab men can still be so completely manly, sexy, and desirable? Perhaps because, as a student of Middle Eastern culture, I am aware that while a man may exhibit some less-than-manly behaviors in the public sphere, one can be absolutely certain that he (assuming he is of an earlier generation than my own) is nothing short of paradigm of masculine strength and vigor at home, where most Arab men rule their homes with an iron fist: unquestioned, immovable, the be-all end-all of their family's world. They expect their wives to submit and cater to their needs, their children to obey without question, and their servants to perform their duties perfectly and without prompting. Also, the abundance of testosterone, as evidenced in the staggering amount of body hair, can't hurt their case, can it?

I'm sure to revisit this topic, because it is endlessly fascinating to me, and as my familiarity with Arab society grows, I'm sure my perception of this phenomenon will continue to evolve.

What are your thoughts, my dears?

An pseudo-intellectual off-color joke about colonialism and the Holocaust

2010-02-20T22:58:00.003Z

Two Jews are sitting together reading their newspapers in 1940s Germany. One looks to the other, and says, "You know, I'm getting really fed up with our leader."

The other looks back, horrified, and says, "You can't talk about Hitler that way, or we'll both end up in a concentration camp!"

The first, confused, replies, "Hitler? Who's talking about Hitler? I'm talking about Moses! If it weren't for him leading us out of Egypt, we'd all have British passports!"

Twofer

2010-02-14T22:15:00.003Z

This weekend was ridiculous. I figured moving to the city would make going out and having fun in Cairo easier, and boy...I was right.

Thursday night, me, Becky, Megan, Romani, Joe and his friend Remy from Bahrain decided to go out and have some fun. We left the apartment a little after midnight and headed to our favorite bar, Hurriya, where they have 8 LE Stellas, and proceeded to get drunk. When [our dear friend and beer-tender] Milad finally kicked us out around 3am, shisha at Pottery Cafe was the obvious next step. Fast forward to 6:30am, when we finally found our way back to the dorms and promptly ordered KFC. We crawled into bed around 8am and slept Friday away.

Exhausted from the previous night's adventure, we opted to stay in Friday night. After a quick trip to Metro to stock up on popcorn and other necessities, we spent the better part of the next 3 hours watching Romani [the Resident Director here in Zamalek] attempt to hook up a laptop to the big screen in the lobby so we could watch Sweeney Todd. Rarely have I been prouder of a boy than I was when he finally succeeded in syncing the two up. We watched Sweeney Todd, ordered some Papa John's, then watched some bizarre music videos until 4am. Did you know Akon did a collaboration in Arabic? Hello, awesomeness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYPeGvYEJpI
We slept again all day Saturday, and were planning on getting a good night's rest Saturday night since we have school Sunday. But alas, it was not to be. Frankie invited us out for a felucca ride with a few friends, and, thinking it would be an hourlong thing, we said sure. We showed up in Garden City at 9:30 and ended up boarding a yacht with about 30 random people- friends of friends of friends. Lots of alcohol-fueled ridiculousness ensued. Finally, around 3am, I looked around and thought, it's 3am. I have a bus to catch at 9:30. It's a school night. And I'm on a yacht in the middle of the f------ Nile drinking Stella and chainsmoking. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!
Having a damn good time, apparently.
My life is ridiculous.
The bad news from this weekend: my beloved 12 year old golden retriever Cody died on Saturday. Living in the alternate universe I inhabit here, I don't think it's totally hit me yet. He was a dear, dear friend. We had had him since I was in the 4th grade and he and I went through so much together. There's no telling how many hundreds of tears I sobbed into his fur over the years. I will miss him terribly.
Another recent development: I have become really, ridiculously insecure, seemingly overnight. I have always been a fairly confident person. But suddenly, I am so consumed with self-doubt it's nearly debilitating. Some of this has to do with the Murphy debacle [recap: Murphy was one of my three best friends in college. My sophomore year, we briefly dated. We decided it was a bad idea and I feel head over heels for my other best friend and his roommate, Kenny. Murphy had a hard time dealing with this and cut me out of his life. We reconciled days before I moved to Egypt and everything was great. Once I got back to the States in December, however, he decided once again that we shouldn't be friends, and told me, much to my surprise that we "haven't been friends for nearly a year". That was news to me.]. Because I was so taken aback by this, and because I thought things between us were fine, I am suddenly completely unsure of all of my relationships. I am constantly wondering if my friends are really my friends, or if they feel obligated to hang out with me. Even when I'm hanging out with my best friends here, I'm wondering if they would rather be somewhere else, if they like me at all. Let it be known: I have amazing friends. Becky and Megan picked me up from the airport when I flew back in to Cairo, Frankie brought me my favorite cigarettes all the way from Amsterdam, and Sachi, Joe, and Romani are the first people to come to my aid if I need anything, day or night. I can feel my insecurities straining my friendships, but a large part of me keeps nagging...if Murphy, your nearest and dearest, felt that way about you and you had no clue, what makes you think these people really like you? It's terrible, and I hate the needy, clingy person it's made me.
Other insecurities have arisen too. It is no secret that I like to have fun; I love nothing more than to waste away and evening drinking, being vulgar, talking about football, shaking my ass, and being silly. However, it seems people have begun to equate this light-heartedness for light-headedness. Two of my best friends routinely have intellectual conversations about the Middle East right in front of me, and blatanly leave me out of them, and I've begun to feel like maybe they think that because I'm not as serious as they are, perhaps I'm not as smart as they are, either. It's really started to get to me, but instead of piping up and defending my intellect, I've started doing something I've never, ever done before: wonder if maybe I am stupid. I mean sure, I know about a lot of things, but I'm not an expert in any one topic. It's a bizarre feeling; after being so confident in myself for so long, suddenly starting to wonder what my worth is on so many different levels. It's frustrating.
Ugh. Enough of my pity party. This is a travel blog, not a therapist's office.
If you need a lift after that depressing entry, here's the most bizarre music video EVER for your enjoyment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kypb12ezLVE
Love.

Starting over

2010-02-06T15:50:00.003Z

As a child coloring in my basement playroom, nine times out of ten I would become disenchanted with "the rules"- staying inside the lines, coloring people peach instead of green or blue, making the typical pretty picture all seemed silly and pointless to me. So I would create a radically abstract picture, damn the rules to hell. After I had created my masterpiece, which seconds before I had been so passionate about, I would step back, cock my head to the side, and realize with a sinking feeling, that my different picture was..ugly. So I crumpled it up, threw it away, and started over, abiding by the rules this time.

This weekend, I am drawing far too many parallels between my life as an adult and my coloring escapades as a child. With more and more of my facebook friends slowly changing their relationship statuses to "engaged", a nauseating anxiety is rising in me. Yet another of my best friends from high school has a rock on her finger and will soon be planning another wedding that I won't be invited to, because I veered off the "right" path; as everyone was beginning to settle down, I did the exact opposite and hopped a flight to the Middle East. And I'm left wondering...am I doing something wrong? If everyone seems to be so caught up in this marriage thing, there must be a reason for it, right? If I'm the only one not down with this whole marriage deal, the problem must be me. Sometimes I feel like maybe I only ran away to the Middle East to avoid the prospect of marriage, so as not to be embarrassed if it never happened to me. Living here, I have an excuse. But now I'm starting to wonder if I'll regret this radical deviation from the norm in 5, 7, 9 years. I certainly don't now, but when I'm done with my picture, I might look at it, decide it's ugly, and want to start over. Unfortunately, this is one picture that can't be erased or redone. This is my life. God knows I hope I'm doing it right.

Exploding Life

2010-02-03T08:38:00.003Z

I saw the lights of Cairo come into view below me from the plane. After spending 24 hours in transit, and touching down on three continents, here I was, at last. Home.

The time I've been back has reminded me why I love Egypt so much. Simple things, silly little vignettes- the bizzare, the hilarious, the everyday things that constitute life in Cairo which seem absolutely ridiculous.

The traffic is bumper-to-bumper, but hurtles along the Autostrahd at 60 mph; one single unit, moving in unison, honking, yelling, weaving. A tentacle of humanity stretching for miles, snaking across the desert, encompassing it, taking it. Next to my cab is a small flatbed truck, loaded twelve feet high with bundles and crates. Perched precariously atop the load is a twenty-something Egyptian, chainsmoking and digging in his nose. The driver lazily glances in his rearview mirror from time to time, making sure his passenger has not fallen off the mound of cargo and been consumed by the mass. Emblazoned across the back of the truck is the word "Hyunday". I giggle to myself and light a cigarette.

En route to Meedan Tahrir, I pass a pet shop, the size of an American walk-in closet. Birds screech and puppies leashed to various door handles bark heartwrenchingly. A PETA proponent's worst nightmare. A mammoth white birdcage stands to the left of the shop, but there is no bird inside. It takes me a moment to see them- six white puppies cuddled up at the bottom of the cage. Necessity breeds creativity, I suppose.

Less than a mile later, I notice a shop whose window is partially covered by a sheet strung up to obstruct the view inside. Four 80s-era mannequinns stare complacently out into the chaos of the street. I realize with a lauagh that the mannequinns are in a state of undress, and the sheet has been hung to preserve their modesty. Oh Egypt, I love you.

A girl walks boldly through the traffic, her cellphone tucked into the side of her tight hijab- an Egyptian bluetooth headset.

Finally home after hours of sitting in traffic, I settle into my bed to see if I can persuade the internet to work, just this once. As I am beginning to dose off, I am jolted awake by the all-too-familiar warning call of the housekeepers- "Man on the floor!". Outside my door I hear Egyptian girls shriek and scamper into their rooms, not wanting these men, who are probably carrying someone's luggage upstairs, to see them without their hijabs on. I smile and turn off my light. It's good to be home.

i'm miles from where you are

2010-01-22T07:25:00.003Z

All too clearly, I remember standing in the airport. As hard as I tried to act like it was no big deal, just moving to Egypt, whatever, I could hardly breathe. Against my will, the lump formed in my throat, tears clouded my eyes, I wondered if it was too late to back out, to slink back to Tuscaloosa...just kidding, I didn't go, I want to stay here with you. I sat there with my parents..stalling, waiting...finally, I realized there was no going back. Better to just get this over with. Goodbye, goodbye, see you at Christmas..

Going back to Egypt this time will not be so hard, I hope. It's home now. I miss it. I miss Cairo; the dirt, the grime, the magnificent decay. The honking, the cacophony of a city in a state of perpetual motion. The smell of shisha wafting on the night air, the sweet aroma of spices in the market, the calls of shopkeepers, the pushing and shoving of people impatient to get wherever they're going, so that they can sit around and do nothing in particular.

I won't miss home so much this semester. I realized in the past month..there's not much left for me here. Somehow, I don't belong here anymore. The people I missed the most...well, only one of them actually deserved my constant longing.

I will miss my family, and I'll miss Kenny...but other than that, I'm ready for another amazing semester in the Middle East. I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for me this time.

ROLL TIDE ROLL

2010-01-09T03:04:00.004Z

Alabama Football...it's 6 All Americans, 22 SEC Championships, a Heisman winner, and 13 National Championships. Roll Tide Roll!

This week, my best friend from high school, Megan, came to Alabama to visit during the National Championship. We went down to Tuscaloosa the day before the game and settled in for the game at Kenny and Murphy's apartment. After a warmup on Wednesday night with Phi Sig and some Sweet Carolina with Kenny, we woke up Thursday afternoon and immediately started pregaming. By gametime, everyone was pumped and pleasantly buzzed. After a rough start, the game took a pleasant turn and the first half ended 24-6. There was a turbulent patch of nausea when Texas staged a fourth quarter comeback, but in the end, the Tide triumphed 37-21.

Chaos broke out in Tuscaloosa. Megan and Kenny, after taking tequila shots after every Bama touchdown, looked on in amazement as fireworks were shot off in the parking lot by raucous fans. Opposite sides of the apartment complex shouted Bama chants back and forth to each other as a gigantic and very illegal fireworks display exploded in the midst of crappy college cars, until a Tuscaloosa PD car turned into the lot. Everyone slowly lowered their drinks and looked on to see if the cop would shut down our city-wide party. Instead, the cop watched the rest of the fireworks display to make sure nothing bad happened, then turned on his loudspeaker, shouted "Roll Tide!" and drove away.
Suddenly someone shouted "Veazey!" and my heart nearly lept out of my chest as I saw the last member of the Cult bound up the stairs and into my arms. Holding a bottle of champagne and a cigarette in one hand, a Natty in a GO TO HELL AUBURN coozie in the other, surrounded by Megan and the Cult, and singing Yea Alabama at the top of my lungs into the frigid night, I realized that this was one of the best moments of my life.

Veazey, Kenny, Megan and I retreated into the apartment to warm up. Soon thereafter, Murphy bounded into the room carrying a giant "yellow hammer" and demanded we follow him to the Strip. "They've shut down the Strip!" He yelled, "There's a mob!"

We sprinted toward the Strip in varied, glorious stages of inebriation, only to find a giant mosh pit of zealous Alabama fans jumping and singing in the middle of the street, chanting "13!", "RTR", "It's great to be from Alabama" and singing Yea Alabama, Sweet Home Alabama, and Rammer Jammer.

Then, we made our way over to the Walk of Champions outside Bryant-Denny stadium. There reside the famous Alabama coaches who have led us to past National Championships. There is an empty spot where Nick Saban will one day reside. In reverent solitude, we erected a sign which sad "Reserved for Nick Saban" and watched as grateful Alabama fans streamed in to place a symbolic rose in the hands of the legendary Bear Bryant's statue.

Walking around campus, shouting Roll Tide to everyone who passed and hearing it shouted right back, you could feel the pride. The tradition. The dynasty. The legend. I'm sure somewhere, the Bear was smiling. And I was in Tuscaloosa, crying from happiness, and a little from nostalgia, of heartache, knowing I'm not a part of it anymore. What a beautiful, beautiful night, what a perfect feeling. God bless Alabama. God bless the Tide.

"I ain't never been nothin' but a winner." -Paul "Bear" Bryant

Now I can cross one more thing off of my Life List. Watch Alabama win a National Championship? Done, son! 13! RTR!

ps..I didn't win that travel writing scholarship, but I read the winner's essay, and she deserved to win. It was very impressive. I'm honored to have been selected for the short list and I'm excited for my writing career. And besides, what could take away from the amazing game last night?

Keep your fingers crossed!

2009-12-31T00:57:00.003Z

So in November I applied for a travel writing scholarship with World Nomads. The winner gets an all expenses paid 11 day trip to Japan in February to shadow a professional travel writer from Rough Guides and write their own chapter in the Rough Guide to Japan. I wasn't expecting to win, but my goal was to make the shortlist. Today I got word that I did, in fact, make the short list of 18 selected from hundreds of entries. The winner will be announced January 8 and the trip starts Feb 15. I've included my entry, which consists of a paragraph stating why I should win the trip, and a 500 word essary written on the prompt "A Strange Experience Involving Food in a Foreign Culture". I've also included the website, if you care to look. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The original guidelines and info:
http://journals.worldnomads.com/scholarships/post/35985.aspx

The short list:
http://journals.worldnomads.com/scholarships/post/52951.aspx

Why I should get the scholarship:

I was raised a military dependent and have travelled all over the world, which has cultivated in me an insatiable, obsessive wanderlust. I consider myself a "third-culture kid"; I have the wonderful ability to fit in nearly anywhere on the planet, but lack strong roots in any one place. I have lived in Japan in elementary school, which I believe is an advantage as it was long enough ago that the novelty of travelling there would not be lost on me, but I have a basic knowledge of customs and social norms which would give me a foundation to build upon for my writing. I have a passion for language and writing; I am conversational in over five languages. I would love to work as a travel writer one day and combine my restless feet and my need to document everything I experience. This would be an incredible opportunity to introduce me to the world of travel writing and give me invaluable experience. My eventual goal is to write travel guides focusing on the Middle East/ North Africa which would help steer the reader through and illuminate beautiful, ancient and often misunderstood cultures.

The essay:

I looked down at the bun in my hand, cradled in a greasy brown paper, with a mixture of horror and awe. Overstuffed, meat, gelatinous fat, and a curious unknown brown substance oozed out of both ends. I was in Fez, Morocco, where I had been living and studying for the summer, on a weekend excursion to the market. I had been warned about "street meat" over and over, and over and over my stomach had suffered unspeakable devastation for my impudence. Here I was, yet again, on the verge of gastrointestinal desolation, holding a sheep's head sandwich, bought from a haphazardly-constructed kiosk picked at random among the rows which lined the walkway out of the souk. My friends gathered around me, convinced I would not eat it. Testing the proverbial waters, I cautiously squeezed the now-soggy bun. With a deliciously grotesque squish, a mess of brown and gray slop streamed out of the bun and splattered all over my worn sandals. I swallowed hard upon noticing a patch of sticky black hair which had adhered itself to my pant leg. Slowly, warily, I put the bun to my mouth, hesitated, and sunk my teeth into the sandwich. Tearing off the first bite, I reported to my friends that it was delicious, and they were obviously missing out. Emboldened, I hastily bit into the sandwich again. There was a glutinous, cold explosion which drenched my entire mouth in a bitter, basic taste: an eyeball. The vendor, having kept a watchful eye on me throughout the ordeal, offered me a bit of toilet paper to use as a napkin. I wiped the eyeball fluid off my chin and weakly returned the thumbs-up he offered, assuring him in Arabic that it was, in fact, the best sheep's head sandwich I had ever had. Briefly I considered giving up; I had tried it, and this sheep had defeated me from beyond the grave. It was then that a sympathetic friend of mine pulled a small bottle of Texas Pete Hot Sauce from her bag, which I snatched and doused all over the offending sandwich. Suddenly, the scorching summer fog of pollution cleared, the Saharan sun seemed to oppress me less, and all was right with the medina. This sheep's head was, unbelievably, delicious! It took me less than a minute to devour the remaining sandwich. Even pulling a small, sharp piece of skull from my mouth could not dissuade me from my savory endeavor. Shocked, my friends stood speechless as I licked my fingers, one by one. Then, in a collective group, they all turned to the vendor and ordered their own sheep's head sandwiches. Contented, with my stomach already beginning to collapse upon itself in cartwheels and acrobatics stomachs are most definitely not supposed to participate in, I mused to myself about my victory over my opponent from the East, parallel to the journey I had begun. Like all the very best things in life, it simply needed a little spice.

...

2009-12-25T06:10:00.003Z

Never before has someone spoken to me with such hatred in their voice.

I live in a region of the world many often mistakenly associate with evil and malevolence...

...and yet it was only in coming back to America that I found such hate.

Life here is so complicated.

The one that got away

2009-12-21T15:58:00.004Z

Today I miss him.

It's days like these I spend with my head in my hands, wondering what could have been if I had been content to just go with the flow; not challenged the status quo; accept a normal, safe-yet-stale existence in the Southeast United States. Staring out my window, at the crescent moon, cradling a single star, hanging just above the distant lights of downtown Cairo, effectively transforming the entire city into one blazing, beautiful mosque, I can't help but wonder "what if?" What if I had been less headstrong? What if he had asked me to stay? What if I said yes? What if he had loved me more? I remember one night, shamelessly drunk and standing before him in my purple formal gown, begging him to tell me to stay- for him, for us. I think he loved me enough to refuse, if only because he didn't love me enough to promise that my choice to stay in America would be worth it.

That moon that I'm looking up at has not even thought about rising in his sky yet. 10 AM in his world, where he is comfortably wrapped in the security of the life he has chosen: safe, logical, familiar. That life seems so far from me now, a distant memory, a shadow, a fog. And here I sit smoking on the roof of a building he has never seen, could never imagine, will never know. Is it possible that we have two such opposite realities now?

Today I miss him.

Today I think of the plans we tried to make together, plans for a life together which seemed unavoidable in its rationality. Now, however, I see we were vainly pulling the ends of fraying, mismatched strings, too far apart to be joined; an exercise in futility. Today I think of the plans that remain: innocent, simple, uncomplicated, unambitious. What if, what if, what if?

I would have stayed if he had asked me. I would not know this building, this moon, this country, this life. A sacrifice I was not asked to make. But what did I end up sacrificing for this building, this moon, this country, this life? This man, this friend, these plans, that future, those possibilities.

Was it worth it?

Yes, I think perhaps it was. This world, my new world, has been beckoning me, silently pulling me towards her for too long; she would not be ignored. She wanted me more than he did. I could never have been content in his world, his safe, predictable existence. I know this.

But today I miss him.

Finally..

2009-12-20T20:33:00.003Z

Fall 2009 Semester = DUNZO.

!الحمدلله

Sandstorm

2009-12-16T11:43:00.003Z

I have sand in my nose, eyes, mouth, and ears.

The sand fills the air; I cannot see the sun.

How appropriate for finals week.

I'm going back to bed.

OH ITS GREAT TO BE FROM ALABAMA

2009-12-13T02:10:00.003Z

CONGRATULATIONS MARK INGRAM ON WINNING THE HEISMAN TROPHY!

FIRST HEISMAN WINNER IN BAMA HISTORY!

ROLL TIDE FROM EGYPT!!!

Tell me did you think we'd all dream the same?

2009-12-12T21:29:00.005Z

Isn't it funny the way your passions and goals evolve over time? Have you ever stopped and taken stock of the ways you've grown and changed? Because the past two years of my life have been spent in constant motion- spent bouncing around between Virginia, Alabama, Morocco, Georgia, and Egypt- I have been pretty aware of the changes I've undergone as I have matured and experienced things. But it was only just now that I really started thinking and taking stock of my own personal evolution, in the context of career goals in particular, over the course of my entire life. It's a pretty interesting path.

When I was four, during my bath, I told my mom I wanted to be a model. She smiled encouragingly, at which point I dashed out of the bath, sopping wet and butt naked, to the front door, where I stuck my little four year old leg out the door provocatively, showgirl style. I returned to the bathroom and corrected myself: "A NUDE model."

A few months later, I amended this goal to include bricklaying. A nude bricklayer/model. Isn't that just a centerfold waiting to happen?

A few years later, I wrote a letter to American Girl Magazine [remember them?] imploring them to help me figure out how to become a successful child actor. After all, I wrote, I was much better at acting than all of the girls on the Disney channel..this was my destiny! I also bought all the Harriet the Spy spy equipment and considered becoming an international sleuth.

After a brief, not-so-successful child modelling career in Japan, I decided I very much needed to be a model, get rich, and be on billboards.

Along with three friends in Hawaii, I formed a band called Crush. At the age of 10, I was convinced Crush was the next Spice Girls. Anyone who has heard me sing will attest to the fact that I cannot carry a tune in a bucket.

In middle school I briefly considered joining the Army one day. Fashion designer and best-selling writer followed.

In high school my main goal was to find a husband and get married, and I almost succeeded- twice. My two high school sweethearts both proclaimed their intent to marry me, and at one point I had a real diamond ring on my finger. Looking back, I can't help but laugh at how silly it all was and marvel at how unhappy I would be now had I gone through with those plans.

When I realized I would, at some point, have to have a job, I dreamt of opening my own all-star cheerleading gym or becoming a fashion marketing executive.

As college loomed closer and I began to become more acutely aware of world events, I coupled my love of writing with my support for the American military, and began laying plans to become a wartime correspondent. Little did I know that this interest would blossom into a love of the Middle East and one day lead me to Morocco and Egypt.

To make that dream a reality, I began taking Arabic classes my first semester of college. As I fell in love with the language, I adjusted my plans to include working for the American governemnt and routinely pushed myself to the brink of a breakdown as I began transforming myself into the ideal candidate- restricting my behavior, learning to supress my emotions, devouring every bit of information on the Middle East that I could get my hands on.

Morocco reintroduced me to the beauty of the world, reawakened my senses and my imagination, forced me to remember that life was meant to be really LIVED and not just controlled in pursuit of some distant goal. My plans, so strict and without room for deviation, relaxed and once again I became the author of my plans rather than a cog in the machine propelling me towards some far-off goal. Sure, my plan was much less focused, but I was happier and healthier than I had been in a long time, much more at peace with myself and my future, whatever it may be.

Today my dreams are open and endless, but firmly rooted in the Middle East, this beautiful, crazy, terribly, mysterious, misunderstood corner of the earth that I now call home. I would still be honored to one day serve my country working in an embassy in the Middle East or North Africa, but certainly not at the cost of denying myself the amazing experiences I want to have first. I am determined to experience the world on my own terms, in every conceivable way, beforehand. And if that doesn't work out? I would be more than happy to commit my life to working for any number of beautiful nonprofit organizations devoted to bettering the world I love so much. Or perhaps I will be a travel writer, specializing in ME/NA, sharing with the world this beautiful culture that has so captivated my mind and my heart. We'll see what happens.

I guess this was a long-winded way of saying this: Life is beautiful; the world is beautiful; change is beautiful. Personal evolution is healthy and inevitable and so necessary. Your life is your own; let your cast-off plans become a foundation upon which to build bigger, better dreams; take the broken shards of your old dreams and build beautiful dream mosaic masterpieces. You are the author of your own plan; write "vivid sentences in a bold hand".

She yearned for tropical climes, cruel suns, purple horizons..

2009-12-11T15:21:00.001Z

This here is a literary post! Relating to my life in the Middle East! Holy f! This is rapidly evolving into some strange diasporic lifestyle blog..I even have a fashion post planned for the near future. How strange!

Anyway, now that I'm done talking about how rad my own blog is..

I am in a class at AUC called Modern Arabic Literature in Translation. The term "modern" is used somewhat loosely, and because I am one of only a handful of Americans in the class who is not enrolled in some type of Middle East history class concurrently with this one and is able to tie the historical landscape in with the period of the work, I have had a hard time relating to or enjoying most of the novels we've read.

A few weeks ago, though, changed that. In an uncommon bout of studious fever, I locked myself in my room and read over 200 pages for this class [way ahead of time, too!]. Once I got past the second page I couldn't tear my eyes away. I rushed through the novel, compulsively turning page after page, anxious to see the resolution. The second-to-last chapter was so powerful it actually caused my stomach to turn and a wave of nausea to come over me. I feel that any book well-written to the point of eliciting a physical response like that is a life-changing work. I can only describe it as an Arab interpretation of "Ethan Frome". Somehow, despite being translated from the original Arabic, it retains this very light, whimsical languistic feel and the way in which things are phrased is strikingly beautiful, which stands in stark contrast to the darkness of the work as a whole. The book is "Seasons of Migration to the North"; the translation by Denys Johnson-Davies is fantastic. Freaking read it.

I've included some of the more striking language from the book, because it is so beautifully worded it is begging to be read.

"..that just like us they are born and die, and in the journey from the cradle to the grave they dream dreams some of which come true and some of which are frustrated; that they fear the unknown, search for love and seek contentment in wife and child; that some are strong and some are weak; that some have been given more than they deserve by life, while others have been deprived by it.."

"There are many horizons that must be visited, fruit that must be plucked, books read, and white pages in the scrolls of life to be inscribed with vivid sentences in a bold hand."

"I feel that I am important, that I am continuous and integral. No, I am not a stone thrown into the water but seed sown in a field."

"The whole of the journey I savoured that feeling of being nowhere, alone, before and behind me either eternity or nothingness."

"I am the desert of thirst."

"Such a woman...knows no fear; they accept life with gaeity and curiousity. And I am a thirsty desert, a wilderness of southern desires."

"And I, like millions of mankind, walk and move, generally by force of habit, in a long caravan that ascends and descends, encamps, and then proceeds on its way. Life in this caravan is not altogether bad...The going may be hard day by day, the wildnerness sweeping out before us like shoreless seas; we pour with sweat, our throats are parched with thirst, and we reach the frontier beyond which we think we cannot go."

"The spectres of night dissolve with the dawn, the fever of day is cooled by the night breeze."

"But mysterious things in my soul and in my blood impel me towards faraway parts that loom up before me and cannot be ignored."

"I experience a sense of richness as though I am a note in the heartbeats of the very universe."

As a tangent, I've prepared a list of other books I consider "Life-Changing"*; mainly because I'm pretentious and think you'll rush out and read the books** I recommend. Humor me.

-The Island of Dr. Moreau
Ok, I'll just come right out and say it: I love HG Wells. Y3niyy, love love love him. He makes such fantastic social commentatries. The Island of Dr Moreau was terrifying and riveting and poignant..and just plain awesome. I also identified on some level with a man who lived through terrible things, wishing he was babck home in the civilized world where it was safe and predictable, and then finally getting back after so much stuggle and realizing he no longer belonged there because he had changed too much to go back. I fully understand experiencing something so outside your realm of understanding and wanting so badly to go back to things that are comfortable and safe, and getting there and realizing it had stayed the same and you had changed too much to go back to that stagnant life. I get chills just thinking about how well written it is. I could read it over and over again and find some new metaphor or symbolism every time.

-Into the Wild
This book is touching, and painfully tragic, but also inspiring. Chris McCandless wanted to live life on his own terms no matter what the cost, and that's what he did. So few people have the balls to really take their lives into their own hands and do what they want with it, to hell with those who don't understand. I was afraid when I recognized myself in the ill-fated main character-- he descended into the Alaskan wilderness to live his ultimate adventure, and I want to walk into the forests of Cambodia, build a teepee, and live naturally for an indefinite period. With every amazing adventure comes great risk, and this story is proof of it. But it is a beautiful adventure story, and the fact that it all really happened is sobering and humbling. I haven't seen the movie, but I doubt it could do Jon Krakauer's beautiful writing justice.

-The Time Machine
Once again, I love love love HG Wells' social commentaries. This one is a little more blatant than that of The Island of Dr Moreau- it paints a dark picture of the future of civilization, given the propensity we as humans have for dividing classes and lording over one another. It is terrifyingly poignant, and I have forced it upon some of my nearest and dearest [sorry, Kenny!].

-Lord of the Flies
I read Lord of the Flies the summer before sophomore year, and have remembered it nearly word for word [especially the last few pages] ever since. Yet another social commentary on the futility of war, the ending is sad and beautiful all at the same time. I don't want to give it away for those of you who haven't read it..but the realization of the children at the end is the realization I feel we as people will have one day standing before some greater power than ourselves- silly, embarrassing, afraid, remorseful for the things we have done which seemed so important at the time but end up having been in vain.

-Tales of a Female Nomad
This is the book that validated all my desires to break free of the social norm and gallavant around the world, seeing and doing things on my own terms. It is really inspiring; a woman who took her divorce with grace and dignity and used it as a catalyst to change her life, travelling the world, coming and going as she pleased, doing incredible things and meeting amazing people along the way. I made my mom read it in the hopes that it would help her better understand my obsessive wanderlust. It really was life-changing for me, and helped me form a better idea of what I want out of life, to understand that a life lived on anyone else's terms is a life wasted.

-Animal Farm
Like Lord of the Flies, I read this book in the 9th grade and the message behind it still resonates with me today: those who are oppressed or colonized will eventually revolt, but not without taking on some of the characteristics of their oppressors in order to beat them, sparking a vicious cycle which inevitably leads to destruction. While the message is more overt than in some of the other books I've listed with social commentaries, it is every bit as thought-provoking and insightful, and still relevant even though times have changed since it was written in 1945.

*I also consider "Ethan Frome" one of these, but seeing as I've already mentioned it, I didn't want to be redundant and include it in the list. You're welcome.
**Yeah, ok, some of them are short stories or novellas. Whatever.

It's funny how time and distance change you..the road you take don't always lead you home

2009-12-09T21:15:00.005Z

I moved for the first time when I was nine days old. Since then, my life has been one of constant motion. By the time I graduated from high school, I had been to ten different schools, and spent most of my formative years outside the contiguous United States, living in Japan and Hawaii. When I got to college in Tuscaloosa and the prospect of staying put for four years became a reality, I got restless again, and now here I am, sitting in my room in Cairo, Egypt, typing this. Which all leads me to December 22-- the day I fly "home" to America. I will be visiting friends and family in the states for almost five weeks before I come back to Cairo in January 28.
I've been progressively getting more anxious about returning to the States, mostly because I've come to the realization that it isn't "home" anymore. It's the place I used to call home; the world I left behind in search of something new. I'm excited to see my mom and dad and spend some much-needed time spoiling my precious nephew, but beyond that, I'm absolutely terrified. Terrified I won't have any fun plans for New Years. Terrified that all of my friends won't like me anymore or appreciate the changes I've made in my life. Terrified I'll come to the inevitable conclusion that I don't belong there anymore.
After all, the world didn't stop turning when I left Alabama. My friends' lives didnt halt, frozen in the moment I left them. They've all moved on, created lives that no longer include me. And while I hope that during the time I'm visiting Tuscaloosa, they'll be able to fit me back into their lives, I know the reality of visiting will be painful, albeit necessary. The two people I miss all day, every day, my best friends Murphy and Kenny, are preoccupied with getting ready to graduate, applying to grad school,and figuring out how to get out to Pasadena for the National Championship. None of these things include me. While I left my whole life behind when I came here, only a small part of their lives left. Sometimes I get my feelings hurt when they arent enthusiastic enough about Skyping with me or making plans for the time I'm back, but the truth is: their lives can't stop just because I decided to come back to the States to visit. I made the choice to leave, and I will have to accept the reality of the repercussions from that choice. Don't get me wrong; it was absolutely the right choice for me. But that doesn't make the realization of what I lost any less brutal. It's a very humbling thing to realize that the world doesn't revolve around me, like I was so convinced it did as a teenager, and that my best friends don't spend every waking moment waiting for my return. But that's life.
In the novella I just finished reading [and will soon be posting an entry about], Seasons of Migration to the North, the antagonist, Mustafa Saeed, a prodigy from the Sudan, leaves his homeland to get an education in Europe. One of the defining lines in the book is spoken by his lawyer at his trial for the murder of his wife "Mustafa Saeed...is a noble person whose mind was able to absorb Western civilization but it broke his heart." The reader draws the conclusion that the "infection" or spark on insanity which caused him to kill his wife came from the constant state of limbo Saeed was is- belonging to neither the North [Europe] or the South [the Sudan] anymore; a man without roots.
Sometimes I'm afraid this is the destiny I'm slowly moving towards. Not the killing people part, to be sure, but the slow decay of one's heart that happens when you do not really belong here nor there. America is no longer home, but I will never completely fit in in the Middle East. What space between, then, is left for me? Growing up an Army child, we had a picture that hung on the wall which said "Home is where the heart is". But where is my heart? Half of it is in Alabama, with Murphy and Kenny and the rest of my friends and family, but half of it is here, in Africa, the place which has been beckoning me, incessantly pulling me toward it, absorbing me into itself, for over two years. The bittersweet truth is that I am a "third-culture kid", with the uncanny ability to fit in everywhere, but nowhere at the same time.
So where do I belong? Where is home? The East or the West? When will I know?

AUC Registration Woes

2009-12-07T21:32:00.002Z

Christ.

I need a cigarette.

SEC Championship

2009-12-06T13:23:00.002Z

BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!BAMA WINS!!!

32-13....Cry Tebow Cry!

National Championship here we come!!!

Roll Tide

2009-12-04T23:30:00.003Z

So, this isn't technically about Egypt, but just go with me here.

For two years, I was privileged to go to the University of Alabama. I have always loved football, but didn't know much about any one team besides Georgia when I decided to attend UA, in the hopes of cheering there. Immediately I was immersed into the tradition and prestige of a southern football powerhouse with a dynastic history of domination and success. Everything about Alabama football enthralls me, but I've made a list of the things that I truly miss about it.

Seeing thousands of girls wearing houndstooth dresses.
"Phi Mu Loves the Tide" pins
Yelling "Roll Tide" with 90,000+ every time the Tide gets a first down.
Some girls [not me, of course ;)] duct-taping flasks to their inner thighs to smuggle them through the gates; watching them waddle to the bathroom where they promptly retrieve them and pour them into a plastic commemorative cup.
Watching frat pledges frantically collecting used cups for their bitchwork.
The Million Dollar Band at halftime.
Nearly getting into a fist fight with Utah fans on the walk...errr stumble to the Super Dome last year.
Pre-gaming in the shadow of Denny Chimes.
Lunch at Phi Mu, then walking across the street to Bryant Denny.
The Walk of Champions.
Waking up super early in the morning and going to open bar at a frat house, then concentrating so hard on walking to the stadium later.
Camping on the quad the night before a game.
Diehard fans who start staking out spots for their tents on Wednesday for a Saturday game.
The Homecoming parade.
Holding up four fingers at the end of the 3rd quarter with tens of thousands of other fans.
Setting records for ridiculous attendance at the A-Day game.
Watching the other team's fans empty out in the 3rd quarter when they realize hope is lost.
Tailgating at away games from 7am to 7pm.
Losing your voice for days after a big game.
College Gameday.
Seeing the score at the end of last year's Iron Bowl: 36-0, a score that will forever be etched into my memory.
Hearing Bear Bryant's voice before kickoff; the compulsory chill running down your spine.
Singing the fight song after a touchdown as the MDB plays.
Singing along with Sweet Home Alabama and Dixieland Delight.
Singing Rammer Jammer after a win.

This is Alabama football, and I love it, and I miss it so much.
Tomorrow night is the SEC Championship, and it will be on a real TV here in Egypt. My heart aches wishing I was there to watch the Tide roll in.
This is our year-- ROLL TIDE!

Yea Alabama

Yea, Alabama! Drown 'em Tide!
Every 'Bama man's behind you,
Hit your stride.
Go teach the Bulldogs to behave,
Send the Yellow Jackets to a watery grave.
And if a man starts to weaken,
That's a shame!
For Bama's pluck and grit have
Writ her name in Crimson flame.
Fight on, fight on, fight on men!
Remember the Rose Bowl, we'll win then.
So roll on to victory,
Hit your stride,
You're Dixie's football pride,
Crimson Tide, Roll Tide, Roll Tide!!

12 National Championships

1925 1926 1930 1934 1941 1961

1964 1965 1973 1978 1979 1992

Plus 21 Southeastern Conference titles, 52 Bowl Appearances, 17 enshrinees into the College Football Hall of Fame, 95 All-Americans, and the greatest football coach in history.

I miss Alabamy once again, and I think it's a sin...

Tiny Update

2009-11-25T15:58:00.003Z

Classes have been suspended again and will resume on Dec 6, as opposed to the 1st. Not much of a difference, but it's nice to know that I will still have time to get all my stuff done after I get back from Jordan on the 30. Alhamdulelah!

Leaving for Jordan in about 12 hours! See you kids on the 30th!

Exciting News!

2009-11-24T21:24:00.004Z

Thanksgiving break [it's actually a break for Eid al-Adha* here, which conveniently falls over the same period as Thanksgiving] starts tomorrow night. I had pretty much made up my mind to be boring and stay on campus to get work done, but I started changing my mind yesterday..after all, I'm living in Egypt. Yes, my schoolwork is important [and I'll get it all done], but the life experience I'm getting here is just as important. So tonight I took the plunge- Will and I splurged** and bought tickets to Amman, Jordan! Our flight leaves at 8am on the 26 and we will spend two days in Amman, and two days exploring the ancient city of Petra. We get back late the night of the 30. I am so, so excited for so many reasons..I have wanted to go to Petra for years! Also, while in Petra, we are planning a trip to the Dead Sea, which is something on my Life List. We were originally throwing around the idea of doing this trip the old-fashioned way: taking a bus from Cairo to Sharm el-Sheikh, then catching the ferry from Nueba, Egypt to Aqqaba, Jordan, and finally a taxi from Aqqaba to Petra. All of this would take an entire day each way and leave us with limited time in the country, as well as being fairly expensive. It would also be a fairly stressful process and our nerves would already be wearing then by the time we got to Jordan [I don't do well on long bus rides- they are uncomfortable and usually smelly, and a bus to Sharm is around 8 hours, plus the ferry to Jordan is supposed to be a pretty stressful experience]. Granted, the airfare was more expensive, but we will be saving countless hours and arguments. I am so, so, excited and cannot believe that in less than 36 hours I will be in Jordan! I will be back with lots of stories and pictures on the 30th! Take care!

*Eid al-Adha is the Muslim holiday which translates to "Festival of the Sacrifice". It is celebrated to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience to God.

**I should note that it was not I who splurged, but rather my parents. I am so blessed with parents who are so gracious and generous and who really believe in my passions and support my obsessive wanderlust. They are truly incredible people and I am beyond lucky to have them as my parents. They will never know how much I appreciate them and everything they do for me. This blog would not exist if not for their willingness to send me all over the world to learn and absorb all that I can. I am so very thankful. I love you Mom and Dad!

The Life List

2009-11-22T19:08:00.003Z

Before I moved to Egypt, I started a list that was meant to be something like a "Bucket List", but was also intended to be a sweet joke for my parents promising I'd be okay living by myself in the Middle East which I planned to craft into a bittersweet, tear-evoking letter entitled "Reasons Why I Can't Get Blown Up Yet". Later on I decided against that, but the list has been growing and evolving ever since then. I have a page of notebook paper which contains the list, and also some quotes which I hold near and dear, that I keep folded up in my wallet. Most of the things will sound like random, cliched, idealistic bohemian tree-hugging wannabe-flowerchild, early 20's rambling, but each of the things on this list really mean a lot to me. Some of these things will take only seconds to accomplish, others years. But I genuinely plan on doing each and every one of them. So, without further ado, here it is:

The Life List

-Go to the Sudan and see the Nubian artifacts [which will all be destroyed within the next 5 years because of the dam being built there]
-Hike Kilimanjaro
-Walk on hot coals. Brag for years.
-Join the Peace Corps. Proceed to do awesome things for the world.
-Lie on a bed of nails. Brag for years.
-Live in a teepee in the jungle. Be dirty.
-Hike Tiger Leaping Gorge, China
-Study with Buddhist monks in Bhutan
-Spend at least a year gallavanting around the globe
-Hitch-hike from Cape Town to Alexandria
-Publish a book
-Study yoga in India. Awaken kundalini power. Possibly go insane..?
-Go to the Holi Festival. Get dirty colorful.
-Float in the Dead Sea
-Grow dreadlocks. Be dirty.
-Be completely alone for at least a week. Preferably in the woods.
-Camp in the High Atlas.
-See Alabama win a National Championship. Roll Tide.
-Spend an extended amount of time on a ship.
-Be a nomad in the Gobi
-Work at a baby elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka
-Ride an ostrich
-Practice capoeira
-Race a camel
-Spend a week in the African savannah.

What are your Life Lists, readers?

An Open Letter to the Love of My Life

2009-11-21T10:38:00.003Z

Dear Skype,

I know things have been touch-and-go with us for a while; sometimes I'm satisfied with you and sometimes I'm not. Being out here in the desert, where it's blazing hot and then freezing cold, tends to make you moody and fickle, and believe me, I understand. But these past few days you've really shown me the scope of your commitment. You've really buckled down and worked hard for things you know are important to me, and because of that, I have to say, I think I've fallen for you.

In the past few days, you've helped me talk to my two most important non-family members in the world on several occasions. Not only that, but you've made me feel as if I were there in the room with them. It almost feels unfair, as if I'm cheating on the distance that separates us, the invisible wedge of time and space that has kept us apart these past few months. Because after a few quick rings, there I was, sitting on Kenny's bed, talking with him like I would have after any given school day last year, laughing with him, bickering with him-- it was familiar and comfortable and everything I don't usually have. And then suddenly there was Murph, and he and Kenny and I all bickered back and forth good-naturedly for a while, which hasn't happened for a long, long time. After an hour and a half of talking to my two best friends a world away, I was left with an overwhelming, all-consuming feeling that threatened to fill me up until it began spilling out of my eyes. Home.

And that's when I realized, Skype, that I'm in love with you. After spending the past week on my death bed [or in a hospital bed] with a lung infection [I'm only exaggerating slightly, mind you], you must have known that this was exactly what I needed. You know me so well. I know with this sudden talk of love and committment, you may turn and run, but I really hope not, especially because I need you desperately, if only to finish making my New Years plans with Kenny [wow, I feel like I'm in this situation every year..]. But really, I need you, I do. I know that now. Don't ever leave me; it means too much to me. I love you. Completely, always and forever.

Until they invent a teleporter. In which case, you're f-----.

Love,

Danielle

PS-
Other news, aside from lots of recent Skype time with my very best friends: Egypt lost the final World Cup qualifier in Sudan 1-0, there are riots in the streets of Cairo, my scantily-clad roommate finally got in trouble for being scantily-clad [thank you Sachi!], there is no water at AUC and there is limited electricity. Gotta love Egypt.

YA MISR!!!

2009-11-14T22:27:00.002Z

I know that I've gone native, for a few reasons. The most convincing argument though, is Egyptian football. Yes, I mean soccer, Americans.
Egypt is battling to get the last spot for Africa in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Tonight the battle came to a head in Cairo, in a match against rival Algeria. Egypt had to win by at least 2 points to stay alive and have a tiebreaker match, or win by 3 points to be assured a spot in the World Cup.
Our tiny common room filled to the brim about an hour before the game even started. Face paint, Egyptian flags, and the national anthem were abundant. The tension had been building for days; the Algerian players were even stoned as they rode their bus into Cairo. I don't support that, but I sure do love passionate sports fans.
In the first two minutes of the match, Egypt scored an incredible goal. The common room was deafening. However, the next 88 minutes were all filled with disappointment. Algeria wasn't scoring, but we weren't either. After the regular play time expired, 6 extra minutes were added to the clock to account for play time which was consumed by injuries. That was all Egypt needed. With seconds to spare, we scored and secured a tiebreaker match which will take place on Wednesday in the Sudan.
Afterwards, footage of the streets of Cairo were shown: things were on fire, people were waving flags everywhere, everyone was screaming and singing and random explosions were going off. Now this is fanhood. I loved every second.
This is significant for a few reasons.
1. It was f*****g awesome. Close games are my absolute favorite things.
2. I hate soccer. And I was still jumping out of my seat screaming at the television.
3. I wish I was there. My parents would have had aneurisms if they knew I was around explosions in downtown Cairo, but MAN, do Egyptians know how to celebrate!
4. This is perhaps the most important: I felt a familiar swell of pride when time expired and the score was Egypt 2-0 Algeria, not unlike the feeling I get watching Alabama football. Granted, it was not quite as strong of overwhelming, but I felt it; that quiet stir in my heart signaling the beginning of a love affair. It felt similar to the feeling I had watching Morocco's olympians march in the opening ceremonies of the 08 games.

It's funny, because as I write this, I am lying in bed wearing a shirt that says "I am not a tourist, I live here" in Arabic and for the first time, it feels true. I do live here. Egypt is home now, and will be for the next few years. And I am so happy.

Grey

2009-11-02T22:32:00.002Z

It's been cold here lately. And grey. And the annual mid-semester breakdown where everyone contemplates saying "f--- college", running away and joining the circus is bearing down upon us here at AUC.

Tonight I let the shower run for 15 minutes before I got in. I wanted it to be good and hot. Scalding would be ideal.

Being the champion of water conservation among my friends, my normal shower lasts 5 minutes, no preheating.

Tonight, to hell with the water shortage in the Middle East, I lingered around in the shower three times longer than usual. As I stood in the midst of all that heat, the sand-colored tiles around me, the foggy shower glass, the sensation of itchiness which has been my constant companion since August 28, all melted away. It was only me and the water, cascading down everywhere, and I was somewhere warm and safe and happy.

Yesterday in class, freezing, I snuggled down into the shoulder of the t-shirt I was wearing. I was taken aback by how comforted I was, feeling the soft cotton rub against my cheek. Suddenly I was somewhere else where I was not stressed about midterms, or tired of my friends, or itchy. Home.

Yes, I'm finally feeling some twinges of homesickness.

I miss my mom and dad.
I miss the Cult.
I miss you all.

Sending my love from Egypt tonight across the Atlantic. 51 days until I get to feel warm, and safe, and loved, and welcome, and familiar.

Happy Halloween min Al-Misr!

2009-10-31T19:42:00.003Z

Happy Halloween everyone!

Truth be told, I'm really missing America today-- Halloween is my favorite holiday, not to mention the holiest of all days: Nick Saban's birthday [ROLL TIDE!]. There was a Halloween party here on campus last night that only succeeded in making me fully realize exactly what all I gave up to come to Egypt. Even if it is all just sweaty, debauched frat parties and copious amounts of booze, the American college experience is one hell of a fun time.

I have two midterms to study for tomorrow, but I decided to go to Maadi to pick up some boxes my mom sent to Dave and Amy's for me ages ago. Will and I took a bus to Maadi, then caught a cab to Dave and Amy's place. We picked up my boxes, popped in to a local expat market where we loaded up on snacks and Dr. Pepper, and caught a cab back to New Cairo, all of which went ridiculously smoothly and easy. The entire endeavor took less than two and a half hours--an amazing feat in a country where NOTHING happens quickly.

My boxes were full of goodies: 8 packs of Djarum Black clove cigarettes, Halloween candy, movies, clothes, newspaper clippings about Bama football and Megan Fox [my two favorite topics!], a Halloween card, and a copy of Where the Wild Things Are. It made me feel so much better on a day when I was really missing home- a care package from the world I left behind.

I promise I really will write on my Alex trip at some point, but I am pretty tired tonight and still have a lot of studying to do. Goodnight from Egypt, Happy Halloween!

What's in my Bag? Egypt Edition

2009-10-26T19:08:00.003Z

There are few ways that enable you to understand what life is like somewhere better than examining the things you need for day-to-day life in that place.

So, without further ado, I present to you:

What's in My Bag?- Egypt Edition*

Bag: Red patterned elephant messenger bag, bought in Dahab for 50 L.E. [approx. 10 USD]

Contents:

-cell phone
-camera
-wallet
-in my wallet [yellow embossed camel skin leather from Morocco]:
Hard Rock Café Hurghada refreshing towelette
Doctor's note for missing class on Sunday
97 LE
Same Same But Different restaurant card from Dahab
Ahmed Adly, International Chess Grandmaster business card
AUC Senior Coordinator business card
UA Student ID
Alabama driver's license and military ID
International Student Identity Card [expired]
Jamie Lyons' business card [hahaha]
Ticket stub from Alabama vs. Clemson [08 season opener]
Mastercard
Ticket stub from Alexandria catacombs
Twenty 10-pound Mobinil phone credit cards
Picture of my nephew
Visa card
AUC Student ID
-passport
-notebook [I am constantly writing down little notes I want to remember to write about…my lack of updates wouldn't be telling of this but I swear it's true!]
-sunglasses..cuz it's freakin Egypt, man- It's sunny!
-iPod
-flashdrive
-2 AUC pens, one of which doesn't work
-Chapstick…cuz it's dry here
-bobby pins
-deodorant..because I sweat. A lot. It's the Middle East!
-bronzer
-56.70 LE and 3.46 USD in loose change
-random sea glass and coral from Dahab and Hurghada, respectively
-5 Ambien which spilled on a bus ride
-La Roka Café flier
Excerpt from flier: "we have the honor to invite you as we will organize the greater party in El Haram just as we blissful to presentation elevated favor and enjoying by captivated nature and enjoyment by dj tones with dj stars. This party at next Thursday and every Thursday and Friday at 9pm." Hilarious? Yes.

*for those of you who don't know, when bloggers are feeling lazy and don't feel like being introspective but need to post something, they list things. Hopefully this list was at least a tiny bit entertaining, and maybe even accomplished the goal, which was to give you insight into my life here in Al-Misr. No? Eh, you can't win 'em all.

This place is a prison.

2009-10-25T21:35:00.002Z

Nighttime.

A girl sits alone in a dark, deserted courtyard, lips painted a dark rouge for no one in particular, wearing the same uniform of too-tight black pants and black shirt, last night's eyeliner smeared haphazardly around languid eyes, lazily puffing away on a cigarette, complacent, listless, agitated. The picture of indifference; she isn't going anywhere.

Some days these walls feel like a prison. The sky is gray and tyrannical, feels as if at any moment it might give up the hope of hanging on to the heavens and come crashing down on us all. The wooden lattices on the windows become bars, the sterile concrete buildings, with their sharp edges and straight facades my faceless oppressors.

A restless mood settles over me.

Some days the world is not quite big enough. Some days AUC is too damn small.

[Alexandria post coming soon.]

Down in Africa..

2009-10-24T10:00:00.001Z

It's hard to believe that I've already been in Egypt longer than I was in Morocco. How different my experiences have been! I know I definitely feel like my learning has been delayed, both culturally and academically. I have yet to get up close and personal with the pyramids or the Sphinx, though I've ridden Arabian stallions alongside them at sunrise, and I haven't travelled to see the obelisks, the Valley of the Kings, or even made it to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square yet. A large part of that is because I don't technically live in Cairo. I live in the middle of a desert outside of Cairo, in a wasteland called New Cairo, which, in five years, will be just as bustling as Zamalek, Tahrir, Maadi, and the Heliopolis, but for now is filled with the skeletons of houses yet to be completed and a whole lot of sand. Then there is the shimmering oasis that is the AUC compound, safely tucked away in the middle of nowhere, in a suburb of New Cairo called Katameya, a virtual Shangri La barricaded behind walls and fences, kept completely unto itself.
I've been meaning to describe AUC in depth for some time now, but it is really pretty difficult to put into words the feat of engineering and hubris that is New Campus. I have likened it more than once to a resort, not a university. First of all, it rises out of the desert sand, looming like a small city in the vast emptiness. Once inside the compound –after clearing multiple checkpoints, mind you- the concrete assaults your senses, which realize that here is a huge concrete and marble structure, built on sand, in a place where no structure at all has any business being built.
One main walkway courses through the campus, flanked on either side by looming, architecturally avant garde office buildings and classrooms. Bisecting this walkway are various fountains, man-made rivers, and burbling geysers. The fountains are innumerable on campus, wasting water left and right, but I have to admit that on days when the fountains aren't on or aren't working, the heat is oppressive and the campus just feels so unbearably, unnaturally dry. The walkway is jagged cobblestone lined with slick –too slick- marble, proof that the government was literally desperate to spend money on things as senseless as marble sidewalks.
The buildings are labyrinthine in design; there's a trick to understanding how they're laid out, and once you get it, it's not completely impossible to get to class on time…but these things take time and diligent study. There are balconies and terraces everywhere. The thing that is amazing is the way the design of the buildings brings the outside in. Many times I have been walking down a hallway, looked up, and realized there was no roof…I was technically outside, in a school building. There are random fountains and courtyards scattered throughout every building, and this has a very calming effect, which is necessary in dealing with the bureaucracy which runs AUC. The indoors and outdoors are integrated seamlessly, giving this monstrous marvel of architectural engineering an almost..organic feel. I didn’t even know that was possible.
The "quad" is a huge concrete courtyard filled with fountains and lined with food kiosks and classrooms. There are shady umbrellas and leisurely looking wickers chairs scattered everywhere, and several smaller, sunken courtyards with fountain moats surrounding them, with small concrete bridges connecting them to the larger quad area. There are also several staircases which lead to nowhere, placed in the quad just to serve as a sitting structure—we do leisure very well in Egypt.
Now there are definitely difficulties that come with building a compound in the middle of the desert, as my friend Becky was so apt to point out. The water is fickle- sometimes there is none. When there is water, it's rarely hot. Sometime's the toilets don't flush. You can't flush toilet paper, or they overflow. There are no power lines out here, so the whole operation is powered by generators, which go out frequently. Yesterday at 3:30pm the electricity went out and didn't come back on until around 9pm, plunging the school into four hours of darkness after the sun set at 5, leaving everyone in a frenzy of terror and excitement, and causing an overload in buses due to the mass exodus from the campus into Cairo.
Naturally in our little oasis we are cut off from "real life" in Egypt. This is frustrating for me on many levels, because I was looking forward to trying to assimilate into Egyptian culture. Living on campus exacerbates this problem. But I'm adjusting to my new reality. I'm adjusting to spoiled, immature, elitist Egyptian kids fresh out of high school interrupting teachers and speaking during lecture. I'm learning to control my anger at seeing water wasted unscrupulously. I'm even learning to forgive closed-minded statements about the place of women in society which literally set women's rights back hundreds of years. It is the strange day-to-day existence on the compound which gives me my only semblance of reality and stability, but also daily amazes me with its grandiosity and unnecessary amenities. Such is life in the Middle East, eh?
I'm going to Alexandria this weekend [insha'allah] so a good post is coming soon, promise!
Also, I'm on the AUC fencing team. I told you life is ridiculous here.
Take care, I miss you all!

My heart is beeping

2009-10-21T09:28:00.002Z

The desert is a terribly dirty place for feet.

My feet will never be clean again.

I am so lucky.

Swine Flu Break '09: Hurghada, Dahab, and some actual Swine Flu

2009-10-03T14:16:00.000Z

Wow, I have so much catching up to do!!!
After 8 days of classes here at AUC, the Egyptian government cancelled school for two and half weeks due to the imminent Swine Flu threat here in Egypt. This, of course, sent waves of excitement through campus and within a few hours of the announcement the entire campus had cleared out. So the Group all went their separate ways on adventures around the Middle East, and Goose, Katie, Dana, Dooler, Sherief and I hopped on a bus for a seven hour ride to Hurghada on the Red Sea. Hurghada is a tiny little town full of incredibly annoying Russian tourists. However, we had a hotel with a beautiful view of the Red Sea, and we quickly made friends with the owner of the bar there, Lotfy. The first day there we took it easy and napped, hung out in the ocean, and ate delicious calamari tagine and seafood soup. That night, we tossed back more than a few drinks with Lotfy, who decided he liked my boyfriend [yes, boyfriend, Goose and I are officially dating and have been for nearly a month…really, who is surprised? No one? Figured.] so much that we wanted him to work there. So Goose spent the rest of the night mixing Long Island Ice Teas and hooking us up with free special shisha. The next morning, we all got up and jumped into the back of a mini van which drove us deep into the desert, bouncing over the dunes violently. We climbed a mountain, where I got third degree burns on my feet from the scorching sand, and then arrived at a little camp where we had a fun-filled day of just about everything. In a five hour period I rode a camel, donkey, horse, dune buggy, ATV, giant tortoise, and held chameleons, venomous snakes, goats, turtles and crocodiles, kissed a camel, played with ostriches, got really dirty, and all around had a great time. After that we went to a Fire Party where we ate delicious food, watched belly-dancers, and marveled as Goose was pulled up onto the stage by "The Devil" and made to swallow [or attempt to swallow] a sword. Good news: his gag reflex is alive and well.
Finally, we watched the sun set from the top of a mountain, saw Jupiter through a telescope, took our van out to a deserted patch of sand, and laid there looking at the stars. Lying in the sand with my new friends/family, I couldn’t help but think of Morocco and my ISA friends, and I couldn’t help but think of how different my life here is than I imagined it would be. I love it, but it's not what I was expecting.
Then we set off through the desert again, cranking Backstreet Boys tunes the entire way. We arrived back at the hotel where Lotfy greeted us with Egyptian beer, and happily passed out.
The next day we committed the entire day to eating delicious food and lounging on the beach. That night, we had a fake and very drunken birthday party for Sherief aka Alfastar in Hard Rock Café Hurghada, where we gorged ourselves on American food and expensive cocktails [have I mentioned I love being able to legally buy alcohol? I've only been carded once. Ohebu al-Misr!] Then we somehow found our way back to the hotel, where we drank even more and smoked Lotfy's delicious, free shisha.
The next morning we all unhappily piled into a bus at 8am, me still wearing my makeup from the night before and chugging water to cure my hangover. An hour later we were boarding a yacht and laying out on the deck, overlooking water so clear and blue you could see fifty feet down to the coral below. We spent the day lounging on the boat, swimming in the water, discovering strange aquatic life [including a slug/crab creature with one scary arm ending in a hook which lived in an innocent looking shell..it was terrifying], watching Sherief try and fight Goose, and jumping thirty feet from the top of the yacht into the clear turquoise water below. That night we took a bus back from Hurghada, and jumped on a taxi back to campus, which promptly got a flat tire right in front of a military post. The guards, needless to say, were not thrilled, suspecting us to be American terrorists. However, upon meeting Katie, the flirt of the group, they were charmed and brought us water to quench our thirst as we waited for nearly an hour for our tire to be repaired. We spent the next few days recuperating in Cairo, where I unfortunately came down with the Piggy Flu.
After being nursed back to health by my amazing friends and incredible boyfriend, Katie, Anna, Goose and I took a nine hour bus ride to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula [which was made longer due to the fact that the bus blew a tire around 3 am]. We arrived, checked into Dolphin Camp, where we stayed in bamboo beach bungalows with a view of the water, and Saudi Arabia across it, and had a delicious breakfast at Dolphin Café. We spent the rest of the day basking in the sun on our private beach, and enjoyed incredible food, shisha, beer, free rum, and great company all night. The next day we set out to go swimming and ended up lounging on an abandoned beach called Lagouna, and ate more delicious food. We ended up at a bar called Yalla run by Australian expats around our age, where we got thoroughly drunk. Our last day was filled with lots of shopping and haggling, some bus confusion, and finally an hour bus ride to Sharm el Sheikh, and a six hour ride from there to Nasr City, where we hailed a cab which took us to the wrong AUC campus, ended up eating a 5am dinner at McDonalds, and waited two hours for an AUC bus to arrive to take us back to campus. It was an adventure, to say the least. I realize my account from Dahab is sort of lacking, but we didn't do much. We just relaxed and enjoyed the atmosphere, the food, and each other. Dahab is a lot less touristy than other towns on the Sinai, and is a huge hippie town filled with expats and long-haired, shirtless backpackers. Needless to say, Goose and I fit in well and loved it there. There were rumors circulating the entire time that AUC was not going to reopen this semester, and the four of us seriously considered renting a $100/month, one bedroom apartment and getting part-time jobs at a bar there. One of my new life goals is to retire there after I'm done gallivanting, open a bar, smoke lots of shisha, drink lots of beer, and bask in the awesomeness.
Now the entire Group has been reunited in Cairo, and classes resume tomorrow [supposedly]. In light of this fact, I am off to get some homework done for my 8:30 tomorrow. I will be updating this blog more regularly now that I'm firmly back in Cairo for a while. Check out my pictures on Facebook!
Salaam wa hubb,
Danielle

I've got some 'splaining to do

2009-09-17T17:24:00.002Z

A brief explanation as to why I havent been/ won't be posting for a while:

After a mere seven days of class, the school was buzzing yesterday about exactly how long we would have off for Eid; the previously accepted time was 6 days, starting Friday. Around noon, there was a visible change in the atmosphere here at AUC as everyone ran around screaming and hugging. Turns out, the Egyptian government cancelled all schools and universities until October 3 [at the earliest] due to Eid and the onset of swine flu here. So, I'm off to Hurghada, a small beach town on the Red Sea, until Monday, and then probably heading to Israel and Jordan with my boyfriend [yea...so much for not letting things get out of hand with Goose, right? Who's surprised?] where we will meet up with the two Chris's.

Don't miss me too badly, and be looking forward to regular posting and lots of adventurous stories when I get back!

Port Said: The Politically Correct Version

2009-09-13T08:27:00.001Z

I cannot write anything here that happened in Port Said.

All I will say is that the city kinda sucks, but I had a fantastic time with my friends, all of whom I love more than ever.

Sorry, kids.

Lessons learned thus far in Al-Misr

2009-09-10T10:14:00.002Z

The security guards at AUC do not like Capture the Flag. They do not want us to like capture the flag. Especially not after midnight. Especially not during class. Especially not on their sandscaping.
Doritos are about as expensive as a weekend on the Mediterranean.
Shisha is a universal cure-all.
So are good friends.
You cannot walk more than 50 feet at AUC without running into one of these good friends.
It is possible to take a walk of shame at 6am without having shacked anywhere.
Alabama football is nearly as important as air.
Sleep is not nearly as important as I had originally thought. Neigh, it is possible to function daily on three hours of sleep.
Egyptian Arabic is wack.
Keeping your cheeks clenched constantly is the only way to prevent tap-water-induced accidents.
Dramaderies are terrifying, as are Arabian stallions. But nothing will make you as happy as galloping through the desert on one as the sun rises over the pyramids.
Piastres are the biggest waste of paper ever. In the history of the world.
Skype is life.
Ten completely different people can become family in less than two weeks.
Foosball is a national pasttime here.
8:30am classes are not as bad as I feared.
A "short trip" to the city will always last at least seven hours.
Ramadan rocks.
The HUSS building makes no sense. At all. It's a sick joke.
You can waste all the water you want here. You want 50 fountains on campus? No problem. You wanna take an hour long shower? Go ahead. Water the sand? You got it boss. Let the faucet run all night? Stop worrying. Really, it's not like the Middle East is in a water crisis or anything.

...more to come, I'm sure.

Did that really just happen?

2009-09-06T08:33:00.001Z

Sept 3 2009
I ask myself that question a lot here. The past two days have been completely ridiculous. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a not so good way. The one thing I can say about life here is that it's exciting. Most people say exciting and it always has a positive connotation, but bad things can be exciting too. And really, as long as it's exciting, whether in a positive or negative way, at least things aren't boring.
On Tuesday I slept in all day because exhaustion finally caught up with me. I was still lounging around in my room when Chris called me and announced we were all getting on a bus in a half hour to go to Tahrir Square. I took the world's fastest shower and got ready in record time. At 4pm, Chris, Chris, Goose, Katie, Becky, Anna, Nate, Zach, Frankie and I got on the bus and settled in for a 45-minute drive. About five minutes into the ride, the bus driver put on his hazard lights, got out of his seat, walked back to a seat in the middle of the bus, and appeared to settle in for a nap. We were all completely dumbfounded. No one else on the bus seemed to think this was out of the ordinary. We were in the backseat discussing the perks of a job where you could randomly decide to nap anytime and still get paid when it dawned on us that he had been praying. We still have so much to learn. After a few minutes, he got up and we were on our way again. What a strange, wonderful place where you can take a few minutes out of your job and practice your beliefs without offending anyone. Wasn’t that the idea behind America in the first place?
We got off of the bus in Tahrir Square by the old AUC campus and wandered around for a while. We wandered into a papyrus shop that had lots of essential oils for all kinds of ailments. They had the best names: "Nervous Colon", "Sexual Weakness", etc. This created the perfect setup for one of my favorite exchanges of all time.
Goose: Chris, you probably need to buy some Sexual Weakness oil, don't you think?
Chris: No, that's ok, I produce my own.
I also had a first shortly thereafter. I was dressed very conservatively since it's Ramadan- loose fitting jeans and a loose long sleeve tunic top. As Katie and I were walking side my side, an old woman in a full abaya/hijab lunged at me and made a hissing noise. For a few moments I was completely dumbstruck, then horrified, wondering if she had actually spit on me. Luckily, she hadn't. But regardless, I was shocked. The only thing more that I could have done to be respectful would have been to wear a headscarf- and there were definitely girls in our group showing a lot more skin than I was. That's the first time ANYTHING like that has happened to me, in Morocco or Egypt, but I'm sure it won't be the last.
Next we met up with Ahmed and Sharif, the chess grandmaster and his friend from the other night. They took us to Felfel for a snack before a night of fun. I got shewarma, and it was delicious. Then we walked down to the Nile where we boarded a feluka boat covered in flashing neon lights blasting dance music. The ten of us rocked out to 50 Cent as we cruised down the Nile, unable to believe our lives.
Next Ahmed took us to a little shisha bar he goes to a lot, a humble little place in an alleyway. I was starting to get tired and thought maybe I wouldn’t make it through the night, so I tried to go easy on the shisha and guzzle some water, especially since Ahmed kept saying we had a long walk ahead of us. When we finished there, we set off for Hussein, a historic part of Cairo. At first we just meandered through streets and darted across traffic, but the next thing I knew we were walking across a high-rise bridge- four lanes, no sidewalk. We hugged the guard rail and walked nearly a mile and a half with cars whizzing by us less than six inches away. I have never concentrated on walking a straight line so hard in my life.
When we finally got off the bridge Ahmed and Sharif took us on a walking tour of historical mosques in Hussein, some of the oldest in Egypt, and all famous for various reasons. In the moonlight, lit by the neon glow of Cairo, it was so eerily beautiful that I was breathless.
As we wandered through the souk [market] looking at hookahs and jewelry, we finally started getting some catcalls, which have been few and far between here, and so very different from Morocco. I think the compliment of my life came from a vendor I passed: "You look like Spice Girl! Spicey spicey!"
We randomly stopped in a little café about the size of a storage unit where there was traditional Egyptian singing going on. We sat down, smoked some excellent shisha, and listened, enraptured, as the woman sang. The dj/announcer thanked us over and over again for coming, and even had us write down our names in Arabic so he could read them out loud and thank us again, along with Mr. President Obama.
Finally, around 12am, we stopped in at a restaurant where we had a private upstairs room and feasted on all kinds of things I don’t remember the names of, except for baba ganoush, which I'm pleased to say tastes as good as it sounds. We caught the 2am bus home, swearing no night could ever be better. Little did we know that two nights later we would have a night to rival any we had had so far.
The next day I slept in all day, and didn’t get anything I needed to accomplished. That night, we went out with Ahmed and Sherief again. First we broke the fast at a restaurant he knew and ate delicious food. Then, Ahmed showed us his driving skills, which consisted of nearly killing us and any nearby pedestrians over and over by squeezing mere inches between cars, weaving through traffic, and doing doughnuts feet away from small children. After we had regained control of our bladders, he took Katie, Goose, Frankie, Dooler and I to a café where we smoked excellent shisha [are you noticing a theme here?] and Katie sang karaoke. After that, we went to City Stars, did some shopping, and came home.
The next night was our Bedouin Night: Extreme Grandmaster Version. At 9pm we met Ahmed, Sherief, and their friend who has a bus in Zamalek. We drove an hour into the desert, and the first moment that I saw a giant triangular shadow on the horizon, a pyramid, will forever be engrained in my memory. I think that was the first moment it really sank in that I'm living in Egypt for the next 3 years. We were distracted from the pyramids by neon lights in the distance. We pulled up to a crowded outdoor club- no roof, no floor, just sand and stars and thatch huts and low tables and carpets on the ground. It was breathtaking. We settled in on our cushions in the very front of the club, closest to the makeshift stage, when someone gasped. We all looked around….and there was a man holding a lion. A lion cub, to be exact. He came over and let us all hold it and take pictures with it. Cuddling with a lion cub in the shadow of the pyramids has got to be the coolest thing I had ever done up until that point. From that point, we ate delicious food, danced to American music, limbo-ed, watched Oriental dancing, and Katie did karaoke. We danced our asses off, generally acting like idiots.
Goose and I have been joking around for the past few days about getting married, and I gave him a ring to surprise me with at some point. The plan was to do something really embarrassing when I least expected it. As we were getting ready to leave the club around 4:30am, Goose decided he wanted to dance. I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to dance so badly, because I was tired. He finally pulled me up on stage, and we were the only ones up there. Embarrassed, I looked at him and said, "well, go ahead, you're the one who wanted to dance so badly." At this point, he got down on one knee, pulled out the ring, and "proposed". Unfortunately, none of our friends saw, but about fifty Egyptians got up and clapped and congratulated us, thinking it was a real engagement. I was thoroughly embarrassed, but now we refer to ourselves as fiancées and most of the people we've met since then think we actually are.
After that, as the sun was coming up, I got on a dramadery [a two-hump camel] that was wayyyy higher than the camels I'm used to from Morocco and very scary. We rode out into the desert and had tea in the shadow of the pyramids, and then built a human pyramid in front of them. After that, I traded in my camel for an Arabian stallion and galloped full-speed back to the club, which was simultaneously the scariest and most exhilarating ten minutes of my life—riding through the desert beside the pyramids nearly bareback on a stallion. It was incredible. We took the long busride back to campus, and we all slept all day.
We stayed up all that night playing a game in the common room, and the next day I finally got to register for my classes.
Last night Goose and I stayed up watching text updates from the Alabama game – ROLL TIDE! We won, and it made me miss home and football so much, but I do love it here and I know that this is where I'm supposed to be.
Goose and I are slowly turning into a real couple…I suppose joking about it enough will do that. It's strange. I adore him. He is by far the funniest person I've ever met and he makes me laugh constantly. He's also the most caring, genuine, earnest person I know here, and I know he cares about me a lot already, I just don’t know that I want anything "official" or serious right now, so I have to figure out a way to keep my distance somehow.
I finally got to bed at 4am, and woke up at 7:20 to get ready for my 8:30 Arabic class. Intermediate Arabic at 8:30am after only a few hours of sleep kicked my ass, so I'm gonna have to start getting more sleep.
Now I'm off to Science and Tech of Ancient Egypt, my science class. Sorry this entry was so long…it took DAYS to write. I'll start keeping up better, promise. Miss you all!

It Seems Like Everywhere I Go, the More I See the Less I Know

2009-09-01T10:12:00.001Z

I find that, somehow moreso in Egypt than in Morocco, I am constantly making an ass of myself here. Perhaps it's because the campus is way too big for the meager 5,000 students who go here and I'm constantly wandering around like an Alzheimer's patient. Perhaps it's because I'm more ballsy about my actions now that it's my second time in MENA. And I suppose it's partly because a lot of times in Morocco I felt like I played it too safe instead of taking risks. This time around, I decided I really want to live, and experience everything, not just observe. I think that, despite the constant ass-making I do, always seeming clueless and lost, I'll be happy that I chose to do things this way in the long run.
Yesterday I didn't have much to do: I signed up for some trips [Alexandria, Bedouin Night, and Giza..there's a 3-day cruise over our long weekend in September too, but its 1750 LE, around $350. Needless to say, I won't be going.], tried to sign my loan check [they wouldn’t let me because I haven’t registered for my classes], registered my e-mail address, and went to the one orientation meeting they have for transfer students. Know what I found out? There are only two transfer students this year, including me. And the other has lived in Cairo for a few years. Silly me. Somehow I thought it was more common to take the route I have. Apparently not.
After that enlightening experience, I hung out with "The Gang" in the common room for a few hours- the common room is the only place in the residential area that is co-ed. There's a group of about eight of us: me, Katie, Becky, Anna, Chris, Will, Zach, Rashid, and Adam. We all hang out together all the time, but the sad thing is all of them except Becky are leaving in December. I have a feeling that that's how things will be at AUC; I'll have to make new friends every semester. We hung around, played BS, and then went to dinner at Tabasco. After that we tried to get a football game together, but we were too disorganized. At 10pm, we caught the bus to Zamalek to go to a bar. It was about an hour's ride there, along busy highways and overpasses. The skyline on the way was so diverse: huge mosque minarets penetrating the black night sky, grandiose hotels, and decrepit buildings literally falling apart around the residents. I also had an enthralling conversation with my new bff Will [I never call him Will- he will henceforth be referred to as Goose or Sunshine. He looks EXACTLY like Goose Dunham. I know, I'm gay.] that ended in my nearly peeing on myself when he asked how I liked his "smell". We got off the bus and Zach, the fearless leader [who was so dedicated to finding a bar that he had drawn up a map], led the speed-walk to a fancy bar on the banks of the Nile. No alcohol here, we were told. [Note: right now is Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, where they fast all day and get to eat all night. It's a little difficult to find alcohol here right now.]
Disappointed but not defeated, we started a two mile trek to the Mariott, which has a pub in it. We walked through dank alleyways full of stray cats, passed all the embassies, and practiced our extreme jay-walking [friends from Morocco take note before you come visit me: crossing the street in Cairo is wayyyyy more intense than it was in Morocco. Try crossing 6 lanes of speeding vehicles Meknes-style. It's a rush.]. We FINALLY made it to Harry's Pub, where we quickly placed an exceptionally large order and were delivered exceptionally large Sakara Gold beers [Bama folks: about the size of a Big Ass Beer in Nola]. We had the whole pub to ourselves [again, it's Ramadan] and had a great time talking, watching soccer on the TV, and laughing about how much trouble we went through to get alcohol. Typical Americans. Four Exceptionally Large Beers and two hours later, we stumbled through the streets of Zamalek trying to retrace our steps to find the bus stop. After getting lost several times, we made it to the bus and I had an intense discussion with Chris. Around 3am, I poured myself into bed [the night before I had only gotten two hours of sleep].
I woke up at 8:30, too lazy to take a shower, and ran errands on campus- trying to register and whatnot. Important discoveries today: AUC is only accepting 24 [possibly 30] of my 60 credits from Alabama. This means I will probably be here for THREE years. And also, I can't register for classes until Saturay. School starts Sunday [since Friday is the Muslim holy day, the weekend here is Friday and Saturday. The school week starts Sunday. We'll see how many times this causes me to miss class on Sunday. Predication: a lot.]. Also, the trip to Giza is at the same time on Saturday, so I will miss seeing the pyramids. All rather disappointing discoveries.
Anyway, I'm off to nap- 7 hours sleep in two days is just not okay.
Also, I'm sorry I haven't really described Cairo much. The truth is, on the AUC compound, I don’t really see much of anything except desert, and I've only been off the compound twice. I will definitely try, but let me give a disclaimer: nothing I write will ever do Cairo justice. You'll never get the feel of the broken sidewalk, the chalky-dustiness of the ground, the gray tint to the sky, to heat of the Egyptian sun pounding down on you, the hum of all manner of different languages. For that, I apologize. Come visit me and see for yourself.

You wanna know about Egypt? Oh, I'll TELL you about Egypt.

2009-08-31T04:44:00.001Z

Hello from New Cairo, Egypt! Sit back and relax, kids, because this is gonna be a long blog. Or, if you are one of my friends from college, scroll through until you find a cuss word.
I have a lot to say, so I'll start from the beginning, which I suppose is leaving Tuscaloosa. I hung around Tuscaloosa all summer in my house at the Village at Brook Meadows and did all kinds of stuff: went to Los Cal, hung out with Phi Sig, nearly got robbed, nearly got arrested, nearly got robbed again, went skinny-dipping, got drunk…you know, the usual. I stayed until Bid Day, and I had a great time with everyone. A few big things marked my departure from Tuscyloosey. First, the night before I was supposed to leave town, I was at the new Phi Sigma Kappa house, my usual summer hangout. I wasn't feeling well so I decided to go home early. Realizing this was probably my last time to see most of those guys, I started saying my goodbyes, when one of my friends stood up on a cooler: "I propose a toast. To Egypt!" All of the other boys put their glasses in the air and said things about how they would miss me and it wouldn’t be the same without me, and before I knew it, I was sobbing. It was a touching moment for me.
I also got to experience my first Bid Day as an ex-Phi Mu. It was strange, sweating in the Alabama humidity in my sundress, being on the other side of the fence around the Phi Mu house. But to be honest, I welcomed the change. Looking at the girls standing in the yard, I knew I wasn't one of them. And for the first time since my Bid Day in 2007, I wasn’t trying to be, wasn’t pretending to be. I stood on the "wrong" side of the fence knowing that their place was inside of it, and mine was beyond it. And that was okay.
Probably the biggest event for me was an unexpected reunion. Everyone who knows me knows that I have a very tight-knit group of friends affectionately referred to as "The Cult". We've been friends since my first month of college and those three boys mean more to me than nearly anyone else in the world. Most people who know me well also know that I had a falling out with a Cult member, my best friend Murphy, over A-Day weekend in April. I won't go into why; it's not important and most of you probably know anyway. But the four months since we have been estranged have been some of the hardest of my life: it's like a part of me was missing, but I still sensed it there, still needed it…like a phantom limb after an amputation. As I was saying my goodbyes to the other Cult members that Sunday, a feeling washed over me; something akin to anger mixed with a deep, unrelenting loss. I wasn't willing to accept the fact that I would never see or speak to my best friend again. So I texted him. And then something amazing happened. He texted back. We met for dinner, there were tears, and hugs, and I couldn’t have been happier as I left Tuscaloosa for the last time.
The next Friday my parents threw me a going-away party, and from what I can remember, it was lots of fun. All I will say about this party is that I drank an entire bottle of Sweet Carolina in one night. The fact that I'm still alive amazes me.
Finally, after months of planning, thousands of dollars, countless tears, and tons of fights, I was at the Atlanta airport with my parents. Saying goodbye to them was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. I had an inexplicable lump in my throat and where I had been trying to be strong, the tears prevailed. Seeing my parents cry is never an easy thing. After lots of hugs and "I love you"'s I went through security and left the Deep South behind, with a one way ticket to Egypt and two suitcases for two years.
I made it to DC on time and proceeded to wait for a ridiculously long time; my flight to London was delayed. I watched the land zoom by as I left America and the real adventure began.
I got half an hour of sleep on the seven hour flight to London, but I did get to watch "I Love You, Man". The flight was bumpy but I was still relatively pleasant when I got to Heathrow. The girl next to me and I struck up a conversation- she's from Jordan and has spent a lot of time in Egypt. She helped me find my way through Heathrow and we stopped to get a coffee before my flight left. This is when the trouble started. I put in my international SIM card and…nothing. I couldn’t make calls at all. I should have braced myself then.
I got on a tiny plane at a far extremity of the airport and took off for Cairo. I was nearly comatose during those four hours. I was deliriously tired but could not fall asleep. It was torture. As we began our descent into Egypt, I looked at the ground and saw…a lot of green strangely enough. A weird feeling of disappointment was beginning to course through me, when the plane turned and I was blinded by the sun. When I was able to see clearly again, I looked down and saw…sand. Lots of sand. And the Nile weaving its way through the sand, canals breaking off every which way. If only I had been a little more lucid, it would have been one of the most blissful sights ever. Feeling near death, I got off the plane in Cairo and stumbled through Customs, and got my luggage when I realized, there was no one waiting on me. Oh, shit. What do I do? Just as I was starting to really panic, I saw a huge group of Americans, and one held up a sign that said AUC. I was ecstatic. Finally, we boarded a bus meant for ten people- there were 15 of us plus two pieces of luggage each. To say we were crowded was an understatement. After half an hour of navigating through the airport's ridiculous roadway, we got out into Cairo, and it was everything I hoped for: dirty, rough around the edges, but ambitious. There were cars and motorcycles with four people on the back and donkey carts and pedestrians casually strolling in front of speeding cars. It was just like Morocco and I felt at home. The feeling would not last long.
AUC is surrounded by a lot of crap. For miles there are half-built mansions which look like they have been abandoned festering in the sun, waiting for completion. There was trash everywhere, but I didn’t mind that. After numerous u-turns [not because we were lost, because the roads weren't planned well] we finally pulled into Gate 4 of AUC. We hauled our stuff off of the bus and two by two, passed through security, where they x-rayed and hand –searched our bags and made us walk through metal detectors. Then a university employee loaded our bags onto a golf cart and dropped us off across campus at the women's dormitories. I got my room assignment and an RA walked me to my room. She showed me where it was…and then left. I mean, I know she was busy helping people move in, but I had no clue what to do. I immediately tried to get on the internet, but it wasn't working. I thought, I'll at least set up my computer. Oh, wait. The electricity from the wall isn’t working. Remember, I still don’t have a working phone. I have no way to get in touch with anyone. That's when panic set in. I was starving; there was no one else in my building yet; I was completely alone. I got in my bed, accepting the fact that I would be alone and hungry that night. I was almost asleep when my phone went off. I had a text message from my dad! I was so happy I nearly cried. We could send and receive texts, but not make calls to one another. Depressed and not knowing what else to do, I went to sleep.
Luckily my jet-lag woke me up at 3:30 in the morning and I had a text from my dad telling me to meet our family friend Amy, who works here in Cairo, at the AUC bookstore in the morning. Alhamdulelah! I went back to sleep, tossing and turning in the heat, and finally woke up at 7:45 to take a shower. I went to the bathroom, and there was no water. Ughh. Really??? Finally, around 8, the water started working and I showered and sat down with a map to find the bookstore. It wasn't too hard to locate on the map, until I realized where it was in relation to my dorm. Imagine a long, winding path, with side-paths branching out in all directions. That's the AUC campus. My dorm is on the far end of the path- really, it’s the farthest building on one side of the campus…the wall securing the little compound it right outside my window. The bookstore was on the exact other end of campus, nearly a mile's walk, and the map was an architect's sketch of the university….not exactly clear on how to get there. I sat down, defeated already, and wondered what to do. Finally, I grew some balls, grabbed my stuff, and set off. I ended up asking tons of people for directions, none of whom spoke English, but finally, after passing through the gates separating the campus from the desolation beyond it, I saw Amy and her son Sam waiting for me. The feeling of relief was instant. We climbed into her SUV and headed for Maadi, the suburb she lives in.
I really would have been lost without her. She took me home, where her husband Dave had breakfast waiting on me. After that, we set off to get a new SIM card, an adapter for my computer, and various other things I needed to survive. We stopped at a McDonalds for lunch, where Sam decided to wet himself. Laughing, we went back home where I got to call my parents –finally!- and lounge for a few hours. Then, Amy and I went to her kids' school and hung out at the playground while Sam and his friends ran around. When we got back, delicious Thai food was waiting on us, which I devoured, and gratefully accepted a much-needed beer from Dave. Finally, around nine, Amy brought me back to campus and we cajoled a guard into taking us from the Pepsi Gate - I'm not kidding, our school is sponsored by Pepsi- to my dorm in a golf cart because we had a lot of groceries from the embassy commissary.
Then, on Sunday, I slept in until about 1, trying to sleep off the rest of my jet lag. My roommate showed up. She is British but has lived in Cairo for the past two years, and, here's the kicker—she's sixteen. Yeah. For a sixteen year old, we get along pretty well. I finally got up and went to get my Orientation packet and met up with some girls I knew from the bus from the airport. We ended up going to the dorm meeting together, and also decided to take the 8pm bus from campus to City Stars, a mall about a half hour away, together. Right away, everyone on my bus got along great. When we were in the meeting, I saw a really cute boy, and lo and behold, he was on the bus. I decided at the meeting that he was my conquest for the semester, and after the night was over, I had his phone number, knew his life story, and we were on a last-name basis, which as any frat guy knows, is closer than a first name basis. We did some shopping at City Stars, and everyone in the group got their phones working. Then, someone had the brilliant idea to go to a hookah bar a "few blocks away". We wandered out of the mall, but no one knew quite where it was. We stopped to ask a group, and instead of telling us, they took us there. It ended up being a half hour walk to the place, but it was worth it. The ambiance was incredible and we had a great time smoking and getting to know each other all night. The guys who took us even stayed and translated for us, and offered to take us sight-seeing tonight, gratis, which is amazing. One of the Egyptians, Akhmed, is the international chess grandmaster. I kid you not- it's on his business card!
We missed the 12am bus back to campus, so we stayed a smoked for a few more hours, then rode the 2am bus home. With tons of new numbers in my phone and a dozen or so new friends, by the end of the night I was feeling pretty good about Egypt. Good, because I needed it. Today I'm going to attempt to figure out registration and get my ID card- insha'allah. Wish me luck!

Pre-Departure To-Do List

2009-07-21T06:46:00.005+01:00

-Buy a really good Arabic-English dictionary. How have I made it through two years of Arabic study without one?

-Buy lonely planet guide to Egypt, and probably Israel, and Jordan...and everywhere else I think I might be able to convince my parents to let me go.

-Get really fat so I'll have lots of extra weight to shed as I waste away at the mercy of the heat and my digestive system.

-Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Kidding. But seriously. I need to indulge in every vice I have before I have to go behave for two years.

-Eat lots of Los Calientes.

-Buy a new pair of Rainbows.

-Re-read Tales of a Female Nomad for inspiration.

-Drive. Alot.

-Take a walk around campus and say goodbye to everything I know about the college experience in America.

-Study Arabic. No, seriously. Study Arabic until my epiglottis hurts.

-Try to be fearless.

41 days!

2009-07-16T06:33:00.003+01:00

It's been a while, blog!

In fact, it's been nearly a year! It's just been a regular year here in Tuscaloosa; I've been enjoying America and missing Morocco terribly. Since I've been back, I've seen Michael and Jennifer twice, Brigid once, I'm seeing Autumn this Friday, and I talk to Ben on the phone once a week like clockwork. Alabama is home sweet home, but it's time to move on. Seeing as UA doesn't offer my desired major, I made the difficult decision to transfer elsewhere to finish school. The first week of June, I got the most exciting news of my life: I've been accepted to the American University in Cairo...that's right- Cairo, Egypt! So on August 27, I'll be hoppin on a flight from Atlanta, to DC, to London, to Cairo, all by myself. Funny to think I didnt come to college a few states away without my parents, and now I'm moving to an entirely different continent completely alone with a one way ticket and two suitcases.

Anyway, since I'm heading back to al-alum al-arabiyya, I'm starting my blog up again to chronicle this exciting new adventure I'm about to go on, to document getting settled and building a new life in a different country just like I did in Morocco last summer. Only this time, it's for real. I will be in Egypt for at least two years, however, knowing me, it will be a long time before I come back to America to live fulltime. The things I am going to see and do and the people I'm going to meet are incredible, I just know it. I really feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing at this point in my life. I'm less afraid than I was before I left for Morocco; I feel more prepared. My Arabic is better [two high A's in my advanced arabic language courses this year!], I know more about the culture and religion, plus I am proficient in Spanish, Hebrew, and Turkish...there's bound to be SOMEONE I can communicate with in SOME way no matter where I am. This is my dream come true and I hope you are all as excited as I am about it!

41 days and counting!

Salaam wa hubb,
Danielle

...

2008-08-09T06:32:00.000+01:00

Ok- last Morocco entry!

Right now I’m on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean headed to New York City from Casablanca. It’s been an exhausting few days, and I’m completely emotionally drained at this point. Saying goodbye to all my friends was really hard; probably harder than I expected it to be. But I’ll start with Thursday.
Thursday, all the girls woke up early and Iman met us at the apartment to take us to the hammam. As always, somehow getting scrubbed by an old cranky woman who smelled bad made me feel wonderful! Sufficiently cleansed, we headed back home, got ready, and Julia, Lauren, and I went back to the medina for one last day of shopping. I spent a lot of money in a short amount of time- no surprise there. We also had the world’s most amazing omelette fromage sandwiches, and got our last fix of freshly squeezed Moroccan orange juice. Wow, am I ever gonna miss that!
At 4:30, we took our last taxi to Moulay Ismail, where we finished our oral Arabic exam and had the closing ceremony. It was filled with tons of delicious Moroccan snacks that would rot my teeth completely if I stayed here, and mint tea. All of the professors talked, and we had a kind of roast where the students imitated our professors and vice versa. Towards the end, Daniel said something akin to, “Know that you will always have a home in Meknes,” and it finally hit me that we were really leaving and I just felt this overwhelming wave of sadness. How is it possible that in two months we had created a whole new life in a whole new country on a whole new continent, and formed a family out of 14 strangers? We had made new friends, found new hangouts, attended a new school, learned a new language; it was like trying on a different life for two months. That night, I was really quiet and kept to myself, just thinking about returning to reality, to my real life waiting on me in Tuscaloosa. I know things will fit differently, and I’m a little nervous to see how. But I also know that it is home, and no matter how much I have loved Morocco, there’s no feeling like going home. Grades were also handed out at the ceremony, along with a diploma-type certificate in both Arabic and English. I ended up with a B in Arabic, which isn’t bad considering it was Intermediate Arabic taught by a man who barely speaks English. I know I learned a lot, and I’m satisfied with that.
Later that evening [much later- around 11:30], Iman brought the henna lady over to give us some fresh henna for the journey home. This time, most of us opted for black henna on our feet. It looks really beautiful, and I felt like it would be a good souvenir to take home and have for a few weeks.
Then, at 2am, Ben, Jared, Daniel, Julia and I took Jennifer to the train station because her flight left Friday morning. It was really sad, realizing that we were all beginning to go our separate ways. Watching her train pull away, I realized things will never be the same again. This summer will eventually become a memory, something I tell my kids about, or think of when I pull out my Berber rug…but it will never happen again. The way things were in Meknes, the dynamic between all of us and the relationships we shared – good and bad- will never be the same. And that’s sad. But it’s life, I suppose.
Friday was kind of a lazy day. We all woke up late- I woke up at 11:30,the latest I’ve ever woken up in Morocco! Then something cool happened: we all sat in the living room and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for three hours. It was such appropriate timing for us. It was almost like closure. We sat, awestruck, through the first hour, and then patiently waited as the countries’ teams paraded out, waiting to see our two countries. America was the first, and seeing the red, white, and blue, seeing our athletes, and the President and First Lady made us all really excited about coming back to the US. No matter how much we love Morocco, America is our country and our home and there is no place I’d rather call home. We were all so moved by the feeling that swept across the living room that we [I know, this sounds gay, but you really wouldn’t be able to understand unless you had been through what we had this summer] all broke out into “America the Beautiful”. Completely serious. Not in jest, or in a silly way; we were dead serious and sang it all the way through as we watched the American flag cross that stadium, and even though now it sounds stupid, it was beautiful. There we were, eight kids in an apartment in the middle of Meknes, Morocco, watching the Olympics and singing “America the Beautiful”. I loved it.
We got almost as excited when we saw the Moroccan flag come out into the stadium, and I felt so much pride even though I’m not Moroccan. Imad said that we’ve lived here and made a life here and in a sense, we are Moroccans now. I agree. I will always feel a special attachment and a sting of nostalgia whenever I see the flag or hear the country mentioned. We were a little disappointed that the King wasn’t there; we were waiting to see him. Finally, the ceremony was over, and we all spent the next hour or so packing up our Moroccan life into our tidy American suitcases. It was amazing and sad how simply this entire new life of ours folded up into tiny suitcases, because it had all seemed so much bigger than that, like something that couldn’t be contained. But it was, and it was bittersweet.
After I had finished packing, I went downstairs to the boys’ apartment and watched Ben pack. Sitting on his bed, under his cowboy sheets, and watching his slightly unorthodox technique, I realized how much I would miss him. There are three people from this group [you know who you are- Merzouga forever!] who I will miss so much. Ben has been half dad, half best friend to me on this trip. He watches out for me in every situation- making sure I don’t pay too much while shopping, watching to be certain I don’t get lost in a crowd at a festival, holding me back from crossing the street when he doesn’t deem it safe; it’s so funny and adorable. I will miss that. [Ben, I will also miss being able to say, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one already”, every time you begin a story. Get some new ones before I see you again!]
Then, Ben, Imad, Issam, Jared, Patrick, Michael, and I went to the medina for a huge free concert in the Jawla series in front of the Bab Mansour. It was ridiculously crowded; you could barely move! But it was so much fun! It was such a great ending to our Moroccan adventure. I spent all night dancing and laughing. It was a crazy scene though: people being thrown in the air, amateur cheerleading stunts three and four people tall going up all over the audience, people whipping their shirts around their heads, and wild dancing. At one point, a group of Moroccan men surrounded me and Michael and began dancing. Standing in the middle of that wild circle, I was a little nervous, but finally I just went with it and danced like mad. By the time we found our way out of the crowd, I was sweaty and exhausted and disgusting, but thoroughly happy. It was a beautiful end to our stay in Meknes.
At 1am, the bus came to pick us up. All of our Moroccan friends were there to say goodbye, and that was hard, but I was holding up pretty well. But then, when I went to hug Moha [he had decided not to come to Casa with us] for the millionth time, I felt something wet on my neck and realized that he was sobbing. That’s when I lost it. Watching Moha cry broke my heart. He has been so wonderful and I will miss him so much.
There were only nine of us on the bus, and four out of those nine were crying. It was all really sad, but eventually, one by one, we fell asleep. We arrived in Casablanca at 4:30am and dragged our stuff upstairs, and laid down in the exact spot where we spent five hours waiting the day that we arrived in Morocco. There I was, sitting in the same place I had only two months earlier, but I felt like a completely different person. It was a strange sensation, being back there again, but so different. Addison, Michael and I curled up and fell asleep, and I was out until 9am. Lauren and Megan left, and soon, it was Addison, Julia and my time to leave. Alexa, Michael, and Ben took the shuttle over to Terminal 3 with us, where we all said tearful goodbyes. It was hard saying goodbye to Alexa, even harder saying goodbye to Ben [he’s no good at goodbyes-that was the hard part!], and hardest of all saying goodbye to Michael. He and I stood there hugging and crying for a few minutes, and then suddenly, the three of them were gone.
Crying, the three of us going to New York went to check in. There was a considerable amount of drama then, with Royal Air Maroc saying that there were no seats left of the plane for Julia. We waited at the check-in counter trying to sort things out until 15 minutes before our plane was supposed to leave. When she was finally handed her boarding pass, we made a mad dash through Customs, security, and out onto the tarmac, barely making the plane. I think we’re something like halfway to New York now. I’m really tired, but I doubt I can sleep. I’m gonna make a quick little list, and then try to get some rest.

THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT MOROCCO
-my ISA family
- khubz arabiyy
-Marackchiya, milfay, and labonny
- constant heckling from guys [let’s be honest, it’s an esteem booster]
-mint tea and fresh orange juice
-the music
-the Medina
-air conditioner pants
-call to prayer

THINGS I WON’T MISS ABOUT MOROCCO
-the heat
-three hour classes
-the little kids begging for spare change
-that smell you get a whiff of when the wind blows; you know the one
-explosive diarrhea [overshare? Nah]
-constant heckling from guys

THINGS I’M EXCITED ABOUT IN AMERICA
-rain
-Taco Bell
-Dr Pepper
-ice
-laying out by the pool
-wearing cute clothes
-my new house in Tuscaloosa!

More to come later…
Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

Marhaba b-Merzouga![

2008-08-06T06:30:00.000+01:00

[or: Don’t Fight a Dung Beetle for Its Dinner]
[or: TIM- This is Merzouga]
[or: I don’t speak French!]
[or: These Days…]

I’m back from the Sahara! It was a long, exhausting weekend, but also one of the craziest and most exciting experiences of my life. I know I will never be able to do all the things that I saw and did justice with words, but I will try to give an excruciatingly detailed account of what happened as best I can. So here goes.
Thursday night Addison, Michael, Ben, and I set off for the bus station around 9:40PM. Upon arriving, I realized how nervous I was- getting on a bus to drive eight hours south of Meknes, to be picked up by someone we didn’t know, and do who knows what. Taban, the boys, being adventurous and manly and whatnot, weren’t nervous at all. My fears were eased somewhat when Moha showed up to wish us bon voyage and give us a few last minute pointers on the desert- he’s originally from a tribe in the Sahara. At 10:15, we said goodbye to Moha and got on the huge CMT bus. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was better than what we were expecting. Ben and I sat together, and Michael and Addison sat together. And so the trip began!
Ben and I talked for a few hours about random things in our lives, and after the bus stopped for dinner around 1am [and we got 20Dh orange juice- kadeem!], I persuaded him to cuddle and had one of the most comfortable dozes ever. The drive itself was gorgeous. We went through forests and valleys and up and down mountains and across gorges….not to mention the stars. Driving through remote parts of Morocco, you could see everything- stars exploding across the sky like I had never seen them before.
Finally, four stops and eight hours later, we pulled up to the bus station in Rissani. By the time Michael, Addison and I managed to get our stuff off the bus, Ben had already found Moha’s brother, Aissa [they look exactly alike], and we all climbed into his Land Rover for the 45-minute ride to Merzouga. I cannot tell you the feeling I got inside of me watching the giant sand dunes of the Sahara desert rise up in the distance as we got closer and closer to the village. I was in awe. Huge orange pyramids of sand rising up from behind tiny mud and straw houses- incredible.
Aissa brought us to an auberge [a scaled-down hotel, almost like a hostel but a little nicer] run by his friends Isabelle and Richad, Auberge Sable D’Or. It was a small five room house made out of straw and mud and thatch, with a huge courtyard, a goat pen, and an outdoor room with two wooden beds and a bamboo roof with mosquito netting. Isabelle gave us a room to put our things in and served us a light breakfast of eggs and khubz arabiyy, plus orange juice and café au lait. We had to fill out police forms saying how long we would be in Merzouga, etc, which I thought was hilarious, because the entire time we were there, I never saw a cop or anything semiofficial [we saw a “military base” in the middle of the desert that consisted of one rundown building with a Moroccan flag on the top…wouldn’t you hate to be stationed at Erg Chiba in Merzouga, holding down the fort and watching out for the Algerians?]. In fact, people smoke pot out in the open everywhere. No one tries to hide it at all! We took it easy for a little while, then Aissa loaded us back into the Land Rover, and we were off. We drove out into the sand dunes first, and they were bigger and more beautiful up close than I could have ever imagined. Then the funniest thing happened- a group of about ten boys, all no older than 10, surrounded us, sat down in the sand, and started pulling things out- jewelry, toy camels, plates- trying to sell them to us! It was so surreal, sitting in the sand in the middle of the desert, shopping! After that, Aissa took us a stone’s throw away to the oasis, where a canal of water runs through the desert and each family is allotted a square of land to grow food in. Then we took a short ride through the small market, and drove out to the dunes where they bury people in the sand to cure illnesses like diabetes. Aissa told us he hates the trend because people come in and “leave their sickness in the sand and their trash on the ground”.
Aissa took us back to the auberge when it started getting too hot outside, and we took a five-hour siesta, which was not so much a siesta as a big, uncomfortable, sweaty sometimes-sleep in the main room on the cushions that lined the walls. In the desert, you feel like you should be out doing things because you’re not there long, but it’s too hot to move, much less sightsee. It was even too hot to sleep. I felt like a rotisserie chicken; sleeping on my back until it got too sweaty, then flipping over…for five hours.
Finally, sometime after 5pm, Aissa suggested we go back out in the four-wheel-drive. He took us out to the border of Mauritania, which I wish we could have crossed. Aissa was driving like a madman over the dunes and we were having a great time bouncing around when suddenly the car came to an abrupt stop. Aissa gunned the engine and shifted gears for a few minutes before we all got out to check out the situation. The tires were nearly completely under the sand! It was really funny for me watching the boys push the Land Rover while Aissa dug the sand out from under the tires.
We went to the market for an hour where the boys and I cooled down with some much-needed Coca Cola, and we missed the sunset, which we were all really upset about. We got back to the auberge just in time [I’m definitely being sarcastic here] to wait two hours for dinner to be ready- after 11pm! It was couscous Friday, and we all ate under the stars- if you could call it eating. In fact, if you combined all the food we ate over the course of the weekend, it would probably add up to be less than two cups of food! After dinner was a really cool experience: Richad and some of his Berber friends got out their gnaoua instruments [gnaoua is a native type of music here; we’ve heard really weird stories about girls getting possessed by it and dancing hysterically for hours, so I was a little nervous at first] and played for us under the stars. It was to primal and tribal and raw and real and a million other things at once. I finally felt like I was in Africa, but there was something distinctively Arabic about it too. It was all very intoxicating and overwhelming. The other thing that took away from it was that everyone was passing around a joint as they were playing, and of course I was bothered by that, and a little nervous to be around it [yea yea, I’m a naïve little goody-goody- I don’t care!], but I guess to sing and play and be so carnal like they were, it was conceivable that they would be high. Soon we were all starting to fall asleep, so mattresses were put on the roof for us, and we all headed up to pass out…but the sight of the stars unobstructed by anything was so breathtaking that you couldn’t tear your eyes from them to go to sleep. Shooting stars were streaking across the sky every few seconds, and the Milky Way stretched across the heavens like a giant silver ribbon. I’ve never seen anything like it; the sky was so clear and bright and flawless; I know I will never forget the sight of it. Finally, we all cuddled up and slept until 8am the next morning.
I woke up sick, which was horrible. I felt dehydrated and hot and faint and like both ends of my body would explode at any moment. Unfortunately, this feeling would last all weekend and for two days once I got back to Meknes. A shower didn’t help much; neither did the few bites of “breakfast” [eggs and bread- I’m telling you, they don’t eat in the desert!] that I had. Also, my nose started bleeding, and hasn’t stopped yet! I’m starting to get a little worried; five days of continuous nosebleed? Hardly healthy!
Also, a brief sidenote that is probably an overshare [grandparents and other relatives, feel free to skip this part!]: your nose produces the gnarliest boogers ever in the desert. Like, really. Giant, rockhard, bloody, painful boogers. All of us spent the entire weekend excavating them. We call them doogers: desert boogers. They need their own name because they’re one of a kind- my nose will never be the same! Ok, I’m done; I apologize for being disgusting!
Moving on.
Autumn had arrived from Meknes early that morning, so around 11 we headed out to show her the dunes.
Aissa took us on a tour all the way around the dunes, which lasted for three hours. I don’t actually remember much of this, because the bouncing of the 4WD put me to sleep- I was so sick and my eyes were on fire [contacts wearers beware- the desert will dry contacts up in an hour flat! Your eyes will burn and be itchy the entire time!]. We made a stop at a Berber family’s house- a very small, very primitive mud house, where we were served tea. It was a million degrees outside, but somehow the interior rooms were cool! However, it still boggles my mind that people drink hot mint tea in the middle of the Sahara! After the second or third cup I was served over the weekend, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore, no matter how much I love it!
Aissa explained to us as we were driving around that a Touareg is anyone who travels around the desert, so technically the five of us were Touaregs. I’m sure this is just something tour guides tell dumb white people to give them a little desert thrill, and it worked. We were all pretty excited.
We arrived at a gnaoua village next. All of the people there practice gnaoua music, and little boys are sent from other villages to learn it there. We sat in a cool, shady room, and about a dozen men came in in traditional dress and played about six songs for us, which was amazing. The music really is enthralling- I can kind of understand why women are “possessed” by it. I suppose there is something tribal and ancient in us all that is so moved by that thunderous beat that our bodies just take on a life all their own despite us. After they finished, they invited us to learn how to play their instruments. I tried my hand at the bongos, but sadly, I wasn’t blessed with the gift of rhythm. Michael and I tried to master the Berber castinets, but they’re large and bulky and take a lot of finger coordination to use, so it was a disaster. Autumn was really good at the different types of drums, and so was Ben. Then, one of the men decided he wanted us to dance, and pulled us all up to form a circle where we all took turns in the middle, imitating how we was dancing, but eventually giving up and doing our own thing. The whole experience was really fun and enlightening, and I really felt like a part of it the entire time, as opposed to just feeling like an observer in my own experience [you’d be surprised how often I feel like that here, especially on tours and things of that nature]. I also saw the cutest little African girl ever- I wanted to pull a Madonna and take her back home with me.
We got back to the auberge with less than an hour to spare before our Berber camping adventure. We all packed up a few small bags, and went outside, where there was a camel train waiting for us. Finally! I told my mom before I came that I wouldn’t come home until I had ridden a camel, and for a while I was afraid it wouldn’t happen. A few other tourists joined us – four Italians and a French man and his daughter who had been staying in the auberge with us: Jean Claude and his daughter who we affectionately [or not] called Kelly Osbourne. Jean Claude was nice enough; he was just very French. By this, I mean he wore jean shorts and shirts that were too tight for him in various shades of black, and had dyed his hair black when it obviously should have been gray, and spoke to me in French constantly even though he knew I didn’t speak the language except for a few phrases I’ve picked up from Ben. Kelly Osbourne, on the other hand, rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. Our first day at the auberge, she spent over seven hours straight on the computer. This infuriated me because, come on, you’re in the freaking Sahara desert! She also made a snide comment about my French accent, which was so stereotypically French of her, and bothered me, because I don’t pretend to speak French, and I definitely don’t pretend to be good at the few words I do speak. Did I mention this girl is only fifteen and a half? I figure if you’re young enough to still be counting half-years, you’re too young to be snarky to an adult [Dios mio, I just called myself an adult- scary!] like that. Our impressions of these two divided the group somewhat over the weekend. Ben, of course, loved them, because he speaks French and could communicate with them. Michael, Autumn and I banded together in our dislike for them and became Team Danielle. Addison was somewhere in the middle as a type of Switzerland. The debate rages on even now. But more on those two in a minute.
We got onto our camels; mine was of typical-camel color and composition; I affectionately called him Phillip. Later, our Berber guides would tell us his name was Blondie, and he became Phillip Blondie Jamel [the Arabic word for camel], or PBJ for short. Getting onto a camel is an experience in itself. They get up very slowly, straightening one joint at a time, so you’re jolted violently forward as their front legs begin to unfold, and stay there, coming dangerously close to falling face-first into the sand, until they stretch out their back legs. The ride is bumpy and uncomfortable, but hey, you’re riding a camel, you can’t really complain. So we started our two hour trek through the desert to our campsite, which was largely uneventful, or at least as uneventful as riding a camel through the Sahara desert at dusk can possibly be. At one point, Jean Claude whips out his cell phone to make a call- in the middle of the Sahara desert. Michael took one look at him, looked at me, and simply said, “Team Danielle”. It was the icing on the cake. Oh, you silly Frenchman!
I did, however, sing the Alabama fight song. I’m pretty sure I’m the first person ever en la historia del mundo to sing Yea Alabama on the back of a camel in the middle of the Sahara. It was a pretty cool feelings.
We stopped for a few minutes to watch the sun sink down behind the dunes, and Michael, Ben, and I seized the opportunity to make sand angels. Then we loaded ourselves back onto the camels to finish the journey to the tents. It was pretty dark by time we got to the two small bivouacs situating between two big dunes, so the five of us laid down in the sand and watched the stars come out. We did this for a few hours, and attempted to make small talk with the Italians [in their limited English] while Ben chatted up Jean Claude. Finally, around 11:30, it was time for dinner, which, as usual, was small and unfulfilling…stupid desert food. Everyone got their mattresses to go to sleep afterwards, and we found a little spot behind one of the tents in the hopes that it would block some of the sand from blowing on us [no such luck; it’s the desert, for pete’s sake!]. After laying down for a few minutes, Autumn, Ben, and I decide to make it a truly unforgettable experience and go streaking. As soon as we decide that yes, it’s time to do it, and no, we don’t care if people aren’t asleep, it’s too dark for them to see anything anyway, Ben pops up and begins running around the sand like a crazy man, doing flips and somersaults and just generally acting crazy. In the dark, all we could see was the white outline of shorts- I thought he was still wearing his boxers, and was furious that he was cheating!
“Ben, you have to be naked to go streaking!” I yell.
“I am naked!” was the reply. “Touch my butt!”
I didn’t believe him; I could clearly see white boxers. At this point, he launches himself onto me and all I feel is…nakedness. It was at this exact moment that I realized the white boxers I was seeing was his tanline from Asilah, and he was, in fact, naked…and on me. So Autumn and I jump up, strip down, and take off through the dunes, laughing and yelling and being silly. It really was one of the most freeing, liberating feelings ever- the warm Sahara air rushing against my body, and the sand both warm and cold at once beneath my feet. After we were out of breath [running in the sand is hard work!], we ran over to where we had dumped our clothes to find…that Ben had stolen them! I ran back to the mattresses and dove beneath one.
“Oh my God, she’s naked.” Michael says in the darkness.
“Ben, give me back my clothes!” I yell.
Finally, after some cajoling, he throws our clothes at us..but my underwear are missing. So I make him go out into the dunes and find them.
We fell asleep shortly thereafter, and Ben failed to wake me up to watch the sunrise, although he claims otherwise. I remain unconvinced.
My wakeup was eventful, though. Around 6:45, I felt something tickling my face. I thought it was Ben, because he had woken me up the morning before by tickling my face. When it didn’t stop after a few seconds, I blearily opened my eyes to find…a camel. Right above me. Really?! Who can say they’ve been woken up by a curious camel in the Sahara desert?! Ohebu al-Maghreb!
We cleaned up a little bit [brushing your teeth without water –at this point we had run out- is not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination] and got back on the camels for the two hour ride back to Merzouga. I was feeling sick, but trying to be tough and stick it out. The Sahara was a humbling experience for me. I was trying to push my body to the limit and take it to a place it had never been physically, but it just wouldn’t go to where I was trying to push it. It was like I had hit a wall, and no matter how hard I tried to spur myself on, my body wouldn’t cooperate. No Danielle, it kept saying, I’ve reached my limit. I was a little surprised and very humbled, not to mention a little embarrassed to be the only one who got sick. At one point, I had to ask Ben to ask the Berbers to stop my camel so I could get off and lay in the sand, because I thought I was going to vomit. On the way down, my body felt so weak that my grip on the saddle loosened and I almost went flying off the camel. I didn’t even care; I was too sick.
The auberge was a welcome sight. I got off my camel and went inside without even telling our guides goodbye. I sprawled out on the cushions in the main room and tried to will my nausea away. Breakfast didn’t help much, and a shower was frustrating at best. After three days of not washing my hair and washing my body with antibacterial hand soap, I felt sick, dirty, and hairy. Finally, Aissa drove us to Rissani to begin the last leg of our trip. He gave us a tour of the medina there, which was like any other medina: busy, bustling, chaotic, with acrid smells and too much noise and all kinds of activity that I usually find interesting but on Sunday found overwhelming and exhausting. I think we were all worn out from the travel, lack of sleep, little food, and hot weather. Despite the fact that the five of us there get along the best out of the entire ISA group, we were all snapping at each other and being very irritable. I know I must have been hard to deal with, what with the being sick and all, even though I tried to be as little of an inconvenience as possible with the state that I was in. After the souq, we saw a really interesting animal market, which, regrettably, I didn’t appreciate fully while we were there because I was preoccupied with making sure I didn’t puke. There was a big, open room filled with goats that were being literally thrown and stuffed into carts, bleating and yelling something awful. Another room had dozens of cows in it, tied up and mooing. Finally, a big open field adjacent to a huge pen contained hundreds and hundreds of donkeys- mating, standing, pooping, making noise, being loaded down with bags…it was a PETA person’s nightmare, but really interesting to see.
Eventually I couldn’t handle the activity anymore, and Addison, Michael and I went to a café to lay down while Autumn and Ben went shopping. Autumn bought me a really pretty green caftan shirt since I couldn’t go, and it was much appreciated. We were all starving, to Aissa took us to his house where we were served Moroccan pizza. Everyone was really impressed with it, but it was definitely not to my liking. There was some spice akin to cinnamon in it that I felt really weird about…but oh well. After lunch, we went to the basement of Aissa’s shop across the street where it was shady and cool and took the world’s most amazing nap on the floor…on mats like kindergarteners. It was funny, but so necessary, because we were all dying!
We woke up at 6pm, and our bus was leaving at 8, but Ben insisted we do the Circuit touristique, an hour and a half ride around Rissani to see the 300-odd casbahs and countryside. We went, and it was interesting and the scenery was beautiful, but I was starting to get nervous around 7:45 when Aissa was still talking and we weren’t at the bus station yet. Finally I told Ben we absolutely had to go. Aissa got us to the station, we paid him, and very nearly missed the bus.
The ride was long and miserable and uncomfortable; mostly, I think, because we were all very ready to be home and go to sleep and get back to urinating, sweating, and pooping normally [or as much as you can in Morocco in general]. Finally, at 4am we arrived back in Meknes sweet Meknes and made the walk home from the bus station, exhausted but exhilarated at the weekend we had just had. We were sweaty, tired, my hair was tangled beyond belief, I was sick, my uterus hurt, and everyone was slightly grouchy, but we still laughed and joked the whole way home.
It has taken me three days to write all of this down because I would get so frustrated at how words simply could not do the experience justice. In that time, Autumn unfortunately had to leave Morocco early due to a death in the family, and today we took our final exams in Arabic and Religion. Tonight, Michael and I spent some quality time [four hours!] together in the medina doing some last minute shopping. It is hard for me to comprehend that in a few days, all of this will be a memory. Sitting at a café in the medina tonight, Michael and I talked about how strange it was looking around at the chaos around the Bab Mansour and knowing in a few days it would all be gone, a world away. These last few days here are terrifying- I am constantly worrying that I will forget the way things feel, smell, taste, look…my senses are drowning in so many feelings that I’m afraid it will all just wash over me and leave me forever. It’s horrifying, the idea of forgetting this new life I’ve forged for myself in Morocco. I know my life back home will not be the same, and I know I can never come back to this life here, exactly as it is now. Nothing will be the same after this, but I’m also afraid things will be too much the same- like none of it ever happened. It’s a strange, surreal feeling, and a strange, surreal fear.
That’s it for me tonight, I’m exhausted. More tomorrow after my last day ever at Jahmiya Moulay Ismail. Goodnight.

PS- Michael and Jennifer voted me Most Attractive on this trip. Score one for under-made-up, conservatively dressed Danielle!!!

“This guy is the most annoying motherf----r I’ve ever met!”-Michael Castellano

“I should not have licked that.”-Addison Vawters

“Don’t fight a dung beetle for its dinner.”-Mr. Becker, by way of Ben

“Hello, I am Abdul, nice to meet me.”-shop owner

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-31T06:29:00.000+01:00

Happy Belated Feast of the Throne Day!

It’s been a pretty chill week- I won’t bore you with the details. Class Monday, went to the medina that night. Arabic test Tuesday, went to the medina that night, then to the park.
Yesterday is when it got interesting. It was Feast of the Throne Day, a holiday in Morocco celebrating with King Mohammed VI ascended to power in 1999, so we didn’t have any class. All the ISA kids decided that a holiday with the word “Feast” in the name definitely called for a big American style banquet. So we made several trips to Label Vie and a local fruit market [and stopped on the way to get “The World’s Best Shawarma”], and started cooking around 2pm yesterday afternoon. Addison and I made my dad’s famous salsa, which was really difficult and took a long time because we couldn’t find a blender- so we chopped everything by hand into really fine little pieces. Michael made the world’s most delicious fruit salad- it included pineapple and cactus. Alexa made mashed potatoes, Lauren and Julia spent all day grilling chicken, Brigid made the world’s most delicious pudding, and Megan contributed baked beans. We invited our Arabic professors, Driss [the Beginning Arabic prof] and Zacharyae [my Intermediate professor], and they brought tons of beer and wine [who says Muslims don’t drink?]. Then Moha, Daniel, and three of Daniel’s friends showed up. Alexa and Brigid’s Moroccan boyfriends, Moiseen and Ilyas, came later, along with the boys’ Moroccan friends, Imad, Azziz, and Issam. We all ate until we were stuffed, and then the real fun began. First, Ben, Michael, Addison and I had to run to the bus station downtown to get our tickets for tonight, and along the way, Ben was “in rare form”. He was acting absolutely ridiculous, and I laughed so hard I thought I would die. After we got back, Ben and I teamed up to make the world’s most amazing Beer Pong team. At the end of the night, we were undefeated. Throughout the course of the party, we played Moha, Driss, and Zacharyae. I cannot even begin to explain how funny it was for me to realize I was in my apartment in Morocco, playing beer pong against my Arabic teacher. By 11pm, both of our instructors were completely wasted, and out of control. But the party kept going until 1am! All I have to say is, what a night!
Tonight at 10PM the boys and I leave for the Sahara! I’m so excited! So I won’t be writing again until Monday- expect a long one!

“Listen…..uhhhh….uhhhhh….uhhh….okay. You understand?” – Zacharyae

Zacharyae: Listen….uhhh….when you use yooreed…always with “an” or “anna”…ok? You understand?
Julia: What? No.
Me: Mudarra mansoob!!!
[Mudarra mansoob is a grammatical structure in Arabic]

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-27T06:28:00.000+01:00

What an incredible weekend it’s been!!!
I almost don’t even know where to start, so I guess I’ll begin with Thursday night. Ben, Lauren, Julia, Imad, Addison, Jared and I went to the medina to find something fun to do, as always. We wandered for a little bit, and Ben and I ate a fried fish. And by that I mean it was an entire fish, fresh out of the market, that was fried. We pulled it apart, ripped out the spine, and ate it whole! It was delicious! Ben even ate the head, because apparently it’s good luck, although I think it was just an excuse for him to be gross. Then we went to a café in the plaz by the Bab Mansour and had the most delicious omelette Panini ever. They absolutely love their omlettes here, at any time of day, and I’m totally ok with that.
Friday morning we woke up early and got on the bus to come to Asilah. It was a four hour bus ride but so incredibly worth it. As soon as we got to Asilah we went to Hotel Zelis, where we stayed. I was in a room with Lauren and Julia on the fifth floor. We got on the elevator, and it only went to the 4th floor. We were a little confused but took a spiral staircase up from the 4th floor and ended up….on the roof. Overlooking the ocean. It was absolutely breathtaking. There was a little veranda and behind it was our room. We definitely got the best room out of everyone. We freaked out and enjoyed the view for a few minutes before changing into our bathing suits and setting out to look for food. We roamed around the town, and let me tell you, Asilah is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect. After I retire, mark my words, I will move to Asilah and spend the rest of my life on the beach. There’s such a mix of culture and language…it’s unlike any other town I’ve ever been in. We ended up finding a wonderful little restaurant called Mataam Manar where I ate absolutely delicious swordfish- I had forgotten how much I missed eating fish! Because Meknes isn’t on the coast, we never get to eat it there. After that, we went to the beach and met up with the rest of the kids and alid out and played I n the breathtaking blue water. A typical Moroccan stalker told me I was Arab-colored, so that made my day. Eventually, Ben, Michael and I wandered over to a big wall of rocks that were shaped like huge jacks [like, bigger than a car] that had been carefully and strategically stacked. We happened upon a group of boys cooking tajine down in the rocks who gave us free temporary tattoos. We were feeling silly, so we each got one. Ben’s was definitely my favorite- a huge butterfly stretching across his chest. Michael picked out a heart with a banner across it that said Fun Lover for me, and I picked an octopus out for him. When our “new friends” started doing some sketchy stuff that I didn’t think it wise to be around in Morocco, I had Ben walk me back to the others. On the way, we were walking along this twenty foot high wall, and a man stopped Ben and warned him in French that his girlfriend [me] would get eaten by the shark-fish because I was showing too much skin in my bikini. Oh, Morocco. Ten seconds later, a big group of boys walked past us, and one of them jiggled my boob!!! Really. He reached out and JIGGLED MY BOOB, while making a ksss ksss kssss sound. I was in shock, and all I could do was yell “BEN!”, who promptly turned around and cursed at the guy in French.
That night, we all met at 7:30 to walk through the medina and watch the sunset. There’s some kind of art festival going on and there are people everywhere throughout the medina painting murals on walls and it was beautiful. We climbed down from the street onto some rocks jutting into the water and watched the sunset as little boys jumped from buildings in the medina into the water. It was beautiful. Unfortunately the horizon was a little foggy so we couldn’t see the green flash. Que lastima!
Later, Ben, Addison, Jared and I went on a walk along the beach, and the stars were so bright and so awe-inspiring. The Big Dipper literally jumped out of the sky. It was right over the water and so big and bright – I haven’t seen stars look like that in a long time.
Saturday was one of the best days I’ve ever had. Lauren, Julia and I woke up early and went back to Mataam Manar for omelettes. After that, we went shopping in the medina and I finally started doing some damage in Morocco. Up until yesterday, all I had really indulged in here was a Berber rug. Yesterday, I bought an orange caftan, a silver Berber ring that I am obsessed with, an antique silver hamsa bangle bracelet, hammered silver hamsa earrings, a yellow leather wallet embossed with a camel, and my favorite- an one of a kind original design dress from a local fashion designer that is wildly patterned and covered in intricate beading. It set me back nearly 600Dh but it is my new favorite piece of clothing. Afterwards, we ate shawarma and went back to the hotel, where the manager ordered a donkey cart to take us to Paradise Beach. One of the boys from the last ISA group here, Gabriel, told us that we absolutely had to go to Paradise Beach in a donkey cart, and now I could almost kiss him. It was the most bizarre, incredible, beautiful, scary thing ever. We climbed onto a small rolling table strapped to the back of this huge animal, and the ride was ridiculously bumpy and we were constantly in danger of flying right off. As an added surprise, the donkey pulling us started farting the second we started moving and continued a good portion of the way there. As we made our way through the medina, two guys in a Mercedes started following us and pulling up beside the cart to talk to us, and beg us to “go to the sea” with them. They even got on the phone to call their friends, and a few seconds later, we’re surrounded by three Mercedes Benzes! After following us for a good ten minutes, they finally gave up. We were only expecting a short ride, but 30 minutes later we were rolling down a dirt road, through watermelon fields and past shacks, and starting to get slightly nervous. We had no clue where we were, except that we were somewhere right outside of Asilah, with no cell phone service. But then, we drove in between two hills and the horizon opened up, and we were on a huge cliff towering above the ocean. It put the beaches in Cozumel and Hawaii to shame. Beautiful clear water, no one on the beach, and huts serving food and drinks. We spent nearly three blissful hours laying out and playing in the water. A few minutes before we were supposed to catch our cart back to Asilah, the three of us were lying down when we heard a sound like a donkey dying. We started looking around, and upon sitting up, found that four camels had appeared in front of us, like a mirage. We were so excited!!! We took pictures with them and petted them. There was even a baby who was very affectionate and nuzzling up against me. It was incredible! We took a slightly less eventful ride back to the hotel, and bid adieu to our smelly cart. The rest of the day wasn’t nearly as exciting. Everyone got together for dinner, wandered around the medina,and we took a disappointed trip to Hotel Alkhaim to go dancing [it didn’t work out].
Today we woke up early and went to Tangier for the day and seriously…nothing exciting happened. At all. Except we could see Spain. And Patrick puked the whole way home. That’s it.
I had a great weekend; I hope yall did too! Now it’s time to buckle down and study for my Arabic test on Tuesday and nag Ben until he finishes hammering out the details of our free weekend!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-24T17:57:00.000+01:00

Last night, Imad, Lauren, Julia, Jared and I went to the medina to see a concert at the old zoo. It was an old hippie band, and we liked it, but were all dying of thirst, so we went to la plaz at the Bab Mansour to get drinks. After that, Jared, Imad and I wandered around, seeing tons of Imad’s friends along the way, and picking people up here and there. It was such a Moroccan experience; someone would call out to him from across the street and come up and start talking in Arabic, Spanish, English, and French all mixed together. It was so uniquely bizarre and so humorous, and it was one of the times when I just felt so happy to be here. The feeling faded a little when my gnarly, down-ass Moroccan friend Imad [or at least that’s what I thought he was] starting hitting on me and asking me to be his girlfriend. Isn’t that how it always is when boys and girls are friends? Que lastima.
Today, the feeling was completely gone for most of the day. I was tired, and stressed, and anxious all for no reason. It was an overwhelming feeling and I couldn’t explain it. We went to belly dancing class, but at 10:30 our teacher still hadn’t shown up [class is at 10…she usually runs on “Moroccan time” and is around 15 minutes late, but 30 was just too much for us] so we left. Then we laid around until class at 4…totally unmotivated and lazy, although I will admit it was nice to have a relaxed kind of day, because we haven’t had any of those thus far in Morocco- we’re constantly moving a million miles an hour! Then we went to class and the most amazing thing happened to turn my day around; one of those things you always dream about happening in college, but that never seems to. After our break at 5:30, our teacher let us go early! An hour and a half early! Alhamdullelah! I think he could tell that we are all tired and a little sick and just burnt out in general, and that we were leaving for Asilah tomorrow and needed to rest. That lifted my spirits considerably, and now I’m pumped for the beach tomorrow! Three days of surf, sand, and sun in Morocco? I definitely need it! I’d say the weekend is off to a good start; I’ll keep you posted!
Have a nehiyat isbooah moomtaz!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

PS- Another reason why I love Morocco: Julia and Megan just waged war against Alexa and I in a date fight. There are dates all over the apartment and we’ll be finding them for weeks. Alexa got pegged in the face and now has the outline of a date on her eye. I LOVE MOROCCO!
Oh, and to update the flesh wound file..my entire right big toe is purple. How? No clue. I trip a lot.
And my tragus is infected.
That is all.

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2008-07-24T14:23:00.000+01:00

Last night I had this wonderful experience that I just had to write about.
It was over 100 degrees even after the sun had gone down, and I went to bed around 1am, but sleep was impossible. Around 1:30, I stripped down and lay on the marble floor, thinking maybe it would be cooler there and I would finally be able to get some sleep. After an hour with no success, I climbed back into my bed, defeated. Seconds later, my phone rang. It was Charlie! I was ecstatic to talk to him, and we had a great [and expensive] conversation. Finally, nearly two hours later, we got off the phone and I was laying in bed, willing sleep to come. It was hot, sticky, and dead silent. Then, suddenly, at 4:45, the call to prayer began. Five times a day, the mosques in Muslim countries broadcast a call to prayer [half song, half poem- all beautiful] over loudspeakers that can be heard all over the city. I’m used to hearing them over the chaotic sounds of the city, and they seem so appropriate blending in with the cacophony of Meknes. Sometimes it astonishes me how normal we all think it is, because if something like that were to happen in America, people would be offended and appalled and shocked and a medley of other less-than-desirable feelings. But last night…everything was still and calm, and slowly out of the darkness came this floating, wailing call to prayer. Seconds later, two other mosques began their call to prayer. Then a few more came seeping in through the night. Eventually, there were about a dozen calls filling the night air, all bittersweet and sad and tumultuous, all different, but all blending together in this beautiful melody. I laid as still as possible, wishing it would never stop. I think it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I wish you all could have heard it. I’ve never been so awestruck by something in my life. So even though I was cursing my lack of sleep this morning in class, I’m so grateful I was awake to hear it.
Before all that, I went to the medina with Lauren, Ben, and Imad for a local concert series. It was fun; Imad spent most of the night teaching us bad words in Arabic, which is always entertaining. After that, we wandered over to McDonalds for a midnight Daim McFlurry, where we met a bunch of Imad’s friends and BS-ed for a few hours. We finally made it home around 1am. It was all good fun, and I learned my new favorite word- layahum. It means whatever, and therefore I will be using it a lot.
That’s it for now- it’s time to post some entries since I just hacked onto the network! Thank you Emtil, whoever you are!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-23T06:26:00.000+01:00

I feel myself changing day by day in Morocco. I know most people would say that living in another country for two months can’t really change a person down to their core, but I completely disagree.
Physically, the changes are easier to see. I tend to describe myself as one giant flesh wound these days, because I have had one cut after another since coming here. I have cuts covering my hands from falling down the stairs one day, cuts across the back of my calves from the hike, huge bloody blisters covering my feet, and random cuts and scrapes from day to day life. I’ve also lost a lot of weight from small portions, no preservatives or artificial foods, and constant exercise from belly dancing, hiking, and walking everywhere in the scorching heat [today it was nearly 120F!] My face is tan from Rabat, although I’m sure my whole body will be even darker after this weekend in Asilah. I have brown-orange henna covering both of my hands and arms, and sandal tan-lines on my feet.
The internal changes are more subtle than all that, and far more complex. When I came here, I was so set on my plan that it was completely inflexible to change in any way. I’m still completely dedicated to my plan, and living in the Middle East this summer has made me sure that this is actually what I want to do, but I’m also open to the idea of serendipity. Perhaps something else will pop up that is just as fabulous as what I’m planning. I’ve also amended the plan to a certain extent, adding French and Hebrew to the list of languages I want to master. My attitudes about America have all been challenged by the things I have seen and done here. I realize how incredibly lucky I am to live in the States through my experiences here in Morocco. I would like to think that I’m braver than I was when I first arrived. The first few days here, the thought of taking a train to a random town in Morocco with no set plan would have terrified me, but now I’m anxiously awaiting our free weekend when Ben and I are going camping/sightseeing- as of yet we have no real agenda: camping in the Atlas, a night in the Sahara, maybe a day trip to Marrakesh. I’m so excited by the idea of gallivanting across an entire country in search of an adventure. I’m definitely more observant, as I try to absorb everything I see and do here; but still, everyday, I notice a building or landmark that I had never noticed before. I told the girls the other day that I feel like I could stay in Meknes for years and still not see everything, and I know it’s true. Some people are bored of it here already, but I can’t imagine ever not being enthralled by every aspect of life here. Even though I’m way more restricted in the things I do and the places I go, I absolutely love it. I’m also learning so incredibly much. Taban, I’m learning an insane amount of Arabic in class, but it’s so much more than that. I’m learning about things I never thought I would from the other kids here. I never knew anything about Judaism before I came here, and everyday Ben teaches me something new and interesting. Listening to Brigid talk about her travels and experiences abroad gives me an idea about the world I never had. Everyone brings something to the table and everyone here enriches me and makes me better in some way, even those that I don’t particularly care for. It all just fuels the fire in me, the desire to travel and see and do everything. Even when I’m totally confused and making a fool out of myself in Arabic class, I know that I am one of the lucky ones. I know that I would never trade this experience for anything. Finally, I’m not taking a single thing for granted. When I go to the bathroom and see that there is toilet paper, I rejoice- as opposed to complaining when there isn’t any. When I walk into a store and there’s air conditioning, I’m ecstatic; whereas the first few days we were here we were appalled when there wasn’t air conditioning anywhere. Every experience I have, I’m so grateful for and so amazed by. The other night as Addison and Michael and I settled in for our stay on the roof, I said, “Who ever would have thought I’d be on a roof in Morocco listening to Dane Cook?” The randomness of it all thrills me. Today, Julia, Lauren, Megan and I sat in the car for 30 minutes as our Intermediate Arabic professor loaded bricks into our trunk in the Zitoun. When I was imagining what Morocco would be like, I never pictured any of this random, seemingly mundane stuff, but it’s exactly that which makes this trip so exciting for me. Maybe I’m weird for that, but I love it. After all, not everyone can say that they belly danced on a bus with grass on the floor, to a song they didn’t understand the words to, as it zoomed across the desert en route to Ifrane. How amazing is life? How incredible, how invaluable, are these days here in Al-Maghreb?
With all that mushy stuff out of the way, today was pretty uneventful. We went to belly dancing class in the morning and the teacher finally complimented me on something that I did- a first! Maybe I’m finally starting to loosen up a little bit, although I have to say, the lack of structure in belly dancing makes me yearn for the technique and rigidity of cheerleading. I’ve been really tired for the past few days, and am actually really convinced that I do, in fact, have mono. But what’s a girl to do? No choice but to tough it out; it could be worse. Arabic class was alright- a little nerve-wracking, as always, but I know it will all be worth it when I go back to UA and know what I’m doing. People here are starting to get on each other’s nerves and tension is starting to develop, but even so, I know I will miss all of these people when we leave. it’s impossible not to after sharing an experience like this one. I’ll even miss the random crap Jared pipes up with out of nowhere…”We wanted to save kilos and kilos of pure Moroccan cat.” But I’m done thinking about leaving for now, I still have somewhere around two and a half weeks here, and I’m going to suck everything I can out of those two weeks. Uhebu al-Maghreb wa kulu al zumala-i.
I’m gonna head to the medina for a concert- goodnight, all!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-22T06:25:00.000+01:00

Not much has happened for the past two days. Night before last Addison, Michael and I set up camp on the roof. I wisely chose to sleep in the middle of the two of them, and apparently hogged the covers all night long and they were freezing to death. I slept like a rock, and didn’t wake up until 7:15. Then I climbed down off the roof and slept in my bed for another two hours. Lauren, Julia and I met Iman at the Bab Mansour at 10:30 and we wandered around the medina for a few hours. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it was fun just to look. After that Michael, Addison and I went to McDonalds and then Iman brought over a lady who gave all the girls henna. I’m sorry today’s entry is short and choppy, but I’m in a weird mood, and really tired. Maybe I have mono. Ugh.
Take care, all.

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-20T06:25:00.000+01:00

Lafo ya molana lafo!
Last night Addison, Michael and I hung out on the roof and listened to Dane Cook until 2am, while watched a fire far off in the hills outside of Meknes. It was really chill and really fun.
Today we woke up early and drove to Rabat. We did the usual tourist stuff; and we were all miserable doing it. We paid literally no attention to our poor tour guide. We saw a casbah, the palace, a mosque that was destroyed by the Lisbon earthquake forever ago…just to name a few things. The good stuff started after lunch [at 2pm! We eat so late here!] when we went to the beach to lay out. The beach in Morocco is so different from the States! The first adventure was finding a way to change into our bathing suits. I don’t change on the beach even in the liberal US, much less in ultra-conservative Rabat, but we didn’t have much of a choice. It was a really complicated procedure, and we drew a lot of attention to ourselves, strategically making sure that we didn’t flash the entire beach. There was a lot of laughing and screaming, but all four girls [Me, Julia, Lauren, and Megan] and Jared finally got changed. Then Megan, Julia and I ventured down to the water, which was completely filled with scary rocks, so we didn’t go in too far. After fifteen minutes of narrowly avoiding getting pummeled by rocks and getting splashed by evil Moroccan children, we went back up to our towels to find Jared digging a hole to Australia [seriously]. Soon, a little Moroccan boy named Hitam came and started helping and it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I talked to him a little bit, but he mostly spoke dareeja [Moroccan dialect], which I don’t speak at all [I speak Modern Standard Arabic], so all I got out of the conversation was that he was nine and from Rabat. He was sweet and really helpful with Jared’s hole though. Then, two Arabic guys [one creepy, one ridiculously good looking, and both speaking a little English] came up and talked to us for a while about a lot of random stuff. We decided the cute one had to be a prince or something because he was very vague about his life and kind of skirted some questions that a normal person wouldn’t have. Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
Finally, we were ready to leave. Ben is staying in Rabat by himself in a hotel tonight, and I wanted to stay really badly. Michael and I had talked about it, but he chickened out at the last second. Ben asked if I wanted to stay with him, but I know deep down he really wants time to explore by himself, so I got back on the bus and came back to Meknes. Two hours later, we’re home and exhausted. Tonight Addison, Michael and I are going to sleep on the roof because it’s really breezy and chilly up there. I’m excited!
Did I mention anything about the weather yesterday? It was really overcast all day like it was going to rain –it never rains here though- and the air was really heavy and hard to breathe. Then, after dark, dust storms started. Dust, sand, and trash hung in the air. We couldn’t go anywhere because the wind was blowing so hard you could barely walk, and the dust and sand was barreling towards us so fast that it hurt. My first Middle Eastern sandstorm! Very exciting.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow Iman is taking us girls to the medina to get henna. We’re all stoked. I’ll let you know how it goes and take lots of pictures!!!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-18T06:24:00.000+01:00

Night before last everyone except Megan and Alexa decided to be adventurous, so we all got dressed up and left the apartments around 11:30 and headed to Hotel Zaki. We had a few drinks at the bar upstairs, then went downstairs for some Moroccan entertainment. It wasn’t really that exciting, until we met a bunch of kids who speak English! They were all here for an Arab basketball tournament. One is even going to Troy University in Alabama to play basketball! We hung around and talked to them for a while, and made plans to hang out before they leave in a week. It’s always exciting to find people who speak English; I can’t wait to hang out with them!
After that we all took petit taxis back to Hotel Rif where we went dancing to American music [as opposed to Arabic music], but Julia and I left shortly thereafter.
Yesterday we went to bellydancing class [I’m getting a little better at loosening up those cheerleading limbs and getting them to flow like they’re supposed to!], then rushed around and got dressed so that we could go with Alexa and her Moroccan boyfriend to the National Handball team practice here in Meknes [he’s on the team, but injured so he can’t play this season]. We walked all over Meknes, and by time we got to the stadium practice was over. We were sad, but we got to see a ton of hot handball players, including Ilyas, the world’s sexiest man [no lie] with their shirts off. No complaints here. Then we all went to a café for some refreshing Coke [thank God we have Coke here..although I’m pretty sure you could go to the High Atlas and find a Coke stand somewhere] and headed to class. Arabic class is getting better and better everyday. Everyday I’m a little less afraid of making up sentences on the spot and I actually feel like I’m learning so much.
After class we came home and Mohammed came over to try and fix the couch that Ben broke [did I mention I also broke a chair? Demolished it. Just by sitting on it. Kadeem.], made us some tea, then we all [minus a few] went to the medina. We watched Ben, Mohammed, and Julia play this fair-style game where you try and get a ring attached to a fishing pole to go around a bottle of Coke. Nobody won- not surprised. I also ate cactus for the first time and it was delicious! Then we wandered around the medina for a while more, and came home to indulge in some wine. We got to go on the roof, which was really exciting and really beautiful at night. So we all hung out on the roof and drank for a while; it was really chilled out. I feel like we all need that. People are starting to grate on other people’s nerves. Sometimes it’s just one little thing that somebody says that just brain ninjas you [if you don’t understand that sentence watch Dane Cook because you suck at life]. It’s starting to get a little tense around here. I’m sure this too will pass though.
Quick thought: Yesterday in class I told my teacher I was majoring in Middle Eastern Languages, and he asked if I was learning Hebrew. He told me he had studied it in college and liked it a lot. I told him that my plan was just to concentrate on Urdu, Farsi, and Arabic, but he encouraged me to think about Hebrew. Last night I talked to Ben, our resident Jew, about Hebrew because he speaks a little bit of it, and he gave me a quick crash course in it. It’s a lot like Arabic in some respects [pronouns, grammar, syntax..] and I really liked the little bit I heard. So I might be tacking another language onto the list. I’ll keep you posted.
Today I hung out with Michael all day, which was nice because we definitely haven’t hung out enough, especially since he’s from Virginia Beach and goes to the school I might be transferring to after sophomore year. We went to a café this morning, then after lunch [it was couscous day! Masha’allah!] we walked to the medina and went to Musee Dar Jamai, which used to be the sultan’s palace. At first it wasn’t cool because it was really small, but then we found a guy who worked there and took us to all the parts of the museum that were closed for renovations. My favorite part was when he took us upstairs to the sultan’s bedroom and showed us where the sultan wa arbaa zoujahu slept. He even let us take pictures, which isn’t allowed. Michael got to sit in the sultan’s chair, but I had to sit on the floor where the harem slept. How very Morocco of him. Michael is in Intermediate Arabic with me so between the two of us we could actually understand everything that our guide was saying, even though he was only speaking Arabic. We were proud of ourselves.
Then we went to McDonalds, because neither of us had been there yet. We got McFlurries, and let me tell you something- they’re way better here. We got a McFlurry Daim, which is toffee. It was oralgasmic. I’m resting right now; later tonight Mohammed is coming over to teach us how to cook tajine, then we might all head to a hookah bar, even though we have to be up early tomorrow for Rabat. I hope you’re all having a good weekend! Busat min Meknes!
Some more randomness:
-Immodium AD is my best friend. Draw your own conclusions.
-I really miss milk- I’m pretty sure I have osteoporosis already.
-My feet are always dirty…and by dirty I mean disgusting.
-Men here make the weirdest noises when they’re hitting on you. I’ve been hissed, clucked, and cooed at. Kadeem.
-Today Michael and I saw kids swimming in trash and sewage. Ew.
Things we say a lot here:
“Kadeem!” Literally means “old fashioned” but we use it for just about everything here. Mostly used like I would usually use the word “weak” when something is ironic or unsatisfactory. But like I said, we say it about everything.
“Yella!” Means “Let’s go!” Obviously with 13 of us this gets used a lot when we’re trying to do something.
“Belek!” – “Watch out!” Mostly used in the medina when donkey carts or horses are trying to get through a narrow passage- they won’t stop for you! We use it around the house when someone is in our way though.”
“Cowed.” This is one of our favorites to use to each other because it literally means “F--- off.” Combined with the Moroccan hand gesture [hand out, middle finger bent back- like Spiderman], it’s pretty effective.
“Ana jaeea.”/”Ata dawaru juan.” These two are used on an hourly basis. “I’m hungry/I’m starving.” We always want “khubz arabiya”!
“Caneena Coca Cola wahed min fudlok.” This is my personal favorite because I use it all the time. “One bottle of Coke please.” So I’m addicted.

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-16T11:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was uneventful- again. Three hours of class, which didn’t go quite as well as the day before. Then Michael, Addison, and I made fried eggplant breaded with flour and corn flakes, smothered in tomato sauce. It was surprisingly delicious! We’re going to make our own food every night from now on since the same tastes of the dinner we’re made are starting to make us sick.
There was a local concert outside where little kids were rapping and dancing. It was adorable. Addison, Ben, Brigid, Jamila, Michael, Jared, and I went and watched for a little while, and when it started to wind down Jamila, Jared and I went to Hotel Rif to the bar, where Jamila knows the owner. He gave us a free round and showed us the nightclub downstairs. We got excited and came back to the apartments to get Brigid and Michael. The five of us went back and the DJ turned on American dance music for us. Hardly anyone else was there and we were the only ones dancing except for a creepy old Moroccan, but we still had fun..for a few minutes I felt like I was back in the States and everything was normal again.
This trip has definitely made me start thinking about my plan and about myself and what I want out of life. I love Morocco a lot, and I love Arabic, but I think I need to cool down on my plan a little bit. It’s a lonely life even being here with 13 of my peers. Thinking about the job I want and my plan, my life is only going to get lonelier and more serious. Sometimes I’m ok with that, and sometimes I’m not. Being here also makes me reevaluate the entire life I left behind in Alabama. It’s an escape from reality, but eventually I’ll have to go back, and I keep wondering, am I satisfied with my life there? That’s not to say that life is so wonderful here, because it’s not perfect. I’ve definitely had my fair share of drama in the three weeks that I’ve been here. But somehow it’s less upsetting because it’s all only temporary. I’m only living here for 2 months, and I’m almost at the halfway mark. I’ve been in a weird mood for a few days, and I know that’s partially due to some interpersonal stuff going on here, and it’s also because we’re in the downslope from “OMG we’re in MOROCCO, this rocks!” I’m looking forward to getting excited about being here again. I hope it comes soon.

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

PS-
It’s 2pm and we just ate lunch. Guess what we found buried beneath the meat and vegetables in the tagine? A rabbit head. No lie. Seriously. A rabbit head. Kadeem.

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2008-07-15T12:43:00.000+01:00

Only two exciting things happened yesterday.
1) All the girls were sitting in the living room when a laser sight [like the kind from a gun] came into the window and landed on Brigid’s book. We all saw it and freaked out, running to Lauren and Julia’s room in the back of the apartment. Their door was closed and started shaking as we went to open it [that was just the wind, but at the time it was scary], so we ran back into the living room, diving on the floor, screaming about snipers. Julia refused to sit anywhere but on the floor for the rest of the night.
2) I initially went to bed at 9pm because there was nothing to do. At 10:30, I woke up hearing music outside in la Plaz. So I convinced Julia to get dressed and we ventured out into the night [without any boys- a first for us!], but the music was already done by then. We decided to wander a bit more and went towards the festival. We caught a glimpse of a white guy at a pay phone [you’d have to live in Meknes to understand how ridiculously exciting it is to see another white person!], and stalked him for a few minutes- until we noticed that we were getting stalked by Moroccan guys as we were stalking the white guy! We hurried off down the street, and two Moroccan guys followed us for a while talking about Cameron Diaz. Switching directions in an attempt to lose them, we passed the white guy we had seen earlier- and now he had a friend with him. They called out to us, “Hey, you speak English?” in [and this is the absolute best part] Scottish accents. It turns out that they are two late 20s/early 30s Scotts who randomly moved to Morocco on a whim to open a riyad in the medina. Their names are Reese and Frankie and they were really nice- especially since they were speaking English! They asked Julia and I out to coffee sometime so we got their numbers and I think we’re going to go either today or tomorrow. Hurray for hot new friends with sexy accents!
Other than those two things, yesterday was pretty boring. In Religion class, Zitouni said “if you want” a little over 500 times, and I did better in Arabic class than I have ever done. It was encouraging, especially since I was struggling a little at first. I ended up getting locked out of the apartment last night around 4am so I had to sleep downstairs in the boys’ apartment. I skipped bellydancing this morning because I stayed up way too late last night.
A few random thoughts for this random blog entry:
When I first got to Meknes, I thought piling six people in a grand taxi was crazy. Now when I see a petit-taxi zoom by with only one passenger, all I can think about is what a waste of space it is, and wonder how many more people could fit into it.
I think I will have some problems relearning to use sidewalks in the US. We walk in the street everywhere here!
I might actually miss the heckling. I will need some of my guy friends to follow me around to class and hoot and holler about how pretty I am so I won’t get homesick for Meknes.
I get more excited every day as I’m watching the TV with Arabic subtitles and understanding more and more of the words. I’m actually learning a lot!
“I want your hoohoo sauce.”-Random Arabic guy on the street to me and Julia
Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-13T21:14:00.000+01:00

Wow.
Today was so ridiculously amazing. I can’t even describe how awesome it was. We woke up really really early and drove to Ifrane on the autobus hefla. We went on a short hike to a natural spring and drank the water, which was delicious and freezing cold. Then we climbed trees and took cute pictures and got back on the bus, and went to this guy Zorgon’s house, where they had made us a homemade Moroccan breakfast under an incredible Moroccan tent in their yard, surrounded by chickens, donkeys, and a whole manner of other animals. The breakfast was delicious, served with fresh milk and mint tea. After that we started the world’s longest hike [seriously] up through the forest. It was beautiful but really difficult- at some points we were going up the mountain vertically. It was ten kilometers, and really hard on my knee. But it was all worth it when we got to the top and saw what we had come for- monkeys!!! They were so cool, and would come right up to you and grab things out of your hand. Patrick got attacked not once, but twice, by a papa monkey who he kept making angry by going too close for comfort to a baby monkey. Then we saw the “world’s biggest tree”, which definitely wasn’t actually the biggest but was old and dead and really huge and really cool. Finally we finished the hike, but my feet were killing me because I had borrowed Julia’s shoes which were a size too small and not good hiking shoes to start with.
We were all dying but Daniel and Mohammed and Zorgon kept telling us it would be worth it if we could just make it for a few more kilometers, and they were right. We hiked through a few fields filled with sheep and goats and rams, and then straight up to the most amazing view I have ever seen. We were on a cliff overlooking all of Ifrane. I have never been that high up before without being on an airplane. It was beautiful. You could see for miles and miles and it was so peaceful. It was like we were the only people on the planet; you couldn’t see anything moving below us. I have never felt so at one with nature and so at peace. It was incredible. We took a few moments out on a ledge to just be quiet and listen to nature; it was indescribable.
On the bus on the way back, we had a party. Literally. The bus was flying down the road around twists and turns, the music was cranked up, and we were all in the aisles dancing. It was more fun than I’ve had in a long time. The drivers even switched mid-song, while the bus was still in motion! It was crazy!
I’m so exhausted, I’m pretty sure I burned a million calories today, and I have class at 8:30am. I hope you are all doing well. Take care!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-12T21:52:00.000+01:00

The school week is pretty uneventful- lots of class and not much excitement; it’s kind of sad. It’s hard to find anything to write about, so I’ll catch you up on the past three days!
Thursday night Ben, Addison, Jamila, two kids from the last summer program and two Moroccans we’ve met here, and I went to the medina to wander around. There was an art display and tons of people milling about. I even got to see a camel! It was really cool, all dark and shadowy with vendors selling things by lamp light and fires. We ended up going to a restaurant/café that was situated in a corner of the medina courtyard and went three flights up to the terrace where we could overlook the entire chaotic scene. We stayed there for a long while talking and drinking and having a good time. Eventually we wandered through the souq for a few minutes, but most of the vendors were closing shop by that time- nearly 11pm. We came back to the apartments and stayed up playing Bullshit for a while.
Friday was one of the most interesting experiences thus far in Meknes! We sat around all day until about 4 when Iman and Moha came to take us to the hammam. Bridget, Lauren, Jamila and I walked to the hamman with Ben, Michael, Patrick, Jared, and Moha. How a hammam works is really difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best to do it justice. There are two sides to the hammam, the one on the left is for the boys and the right is for the girls. You walk right into a locker room type area where you take off all of your clothes [except for your underwear, in our case] and put them into a cubby. You are given a big bucket and proceed into a huge room that greets you with a gust of heat a lot like a sauna. There are several rooms branching off of one another, and naked women and screaming children everywhere. We walked to a room towards the back where there were women all around the walls. There are two faucets every few feet along the wall, one pumping out hot water and the other with cold. There are tiny white stools that you sit on as you fill your bucket with a mix of the hot and cold water, and use a smaller bucket to scoop out the water and pour it on yourself. Iman gave us sticky brown goo that ended up being soap to rub all over ourselves until we were super shiny. Then, washing women came in and sat in the middle of the room on the floor. We got up and laid on the floor, uncomfortably close to the women, and they scrubbed us down so hard that rolls and rolls of gray, dead skin started peeling off of us. They scrubbed every inch of our bodies [yes, every inch, nook, and cranny], flipping us over roughly as they went. After nearly fifteen minutes they were done, we went back to our stations and washed our hair, and were done. We dressed and walked home, trying not to get ourselves too dirty or sweaty. They say that you are never truly clean until you have been to the hammam, and I agree wholeheartedly. My skin has never been smoother or cleaner than it was yesterday. It was wonderful, even if it was a little awkward at first. I can’t wait to go back! I was rubbing my skin and asking people to touch me all day.
Last night, Ben, Jared, Patrick, Addison, Jamila, Michael, Imad [a Moroccan friend of ours], Samantha, Zain, Gabriel [three kids from the first summer session], Megan, Samantha’s boyfriend, and I drank wine and smoked hookah in the boys’ apartment until the wee hours of the morning. This ended up not being too terribly smart, because this morning we had to be on the bus to Fes by 9am. Fes was nice, but to me it was just a bigger, more tourist-infested version of Meknes. We went to a ceramics factory, a tannery, the huge and confusing souq, and several other places. Lots of interesting things were around to look at, but I’m starting to get a little burnt out of walking around with guides just looking at everything. It is overwhelming and physically exhausting. By the end of the day, we were all ready to come home and unwind. The tourist thing has gotten old for everyone, because we live here on a day-to-day basis and have kind of assimilated into the culture of Morocco, so walking around like a sightseer isn’t very much fun anymore. We’d much rather be let loose to explore.
When I came home tonight I had a little personal drama, but it’s basically resolved now. Tomorrow we have to be on the bus by 8am to go to Ifrane for a hike, which I’m ridiculously excited about, because there are supposed to be monkeys everywhere! I can’t wait! It’s only 10:30, but I think I’m going to go to bed here soon so I can wake up and not be hating life on the hike tomorrow. I will try and write tomorrow, and who knows when this will finally get online. Cross your fingers!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

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2008-07-09T19:55:00.000+01:00

I just got out of another lovely three-hour long Arabic class, and now I’m back at the apartment “relaxing” before starting a whole bunch of ridiculous homework. Religion class was long, and the most boring three hours of my life. We counted how many times Professor Zitouni said “if you want”, and by the end of the three hours, the count was over 500 times! It was pure torture! The only bright spot in the day was the break after the first two hours when I got to go eat my milfay, this delicious concoction that is half wafer, half cake. It’s always the highlight of my day!
I was up with the boys until 3am last night playing Bullshit, so I was exhausted by time we got home from class, and took the world’s best nap until lunch was ready. It wasn’t very good today: cold rice and French fries in the green sauce we are constantly served. Arabic class was long, but productive. I’m beginning to understand more and more, even if it is embarrassing constantly making mistakes in front of everyone. It’s a really difficult class, but I know it will be worth it eventually.

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2008-07-08T10:07:00.000+01:00

Well, I should be at bellydancing class right now, but unfortunately for me, I’m not feeling too well. So while my four friends are shaking [and sweating] off tons of calories, I’m sitting in my room blogging. So sad!!!
Yesterday was our first full day of class. Three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening is just about the least fun thing ever. We woke up at 6:45 and were at school by 8 for our 8:30 class, which was horrrrrrible. Our teacher is a sweet little man but he has a stutter, as people often do in their second or third languages, and has latched on to the phrase “if you want”. He says it at least twice in every sentence and it drives me absolutely crazy. Three hours dragged by. The only exciting event was the fact that we found a baby bat no bigger than a silver dollar clinging to one of the steps at the University- it was so cute! Don’t worry Daddy [or Mr. Wiggins- ha!], I didn’t touch it. It looked like it was hurt and I wanted to, but I didn’t.
Coming home was not fun; it’s so hard to catch a taxi from the University back to our apartments. The girls got a ride with our teacher, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us, so I stayed behind with the boys. We walked halfway home, then got a taxi ride the rest of the way- finally! Ughh. Thank God it was cool and breezy yesterday!
We took a siesta, did some homework, and ate lunch, then went back to school for Arabic. I really, really like my Arabic teacher and he teaches very well, but three hours is just a long time to be sitting in class. It crept by. Luckily, we have a break around the two hour mark in each class; if it weren’t for that, I’d die!
After we were all done with class at 7pm, the real fun started. It was our favorite person’s –Ben’s- 21st birthday yesterday, so Julia, Alexa and I went straight to Label Vie after our teacher dropped us off to stock up on supplies. I’m sure we fulfilled the Arabs’ views of stereotypical alcoholic Americans as we bought two large bottles of vodka and one of wine [I’m loving the lack of a legal drinking age here- but it’s turning us all into alcoholics since we can’t go out at night; all we can do is stay in and drink!], plus tons of Sprite and orange juice to mix the vodka with.
We came home [after being followed by a creepy shirtless Moroccan guy for a few blocks- gotta love the sexual harassment] and ate our first un-enjoyable meal since being here: some kind of chicken with cucumbers absolutely swimming in fat and oil. It literally fell apart in your mouth, but not in the good way. Instead of forcing ourselves to block all of our arteries, we opted to go downstairs and buy some French fries to eat.
Ben is Jewish, and we all make Jew jokes [so un-p.c., I know, but we’re college kids, c’mon] all the time, so we made a huge Star of David on our living room wall that said “4 Lyfe” inside of it, plus a huge hastily-constructed banner that said “Happy Birthday Ben”. The girls used this as an excuse to get dressed up and so we all donned our cutest dresses and did our makeup- for once! Then at 10PM the boys brought Ben up here and everyone yelled “surprise!” and the drinking commenced. The horror stories are too numerous to mention; things were broken, people got sick, people almost hooked up- all in all the party was a success! It was the most fun night we’ve had here so far, even if we can’t remember all of it. Don’t judge me.
I have tons and tons of pictures from all of our adventures lately that I need to put online somehow, but my computer has been lame-sauce lately and even at school I can’t pick up any wireless. I really wish you all could be here and see and experience everything that I am. It’s incredible, really. It already feels like we’ve been here for years; we have a daily routine, regular hangouts, and cross the street like pros. Even at the worst of times, like when I’m standing out in the heat for half an hour trying unsuccessfully to hail a grand taxi, I would rather be here in Meknes than anywhere else. Even with the constant staring, incessant sexual harassment, oppressive atmosphere for women, and lack of toilet paper, I still absolutely love Morocco. The people I’m with make day-to-day life infinitely better, and I love them all dearly. Without them, I don’t know what I would do.
I hope you are all doing well, and not missing me too terribly. Rest assured that I am learning a lot about myself and the world beyond what I knew. I love you and miss you all and can’t wait to see you in a few weeks. Take care and be safe; I’ll do the same.

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

...

2008-07-06T18:54:00.000+01:00

What a day we’ve had in Meknes! Today was a free day and we definitely made the most of it…although like Lauren said, at the end of every day, I can’t actually believe any of what happened actually happened.
We woke up to go to the souq in the medina to do some shopping. Alexa, Julia, Lauren, Ben and I were walking towards the medina when Ben made friends with a passerby named Mohammed [no surprise there..everyone is named Mohammed!!!] who spoke a little English and told us he had a shop in the medina and would take us there and then show us around. He took us to his shop and introduced us to his partner Abdul. They had stacks and stacks of amazingly colored Berber carpets made of wool and cactus silk. Julia and I haggled with Abdul over two beautiful carpets while drinking mint and sage tea and Ben talked about rock and roll with Mohammed- it was such a weird sequence of events! Finally, we settled on prices- D900, which is about $120, for carpets which are imported for thousands. My carpet is gorgeous red and yellow striped silk. Lauren bought a pouf made of camel skin that was embossed and beautiful. Then, Mohammed took us around on an insider’s tour of the medina to things that we never could have found on our own, through winding alleyways and down cobblestone paths. Occasionally, he would knock on a door and take us into a friend’s house for a tour. They were all beautiful. In one house, he took us upstairs onto a terrace that overlooked the entire medina, and it was a gorgeous view. All of the houses look broken down and sloppy on the outside, but the inside is breathtaking. It’s interesting how that works here. The inside is more important than the outside, and that is shown through everything.
He also took us to see the oven that heats the hammams [public baths] and the man who sits at the bottom of a ledge and shovels sandalwood dust into a kiln. We went by a cedar wood shop filled with delicious smelling carved wood and sawdust. We saw the village apothecary who we bought amber blocks of perfume from. Then Mohammed took us to the metalworking part of the medina and Julia and I bought handmade metal khamsas that we saw the silversmith making by hammering silver wire onto black metal- it was the coolest thing ever! Eventually we told Mohammed goodbye and attempted to find our way to the Bab la Mansour, but the market was so packed with people by that point that we got lost several times. Finally, Ben used his French to get us to the edge of the medina where we caught taxis back to the Hamriya.
We took two hour naps, then went on an “adventure” to find somewhere to eat, because most things were closed by the time we went out. We ended up eating in what we think was a brothel..because we were the only people at the restaurant until a skanky-looking woman showed up to meet a much older, creepy guy for dinner, where she proceeded to “accidentally” drop her cigarette into his lap..ahem. There were also two gay men who got very drunk and were on the verge of making out until a third possibly-gay man joined them. We were sketched out and left as soon as possible. It was such an interesting day…I’m so glad that we go out and do things I would never do at home. I would never follow a random stranger on a tour around a strange city in America, but here it’s totally normal. I would never normally wander around in a place where no one speaks the same language, or eat dinner feet away from a prostitute. I’m doing so many crazy things here, and really..it’s just another normal day in Morocco! Every day just keeps getting better and better!
Hopefully I’ll be able to post this tomorrow at school; we have our first Religion, Politics, and Culture class at 8:30am. Goodnight, all!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

Volubilis

2008-07-05T23:22:00.000+01:00

This morning we woke up at 7:45, got ready, and left for Volubilis at 9am. It was about a 25 minute drive there, and then we had a tour around the Roman ruins. The views were beautiful, and a surprising number of floor mosaics were still intact. Only a third of it has been excavated, so I can’t even imagine what is left beneath the ground.
We rode the bus up the mountain near Volubilis to take pictures of the city Moulay Idriss from the top. The road was super skinny and we were in the big autobus hefla [party bus], and we were all holding our breath, nervous we were going to go over the edge. We were literally inches from the edge most of the ride, and the road was bumpy and uneven. From there we rode down into Moulay Idriss and Saturday is market day there. Our big bus lumbered through the streets, clearing people out of the streets, most coming within centimeters of getting hit by us, and the buildings lining the street were only inches from our windows on either side. It was a nerve-wracking ride to say the least, but totally normal for the bus driver. Moha [Mohammed] and Iman showed us around the market a little bit and we had caramelized dates and this delicious honey and peanut cluster that got stuck in our teeth. The market was so chaotic- boys on donkeys riding through crowds of people, carts full of delicious flatbread wheeling around, vendors shouting and hawking things, donkey poop everywhere, and the smell of kebabs and tanjine hanging in the air, making your mouth water. Not to mention everyone is always staring at us. Yesterday at the café, men actually moved their chairs so that they could stare at us better. And it isn’t brief glances..it’s outright, constant staring. Today at the market, a vendor even offered a group of us 1,000 camels and 1,000 donkeys, which is basically a wedding proposal; the livestock would be a type of bride price. That is not at all unusual thus far- Moroccan men harass their own women nonstop, so upon seeing us wandering around, looking “exotic” [to them, at least], we frequently draw calls of “Very nice!”, “La bella!”, and “Yes!”. It’s almost flattering, but mostly just annoying. Five of us girls [Julia, Alexa, Lauren, Bridget and I] have a point system for every catcall we get, and whoever gets offered 5,000 camels or amasses a huge number of points first wins. It’s pretty entertaining.
The people in the group here are wonderful and we’ve already become a type of family. There’s Julia and Addison, a boy and girl from UF who are brilliant in Arabic and have travelled abroad extensively; Bridget who was born in Kenya and spent a lot of time living in Europe and the US and speaks as many languages as I do; Alexa, my roommate from Hawaii who is wonderful and thoughtful and super sweet; Lauren from Houston goes to Carnegie-Mellon and is intellectual, confident, and take-charge when called upon; Megan from Maryland is quiet, shy, and sweet; Ben, the comedian, who never fails to make me laugh out loud; Michael who is from Virginia Beach [yeaaa!] and goes to William & Mary is really quiet and genuine; Patrick is 24 and taught himself Arabic in 6 months; Jared…the words fail me…interesting; Autumn in the Air Force who is 26; and Jamila and Jennifer who aren’t taking Arabic and are just kind of along for the ride, but really fun. I love them all, with few exceptions.
Later on in the day, we went to the internet café [again..we’re so pathetic], went and got some more Merekschia [that delicious pastry!], and wandered around a bit. Right now, the only thing I really don’t like about Morocco is that the girls and boys don’t hang out very much. There are some boys we don’t get along with as well, and because they all hang out as a group, we end up not hanging out with any boys. I absolutely adore all the girls I live with, with no exceptions, but in general, I get along much better with boys. I’m craving testosterone and it’s killing me. I’m not sure how to handle the situation yet. I know that, especially in this country, it will look bad if I just go hang out with the boys by myself, and I don’t want to miss out on anything the girls are doing because we always have so much fun. But I can only handle so much estrogen, no matter how wonderful everyone is. I suppose it’ll resolve itself in time.
In the coming weeks, I’m really excited about getting some henna, our three day beach trip to Asilah, and our free weekend when Moha is taking us to the Sahara to play in the desert and ride camels.
Right now, I’m going to go try and find a way to entertain myself [the other girls are doing homework and playing card games and I really don’t want to do either of those things right now..I’m an antisocial slacker I suppose]. Goodnight min Meknes!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

4th of July

2008-07-04T06:15:00.000+01:00

Happy Fourth of July from al-Maghreb!!!
Yesterday was the first day of class for us here in Meknes. We got to sleep in [if you call 9:00 sleeping in], then we woke up, had breakfast, got ready, and went to the supermarket, Label Vie. We bought wine at the liquor store and got a black bag for it so no one could tell we bought alcohol since it is so frowned upon here..although the black bag is kind of a dead giveaway.
After that, we had a delicious lunch and went to get tea at Café Montreal, which is downstairs and two shops over and very convenient, not to mention American- and woman-friendly and amazing.
Yesterday was really cool and breezy and such a nice relief from the heat..with the windows open it felt like beach weather!
We caught a taxi to class, which was really entertaining. Only six of us are in intermediate Arabic, and our teacher is eccentric and hilarious. He does random dances and is just all-around pretty crazy. The first two hours of class flew by, surprisingly. Then, with 45 minutes left to go, we had a break and all went down to the cafeteria and bought Pepsi’s, and after the break I just was not all there anymore. Our teacher gave us a ride home from the university since it would be hard to catch a taxi at that time of day, and is going to do that every day, which is good, because it’ll save me D10 a week, which is only a little more than a dollar, but hey, that’s a dollar I can spend on mint tea!
We came home and had the most tender beef and potatoes ever for dinner with blended cucumbers to drink [it sounds really weird I know…and it is]. After dinner the rest of the students came to our room and we all hung out and talked and drank wine until around 2am. Then Megan, Alexa, Julia, Lauren and I stayed up for another hour and a half talking, drinking tea, and having fun.
We woke up late this morning, around 10:30. We got ready and had a meeting at 11, which was stupid. After that we had traditional Friday lunch, couscous. It was- no surprise- absolutely delicious. Afterwards, we went to the internet café and attempted to figure out the French keyboards. They, like the French, are the most retarded things ever. Then we went to Café Montreal for more mint tea. At 5, Iman came to pick us up and we went to belly dancing class. It was amazing! It’s in a below-ground studio, and the woman made a special class just for the 8 girls who wanted to go. It was like bikram yoga; sweltering hot, and we were pouring sweat for an hour. We didn’t know that we could be scantily clad, and I sweated straight through my linen pants and shirt. We were all soaking wet by the end of the class, but it was ridiculously fun and such a good workout! We’re going every Tuesday and Thursday morning for an hour and a half until we leave. Three hours a week for 5 weeks for only D150! We’re all so excited!
Iman took us [all sweaty and gross] to buy kohl eyeliner, to see cafes, the cinema, shopping areas, get this delicious orgasm-in-your-mouth chocolate-chocolate pastry that I would never be able to spell properly, and to the amazing Café de Terasse. It is a terrace café that overlooks the entire city with music and delicious drinks. We also went to a 17-day long festival with incredible local music and dancing. I bought two head scarves that are absolutely beautiful. Between the two scarves and Moroccan eyeliner, I spent D28- $4 USD! I love Morocco!
The only problem with Moroccans is that sometimes they’re almost too hospitable. Upon seeing that we’re white, they automatically assume we’re French, and start speaking to us in French, so it’s hard to practice your Arabic.
Today was actually one of the best 4th of July’s that I’ve had, yet it was one of the most “Moroccan” days we’ve had thus far. Julia and I reasoned that we’re celebrating America by showing the Moroccans that we’re not all ignorant, racist, judgmental bastards, and I like that idea. I hope it’s true, and we’re just not ignorant to the fact that we’re still hopelessly ignorant.
We’re waking up tomorrow at 8am to go to Volubilis, the Roman ruins here in Morocco. So I’m going to shimmy on over to bed with my head scarf and kohl..goodnight, all!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

Ana Oheb Al-Maghreb!

2008-07-02T23:40:00.000+01:00

Every day that I’m in Morocco is like a blur! So much is packed into every single day that I feel like it’s been weeks already.
Last night Alexa, Julia, Lauren and I were bored- women can’t really go out after dark without being harassed incessantly by the swarms of Moroccan men out on the streets- until we found a bottle of wine in the fridge. We have a huge picture window in our living room that overlooks the main street, so we opened it wide, drank wine, and people watched while hanging out the window for a few hours. It was so interesting, trying to figure out the way the culture works here. There are so many paradoxes in the way people behave that it’s absolutely fascinating, but I’ll get into that more later. So we drank our Moroccan wine and bonded and had fun while the boys were out at the bars [women in bars here are almost always hookers].
This morning I woke up at 5am to a rooster crowing outside my window. So we woke up, ate some bread, and went on a bus tour of Meknes at 8:30. Meknes is beautiful- much nicer than Casablanca, which was surprising to me. There are four different parts of town and each of them is different and beautiful in its own way. I live in an apartment in the Hamriya, or ville nouvelle, which has a lot of French architecture and influence. We went to the older part of the city and saw ancient aqueducts, hanging gardens, the casbah, and an alley-way asooq that was breathtaking. The hustle and bustle of the city is chaos. Everyone is always doing something different; darting in front of a car, fighting, haggling, eating…it’s the law of entropy at work. The asooq was partially covered by awnings hanging over the alleyways, so it was cool and very crowded. There’s every kind of vendor: caftans and jibalas, spices, knockoff designer clothes, shoes, handicrafts. The smells of the city permeate everything. One second you’re breathing in saffron and the next you smell sewage, rotting food, or horse/donkey/sheep/goat dung. It’s a schmorgesborde for your senses. There are donkey carts, and every type of person milling about.
We also went to the mosque where the sultan Moulay Ismail [my university here is named after him] is buried. One thing I have noticed about the mosques here- there are very few that you can go in as a tourist, but when you can, the people are very welcoming and warm even though they know you aren’t a Muslim. I was somewhat surprised by that fact because of the stereotypical Muslim most Americans envision. They want you to learn about their religion and they’re happy to share it with you. It’s very much the opposite of everything we think in the US.
Travelling around the city in the 115 degree Fahrenheit weather started to take its toll on us [it’s actually not as bad as you think; thank God for dry heat with no humidity..but don’t get me wrong, I still complain constantly. Plus, air conditioning is hard to find here- none in our apartment! We keep the windows and the doors to the balconies open all the time and when we’re lucky we catch a cool breeze], and we were so grateful for huge jugs of water waiting on us when we arrived at Jahmiya Moulay Ismail, the university where we will be taking classes, for the welcoming ceremony. They also served traditional hot Moroccan mint tea. I didn’t expect to like it, but it was absolutely delicious and I am already addicted to it; it’s my new Starbucks. I’m going to buy a ton of it to bring home with me! After we met our professors we had the placement test for Arabic class. The written portion was actually pretty difficult and I freaked out a bit because the required score for Intermediate Arabic 1 [Arabic 201 at UA] was an 80% or higher. The oral exam was awkward. There were other people in the room, so the professor whispered and I could barely hear him enough to answer his questions. Plus, he only asked two questions in Arabic before he started chatting away in English. Sidenote: the code-switching here is incredible! I cannot tell you how amazing it is to be surrounded by such linguistically gifted people. Even within our group of 14 people, at any given time you are liable to hear Spanish, English, French, Swahili, Italian, or of course, some meager Arabic. Our resident director will sometimes start speaking Spanish and not realize it. The professors at school will start a speech and realize a few minutes into it [from the confused looks on our faces, I’m sure] that he is actually speaking French or Arabic instead of English. Morocco is truly a melting pot of cultures! It’s incredible!
But I digress. After the tests, we went back the apartment for a two hour break for lunch. Two Arabic women come in and prepare three meals a day for us in the apartment, and it is always delicious. Today we had the tenderest lamb I’ve ever tasted, marinated in a green sauce with dates and figs, lots of bread, and potatoes. It was mouthwatering! Afterwards I caught a quick siesta, then the program directors showed up to teach us how to use the grand-taxis. They are actually Mercedes Benzes [not the kind you’re probably thinking, they’re not very nice] that function like a bus. They run on a fixed route and you can get on and off anywhere along that route. Six people can fit into one car, although not comfortably or safely, but Moroccans are not very concerned about traffic safety. No one stays in any lanes [in fact, lanes aren’t really marked on the roads]; sometimes cars are on the left and right, sometimes they drive right in the middle, plus tons of people squish into one car, or people drive with their doors open. It’s completely possible in a grand-taxi to end up practically on the lap of a complete stranger who climbed in as another person climbed out. Personal space is nearly nonexistent here! We got back to the university without incident, and suffered through a three hour long orientation on health, safety, and housing. The Arabic professors also came in and gave us our placement test results. I didn’t make an 80% on the test but they bumped me up to Intermediate 1 anyway, so I was relieved.
Trying to find a taxi home from the University was difficult as it usually closes around 6 and no more taxis wait outside afterwards. We waited for nearly half an hour before Daniel, our resident director, drove up and offered us a ride. Four of us rode with him, three girls walked the 40 minutes home, five others took a city bus, and two boys hitchhiked. Dinner was waiting on us at home, an egg and meatball ziti-type dish which was, of course, scrumptious. Afterwards, four of us girls went out to find a cheap Moroccan cell phone and experienced more of the infamous Moroccan hospitality. Several times already, people have pitied us in our complete ignorance and helped us out in difficult situations, without us asking. We were being harassed our first night in Casablanca by a man begging for cigarettes [everyone smokes everywhere here…and I mean everywhere], and a businessman waiting in line behind us at the ATM [we were moving very slowly too, so I was surprised he wasn’t irritated with us] chased him off to save us. Another time at Marjane, the Moroccan version of Wal-Mart, we were walking around looking for contact solution, and a man who overheard us, stopped and said, “What you need is someone who speaks English like me,” then pointed us in the right direction. Tonight in the Meditel cell phone store, a man who was listening to us struggle to convey what we needed to the clerk in muddled French apologized for his bad English [he actually spoke it very well, and with the best accent I’ve heard thus far!] and spent nearly fifteen minutes helping us. It was heartening to find the people so concerned for us and willing to help whenever possible.
After leaving, we decided to try and find some ice cream even though it was getting dark. That was a mistake! Suddenly, there were no women around and hundreds of men making cat calls, following us, and giving us lines in French, Arabic, and English. It’s a little scary, so we headed home as fast as possible.

On a side note, I’ve been taking cold showers here, and I couldn’t be happier. When it’s 115 degrees outside, it feels wonderful!

Class starts tomorrow at 4pm and goes until 7pm, so I’m sure I’ll be exhausted. But hopefully my internal clock will start adjusting and I won’t wake up at 5am for the third day in a row. I’m taking lots and lots of pictures, and hopefully I will be able to post this using the university’s wireless internet tomorrow! I miss you all! Goodnight!

“Shit as much as possible.”-Daniel Ostad

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle

Busat min Meknes!

2008-07-01T21:43:00.000+01:00

Wow, I can’t believe it’s only been 24 hours since I last wrote! So much has happened! Last night I woke up at 5:30AM to the sounds of a street fight. Eight men yelling in a mixture of French and Arabic, pushing each other, punching, and a woman screaming. This continued for nearly 15 minutes before I got out of bed to watch. I opened my window and watched for another ten minutes as the fight continued until one man pushed another into a car, which proceeded to roll backwards down the street. At that point, there was a loud noise which sounded like a gunshot, and the crowd dispersed. Welcome to Morocco!
This morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and left at 8AM to go sight-seeing. We stopped at a food market, a huge Catholic church, a government building, an asooq [open-air market…Morocco has the best stuff!], and finally, the piece de resistance [like my awful French?]- Hassan II mosque, the third largest mosque in the Muslim world. All of it was gorgeous and simply breathtaking. One minute you feel as if you’re living in a crowded concrete jungle full of muted tones and the next there’s intricate carving and vibrant color everywhere. It’s almost overwhelming.
Then we ate at a Moroccan restaurant on the beach and explored a little. Moroccan beaches are so different! There’s such a much of people there- some women completely covered, others in skimpy bikinis, and an incredible man: woman ratio of nearly 20:1. I’m a little nervous going anywhere just because you are constantly surrounded by men.
After lunch, we started the bus ride to Meknes. It took nearly four hours, but we stopped at Marjane, the Arabic version of Wal-Mart. We finally arrived at around 7 and moved into our apartment, which is huge and beautiful. Six girls live in my apartment, two to each room and bathroom, with a huge living/dining room and kitchen. We also have several balconies with great views overlooking the city. Dinner was already prepared for us so we ate Moroccan chicken. Moroccans, like Europeans, love their bread! There is a ton of it at every meal, and also spiced olives, which I unfortunately think are disgusting. The six girls wanted to go out and stock up on food and make photocopies of our passports, so we set out to explore. Pedestrians here dart in and out of traffic, and we’re already starting to get pretty good at narrowly avoiding almost certain death in the form of a motorbike or petit-taxi. We went to three photocopy shops and all of them refused to serve us because we were women. That was a little disheartening, but then we went to a hole-in-the-wall grocery and bought a 24-pack of Coke for D156 and two huge jugs of water, so I felt a little better knowing I’d be pumping caffeine into myself soon. Now we’re back at the apartment and prepping ourselves for another early morning full of tours, placement tests, and certainly more sexism.
Morocco is so different from what I expected, although I’m not completely sure what I did expect. The facades of buildings look grimy and unkempt, but the interiors are gorgeous. There are hardly any public trashcans, yet there is no trash on the ground anywhere. French is always spoken to white people, and women are hardly ever around. Outdoor cafes are filled to the brim with men with nary a woman in sight. Streets are so narrow that I’m tempted to be a backseat driver in the bus. And everyone honks, all the time, over nothing. There’s so much to look at and take in that it’s physically exhausting. And I’m starting to get used to the fact that I’m burning up and sticky and dripping sweat constantly. Appreciate your air conditioning!
That’s all I have for you tonight, hopefully the internet will be working soon or I can get to an internet café to post these entries! Goodnight, Meknes!

Salaam wa hubb
-Danielle

Ahlan wa Sahlan! ..Bienvenue?!

2008-06-30T23:13:00.001+01:00

I’m in Casablanca! After being in 3 different continents in 36 sleepless hours, and 6 months of planning and talking about it- I’m here in Africa! My first disappointment of the trip: from the air, Paris looks a lot like Ohio. Somehow I expected it to be more alluring. My plane landed in Paris at the most confusing airport ever- damn you Charles de Gaulle! After catching several buses and going through security all over again, I met up with a wonderful woman, Bonnie, who I happened to start chatting with by chance [after nearly nine hours of not talking to anyone in English I was desperate for some chit chat!] who went to boarding school in Morocco as a teenager and was on her way back to visit some friends. She had so much wonderful advice and helped me manage being in Paris; it was so wonderful to have someone who speaks French looking out for me there! At the gate we met up with two other kids who are in my study abroad program and the four of us stuck together until we got to Casablanca. From the gate we had to take a tram to the actual plane [you quirky Frenchmen!] and from there we made it to Morocco without incident. A cool moment happened on the plane though: a Frenchman was sitting on the end of my row, Bonnie was in the middle, and I was on the other side. Because the Frenchman didn’t speak English and I don’t speak French, the only way for us to communicate was through Bonnie. It was a fun kind of international game of telephone and it really made me pause and appreciate how diverse Europe is. After a turbulent landing, we got separated from Bonnie and Alexa, Patrick and I went through Customs and found our luggage without incident- masha’allah! Then we met up with our ISA group and here comes the fun part: waited in the airport for over five hours for the other participants’ flights to come in. Awful! After being on a plane for a day, the last thing I wanted to do was chill in an airport..but it did give us a chance to all get to know one another. Finally we got on board the coolest tour bus ever- the ceiling was completely carpeted like a 70’s van, -the best part!- the floor wasn’t carpeted; it was covered in GRASS! From there we drove 45 minutes to our hotel and saw some of the most interesting cityscapes, crazed pedestrians, and fabulous homes I’ve ever laid eyes upon. After arriving at Hotel Ajiad, a group of us got showered and went out in search of dinner. It was interesting getting to know everyone and talk and joke around like we had known each other forever; I guess being in a foreign country will do that to you. Also, I’m learning French! Ughhh…gag. I’ve heard more French spoken than Arabic since I’ve been here- yikes! I practiced a little bit with our French waiter tonight- just “oui” and “merci”, but it’s a start! Now, I’m past the point of exhaustion, but we have to be ready to leave the hotel tomorrow morning at 8am, so I’m heading to bed! Goodnight, Casa!

Salaam wa hubb
-Danielle

Sa adhebu ila…Paris…

2008-06-28T21:22:00.000+01:00

It’s 9:22 PM in Alabama and I am 35,000 feet somewhere over Canada. My flight from Atlanta to Paris was delayed due to a thunderstorm for over an hour, so my last views of America [from the ground, at least] were dreary and wet. I should be arriving in France sometime around 10:15 AM [Paris time], which is in about six hours. It still seems pretty surreal to me that I’m actually on my way to Morocco and that I’ll be living there for the rest of the summer. It started to sink in when I said goodbye to my dad at security and realized that I was really on my own and flying halfway around the world to a place where I don’t know a soul and only speak the language at an elementary level. I have no idea what is in store for me over the next few weeks, and I would like to say that I’m anxious, excited and scared, but right now, I don’t really feel anything. I suppose when I get to Paris the panic will set in at being surrounded by hundreds o f people speaking a language I don’t know a word of.
There are mostly French people on my flight [Jamie is laughing sadistically somewhere right now] so I really can’t understand what anyone is saying anyway. The rudest woman in history is sitting in front of me with her daughter and I would absolutely love to kick one of them in the face. It would be nice if that was just due to travelling stress, but it isn’t. This woman basically kicked another girl out of her seat so her daughter could see the in-flight movie [Fool’s Gold..ugh..don’t bother]. I mean, she asked, but it was basically just an order with the word please tacked onto the end. Then, her daughter leans her chair all the way back, basically into my lap, and even when dinner is served and I’m basically sitting with my tray in my lap, this lady doesn’t have the decency to say, “we should move our seat back up so the girl behind us can eat without getting a crick in her neck”. Ughhh. Oh well, they’re both asleep now so hopefully I won’t have to deal with them again until morning. As for me, I’m going to try and sleep for a little while [I have two seats to myself so I can stretch out a little bit- suck on that mean lady!] and then start studying my Arabic..I suppose I should have been doing that all summer. Oh well! Hopefully in time my blog entries will get more poetic and have more imagery, but I’m not promising anything! Goodnight from Quebec City, guys!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle