Giving Thanks from Cairo to Nantucket

Ahhhhhh, some time off. (we should only have a 4-day long weekend due to Eid but they gave us 10 days in order to ward of H1N1 from hitting after everyone travels and sharing germs) We are also sort of stuck inside today as I strongly wish to avoid seeing any of the slaughtering of animals that is going on –literally in the streets – today for the Islamic holiday, Eid. I am not a vegetarian but  . . . . did see many of the animals alive tied inside the stores and even two cows tied to a street light outside the liquor store the other night. . . I will be glad that this is over as the sights of all these animals in vehicles etc. . . has been hard this week. So I am entertaining myself at the computer today which is just fine by me. Free time! Precious!

There are so many things to write about but since it is the morning after Thanksgiving, November 27, 2009, I am compelled to write about gratitude. I have always thought of myself as a grateful person in general but there is nothing like being without all the comforts of home to refocus you on what is important. And of course, there is much here in Egypt that I see through my American visitors eyes that remind me daily how lucky my family, friends, and I am.

Last night five of us American teachers got together for a damn fine meal. The only turkey we could have gotten would have been 25 pounds! Too big and it would never have even fit in our little half-oven! So, chicken it was. Mashed potatoes but of course at the last minute we realized we had no potato masher! So, the meat mallet? . . the whisk? . . . a couple small forks ? . . . nope! We used the hand-crank egg beater! Worked fine and they were delicious. We actually found two cans of cranberry sauce! Ocean Spray! I think I heard that all the ACK cranberries go into juice products but maybe, somehow I ate some ACK cranberries. On some packages the cranberries are referred to as “famous American cranberries”. We only had two proper bowls but somehow that was enough after we pulled various and sundry containers of other sorts from the cabinets of our rental apartment to use for mixing – a little like camping. K. brought some delicious homemade stuffing a la Egypt with kofta instead of sausage. D. manned the oven roasting two 1 kilo chickens AND made gravy too! I was soooo glad to not have to think about that! YAY! I was completely impressed since she is only 23 and this was her first time making such a dinner. A. made a delicious salad (my first in Egypt as I was afraid to eat the lettuce but A. said she washes the leaves with soap and water which is how to do it) tangerine segments were subbed for mandarin oranges, the SMALLEST celery I have ever seen – like 1/8 of an inch wide! gave a good crunch and candied almond slivers gave it a sweet delicious taste!. Thanks to A. we also had a veggie – green beans roasted with lime and almonds and a dressing. This was an awesome meal.

Degla and the Corniche (that is how we refer to ourselves here as the teachers are split between two locations in the city of Ma’adi – like the teams on “Survivor”!) splurged and bought wine too – the liquor store in Ma’adi has about 6 flavors total! Small, small store. D.W. was only caught drinking out of the bottle of red once!  :  ) as he was on his best behavior for the occasion . . .

We set up K.’s delicious appetizers – REAL cheese! YUM! And olives and almonds – on the ironing board! Worked perfectly! And later it also held the pies – one apple – one sweet potato – one pumpkin (found Libby’s pumpkin filling too! It was two weeks ago and I shudder to think we actually contemplated coming back to buy it some other time! Whew! That was a close one! I have heard that in the states there is a pumpkin shortage – who knew!) homemade pie crusts (turned out pretty well considering I cut the butter in with two butter knives! – no food processor here!) that I made - complete with whipped cream.

So, we all talked of home and Thanksgivings Past (the ones I mentioned were the Tuckernuck adventure with the Kellers and last year’s trip to see The Eagles in concert and my cousins – good memories!) and our traditions. I might try K.’s family tradition of prosecco in the morning – viva Italia! And D.W.’s family tradition of picking a Scrabble letter and saying something about what you are thankful for with that letter. We did that with our initials and of course I cried JUST A LITTLE! Saying I was thankful for My new friends and My family. . . All of us excused ourselves for SKYPE or phone sessions during the evening too. My Casey has a beard! I got to see Friday! And toured the apartment and the Nile at night with Charles, Jess, and Russell. Russell and I tried to count the days until he comes but that involved math and, well . . . .soon! That made it fun as well. And, of course there are all the email and Facebook well wishes that I received and sent! Can’t say enough how much they mean to all of us teachers here. I was thinking about and being grateful for all the support I get from home – the electronic messages and the gifts I was sent with from little paper cranes that hang in the center of my room, the pretty cards that decorate my walls, to a film festival bag I use daily to carry my books – to earrings I wear daily – all reminders and talismans of friends and family back home! Couldn’t do it without! But couldn’t do it without the teachers here as well – so it is a team effort. I always wonder if my Nantucket “team” will ever meet my “Egypt” team. I hope so! One day, Insh’Allah!

So, you can see I have so much to be thankful for. And I am. But we also talked yesterday about how we Americans forget what a privilege it is to be able to travel! We have one teacher here who does not want to live in the country where she is from and is having trouble getting a visa to live here in Misr and cannot go back to the states. Oh! And, there are Egyptians here who are not allowed to leave their country (as there are people in other places in the world as well). Strange to think of all the travel opportunities offered to Americans and yet we do not take advantage of them. And, some of us remain so unknowledgeable about the world.

Here along the Nile, even in the posh expat part of the city of Ma’adi the poverty of the country is clearly evident. People live where they can and I imagine they are grateful for whatever that may be. If we go across the street to the TGIFriday’s there are usually small children who beg for whatever when we come out. I am saddened to say that the reality is that I do not give them money . . . . It’s a hard one. There is a garage that we pass on the way to work and there are two ramps built where I imagine a car can be driven and then worked on from underneath. Some mornings there is a man sleeping under a blackened blanked right on that ramp. His plastic water bottle’s blue label the only bit of color indicating that a human is under the fabric. A little further down is another man sitting up on his piece of cardboard and folding his blanket – with a cigarette in one hand of course! These streets and sidewalks ar TEAMING with people! Think Jetties Beach after the fireworks get out. Along the highway we see soooo many people! I wonder how many faces I see on the way to school if we counted all in the crowded cars and busses and walking on the sides of the road? . . . Two thousand? One thousand? Less? More? A lot!! A man has stopped his rustic donkey cart loaded sky high with what? Cardboard?. His little boy (four years old maybe? And covered in dirt) quietly sits on the cement highway barrier. The man, in a long gallabaya, stares off into space. I think of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. A very small truck goes by loaded well above the cab with cauliflower. I see that it is not covered with a blanket as I first think. There is a man lying on top of it all going 100 miles an hour down the highway. Busses and micro busses slow to about 5 miles per hour along the sides of highway and the men and women standing there run to jump on – whoever makes it makes it and the rest wait again. Groups of 3 or 10 or 20 people wait at the cement barrier median and at some unknown signal run like hell as a group across the four lane (but it is always at least 5 -7 cars across – lines are just a suggestion) highway as there are no ways to cross the highways but this. Our driver never slows down – it always seems as though we will hit them – we miss some by inches. This goes on all the way to school and back again – usually a 30 minute ride but sometimes as long as an hour. I never mind traffic slowing us down . . . it means so many less near misses!

I did enjoy a cup of tea at TGIFriday’s last week after work. We get home just before sunset and it seems ashame to waste the nice sunset sitting in the apartment and tea is cheap enough. Friday’s has a patio outside on the edge of the water and you can watch the Falucca’s, the ferry for the local workers (with all of 8 inches of freeboard! Loaded to the max and a TINY dory on the back for . . .rescuing one person??), an occasional barge of sorts, and small power boats. The power boats I think are mostly for people with money out to enjoy the river but on this day I get a closer look at one of the handful of small skiff type boats we see from our apartment each day.

These boats are about 15 feet long. They are narrow with an outboard and a thin 2-bar frame probably for putting a tarp over amidships in cold weather, or for the rare rain. One floated close to shore and I could see what looked to be a mom, a dad, and two small children going about their chores. I think there were two bench seats across the beam of the boat. The mom seemed to be cleaning the side of the boat by dipping a bucket in the river and rubbing the sides with the water. (If I put my hands in the river I would soak them in Hydrogen peroxide for hours afterward.) The dad seemed to be moving stuff around a bit. Soon enough I saw a small fire lit in the center of the boat!– so he had been readying a fire pit of sorts. The flames dancing brightly against the darkening water as the sunset was taken over by the city night. No smell or signs of cooking were happening so maybe this was for warmth? We can see these small boats with their fires from our apartment above. When I first arrived my thoughts were – “THERE’S a FIRE! On that BOAT!” imagining that I was witnessing some sort of disaster. But now I think, “Oh, there is a family around a fire on that boat.” This evening one youngster was just standing around near the stern where all sorts of cushions were piled. I am pretty sure that these are sleeping cushions that get spread around the floor of the boat at night. One other youngster was sitting atop these cushions. Soon another boat appeared and the couple- three occupants of that boat got into the first boat. I wondered if maybe they did not have a fire . . . But anyway they rafted up. The next thing I knew I could see a TV screen lit up in Boat One and the silhouettes of all the boat people huddled around! People are people. I thought that if I were a poor person here in Cairo I would chose being one of these people. The image of these two boat families on the River Nile gives me hope for us all to make our ways - somehow.

 But of course, I am so thankful for the bounties with which I and my family and friends are blessed. And the last two items in this list are truly awesome gifts! – the sound of pouring rain hitting the windows last night – what a sound to wake to! I was not sure what I was hearing at first. I have only seen two rain “moments” for lack of better words in the last two months, sort of the liquid equivalence of spitting snow. The sound of pouring rain in the middle of the night was amazing. I was transported home for just a bit lying there listening to that particular water-on-glass percussion –beautiful. 15-20 minutes too which is a looong time here for rain to go on. The roads were even still wet this am and I wonder how the vegetation may be visibly changed in the next two days by such an occurrence. . . . . AND! Amazingly enough – this morning we went to light the gas stove to heat the left over pie (Hey! It’s a breakfast/Thanksgiving thing!) and learned we were out of gas! We cooked all day yesterday and did not run out – never knowing how close we were coming. Blissfully ignorant – as Americans are want to do! But, today very, very grateful!

Amen.