Thursday, April 13, 2006

Revenge of the Pisces, Cairo Cab, and other short stories

--Jason, a pisces, finally exploded this week. Between our experiences on the streets last week, his frustration about our site coordinator, and the growing irritation that things happen that he can't do anything about--most of which have been building for months, I think--well, he just blew up. To Lynn. She asked to talk to him...and he talked. And talked. Rather loudly. Told her what he thought. Then left without giving her a chance to answer. Now she's apologizing to each of us for doing a bad job and trying to get other feedback to offset the criticism. I told her that she needs to learn to listen instead of talking when she's trying to offer someone pastoral care. no offsetting from me, apparently....

--Yellow Cab has come to Egypt. Here in Egypt every city has it's own taxi system...using the term "system" loosely. Taxis are painted a specific set of colors in each city (black and white in Cairo, black and yellow in Alexandria, white and blue in Aswan, etc). You get in a taxi and when it drops you off, you pay him. Sometimes you agree the price beforehand, sometimes you just give him whatever you think is fair when you get there. Yellow Cab uses--gasp!--a meter! I noticed the Yellow Cab for the first time the other day, and on the side it said "Cairo Cab." Okay. Then I noticed the Arabic script, which said...you guessed it, "Cairo Cab." (Spelled, in Arabic, K-A-Y-R-O/W K-A-B.) Too bad in Arabic the name of Cairo is "al-Qahira", not Cairo.

--All of my classes can no sing "Rise and Shine" really successfully, and all have learned "Come All You People" though one class needs to work on it. Two classes have successfully learned "Jesus Loves Me." They are so cute when they sing it, all their little-girl voices.

--The YAVs are all in Cairo for Easter...yay! I am going to an Easter service on Saturday afternoon because that's when the church I go to worships. Then I am singing in the choir at the Anglican Cathedral on Sunday morning...and then, insha'allah, planning to eat the best pizza in Cairo (at Maison Thomas) AND go to a Western-style coffee shop to relax for the afternoon. ilhamdulillah!

--It was pizza day at school yesterday AND my pre-break class was having pizza, not koshary, which mean free pizza for me! I love Pizza Plus, it's really good. Not Maison Thomas good, but good. And it's free for the teacher if you have a class eating pizza! yay! two pieces of free pizza for me.

--I have written an essay trying to process the whole violent-response-to-nasty-Egyptian-men thing in relation to my commitment to nonviolence. It is also about what is good and what is not good about living in Egypt as a woman. I'm debating about whether to send it to Coracle, the magazine of the Iona Community, or not.

--today I needed chocolate but didn't have any, so I sacrificed some brought-from-home chocolate chips to my needs. yum.

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