only now can I really believe

Ana fii Masr! I arrived in Cairo yesterday and took a 4 1/2 hour or so bus ride to Alexandria. Connecting from the airport to the bus to the correct station in Alexandria was stressful, I'm not going to lie. But I was forced to use Arabic. And I met some people I never would have met otherwise. I arrived late last night at the home of Wafaa and Yasmeen and Ammen.

This morning Wafaa had work. I made breakfast for the kids, cleaned up, and played with them. They did a puppet show, we read Snow White and acted it out, we played hide and seek (or a version of it in Arabic that I have already forgotten).

Everything here is very different, I can't even begin to describe it. But I am glad that it is different.

My favourite moment today was definitely when Yasmeen and I both sat on my bed with Al-Ahram, an Egyptian newspaper. We took turns reading it together. She reads very well, but often doesn't know what the words mean. I often don't know what the words mean and I don't read very well. But I do have an Arabic-English dictionary, which I am making use of for the first real time in my Arabic studies. Then Ammen came and found a penny on the floor and asked me if it was American money.

They wanted to see more American coins so I pulled them out and they played with them and counted them while I looked up words in the dictionary.

I am constantly frustrated with my own lack of Arabic ability. But I tend to have very very high expectations with myself. Already I am having to remind myself that I have only been here one day and can't expect to be fluent. I feel that I learn the word for something and forget it within five minutes. Spending time with children who speak four languages is pretty humbling, too.

I love Wafaa's place-- it is a flat with very very high cielings and the architecture is like something out of Naguib Mahfouz's A Palace Walk. Pre-Nasser Egypt. It is only when I am away from the U.S. South Eastern drought that I am really learning the value of water. I took a shower today with only a detatched shower head and a bucket on the bathroom tiles (no bath or shower basin). This long hair is impractical, but there is something nice about being more deliberate about washing it, instead of stepping into a shower and turning my mind off.

Wafaa is wonderful to live with. She explains everything to me. I am at work with her this evening (the kids have a babysitter and she wanted me to see where she works) and as we came here she explained things to me-- like how to get the taxi, where it is okay and not okay to cross the street, different words in Arabic for different shops, etc.

These first days, when I am like a new born baby, learning always, these are days that I know that I should savor. I know that in a few weeks the things that seem wonderful and new I will overlook and take for granted. Even though I read books and look at photographs and watch films from all over the world I never really believe that places are actually different until I am there.

Now, only now can I really believe in how vast Cairo is, in minarets, in a3ish baladi*, in bawabs*, in calls to prayer.

So while I keep thinking longly of how much better I will be at Arabic in two months, of how much more comfortable I will be in the city, of how much less I will look like a frightened chicken in public, I know I must enjoy the learning in the beginning.

*A kind of bread

*a doorman for most flats