mini Reunion

(Original Post)

We went to San Diego to see the SoCal faction of the Cairo Trek. It was really good to see them as people again. It was a little strange to be wearing our American culture clothes after seeing each other in Cairo all summer. We just went to get something to eat and walked around by the beach.



Sometimes I think about how people tend to be friends with people who have similar interests. A lot of my friends and I want to get out there and help somehow, do our part for changing the world, believing in ideals, and working for them. We're the kind of friends whose similar interests will land us in different parts of the world, focusing on other people. Many of my closest friends are these sort of people, the people who want to get out and do something, ..and chances are good that we will never see each other again. I really value the times we can have together.







That's why everyone needs to get out there and do something... so wherever I go, there will be others also going. We will be everywhere. And none of us will go alone.

Writing the Book

I've got a Cairo-relevant post with some pictures at Writing the Book under the 'cairo' label at Derivations (my blog).

-Tracy

Trek Update: O-h-n Spells 'Cat' (Retro Update)

started: 7-10-06, therefore I write sometimes in present tense,
though by now, this already happend.

http://www.refuge-egypt.org/refuge_egypt/index.shtml

Its the website of Refugee Egypt - a program of All Saints'
Cathedral.

***




O - h - n Spells 'Cat'

"For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down
the middle wall of partition [between us];"
-Eph 2:14

We started school last week.
I'm working with Tiff and Brian at Central School for Refugees or
something. I don't remember the whole name, but it's Central for
short. Emphasis on the ral. Central is in Arbaa Wa Noos, amid a maze
of half-constructed buildings that sometimes remind me of one of the
maps on a car-racing computer game I used to play called POd. It's
oddly quiet early in the morning. Construction begins at 8:00. We
jump off the Number 10 bus at Seleb - a textile place. The buildings
are very tall and once you pass the wall, they are all constantly
under construction and look rather uninhabited. There is a brick wall
that separates the slum from the rest of Arbaa Wa Noos, which itself
is a poor community by Cairo standards. I don't understand why there
is a wall. If you are a human, you can easily walk along until you
find a gap where you can walk out to the main road. If you are a
building, you aren't going to move anyway. The only things I can
think of are that perhaps the wall used to serve a purpose that it is
no longer needed for, or it's just there to remind the people in the
slum that they're in the other part of Arbaa Wa Noos.

So you might be thinking, This has all been very nice Tracy, but what
are you DOING in Cairo?

This took us a while to figure out, too.
Physically, we were helping teach at schools, playing with kids,
making friends on the metro, and getting out to see Cairo once in a
while. This has been very frustrating to all of us. I can't speak
for everyone at once, but the general trend seemed to be that we all
felt that God wanted us here, but nobody knew what He wanted us for.
So we came expecting that to be made clear in time.
So we're trying to figure out how we're supposed to do any
lasting good in only a month and the trek leaders are telling us that
really, this trek is not for the people we are going to, its for us to
help us decide if we want to go into missions work, and we don't want
it to be about us, we came here to serve - but how is it serving if we
teach an English class while the teacher, who is perfectly capable of
teaching English just sits and watches us, and we've been talking
about building relationships, but how is one supposed to do this in
only a month and the refugees who spoke to us about the UNHCR don't
even have any concrete suggestions of what we can do to help and to
top it off, we aren't even living in poverty. How are we supposed to
live in Incarnational Ministry to the poor, if we are in such nice
apartments? It was the first time I've heard so many people
complaining that their living condition was too nice.

These are some things we were thinking about. And it didn't make it
any easier that I was trying to figure out what gospel Jesus sent his
disciples to preach in Luke 9 if he wasn't even dead yet while our
Amos studies seemed to indicate that God is either wrathful and sends
evil into cities, or He is a liar. And still, He is good? Are we to
speak up or keep quiet? In what ways have our views of righteousness
completely missed out on God's will for justice? How are we to react
to suffering when God goes and says things like: "I gave you empty
stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have
not returned to me." -Amos 4:6

And Charles is frustrated because, though his teachers are talking
about how much the students have learned from us American volunteers,
his students still come enthusiastically to the board to spell 'cat':
o - h - n.
ohned.

And we still are not living in poverty.

But then I remembered talking to Ken, a guy I've worked with over the
last few summers. We were discussing, right before I left, what a
blessing it is that God allows us to be committed to and to show love
for our fellow human beings when He has every right to demand that our
every energy be funnelled directly to Him.
I remembered a video from the IV Summit in which Mother Theresa says
it's not the greatness of the thing that you do that counts - it's
about doing Small things with great love. And I remembered that when
I was asking God to let me work for Him this summer, I didn't have a
particular job in mind. I came here with the intention to serve and
to do so out of love. It's not the servant's job to find the 'best'
tasks. The work of the Lord's servant is to do what he is given and
to do it with great love. It's still frustrating when your kids have
a hard time telling English numbers from English letters, but in the
end, the kids won't remember who taught them the number 7. But, they
will remember that they have brothers and sisters in America who came
to be with them. We Americans sometimes overlook the importance of
this with our results-oriented mentality.

Family is a lot more important to these people. I rarely saw
homeless people. This is because everyone has family to take them in.
You'll have rooms stuffed with people, but as long as there is
family, no one goes homeless.

And living in nice apartments while travelling to the slums every
morning ended up becoming a microcosm to me of the way I live in
middle-class America while wanting to serve the poor and the homeless.
I think that because this was our setting while dealing with these
issues in Egypt, we will be better able to carry over the things we've
learned to life in America.
Egypt has prepared us to return to America.

I think that this is the kind of 'work' we are really doing:

We have a Muslim friend, Asmaa, who we can write to and discuss
religious and cultural differences.

There is a fundamentalist (all covered in black) lady who sells
trinkets by the metro. Her name is Hanan. She is very poor, and
looked down on by some other Egyptian women, but whenever she sees us
walking to the metro, she smiles. I can tell she's smiling because
the edges of her eyes crinkle. I buy things from her- like those
little tissue packs - whenever I can.

We went to teach at a evening adult education school and one of the
teachers asked us what tribe we were from before he remembered that in
America, people don't have tribes. One of our other teacher friends
spoke up and said that he knew what tribe we were from. It was the
same as his. We're all Christians.

Sanaa and I met a Muslim girl on the metro who builds robots at
school. Sanaa was able to attend her engagement party - a big family
event at which she held hands with her boyfriend for the first time.

Tiff and I explored Arbaa Wa Noos in support of locals and their
businesses. We found a juice bar where the mango juice was only LE 1
and a nice (friendly) restaurant to force our new friend Gheda to join
us at. Gheda and her family live part of the slum near Central. They
waved us over and invited us for tea or soda the first time they saw
us. They want to travel to America, and it hurt to translate into
Arabic the number which represented the cost of our plane tickets.
I've never been in a situation where going somewhere else seemed so
hopeless. They wanted us to tell them how to get visas to America.
We don't know. I don't even have an American visa. I'm sure that
Arbaa Wa Noos does not get Americans very often.

We shook hands with excited children in Mokattam, the garbage
village. Something that I bet most American tourists aren't willing
to do.

We visited a family near St. Catherine's that has probably never seen
Americans be anything other than tourists.

We loved the children in our schools. It occurs to me now that
someday these children will grow up and some may be resettled in
America. I hope I can meet them again someday.

We were invited to a Sudanese wedding.

We visited and supported Tukul Crafts! Ask us about our awesome (too
cool...) T shirts! You too can support refugees by shopping online at
http://www.refuge-egypt.org/tukul/index.shtml. The conversion rate
these days is roughly LE 5.7 to $1.

We realized that to really help, we have to do more than just find
the right things to throw money at.

We tried to help in the schools in a way that supported the
authority, dignity, and capability of the teachers instead of just
coming in with our own program and insisting on doing things our way.
I guess American volunteers tend to have this attitude a lot.

We listened to refugee men speaking about the UNHCR, frustrated
because they'd told their story so many times, and no one has done
anything about it.
We're trying to figure out what to do.

We listened to the stories of some other refugee men and women. We
know some of what they have suffered and still suffer. As Americans,
we are automatically in positions of power. God help us if we don't
find a way to use it on behalf of our African family.

When Charles asked if we'd actually done any good, Pastor John
immediately said 'yes!'. When asked if he would want anything to be
different, Pastor John said that we should stay longer.

Ted gave his hacky sack to one of the boys at his school who loved to
play. During the course of the trip, he met several people who knew
his arabic teacher (Ted's arabic teacher in the States was a refugee
from the school that Ted ended up assisting at). One of them said, "I
miss him, please give him my picture."

Marko saw me drawing and told me to write a book about Central. It's
a good idea.

Brian is greeted at school with a handshake following a good pat on
the left shoulder. This is the way that close friends and brothers
greet each other.

At the celebration of the end of summer class at Central, we listened
to a teacher speak about how we were part of their battle against
illiteracy, how important it was for students to be educated so that
they could return to rebuild Sudan, and how perhaps one day, one of
their children might be the President of Long-Live-New-Sudan! Things
suddenly seemed much heavier than they had been.
In working with these children, we interacted with some of the future
of an entire, possibly new, country.

One day at school, Emmanuel told the music class about how important
it was to share our knowledge with each other, to help each other
along and to lift each other up. He told them that when you have
Jesus in your heart, it makes you want to go other places and share
what you know to benefit the people. He says that's why we have
volunteers from America.

A bunch of my trekmates and I have decided to serve the urban poor on
a longer term mission. We don't know yet when or where. I would like
to go back to see my family in Cairo, and I want to see their homeland
Sudan. They told me, "I hope someday you will have to visit Sudan so
you can see how beautiful it is." Maybe I can help them rebuild.

Early in the trek, we went to a Sudanese Church. It was amazing.
There was so much dancing and singing, even among a congregation whose
members have been tortured and persecuted. They asked if we thought
they were crazy, and said "Our craziness is from God. We shout
because of what the Lord has done."
They quoted to us Jer 29:7 - "And seek the peace of the city whither
I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD
for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." They praised
God for the land of Egypt. A land where they suffered poverty,
injustice, and persecution.
Then the pastor turned around and said "You people in the West,
you have begun to forget what the Lord has done in your life. Because
of materialism, people have begun to abandon God. ...They don't want
to give praise to God. They want to be parasites feeding on what God
has given them."

Then the pastor said that in the church, different tribes come
together as one tribe. He pulled a young Sudanese man up front from
the first row on one side, and pulled Ted up from the other side.
They stood together at the front of the church and were proclaimed
brother and brother from America and Africa.
"We will never forget this day," the pastor said, "We are one family
and we will be together in heaven."


In Christ, there are no goodbyes.
-Tracy

Hallas? La.
I hope I have reported these things accurately, though I am aware
that they are in no way complete.



P.S. full hack count: 5 in LA. But, I don't know who was there.

P.P.S.
some scripture:

"Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power
and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them
to preach the kingdom of God (in some translations, the gospel), and
to heal the sick."
-Luke 9:1,2
So what kingdom were they preaching? They certainly weren't telling
people that Christ died for their sins. Jesus was quite clearly still
alive at this point.
This passage is useful - Jesus kicks off his ministry with a quote from Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering
of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
-Luke 4:18
(Isaiah 61:1,2)
This is really exciting to me. This list is about meeting viscerally
tangible human needs. This gospel is beautiful. This is painfully
beautiful.

from Amos:
"Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God
of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, love
the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD
God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph....I hate, I
despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn
assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat
offerings, I will not accept [them]: neither will I regard the peace
offerings of your fat beasts. Take though away from me the noise of
thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."
-Amos 5:14....24

This sounds really noble, but as wealthy Americans, I believe we
cannot call for God's justice to run down and expect to maintain our
status at the same time. God's justice will be an equalizer, to
restore everyone the way that Jubilee years should have: all debts
will be both repaid and cancelled because everyone will again have
according to his need.
But how can we work for justice? I thought I knew, but reading
through Amos has convinced me that if God is just, then I don't
actually know what justice is. Fortunately, the words of God are
'Seek.. and live' rather than 'Find.. and live.' This will be a
continual learning process for us all as our search leads us to cross
the dividing walls enforced by society.

Read it like you mean it:
"And [if] thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the
afflicted soul; then shall they light rise in obscurity, and they
darkness [be] as the noonday: And the LORD shall guide thee
continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones:
and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not. And [they that shall be] of thee shall build
the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many
generations; and though shalt be called, The repairer of the breach,
The restorer of paths to dwell in."
-Isaiah 58:10-12

Thank God for Isaiah 58. I wish I could reasonably quote the entire thing.
My faith in God is no longer about whether or not He exists. It's no
longer an issue of whether He is there for me. Now it's a matter of
trusting that it's worth it to forgive my debtors even if I remain
unforgiven. It's worth it to feed the hungry, visit the sick, and to
spend one's life breaking every yoke, because something will change.
It's worth it to spread myself out for the love of others the way that
He did. Maybe I'm finally starting to understand where to go when
Jesus says to pick up the cross and follow.

Again, the song,
Humbly you came to the the earth you created,
All for love's sake, became poor.

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, [from] doing thy
pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of
the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words: Then
shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride
upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of
Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
-Isaiah 58:13,14

Trek Update: The Politics Side and Floccinaucinihilipilification (Retro Update)

Floccinaucinihilipilification
noun
an act or instance of judging something to be worthless or trivial

The Politics side.

So we've heard some stories from our Sudanese friends. Everyone has
a different story, and nobody actually knows what's going on in any
situation larger than their own. Example: last December, there were
refugees protesting for their rights at the UNHCR. The police or
somebody descended upon the protest with fire hoses, etc and some
people were killed. This happened for sure. It gets sketchy after
that because some people say that 30 people were killed and their
bodies were taken. Some people say there were 200 people killed and
the bodies are missing. Some people say that a lot of people were
captured and deported to Sudan. Some people say that no one was
deported.
So why did the refugees think they had to protest for their rights?
Here's what they told us about themselves.

Let's say that you lived in south Sudan and escaped to Cairo.

Your story might include some of these componants.

You're a black-skinned Sudanese African with a large extended family.
You live in a village surrounded by forests, mountains, and mango
trees. There are neighboring villages which speak different
languages, so everyone is multi-lingual. There are many different
religions. Sudan is beautiful. You love your home and are proud to
be Sudanese. Suddenly, your village is raided by the government or
by the rebels. You hide in foxholes for a few weeks. Your village is
burned. Everything in your village is confiscated. Your village is
suddenly inhabited by strange arabs from a different country. You
escape with or without your family to another village, to the Congo,
to Juba or Khartoum. The government pursues you because you insist on
developing a curriculum to teach the children of your village their
own native tribal language. The government accuses you of working
with a church or with a western organization. The government captures
you for trying to teach a language other than Arabic. You are
tortured to convince you to become a Muslim - to convince you to teach
only arabic - to convince you that your non-arabic heritage is
worthless and unworthy of being Sudanese. You might find it difficult
that anyone who goes to college in Sudan has to serve in the
government's military. Your brothers might go to school and enroll in
the military. You might receive news that half of your family has
been killed in village raids, or sold into slavery.
You decide to leave Sudan.
You go to foreign embassies for entrance visas, but are careful,
knowing that being in the wrong embassy at the wrong time will get you
arrested. You are denied entrance because the other countries fear
that you will join their militias, or you are accepted but cannot get
an exit visa from Sudan because Sudan fears that you will join other
countries militias. Egypt is the only option. All you can get is a
visa for a 30-day visit to Egypt. You take it, travelling to Aswan,
then up the Nile to Cairo. In Cairo, you have nothing, no family, and
no one is waiting for you. You ask around until you find the elusive
UNHCR. Your attempts to fill out the correct forms in the 30 day
window you have are thwarted by Cairo's always-changing policies, but
fortunately one of those policy changes has been to give yellow cards
of protection to refugees. Your yellow card is protection against
being arrested in Egypt and deported to Sudan.

The UNHCR tells you to come back for a form after 40 days. Then it
is at least 2 months until your interview for refugee status, which is
postponed for various reasons. You are issued a yellow card (for
protection) because the Egyptian gov't used to arrest refugees. They
will tell you to go to your embassy, but you know that people who do
this sometimes disappear. Next: more fees, forms, postponing, "We
didn't get your form", and "go and come back after 10 days." You have
to renew the yellow card every 6 months. From scratch which takes a
minimum of 2 months, 3 days, and 5 - 7 visits. After that, they
reschedule the interview, then you have to go back and watch your
status: your name on a list on the wall.
You go to your interview and tell your story why you fled life in
Sudan. After more waiting, you finally receive your blue card. The
blue card is your key to resettlement. Or, perhaps the Egyptian
listening to your story didn't feel like giving you a blue card. Then
you are rejected, and have only your yellow card.
In order to be resettled, you must have a contact in the other
country who can provide for you and help you move in. Maybe you have
family in the States, but cannot afford the high price of calling
them. Finally, you check in with the other country's embassy. After
a year, they decide to admit you. You get your medical exam over with
and check in with and the UNHCR tells you to wait for a phone call
about your resettlement ticket. You wait for a week. A month. A
year. It's been 6 years, and you still haven't heard any news
whatsoever about your resettlement.
Meanwhile, you work three jobs and sleep 2-4 hours per night while
raising your family to make ends meet. You live in an unfinished
apartment building in a poor part of the city. You try to send your
children to a Sudanese school because you are afraid of the
persecution they might receive in an Egyptian school. Despite all of
this, you thank God for His provision and for the country of Egypt.
You hope to be resettled in another country, but what you really long
for is peace so that you and your family can return home to rebuild
Sudan.

Here are some quotes from men who talked with us:
("" = quote, italics = paraphrase)

"You must put on Arab culture. If not, you are wrong and must be eliminated."

"Why should I accept to be an Arab or Muslim by force? If I don't
accept to become a Muslim, I am killed. If I don't accept to be an
Arab, I am against Islam. To become a Muslim is not enough, you must
also become an Arab"

Brainwashing: tribes that lose their original native language. They
consider themselves to be arabs even though they are black.
(Response to a question about how the government used "brainwashed
black" militias)

"If people learn their own language, they will be more aware of their
rights."

"The people in charge of the Media are the same people committing the problem"

"They used the most deadly weapons against the human soul in South Sudan"

"Many Sudanese are denied because their credibility is in the hands
of Arabs and Westerners."

"It is the fact and truth that this happened to me and to my family
and to my tribe and to my country."

The world has only found out about genocide in Sudan recently. The
refugees say that this has gone on since the 50s - ever since the
British left control of Sudan in the hands of the northern arab
minority. In the East, South, and West, black africans are 80% of the
population. One man from Darfur who was arrested and tortured for
developing books for children in his tribe's native language said that
because 98% of people in Darfur are Muslim, and because Islam is
taught rather forcefully in many arab schools, parents did not want to
send their children to British schools because they thought that
Christianity would be forced upon them. This, and other things,
contributed to Darfur being relatively disconnected from the rest of
Sudan. The government could do whatever they wanted to. Rebellions
against the government in Darfur failed because even in Sudan, no one
knew about them and no one gave support. In the west and the South
(which you needed a passport to go to from the north), diseases
followed fighting. Thousands upon thousands of people died and not
one doctor came. Nobody trusts the media because the media is
controlled by the government and the government is killing the people.

The government has declared the black, non-arab Sudanese as
worthless, unfit to live in Sudan, unfit to be Sudanese. The people
have been kept silent for decades. As a powerful and privileged
society, we have the power to grant or withhold validation and
recognition of others. We must recognize our fellow human beings and
seek out their stories and their voices. Anything less, and they
might disappear again. We must consciously choose to hear - it's the
only way they'll have a voice.

as long as we're talking about war,
I asked one of our Egyptian friends what he thought about the war
in Iraq. He thinks that the US should get the government set up and
get out of there ASAP. He wasn't sure for a while, but he now thinks
that the US never should have gotten involved in the first place.
This guy went to school in the US for a while. He wants to go back to
take more classes, but due to an embassy mistake on his application he
has been denied entrance into the US, which hurts his chances of
getting into other countries. Several have denied him because of it.
It's hard to understand for me because I'm used to being able to go
wherever I want, whenever I want. Our Egyptian friend loves America,
but has problems with the government - not unlike many American
citizens I know.

At the same time, one of the teachers at my school told us that Bush
is a good guy. The teacher credits Bush with influencing the peace
treaty in Sudan and sees US involvement in other countries as freeing
those countries from their oppressive governments. This makes sense,
since the teachers themselves are coming from an oppressive
government. He told me to 'give Bush another chance' and to vote for
him for four more years. I said that in America, presidents are only
allowed to be voted in twice. He said well then, vote Republican.

I find these different opinions, their sources, and their interests
intriguing.

One more thing:
Jeremy tells me that when he and some others were at the home of a
Sudanese family for dinner, they were all eating together in the home
when one Sudanese woman looked at the mix of black and white and said
something like,

"You know, I've always heard everyone say that we were all created
equal, but I never actually believed it until now."

use your words, but don't let them replace actions.
Tracy

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man,
that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour."
-Psalm 8:3-5

Trek Update: Religion and Some Politics (Retro Update)

Religion and some Politics
begun: 7/21

I'm sure that you're all wondering about Christian/Muslim interactions here.
I will tell you:

The specific kind of religion seems more linked to personal identity
here than I notice in the States. Even being in a particular
denomination seems more like a sense of nationalism.
Non-denominational churches are not something I've heard about here.
In Egypt you are pretty much either a Christian or you are a Muslim.
It says which you are on your ID card. Basically, you are born into
your religion and that's what you are. Most people's understanding of
the United States is that everyone is a Christian and everyone is born
into a Christian family. In both countries, there are self-identified
Christians who don't necessarily pursue Jesus.


There are a lot of Christians. A large number of them have cross
tattoos on their right arms in one of three places. It's a small,
decorative X inside the arm just below the elbow, on the back of the
hand between the thumb and index finger, or, most commonly, on the
right wrist below the palm. People with tattoos are easy to spot
holding onto rails on the metro. They say that they put it over their
wrist so that if they ever wanted to leave Christianity and remove it,
they would have to kill themselves. Christian women do not wear
veils. Muslim women wear veils because Allah says so in the Koran.
But, it's a little ambiguous how much of your face you should cover.
Asmaa says that it's one of the things that she questions and talks
about with her Muslim friends.

Tiffany, Ange, and Anna met our Egyptian friend Asmaa on the metro.

They went to visit her family and she's been here to visit us twice.
She is awesome. She's 29 and wants to be a doctor, preferably in the
United States or Canada, but her parents won't let her live on her own
until she is married, which she doesn't want to do if it's not for
love. tricky.

She thinks that the veil should not have to cover a woman's entire
face, and even if she goes to Saudi Arabia and to Mecca where face
veiling is the law, she will not cover her face.

We gave her tea and cookies when she came over, and she asked us
about American culture and Christianity - like those movies where
people kiss each other and if that was actually ok. In the midst of
responding, we tried to explain that though we can talk about
'American culture', there is a wide range of beliefs and lifestyles.
Asmaa understands because she is cool. Two days ago, she took us to
see the oldest mosque in Cairo. She offered to take us to a very old
church (St. George's, right outside the Coptic Museum). Even though
she's only been in a church once before, she would go into one again
for us because we are friends. awww. But the church was closed, so
we just went to the mosque. It was built in 642. It's amazingly
beautiful. As foreigners, we were given green robes with hoods that
had the same kind of shine to them that you see on top of a bowl of
chicken noodle soup. We took our shoes off and left them at the
reception desk where we picked up our complementary green robes. The
mosque is just so big. It's big in a different way than a cathedral
is big. A cathedral is painstakingly ornate and very dizzyingly tall.
Walking through the mosque was like walking through a park with
burgundy patterned carpets for grass and row after row after row of
white pillars, linked by white arches.

None of us have been treated poorly because we are Christians, but
then again we are also dressing and behaving appropriately to the
culture (Some of us have been asked if we are Muslims) and we are only
interacting with Muslim Egyptians on an individual level. I'm not
sure what would happen if we started looking at the ways in which
religion and politics influence each other at the systematic level
here. I've heard stories about people being threatened for starting
churches or for not converting to Islam. And one girl in an Egyptian
youth group wanted to come to America partly because she saw a show in
which Christians went door-to-door to evangelize. She asked us if
that was really allowed in America. We said yes, but most people
don't like it. Last year, there were some schools that the trek
almost weren't allowed into because there had been some other
Christians proselytizing (this is illegal) and the administrators
thought that they were with us. After they got that sorted out
though, our volunteers were allowed to go to the schools.

Interestingly enough, we met a group of Christians on a bus whose
purpose was to come here to proselytize. They were with a different
organization and have been in Cairo for 5 or 6 weeks already. I was
really confused because they've been here longer than us and had
months of preparation together, but they really don't know very much
arabic at all, and their organization only provided them with some
pamphlets about Muslims and arab culture. I have yet to see a
pamphlet that fairly represents its subject. No, we didn't really
receive much instruction about Muslim customs either, but we also had
only 1 week of orientation compared to their several months. And, we
definitely received instruction in Egyptian culture. I'm sure they're
having a very different experience of Cairo than we are, especially
since we came with the purpose of serving the poorer communities. So
they talk about playing games in internet cafes all night and and buy
lots of chips and snack foods (which gets expensive here. Did you
know that BBQ flavored chips are 'Exotic'?). They're probably acting
the same way I would if I was visiting a city with some friends.

They met this Egyptian dude and invited him to dinner after hanging
out for a while. His response was something along the lines of You
Americans - You're all so rich and you just want to flaunt your
wealth. I've never gotten that response. Maybe because we usually
invite people into our home to have dinner with us. They said they
were trying to explain that not all Americans were rich. I think that
this is a difficult statement to defend.

I took a class on ancient Christianity last semester and learned
about how much of Christian tradition comes from Alexandria and the
Eastern Empire. Sanaa has been really excited about her camel Akbar,
Bedouin clothing, and just being here because half her heritage is
from this part of the world. I've been exited about being here,
seeing the early churches, and visiting the Coptic museum because now
I know that so much of my religious heritage comes from this part of
the world. It's strange to think that this was the happenin' place
for Christianity back in the day. Nobody thinks of Egypt as a former
center of Christianity anymore.

The most Christian part of Cairo I found was Mokattam. I believe the
church there was coptic. This is why it's exciting: in my ancient
Christianity class, we learned about the coptic desert fathers - these
men who reputedly posessed such great spiritual wisdom that people
would journey into the desert just to hear a word from them. They
lived simply, didn't eat much, and wore hair shirts. Later on, some
Christian movements and ideology started promoting various
uncomfortable practices like not eating, not sleeping, and wearing
hair shirts as penance or as a measure of discipline of the mind and
body. It must be good because the desert fathers did it, right?
Actually, the desert fathers wore hair shirts because they were poor
and couldn't afford anything else. They lived in the desert because
they couldn't afford to pay taxes or live in the cities.

Mokattam reminds me of that because it's still an isolated community
of poor copts.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/mokattam.htm
There are crosses everywhere in Mokattam, and further proof of
Christianity is Mokattam's pigs. Muslims don't eat pork, but pigs are
important business in Mokattam. Guess what Mokattam's other business
is? I'll give you a hint. Cairo has one of the most efficient
recycling programs ever. I think something like 80% of garbage
returns as something useful.
Mokattam runs on garbage. It's workers are called the zabbaleen. In
our apartment, taking out the trash means taking it to the sidewalk,
turning right, and setting it next to the 2nd post on the left. Later
on, it would disappear. The zabbaleen (men and boys) quietly run a
trash-collecting network through all of Cairo. The trash goes back to
Mokattam where it is hand-sorted by the women and girls. Some
projects have been started to give people safer, more dignified,
educating jobs than sorting through trash.
http://www.ape.org.eg/act.html

Has anyone read the Myst book trilogy? They're the story of what
happens between the Myst computer games. In one book, there are these
invisible people who live in the walls of the buildings owned by a
more wealthy, high-class people. The invisible people are essentially
the slaves of the priveliged. They do all of the tasks required to
keep the privileged comfortable. They are invisible because the
privileged have been trained from birth not to notice them. This has
become a metaphor for me to think about the zabbaleen, the migrant
workers, and all the other people who are ignored and forgotten by a
society that can afford to ignore and forget.

And now, as a relevant preview for the next post, I'll mention that
in Sudan, the government has been warring against its own people
essentially since the British left. For years, the Islamic government
has gotten support from neighboring countries by claiming to fight
Christianity. Now consider that Darfur is like, 98% Muslim. This has
been going on for decades. It's straight-up ethnic cleansing. And
because government is both committing the genocide and controlling the
media, the Sudanese people go unheard.
We cannot be a society which allows a people group to go unheard and
forgotten.

badain (later),
Tracy

Trek Update: Leaving on a Jet Plane (July 31, 2006)

It's 1:44 am and we're getting ready to head for the airport in
another hour and a half. I have been blatantly not updating, mostly
because we've been trying to attend end-of-summer-school closing
ceremonies and dinners at friends' houses. I just realized that I
think I made it through this entire trek without actually telling you
what we've been doing.

I promise I'll write about that, even though I'm sure you'll get your
Cairo Trekkie back soon and they'll be able to tell you everything.


I think most of us are very sad to leave our African family, but
looking forward to coming back. We're going to attempt re-entry to
the United States, reconvening in Los Angeles with the Los Angeles
Urban Project and the Mexico Global Urban Trek for a few days of
debriefing to settle and process the experiences we've had here. One
of the things we'll have to think about is how to act on the
information that we've gained about the situation of the Sudanese in
Cairo. I'm not sure yet what form this will take, but I know that our
involvement here both is appreciated, and must continue to affect us.

Emmanuel, one of the teachers from Central came to visit us early in
the month to tell us how much he appreciated just the fact that we
were there and cared about the Sudanese people. He told us that
nobody had to care about the Sudanese people, yet we chose to come
from America to try to help. He said it was things like this which
gave him hope for his people and his country.
Tonight we went to his house for dinner, and as the taxi drove away,
he waved goodbye and called out to us,

Please do not forget about us

"[Is it] not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the
poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that
thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh"
-Isaiah 58:7

I will not forget

Trek Update: News! From the Outside! (July 18, 2006)

out-of-context verse of the day:
"...My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..."
Hosea 4:6


We don't really have access to any kind of news here. We don't have a
TV, we don't know enough Arabic to keep track of local news, and we
haven't tapped into the international news.

Our mid-trek retreat was to the Sinai peninsula, which was pretty
awesome. It was very refreshing to get out of the city and into the
middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains. Charles realized that we
were only 6 hours away from Israel, and we began plotting ways to get
there. Good thing we failed.

We got to climb "Mt. Sinai" (there are many mountains in the area, so
apparently we're not sure which one Moses actually climbed, but there
had to be Israelites around here somewhere), and visit St. Catherine's
monastary which has many pictures of St. George and what is supposedly
the formerly-burning bush that got Moses' attention. It was huge. it
was growing out of this, like, brick and wire bush enclosure and
looked kind of like a raspberry bush. Ted, Anna, and I walked the 5
miles to St. Catherine's (rather than pay the outlandish taxi fees)
and got ourselves invited over to the house Nura's family. Nura is a
little girl, 8 years old and an accomplished beggar. She met us on
the road and asked us for money going to and from St. Catherine's. On
the way back, we went to visit her house. None of them spoke any
English and we quickly ran out of Arabic phrases. Nevertheless, their
hospitality was outstanding. The women, Fatma and Lila invited us in
to sit on cushions on the floor of what was perhaps a 2 or 3-room
house. They served us the best tea I've had here yet and we all
stared at each other and smiled because we were out of conversational
Arabic. The kids were a good distraction: Nura, Kareema, and three
others (I'm really terrible with names). I was saved from a lot of
awkwardness by drawing pictures in my sketchbook of all the family
members, writing a message in English and Thankyou in Arabic, and
giving them the pictures. They found this highly amusing. I don't
think they have pictures of themselves. Jamal, the father, came home
while we were there. He spoke pretty good English, so Ted asked him
about his home and work. He works offering camel rides to tourists
climbing Mt. Sinai, and also works as a military guard at the pyramids
in Giza. He doesn't get to come home to see his wife and children
very often, and life is hard for them because in a tourist area,
everything is more expensive. But then it was time to go. I was sad
to leave them and we all wished we'd brought some of our little gifts
to give to the children. Instead, we gave them some money for them to
share and perhaps to buy something special for themselves with, since
we had no other gifts.

When we returned on Monday, the teachers at my school (Central) asked
how the trip was and told us they'd been praying for us because last
year, a car bomb went off near the trek retreat. Later that day, we
met Melanie, a professor from George Washington University who is
collecting material for a book on different American Christian
interactions with various global issues in the Middle East and Africa
(Reed students: Melanie is one of the two professors who suggested
that Kate Lofton take the visiting professor job at Reed! Crazy!).
She brought news of bombing in Lebanon and Israel. We were all very
suprised and made her tell us what was going on at least three times
over.

Tiff, Brian, Kristin and I went to James' house for dinner today.
James is a Sudanese teacher at Central. He is 28, awesome, and lives
with his brother Steven and 6 other people in a small apartment-like
space on ... maybe the fifth floor of an unfinished, tall brick
building (if the buildings are ever finished, the become subject to
more taxes). We watched the news on his TV while we ate. It looks
like a horrible situation all around. If Lebanon resists, Israel
might destroy them. If Lebanon complies, civil war may destroy them.
The bridges are destroyed, the airport was attacked, and a lot of
people are trapped. Food and water transportation is going to be very
difficult. We've only spoken about it with a few Sudanese, and no
Egyptians. But I think this will influence the ability of the
Sudanese to relocate to other countries: many of them go to Israel
since it is easier to fly to a different country out of Israel than it
is to fly out of Egypt. And remember how I wrote last week that Elia
wanted to go to school in Beirut in August? Beirut is being bombed
now.

Today, Tiff and I listened to Emmanuel, another Sudanese teacher at
Central, as he spoke about his family, his life in Cairo, and his
desire to return to Sudan. He asked us, "When you return to America,
what will you do for us?" I hope that when I come back to America, I
will be familiar enough with the actual situation of the refugees in
Cairo to accurately tell their story. And, as Emmanuel told us
earlier, we must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know.
Our hope is that as more people learn about the situation here and in
Sudan, they will be better equipped to help in the ways that they can.
I've been working on an update to explain the situation of the
refugees in Cairo, but I think it is becoming much too long. I'll try
to work it into stages and get it up here.

For now, here are some websites with information about the Lost Boys,
a title given to the refugees working to adapt and advance themselves
in American schools.
http://www.lostboysfilm.com/see.html
http://www.lostboysofsudan.com/

Two of our friends here, Richard and Selina, moved to South Dakota last week.
By the way, one of the limiting factors on how many Sudanese can get
out of Africa is lack of places to go. I found out that somewhere it
is possible for people or churches to sign up to receive refugees from
Sudan. But I don't know yet where this can be done. I encourage
looking into it.

suggested reading:
Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer
Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins
They Poured Fire on us from the Sky by Alphonsion Deng, Benson Deng,
and Benjamin Ajak, with Judy A. Berstein

The book of Amos is bothering us a lot. I will try to write to you
about that, too.

Peace, Peace
there is no Peace
-Tracy

P.S. This week's full hack count: 1 At the Red Sea (Ted and myself)
0 On Mt. Sinai (a whole bunch of people)

P.P.S. I saw Dr. Phil for the first time today at James' apartment.
I am disgusted.
There are children at our schools who were traumatized by seeing
people killed in the attack on the Refugee Protests last December.
There are children who speak only their tribal languages trying to
attend school in Arabic or English. There are teachers (and I'm sure
children, too) who have lost over half of their family in the war.
And the American TV show of Dr. Phil had a mom whose daughter was
embarassed because her mom dropped her off at school barefoot. Ok,
ok. and in pajamas. A major component of the response included
giving the mom a makeover.

P^3.S.
Prayer:
Israel and Lebanon
Nura's family
Richard and Selina
The city of Cairo and the country of Egypt
South Sudan
the Refugees

Trek Update: City of the Sun (July 12, 2006)

Heliopolis: City of the Sun

Acclimatization: n : adaptation to a new climate (a new temperature or altitude or environment)

Adaptation: n. 2 b) A composition that has been recast into a new form: The play is an adaptation of a short novel. 5. Change in behavior of a person or group in response to new or modified surroundings.

-dictionary.com

Tomorrow, we leave for our mid-trip retreat. I don't know where we're going. But I realize that you also don't know where we've been. In honor of having to pick up and move soon, this entry will be more stream-of-consciousness than usual.

We are staying in a part of Cairo called Heliopolis. It's a pretty nice part of the city. We're a couple blocks away from the metro running north and south, which many of us take every morning to the schools we work at (Everytime I notice, the TVs in the Metro station are showing either Shaolin Soccer or music videos). Brian, Tiff, Jeremy, Dawn, Angela, and I take the Number 10 bus from a stop just down the road. You don't have to look far to find bakery/pastry shops or fruit stands. I want to know where they get their fruit from because it really all looks like the same to me. The bakeries are awesome. I hope I can learn enough Arabic to ask how they make their pastries...

Fear not, Parents. We are staying in nice apartments. Each one has a kitchen, bedrooms, beds (some of us have nice sleeping pad/matress things on the floor), and a bathroom. We aren't using air conditioning, but we have these really awesome fans to blow air around. I am now a huge fan of fans. The only downside is that we have to leave our windows open and some of us seem particularly susceptable to bug bites.

The apartments are connected to a 7th Day Adventist Church compound. We get to hang out with the Adventist youth group sometimes. Some of them have been to study in America. One guy is trying to go back to school in California, but there's been some obstructive visa paperwork involved.

The girls stay in the apartments that are connected to the church. The Pastor and his family also live in our apartment building. Or rather, we live in theirs. Tiff, Tiana, Angela (whom I shall refer to henceforward as 'Ange'), NaKhia, Anna, and I live in the flat on the 3rd floor while Tiffany, Jenny, Kristin, Sanaa, Lauren, Dawn, and Lori share the flat on the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor dining space is where we have our group meetings and is also being kept as a guest welcoming room.

Just today, several Egyptian women came to visit. We need to have space to invite them to sit and have tea and chat with us. Egyptian hospitality is difficult to live up to.

The guys (Jeremy, Brian, Ted, Charles, Jared, Stephen) live in the apartment across the street. It's less of a street and more of a shared, paved driveway. Their apartment is also connected to the Adventist church, but not physically. The 'shared paved driveway' ends in this Sports Club-like thing.

They have space for various sports and activities, as well as a pool and we could tell whenever there was a World Cup playoff game because lots of people would gather on the second floor and scream at a screen that we could not see from our balconies. But now I am writing from 'Ted's Perch' and if I walk over to the edge, I can look down from the top of this building (maybe 3 stories tall?) onto the Sports Club grounds. It's pretty cool. There's gymnastic-type things, an outdoor dining area, soccer, more soccer, and basketball.

One of the things I love about Cairo is that everything looks like it's made of chalk pastels. It's night now, and past the edge of this building, I see the others rising above on the other side of the Sports Club. They look like balconies stacked on top of one another.

I think the soft lighting effect is probably aided by pollution, but the end result is that whenever I look at building scenery for the first time, I feel like if I breathe too hard, the chalk pastel dust will blow away. Even now, the colors all seem so soft and powdery that if I hold up my hand too carelessly, I might smudge the architecture.

Ted discovered this place a little while ago. He likes to come up here and pray for the city. It's easy because you can just look out over so many places. As a bonus, there is also a clothesline up here.

During the day, I'm sure it gets very hot up here. It's been in the high 90's, low 100's, though recently we went through a couple of days of relatively cooler weather. I have accepted the fact that I will sweat all day.

Apparently, South Sudan has much nicer weather than Cairo. Jared says that civilizations like those around here which have survived for thousands of years in hot weather make him realize that people are stupid. I think he means that if they were smart, they would just move. I think he means people like me who accept the fact that we will live in hot weather. I think this is a dimension of the self-claimed ability of humanity to adapt. Physically, I sweat all the time. Mentally, I accept this fact as normal. I've even started to think that sometimes the temperature is cool - even during the day. I know that this is only in comparison. I could go somewhere else, but in my acceptance, I have become complacent. I think I will use that as a prompt to go consider the idea of settling for something which I could make better if I so decided.

But right now, it is night: cool and breezy by my new standards. I'm surrounded by a 360 degree pastel backdrop of Cairo, and I don't want to go back inside. I asked Ted why he ever goes back. He said that we're not allowed to wear shorts up here. That's ok with me, because I almost never wear shorts. We're trying to be good American Africans and dress appropriately because that's the cultural language here and because we want to be allowed to come back.

Elia is the guy who sort of manages these apartments. He lives downstairs in our building. We went to his house to watch the World Cup, which was really cool because back home, I couldn't get any channels that had the World Cup. I watched 2 taped games on VHS that my Dad brought home. That's how far behind the United States is in soccer (in arabic, kura) availability: I had to go to another country just to watch the World Cup. Football is a really good language to speak, though. One of our adult English classes picked up on "Good, Better, Best" so quickly when we could compare those words to "Germany, France, Italy."

Anyway, Elia is about 29 years old. He's lived in Cairo for about 5 years and is a refugee from Sudan. He's really cool. Hopefully in August, he will finally be able to get out of here and go to Beruit to finish school. He wants to go for Business Administration. I will write more about him and our other Sudanese friends in a later update.

In other news, I think I have almost recovered from a cold. It's kind of ironic that I go to Egypt in the summer and catch a cold. We seem to be divided between people who have colds, people who have stomach problems, and people who have already had colds or stomach problems. Nothing serious though.

I'm sorry I haven't written more about what it is that we're actually doing. I'll give you the summary here, and maybe I can tell you what it actually means later.

mornings: teaching at 6 different schools

afternoon:

*
various domestic activities
*
visiting with Egyptian or Sudanese guests

evenings:

*
teaching adult English classes at at least 3 different schools
*
working with different ministries at Immanuel House
*
teaching crafts at a women's ministry
*
attending Adventist youth group events
*
a study of the Book of Amos. This is hard stuff.

It seems that we will not be able to work with clothing distribution to refugees this year. It was cancelled.

I'm going to go pack my things for our retreat.
Thank you again for your prayers

Please join us in praying for the welfare of Cairo and continuing provision for the refugees from Sudan.
Please pray for us as we are trying individually to sift out the reasons that God has called us here and the work that we have to do.

Salaam, (Peace)
-Tracy

P.S. This week's full hack count: 1 On the Great Pyramid! I don't remember who exactly was there though. It was at least Brian, Jenny, Ted, Kristin, and myself.

P.P.S. If there's something you'd really like to know about, you can contact me though the trek editor at editor@urbana.org.

"When Israel was yet a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt"
-Hosea 11:1
I hear Christians telling people that to follow Jesus, you have to be born again, because Jesus said that once in the New Testament. So I think I can tell them to sell everything they have and give to the poor. Jesus said that once, too.
-paraphrase of a comment by Rich Mullins

Trek Update: Walk Like an Egyptian (July 3, 2006)

"As they say in Egypt, everybody has the right of way!"

I overheard this at the Sudanese church we went to on Friday, St. Andrew's. It's so true. Have any of you played Frogger? It's like that, but the cars don't stay in lanes. The best crossing method is to be downstream of an Egyptian or another guy (A half-raised hand with all five fingers touching – like a tulip bulb – means wait).

Brian is big enough to create a sizeable traffic wake, and Charles has begun to come into his true powers as an Arab. He commands the cars and they obey. Charles is often mistaken for an Egyptian, even though his parents are from Iraq. This is usually useful until people expect him to speak Arabic fluently. People say that when he's with us, it looks like he's our tour guide. So last time we rode the metro home, I held my Arab-English Dictionary and he walked ahead, talking about the metro in accented English and pointing at things.

Sanaa is also often mistaken for an Egyptian (one of her parents is from Morocco), and Ted's been able to pull it off now and then even though he's totally not Arab. Most Egyptians know about California and think that everyone in America is white. When we ride the metro, only the obviously Caucasian of us get asked if we are from America.

There is always noise coming from the streets. It's cooler at night, so people stay out late. People seem to sleep somewhere between 2am and 8am, and again in the afternoon. Tiffany pointed out that their stores are guaranteed to be open later than we expect, as if they were on college time. Egyptians make full use of their car horns. But, even though everyone is honking and yelling, it works really well. That's just the way things go, and it keeps the traffic moving along.

The worst I ever saw was when a bus full of brand new Americans got stuck in a tunnel, blocked up a major traffic artery in Cairo, and had to be rescued when the bus broke down (Oh wait. That was us. And, by the way, the trucks with ropes hanging off the back are tow-trucks).

The Egyptians were very patient and forgiving. Several people came to help. If we did the same in an American city, I bet people would get out of their cars to give us a piece of their mind. If a bus full of non English-speaking Arab tourists caused a major traffic jam in one of our cities, I think they would probably be threatened - maybe arrested - rather than helped.

On Friday, there were religious services being held for Muslims in tents on the sidewalk. Loudspeakers amplified the services so anyone on the same block would hear them. Many Christian churches meet on Fridays because Islam's holy day is Friday, and it's just easier that way. Most schools have class Monday through Thursday and Saturday so that students can have Friday and Sunday off. The guys say that they noticed many more men wearing the long robes and head coverings on Friday.

It's very interesting how much is encoded in clothing. You can tell the conservative Muslim women because they wear what one staff leader affectionately referred to as 'Ninja suits' – the black, full body covering. Some go so far as to also wear black gloves and sunglasses.

I am amused when I see them wearing running shoes. The not-so-conservative Muslim women often have beautiful, long dresses and scarves to cover their head and neck. Their arms are covered. Their faces are uncovered. With their own individual style of shoes, purses, dresses, and head coverings, they really make it look good.

There seems to be a lot of space for individual expression as long as you keep yourself covered. The Christian Egyptian women usually wear short sleeves, no head coverings, and often wear their hair down.

Little kids can wear whatever they want. Most of them look very western-ly dressed.

Girls on the Cairo trek have been wearing long skirts or pants and long sleeves. We do not wear head coverings. Someone told us that with our long sleeves, we look like Muslim girls.

I'm acclimatizing to wearing long sleeves in hot weather. It's really not too bad (Even though I'm the girl who walks around all winter in short sleeves - Brian says when I come home I'll be cold for a few months). We do not look men in the eyes and we try not to initiate conversation with them (Actions like this would be considered very forward. In fact, an important component of the engagement ritual is eye contact between the man and the woman).

Not being able to look guys in the eye severely limits my visually-perceived world because I tend to keep my gaze down and am not yet proficient at looking up without honing in on someone's eyes. It's harder to follow conversations when I can't pick up on the visual cues from eyes and eyebrows very well. Most Egyptian men would prefer to ignore us in favor of speaking with the guys in our group. This is kind of frustrating sometimes.

Jenny and I found wearing sunglasses rather liberating because we could look up more confidently since people couldn't see where we were looking. I have also done my part toward liberating women from the oppression of not being expected to play futbol with the men. I joined a 4-on-4 pick-up game that Charles and Brian were already playing with some Egyptians.

The Egyptian guys looked very skeptical, but when Charles and Brian asked again, they let me play. When I scored a goal, the women who were watching all laughed and they guys made fun of the goalkeeper.

But it was cool. They said I played well, and the rest of the game was so much fun. Charles says he's glad that no matter what language you speak, if you can yell, then you can play soccer. It's universal: everyone can run around yelling and it probably means 'Give me the ball!' I hope we can play again next Friday.

When we are with the trek guys in public, we avoid acting too friendly and we don't touch each other. The trek guys have been wearing pants and short sleeves, and not looking Egyptian women in the eyes or talking with them much. I think it's the conservative Egyptian men who wear long robes and a head covering (like a hat). Some wear a robe without a head covering. Most men I see are wearing pants and a shirt. The businessmen wear suits and ties. I rarely see any men wearing shorts.

A leader of an Egyptian Christian youth group told us that they appreciated us wearing nice clothes instead of shorts and tank tops, etc. They really don't like it when loud Americans come here and wear shorts and tank tops. They consider this a sign of immorality.

I've only been here for a week and I'm starting to feel somehow offended when I see people, especially girls, wearing shorts. Women who don't wear head coverings actually stick out to me. I even start wondering if they're Christian or a tourist or a more rebellious Muslim girl? Sanaa and I met a very nice Muslim girl on the metro, and hopefully we can meet up again sometime this week for tea.

That's what you do around here when you meet people. You invite them
over for tea. People seem to prioritize social interaction more here. Charles spent a couple minutes on the metro talking to this crazy smart inventor guy and got retroactively invited to go on a vacation with his family to Alexandria 3 weeks ago. He had to refuse, since none of us have a time machine, but that's just how people are here. It's not well, maybe after I've known you for a good year or two, I might call and invite you to my house like it is in America.

Egypt is a country where you're allowed to be hours late for meetings because the people understand that on your way, you might meet a friend. Then, of course you would have to sit down and have a drink and talk with them before you could continue on your way to the meeting. And once you get there, you will enthusiastically greet everyone in the room and ask how they are doing. A proper round of greetings is important, and if you're meeting back up with someone you haven't seen for a while (like, maybe an hour) you can all hug and kiss each other on the cheek and say Habibi! or Hababti! (My beloved!). Even guys.

Guys, if you've ever wanted to show your brotherly affection by holding another guy's hand without enduring the uncomfortable looks of Americans, you can go to Egypt! Despite the intense aversion to homosexuality, guys holding hands is ok.

Intertwine those fingers. But, don't swing your arms.

Oh, and I like tea.

I previously only liked Chai (with milk), and sometimes mint tea.
But Egyptian and Sudanese tea is great. I think this is because of the multiple scoops of sugar. I'm starting to wonder if I should forget the tea bag and just start drinking hot sugar water.

Mom & Dad, I don't know if I can be trusted to refill the hummingbird feeder anymore. I'm thinking about trying to make tea popsicles. I will take Ted's laughter at that suggestion as encouragement.

But, let's be serious now. I have discovered that the U.S. has fallen far behind Egypt in some important technology. They have achieved remarkable mobility and stealth that far surpasses our current machinery. I have been to an Egyptian supermarket, and I must report their shopping carts have advanced much farther than could be predicted. These babies are smooth, silent, and… they can move sideways. They can glide in perfect circles when properly guided and pivot instantly in any direction except up or down. It's almost creepy. Let us learn from this.

Anyway, we started volunteering today. I'll write more about that in the next update. We get to our worksites by bus, metro, and walking.
There are cabs, but those are more for situations of emergency lost-ness. The metro we use is a highly convenient, frequent public transportation service that runs north and south. It's a few blocks' walk from our apartment.

The first 1 or 2 cars are women only (1st and 2nd before 6:00pm, 1st only after 6:00pm). Women can sit in any car they want, but no men are allowed in the women's car. The women have been known to defend their car with their purses. I've ridden mostly in the women's car, but as we get more confident, we'll probably take a men's car more often since it is sometimes inconvenient to walk all the way to the front of the metro. The doors aren't open for very long, so if it's crowded, you just kind of squish yourself in and everyone sorts their space out after the doors close.

The buses are crazy. You know the Knight Bus in Harry Potter? Sometimes it feels like they're driving around kind of like that, but there's no magic. There is the full-length bus, the half-length bus (minibus), and the large van bus (microbus). If you hear a strange midi-like rendition of It's a Small World After All, it's probably coming from a microbus.

The first time I rode the minibus to my worksite, we barely fit. By this, I mean that Brian was standing on the last step to the vertical railing near the open door. There were two chairs on either side of the aisle. The seats were filled, the aisles were packed, and Brian was almost hanging out the door. I was right in front of Brian. We slowly squished our way in as other people got off. I had Brian's water bottle in one hand and the front middle rail near the stick-shift in the other hand like those bucking bull torsos they have in bars. I've never been on one of those, but I still think it's a good comparison. When people get on or off, the bus doesn't stop so much as it slows to a jumpable roll. Don't worry, parents. There's usually enough of us getting on or off to make the bus come to a more complete stop.

We also do a lot of walking. Most of us are wearing sandals and when we come home, our feet are so dirty. Sometimes I don't know what my natural foot skin color is. It gives me a more accurate image to consider when Jesus says He that is washed needeth not save to wash [his] feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean. There's a lot of dirt to walk through on the way to our worksites, not to mention that Cairo is sort of polluted. I shall adapt to wearing sandals, even when playing futbol.
I am in favor of washing feet.

Ana mashee maa Jesu-a (Sudanese Arabic)
I will walk with Jesus

-Tracy

P.S. Hacky Sack:
This week's full hack count: 0 on the Nile River! (All of us) Ok, so we didn't actually get up and hack on the Nile. But we were in this boat… and Ted had his hack… so we could have.

P.P.S. Disney is over here too. The Egyptian youth group had a little get-together for us, and there were Kleenex boxes with Disney characters. This prompted Jeremy to talk about how he researched Disney and found them to be evil. You know, like sweatshops and stuff. He boycotts Disney. So DD, you are not alone.

Trek Update: God has Delivered us into Egypt

Somehow, despite misleading information from the airline people, we managed to get 8 stand-by seats on an overbooked plane to France.

From there, we got to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris with about 45 minutes to spare before our flight to Cairo. My little map of the airport suggested that it would take us 45 minutes to get to our terminal. Just when we got to gate A77 and it looked like that might not be the case, we find out that our plane has changed gates. By this time, I don't really know or care when anything is happening. We just keep moving forward by whatever means necessary. We ended up on this shuttle, and just when it looked like it was the shuttle to no where, this island of an airport terminal suddenly appears. Something about how there's construction going on. We got on the plane, and discovered that our little tv screens in the seats in front of us showed a live video feed from outside the plane. As we came into Cairo, all the buildings below us looked like how the earth cracks when it's dry, only more rectangular.

We made it, even if we had to all run for every flight. Thankyou for your prayers.

Summary of Airlines:

Continental: -2 stars

I think they owe us some tickets.

Nobody actually knows what's going on, but all are willing to ask their supervisors who aren't there. Some good has come from this

though: After all the difficulty, we had no problem blaming Continental for all ensuing problems. Charles said, "I even blame Continental for the fact that women have to wear veils!"

(Disclaimer: ok, ok. There were some very nice helpful people in Continental. But only some.)

Delta: +3 HP

Delta did a lot of work to clean up the mess thrown on their collective lap when Continental transferred us to them. And by 'Delta' I mean 'Desmond, O,' (According to his name/ID tag). You should call your local Delta Airline and tell them to give that man a raise. Or at least some candy or a nice fruit basket. Desmond O can wield two phones, a computer, and a live conversation with blistering efficiency.

Air France: + 2 Fromage of Awesome

Fromage (Cheese) is one of the only words in French I know. But we got some on the plane. They fed us. They fed us good food. With little cheese things. Twice. And gave us blankets. I think I got more sleep and food from 2 flights on Air France than in 2 days of U.S. airports.

And, thank you to the InterVarsity staff member who brought us Chinese food in the JFK Airport. It was more than enough.

We spent our first two nights at a Christian retreat center.

At night (long after 10:0pm) children ran around and yelled outside.

In the morning, (still dark) we were surrounded by chirping birds. At 4:00am, we all woke to the call to prayer. One of the Pillars of Islam is to pray 5 times a day. At 4:00am, there are overwhelming loudspeaker announcements throughout the city and a prayer sung in Arabic. We could hear the prayer echoing in the distance from the other loudspeaker stations. It was startling the first night, but I think we're used to it now. We're also in a different location, and the announcements are a bit quieter here.

The kids are awesome. They were playing in a soccer court. They don't have space for a field, but there is a smooth surface with goals set up at each end. Our Arabic is extremely lacking, but I feel aided by experience in a rather universal language: futbol. So much fun.

There are classes at the center, and we flooded their free time with a bunch of Americans. There was one kid named Tony who spoke English pretty well. He and the other kids crowded around Ted who knew more Arabic phrases than the rest of us. I was kind of sad to leave my soccer buddies.

And this computer is about to run out of batteries, so I will finish the story of our first week in Egypt later.

Insha'allah

God willing,

-Tracy

P.S. Hacky Sack:

Last week's full hack count: 6 in the JFK Airport (Brian, Ted, Tracy)

Trek Update: We are Refugees (June 25 2006)

June 25

Displacement: To move or to shift from the ordinary or proper place

This is our first Cairo Trek update, and I am typing it in the JFK airport in New York. Didn't see that one coming? Neither did I. We should've been through Newark, NJ and on to Paris (connecting to Cairo) hours ago – Yesterday, in fact. We were all anticipating a long flight, but ironically it's been over 24 hours since we left the church in Los Angeles, and we're still in the States. It's a crazy story, and will probably be hilarious in retrospect. I guess it's pretty hilarious now, too. Things are funnier when you haven't slept for a while. It's cool though.

God has provided amazingly for us in just getting us this far, and I don't just mean New York. As I've gotten to know my Trek brothers and sisters better, I find that we all have stories to tell about how God enabled each of us to join this Cairo Trek to begin with. It's rather impressive.

This mission started way before we left Los Angeles. With knowledge of this as encouragement, we trust that we will have work to do wherever and whenever we are sent. So for now we are waiting and praying for trust in God's continuing provision, flexibility to move as He makes it possible, strength for our trip leaders (this is really stressful for them), and a servant's mindset to recognize and meet peoples' needs both here and in Cairo. He is good.

We still have all our stuff, we're still all together, and we've had opportunities to help other airline travelers navigating the airport systems. I am very grateful to God for assembling this bunch of fellow Cairo Trekkers.

If we must be stuck in the airport system, this is a very good group to be stuck with. It's like we're in The Terminal. I'm excited to see the work that we will do together.

I guess I should back up a bit. Hi, I'm Tracy. I just finished my sophomore year at Reed College and I am the Cairo Trek journal writer. Every week (or more often, if I can work it out that way), for the next 5 weeks, it will be my responsibility to keep you accurately and interestingly updated on our adventures. I will try to relate the events and encounters of this trip as realistically as possible. I love stories, and one of my goals is to tell you one about the people we meet on this Trek. Somehow, I don't think the real stories of these real people get out too often.

Here is our information: we are 16 students and 3 IV Staff leaders. We are going to Cairo to serve the Egyptians and the Sudanese. The Sudanese that we will go to are those who have escaped the civil war in Sudan. War has been raging for decades, and what started claiming to be a war based on religious differences seems to have turned racial, since it is no longer the Sudanese Christians who are being attacked, but now also Sudanese Muslims.

Many Sudanese have fled to Cairo, hoping to gain passage to other countries. Many have been denied refugee status and are encountering discrimination in Cairo. If you want to see more about the experience of the Sudanese I'd like to suggest visiting A Long Walk Home.

None of this means that the Trek is somehow anti-Arab. But, it is the case that many Sudanese have suffered at the hands of Arabs, just as many Arabs have felt threatened by the influx of Black Africans into Cairo. Our mission (once we actually get to Egypt) is to serve both. We will have opportunities to assist in summer schools of both ethnicities and to interact daily with many different people living in Cairo.

We are not proselytizing. That's illegal. But we are going to serve with the intention to allow Cairo's people to change us at least as much as we can make a difference in Cairo. From one of the books we read in preparation for this Trek,

"To work for human transformation as a Christian means working for the redemption of people, their social systems, and the environment that sustains their life – a whole gospel for all of life. This is the Kingdom of God"
–Bryant L. Myers Walking with the Poor

In Luke 9, Jesus instructs his disciples to take a trip to visit the people in the area – to heal and to preach the gospel, the Kingdom of God. If you read Luke 9, you'll notice that Jesus had not yet died and risen again.

I wonder what gospel it was that the disciples preached. One of my expectations is that on this Trek, I will find out. The sort of mission we are on has been described as Incarnational ministry. This style of ministry reflects how God voluntarily left his place in heaven to take on the ways of people and be Jesus. In John 17:18, Jesus says of His disciples, "As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." In the same way, we are leaving our American lifestyles to join brothers and sisters that we don't know yet in the way that they live.

This Trek will not be easy and will not be the least bit sheltered. For most of us, poverty is something strange – an aberration that we glimpse only occasionally, but to the majority of people in the world, poverty is the norm. We will see what depth of poverty people are forced to live in by systems that we, as human beings, allow to continue.

The gap between the rich and the poor in the world is widening. In the garbage villages, we will see the destitution that many others are pressed into by some of the systems that we ignorantly benefit from as relatively wealthy Americans. Global urbanization has resulted in cities with extensive slum communities. Billions of people in the world scrape by with less than US $2 per day.

This doesn't mean that it somehow means more in their currency. They are living the way that you would if you worked nonstop to feed a family with only $2 every day. Thirty of the world's 40 poorest countries are in Africa. More than 50% of the continent's 600 million people suffer from absolute poverty (Poverty Alleviation and the Role of Microcredit in Africa, Getu).

When we consider what it would be like to live and serve with them long-term, it gives a slightly different meaning to the words of the song, "Humbly you came to the earth you created. All for love's sake became poor." Though we have only 5 weeks, we will try to put aspects of Incarnational ministry to work to really understand, love, and identify with people that are forgotten by the rest of the Western world.

To prepare for our immersion in Egyptian and Sudanese culture, we've spent nearly a week in Los Angeles, practicing our Arabic greetings (izzayuk?/izzayik?) and manners (keep both feet on the ground when sitting) as well as exploring our expectations for this trip and learning about the difficulties of communicating across different cultures. It's been good.
It's still good. Even though I'm not quite willing to believe that we will actually leave this airport for France tonight. I like to think this is a good group bonding experience… we are going to serve the Egyptians and the Sudanese Refugees who live in Cairo.

We are getting an unexpected orientation as refugees in our own country, wanting someone to give us enough voice and consideration to free us from this American airport.

A-hamdelilah (rough transliteration)
Praise be to God (rough translation)

Please pray for us, and for the people that we are going to meet in Cairo.

Tracy

P.S. I hope you don't mind long journal entries.

P.P.S. I would like to give you more statistics and background information about poverty, slums, and Cairo. But, I don't have the book that I made notes in. As I find more information or interesting considerations, I will share them with you.

I learned a lot in my time in Cairo. I learned about God, hospitality, flexibility, justice (and injustice), and courage. It's been 3 months now and this summer is beginning to feel remote. The weather in my part of the world has turned cold and wet. The heat of a Cairo summer is becoming a distant memory. But what about the lessons I learned? I dearly want to hold on to those, but life is pushing them aside.

As always, I have more questions than conclusions and more wonderings than answers. I request the rest of my Cairo family to blog what you have, whether it be fully formed or not.

Global Urban Trek: Cairo 2006

In the summer of 2006, 19 Americans - 16 college students and 3 staff workers - made their way to Cairo, Egypt for 5 weeks as part of an InterVarsity Global Urban Trek. One goal of the Trek, a short-term mission trip, was to give the students a solid experience with which to consider long term service among the worlds' urban poor. The more immediate, concrete goal was to serve with an Egyptian church and in schools for refugees from Sudan. We saw, did, and heard a lot in our 5 weeks, but in that short time, there was certainly much left unseen, undone, and unheard.

The Cairo Trek has been going on for several years, and will continue, Insha'Allah, for many more. It is our hope that the things we were able to observe, hear, and accomplish will not end with us or stay in the communities we served in. Especially for our refugee friends and for the future of their people and their country, it is important that their stories and ours spread beyond just us and instigate more than just other stories. We don't yet know how, but we hope that we can be a part of bringing the necessary change - a change for the freedom, dignity, respect, and love that a human race divided against itself cannot stand for. We hope that by combining our stories, our voices, our ideas, we might find ways to act on them for the benefit of the families we have found in Cairo.


This blog is for the pooling of our experiences. As one of the 2006 Trekkies, I would like to invite my friends from '06 as well those from any other Cairo Trek, or anyone else who knows what we're talking about to share their experiences, reflections, ideas, pictures, articles, event ideas, stories...
It is not possible for everyone to go to Cairo and share our experiences. But, we can bring our experiences here. As Emmanuel would say, "We must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know."

I invite anyone who reads this to open yourself up to the stories here and ask yourself why any of this is even coming to pass, and maybe even to consider what you can do to help.

Thankyou and

Welcome,

-Tracy