tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43239661396258895892024-03-12T18:53:28.275-07:00The Arabic PatientJoelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-19029627554366212052009-08-22T08:15:00.000-07:002009-08-22T08:16:00.142-07:00New blog locationhttp://joelveldkamp.blogspot.comJoelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-83227306940604576982009-08-01T21:17:00.001-07:002010-03-25T08:49:47.732-07:00This One Time In Egypt...This will probably be my last post on this blog. I have been back in the United States for over eight months now (which is really, really hard to believe), but I still have a few random stories that I never got around to telling – stories that I think you might all enjoy, but that, more importantly, I don’t want to forget.<br />
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So here, without further ado: Random stories from Egypt.<br />
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One of the first things Dr. Dave told us when we got to Egypt was to avoid writing about political or religious issues in our blogs or our e-mails, because the Egyptian authorities might be monitoring them. While I was in Egypt, I scrupulously followed this rule, not wishing to create trouble for MESP. (Yeah, I know, I wrote a ton about Turkish, Syrian and Israeli politics – but not while I was in those countries). Now that I am safely back in the free world, I want to share a few stories. (To be clear, the judgments I make in the paragraphs following do not represent the views of MESP, the CCCU, Dr. Holt, Mr. Koko the shwarma man, or even Dilwati, the diseased cat the Flat 6 girls rescued from the street in the first few weeks of MESP. They are my personal opinions.)<br />
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I don’t think I made in clear in the blog before, so let me make it clear now: Egypt is a full-blown dictatorship. President Hosni Mubarak has held power since 1981, when President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists for making peace with Israel. Mubarak was vice president at the time, and quickly took the reins. Conveniently, Mubarak never got around to appointing his own vice president. Free speech and free press are very limited, elections are rigged, and torture by the police is not uncommon. Religious freedom is officially guaranteed, but Christians are discriminated against in ways large and small. (One large way was when the government idiotically ordered all the pigs in Egypt slaughtered in response to the swine flu outbreak back in May. Muslims don’t eat pork, so guess which religious group the pigs belonged to?) Now that Mubarak’s health is failing (several news editors got imprisoned for reporting that fact), it appears that he’s grooming his son Gamel for the job of dictator-for-life, trying to build a dictatorial dynasty, just like Kim Sung Il, Hafiz Assad and Saddam Hussein.<br />
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Despite all this, the Egyptian government is a valued ally of the United States. Ever since Egypt became the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel in 1979, the U.S. has given Egypt over $2 billion in military and economic aid annually. For better or worse, in a region as critical to the world’s oil supply as the Middle East, the U.S. values stability and peace above human rights. I suppose when one looks at Syria, Iran, Libya, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, a dictatorship that respects Israel’s right to exist, doesn’t pursue WMD, doesn’t commit genocide and keeps the Islamists at bay seems pretty nice by comparison.<br />
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Police are everywhere in Egypt. Some of them wear all white, others wear all black. I don’t know the difference between them exactly, but they all wear stylish berets, and most of them carry automatic weapons. This was a little disconcerting at first, but I got used to it. Someone once told me that the police don’t always keep the machine guns loaded, that they’re more for show than anything else. I hope this is true, because it was not at all uncommon for us to see policemen sleeping at their post.<br />
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The only time I can honestly say I was scared in the Middle East was the morning after we got back from Luxor. Austin and I were walking on Shahin street to the fruit stand to buy breakfast for the flat, when we saw three guys wearing jeans and T-shirts walking towards us. They were all carrying machine guns. Machine guns with police uniforms I was used to. But machine guns without police uniforms? Holy crap!<br />
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They did not, however, start shouting “Allahu akbar! Al-mot li Amreeka!” gun me and Austin down, force us into an unmarked van, or even spit in our direction. They smiled broadly, said, “Hello, mister!” and kept walking. I may have said “Hi” back – I’m not sure. If I did, it probably sounded very weak and trembly. I now think they were probably off-duty policemen, not Egyptian Islamic Jihad members.<br />
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Tourism is an extremely important part of Egypt’s economy. In the 90s, Islamic extremists killed scores of Western tourists in an attempt to hurt the economy and bring down Egypt’s secular government. So while the police may be a corrupt annoyance (or worse, an oppressive force) to ordinary Egyptians, they were very protective of us westerners. (Brian, my roommate the quadrilingual spearfisher, says that this isn’t the case in all Third World countries – a policeman in Mozambique once tried to arrest him for essentially nothing). There was always a white-clad policeman sitting in a plastic chair outside the building where I lived – as often as not, sleeping with his head rested against the muzzle of his machine gun. There was a police hut outside the wall around the MESP villa. We got used to greeting them on our way to and from class. Whenever we went somewhere on a tour bus, we had to wait for a police escort to arrive before leaving. They weren’t always prompt, so this got old pretty quickly. By the time we took our trip to Alexandria, we decided to split up into groups of three or four for the train ride, so as not to attract unwanted police overprotectiveness. Ridiculous.<br />
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On the weekend we went to Luxor, Mubarak came to Luxor to give a speech. We didn’t get to see him, because that was the day we went to the Valley of the Kings. But all along the streets of Luxor that day, black-clad policemen stood at attention, and huge banners and posters were hung throughout the city to welcome him.<br />
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There’s more, but I don’t want to put it on the internet. Ask me sometime if you’re curious.<br />
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During my homestay week, I was riding around Cairo with my host brothers Shady and Samer and their cousin George. They had stopped the car at their other cousin’s house, gotten something out of the trunk of their car to drop off, and we were about to leave when Shady, in the driver’s seat, said, “Samer! Shanta maftooh.” Samer got back out of the car and slammed the trunk door all the way shut.<br />
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Now “maftooh” means “open,” and that much was obvious. But “shanta” means “bag.” A little confused, I asked Samer, “Shanta yanni [means] trunk?” Samer nodded. “Yes, shanta.” After a pause he said, “Shanta also means bag.”<br />
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So I wasn’t totally off. The Egyptians call their car trunks “bags?” That’s dumb.<br />
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Wait a second…<br />
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Don’t we all pack our “trunks” before we go on a trip? And for that matter, don’t we wear trunks to the pool?<br />
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Not so dumb after all.<br />
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Learning a new language makes you a lot more aware of how weird your own is.<br />
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One of the many music videos I saw in restaurants in Cairo. I think this guy is the Michael W. Smith of the Muslim world. Check it!<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhwdEtO5fJE&eurl<br />
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The night of the soccer game, Austin and I went to buy a “bebsi” (there’s no “p” sound in Arabic) from the khosh (a drink and snack stand) near our flat. It was past 11 o’clock, but this is Egypt, so the khosh owner and his family were still there, sitting on milk crates and talking. An elderly man in Muslim garb struck up a conversation with us. When we told him that we were American Christians who were studying Arabic and Islam, he tried to convince us of the truth of Islam. It went something like this.<br />
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Egyptian Man: What do you think is the biggest difference between Islam and Christianity?<br />
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Joel and Austin: Well – Jesus. We believe Jesus is God. Mohammad says he wasn’t.<br />
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Egyptian Man: So you don’t think Mohammad was a prophet.<br />
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Joel and Austin: Well...no.<br />
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Egyptian Man: Let me tell you something. In your Bible – your Bible! – there is a verse that says that if any man says he is a prophet, and is not, God will strike him and his family dead!<br />
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Joel and Austin: OK, sure, if you say so.<br />
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Egyptian Man: Mohammad said he was a prophet, and God never struck him down. He had a huge family, and many descendants, and today, Mohammad is the most common name in the world. So according to your own Bible, he must have been telling the truth!<br />
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Joel: Well, have you ever heard of a man named Joseph Smith?<br />
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Egyptian Man: No.<br />
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Joel: In America, there was a man named Joseph Smith who claimed to be a prophet. He started the Mormon faith over a hundred years ago, and still has many followers. God never struck him down.<br />
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Egyptian Man: Excuse me! This is what the verse says. I am simply using your Bible.<br />
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Joel: Well, maybe that verse [I still don’t know which one he’s talking about – theology majors?] was part of the Old Covenant, for the people of Israel only. Because there are plenty of people in the world who claim to be prophets and aren’t struck down. What about the man who claimed to be a prophet and started the Bahai faith [A 19th century Muslim offshoot]?<br />
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Egyptian Man: No, he was killed! The president of Iran killed him!<br />
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Joel: Oh, really? [Crap!]<br />
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On one of my first days in Agouza, the “low battery” light on my fancy electric razor turned on. I then realized that I had left the charger for my razor at home. So, since I was thousands of miles from anyone I knew personally, and in a Muslim country no less, I decided to grow out my facial hair for the first time in my life. I was never very pleased with the results, and now, when I look at pictures of myself from those months, I’m surprised that I actually looked like that. I grew plenty of hair on my chin and a nice mustache, but nothing but whiskers elsewhere. I had no means of trimming it, so it grew long and unkempt on my chin and upper lip without (as I had hoped) ever thickening in other places. By the time we left for travel component, both my facial hair and my scalp hair was getting out of control. So when I saw a barbershop while walking through Agouza one night, I stopped in and asked for a shave and a haircut. The barber didn’t speak English, but one of the other customers did, so he translated for us. Guys, if you’ve never had a straight-edge shave, I highly recommend it. It felt amazing, and afterwards, my face was so smooth that I couldn’t stop rubbing it.<br />
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Between my own limited Arabic skills and the other English-speaking customer, I managed to explain what I was doing in Egypt to the barber, and talk about politics a little bit as well. The barber told me that he didn’t like Bush (no, really!), but he liked President Carter a lot. Carter negotiated the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, so hopefully that’s the reason. I’m not a big fan of Carter myself, but it’s always nice to find people on the “other side,” so to speak, that want peace too.<br />
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The next day at the villa, Tara took one look at my face and exclaimed, “Il-hamdulillah!” (Thanks be to God!) That hurt just a little.<br />
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During my time in Cairo, no fewer than four people – my host brothers, a Sudanese refugee in my English class, and another MESPer’s host sister – asked me if I was Asian. The last time, when I answered in the negative, she insisted, “Not even a little?” To which I said, “No, I’m 100% white!” In retrospect, that doesn’t sound very sensitive. It’s not that I was offended by the questions, just a little surprised. My eyes are pretty dark brown, and my aforementioned facial hair did grow out fairly dark. But still. My skin is totally white, my eyes are completely round, and I’m frickin’ six foot two (which is really tall in Egypt). I may not be an Aryan master specimen, but you don’t get much whiter than Joel Veldkamp. Ana mish faahim. I don’t understand.<br />
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Multiple times in Egypt, I was chastised for my “hard” handshake. In America, a firm handshake is a sign of confidence and respect, and I have cultivated my handshake. Egyptians have a far more sensible reaction to a firm handshake: “Hey, stop hurting my hand, jerk!” My host dad was the only person to give me the Egyptian double-kiss. It caught me off-guard, but I didn’t dislike it.<br />
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One day towards the end of the semester, I left my wallet in a shop on Shahin street in Agouza. (It was a bad morning all around – I was behind on my papers, I couldn’t make myself understood with Arabic, I couldn’t find what I needed for the flat, etc.) The shopowner chased me down the street to return it to me before I even realized it was gone. I had hundreds of Egyptian pounds in it, money I had planned to spend on last-minute souvenirs at the Khan al Khalili marketplace. I’ve never wished I could speak coherent Arabic as badly as then. “Shokran! Shokran awi!” was all I knew how to say – thank you! thank you very much! Egyptians are awesome.<br />
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Most taxis in Cairo only seat four passengers, and apparently just before we arrived, a law was passed requiring everyone in taxis to wear seat belts. So for the sake of my taxi drivers, I tried to always wear my seat belt, even when the “seat belt” had no buckle, and I had to simply drape it over my shoulders.<br />
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Occasionally, though, we felt cheap and tried to squeeze five or more people into a taxi. If the taxi drivers were in a good mood, they’d let us. On the way back from the Pyramids, Jeff, Brian, Danielle, Grace and I were crammed into a taxi, and we got stuck in traffic. A policeman walked up to the cab and started talking to the driver in Arabic. We were like, “This isn’t good.” But the driver handed something to the cop, and he walked away. Assuming he had bribed the cop, we tried to pay him extra when we got to our stop, but he wouldn’t take it. This might have been because the taxi broke down in the middle of the square where we got off, and he was kind of embarrassed.<br />
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The professor who taught our Islamic Thought and Practice course was Dr. Chahinda Kareem, a middle-aged Egyptian Muslim professor from the American University in Cairo. Our group met her for the first time at the Ibn Tulun Mosque, an eleven-hundred-year-old mosque that she gave us a tour of. Dr. Dave introduced her by explaining that, as a rule, the CCCU requires all professors in its study-abroad programs to be Christian, but that he got them to make an exception for Dr. Kareem. Before the tour was over, I (and most of the group, I think) had fallen in love with her. She kept her brown hair uncovered, wore spectacles, and smiled and laughed easily. She spoke with a beautiful British accent, and was such a good lecturer that I always strained to catch her every word.<br />
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At the same time, she was a very demanding professor. She gave lectures twice a week, and we had to know everything she talked about. I learned more about Islam from Dr. Kareem than all the other books and articles I had read before her class. Her exams were essay tests of the hardest kind: she listed a topic, and told us to explain it. She gave me a B on my first test because I didn’t explain “enough.” On the next test, I wrote down every single fact I could remember from the lectures. That finally got me an A.<br />
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Dr. Kareem was as devout a Muslim as one could hope to find. Her love for God and for her religion was obvious from her lectures. But she did not engage in outward displays of piety demanded by Muslim extremists. She proudly refused to wear the headscarf, and laughed about the teenage Egyptian girls she saw wearing tight clothing and kissing in public, who thought of themselves as “religious” because their hair was covered. And she openly expressed her fears for the Muslim ummah (worldwide community), because of the tide of violent extremism.<br />
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One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Kareem was her description of the Muslim feast of Ashura. This feast commemorates the martyrdom of Mohammad’s grandson Hussein, a Shia saint. (We later visited his shrine in Damascus). Contrasting the Egyptian and Iraqi styles of marking the event, she said, “We have a feast, they beat themselves.” I’d say that’s pretty accurate.<br />
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There is a verse in the Qur’an that commands Muslims to “enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong” (3:104). In Saudi Arabia, this verse has given rise to a special police force that goes around “forbidding the wrong” – hitting people with sticks when they see them behaving immorally. Dr. Kareem once visited her son in Saudi Arabia, and wore a headscarf (but not a veil) out of respect for local laws. While she was waiting for her son at a mall, a man came up to her and hit her with a stick. “Cover your face!” he said.<br />
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Not realizing what was going on, but surprised and angry, Dr. Kareem grabbed the stick out of his hand and hit him back. “How dare you hit a woman!” she yelled.<br />
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The policeman was shocked, and a small crowd gathered as Dr. Kareem’s son came running up. “Tell your wife to cover her face!” the policeman said to Dr. Kareem’s son.<br />
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At this, Dr. Kareem shouted at the policeman, “And you are blind as well!” And the crowd started laughing. Dr. Kareem continued, “Anyway, I’m an Egyptian, not a Saudi Arabian, and I will not cover my face!”<br />
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Embarrassed, the policeman left the scene, and Dr. Kareem’s son cracked up. And when we heard the story, so did we.<br />
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Dr. Kareem, talking about anything ridiculous or foolish (e.g., certain Muslims eating with their fingers because that’s the way Mohammad ate): “(sigh) For God’s sake!”<br />
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One of our last homework assignments before we left for Turkey was to write a paper about a specific passage in the Qur’an (for Dr. Kareem’s class). For this paper, we had to interview three Muslims about their beliefs. My flatmate Jeff and I kinda-sorta put this off until the last minute, and the Saturday before our papers were due, we set out into the streets of Cairo to find some Muslims to talk to. (I was extremely blessed to have been assigned the host family that I was, but if I had been assigned to a Muslim family, this task would have been a lot easier.)<br />
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I am not good at walking up to strangers and initiating conversation. In Egypt, the task was both more daunting, because of language and culture barriers, and much easier, because Egyptians are so much friendlier and so much less individualistic than Americans. But once the conversation was initiated, we consistently ran into two problems: the Egyptians we spoke with either 1) could not or would not talk about the Qur’an with us unless they could look at an Arabic copy of it (I had only my English translation), or 2) insisted that we go to Al Azhar University and ask our questions to the clerics there. We tried to explain that no, we want to know what it means to you (that was an explicit part of the assignment), but often to no avail. As it turned out, we approached close to thirty people who could not help us, before finding three in a row who were willing (although the last two also advised us to go to Al Azhar).<br />
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The ironic thing is, we had already been to Al Azhar – and it was a pretty frustrating experience.<br />
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Al Azhar University is one of the oldest universities in the world, and was once the center of Islamic learning in the world. Lately, it’s lost some of its credibility over (fairly justified) accusations that it is a puppet of Egypt’s secular government, but it’s still a pretty big deal. Muslims from all over the world come to Al Azhar to study.<br />
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If I hadn’t been told that Al Azhar was one of the leading universities in the Islamic world, I wouldn’t have guessed it by walking around its campus. I long ago got used to the fact that Egyptian nice was American middle class, and Egyptian middle class was American ghetto, but you’d think the premiere Islamic institution in the world would have nicer facilities.<br />
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Anyway, the first item on the Al Azhar agenda was a Q&A session with one of the university’s leading sheikhs, who spoke through a translator. We quickly discovered that this was not so much a “Q&A” session as a “reassure the Americans” session. In the sheikh’s Weltanschauung, the world is virtually free of problems. Christians and Muslims get along terrifically in Egypt. There’s no problems between America and Islam. Women are totally equal in Islam. Al Azhar is not controlled by the government – where did you ever get that idea? Christians and Muslims don’t need to dialogue. We’ll do our thing, you can do your thing. All the problems come from a few people who misinterpret Islam, who apparently phase in and out of the universe without cause, like quantum particles. Who knows where they came from? Weird. Anyway, no need to worry about them.<br />
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At one point, he did this denial-of-reality number on a question about the killing of “apostates” (Muslims who leave the Islamic faith – usually for Christianity), and Dr. Holt interrupted him outright. “This is not believable,” he said. Go Dr. Holt, I said silently. On another question about relations between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, the sheikh went into the standard Egyptian-Muslim “The Christians are our brothers – end of story!” rant. We later found out that during this rant, the sheikh said, “Christians and Muslims fought against Israel together in the October War!” but that the translator left that sentence out. Apparently it was too much for our delicate American ears.<br />
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After the whitewashing session, we got to eat lunch with some students from Al Azhar. I landed at a table with my flatmate Jeff, my debating partner Scott, Barrett the intern, and three Al Azhar students: one from Bangladesh, one from Zambia, and one from Waziristan, the region of Pakistan that is essentially ruled by the Taliban, is probably where Osama bin Laden is hiding, and that is nearly-constantly being bombed by American Predator drones. The man from Waziristan was studying to be an Islamic judge back there. Scott and I spent most of our time talking to the student from Zambia. He was a very nice man, and spoke English very well. (I think Zambia used to be an English colony?) He asked us if there was religious liberty for Muslims in the United States. We said that yes, for the most part, Muslims in the U.S. were very free, although there were some anti-Muslim prejudices in America. He then started talking about struggles for Muslims in the UK. One of the things that bothered him was that Muslims weren’t allowed to broadcast the call to prayer in the UK, even though Christian churches were allowed to ring their bells. Internally, I began to revise my earlier answers about religious liberty in America. <i>Well, if you meant “free to bellow in Arabic over loudspeakers thirty-five times a week,” then I guess American Muslims aren’t that free after all.</i><br />
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Austin and Danielle had a less pleasant experience talking with an Al Azhar student who demanded to know why Americans thought bin Laden was behind 9/11, when it was “obvious” that the Jews were responsible. Austin tried to reason with him: “But bin Laden has said that he was behind the attacks.”<br />
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“Well,” the student said, “if you accuse somebody of something long enough, eventually they’ll give in.” Remember folks, Islam is the light.<br />
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(OK, maybe that last jab was uncalled for on my part. But I can feel the frustration in my gut even now, eight months later. Is it willful ignorance, cultural malaise, or plain paranoia? I have no idea, but it makes me sick.)<br />
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Here’s a great picture that I think sums up Austin and Danielle’s experience:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSn5tUo9Mizl4WJpXyDCLAV_mpImRKYRX6-qA6NAeVTVjssMPsrGObmjxnOAtNWDFntiFnIt35xsf0jcIl_4xdozob8MjmDNI05x8zZzKoa6RqXthnB9s9DmdedMroKaRlIkJb5hqjkUP/s1600-h/Azhar+debate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqSn5tUo9Mizl4WJpXyDCLAV_mpImRKYRX6-qA6NAeVTVjssMPsrGObmjxnOAtNWDFntiFnIt35xsf0jcIl_4xdozob8MjmDNI05x8zZzKoa6RqXthnB9s9DmdedMroKaRlIkJb5hqjkUP/s400/Azhar+debate.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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The Al Azhar experience was part of a twofer of frustrating encounters with Muslims. The second half of that twofer came when some writers from IslamOnline.com came to talk to us for a day at the MESP villa. We split into groups to discuss various topics. The organizers announced that the first group would be discussing democracy, the 2008 election, and the Holy Land. CJ (I think) said, “Oh, is that all?” and the whole group bust out laughing.<br />
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But then, since they hadn’t come to discuss interfaith issues so much as present a united front against any “misunderstandings” we might have about Islam, too much material wouldn’t be a problem. I was in a group with one of the IslamOnline writers discussing women’s issues. He started off by explaining that, in Islam, a Muslim man could marry a Christian or a Jew, but a Muslim woman could not marry a Christian or a Jew. The reasoning behind this was that the Muslim man could protect his wife’s religious choice, but the Muslim woman might be forced to convert by her husband. We asked why a man could be trusted to stay a Muslim, but a woman couldn’t. He didn’t seem to understand the question. So it went. Eventually, in the course of the discussion, he pretty much told us that Saudi Arabia’s government was not theocratic enough for his tastes. That, I think, is when I tuned out.<br />
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We then gathered as a mass group again so all the “discussion” groups could share what they had “learned.” Our Muslim friends were only too happy to share what we had “learned”: no problems here!<br />
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In fairness, my experience was probably tainted, because by this point in the semester my tolerance for unproductive interfaith discussions was running dangerously low. I was sick and tired of bashing my head against the wall of Islam. So I didn’t put very much into the meeting that day. Hopefully it was beneficial for some of the other MESPers. I just wanted to eat, go back to my flat and listen to decadent American music on my computer. Which I did – but not without giving my eternally patient roommate Brian an earful. He was good about it.<br />
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Sura 109:<br />
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In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.<br />
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Say: O you that reject Faith!<br />
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I do not worship that which you worship,<br />
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Nor will you worship that which I worship.<br />
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And I will not worship that which you have been wont to worship,<br />
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Nor will you worship that which I worship.<br />
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To you be your Way and to me mine.<br />
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For our weekly service project, my flatmate Jason and I taught a class in conversational English to a group of about ten Christian Egyptian adults, at a place called the Episcopal Training Center. I feel bad about never blogging about it, because it was one of the best experiences I had in Egypt.<br />
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When Jason and I arrived at the Center for our first class, we knew about as much about our job as you do now. We headed to the “teacher’s lounge,” an annex about the size of a freshmen dorm room, and met a British man who was also teaching English there. We asked him if he, well, knew what we were supposed to do, and he suggested we look through a stack of books for ideas. Hoo-kay. Class is in an hour.<br />
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To our pleasant surprise, most of our class already knew English fairly well. They just needed help with the finer points: conversation flow, idioms, expressions, etc. Let me tell you, nothing is better for your self-esteem than teaching your first language to other people. You’re automatically an expert. E.g.: “How do you pronounce ‘congratulations,’ teacher?” “Well, let me explain...”<br />
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Every Tuesday night, we gathered in the stuffy third-story classroom to talk about conversational English. I was really grateful to have Jason with me. As he always does, he kept the class entertaining. He also kept us both on track with the task of making up the curriculum as we went along.<br />
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Sometimes, they taught us a little Arabic as well. They took special pleasure in teaching us the word “ishta,” a slang word that literally means “sweet,” or “creamy,” and is used the same way as the English slang use of “sweet.” “Da ishta, ya ragel” – “That’s sweet, man.” For some reason, it always cracked them up when I used it. Micah Schuurman has confirmed the definition of ishta for me, so they weren’t pulling a fast one on me, unless it’s a fast one they pull on all foreigners. Maybe it’s just funny to hear people who know almost none of your first language to use your language’s slang.<br />
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As the weeks went on, we came to know our students really well. Usama, the man whose family lived in hours away in the town of Beni Suef, who worked in Cairo, but went home every weekend to be with his family. (He’s nothing at all like his most infamous namesake). Fayqa, the woman who followed her brother’s lead in converting from Coptic Christianity to evangelicalism, and was working translating Arthur C. Clarke potboilers into Arabic. Suzie, the woman considering a marriage to an Egyptian-Australian man. All our students were very gracious to their totally inexperienced teachers, and we probably learned more from them about Egypt than they learned from us about English. They always made a point of accompanying us home from class on the train, usually even buying our (20 cent) tickets for us. We tried to stop Usama from doing this multiple times, to no avail.<br />
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As the 2008 election drew nearer, Usama asked me on one such train ride who I was voting for. I told him I was voting for McCain. Unsurprisingly, like nearly all Egyptians, Christian or Muslim, that I broached the subject with, Usama was for Obama. He asked me why McCain. Thinking that, talking to an Egyptian, I would have to give extra good reasons to vote Republican, I automatically went into defense mode. I talked about social issues, defense, the economy, healthcare, etc. Finally, Usama just said, “Ok, ok, those are enough reasons,” and smiled. Every now and again, it’s good to talk to people who don’t take politics as seriously as I do.<br />
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Towards the end of Ramadan, we asked Usama if he was looking forward to spending the next few days with his family. The end of Ramadan is followed by three days of feasting, which this year was followed by a three-day weekend commemorating Egypt’s Totally Glorious Victory over Israel in the October 1973 war. Us MESPers were looking forward to the vacation, and I assumed Usama was too.<br />
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In response, Usama told us that he didn’t know if he could go home yet, because the end of Ramadan was determined by a certain lunar observance Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia had to make. He might have work on Wednesday; he might not. At 10 PM Tuesday night, he still didn’t know. I momentarily forgot my cultural sensitivities, and exclaimed, “That’s ridiculous!” Thankfully, Usama is a Christian. He exclaimed in return, “I know!”<br />
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Our students took us out socially twice during the semester. The first time, Usama and Fayqa took us to the famous Khan al Khalili market, where we had been once before. There, they treated us to the drink of paradise, tea with mint leaves, for the first time. Usama smoked a shisha at the cafe where we had tea, but we didn’t partake because of the MESP covenant. I now regret that, since I later broke the MESP covenant multiple times. (Shh). We also had Egyptian dessert pancakes (I forget exactly what they’re called, but they were awesome.) Usama helped Jason get an “Egyptian price” for a galabaya (Arab man-dress) from one of the shopkeepers, which was wildly entertaining to witness. If you don’t know Jason personally, it’s hard to describe the sight of him exasperatedly yelling at the shopkeeper and pretending to walk away while Usama smiles impishly and pretends not to be paying attention. If you do know Jason personally, you are now jealous of me for getting to witness it. Ba ha ha.<br />
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A few weeks later, Fayqa and Alverra took me to the Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin in Maadi, a region in southern Cairo. The Church marks a place where Joseph, Mary and Jesus are supposed to have stayed during their flight into Egypt. The church is right on the Nile, and contains a huge Bible that was found miraculously floating in the Nile in the 1970s, open to Isaiah 19:25: “Blessed be Egypt my people.” The Church also has a well that Mary supposedly drank from. (Apparently, Joseph and Jesus didn’t get thirsty during their stay.)<br />
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Fayqa is an evangelical, but Alverra is a Coptic. As we walked through the shrines in the church, Alverra would kiss the icons while Fayqa and I watched politely from a few steps away. As a foreign Christian in a Muslim land, I usually found any Christian presence comforting. When I was in a church or a monastery, or interacting with Middle Eastern Christians, I felt at home. I counted Coptic and Evangelical Christians alike as compatriots, for lack of a better word. But I have a feeling – actually more than a feeling – that there’s more tension between Middle Eastern evangelicals and Middle Eastern Orthodox than meets the eye. Some of my Egyptian Evangelical friends complained to me on occasion that the Copts treated them like apostates. And if I were a Copt, I might resent evangelicalism a little bit. If you ask the Copts, they haven’t changed their church at all since it was founded by St. Mark himself. And then these Westerners come here with their version of Christianity and tell us it’s superior? (My host brothers’ church was awesome, but aside from the language, it could have been any church in America.)<br />
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While we were at the church, the sanctuary was being decorated for a wedding. As we were leaving, we saw the bridal party approaching. The groom and his bride were holding hands, leading a parade of friends and relatives through the night up to the church. It seemed like a fun way to get married.<br />
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One of my goals in the Middle East was to buy a Bible in Arabic. At the Church of the Holy Virgin, I found a pocket-size one for seventeen pounds (three bucks or so). The Arabic text in it has tashkeel (markings indicating short vowel sounds that most Arabic writing doesn’t have), which is nice for a newbie like me, but it will still be a long time before I can make heads or tails of it. On the train ride home that night, I tried to sound out Genesis 1 with Fayqa’s help. She was patient. I was pathetic. Arabic is hard.<br />
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One of the hardest parts of the class was when students asked for extra help. One woman in class was near-desperate. She said she had to learn English better for her job, so she could start going to conferences with English-speakers, and offered to pay us to give her private lessons. It was out of the question; not only were Jason and I busy with our own schoolwork, and preparing for a month-long trip through the Middle East, but the woman already spoke decent English, and there was no way I could help her improve noticeably in such a short time. I know English, but teaching English is still new to me.<br />
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After our last class, Fayqa, Suzi and Usama accompanied us on the train back to Tahrir Square, as usual. At our stop, Jason and I embraced Usama. Then, forgetting myself again, I went and gave Suzi and Fayqa hugs too. I heard a few snickers from the other men on the train. (The Egyptian subway has cars set aside for women. Women are allowed on the other cars, but most of them ride in the women’s cars.) Oh, embarrassment. Fayqa got off at the same stop, and reassured me that “We don’t care what they [the Muslims] think.” Good?<br />
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This one time in Turkey (changing gears here a little), we were eating a continental breakfast in a hotel in Ankara. The TV was on, but there were no subtitles and I don’t speak Turkish, so I was mostly ignoring it. (Though I’m pretty sure it was a news channel.) Then a music video came on. The music was dour and dark, and the video showed pictures of the carnage in Iraq, intercut with pictures of President Bush.<br />
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I saw at least two more of these videos in Ankara. Turkey may be secular, democratic and westernized compared to its neighbors, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking the Turks are all psyched about Israel or the Iraq War. The gulf is wide, and the wounds are deep.<br />
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One of the last cab rides I took in Cairo was from Cilantro’s back to my flat. Cilantro’s is a two-story, extremely overpriced coffee shop that caters to Westerners, complete with metal detectors, uniformed waiters, and free wireless internet. Austin and I had gone there to upload some photos and relax after handing in all of our papers for Dr. Dave.<br />
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I’ve written before about taxi drivers trying to rip us off, assuming (correctly, at first) that we were naive Americans who didn’t know the standard fare. Don’t get me wrong - most of the taxi drivers I encountered were great, friendly men, and some were just competitive. But a select few were definitely trying to cheat us. (I should mention something I learned but never wrote about here: the government has refused to raise the standard cab fare to keep pace with inflation, so all the meters in the cabs are set to unlivable fares. All Egyptians understand this, so the drivers just turn off their meters, and Egyptians willingly barter with their drivers for just fares.)<br />
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Anyway, Cilantro’s is not that far from our flat (in fact, it’s within walking distance if you’re in the mood and have an afternoon to kill). We usually paid our drivers five pounds for the ride. The driver on this trip asked for thirty pounds (about $5). At the beginning of the semester, I would have gotten all flustered and floundered about for a slightly less absurd settlement. This time, I surprised myself: I laughed in the driver’s face, said “La’, hamza kwayyis” (No, five is good) and handed him a five-pound note. To my pleasant surprise, the driver laughed too, took the money, and drove off. Ah, now we understand each other.<br />
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When we returned from travel component, Jason and I tried to arrange a get-together with our students. A few of them corresponded with us via e-mail, and we agreed to meet on a certain night at the entrance to a mall called CityStars. Little did we know that CityStars is a gigantic mall with at least eight entrances. So the whole get-together part of the adventure didn’t pan out. But an adventure it was!<br />
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Actually, it was a pretty typical big mall experience, with an Egyptian flavor (an Eye of Horus above the entrance we used, Egyptian restaurants in the food court next to the McDonald’s, Egyptian obelisks stretching up through the mall’s eight stories, etc.) The real shock was finding a place like that in dirty, crowded Cairo. The prices were outrageous by Egyptian standards, and maybe even by American standards in some stores. We saw of lot of well-off people there; it was definitely inaccessible to most Egyptians. Aside from a novel in Arabic I bought to motivate myself to keep studying at home, we didn’t buy much.<br />
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For our last weekend in Egypt, we headed to a Coptic monastery south of Cairo called Anafora. I know I say this a lot, but it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and it will always have a special place in my heart. It’s in the middle of the desert, not quite as isolated as the Desert Rose Hotel in Siwa, but still far away from the lights and bustle of Cairo. In the center of the monastery is a white three story structure that we used for meals and other gatherings. The rest of the compound is filled with tiny white huts that are connected, so you can run to your friend’s house by rooftop. Pools, palm trees and gardens fill the sandy land inside the compound. Maybe the best part was the lack of electricity. Only candlelight and desert air to fill the nights.<br />
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In every sense, Anafora is a refuge from the rest of the world. The peace and restfulness of the place made it a perfect place to get ready to say goodbye to each other and reenter Western civilization. To do this, we were assigned the simple task of making up skits about our reentry, and ended up laughing ourselves to tears with the results. (A fat Austin throwing away a giant stuffed snake representing a sub sandwich will always stick in my mind, as will Jason squawking, “I’m a Christian-Muslim hybrid now!”).<br />
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For over three months, the thirty-four of us had been each other’s world, for all intents and purposes, and we were perfectly comfortable with each other. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel as close to some of the MESPers as any of my friends back home. We spent our copious free time that weekend playing games, singing songs, and horsing around on the roof of the main building.<br />
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After our final candlelight meal of chicken, we gathered in one of the huts to hold “encouragement circle.” We sat in a circle, and for each person, three other MESPers spoke up to say what made that person great. It was a wonderful experience, one that I will remember for a very long time.<br />
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One of my favorite Egyptian foods is “fatah.” I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like “fatah,” so just take it for granted that from here on when I write “fatah,” I’m talking about a wonderful food, not the Palestinian guerrilla group. And it is so wonderful. Barrett the intern showed us the best place to get it: a sidewalk restaurant in Mohandiseen. (Mohandiseen is a slightly-more-upscale neighborhood close to Agouza – the name means “the engineers.” And when I say “sidewalk restaurant,” I mean, they put out a bunch of card tables and plastic chairs on the sidewalk and called it a restaurant.) Fatah is, essentially, juicy chicken, rice, and spices in on a bowl with flakes of bread at the bottom, served with garlic sauce and a Coke. Ya Allah! God is so good to have made food as amazing as this, and given us taste buds to match. I never did manage to finish a whole bowl, and I’m sure it gave me diarrhea once or twice, but hey, what didn’t? Barrett used to live in an apartment close to the fatah place (as we called it), and became close with the restaurant workers. He told us that he learned most of his Arabic at the fatah place, just talking to Egyptians there. Sometimes, I am slightly jealous of Barrett.<br />
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Anyway, our last night in Egypt, the MESP guys celebrated the only appropriate way: going out for fatah, playing Age of Empires II long into the night, and putting off our one and only flat-cleaning session of the semester until the morning.<br />
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OK everybody, what’s the worst part of flying? You know the answer: staying up all night the night before desperately trying to assemble your belongings into two suitcases so that they both total 50 pounds. I thought I succeeded the night before we left. I thought wrong.<br />
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After our “Ma’a salaama” (goodbye, lit. “Go with peace”) party at the villa, we got on the bus for a final time and headed to the Cairo airport for our midnight flight back to Washington, D.C. We hugged Dr. Dave, Barrett and Andrea goodbye and walked into the terminal to check out our bags. Both of my suitcases were a few pounds overweight. The English-speaking Egyptian man working the Lufthansa counter told me there would be some extra charges, and, resigned to my fate, I followed him into a back room filled with desks and cubicles.<br />
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The man gave me a seat across from his desk and left to attend to other business while I contemplated my doom. At the cubicle to my left, a Mexican man was desperately trying to get the stone-faced Lufthansa employees to accept his credit card. To say the environment was uncomfortable is an understatement.<br />
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The man came back and told me that my passport was “weird.” (To avoid complications crossing into Arab countries in the future, we asked all the officers at Israel’s borders – Egyptian, Jordanian and Israeli – to stamp a piece of paper instead of our passports, a request they are used to. So there are no Israeli stamps in my passport, which is nice for travel purposes, but my passport appears to show that I teleported from Jordan to Egypt in the fall of 2008.) But I was in luck, he told me. He would overlook that, and also overlook one of my overweight bags, and only charge me for the other one. Sounds good, right?<br />
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“The extra charges will be 900 pounds,” he said. I was floored. Then I remembered that Egyptian pounds are worth far less than dollars. I was relieved for a second, then did some mental math, and was floored again. $150? For three extra pounds of weight?<br />
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A breath away from reentering the world of American straight-forwardness, I had hit a final snag. I was in no mood to argue. I just wanted to get home, and I had hundreds of American dollars in my backpack. I gave in.<br />
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To this day, I have no idea if I was treated fairly, or if I was victimized by Egypt’s culture of corruption one final time. I was too tired to check into Lufthansa’s policies when I got home. The fact that the man tried to put me on the defensive about my passport, and then pretended to be my friend by overlooking the other overweight bag, makes me extremely suspicious. All I know is that when Austin was told his bags were overweight, he put on his cutest face, told his bag-checker, “I have no money, I’m a student,” and the man winked at him and let him go. Needless to say, I was in a sour mood for the first leg of our journey.<br />
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Our flight arrived in D.C. several hours late, and I missed my connecting flight to Detroit – a fact I didn’t realize until I had said my goodbyes to all the MESPers and gone to the Northwestern counter. Thankfully, I ran into Andrew, who knew that Austin, Cassi and Emily had booked a hotel room, and had gotten their number. So us five MESPers got to spend one final night together. We all passed out at 7 PM Eastern time watching TV. At 2 AM, I woke up, not sleepy at all. As I stared at the dark hotel room ceiling, I heard Austin stirring next to me. “Are you awake, Austin?” I asked. As it turns out, we had all woken up at the same time. All of us started laughing. We turned the TV back on, and the first commercial I saw was for Subway’s five-dollar footlongs. “30 pounds for a sandwich?” I exclaimed out loud. “Who would pay that?”<br />
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My journey the next day is a blur. I remember I was completely exhausted, and that all three of my flights were messed up some way or another – mechanical failures, delays, etc. After my last flight was delayed, I left a message on my parents’ answering machine to let them know. When I got home, my mom played it for me. She couldn’t understand half of what I said, and I couldn’t make it out either. Apparently I was so tired I was talking gibberish.<br />
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I also remember that every time I heard someone speaking English in the various airport terminals, I turned my head to see which of my friends was talking. I hadn’t heard anybody but the MESPers speak American English for four months, so who else could it be?<br />
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Coming down the escalator in the Des Moines airport to see Dad, Mom and Stella waiting for me there is a memory that will last for a long, long time.<br />
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It’s now been over eight months since I got back, but mentally, I don’t think I ever really left the Middle East. For months, I would have daily flashbacks to my favorite Middle Eastern locales. I missed those places and the friends I had made there so much that it ached. I spent hours organizing and looking at my pictures, making videos out of the recordings I had taken, writing this blog, trying to make falafel, and reading all I could find about the Middle East. I did two independent studies on the Middle East – and speaking of that, taking 20 credits that semester was a bad call. (I finished with seven As and my first C in college or high school. I pulled it together in every class but one.)<br />
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I still don’t know if my homesickness for the Middle East is a sign of a permanent calling involving the region, or just young-20s wanderlust, but I intend to find out. I’m keeping up with my Arabic studies, and I’m praying about returning to the region for a while after I graduate in May. Trusting in Allah’s plan is very hard sometimes, but if I learned anything in the Middle East, it’s how important trusting in him is, because making sense of it on our own is hopeless.<br />
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“I am the LORD, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.<br />
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“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’”<br />
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- Isaiah 45:18-19, 22-24Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-62997834051853464042009-01-27T12:19:00.000-08:002009-08-08T11:38:07.204-07:00Travelogue: Al-Quds, Filistine, wa Isra'elDay 15<br /><br />Jerusalem! We arrived here today by bus at about 4:00. Few things, I think, can help one appreciate Israel's tiny size, and thus, the inherent absurdity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, better than a bus ride from Jordan to Jerusalem. We crossed the whole West Bank in forty-five minutes, tops. It was like driving from my house to Ames.<br /><br />For those of you who aren't intimately familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, let me grossly oversimplify the relevant aspects: West Jerusalem is Jewish, East Jerusalem is Arab, and is part of the West Bank - the territory left over for the Palestinians after they and the Arabs got their farkles (Dr. Dave’s word) handed to them in the 1948 war. When the Arabs got their farkles handed to them again in 1967, Israel took over control of the West Bank. Knowing that they would eventually have to withdraw from the West Bank to make peace, Israel decided to ring the eastern side of Jerusalem with Jewish settlements, hoping that this would allow them to annex all of Jerusalem into Israel proper at the end of the day.<br /><br />I knew all this before I came here. What I didn't realize was how little land all that complexity actually involves. We crossed the Jordan, and within minutes, we could see the Palestinian stronghold of Jericho in the distance. Seemingly a few minutes later, we were passing by the largest Jewish settlement, Ma'aleh Adummim. Then we were driving through some Palestinian villages, and then bam! We drive underneath a tunnel and come up into East Jersualem.<br /><br />So, to go back to the Iowa analogy, imagine that the Jews live in West Des Moines, Cumming and Norwalk, and the Palestinians live in Des Moines and Ames. Also, immediately north of Ames is another country. (Just imagine.) Now imagine that the Jews build and inhabit Johnston, Ankeny and Altoona, and then expect the Palestinians to be satisfied with Ames. A) You can't make a country out of Ames, and B) why the farkle are you all fighting over a lunchbreak’s worth of driving time?<br /><br />So, back to the tunnel. Dr. Dave said, "We're going into a tunnel now. Be prepared for a dramatic view on your left when we come out." We all eagerly looked out the window, ready for some drama. When we came out, all we could see was a big wall along the highway. Then, all of a sudden, the wall was gone, and the Dome of the Rock popped up out of nowhere, along with all of Jerusalem. "That, beloved," Dr. Dave intoned, with obvious satisfaction, "is the kingdom of heaven." Dr. Dave pointed out other minor sights to us on the way through the city: the Mount of Olives, the Kidron Valley, etc.<br /><br />We are staying at a hospice run by the Austrian Catholic Church in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. (Yes, that Old City - the one in your study Bibles. We walk through the Damascus Gate to get to West Jerusalem, which corresponds to the Fish Gate in my study Bible’s maps). Historically, and theologically - well, it's the Old City of Jerusalem. The Via Dolorosa is right outside our hospice. The Western Wall is at the end of our street. The walls that surround us were built by the Romans and the Ottomans. Politically, it's beyond fascinating. The Old City is divided into four quarters: Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish. The Muslim and Christian quarters are the biggest. Almost everyone here is Arab, and the shops display pictures of Arafat and pro-Palestinian T-shirts. But many Jewish nationalists are committed to Judaizing Jerusalem, and have bought property in the area. They can be seen defiantly walking around in their kippas (or yarmulkes in Yiddish) and hoisting the Israeli flag high from their houses. (Ariel Sharon, Israel’s former prime minister, now in a coma, bought a house right next to the Austrian Hospice in the Muslim Quarter. It’s decorated with two-story Israeli flags and a huge iron menorah. Not one for subtlety, that Sharon.) And of course, given the church’s tendency to build churches at every place Jesus is known to have spit, there are churches everywhere. From the roof of the hospice, we can see the whole Old City and beyond. The Dome of the Rock is a long football pass away, and the skyline is dominated by three things: minarets, crosses, and Israeli flags. It's a wonder there isn't more violence here.<br /><br />After we got settled in, Dr. Dave took us on a brief jaunt around the neighborhood. We stopped by the Western Wall (security there is pretty tight), then took us back past Mt. Zion (where David's tomb and the Upper Room are located), through the Armenian Quarter, past the King David Hotel, the site of an infamous Zionist terror attack in 1948, and up to the 1948 Green Line that marks the start of West Jerusalem.<br /><br />I think I'm going to like it here.<br /><br />On the way, we went into an art shop owned by an Orthodox Jew right by the Western Wall. He's a friend of Dr. Dave's, and he gave us a quick spiel on his beliefs. When Alvin and Melissa and I went to a Conservative/Reform synagogue in Sioux City last semester, the rabbi was pretty doctrinally apathetic. It didn't take me long to figure out that I believed in the Jewish Bible more than he did. This guy was completely different. His attitude towards the Hebrew Scriptures was almost (dare I say?) Christian. He sees the establishment of the State of Israel as a fulfillment of the prophecies in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and believes that the hour of the world's redemption is near. He said, "The mission of the Jews is to reveal God to the world through the way we live." Sound familiar? He invited us to come back and talk to him anytime, and I plan to.<br /><br />The difference between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem (including the Old City) - separated only by a four-lane street - is night and day. West Jerusalem might pass for Chicago, except for the Hebrew signs. East Jerusalem is like - well, it's like Cairo, Aleppo, Damascus, and every other Arab city I've been in. Dirty, confused streets, lots of carts and vendors, excitable people congregating all over the place, and food that's about half the price of the food on the West side. Mind you, these are only two hours' worth of impressions, but I think they'll hold pretty well.<br /><br />CJ, Josh and I explored West Jerusalem on our own for a bit, found a good falafel place, a sweet guitar player performing in the middle of a city square, and, thanks be to God, an ATM that accepted my bank card. This country isn’t under any U.S. sanctions! “I love Israel!” I shouted out loud.<br /><br />Hilarious story of the day: this morning at devotions in our hotel in Amman, Austin left our group to go grab Dr. Diaa from his room. While he was gone, Dr. Dave told us that when we got close to the border, he was going to ask us if we had all remembered our certificates of circumcision for the border crossing, and just to play along. Well, he did, and we did, and poor Austin was pretty freaked out for a few minutes. I don't really blame him - Israeli border security is pretty frustrating (although they didn't deny us entry because of our Syrian stamps, which is more than Barrett can say about Syria).<br /><br />Day 16<br /><br />Today, we visited Yad Veshem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum. It is situated in West Jerusalem, a short cab drive away from the Old City. (A Palestinian cab driver took us there, and an Israeli driver took us back. Interestingly, the Palestinian driver spoke better English.) The museum overlooks a huge forested valley, with prosperous-looking neighborhoods topping the hills in the distance. It’s appropriate, I think, for Israel’s holocaust museum to showcase the beauty of their new national home – kind of a big “**** you!” to the Nazis. A many-pillared archway you walk under to get to the museum entrance is inscribed with Ezekiel 37:14 in English and Hebrew: “I will put my breath into you and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil.”<br /><br />The museum was somewhat similar to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC that I visited this summer. The biggest difference is that, for the Israelis, the issue is intensely personal, and it shows in the museum. One of the first things we saw on the way in was a rack full of forms in English, Hebrew and Russian (I think). Visitors can fill out the forms with information about a friend or loved one killed in the Holocaust, so they can be added to the museum’s records.<br /><br />The museum is built in the shape of a long, long triangular prism. In the main hall, two oppressive cement walls angle up towards each other and meet at a skylight. The psychological impact of that architecture is impressive.<br /><br />The first thing you see on entering the museum is a silent video projected on a wall. The video shows kids playing in a prewar Jewish community in Europe, and it’s accompanied by slow mournful music. Your gut clenches, because you know what’s coming next.<br /><br />There are too many stories in the museum to grasp. The place is full of little screens showing videos of survivors telling their stories in Hebrew, with English subtitles. What struck me again about the Holocaust is how systematic, accepted, and long it was. People criticize the international community for not intervening in Rwanda in 1994? That genocide lasted a hundred days, and was accompanied by a breakdown of the Rwandan social order. The Holocaust went on for six years, and was methodically implemented, stage by stage, by a (somewhat)-elected government, with the acceptance and support of much of Europe. The depth of humanity’s evil is astounding. Who could line up a bunch of kids at the edge of a trench, and then shoot them randomly, so they fall in, some dead, many wounded and wailing? Answer: we all could.<br /><br />The nationalist thread in the museum is a bit strong. All the maps label the British territory of Palestine as the “Land of Israel.” The Jewish groups that fought back against the Nazis, from the Warsaw Ghetto to the sonderkommand in Auschwitz, are lionized. One of the quotes on the walls in the Auschwitz exhibit is from a rabbi just before he was gassed: “You will never destroy the Jewish people!” In one of the videos, a man recounts celebrating the Passover in the camp with a friend. They had no bread or wine, so they simply retold the story: “Why is this night different from all others?” “Because once we were slaves and we are slaves no longer.” How to make sense of those sayings in a concentration camp? The man decided that, in the Exodus, God had delivered the Jews from spiritual slavery into spiritual freedom, and “no one can take that away from us!” Then he and his friend told each other, “Next year in Jerusalem!” the traditional Passover slogan of the Jews in diaspora. The man in the video then proudly announces that he made it to Jerusalem within a year.<br /><br />The Allies take quite a beating in the museum. I wasn’t surprised to see them criticized for turning away Jewish refugees in the early days of the war, or for refusing to bomb Auschwitz’ rail lines. I was surprised to see Roosevelt and Churchill criticized for refusing to negotiate with Hitler. Apparently, the Allied declaration that the only acceptable outcome was unconditional surrender precluded negotiations on “side issues” like stopping the slaughter of Jews. It’s fascinating how different peoples can interpret the same events so differently.<br /><br />Next, the Allies are lambasted for refusing to allow Jewish emigration to America or Palestine after the war’s end. The Jews who defied the British by settling in Palestine after the war are portrayed heroically. The main exhibit ends with a video of the declaration of Israeli independence in 1948.<br /><br />The most stirring part of the museum comes near the end – the Hall of Names. It’s a huge circular vault that extends far above and below floor level. The vault is filled with shelves, which are filled with black binders, which are filled with the names of the dead. It impacted me in a way that I don’t think a simple list could. About half the shelves are empty – they’re still adding names, I guess.<br /><br />At the end of the main hall is a balcony that offers a breathtaking view of green, lush, West Jerusalem. Again, I think it’s fitting (and probably intentional) that the long exhibit of Jewish suffering ends with a magnificent view of the Jewish triumph – their resettlement in the land of their fathers. And let me tell you – it is a beautiful land. If only they could triumph at making peace in it.<br /><br />The last thing I saw at the museum was the Hall of Remembrance. It’s separate from the main hall by a ways. Essentially, it’s a dark room with a granite floor inscribed with the names of all the camps and massacre sites, with a constant flame lighting the place from the front. It was raining, so I had my hood pulled up when I went inside. The man at the door nodded at me in approval. It was only when I was inside that I saw the sign announcing that all male visitors must have their heads covered, and a box of kippas by the door. I guess the hoodie counts.<br /><br />Something that only struck me after we left Yad Veshem: All the exhibits were in Hebrew and perfect English. Nothing that I saw was in Arabic, even though one-fifth of Israelis are Arab, and there are occupied Arab lands ten minutes away from Yad Veshem. Why not? Why is the museum designed for Israeli and American visitors, and not Arab visitors? Who are they speaking to?<br /><br />After we returned to the Hospice, Austin, Adam and I set out to the Western Wall for a second visit. We put on the cardboard kippas they provided for us, and got to go up close this time. There were lots of men with huge beards chanting, reading the Torah, and rocking their heads back and forth. (How’s this for white man bliss – I didn’t notice that there were no women praying close to the wall. Emily D. had to tell me later on that the women who come to pray are separated into a different, smaller section by a fence.) Austin and I stuck prayers in the wall like thousands of Jews before us. I addressed mine to Jesus. I hope that doesn’t cause a riot later.<br /><br />After that, we wandered through the shops of the Muslim quarter for a while. We witnessed our first tussle between Palestinians and Israeli cops in a narrow road close to the Western Wall. We saw some men shoving each other, and then a young Palestinian boy tugged on Austin’s sleeve and said, “The road is closed to Muslims.” He offered to show us another way, and when two more cops with big rifles approached, we agreed. The boy showed us the way back to the Damascus Gate, and we paid him a few shekels for his trouble. Not sure what it was all about, but in Austin’s words, it was time to haul butt, not ask questions.<br /><br />Today, we saw our first group of Christian pilgrims walking through the streets, carrying a small cross and singing in Spanish. The first, and probably not the last.<br /><br />Observation: whenever we try to speak Arabic with the Palestinians, they can tell we’ve studied in Egypt. Many of the words we use are distinct to Egyptian Arabic, like the words for “yes,” and “how much?”<br /><br />Day 17<br /><br />Today is Barrett the intern’s birthday; at the request of his girlfriend, Brian and I brought him breakfast in bed. Good times.<br /><br />Today is Friday, so the Jewish Sabbath (shabbot) begins tonight. This morning, we heard from Ophir Yarden, a politically liberal Orthodox Jew (an Israeli paradox, pretty much), who tried to explain to us all the different forms of Judaism in Israel, in preparation for the shabbot celebration at the Western Wall tonight. I mostly learned that Judaism is extremely complicated.<br /><br />Afterwards, Barrett took us on a walk up to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is on the east side of the Old City, which places it squarely in East Jerusalem. Depending on your political stance, that makes it either part of Jerusalem, the eternal, indivisible capital of Israel, or part of the West Bank, which is illegally occupied by Israel. Either way, it makes MESP’s insurance company nervous, and we’re only allowed to go halfway up the Mount of Olives. But from the Old City, we can see the proud Israeli flags hoisted over the Jewish settlements on the Mount (most of the people living on the Mount of Olives are Arab).<br /><br />There are four churches on the side of the Mount of Olives we were allowed to visit. First was a Armenian Orthodox/Greek Orthodox Church holding the tomb of the Virgin Mary and the “grotto of Gethsemane,” a cave where Jesus supposedly retired to pray occasionally. Across the street is the Roman Catholic Church of All Nations, which marks the Catholic church’s traditional location for the Garden of Gethsemane. Up the Mount a ways is a Russian Orthodox Church with golden domes marking their traditional location for the Garden. And halfway up the Mount is the Franciscan Church of Dominus Flevit, which means, “Cry of the Lord,” and marks the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem in Luke 19. Unfortunately, on this visit, all four churches were closed, so we resolved to come back later.<br /><br />But the view from the Mount of Olives is one of the most spectacular views I found in the Middle East. The entire eastern side of the Jerusalem’s Old City is visible. Most of the western side of the Mount of Olives is covered in ancient whitewashed Jewish tombs. To the south, you can see the Arab neighborhoods standing over the old City of David. Across from the Kidron Valley, the ancient Ottoman walls of the Old City rise above yet more tombs, and past the walls, you can see the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Church of the Dormition (where Mary died), and the buildings of West Jerusalem. In the middle of the Old City wall is the Golden Gate, a gate that used to lead into the Temple Mount, where Jewish and Christian tradition holds that the Messiah will enter Jerusalem, and where Jesus most likely rode through on a donkey during his triumphal entry. In the 13th century, the Muslim Ottoman rulers of Jerusalem, eager to ward off Messiah-pretenders, filled in the Golden Gate, and started a cemetery around the Gate. (Touching a grave makes Jews ritually unclean.) The Gate is still filled in to this day.<br /><br />According to Zechariah 14, Jesus’ feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives at his return, and split the mountain into two halves. Standing on the Mount of Olives that day, staring at all the tombs and the filled-in gate, I could almost imagine the sky darkening, the earth shaking, Jesus descending to the mount, and then charging down into the Kidron Valley, bringing an army of the dead behind him, and blasting through the Golden Gate to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all. George Romero has nothing on the Bible.<br /><br />(FYI: Christians aren’t the only ones expecting Jesus to return to Jerusalem. As I was writing this travelogue in Des Moines, I came across this passage in The Body and the Blood, an excellent book by Charles Sennott that we were required to read on MESP, which I haven’t finished yet:<br /><br />In the Islamic eschatology, a false messiah, who will be a Jew, will conquer the world. But in the end, Jesus – whom they call Issa – will return to defeat this false messiah in a battle near Jerusalem, after which Jesus will slay all the swine, smash all the crosses, and proclaim Islam the world’s sole faith. (Pg. 326)<br /><br />So here, we may say, is the fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam: in Christianity, Jesus is the Creator of pigs. In Islam, he is the destroyer of pigs.)<br /><br />After we reentered the Old City (the gate leading from the city to the Mt. of Olives is St. Stephen’s Gate, named for the first Christian martyr, who was stoned outside the walls of Jerusalem), we saw a big sign along the road announcing “Birth Place Virgin Mary.” Austin, Esther, Kaeli, Sarah and I had been under the impression that Mary was a native of Nazareth, but having nothing better to do, we decided to check it out. Like Ananias’ house in Damascus, this house, “The House of the Righteous Ancestors of God, the parents of the Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anna,” according to a sign there, is twelve feet below street level. Unlike Ananias’ house, however, this house had a still lower level. Both levels were seemingly carved out of stone, and filled with flowers, icons and offerings of money. I got the impression that Mary was born in the basement, while the living took place in the upper level, but I’m not sure.<br /><br />On the walk back to the Austrian Hospice, Austin and I bought kippahs for our visit to the Western Wall tonight. Mine is knitted and white with a blue Star of David sewn into the center. It might be my favorite piece of Middle Eastern headgear I acquired this semester. (It has to compete with my kheffiyah and my Iraqi flag hat.) We also came across a covered lane labeled “King Faisal Street.” King Faisal was the king the British installed in Iraq – a kind of consolation prize for the Arabs who had fought with the British against the Ottomans in World War I, and had hoped for a unified Arab nation under Faisal. His brother, Abdullah, became king of Jordan. According to the shopkeeper on the corner, King Faisal Street used to be known as “The Street of the Prophet,” because the prophet came that way on his Night Journey to the Temple Mount.<br /><br />This afternoon, we had a debriefing session about our visit to the Holocaust Museum. Andrea the intern shared a story about her MESP semester several years ago. When she returned to Egypt after her travel component, she shared photos from Israel with her Egyptian host family. When she came to the photos of Yad Veshem, she was shocked to find that her educated host parents had never heard of the Holocaust. Later, Dr. Diaa explained to her that the same is true of most Egyptians. I wrote earlier about the anti-Semitism we ran across in Egypt. To me, it was one of the most disturbing aspects of the semester.<br /><br />As sunset approached, we made our way to the Western Wall. I carried my new kippah in my pocket until we reached the wall’s plaza. (Wearing Jewish headgear in Jerusalem’s Muslim quarter = not good idea for naïve westerners to try.) When we got there, I put on my kippah, and the girls and guys in our group split up and headed down into the fray. And what a fray it was! Jewish men of all ages were crowded down by the wall. Some were reading their Torah from wooden stands erected all along the wall, some were rocking back and forth as they chanted their prayers, some were dancing in big circles singing songs in Hebrew. It was sweet. Thanks to my kippah, most of the men there probably thought I was Jewish. At least one man from Brooklyn who stopped to talk to me did. I explained that I was a Christian, but was trying to show respect for the holy place. That seemed to satisfy him; at the very least, he didn’t scream “Imposter!” and club me with a Torah scroll. In fact, he stayed to talk with me and some of the other MESP guys. He had been raised a secular Jew, but after visiting Israel, decided to stay and study at a yeshiva (Jewish seminary-type thing) in Jerusalem. “This place is amazing, man,” he said, referring to the Temple Mount. “Every prayer in the world, said by any person, comes here before it goes up to God.” I asked him if he thought the temple would be rebuilt. He did, but he wasn’t of the let’s-blow-up-the-Dome-of-the-Rock school of thought. He thought that the world was approaching a time of total enlightenment, when every person would see the world so clearly that free will would become a non-issue; that every person would see every choice perfectly and make the right choice every time. When that happens, he said, the temple will be rebuilt. I guess we’ll see.<br /><br />After our visit to the Wall, Jon, Scott and I went out looking for good food, and discovered it: Ramanda Pizza, in the Christian Quarter. It’s a great place, if you’re ever in the area. We also accidentally ran into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was crucified and buried. It was closed, so we decided to come back later.<br /><br />Day 18<br /><br />This morning, on the road outside the Damascus Gate, a man handed me a booklet entitled, “The Truth Is…,” decorated with stars and planets. Its author is Tarik Ben Shehab, a Muslim evangelist, who wrote the booklet to help Jews and Christians discover “the way of life that is most acceptable to our Creator. A way of life that will provide you success in this world, and in the Hereafter, and save you from the torment of the Hell Fire.”<br /><br />Some highlights [sic, sic, sic, sic, et al]:<br /><br />• “If God, in the shape of Jesus, as the holy letters owners allege, died and was buried for three days and three nights, can you tell us who take care of the world and the creatures during that time? Who was controlling the world then?!”<br /><br />• “In the Bible, there are very strange and awkward stories about many prophets as worshipers of false gods and accusing them of incest, rape and adultery, although all prophet were sent by God for the guidance of mankind. [Tarik here proceeds to detail the seedier aspects of the biblical stories of Lot, Solomon, Aaron, David, Noah, Amnon, Judah, Absalom, Ezekiel, Reuben, etc., periodically interrupting himself to apologize to God for reprinting the sordid tales.] Can any sane or even insane man believe such bawdy stories that besmear the reputation of God Messengers and prophets? Peace be upon all of them. These lines are in their Holy Book (How can it then be Holy?!) How could they attribute such deeds to one of God’s pious and pure prophets. How could they say that David spies on loin his neighbor’s wives while they were naked inside their houses… Then he conspires to send distance the husband of the woman far from the city to call her and to rape her… My question is: How could David then be accepted in the genealogy of Jesus when it started with a person who committed adultery? God forbid it! …Human hands, all too human, had played havoc with the Bible.”<br /><br />• “Christians say that: ‘The Father (F) is God, the Son (S) is God, and the Holy Ghost (H) is God, but the father is not the son, the son is not the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost is not the father’. In simple arithmetic terms, if F=G, S=G and H=G, then it follows that F=S=H, while the second part of the statement suggests that they are no equal. Isn’t that a contradiction to the Christian dogma of Trinity in itself?!”<br /><br />After reading that, I said to myself, “Self, we never really thought about this before, but this whole Trinity thing is less-than-straightforward. Let’s be Muslim now.”<br /><br />Just kidding.<br /><br />In all seriousness, I found it hilarious that the author of the tract thought that simply pointing out the paradox of the Trinity would be enough to dislodge a Christian like me from his faith, as if I had never thought about it before, as if I hadn’t, in fact, struggled with the idea of the Trinity for my whole life. Has the man ever talked with Christians before? Does he have any understanding of how we think about God? I wonder how often Christian attempts at “playing offense” in apologetics miss the mark similarly.<br /><br />One final thought (and maybe it will display the same ignorance as Mr. Tarik): for all the pride Muslims take in keeping their prophets human and not making gods out of them like those crazy Christians, they don’t actually treat their prophets very humanly. David was tempted by a beautiful woman? How could that be? He was a prophet! And Mohammad…boy oh boy. When artists in New York put a crucifix in a tank of urine, Christians write nasty letters to the editor. When cartoonists in Denmark draw Mohammad, Danish embassies across the world go up in flames. When a reporter covering the Miss World pageant in Nigeria in 2002 said that Mohammad would have picked a wife from among the contestants, the resulting riots killed over 200 people. They say he’s a human, but try treating him like a human (e.g., drawing his face, or implying that his life is not a perfect guide for every single situation, or saying his name without adding “peace be upon him” afterwards), and you’ll be in a heap of trouble.<br /><br />I keep venting my prejudices on you guys, and you’re so great about it. Thanks.<br /><br />Back to the story.<br /><br />When the man on the street handed me that booklet, we were waiting for our bus, because today, we went to…Bethlehem!<br /><br />First we went to Mt. Scopus, a Jewish enclave northeast of the Old City, and the location of Hebrew University. Mt. Scopus was actually held by the Israelis in the 1948 war, and remained a Jewish territory throughout the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank. On maps of Israel, the Green Line curves into and out of Jerusalem – plus a little green circle around Mt. Scopus. It’s a little confusing.<br /><br />From the top of Mt. Scopus, we could see Ma’ale Adummim, the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, to the southeast. Due east of Mt. Scopus was an unsettled area known as E1. The Israeli government has slated it for settlement development. If those settlements are built, Arab East Jerusalem will be almost completely surrounded by Jewish settlements, and cut off from the rest of the West Bank. Since the Palestinians are unlikely to accept a state without East Jerusalem as its capital, this will only make peace more difficult to achieve.<br /><br />From Mt. Scopus, we took a bus ride through Ma’ale Adummim. It’s a completely different world from the Old City or East Jerusalem. (Not that we got to see much of East Jerusalem.) Huge houses and condos with red roofs, red-brick sidewalks, lush gardens and trees and flowers and lawns, light posts with classy globes at the top. I can see why non-crazy, non-peace-hating people would want to live there.<br /><br />From Ma’ale Adummim, we drove back through Jerusalem, south to Bethlehem. The road we took ran alongside “the wall,” the massive barrier Israel is building through the West Bank to separate the Palestinians from Israel and the settlements. The rationale for the wall is to protect Israelis from suicide bombers, and the results are hard to argue with. In 2003, fourteen suicide bombings resulted in Israeli deaths. In 2004, there were eight. In 2005, 6, in 2006, 2, and only one in 2007. At the same time, by cutting off all of Jerusalem from the West Bank, and by annexing large swaths of Palestinian land (about 10% of the West Bank) to encompass all the settlements, the wall is doing great harm to the Palestinians. Bethlehem, a Palestinian town (30% Christian and 70% Muslim) only a few miles from Jerusalem, is half-surrounded by the wall. Ominously, the road we took to Bethlehem had huge cement barriers erected every couple of yards, to protect the road from Palestinian rocket attacks. (My mom was not happy when I mentioned that last detail.)<br /><br />Our bus brought us to Bethlehem University, a university set up by the Catholic Church that serves mostly Muslim students. There, we met a group of Palestinian college students. We split into groups of six or seven, and the students showed us around their town.<br /><br />I was in a group with Kaeli, Brian and Sarah, and our Palestinian guides were sophomore hijab-wearing Muslim girls named Aya, Sejah and Hadaya. They showed us around their tiny campus, and then took us through their city. Bethlehem is a small town of about 35,000 people, situated in the hills of Judea. And when I say hills, I mean hills. Big ones. (Well, big for an Iowa kid.) Not at all how I pictured it. The steep streets were filled with cars, pedestrians, mules, and food vendors. Old white buildings cling to the hills, with mosques and churches scattered throughout. (According to a National Geographic article I’m reading right now in the States, there are 100 mosques in Bethlehem – or one for every two hundred or so Muslims.) I have a hard time telling Jews and Arabs apart physically, but I can tell the difference between a Jewish town and an Arab town in a second. Interestingly, I saw a lot of Christmas lights. I think they leave them up year-round for the tourists.<br /><br />Today is November 15, which is celebrated as Palestinian Independence Day. Apparently, on November 15, 1988, Yasser Arafat gave a speech declaring the independence of the Palestinian people. If anyone was looking for a clue that this was a totally symbolic declaration, the speech was given in Algeria.<br /><br />Still, Bethlehem was decked out in Palestinian and Fatah flags, and huge posters of Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. (Fatah is Arafat and Abbas’ political party/militant group.) I also noticed several posters of children flanked by machine guns, with the Dome of the Rock in the background. I think they were “martyrdom” posters, honoring youths who had been killed by the Israelis, or blew themselves up to kill Israelis. (Pictures of all this are on Picasa.)<br /><br />Aya, Sejah and Hadaya took us in a cab to their favorite pizza place. (On the way, we passed a sign directing travelers to the “Shepherds’ Fields.”) Brian and I ordered calzones, which surprised us by being gargantuan. Over lunch, we talked to our new friends about life in Bethlehem. Recently, Sejah’s aunt’s house was destroyed by the IDF, who claimed that there was a terrorist inside. Apparently, this happens with some regularity. They referred repeatedly to “the invasion” – e.g., “During the invasion, there was a 24-hour curfew. We could only go out for a few hours every five days to buy food.” Eventually, I gathered that the “invasion” was when the Israelis re-invaded and occupied Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank in 2002 in response to the 2nd Intifada. They told us about the difference between green IDs and blue IDs. Blue IDs are for Palestinians who live in Jerusalem, which Israel treats as a single city, West and East. Blue ID holders are allowed to move between Jerusalem and the West Bank freely. The rest of the Palestinians are issued green IDs, which restrict their movement into Jerusalem and through the West Bank checkpoints. One of the students told a story about sneaking into Jerusalem to pray at the Dome of the Rock with her friend’s mom, who has a Blue ID. On the way to the pizza place, I had seen a Palestinian Authority police station. I asked them about the policemen, but they dismissed it. “They are just there to say, ‘We are here.’” they said. “The Israelis are really in charge.”<br /><br />Aya, Sejah and Hadaya were great hosts. Later, Danielle told me that some of the Palestinian students in her group were members of Fatah or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The latter is a pretty hardcore terrorist group, and the former isn’t exactly holding peace parades. I didn’t ask my hosts where their political allegiances lay, and in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. They’re great people who made me feel very welcome in their hometown, the birthplace of my Savior, and I’m glad I could get to know them a little bit as people, not as Hamas- or Fatah- or PFLP-supporters, or none of the above.<br /><br />After lunch, we went to Manger Square in the center of town, which is bordered by the “Bethlehem Peace Center,” the Bethlehem Municipal Authority, the Church of the Nativity (the traditional site of Jesus’ birth), a huge mosque, and a strip mall full of trinkets for tourists. The Peace Center was decorated with a huge banner from the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities that read, “Congratulation: You Win Today Above One Million Tourist Here In Palestine.” I half expected the banner to continue, “Click here to claim your FREE* iPod!” Pretty nice that they passed the one million mark on their “independence day,” eh? It looked like they were setting up for some kind of show – there was a stage set up, Palestinian dabka dance music playing over the loudspeakers, and girls dressed in dancing costumes. But we left before anything really got going.<br /><br />The Church of the Nativity, I’m told, is the oldest continuously-used church in the world. It was built by the Emperor Constantine, destroyed in a riot, and rebuilt in the mid-500s. The church looks every bit its age. On the outside, it looks pretty much like a stone-block box with crosses on top. A large blue sign on the outside announces the Palestinian National Authority regulations for church visitors: “Enter to the church in descent attire.” “Enter with respect and correctly.” (OK, enough making fun of the language barrier on my part.) “No weapons of any kind are allowed inside.”<br /><br />The entrance to the church where the Christ was born, surprisingly, is not a huge set of majestic doors. It is a tiny hole in a stone wall that you have to duck your head to walk through. Inside is a darkened, dusky sanctuary without any pews, but with plenty of ancient pillars, wooden rafters, and an altar completely decked out Eastern Orthodox-style. Some of the walls on the inside are decorated with ancient frescoes; most of them are covered in fading white paint.<br /><br />Next to the ancient sanctuary is a smaller, super-nice, modern Catholic sanctuary called St. Catherine’s Church. (The Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church and Armenian Orthodox Church share – or compete for – control of the compound, and celebrate Christmas mass on three separate days.) In St. Catherine’s, there is an entrance to the catacombs that lie underneath the original church. Down in these dark tunnels, there are several altars and hidden rooms, as well as a group of small tombs behind a grate. According to tradition, some of the babies killed in Bethlehem by King Herod are buried there.<br /><br />During “the invasion” of 2002, a group Palestinian militants and civilians holed up in the church for a month, while the IDF laid siege to it outside (turning the “peace center” into a headquarters). Using robotic sniper rifles lifted over the church compound with cranes, the Israelis shot and killed seven terrorists and the church’s mentally retarded bellringer, and wounded twenty-two others. Exploring the church, I found an open-air courtyard where I figure some of those killings may have happened, but there were no signs of violence in the church that I could see – just lots and lots of tourists. The wait to see the grotto where Jesus was actually (supposedly) born was multiple hours long, and we didn’t have that kind of time.<br /><br />Before we left, I checked out the tourist shops along Manger Square. The prices were outrageous by Middle East standards, and they were all in American dollars. When I bought olive-wood Christmas ornaments for my brothers and sister and paid in shekels, the shopowner had to get out a calculator to convert from dollars. Tourism, it’s easy to tell, is a huge part of the economy here, and the Palestinian Authority must be very happy to have at least one holy site on their side of the Green Line. Since violence isn’t really conducive to tourism, it’s no wonder that the mayor of Bethlehem proposed a truce with Israel during the 2nd intifada – until Arafat threatened to put “ten bullets in his chest,” that is.<br /><br />On the way back to Jerusalem, the bus took us right up to the security wall. It looks pretty grim up close. We passed by a huge guard tower with tiny windows, which linked two arms of the 8-meter high grey cement wall, which was topped with wire, and decorated profusely with graffiti protesting its existence. No matter what you think of it, it’s a pretty depressing sight.<br /><br />Day 19<br /><br />Today, we walked through the Jaffa Gate on the west side of the Old City, across the Green Line and the Hinnom Valley, into West Jerusalem, to visit the Menachim Begin Heritage Center. Menachim Begin is quite the character. He started out as the commander of the Irgun terrorist group in Palestine in the 40s. Irgun viewed itself as the “Jewish underground,” and fought against the British “occupying” forces and Arab militants. Its two most infamous attacks were the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (which the British were using as a command post) and the massacre of the Arab village of Deir Yassin during Israel’s War of Independence. When the war was over, Menachim Begin ordered Irgun to disarm in favor of the more legitimate Haganah, which became the Israeli army. Begin then served as the leader of the opposition right-wing Likud party until 1977, when he was finally elected prime minister. As prime minister, he signed the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation (Egypt), encouraged the settler movement in the West Bank, and began Israel’s disastrous war in Lebanon. So he’s a fairly controversial figure. The Heritage Center is privately run by his supporters.<br /><br />Weirdly enough, while we were waiting for our tour to begin at the Heritage Center, I met a Jewish couple from Des Moines. “Is there anyone you know in Des Moines that you know that we might know?” they asked.<br /><br />“I’m not sure,” I said, going mentally to the first place I normally go to figure out connections. “Do you go to church in the metro?”<br /><br />“Well, we’re from the Jewish community,” they replied. I internally smacked my forehead. But as it turned out, they did know the superintendent of my (Christian) high school. They offered to call my parents to let them know how I was doing, and I gave them their number. Then we started talking about the MESP program. I told them what we were studying and where we had been. I casually mentioned that we were going to have the Israeli author Gershom Gorenberg speak to us tonight. “Oh, so you’re getting a left-wing perspective then,” the woman said.<br /><br />Ooh. Was that a touchy subject? “Well,” I offered, “this afternoon we’re going to hear a leader from the settler movement.”<br /><br />“Oh, so you’re going to get the extreme right-wing perspective too,” she said.<br /><br />Please stop judging me! I shouted inside my head. I’m a conservative too! You just don’t know it yet! “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, and mumbled something about how the politics of the region were so complicated.<br /><br />We were split into two groups for the tour. I went in the second group. Later, I learned that my new friend, who had gone with the first group, had lectured my fellow MESPers on how their strapping young Israeli tour guide had been serving his country in the IDF “while you were all off getting your education.” (All Jewish and Druze Israelis are required to serve in the military for several years once they turn eighteen). I think I am probably to blame for that lecture. Anyway, they never did call my parents.<br /><br />The Center was interesting, but we definitely got the gloss, especially on Palestinian issues. Probably the most interesting part of the Center tour was when we entered a room that had been decorated to look like the small apartment Begin and his wife lived in for decades while he was the minority party leader. I stood by the wall; most of my group sat on the couches in the room. The tour guide then proudly announced that the couches were the actual couches from Begin’s old apartment – which, when put together, doubled as his bed. At least two of the girls on the couch visibly shifted at this announcement. Awk-ward.<br /><br />After the tour, as I told my new friend, we met with a leader from the settler movement. He was very articulate, and a nice man with a good sense of humor, but like a lot of Israelis, I think he’s seriously in denial about Israel’s situation in the region, particularly its ability to hold on to all the land and remain a free, Jewish state.<br /><br />We had the afternoon free, so Brian and I decided to explore the Old City a little bit. We discovered the best humus restaurant ever – my mouth is watering right now at the thought of it – and then set off for the “ramparts walk.” At the Jaffa Gate, you can pay eight shekels to go up onto the walls of Old Jerusalem and walk more than half the way around the city. By complete chance, on the way to the Gate, we ran into some of his friends from San Diego, a couple from his church who were touring Jerusalem. We decided to do the ramparts walk together.<br /><br />The walk reminded me of how weird a city Jerusalem is. You start out on the wall by the Jaffa Gate, with a splendid view of gleaming West Jerusalem, full of nice white buildings and cranes building more nice buildings. Then you get to the north side, and you see East Jerusalem – dirty, mosque-filled, with food vendors and sidewalk shops everywhere. Sandwiched behind and between a bus station, a crappy apartment building, a parking garage and a cemetery on the north side is a hill with two giant holes in it, somewhat resembling the eyes of a skull, which some people (though not most historians) think is the hill of Golgotha. You get to the east side of the Old City, and you have a fine view of Mt. Scopus, cut off from the rest of Arab East Jerusalem like a walled fortress. Finally, you have a splendid view of the Mount of Olives, itself a battleground: Jewish settlements with the Star of David flying high, Arab homes, thousands of ancient Jewish tombs, and a hotel that King Hussein of Jordan built on top of some of those tombs during the Jordanian occupation. And all the while, behind you, is a city stuffed to the gills with ancient churches, mosques, and apartment buildings. The ancient walls of Jerusalem are the fence for some people who have made the roofs of their apartment buildings into backyards.<br /><br />Brian and I got off the wall on the other side of the city, at St. Stephen’s Gate. Just inside this gate are the excavated pools of Bethesda, where Jesus healed the crippled man in John 5. (In reality, not just tradition.) The pools are really deep, and you can walk down into them. (They’re mostly empty now.) Walking where Jesus actually walked is a concept that’s hard to get through your head. I can’t say that being there was a moving experience, or that I grasped that this was the place where the story I’ve known my whole life took place on anything but an intellectual level. I’m glad Christianity doesn’t place a huge emphasis on “holy places.” I’d make a lousy Jew or Muslim.<br /><br />That night, we heard from Gershom Gorenberg, a famous Israeli historian of the settler movement. As my fellow Des Moinesers said, he’s a little left-wing, but I think he’s simply a realist. He emphasized to us the impossibility of continuing to rule over millions of Palestinians, especially considering their far higher birthrate, and summed up his position as, “Israel cannot keep all the land and remain both Jewish and democratic. It has to pick two.” He wants his country to stay Jewish and democratic, and I can’t blame him.<br /><br />Day 20<br /><br />Today, we heard from a representative from the Israeli foreign ministry and a US diplomat from the American consulate in Jerusalem. Most of these speakers come to meet us at the Austrian Hospice, which is pretty nice. Usually, they get dropped off outside the Damascus Gate, and Dr. Dave and/or Barrett go to meet them and bring them here.<br /><br />Afterwards, a big group of us – Sarah, Julie, Chelsea, CJ, Tara, Jeff, Whitney and I – went for another hike on the Mount of Olives. First we saw the Armenian Orthodox/Greek Orthodox compound at the base of the mount. Inside the compound is an underground chapel that holds Mary’s tomb. It’s an empty grave encased in glass inside a giant decorative box covered with tapestries and candles. Most Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Mary died a natural death, but that three days later, her body was “assumed” into heaven, leaving her tomb empty. Mohammad claimed to have seen a light over the tomb of Mary when he ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount.<br /><br />The compound also contains the “grotto of Gethsemane,” which (if I understand correctly) is a cave where Jesus used to pray, but a different place from the garden where he was arrested. The Garden of Gethsemane is across the street, in the Catholic Church of All Nations. The Church of All Nations was built after World War I on the ruins of two previous basilicas, using donations from nations across the world (hence the name). Inside the gates of this church is a grove of olive trees. Some of these trees are incredibly old and twisted, and archeologists say that they might actually be two thousand years old. Conceivably, those trees were witnesses to Jesus’ agony before the crucifixion. The rock where Jesus sweated blood (traditionally) is inside the Church, in front of the altar.<br /><br />Finally, we headed back to the Church of Dominus Flevit, halfway up the Mount of Olives, where tradition holds Jesus wept over Jerusalem during his triumphal entry and predicted its horrific fall in AD 70. The church is really a tiny chapel surrounded by a lush garden with a sweeping view of the Old City. The chapel was designed in the shape of a teardrop. On the inside, draped across the pulpit, is a white banner with “peace” written on it in Arabic, Hebrew and English. There is no crucifix in the chapel, only a simple cross resting on an altar in front of a semi-circle window that gives a perfect view of the Old City.<br /><br />The garden outside the chapel isn’t the Garden of Gethsemane in anyone’s tradition, but there were plenty of places to sit down there, so we chose to sit there and read the story of Jesus’ arrest from the Bible I had brought along.<br /><br />Later, we went exploring in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. The Jewish quarter is far smaller than the Christian or Muslim quarters, and it has a totally different feel. Mostly, everything is just nicer. There’s no graffiti on the walls, the apartment buildings are classier and better kept-up, and some of the streets are lined with big sycamore trees. Whereas the tourist shops in the Muslim quarter will sell anything – Christian, Muslim, Jewish, pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian – in the Jewish quarter the shops sell exclusively Jewish stuff. Everything is more expensive, too, but I guess no place is perfect.<br /><br />Day 21<br /><br />Today, we heard from a Palestinian Christian official from the PLO’s negotiations department, and an Israeli diplomat who worked on potential peace deals at the informal Geneva peace conference. The Palestinian official’s presentation was very effective and interesting, but (I thought) pretty skewed. I used some of the information he gave us to write my papers, and at the same time used my papers to disagree with him quite harshly. I wonder if he honestly believed some of the things he said. Maybe, as the representative of the fairly corrupt and authoritarian Palestinian Authority, he was just doing his job, or maybe as a Palestinian who’s sick to death of occupation, he truly believes his own propaganda. Human beings are complex things.<br /><br />Today is also the day I bought my infamous “Free Palestine” shirt. There’s no conscious link between the two.<br /><br />Day 22<br /><br />Do you ever walk in on the tail end of a super-awkward conversation, and then desperately want to know the rest of the conversation, but you don’t want to ask what they were talking about because the awkwardness is still hanging in the air?<br /><br />OK, so imagine you’re walking through the ancient tunnels underneath the Muslim Quarter, next to the underground portion of the Western Wall. You’re taking pictures, so you’ve fallen a little bit behind the group. When you catch up to the rest of the gang, you hear the tour guide saying, “Well, I’m sure he was really unbiased. And well-informed.”<br /><br />Uh, what?<br /><br />Later on in the tour, when our tour guide – a twenty-something Jewish girl from Connecticut who’d emigrated to Israel – discovered we were all Christian college kids, she asked us, “So, are you all future peacemakers or something?” Almost in unison, we responded, “Insha allah.” (God willing). Which is, of course, a very Arab thing to say.<br /><br />Now the context, which I didn’t learn until that night.<br /><br />That morning, we heard from a Catholic priest who’s been working in Jerusalem named Father Bouen. Thomas was asking Father Bouen a question, and started out by saying, “We’ve been in Israel for about a week now...” Father Bouen corrected him: “You’re not in Israel. You’re in occupied Jerusalem.” He then told us that using the correct language was important, because if we called occupied Jerusalem “Israel,” we were effectively supporting the occupation.<br /><br />Fast forward to the tunnels tour. While I was not there, our tour guide asked us, “So how long have you guys been in Israel?”<br /><br />Jon responded, “We’re not in Israel.” And, even as the implications of what he was about to say and who he was saying it to were slowly dawning on him and everyone around him, he blurted, “We’re in occupied Jerusalem.”<br /><br />Tour guide: “Oh. Who, uh, who told you that?”<br /><br />Jason: “A Catholic priest!” [You know, a representative of the church that persecuted Jews for almost fifteen hundred years, didn’t exactly rush to help during the Holocaust, and didn’t recognize the state of Israel until twenty years after Egypt did so.]<br /><br />--At this point I catch up with the group.--<br /><br />Tour guide: “Well, I’m sure he was really unbiased. And well-informed.”<br /><br />Can you feel the tension?<br /><br />In my book, Jon gets massive props for saying that, even if he didn’t mean to. And it wasn’t as bad a slip-up as my attire of choice at the Israeli border a week later.<br /><br />Anyway – the tunnel tour!<br /><br />What tunnels you may ask? Well. Apparently, there used to be a big valley between the residential areas of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount – the Tyropoeon Valley. When the Ottomans came, they wanted to make the city more defensible, so they filled in the valley with layer after layer of arches, built on top of each other, until the valley was essentially level. The Muslim Quarter was built partially on top of these tunnels. So the Western Wall of the Temple Mount stretches all the way down to the bottom of the original valley. For a nominal fee, you can take a tour of the tunnels that go right alongside the Western Wall underground. Which is what we did.<br /><br />Here’s something I didn’t know before the tour: the Western Wall is not sacred because it’s the only surviving wall of the temple. It’s a retaining wall of the temple mount, built by King Herod, and in fact, the northern, eastern and southern walls of the Temple Mount are still intact. (I’ve seen the southern and eastern now.) The Western Wall is sacred because it is as close as you can get to the Holy of Holies without actually going onto the Temple Mount. For many centuries, Jews were banned from the Temple Mount by the Romans and Christians, who turned it into a garbage dump. Later, the Muslims built the Dome of the Rock on the ruins of the temple. Only in 1967 did the Jews retake control of the Temple Mount – and then the rabbis decided that going on the Temple Mount was a violation of Torah law, because you risked desecrating the holy places with your uncleanness. So for two millennia, and until the Temple is rebuilt, the Western Wall is as close as Jews could get to the Holy of Holies – also known as the “Foundation Stone,” the first stone God created when he made the earth. Also the rock where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac. And the rock where Mohammad lifted off the ground to go to heaven. (Hence “Dome of the Rock.”) The place on the Western Wall that is directly opposite the Foundation Stone is down in the tunnels. It’s marked with a sign, and there’s a little alcove with prayer books and chairs for Jewish worshippers.<br /><br />At the end of the tour, we climbed some stairs, and popped out through a stone wall onto St. Stephen’s Gate Street in the Muslim Quarter, the same street we had already walked down half a dozen times. We had walked underneath almost the entire Muslim Quarter on the tour. There’s a lot more to the Old City than meets the eye.<br /><br />Also today, Jon, Austin and I set off to explore the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where the bulk of the historical evidence suggests Jesus was crucified and buried. We had found it by accident earlier, so it was rather frustrating that we had to search the Christian Quarter for about half an hour before we ran into it again. You’d think it would be easy to find, but the Old City is a cramped, strange place. You can’t see anything, no matter how holy or historic, past all the apartment buildings and shops, and the roads don’t go in straight lines. Finally, in a lane filled with crucifixes and really strong incense for sale, we stumbled into an out-of-the-way archway that had “Holy Sepulcher” inscribed above it. We headed through the archway, down the stairs, and into the courtyard of the place where God died.<br /><br />Not that it looks like that anymore. Golgotha was once outside the walls of the Old City, but now it’s at the center of the Christian Quarter. The hill of Golgotha has an ancient church built around it. You climb the hill by way of a set of stairs inside the church. At the top are two ornate altars – one at the spot where Jesus was nailed to the cross, one where the cross was stuck into the hill. The original hill can still be seen through glass, and pilgrims wait in line to kiss the rock of the hill underneath the altar (if the priest doesn’t force you to hurry up.) At the bottom of the hill is the “Stone of Anointment” – a flat slab of rock with a dozen lanterns hanging over it, where Jesus’ body was prepared for burial. To the left of the Stone is a huge domed chamber with a giant stone box in the middle. This box is the tomb of Christ (or at least was built on top of it.) You can walk inside the box if you’re willing to stand in line for two hours, which we weren’t. For me, it was enough just to be there.<br /><br />Our Western Wall tour guide wasn’t the only Israeli we rankled today. Tonight, we took a bus to Mt. Scopus, to visit Hebrew University and meet some of the students there. Mt. Scopus can be seen from the Austrian Hospice, but due to security checks, the trip to Hebrew University took over half an hour. Hebrew University, a Jewish island on the Arab side, is virtually a fortress. Huge cement walls ring the campus, which is already elevated above the rest of Jerusalem. The buildings are constructed so defensively they almost fold in on themselves – walls at weird angles, small windows, large basements. The interior of the campus is almost completely shielded from the rest of Jerusalem by buildings. It’s a pretty campus, but dang.<br /><br />The student who gave us a tour of the campus took us to a perch that overlooks the Old City, and pointed out the place in the valley below where Jordanian forces massacred seventy Jews in a hospital convoy during the 1948 war, in retaliation for the Deir Yassin slaughter. Later, we walked by the cafeteria. Outside the cafeteria is a tree planted at a 45 degree angle to the ground. The students told us the tree was a memorial to the nine students and professors who were killed in the cafeteria when an Arab construction worker blew himself up there in 2002.<br /><br />After the tour, we met with a larger group of Israeli students, and broke up into small groups, just like we did at Bethlehem University. Unlike in Bethlehem, however, we weren’t given a chance to hang out and get to know our Israeli peers. Instead, we were handed a sheet with discussion questions – lighthearted topics like, “What do you think of the wall?” “Should Israel have withdrawn from Gaza?” “Does America have the right to interfere in Israel’s affairs?” Oi! It was rough. The Israeli students we met with were nice and all, but they were, understandably, pretty defensive about their country. In Israel, everyone is required to serve in the military for two or three years once they turn eighteen, so while we were all at the same place academically, the Israeli students were years older, and had already served their country. Some of them fought in the Lebanon War in 2006; some fought in Gaza before that. And now they’re living on the frontlines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A half-dozen terrorist groups have them marked for death simply because of their race, and if the terrorists ever get the upper hand over Israeli security, they’ll be the first to experience the consequences. And here I come, a 20-year-old American schmuck, traveling outside North America for the first time in my life, having lived in perfect safety my whole life, and I’m supposed to tell them how I think their country should be acting?<br /><br />It was a bad format, to say the least. In Bethlehem, we were free to explore the city with our peers. If we had been split into groups with the Palestinian students and saddled with questions like, “What do you think of Hamas?” or “Is suicide bombing justifiable?” or “Who’s to blame for the 2nd intifada?,” it would have been just as awkward. I suspect that the student leaders who organized the meeting were less concerned with cross-cultural interaction than with helping to clear up any “misunderstandings” we might have about Israeli policy.<br /><br />At any rate, the students in my group didn’t give any ground. The Palestinians aren’t really a people. They were offered their own state, but they need the war to define themselves. The Palestinians can’t go to the homes they had before 1948, but neither can the Jews. History moves on, and we should just get over it. Since they all took such a hard line, I assumed they must be right-wingers. Later, I asked one of them if he was going to vote for Benjamin Netanyahu, the most hawkish, right-wing candidate, in the upcoming February elections. He gave me a look that said are you crazy? and said, “No. Never.” He was a liberal! He and his friend, who had also been in my group, proceeded to rip into Bush, Reagan and Sarah Palin, and talk about the huge dangers of global warming and the trickle-down theory. Israel is as diverse politically as the United States, but when it comes to security, there’s a lot of unity. When the attack on Gaza started in late December, I read that 95% of Israeli Jews supported it. I guess when suicide bombers are targeting your malls and rockets are landing on your towns, national security debates become a little less theoretical.<br /><br />After the incredibly awkward meeting, we all took our bus out to a bar in West Jerusalem, where we could be more relaxed. (Our Israeli friends drank; we had Cokes.) I was a little surprised when the guy sitting across from me started talking about his female roommates. And I got the chance to correct his impression of Cairo, where he’s never visited. During our conversation about why none of the MESPers were drinking, he asked me if there were a lot of bars and clubs in Cairo where we could go if it weren’t for our program’s rules. “Isn’t it a Western city?” he asked. Maybe by the standards of the Arab world.<br /><br />Day 23<br /><br />Today we took a lightning-fast bus tour of the Golan Heights, Capernaum, and Nazareth. We piled on the bus in the morning and drove north through the West Bank and Israel alongside the Jordan River up into the Golan Heights, a green plateau between Israel and Syria northeast of the Sea of Galilee. Before the 1967 War, the Syrians would shell Israel from the Heights. So in the general butt-kicking that was the 1967 War, Israel made a point of capturing the Golan Heights (along with the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.) Syria tried and failed to take back the Heights in the Glorious Arab Victory of the 1973 War. (They, along with Egypt, managed to inflict serious casualties on the Israelis for the first time in history – hence the “victory” handle.)<br /><br />Since then, the Golan has been pretty quiet. All the same, driving through the Heights, I felt like I was in a war zone more than I had anywhere else in the Middle East. The first rest area we stopped at, just south of the Heights, featured some old Jordanian tanks as decorations, painted an Israeli white and blue. At one point on the way up, we were close enough to Jordan to see a Jordanian flag flying high from a military base on a hilltop on the other side of the river. Once we got into the Heights, it wasn’t unusual to see Israeli military convoys driving around – jeeps, hummers, tanks. We passed by old fortifications used in the war, and multiple bombed-out mosques covered in Hebrew graffiti. We drove through a stone roadblock and past an Israeli war memorial. At one point, our Dutch tour guide, Vince, pointed out the window to the left and said, “See the yellow signs? That’s an active minefield.”<br /><br />Our destination was Mount Bental, a hill near the Syrian border with the Heights. It was used as a bunker by the Israelis during the ’67 and ’73 wars, and now serves as a lookout point for tourists, featuring postmodern art sculptures by one Yoop de Yang, a magnificent view of Lebanon, Mt. Hermon, Syria, and the UN-controlled DMZ between the Israeli lines and the Syrian lines, and the “Kofi Annan” coffee house. (“Annan,” I’m told, is the Hebrew word for clouds. So you get “Coffee in the Clouds” and a nifty dig at the former UN secretary-general at the same time). Mt. Bental was surrounded by multiple anti-tank ditches, huge ruts in the ground that apparently are hard to drive tanks over. We were there on a cloudy day, but the view from the top was indeed breathtaking. Mt. Bental and Mt. Hermon rise above the mostly flat surrounding plateau, and we could see the shadows of the clouds moving across the land. Vince pointed out a valley to the east of Mt. Hermon where the Israelis and Syrians fought a huge tank battle in 1973.<br /><br />The Israeli bunker was mostly preserved, which was a lot of fun. The old trenches, barbed wire and machine gun nests are still there, and you could go inside the hill to see the old living quarters and lookout posts. I got a great picture of Syria seen through a narrow window in the side of the bunker.<br /><br />After Mt. Bental, we drove south towards the Sea of Galilee, and stopped to see a bridge that links Israel to the Golan Heights over the Jordan River. I don’t know what it looked like in Bible times, but today, it looks like a creek. Hardly a reliable natural boundary. But, hey, it’s the Middle East. Any water is good water.<br /><br />From there, we headed to Capernaum, on the north side of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum, as far as I could see, is essentially a museum/archeological dig run by the Franciscans. There’s a monastery, a big ‘ol statue of St. Peter holding the keys to the kingdom, and a lot of flower gardens. There’s also a remarkably well-preserved synagogue from the fourth century, which is built on top of the synagogue Jesus preached at. You can still see the stones from that synagogue. We also saw a ruin which is claimed to be Simon Peter’s house, where his mother-in-law was healed by Jesus. Instead of building a gigantic church on top of it (like they have everywhere else), the Catholics here were really considerate and built the church above it. It’s a church shaped like a flying saucer which is held above Peter’s house by huge pillars. You’ll have to look at the pictures of it I have on Picasa – it’s pretty amazing.<br /><br />When we were done looking at those sites, we had a whole fifteen minutes to spend at the Sea of Galilee. It’s pretty small – I could almost see the opposite side – and it’s surrounded by green hills. Barrett pointed out one hill that seemed to have a giant “U” cut into it. He told me it was the “Horns of Hittin,” where Salah al-Din massacred the Crusaders in a decisive battle. While we were down by the water, goofing off like the bunch of college kids we were, tormenting crabs and jumping across rocks on the water, a huge bank of dark clouds rolled in over the Sea, and then parted just a little, letting in streams of brilliant sunlight. It was quite a sight.<br /><br />After the Sea of Galilee, we drove to the Mount of Beatitudes, which is the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount. The Franciscans have been here, too: they built a smallish octagonal chapel on the hill, and filled it with palm trees and gardens. Kaeli took out her Bible and started to read the Sermon on the Mount, and a group of us gathered to listen.<br /><br />Finally, we drove through Galilee to Nazareth. Galilee is a lot greener than Judea, and a lot more Arab than most of Israel proper. Large parts of Galilee were set aside for an Arab state in the UN partition plan of 1947, but when the Arab armies tried to wipe out the Jews, the Jews put an end to that idea. Still, it’s interesting to be driving through Israel and see huge minarets jutting up from the hills.<br /><br />We drove through Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine, but didn’t stop. (We were in a hurry.) Finally, we got to Nazareth. Nazareth today is split into an Arab section and a Jewish section (known as Upper Nazareth). We visited the Arab section, where the Catholic Church of the Annunciation is. The “Annunciation” in question is Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah. The current version was built in 1969, and is really beautiful. The first floor of the church is built around an open archeological dig containing a house from first-century Nazareth. It may or may not have been Mary’s house, but according to archeologists, Nazareth at the time of Jesus probably only had 150 families living in it, so the odds are relatively decent. (Nazareth today has over 35,000 people. I often think we don’t realize just how much the world has grown in the past few millennia. According to the textbook for one of my politics classes this semester, invasions and conquests are less likely today, because the increasing population and complexity of most countries is making it harder and harder to do, which is why even the Soviet Union and America, and Israel for that matter, have such a hard time doing it.)<br /><br />The second floor of the church contains the actual sanctuary of the church, which is pretty in a non-traditional kind of way. The sanctuary (and the church courtyard) display paintings of Mary from around the world. Most of them are pretty, but I personally thought the American Mary was frickin’ ugly. USA Mary is made out of gold and tin foil, and hovering in the air in front of a background of flames. “Dr. Doom Mary,” I called her.<br /><br />After the Church, we had some time to explore Arab Nazareth. We found some great food and ice cream places. Most of the stores have signs in Hebrew and Arabic. It’s probably the nicest Arab town I’ve been to.<br /><br />Then it was back to Jerusalem, for another night of sleep in the city where Jesus conquered death.<br /><br />Day 24<br /><br />Today, we had a tour of the Old City from a brilliant American tour guide named Brian. (No relation to my awesome roommate.) First he took us to the area around the Temple Mount. He showed us some steps at the south end of the Temple Mount, which used to lead up into the Temple, and told us that teachers of the law would gather on those steps to teach the people, which makes it very likely that Jesus taught on those same steps. He also showed a place where an arch in days past connected the Temple Mount to the rest of Jerusalem across the Tyropoeon Valley (most of which was filled in by the Ottomans). Brian told us that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, a group of Jews gathered in the Temple Courts under the leadership of a false Messiah named Jesus, who told them to sing psalms to fight off the attackers. It didn’t work so well, and the Jews stampeded down the ramp, many of them falling and being crushed. The arch isn’t there anymore, but there are paving stones from the first century, where archeologists found the bones of some of those poor souls. Brian also showed us a replica of the stone from the pinnacle of the temple, where they used to blast the trumpet to announce the beginning of the Sabbath, and where Satan brought Jesus to tempt him. The stone was thrown down by the Romans, and is now kept in a museum somewhere. The replica is pretty cool though.<br /><br />After that, Brian took us to the City of David. The original city of Jerusalem that David conquered from the Jebusites is now outside the walls of the Old City, on the southern slope of Mt. Moriah. Today most of it is covered by an Arab neighborhood, except for the Israeli archeological park there. Brian took us through Hezekiah’s tunnel, which was built by King Hezekiah to carry water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, so that the water supply would be protected during sieges (II Chronicles 32:30). The tunnel is long and dark and still has water running through it. We took off our socks and shoes and waded through the 3,000-year-old tunnel, all the way to the Pool of Siloam. It was kind of claustrophobic and creepy, because there were a limited number of flashlights and we couldn’t really see where we were going. I’m afraid I swore at Brian C. once for trying to scare me, but he definitely deserved it.<br /><br />After the long odyssey through the darkness, we came up into the light at the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus told the blind man to wash to be healed (John 9:1-12). Archeologists didn’t discover this pool until 2004, amazingly. My childhood imaginings notwithstanding, it wasn’t like a pool you could swim in – it was basically a narrow stone rectangle filled with water.<br /><br />From there, we went up to a collection of recently uncovered ruins in the park that some believe to be the site of King David’s palace. It’s covered in a giant canvas, and you can walk around the ruins on a raised walkway. From the top, you can see down in the Kidron Valley and across to the surrounding hills. I might have had the same view that David did when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof. Brian says you can’t just “see” the Holy Land like you see Disneyland, because new things are always being discovered. Brian also pointed to an area of ground covered in ashes and burnt dirt. He claimed that it was the spot where Arab militants had burnt down one of the archeology buildings in the park. In the Middle East, archeology is a pretty contentious subject. (The most extreme Muslims won’t even admit that the Temple ever stood on the Temple Mount.)<br /><br />One more thought: The City of David is tiny. Check it out on the maps in your NIV study Bibles. You can walk around the whole Old City in a couple of hours, max, and the City of David is a fraction of that.<br /><br />Finally, Brian took us north of the Old City to the Garden Tomb, Protestantism’s answer to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Discovered in the 19th century, it’s a tomb cut in the side of a hill that looks vaguely like a skull, thanks to the holes and depressions in its side. Golgotha – the place of the skull? Maybe. Currently, the “mouth” of the skull is covered up by a bus station and the top of the hill is covered in barbed wire. A green minaret blocks the view a little, also. But some Christian organization bought the site with the tomb, and has restored what they believe to be the original garden. (According to John’s gospel, Jesus was crucified in a garden, and placed in a tomb in the same garden.) If you block out the barbed wire fence running along the top of the hill the tomb is cut into, the tomb is exactly how you might picture it: a little rectangle cut into a sheet of tan rock in the hillside with a stone-carved resting place on the inside. It may not be the actual site, but it probably looks a lot more like the actual site did than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher does. A crude cross is carved into the rock outside the tomb entrance, and a red cross is painted on the inside of the tomb, which some take as a sign that this was a Crusader worship place long before the Protestants discovered it.<br /><br />After going inside the tomb, we gathered in one of the canvases in the garden and Brian led us through some worship songs and performed communion – the only communion we had during the semester. We were briefly interrupted by the call to prayer. As we were walking out, I heard something I didn’t hear last Friday night: a siren announcing the beginning of the Jewish sabbath. Christians have bells, Muslims have singers, Jews have sirens. Go figure.<br /><br />To end the day, we stopped at the best kofta place in Jerusalem, a stand outside the Damascus Gate. I’ve never had onions quite so juicy, pita bread so warm, or beef so sizzling. Mmmm.<br /><br />Day 25<br /><br />Today, Brian the tour guide took us to see some sights in southern Israel. First we went east from Jerusalem on the road to Jericho, and stopped at an old Crusader castle. It’s not nearly as impressive as the Krak de Chevaliers – it’s just a few crumbling stone structures half-buried in the Judean sands. But it’s on a hill from which Jerusalem, Hebron and Ramallah are all visible, which is pretty cool.<br /><br />Next, we drove south through the West Bank, back into Israel proper, past the Qumran caves, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the most important archeological find of the 20th century (“Look out the window guys!”), and finally arrived at the ancient Masada fortress. This might be my favorite place in Israel. King Herod built the fortress on a huge stone mesa almost as high as the Sears Tower on the west shore of the Dead Sea. When the Jews revolted against the Romans a generation after Christ, Jewish rebels seized the fortress and held it until 73 AD, three years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The Romans eventually built a huge earthen ramp all the way to the top. When it became clear to the Jews that the Romans would take the fortress, they killed their families and drew lots to see who would kill whom and who would be stuck killing themselves in the end. And the next morning, the Romans entered the fortress and found a bunch of dead Jews.<br /><br />Not surprisingly, Masada plays a huge role in Israel’s sense of identity. IDF soldiers used to be sworn into the service at Masada, pledging, “Masada shall never fall again.” (Eventually, it was decided that this was too death-cultish, and today IDF soldiers are sworn in at the Western Wall.) Before we went up to the top of the fortress, we watched an introductory video in the museum at the base of the mesa. The video featured a narrator interviewing various Israeli archeology professors about Masada’s history. It was originally recorded in Hebrew, and the version we saw was dubbed over in English. Well, no translation is perfect, and when discussing something as morbid as Masada, that becomes obvious. At the close of the video, the narrator approaches one of the professors on top of Masada and asks his opinion of the Jewish fighters’ mass suicide. The English translation of his response went something like, “Well, clearly they were facing capture and slavery at the hands of the Romans. Slavery or death. What would you choose?” At this point, the narrator turns to the audience and gives us a meaningful stare. (And I thought to myself, “Well...slavery?”) In Hebrew, it’s probably really inspiring. In English, it’s really, really creepy. There’s a fine line.<br /><br />After that rather awkward introduction to Israeli-government-sponsored-ultranationalism, we hiked the 350 vertical meters to the top along the infamous “Snake Path.” (Josephus Flavius: “He that would walk along it must first go on one leg and then on the other; there is also nothing but destruction in case your feet slip, for on each side there is a vastly deep chasm and precipice, sufficient to quell the courage of everybody by the terror it infuses into the mind.” There’s a guardrail there today.) The view from the top of Masada is completely worth it. You can see miles of flat desert in every direction, plus the slowly-disappearing Dead Sea and the hills of Jordan beyond it. You almost get a sense of vertigo.<br /><br />Looking around the base of the mesa from the top, several huge squares can be seen in the ground, along with a thin line running all the way around Masada. These are the remains of a wall and fortresses built by the Romans. The ramp they used to break into Masada is still there too. Kind of eerie.<br /><br />It was at Masada that we learned the difference between archeological sites under Egyptian jurisdiction, and sites under Israeli jurisdiction. Upon getting to the top, and seeing a bunch of 2,000-year-old stone walls lining the edge of the mesa, we naturally ran over and climbed up on top of them to get a better view of the sweeping deserts before us and the 1,000-foot drop below. Later, we found out that there’s a 1400-shekel ($350) fine for climbing on the ruins. Oops. Luckily, no one called us on it (although I believe Brian got yelled at).<br /><br />In its time, Masada was home to not only a military fortress, but a winter palace for Herod named “Gondor.” (Completely serious.) Gondor came equipped with huge water cisterns and food reserves, not to mention bath houses, which explains why the Jews were able to hold out for so long. Today, the bath houses are still mostly intact, but most of the other walls have crumbled a lot. Still, it’s not too hard to imagine Gondor in its glory days. The view was nice, that’s for sure. There were also ruins of an ancient synagogue and Byzantine monastery at the top, which was pretty cool to see.<br /><br />After we climbed down from Masada, we drove north a ways to En Gedi, a beautiful oasis in the dead Judean hills. It was here that David hid from Saul (and cut off a piece of his robe in a cave where he was relieving himself – see I Samuel 24.) Today, En Gedi is an Israeli national park. The oasis is located in a wedge cut out of the hilly desert. Springs at the top of this wedge turn into waterfalls and streams that run all the way down to the Dead Sea, making the whole area green and lush. En Gedi is also home to some of the coolest wildlife I’ve ever seen – the hirex, which is an adorable chubby tree-dwelling rodent, and the ibex, which is like a miniature horned goat. They are native to Palestine, but went extinct in the area during the millennia between the Jewish exile and the restoration of the Jewish state. So Israeli special forces teams raided Iran to steal some of their ibexes and restart the population. How cool is that?<br /><br />Brian, Jon, Barrett and I went swimming for all of fifteen minutes in one of the pools, before the rangers yelled at us to leave because the park was closing. No matter. After hiking up Masada, it felt amazing.<br /><br />Day 26<br /><br />Sunday. Aaron, Whitney, Cassi and I walked to San Savior Catholic Church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City to attend the services there. The priest who delivered the mass was an Iraqi refugee, who was kind enough to introduce himself to us. Other than that (and the fact that it was in Arabic), it was a lot like the Catholic services I’ve gone to in Alton with Jake and Piper. From its internal design, the church could have been in America.<br /><br />After the service, we met up with a group of Palestinian Christian kids our age who attended the church. (Andrea the intern arranged the meeting.) They took us back to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and were able to explain a lot of the things that had confused me the first time I was there. Later, they took us to a really great shwarma restaurant run by Christians near the Jaffa Gate. After lunch, they promised to take us to their favorite secret hangout places. To my mild surprise, we headed out west through the Jaffa Gate into West (uber-Jewish) Jerusalem. We visited an extremely expensive mall in the Hinnom Valley (Gehenna), and then walked to a park on the other side of the valley. On the way, we passed the King David Hotel, which Menachim Begin and crew bombed in the forties.<br /><br />The park was pretty nice. It had lots of athletic courts and flower-covered walkways. Like true college students, we spent most of our time on the playground. I was surprised to find a small-scale replica of the Liberty Bell in the center of the park. (Later, I discovered that the park was named “Liberty Bell Garden.”) Later, we found a rest area along a sidewalk that overlooked the Old City and the hills beyond. We taught each other stupid old school youth group games and played them until the sun went down. I’m pleased to report that even with a cultural divide in place, such games are pretty good at bringing out people’s personalities. Or maybe Palestinians are just a lot less reserved than Americans. Probably both.<br /><br />When darkness fell, we headed back to the Old City, acting pretty juvenile on the way – climbing on walls, skipping through the streets singing Arabic songs – you know, dumb stuff like that. Along the way, I noticed that some of the elderly people passing on the street giving us sidelong glances. And all of a sudden, I felt a newfound connection with these brothers and sisters of mine. They’re Palestinian, I’m American. But when it all came down to it, here we were, a bunch of obnoxious Christian teenagers rampaging through West Jerusalem, annoying all the old Jewish people. Classic.<br /><br />Day 27<br /><br />This might be my favorite day of the semester. Our last full day in Jerusalem, I seized it with a relish.<br /><br />In the morning, Barrett the intern took us to visit the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. There are two entrances to the Temple Mount: one for Muslims, and one for infidels. The infidel route is a huge covered ramp that runs from the south entrance to the Western Wall plaza, up past the Western Wall, and onto the Temple Mount. On the wall beside the metal detectors we had to go through to get onto the ramp, there was a huge green sign declaring, “Announcement and Warning: According to Torah law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site. – The Chief Rabbinate of Israel.” Too bad I’m a Christian, suckas! Everything is permissible!<br /><br />The ramp afforded us a nice view of the Western Wall on the left side, and Israeli archeological excavations on the right side. Halfway up the ramp, there was a huge stack of police riot shields. Always prepared, and for good reason.<br /><br />The Temple Mount today is covered in a huge white platform, with the Dome of the Rock at the very center, and the Al Asqa Mosque at the southern edge. The Dome of the Rock, as I mentioned before, is a shrine built over the rock from which Mohammad ascended to heaven via winged horse and met with all the prophets. Jews believe that this same rock is the Foundation Stone, the first part of Earth God created, the stone on which Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac, and the site of the Holy of Holies of the First and Second Temples. That last part is pretty much known to be true, but I can’t attest to the rest. Being built over the ruins of the Jewish temple, and designed vaguely like a Christian church, the message of the Dome of the Rock is pretty clear. But in case you didn’t get it, the Muslims have inscribed a passage from the Qur’an around in the interior of the dome:<br /><br />“O People of the Book! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God, and His Word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not 'Three' - Cease! (it is) better for you! - God is only One God. Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. ... Whoso disbelieveth the revelations of God (will find that) lo! God is swift at reckoning!”<br /><br />Not that we were able to see the interior of the Dome. Only Muslims are allowed inside. We did peek through the doors, though.<br /><br />I didn’t notice it at the time, but Britta and Brian told me about it later, and I found it in some of the pictures I took: the western side of the Dome of the Rock has some bullet holes in it. I think it’s from a 1982 machine gun attack by an American-born Israeli reservist, which killed two Muslims and wounded nine more. Security, I think, has improved noticeably since then. Besides the metal detectors and the riot shields, we saw several armed Israeli soldiers stationed on the Mount.<br /><br />On the eastern side of the Temple Mount, the huge white platform ends and drops off into a wooded area that’s filled with old broken-down mithrobs and, well, trash. Also, I noticed that some stickers and posters with Arabic writing had been plastered on some of the walls of the Dome of the Rock and the other structures around it, some of which had been partially scraped off. Even though I’m not a Muslim, that kind of bothered me. C’mon, people. Really?<br /><br />When we had seen enough, Andrew, Scott, Chelsea and I left the Mount through a tunnel that leads back to the Muslim Quarter. Once we had gotten our bearings, we set off to explore the Armenian Quarter. (If you’re confused about why there’s an Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City, I was at first too. Apparently, Armenia was the first nation to become Christian, thirty years or so before Emperor Constantine converted, and huge numbers of Armenians made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and have remained there ever since.) We had been told that there was a museum to the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians, and since we had heard all about that in Turkey, we decided to check it out – but it was closed. We did see plenty of posters detailing the genocide with maps, figures and contemporaneous news reports. We found the art shop of the world-famous Sandrouni brothers, and a church built in the design of a synagogue by a group of British Christian Zionists in the early twentieth century.<br /><br />From there, we went to explore the area just south of the Old City known as Mt. Zion. It’s not actually Mt. Zion from the Bible, but people call it that for some reason. It was inside the walls of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time, but like the City of David, it’s outside the Old City (as defined by walls the Ottomans built in the 16th century.) Unlike the rest of the Old City, Mt. Zion was held by the Israelis in the 1948 war, and there’s a lot of Jewish stuff there. We passed by a building with a sign that read: “The Sephardic Synagogue of Mt. Zion, Estab. During the War of Independence 1948.” We also passed by a mini-Holocaust museum, which we didn’t go into.<br /><br />First we visited Dormition Abbey, a church built on the site where Mary the mother of Jesus died, or “fell asleep.” It’s a beautiful church. I’d seen it before, both from West Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, because it’s really tall compared to the rest of the Old City. It has a huge blue conical dome and a separate white clock tower. On the inside is a huge sanctuary filled with blue light from stained-glass windows. According to sacred-destinations.com, there’s also a “lower-level crypt,” which is “the traditional site of Mary’s home and death.” We didn’t see that crypt. (Man, that woman had a lot of houses.)<br /><br />Our primary mission in Mt. Zion was to find the Tomb of David. When we started seeing all the Jewish buildings and found a bronze statue of David playing a harp, we figured we were on the right track. Mt. Zion is a less-than-straightforward place, however. Once, we thought we had found the right place when we wandered into a building off the narrow alleyway marked with a sign that read, “King David Psalm and Prayer Room.” The man standing by the doorway told us in broken English that the tomb was upstairs (I think). We stepped inside, and found a lot of paintings and a tiny well labeled “Holy water,” but no stairs anywhere. We stood around awkwardly for a few seconds, drew a pail of holy water, dumped it back in, and left, but not before the old man tried to get us to make a donation – which we declined to do. If you’re confused, well, so were we.<br /><br />Finally, we turned a corner and by chance ran into a room marked with a small brown sign, “Ministry of Religious Affairs: Tomb of King David.” Score! We walked into the room, which was covered with low vaulted ceilings. Like most Jewish holy places, the women and the men have to worship separately, so Chelsea took the hallway that led to the women’s half, and the rest of us donned the site’s complimentary cardboard kippahs and headed into the men’s section. David’s tomb is a giant coffin covered in a blue cloth decorated with Hebrew lettering, crowns, a ram’s horn, and, oddly enough, a violin. The stone wall behind the coffin is blackened, possibly from fires in earlier conquests, or maybe just centuries of worshippers burning candles there.<br /><br />After the Tomb of David, our secondary mission was to find the Upper Room, the traditional site of the Last Supper and Pentecost. It took us a long time, a lot of wandering, and one exit used as an entrance for us to realize that the Upper Room is on top of the Tomb of David. (Crazy coincidence, huh?) In fact, we actually walked through the Upper Room without realizing it, because it’s filled with Islamic inscriptions and artwork, including a mithrob pointing towards Mecca. The Muslims had turned it into a mosque honoring the tomb of David (one of their prophets) in the sixteenth century. Realizing our mistake, we returned to the Upper Room to take pictures and enjoy our hard-won discovery.<br /><br />I later found out, a) according to the Bible, David is buried in the City of David, which is relatively far east of “Mt. Zion,” b) the structure that contains both “the Tomb of David” and “the Upper Room” dates only to the Crusader period, while some parts of it may date to a 1st or 4th century synagogue or church. In other words – not quite. Sometimes Holy Land sightseeing can be discouraging. At least those places have been revered as the real thing for centuries, which is still pretty cool.<br /><br />After seeing all that Mt. Zion had to offer, Chelsea, Scott and Andrew headed back to the Old City. I had heard about the Israel Museum in West Jerusalem, which holds some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and really wanted to go, but it looked really far away on the map and no one else wanted to go with me. So I said to myself, “Self? When are you going to be in Jerusalem again?” And I decided to walk there by myself.<br /><br />If you’ve never explored a totally foreign city by yourself with only a tourist map to guide you, I highly recommend it. Not only is there always cool stuff to see in a foreign city, but you feel super adventurous and hardcore. It took me an hour to get to the Museum, walking streets I had never seen before and hoping that they corresponded to the ones on my map. But my first stop in West Jerusalem was a huge windmill on the hill across the Hinnom Valley. As a Dutchman, its presence in Jerusalem had mystified me, and I felt it calling to me my whole time in Jerusalem. I climbed the hill where it sat perched, and discovered that the windmill was part of some Israeli heritage site. According to the sign there, it’s part of Mishkenot Sheananim, “the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem (1860). It was successfully defended by the Haganah during the disturbances of 1929, 1936-1939 and during the War of Independence. Its strategic location greatly enhanced the Eastern defenses of the city.”<br /><br />West Jerusalem is a pretty amazing city. I walked for miles through residential areas that looked a lot like some nice Californian suburb (give me palm trees, nice houses and unflat ground, and I think California, OK?) until I came to a four-lane road, beyond which the city simply stopped. In its place was a huge valley filled with trees. In the heart of the valley was the Monastery of the Cross, an eleventh century church built over the place where the tree that Jesus’ cross was made from originally stood. (According to tradition, of course.) On a hill to the northwest of the valley is a huge boxy warehouse-like building with a huge Israeli flag flying from it. Readers, place your bets on what this structure is – NOW!<br /><br />Knowing the general direction I needed to go, and figuring that a wooded valley was just as good as a four-lane road, I set off into the woods, came up on the other side of the valley, and by sheerest good fortune, found the Israel Museum. Most of the exhibits were closed, but after four weeks of sightseeing, I wasn’t in the mood for regular ‘ol museum stuff anyway, and the biggest attractions were still open, so I paid the entrance fee and headed in. Not having any weapons on me, I didn’t stop by the desk below the sign announcing, “CHECK WEAPONS HERE.”<br /><br />The first sight inside the Museum is a huge scale model of Jerusalem as it existed in AD 70. The second sight is a fountain that looks like a huge white Hershey’s kiss, built next to a huge granite wall. The white and black represent the apocalyptic struggle between the “sons of light” and the “sons of darkness,” as described in the theology of the Essene sect in Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. The huge white Hershey’s kiss is, in fact, the Shrine of the Book, which keeps fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display. Photography inside was banned, but I got to see the Temple Scroll, a twenty-something-foot-long scroll detailing how the Essenes thought the Jewish Temple should be built and run, and many other scrolls composed by the Essenes. The Shrine also houses the oldest known copy of the book of Isaiah. Dated to 100 BC, it’s a thousand years older than any other known copy. I didn’t get to see it, but I did get to see its replica. If that weren’t enough, the Shrine also holds the Aleppo Codex, the oldest complete Hebrew Bible in the world, dating to the 10th century. I couldn’t see that either, but I learned a lot about it and its near-miraculous history of survival.<br /><br />For lunch, I bought a hog dog with hummus from a stand near the museum whose owner was listening to “Holiday” by Green Day on the radio. It was delicious. I then set out to confirm my suspicion that the gigantic warehouse I had seen from across the valley was, in fact, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament building. My suspicions were confirmed. Two points for all you bright people out there. Israel has the best military in the world, the coolest archeological sites in the world, and the ugliest parliament building in the world.<br /><br />The entrance to the Knesset was blocked by huge glass doors and fifteen-high-foot fencing. I sat down on a stone wall near the entrance to consult my map and plan my next move. This earned me a visit from one of the M-16-wielding security guards. (A while ago, this might have fazed me, but now I’ve eaten at cafes where teenage Israeli girls at the table next to me had M-16s slung over the backs of their chairs.) “What are you doing?” the guard asked me. “Just resting,” I answered, and then decided, oh, why the heck not? “Are tourists allowed to visit the Knesset?” I asked. Yes, they are, he said, waving his arms around at the obviousness of this fact. “I mean, go inside?” Ha ha, nope. I decided to continue on.<br /><br />I had walked north a ways, but I figured I was still pretty much due west of the Old City, so I decided to cut eastwards through the wooded valley again. On the way, I caught sight of the Chords Bridge, a huge white asymmetrical bridge that is the tallest structure in Jerusalem. I didn’t feel like walking further to get a better view, but I can say I saw it. Other sights I saw: a Conservative Synagogue (conservative Judaism is not recognized as “real” Judaism by the Israeli government), and a huge banner hanging from an apartment building that showed a stereotypical Native American face and read, “Ask me about land for peace.” Ouch.<br /><br />I also saw the U.S. consulate. (The U.S. embassy is in Tel Aviv, since the U.S. doesn’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.) I took a picture of it, but a guard approached me a few seconds later, made me delete the picture, and asked me to flip through the other pictures on my camera to satisfy him that it was the only one I had taken. I was glad he didn’t see the several pictures I had taken of the security at the Knesset entrance. I’m not sure he would have liked that.<br /><br />Finally, I made it back home to the Austrian Hospice. After that adventure, there was only one thing on my Jerusalem list that I hadn’t yet accomplished: walking all the stations of the Via Dolorosa. By this point my legs felt like jelly, but I said to myself, “Screw that!” and set off on my own again.<br /><br />Following the map I had earlier purchased from a shopkeeper for five shekels, I found the chapels of the condemnation and flagellation near St. Stephen’s Gate, and walked the Via from there. I got lost a couple times, but it was fairly easy to get back on track, because there always groups of pilgrims passing through the streets following the Via, and I could shadow them for a while. One thing that threw me off was the fourth station (where Jesus met his mother on the way to the cross). It was partially hidden by a shop, and heads-up to whoever takes care of this kind of thing: I think it’s been vandalized. I saw the metal circle with the Roman numeral IV on the alley wall, but the arch in the wall that should have shown a sculpture of Jesus meeting Mary contained only broken cement. I also got lost by the ninth station. I was walking along the road that divides the Muslim Quarter from the Christian Quarter, and missed the ramp that leads from the road to another road built on top of the houses of the Christian Quarter, until a young priest showed an elderly American couple the way, and I discreetly tagged along. At the top of the ramp, I could see one of the houses on the top level of the Muslim side surrounded by chicken-wire fencing embroidered with a defiant Israeli flag. I had stumbled on a settlement.<br /><br />The raised road took me towards the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (which contains the final five stations) from a totally opposite direction than any I had walked before. This time, I could actually see the church’s domes from the ground level, and I realized that the gold crosses on top of the domes contained prisms at their ends, which glinted red in the fading sunlight. I also ran into a Palestinian kid who wanted me to play football with him. I consented for a few minutes, and probably disappointed him with my skills, and then continued on my journey.<br /><br />I put that entire mini-pilgrimage into an album on Picasa, which I humbly recommend you check out. The Via is indeed a moving experience.<br /><br />Tonight, I went out for pizza in West Jerusalem with Thomas, Brian, Britta, Jason, Jon and Josh, some of my favorite MESPers. The pizza was great, and for some reason, we all remembered our favorite DC Talk songs at the same time and started singing them. Ah, youth. On the way back, Jon and Josh encountered some Christian American tourists who intimated to them that Obama was the antichrist. No offense guys, but – and I base this on several experiences – American tourists can be really, really stupid.<br /><br />We topped off the night by watching the horrendous, yet hilarious movie The Happening (and reenacting it afterwards), and the excellent, yet depressing movie Munich, which is about the 1972 attacks on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and the Israeli response to those attacks. Both purchased in Syria, of course.<br /><br />The place where God dwelled with his people for generations, the third holiest place in Islam, the place where Mary died, the place where David is (probably not) buried, the place where Jesus and his disciples (probably didn’t) celebrate the Last Supper, a Jewish windmill, the oldest copy of Isaiah on earth, the Israeli parliament building, two run-ins with Israeli security, the Via Dolorosa, awesome pizza, great friends, and a Stephen Spielberg movie. Not bad for one day in Jerusalem.<br /><br />Day 28<br /><br />This was our last day in Israel, and we spent it by seeing everything in Israel we hadn’t already seen. We first drove to the northern city of Haifa, near Mt. Carmel, where Elijah owned the prophets of Baal. Like West Jerusalem, Haifa is a pretty modern city, situated right on the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. (As opposed to Alexandria, which is situated right on the crappy Mediterranean Sea.) Driving into Haifa, we passed a Google corporate building. No joke.<br /><br />In Haifa, we met with Archbishop Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Catholic who wrote the famous book Blood Brothers about his experiences in the 1948 war and his life after that. He was a wonderful man, who welcomed us warmly and told some amazing stories about reconciling Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. But there were some things in his book that frosted me off, and some of the things he told us frosted me off some more (if I have a right to be frosted off by a man whose ancestral village was destroyed by the Israelis). One was his audacity to compare Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. That, I feel safe in saying, is a morally bankrupt comparison. Another was his claim that Jews got along fine in the Middle East before the “Zionists” came in and created all these animosities. Can true reconciliation be based on lies? (I say “lies” because I’m not going to insult Bishop Chacour by calling him ignorant.)<br /><br />On our way out of Haifa, we passed by the famous Ba’hai gardens. The Ba’hai are a Muslim offshoot who believe that all religions are from God, and that humanity is moving towards a golden age based on interfaith cooperation. The gardens consist of magnificent palm tree terraces with white walkways leading up to a splendid domed building at the top of a hill, and are meant to evoke thoughts of paradise. Israel is probably the only place in the Middle East where the Ba’hai aren’t persecuted mercilessly.<br /><br />From Haifa, we drove south to Tel Aviv/Jaffa, which is also on the Mediterranean. Jaffa is an Arab town, which corresponds with Joppa, the city where Jonah caught an ill-fated boat to Tarshish. There, we could walk past 16th-century Ottoman mosques and police stations, and eat awesome Arab food. (If you haven’t realized this yet, most Arab food is awesome.) Only a few miles to the north is Tel Aviv, a Jewish town established in 1909 which is now the second-biggest city in Israel. Since Jerusalem is so fought-over, Tel Aviv often functions as the de facto cultural, economic and political locus of Israel. Most countries keep their embassies to Israel in Tel Aviv. When the Iranians get the bomb, Tel Aviv will be the first city they aim their launchers at. (Smile! Obama is president.)<br /><br />The bus dropped us off in Jaffa, and we arranged to meet it again in Tel Aviv. Starting in Jaffa, we made our way north to the meeting spot by way of the beach. On the way, Brian, Thomas, Jon, Josh and I took some time to go bodysurfing in the huge waves. It was great, at the end of our Israel adventure, to just enjoy a city without exploring sites of deep political and religious significance.<br /><br />Day 29<br /><br />We drove back to Cairo, by way of Eilat, the Israeli port city on the Red Sea. I got interrogated by Israeli security for wearing a pro-Palestinian T-shirt at the border crossing. That’s just how I roll. The details are <a href="http://joelinegypt.blogspot.com/2008/11/update.html">here</a>.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Are you still here? Bless you friend. May Allah preserve you and bring you back to the land of our fathers. It took me over a month to write this last installment, off-and-on, and I’m afraid it’s so hopelessly detailed that no one but me will take an interest in it. That’s OK with me, because I still have the ghosts of memories to flesh out these words. If you’ve found an interest in it, than I am doubly thankful. I still hope to post a few extra stories from Egypt and some final reflections on this blog, but right now, there’s some much-neglected homework I have to get to. Thanks for taking this journey with me. It means more than you know. Salaam ‘alaykum.Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-39318095834436180462008-12-15T22:01:00.001-08:002009-08-08T11:40:05.397-07:00Travelogue: Suria wa Urdun<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJOELVE%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 10 – On the road to Damascus</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">We arrived in Aleppo, Syria, this morning at about 1:20 AM.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It feels very strange to be in this country – a country that Ambassador John Bolton once called “the junior league axis of evil,” a country designated by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism, a country that’s been under heavy US sanctions since 2003, a country that US special forces invaded to kill an al Qaeda operative two weeks ago.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Our guide, Nadim, promises that we will be welcomed by the Syrians, but how can there not be at least a little tension?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>How many Americans do they run across in the average year here?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Will my friends and I be their first encounter with the far-off enemy?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">The sight from the plane as we descended was quite weird.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Aleppo is a big city (4.2 million), but the lights on the ground were dim and sparsely scattered.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We ain’t in Turkey anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">First sight on the ground: five men in laborers’ clothing standing together inside the jetway, not doing much at all.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>At 1:20 AM.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Unemployment in Syria is nearly 20%.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>25% of the labor force is on the government payroll (which includes airlines) and is paid next to nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Second sight: A gigantic portrait of His Excellency, President-for-Life Bashar Assad.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The first, but certainly not the last.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Pictures of Bashar and his father Hafiz are even more numerous than the pictures of Ataturk in Turkey.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Of course, Ataturk actually did something for his country.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Hafiz’ biggest accomplishment was occupying Lebanon.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Bashar’s was getting kicked out of Lebanon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">You gotta feel for Bashar.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He had a great career going as an ophthalmologist in London.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Then his older brother goes and gets killed in a car wreck, so his dad makes him come home and join the army so he can succeed him as president.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Six years later, his dad croaks, and Bashar finds himself in charge of the most pitiful rogue state on the planet.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>All he wanted was to help kids see better.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">(Flashes back to 2006 Hezbollah war.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Never mind.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I don’t feel for him at all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">We had our first major hitch at the passport line.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The military officers there (all six of them – again, at 1:20 AM) carefully examined all our passports.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Problem: a careful examination of one of our number’s passport revealed that he/she had once crossed the Israeli border into Egypt.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>That makes him/her unwelcome in Syria.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>They briefly took him/her into a back room for questioning – yikes – and apparently didn’t like the answers.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>His/her backup plan had been to fly to Jordan from Aleppo and then meet us there, but they wouldn’t even let him/her do that – he/she had to buy a ticket back to Istanbul.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He/she was deported from Syria.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We all gathered around him/her and prayed for his/her safety, and then he/she left.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We’ll meet up with him/her again in Jordan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The incident was another testament to the awesomeness that is Dr. Diaa.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>When one of the Syrian officials said, “They are the enemy!” (referring to Israel), Diaa exclaimed, “‘The Enemy’ doesn’t have any problems with Syrian stamps on our passports!<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>What is your problem?” Amin.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">To top everything off, the airport personnel made us run all of our carry-on luggage through x-ray machines again before letting us go.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I wish I knew enough Arabic to say, “The point is to keep weapons off of <i>planes</i>, you power-tripping overemployed national socialist cogs!” But I don’t.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Syria is a lot like Egypt, and nothing like Turkey.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The sand, the half-built buildings, the boxy mosque design (as opposed to the domed Ottoman model), the men in jalabayas, and of course, the Arabic.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It’s all like coming home.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We checked into the “Hotel Tourist” at 3 AM, which was quite a few steps down from the posh resorts we stayed at in Turkey, but comfortable enough for our purposes: crashing for six hours before our trip the next day.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The hotel lobby prominently displayed a photo of Bashar Assad, a painting of Jesus, and a weaving from Guatemala.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Almost 10% of Syria is Christian according to the State Department, and Christians are as free as everyone else – which is to say, free to prominently display pictures of the Dear Leader, and not much else.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">In the morning, we woke up, used the community bathroom, ate a meager continental breakfast, watched Brian talk in Spanish to some tourists from Spain, loaded up the bus, and set off towards the Krak des Chevaliers, a Crusader castle near Homs, Syria, built in the twelfth century.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The part of Syria we drove through was much flatter and drier than Western Turkey, but greener than Egypt – there are lots of orchards and fields along the way.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>32% of Syrian land is arable, and agriculture accounts for 25% of Syria’s GDP. (You can thank the US State Department’s website for all these fun facts.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">On the way to the Krak, we passed through a rather large city.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Dr. Holt informed us that it was Hama, population 1.2 million.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>You wouldn’t know by looking at it that 26 years ago, Hafiz Assad leveled the city in response to an Islamist uprising there, killing 20,000 people. It’s still one of Syria’s most conservative cities.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Also on the way, we stopped at a rest stop/resort called Amanos, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It had a restaurant, fountains and a Ferris wheel.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Kind of random, but fun to see.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The Krak des Chevaliers is situated in a gap in Syria’s coastal mountain range.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>T. E. Lawrence once called it “the finest castle in the world.” I won’t disagree.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It’s the real deal – towers, walls, turrets.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>From the highest tower you can see the whole “Christian valley” – a lush Christian-dominated valley surrounding the Krak – and mountains in nearby Lebanon.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I took lots of pictures there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Afterwards, we had our first taste of Syrian food at a nearby restaurant.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It was unreal – fried cauliflower, fried eggplant, grilled chicken with lemon-garlic sauce, and a waiter who laid the metrosexual schtick on thick.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Go figure.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Finally, we completed the bus ride to Damascus, Syria’s capital and the oldest continually inhabited city on earth.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We arrived after dark and moved into our rooms at the St. Elias Monastery, a few quick blocks from Damascus’ Old City.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>St. Elias Monastery is a Syrian Orthodox monastery, whose office lobby displays a painting of Jesus next to a portrait of Bashar.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The contradictions that come with being a Syrian Christian.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I don’t envy them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">After we checked in, we walked to the Old City, along Straight Street (see Acts 9) to the covered souk (market).<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We found a great ice cream shop, which served massive scoops of ice cream on cones for only 50 Syrian pounds. (About one US dollar – Syria, we would quickly learn, is one of the cheapest places on earth.) But I was still getting used to seeing Bashar Assad’s face everywhere, when, in the ice cream shop, I was confronted by something new: a poster of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the butcher in charge of the Syrian and Iranian-sponsored Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah (“party of God”), on the wall behind the serving counter.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Hezbollah propaganda, too, would become a theme of our visit to Damascus.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Lord, give me strength. (I’ve dedicated an album to Syrian propaganda over at <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp">Picasa</a>.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There’s some truly hilarious/sad stuff there.)<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Weirdly, that night, the Syrian government aired confessions on TV from the men accused of setting off a car bomb in Damascus that killed 17 people back in September, when I was still in Cairo.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Forced?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Probably.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>True?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Maybe.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>An interesting introduction to Syria.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">On a sidenote, Al Jazeera English is a great station.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Arabic Al Jazeera might be crazy and out there, but Al Jazeera English is very informative, and reasonably neutral.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I watched it a lot with Josh, my roommate in Damascus.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I was surprised to see that a British guy named Sir David Frost has his own show on Al Jazeera. “What’s a British guy doing there?” I wondered.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Later, I realized that this same David Frost is the man who interviewed Nixon for a million dollars after his resignation.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The interview is now the subject of the new movie <i>Frost/Nixon</i>.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>From criminal presidents to Middle Eastern TV.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Interesting guy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 11</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, our guide Nadim took us to the house of St. Ananias, the man who God sent to heal the Apostle Paul of his blindness in Acts 9. (Paul himself was staying on Straight Street, which we walked on every day to the markets in the Old City.) Because the house is 2000 years old, and Damascus has seen a lot since then, it’s located about twelve feet below street level, at the level where the street was in Roman times.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>So the house today is an underground stone-walled chapel.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>According to Eastern Orthodox tradition, Ananias was one of the seventy-two disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10, and later became the Bishop of Damascus.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He was eventually killed by the Romans.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Damascus’ Old City is a beautiful place.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Its narrow cobblestone streets are lined with Roman ruins, palm trees, grape vines, restaurants, and shops selling Christian and Muslim artwork.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>At the heart of the Old City is the Umayyad Mosque, where Nadim took us after we visited Ananias’ house.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The mosque’s huge walls and towering minarets serve as a kind of landmark for us Americans trying to navigate Damascus: “Should we go back to that one place we were at earlier?” “Sure.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Which way is the mosque?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Aesthetically and historically, the Umayyad Mosque is my favorite mosque. (I’ve been to a few now.) The Umayyad caliphs moved the capital of the Islamic empire to Damascus, and built the mosque over the Byzantine Basilica of St. John, which in turn was built on the ruins of the Roman temple of Jupiter.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The eastern gate of the Roman temple is now the entrance to a huge covered market, and other Roman ruins can still be seen inside the mosque’s courtyard.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The Basilica of St. John was dedicated to St. John the Baptist.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>John the Baptist is also revered as a prophet by the Muslims, and the main hall of the mosque holds a shrine that contains his severed head. (Of course, his head is also in the Sultan’s palace in Istanbul, so...)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The Umayyad mosque has more than its fair share of dead famous people.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>When the Umayyads beheaded Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Mohammad, for trying to take back the caliphate for his family, they displayed his head and the heads of his followers at the mosque.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The place where the heads were displayed (I think they’re buried somewhere else now) is now a shrine for Shia Muslims, who believe that Hussein and his descendants are the rightful rulers of Islam, and who view Hussein as a holy martyr.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We saw many Shia pilgrims from Iraq and Iran at the shrine (it was easy to pick them out because the women were dressed in long black robes.) What can I say?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Grown women were weeping in front of me.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The men were chanting Hussein’s name and beating their chest.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I don’t really get it.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>My discomprehension was shared by a Dutchman I met named Jerome, who I commiserated with for a bit. “Congratulations on your new president,” Jerome told me.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Drop dead, foreigner, I thought to myself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Last, but certainly not least, the mosque also houses the tomb of Salah al-Din, the Muslim hero who drove out the Crusaders and conquered Jerusalem.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>His tomb contains two coffins: a wooden one draped in a green cloth, which actually contains his body, and a white marble coffin that was a gift from the German emperor in 1903.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The emperor apparently thought that a wooden coffin wasn’t good enough for Salah al-Din, and the Muslims said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” and kept both.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I suppose this goes without saying, but the Crusades are far from ancient history here.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>In its charter, Hamas labels the French/British conquest of the Middle East after World War I as a continuation of the Crusades.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The charter (which we had to read on the trip) recounts the story of a French general who kicked Salah al-Din’s tomb and said, “We have returned, O Salah al-Din.” Because the State of Israel was birthed from the British occupation of Palestine, its existence is also seen as an extension of the Crusades by many Middle Easterners.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Saddam Hussein tried to style himself as a modern Salah al-Din, although he never got around to liberating Jerusalem himself.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Aesthetically, the Umayyad Mosque is just frickin’ beautiful.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>A huge white courtyard, three highly decorated minarets, a huge painting of paradise on the highest portion of the wall, green, blue and red stained glass windows on the inside of the main hall – it’s just sweet.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>It’s also a nice contrast from all the Ottoman mosques we saw in Turkey.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>One of the minarets at the mosque is known as the “Isa” minaret, Isa being the Arabic name for Jesus.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>According to Muslim tradition, Jesus will return one day and preach Islam from the top of the Isa minaret.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I guess we’ll see.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Syrian food might be my favorite in the Middle East.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Today we discovered a place that serves absolutely delicious falafel for 20 Syrian pounds, or about 40 cents, and the meal we had at the Krak des Chevaliers was probably the best in the semester.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>And then there’s the slushies and ice cream.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Syria also has the market cornered on pirated DVDs.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There are movie stores on almost every street, selling pirated movies burned onto ordinary blank DVDs in plastic bags for 25 or 50 pounds.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Our group went a little movie-crazy.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I may or may not have bought nine movies.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>My flatmate Austin may or may not have bought seventy-one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">But there’s more to shopping in the Old City than food and movies.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There were shops selling paintings, music, kheffiyahs and scarves, icons, carpets, and more.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>My favorite purchase of the Syria trip: a baseball cap with the Iraqi flag on it.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I’ll be wearing this on campus next semester; look for it!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The day was capped off by a visit to the hamaam, a Turkish bathhouse.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The girls and guys separated for this one.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The guys got to wear towels inside; I understand the girls were not so fortunate.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Or more fortunate.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Whatever.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I’ll let my roommate <a href="http://www.briancassels.com/?p=71">Brian</a> take over on this one:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">It was one of the manliest experiences I’ve ever had. We go in and they have a big room with marble basins under spigots lining the walls. Everyone gets a sponge and soap and shampoo. You can spend time in there cleansing yourself, or cruise into the side room for a blast of steam in the sauna. Meanwhile there are 2 guys coming around and taking turns violating us. The first guy makes you lay on the tile and he has a sponge…actually, come to think of it, it was steel wool…and SCRAPES you down, when he’s ready for you to roll over he gives you a good hard slap. Man number two gives you the most aggressive massage of your life, which actually felt really nice. A favorite move was when he takes his fist behind your knee and then slams your leg over it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Whereas Turkey only blocks YouTube, Syria blocks both YouTube and Facebook, ever since Facebook was used to organize anti-government protests in Egypt last summer.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Apparently, other websites are blocked as well, but I didn’t want to explore to find which ones and have the censors see a whole bunch of pro-democracy URLs being entered from the monastery.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Tonight, a North American gentleman I spoke with, whom I shall not identify in any way, but who definitely knows what he’s talking about, told me, “There is no talking in Syria.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>A few weeks ago, a businesswoman was sent to jail for sending a rude joke about the president through e-mail.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>You are in the ultimate police state.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Syria has sixteen separate spy agencies all reporting on you and on each other.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There’s someone who’s reported that you’re here tonight.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The Old City is very closely watched.” Welcome to Basharland.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 12</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Free day!<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I spent most of the day shopping with Aaron and Ashley in the Old City.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I tried to withdraw some money from an ATM, but it didn’t work.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Two possibilities that I can see: 1) My bank shut down my card when I used it in Egypt before we left. (That is pretty suspicious.) 2) Syria is under US sanction, and that includes banking.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Thankfully, Ashley was kind enough to loan me some money.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, I met my first Iranian.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He was a very nice man, who took a picture of Ashley, Aaron and I by the statue of Salah al-Din outside the western gates of the Old City.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>When we realized where we were all from, he smiled and said, “Our governments are like this,” pounding his fists against each other, “but we can still be friends.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Inside the covered souk, we met a shopkeeper named Kaman, whom we bought some colored kheffiyahs from.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He was an interesting character with a lot to say.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He liked my Iraqi flag hat, and told me, “I can tell you have peace in your heart because you wear that hat.” Bush on the other hand, he wasn’t too fond of. (Shocker, I know.) “I’m very sorry to say, but Bush is a killer,” he said, claiming that Bush has killed two million people in Iraq and Afghanistan. 150,000 would be a closer figure, most of them killed by Islamic terrorists or criminals, but I wasn’t about to argue.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Besides, I’m getting my facts from a media that, according to Kaman, is controlled by the Jews.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I wanted to ask him what he thought about Bashar and his father, who’ve killed their fair share of Muslims, but I didn’t think I would get a straight answer. (Nor did I want him to risk giving me a straight answer.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Kaman didn’t believe that Obama would truly bring a change to American foreign policy, but he was optimistic that Jews, Christians and Muslims could live in peace again. “We all follow the same God,” he told us. “I will raise my children to love peace, and you raise your children to love peace, and one day we will have peace.” We promised him we would, paid for our kheffiyahs, and shook his hand goodbye.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Because of his Muslim beliefs, Kaman wouldn’t shake Ashley’s hand, but he promised he would “keep her smile in his heart.” Aww...</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Sometimes it’s hard to tell how much of what these shopkeepers tell us is genuine, and how much is part of the effort to sell us stuff.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Or maybe they engage in genuine conversation as part of their effort to sell us stuff.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Anyway, it makes for good stories later on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After dinner that night, I went back to the shop to buy another kheffiyah (3 dollars is a pretty good price, and they were nice.) Kaman’s brother was manning the shop, and proved to be equally interested in the election and American politics.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Somehow, our conversation drifted to the war, and I found myself apologizing for what happened on the border (the American special forces attack on an al Qaeda operative in a town near the Iraqi border, which apparently killed eight civilians as well). I felt a little deceptive afterwards.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I’m not sorry our military went after a terrorist.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I was sorry that civilians got killed in the process, but that will always be a part of war.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I guess if I’m going to represent America to the Syrians I meet, I want them to meet a person who sincerely wants peace between our countries.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">More cross-cultural mayhem: Tonight, Andrea the intern held an optional co-ed meeting about the sexual harassment issue, which I chose to attend.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I don’t think I’ve written about this very much before, but it’s bad, and if you’re a western woman in the Middle East, it’s a virtual certainty.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>After this semester, I have very little respect for Arab men (with a few exceptions).<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>At the meeting, the girls in attendance shared their stories with us.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I’m glad I heard them, but they made my blood boil and made me feel helpless all the same time.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Ever read <i>1984</i>? Good for you.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Remember the part where the Party leader explains to Winston that it’s not enough to kill traitors – you have to get them to recognize that you’re right, and <i>then</i> kill them?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>That’s what I wanted to do to every single man who hurt my sisters: beat them into a pulp until they realized just how disgusting their actions had been, and went crawling on their hands and knees to apologize. (I know it’s a little difficult to imagine a guy with my physique beating someone into a pulp, but bear with me.) The most infuriating part of this culture is how <i>accepted </i>it is.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>They don’t even see it as a big deal.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>What is wrong with these people?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 13</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, we visited the US cultural center, which is right across from the US embassy, both of which have been closed to Syrians ever since the border attack.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I was kind of surprised: both the embassy and the cultural center are kind of ghetto.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I wouldn’t have known what they were if we hadn’t gone there.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Both are surrounded by high walls and fences, but not really identified in any way.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>When the cultural center is open, it serves thousands of Syrian students, so the closure really isn’t hurting anybody but Syrians.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>But when you have no military options, no diplomatic leverage and no economic ties, what else do you do when you’re attacked?<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Besides, there was definitely some seditious materials on the walls inside the cultural center: a big copy of the Declaration of Independence in Arabic, and posters explaining the tenets of democracy.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>If I was Bashar, I wouldn’t want my people anywhere near that stuff.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">We got to speak to one of the State Department’s diplomats at the cultural center.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Whenever he spoke of the border attack, he used the word “alleged.” I guess our government’s still not owning up to it.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Aside from that, he was pretty frank with us, as Dr. Dave asks all our speakers to be – which also means I can’t write all the cool things he said on this blog. (Not that it needs to get any longer, huh?) </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">During our last round of shopping today, I came across a gold wristwatch engraved with Saddam Hussein’s face.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Lest there was any doubt in my mind, a young Syrian man came up to me, pointed to the watch, and said, “That’s Saddam.” All righty.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There’s some solidarity among the Baathists.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I took a picture of the watch for posterity.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">As we waited for the bus to come near the western gate of the Old City, we got a wonderfully vivid last sight of Syria.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>As we watched some stray cats playing near the gate, a man approached with a bag full of raw meat.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>I think you know where this is going...OK, I’ll tell you!<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>He threw a huge hunk of bloody raw meat on the grass, and about twenty stray cats attacked it, making, well, a bloody mess.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Yum.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>If there’s a symbolic meaning to be had there, I leave it to all of you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">On to Jordan!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The last sight we saw on the Syrian side of the border was a big picture of Hafiz and Bashar smiling at you as you leave the socialist paradise they’ve created.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>You know, the personality cult was kind of charming at first, but after a week, I was ready to go visit a moderately democratic country.
<br />
<br />So you can imagine how my heart fell when the first thing we saw in <i>Jordan</i> was a big poster of the late King Hussein.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Followed quickly by a banner of his son, the current ruler of Jordan, King Abdullah.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>If there are Barack Obama posters up everywhere when I get back, I’m going to be very upset. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 14</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">This was our only day in Jordan.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>We stayed at the Days Inn in Amman for two nights, but didn’t really get a chance to interact with Jordanian culture that much.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>On the way into Amman last night, we passed by a large Palestinian refugee camp in a valley, but couldn’t see much.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Today, we put on our swimsuits, loaded up the bus and drove to the eastern side of the Dead Sea.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>On the way, we passed by Mt. Nebo, the mountain where God showed Moses all of Canaan before he died.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>There’s so much history in this country. (After all, it’s half of biblical Canaan.) It’s a shame we can’t spend more time here.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, and I noticed.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>As we went down, my ears started popping.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>At the resort we stopped at, we were greeted with a sign, which warned us: “Do not dive.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Do not swim far from shore.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Protect eye and mouth from watre.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Try to swim on your back.” All wise words.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Floating effortlessly in the saltwater was great fun, but there’s little room for error.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Get any of that water in your mouth or eyes, and you’re done swimming for the day.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Thankfully, I did not have that misfortune.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Even so, I only stayed in for about fifteen minutes.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The saltwater has a...chafing effect.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>In certain areas.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>The resort had a lot of showers and clean, chlorine-filled pools, so I rinsed off and devoted myself to reading for the rest of the stay.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>At this point in my journey, I am switching from the “Peoples and Cultures” reader – Turkey, Syria and Jordan – to the “Conflict and Change” reader – Israel and Palestine – in preparation for our journey to Jerusalem tomorrow.<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Strange – to be reading about the West Bank on the shores of the Dead Sea, within view of the actual West Bank for the first time.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">“Oh yeah – this is the Middle East” Moment of the Day: Turning on the TV in my hotel room and seeing none other than Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, giving a sermon.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Next post in Jerusalem! </p> Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-38466712687730627322008-12-15T21:34:00.000-08:002009-08-08T11:31:07.649-07:00Travelogue: Turkiye<div id="preview"><div style="display: block;" id="previewbody"><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJOELVE%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">The long-promised travel blog is here!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">During my trip, I made a list every night (bullet points) of things that had happened that day. What’s I’m gonna do here is take those lists and expound on them a little, day-by-day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 1 – Arrival in Istanbul</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">First thoughts in Istanbul: Continent number four, baby! North America, a layover in Germany, two months in Africa, and now Asia!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Drat. We landed on the European side of the Bosporous. Still on continent number three.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">First sights in Istanbul: frickin’ <i>evergreen </i>trees! And sycamore trees! Grass! Clean streets! Nice houses! Blue skies! Unmarried young people holding hands <i>in public</i>! What is going on?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">At the airport, we piled into a tour bus (this would become a theme on the trip) and met our Turkish tour guide, Eren. “Like a girl’s name,” he told us, “but I assure you, I am completely straight.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">We arrived in Istanbul on Turkey’s independence day, October 29. Turkish flags everywhere you can imagine. Patriotism is a big deal there. By the end of the trip, most of us had become Turkish nationalists, including myself. Part of the reason is their flag. It’s awesome. A red banner with a white Islamic crescent and star. Simple, powerful, elegant. Maybe some of you saw the astronomical event a few nights ago where Jupiter, Venus and the moon were really close together. According to legend, centuries ago, an Ottoman general was walking through a field at night where a battle had taken place the day before, and saw the moon and Jupiter reflected in a pool of blood around a Turkish soldier. The general thought to himself, (and I’m paraphrasing) “Hey! That would make a pretty kickin’ flag.” And so it is.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Central to Turkish nationalism is Turkey’s national hero (and my personal hero): Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. As an Ottoman general in the First World War, he rose to national fame as a brilliant strategist. When the Ottomans lost the war, and the Ottomans signed the Treaty of Sevres, which divided modern-day Turkey into six pieces, five of which would have been doled out to the Allied powers, resistance committees sprang up across Turkey. Hoping to capitalize on Kemal’s fame, the Ottomans sent him to put down the rebellion. Kemal said, “Screw that,” and used his army to organize the committees into a national resistance movement against the Allied invasion. Facing overwhelming enemy forces, Kemal won a stunning victory and saved his country. What a man. (My country <i>was </i>an Allied power, and even I’m excited about it.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Anyway, the Ottomans sentenced him to death for his efforts, so he overthrew the sultan and the caliph and made Turkey a republic, which he became the first president of. He made Turkey a completely secular nation, abolishing gender inequalities, standardizing education, even changing the Turkish alphabet from Arabic letters to Roman letters – a change the entire country adopted within three months. (America can’t even switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius.) Almost singlehandedly, he did what foreign policy realists today claim is impossible to do – brought democracy, equality and modernity to a Muslim country.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The first picture we saw of Ataturk (Kemal’s adopted surname, which means “father of the Turks”) was a portrait hanging near the airport exit. It certainly wasn’t the last. His face could be seen on billboards, pennants, and multi-story banners draped on the sides of office buildings. In nearly all the shops and restaurants we went to, his framed portrait could be found. On one stretch of road near the Bosporous we drove on the first day, the wall running alongside the road was adorned with photos of Ataturk every five feet for the length of at least a half-mile. After a while, it became almost absurd: Here’s Ataturk riding a tractor. Ataturk eating doner. Ataturk inspecting horses. Ataturk putting on socks. As we quickly realized, every denomination of Turkish currency carries Ataturk’s face. Pretty much, he receives the kind of adoration you’d have to be a living dictator to receive anywhere else in the world.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The impact Ataturk had is immediately noticeable. I mentioned the hand-holding thing, right? OK, good. The whole culture just felt so much more “at-home” to me. (Of course, this is after living in Cairo for two months.) People walked in small groups, or by themselves. There’s an intangible that America and Turkey have in common. Individualism – that’s the word I was looking for. Female dress ran the gamut, from standard American to conservative Muslim. On our free day, one girl in my group decided to just walk around Istanbul, by herself, with no clear direction in mind – which wouldn’t be a good idea in Cairo. Plus, it’s just a nicer place – cleanliness, nicer, wealthier housing, traffic lights that drivers actually obey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The Westernization has its downsides, too. In Egypt, I never feared getting attacked or robbed, not even on the street after ten o’clock. I wasn’t exactly afraid in Istanbul, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go places by myself at night either. In Egypt, I carried my wallet in my back pocket. In Istanbul, I got in the habit of putting it in my front pocket, and kept that habit all the way through Jerusalem. When I got back to Cairo, I did it without thinking about it. Never saw drunk people on the streets of Cairo, or prostitutes like the ones that frequented our hotel in Istanbul. (At least one guy in our group got solicited by a pimp while we were there.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Paradoxically, the most prominent architectural feature of Istanbul is mosques. Mosques everywhere. Big, beautiful mosques that would be tourist attractions anywhere else in the world are a dime a dozen in Istanbul. In Egypt and Syria, the mosque design is pretty much a box with a minaret, a courtyard with a minaret, or, in Cairo, the rented-out first floor of an apartment building and a jury-rigged bullhorn. In Istanbul, it’s a huge dome with two, sometimes four minarets jutting into the sky, and sometimes a courtyard to boot. (The Mohammad Ali Mosque at the Citadel in Cairo is in the Ottoman style – Ali was an Ottoman ruler.) And despite the rift between Arabs and Turks, the call to prayer still issues five times a day, in Arabic. It sounds nicer too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Our first afternoon, we got on a ferry and took a boat tour around the Bosporous, the tiny strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and separates Asia and Europe. It was gorgeous. New England-style architecture, mingled with ancient Ottoman fortresses and mosques, all perched on hills covered in evergreens sloping down to the water. Afterwards, we got to explore the area by the ferry dock. There was a beautiful mosque, a bridge connecting Asia and Europe, and a bunch of restaurants and shops. We looked at some books, ate some delicious fruit-filled waffles and baked potatoes prepared the Turkish way, and then raced to the bus, which had been holding up traffic waiting for us. (Dr. Dave: “Nice work guys. All those drivers know: the Americans did this.”) The bus took us back to the hotel, where some of us (no names), snuck onto the roof to watch the Independence Day fireworks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Our hotel wasn’t that nice, but there was a big lobby where we could hang out during downtime. Plus, I got to room with Thomas, which was awesome. It was also very close to the Sultanahmet, a shopping area next to the Bosporous and the Hagia Sophia, one of the oldest, most beautiful church/mosques in the world. The first night, we hiked down to the Sultanahmet, ate some Turkish delight and drank some Turkish apple tea (essentially hot cider, but very good), and posed for pictures by huge posters of Ataturk. All in all, a great first day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 2</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today we visited Koch University, a beautiful campus northwest of Istanbul. After a lecture on Turkish foreign policy from a professor there, we had a group meeting with Turkish undergrad students. One member of our group asked the students their opinion of Turkey’s ruling conservative AK (“Justice and Development”) Party. Almost immediately, an argument broke out between the Turkish students, a near shouting match over whether the AK Party were reformers serving the people or the Taliban in reformers’ clothing. At first I was totally disoriented; I didn’t know how to respond. Then I realized the cause of my disorientation: after living in the Middle East for two months, I was seeing Middle Easterners argue about politics amongst themselves in front of me (a westerner) for the first time. I don’t remember the arguments the students used, and it doesn’t matter to me. Just seeing an argument about politics happen was breathtaking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I haven’t blogged about this yet, but in the week before we left on travel component, we had a meeting at the MESP villa with Muslim young people who work for the Cairo-based Islam Online. It didn’t take us long to figure out that they hadn’t come to discuss interfaith issues so much as present a united front against any “misunderstandings” we might have about Islam. After living in Egypt for two months, and after a similar experience at Cairo’s al-Azhar University the week before (which I will also blog about later), we were pretty much fed up with the propaganda. To go from <i>that </i>to Koch University was quite a shock.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Another huge contrast between the Islam Online meeting and the Koch University meeting: in our “discussion” group at the Islam Online meeting, we were discussing women’s rights in Islam. One girl in our group brought up sharia law in Saudi Arabia. Our Muslim counterpart quickly objected: “Saudi Arabia does not have a religious government.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Er…what?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Flash-forward to Koch University, where a Turkish student corrected me when I said that the US and Turkey were both secular republics. “The US is not secular,” she said. “You have ‘under God’ in your pledge of allegiance.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Hard to have bigger viewpoint gap than that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">When we asked the Turkish students if there was anything they wanted us to know about them, they gave a pretty basic list: “We don’t ride camels. We are not Arabs. We use silverware. We are not terrorists.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Especially remember that they’re not Arabs. One of the girls told us exactly how she felt about Arabs: “They are betrayers [in WWI, I presume], they are uncivilized, they don’t give their women any rights. It’s disgusting how they treat their women. Their lands are full of oppression and inequality.” Maybe Turkish students should start studying in Cairo. It sounds like there’s a little tension there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">One other Turkish student floored us by suggesting that the United States had used its influence to bring the AK Party to power in 2002. That President Bush would have orchestrated an election victory for a quasi-Islamist party inside a crucial regional ally months before he sought to use that ally as a launching-pad for the invasion of Iraq (an idea the AK Party shot down in an overwhelming vote) is absurd. But she believed it, and so do many others. This, I’m told, is an example of “Sevres Syndrome” – an extreme paranoia on the part of the Turks about the motives of the West, dating to the aforementioned Sevres Treaty. Paradoxically, because Turkey’s secularist establishment doesn’t always respect free speech and freedom of religion, the religious AK Party has been the driving force behind the effort to get Turkey into the European Union, which would require Turkey to shed its restrictions on speech and religious practice, thus strengthening the AKP. In response, the <i>secularists</i> have accused the <i>religious Islamic party</i> of collaborating with the colonial West against the Turkish nation. Hence the “The AKP is a tool of Europe and America” line. Turkish politics is my favorite.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, we had our first run-in with the topic of the Armenian Genocide. I intend to do more research on this next semester, but for those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, during World War I, the Ottomans essentially cleansed northeastern Turkey of its Armenian population, killing over a million of them in the process. Most historians consider this action the first genocide of the 20th century. But in Turkey, you can be (and people have been) prosecuted for affirming the reality of the Armenian Genocide. According to the Turkish line, the Armenians were collaborators who were peacefully moved to another area of the Ottoman Empire, and some of them died on the way (but not one million). It was a war, after all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Last year, the Democratic congress tried to pass a resolution labeling the Armenian Genocide a “genocide.” Turkey threw a fit, threatening to stop US military shipments through its territory and invade northern Iraq (which is controlled by the Kurds. Kurdish terrorists have been causing a lot of havoc in Turkey lately.) Bush eventually convinced Congress to drop it, but Obama has pledged to pass the resolution (which is one reason why Obamamania is a little subdued in Turkey.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The professor who spoke to us on Turkish foreign policy said that the genocide issue is one of three issues dividing Turkey and the US (the other two being Iraq and Iran). That’s right: one of the biggest issues Turkey has with America is the <i>possibility</i> that the American congress might pass a <i>nonbinding resolution</i> which declares that the <i>Ottoman Empire </i>(not the Republic of Turkey) committed genocide over ninety years ago, and which makes no policy changes. Turkey is willing to sever military ties with one of its oldest, strongest allies over it. Honor is a big deal in this part of the world, I guess.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">We spoke to many Turks on this subject – journalists, diplomats, AK Party reps, students – and out of all them, only one was willing to admit that the Armenian Genocide happened. He was a human rights lawyer we met on the last day. All the others were convinced that no genocide occurred, and that any killings were an unplanned part of the rough-and-tumble of World War I. To see that level of entrenched nationalist ignorance of established historical facts was disturbing to me. From my point of view, denying past mistakes opens the possibility of repeating those mistakes. If present-day Turkey took a more enlightened approach to its minorities, from the Alevi Muslims to the Kurds, I might be less disturbed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">This day, I ate lunch at a restaurant near our hotel with Andrea, CJ and Jason. We were talking about the genocide, and some of us started raising our voices. Suddenly, Andrea looked around and said, “Guys, we should probably keep our voices down.” We all realized that we were surrounded by Turkish people eating lunch, at least some of whom might speak English. Immediately, we lowered our voices and changed the subject. I think that’s the first time I censored myself in the Middle East.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Dr. Dave, Barrett and Andrea put together a huge “reader” for us that covers the politics of all the countries we visited. Today while reading the Turkey section, I came across this passage, which was a good, and amusing, intro to the headscarf issue for me:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Just two weeks after coming to power, the AKP government faced the first major challenge to its Muslimhood model. Protocol required Bulent Arinc, the new speaker of parliament, to see secularist President Ahmet Sezer off at the airport. Since Mrs. Sezer would be there, protocol required that Arinc bring his wife as well. The following day, the photo on the front page of all the major newspapers showed President Sezer shaking hands with a veiled Mrs. Arinc. It did not take long for Sezer to remind the AKP government that this had been an illegal act, not to be repeated. Veiling is not permitted in the political arena, whether in parliament or on the airport runway. Several days later, the heads of the branches of the military [which has overthrown four governments since 1960] paid the new government a routine welcome visit. After spending twenty minutes with the prime minister, they spent exactly two minutes, as timed by waiting journalists, in the office of Mr. Arinc. The message was clear. AKP was not to step over the line again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Essentially, Turkish secularism, as defined by Ataturk and his ideological heirs, demands that religion be completely absent from the public square. Based on this doctrine, the Turkish courts have forbidden Muslim women from wearing the headscarf or the veil in government buildings, including universities. Since this effectively excludes conservative women from public life (about 64 percent of Turkish women wear the headscarf), it’s a huge issue in Turkey, and the AKP has tried several times to change the secularist status quo to make more room for religious freedom. We heard a <i>lot</i> about the headscarf while in Turkey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The standard question Turks we meet – students, waiters, shopkeepers – have for us: “McCain or Obama?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 3</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today we took a bus to the headquarters of the AK Party in Istanbul and met with some of the party’s representatives. The lobby of the building is a bundle of contradictions: Upon walking in, we were greeted with a huge poster of the Turkish Prime Minister’s face, adorned with the AK Party logo – a light bulb. Above the reception desk was a portrait of Ataturk, who forced Turkish men and women to shed traditional clothing. Seated <i>at </i>the reception desk was a woman in a headscarf. Craziness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The AK Party reps made a fairly good case for their party. They pointed to the tremendous economic growth Turkey has made since they defeated the secularists and came to power, and pledged that Turkey would soon join the European Union. My only unanswered question is, if the conspiracy theorists are right, and the AKP is planning to install sharia law, what will stop them once they rewrite Turkey’s (admittedly flawed) constitution and fill the judiciary with their supporters? Is it possible that the AKP is taking EU reforms just far enough to ensure that the military gets out of politics, and then planning to reverse course and form a theocracy? I’m already thinking like a Turk.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After our meeting with the AK Party, our group went to tour the Hagia Sophia, the world-famous church built by the Byzantines, turned into a mosque by the Ottomans, and finally established as a museum by Ataturk, the man. The place is huge. (Apparently, for many years it was the largest building on earth.) The central chamber is probably five stories tall, and decorated with six huge circles bearing the names of Allah, Mohammad, and the first four Islamic caliphs. Christian influences are still present, though. Archeologists have been restoring many of old church’s frescoes of Mary and Jesus. One of the biggest Christian frescoes is on the wall directly above the mithrob, the alcove found in all mosques which points to Mecca – only this mithrob points exactly halfway in between Jerusalem and Mecca. (Originally, Mohammad had his followers pray towards Jerusalem, only changing it to Mecca after the Jews refused to support his rule.) Because of details like that, many people believe the Hagia Sophia symbolizes the coming unity of the world’s religions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The second floor of the Hagia Sophia wraps all the way around the central chamber, and has huge arches and balconies opening into it. On this particular day, all the second floor windows were open, and there was a warm Istanbul autumn breeze blowing through the place, completing the mood of peace and awe. It was a good day to visit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Free time at the hotel is great. I spend it, variously, playing poker with Thomas, Brian and Barrett (the stakes are ice cream bars), reading the Chronicles of Narnia aloud with Austin and anybody else who wants to join, and watching Arrested Development on Scott’s computer. (“AD” is, in many ways, the official pirated TV show of MESP.) </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Interesting note: YouTube is blocked in Turkey. Apparently, there are some videos on YouTube that mock Ataturk, so the entire thing is inaccessible from Turkish computers. That’s a first for me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 4</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">This morning, we met with representatives of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, essentially a front group for the Fethullah Gulen movement. Fethullah Gulen is a Turkish religious figure who promotes an extremely tolerant brand of Islam. He is very popular within the AK Party. Unfortunately, he is basically living in exile in the US right now, not wanting to face some lingering charges brought by secularist prosecutors. However, his influence was evident not only from the fact that a Turkish parliamentarian was at our meeting, but from the copies of Foreign Policy magazine we received proclaiming Gulen the world’s “leading public intellectual.” (The choice was based on the votes of the magazine’s readers – Gulen’s people got the word out pretty fast.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">What can I say? They gave us a delicious breakfast, showed us a really cheesy promotional video, emphasized how much they loved us over and over again, held a Q&A session with us in which only three questions were asked, showed us a music video condemning racism and murder, told us they loved us again, and then sent us off with huge goody bags. I wasn’t the only one who felt like they’d been to a cult meeting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">In all seriousness though, it was extremely refreshing to learn about a Muslim leader with a serious following who advocates peace, love and tolerance to that extent. And if the AK Party can be considered the fruits of that movement, then it’s already contributed a ton to Islamic reform.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">This afternoon, we visited the old palace of the Ottoman sultans, right next to the Hagia Sophia. They picked a beautiful place to build their palace – on a hill overlooking the Bosporous. The palace is extremely well-preserved, and was really fun to walk around. The place basically consists of big grassy areas, interrupted by buildings every once in a while. More like a park than a palace, really. The palace also houses museums containing Ottoman artifacts and – here’s the rub – Muslim religious relics. Get this: I got to see King David’s sword, the rod Moses used to part the Red Sea, a saucepan used by Abraham, the turban of Joseph, and the arm and head of John the Baptist (the head was inside an opaque case). No lie. What? Don’t you believe me? They were clearly labeled! I saw them myself. I don’t appreciate that attitude. No, I didn’t get pictures, we weren’t allowed, but you should believe me anyway. We’re going to talk about this later.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">In all seriousness, I was amused by the museum’s attempt at historicity. The labels that went with the relics were all deadly serious: They said things like, “Moses’ rod – 12th century,” “David’s sword – 10th century,” (BC, presumably), when David’s sword looks exactly like a Christian medieval sword, and Moses’ rod looks pretty good for 3000+ years. There is a kind of earnestness to Islam that Westerners usually reserve for science and history.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The museum also had some relics from the Prophet Mohammad on display (which I was slightly more inclined to believe in): most of his beard, one of his teeth, his cloak holder, his sword, his bow, and the rock from the Temple Mount that his foot was seared into when he ascended to heaven to meet with all the prophets of the past. There were also early copies of the Qur’an on display, with illustrations of Mohammad <i>sans</i> a face, in keeping with the “Thou-shalt-not-portray Mohammad in any way” tradition in Islam.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After the palace walk, we had free time, so some of us went to visit the Blue Mosque, across the street from the Hagia Sophia. After the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, I think the Blue Mosque is my favorite mosque of the trip. For one thing, it’s frickin’ huge, and has six huge minarets jutting into the sky. For another, it’s the best example of the Ottoman style that I saw: big, spacious courtyard next to a huge dome. For another, there are two big Egyptian obelisks next to it. Don’t know why, but it’s kind of cool.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Afterwards, Josh, Jason, Scott, Sarah, Danielle, the Emilys and I decided, “Hey! We should go to the sea.” So we walked the six blocks or so down to the Sea of Marmara, the tiny sea that divides Europe and Asia and connects the Mediterranean Sea in the south to the Bosporous and the Black Sea in the north. There were tons of guys fishing off the shore, and we sat along the shore next to them. Next to the shore, we discovered something you will never see in America – a free, outdoor exercise park. There were manual treadmills, pullup machines, rowing machines – it was sweet. Later, we ate lunch at a restaurant, where I accomplished a personal first – eating a whole pepper on a dare. All in all, a good fourth day in Istanbul.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 5</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Free day! No speakers, no meetings with politicians or journalists. The majority of us decided to use the day to take a ferry to some of the islands off the Asian coast of Istanbul. So technically, this day marks my first day in Asia. We got off at the last island the ferry stopped at, rented some bikes, and started exploring. The island was great: no cars, lots of touristy restaurants, nice neighborhoods, and best of all, a bike trail across the nearly-uninhabited far side of the island. Jon, Scott, Chelsea and I set off on bikes through the forested far side of the island, stopping for a while at a beautiful cove where we had a great view of the Sea of Marmara, <i>sans</i> Istanbul.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Turkish delight of the day: fresh kiwi juice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 6</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, we visited the US consulate in Istanbul and spoke to two of the State Department officers there. The consulate is literally designed like a fortress. It’s perched on a high hill, surrounded by a wall. The actual entrance to the place is a few stories below the wall. You have to walk through bulletproof glass to get into the compound, and then take an elevator up through the hill to get into the consulate itself. Dr. Dave likened it to a Crusader castle, and I can definitely see it. Apparently, the consulate was moved to its current location in 2003, and designed with al Qaeda’s 1998 truck bomb attacks on our embassies in Africa in mind. Ten trucks could drive into this place and explode, and the people inside would probably be fine. Last June, there was actually a shooting attack outside the consulate – three Turkish policemen and the three attackers were killed. I don’t know how the gunmen planned on getting inside.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Before our meeting, Jon asked one of the aides if he could use the bathroom. The aide pointed him down a certain hallway, before another official stepped in and said, “No, he’s not cleared to go in there.” I guess it was the bathroom where they plan their secret support for the AK Party. (JK!)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After our meeting, we had a nice chat with one of the women who helped arrange it. “Istanbul is so crowded,” she explained to us. “The drivers here, if you haven’t noticed, are crazy. The traffic is just terrible.” Before we got on the bus, Dr. Dave recommended that she apply for a transfer to the embassy in Cairo.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The bus dropped us off at Taksim square, a really nice shopping area in historic Istanbul. Brian, Dr. Diaa (the MESP assistant program director) and I went out to eat <i>fiteer</i>, a kind of Turkish pizza/meat thing. Afterward, Brian and I agreed that Diaa is pretty much the coolest Arab we know.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Something I saw in Istanbul today that I never would have seen in Cairo: an ad featuring the back of a topless woman modeling blue jeans. It was all I could do to keep from yelling, "Haram! Haram!"</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Something else I realized today: Turkey has a Saturday-Sunday weekend, instead of the Friday-Saturday weekend in Egypt.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Tonight we heard from a Turkish Christian pastor who spoke to us about the struggles he faces as a Christian in Turkey. As a secular republic, Turkey grants all its citizens freedom of religion, but as with most things in life, and the Middle East in particular, it’s not that simple. Turkey is 99% Muslim (a far higher proportion than any of the other countries I visited), so Christians are a tiny, often misunderstood minority. That dynamic, combined with a fierce Turkish suspicion of all things Western (remember Sevres syndrome?) often makes for a hostile environment. The pastor who spoke to us has suffered violence from both his Turkish Muslim neighbors and harassment from the police. He claims that the military actively monitors him and other Christian leaders and missionaries. In 2007, Turkey was rocked by the brutal murder of three Christians in Malatya, at the hands of two Turks aged 19 and 20. The pastor told the story of how one of the widows from the attack forgave her husband’s murderers on national TV, which he said “did more work than 10 million missionaries.” Like many people, the pastor suspects that the attacks were directed by the “deep state” – a legendary group of secularists embedded in the Turkish government that is constantly plotting to undermine democracy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">My favorite story from the pastor: one night, some young men broke into his home and beat him fairly badly. A few days later, he was walking through the campus where he teaches, and recognized his attackers among the students. He marched right up to them and said, “I love you, and I am not afraid of you. What is your problem?” He was able to build a relationship with the students, who eventually converted to Christianity.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After hearing from the pastor, we walked to the “street of lights,” a place that Brian, Britta, Grace and Abby had discovered earlier in the week. Their description was accurate: a bunch of seafood restaurants copiously decorated with Christmas lights. (Though I doubt they call them that in Turkey.) Diaa the master negotiator bartered a restaurant owner into getting us all a nice fish dinner for 10 lira a piece. (1 lira equals about 60 US cents.) During dinner, we were entertained by a band of Turkish musicians, but more so by the restaurant owner’s rotund friend, who bounced his belly up and down to the rhythm of the music. Until then, I had never seen Austin laugh so hard. (Though I’ve seen him laugh harder since.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 7</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Goodbye Istanbul! We piled into the bus and drove across the Bosporous Bridge into Asian Istanbul, and made the seven-hour ride across the Anatolian plateau, to Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, which was pretty much created by Ataturk out of whole cloth. Shedding the backward past and all that. On the way, I had a delusion about journaling a little bit, and put some pen to paper. I fizzled out after one paragraph. Here it is:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Turkey is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. At this moment, we are driving through the mountains of northwest Turkey, in between Istanbul and Ankara. It’s nothing like I imagined it. The hills are covered in forests, with fields and villages in the valleys in between. Not at all how we normally picture the Middle East. The houses in the occasional village we drive through have a unique style – red tile roofs, white or brightly-colored walls, and evenly-spaced windows. The occasional mosque is in the same Ottoman style we saw everywhere in Istanbul, but painted green or grey to go with the landscape.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Hope that helps.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">CJ said to me on the bus today, “So Joel, tomorrow is the day McCain wins!” “Insha allah,” I replied. “God willing.” “Insha allah fil mish mish,” Thomas retorted, which literally means, “God willing in apricots,” which less literally means, “God willing, in the season of apricots,” which really means, “God doesn’t will it, punk.” (Apricot season in the Middle East is very short). Sigh. I might as well accept the inevitable.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Ankara is no Istanbul. It’s much less cultured, less historical, less exciting all around. One of the Turkish journalists we heard from in Istanbul told us that Istanbul is the New York of Turkey, while Ankara is its Washington, DC. I can definitely see the comparison. Andrew, Whitney, Kaeli and I went for a walk around our hotel’s area, and didn’t find much – although we did discover a restaurant that served great <i>monti</i>, a kind of really thick, cheesy soup-sauce stuff. We also met a man who prefers Hillary Clinton to Obama or McCain. It takes all kinds, I guess.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 8</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">November 5, 2008. Really people? I am holding each and every one of you personally responsible for Obama’s actions over the next four years. You know who you are. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I woke up at 7 AM to check the election results on BBC World. Not terribly surprised – and yet, <a href="http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/06/10/tomo/">very surprised</a>. President Barack Hussein Obama. Who would have thunk? Is our country ready for this? I never knew we could be so spontaneous as a culture.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Just so you all know, BBC World took a perverse delight in shoving a microphone in the faces of the craziest McCain supporters they could find, and then replaying the clips throughout the night:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Crazy McCain Supporter Lady #1: “I’m voting for McCain because I trust him. I’m afraid of Obama.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Crazy McCain Supporter Lady #2: “I want to save this country. I’m very concerned about Obama’s upbringing, and the fact that he runs around with terrorists. I think he’s been planted here. [Friend hushes her.] Well, I’m telling the truth!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Downright embarrassing. Let this be a lesson to us all: our political stupidity does not occur in a vacuum. There are people on the other side of the world watching.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I suppose it’s appropriate that on the day my Goldwater went down, we went to visit Anit Kaber, the tomb of my new political hero. I would describe Ataturk’s final resting place as a rough cross between a mosque and the Lincoln Memorial. It consists of a huge courtyard surrounded by walls of arches, adjoining a set of steps leading up to a huge pillared hall containing the sarcophagus. It took the Turks fifteen years to build Anit Kaber, and they built it on the highest hill in Ankara. The views from the top are pretty incredible.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">We had to follow official etiquette and walked in double-file up to the tomb in silence. I didn’t expect us to be the only ones there, but I was surprised by how many <i>kids </i>there were. There must have been six different school groups visiting, at least. Lots of tiny little Turkish nationalists parading around, dressed in matching uniforms, waving Turkish flags or wearing Ataturk buttons. Makes the heart warm.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Apparently, the President of Azerbaijan (another Turkic republic) visited the tomb while we were there, but we were in the underground museums at the time. The museums, besides housing all of Ataturk’s known possessions – his clothes, his swords, his cars, his boats, his library, his stuffed dog (not kidding) – also provide a history of the War of Independence in paintings and dioramas. One of the most disturbing paintings showed Greek soldiers slaughtering Turkish women and children in a town square, while a Greek Orthodox priest holds up a cross over the slaughter, giving his blessing. The museum blurb that went with the painting declared that “historical evidence proves” that the Greek Orthodox clergy incited massacres of Turks. Methinks that if the historical evidence truly proved it, such a statement would be redundant. But hey, I wasn’t there. (Another dubious claim in the museum: After independence, Turkish women changed their clothing styles [read: headscarves] of “their own free will.”)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Interesting sidenote (for me, at least): in some of the historical documents shown in the museum, the Turkish leaders claim that their war of independence – against the <i>Allies </i>– is justified by the principles of self-determination laid out by President Wilson. Good ideas don’t discriminate, I guess.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Also: I’m pretty sure I saw a man praying in the main hall of the sarcophagus. At any rate, he was standing there with his eyes closed and his hands held out. Yep…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I really, really wanted an Ataturk poster, and the Anit Kaber gift shop only sold them in packs of twelve (for eight lira) – so I bought twelve. Enough to make my own Ataturk shrine back in A6 at Dordt. Most of my roommates voted for Obama, so they owe me this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After Anit Kaber, a group of us went out to eat, and the restaurant we chose, ironically enough, had walls covered in Islamic script, posters and decorations, and more than a few swords. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Tonight, we met with three Turkish diplomats at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, and they gave us their thoughts about our new president-elect. Afterwards, in honor of November 5 – and nothing else – we watched the ever-inspiring V for Vendetta in our hotel rooms, and I resolved to read the original graphic novel as soon as I got back to the States.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Day 9</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today, we met with Orhan Cenghiz, a famous Turkish human rights lawyer who is currently working on behalf of the families of the Malatya Christian massacre. I won’t go into the details of what he told us, but for the first time, I felt like we had met a Turk who was being straight with us. Not that all the others were dishonest, but I feel that Orhan sees his own nation clearly. He is, somehow, able to separate himself from his culture and analyze it independently. It was fascinating, and I wish him the best of luck fighting for human rights in Turkey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After we were done listening to Orhan, we went out to grab a last meal of Turkish food (not really that good, compared to Egypt’s, Syria’s and Israel’s), piled back onto the bus, and drove back to the Istanbul Airport, to catch a midnight flight to Aleppo. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Up next: Syria!</p> </div></div>Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-42504778319951065472008-12-08T08:18:00.000-08:002009-08-08T11:24:44.695-07:00Painting the Town Red<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJOELVE%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today was the beginning of Eid al-Adha, the “Feast of the Sacrifice,” when Muslims celebrate Abraham’s near-sacrifice of <i>Ishmael</i> by slaughtering millions of goats, sheep and cows in the streets, and sharing the meat with their families and the poor.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>We woke up at 5:00 AM and walked to the square for the opening prayers.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The females among us wore headscarves and skirts, and we found seats on a fountain overlooking the square, which was soon filled with thousands of worshippers.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The sight would have been stirring, except for a fatal error on my part: talking with Egyptian children.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">I should know better by now.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>But little eight-year-old Mohammad was so cute, and when he asked, “What’s your name?” I couldn’t resist answering. Before long, all twenty of Mohammad’s friends had showed up, some his age, some much, much older and less cute.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>And long after we had covered all the basic subjects in Arabic – where are you from?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>George Bush good?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Barack Obama good?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>How long have you been in Egypt?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Do you like Egypt?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Have you seen the pyramids?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Do you like Eminem?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Are you a Muslim?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>How old are you?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Are you married? – at least three times, and taken pictures with all of them, they insisted on continuing to jabber at me in Arabic, long after it was clear that my vocabulary was exhausted and the only response I could offer was, “Asif, mish faahim.” (I’m sorry, I don’t understand!) Thomas, CJ and Austin tried to take some of the brunt by jumping into the “conversation,” but their numbers quadrupled in response to the supply.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>And then the older boys wanted to know (and they knew the English words), “Are you having sex with the girls?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Do you have drugs?” And then the Egyptian girls sitting behind me started pulling on my hair (which, admittedly, was pretty crazy – I hadn’t combed it.) And when finally the prayer started, and thousands of people around us starting bowing in unison, they still <i>wouldn’t shut up</i>.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>They kept on talking, even though I was shushing them and saying, “Salat!<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Salat!” The prayer!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">I will never understand what makes me so fascinating to Egyptian kids.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Ah, youth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">After the prayer was over, the party really got started.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The huge masses of people started flowing out of the square, many of them dancing, throwing confetti and setting off firecrackers.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>We joined the throng and followed the crowd back to Agouza, where the sacrifice was beginning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">On nearly every street we walked down, men were actively chopping animals to pieces, letting the blood flow freely on the sidewalks and into the streets.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The butchershops were in high-gear, taking down entire herds of sheep and goats.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>I got to witness the killing of four sheep, two goats, and a cow.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The first killing (a sheep) shocked me a lot more than I thought it would.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The men grabbed it by the neck, shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” slit the throat, and then basically stepped back while the sheep reeled and stumbled and finally flopped headfirst onto the sidewalk, blood spraying out of its jugular all the while.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Poor, good-hearted, amazingly empathetic Chelsea was standing next to me during the first sheep’s death.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>When they brought out the second sheep, and she made no motion to leave, I broke Egyptian social taboo and put my arm around her shoulder.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>After the second dead sheep was finished twitching, I asked her, “You OK?” “Yeah!” she said in a really high-pitched voice. “I’m just gonna go now.” Good thing she didn’t stay for the cow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Today was also the first day I took flack for being an American.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>We were standing across the street from a butcher working on a batch of sheep, and we were in full tourist mode, cameras out, probably gawking too much.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>One of the men turned to us and shouted, “We kill animals.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>You kill human beings, like in Afghanistan.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>You care about animal rights, we care about human rights.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>This is the difference between our backward civilization and your forward-looking civilization.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">The statement was so nonsensical, so wrong on so many levels, and so offensive at the same time, that I didn’t know how to respond.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>In retrospect, the myriad of devastating retorts seem so obvious:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">“What are you talking about?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>We kill animals in America all the time!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">“My friend, does not the Qur’an command, ‘Fight those who fight you?’ That’s why my country is in Afghanistan.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">“Right, because Hosni Mubarak never kills or tortures people.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">“No, the difference between my civilization and yours is that in mine, a girl can go to a religious festival without being grabbed by some ‘Muslim’” (as, in fact, happened to one of my friends that very morning in the square.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">“Weren’t human beings killed in the Ramadan War, or do Jews not count?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">In real life, my response was much less impressive: “No, we don’t!” and, when the verbal barrage continued, “We just want peace!” and, when we decided to walk away, “Happy holidays.” Scott, one of my great friends here, who I’ve had countless debates about American foreign policy with, was standing beside me, and didn’t really know how to respond either.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>He correctly judged that the man probably thought that <i>we</i> thought he was a barbarian for butchering animals.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>So he said, “We’re not judging you, we just want to watch.” But the man continued spewing his nonsense, so we walked away, and I was forced to ask myself, once again, “Is it possible that someone could really believe that?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Are people really that ignorant?” Brian, who was there, later reminded me of what the Arab League guy (see below) said to us: “The problem isn’t that Egyptians don’t understand U.S. policy.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The problem for you is that they understand it too well, and they don’t like it.” Merda. Bull.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">If that weren’t enough, while we were still in the square, a piece of newspaper on the road (probably from a truckbed covered in newspaper, the better for doomed-cow-carrying) caught my eye.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>The headline on one of the stories read, “Warnings Against a Jewish Takeover of Local Companies.” I took a picture.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Two nights before, Jon had told me about his Muslim host brother, who was convinced that all Jews wanted to do was drink, smoke, have sex, and kill.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Multiple MESPers have been asked by Egyptians (host family members, students at Al-Azhar University, etc.) why Americans think bin Laden was behind 9/11, when it was “obviously” the Jews.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>One friend here told me about seeing a contest on TV, where viewers are shown a man grabbing some money out of a basket, and then encouraged to “guess the Jew” behind the crime from three possible Jewish perps, and text in the answer to win prizes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Question of the day: If a person is brought up in a culture steeped in anti-Semitism, never coming into contact with Jews, but always been told that they are thieves and murderers by nature, should we condemn that person as a bigot if he believes the lies?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Are people responsible for their own prejudices?<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Can a person hold false beliefs about a group of people, and still be a decent person? (I almost wrote “good person,” but as we all know, there is no one good.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Suffice to say, I’m not really feeling Egyptian culture today.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>But I have some great pictures of a million people praying, streets covered in blood and dead animal parts, and a video of a cow flopping around with blood spraying out of its neck.<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>Anyone interested?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="">Three days!<span style="font-size: 1pt;"> </span>I love you all.</p> Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-15357732912742629082008-11-28T02:25:00.000-08:002008-11-28T04:02:32.226-08:00An UpdateAlvin says I need to do an update. However, I have not one, not two, but five papers to write in the next week - plus over 2,000 pictures to organize and upload. And when the update comes (and it will) it will cover perhaps the most interesting month of my life. So a full update might be a while in coming.<br /><br />For now, let me share my status and a story. Status: This is my second day back in Agouza. I have about twelve days here before I head back to the states, and there's still a bunch of stuff I want to do. Yesterday, we had a great Thanksgiving celebration. Our amazing cook Kareema made three turkeys for us, and each MESP flat (there are four) brought a side dish and a desert. Most of the guys, including myself, wore our galabayas. Afterwards, we went to the roof of the villa and sang Christmas carols and did Dordt Comedy League-inspired improv (courtesy of Ashley Kaspar) for hours. I have heard multiple people in our group say over the last couple of days, "We've become socialized." That's a pretty cold way of saying, we're family now. We can do anything, say anything in front of each other and not be embarrassed or uncomfortable. There's love here, man. Love.<br /><br />Story: The Old City in Jerusalem is filled with souvenir shops. About 10% of those shops (guesstimate) are devoted to T-shirts. In every country we visit, there's a souvenir craze that hits the whole group. In Syria it was 25 cent pirated movies. In Turkey, it was Turkish flags and paraphenilia. In Jerusalem it was T-shirts. I bought two. One has the Coca-Cola logo in Arabic, and the other says "Free Palestine" in English and Arabic, with a big ol' Palestinian flag in the middle. I like the shirt, but I felt uncomfortable wearing it around Jerusalem, for obvious reasons. So I figured, "Hey, I'll wear it on the day we leave. Long day, nothing to do but sit on the bus and read, no mingling with AK-47 wielding Israeli civilians. It'll be fine."<br /><br />Somehow, after four border crossings in as many weeks, I forgot that at a BORDER CROSSING (like the one between Israel and Egypt) you have to get OFF THE BUS, grab all your luggage, walk through a half-mile of security, and get on to another bus.<br /><br />I knew it was a bad sign when the woman working the passport line took my passport away and walked over to her superiors. Then one of her superiors came back. This is how our conversation went:<br /><br />Israeli Dude: Hello, Joel?<br />Joel: Yes?<br />ID: My name is Yonatan. I have just a few questions for you for security purposes.<br />Joel: OK.<br />ID: Where are you going?<br />Joel: Cairo.<br />ID: How long will you be there?<br />Joel: About two weeks.<br />ID: How many people are you traveling with?<br />Joel: 36.<br />ID: What is your job?<br />Joel: I'm a student. I don't have a job.<br />ID: What are you studying?<br />Joel: Political science and communications.<br />ID: What is that?<br />Joel: What am I studying?<br />ID: Yes, explain it to me.<br />Joel: Uh...political science is about how governments work. Communications is about how people interact with each other, and media...and stuff.<br />ID: OK. One moment please.<br />Britta and Brian, in the line behind me: Joel, why didn't you tell them about your plans to join a Palestinian extremist group?<br />Joel: Guys, can you not joke about that right now???<br />ID (returning): What were you doing in Syria?<br />Joel: Uh, just touring. We stayed in Damascus' Old City and saw the Krak de Chevaliers.<br />ID: How long were you in Syria?<br />Joel: Uh...I forget exactly. Five days?<br />ID: When?<br />Joel: Umm...I've been in Jerusalem for two weeks, and Jordan for a day before that, so whenever that was...<br />ID: Where did you get that shirt?<br />Joel: This shirt?<br />ID: Yes.<br />Joel: In the Old City in Jerusalem.<br />ID: Why did you choose to wear this shirt today?<br />Joel: [Because I'm a moron.] Because I believe in a free Palestine and a free Israel living together in peace. ...I hope this isn't offensive to you.<br />ID: Oh, no, no, no, no. [Yes, very.] How long were you in Jerusalem?<br />Joel: Two weeks.<br />ID: Why did you choose to stay in East Jerusalem? [!]<br />What Joel Should Have Said: East Jerusalem? I think you mean Jerusalem, the eternal, <span style="font-style: italic;">undivided</span> capital of Eretz Yisrael!<br />Joel: Uh...well, I didn't exactly plan this trip, but the Old City is close to a lot of things we wanted to see.<br />ID: Do you know anybody in East Jerusalem?<br />Joel: No.<br />ID: Do you have any friends in East Jerusalem?<br />Joel: No.<br />ID: Did you meet anybody in East Jerusalem?<br />Joel: No. [If anybody excludes a diplomat from the PLO who spoke to our group.]<br />ID: One moment please.<br />Joel: Sorry, Dr. Dave.<br />Dr. Dave: Joel, why didn't you just wear your Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shirt today? [For the record, I have no such shirt.]<br /><br />Eventually the guy came back, returned my passport and let me through. I had a much easier time with Egyptian security on the other side.<br /><br />I think getting interrogated by Israeli security should enhance my indie cred a bit, don't you think?Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-2102206698871502802008-11-05T07:53:00.000-08:002008-11-05T07:54:20.166-08:00New posts on my Des Moines Register blogTurkey is beautiful. That's all for now. Love you all.Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-21459537420901612762008-10-19T12:54:00.000-07:002008-10-19T13:00:04.892-07:00Had to Post This...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeOeLuk_EPoTb4L24dDeRxoXkM4wOKxX6NvWTErZy3qtGTgoXHs3YU_i8sbUlC3Mk0ZJKZ8YclOuwWV7v2Npk40NQqqmC20r06XwcgD2zMFNGzUVD76mGCmzQU9mI3uprFpcNvwJTC2tV/s1600-h/Me+with+the+chief+of+staff+for+the+secretary-general+of+the+AL.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeOeLuk_EPoTb4L24dDeRxoXkM4wOKxX6NvWTErZy3qtGTgoXHs3YU_i8sbUlC3Mk0ZJKZ8YclOuwWV7v2Npk40NQqqmC20r06XwcgD2zMFNGzUVD76mGCmzQU9mI3uprFpcNvwJTC2tV/s320/Me+with+the+chief+of+staff+for+the+secretary-general+of+the+AL.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258956910053441090" border="0" /></a><br />I just found this picture of myself with Hashem Yousef, Chief of the Cabinet of the Secretary-General of the Arab League, on Facebook. I think it's pretty righteous, don't you? Thanks Britta! (She, along with Austin, is our group's self-appointed photographer.)Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-60815387224880561942008-10-19T12:15:00.000-07:002009-06-02T12:09:32.134-07:00Luxor, the Pyramids, and HomestaysPictures, pictures, pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp/<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And on the pedestal these words appear:</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Nothing beside remains. Round the decay</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Of that colossal wreck other than ticket booths,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Soda-pop stands, souvenir stalls, dozing guards,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And 200 men in galabias asking,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Whereyoufrom Youbuypostcardokay?”</span><br /><br />- P. J. O’Rourke<br /><br />We’ll come back to that.<br /><br />Hello everyone. How’s it hanging? The weather here is definitely starting to cool down. The days are shorter and I don’t sweat anymore when I go for a walk in a T-shirt and jeans. How’s Iowa?<br /><br />The last two weeks have been packed – we stayed with our Egyptian host families and took a trip to the ancient pharaonic city of Luxor – and the next two weeks should be equally packed. We have a huge paper on a very difficult book due on Sunday, a huge paper on the Qur’an due on Wednesday, and an Arabic final coming up to boot. After that, it’s off to Turkey! And then, Election Day! Never mind, I’m not excited for that anymore.<br /><br />The point is, this will be the final update for the month of October, so enjoy it.<br /><br />My host family was an evangelical Christian family – a minority within a minority in Egypt. Most of the other students were placed in Muslim or Coptic families. I was a little bummed at first that I didn’t get anything so exotic, but after finishing up the week, and hearing horror stories from some of my friends here, I am exceedingly grateful.<br /><br />My family was awesome. Besides the parents, there were two brothers, Shady, 24, and Samer, also in his mid-twenties. I love these guys. Insha allah, I will get to hang out with them many more times before the semester is up. They both speak pretty good English, and they are both engineers.<br /><br />Like many Egyptian men his age, Shady is working on completing his mandatory military service. Some guys can get out of it, and naturally, most try, but it doesn’t always work out that way. So for four days out of every week, Shady heads off to base for training. When he’s finished with his nine months of training, he’ll go to work as an aviation engineer for the military for another two years or so. Then he’ll finally be able to start working on his own career.<br /><br />Obviously, Shady is pretty frustrated with all this, but he’s trying to make the best out of a bad situation. In Egypt, children usually live with their parents until they are married, so this is the first time Shady has been separated from his family for extended periods – one of the several areas we were able to touch base on. We also discussed light topics such as the war in Iraq, girlfriends, and my thoughts on “Egyptian people” – all on the first night. Shady is a very direct person.<br /><br />Samer is a little quieter, but he has a wry sense of humor, and we got to hang out a lot too, especially when Shady was away at base. He is considering getting his master’s in engineering at the University of Nebraska, so maybe you’ll all get to meet him. His favorite phrase to use with me is, “Minoorwar, ya Joel.” (Lit.: You are lighting up the place, Joel.) The proper response is “Binoorak” – “with your light.”<br /><br />Shady and Samer’s parents spoke less English, but were incredibly hospitable. The most common phrase they used with me was “as you like.” My host mom was a great cook, who always made sure I didn’t go hungry, or run out of bottled water for my delicate American stomach. My host dad enjoyed teaching me new Arabic words and watching English movies with American subtitles with me. He was also the first Egyptian man to use the double-kiss greeting on me, which was a little unexpected, but not unappreciated. The language barrier was tougher there, but with my tiny bit of Arabic and their greater amount of English, we understood each other most of the time.<br /><br />The first night, Shady and Samer picked me up at the MESP villa and took me out to eat at a place called Bon Appetite. “That means ‘have a good meal’ in French,” they explained. Later, we went to Al Azhar Park, a park in the center of Cairo that you have to pay to get into, which is well worth it if you ask me. It’s full of grass and palm trees, and from the top of the hill in the center you can see the whole city.<br /><br />After that, they took me back to their flat in Haram, the neighborhood closest to the Pyramids. We couldn’t see the pyramids from their flat, unfortunately – too many buildings. The closest major landmark was the “Matbaa,” a huge building I couldn’t see very well in the dark. The next morning, I had to walk past the Matbaa to hail a taxi, and noticed that it was surrounded by a very high wall, with several feet of barbed wire running along the top, and guard towers every thirty yards or so. My imagination ran a little wild until Shady explained that it’s where the Egyptian government prints its money.<br /><br />My first day living with my host family was October 6, which is a holiday here commemorating Egypt’s Totally Glorious Victory over Israel in 1973. The whole day on TV there were special programs dedicated to it, even really cheesy dramatic reenactments. I didn’t know enough Arabic to discuss it with my host mom, who I was watching TV with, but even she referred to the war as a “victory.” When I talked about politics with Shady and Samer, the gulf between us was pretty evident. Samer told me he didn’t understand why American reelected Bush. I tried to explain why I thought they did, without explaining that I was glad they did. Shady agrees with me that Saddam was a very bad man, but doesn’t think it was America’s business. I told him what I thought, but also told him that most Americans thought the same thing. (A common question here, whether from host family members or my English students or taxi drivers, is “Obama or McCain?” Whenever I say “McCain,” the inevitable response is “Really?”)<br /><br />The drive from Haram to Agouza is really long, so I had a few conversations with cab drivers along the way. Here’s my favorite:<br /><br />Driver: Inta ismak eh? (What is your name?)<br />Joel: Ana ismi Joel.<br />Driver: Nice to meet you Joel. Inta mineen? (Where are you from?)<br />Joel: Amrika.<br />Driver: Ah, Amrika. You are Christian?<br />Joel: Yes, I am Christian.<br />Driver: Me too.<br />Joel: Really?<br />Driver: Yes.<br />Joel: Qwayyis. Ilhumdidillah! (Good. Thanks be to God!)<br />Driver: Kulli Amrika Christian? (All of America Christian?)<br />Joel: La, mish kulli, laakin most are Christian. (No, not all, but…)<br />Driver: George Bush Christian?<br />Joel: Awya. (Yes.)<br />Driver: Americans like Bush?<br />Joel: Uh…la’. La’. (Uh, no, no.)<br />Driver: Leeh? (Why?)<br />Joel: Uh…the war in Iraq, wa the economy mish qwayyis. (Not good).<br />Driver: Economy? (Blank stare)<br />Joel: Uh…fuhluus fee Amrika mish qwayyis. (Downward motion with my hand.) Bush mish qwayyis president. (The money in America is not good. Bush is not a good president – you’ll forgive my lack of nuance there.)<br />Driver: Ah. Amrika give fuhluus kiteer li Masr? (America gives much money to Egypt?)<br />Joel: Aywa. Ashan Bush Mubarak friends. (Put my fingers together.) (Yes, because Bush and Mubarak are friends.)<br /><br />I felt proud to have gotten through that.<br /><br />All of my host family demanded to see pictures of my family and friends, so they’re pretty familiar with some of you now. All agreed that Simon looks a lot like me, and Stella does not. I also got to show them all my pictures from Washington DC this summer, which was fun, especially since they didn’t take all of that American history for granted. They also showed me some of their pictures, and shared some of their English Christian music with me.<br /><br />The last night before Shady had to leave for military service, he and Samer said they were going to take me out bowling. Imagine my surprise when we arrived at the International Bowling Center, a three-story bowling run by the Morale Affairs Department of Egypt’s Ministry of Defense. It looks like a hotel on the inside – brass railings, chandeliers, and stadium seating behind the twenty-four lanes. There are coffee shops, a prayer room, a lounge, everything. It’s a big deal. Always interesting to find out what this culture finds important.<br /><br />Shady and Samer’s cousin, George, came bowling with us. He was very nice, and we had a conversation using Shady as a translator. He asked me if in America it was obvious to tell the difference between “good people” and “bad people,” because in America, people can drink and have sex and use drugs and be open about it, so no one pretends. How to explain the totally different value system in the States to an Egyptian? But I tried.<br /><br />The next night, Friday night, Samer took me to church with him. The church he attends in the largest evangelical church in Egypt. Normally they have translation through headsets, but not on the night we went. Other than the Arabic, the service seemed to follow a pretty standard evangelical routine, with a slight tilt towards charismatic. (Samer is a fan of Benny Hinn, but we didn’t talk about that very much. If there had ever been an opportune time for me to receive the gift of tongues, that would have been it, but God had other plans.) During the songs, I tried really hard to read the words on the Powerpoint, and succeeded a few times, especially when they sang the Lord’s Prayer in Arabic, but mostly I was lost. As for the sermon, Samer showed me the text on his cell phone – it was the passage from Matthew about the wide and narrow gates – and I after that I managed to pick up the words for “gate,” “big,” and “small” multiple times. So I think I got the gist of it.<br /><br />After that, I went out to eat at Bon Appetite again with Samer and a bunch of his friends. I think they thought I knew more Arabic than I did, but we had a good time anyway. One of his friends startled me a bit by saying, “I hate Egypt.” But I have been getting that vibe a lot lately. Egypt might be really exciting to a Western student/tourist like me, but I can see how the pollution, corruption, traffic, inflation, and discrimination might get old after a while.<br /><br />Unfortunately, that night I made the fateful decision to grab falafel with Samer from a local sandwich shop. The next morning, I was as sick as I have ever been in Egypt so far. No puking, thankfully, but plenty of the other sort, plus fever and chills. It took me a few days to bounce back from that. But I did, which is good, because on Monday we visited the headquarters of the Arab League. (Think the UN for the Middle East.) We got to go into their central meeting room, where the representatives of all the Arab countries sit around a huge circular table and talk about things. There were huge comfy seats, microphones at every desk, tiny flags to show which desk belonged to which country – the works, man. Later the chief of staff for the secretary-general of the Arab League had an hour-long Q & A session with us about everything from Lebanon to Iraq to Palestine to Darfur. As you can imagine, he wasn’t a fan of American foreign policy, but he didn’t use any diplomatic-ese with us; he talked to us straight. (Or, at least, bluntly – I have my doubts about some of the things he said.)<br /><br />At one point, he asked everyone to raise their hand who thought McCain was going to win. No one raised their hand. Not even me, sadly. “Well, now I know,” he said. You know nothing, I said silently. My Johnny has surprised the world before!<br /><br />On Tuesday, Brian, Jeff, Danielle, Grace and I decided that we had lived in Egypt for too long without seeing the Pyramids, and went to see the Pyramids. Pictures are on Picasa, as always. What can I say? They were huge and glorious, and there were salesmen everywhere trying to trick us into buying a tour or a camel ride. Which got old after a while. But it was still really cool. One thing I didn’t know was that there are a ton of ancient tombs nearby the pyramids, where ordinary people were buried. We had some fun exploring those. One man in a blue baseball hat offered to give us a tour. Brian, being wise in the ways of Egypt, made one thing clear: “Look, bro, I’m gonna be straight with you – we’re not looking to pay any money.” Of course he responded, “No no no, no money. I will show you. Come.” So we went. The tour was kind of interesting, but his English was a little hard to understand sometimes. Eventually, we realized, he wanted us to pay an exorbitant amount for a camel ride to the Saqqara Pyramids, a few miles south. We declined, and started to leave. At which point, of course, he demanded his fee. We reminded him of Brian’s speech, and paid him five pounds to get him to leave. Thankfully, he did. We also had to later pay off some men who basically forced us onto their camels for a ride. It was a little annoying, but hey, we rode camels at the Pyramids.<br /><br />That night, after Jason and I finished teaching our English class, we rushed back to Agouza to join the group for our three-day trip to Luxor. We got on the train at Giza Station and rode twelve hours through the night into southern (Upper) Egypt. Luxor is the city that was built around the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom (Roughly the time of Joseph until the time of Cyrus.) We saw some amazing temples, still standing complete with hieroglyphics and statues. They must have been stunning in their time.<br /><br />We also went to the Valley of the Kings, where all the kings of the New Kingdom were buried in secret tombs (as opposed to Pyramids) to foil grave robbers. (Only King Tut succeeded.) We got to go inside several tombs, which shocked me by being huge on the inside. The first one we went into had an opening chamber that must have been 12 feet tall. And they just go on and on into the rock, forever. Most of them still have colored paintings of the Egyptian afterlife on their walls. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but Austin and Britta snuck some anyway, which I’ll try to get eventually. (Austin got his camera confiscated, and had to bribe the guard with 25 pounds to get it back – but he got to keep the pictures.)<br /><br />One of the sights we saw only from a distance was Hatshepsut’s temple, built into the side of a huge cliff. We stood on top of a hill looking at it, while Barrett the intern told us the story of how in 1997, Muslim radicals linked to bin Laden stormed the temple, took seventy-four Japanese and European tourists hostage inside, and executed every one of them. (Security has improved noticeably in the decade since.) Seeing the place where that happened was genuinely chilling. Mohammad, our guide, was pretty embarrassed by the story, and interrupted Barrett to make sure we knew these were “bin Laden’s people, not Egyptians.” (Sadly, and to the contrary, Ayman al Zawahiri is an Egyptian, as was Mohammad Atta.)<br /><br />Unfortunately, my camera died on the first day, so I have no pictures of the third (and best) temple, or the valley of the kings. But I’ll try to crib some together from other MESPers’ Facebook accounts, sometime when I don’t have two huge papers due the same week.<br /><br />That was the fun part of Luxor. The half-fun/half-ridiculous part of Luxor was its status as a tourist trap. Partly that was good, because we stayed in a really, really nice hotel (by Egyptian standards) because there were no cheap ones. Our beds were comfy, we had satellite TV, and there was a pool on the roof where we spent many hours swimming, playing games and doing homework. It was also good because there were no shortages of restaurants or souvenir shops or things to do. CJ and I bought galabayas (long Arab dress shirts), and Brian and Britta negotiated a luxury motorboat ride for eight of us on the Nile one night, which was really fun (even though our captain offered us marijuana, and proceeded to partake himself when we declined.)<br /><br />The ridiculous part was that the entire city was geared towards taking advantage of tourists. All the menus in most of the restaurants had an English and an Arabic version, and we quickly discovered that the prices in Arabic were a lot lower. We also quickly discovered that trying to get the Arabic price does not endear you to the locals. Neither does paying other Egyptians to buy the food for you.<br /><br />Oh, tourist economies. You couldn’t walk down the street without a hundred different men offering you a hundred different things you didn’t want, each requiring multiple refusals if you didn’t want to get screamed at: “Why you no listen???” They ranged from the charming – the sailboat owner who entertained us with multiple accents in English – to the comical – the guy selling T-shirts “not made in Taiwan!” who would run with us for half a block – to the rage-inducing – the twenty-something Egyptian guy who kept trying to get the girls in our group to go to a disco with him and would not leave us alone. (Not, that is, until Brian got in his face.) After three days of that, we were ready to burn everything in that city but the temples to the ground.<br /><br />The blessed exception to that rule was a fair trade shop Scott, CJ and I found. If the signs on its walls were to be believed, everything in the shop was made by Egyptians being paid a fair wage, and was priced higher accordingly. I think it was true because no one in the shop tried to sell me anything, or so much as tried to talk to me, until I bought something there.<br /><br />In sum, P. J. O’Rourke’s revision of Shelley’s famous poem describes Luxor perfectly.<br /><br />So that was homestays, the Pyramids, and Luxor. Now to cover everything else I haven’t talked about. (Oh, no, you’re not done reading yet. Not even close.)<br /><br />Let’s start with iftar.<br /><br />The Wednesday after we got back from Sinai, I attended the iftar ceremony at the nearby Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque. Iftar, you’ll recall, is the daily breaking of the Ramadan fast at sundown. So I fasted all day along with Esther and Whitney, who also went to iftar with me. I had never fasted before, and it’s kind of a cool experience. During breakfast and morning break, you have to keep slapping down your mind. “Hey, guava juice – no!” “Hey, Thomas’s eating a pita with nutella, that looks good, I’m kind of hun- stop it!” By noon, you’re about ready to explode with hunger. By afternoon, you have reached a kind of zen state, where you’re dying with hunger, but it doesn’t matter, because your consciousness has abandoned the part of your brain that thinks about such things. That, I suppose, is a good time to pray and meditate, but I watched the Motorcycle Diaries with Austin instead. One thing at a time, OK? (Sidenote: I was discussing the movie later with some people at the villa. I said I didn’t particularly care for it, and another girl said, “What? Why not? Che had the heart of Jesus!” Allah preserved her that day.)<br /><br />Finally, at six, I walked to the mosque with Esther and Whitney. The mosque provides meals for the needy so that everyone can celebrate iftar throughout Ramadan, and the mosque had invited all the MESP students to attend. (Other students went throughout the week). The outside area where we attended services the first week was sectioned off into four big tents. Not knowing exactly what to do, we asked for a man whose name Barrett had given us. In short order, we were ushered into an office, where the director of the mosque’s charity efforts gave us the rundown of the operation and a whole bunch of literature on Islam. Then, we were led into each of the tents, introduced to the day’s winners of the Qur’an knowledge contests, handed ten-pound notes, and told to hand them to the winners. That wasn’t awkward at all.<br /><br />Finally, they gave us our own table in one of the tents, separated from everyone else. That was kind of a bummer. We had been hoping to eat with the Muslims there, but considering our Arabic skills, that probably wouldn’t have been that productive anyway. To cap off the awkwardness, we were hounded by a photographer who took pictures of us celebrating iftar from every conceivable angle, including the “Here, shake hands with this five-year-old Muslim boy and smile at the camera” angle.<br /><br />Oh well. The food was remarkably good – a drink that tasted like kool-aid, dried dates (I’m definitely bringing some of those back to the States – they’re like candy), chicken, noodles, pita and stew. You’d think that being so hungry, it’d be no sweat to finish it off. On the contrary, I could only eat half of it. And later that night, when the MESP alums (including the great Micah Schuurman) came to visit and we all had sandwiches, I still couldn’t make myself eat. I saved my sandwich for later. The human body is a little weird.<br /><br />That weekend, we went on our trip to Alexandria. (I’ve already posted the pictures from that.) It was fun, but it was no Dahab, or Siwa. Alexandria is right on the Mediterranean Sea (another first for me). The whole city is kind of spread along the sea – very wide, and pretty short. The National Museum at Alexandria is much better than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It’s well organized, and has floors dedicated to the ancient Egyptian, Greek, Christian and Muslim periods of Egyptian history. We also got to see an outdoor amphitheater from Greek times. Pictures of those are on Picasa. I also ate my first fish that still looked like a fish – bones, eyeballs and all – at a restaurant whose owner ripped us off pretty bad. He refused to give us a menu, but told us there was fish and chicken. Then, after we sat down, when we tried to order, he claimed he had already put chicken on the grill for all of us. Uh-huh, and President Mubarak is very healthy. Eventually he brought us what we wanted, along with a single bottle of water for six guys – at a charge of ten pounds ($2). Even in the States, that’d be ridiculous. Never mind. The fish was good, and compared to Luxor, the Alexandrians treated us like locals.<br /><br />The next day, Austin, Jeff, Scott and I explored Alexandria’s catacombs. They were tombs built deep underground for Egyptian nobles in the Greek period, which were later used as hiding places for Christians during the Roman persecutions. The rooms down there seem to go on forever. Cameras were forbidden, but they didn’t search my bag very well, and I forgot that I had my flip video camera inside. So eventually I’ll post some videos from the catacombs here.<br /><br />I also got some video of the Library of Alexandria. No, not the one that burned to the ground centuries ago, wiping out half the knowledge of the ancient world. The new, supermodern one that the Egyptian government is building. It looks pretty cool from the outside, but we didn’t want to pay admission to get inside, so we did homework by the Eastern Harbor instead.<br /><br />Later that day, we paid twenty pounds for a taxi ride to the other side of town, to one of the few beaches Barrett approved of, and I realized my goal of swimming in the Mediterranean. It was really warm water, and felt great, but it was filled with trash. After jumping in, you had to swim about twenty yards to get to a spot that wasn’t full of empty chip bags and pop bottles. Gross, but worth it after hiking across town in jeans and tennis shoes all day. Also, I saw a woman in a niqab – full body covering, gloves, headscarf, veil and all – swimming in the sea with her kids. In case you were wondering, that’s how it’s done.<br /><br />In all seriousness, I feel really sad whenever I see women dressed that way. All questions of religion and politics aside – it’s gotta be hot in those things, and I don’t see how you can interact with other people, or get them to respect you, if they can’t see your face. I once saw a veiled woman walking down the street, when a man and his son came riding up the street the opposite way. “Hi, Mama!” the little boy yelled. That jolted me. What is this boy learning from the fact that Mommy can’t go outside without covering herself in a blanket, hiding her beauty like a pestilence?<br /><br />Thanks for letting me vent my prejudices. You guys are the best.<br /><br />OK – that’s enough for now. Please be in prayer for our travel plans, and our papers – and, as long as you’re at it, for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the election. We all need God’s blessing more than ever. Pray for Shady, too, if you think of it. The Egyptian military is not fun.<br /><br />In the name of God, the merciful and the awesome,<br />JoelJoelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-60380234608497854712008-10-06T05:24:00.000-07:002008-10-06T05:25:01.891-07:00Ramadan is Over!<p class="MsoNormal">As always, pictures from my adventures are here:http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp/</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it’s time for another un-proofread ridiculously long blog entry.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yes, the time of fasting is finally done, as of last Wednesday.<span style=""> </span>You couldn’t not notice it.<span style=""> </span>The 5:30 AM call to prayer that issues from the mosque down the street every day, reminding us that “prayer is better than sleep,” was accompanied by a half-hour sermon over the loudspeakers, which did not inspire feelings of piety in either me or my roommate Brian.<span style=""> </span>If we had been up and about at that un-Allah-ly hour, we could have seen hundreds of thousands of people packed in the streets praying to mark the kickoff of the three-day Feast of Ayd – but we were tired.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The feast is only the beginning of a six-day vacation for Egyptians.<span style=""> </span>It’s followed by the Friday-Saturday weekend, plus yesterday and today, which are set aside as a holiday commemorating <st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>’s Totally Glorious Victory over <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the October 6, 1973 War.<span style=""> </span>So we have a week off of Arabic classes, we can go out to eat anytime we like, and this weekend, we got to take our best roadtrip yet – to the Siwa Oasis in western Egypt, an hour’s drive from the Libyan border.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think the western desert is pretty undeveloped, because it was the bumpiest bus ride I’ve ever been on.<span style=""> </span>But as usual, we entertained ourselves with games and the occasional iPod <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">South</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> episode.<span style=""> </span>At around 1:00 in the morning, we made it to the <st1:placetype st="on">Desert</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Rose</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Hotel</st1:placename>, which is a few miles outside of the town of <st1:city st="on">Siwa</st1:city> – basically, in the middle of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Sahara</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Desert</st1:placetype></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>There was no electricity, but there was running water, thankfully (even if the toilets had less than reliable flushers.) The hotel consisted of a bunch of buildings in a sandy courtyard surrounded by a stone wall.<span style=""> </span>The girls had a big building to themselves, and the guys were split into cabins.<span style=""> </span>We were all completely exhausted, and settled into our beds for the night.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The two best parts of leaving <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> are 1) getting to breathe air that you can see through, and 2) getting to see the stars again.<span style=""> </span>The stars at Siwa are the best I’ve ever seen (with the possible exception of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Lake Powell</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">Utah</st1:state></st1:place>.) Venus, the Milky Way, the moon, the Pleides, all the constellations – it’s all up there, in brilliant detail.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next day, the hotel staff served us an amazing, yet simple breakfast – pitas (bread pockets that you can stuff delicious things inside), fig jam, spreadable cheese, eggs, coffee and tea.<span style=""> </span>By the way, if you haven’t had Egyptian tea, you haven’t had tea at all.<span style=""> </span>Back in the states, I always felt like tea was missing something.<span style=""> </span>Whatever it is, Egyptian tea has it. (It might be the mint leaf branches you stir into it with massive amounts of sugar – just a guess).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After that, we went into Siwa proper, rented super-ghetto bicycles, and went riding around the city.<span style=""> </span>Because it’s an oasis, it’s been a really important place for a really long time.<span style=""> </span>The city is thousands of years old, and has a bunch of temples, ancient wells, and a whole termite-hill-like structure at the center called the Old Town – essentially a bunch of ancient mud houses stacked on top of each other.<span style=""> </span>Some people still live there, though almost certainly not by choice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unlike <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>, Siwa has almost no tall buildings, and all the streets have ornamental lampposts, in a futile attempt to look classy, because all of the other buildings are pretty decrepit.<span style=""> </span>There are some great restaurants though.<span style=""> </span>Chicken curry, pizza margarita, apple soda – exquisite.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The oasis itself, which the town is built into, is just incredible.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t seen so much green since I flew out of <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Iowa</st1:state></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>There is a <i style="">forest </i>of palm trees in Siwa – and hot and cold springs galore, and lakes with a higher salt content than the <st1:place st="on">Dead Sea</st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>In terms of sheer natural beauty – desert dunes, bright greenery, and cool swimming places – Siwa edges out Dahab as my favorite place on Earth so far.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first thing we saw was an ancient temple to the oracle of Amon, the chief Egyptian god.<span style=""> </span>Apparently, Alexander the Great went there to seek advice soon before he died.<span style=""> </span>It’s decayed a lot, but you can still see where the structures were, and from the top, you have an amazing view of the palm tree forests, salt lakes, and sand dunes surrounding Siwa.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After that, we stopped at Cleopatra’s <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bath</st1:place></st1:city>, an ancient cold spring that, I surmise, was once used by Cleopatra.<span style=""> </span>It’s just sitting in the middle of an intersection, surrounded by trees, shops and a two-story restaurant.<span style=""> </span>Those of us who had brought swimsuits went swimming.<span style=""> </span>The rest of us (including myself) went up to the open air roof of the restaurant and played cards for a while.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The highlight of the day was our bike ride to an island in the middle of one of the salt lakes.<span style=""> </span>We got completely out of the city and rode through the forest and farm fields that are fed by the water.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, we got to a point where there was water all around the path. (For those of you who haven’t lived in a desert country for the past six weeks – this was pretty exciting.) Finally, we crossed a filled-in section of the lake to get to the tiny island in time to watch the sunset.<span style=""> </span>The lake is huge and ringed by desert buttes, sand dunes and palm trees.<span style=""> </span>The view was magnificent.<span style=""> </span>If my photos don’t make you sigh at the beauty, then my photographic skills don’t do the place justice, and I apologize.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The lake was also incredibly salty.<span style=""> </span>Again, those of us with swimsuits jumped into the water and just floated around effortlessly. <span style=""> </span>The water was really shallow – like two feet all the way across – which made the sight doubly weird. (Like the <st1:place st="on">Red Sea</st1:place>, the water was very clear.) I envied the swimsuit-bearing, until Thomas got some saltwater in his eye, and the rest of them complained of chafing.<span style=""> </span>To top off the island experience, there was a freshwater spring in the middle of our tiny island where the swimmers jumped into to rinse off afterwards.<span style=""> </span>Who would think?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That night back at the hotel was terrific.<span style=""> </span>We went for a night swim in the glorious, chlorine- and health code-free pool, and then sat around a bonfire drinking tea and telling riddles until our trusty guide Joseph finished preparing supper – pitas with super-hot fuhl (Egyptian beans) sauce.<span style=""> </span>After that, a native Siwan band of musicians came and entertained us with their desert songs, which weren’t that complicated (a flute line, a steady rhythm and improvised off-key singing), but really fun to listen and dance to.<span style=""> </span>They sat in a big circle on the blanket, and I got a spot in the circle along with Barrett (the MESP intern), Sarah, our Siwan guide Ismail.<span style=""> </span>Predictably, they made me dance in the center.<span style=""> </span>Everyone complimented me afterwards, but you all know they were lying.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Brian and Thomas got everyone in our group to dance around the blankets in a huge, chaotic, rhythmic mass.<span style=""> </span>It was so much fun.<span style=""> </span>To top it all off, I had a heated but friendly political discussion with Scott and Andrew afterwards. <span style=""> </span>The perfect Egyptian night. (Barrett, our intern and my cabin-mate along with <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Austin</st1:place></st1:city>, told me concernedly later that night, “You guys were really getting into it!” I reassured him that we were still friends, and that we had enjoyed it – and then proceeded to get into a friendly debate with him.<span style=""> </span>Good times.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next day in Siwa was even better.<span style=""> </span>We had a few hours to explore the city, so I went to climb the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Old</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Town</st1:placetype></st1:place> with some other people.<span style=""> </span>There were some great views from up there, not to mention a ton of history – and a well built partially with animal bones.<span style=""> </span>Go figure.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After that, we piled into some rickety old jeeps and went cruising out of Siwa into the <st1:place st="on">Sahara</st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>Don’t let the southwestern US fool you.<span style=""> </span>The <st1:place st="on">Sahara</st1:place> is a <i style="">real</i> desert – huge rolling dunes in every direction.<span style=""> </span>It’s like a much slower-moving ocean.<span style=""> </span>The dunes dot the horizon like massive waves, slowly moving across the ground over the years.<span style=""> </span>Climbing a dune is a challenge, because the sand is always dragging you down.<span style=""> </span>Aaron actually lost one of his new sandals running down a dune – it just got sucked in, like he had dropped it in a lake.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To add the experience, our jeeps were driven by Siwans who took the providence of Allah very seriously.<span style=""> </span>We would go hurtling up hills and down cliffs of sand at roller coaster speeds.<span style=""> </span>It was great fun in the day, and exhilarating at night, when only the headlights illuminated the endless desert sands.<span style=""> </span>The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">high point</st1:place></st1:city> came when the malfunctioning back doors on our jeep blew open as the driver took us up a particularly steep dune, and Jeff and I were sorta-kinda-close to falling out into the sand. (Brian grabbed onto me – you can thank him over at his blog site, which I have conveniently linked to on the right.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our journeys through the desert took us to an ancient seabed where we could see hundreds of shells embedded in the ground, and to hot and cold springs in the middle of the sandy nothingness.<span style=""> </span>The hot spring was my favorite.<span style=""></span> After climbing around in the sand, it felt so good to climb into hottub temperature water and just chill – even if it did smell like sulfur (i.e., spoiled eggs.) Mistakenly thinking the water was knee-deep all the way through, I fell into the waist-deep water with my shirt on, which was embarrassing, but <i style="">so </i>refreshing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After the hot spring, we got out some sandboards and went boarding down a nearby dunes, which is a lot like snowboarding, except you can’t steer, and the walk back up the hill is a lot harder.<span style=""> </span>Still, it was a lot of fun.<span style=""> </span>You’ll all be glad to know I didn’t fall over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the bottom of the boarding hill was the cold spring.<span style=""> </span>The hot and cold springs were pretty close together.<span style=""> </span>The hot spring was surrounded by trees and grasses, and fairly small.<span style=""> </span>The cold spring was surrounded by reeds and pretty big. (I’ll let you biology majors work on that.) In any case, seeing them both in the middle of the endless sands was pretty crazy.<span style=""> </span>All of us had a great time swimming and playing chicken in the cold spring.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, after the sun had set, our jeep drivers took us to a campsite at the edge of the oasis – pretty much still in the middle of the desert.<span style=""> </span>There was a shack set up for us, and a bonfire, and the camp owners cooked chicken for us underneath the sand.<span style=""> </span>I don’t understand the reason for that, but it was pretty good chicken.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before we ate, CJ and Josh went out on a walk in the night desert, and came back saying they had been followed by a coyote.<span style=""> </span>So naturally, Austin, CJ and I decided to go out and find it.<span style=""> </span>We found it, threw sticks at it, and (some of us) peed on the ground as a warning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So naturally, a big group of us later went out into the same area to lay on the ground, look at the stars, talk about the theory of relativity, and tell scary stories.<span style=""> </span>Thomas scared the living daylights out of us twice – once by running towards us on all fours in a really demented way, and once by screaming unexpectedly at the height of a story <st1:city st="on">Austin</st1:city> told about his haunted house in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>Later, Josh, lying on the ground, told Thomas to stop licking his toe. “I’m not licking your toe,” Thomas said.<span style=""> </span>Josh looked up, jumped up and yelled, causing all of us to do the same.<span style=""> </span>The coyote was back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We scared it away, but it kept coming back.<span style=""> </span>So naturally, Thomas went to get closer.<span style=""> </span>We eventually realized that the “coyote” was a super, super-tame jackal.<span style=""> </span>It made pawing motions towards Thomas, and Thomas petted it on the head, establishing a rapport.<span style=""> </span>It started following Thomas all around.<span style=""> </span>So naturally, Thomas decided to run full-speed towards Julie Andree, bringing the jackal along with him.<span style=""> </span>That Julie has some vocal chords, let me tell you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">By the time the nighthawks among us wanted to go to sleep, our shack was full, so we put down some blankets on the sand, pulled out our sleep sheets, and slept underneath the stars. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The only downside of the camping part were the other groups there.<span style=""> </span>The four other shacks in close proximity to ours were occupied by an Egyptian family, who kept to themselves, an Egyptian junior high group, who enjoyed drinking alcohol (!) and swearing up a storm in perfect English right next to our shack, and a group of Egyptians who did something all night that produces bad odors and carries the death penalty in Egypt.<span style=""> </span>The one cool group was a group of students from <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Vermont</st1:place></st1:state> who had studied Arabic for two years and was required to speak Arabic, and nothing else, on their stay.<span style=""> </span>I could kinda-sorta understand them.<span style=""> </span>I’m making progress.<span style=""> </span>Anyway, it was very loud all night, and I only fell asleep from exhaustion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I woke up with the sunrise, and, not wanting to go back to sleep on the hard sand, got up and walked around, taking a lot of pictures of the beautiful desert morning.<span style=""> </span>Eventually Andrew and Tim joined me, and we found the jackal again. (He had been barking at the outskirts of the camp for two hours that morning – no doubt wanting Thomas to come and play with him.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The bus ride back was pretty uneventful.<span style=""> </span>You’ll be happy to know that the combined skills of myself, Julie Andree and Ashley Kaspar, all of Dordt College, triumphed over the abilities of West Coast representatives Brian, Austin and Danielle, in a two-team six-man rook match that will not soon be forgotten.<span style=""> </span>770 to 85.<span style=""> </span>Also, I had a good heart-to-heart conversation with Jon Kuik, an awesome guy from <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Northwestern</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place> who you will all have to meet next semester.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In short, if you’re ever in Africa or the <st1:place st="on">Middle East</st1:place>, I heartily recommend visiting Siwa.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So that was last weekend.<span style=""> </span>I realize I haven’t really blogged since our trip to Dahab, which means there’s a ton of stuff I haven’t told you, stuff that’s all jumbled in my mind.<span style=""> </span>But I just started my homestay last night, so I'll be spending the rest of the week getting to know my Egyptian family instead of blogging.<span style=""> </span><span style=""></span>I’ll be sure to give you the rundown later, along with everything else that’s been going on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Salaam, everybody.<span style=""> </span>Take care, and be careful where you get your housing loans.</p>Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-15666484954560349972008-09-22T09:16:00.000-07:002008-09-22T09:21:40.106-07:00Pictures from AlexandriaAre here: http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp/Alexandria#<br /><br />I'm way too tired to write right now - sorry. Some other time. But feel free to e-mail me if you like.<br /><br />Also, just so you know, I'm not among the 11 tourists that were kidnapped and held for ransom in Upper Egypt today. And please don't worry - this kind of thing is very rare in Egypt, and like I said before, everywhere we travel in the countryside we take a semiautomatic pistol-wielding guard with us.<br /><br />To put things in perspective: how many cities with 20 million people would you feel comfortable walking around in at 11:00 at night? Because I do that all the time here. Cairo is incredibly safe for its size.<br /><br />I know you. Yeah, you. You worrier. Just relax.<br /><br />Ramadan kareem!Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-74121419943132744292008-09-17T04:41:00.000-07:002008-09-17T04:42:59.401-07:00The Best Weekend EverPictures from the best weekend ever are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp<br /><br />Last Thursday, all thirty of us MESPers packed up some warm clothes, swimsuits, books and snacks, piled onto a tour bus with the MESP interns, Andrea and Barrett, a guide named Joseph, and a semiautomatic pistol-wielding security guard, and headed out of Cairo for the first time in two and a half weeks. In a little over seven hours, we made a trip that took the Israelites three months. We couldn’t see much of the Sinai desert through the bus windows in the dark, but the absence of any lights outside was telling enough. Cairo is a city that never sleeps (at least during Ramadan). To be surrounded by darkness in Egypt was a new experience in of itself. When we finally stopped at a rest area, I walked with some other MESPers a few yards out into the desert, to get the feel of the place. It felt a lot like nothing, and it was exhilarating. We could feel the wind, look at the stars, and see for miles in the night. It was pretty sweet.<br /><br />Around 1 AM, we arrived at the base of Mt. Sinai. I had managed to sleep fitfully on the bus for only a few hours, but I was so excited that it didn’t matter. Wielding our flashlights, we started the long hike up to the top of Mt. Sinai in the dark. We weren’t alone by any means. The local Bedouin tribes have turned the site into an industry. There were at least five resting places along the trail where we could buy coffee, juice and candy bars at exorbitant prices, and while hiking up the trail, we probably met around forty Bedouin entrepreneurs asking, “Camel? Camel?” Some of us did fork over 85 pounds to ride a camel to the top, but most of us (myself including) wanted to hike.<br /><br />The hike was long, tiring, and a little chilly, even with a sweatshirt, and it culminated in 900 steep stone steps ominously named “The Stairs of Penance.” But we made it to the top in time to see the sunrise. We all sat together on a cliff at the peak, watching the sun come up over the whole Sinai mountain range, eating our breakfasts. There were plenty of other pilgrims there, from Mexico, Colombia, Romania, and the Netherlands. When the sun came up, the Spanish-speaking people started singing “This is the day” in Spanish. So we joined in English. We also sang the doxology, which we sing every morning at devotions. A Romanian priest performed a mass on the top, which was cool to see. The peak has both a church and a Muslim prayer house. (The Muslims revere Moses as a “messenger,” but think the Torah was distorted over the ages.)<br /><br />Eventually, we made our way back down the mountain. It looked a lot bigger in the daylight, that is for sure. (Mt. Sinai isn’t a lone peak in the desert; it’s surrounded by other mountains as far as the eye can see, so it’s hard to say when you’ve reached the bottom.) Anyhow, on the way down we stopped at St. Catherine’s monastery. St. Catherine’s monastery is supposed to contain the world’s second-largest collection of Christian relics, including the burning bush. Unfortunately, we got there at eight o’clock, and it didn’t open until eleven. So we spent some time reading, playing cards, trying to sleep, and checking out the local cafes and bookstores. By this time, the fatigue was finally starting to hit us, so sleeping on the desert rock wasn’t so bad.<br /><br />Around 10:30, we got into line. Besides us, there were a whole bunch of Indian Orthodox Christians, who dressed exactly like Hindus, and pilgrims from various European countries. After waiting for another half-hour, we were finally let inside.<br /><br />I had kind of pictured the burning bush as some old withered thing inside a glass case. Nope. It’s a gigantic vine thing hanging from a wall, just as green as the day it spoke to Moses. My skepticism was not shared by most of the pilgrims. They crowded underneath it, saying prayers, touching its branches and rubbing tissues on it, for God points, I guess. But most of us cynical Americans were pretty underwhelmed. John, a senior from Northwestern, and I got a kick out of a fire extinguisher placed in a corner of the courtyard right next to the burning bush. Brian, my roommate, was pretty mad that we had waited three hours to see it. He speaks fluent Portuguese, and summed up the whole monastery as “merda.” After the spectacle that was the burning bush, we were all ready to go to Dahab.<br /><br />Dahab is a resort city on the Gulf of Aqaba, the eastern leg of the Red Sea. It was built about twenty years ago, to add to Egypt’s tourism industry. (Egypt lost control of the Sinai to Israel in the 50s, and only regained it in the late 70s.)<br /><br />I know I haven’t traveled much, but Dahab might be my favorite place on earth so far. We stayed in a really cheap hostel that was right across the street from the Red Sea, and we ate our meals in a open-air restaurant that was right on the Red Sea. As in, if you were sitting on the cushions at the far end of the restaurant and had really long arms, you could turn around and put your arm across the low wall and touch the water. Relaxing there and on the beach after being awake for most of twenty-four hours was a-mazing. Ah, yes, the beach. The Red Sea is the clearest, warmest water I have ever seen. It’s like a bathtub. You step in and you can see all the way down to your feet perfectly. At the beach we were at, a ledge under the water stretched from the beach hundreds of yards out into the sea, so the water was only four feet deep for a couple of football fields. Also, the ledge was covered in coral that you had to walk around. Feeling adventurous, my flatmate Thomas and I walked all the way out to the end of the ledge, from where the people on the beach looked tiny. We’re wading through the sea, and all of a sudden, we come to the drop-off. One second it’s coral everywhere, the next, you’re looking into an endless, pure blue. It was beautiful.<br /><br />The next day we took some jeeps to a snorkeling spot called the Blue Hole. I had never gone snorkeling before, and it was a blast. I saw so many weird types of fish, and all the kinds of coral I had only seen in books before. Again, the water was perfectly clear, so you just had to strap on your mask and you could see everything underneath the waves. In between snorkeling breaks, we lounged at a restaurant right on the shore. (All the restaurants at Dahab have cushions on the ground that you basically lay on while you eat. It’s the only way to eat out, trust me.)<br /><br />Also: I was one of the few guys there who did not buy “Eurotrunks,” super-short swimming trunks like the kind sported by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and wear them to the beach. I did not feel left out. I felt very self-respecting in my board shorts.<br /><br />We stayed in Dahab for one night and left the next afternoon, taking the bus back to Cairo. It was a long ride, but we played lots of games of Mafia, including one epic round where a girl from Calvin named Danielle and I bluffed our way to victory against incredible odds. We got back at midnight, I called Mom and Dad, and then went to bed.<br /><br />So that was Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Egyptian weekend. For the purposes of this post though, I will also count Sunday as part of the weekend. Because on Sunday, we went to an Egyptian football match!<br /><br />Now you all know I’m not that big of a sports guy, but this game was off the hizzook. Everyone there was so excited – waving flags and banners and chanting, and doing evening prayers in the aisle over their team’s flag (I took a picture). We showed up three hours early, and the stadium was already a third full. As gametime came closer, the crowd got more and more fired up. The match was Zamalek vs. Ahly. We sat on the Ahly side. Supposedly, Zamalek has the better tradition, but Ahly is currently the better team. Also, Zamalek is a ritzy island in the Nile in Cairo, where the uppercrust live. Ahly is the people’s team.<br /><br />The last time Ahly and Zamalek played, Ahly won 6-1. In soccer, that’s huge. We saw Ahly fans wearing shirts that said: “6-1 – I was there.” The Ahly crowd’s favorite chant was counting to six (“sitta”) in Arabic. We know the numbers, so we joined in on that one. Joseph led our group in some other chants, which made the Egyptians around us clap for us.<br /><br />Ahly scored the first goal eight minutes into the match. It was pandemonium. We were all on our feet, shouting and waving flags. I hugged the Egyptian man sitting next to me, and he hugged me back. Zamalek later scored two goals, one of which I caught on video, and Ahly scored again the last fifteen minutes to tie up the game.<br /><br />In between goals, I struck up a conversation with the Egyptian man next to me, Mahmoud. (Fortunately, he spoke pretty good English.) He asked me where we were from; I told him America and Canada. He asked if we were tourists; I told him no, we were students, studying Arabic, politics and Islam. “Islam?” he said. “Are you going to convert?” They always ask that. “No, I’m a Christian,” I said. “So why are you studying Islam?” “Just so I can understand more about the world and my own faith.” “You want to compare them?” “Yeah, and I want to understand the way other people believe.” Then he asked me what kind of politics I was studying. “Politics of the middle east, like Palestine and Israel,” I said. I wasn’t surprised to find out that he took a pretty dim view of Israel. I kept my opinions to myself, and just said, “There’s a lot of suffering in Palestine.” Then the conversation turned to soccer. “You are for Ahly?” I told him yes. “Have you heard of Ahly before you came here?” he asked. I told him no, that my friends had brought me to the game. He told me that Ahly was the most popular team in Africa, and had won four of the last five championships. “So Ahly is the best,” I said. He grinned and shook my hand. “You are my friend now,” he said. Eventually, he gave me his phone number and offered to hook me up with an Arabic tutor. I don’t know if I’ll call him, but I always love talking to Egyptians. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it in Arabic someday.<br /><br />There’s more, but this is getting long. Suffice to say, we have an awesome Muslim professor teaching us about Muslim thought and practice, and last week she took us on a tour of three really famous mosques. I put the pictures up on Picasa if you want to see. Also, last night Jason and I taught our first conversational English class at a local Christian community center. Details on that later.<br /><br />Have a great week everybody!Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-80053063680362451412008-09-06T04:39:00.001-07:002008-09-06T04:44:24.863-07:00Pray for Garbage CityIf any of you heard about the rockslide in Cairo this morning, it happened in Garbage City, the Coptic Christian enclave we visited last week. A six-story building was demolished by the slide, and at least 20 people are dead. A lot of the MESPers do service projects in that area; four of my flatmates went there yesterday to visit the orphanage there. Barrett, our MESP intern, just called; no one is allowed to go there until further notice. Please pray for the people living there.<br /><br />Here's the story at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7601761.stmJoelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-57852680060444382652008-09-05T07:38:00.000-07:002008-09-06T05:08:03.842-07:00Our First Fight with a Taxi Driver<p class="MsoNormal">More pictures<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp/GarbageCityRamadanAndTheMuseum#"> here</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Aaron, Jason and I just got back from <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Tahrir Square</st1:address></st1:street>, an area in downtown <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>We took a taxi, like always.<span style=""> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">This taxi, however, was driven by a true – ahem – jerk.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Understand, taxis here don’t have meters.<span style=""> </span>When you get to your destination, you get out and offer the driver a price.<span style=""> </span>He will say no and offer a higher price.<span style=""> </span>Eventually you work your way to something reasonable.<span style=""> </span>If the driver won’t budge, we’re supposed to drop the proper amount through the passenger window and walk off.<span style=""> </span>Most taxi drivers are eager to pick up westerners because we’re rich and unversed in the ways of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Cairo</st1:city></st1:place>.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The standard price for a trip from <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Tahrir Square</st1:address></st1:street> to Agouza is four pounds.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t have any one-pound notes, so we offered our driver this time “khamza,” a five.<span style=""> </span>As usual, he demanded something higher.<span style=""> </span>We weren’t going to go any higher than five, so we left him with a five and walked out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is where it got tricky.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The dude got out of the taxi and came around to us, waving the five-pound note at us and demanding more in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Aaron’s spent some time in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Jordan</st1:place></st1:country-region> so he knows some Arabic and tried to reason with him. (Later he told me he was telling the driver that we had only paid five from Agouza to Tahrir to begin with.) We wouldn’t budge, so the driver, clearly disgusted, got back in the car.<span style=""> </span>As we were walking away, he spat out the window at us.<span style=""> </span>In <st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, that’s a big deal (not that it’s polite in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To me, it’s simple: the guy thought he could intimidate some naïve white kids into paying up.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t expect us to stand our ground.<span style=""> </span>Plus, it’s Ramadan, so he was probably already cranky. <span style=""> </span>(He was a pretty aggressive driver – a few blocks away from our building, he almost rear-ended another car and then shouted at the other driver through his window.) I’ve been hosed by a taxi driver once before, and I’m not about to let it happen again.<span style=""> </span>Aaron was a little bothered and thinks maybe we did something wrong, so he’s going to check with one of the staff here.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The upshot – I feel a little more confident bartering my way across the city now.<span style=""> </span>I’ll let you know if any more drama happens.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what were we doing at <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Tahrir Square</st1:address></st1:street>?<span style=""> </span>Visiting the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Egyptian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place>!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was really different from any museum in the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> </span>It was like they had more priceless ancient artifacts than they knew what to do with, so they put them all in this building, roughly arranged them by time period, and added some tiny typewritten labels in Arabic, French and broken English.<span style=""> </span>Some pieces had glass cases, but most didn’t.<span style=""> </span>It was just <i style="">there</i>, touchable, decontextualized, and four thousand years old.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The highlight was definitely the section devoted to King Tut’s tomb.<span style=""> </span>King Tut’s tomb is the only tomb that wasn’t ransacked by grave robbers over the millennia, so they have literally everything from the tomb, in near perfect condition.<span style=""> </span>It’s nearly all made from gold and precious stones.<span style=""> </span>There’s daggers, miniature boats, statues, beds, thrones, necklaces – they buried their kings with lots of stuff. (Most of this stuff was in glass cases.) The highlight of the highlight was seeing King Tut’s famous funeral headdress and sarcophagus (you’ve all seen them in pictures.) Some of you might remember how I obsessed over ancient <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place> in middle school.<span style=""> </span>Seeing that stuff, I seriously geeked out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sorry – no cameras allowed, so I don’t have any pictures. (Which is kind of a funny story.<span style=""> </span>We had to go through three security checkpoints to get in.<span style=""> </span>Only at the third did we realize that cameras weren’t allowed.<span style=""> </span>Not wanting to leave my camera with anybody, I decided just to walk through the metal detectors and hope they didn’t care.<span style=""> </span>I walked through, and it didn’t beep.<span style=""> </span>So far, so good.<span style=""> </span>Then the guard comes up and <i style="">frisks me</i>, clearly feeling the camera case in my pocket – and just lets me through.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t going to push my luck by taking pictures, but they really need to pay their people more.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Also, it’s a huge tourist destination.<span style=""> </span>It was a little startling, after living for a week and a half among very modestly-dressed Arabs, to all of a sudden be surrounded by skimpily-dressed white people who didn’t speak English.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I learned something new this week: because the day of rest in Islam is Friday, weekends here are on Friday and Saturday.<span style=""> </span>So no class today or tomorrow, but we’ll be back at it on Sunday.<span style=""> </span>Weird.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yes, classes.<span style=""> </span>So far, we have a couple hours of Arabic, taught by a wonderfully entertaining and understanding Muslim woman from the <st1:placename st="on">American</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">University</st1:placetype> in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>, and a couple hours with Dr. Holt discussing religion and politics.<span style=""> </span>So far it’s been great, but I’m not looking forward to the homework.<span style=""> </span>We already have a lot of reading.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of prayer and fasting.<span style=""> </span>From sunup to sundown, Muslims are not supposed to eat or drink a thing – not even water.<span style=""> </span>Some of them handle this by sleeping during the day (including the guard who sits outside our building with a rifle.) The rest of them, I guess, just think happy thoughts until <i style="">iftar</i>, the breaking of the fast at sundown.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The good part for me is, Jesus doesn’t care when I eat.<span style=""> </span>The bad part is, most of the restaurants and businesses around here do, and they’re closed during the day (and sometimes at night too).<span style=""> </span>So for a while at least, if we don’t want to cook, we’re limited to McDonald’s and KFC.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think most of the people around here carry their meals with them, so they’re ready when the sun goes down.<span style=""></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">When we walk the streets at dusk, we see a lot of people – street cleaners and policemen, especially - sitting on the sidewalks with little tupperware containers, going at it.<span style=""> </span>Last night at <i style="">iftar</i>, the October 6 Bridge outside our flat – normally totally jammed with traffic – was virtually empty.<span style=""> </span>I took a picture.<span style=""> </span>Everyone’s at home, finally eating after a long day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is the fun part of Ramadan – every night is a party.<span style=""> </span>Late into the night, the streets are filled with people eating and celebrating.<span style=""> </span>Little kids get to stay up late and everything.<span style=""> </span>All the streets have banners and decorations up, and most of the buildings have cool lanterns hanging out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Also, Ramadan is a time to do a lot of praying and meditating.<span style=""> </span>On the second day of Ramadan, we rode on a subway car where almost every man was either reading from the Qu’ran or reciting prayers.<span style=""> </span>Normally, the five daily calls to prayer go more or less unheeded, at least from outward appearances.<span style=""> </span>Now I see groups of men on the street praying together.<span style=""> </span>Everyone’s mind is on religion.<span style=""> </span>The poor of the city know this, so we see a lot more beggars lately.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Two days ago, we crossed the Nile to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename st="on">Zamalek</st1:placename></st1:place>, which has a really cool park that you can get into for three pounds ($0.60).<span style=""> </span>Unlike everywhere else, it’s green and has clean air, and since most of the people are too hungry to exert themselves, pretty deserted.<span style=""> </span>Some of us went running, which felt good; the rest played soccer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday some of us went back.<span style=""> </span>I struck up a pathetic Arabic conversation with a fourteen-year-old boy named Kareem. (I will qualify this by saying that he didn’t look fourteen to me; maybe I just misunderstood his answer to my question.) I found out that he likes school, that his dad works for the park, that he supports Egypt in soccer matches (I probably could have guessed that), that he lives in Imbeba, and that he is the fourth of six children.<span style=""> </span>He found out that I am twenty, that I am a student from America and a Christian, that I’m not married yet (where are my priorities?), that I’m living in Agouza for three months, and that I have three younger siblings.<span style=""> </span>It was a bit of a struggle to talk to him, but I enjoyed it, and he must have had to also, because we talked for quite a while.<span style=""> </span>Whenever I butchered the Arabic, he would give me a look and say, “What?” Whenever he said something in Arabic I couldn’t understand, I said, “Aasif,” (sorry) and shrugged.<span style=""> </span>We laughed quite a bit.<span style=""> </span>He apparently also thought that “oui” is an English word.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">During a lull in the conversation, he got up and started to walk off.<span style=""> </span>I said goodbye, he shook his head and said something in Arabic, and then stopped on the sidewalk a distance away.<span style=""> </span>He took off his sandals and started the Muslim prayer routine.<span style=""> </span>He was really into it.<span style=""> </span>It was inspiring and sad at the same time to see a kid that young so wrapped up in his religion.<span style=""> </span>Afterwards he came back.<span style=""> </span>I asked him what kind of music he likes; he said “No.” I was like, “No music?” He said, “No, no, no.” Another MESPer, Chelsea, offered to let him listen to her iPod, so he could see what he was missing.<span style=""> </span>He politely refused.<span style=""> </span>I was a little mystified.<span style=""> </span>Aaron thinks that strict Muslims aren’t supposed to listen to music at all.<span style=""> </span>I’ll have to ask Dr. Holt about that.<span style=""> </span>If so, that’s really depressing. (Open mind…open mind…)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Two nights ago, we watched <i style="">The Message</i>, the Muslim equivalent of the Jesus movie.<span style=""> </span>It’s all about Mohammed’s revelation and his war to retake <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mecca</st1:place></st1:city> and remake the social order.<span style=""> </span>It’s three hours long, and repeatedly, unintentionally hilarious, for one reason: the Islamic faith forbids showing an image of Mohammed.<span style=""> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The filmmakers dealt with this minor obstacle by, variously:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">1) Having other characters talk about what’s happening with Mohammed offscreen.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">2) Blacking out the screen when Mohammed is present.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">3) Having the camera assume the viewpoint of Mohammed, so the characters essentially look at the audience and say, “Prophet, what should we do?” After a brief, silent pause, the character turns to another character, and says something like, “He says we should let the camel decide where to build the mosque!” (Not kidding).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">4) Putting Mohammed just outside the camera frame.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This last example really shined during a battle scene, when Mohammed, his son-in-law Ali, and his friend Hamza, go to battle with three of the men from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mecca</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>All you can see of Mohammed is his sword – which is a totally BA sword with two blades, like a pair of scissors.<span style=""> </span>The blades swing in and out of the frame, butchering the infidel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Whatever else you may say about Islam, it is not a religion that lends itself to filmmaking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Oh, by the way – next Thursday, we are going to…<st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Sinai</st1:placename></st1:place>!!!</p>Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-91668207678464051082008-09-02T01:39:00.000-07:002008-09-02T01:41:03.971-07:00Moving Mountains<p class="MsoNormal">On Monday, Labor Day in <st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region>, the first day of Ramadan here, and my fifth day in <st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, the MESP students visited the Coptic Christian enclave in <st1:city st="on">Cairo</st1:city> – a place known as “<st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Garbage</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Coptic Christians are the largest group of Christians in the <st1:place st="on">Middle East</st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t learned much about them yet, but they seem to be closer to Catholicisim or the Eastern Orthodox churches than to Protestantism.<span style=""> </span>From what I’ve seen so far, they place a large emphasis on icons and relics, miracles, and mysteries.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Entering <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Garbage</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>, the first thing I noticed was the crosses.<span style=""> </span>There were crosses everywhere, along with pictures of Jesus and Mary.<span style=""> </span>Back in the States, such a sight would have made a good Protestant like me feel a little off-kilter.<span style=""> </span>Here, after a week of mosques and salaams and five daily calls to prayer, it was like coming up from underwater for a breath of fresh air.<span style=""> </span>Ah, Christianity!<span style=""> </span>I was back on familiar ground. (Making the Catholic sign of the cross is a very good way to communicate your religion to an Arabic-speaking person, I learned.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The second thing I noticed was, as you might have guessed, the garbage.<span style=""> </span>Apparently, in the sixties and seventies, the Christians of Cairo took it upon themselves to be the garbage collectors of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>They collect the city’s trash, bring it back to their neighborhoods and houses, and make things out of it.<span style=""> </span>Beautiful things, quality things.<span style=""> </span>We visited a building where young uneducated women use thrown-out paper to make rugs and aprons and bags and blankets – nice ones – and then sell them.<span style=""> </span>The rest of the garbage is reused in a similar fashion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first thing we visited in <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Garbage</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> was the Sisters of Charity orphanage.<span style=""> </span>The orphanage is divided into sections for orphans, severely handicapped children, and handicapped elderly.<span style=""> </span>My group visited the elderly first.<span style=""> </span>I really wasn’t prepared for that.<span style=""> </span>The first woman I saw was in a wheelchair, and had a severely deformed face.<span style=""> </span>The one detail that sticks out is that she only had one tooth that I could see, and it was freakishly long.<span style=""> </span>What do you say – “Hello?” Another woman was friendly enough, but made animal sounds whenever we approached her.<span style=""> </span>Another lady I could talk to a little bit with my meager Arabic – she helped me figure out that the sign of the cross is a good way to indicate your religious affiliation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Later, we visited the nursery.<span style=""> </span>It was filled with adorable little babies and toddlers.<span style=""> </span>There was one girl in a green baby swing hanging from the ceiling.<span style=""> </span>She was sleeping, but the swing was tilted forward so far that, instead of resting against the seat back, she had slid to the front and was being held in by the buckle.<span style=""> </span>It couldn’t have been comfortable.<span style=""> </span>Eventually a nun came over, and I thought she was fix the swing or take the baby out, but she kind of yelled at her, wiped off her (admittedly snot-covered) face with a rag, and stormed out.<span style=""> </span>That woke her up, and she started crying, so I set aside my baby insecurity and took her out and held her.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t have a lot of bonding time, but I got to practice my baby skills a little.<span style=""> </span>She had such big eyes, and she was always trying to see around my shoulder.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the end of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Garbage</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> lies the Moqatta Monastery.<span style=""> </span>The monastery is built into a huge hill, and the cliff alongside the steep road leading to the monastery is decorated with scores of giant carvings of scenes from the Bible.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our guide to the monastery was an Arabic-speaking monk, who told the story of the monastery through Dr. Dea (not sure if I’m spelling that right), our native Egyptian professor.<span style=""> </span>In the ninth century, the Muslim ruler of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region> was given a copy of the Christian Bible by his Jewish assistant.<span style=""> </span>The assistant pointed him to the passage where Jesus says a believer with the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.<span style=""> </span>At the time, the ruler was seeking to expand the size of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>So, setting a trap for the Christians, he ordered them to move a mountain from the area where he wanted to build, or be punished.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Led by a shoemaker named Samaan (who had earlier demonstrated his piety by gouging out his own eye after he accidentally looked underneath a female customer’s dress – but that, I suppose, is another story), the Christians gathered to fast and pray.<span style=""> </span>And with the Jew and all the Muslims watching, the mountain lifted up off the ground, so high that the sun on the horizon could be seen underneath it.<span style=""> </span>The wily Jew was humiliated, the Muslims fled, and the Christians rejoiced.<span style=""> </span>The mountain resettled at its current location, where the monastery was built.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t quite know what to make of the story, but the monk who told it believed it with all his heart.<span style=""> </span>He claimed that the monastery was a miraculous place, and that he had personally witnessed over two hundred miracles, including the healing a lame Muslim sheikh.<span style=""> </span>According to our guide, the miracles at Moqatta became so famous that the sheikh came to be healed, despite his Islamic faith.<span style=""> </span>The father of the monastery told him, “I cannot heal you.<span style=""> </span>Only Jesus can do that.<span style=""> </span>Do you believe that Jesus is alive?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sheikh replied, “I believe that Jesus is alive in heaven.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The father said, “Do you ask people who have gone to heaven for things, or people who are still alive, here with us?” Then he prayed for Jesus to heal the sheikh.<span style=""> </span>The sheikh fell on the ground convulsing, and was healed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The monk told this story in a giant amphitheater built into the side of the mountain, where Coptic services are held.<span style=""> </span>We were sitting in pews at the bottom of the amphitheater, near the altar, which was filled with images of Jesus and Mary.<span style=""> </span>As he wrapped it up, a group of pilgrims came down to the altar and started touching the feet of the images, then touching their foreheads.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Another note about the amphitheater – supposedly, the kind of stone it’s made out of can’t physically support a structure of its size.<span style=""> </span>This is yet another miracle.<span style=""> </span>To demonstrate this, the monk started scraping away some stone from the side of the cave with his bare hands.<span style=""> </span>This did not comfort me very much.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the way out of the amphitheater steps, the monk turned to me and some other students and pointed to a wheelchair behind a glass door. “That’s from the miracle!” he said in broken English, referring to a story he had told us about a paralyzed woman who was healed at the mountain. “Hallelujah!” he exclaimed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What else do you say? “Hallelujah!” I responded, pumping my fist in the air. (Later, the monk would tell us that there are three words that work fine in any language: “Hallelujah,” “Amen,” and “Coca-Cola.”)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Moqatta might be my favorite place so far.<span style=""> </span>It didn’t hurt that, after we ate lunch and I was walking towards one of the shops there, I got swarmed by a bunch of little kids who thought I was the bee’s knees.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It started when one of them shouted, “What’s your name?” in pretty good English. “Joel,” I said, pointing to myself.<span style=""> </span>The fact that I could understand them got them really excited.<span style=""> </span>Their older brother, Mishon, who’s 19, knew some more English, and I told them all about myself.<span style=""> </span>“Where are you from?” one said. “Amreeka,” I said – Arabic for <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. “Oh, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>!” said one. “You are a good man.” Well, all right. “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is Christ-ee-an?” said another. “Yes, Christian!” I said, making the sign of the cross again.<span style=""> </span>Take that, Barack Obama. <span style=""> </span>Another said, “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is so beautiful.<span style=""> </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place>, no.” “No, la’!” I said. “<st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place> is so beautiful, so gamel!” That made her happy.<span style=""> </span>By the end, I knew most of their names (one was named Micah) had introduced them to all my friends, taken their picture, and signed a few autographs. (“You’re famous now, Joel!” Mishon told me.) By that point they were literally trapping us by the bookstore entrance, so I had to say goodbye and push through.<span style=""> </span>They followed us to the bus, and I waved goodbye and got on.<span style=""> </span>They ran towards the back of the bus so they could wave goodbye at me through the window.<span style=""> </span>I’ve never felt so undeservedly loved.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In addition to my autograph, the kids also got Mishon to get my e-mail address.<span style=""> </span>If they e-mail me, I’m going to tell them to meet me at one of the church services there – I’m planning to go on Thursday night.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Also, Micah Schuurman visited today.<span style=""> </span>I was taking a nap, and someone started shaking me, and I looked up, and couldn’t quite see who it was.<span style=""> </span>Then my eyes adjusted and I shouted, “Micah!” It was a nice surprise.<span style=""> </span>He’s living in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> for the month.<span style=""> </span>We talked for a bit, and I introduced him to my flatmates.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully he’ll be around some more.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tonight, we had our “commitment service.” We met on the roof of the villa, sat in a circle, and tossed around a ball of yarn.<span style=""> </span>Each person in turn caught the yarn, expressed one thing they wanted the group to rejoice with them about, and one thing to weep with them about (following the biblical injunction to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep”) and passed the yarn on.<span style=""> </span>I asked everybody to rejoice with me in experiencing God’s love through simple things, like sunrises and Egyptian fruit, and to weep with me when I become really stubborn in the political/religious debates ahead. (You all know what I’m talking about. <span style="font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="">J</span></span>) Afterwards, we had communion, and after Dr. Holt left, we stayed on our own and sang worship song after worship song.<span style=""> </span>It was a great way to officially kick off the semester. (Tomorrow is the first service project day; Wednesday we start classes.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The two days before today were mostly devoted to exploring.<span style=""> </span>Saturday, we were divided into pairs, given a set of objectives (find an internet café, buy envelopes, exchange money, find a pharmacy, etc.), and sent out into the neighborhood to find our way around.<span style=""> </span>My partner and I didn’t win the race, but I know Agouza a lot better now.<span style=""> </span>The last objective involved taking a taxi to a well-known restaurant in Agouza.<span style=""> </span>Another objective was finding a nearby Metro Supermarket.<span style=""> </span>After searching for a while, we were really lost, so my partner and I decided to kill two birds with one stone and ask a cab driver to take us to the Metro Supermarket.<span style=""> </span>He did – but he crossed the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place> and took us to one miles away from Agouza.<span style=""> </span>He waited for us at the supermarket, then took us back to the restaurant in Agouza.<span style=""> </span>I asked him, “Bikem?” – how much?<span style=""> </span>Forty pounds, he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now the objectives sheet we had said that the ride should be no more than <b style="">five </b>pounds.<span style=""> </span>Since he took us an extra distance, I could consider ten, or maybe even fifteen, but not forty. (One dollar = five pounds, about.) But the driver was very insistent, and all I could get him down to was thirty. (All while my partner, who, being a girl, isn’t socially supposed to barter, kept yelling at me, “No, that’s way too much!”) But he got his thirty pounds, I lost a little dignity, and resolved to stand my ground in the future.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sunday was subway day.<span style=""> </span>This time, we were divided into groups of four, and sent off to explore <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city>’s subway system on our own.<span style=""> </span>The subway system is actually pretty nice (although perhaps my standards are already being lowered after living here a week.) One interesting feature is that about half the subway cars are set aside for women.<span style=""> </span>And since men here go out on their own more than women, the women’s cars are usually pretty empty, while the men are crammed in like sardines.<span style=""> </span>The girls in our group got in just fine; my roommate Thomas and I just barely made it on (he had to pull me in after the doors closed on me.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We had a great time.<span style=""> </span>We randomly picked a stop (near <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Giza</st1:place></st1:city> – as in, the pyramids), and wandered until we found a market.<span style=""> </span>There we bought a full-length Arab dress shirt for our roommate Adam, who turned 22 that day.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, we took a street that led away from the market into an unremarkable neighborhood.<span style=""> </span>We were running low on the all-important bottled water (izezat maya), so we asked a man near a shisha bar if he knew where we could buy some.<span style=""> </span>He insisted we sit down at his bar, while his partner ran down a convenience store and bought us some bottled water and, for some reason, 7Up.<span style=""> </span>So we drank 7Up at an obscure shisha bar in the depths of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> and talked with the local men for a while (as much as we could understand each other).<span style=""> </span>It was a very memorable detour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, that’s pretty much it.<span style=""> </span>Sorry I can’t make these things shorter, but I’m writing this as much for myself as for you guys, so I don’t forget this week.<span style=""> </span>Happy Labor Day, Merry Ramadan, and God bless all of you.</p>Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-10170651165996610972008-08-31T12:41:00.001-07:002008-08-31T14:28:23.814-07:00Pictures, and an observation.I'm sick of uploading pictures individually to every post, like I did in the last blog, so I'm making a web album on Google. Here's <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.veldkamp/EgyptFirstThreeDays">pictures</a> from the first three days. Enjoy.<br /><br />Tonight, the MESP director took eight of us out to eat. We walked about a mile to a superb, dirt-cheap American-style restaurant - ohhhh, so good. But on the way there, I was talking to another student who I hadn't gotten a chance to know yet. (Everyone here is purposefully trying to get to know everybody else - it's great.) This kid is very smart, very savvy. Reads Tolstoy for fun, that kind of guy. He's a political studies major like me, so we started talking about the election. He said he was leaning towards McCain, but "if McCain picks someone like Mitt Romney to be his VP, I'm not voting for him."<br /><br />Joel: "Dude, he picked somebody two days ago."<br />Dude: "Really?"<br />Joel: "Yeah - the woman governor of Alaska."<br />Dude: "Really? I hadn't heard that."<br />Joel: "Isn't this awesome!!!"<br /><br />Enjoy two more months of campaign commercials! I'll be here, barely watching or reading American news at all!!!Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-79703104525422958462008-08-29T23:15:00.001-07:002008-08-29T23:20:37.005-07:00Egypt - Day 4<!--[endif]--><p class="MsoNormal">I made it!<span style=""> </span>Four flights, one across the <st1:place st="on">Atlantic</st1:place>, and I made it with my luggage and sanity intact, for which I was very grateful.<span style=""> </span>The trip itself wasn’t that eventful.<span style=""> </span>I spent most of the time getting to know the other <st1:place st="on">Middle East</st1:place> travelers I was sitting with.<span style=""> </span>I <i style="">can</i> report that airline food on European flights is actually pretty nice.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We arrived in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> in the middle of the day.<span style=""> </span>The first thing I noticed was a large sign next to the passport line politely warning us that drug-dealing in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region> carries the death penalty.<span style=""> </span>Good to know.<span style=""> </span>The MESP director and the MESP interns met us at the airport with a big tourist bus, which took us through <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> to the neighborhood where we are living, Agouza.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It seems that everyone in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> lives in huge apartment buildings.<span style=""> </span>On the street, it’s hard to see a long ways in any direction. (The pollution – worse than <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Beijing</st1:place></st1:city> – doesn’t help.<span style=""> </span>We’re supposed to use nasal spray once a day to fight off the irritants.)<span style=""> </span>From the porch of our seventh-story apartment, it’s just ten-plus-story buildings as far as the eye can see, plus the occasional minaret.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the way to our apartment from the airport, Dr. Holt pointed at the apartment buildings through the windows, and said we were going through the nicer parts of the city.<span style=""> </span>It didn’t look very nice to me.<span style=""> </span>A lot of the siding was faded or falling off, and everyone was hanging their clothes out to dry on their tiny porches.<span style=""> </span>Then we started passing the apartment buildings with caved-in roofs and no windows.<span style=""> </span>According to Dr. Holt, about 40% of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> lives on two dollars a day or less.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The students are spread among three apartment buildings.<span style=""> </span>I live in a really big flat with eight other guys.<span style=""> </span>We have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a porch overlooking the October 6 bridge, a superlong bridge built by Anwar Sadat to commemorate <st1:country-region st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>’s Totally Glorious Victory over <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.<span style=""> </span>The apartment’s not particularly nice, of course (the mattresses are hard as rocks, for one thing), but we are college students, and there is air conditioning. (It’s very, very hot here – and not dry heat, either.<span style=""> </span>Agouza is right by the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place>, so the air is always humid.) Also, we can pick up unprotected wireless networks from our porch – hence me posting here.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dr. Holt and his wife live on the 13th floor of the same building.<span style=""> </span>Six other guys live in another apartment building, and the sixteen girls are split between two other apartments in another building.<span style=""> </span>We eat, have devotions and class in the MESP villa, a multi-story building close to the center of Agouza.<span style=""> </span>Our devotions are on the roof of the building, where there’s an actual breeze, and we sit on cushions under a shelter and talk and sing hymns.<span style=""> </span>It’s a great way to start the day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Agouza is a great place to walk around.<span style=""> </span>There are tons of shops and kiosks on the street level, and there are always people out walking around.<span style=""> </span>A lot of them are excited to see Westerners, especially the kids.<span style=""> </span>They use their five of six words of English to talk to us, and we use our five or six words of Arabic, which they love.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Traffic here is <i style="">insane</i>.<span style=""> </span>If there are any rules to it at all, I can’t explain them to you.<span style=""> </span>Stoplights?<span style=""> </span>Traffic lines?<span style=""> </span>Mere Western frivolties.<span style=""> </span>People just go, and park, wherever they need to go.<span style=""> </span>And pedestrians, including us, cross wherever people will slow down for them, including across the eight-lane highway between us and the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>The game Frogger has come alive for me here.<span style=""> </span>Yesterday we were walking down a one-way street, and a driver who wasn’t looking drove over Julie Andree’s foot!<span style=""> </span>She was only bruised, thankfully, but Dr. Holt took the opportunity to lecture us (some more) about safety.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thursday, we went to a market to buy <i style="">hijabs</i> (head coverings) for the girls, for our mosque visit Friday.<span style=""> </span>I don’t have my cellphone here, so I bought a “FOSSIILL” watch for thirty-five Egyptian pounds (seven U.S. dollars.) The market was really busy and kind of fun.<span style=""> </span>There were meat vendors with whole skinned cows hanging in the air, flies buzzing all around, ready to be bought.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t that interested.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Food – dates are delicious, as are pitas and Egyptian juice.<span style=""> </span>The Egyptian brand of Oreos, “Borios,” are pretty tasty also.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last night, all the guys went wandering around the neighborhood.<span style=""> </span>We tried to go down to the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place>, but there’s a gate blocking the riverwalk.<span style=""> </span>Some of the guys went for a ten-pound boat ride, but I wasn’t that trusting.<span style=""> </span>The rest of us found a café, where I had fresh strawberry juice, and we talked for a while.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday, we went to a mosque.<span style=""> </span>The girls were separated from us and put in a pretty small, non-ventilated room with all the other women.<span style=""> </span>Us men went into the main part of the mosque.<span style=""> </span>Part of the mosque is inside a building, where the imam preaches.<span style=""> </span>The bigger part is a huge green canopy put up over an ordinary street, where cars drive through the other six days a week.<span style=""> </span>We sat on the sidewalk at the very edge of the canopy, and Muslim men starting filing in and praying.<span style=""> </span>One surprise I got was when some men carried not one – not two – but three coffins into the mosque.<span style=""> </span>Apparently it’s pretty common to bring people who died during the week to the mosque for prayers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sermon was on loudspeaker in the canopy.<span style=""> </span>We couldn’t see the imam, and he spoke in Arabic, but he was very fiery.<span style=""> </span>Sitting there was pretty much like getting yelled at in Arabic for half an hour.<span style=""> </span>After the sermon, the men invited us to pray with them – so we did.<span style=""> </span>All the men lined up in straight lines, and started bowing and praying.<span style=""> </span>We mostly followed their actions.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty exciting, I must say.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of mosques, the call to prayer issues throughout the city five times a day, the first time at 5:30 AM.<span style=""> </span>Yeah.<span style=""> </span>Grand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last night was probably the best night so far.<span style=""> </span>For 100 pounds, the entire group went on a <i style="">falukah</i> (boat) ride on the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place>!<span style=""> </span>It was beautiful.<span style=""> </span>The river is surrounded by tall buildings and hotels.<span style=""> </span>Not really what I pictured when I thought of the Nile, but hey, it’s the <st1:place st="on">Nile</st1:place>!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Afterwards, we went to a huge market that Dr. Holt told us used to be the Wall Street of the Arab world.<span style=""> </span>Now there’s just a bunch of cafes and tourist shops.<span style=""> </span>They let us smoke hookah, or shisha, for the first and only time on the program, so we could “get the cultural experience.”<span style=""> </span>I was the only one at my table who had done in before, so it was pretty fun to see everyone else experience it.<span style=""> </span>The tourist shops had a lot of cool things, but we decided not to buy anything until we got our bartering skills down.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s pretty much it for now.<span style=""> </span>Take care everybody!</p>Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4323966139625889589.post-72125303142492653282008-08-25T13:54:00.001-07:002008-08-25T14:10:42.763-07:00Arabic is hardAnd I'm beginning to realize that I should have started on the Arabic workbook and CD the program sent me before today. Since I leave tomorrow and all.<br /><br />The Arabic alphabet has <span style="font-weight: bold;">three </span>Z's, <span style="font-weight: bold;">four </span>S's, and three distinct guttural sounds - one of which my workbook describes as, and I quote, "open guttural, as if you speak while being strangled." Arabic <span style="font-style: italic;">would </span>have a letter like that.<br /><br />Not to worry. The workbook assures me that, "After a few weeks in MESP, your linguistic achievements will make President Hosni Mubarak proud." I sure hope so. Learning Arabic will be hard, but it's a priority for me this semester.<br /><br />For those of you who don't know my full itinerary, for the next two months, I will be living in Cairo, Egypt, studying Arabic, Islam, politics and history with the Middle East Studies Program, living and traveling with other students from Christian colleges across the country. The last month of the semester, we'll be traveling to Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Israel (so long as it's safe).<br /><br />I won't have as much internet access as usual, and my cell phone won't work, but I will try to stay in touch as best I can. Send me a facebook message or e-mail me (jlvldkmp@dordt.edu) or leave a message here anytime.<br /><br />Love you all. Wheels up at 6 AM!Joelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03786978569048188890noreply@blogger.com0