Two Months Down...

Two months ago during my preparations to move, I was staying with my parents, playing yahtzee with mom, eating Taco Bell, and finding myself addicted to The Biggest Loser. Now, I lay in bed at night awake listening to cats screaming and fighting in the alley below my balcony. I cross many lanes of roaring traffic by foot, I buy hot bread off the street, and donkey carts share the road with trains and cars, all fighting for its right of way. Cairo is where to send someone who needs some reality knocked into them...its not a forgiving place, you have to stand up for yourself...and as I learn little by little how to live here, I see its magic...and why it captivates people.

Every time I step foot out of the elevator onto the bustling streets below, I never have a clue what I will witness. People watching had always been a pastime, but in Cairo, its my full time entertainment. Pulling out my camera is not always a good idea, but you find that people may not believe if you tried to re-create with just words what you have seen. I know this place is changing me as it develops my need for patience, it calms my obsession with schedule, it forces me to see loving people as a choice.

I have to be careful to not play the comparison game with Egypt and Latin America. Although both are developing regions and hold many characteristics that are the same, they are also polar opposites in how they relate to people. This was a difficult thing for me to accept, and there are days I struggle knowing my place here, and seeing that the people are not all open to letting us in. I can learn a lot from them. Their devotion to their faith, their work ethic (usually), and their love for family are all things we Americans could learn from. Many struggles accompany anyone who moves to this part of the world, but I am finding that the strange stuff, the frustrating aspects, and the core of this place, are worth all that I am learning, and how I am being changed.