Egypt Day 33-39

I've been away for the past few days on the community service portion of the trip. We stayed in the Governate of Faiyoum, a large oasis province around a lake in a depression in the desert, a few hours from Cairo. We were very warmly hosted by a Catholic mission in a small village surrounded by farm fields. It was by far the simplest conditions any of us had lived in during this trip: hot rooms, rampant flies, dirty bathrooms, plain and simple food like ful and pita. I returned home more covered in bug bites than probably any other time in my life.

Yet it was a very rewarding experience. First, I was touched by the hospitality extended to us by the mission and its leader, Father Yussuf, the picture-perfect image of the portly, laughing friar. How could one possibly complain about any mild inconveniences when you're being hosted out of generosity? Second, the service work was on the whole rewarding, even though I felt with some of the work we did as if out efforts could have been put towards something more impactful.

The first day of our experience, we headed out to another village. It was small and dusty, with more donkey traffic than cars. On one of its streets lay the town mosque and the town church, directly across from one another. In the spirit of religious harmony, the group split up, with half working on repainting the church and half repainting the mosque. we also planted trees in front, surely a welcome addition to any locale here.

The second day, we headed to the capital of the governate, where we worked all morning painting a fence in front of the local office of the ministry of youth and sport. This was the most taxing part of our service. We worked outside with no shade for hours, as the temperature climbed along with the sun. Furthermore, almost everyone expressed frustration with the task. The fence we were painting had looked ok to start with. Couldn't we be doing something of greater import?

The next day was spent planting trees and trimming hedges at an athletic center. Planting trees is always, in my mind, an extremely beneficial act, so I was happy to take part. However, upon starting, we discovered the soil to be almost ludicrously hard. Another student and I dug futilely at a spot one of the center's employees had indicated for 20 mins before he returned to inform us we were digging in the wrong place. I don't recall the last time I had been so angry. The program director gave all of us a gentle warning about all the swear words we were using.

The new spot we dug at proved to be equally unyielding, and when we finally made progress we discovered we were digging down to concrete slabs. Thankfully, at that moment a break was called, and afterward we were transferred to the far less aggravating task of hedge trimming. However, easier as it may have been, I was saddened by the amount of trash caught in the hedge. The center hadn't even asked us to clean up, but we did so anyway. I couldn't help but noting, as we did so, the field in front of us: it was strewn with wrappers and bottles, far more than we could pick up in the allotted time. We had been told the day before our fence painting was so the locals could take pride in their civic buildings. How does one affect a cultural shift that makes people take pride enough in their surroundings to not utterly trash them?

By far the best part of out community service was our work to show our gratitude to the mission. Over the course of our afternoons, we repainted its 3-room kindergarten and filled its bare walls with some really fetching mural work that looked good and taught the kids about letters, numbers and colors. One room was bedecked with flowers and candies, the second with clouds, balloons and hot air balloons, and a third with exceptionally realistic looking pieces of fruit. I am more proud of what we accomplished there in a few short days than almost anything else I've done. In my life. Period, full stop. I'm also feeling really fortunate, as our days together come to an end, I got to be with such an amazing and talented group.

Yesterday, in what was probably our final chance to just chill in Cairo, two friends and I spent the day downtown. We sat in a cafe for hours, then crawled to yet another, before taking a stroll. Our walk led us across the Nile, to the posh island neighborhood midstream. There, we found a really beautiful park, where we sat down to enjoy the dusk. We had a long talk about the trip, the people on it and how it has affected us, along with our thoughts of leaving.

I articulated something I've been thinking about the past week or so: I really feel this experience has changed me deeply. After 6 weeks of navigating a drastically different lingual, cultural and urban landscape, more or less successfully, I'm more self confident. I take things more in stride. I'm just more chill. Even with senior year, senior project work and college applications ahead, I'm not in my usual state of low-grade freakout. I'm not constantly imagining how stressed I'll be in the coming months, as in Augusts past. I've had a wonderful time here, and will miss my host family and all my new friends (though I'm going to try my hardest to keep in touch), but I'm experiencing a weird lack of high emotion about all of it. I just have this feeling of acceptance. What happens, happens. One way or another, things will turn out as they turn out. It's a very Egyptian way of looking at things. There's a reason any talk of the future in Arabic is ended with the phrase inshallah, "If God Wills". I may be an atheist, but more and more I understand the sentiment.

So we'll see, I guess. Maybe these changes are temporary, and I slip back into my old doubts and fears and stresses. Or maybe this is a permanent change. I'm really, really hoping for the latter. Inshallah.