como te va?

This day, my friends. Was full of intensities of all kind.

Weather, emotion, hard work, God, school… yeah. I just need peace, right now. Thank God for this weekend and escape with people I love dearly.

I was sitting in Suzzallo today to study for a bit (which I should be doing right now, but I’m not), and I kind of contemplated the idea of a library. Its a building, where there are shelves and shelves of books… documenting thousands of things for us to look at and read. And then, I thought about something called a Kindle. I’ve told some people that I don’t like them. I don’t like them because to me, books are something that have been around for thousands of years. Its something that is so ancient… and its being threatened by something called the Kindle. You know what I DON’T want to see? I DON’T want to go into a coffee shop, or a library and see my classmates all staring at these white, flat things with buttons. I mean, I think I’m OK with kindles being used for text books… but for BOOKS and NEWSPAPERS. Please, no.

I guess I’m just afraid that more of these things that I appreciate so much are going to slowly dwindle away. That someday everything will be powered by efficiency and speed. It’s like an attempt to try and get as much done in one day as possible… I’m scared that one day we won’t take showers anymore, instead we’ll have this thing that zaps all of the dirt off our bodies. I won’t be able to enjoy the suds, steam and hot water of a shower, and bubble baths will be no more. Or the joy I find in cleaning my room will be handed over for a robot to do, or the peace I find in watering plants will be for an automatic sprinkler… you get the idea. I’m scared that someday we are all going to have iPhones glued to our left hands, logged onto facebook and gmail. Right now, this is all the technology I could need. A computer, internet, an ipod with music, TV with the travel channel, lightbulbs and heat… if we stopped developing technologically in the domestic area, I could care less. I might actually rejoice. I don’t want to be CONNECTED to everyone and everything at one time. Why do we need that, anyway? Not to say that I’m not thankful for what the Lord has given me, but more like to say I might actually get sick of it at one point…

Lord save us. Really. Hopefully there aren’t iPhones in heaven, or computers. I might throw up if I get to heaven and an angel looks up my name in the “Holy Kindle”.

that SHORT hazelnut latte I took 7hrs ago hasn’t worn off. shoot. Each time I close my eyes, my mind just fills with random thoughts that buzz around for a while. So, now here I am to babble on about something completely random. I’ve become bad at this. Nowadays I get on here with a mission and something specific on my mind, rather than the goal to just spill out a random stream on thought onto the screen. hmmmm.what to say.

well, my down comforter is quite nice. oh. i know what… you wouldn’t believe what happened today. I walked into my room, and on my superman pillow, are MY UNDERGARMENTS. My freakin’ superman-shaped pillow was dressed in my unmentionables. Now, friend, sorry if this is TMI… but you have no idea how alarming that was. I thought it was Kelli… I asked all of the girls in my house… there was also a magazine I never took out, on my desk and also a book called “Middlesex” which I never finished, on my desk.

Who was it?! I’m pretty sure I know who it was, and they were just young, curious and immature.

But, still… someone went through my underwear/bra drawer. Gross…

The weirdest things happen to me. I don’t know why. I tell people that I’m convinced that God laughs at me, a lot. In a good way… I’m convinced that he’s just going to be standing there at the gates on heaven, chuckling to himself. Hey, Praise God my life isn’t boring… because that would be another story. I DO NOT want to lead an ordinary life. I hope my life is something that I can look back on, and be able to tell stories… and entertain my grandkids and children with stories about undergarment-foul plays, and crazy Egyptians. I hope I will still be adventuring at age 60, and running marathons.

Anyways. Man, its 2 38am. And I have a midterm tomorrow. NO MORE coffee after 7pm for Marsha.

Lets try this again.
Good night.

~m

I’m not angry at anyone, I promise. But I’ve come to a realization that sucks, but has so much hope offered at the end. And it’s a humbling realization because it applies to myself as well.

People let me down. We all get angry at each other, we are selfish, stupid, rash, ignorant, unloving, we make decisions that hurt others, we are just so… STUPID. Its true! I see things, hear about things, experience things that just show me how broken humankind is. Read the news, it’ll prove to you that we all mess up. And that there’s people suffering everyday because of our sin. I’m afraid someday, we will become a Wall-E world where all we do is consume while constantly connected to electronics… just feeding off of supply and demand. We’re shallow. Material possessions are what make us happy and the more we get the more we want. We spend money on stupid things when that money could feed a family for a month. We don’t stick to our promises, our love fades… How upsetting…It’s this feeling that makes the idea of packing up my life and leaving the country for good. For some reason I feel like people in other countries won’t let me down. But it doesn’t work that way.

But at the end of the day, here’s the hope that I am offered and what keeps me going… and what keeps me preventing myself from throwing in the towel on myself and everyone around me. That hope is Jesus Christ and that all things are ordered according to his perfect plan. God is love. What a better thing to be based on? God is perfect love that covers a multitude of sins… forever. And here’s what is amazing, when we do everything that I listed above, for some odd reason, he erases our sins and pulls us back in. We so don’t deserve this. Isn’t it a ridiculous concept? Imagine that… imagine that someone killed one of your family members, someone who you love dearly… I personally don’t know how I would be able to forgive them. But God does and he did, they killed his son.

So, bring it, big bad world. Hit me with your best shot because I know someone who is bigger than you and all of your disappointments. I’m a stronger person because of him. It helps me love people despite their iniquities, I really do love people…

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen

Wow. So, life has been quite the roller coaster in the past two months. A GOOD roller coaster, I promise you… one that has come to a temporary coast

Lets see. This summer was probably the most intense summer I’ve ever had. You can read back in my other posts about the first half of my summer… when I got back jet-lagged, missing my Egyptian and Sudanese friends, and Cairo 2009 team, and dealing with stuff I’ve never had to deal with. There’s a new part of me… and I just needed to figure out how that fits into my life in Seattle. And I still am figuring it out..

Life kind of hit me with a ton of bricks. I went back to work and was told I wouldn’t be rehired for the new academic year because they are only accepting work study students… nothing personal. I was flattered, really… they tried many ways to put my skills to use in that office but because of the money crunch on campus. So, that was stressful. Considering I have more payments than ever to make these days… OH the irony.

I had to find another roommate for the house. Which was freaking me out quite terribly because rent was due on August 20th, bills were coming in, and yeah… basically this is where I was tell God, “OK! LORD, THIS IS WHEN YOU COME IN…heeelloooOOOOoooOOOO”.  I have little faith, really. Although, my faith has grown, I tell you. I honestly felt guilty, to come to God with a laundry list of things that I need. My prayers seemed so selfish. But God is good… because he answered each and every one of those prayers.

Right now, I honestly feel so so so spoiled. I got a job, by the grace of God. And not a lame one. One that is going to count when I type up my resume I’ve been blessed in so many ways its ridiculous. I have filled the roommate quota, I have a job, I’m living in one of the most beautiful places, surrounded by beautiful friends, and blessed with an amazing family. No, really, my family is awesome. Its only at home where I can open the front door to my parents cooking in the kitchen, with tango music in the background then proceed to sit down and eat cheese and drink wine. Its a little European escape. But anyway, God has been saying “yes” to a lot of things, which makes the “no’s” really clear and I have peace about them…

My heart has really grown for Seattle. I think God has shown me how much I love the people of this city… and I feel that even though I might leave the country for a while, Seattle will always be where I come back to. Since Cairo, I’ve become a friendlier person… more prone to demonstrating random acts of kindness to the strangers around me on the bus, or more prone to smiling at those who hardly get any attention. I have this curse… where I want to be friends with everyone. Which can be a bad thing sometimes, but usually is a good thing.

I’m excited, because the church I love so dearest seems to have the same love for this city. I see broken people and places… but I know God has a plan.

A while ago, I saw something shocking. Really shocking. Basically, a man lit himself on fire and jumped out of a window. I only saw his body lying on the ground, burning. Yeah, its morbid… but it represented something deeper to me. It meant that in the Udistrict, there are more hurting people like him… and I want to stop them before they do something so horrific. I would hate to hear the story of that individual, and to think about the “should haves” … I dread those. I guess that’s why I want to be everyone’s friend. Because everyone hurts sometimes ( I think thats a country song somewhere, or I think it was on the bilboard of a chiropratic clinic), and I’m also a do-er, which means I want to fix it all.

I also have realized that there is power when communities come together. When I was in Cairo, I experienced a truly fragmented community… where no on talks to each other to understand differences to see that in reality, everyone doesn’t hate you. Yes, there is racism and things aren’t perfect, but I know that just TALKING is something that brings understanding. Something I truly hate is when people judge others with poor judgment and without knowing their full story. Judgment, in general,  should be taken with a pinch, but if you are going to formulate an opinion about a person, at least get to know them. Its like politics. People will see you as ignorant and stupid if you say something like “I think they shouldn’t legalize marijuana because it looks funny…”. SAME WITH PEOPLE.

Anyway. That’s the serious stuff. Life is good… I’m being stretched every which way. And I count it as a blessing.
Random things in my life? Well, I got a new cell phone… haha. It took me a while to do. I was kind of attached to my old one. Had many memorable photos.

I realized that the only colors I really like are: blue, green, purple, some shades of pink, and of course the standards of brown, black and white.

I’m reading a good book about Africa right now…

I’ve been watching Friends episodes in French to help me with my French.

I went Salsa dancing… two men asked me if I have a “novio” (boyfriend). I said yes… but I don’t. Sorry Fransicso and Elvis (yes, those were their names…).

School starts tomorrow. Praise Jesus.

OK. I must sleep my beautiful friends.

About a week ago, I had spent my first night home from Cairo. It has gone by really slowly… and it really doesn’t feel like a week since I departed from some people I love so dearly.

Since then, I’ve been adjusting to life at home. I think it has actually been harder to come back than it was to go live in Cairo. I don’t know why that is, maybe it’s because of the fact that I have to own what is around me as my own, and things get personal… hm.

I’ve become more concious of things around me, such as the cleanliness of America. It’s amazing, actually… no really. I don’t know how we do it. After being in Cairo and experiencing those sidewalks, I would seriously eat pizza off of the sidewalks of Mill Creek. It almost scares me how clean it is, but I guess it just shows our ability as Americans to organize and fix things. And the amount of wealth we have. I don’t know what about the Egyptian government doesn’t allow them to have people who consistently empty out trash cans on the street, or even PUT trash cans on the street. Or clean the squatty potties at the Giza stop (THAT was an experience to remember… lets just say I could TASTE the air it smelled so bad in that bathroom).

I’ve become more concious of my spending habits and I’ve realized how much I hate to want and need things I don’t really need. Because here’s the thing… I could most definitely splurge a little bit, and satisfy that craving to buy just a little something. But then I go home and everything else I see around me is screaming at me that I need more, when I don’t. It’s like a really bad relationship. I’ll never be happy if I were to give in to this. I pray for this part of my life… and that I stop craving material gratification.

Lastly, it’s been SO HARD to mentally juggle all of the different parts of my life. In Egypt, I did a couple of things and that was teach, live, love, sleep and eat. But they all stemmed from one, i guess you can call it, hub. Here, I have like… SEVEN different “hubs” from which come many different spokes. I have to slowly process the tasks of my life, and decide when to do them… its what they call, multi tasking.

MAN. I just realized I just touched on like… three of the biggest parts of American culture: luxury, materialism, and multi tasking.

So yeah. Right now I’m just trying to find my place in America, because I feel like an outsider… and I feel like I belong in a foreign country more than this one. But that’s OK! Because, I’ll figure myself out

xo
m

Here I am. I’m sitting on my bed, about the size that I shared with two other people while living in Cairo, Egypt for the past ~6 weeks. I’m currently a little daunted by the fact that i have to get up in the morning and actually have to make a CHOICE about what i want to wear. i have more than two shirts to choose from! and i dont know how i feel about that. even the choice to open up my itunes library had to be pre-planned and internally processed…

tossing toilet paper into the toilet is also strange. so is drinking water from the faucet…. and the silence that surrounds my neighborhood is slightly unnerving. the air isnt full of honks, cats howling, vendors yelling, the call of prayer…

however, adjusting to life back at home has been easier than i imagined. which is a huge blessing, because usually im incredibly grumpy and i hate America for a full day after my arrival. thats not to say that i wasn’t effected by the ditzy teenage girls on the plane with their hot pink blackberries and raunchy cosmo magazines… ANYWAYS.

im also a different person upon arrival. my hair is a little lighter, my skin a little darker, im five pounds lighter… those are probably the things you might notice superficially.

but cairo changed me. it really did. its funny, i didnt really realize how much it changed me until i got home and started seeing the ways that different things would rub me in a way that was different 6 weeks ago.

let me just give you an idea of how i was living:
i was living in a suburb called Maadi with five other people. one of those people was Kellie, my amazing partner in Egyptian crime. girl, you rock my world (“people watching people watching meeee…. its a reciprocal relationship!!!”). three of those was a Christian family from Eritrea, Salam, Dibora and Natu. They have a father and one more brother still in Eritrea, and they are all Christian. Then lastly, but NOT least, is Aisha. She is half Eritrean and half Sudanese and she’s incredible. She’s a Muslim woman with gumption but also a heart of gold that i miss everyday.

We all lived in an apartment. I shared a room, and shared a bed (which was basically two full [maybe a little smaller] beds squished together) with Salam

and kids, and Kellie. Aisha had her own room. i had NO personal space, except for the porch which i mentally claimed as my own. and it helped.

I took bucket showers. meaning, i had to fill a bucket, and sit in the bathtub with a pitcher and pour water over my head. sometimes water worked, sometimes it didn’t. bucket showers also aren’t the most thorough… i got rashes on my legs from the dirt and sweat that would cake on. however, they’re quite refreshing when you get back from a busy day walking around the city.

I washed my clothes by hand, and dried it all on a line. which was fun. can’t say its a thorough as a washing machine, but it got SOME of the grime out.

i drank a lot of hot sweet tea, and ate a lot of bread and not a lot of fruits and veggies. i probably had fruits and veggies 2x a week. which took a toll on my bowels. poor poor bowels… they took quite the blow this summer.

the average temperature during the day was between 90 and 100 degrees. which means i sweated a lot…. i haven’t sweated more in my entire life. it was gross, but i was actually able to adapt to the heat pretty well. right now in the states, my body is still adjusting to not being in such heat. i still complaing when its 80 degrees and im uncomfortable, but i didnt seem to complain in egypt as much. i think my host mom complained more than i did.

physically, i was usually exhausted and hot (like i already expressed). it made it hard to do many things, like serve, because you’re already so worried about keeping yourself going through the day. i can say that there wasn’t a moment on the trip when i was 100% comfortable. i mean, there was always something that bothered me… maybe it was that my feet were exceptionallly dirty, or i was pressed up against five other egyptian women on the metro, or it was just hot. its not that i didnt enjoy myself, because i absolutely did… but its just part of the experience.

egypt, in a nutshell is… dusty, chaotic and wonderful.

I would go back, i really would. its a beautiful place that challenges you and enlightens you in so many ways.

I heard someone say one time, that when you go into another culture, the most important thing to do is go in with a posture as a learner. That you, don’t know anything, and the people around you are going to educate you on how to go about this city efficiently and not offend people. I tried my hardest to do that, and I realized I did learn a lot, so I wrote some stuff down. And I’m here to share that with you, at least some that

I wrote down. I’ll also share a list of things that I like about Egypt. That’ll be later.

What Cairo Taught Me

1. SMILE at strangers, be friendly.

The women in Egypt are quieter… than me. haha. They aren’t the types to burst into laughter on the metro about something silly… they just calmly sit, sleep, and stare. This was something that really got to me, because I’m and incredible friendly person who wants to be best friends with everyone, and when I got this stand-offish vibe from the women, it was disheartening because I wanted to connect with them. But I remembered a quote that said something about how smiles are a universal language… and its true. I had to kind of “one-up” the friendly factor, and it helped. I soon learned I could crack the quiet, stern faces of these women with a quick smile. I hoped it would help them seem me as open and as an American who cares for the people around her.

2. How to properly cross a street.

Holy moley. I was mortified when I had to first cross a street in Cairo. Imagine this, a street with cars going about 45-50 mph, about four lanes of traffic and drivers who hardly look at the road while they drive. The way you gotta think is FROGGER. Or what I often did was stealthily stand behind an Egyptian man, who was also waiting to cross the street, and just follow him. Fearlessly. You just have to DO IT. No second guessing yourself being two things will happen 1) you get hit or 2) drivers get mad at you at yell at you in Arabic, which is never nice.

I honestly could cross 1-5 with the street-crossing skills I got in Egypt.

3.  The mechanics of a toilet.

I never knew you could flush a toilet by pouring water into the bowl, really… never knew that. I also never have had to open the lid on the tank and pull some random string inside to get my business to flush… Each time you used a toilet in Egypt, there was a different way of flushing it.  And if you were a newcomer to a certain toilet, a crash course was typically necessary on how to flush the toilet.  I will never take high water pressure, and a properly flushing toilet for granted. I have some funny stories about toilet-flushing problems, which I will not share on here…. but do ask me to tell you about them.

4. Trust and distrust in your community.

I saw both of these. In the Sudanese and Egyptian community, there was a certain trust that blew me away. People would freely give me their phone numbers and addresses after speaking to them for 5 minutes. And I thought to myself. “What makes you think that you can trust me? How do you know that I’m not going to march on over to your house and steal all of your prized possessions?” But the bottom line, Egypt has a collectivistic culture. Which means that my stuff is your stuff. Everyone is family, they fight in the open, they laugh, share water (it was quite common for strangers to ask me for water… which I would freely give, but it definitely was something to get used to. And I thought about how the people of Seattle would react if I asked them for a sip of their latte…). It’s a beautiful thing, really. I find that these kinds of cultures only exist where need is greatest. Cairo is poor, it is. But this poverty creates a huge family, who rely on eachother more than anything… because they need eachother. In America, we are all self-reliant… we fair well with just being on our own and buying our own water if we are thirsty. I guess to a certain extent its OK to be independent, but the trouble comes when we stop looking and recognizing the people around us and the need of our family, friends and strangers surrounding us.

In Egypt, there are racial tensions between the Egyptians and Sudanese. It breaks my heart, and I pray that this country will soon be reconciled. I experienced this first hand within my host family. Basically, Salam and her kids felt like they couldn’t trust anyone around them because they had been hurt so many times. They wouldn’t even let an Egyptian into their house because of the fear of what they might do… Salam wouldn’t even travel alone. I didn’t even want to tell her about the Egyptian friendships that I made because I feared she would think that I was taking sides, or would scold me and tell me that they were bad people. In all honesty, they were good people. I whole-heartedly believe that there are good and bad people in both groups. But, I could feel that Salam felt almost suffocated in her own community. I wish she would know that the Egyptian man who lives across the hall from her is a warm-hearted man with a wife and a kid, and he offered us water or food when we were sitting on the dusty groud outside of our apartment, locked out. I’m a fixer, and I will be the messenger if I need to in order to mend a relationship. But I couldn’t do it, because the problem was so deep.

5. Education is IMPORTANT.

I taught English in Egypt, and it was SO fun. I’m seriously thinking about doing it after I graduate… I don’t know where, but I will, hopefully. But I realized how importance it is for the children of these suffering nations to get an education. It gives them hope for the future, and self-worth. I pray for the the kids that I taught, and that they will be able to go far in life, go to college, and become something they have dreamed of. I saw so much potential in these boys and girls, and also thought about their broken past and how they are the future of their nations, and they are the people who can change their broken nations. I heard this story from China, and how during times of hardship in a certain city, the people would resort to education to give themselves some sort of the self worth because their government was taking away everything around them. However, the only thing the government couldn’t take away was their knowledge. And its absolutely true!! And I can help! How awesome is that?!

Bottom line:
Jesus loves Egypt. Its a place we all should learn from. In fact, we all have things to learn from the people who have less than us.

I hope to return to that beautiful dusty place.

- Marsha

i’ll be in MEXICO CITY. which is right before cairo…… hard to explain, we’re going to have orientation there, and debrief.

wow. im getting the “pre trip” jitters. i mean, i dont get jitters before i go on a trip to relax and enjoy myself… not to say that i wont enjoy Cairo. but the thing is that im going for an entirely different reason.

lets see…. things im scared of:
- getting insanely sick

- getting lost and kidnapped to iran or something crazy like that (thats a joke…bwahaa)

- culture shock
- missing the comforts of home, which is inevitable, but someone called Jesus is going to be with me the WHOLE TIME. how awesome is that?!

- being labeled as a stupid American.
- being culturally ignorant

things im looking forward to!
- culture shock. yes, i am. because its during these hard moments when you learn the most about yourself.
- being changed
- learning about God
- a different culture, completely different culture than i have ever experienced… ever.
- helping and doing Gods work
- trying some crazy foods
- kissing a camel… i promised a lot of people id do this… i also didnt specify the place i will kiss the camel. sooo, you’ll just have to see

OH MAN. Lord help me. YOU, help me. Pray for me, please. Pray for my jitters and that I learn to follow God better. because thats what i need, what everyone needs..

however, praise God for being omnipresent, omniscient, omni-amazing and all the other omni-whatevers that he is…. because its a lot. because he know exactly what is going to happen while I am there, which is great because… i sure dont. at all.

you know whats awesome, though? i almost have all of my money raised for this trip. isnt that awesome?? God really came through with that…. because i had faith in him, and he did it.

ok friends. here is a song that has been on repeat on my mac….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Lu32YrEfI

please enjoy. ill make it real for you, james morrison.  haha…

hi friends. currently, i should be doing one of a couple things:

1. working on my italian essay
2. reading ‘the tempest’
3. reading for sociology (BUT ITS SO EFFING BORING!)

but, im not. instead, i be downloading my thoughts…

God has been crazy amazing in my life. i’m sure you’ve been able to pick that up in the past posts. i guess its kind of cool you’ve been able to see the things God has done in my life….

I really found a place very dear to my hear this year. I think it was basically when God said “no” to Communications and “yes” to Sociology and International Studies. it’s nice,  when God cuts things off so easily  because you understand life a little better…  but its also painful and sucks sometimes. like recently:

I was planning on going to Mozambique this summer. I was really excited about it because I was excited about the location, learning Portuguese, and going somewhere not many have had the chance to go to. I was looking forward to sleepin in a tent for a month…  I put a lot of my heart into it. but sometimes when you follow God, you really can’t hold onto things very much. its like that song, “you give and take away, but my heart will choose to say, blessed be your name”. And that’s what i’m trying to do right now.

Because, we aren’t going to Mozambique… instead, we’re going to Cairo, Egypt. Wow. It’s one of those places that I’ve always said I wanted to go to, but did not believe that in any way I would get there, because there wasn’t a reason for me to go. Now, there is… and I’m going!!

We’re gonna be working with Sudanese refugees… teaching them English, and anything else. we’ll be staying in their homes… intense. i really don’t know what i’m getting myself into, but i know a couple of things: i will be changed through it, God is working, it’s going to be hard. those three things, im SO looking forward to.

I am sad about Mozambique. I still have visions of a lush african safari…. and sleeping under mosquito nets. but obviously I need to go to Cairo. so, i’m going to follow him and be his hands and feet to the people we owe a lot to.

other than that. life is good. spring quarter laziness has set in and the ratios of hours spent studying and hours spent doing other activities has changed significantly…. (hours spent studying has declined significantly). however, the quad is my new living room, and my skin is getting darker… so whatever! lets hang out!

today im going home to eat milanesa. argentinean food.
OH! and my bday is THIS THURSDAY! HA! AMAZING. Im extremely excited…  especially for the flood of facebook comments that comes with a birthday.

you guys are awesome. lets be friends and go get fro-yo.

and, listen to this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qGZ6vSWvI

xo
m