Kolme

I am standing in my kitchen listening to Bruce Springsteen and cooking dinner as I write this. Waiting for a frozen chicken to cook is a great time to contemplate. I have been thinking a lot about how much I don’t know. The more we have discussions on religion and politics and see the city and culture, the more I realize that a lifetime of experience and studying will not be sufficient to understanding this city, let alone the entire Middle East. It is true that studying another culture and language make one more aware of his own, but even so, I know so little about the reasons and nature behind the actions and values I have always taken for granted. How then can I learn and understand those of another? The history (or lack there of) of politics in this region brought up a great question: are the fundamental beliefs to blame, or is it the political stipulations and order? Basically it boils down to what drives human actions. And does this driving force change based on the physical boundaries or can they be universally felt by way of religious traditions? How do you even go about answering such a question? I have concluded that the next three months will not even be close to making a dent in my naivety, therefore I will have to return. (You all knew it was going to happen, I am sorry if this is sooner than expected.) I have discovered that Cairo’s strong point is definitely not drainage. On top of dodging taxies, donkey carts, and annoying men, I now have to walk through the Red Sea just to get to class. It is raining for the third time this week and I am so cold! Though considerably less than if I was in Seattle, I would like to point out that I am in a desert and was expecting heat. But the four marriage proposals I received today should make me feel a bit better, one of them being from a female. I volunteer at a nursing home and today the assistant head nurse told me that I was so beautiful that she was going to marry me. Then the head nurse told her that was not possible because she had three sons who were waiting for me. It was quite the ego boost. I am going to meet the youngest son next week. J.k., I would never do that! It is actually difficult differentiating between attention as a crude annoyance and simple acts of kindness. As of now, I remain a pretty skeptical receiver; hopefully I can trust people enough to see that some of it is just simple courtesy.