I am fascinated by the Metro.

Here the car doors do not slide shut with dignity and decorum. No soothing voice broadcast over loud speakers urges you to "please stand clear of the doors". There aren't even signs warning you to "mind the gap". The doors slam shut, separating those inside from those outside with an abrupt finality that plants questions in one's mind about death and the meaning of life and the Great Beyond. Woe to anyone who is caught in limbo at that time of judgement.

The school year (both for public grade schools and for universities) started on Sunday, and suddenly the morning streets are teeming with throngs of uniformed school girls and boys. Watching their antics is fast becoming another source of amusement in my life here. Yesterday as we rode the Metro to our school I bechanced to see one such school boy pulled up short in a struggle with the infamous doors. Boys are allowed in the women's car until they are about 12 or 13 years old, which is a daring and awkward and thus hugely entertaining age. This particular boy had taken a running jump into the car just as the doors started to close, and while he personally escaped the snapping jaws unscathed, the small backpack which dangled off one of his arms was not quite so fortunate. The doors caught it squarely and fairly, and he spent the next few moments tugging at it, his forehead wrinkled in dedicated concentration. Finally he gave up and waited patiently until the next stop, where the doors grudgingly slid open and released their prey.

I've passed my two week mark now. Strange, my time here seems so much longer than that. And yet at the same time the days have passed very quickly. Perhaps the routine of school has helped with both those impressions. Already I have established somewhat of a routine, so that I feel settled in, and I'm busy enough that the days fade into one another with astonishing rapidity.

I'm still impatient a great deal of the time. I have to force myself to look at the progress I have already made in Arabic... otherwise I tend to feel discouraged that I can't say more to people... or understand more of what they say. Patience. That's a scary thing to ask for. Usually it's taught to me through lessons I would rather not have.

And my impatience is not only with my Arabic. I have yet to find my place here, my place in the work, my place on the team. I came here not knowing, and my two weeks' worth of impressions has certainly not clarified that-- if anything I feel more overwhelmed. But my focus right now really should be on language learning, and that I can handle. And in the meantime-- I have made friends. We slowly and painfully eke out our conversations... very little English, very little Arabic, lots of hand gestures... and with this the relationships grow. Amazing how little common language is needed for friendship.

Friday morning as I reflected a bit on the week (Friday being the holy day here-- no school) I realized that I really had to be thankful that we had started school on Monday, whether or not I like class or want to continue with it. Without language school I would have spent the week wondering how on earth I was supposed to find my first language helper, I would have been much more in our flat with little to do, I would still have almost no Arabic, I would have less experience in getting around the city... in short, it would have been a rather dull week, in reality much more frustrating than anything has actually been thus far. Because of the necessary amount of time I have spent in getting from place to place this week, my flatmates and teammates are much less nervous about me being out on my own, and as a result of that I have a far greater amount of freedom than I think I would have otherwise. So, oddly enough, I have to be grateful for language school.

This does not, however, mean that I really wish to continue with it in the long term, and yesterday I spoke to my leaders about this. mafeesh mushkela, as we say here-- no problem. There is some question as to how long this first session of school actually runs... I have so far heard four, five, and six weeks.... The problem with asking questions here is that everyone wants both to be helpful and to save face, which means that if the person you ask doesn't know the answer then he'll make something up. (It's rather like talking to my sister Missy.) This is particularly a problem when asking for directions around the city; in general it is best to keep asking different people until you've gotten the same answer at least three times. Otherwise it's quite likely you'll end up going in completely the opposite direction. I have already experienced this a few times.... Anyhow, however much longer this class session lasts, there should be no problem with me moving to CBL (community based learning) afterwards.

This morning on the way home from my language lesson (not to be confused with language school... this is something different, just one teacher and one student) I was watching a man attempt to ride a bicycle down the major street near my flat. This was entertaining to me in many ways... first, because traffic in this city is chaotic and anarchic at best, and I simply cannot see how anyone with any bit of common sense would dare to attempt to bicycle around. To make things even more complicated and dangerous, it would be somewhat of an understatement to say that his wheels were out of alignment, and neither wheel was exactly round. And the tires were very flat. And on top of all these things, he was constantly muttering, whether to himself, the bicycle, or Allah, I don't know. Possibly all three. I stood for a moment and watched him as he weaved along and occasionally rolled over his trailing galibeyah.

It is at odd moments like these when suddenly I catch a glimpse of understanding that I am here. Here. Just as quickly it is gone again, but I am left shaken by the idea, by the realization, by the sense of distance, both geographically and culturally. And after a few moments my head clears and everything appears as it did before. Still this is not very real to me. Perhaps I am expecting too much of "real".

Seen from above the Metro during rush hour must look like one of those tile games where one square is missing and you slide the others around one by one until you've reconstructed the picture, or put the numbers in order, or whatever. There is constant movement in some part or another of the car as the women slide in and out, wriggling their way through the crush in a callously persistent effort to reach the doors in time to disembark at their stop, or scooting ever closer to a row of seats, waiting for someone to stand up so that they can slip into the vacancy, sometimes rather like a baseball player sliding into home. But slightly more dignified. For most of the line the car remains so tightly packed that it is completely unnecessary to hold onto a bar (even if I could reach one); when one sways, we all sway, and when one stumbles, we all stumble. A strange picture of unity. Slatted wooden shades are pulled down over the windows to block out sunlight and dust, and this only heightens the cattle car impression.

Thankfully, especially since the Metro is crowded at most times of day, the front car is reserved for women only, and between about 8 am and 4 pm the second car is also. We never ride anywhere else. If the throng in the women's car is uncomfortable, it's certainly not more crowded than the rest of the train, and sharing body heat and breath with Muslim women is always preferable to sharing them with Muslim men, who think that American women want only one thing (and it ain't diamonds or love).

We decide that tomorrow we must certainly leave by 7:30 at the latest, in an effort to beat the 8 am rush. The ride home in the afternoon is nearly as crowded until we pass out of the center of the city, and then we each manage to find a seat for the last 20 minutes of the ride. The wooden shade at my window is jammed open, and dust billows in through the opening. By the time we reach our stop my shirt is soaked through on my back with sweat, but the women across the aisle look completely untouched by the heat, despite being shrouded in polyester long-sleeve shirts and long skirts, with their heads tightly wrapped in huge scarves.
It must be in their genes.

Jet lag has struck with a vengeance.

One would think that given my last few days in the States, with their complete lack of anything remotely resembling a schedule pertaining to sleep, I wouldn't be having such troubles here. But this morning I was excited because I managed to sleep until 6:50-- that's almost two hours later than the morning before! But that's my most awake part of the day in what was formerly my normal residence (8 hour time difference), and so it continues to be the part of the day during which I am most awake... which makes me-- gasp-- a morning person. Oh, the shame!

But otherwise things here go well. After much protesting, wheedling, and assuring we would be quite safe, we (the four newcomers) convinced our other teammates that we could go out into the city today without being babysat at every moment. (This ended up meaning we only had to have one chaperone instead of four or five.) So today we wandered through the large market here in our city-- and I have successfully purchased Metro tickets and hailed and directed taxi cabs, thereby impressing several of my teammates with my derring-do and city smarts. Didn't take much.

And now I'm very, very tired, which hopefully means I will sleep long and well tonight. Not too long, however, since we're leaving at 7:15 tomorrow morning... for language school... where we will start language class. Plans for language learning have been altered a bit, it seems-- though I did finally determine today that after these first four weeks (for which we are already enrolled) I should be able to bow out of attending any more formal classes, if I so choose. As I probably will choose.

Much sleep is required before another day begins. So I betake my weary body to my very inviting bed.

Was Monday really the last that I wrote? Actually, I suppose that it's not that long ago. But it seems like it. So much has happened this week....

But at the moment all I will say is this: I am here. My (at least temporary) destination. My home for most of the next two years. I still don't think that it's quite real, but I think that seeing some of the city tomorrow will help. All I saw on the ride from the airport to my flat was the back side of my backpack and the bottom of the guitar case. It was a wee bit crowded.

But I am here. This is what matters.

Tonight I ran along the bayou, steadily ingesting hordes of small insect life for about a mile, till finally I could stand it no longer and forced myself to slow to a walk. A walk, it seems-- even a fast-paced walk-- allows time for the exacerbating little creatures to avoid at least my mouth. Really, I suppose it was my fault for running at dusk along the bayou.
[Author's note to non-Houstonians: The bayou, in this case otherwise known as Mason Creek, is merely a waterway... concrete-lined, like so many I grew up with in Oklahoma. Nothing so spiffy as it sounds.]

I'm hovering. I'm treading water. If I thought I was in limbo two and a half months ago, I was wrong. That was nothing compared to this. That was a mere ripple in the ocean of displacement. I've been pulled down by the undertow since then. I don't live here, I don't belong here, and there's no point in trying to settle in. I only exist, waiting, watching, wandering through each day in a vague hope that the date on my tickets will someday arrive. That I'll get on an airplane and go someplace else, someplace different, someplace far away. That those seven weeks of torturous schedules and sessions and convenant groups were not an end in themselves.

There is more than all this, I know. This is an in-between time. And I could go into the cheesy illustration of the trapeze artist, but I won't. Suffice to say, I'm feeling disconnected. Neither here nor there.

I grow tired of waiting. But I dare not ask for patience.