Pre-New-Year's-Resolution: Start blogging again.
That's one of my goals for the break. Another goal is to design and build an absolutely fantastic tower o' scratching, climbing fun for the cats-- something that looks like William Blake and M.C. Escher each put a little more than their two cents into the planning-- but blogging is a much simpler (and cheaper) goal to attain. At least in the short term.

I should be packing.

After much discussion, the consensus was the main downtown Houston fireworks display-- as long as we tried to find a place outside the actual Buffalo Bayou park. I balked at paying $6 a head to get into to see a fireworks display. Not just because I'm cheap-- though I am, and these days am especially so-- but more on principle. What happened to giving back to the community? Maybe this is what happens when your U.S. Independence Day celebration is sponsored by BP-- that stands for "British Petroleum". Is anyone else finding this at all ironic?

In the end, we didn't finish eating and laughing at VH1's "I Love the 80's" show (Kristin finally had to turn the TV off sometime in the middle of 1987 in order to get the boys off the couch) until almost 9:00, and the show was due to start at 9:25. Needless to say, between the time crunch and the inevitable Houston traffic, we didn't quite make it all the way down by the bayou, and finally we just parked it on the overpass where we were gridlocked, and then dragged the blanket out onto the grassy slope in the middle of the interchange cloverleaf. The oohs and ahs ended a little sooner than expected, however-- we were back in the car and pulling away by 9:45. So much for the much-publicized "30-minute" display. But we all had to agree that it had been a very good Fourth. Fun, relaxing, good food, great friends... and we were back at Kristin's within half an hour of the last sparks fading out of the sky. Who can beat that?

Kristin's 15-year-old brother was in town last week, and plans were in the works to go bowling on one of his last days here. The outing was never realised, and I can't say I'm too disappointed. The thought of trying to bowl left-handed with a six-pound ball (in which the finger holes would inevitably be too small) was not exactly thrilling-- and my therapists were none too keen on the idea either. Even left-handed.

A couple of friends from college are driving down on Thursday, and so it looks like I may have plans for the Fourth after all. My observances of the past few years have been decidedly dim-- two of the three weren't even in the country (not that I'm complaining)-- and the idea of grilling and shooting off a few fireworks with a small group of friends is very appealing. There's discussion of going downtown or out to Galveston, but I think I'd rather avoid the crowds.

Immobility breeds immobility. I know this well. And yet at some point it becomes far easier (in the short-term) to slog mindlessly along rather than make the effort to drag myself out of this morass of stupefying inertia.

And that pretty much sums up the past several days of my life.

This seems to be a lamentably easy state of affairs to achieve (if "achieve" is at all the appropriate word to describe such a slimy and slippery descent into lethargic hell) when one is living with one's parents.

Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to see clearly enough to move forward.
Right now I'm just trying to figure out which direction forward might be.

But the week I spent in Oklahoma was a good start. As the second installment in the "Prove I Really Am Alive" tour, it was quite a success. (A couple of my friends think that we should print up t-shirts: Sarah Potter, Alive and Kickin' in 2003. Have one of my more spectacular x-rays screenprinted onto the back of the shirt. Bring in some bands to do benefit concerts.) And being there and talking with people softened the horrible aimlessness and fear of the future that confronts me every day. There are desirable possibilities. Many of them. Or several, at least.

Time spent in the orthopedic surgeon's waiting room is always a good chance to regain some perspective. By this point I look fairly normal-- I can sit in a chair for more than a few minutes without looking (and feeling) extremely uncomfortable-- and so I almost feel like a fake, needlessly consuming time and space in a place where the real injured bring their pain to the altar in hopes of being healed. Of course, a simple reach with my right arm for a magazine on the table next to me, or the recollection of that painful twist in my upper arm resulting from attempting to steer with both hands while in the parking lot, is enough to reassure me that I too have the unwelcome and unrequested right to be here.

Still-- I have no cast or bandage or wheelchair, and my bright pink scars are concealed beneath my clothing. What do these others-- the "real injured"-- think as they see me sitting here, apparently whole and healthy?
Suck it up. You're not that bad off. Clearly.

But I left Egypt because of this, a selfish inner voice protests. I have tragedy too.

Yeah. Well. Suck it up. After this appointment I will get in the car and drive myself to physical therapy. Tomorrow I drive alone to Fort Worth, and then on to Norman on Friday.
It could be worse.

I am in... have been in... the doldrums of recovery. There's my excuse for not posting. It's just been difficult to believe that anyone would care to read dismal postings about the repetitious pettiness of my current existence.

But today, hamd-el-allah (I miss saying that), is a definite improvement over the past week and a half or so. Life doesn't seem quite so drainingly bleak as it has most often lately. The prospect of my trip to Norman this weekend contributes to that, I'm sure.

I think I'm finally regaining a bit of my late-night self. Getting back to more of a normal (for me, at least) sleep shedule at last. The slight down-side to this is that I have to get up every morning at 6:20 to take my mother to work. But then that leaves me the perfect excuse for an afternoon nap.

I'm really beginning to miss my meals of Egyptian rice and cucumber-and-tomato salad. So I decided to indulge in some late-night grocery shopping. Gd bless 24-hour grocery stores. That's something I really do love about the U.S.

I've had a surprisingly social past week. Surprising, because other than my immediate family the only person here whom I really know is Kristin. But a friend from college was in town last week to visit his parents, and beginning with my birthday last Tuesday I seemed to acquire quite the social life. It was nice. Gave me some interaction outside the house (besides physical therapy) to look forward to.

I miss speaking Arabic. I have the name of a woman who works with an ESL program in the area, and rumour is that my Arabic skills could be put to use. Now that I've worked out medical arrangements and started a fairly regular therapy schedule, I'm hoping to find out more about helping with that.

People here are very interested in where I've been living for the past many months. Interested on their terms, that is. They ask a lot of questions, most of which seem not quite relevant to my life there, thus making them very difficult to answer.
I try not to get into political discussions.

Things here are familiar, but the familiarity seems to be a bit out of focus. I haven't yet had any major heart problems over seeing people wear shorts in public-- in fact, I've worn them myself once or twice already. Nor has seeing the large houses and lawns and cars and the general extravagance of this enclave of self-satisfied Suburbia caused me any more stress than previously. I think I'm compartmentalizing all that. It simply is different. Doesn't even go under the same heading as where I lived for the past eight months. Still, there is a part of me that wonders at all these things. But it is a detached wonder.
A lot of things seem detached these days.

Kristin came over last night to help me rearrange some books. I walked into my room last Wednesday afternoon and was floored by the number of books on the shelves. I'd forgotten. My mother, bless her, unpacked them all for me sometime last fall. They're in a bit of a disarray (somehow Pascal's Pensees ended up in the middle of the linguistics section; I found Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son rubbing shoulders with various Bibles and holy books-- there's definite humour in that), but it's good just to see them all. Like greeting old friends.

_________________________________________________
Written Tuesday, 6 May 2003:
Eight months ago this evening I arrived in this country. Tonight I leave it.
There is an irony in the precision of that timing that makes me smile. And as a small bonus-- one month ago today, seven months after I came here, was my surgery.

Goodbyes have been said. Bags packed. Finances settled (insha-allah). And in slightly less than 24 hours I should be in Houston.

I don't know that there's anything else to say at this point.
_________________________________________________

And now I am actually here. In Houston. At least I think I'm here. That doesn't seem quite possible. I think I'm still reeling. It could take me quite some time to sort through this past month. So much has happened and changed.

A couple good points of being here: I have a stereo. No more Metallica eeked out through headphones. And the toilet paper is very soft.

One-handed typing is extremely frustrating. But I'm going to try to start posting again. A little bit at a time.

Major accomplishment of the day: I wore a shirt with both arms actually in the sleeves. Versus the one-armed humped style I've been favouring recently.
Tomorrow's excitement: my staples and stitches are supposed to come out.

I'm sitting here wrapped in an afghan and holding my computer on my lap, which means that all of me is warm and snuggly and comfortable... except my feet, which seem to have morphed into the usual and banal blocks of ice. I could go put on other pair of socks, but I'm either too lazy or too stubborn-- I'm not sure which right now.

I've been sick of hearing about the war since the second or third day of it, so all I'm going to say about that is that life here is proceeding pretty much as normal. I'm not allowed to go into certain neighborhoods, and unfortunately all of my local friends live in those areas, but other than that things have already settled back into the former schedule of classes and lessons and meetings.

The other day I was looking back over some of my posts from the last few months, and I realised that for quite some time now I have no longer felt I can write about anything beyond the most superficial levels of my life. I don't like that. I'll have to think what I can do about it.

Someone called during my lesson this morning to let me know it was okay to go out and buy food. That's what I was told. My rather liberal interpretation of that permission allowed me to make the few minutes' walk up to look at the sea-- which I hadn't seen at all since last Monday. Everything seemed very normal, and the people with whom I spoke were as friendly as ever. No problems.

For at least two months now it has been a part of my morning ritual to check the news to see if war has begun while I slept. After so much time, this morning's news that the attacks had finally started seemed almost surreal. And those moments of trying to assimilate the news seem several days away now. Per instructions and warnings, I haven't been outside much over the past two days, but today was the first day of actually being unable to leave my building. From my balcony I could see the sun shining and the girls in the school across the street going to and from their classes, and I could hear the shouts of the vegetable hawkers and imbuba suppliers rise from the street below. Everything seemed perfectly normal. I did hear on the news tonight that there were some protests and demonstrations today in a few cities here. One in the capital ended in violence when the riot police came to break it up. The real test is tomorrow, when everyone gathers at the mosques for the holy day.

Still, everything seems very calm, and I expect to be able to go out again in a couple of days.

It's difficult to believe that it's been nearly two weeks since I last posted. It doesn't seem that long at all. But I look back over those days and realise that I really have been rather busy... which has been a good thing. Besides the continuing language study (and these days I actually have homework too), I've been out visiting, and in this country a short visit is a mere five hours long. A couple of weeks ago I met two girls (who are actually women, since they're married, and that's the dividing line in this culture) while I was out searching for yarn, and since then I've gotten to meet their family... lots of family.

An interesting difference I've found here: in the US, the more "country" people are, the slower they speak. Here, the more "country" people are, the faster they speak. This family speaks Arabic with the speed of an experienced auctioneer with a well-oiled jaw. And, as I told someone else, "they don't speak a lick of English."
Speaking of country.

Which law of physics is it which states that, given that I have a desire to catch a taxi, as I approach the street but before I am within hailing distance I will see at least three empty taxis fly by, but as soon as I arrive at the corner there might as well be a tumbleweed blowing across the road while a steel guitar moans from somewhere off stage left? Or, alternatively, there are still taxis rushing by-- but all are occupied. Tonight I stood on the seaside road for nearly five minutes, clutching my several bags of groceries et al. and squinting to see through the sandstorm that had arisen while I was inside, only to watch dismally as taxi after taxi flashed by, transporting those luckier than I to their desired destinations.

And then, of course, there's the lesser known but equally frustrating natural law which states that all taxi drivers except mine will disregard one-way street signs. Apparently each one gains some sort of instant law-abiding conscience as soon as I climb into the taxi. My building is hidden within a warren of supposedly one-way streets and confusing switch-backs and dead-end roads. Tonight I discovered that yet another street that I had formerly assumed ran in both directions (since traffic flow on it had always seemed to indicate such) is in fact officially one-way-- in the opposite direction from which we needed to go, of course. That's another inevitability. One-way streets always run in whatever direction is most inconvenient at that particular moment.

I'm back home again after another quick trip. The birthday party last night was a great deal of fun-- food, presents, and music. And music is inevitably accompanied by dancing. One of the American girls had recently acquired a drum in a village she visited, and so they passed around the drum and took turns playing, with everyone else joining in singing. (Everyone, that is, except the ignorant Americans who didn't know the words.) That led to the inevitable dancing (which always makes me think that it's no wonder they make the women cover)-- and then after a while someone decided it was time for the "English dance". [warning: the following may expose generation gaps] Evidently, at a party a few weeks ago (which I unfortunately missed), the girls had asked to learn an American dance, so Brandi and Melissa taught them the Electric Slide. But that wasn't what they really wanted-- as one of them put it, they wanted to dance like people dance on television. So Brandi put in her Skillet CD (that's a band) and they started moshing. (If you don't know what that is, think rock concert, right in front of the stage. Better yet, talk to someone my age (or my father); they can explain it to you. Ask them to demonstrate.) I spent most of the first song doubled over in the floor laughing. The whole idea of it-- being in this country, with friends from another, neighboring country, having a birthday party, moshing to Skillet-- was simply too much for me. Eventually the first attack of hilarity passed and our "mosh pit" really got going. We even convinced the mom and the aunt to join in for a few minutes. The neighbors probably thought we were tearing the apartment apart. In the States they would have called the police.

I meant to be in bed about an hour ago, but then I picked up the guitar.... I have class in the morning, and after last night's excitement and late bedtime, I'd better try to get a decent amount of rest tonight.

My visits with old friends were wonderful-- it was very refreshing to see them again and to know that some sort of impact has been made through my living here thus far. Two of them have birthdays this week (they're sisters), and since I have to be back in town for a meeting Friday morning anyhow, the birthday party will be on Thursday night so I can be there. And hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks they'll be able to come visit me here.

I spent Saturday afternoon with my former grammar tutor and her family. She traveled to the States back in mid-November-- actually, my last lesson with her was the day I found out I was being reassigned, but at the time I didn't really know yet whether I would be moving and was having trouble processing the news anyhow... so she didn't know I'd moved until she came back in January. Amazing what can happen in two months. By that point I was already feeling settled in here.

I finally started school yesterday. It's a small school (there aren't a lot of serious independent students of Arabic in this city), so there will be only one other woman in my colloquial class, and my classical Arabic lessons will be on my own. So it should still be all pretty much at a pace I set-- but I also really think that the added structure will help me catch up a bit after the time I've lost over the past couple months.
And I always think it's exciting to get new books.

I went with some people today to visit a friend who lives in a small town not too far from this city. Our trip there and back required multiple taxis and micro-buses-- that was a cultural experience in itself. Definitely an exciting way to travel. Never a dull moment. Most of our visit was spent in preparing food, most of the rest of the time in eating that food, and the last bit in walking on the beach. It's difficult to imagine a better agenda for a visit. The turquoise blue of the sea today was so intense it looked as though the water had been dyed. Who knew that water really could be that color?

I travel tomorrow to visit some old friends that I haven't seen since our Christmas party the day before I moved here. That makes it two months, almost exactly-- I'm excited to be able to see them again.

Much silence of late. I have no explanations to give.

I realised the other day that my time before moving to this city seems as though it was only a short time of transition and preparation for living here-- odd, since when I came to this country I had no thought of living anywhere but there, at least for quite some time. But life now, since moving just before Christmas, feels much more settled and normal and real. Even with the ongoing language learning limbo (though I did have another meeting with the school director this morning-- insha-allah, next week...) and my difficulties in meeting people here. For some reason I can more readily believe that I live here, that this is my home. Perhaps that's mostly a result of having lived in this country for nearly six months now. A natural adjustment to the total length of time, rather than a consequence of any differences between this residence and my former abode.

Things continue to feel very much the same out on the streets. Maybe sometimes people are a little more emphatically friendly, as if they're trying to make a particular point or overcome a suspected assumption by the force of their welcome. My watching of the news has rather noticably decreased. I'm still interested, I still know want to know what's happening, but the daily contrast between the ominous harbingers of war and the pleasant hospitality of the people here was causing undesirable schisms in my thought life.
Life makes slightly more sense this way.

An addendum to my last post: Today my language helper asked me if I'd seen the snow the other night. She asked the question in Arabic, except for that one all-important word, and that she said in English: "snow". I laughed a little, especially remembering my own wishful comparisons, and tried to explain the difference. The problem is that there's only word in the local Arabic. The word telg refers to any frozen water (and maybe other frozen liquids too; I'm not sure), no matter if it's hail falling from the sky or frost clogging up the freezer. So snow (and presumably sleet and freezing rain and other such fun gifts of an Oklahoma winter) is also telg. And since almost no one here has ever seen snow, and my Arabic isn't quite up to elaborations on the crystalline structure of frozen H₂O or meteorological lectures on the formation of such precipitation, about the most mutual understanding that was achieved, I think, is that pieces of snow are much, much smaller than pieces of hail.

It's hailing. That's kind of like snow, right? Like sleet and other forms of winter precipitation? At least in that it's frozen? I'm not sure that it actually makes launching into joyous renditions of "Winter Wonderland" or "Let It Snow" anymore apropos, but one can pretend. One has to pretend. This is by far the most winter I'm going to see anytime soon.

My language helper is wonderful. She has no grandiose ideas of trying to keep me "on track"-- she'll let me rabbit-trail off into whatever digression I choose, so long as I continue speaking Arabic. This is good, in my opinion. Lesson plans and outlines are for grammar classes.

Busy days... and yet if someone asks what I do all day, I'm stumped. But people keep reassuring me that's quite normal here.

I do have my first official language lesson on Sunday morning-- that's certainly something for which to be very thankful. The proposed trip to the zoo last Wednesday morning was unfortunately never realised, due to inclement weather. Rain. Lots of it. Monsoon-style, almost.

I've met a German couple at the international fellowship I attend here, and there's been much mutual pleasure in my attempts to speak German. "Attempts" is definitely the correct word for it. I can understand most of what they say, but anything I try to say starts out in Arabic, fades into German (with a great deal of effort) around the middle of the sentence, and then slips back into Arabic by the end. Fortunately they've studied some Arabic too, so they at least can still understand me, despite my garbled speech patterns. But I've also found that if I do anything much in German, whether it's speaking to this couple or reading at home, then German creeps into my Arabic a bit... and very few people here know any German. In fact, I haven't yet met anyone who does. It really confuses people. I've been known to utter sentences such as, "Mumkin, ich 'aiza die shanta sehen"-- which exactly alternates between the two languages, word by word. And is, around here, simply incomprehensible, though to me (and I suppose also to the German couple) means, "Please, I'd like to look at that bag."
At least someone understands.

A few whirlwind days later, I'm back, safely ensconced in my own quiet apartment, enjoying the company of an inquisitive white cat who, like my own dear Emily, finds my activities in front of the computer of perpetual interest. Fortunately this one (who answers to "Kitty") has not yet become actively jealous of my close relationship with my laptop, though clearly she too thinks it a shame that such an object should so monopolize a perfectly comfortable lap. She's only with me for a couple weeks while her owner travels out of the country. Hopefully the competition between cat and computer will not grow too fierce in so short a time.

My trip to the capital was mostly good-- at least the majority of my time there was spent pleasantly. The meeting I attended was nightmarish, but I've come to expect little else. Despite my impression of busy-ness during those two days, looking back on them I feel as though I'd wasted a good deal of time. I saw very few people I needed to visit and accomplished none of the errands I had planned. Probably I'll have to go again soon.

The stupendously-stupid-Sarah moment of late: last night I stuck a marshmellow on a fork and roasted it over a gas flame. Nothing unusual about that. I did that during college. This time, however, I had more than the usual trouble removing the hot toasted marshmellow from the fork, and in my struggles I inadvertantly clamped my mouth down around the fork itself. Was the metal still hot? Let's just say this: from the blister patterns on my upper and lower lips one could quite easily deduce that the roasting utensil in question was four-tined.

The cat has decided to compromise rather than fight-- at the moment she has curled herself up in the narrow space left open in front of the computer. And has quite promptly gone to sleep with the front half of her body draped over my left forearm. I expect that hand will soon go to sleep.

Tragedy of the day:
This morning I sliced strawberries and a banana, pulled out the box of really great granola cereal, opened the refrigerator, and found... NO YOGURT. Milk was not a worthy substitute. Rather disgusting, actually. No longer the breakfast of champions.

And now... the rest of the story.

This morning I made the trek back downtown to make my second attempt at picking up the package my mother had sent me. Now familiar with the building, I walked straight upstairs and underneath the rattling conveyor belts to the back corner cage-- which, I have now learned, is where they send the international packages that come with insurance. My friends were, of course, ecstatic to see me, and we spent a few minutes in pleasant chit-chat before getting down to the business at hand. Forms were filled out in quadruplicate, notes were made, my passport was examined again, and finally a whole sheaf of papers, supposedly all relating to my (by now surely infamous) package, was sent upstairs to some unknown dark cranny of an office. The ladies made tea and we settled in for what promised to be a not-insignificant amount of time. Conversation moved from the weather to how much I like this city to their children-- at this point I found out that the older daughter of one of the women is named Sarah, which explains at least part of the instant liking they took to me. Names are very important here. About half an hour later, the go-fer man returned with a few sheets of official-looking and heavily-scribbled-upon forms. A few minutes scrutiny of these forms revealed that the total tariff due on my package had been reduced to a fifth of the originally quoted price. An absolutely unlooked-for blessing. This is completely unheard of. People will be talking about this for years. I'm happy, my friends are happy (it's due entirely to their efforts that this drastic cut in duties has been obtained), a couple other people wander into the cage and they're happy too. We all laugh and talk for a few more minutes, and then I am allowed to help as the day's newly arrived packages are opened and inspected and tagged and reported upon. Nothing of very great interest, except for the disgusting tar-like substance they use to reseal the opened boxes. On Tuesday I had almost tripped over a bucket full of the stuff. It looks at least slightly toxic and quite possibly lethal. I'm still cleaning it out from underneath my fingernails.

But back to the warehouse---- At this point we are still waiting for the final mysterious paperwork to descend from the exalted heights of the upper-floor offices. To pass the time, one of the women helps me read through a couple of the forms lying scattered around her desk. I'm extremely pleased with the number of words I recognize, small though it is. This is definitely a vocabulary situation I have not yet encountered in lessons.

Finally the required forms arrive, and I'm handed the slip of paper I must take to the cashier in the next building over. The insured-packages-cage go-fer will carry my package for me. Goodbyes ensue, and about five minutes later we've all ma'salaamed each other for the last time. At last I negotiate my way through the lines and the windows and pay my money. The package is mine. I have socks now. A new sweater. A wonderfully warm afghan. And, of course, two very important tubes of cork grease.

Last night's (Monday's) town hall meeting, sponsored by the American embassy, was disappointingly bland. No explosions or gas masks, no hysterics, none of the raw emotion I was so hoping to be able to observe.

I was sitting at home afterwards, pinching myself to stay awake until a reasonable hour rolled around at which I could finally go to bed, when my boab knocked at my door with a package notice in his hand. The long-awaited afghan-containing package from my mother. Ensuing discussion established that the place where I needed to go to pick up this package was very far away, near the main train station downtown, and that it must be a very large package and consequently would probably be expensive. (Duties are charged on all things shipped into the country.) My boab was terribly sorry, he wouldn't be able to go with me in the morning, but his sister's husband would come by at about 9:00 (which by the end of the conversation had moved to 10:00) before he was going to pick up something from the same place. If I liked, I could go with him and he would help me.

I woke up this morning and immediately wanted nothing more than to roll over and spend the rest of the day in bed, but the thought of my package forced me up and into clothing. By 10:30 I had decided to seize fortune and go by myself-- mostly so that I could get back to bed as quickly as possible. My boab gave me detailed instructions on what to tell the taxi driver and where to go in the building itself, and before I could leave he made me repeat all of it back to him three or four times. Surprisingly, the trip downtown was extremely uneventful, and I was soon standing in front of a dingy old multi-stored building that I might have at first glance have assumed was abandoned, if it weren't for the multitudes of people milling back and forth and in and out of the lobby of the place. Still following the directions of my boab, I went up two flights of stairs to the "first floor" and entered a vast warehouse of a room, crisscrossed by clanking conveyor belts and chutes that dropped down into huge cages filled with clerks and packages. A woman looked at my package notice and escorted me to the far back corner of the cavern, where after exchanging the usual pleasantries with the smiling woman behind the table I managed to get down to the business of obtaining my package... a business that lasted an hour and a half... thus far. I still don't have my package. Negotiations required multiple trips to another floor and several other offices, frequent and perplexed consultations of a few post and customs manuals, and many expressive hand gestures. Apparently no one around spoke English, and the situation at hand was admittedly a bit of a stretch for my Arabic. Which is, of course, the fun of going alone.

Eventually we were able to agree on a few things: yes, I would accept (and pay for) the package in question, despite the rather pricey tariffs placed on the socks, but no, I could not obtain said package today because they were still not sure if the medicine was legal. Medicine? I didn't remember my mother saying anything about sending me any medication. And she didn't declare it on the customs form attached to the package, a form I had now had ample opportunity to peruse. Maybe, suggests one man, it's vitamins. This, I think, sounds at least somewhat plausible. She's worried about my calcium intake again. So I agree, yes, maybe they're vitamins, and this prompts a discussion of how worried my mother is about me, since I live so far away from her. She doesn't think I eat right at all. Maybe they're vitamins. Finally we decide that I can come back on Sunday and maybe then my package will be cleared for pick-up. Back downstairs to the warehouse, where the two women who were originally helping me there welcome me back like a long-lost cousin and decide that I can see the contents of my package, even though I can't take it home with me. They like me; they know I'm curious. So we open the box and pull out socks, a sweater, an afghan, and... two tubes of cork grease, which I have been desperately needing for the thirsty joint corks of my clarinet. Ah, I think. The medicine. The mystery of the medication may now be apparent to me, but unfortunately explaining the solution to my new friends is a little more taxing. Very few people here have heard of a clarinet (and even those who have require visual aids for identification and recognition), but I manage to get some of the idea across-- I play a musical instrument similar to the flute (true, but ouch-- that hurt) and these inexplicable white plastic tubes are for that. Ah. Despite my poor explanation, I can see a spark of understanding. By this point everyone is utterly charmed by me, so the two women say that they will resubmit the paperwork on my package and will explain that these are my clothes, for me only, and that I am a poor student here. insha-allah this will reduce the amount of money required to free my package. Back upstairs, where we (I with the help of one of my friends from the warehouse cage) explain to the director that this is not medicine, it's for my musical instrument.... Ah. Well, in that case, the director will speak to her director tomorrow, and then I can come back the day after that and retrieve my things-- insha-allah, of course. Closing pleasantries, and at last I am outside and hailing a taxi to go home. To bed.

Note of interest: impatient and persistent ringing of my doorbell while I was in bed this afternoon finally prompted me to struggle out of bed and to the door, where I found that the impatient door-ringer had exited, leaving a package leaning up against my door. A package mailed from the States. Delivered to my door, still sealed, with apparently no tariffs assigned to it. Containing a book and a CD (and CDs are not very common here) from my friends J.r and Heidi. The difference? I haven't a clue. Logic of any Western type at all hasn't applied to my life in months. Maybe the post office liked Heidi's handwriting more than my mother's. Who knows.

Not much happening these days. I mostly keep my nose buried in books, mostly of the literary or linguistic variety. Still waiting to be able to start language lessons again. Waiting, for a plethora of diverse events, seems to be a major part of my life right now. The state of the world today, both on a local and a global level, is a great breeding ground for patience. Or impatience, depending on how positively I'm reacting at any given moment.

I should be thankful. It's a refining process.

Tomorrow night there is a so-called "town hall" meeting here-- entrance requires an American passport. I'm really curious to hear the reactions of others to recent events. And to know what possibilites they're considering for the near future. Deadlines of all sorts are approaching, and I seriously doubt that in the end the way things pan out will be as anti-climatic as Y2K. Too many forces are already in motion.
All this will make a great story some day.

Living here I have to wonder: is the only reason I have been assumed to be American for the greater part of my life that I have lived that greater part in Oklahoma, where clearly, unless given much immediately obvious evidence to the contrary, the most legitimate assumption is that nearly everyone is, in fact, American? (Feel free to write and comment/complain on the length of that sentence. I'll gladly refer you to Faulkner.) Because here, if I never admitted I was from the U.S., evidently no one would ever guess. I am most of the time German, very occasionally British (that usually only if the person inquiring has heard me speaking English), but almost never American. It's probably been almost three months since the last time someone guessed I was American. Certainly there is a noticeable population of Americans here, so it's not that meeting one would be anything of a rarity. One theory is that these days everyone here is hoping that you're not from the U.S. People here, in general, like foreigners and wouldn't want to have anything immediate to hold against any of them. And as world tensions rise, this may become even more often the case. But that's not the excuse for me. I've been German since I stepped off the plane back in September. I'm pegged as a European even when I'm in the company of people who are immediately reconizable as Americans.
It's an interesting phenomenon to me.

For the past several days I've been in an odd funk, and though I had occasional moments of clarity and light, I was unable to dispell the mood for very long. This afternoon as I was walking to the tram stop suddenly the cloud lifted. All was better again. Impossible to predict or understand, but immediately I was once again contented at the thought of being here, invigorated by the challenges of cross-cultural living, and excited by the knowledge that every tram ride is a potential opportunity for meeting someone new.

This evening I went with one of my friends (American) to a cafe. She had brought a book to read, and I pulled out a notebook and started working on some Arabic verbs. Amy watched, fascinated, as I began listing the verbs and then writing sentences using them in different tenses. I was evidently quite a distraction from her book (though for those of you who know her, you also know that she doesn't need much external help to become distracted)-- she kept remarking on how impressed she was that I was voluntarily and independently studying Arabic. Finally I laughed at her and explained that in the past two days I have, in some way or another, used four different languages. Language study is, for me, nothing impressive or remarkable. It's simply what I do, given any chance at all. A function of my personality. An odd quirk I possess. Really, I thought that the unusual aspect of the situation was that Amy was reading a book.

Did you know that one might play a game with some other object than winning in mind? I had heard that such people might exist. But I couldn't really imagine it. Why play if not to win? I'm not talking about a cut-throat, devil-take-all, no-blood-no-foul mindset (I reserve that for Spades and Risk), but just in general-- isn't a desire to win a natural part of engaging in competition?

Apparently not for everyone. Apparently some people play games with only the goal of enjoying the company of other people. Nothing more. These are usually the sort of people who decide to be nice at some point and bend the rules so that someone doesn't feel bad.

????????????????

Such tactics (or lack thereof) catch me off guard, throw me off balance, cause me to loose my footing in what would otherwise be a fairly natural setting for me. Much more natural, at least, than mingling and standing around pretending to be interested in whatever superficial banalities people bring up in an attempt (usually unsuccessful) to provoke semi-stimulating discussion. Ah, a game. Something to wrest us all from small-talk-induced somnolence. So I would usually think. But when you throw into the mix a need to be nice to people, to spare their feelings at the cost of a true spirit of competition, then I'm left perplexed and uncertain of myself. My uneasiness shows itself as my behaviour erratically swings from quiet withdrawal to overly pushy comments and suggestions.

You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your co-workers, I guess. No doubt they find me just as difficult to understand as I do them. At least as difficult.

I realised sometime today that there had been a signficant lapse in my posting. It seems impossible to me that nearly a week has gone by already. How easily the days do pass. It's been an eventful week; I do have my reasons for the silence.

This morning I had a meeting with the director of the school I'll be attending, and, assuming that schedules work out favourably, I could be starting that by the end of this week. I've been determined to prevail in the quest for what I need in language study, and so at the school I'll be spending my time in a fairly even split between colloquial and classical Arabic. They're nearly two different languages (actually, I'm not always so sure that statement needs the qualifer "nearly"), so this will require noticeably more study and practice on my part. I found out today that I won't be able to start meeting with my conversation helper until almost the end of this month, so at least I'll have some time to settle into the new school curriculum.

Of course, there's always the chance that by that time I won't even be here anymore. Depending on how the high-and-mighty punjabs of the world decide to move their game tokens between now and then.

In other, more exciting news, I made a near-perfect pot of rice tonight.

I'm back from the retreat and can now look forward to at least a week of staying here in this city. Today we finally began to make measurable progress towards getting me into language study again. By this time next week things should really be rolling in the right direction. I'm glad-- I can tell that I've lost a significant amount of speaking ability over the past month, due to an unfortunate combination of no lessons and too much time with Americans.

But even more exciting than the progress on my language learning was the late-breaking news about music. I borrowed a guitar today, because I'm going to start practicing with another girl about once a week, and while picking up the guitar I was told that if I wanted I coud probably start taking some music lessons-- most likely classical guitar or 'ood (a tradition instrument closely related to the lute). If I wanted? And in addition to all this, I was told that someone will very soon be loaning me an accordion for as long as I will want it. Good news for me, though maybe not so much for my neighbors.

Everything's working so smoothly this morning-- perhaps I've finally worked out all the kinks. I'd hate to think that it was just a simple error in my archive template that was causing so many problems for so long.

I've five gazillion eggs to boil today so that I can devil them later. Must get started.

Last night for New Year's Eve I decided not to barge in on the family celebration to which I'd been invited (invited by a couple who was also going-- I had never met the family). After the excitment of my trip back to my old city and back (more on that another time) I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to stay awake until midnight, and I certainly wasn't sure I had the mental clarity left to be sociable with strangers. One of my friends was sick and hadn't been out of her apartment since last Thursday, and two of my friends moved here on the train with me yesterday (closely related to the aforementioned excitement), so we decided to have a quiet night of pizza, Chinese food, and a movie.

As I left my apartment building on my way to join my friends, my boab (doorman) stopped me and told me that I needed to make sure I came home early that night. You need to understand that there's a definite class system here, and trust me, it's far from normal for a boab to give one of his tenants an order like that, however polite his tone of voice. I thought I must have misunderstood him. (He doesn't speak any English.) So I asked him to say it again, and he started explaining to me that I must be home by 11:00, because it was very bad to be out on the streets after that time. I was flabbergasted. Apart from occasional harrassment from too-friendly men and the crazy style of driving here, this is probably the safest city I've ever lived in. I thought perhaps he was trying to protect my reputation (women aren't usually out late here), but I told him that it was the new year and I had to be at my friend's house until midnight so we could all welcome the new year together. He smiled then, and said that would be fine, as long as I didn't come home until 12:30 or after. By this time I was thoroughly dumbfuzzled, but I said goodbye to him and went on my way. Fortunately, a couple of my friends were able to clear up that mystery for me. (They've been here a lot longer than I have.) In this city, in addition to setting off the usual firecrackers at midnight, people welcome in the new year by throwing glass and plastic bags filled with water into the streets from their balconies. So yes, it's very bad to be on the streets from about 11:30 till whenever everything quiets down again... usually by 12:30. We, of course, had to join in the celebration. The girl at whose apartment we were didn't have any glasses or plates she was willing to toss into the street, but we filled nearly a dozen bags with water and slung them off her balcony, watching each of them explode with satisfying splats on the concrete far below. Glass and flaming fireworks rained down from the apartments above us, and we took care not to stick our heads too far out from underneath the shelter of our balcony ceiling.

By about half-past, the streets were quiet again, except for the clatter of the occasional rogue firecracker, and so I set out for my apartment. I thanked my boab for his warning and dragged my weary body up the stairs and into bed.