Still trying to avoid finding a new site for blogging.... I thought I'd found a way. It seems not. But I am not defeated yet.

I've been trying to post the same thing since last Friday night, and I still can't get it out and actually on to my blog. Probably this won't go for a while either. But for when it does....

I successfully moved into my new apartment on Saturday night and since then have unpacked and arranged and fidgeted just about everything into place, I think. At least for the moment. Most of the knick-knacks which came with the apartment are now hiding in a dark corner inside the wardrobe in the back bedroom. And have subsequently been replaced with books. There is, after all, nothing else with which I would rather decorate.

My major mission for the day is baking two pies, one apple and one strawberry-- my contributions to the Christmas feast tomorrow. Tonight there's a multi-lingual midnight mass downtown, and some of us will go sing in Christmas day at that.

Locally Christmas happens on January 7, according to the Orthodox calendar. I'm curious to see what, if any, accompanying changes appear around here. Probably still no Santa Claus or canned Christmas lounge music. What an utter shame.

I awoke grudgingly this morning, and as I lay in bed trying to convince myself that yes, I should go to the service and yes, it was necessary to get up in order to do that, I heard the unbelievable sound of a car driving down a wet street. That pulled me out of bed quickly enough. I sprang to my window to see what was the matter. And lo! it had rained. Even more than the other day. This looked like the result of a fairly major shower.

The rain held off until the service was over, thankfully, since at this fellowship the services are held outside, and we were too late to get seats underneath the cover of the tent. (A mark of the winters around here: these services are held outside year round.) But afterward, as everyone milled around, mingling and chatting, the rain began again, and those who did not quickly scramble under the tent were, if not drenched, at least quickly and uncomfortably wet. As the rain continued, however, the tent proved no real sanctuary-- the saturated canvas began releasing such mammoth drips that it was actually more comfortable outside in what was by now only a faint drizzle. By the time I arrived home I was damp and chilled, but happy all the same. I thought it was glorious weather.

Tonight we had some friends (local, not American) over for a Christmas party. After preparing and eating a large meal (since food is the center of hospitality around here) we turned out all the lights and sat in the simple glow of candle light and listened to the Christmas story, told first in Arabic and then in English. More than listening to the words, I watched the others' faces as candle light and various expressions flicked over them. Some, like me, smiled at the familiarity of the oft heard and much loved story. Others looked unsure and then intrigued by turns. Technically a part of their religion, yes, but not so often read or talked about. Afterwards we explained the tradition of gift-giving and then had a time of wrapping-paper-shredding and oohing-and-aahing that rivaled any family Christmas in the States. As I glanced around the room at the happy faces, the scattered remnants of wrapping materials, and the "Christmas tree" (a large house plant draped with a strand of lights), I felt a deep sense of peace and contentment at being here. A night of shared traditions and discussions, yes, but also a holiday celebration with friends, with loved ones-- not so different after all.

I move tomorrow... technically today, I suppose, since it's after midnight. My last night here-- am I sad? Some. There are friends I will miss, and though I will see them again, it won't be as often or the same as it has been. But mostly I'm too excited and hopeful about this change to feel much regret. Perhaps the sentimentality will hit on the train tomorrow.

Did I mention that I will be living by myself in my new apartment? A blessing I never even dared hope to realise here. Only a few more days....

Last night was my great sally into the chaos of packing, and astoundingly enough (for me, at least) by midnight I had completed my task, with the exception of the few things I was keeping with me for the rest of the week and my flannel sheets that I wanted to sleep in between for one last night. I'll probably be slightly chilly tonight-- yes, I know it's not truly cold here, but neither do we have any heat-- and I have only an afghan, no real blanket.

So my room is stripped bare again, emptied of personality and comforts. A small cross to bear considering how little I myself will have to move on Saturday. A backpack only-- the rest of my things will be waiting for me in my flat. Despite the addition of things I've managed to collect since arriving here, I packed it all into my original containers, though I have to admit they would have been overweight by airline standards. As usual, I packed for efficiency of space only, without considering the amount of energy required to move such weight. My taxi driver was kind, though, and without complaint he hoisted two lockers up into the luggage rack on top of the car. I'm sure his back is feeling it now. I paid him well for his sacrifice.

Friday night I got a call about a possible apartment, so Saturday morning I caught the 8:00 train--- this time I was asleep almost before the train pulled out of the station. That particular apartment was a no-go, but we ended up seeing a couple others later on in the afternoon, and ham-del-allah one of them was satisfactory all around. So I stayed the night and signed a lease yesterday-- and this coming Saturday I move. Before Christmas, just as I had been hoping. el-ham-del-allah indeed.

My taxi driver Saturday morning coming from the train station was obviously a very religious man... white gallibeyah, traditional prayer cap, even a big bushy beard. I wasn't sure if he was going to talk to me beyond what was necessary, since I am equally obviously a Western female, which equals infidel in the worst way. But a few minutes after I got in he veered off onto a side street and stopped in front of a small store. Apologizing for the delay, he asked if I wanted anything and I of course replied that it was no problem and I was fine. But he came back a moment later bearing two bags of food and handed one to me as he started the car again. Inside were two sandwiches, fuul (spiced beans) and falafel. The fuul was probably the best I've had since I came here. I was reminded again how important hospitality, even to strangers, is in this culture, in his religion... and how often the lack of such hospitality is apparent in my own.

Winter must have actually arrived here, because today it rained. Enough to wet the streets, enough turn the ubiquitous dust into damp sticky mud, almost enough to make puddles in the potholes outside my apartment building. A rare, rare happening in this city, but in my new one, where the storms roll in off the sea, winters are usually rainy, even occasionally stormy. But it's nice that I was here long enough to see rain.

I move on Saturday! Really, I should be packing right now. Or at least sorting through some things. Almost everything will have to be packed by Wednesday so that it can be transported up in someone's car-- unless I want to struggle with all of it on the train on Saturday afternoon. But procrastination is an art form, and in my case a finely honed skill. There's little need to begin now.

I went to another wedding tonight. This one was in someone's flat, and while the living room was admittedly very large (more than half the size of my apartment last year) it was still crowded with guests. A space near the door had been left clear for dancing, but we arrived during a lull in the music, so there was the obligatory drop in volume as everyone turned to stare at the white people. Our friends (who are definitely not white) quickly began introducing us and finding us seats, however, and the mild roar of the guests' chatter resumed. The music started again a few minutes later-- mostly recordings of various local songs, plus a pseudo-techno/rasta version of "Tequila" in Arabic (if you can imagine) that I hope never to hear again.

About an hour after we arrived the live music began. The inevitable drums appeared, and someone else wheeled out a small keyboard. The singer began warming up with a series of peculiar ululations. Another man, wearing a tweed sports jacket and furry leopard print slippers, conjured up an accordion from some back room. I hadn't seen an accordion since I said goodbye to my dear Forrest back at the end of June, so I watched him eagerly as he wheezed through a few tentative notes. Gradually he picked up the volume and the tempo, and the other musicians followed. This was music worth dancing to. The guests responded appropriately, embellishing the music with clapping, shouts, and those strange jackal cries. To be fair to those who have in the past made so many derogatory remarks about the sound of an accordion (and you know who you are), as the music picked up it was occasionally difficult to tell what was accordion and what was feedback from the questionably rigged sound system. But we danced on anyhow.

In unrelated news, I found out yesterday that my friend Steve got into dental school. Quite an exciting thing-- as we say here, "a thousand blessings".

A cold front came through last night. Around here that means that today's high was only 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Only. Is it really almost mid-December? According to my language helper it's getting very cold. This doesn't bode well for my hopes of a noticeable winter. When I told her what the temperatures are back in Oklahoma and in some other parts of the States, her eyes opened to twice their normal size. Clearly she questioned the plausibility of anyone being able to exist in such desolate conditions.

To accompany the change in the weather, a cold front of a different kind swept through my head and throat last night, and it appears that I'm sick again, seemingly with the same thing as last time. I hope this isn't becoming a pattern-- one week sick, one week well, one week sick, one week well....

Ah, well. By grace I came here and by grace I'll stay. Something else to keep me humble.

Last Thursday I made my escape and fled north to visit my new city for the first time. I boarded the train with a quivering sensation of anticipation and, after being misdirected several times, found my seat and perched impatiently in it, tired but unable to sleep. It had occurred to me in the wee hours of that morning, as I desperately tried to still my circling thoughts, that I had not been outside of the city for two months. Eagerly I awaited my first sight of a horizon not defined by the roofs of the buildings across the street. I spoke briefly to the boy next to me, but my mind was too distracted by the excitement of my trip to be able to make much conversation. The train eased by the dingy buildings and crowded streets and at last began to pick up speed as the concrete walls fell away and the sky faded from smoky brown into clear blue. I wasn't able to fall asleep for almost another hour, so entranced was I by the groves of orange trees, punctuated by tall palms, and the colorfully dressed peasants on their jogging donkeys. And always the sky.

That afternoon, after my arrival and some lunch, my friends took me to the palace gardens, where we strolled around the grounds enjoying the cool green-ness and then wandered on out to the shore, where we sat on a wall above the sea and watched the water. Definitely not a lake in Oklahoma-- this water shifted through every imaginable shade of green and blue, and below me I could see down to the rocks on the bottom, through water clear enough that I could not tell how deep it was. For a long time I stared out over the sea, stretching my eyes to where the water blurred into sky, wondering at the expanse spread out in front of me.

My days there passed quickly, and all too soon it was Saturday evening and I was boarding another train. I said my goodbyes and turned my face back towards the snarl of concrete and humanity whence I had come, all the while comforted by the thought that this now was temporary.

Another late night, but this time it's pressed by the knowledge that I must wake up and then immediately get up when my alarm goes off in the morning. I bought my ticket this morning and tomorrow (insha-allah, of course) I catch a train to travel to my new city. Just for a visit, this time, but I hope to make some progress towards plans for moving while I'm there. I hear there are some spare rooms floating around up there-- I'm very much okay with temporarily crashing someone else's apartment. I don't even require a bed.

Tonight is the Night of Power, an important night of prayer during Ramadan. Supposedly the prayers should last all through the night, beginning at about seven o'clock in the evening, but given the crush in the streets right now I'm not sure who could actually be praying. The entire city seems to be out and about, maybe trying to get to family's houses or mosques, I don't know. Traffic is at a stand-still most places.

As I came out of the Metro station tonight I caught the delicious scent of freshly popped corn wafting through the air, overpowering the usual smells of car exhaust, garbage, and heaven only knows what else. The smell was particularly enticing since (due to some wonderful drugs) I have in these past few days been able to smell for the first time in weeks. Irresistably drawn by the aroma, I wandered over to the small cart in which a man was skillet-popping corn over a gas flame. Catching the eye of a woman waiting there, I tried to strike up a conversation with her-- apparently she did understand my Arabic, but even so I could get no farther than learning the Arabic word for popcorn. (Maybe my height is intimidating.) When the pan of corn had finished popping, she and her companion accepted their bags of popcorn and quickly departed, leaving me standing there surrounded by young men... and no more popped corn. Having already paid, I was under some obligation to wait for the next pan (added to which, by this point I really, really wanted some popcorn), and so I did, this time supplied with all the conversation a girl could wish for. Too many minutes later, after several compliments and only two proposals (I must be losing my touch) and after some inane political commentary on Bush and a few even worse jokes about Osama bin Laden, I escaped with my hard-won bag of popcorn... compliments of the house, of course.

Someone just buzzed our flat-- the building door is locked, and unfortunately my key doesn't open it. So I'm locked in for the evening, and everyone else is locked out. A fire hazard, you say? mafeesh mushkella-- We live on the first floor and every room has a balcony. Really, it's a blessing. I won't be bothered by the doorbell for the rest of the night.

I caved yesterday and went to the doctor. Bacterial laryngitis. Probably it set it in as a result of my bout with the flu last weekend. Two days bed rest, no talking, swallow these pills and call me on Wednesday.

When I am sick, even (or perhaps especially) when I have passed into the forced-convalescence stage, I do not want people. I do not want their sympathetic words or their proffered help-- I merely want to be left alone. And just now, when I am denied even speech, even the ability to assert my desires and rights, I want that all the more. So this time it has all been especially difficult-- house guests through last night, and then the girls coming to do laundry here today.

I have such hopes for moving. Such high hopes for relocating. Maybe I haven't done things right here-- I'm not sure. I don't think that's the case, but I have no perspective yet. More likely, though, I've done things here exactly as planned, because it was ordained all along that I would make this move at this time. Ah, there's the Calvinist in me resurfacing. Things begin to realign.

It is December. Who would believe it? Time is a wisp of smoke, a puff of spore blown out on the wind. There no catching it, keeping it, holding it back. Willy-nilly, it slips ever onward, ever away.

Tonight I was very pleased to be able to attend a performance of Handel's Messiah, sponsored by a local university. Relaxing into the familiarity of the music and the power of the words, I was able to let all the tensions and frustrations of the past few weeks slip away unnoticed. After the applause had finally tapered off, I frantically pushed my way up to the front and accosted one of the cellists. Even if he couldn't completely understand my fumbling plea, eeked out in a mixture of bad English and even worse Arabic, he could at least see the desperation in my eyes, and willingly he surrendered his cello to me for a few minutes. Three months is a long time, the longest I've ever been without playing. Like an ex-smoker who's coping reasonably well until a chance whiff from another's cigarette sends him scrounging for one of his own, tomorrow when the reality of the many months still to come sets back in I'll regret tonight's impulsiveness. But for now I ride the high and defy the consequences.

Redesigning my blog... a blissful temporary escape from the stresses of life here. Anna Karenina was getting a trifle heavy. I needed a break from my break.

I've been attempting to get out some sort of newsletter... as in an actual email, sent to actual people... for almost two weeks now. I've even partially written one-- unfortunately it's sitting in my "Drafts" folder, unfinished and nearly forgotten. Exciting things have been happening here lately... a blow-up within the group precipitated a major restructuring of our jobs and lives. I'll be moving to another city sometime in the next couple months-- maybe sooner, maybe later, no one really knows at the moment. I'm hoping for sooner.

I'm very tired today and have been forced to spend far too much time around people (almost entirely Americans) lately. My reserve of words (and patience) is sorely depleted. So that's all the news for now.

A recent email from my friend Shouna mentioned the advent of Thanksgiving decorations and Christmas shopping now that Hallowe'en is past. I was at least partially aware of that holiday-- we had a sleepover, during which we stuffed ourselves on pizza and candy and watched horror movies-- but somehow it didn't really sink in as Hallowe'en. And we certainly don't have turkeys or pilgrims or fir trees or red-suited fat men crowding the stores around here. Nor is the weather cool enough (and definitely not rainy enough) to be classified as "fall". I'm in utter calendar shock and denial right now. Near as I can ascertain, I'm perpetually stuck somewhere around August... though that's not right either, because it's not that hot. But I don't feel as though the summer really existed for me, and fall has yet to arrive. I don't know when I am.

But it is holiday season here. Ramadan began this past Wednesday (my two-month mark), and here that changes the entire life of the city. Shops and homes and streets are bright with colorful and sometimes gaudy lanterns, strings of carnival lights, and glittering streamers. Work and school schedules shorten and shift to accomodate the all-night meals. Well-wishes and blessings abound, and on the Metro on Thursday I heard a woman deliver a 5-minute lecture/sermon on appropriately respectful behavior to a group of giggling and chattering school girls-- who immediately stood up and conducted themselves with the utmost solemnity for the rest of the ride... except that sometimes I could see their eyes still laughing in irrepressible exuberance as they glanced sidelong at each other.

Yesterday evening I broke the fast with some friends. We set out the dishes on a sheet on the floor and sat around it, tearing off pieces of flatbread (right hand only!) and using those to scoop up the various foods. The men of the family ate in a separate room. Though the meal itself was not very long-- probably only about half an hour or so-- we stayed for hours afterwards, talking and drinking tea and then coffee. This coffee, incidentally, is wonderful-- very strong and sweet, brewed with a generous helping of ginger, and served in tiny handle-less cups. It's a specialty of their people, brought with them from their native country, and has to be one of my favorite discoveries here.

Right now I'm listening to the OU-Texas A&M game. A&M just tied the game (no fear, it's only the end of the first half). Hard to believe that I'm sitting here so far away... listening to the roar of the crowd and the familiar voices of Bob Barry et al. and the banality of Braum's commercials I can almost forget that I'm not in Oklahoma. It's easy enough to find ways to remind myself, though.

I haven't posted in quite a while, and probably I would continue procrastinating for a bit longer except that today marked two months that I've been here. And that seemed to be of enough import to spur me into writing. Two months is a funny milestone. I'm not quite sure whether that's still only little time... or actually a long time... or something in between. Most likely something in between. (Aren't most things?) So it's a strange point of evaluation because I'm not entirely sure what I should have accomplished by this point. I have a tendency to think that surely I should be doing more than I am. Surely I should know more than I do. But two months is only two months... 9 or so weeks... 61 days... not so long after all, perhaps.

I've come to the conclusion that the most culturally inappropriate thing I do here has nothing to do with my hair or the length of my sleeves or how late I'm out at night. It's very simple and much more difficult to control. I laugh and smile. In public. Out on the street. When men are around. I can't help it. Things strike me as funny. The simplest task can become so ridiculously difficult here. Taking a 15-minute taxi ride can quickly turn into a riotously funny adventure. Not to everyone, maybe, but I find that my first reaction is usually amusement rather than anger or frustration. Praise Him for that. I pray every day that I don't lose my sense of humour here. Even if it does mean inadvertently smiling at inappropriate moments.

Last night I went to a wedding with some friends. The going was a long and involved process: they picked my flatmate and me up from our apartment at 4:30 in the afternoon, and we didn't actually get to the wedding until almost 11:30 that night. What happened in the meantime? A excursion to the hairdressers, a run-in with security at a Metro stop, and a bit of wandering lost through the streets of a not extremely nice part of town (especially so late in the evening). All intermixed with the usual relaxed pace of life that pervades this culture. (Americans would say we wasted a lot of time.)

The trip to the hair salon was definitely a highlight of the day. Consider: in the States when women make themselves up for a fancy dress party, dance, what-have-you, they have a stylist pile all their hair on top of their heads in french twists and beehives and other more elaborate concoctions. But here, in a place where generally women's hair must be covered, or at the least pulled back from their faces and tightly bound, women go to a stylist to have their hair straightened and brushed down around their faces, or curled into long sausage curls that bob down past their shoulders. Even after this older women will often still cover their carefully arranged loose hair for the evening. But it doesn't matter. That's how you do your hair for a party.
My friends insisted that Allison and I do the same. But here some complications arose. I would be willing to place a fairly large sum of money on a bet that we were the first foreigners (Westerners) ever to walk through the front door of that hair salon. This in itself caused a stir. But more amusing than this-- our hair simply isn't like theirs. Allison wasn't as bad off-- her hair is thick, and she decided not to have it curled. But my hair is fine, very fine, and tangles at the slightest provocation. So this poor man, who I'm sure is quite competent in his craft, was completely baffled by my hair. Everytime he tried to do anything, it slipped out of his hands, off the brush, out of the clips, and then became (in his eyes) inexplicably snarled. Everyone was quite frustrated, and I know that none of them were satisfied with the end result. Which in some ways added to my discomfort at walking through the streets... at night... with my hair blowing about my face. It felt wrong. And I've haven't even been here two months. Imagine how I'll feel after two years.

The wedding itself was great. "Wedding" is a bit of a mis-translation into English, I think. The ceremony is not actually public, so to picture where I was think of the biggest reception you've ever been to... outside... with carnival lights... and a throne for the bride and groom that has for a backdrop an eight-foot tall fan-shaped extravaganza of air-brushed hearts and rainbows and clouds... and a live band (whose repertoire is definitely not that of The Wedding Singer; this was a Sudanese wedding) playing music pumped out of speakers at such volumes as might be heard if you were leaning up against the front mains at a Metallica concert (my ears were still ringing this morning)... and hundreds of people laughing and talking and clapping and singing and dancing-- and warbling the odd traditional call of celebration that sounds rather like a jackal mourning his dearly departed mum... and then throw in some more noise and people and color just for effect... and that might be something like the wedding I attended last night.
It was wonderful.

When I woke up this morning the swollen ball of pain that had been lodged in my throat for the past two days had dissolved enough to allow me to swallow. At the time it seemed an improvement. After twelve hours of dry coughs that threaten to tear out my much-abused throat and leave it in a bloody heap on the floor, however, I'm no longer quite so sure that it was such an improvement. Maybe the knotted lump was better.

As a celebratory gesture towards being out of bed and able to stand upright for more than a few minutes at a time, I worked on rearranging my room this afternoon. My goal is to shape it into something that at least resembles a place in which I might voluntarily live. So far I haven't had much success, though today's efforts did bring at me least a tad (a skosch?) closer. Of course, I do have to realize that by my standards it will never truly be home until at least one wall is smothered in books-- and that's simply not going to happen here.

Still, despite the aesthetic and literary inadequacies of my flat, it does feel surprisingly like home. Maybe that's partially because after nine (or maybe more?) moves in the past five years it doesn't take me long to settle into a place. But the feeling of home-ness extends beyond the walls of this apartment and out into the streets of the city. Returning from Cyprus earlier this week gave me a quite shocking sense of homecoming, of regaining the familiar and secure. Granted, I only have to walk out into the street and try to talk to someone (female, of course) to have at least some of that illusion swept away. But the sensation is there none the less.

After two days of imprisonment I'm eager to go out tomorrow and conquer the world. Or at least watch some of it go by. But my desire for freedom is in some part quelled by my body's sudden and insistent craving for more sleep. Perhaps I shouldn't have moved all that furniture on my own this afternoon. Maybe I simply need to drink more orange juice. Whatever the case, I betake my weary self to bed.

I spent the past few days in the mountains of the island of Cyprus, enjoying the trees and the quiet and the fresh air. I even enjoyed the company of the nearly 200 women there for the retreat-- though during the first evening the waves of estrogen and emotion threated to overwhelm and consume me completely. I shudder to think how many trees had to die in order to provide tissues for these past five days.

Our end-of-the-session final exams begin tomorrow and continue for the two days following. They won't be difficult. In fact, I would relieve myself of any burden of studying at all except that I've neither heard nor spoken Arabic for several days now, and at this point in my studies it's easy to lose the edge. Like a poorly learned habit, my ear and tongue quickly slip out of practice.

But there is a thing that makes returning to school tomorrow morning bearable-- after Thursday, el-ham-del-allah, I am finished with school. I switch over to community based learning as soon as this school session ends this week, and from there I fire on ahead at what I hope is a faster pace. One of the best things about the retreat was the opportunities to discuss projects for my second year-- sooner, if I can reach the required level of language proficiency before then. I believe I can. And positive thinking is half the battle, right? The sooner I finish my language studies (the formal part of it) the sooner I can go live in a mud hut. That's motivation for you, eh? Yet that's exactly what I want.

Dropping out of school also frees up about three hours every day. Most of that comes from transportation time. And this should make my life at least a little less frantic, leaving time for some important things that have fallen by the wayside during the five weeks I've been here. Like eating. Sleeping. Reading. Writing. I might even be able to post here a little more often.

It rained yesterday. Rained. As in water fell from the sky.

This was no sudden downpour, of course. And it wasn't even a gentle shower. It was no more than a sprinkling of drops, never so much that one became unable to distinguish individual splotches of water in the dust that covers everything here. But there were raindrops nonetheless, and I felt their coolness on my cheeks and hands as I stood with my face turned up to the clouds. Real clouds, too. Not just the usual smoggy haze.

With this the heat broke. After at least a week in which temperatures every day stretched up to break 100 degrees, even the life-long residents of the city were crying uncle. We're hoping that was the last heat wave of the year; things should be cooler from here on out. Till next spring, at least.