Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday I woke up late, and did work, but felt like a zombie and was THRILLED to go to sleep early. Back to class on Saturday, and it was nice to see everyone, and it seemed like I had never left Egypt. It was a generally normal day, but I couldn’t help but notice the genuinely horrific smell on my walk to school. I realized, that it was the aftermath of the most recent holiday, Eid al-Adha.
Eid al-Adha is a holiday in which Muslims traditionally sacrifice a sheep. The background of this is that G-d told Abraham to kill his son, Ishmael, to prove he was a believer. Abraham obeyed, but no matter how many times he put the knife to Ishmael’s throat it would not cut it. G-d told Abraham that he had proved himself, and that he should sacrifice a sheep instead. In current times, if you have the means, you are to sacrifice a sheep, keep a third of it for your family, give a third to your friends, and give a third to the poor. While I was away for the celebration, I did get a glimpse of some early sacrifices preparing for the big festival right on my street.
Flash-forward almost a week later, and the lamb’s blood (is it Passover yet?) and remains of its fur and innards are still embedded into the sidewalk. It doesn’t really rain here, and it seems that any efforts to clean it up were unsuccessful. The smell was unbearable.
Additionally, it seems that this last home stretch is difficult for all of us in Egypt, and for a lot of my other friends abroad. We are SO close to being done, but there is definitely still a decent chunk of time. I made the decision, after much deliberation, to change my ticket home from Jan 5th out of Tel Aviv, to December 21st out of Istanbul. I am so thrilled that I will have more than five days at home before my next semester of school, and an adequate period to re-adjust to America. I was initially extremely excited to travel, but my plans were not solidified, and honestly providing me more anxiety than necessary. Those places will always be there, and I think Istanbul will be a wonderful end to a trying semester.
On another note, my insomnia has returned with a vengeance. Several nights in the past week I have laid awake and listened to the muezzin call the Fajr prayer, the first prayer of the day between first light of dawn and sunrise usually around 5:30. Needless to say, I have been somewhat of a zombie lately, and hopefully I get back on track soon!
On Monday evening, I went to 3seer Mecca, a juice bar, with some of the Egyptian girls and we met up with a group of the guys (both Egyptian and American). It was great, but due to my exhaustion I wasn’t an active participant in the conversation. As the topic of conversation shifted to soccer, I became more of an observer, noticing that while the Egyptian guys seemed comfortable with the girls, they would never utter a curse in front of them. They all comfortably shook my hand, but would never dare to do so with an Egyptian girl (as touching her in any way would scar her reputation). Even with these seemingly progressive interactions and meet-ups at the juice bar, there are still so many boundaries between men and women in Egypt.
Tuesday was relatively uneventful, with the exception of my history class. We are learning about the end of the monarchy in Egypt, and to our surprise our teacher spoke very frankly about Egyptian government. He cited 1951 as the year when the last “real elections” took place, after which, all elections have been seemingly fixed. This is pertinent now, as there are Parliamentary elections this Sunday. Additionally, we spoke about 1948, and the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Little did my teacher know, that he was explaining the differences between Zionism and Judaism to three Jewish students (yes there are only three of us in my class, and yes we are all Jews). It was great to hear him go on for about ten minutes about how Zionism is a movement, and Judaism is a religion, and that educated people in the Middle East distinguish between the two, and how anti-Semitism is frowned upon in most educated circles.
Wednesday came and went. We had make up classes, because we had an extra day off in October. I visited Ahmed, the hairdresser, who was surprised that I actually had the language skills to speak to him, given I had last seen him in September when I was going through major culture shock. However it is great to be able to see my own improvements and the amount of the language I have acquired in such a short time. My ECA class went to a movie, which was exciting because I could understand it! However the movie itself, labeled as a comedy but actually rather dark, was bizarre. It was about a man who you are led to believe has Alzheimer’s, when actually it is all a rouse put on by his two sons and they are leading him to believe he has the disease so they can control his money. He finds out about the rouse, and spends the second half of the movie getting back at them. I was exhausted from my insomnia, and went to bed super early and slept for twelve hours.
Today was Thanksgiving, my first not with family, and I woke up very late. I spent the entire day alternating doing work and doing absolutely nothing. The program is having a Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow evening, but tonight there was nothing planned. I went to Chili’s with four other girls to have a taste of America, and we had such a nice time! I’m sad to not be in America for Thanksgiving, and it was definitely hard to be motivated to do my work today but we really tried to make the best of it together!
I came home and skyped with my family, and my mom passed the computer around to various family members. It was great to see everyone, but sad to be missing out on the event. I think that everyone abroad right now is having a similar Thanksgiving experience.