I'm Gonna Walk (500 miles) -
[to the music of I'm Gonna Be (500 miles) by The Proclaimers]
When I wake up, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who walks to do his yoga. (10 min.)
After Yoga, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who walks to go to church. (10 min.)
If I eat lunch, yes, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who walks to get his lunch. (10 min.)
And if I have a meeting, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who walks to his meeting. (10 min.)
But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks all over Maadi
to have taxis honk their horns.
-Da da dun duh interlude-
When I meet kids, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man walking to their house. (10 min.)
And when they don't show, even when they said they would
I'm gonna be the man who walks right out the door. (10 min.)
If we hang out, yes, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man whose walkin all the more (10 min.)
If I lose weight, its because I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man walking everywhere.
But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks all over Maadi
to have taxis honk their horns.
[Fade music]
As you may have guessed, in Cairo, we walk a lot. This is nothing new. People have always walked. But this week I grew curious; what portion of our day do we spend walking where we would normally drive? So I calculated. It is approximately 10 minutes to walk from our villa to the church or the school, about 15 minutes to certain students homes, and 20 minutes to visit some young adult friends we work and hang out with. It is another 10 minutes from the church to the school, and from any given point, between 7-10 minutes to walk to Rd 9 (its like the Strip - full of stores, groceries, banks, restaurants, etc). So on any given day I will walk at minimun 20 minutes just to get to the church and back home. An average day keeps my feet pedaling for around an hour but it is not uncommon to meet me on a day that I have walked upwards of 2+ hours, strictly for event to event transportation.
I entered this country weighing in at 180 pounds (81 kilograms). As of 9:00 am this morning, I clocked in at 164 pounds (74 kg). The moral of this story is the 80s made some great music.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
On my way to a party...
As I strolled the streets, a ruckus, a fuss snared my ear drums. Cranking up a sense of expatriate awareness, as if I could possibly find this life in potential jeopardy, my spidey sense honed into a rioting crowd flailing about down the hill. Wings awkwardly flapping with intent to strike sense into the head of an agressor met no opposition from the bleached officer amid the fight club. Living here has allowed me to see how contagious anger raptures the mind of innocent bystanders. And in this chaotic moment, as I resumed my seat on the front row after darting onto a safer sidewalk, to my astonishment, a graying elderly woman transformed her purse into a weapon of Egyptian destruction rebuking one of the young combatants with a purse-fist-verbal assault combo. A chuckle somehow slipped from my throat, countered tactfully with a somber and pompous head shake of attempted disapproval. "You'd never see a fight in the middle of the day like this in the States," I boasted. "We would do it the sophisticated way - wait until dark and gather a gang of roughnecks and vandals to secretly destroy the property of our caviling foe. Face-to-face, fist-to-fist, nose-to-nose, is just to close; we need to respect others' need for privacy and personal space.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Lessons
Against my better judgment, I will stay the drooping desires of my eyes for your reading enjoyment (hopefully).
Some life lessons I've embarked on as of late:
1. Good things come to those who wait. But when you've waited 10 months and you leave in one, good things suddenly become frustratingly urgent.
2. Females are difficult to understand. Males are difficult to know. I explain it like this: Men like to fix things, work on things take things apart and put them back together. We want formulas, mechanisms, so we can work logically through the steps when something is awry. Women, however, as I understand, seem to be more relational creatures. They do not care to understand how you feel. They just want to know how your day was. Tell me about you. Functionality serves little to no purpose when you attempt to know a person.
This theory serves true even among same-sex interaction. For instance, the young men I join in a small group each Tuesday night are great guys. However, it has taken me the length of my stay here in luscious Egypt to finally know these men. They all depart within the month. You better believe the irritation from that is worse than bed bug bites from a cheap motel mattress.
3. Husbands love your wives. In one of our group meetings with the aforementioned young men, we spent a decent tangent discussing the effects of various translations of the Bible which inevitably led to a discourse/soapbox lecture on the equality and consideration a couple should have for each other. As I spoke, the Spirit must have taken over because the words spewing out my mouth were not from thoughts I had previously constructed. The discussion went something along these lines (edited for grammatical alterations and slightly more impressive presentation from yours truly):
Me: Take for instance Ephesians 5 when we read about husbands and wives. When you start off, the text is seemingly sexist in its approach to "wives submit your husbands, for they are the head" etc, etc.
Student: [affirmative nod] Yeah...
Me: And some could even read into the next portion as another gender-bias argument, however, let's read this quickly - "Husbands, love your wives." Now we are like woopidee do da. If he married her, he probably loved her, so what's so special about this? Keep reading - "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her [...]" So now, you get to die to yourself each day for the sake of your wife.
Student's mom: [walked in the door just in time to listen in on the end of conversation, pretending to fold clothes but truly just eavesdropping on her beloved son's meeting. Upon hearing "die to yourself for sake of your wife," chimes in to her son] Ben, are you listening to this man. You should be taking notes!
Me: [much quieter as mom exits, leaning in] She may have to submit, but you have to die?! Who got the raw end of that deal?
4. Sit at his door. In a world so rapidly moving, we expect God to show up on our schedule. We rarely (if ever) wait for the Lord to exit his home to meet us where we are. I find myself waiting for God like I would a late professor. You get 5 minutes before I leave, if I'm feeling generous. Who would have thought that the Creator has a different time schedule than his limited, boundary-confined creation?
5. Perspective is a gift, given to those who don't really need it at a time it isn't really useful. Two close friends have some, how shall we say, prickly provocation any time they are in the same room. Both have sought mediation and counsel from others as well as myself. However, neither cares to listen to the portion they could improve or, more poignantly, the hard truth hidden from their cycloped eyes. With truth being hard and me a bit of a softy, nor residing in a place acceptable enough to deliver such catastrophic catalyst, we only pray they will discover these big red doors by combining there blinded peepers to form a single good pair they can share.
6. Family or Passionate occupation? Its an ongoing debate between inexperienced, idealistic twentysomethings. Save it for later.
Some life lessons I've embarked on as of late:
1. Good things come to those who wait. But when you've waited 10 months and you leave in one, good things suddenly become frustratingly urgent.
2. Females are difficult to understand. Males are difficult to know. I explain it like this: Men like to fix things, work on things take things apart and put them back together. We want formulas, mechanisms, so we can work logically through the steps when something is awry. Women, however, as I understand, seem to be more relational creatures. They do not care to understand how you feel. They just want to know how your day was. Tell me about you. Functionality serves little to no purpose when you attempt to know a person.
This theory serves true even among same-sex interaction. For instance, the young men I join in a small group each Tuesday night are great guys. However, it has taken me the length of my stay here in luscious Egypt to finally know these men. They all depart within the month. You better believe the irritation from that is worse than bed bug bites from a cheap motel mattress.
3. Husbands love your wives. In one of our group meetings with the aforementioned young men, we spent a decent tangent discussing the effects of various translations of the Bible which inevitably led to a discourse/soapbox lecture on the equality and consideration a couple should have for each other. As I spoke, the Spirit must have taken over because the words spewing out my mouth were not from thoughts I had previously constructed. The discussion went something along these lines (edited for grammatical alterations and slightly more impressive presentation from yours truly):
Me: Take for instance Ephesians 5 when we read about husbands and wives. When you start off, the text is seemingly sexist in its approach to "wives submit your husbands, for they are the head" etc, etc.
Student: [affirmative nod] Yeah...
Me: And some could even read into the next portion as another gender-bias argument, however, let's read this quickly - "Husbands, love your wives." Now we are like woopidee do da. If he married her, he probably loved her, so what's so special about this? Keep reading - "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her [...]" So now, you get to die to yourself each day for the sake of your wife.
Student's mom: [walked in the door just in time to listen in on the end of conversation, pretending to fold clothes but truly just eavesdropping on her beloved son's meeting. Upon hearing "die to yourself for sake of your wife," chimes in to her son] Ben, are you listening to this man. You should be taking notes!
Me: [much quieter as mom exits, leaning in] She may have to submit, but you have to die?! Who got the raw end of that deal?
4. Sit at his door. In a world so rapidly moving, we expect God to show up on our schedule. We rarely (if ever) wait for the Lord to exit his home to meet us where we are. I find myself waiting for God like I would a late professor. You get 5 minutes before I leave, if I'm feeling generous. Who would have thought that the Creator has a different time schedule than his limited, boundary-confined creation?
5. Perspective is a gift, given to those who don't really need it at a time it isn't really useful. Two close friends have some, how shall we say, prickly provocation any time they are in the same room. Both have sought mediation and counsel from others as well as myself. However, neither cares to listen to the portion they could improve or, more poignantly, the hard truth hidden from their cycloped eyes. With truth being hard and me a bit of a softy, nor residing in a place acceptable enough to deliver such catastrophic catalyst, we only pray they will discover these big red doors by combining there blinded peepers to form a single good pair they can share.
6. Family or Passionate occupation? Its an ongoing debate between inexperienced, idealistic twentysomethings. Save it for later.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Weekends
There was an anonymous complaint that I hadn’t written in a while. Please accept my sincerest apologies. The following is meant only to be humorous, not ethnocentric or culture bashing in any way.
This weekend, our youth staff of 6 (-1 since Kev is taking some leisure in the good ole U.S. of A.) plus 3 generous, sacrificial volunteers spent our selves from Thursday at 4:00 p.m. until Saturday at 5:00 p.m. with 80+ middle and high schoolers. Upon the conclusion of the camp we as a clump concurred in a cumulative constructive criticism that quarters were a bit crowded and we could’ve connected a couple more counseling compadres close to our kids to cut the quantity of crew-to-kid into a quality control. Just for a little extra humor and test of patience, the Big Kahuna allowed for a croaked engine on one of our two transporting buses. Indeed, the grass was greener on that side of Egypt than any other I’d yet been, however, at that point, it was only the other side of my pillow I truly cared to embrace.
In true Egyptian fashion I will recount the rest of this story with the a logic I simply refer to as “Welkham to Ejyp(t)” mentality (Welcome to Egypt, ‘t’ is silent). The rest of this story will be backwards as to slowly reveal more only when deemed necessary assist the conversation in some way, however, I do apologize if there is a touch of coherence. That may detract from the full experience a bit.
Let me begin at the end by explaining how the shade we experienced at a Christian owned complex brought about an appreciated coolness from the oppressive heat of the crescent moons atop the local minaret. There seemed to be an unusual joy floating among the other residents. I will note that I am still unsure of where this perceived joy is sourced. I did not ask but I guessed that one group was a gang of business folks together for some teambuilding weekend activities. This guess is only led in this direction because of the experiential evidence I gathered from watching the upper class businessmen here in Ma’adi. If not Christ, the only other reason I could give to the flocks of laughter would be due to the apparent youth of our fellow retreaters.
Even in this appreciated shade, the Egyptian mentality towards work shined bright despite any cooling cover. There was a reluctance to work beyond anything required or even keep one’s word after constructing a negotiation. We argued politely for use of the ropes course, our cabins, and our general meeting room, all of which had been previously “taken care of”.
One thing I have learned from our fearless leader Travis, if you lay down for the desires of deceitful business, no one win. Lose-lose (thanks again, Covey.) So again, as so often he has, bossman took matters into his own hands by requesting the room from the people occupying it. We received full confirmation at 1 a.m. after the first day. To remain humble, I’ll just say we were tired. But by 1:40 I finally found myself scuffling across the dark of our wood cabin floors clawing for the rod iron poles of my bunk nearly as hard the floor itself. The blanket was pleasant, though.
I typically try to make a strong effort to avoid monocultural comments or anything that could be construed as rude. It does seep into my writing a bit and for that I apologize. I have a genuine affection for the people here, despite the difficulty it is to work with them on occasion.
This weekend, our youth staff of 6 (-1 since Kev is taking some leisure in the good ole U.S. of A.) plus 3 generous, sacrificial volunteers spent our selves from Thursday at 4:00 p.m. until Saturday at 5:00 p.m. with 80+ middle and high schoolers. Upon the conclusion of the camp we as a clump concurred in a cumulative constructive criticism that quarters were a bit crowded and we could’ve connected a couple more counseling compadres close to our kids to cut the quantity of crew-to-kid into a quality control. Just for a little extra humor and test of patience, the Big Kahuna allowed for a croaked engine on one of our two transporting buses. Indeed, the grass was greener on that side of Egypt than any other I’d yet been, however, at that point, it was only the other side of my pillow I truly cared to embrace.
In true Egyptian fashion I will recount the rest of this story with the a logic I simply refer to as “Welkham to Ejyp(t)” mentality (Welcome to Egypt, ‘t’ is silent). The rest of this story will be backwards as to slowly reveal more only when deemed necessary assist the conversation in some way, however, I do apologize if there is a touch of coherence. That may detract from the full experience a bit.
Let me begin at the end by explaining how the shade we experienced at a Christian owned complex brought about an appreciated coolness from the oppressive heat of the crescent moons atop the local minaret. There seemed to be an unusual joy floating among the other residents. I will note that I am still unsure of where this perceived joy is sourced. I did not ask but I guessed that one group was a gang of business folks together for some teambuilding weekend activities. This guess is only led in this direction because of the experiential evidence I gathered from watching the upper class businessmen here in Ma’adi. If not Christ, the only other reason I could give to the flocks of laughter would be due to the apparent youth of our fellow retreaters.
Even in this appreciated shade, the Egyptian mentality towards work shined bright despite any cooling cover. There was a reluctance to work beyond anything required or even keep one’s word after constructing a negotiation. We argued politely for use of the ropes course, our cabins, and our general meeting room, all of which had been previously “taken care of”.
One thing I have learned from our fearless leader Travis, if you lay down for the desires of deceitful business, no one win. Lose-lose (thanks again, Covey.) So again, as so often he has, bossman took matters into his own hands by requesting the room from the people occupying it. We received full confirmation at 1 a.m. after the first day. To remain humble, I’ll just say we were tired. But by 1:40 I finally found myself scuffling across the dark of our wood cabin floors clawing for the rod iron poles of my bunk nearly as hard the floor itself. The blanket was pleasant, though.
I typically try to make a strong effort to avoid monocultural comments or anything that could be construed as rude. It does seep into my writing a bit and for that I apologize. I have a genuine affection for the people here, despite the difficulty it is to work with them on occasion.
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