Half Time

Time is passing way too fast again. Hit by a spell of spring fever I stay at home today, read (Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver which I started when I stayed at the guest house for a few days last year – as green from the inside as on the cover, set in a rural county in the Appalachians it makes for a nice contrast in the middle of this mega city with a mix of car horns, motors, shouting street vendors and children) and finally write something here, too. I sit on the small balcony, risking getting my first sunburn this year, hoping the sun will burn out my illness. This part of Cairo at this time of the year looks relatively green and not even artificially so. High dark green trees on both sides of the church compound which I overlook from the fourth floor. The houses on the other side a part of the old, more beautiful face of Zamalek, a concave fifth front towards the small square outside the church yard, only four stories, high arching windows with just not too much stone embroidery around them.

The Sudanese community gathers in the church yard. I wonder if sitting in the sun at 20 degrees in the shade one can really feel that cold that it is necessary to wear woolen pullovers and leather jackets. Maybe one can, coming from a country where summer means 45 degrees and winter hardly exists. Maybe it has something to do with being a refugee. Maybe it’s something else. Many small children play happily in the yard. Some grown-ups talk in sign language.

It’s Thursday again, so the first of my two weeks here is over. Just about time to also complete some half-finished first and second impressions and put them here.

FRIDAY

I start getting into my Egypt rhythm right away: Friday is Sunday. My watch stopped (again), so I hurry into the church while the bells ring, good thing I live right next to it. The reverend is still walking around greeting people. He is surprised to see me, but seeing people come and go, leave and return is the daily business of expat clergy, so some other people and me are officially welcomed back when he starts the ceremony. I sit next to Marissa and Cade and it feels completely natural to be here. After the service I am very happy to meet more friends I made last year and to be welcome here at any time. And one thing I missed out on last year is completed right away: I am introduced to a charming Latvian lady who works for the embassy and start talking to her in Latvian. I haven’t seen many people look as stunned as she does during my first two or three sentences. Then she is really pleased to meet someone who speaks Latvian and we have a nice chat. As few Latvians as there are, they basically are everywhere. Speaking Latvian in Cairo seems a bit exotic, but I think my theory of a more active foreign language network in my brain being abroad helps a lot, the last time I went to Latvia I didn’t speak as fluently right from the start.

The after service lunch group is small today for different reasons. Marissa, Cade, Sue and I have an Italian lunch at a nice little restaurant. The only other guests are a German couple and their two little sons, strange language again. Some of the boys’ remarks make me smile, they obviously don’t speak Arabic or they wouldn’t have to incessantly ask their mother if she already ordered the salad. Her ‘Ameya (Egyptian colloquial Arabic) is quite fluent and I wonder if I have the same accent.

After lunch I take a long walk around Zamalek and it feels very much like home. I still sometimes get lost for a moment, but at the next corner I usually know where I am again. The air is clear and relatively cool with a strong wind blowing more or less from every direction. I notice some construction sites to have changed or be finished altogether. The clubs on the Nile are starting to get ready for the season. Here, too, everything looks very green compared to my summer memories.

At the end of my long walk I have a mango granita at Cilantro and read the latest issue of their magazine – a lot of green issues in there. Ranging from articles of general make over days at some villages to advertisements of upcoming events and hands-on advice on everyday behavior like bringing your own bag when shopping to consume less plastic bags.

I walk straight back home down 26^th of July catching some breaths of Shisha as I walk past people in winter jackets sitting outside at the road side cafés.

When I go shopping for food later in the day I do take my own bag as I would always do in Germany. I didn’t actually think of that last year, all in the mode of integration by imitation. Now I got the nerve to be a strange German with a cotton bag.