Tag Archives: religion

Dec 27 2011
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Humorous, Open Letters, Two minute read

Dear Santa, You Suck

Santa Claus is a bad dude

Hey Santa! Yeah you, ya big stink. What the nark is wrong with you?? You think that just because you’re your own boss and don’t take no orders from nobody that you can stomp on my Christmas wishes, and leave me a freakin’ pile of junk?

Did you even read the letter I sent you? What about my tweets, facebook messages, or emails? Did you not see the comments I left on your blog? Surely you must have gotten at least one of the numerous text messages or missed phone calls I gave you. I even SKYPED with Mrs. Claus and told her exactly what I wanted and still you come and dump wrapped up garbage beneath our evergreen.

You know what? You suck. I’m not sure if you’re incompetent, lazy, or mentally impaired, but you certainly are not fit for my future children to worship.

Look. My request was not unreasonable: The only thing I wanted was the very same 16 oz. jar of Teddie Crunchy Old Fashioned All Natural Peanut Butter that was taken from me as I was going through security at the Boston Logan International Airport on Wednesday, December 21 at approximately 11:15 am, and the security team that had confiscated it after briefly arguing with me to be punished by you stealing all their toilet paper.  But you ruined everything by being awful.

Even if my request had been over the top, which it wasn’t, I still thought the pieces of trash I found under my tree were completely uncalled for. What kind of mean-spirited old crank leaves Dunkaroo wrappers and beef jerky bags with bows on top of them? And as for the box of Ritz s’mores, well I thought there was actually something in there until I opened it and you had replaced my favorite road trip treat with dog food. You’re just a bad guy. I hope the years of tax evasion finally catch up to you and you’re sent to a minimum security federal prison where you meet a whole new crop of lap sitters.

Wishing you a nasty case of shingles,

Emily

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Dec 06 2011
2 Comments
One minute read

Woah! Snow!

Sometimes, the snow loses its charm

EVERYONE LOOK! THERE’S SNOW FALLING ON MY BLOG! It’s either the magic of the season or the fact I checked the box that said “let snow fall on this blog until January 4th.” Whatever it is, it’s enchanting. The holidays really are coming! Wishes really do come true! Polar bears do love cuddling more than mauling!

Because of these animated snowflakes drifting across my online pastime, I know my homework will somehow be done, though it be of poor quality and turned in late.

Gifts for my family and A-list friends will be purchased, though at the last minute and with the pocket change I’ve spared from my final get togethers with friends at expensive restaurants.

I will survive the next week and a half, though in order to eat I will likely have to borrow money that may or may not be paid back after the break.

And the mosquitoes will die when the sun finally blows up and the earth is burnt to a crisp.

This snow is a continual reminder while I’m looking at my blog that holiday times coincide with cold weather in some parts of the world. It reminds me of the Christmas lights I will be seeing in abundance very soon and the obnoxious old Christmas songs I will once again hear ad nauseam once I reach the United States of America. It is a reminder that nothing is wrong during this time of year, that winter is just beginning and the snow is still a novelty, and that everyone is happy.

Thank you, snow, for doing all you do. I dread January 4th, when you go away from my blog just as people in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and North-Central plains realize their snowdrifts will not melt until late April. I, however, will be in Egypt, where there will be no snow and no drains in the streets for years to come. I’ll probably be wearing t-shirts and high fiving my friends by early March, laughing at how foolish everyone was to welcome the fluffy precipitation only a few months earlier.

But for now, let me love the snow and look forward to its temporary promise of renewal. Let me imagine the world’s sins covered in a white blanket and Christmas carols. Let me believe in the fable of the perfect Christmas one more time.

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Aug 12 2011
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Anecdotes, Modern Life, Three minute read

Ready, Set, Feast!

Post-iftar….destruction in the wake of the swarm

I have eaten every day of Ramadan. Everyday, I wake and eat breakfast, wait a little while, then eat dinner, wait a little while more, and then eat my spoonful of peanut butter about 2 hours before bedtime. This differs from how fasting Muslims eat during Ramadan in a number of ways, mostly the part involving eating during the day and probably the peanut butter as well.

From the time of the call to prayer around 3:30 am to the sunset call to prayer around 6:45 pm, fasting Muslims are not to eat any food or drink any water. Though one is ravenous, eating is prohibited even slightly before hearing the sunset call to prayer. Feel free to twirl your fingers in a bowl of spaghetti or dunk your head in a puddle, but none of those substances may enter your body and begin journeying through the digestive tract.

Though I have eaten out in restaurants frequently during Ramadan, honoring my pledge to cook for myself no more than 3 times a month, I have only eaten twice in a restaurant right at the time of iftar, the break fast, the moment everyone has been waiting for with grumbling tummies and cottonmouth .

Tonight was one of those times twain: we arrive to the restaurant a little late, at about 6:30, and it is completely filled with patrons who are neither eating nor drinking. A buzz fills the air as people converse hungrily with one another, the waiters flit around setting food on tables, and others customers stare off into space, tiny drumsticks floating above their heads.

The hour continues to approach; the buzz reaches its height. Many tables are completely filled with delicious treats like hot bread the size of a large pizza and steaming bowls of meat and spices…oh joy! I stare at the food on everyone’s table as they gaze into space, trying to forget about their hunger during these last painful minutes.  The victuals themselves begin to speak in honeyed tongues, tempting the hungry souls:

“I’m a refreshing bottle of cool water….drink me! It’s almost time anyways, what does God care if one of his thirsty and deserving servants takes just one sip before the call to prayer? You know Auntie Fatima is going to elbow you out of the way as soon as she hears it just like she did last night…she’s always the first one to drink and no one says anything because her husband died ten years ago. As if you could blame him for wanting to escape her. Cowards! Drink me! Drink me!”

“I’m a tasty piece of roast meat….look at the color of my skin. Just look at how golden and crinkly it is! Look at it! How tender I am underneath a swift crunch! I just popped out of the oven. Can you detect the meaty scent wafting off the sides of me? I’m getting colder by the second! Auntie Fatima’s fleshy paw is going to grab me before you’ll ever sink your teeth into me. Eat me! Eat me now!”

And just when the temptation seems unbearable and even death would be preferable to this never ending hell, a waiter turns the television up. Could it be?? Yes! It is! It’s the call to prayer ( played 5 times a day on many television stations. I’m not sure which ones). Someone begins drinking water, the rest soon following in a joyous free for all in which no one is blamed for chewing too loudly, putting another mouthful of food in before finishing the last one, or knocking their little sister over while reaching for the juice. Images that come to mind when viewing the scene: my family around a plate of hot cookies, the game hungry hungry hippos, and swarms of any kind, barring swarms of koala bears or sloths.

I find myself eating with extra vigor despite the fact I was not fasting. In fact, I had just eaten my 6 o’clock snack to make sure I wasn’t insane with hunger when we got to the restaurant, in effect avoiding anything resembling a fast. I guess we all celebrate Ramadan differently.

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Jul 26 2011
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Serious-ish, Stories, Three minute read

Dear Diary: I flew today

Dear Diary,

I found myself somewhere new today. It was in Cairo I think, since everyone there still spoke Arabic and no one was wearing shorts or kissing in the street. I also saw some young men holding hands, another indication I was in the Middle East.

We entered what someone said was an old house but I think it was actually a castle since it was big and musty and had a windy staircase with uneven steps. There were a lot of locked doors too, as well as nooks and crannies, so it was definitely a castle.

The big feasting hall/courtyard was filled with chairs and dim light, and at the front was a kind of wooden plateau that was smaller than natural plateaus. There weren’t any chairs on the wooden plateau, probably because it is well known that wood does not go well with wood.

I gathered we were supposed to sit down, but it was hard to find a place because of all the chairs. Someone then thought it would be a good idea to sit on the chairs themselves so that’s what we did. I had a bad feeling about this idea, and was especially nervous since the guy in front of us kept peering behind him out of the corner of his eye. Every single time he saw us, he was surprised that there were people sitting on the chairs, despite his own chair sitting hypocrisy. I suggested that we move somewhere out of the way of the chairs but no one listened to me.

All of the sudden, the lights in the courtyard dimmed and music began from the front of the room, where the plateau was still lit up. Something had definitely gone wrong…how were we supposed to be able to see and talk to each other through the darkness over the music? Were we in a no-holds-barred modern protestant church service? But then musicians wearing white and carrying drums took the plateau (possibly the ghosts of the castle musicians) and I lost all consciousness of time and space.

The next thing I knew, I was smiling as we were exiting the building, the faint din of clapping still ringing in my ear. To my great surprise, I found I was carrying my camera and that the button on it was still warm. I turned it on to gather clues as to what had transpired and found I had taken tons of horrible pictures and videos of what may have been beautiful things. The ghosts on the stage had twirled and played the drums, floating and rocking back and forth, and then others took the stage that wore fantastic costumes of all colors, the most important part of it being a Christmas tree skirt that flew straight out from the dancers’ waists. And the dancers became a swirling mass of colors that was always striving upwards with their hands and with their bodies. It’s not clear why…maybe they were trying to communicate with a higher being, and that being was someone who lived upstairs that loved jazzercise in the mornings and they were politely pleading with them to stop.

If the quality of the video had been just a little better, maybe I would be able to remember what I felt when I was watching the dancers twirl and twirl and twirl, their faces bordering on rapture but still conscious of the audience, the movement of their skirts mesmerizing every eye. But I can’t, so from what I can gather, blobs took the plateau and bounced across it in a rhythmic but imprecise manner. Though it sounds unlikely, apparently this was what we expected since everyone was happy afterwards.

I was getting into a taxi when I remembered something and shut the door instead. I stepped away and started spinning around gradually faster until I slowly became airborne, the exhaust fumes from the traffic on the highway pushing me higher and higher. I called down, “Smell you later!” as the polluted air pushed me home.  It had only the faintest traces of teargas.

By the way, this was at a Tanoura performance, the Egyptian version of a dervish dance/ritual that is closely associated with Sufism, or mystical Islam. Sufism focuses on seeing the face of God or achieving unity with God.

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Jul 25 2011
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Anecdotes

Lessons in Conspicuousness

It did not look like this, but it did have a steeple

Cairo is obviously well known for its churches. Though it’s no match for Edmond, Oklahoma with regard to church density, it certainly holds its own for church diversity. There are Coptic churches, Armenian churches, Greek Orthodox churches, Protestant churches, churches with mostly Egyptians, churches with mostly foreigners, churches with services in English and Arabic and French and Coptic, churches that God loves, churches that God hates, churches for humans, churches with services on Friday, churches with services on Sunday, and churches with everything in between.

Tonight, friends and I began a church hopping discovery-fest: an expedition in the smorgasbord of church possibilities. I do believe that if every church service we go to is as interesting as the one we went to tonight, then I will have no shortage of blog posts the rest of my time here in Cairo. This blog is, of course, my main motive for doing anything besides sitting in my apartment and watching movies on MBC.

We had planned to go to St. Andrew’s church, a church that has a website and works with refugees, a church that, according to the website, was established over 100 years ago and has a service on Sunday at 7:00. St. Andrew’s was also conveniently close to where we live, which was great because we love visiting the house of God but not if he’s living too far away from us. The church we ended up going to most certainly does not have a website.

Instead of St. Andrew’s church, we accidentally attended a small, evangelical church of an unknown breed, mistaking it for St. Andrews because it was…a church. We hadn’t even considered the possibility of stumbling upon the wrong church. After exiting the Nasser metro stop, we espied a steeple and homed in on it, oblivious to the fact we were missing our intended destination. Finding a gate in a high wall with a cross on it, we gave each other confident nods of confirmation, and pushed it back only to find ourselves in a kind of courtyard, in front of us a small church that resembled a gingerbread house. We entered the tiny sanctuary right as the service was beginning and found that we, three Americans, nearly doubled the size of the congregation. We also were also about 40 years younger than the average attendee. It is safe to say we stood out a bit.

The white-walled church was quite plain, its main decorations a large back lit cross behind the pulpit and a smattering of air conditioners and fans. Though the pastor was no Josh Groban, he successfully led our small band of believers in worship acappela style from the foremost right pew all the while  looking ahead at the powerpoint that he was also operating. The fellow congregants also had varying vocal abilities, each one’s imperfections perfectly audible. My favorite happened to be an elderly lady blessed with the voice of a wooden desk, but a very passionate one at that.

After singing, I learned that Egyptian sermons are just as sleep inducing as American ones. Luckily I was kept awake by the pastor’s occasional shouting and the occasional Bible drill. These Bible drills were actually just him calling out scripture passages, but they became a drill since he would wait to continue until he was sure everyone, especially the foreigners, had found the appropriate verse. Monitoring us was an easy task as we were all exposed beneath his gaze. Cognizant of this vulnerability, I tried to remain awake even more since I knew there was no way the pastor would let one tenth of the congregation slumber in peace.

Post-service, we introduced ourselves to everyone there and realized they were quite eager to keep our young blood in the flock, even taking my friend’s number in order to keep in touch. We, however, were slightly more hesitant, and though we enjoyed the experience, I don’t think it was the spiritual food any of us were looking for, so I can only hope friend doesn’t get a phone call next Sunday night with someone worried about his heavenly status.

It also turned out that the church we were trying to go to was right across the street. Oops. Who knew there would be two so close to each other? The things you learn….

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