I have three Arabic teachers, and my favorite one is Nancy. Seriously, if I could shrink her down and make a pocket Nancy, I would. She's the most exuberant, affectionate person ever, and we compare notes on kids because she asks me every day, "How is your walad (little boy)?" and so we chat. And she pats my face and strokes my hair because Middle Easterners seem to be just a little more tactile than we are. They also get right in your face when you talk, but that's another post.
Here's the thing: she's a fantastic teacher, we're learning tons, we're perking along in our class being all productive and go-team-go, and then she feels pressure from another teacher who gives her class daily quizzes, which they DREAD, because no one is 12 anymore. So yesterday Nancy announces we may have a quiz today. Except here's how she announces it:
"I think tomorrow maybe we have a quiz. Maybe I give you the Arabic and you give me the English, maybe I give you the English and you give me the Arabic. Maybe it is matching. Maybe it is finish the sentence. Maybe I divide you into teams and we keep score. Maybe you make a play or a song. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week..." At this point I'm like, maybe we fight in the caged ball at the Thunderdome! I mean seriously, what the hell?!?! How do you even prepare for that? So we said Nancy, what might be on this quiz-that-may-or-may-not-happen-tomorrow-or-at-some-point-in-the-indefinite-future? And she named off...everything we've covered in the last three weeks of being in class for four hours a day.
So today was in fact a quiz. And there was English-to-Arabic, and Arabic-to-English, and matching, and fill in the blank--it was a veritable smorgasbord of quiz options. And I only missed one! But still on the evaluation forms I filled out today, I wrote, "No quizzes, Nancy. Quizzes are not for grown-ups. Let Yvonne torture Class A if she so chooses." So we'll hope for the best.
Meanwhile you'll be glad to know I can say "My father works at the United Nations" in Arabic...because that's a phrase I'm sure to have ample use for.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Guitars and Overheads in Egypt: No Escaping the Evangelicals
Last night I went to church for the first time since I've been here. It appeared to be a nondenominational community church; my Arabic teacher, who I went with, just kept saying "It's Protestant, it's Protestant," and I couldn't get her to be any more specific than that. Maybe they don't have as many flavors of Protestant here as they do at home.
So we walked in and were immediately greeted with--wait for it--a worship team led by a guy on guitar with the words on the overhead projector! People, I was so at home. It's like the evangelical version of the Mass or Communion: wherever you are in the evangelical world, you're home, because they too will have guitars and overheads.
There was a section where we sat that was labeled "For Foreigners," which I'm going to assume sounds more inviting in the original Arabic, but it was because those pews had headphones where you could listen to an English translation. It felt like sitting at the U.N., so I chose to eschew the headphones and trust in my ability to follow the basic arc of a worship service. Since I've been to a few in my life, you know.
What I found was that not understanding most of what was going on was actually refreshing, because I felt like it bypassed my rational mind and just went straight to my spirit like a healing balm. I just wanted to be in church. I have finally made peace with the fact that no matter how far afield I am tempted to wander, Jesus has caught ahold of me and is not letting go.
When you are not absorbed in understanding every word, you can hear the brokenness and desire in people's voices when they pray. You can hear the passion when they sing. There was one song where I understood exactly three words: walidi (my father), kul boum(every day), and alleluia, which apparently translates the same way in every language. Alleluia, my Father, every day. It's pretty much all you need to know.
I looked around that church at these brown-skinned people singing in a language that is so close to the one Jesus actually spoke when the Word was made flesh, in this land where He fled to safety as a child and where so many of our spiritual forebears--Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joseph--have sojourned, and was so struck by the reality that of all the places to go and people to be born into, He chose the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized, those in turmoil, those who are seen as "other" by the people around them--and He chooses them still, and your best chance of seeing Jesus is to do like Zaccheus did--fight your way into the midst of those people and find a perch. I can meditate on that forever and give intellectual assent to that truth but sometimes I just need to sit and experience it happening around me, and last night I got to.
Alleluia, my Father, every day.
So we walked in and were immediately greeted with--wait for it--a worship team led by a guy on guitar with the words on the overhead projector! People, I was so at home. It's like the evangelical version of the Mass or Communion: wherever you are in the evangelical world, you're home, because they too will have guitars and overheads.
There was a section where we sat that was labeled "For Foreigners," which I'm going to assume sounds more inviting in the original Arabic, but it was because those pews had headphones where you could listen to an English translation. It felt like sitting at the U.N., so I chose to eschew the headphones and trust in my ability to follow the basic arc of a worship service. Since I've been to a few in my life, you know.
What I found was that not understanding most of what was going on was actually refreshing, because I felt like it bypassed my rational mind and just went straight to my spirit like a healing balm. I just wanted to be in church. I have finally made peace with the fact that no matter how far afield I am tempted to wander, Jesus has caught ahold of me and is not letting go.
When you are not absorbed in understanding every word, you can hear the brokenness and desire in people's voices when they pray. You can hear the passion when they sing. There was one song where I understood exactly three words: walidi (my father), kul boum(every day), and alleluia, which apparently translates the same way in every language. Alleluia, my Father, every day. It's pretty much all you need to know.
I looked around that church at these brown-skinned people singing in a language that is so close to the one Jesus actually spoke when the Word was made flesh, in this land where He fled to safety as a child and where so many of our spiritual forebears--Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joseph--have sojourned, and was so struck by the reality that of all the places to go and people to be born into, He chose the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized, those in turmoil, those who are seen as "other" by the people around them--and He chooses them still, and your best chance of seeing Jesus is to do like Zaccheus did--fight your way into the midst of those people and find a perch. I can meditate on that forever and give intellectual assent to that truth but sometimes I just need to sit and experience it happening around me, and last night I got to.
Alleluia, my Father, every day.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
I went to Luxor this weekend, in southern Egypt, with several friends, because there are a ton of pharaonic ruins here, including the Valleyof the Kings. And yeah, the temples and tombs were great, but here's the best part.
We climbed up a mountain to get a better look at some ruins, and I looked out on some kids below us who were playing soccer barefoot onthis rocky field. "I want to play!" I squealed, and promptly bailed on the ruins to join the game. There were 10 of us, all the rest of them Egyptian boys between about 11 and 15.
In pickup games, you don't ask to join, you just jump in. I jumped in. An older boy took command: "One, two, three, four, five," he counted, naming off teams. "Wahid, etneen, talata, arbaah, khamza," I returned in Arabic, and earned a grin, and we were off. Now I am not a brilliant player, friends, but I know how to exploit an opponent's weakness, which is that when I walk on the field, and I am smaller than everyone but the youngest kids, and a girl, and an American, I know they have no expectations. If I can make a few strong moves before they decide I'm worth marking up on, maybe score a goal or make an assist, I've made an impact on the game.
I played for about 45 minutes, in the heat of the day. At the end, Iwas slick with sweat, my hair had fallen out of my ponytail and wassticking to my neck, my face was that dark red color that used toalarm Mom when I played as a kid; my feet were cracked and bleeding from playing barefoot on rocks and I was covered in dust and I had a scrape all the way down my elbow from getting knocked down just as I made a sweet cross to center (I tucked and rolled to my feet like Ilearned as a kid, Daddy). And I had scored twice and had one assist. When I left, they called out, "Good soccer, madam, good soccer!""Good soccer, shebab (young ones)!" I called back. "Masr kwaiis!"(Egypt is great!") They cheered in return, "Amrika kwaiis! Welcome to Masr!"
Sometimes you get a moment of pure grace. I got 45 of them today. We cheered when we did well, we cracked on each other when someone juked or got juked, and we high-fived after goals. Pure love of this game that we have all played since we were knee-high to the ball was more important than where we came from or what language we spoke. It is one of the things I love best about sport: the team, the community, is more important than the differences between its members. These kids have probably heard some things said about women and about Americans that I would find deplorable, and when I am honest, I have ideas about Middle Eastern teens that I'm not proud of. But today, we were just teammates. I laughed when I set up the youngest kid for a goal and he jumped into my arms, I almost got teary when I scored and one of the older kids on the other team nodded with respect and said "Nice soccer, madam, good soccer," and for a minute we were all better than we usually are. As the old lady said during the Montgomery bus boycott, "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."
Frederich Buechner, by way of my friend Linc Ashby, says the gospel should make you laugh, make you cry, and make you believe impossible things, like a fairy tale. Today I saw the gospel on a dusty soccer field in Egypt. And friends, it really is good news.
I am not a sentimentalist who believes these moments are all it takes to create global peace and affirm the humanity of all mankind. I just believe in naming things when we see them; and we spend so much time naming the bad. We must remember also to name the good and true and holy, the perfect moments, the moments of grace, to celebrate and commemorate when we catch a glimpse of the way things should be.
To those of you who are my compatriots, happy Independence Day as we celebrate 230 years of fumbling and striving for liberty. For my friend who has just celebrated a landmark in his own country's liberation movement in June, blessings as we all seek a more just and honest world. And to all of us who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, as Paul writes, and know our allegiance is not to a country but to a King and a Kingdom of peace and justice, may we all continue to live into the grace and liberty of God. Grace grows in unlikely places if we have eyes to see it.
We climbed up a mountain to get a better look at some ruins, and I looked out on some kids below us who were playing soccer barefoot onthis rocky field. "I want to play!" I squealed, and promptly bailed on the ruins to join the game. There were 10 of us, all the rest of them Egyptian boys between about 11 and 15.
In pickup games, you don't ask to join, you just jump in. I jumped in. An older boy took command: "One, two, three, four, five," he counted, naming off teams. "Wahid, etneen, talata, arbaah, khamza," I returned in Arabic, and earned a grin, and we were off. Now I am not a brilliant player, friends, but I know how to exploit an opponent's weakness, which is that when I walk on the field, and I am smaller than everyone but the youngest kids, and a girl, and an American, I know they have no expectations. If I can make a few strong moves before they decide I'm worth marking up on, maybe score a goal or make an assist, I've made an impact on the game.
I played for about 45 minutes, in the heat of the day. At the end, Iwas slick with sweat, my hair had fallen out of my ponytail and wassticking to my neck, my face was that dark red color that used toalarm Mom when I played as a kid; my feet were cracked and bleeding from playing barefoot on rocks and I was covered in dust and I had a scrape all the way down my elbow from getting knocked down just as I made a sweet cross to center (I tucked and rolled to my feet like Ilearned as a kid, Daddy). And I had scored twice and had one assist. When I left, they called out, "Good soccer, madam, good soccer!""Good soccer, shebab (young ones)!" I called back. "Masr kwaiis!"(Egypt is great!") They cheered in return, "Amrika kwaiis! Welcome to Masr!"
Sometimes you get a moment of pure grace. I got 45 of them today. We cheered when we did well, we cracked on each other when someone juked or got juked, and we high-fived after goals. Pure love of this game that we have all played since we were knee-high to the ball was more important than where we came from or what language we spoke. It is one of the things I love best about sport: the team, the community, is more important than the differences between its members. These kids have probably heard some things said about women and about Americans that I would find deplorable, and when I am honest, I have ideas about Middle Eastern teens that I'm not proud of. But today, we were just teammates. I laughed when I set up the youngest kid for a goal and he jumped into my arms, I almost got teary when I scored and one of the older kids on the other team nodded with respect and said "Nice soccer, madam, good soccer," and for a minute we were all better than we usually are. As the old lady said during the Montgomery bus boycott, "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."
Frederich Buechner, by way of my friend Linc Ashby, says the gospel should make you laugh, make you cry, and make you believe impossible things, like a fairy tale. Today I saw the gospel on a dusty soccer field in Egypt. And friends, it really is good news.
I am not a sentimentalist who believes these moments are all it takes to create global peace and affirm the humanity of all mankind. I just believe in naming things when we see them; and we spend so much time naming the bad. We must remember also to name the good and true and holy, the perfect moments, the moments of grace, to celebrate and commemorate when we catch a glimpse of the way things should be.
To those of you who are my compatriots, happy Independence Day as we celebrate 230 years of fumbling and striving for liberty. For my friend who has just celebrated a landmark in his own country's liberation movement in June, blessings as we all seek a more just and honest world. And to all of us who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, as Paul writes, and know our allegiance is not to a country but to a King and a Kingdom of peace and justice, may we all continue to live into the grace and liberty of God. Grace grows in unlikely places if we have eyes to see it.
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