In my Arabic class, our lessons cover a wide variety of political and cultural topics: poverty and extravagance, traditional art forms, and - today - stick fencing. Stick fencing (called al-tahteeb in Arabic) is kind of like fighting with sticks (shocker) but more like a dance than an actual battle... think Latin American capoeira, or breakdance-fighting a la Zoolander. In addition to talking about it and watching clips on YouTube (one of which was prefaced by many rounds of gun shots fired into the air; I think the instructor was trying to show us the aggression involved, but it was just really weird and kind of awkward), we actually did a little stick fighting in our tiny classroom. I was not terribly successful, in case you were wondering, but the mini tournament we had was entertaining, ending with one student fighting our teacher. Earlier in class, we had taken a break to make papaya juice, just because the same instructor happened to have a papaya tree in his back yard and decided to bring one in for us. All in all, I had a very entertaining and energizing morning before heading to Ana Al-Misri. For once, the kids were kind of relaxed there. Instead of chasing down little children and breaking up fights (although I did have to confiscate a few big pieces of wood and some rocks when I got there... one boy kept looking as though he was going to throw something), I spent the afternoon painting the nails of a few girls in their room upstairs. After I had to painstakingly redo the hearts that I'd added to one's nails over and over again, it made me realize that what these kids want more than anything else is attention - luckily something that isn't too difficult to give, as long as you don't just direct it at the troublemakers. After this visit, I am starting to feel a little better about my role at Ana Al-Misri. I've realized that even if things don't go as planned, or if no planned things happened at all, my presence and attention to these kids isn't useless. One girl actually asked me today (through a translator), "Who are you? What are you doing here?" It's weird for me to think that these kids don't understand that I'm volunteering my time to help them or view me as some kind of service provider at all, rather just some random girl who shows up and plays for a few hours a couple times a week. Then again, as I'm not entirely sure what my official role at the organization is, maybe her confusion is understandable.
Total side note: but I've been meaning for a while to talk about the extremely sketchy stairwells in my apartment building. There are two, one that is actually used to get from one floor to another (which we call the just plain "sketchy stairs") and one where we put our trash which is eventually collected (which is the "absolutely and utterly terrifying stairwell"). The absolutely and utterly terrifying stairwell I go into as little as possible, only when it is necessary to empty our trash into the cans on the stair landing on our floor, and it also happens to be inhabited by cats (much like the rest of Cairo) which rummage around loose garbage for food. The sketchy stairwell we actually use to go downstairs, though you can't go up because the door to our floor is locked from the stairwell side. Often, this stairwell is completely dark, even though there are windows (most of which are eerily broken)... I'm not really sure what they're supposed to look out at; I avoid glancing out of them at all costs. Luckily my basic phone that I picked up here has a flashlight built-in, so I can normally make out a few feet ahead of me and not trip. Then there are the walls, which have chalk marks and scratchings in them, almost like someone tried to claw their way out at certain points. The weirdest part of all is that as you walk down them, you can see onto every floor - none of which are alike. There are a few floors of businesses (including a construction firm and a bank), one floor with a bunch of prayer mats lined up, one floor that is completely under construction so it looks like nothing, one floor that looks like you're walking through a sitting area, etc etc. So... that's my apartment building! There is also an elevator, but it's tiny and has a habit of getting stuck on occasion, so it's not necessarily the safer option. Sketchy as all this sounds, my apartment building is really wonderful, and we have the sweetest bawab (doorman), who always chats with us about soccer and let's us watch with him as we wait for the elevator. That's all I've got for now... ma salama!
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