We're in Egypt
Well, we made it back! Crabs and all. Yes, our stowaway hermit crabs didn’t seem to faze the special security guard at our not-so-random screening. He started telling us stories of another guy who brought a falcon through security one time. Actually the security guy was really kind and sympathetic. They made me do the air chamber thing twice. I guess the first time I flinched too much or something (hey that thing is really kind of scary, it startled me the second time as well). But they were really concerned about my hejab flying up and made sure to tell me to hold on to it from the back. I guess they are used to sending muslim women through that gas chamber. Wait, that came out wrong.
On the long transatlantic flight, we sat in the middle section of 4 seats. Our only neighbor was a Spanish woman who spoke fluent English with a 14 month old baby lap child. Her son’s father is from Trinidad and her child was just adorable. His name was Aloe. The funny part is that when Egyptians answer the phone, they say “Alo alo” (I guess they learned it 100 years ago from their English occupiers) and every time she’d talk to her baby I thought she was saying “Alo alo” but she was really just calling his name. I hope that child doesn’t end up settling in Egypt when he grows up, could be confusing for him. (Like a woman named Anna- which means “me” in Arabic) We had fun playing peekaboo with Aloe with my hejab and Aliaa held him on her lap for at least an hour. Actually our neighbor was a really cool woman- full time yoga instructor with dreadlocks and all. We couldn’t have asked for a better seat assignment. Very cool to sit right in the front row seats of the TV screen, too. Our plane had a cool feature of a tail light camera, so you could watch the take off on the screen live, from bird’s eye view. I had never seen that before.
I was pleasantly surprised to return to find locally made DORITO’S in the market. YAHOO. Egypt gets better and better each year.
Aliaa doesn’t start school until October 1, which is even later than usual. Ramadan starts around Sept 24 this year and I guess they didn’t want to have the first day of school during the first days of Ramadan (wow, that’d be stressful) so they just delayed the thing they could. I sure appreciate it. I will start work on Monday, but I don’t think I’ll be going every day, and not full days, until school starts on Oct.1
On one of my online groups, we were talking about how giving food is not good enough charity, and how to really help a person help themselves. I thought I’d end this post with an excerpt of what I wrote on that topic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think it is really hard or borderline impossible to make or cause a person change. I mean, a person who has accepted being poor even to the point of abusing other people's kindness, has a whole personality built around that. I don't mean to sound pessimistic but, you can't change other people. Yes, we can provide education but I don't think that requiring a family to send their child to school in order to receive such and such is really the answer. We need to, instead, teach that family ***WHY*** it is so important for the next generation to be literate and to get their intention in the right place. NO program is successful unless the participants are self-motivated. Otherwise, it's all just going through the motions.
My husband and I were just talking about this kind of thing a month ago. Do people who have less than us have the right to be jealous or EXPECT charity from us? We both came to the conclusion that we believe that everyone in life is given opportunities. Allaah is just. People who become successful are people who can recognize opportunities, have prepared themselves for them, and who also have the courage and faith to take advantage of them. Yes, some people are mentally impaired, some people have been emotionally beaten down but honestly, some people just do not think ahead and don't prepare themselves- like one person said, for example, using drugs or dropping out of school. The best thing we can do for those people is to educate them WHY in the long run it is so important to be literate, or learn a second language (especially in this country) or to know basic math or learn about all kinds of law. WHY it is important to learn the correct way to pray. We need to also encourage those who have been through emotional or other abuse. Egypt is a *very* abusive society- just even in the streets you can see the "upper" taking advantage of or literally beating the "lower". This really affects a person's psychology regarding how pro-active they feel they can be- people with no self esteem just don't go out of their comfort zones. We need to counsel both the victims and the oppressors and educate them about win-win mentality. And as for those who are mentally impaired, they have rights on the whole society, just as much as someone who is so crippled that they just can not support themselves.
On the long transatlantic flight, we sat in the middle section of 4 seats. Our only neighbor was a Spanish woman who spoke fluent English with a 14 month old baby lap child. Her son’s father is from Trinidad and her child was just adorable. His name was Aloe. The funny part is that when Egyptians answer the phone, they say “Alo alo” (I guess they learned it 100 years ago from their English occupiers) and every time she’d talk to her baby I thought she was saying “Alo alo” but she was really just calling his name. I hope that child doesn’t end up settling in Egypt when he grows up, could be confusing for him. (Like a woman named Anna- which means “me” in Arabic) We had fun playing peekaboo with Aloe with my hejab and Aliaa held him on her lap for at least an hour. Actually our neighbor was a really cool woman- full time yoga instructor with dreadlocks and all. We couldn’t have asked for a better seat assignment. Very cool to sit right in the front row seats of the TV screen, too. Our plane had a cool feature of a tail light camera, so you could watch the take off on the screen live, from bird’s eye view. I had never seen that before.
I was pleasantly surprised to return to find locally made DORITO’S in the market. YAHOO. Egypt gets better and better each year.
Aliaa doesn’t start school until October 1, which is even later than usual. Ramadan starts around Sept 24 this year and I guess they didn’t want to have the first day of school during the first days of Ramadan (wow, that’d be stressful) so they just delayed the thing they could. I sure appreciate it. I will start work on Monday, but I don’t think I’ll be going every day, and not full days, until school starts on Oct.1
On one of my online groups, we were talking about how giving food is not good enough charity, and how to really help a person help themselves. I thought I’d end this post with an excerpt of what I wrote on that topic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think it is really hard or borderline impossible to make or cause a person change. I mean, a person who has accepted being poor even to the point of abusing other people's kindness, has a whole personality built around that. I don't mean to sound pessimistic but, you can't change other people. Yes, we can provide education but I don't think that requiring a family to send their child to school in order to receive such and such is really the answer. We need to, instead, teach that family ***WHY*** it is so important for the next generation to be literate and to get their intention in the right place. NO program is successful unless the participants are self-motivated. Otherwise, it's all just going through the motions.
My husband and I were just talking about this kind of thing a month ago. Do people who have less than us have the right to be jealous or EXPECT charity from us? We both came to the conclusion that we believe that everyone in life is given opportunities. Allaah is just. People who become successful are people who can recognize opportunities, have prepared themselves for them, and who also have the courage and faith to take advantage of them. Yes, some people are mentally impaired, some people have been emotionally beaten down but honestly, some people just do not think ahead and don't prepare themselves- like one person said, for example, using drugs or dropping out of school. The best thing we can do for those people is to educate them WHY in the long run it is so important to be literate, or learn a second language (especially in this country) or to know basic math or learn about all kinds of law. WHY it is important to learn the correct way to pray. We need to also encourage those who have been through emotional or other abuse. Egypt is a *very* abusive society- just even in the streets you can see the "upper" taking advantage of or literally beating the "lower". This really affects a person's psychology regarding how pro-active they feel they can be- people with no self esteem just don't go out of their comfort zones. We need to counsel both the victims and the oppressors and educate them about win-win mentality. And as for those who are mentally impaired, they have rights on the whole society, just as much as someone who is so crippled that they just can not support themselves.
posted by Just Ruthie at 7:15 AM
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