I started writing this post toward the end of June, but did not finish it until now…when I’m sitting here back in Cairo! Well, here it is. Hopefully will follow this up with a post on things I miss about Egypt soon. (Insha’allah!)
I arrived back home on June 12th. It was a busy school year, and now I’m looking back on a busy summer, too! I attended three weeks of teacher training for curriculum development and the Dalcroze teaching method. I’ve also been working on two graduate school classes, and learning the ukulele and guitar. On top of that, I’ve visited family in Florida and taken personal retreats to Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia. I certainly could use at least another month of summer!
While preparing to come back to America, I wondered what I might miss about living in my home country and decided to keep a list. So here it is, in no particular order:
Family
(Okay, this is definitely at the top of the list!) I really missed my family and the support that is so near. I’ve been able to see my niece take her first steps, and watch her expressions as she became familiar with me. The last time I had seen her was back in January when she was about 7 months old. Maybe when I come home for Christmas again she might say her first words!
Rain! Thunderstorms! Lightning!
At the time of writing this post (late June), the high was 80 F (27 C) today in Kentucky, but the high in Cairo today was 108 F (42 C). Even so, I’ve probably missed the rain and thunderstorms more than the 28-degree temperature difference! I don’t think I ever saw lightning or heard thunder while in Egypt. The Egyptian sky is cloudless for most of the year, and the most severe weather comes in the form of rain or a sandstorm. This made me very accustomed to never worrying about an umbrella while in Cairo. Back in Kentucky, it has to be a conscious effort for me to check weather forecasts for rain and prepare for it ahead of time, especially when spending the day on University of Kentucky campus. No matter where I’ve been this summer, rain– and especially thunderstorms!– will distract me because I’ve missed it. But in my second week back in the US, there came a storm that briefly pounded my house with 60 mph (96 kph) winds! Certainly a little more than what I wished for!
Late Sunset!
Sunset around my hometown of Wilmore can be as late as 9:00 pm. Sunrise can be as early as 6:15 am. That makes for a really good sleep schedule with not a lot of dark skies in my wakeful hours.
In Cairo, on the other hand, the sunrise and sunset pattern is significantly different. Since it’s so hot, Egypt is on Eastern European Time (EET) and that puts sunset in Cairo at 7:00 pm at the latest and sunrise at 4:54 am at the earliest! The reasoning is simple: having an early sunrise and sunset makes for a more enjoyable evening when temperatures will cool off quickly in the desert. In the winter, sunset can be as early as 5:00 pm. That makes just a 2-hour difference between winter and summer sunset times. But the difference in winter/summer sunset times in Kentucky is almost 3 hours and 40 minutes, thanks to Daylight Saving Time. I’ve found this website for solar graphs and data on Lexington and Cairo. Pretty interesting!
Personal Vehicle, Lighter and More Predictable Traffic
It’s expensive to own a car, especially in Cairo. But I can get by with not owning a car while overseas (at least for now). Not that I’d want to ever own a car in Cairo; the traffic is very heavy, fluid, and unpredictable. Taxis are my main way of getting to places I need to be. Public buses and trains are also widely available, but require much more Arabic skills than I currently have. Back home, having a car is very close to a necessity: you have farther distances to buy groceries, visit friends and family, go to church, and other activities.
Despite all the differences, it feels really good to have a personal car at home, and being able to drive when and where I want. It also brings to mind how living abroad can best be described: trade-offs. When living in a foreign country, you miss some things from home, but other things in your new country give a different kind of abundance. In my case, living relatively close to everyday places, and no gas bill or car maintenance!
Cold Cereal, Milk, Coffee with Cream, and PORK!
Food is an adjustment no matter where you go in the world. I’ve missed my staple breakfast food in the US: cold cereal with milk and coffee with cream. I’ve consistently eaten this kind of food for breakfast most of my life.
All of these are available in Egypt, but cereal is more expensive than it is in the US, which doesn’t make a good buy. Milk is widely available at a good price, and so is cheese, fruit, bread, and yogurt; this usually makes up most of my breakfast. I have a drip coffee maker, but finding the right coffee ground for a drip machine at the grocery store is tricky. The most popular forms of coffee are either instant Nescafe or Turkish coffee. Starbucks stores are also available to buy ground coffee. But it’s more expensive than in the US since it’s imported from Starbucks roasting facilities in Amsterdam. Still, I manage to have coffee, usually from Carrefour grocery store. Thankfully!
Pork is a bit of a rarity. Since the Egyptian people are 90% Muslim, and pork is viewed as unclean in Islam, any pork products are expensive and hard to come by. What I miss most is bacon!
Lightning Bugs
Having these bugs light up the air in the evening is wonderful, but not something I’ve seen in Egypt. It’s great to see them again!
Kentucky Landscape
Two school years ago (2013-2014), my morning drive to school involved going by the Kentucky Horse Park, usually around the time of sunrise. Some mornings also featured a cool fog on the rolling, slightly wooded farmland, making it all the more beautiful. That kind of scenery is now a treasured experience!
Sunday Liturgy and English Services
While I’m able to go to a church service every week in Cairo, it has to be on Fridays, not Sundays. Egypt’s weekend is Friday through Saturday, and with Friday being the traditional Muslim day of prayer, it’s also the best day to go to church. The Liturgy is in Arabic, so it’s necessary to take a Kindle with me to follow services in English. The chanting is Byzantine style, not one that I’m familiar with, nor have been able to learn.
Being able to come back to services in English, sing or direct a four-part choir in the Russian style, or serve in the altar…these made for some of the most vivid experiences of old-time familiarity.
But again, there are trade-offs. I wouldn’t be able to attend Liturgy in the Chapel of the Burning Bush while I was at home, or walk in the same places that the Lord spent his early childhood with his Mother Mary and Guardian Joseph, climb to the top of the God-trodden Mount Sinai, or visit the earliest birthplaces of Christian monasticism.
Other trade-offs with living in a foreign country can be tougher to deal with. The crux of the matter is learning to be thankful for them all…which is by far the hardest adjustment. (Still trying to learn that myself.) I’m beginning to feel that this year will be easier than the last, like my colleagues said who were themselves coming back last year. More on that later on, I hope.