Day 7: The Bird is the Word

Friday, June 28

Cultural Adventures #2: It's a short one today, but very prevalent. Expect to hear the Call to Prayer very often during the day. It sounds like distant singing, and really, that's what it is. It's sung verse from the Qur'an. It projected from the mosques, but you can also hear it from people singing in the streets occasionally. In the Old City (which is not where I live) there are men that walk down the streets (very) early in the morning and bang on some drums, reminding people to pray. During Ramadan, these same men walk up and down the streets banging their drums in order to wake people up for SuHur (the before-sunrise meal).

And now back to my life: We had a video assigned to us for homework the previous night. It was a 30 minute long historical documentation in Arabic about some famous bro from the Islamic Golden Age. Well, we had to watch it several times for homework, and it was very boring, but then when we got to class, they made us watch it again! It was all I could do not to fall asleep.

And then after it was over (30 mins later), they made us watch it again!! A second time! That's two times.

At this point, an hour had passed, and we thought: "Surely. Surely that's it." Nay, they made us discuss it, and then watch it again.

Me: "ashgawfssioageamaweflhweg;ohsfio;wigo"

By that point you don't even hear the words anymore. You can't start a day this way. I could feel my brains turning to jelly and pour out my ears. I had to draw this to keep myself sane awake.

Who, incidentally, also looks super bored.

After class, my roommate was all hungry as she usually is, and wanted food but didn't want to go anywhere to get it (cuz it's a thousand degrees, and that's reasonable). So, she was all complainy where one of the program directors could hear her, and he was all, "Ah, ok. Come with me." And he took us up to the kitchen. (The school has a kitchen where they make food for the teachers and stuff.)

There were three women in there, and he asked them to make us something. I insisted I wasn't hungry (because I wasn't), and we sat in chairs inside the door to wait.

They seemed... annoyed that we were there. They were preparing Couscous (because it's the normal Friday food here for everyone). They asked me at least twice if I was hungry. I had to insist that I wasn't, again. Then they made two sandwiches, one for my roommate and one for me, because 2 minutes is enough to forget that I wasn't hungry.

Well, it was a chicken sandwich, to say the very least. It was made with a large, flat bun that was hollowed out and chicken was shoved inside.

My roommate started to eat hers, and promptly stopped to pull something out of her sandwich.

SHE PULLED OUT A SPINE.

SHE WAS EATING A SPINE SANDWICH.

AND FOR SOME REASON SHE CONTINUED TO EAT IT. She was trying to be polite, as if, "Oh. I'm sure they didn't notice there was a SPINE in there."

Unfortunately for her, there were more bones in there, and she picked around them as best as possible, but really, when most of the sandwich is bone, just stop.

"I don't get it."

We're pretty sure they did that very intentionally. And then they asked me again why I wasn't eating. "I'm good. Thanks."

After that HORRIFYING  incident, we had a voluntary calligraphy workshop. I was soooo signed up for that. I don't normally sit in the front of a class. Totally did this time. So, the calligrapher bro gave us all paper and pens, then he would walk around the room and write everyone's name so that it looked all neat and historical. I was a little disappointed at the super boring Arabic letters in my name. People whose names start with "J" or "H" had the cool ones, cuz those calligraphied letters looked super neat.

But, this is what he drew for mine.

It's nice. I liked it. Then I fiddled with the design for a while. After drawing about 15 or so of them (my inner communication designer going "ohmygodwhy?"), I finally came to this solution, which I deem as an improvement.

It's like a phoenix, or something.

Then I drew my middle name without any help.

Then I drew my last name without help.

Then the calligrapher came back over and he was all, "Ah, wow. So beautiful." But then he promptly took out his pen to write my middle and last names so that he could one-up me.

I still like mine better.

When I got home, I just laid on my bed and ate peanut butter straight out of the jar. It makes me feel all closer-to-home, or something.

That night, Noura and her daughter were talking to one of Noura's other daughters on Skype. I'm not entirely sure what they were saying, but the daughter was all like, "Arabic Arabic Arabic Fuck You Arabic Arabic...." And my roommate and I gave each other an immediate look, which the daughter who said it noticed of course, and she started laughing, because she hadn't been saying it in a mean way, but in a joking way. Then Noura was all, "What does this mean, 'fuck you'? What does this mean, 'fucking'?" And me and my roommate and the daughter were all dying of laughter. We basically told her that it's just not a nice thing to say.