Best.News.Ever.

So I’ve been itching to blog for so long about everything thats been going on but I didn’t want to jinx it. Evil eye it. Fudge it up. Etc.

But now- alhumdulillah!- everything has fallen into place so I can scream it from the rooftops:

Mr. MM and I are moving to the US inshAllah the beginning of August!

I’m so friggin’ excited. For real.

Of course thats been the obvious route we were taking, but what we did not know was when and how as we had not received the visa. No more, my dear readers, no more. Everything is in place, visa in hand, flights booked, and faces to the future.

Its bittersweet as Mr. MM must needs leave his family behind as I left mine- the bane of all international marriages- and I will miss them a lot as well.

Its true that I hate living here and have had a difficult time with many things about Egypt. But like so many foreigners, and even Egyptians, before me I have mixed feelings for this terrible and wonderful land. I love Egypt very much but I can’t stand it at the same time. Living here has been the most wonderful and awful experience combined.

And the thought of going home- dear God! It makes me ’bout levitate every time I think about it.

There’s so much to do, so much to think about, so much to worry about, and so much to plan.

I’ll miss you Um ad-Dunya*, I’ll miss you as much as I’ll be happy to be away from you.

le sigh

* The Arab world calls Egypt ‘Um ad-Dunya’ which means ‘Mother of the World’ as Egypt has been the cradle of civilization since, oh, FOREVER.

Calling All Converts

I’m looking for converts who have written their conversion stories or are willing to write their conversion stories and would be interested in having them posted online.

The website I work for is dedicated to non-Muslims who are seeking information about Islam and new Muslims who are looking for support. One of my assigned sections is conversion stories and so many new Muslims and/or seeking non-Muslims have found inspiration there.

Would you like to be the inspiration for someone?

Email me at mollyannelian [at] gmail.com and I will reply via the official editors email.

A New Writing

This is going to sound elitist and I apologize but: those of you who have the password can go to Cairo Calling to read a new story I wrote this evening.

I haven’t done any final editing as its brand new but let me know your thoughts.

PS- Zuzu just found her way into a garmet bag and then couldn’t find her way out again. It was hilarious.

All Them Blue Beads N Whatnot

source

I’ve been super busy kids, I’m sorry. Basically 12 hours of my days are consumed by this new position. I love it but I don’t know if I can handle it.

C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

Come Mista Tallyman, Tally Me Banana

Daylight come and me wanna go home.

So I have some great and greater news! Which one do you want first?

The great news is that I finally left the seething pit of hell that was Global Education. Man was THAT a barrel full of monkeys.

Quite literally, I worked for monkeys. Everytime I went to work there was a new person working there until finally there was only one of the original staff left, the only one I trusted and who had my back, and a new boss-monkey who everyone hated and who I despised.

Boss-monkey was simply rude to everyone, including me, and finally I had had enough. I got to the two-month mark, had them tally me bananas, took my salary which I was almost not sure they were going to give me, and decided to never come back. Right after I had decided I found that the owner of the company had, just that day, fired without explanation the last staff-member I actually liked. I got out just in time because I’m sure that had I needed to try to get my bananas from boss-monkey he definitely would not have obliged.

So, yay! I’m free, I’m free, whoop whoop, I’m free.

And the even GREATER news is that the day after that I got a new job! A totally awesome job in a totally awesome place doing totally awesome work alhumdulillah. For real, ya’ll.

I am now an Assistant Editor on a prominent Islamic website focused on dawah. I will also write a bit for them as well inshAllah. Alhumdulillah rabiy-al-ameen!

I originally had to decided to say which one, however for now I have decided against that because if I ever need to work-rant (which I probably will since one team-member already rubs me in completely the wrong way) I would prefer that my readers not have whatever I say affect how they view the website. Also I hold a few views that are not officially sanctioned by the website and I really don’t want to have to censor myself on my own blog.

I think I will also be published on a small number of other websites through connections, but Allahu alem.

Either way its a HUGE first step towards being a (sorta) recognized writer plus I’ll get experience editing which is so important. Alhumdulillah for everything.

I only have two issues: getting to work (its a 90 minute commute) by shuttle which has no shuttle pick-up point in a place that is easily accesible for me. Its incredibly exhausting and disheartening. God, what I would do for a car. And the one team member who I’m not comfortable with. Imagine the most abrasive and condescending naseeha you’ve ever gotten except that it’s daily and coming from my boss. At least its generalized abrasion- everyone is feeling the burn.

Oh! I’m also hoping, inshAllah to get involved with a radio station offered through a sister-site to my own and to have my own show! Ya rabi! I think this job has really opened a lot of paths for me and I’m so happy.

I slammed a window (Global Ed) and God opened a very large door.

Those are some nice bananas, eh?

White Men and Shotguns

A white man with white supremacist connections shoots up the Holocaust museum and the media forgets to mention the fact that most white supremacy groups are heavily tied into Christianity.

I’m totally not saying that Christianity is terroristic but had this been a Muslim who did it everyone would be up in arms about Islam being a hate-filled religion and all Muslims hating Jews.

There’s a double-standard here. Can someone please recognize it?

Also looking at serial killers, mass shooters, and wars: the scariest shiz on earth is a middle-aged WASP  man with a gun.

Ass Backwards: How Cairo Welcomed Obama

I worked the night before Obama came and while being driven home I noticed more the absense of the usual hundreds of parked cars than I did the unusual cleanliness of the streets. What I did not know then was that Obama’s route through the city took him directly past my workplace and mile by mile along the route I take home every worknight. Cairo, and Heliopolis by extension, did not appear much more different until the next morning when we drove back into Heliopolis on business. Driving down the Salah Salem highway I could not help but stare and giggle at the unending line of police, sodiers, and “secret” servicemen that stretched out as far as my eye could see.

They lined both sides of the road and the divider up the middle: black-suited soldiers stood exactly ten feet apart in their ‘at attention’ postures with their hands clasped behind their backs and around every third soldier stood at least one “secret” servicemen, who despite their attempts at looking non-chalant stood out in their dapper business suits, and one to two white-suited policemen. At every corner stood no less than three policemen, two soldiers, and an indeterminate number of “secret” servicemen and behind them, further down the street, were more policemen manning the road blocks that would keep people from entering the road once it was officially closed off for Obama.

It was this staggering amount of manpower that made me stare but what made me giggle was that every single black-clothed soldier stood with his back to the road, at some places they quite literally stood with their faces to brick walls like unruly school children being punished. The fact that the street and adjoining buildings were scrubbed to a sparkle, that Egypt had this many people laying around that she could use them in such an onstentatious manner, and that they were forced to stand with their asses to the street just compounded to make it one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen. I supposed that even if it weren’t just for show it would make more sense for them to be facing out from the road guarding it but the whole thing just seemed so surreal to me.

This stretched on for miles, starting from in front of the Mohamed Ali Mosque, past Al-Azhar Park, and on into Heliopolis- presumably all the way to Hosni’s house where Obama took his breakfast. In one half-mile stretch there were probably 100-120 men just standing there. And really, lets talk about the “secret” servicemen. I get the suits, I really do, but the thing is that it makes more sense to have plain-clothes police in places where there are actually civilans however here the only civilians that anyone could see were those who were furtively making their way along the road in cars as quickly as possible like Mr. MM and I. The normal Cairenes were so terrorized by the idea of what the police would do to them simply for being on the streets at the wrong time that they holed up in their houses all day. Mr. MM said his friends who lived along the route didn’t even touch the curtains on their windows out of fear for their lives. So here were a number of men in suits standing around with the purpose of blending in and being “secret” however all they did is look like doofs standing in the shadows and smoking cigarettes. It was even worse when we got into the botanical sections of Heliopolis and they were hiding out in the leafy gardens in the middle of the road where only beggars and lounging street-cleaners usually hang out.

It was obvious when we were no longer on the Obama route not only because there were no more soldiers mooning us but because one could see again the obsequious piles of garbage, litter, and dirt that cover the streets of Cairo. The streets were still empty of people but at least it looked more like home. Gatherings were called off due not just to fear but to the idea that traffic, which is never fun in Cairo, would be so much worse today because of everything but in reality it was the complete opposite. Offices closed for the day, the Ministry of Education postponed all exams that were scheduled for that morning and afternoon, and many who did not have official breaks just did not go to work. So while there definitely were road closings while Obama was on the move, traffic in Cairo was actually fabulous in every other part, so much so that Mr. MM proposed that we drive somewhere just for the sake of being able to get there quickly.

Of all that things that he did here I wish that Obama had gone off the path and seen what Cairo really is because everything on the route he took was washed and fixed and freshly painted; Cairo University itself was entirely repaved. I wish that he had seen the degradation, the crumbling buildings, the piles of garbage, the hopelessness of the people; I wish that he had seen that the soldiers that lined his route stood as an allegory to how things always are here in Cairo: ass backwards.

His visit did what it was meant to though; forget the cynical pundits and journalists, the pessimistic bloggers and vloggers. General consensus among the Egyptian masses of everymen and everywomen is that Obama is someone who cares about the Muslim and Arab people and I can tell you that were Obama to run for President of Egypt tomorrow he would win hands down. But his speech really reiterated for me what I’ve been saying all along to people here: Islam and Muslims play a bigger part in America then anyone could imagine.

Now all I can hope for is that Obama stands up to Israel and Israel takes his words to heart.

Poligion and Relitics

Being driven to work today we passed again the front gate for the Ministry of Defense in Heliopolis (or is it Nasr City? I can never tell where each begins and ends) and I was struck by the inherent irony of the gate decor which is comprised of random pharaonic gods and a large replica of a pharaoh holding the severed heads of his four enemies by the hair. I think that there should be a word stronger than irony for this but I can’t think of what it would be. Sardonic reality? Anyways, we’ll get back to the reason I find it ironic later but first I was contemplating the obsequious use of pharaonic symbolism in all governmental buildings. To me it always seems somehow incongruous in such a religious society but then I reminded myself, as I always must, that Egypt is a secular country ruled by a democratically elected pharaoh president who puts politics before religion- except for the fact that the laws are based on shari’ah (loosely)- so of course they would use such religiously-safe symbolism as that of the mutually despised pharaonic civilization. Its least likely to ruffle feathers.

But then I was struck by an errant thought: I was once schooled by a sister, whose particular style of naseeha came with nausea, chafing, and rectal bleeding, who told me that it was haram to vote for any non-Muslim and therefore I had committed a grave sin by voting for Obama or voting in the American elections at all. (Side note: I know the man’s not Muslim but don’t I at least get some points for his name?) So, along that line of thinking isn’t it haram then to vote in any Egyptian elections? Have the 12 Egyptians brave enough to actually vote imperiled their souls?

And thinking further, is it halal to vote in ANY elections at all? What politician out there still has a soul and a connection to religion that doesn’t involve paying off priests and imams? Am I doomed to only voting for Kieth Ellison?

At least in Egypt we’re not given the choice and I have yet to meet an Egyptian who actually took the time to vote. Maybe Hosni’s doing us all a favor out of the goodness of his heart by not allowing us to vote in non-religious politics. That must be it- its for our own good.

And the irony of the gate is that it would be just as true if they had put Hosni’s face on that of the Pharaoh and the faces of the opposition leaders on the four heads of the conquered enemies. The only things this government hasn’t resurrected are the deifying of the pharaoh (they’re still working on it) and the marrying of half-brothers and sisters to keep the divine blood pure (but money and power only marries into money and power so its simply a matter of time.)

Faceplant x 3

I am so over this. I fell again yesterday simply while walking. I don’t know whats wrong with me right now but apparently my sense of equilibrium has taken a summer vacation.

My whole body hurts right now but whether this is from all of that falling down or because I’m having a flare up of my fibromyalgia I am not sure. This would be the first flare up of this magnitude in years. Maybe its a mixture of a small flare-up and painful joints from falling down.

I must say though that I am not the only klutz in residence: Zuzu is quite ungraceful for a cat. She trips over things, runs into doors, and somehow has a knack of running right in front of my foot while I’m walking so I kick her a few feet into the future. She also hits her head on the floor while doing the kitty back roll and it makes quite a hollow knocking sound.

Silly cat.

I Don’t Consider This Blog a Political Platform

And for that reason I do not blog about politics (beyond the little bit I blogged about the election and how it played a part in my life.) Thats partially why I recently removed some comments I made about Egyptian politics in a past post; I don’t want this to be a political blog because I am not a political person.

I also specifically try not to blog about the politics of Israel/Occupied Palestine because its a quagmire that so many others talk about with more education, understanding, and brevity than I, myself, ever could. I could never do it justice.

Having said that though, I have, just now, read a play written after the most recent, and horrific, siege on Gaza called Seven Jewish Children. If you are interested here is the link to read it and here is a link to the playwright’s comments about her work.

As always I believe that art is the great equalizer. My thanks to Reb Barry for originally posting all of these links for me to read.

Also here is an article by Avi Shlaim, an Oxford Professor of International Relations who formerly served in the Israeli army, on how the siege made him question his faith in Israel.