Newsletter #6 - 27 August, 2003
Hi there,
We've just returned to Cairo after a short break. It was good to be able to breath clean air and not hear car horns, yelling taxi drivers or horses being whipped.
Arabic
The past month has been dominated by Arabic study. We can even read the alphabet! Our Uncle Toby's oats container says 'Unkel Tobeez', the Pepsi cans 'Bebsi' and the Pizza Hut flyer 'Beetza Hut'. I'm sure you've noticed that the letter P is pronounced B. So is the letter J, as in Joshua and Joanna, so our names are pronounced a little differently here.
All the rest we can read but cannot understand. We also own a bible in Arabic and English. Unfortunately it's written in classical Arabic as all good books are, which is different (read, more complicated) than colloquial Arabic. However, at least it is written down. No one writes colloquial Arabic, which means the best way to learn it is to practise speaking.
English
As is sometimes the case in places where a second language is written/spoken, there are occasional oddities. We can only appreciate those in English. The first one is from a shop that sells home made cookies with a sign out the front including their slogan "There is no home like food."
The best quote so far is a very funny, quotable quote from a shop vendor at Khan el Khalili as Jo and I walked by. He called out to us "I don't know what you want, but inside I have what you're looking for."
The next anecdote doesn't have much relation to English, though it was found in an English language magazine, "Egypt Today". It's more one for the mathematicians. The cover article was about obesity with the heading 65% of Egyptians are obese. Here's their reasoning:
48.5 percent of Egyptian women over the age of 20 are obese, as are 16.7 percent of men in the same age bracket. "This means that 65 percent of Egypt's adult population is obese," says Dr. xxxx (name protected to save embarrassment)
Food
Due to Islamic belief that pigs are unclean, one type of food hard to find here is bacon. While it's possible to find bacon in Christian shops that also sell alcohol, it is often replaced with a less than satisfactory substitute, beef bacon. Beef bacon and eggs just doesn't taste right. Neither does beef bacon on a hamburger.
However, now we know the Arabic names for different fruit and vegetables, we're able to shop with confidence of getting the right things and doing so in a polite manner. After Joanna was shown some different vegetable sellers today, tonight we had a favourite salad of hers; beetroot, rocket and fetta with a dressing of balsamic vinegar and wholegrain mustard. Sure it's not very Egyptian, but it's even nicer to have food that we consider special in Australia. One drawback was some of the 'green vegetables' she bought today tasted a little odd and the closest thing we could describe it to was grass.
Holiday and work
Talking about grass, it was great as I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter to have a break in a place with grass to sit on and a pool to swim in. The fresh air was the best part, followed closely by wearing shorts for four days straight!
Joanna will be working on a needs assessment for the clinic in the Arba wa Nus area. This is a very poor community where the current one day a week clinic is hoping to expand as a joint program between the Coptic, Episcopal and Catholic churches.
I will be doing mostly IT and marketing work for Tukul Crafts, the self sustaining program that aims to provide skills training and an income to refugees in Cairo. If you're interested in supporting this program, you can do so by ordering some of the products online at www.refuge-egypt.org/tukul/ or email me with any other ideas you have.
If you are willing and able to support us by praying, some things to consider are:
- Thanks for ongoing good health
- Working out how to continue Arabic study at a less intensive pace
- Pray for peace in Sudan and an end to civil war there
- Wisdom in knowing how we can support the long term workers here
- Refuge Egypt as it continues to undergo staff changes
Lastly, another plug for the web site, which has this and some more photos of Wissa Wassef and the holiday. joshua.kuswadi.com
Thanks,
Josh'n'Jo
Email me - joshua at kuswadi dot com
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