The Theory of my Life

Dust in your eyes

2010-05-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

I write about things in motion. Or rather, I study things in motion, as they shift and change, move from one language to another, one continent to another. Translation is an act that by nature involves a kind of movement. But more than simply looking at the movement from language to language, I'm looking at movement between and the intersection of registers, discourses, ideologies.

In the contemporary world, connected ever more quickly, even instantaneously, through the gifts of modern technology, we often operate as though the physical barriers of time and space have been overcome. (Indeed, this is classic David Harvey from The Condition of Postmodernity, in which he argues that a compression of time and space is one of the key components of the postmodern condition). When I need to speak to someone who lives across the world, I simply sign on to skype and away we go. And I assume that should the need for us to meet in person arise, I am only a plane ride away. The global marketplace is one in which meetings can be simultaneously conducted on 3 continents; models of the pyramids produced in China are sold in Cairo to tourists from the US; labor economics mean that members of a family might live thousands of miles away from their home.

It seems that the physical world has, in some ways, been surpassed by the virtual. We can communicate online, through emails, twitter, blogs. We talk and conference on cell phones and Skype. Relationships are conducted over the internet. Money can be transferred instantaneously across the world. Lives are lived in the interface between the material and the virtual. And sometimes, the material seems less crucial than that virtual. Where you are doesn't matter—so long as you have an internet connection.

The hubris and the limits of these assumptions were highlighted when, earlier this month, a volcano erupted in Iceland.

Suddenly, the physical world mattered very much. A volcano in Iceland had effects thousands of miles away. Planes were grounded across Europe, stranding passengers throughout the world. The media coverage reached hysterical levels as the ash cloud lingered, affecting travel for days. At once, the material was of primary importance. No amount of phone calls, not even the fastest internet connection, would help.

I was supposed to go to England for a conference. My flight was cancelled. I rescheduled, but that flight too was cancelled. As I sat in Cairo trying to find ways to get to the UK, the importance of physical presence, of the material, mattered immensely. The distance between Cairo and London which had, a few days before, seemed so inconsequential, suddenly loomed large with significance. I looked at a map and traced the path from Cairo to London with my finger, imagining travelling through each country in between. How long would it take to go over land? By boat? Could I fly to Spain, or perhaps Bulgaria, and take a train? How long would it take to cover these miles?

I could book a ticket online, read updates on the situation, even read news about what was happening at the conference, or watch the occasional session on youtube.

But I wasn't there. I couldn't see and talk to people. Listen to panel discussions and ask something during the Q and A. Attend receptions. Interview, or chat with, individuals whose work is relevant to mine. I couldn't even walk around the halls of the conference center, underneath terribly fluorescent lights, breathing in the stale recycled air, constantly chilled in the meeting rooms that seem always to be set two degrees colder than would be comfortable.

This may seem inconsequential. So what if I missed breathing dry air and being cold for three days straight? I should be thrilled to remain in the comfort of my apartment rather than the sterility of a hotel room. And yet these tangible details that are evacuated from encounters at a distance are perhaps of crucial importance. Watching a video or listening to a podcast is simply not the same as being at a conference. (For the same reason, watching a professor’s lecture on your laptop in a room halfway across the country isn’t the same as sitting in that lecture hall, in an uncomfortable seat, view partially blocked by the person in front of you, perhaps anxiously building up the courage to raise your hand and make a comment. Distance learning has much potential, but it isn’t a substitute for the experience of being in a classroom faced with a teacher. I worry that the advocates of education at a distance so fixated on the potential efficiency (and cost savings!) of having one professor give a single lecture that would be broadcast across the country or the world, neglect a key component of the learning environment, the tactile space of intersubjectivity. The monetary cost may indeed be lower, but a high price may be borne by students who receive a lesser quality of education. All this to say, simply, public education is still crucial! Please fund our universities! But enough of this, I diverge too far.)

Of course, there is another component to this story of crucial importance: access. For whom is this dream of the virtual possible? First, there is the fact that I have a computer with internet and so can participate in this virtual economy. I can interview someone on skype, I can keep up with blogs relevant (or irrelevant) to my work, I can watch the video on youtube of a conference session I wasn’t able to attend.

And moreover, the fact that I think I can hop on a plane and travel across the world at any given time speaks volumes about my own privilege and access. I have a credit card and so could book a ticket online. I have an American passport and so can travel to the UK without needing a visa in advance. Speaking with an Egyptian colleague about my plans for the conference (before the volcano), he said that he had considered going, but decided against it, because of cost, and the hassle of the applying for a visa.

“Do you need a visa? Have you already got one?” he asked me.

“Oh,” I replied hesitantly, “I don’t think I need one, or at the very least I’m pretty sure I can buy one at the airport.”

“Maybe you should check on that before you leave. You don’t sound too confident.”

And I wasn’t sure, but I was not terribly concerned, almost certain that I could just get on a plane and disembark in another country without a problem. That I wouldn’t be detained, that I wouldn’t be considered likely to try and stay illegally in the country, that I didn’t need a special visa or permission to go there. The only things that stopped me were the tiny particles of ash hanging thousands of feet above the ground.

As I looked out the window of my apartment in Cairo, particles of the smoggy, dusty air in my eyes and throat, I was reminded, once again, of the importance of the minute, banal details that so shape the texture of an experience.

- Pen

On the other foot

2010-04-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

My friend Sally and I were walking to dinner the other night. As we ducked and wove our way down the crowded street, we came upon a group of boys, maybe 12 or 14. We approached them, shuffling a bit to avoid them. They similarly shifted a bit to avoid us. I was on the side closer to them, and sadly, my calculations were off. Spatial reasoning is not my strong suit.

I dodged the boy closest to me, but neglected to account for the bag I was carrying. (To be fair, he didn’t really move out of the way). As I passed, my plastic bag somehow got twisted and tangled in this guy’s legs, pulling my arm with it. As I pulled the bag away, my thumb just barely brushed his bum.

I recoiled and jumped back. I was mortified at the social gaffe I’d just committed. And resolved not to carry so many things around with me.

We continued on our way and after my initial shame passed, I didn’t think much more of the incident. Until, that is, we were returning from dinner. We walked by the very same group of guys, still loitering on the street.

As I walked by this particular young man, he said, quietly, in the hushed tones usually reserved for solicitations, proposals, or curses, “Please don’t touch me again.”

Blushing with embarrassment, I walked on.

And just like that, I had joined the ranks of the harassers who haunt the Cairo streets. No longer just the recipient of comments and catcalls, I found myself among the sexual predators who lurk, preying on the youth.

Never ask a girl her religion or her nationality before kissing her

2010-03-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Or so says Omar Sharif. Evidently, he was in New York for the filming of “Funny Girl” when the 6 day war broke out in 1967. Apparently, he was immediately attacked in the press, both by the Arab press, for playing a Jew and starring in a film with Barbara Streisand (who, according to his account, the Arab press assumed was sending all her money to Israel). He was equally attacked by the Jewish press in America, who assumed he was sending his money to the Middle East, to Egypt and the other Arab states. When interviewed, his response was the aforementioned line about women and religion.

He related this story at a film screening I attended a few weeks ago with my roommate and her friends. Although he did wander in his speech, this particular topic was pertinent to the event, as it was part of a festival devoted to cultivating harmony between West and East through the arts. The film “Hassan wa Morcos” was shown and Omar Sharif, one of the stars, was to speak before it.

The festival was hosted by a church in Maadi, which is basically an American suburb outside of Cairo. It’s a strange place. At the event, there were a few Egyptians, a few expats not speaking American English, and then a lot of Americans.

Anyway, as we walked out to the area (outside!) where the film was to be screened, we saw Omar Sharif. As has happened to me when I’ve seen other famous people, it took a minute for the reality to sink in. He seemed familiar, of course, and but only belatedly did I realize that he looked familiar because he was. That he didn’t just look like Omar Sharif, he was Omar Sharif. We joined the group of people asking for pictures to be taken with him. The woman in front of us was an American who looked to be around my mother’s age. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was 11 years old,” she said to him as they posed for the picture.

The festival’s focus was tolerance between people and religions, and Sharif spoke generally on the topic. He began by explaining that as he was growing up, the boys in his school didn’t distinguish between religions. They didn’t even know who was what, only that some had different sounding names. He spoke in glowing terms of this earlier time. “A time without war,” I think he said. Then corrected himself, explaining that he had, in fact, lived through the Second World War. So it wasn’t a time without war, but it was “a time of love, not hatred.” (If he weren’t Omar Sharif, I would have been rolling my eyes at this comment. But he was so charming, I was a bit smitten, to tell the truth. It was clear why he was such a popular actor; he had a presence on stage. Even as he lost his train of thought or lapsed into platitudes, he was entertaining.)

Sharif explained that he had only had one great love in his life, his wife. The marriage had stalled when he was in Hollywood to do films, while she was an actress in Egypt. They didn’t divorce, he made clear, only separated. But, he said rather wistfully, although she found another man, he had never fallen in love with another woman. And even though people assumed that he had had many affairs and quite a lively love life, in fact, his heart had always remained with this one single woman.

As a person currently in a long distance relationship with a spouse who lives across the world (in California, no less) for the purposes of career, I took this part of his tale as a cautionary warning. Listening to him speak longingly about his lost love, I thought about my own husband, and the difficulties we face living across the world from each other.

My own internal processing about marriage aside, Omar Sharif continued his discussion; the expression he wore while when speaking of his wife faded and his animated countenance returned. He moved on, he brought up his son who had married 4 women, each of them from different religions and nationalities. His son, he explained, had simply taken him at his word when he once said: “Never ask a girl her religion or her nationality before kissing her.”

And that, dear reader, is the great Omar Sharif’s romantic advice. (The bitter, but unspoken, corollary being: you may only have one love, don’t squander it.)

-Pen

It's Ethnographic!

2010-02-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

"It's ethnographic" has become a bit of a mantra for me while here in Cairo. I recite it to myself whenever I am frustrated by the events of daily life, or something occurs to which my normal response would be impatience, frustration, or petulance. Quotidian hassles slide right off me, melting away with these seemingly magic words: “It’s ethnographic!” Instead of feeling frustrated, I feel productive. Great reserves of patience have revealed themselves at opportune times, all because of this refrain.

Ripped off by a taxi? It’s ethnographic!

Hassled while walking down the street? It’s ethnographic.

Crushed into a subway car so packed that I can hardly breathe, only to be buffeted by the crowd of people trying to get out when the doors open? That too is ethnographic!

Shortly after moving into my apartment, I had a Skype date set up with my husband for 9am on a Saturday. We hadn’t yet been able to get internet set up in our apartment, and having encountered a series of bureaucratic hurdles the process was taking longer than we had hoped. (My response to these annoyances, such as the guy with the router not coming when he said he would, finally getting a router only to find that it was broken, and so on? Yep, that’s right: “It’s ethnographic.” If I’d been at home, I would have been cursing AT&T and complaining about what terrible service they had. But here, I just chalked it up to ethnography).

So, on this particular morning, I found myself in front of the nearby internet café at 9am, or actually a few minutes before. The sign said it was to open at 9, so I waited. And waited. And waited some more.

I popped into the bookstore next door and browsed their collection. I read some short children’s books, which I quite enjoy doing as I can understand them without trouble. I try not to let the fact that their target audience is (more than) two decades younger than I am dampen the pride I feel upon completing one.

I went back to the café; still no signs of life. I ran across to the pharmacy and picked up some necessities. But, with no other tasks to distract me, I returned to the Internet Café and loitered in front

Under normal circumstances, I would have been annoyed, wondering why the shop wasn't open, frustrated that I had to wait and at the time I was wasting. And while I wasn't thrilled about waiting outside on a street corner, I wasn’t upset. Instead I saw it as an ethnographic opportunity to observe Cairo life. It was a rare chance to see the city wake up.

As I looked around me, I noticed the shopkeeper taking the grates off his store windows one by one. After he had carried each one inside and stowed it away, he returned with Windex and a rag and proceeded to wash the windows. Cairo is so dirty and dusty; nearly everything is covered with a thin layer of grime. Watching the shop keeper attempt to combat the inevitable film that would coat the windows by the end of the day was touching. At least this morning, his wares would be clearly visible through the brightly gleaming glass.

Every time a bus or taxi pulled up, I glanced at the passengers expectantly; hoping one of them would be the owner of the internet café. I watched wistfully as each bus pulled away, its passengers scattering to buy bread, go to the coffeehouse next door, or just disappear into the side streets.

A bright white van came to a halt directly in front of me. It looked like no minibus I knew of, but nonetheless I held out hope that it might contain the keeper of the café. Instead, a young man jumped out caring bales of newspapers. He tossed two of the bales into the coffeehouse and carried on, distributing the papers to all of the shops and apartment buildings nearby. I watched as he came back through to pick up the second and third bales, making quick work of his distributions.

At some point, I began to wonder about the shop. Of course, opening a few minutes late is a normal part of Cairene life. But really, by 9:30 I had expected it to be open. The street which had been nearly empty when I arrived was more trafficked. There were more men sitting out at the coffeehouse next door. More people buying drinks from the kiosk across the way. A woman walked by with a bouquet of flowers. Where was she headed, I wondered?

A man sweeping the street came by. As he tended to the area in front of the internet café he looked at me, then the internet place and back at me a few times. Finally, after considering the oddity of a foreign woman lingering on the street at this early hour on a Saturday morning, he stopped sweeping and said “It opens at 10.” He even held up his ten fingers for emphasis, or to make sure I understood in case I couldn’t speak Arabic. (He, of course, didn’t know that numbers are well with the purview of my able-to-read-children’s-books level Arabic!)

With fifteen minutes left, I went home rather than continue my vigil in front of the store. And when I returned, I found that that indeed, he was right, the cafe opened at 10. I went in and spoke with D about the side of Cairo life I’d seen while waiting for it to open.

“It’s ethnographic,” in my head, is properly sung to the tune of “The Electric Slide.” So while walking down the street, picking my way through the unevenly paved road and the occasional piles of trash, you might find me grooving a bit to that inexplicably popular hit.

“You’ve gotta see it. It’s ethnographic!

"You’ve gotta feel it. It’s ethnographic!”

- Pen

Adventures in Cooking, part 2

2010-02-21T01:00:00.000-08:00

My husband, call him D, is the kind of cook who will read a recipe completely before attempting it, ensuring that he not only has all the ingredients in the kitchen, but that they are easily accessible, that all pans, measuring cups, utensils he might need are clean and within reach. I tend to neglect these details, more likely to pause midway through cooking to wash some dishes when I realize, for example, that the only pot I could possibly use is encrusted in remains of oatmeal from breakfast, soaking in soapy water. He follows recipes rather precisely; I think measuring things like spices is overrated, and feel that creative substitutions are part of the fun of the kitchen. Although, I may feel this way because I often realize I don’t have the ingredients required only after I have begun to prepare the given dish.

He, for example, makes sure that there is a spot on the counter to put down a pan hot out of the oven before he takes it out. My preferred approach usually involves dancing around with the hot pan, trying to clear space off with my elbows. Suffice it to say that of the two of us, he has fewer burns.

Over the years of being together and cooking together, we have developed a comfortable rhythm in the kitchen. We have what I thought was a happy division of labor. Sadly, in recent weeks, while cooking without him, I have begun to suspect that on rather frequent occasions his role in the kitchen is much like that of a parent chasing after a toddler attempting to do damage control before the child harms herself or those around her. For example, by clearing off a spot for me to put down the hot pan that I might be holding while vainly trying to shove aside whatever else might be on the counter. Or reminding me that perhaps it would be wise to finish washing the dishes before launching into the food preparation. Or suggesting that it’s not a bad idea to check to ensure we have all ingredients on hand before starting to cook. Clearly, without him, I do none of these things, to occasionally hilarious, if frustrating effect.

Setting aside the tomato paste incident of a few weeks ago, several other misadventures have highlighted my pathological inability to plan.

When I first moved into the apartment I’m now living in, I arrived and my roommates had not yet moved all of their things in. They had returned to their old flat to pack up. I decided to make dinner. I chopped up and onion and some other vegetables that needed to be cooked, and I was looking forward to a nice stir-fry or sauté of vegetables. With the vegetables all chopped, I took a pan and reached for the oil. There was none. While this was a furnished flat, the kitchen was rather ill-equipped. But really, I do recognize that supplying cooking (or better olive) oil is beyond the purview of even a generous landlord.

I was utterly flummoxed. I stood, standing in front of the stove, staring at my plate of chopped vegetables, completely unable to proceed. I willed a bottle of oil to appear. (Sadly, my powers of telekenesis/telegenesis being underdeveloped, the situation remained unchanged). I opened all the cabinets, checked the pantry and refrigerator 3 times in hopes that I might have missed something. I looked in the freezer. There was no oil, ghee, butter, lard, no fat of any kind it seemed. What was I going to do? How could I sauté vegetables without oil?

The ghastly thought that I might use water finally occurred to me. I was quite loath to do so as it brought back bleak memories from a time when all I did was low-fat cooking, and sautéing with oil would have been anathema to me. This severe avoidance of any kind of fat was accompanied by a whole set of dietary and lifestyle restrictions commonly associated with anorexia.

I was hesitant to return to that bland and boring kind of cuisine. The mere thought of the poor vegetables stranded in a scalding bath, without even the merest slick of velvety butter made me cringe.

But, with an onion already chopped, and the dinner hour receding, I had little alternative. The vegetables turned out fine, if a little bland.

The very next day I went to the grocery store and bought oil, and salt, and pepper to prevent further culinary calamities.

After the incident with the misguided sauté I thought that I had made sure to fully stock the pantry so that I had all the necessary basics. I’ve been cooking for a few weeks without incident. I made a lovely lentil soup, lots of roasted vegetables, and a delicious spicy eggplant and tomato dish, among other things.

Yesterday, I was cooking dinner again and planning to add a can of beans to the vegetables I was sautéing (do you sense a pattern to my meals? Almost anything I make begins with chopping an onion and some garlic and browning it in oil).

The vegetables were coming along nicely. I retrieved the can of beans from the cupboard and went to put them in the pot of vegetables. I opened the drawer with the large spoons, vegetable peeler, and other extra utensils. I looked for a can opener. There didn’t appear to be one there. I looked on the drying rack, thinking perhaps it had been used. I looked in the regular silverware drawer. I looked up and down the kitchen, searching for a can opener.

I found a waiter’s style bottle opener and corkscrew. I took this item out and applied it to the can. I thought perhaps the corkscrew part could pierce the metal. It did not. Undaunted, I tried the bottle opener end, hoping somehow to slice the metal. I struggled with the can and the bottle opener, poking and prodding, attempting to wrest it open somehow. Alas, the can remained intact. Slightly dented perhaps, but not punctured.

I briefly considered attempting to melt the can open over the gas burner or using a lighter, but quickly thought better of that plan.

After a few more moments of banging the can against the counter, the floor, and attempting to force it open with the bottle opener, I gave up in defeat and made an omelet instead.

While a planner I may not be, I am at least resourceful. (I suspect, in fact, that the two characteristics may be linked). I used the unopened can to roll out my sore calves after a run at the gym this morning. Until I buy a can opener, at least the tin of beans can serve some purpose.

And perhaps I will someday learn to look before I leap.

The Perils of Pasta

2010-02-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

As a child, I once went on a field trip where we learned about the history of canned foods. My sense is that this must have been part of a larger historical trip, as I can’t imagine that there is a museum devoted to the subject, or that it would have been deemed important enough by the school authorities to warrant a visit. Regardless of what the larger historical point may have been, I only remember the canning factory. The exhibits demonstrated the history of pictures on cans: originally canned food wasn’t labeled with the colorful pictures we are now accustomed to seeing. However, in the early 20^th century, with an influx of immigrants who could not read, or at least not English, American canning companies started to make their labels with bright, vivid and easily recognizable pictures so that customers would be able to tell what they were purchasing even if they couldn’t read, or didn’t know the word in English. I looked at the labels with their bright pictures of tomatoes, carrots, beans and other vegetables. They looked older, different from the labels on the cans my mother bought. They evoked an earlier era and I wondered what the lives of the people who ate those canned tomatoes were like.

I was reminded of this field trip recently when cooking dinner here in Cairo. My own (over?) dependence on familiar packaging was driven home by a minor culinary disaster.

I had, at that time, been in Cairo for a few days, but was not yet settled. I was staying at a friend’s apartment, and living out of my suitcase. But, even in my temporary situation, I could use the kitchen.

Standing at the counter, chopping an onion, I felt at home. I was comfortable there; the familiar monotony of chopping vegetables soothed me. My anxieties about the weeks and months to come slipped away as I let my thoughts wander. I relaxed, humming to myself as I added oil to the pan, chopped some garlic to add to the onions, and then moved on to slice an eggplant, its shiny skin smooth under my fingers.

The vegetables were reliable, familiar, like old friends. Even thousands of miles away from my kitchen, a pungent onion could still make my eyes smart. But added to a pan with a little oil, it mellowed out. The rules were the same here. And, unlike so much of what I do, the results of labors in the kitchen are deliciously tangible and usually quite immediate. The longest you have to wait is perhaps 6 hours to overnight. It is a refreshing contrast to a dissertation project that has no set end point and few discrete steps along the way. As I listened to the sizzle of the onion, I felt at home and content.

The smell of browning onions filled the kitchen. I added the eggplant to the onions when they were clear. As the it cooked I added spices, cumin, coriander, red pepper, black pepper, salt. I drained and rinsed a can of chick peas, adding them when the eggplant was browned and soft.

At this point, I added in a small jar of tomato sauce. As I was scooping it in (because it didn’t really pour), I thought that it looked quite thick for tomato sauce, almost like paste. But I figured that maybe it was just Egypt and didn’t think much of it. I continued to put it into the pan, scraping it out of the jar and then mixing some water in to rinse out the jar. My suspicions that something was awry grew when I put in the water to rinse it out and it didn’t incorporate what remained in the jar. There was still quite a bit stuck to the sides of the jar. I noticed that the tomato sauce was not only unusually thick, but also a deeper red than I had expected.

As I continued to try and scrape out the last of the tomato sauce, I admitted to myself the possibility that I might have inadvertently purchased tomato paste. But at that point, I had added the entire (12 oz) jar. I stirred it in, hoping that it would become normal and right. It did not. I added more water to thin it out.

I rummaged around the unfamiliar kitchen in an attempt to try and find something that would improve this sauce. Chicken broth? Wine? Different spices? Perhaps I could add water and make soup? I added some sugar to temper the acidity of the tomatoes.

Finally, I brought myself to look at the jar. It said, right on the label IN ENGLISH “Tomato Paste.”

This only confirmed the conclusion I had already come to. My plan had been to mix in feta cheese, so I did so, in an attempt to temper the really strong tomato flavor. The feta here is different from American (or I suppose French) feta. It is less crumbly and more smooth, with a texture closer to goat cheese. It is quite delicious. I love it stirred into sauces because it adds a creamy richness. In this case, however, no amount of delicious feta would be able to temper the overpowering tomato flavor.

I toyed around with it, adding what I could to round out the flavors. But the fact remained that instead of adding a 12oz jar of tomato sauce, which would have nicely complimented the eggplant and chickpeas, I had added an entire jar of tomato paste. I made my pasta and ate my overly-tomato sauce.

Alas, it was not my best moment. But the evening was a pleasant one. I enjoyed cooking, and to be honest, I could have made the same mistake at home, if not for the fact that tomato paste only comes in tiny cans. Thank god for those small cans, and for the marketing acumen of the guys at Hunts (or wherever) to sell different products in packaging that comes not only with pictures, but also in special sizes according to the product.

I suppose that, if you don’t bother to read them, words are not enough, even if they’re in one’s own language!

-Pen

The Problem with meters

2010-01-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

In the last few months, I have heard metered taxis lauded as cheaper and less stressful than taking a regular taxi which almost inevitably ends with a ‘discussion’ with the driver about the fare. So, I was pleasantly pleased to find one as I left to attend a literary reading in a suburb of Cairo last night. As the journey began, I looked out as we crossed the Nile and thought about how beautiful the lights shining on the water were. I was excited for this event, unsure what I would find, but feeling that this would be “Ethnographic” with a capital E. As the first event I attended specifically as a part of my fieldwork, I had high hopes, and not a little trepidation. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t look at the meter until several minutes later. I was alarmed at the price, noting that the meter was rising quite rapidly, running through pounds like water. It struck me as curious, but I thought perhaps it was just the fact that we were in traffic.

As the drive continued, the meter continued to press on. I couldn’t believe how quickly it was rising. I did a quick calculation in my head of what this would mean if it kept up at this rate. I began to panic as I realized that I wasn’t carrying much cash. I thought it would be plenty, but at the rate the taxi was charging me, I risked not having enough to get home. What would I do if I were stranded in this faraway suburb? I ran through the possibilities: perhaps I could call a friend to drive out and pick me up, or take a taxi to the outer reaches of the subway station—but I don’t exactly know where those are yet, so the prospect of directing a cab to an unfamiliar subway stop seemed less than ideal. Perhaps, I mused, I could pay with the $20USD I still had in my wallet, or I could take a cab home and have my roommate run downstairs to pay the cab if I didn’t have enough. Perhaps we could stop at an ATM so I could get more cash.

All these scenarios were running through my head as the taxi continued on its way. Of course, I had no idea where we were going since I’d never been before and have only the vaguest idea of the general geography. I had an address and that was all. I didn’t know the necessary directions to tell the driver, who instead asked another taxi driver. We continued on our way. I was suspicious as it seemed, even to my directionally-challenged-self that we seemed to have gotten off the autostrade and back on again in a big loop. When we finally arrived in the neighborhood of the bookstore, he asked me where it was located. I told him the address; he stopped and asked some teenagers hanging out on a corner. I succeed in speaking only enough to demonstrate the limits of my knowledge—both of where I’m going and of my ability to speak the language.

Finally, after driving around in circles (literally), he dropped me off at the bookstore. I asked what the fare was. “70LE,” he responded. My roommate had suggested I pay around 30. But, she noted, if I didn’t have change for a 50, they were likely to keep it. I was grudgingly prepared to pay 50. I hesitated, wondering if I should just give him the 50 and leave it at that. 70 was extortion. But, there was the matter of this meter. The meter said 70. And we had been driving for a long time (around 1hour) and had covered a long distance. Maybe it was a fair price. That is within the realm of normal for an airport fare, and this had seemed as long as the drive from the airport. And, I thought to myself, the whole point of a metered cab is that you have the fare right there, with no hassle or haggling. If I want the convenience of a metered fare, I should be willing to risk the consequences—that the fare will in fact be higher than I like.

So, I handed over my 100LE and asked for change back. Unsure, at this point, how I would get home since I had only 1EGP left in my wallet. I waited for change. He gave me back 20. I waited for the other 10. He said he didn’t have it. I waited, expecting him to look again. “Wait here” he said, “I’ll get it and bring it back”. This I knew to be a lie. Or at least I had little hope that he would come driving back. I got out of the taxi with my 20LE and waited for a few minutes outside, livid over the fact that I had been so egregiously ripped off. Not just that the fare was excessively high, but that he had the gall to take an additional 10 pounds!

Inwardly seething, I entered the bookstore. It’s a very lovely bookshop with a wonderful collection of books in English and a good selection in Arabic. I wandered around, waiting for the event to begin. I looked at the books. After wandering around, I sat down and I continued to wait. Then I got up to look around again, taking in the books. I noticed that there was a book that I’d been interested in. It was 20LE. I sat back down and waited. I had noticed an ATM next door as I walked in. Since I had time, I ran out and got cash. I quickly bought the book I’d been eying and sat back down just as the event was starting. I had arrived at the bookshop an hour earlier.

The kicker is, after this crazy trip and long wait, the event was in Arabic. Entirely in Arabic, not a word of English. I understood little. Words and phrases, certainly. But the thread of the conversation eluded me entirely. I can tell you they spoke about writing, about books, about genres and different kinds of writing, but what the writers on this panel had to say about any of the above topics, I know not. I listened, picking up what I could, and then left before the audience Q and A.

What book did I buy? The irony, or perhaps just appropriateness, of the purchase didn’t strike me until this morning when I sat down to write. I bought the book “Taxi” by Khaled Al-Khamisy. It is a collection of tales culled from the author’ conversations with taxi drivers in Cairo. Perhaps my evening was more ethnographic than I had expected.

As they say here, welcome in Cairo!

the new year

2010-01-18T23:03:00.000-08:00

It has been a considerable while since I posted. A year has passed. For the sake of continuity, I feel compelled to catch up, to review the past year for my non-existant readers. I can’t just jump back in with no explanation. I am too committed to the narrative form to be comfortable with that kind of a jostled switch. And so, here are some musings about the last year.

A new year is upon us; 2009 has slipped out. A new decade has begun. The collective mood in early January seemed to be relief and delight. Evidentially, 2009 was a big year for many, full of change and discomfort. The year was a rush for me as an individual. I began this blog to help me write through two major events happening in 2009: my wedding and my qualifying exams. Strangely, I never posted during the whole of the year, although there was much to post on. I was too pressed and distracted to write. It was a year punctuated by extraordinary events. Some of them wonderful like the wedding and passing the exams. Others less expected and more dismal: the deaths of loved ones; a mugging; sexual harassment at school. But we made it through the year.

In the (albeit brief) six months since I took my exams and we got married, I must say, the marriage is going much more smoothly than the dissertation work. Marriage is great; I recommend it highly. We had all this pressure and stress in the run-up to the wedding. There were so many details to sort out and so many little decisions to make; we were driving each other crazy. But since then, we’ve been able to giddily enjoy being together and begin to build our life together. Granted, we lived together before the wedding, so it isn’t quite as if we were starting from new. But, the wedding changed us. We are more committed, more solid in the plans that we make. More excited about what the future might bring and what the present holds.

I’ve been surprised to find myself such an advocate of marriage. It is an institution about which I had many misgivings prior to the wedding. Now that I’m here, though, I’m like a new convert, ready to sing its praises to anyone who will listen.

The world of my academic life is much bleaker. My committee expressed deep concerns about my dissertation project during the exams. This sent me into a tail-spin of self-doubt and confusion for much of the next several months. I still have no clear idea what the dissertation will be written on. I haven’t applied for the funding that I should have. I feel lost.

Caught in this tangle of confused ideas, I am about to embark on my fieldwork. I leave for Cairo in two days. I am packing up my things, getting ready to go and embark on this new phase of the degree. I will be there to do research for the dissertation.

Sadly, my beloved husband will not be joining me there. He’ll visit, but he can’t move there with me. So, we’ll be playing the long-distance game. Obviously a masochist, since my marriage is happy, I’ve chosen this time to leave and move to a different continent, to a city where I know almost no one, and where I don’t speak the language particularly well.

My intention is to write about this crazy adventure. To pick up where I left off and use this space to think. About the books I’m reading, the things I’m seeing, my life and that of those around me.

- Pen

A Picture of Vanity

2008-12-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

As so often it seems when reality and fantasy come face to face, I have to make some choices. I can’t have my cake and eat it too. We have limited funds for the wedding and must apportion them wisely. Photography has proved particularly troubling. We want to conserve money and keep costs low, but don’t want to sacrifice quality.

I have a number of friends who are amateur photographers, they have good cameras, take lots of pictures, and take good pictures at that. I’m sure that they would be willing to capture the day. But then, I want them to enjoy the wedding, not feel obliged to document it. And with that I’ve swiftly eliminated the least expensive option since don’t want to make our friends work our wedding.

Simply deciding to hire a photographer, however, has not proved so simple. While I want to economize, I’m drawn to the most expensive photographers. Their photos are achingly beautiful. The weddings look charmed; everyone glows, as if some diaphanous veil of happiness and beauty had settled on the party. And the brides, they look stunning. The photos star silky dresses, curls and coiffed hair, bright eyes and brighter lips.

I look at these pictures and I want them. I want to look that beautiful. I want to have these pictures so that I can look at them later, when I’m older, when I’m gray and wrinkled, and say to no one or everyone: “Once I was beautiful, once. See, I was beautiful, once.”

Looking at these beautiful photos has forced me to stare straight at the depth of my own vanity. I want these pictures not because I want the night to be captured, or so that I have pictures of my family and friends, or even of my future husband, or the two of us on this special day.

I want the nice pictures out of pure vanity. I want to look beautiful and to be captured looking gorgeous. Up close and personal, it is not a pretty picture.

The question remains, just how much is my vanity worth?

- Pen

Use Your Imagination

2008-10-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Walking towards the Anthropology building on Friday morning, I glanced down at the blue book I had just purchased with which to take a language exam for my program. It was the first time in my graduate career that I had to use a blue book. Looking at it, I was struck by the words “USE YOUR IMAGINATION” plastered above the bold “BLUE BOOK: EXAMINATION BOOK.” The former phrase was placed in a box, and stood out from the rest of the administrative appearing text of the book: lines for name, subject, date, course number, etc.

“Use your imagination” it said. It seemed so odd, on the front of a blue book, to be called to imagine. Exams seem precisely not the site for imagination. Exams are the moment when knowledge is being evaluated, not creativity. While of course there can be some creative labor in the way in which materials are connected or in the structure of an argument, in an exam, there is a rubric for evaluation, and you are invited not to imagine what the answer is, but to answer the question according to previously established guidelines, whether that be by solving an equation, identifying a passage, or comparing two images.

The demand for imagination seemed not only out of place, but even a little offensive. While I am deeply invested in the creative work that academic labor requires and engenders, I also recognize that the structure of the exam is not one that cultivates imagination or creativity. The exam, including the convention of blue books, is an archaic form that perpetuates rigid ideas of what constitutes knowledge. Even the exams that I will take at the end of this year, in which there will be no blue books, are not about using my imagination, but about demonstrating a particular grasp over a canon of material. Granted, I am in a program that allows me to define and redefine what that body of material is, but the point remains, that I will be required to exhibit knowledge about the texts, theories, and techniques that are on my lists.

The call to imagine masks the truth of the exam, pretending as though the blue book is a conduit for imagination and play, rather than a hierarchical tool for the regurgitation of learned materials. Exams have their place, their gate keeping function can be critiqued, but the evaluation serves a function as a manifestation of competence. However, it remains a structure of exclusivity, authority, regulation, and domination. Pretending as though the exam is the locus of creative work with the exhortation to be imaginative not only cheapens creative labor, but masks and denies the disciplining function of the exam.

The irony, though, is that I was taking a translation exam, and, as I struggled with vocabulary and grammatical structures with which I was not familiar, a little imagination was useful. If only I had written the passage as I imagined it to be, rather than the mangled version I coughed up, perhaps it would have been more successful.

The Gift

2008-10-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

This really should be the inaugural post, and if not for my desire to explain and to provide context, it would be.

In planning the wedding, I have been dreading the subject of the gift registry. Should we register for gifts? We don’t need anything, and given the state of the economy, it seems a burden on our guests to ask for a plate worth more than our couch. Further, the entire wedding industry, registries included, have become so excessive, so much about conspicuous consumption, gross expenditure, and the accumulation of material goods, that perhaps, as a political move, we could decide simply not to engage with that. We could provide charities or causes that are important to us and suggest donations to those good organizations doing excellent work.

But I remained uncomfortable with the thought of forcing my priorities and interests on others. And I knew that for certain guests, grandparents and older aunts among them, that very materiality of a gift mattered. It is not the same to donate $50 to a literacy program or an environmental organization as it is to purchase a serving bowl that will be used, year in and year out, on a regular basis, on holidays and everyday, and that will be a part of our lives together. The thing matters.

I was at an impasse.

Meanwhile, this week I’ve been reading The Gift, by Marcel Mauss, where he discusses the concept of the gift. Or, more properly, the gift economy. In some societies, the giving, receiving, and reciprocating of gifts are the basis of the economy. However, this exchange is more than economic; it incorporates legal, moral, political, aesthetic, and religious elements. It is a foundational element of the society; colloquially, it is the glue that keeps things together or the oil that keeps the parts moving. The gift is not voluntarily given; rather, it is crucial for the maintenance of peaceful social relations. As he points out, “to refuse to give, to fail to invite, just as to refuse to accept, is tantamount to declaring war; it is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality” (Mauss 13).

The system is a self perpetuating one. A gift is given, it is received, and it is reciprocated in time. It is imperative to reciprocate because the receiver of the gift is placed in the debt of the giver. The gift entails an obligation; it has strings attached. In order to repay the debt, to remove oneself from that relation of obligation, the gift must be reciprocated.

Significantly, the exchange is not immediate, but occurs over time, during which, through these obligations, debts, and ties, the two communities, tribes, or even individuals, are linked in a social relationship. It is through this endlessly oscillating cycle that social relations are maintained, kinship established, and daily life can continue.

Upon returning to the essay, making notes, and considering these thoughts on exchange with respect to my own work, I was struck with the link to the wedding.

The problem perhaps with the modern registry is not that it exists, but the way it places the focus on the desires and wants of the couple, rather than emphasizing the way in which each gift entails a relationship between giver and receiver. A relationship not merely to be marked with a thank you note, but one that endures over time. The thing itself does matter. More precisely, it matters not because the specific plate or bowl does, but because in that act of accepting, a relation is forged, a community is created, a bond is strengthened.

So, we will register for gifts, for things that we would like, for items that will populate our daily life. But we will register not for these things as things, but for the continued links they provide to those who are important to us.

- Pen

Mauss, Marcel. 1990 [1950]. The Theory of the Gift. trans. W. D. Halls. New York: W. W. Norton

the beginning

2008-10-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog post ever, joining the blogging masses just 7 or 8 years late. I suppose I like to take things slow. What was it that precipitated this particular move? Why now?

I find myself in a peculiar situation: I am currently a graduate student in Anthropology. I’m planning to take my qualifying exams late this spring. And I am getting married in June.

In the next nine months I will prepare for, plan, and undergo two incredibly stressful, productive, and formative events; one in my career, the other in my personal/family life. It seemed a good idea, you know, to pack all the big events into a two month span, you know, for kicks.

I saw these two events looming in the future as parallel. They both require incredible preparation, emotional, intellectual, logistical. They both mark then end of one phase and the beginning of another. They are both rituals that have deep and storied pasts within the society of which they are a part. That said, I was not considering them together.

Until this week, when they intersected suddenly, while reading for a field statement, when I had a revelation (please excuse the hyperbole), about the wedding.

This blog is the product of that union. In it, I will attempt to weave together these two elements of my life. I will write about theory, and about the quotidian, about details of the wedding, and anthropological concepts. It will be a space to consider how my personal life, the relationship I have with a wonderful man and the life we plan to build together, can incorporate my academic life, the theories and questions that drive an academic pursuit. And it will probably be a space, as most blogs are, to vent, to complain, and to comment on the vagaries and quirks of this modern world.