Sacred Spaces --10/5/17

Hello everybody! Maren here. Today has been and continues to be packed full of academic lectures and Ol(e)ympic activities -- so packed, in fact, that I am currently typing this blog post while boiling water, fiddling with the stove, wiping down the counters, and making soup.

With so much going on, many of us were shocked to wake up this morning and realize that it is our final week in Egypt. It feels like we are just starting to feel comfortable here and know our way around, to call this place our home.

But we leave for India in just one week. It will be our eighth time on an airplane. Once again, we will find ourselves in a different place, encountering diverse people, unfamiliar cultures, and new experiences.

In lecture today, we talked about how these places that we become familiar with, these spaces that become our homes, do eventually change and pass away. For Egyptians, this has meant an end to ruling dynasties and governments in anticipation of new societies; it has meant the recycling of mosques or the reconfiguration of political systems in preparation for new structures.

And for us, it means that we will ultimately have to leave the familiarity of these rooms that we have come to hold so sacred. A lot has happened here this month -- we've battled traveler's diarrhea and gastroenteritis; we've had classes; we've done homework; we've cooked dinner for one another; we've hosted movie nights; and we've laughed so hard we cried.  But now, we are getting ready to say goodbye to all of this. To the oven that never actually turned on. To the dust on the patio. To the extensive dish-ware sets and the small enamel coffee spoons. To the dressers and the desks and the bookcases that line the sides of the walls like monks waiting to offer a benediction.

It's our final week in Egypt, our last week in these apartments. Our time in this particular space is limited. And though, when the time comes, I will be excited to visit someplace new, I will always have a fondness for these rooms.