Creed Platter
TEACHING Jon and I wanted to administer our first test today. Things have been going so well with Ayan, Saharo, and Jamila. These girls can be exceptionally shy, but they’re smart and have huge personalities. (I want to be there when (Ayan’s eyes finally fall out of her head). Unfortunately, I think Saharo and Jamila were scared off by the prospect of a test. Jon and I were incredibly disappointed, more so than we thought we would or should be. We were going to grade them on a curve and host a review session before reading “Go, Dog, Go!” Luckily, Ayan was just an hour late and we were assigned Brittany’s students after lunch. Shafi and Ayanle are as relaxed and eager as Ayan, and they even volunteered to take our exam. It was just satisfying, and it’s satisfying everyday that we have a group of students who enjoy our company and want to learn from us. I now have very few anxieties about teaching. I no longer feel as if lives hang in the balance from 7 weeks of tutolage. A few days ago, the airless German bomb shelter in which we work was upsetting my stomach and my nerves. I almost got a little qiy’ (vomit) as I was reciting the D sound for Jamila, who insists on saying “chuh.” But she returned the next day, and we finally got that D down. My goals now are now smaller, more focused and feasible. COPTIC CAIRO The beauty of the edifices in Coptic Cairo, aged tens of thousands of years old, was so riveting that I think I might actually revist religious studies, a subject I lamented for 11 years in parochial schoool. I had this epiphany while in The Hanging Church, the 1100 year old Coptic church. The church is suspended on the Romans’ Babylon Fortress and is ornately decorated inside with more than 100 icons of St. George, St. Mark and others. The extensive displays of iconography in the church were so striking. Intricate arabesques represent the Holy Trinity, continuity. Fish represent Christ. Columns that hold the pulpit stand for the apostles and the Lord, God, and Spirit. Visitors kiss glass that house the relics of saints dismembered and impaled. I was both overwhlemed at the effects of each icon on my own memories of the bible. Suddenly I could recall St. Mark’s travels through the Middle East and the explanations of divinity and humanity in the Catholic catechism. When you’re inside the church, (maybe as in all churches), there is a sense of sanctuary. And given the tumultous history of Copts in the ever-Islamisizing Middle East, there is something special about this particular house of worship. Both Gamal Abdel Nasser and Boutros Boutros-Ghali have been involved in systematic efforts to eliminate the Copts of Cairo. The former led a coup and the latter expanded obstacles for the construction of Coptic churches. Arrest, torture, and vigilate justice are ongoing occurances, especially with the rise of Islamic conservatism and fundamentalism in Egypt in the past forty or so years. The Saint Baraba Church is located next to the Coptic church along the Babylon Fortress of Coptic Cairo. Coptics believe that Mary and Joseph stopped there on their way through Egypt. It is certainly statlier than the Hanging Church. But the Baby Moses was found at the Ben Ezra synagogue in Coptic Cairo, and it is beautiful. Sadly, I feel it has been consecrated by the lack of Jews in modern Egypt. While I was there, I purchased a picture on which one can see God and other sacred phrases written in both Hebrew and Arabic when flipped either way. Obviously, it’s supposed to represent the continuity of life and belief that exists between the people of the book, but the pulpit is not in use, and I think that speaks volumes. Finally, we went into the least ancient house of worsphip in Coptic Cairo, Al-Aqmar Mosque, a wide expanse of stone with the most beautiful call to prayer I’ve ever heard. Because we had no scarves, the women were forced to wear kelly green polyester robes before they entered and to give 5 pounds at the door (more tourism than religion, i’m sure). We looked like prize fighters.