updates and interludes

Egypt is slowly seeping into my heart as buttery sugar melts through basboussa. Though at first accidentally, perhaps even with reluctance; now, mostly with warmth and sweetness. Somehow, over a year has passed and Cairo is still the cage of this heart, the body where I live with its congested arteries and awakenings, beautiful babies and dear friends. And it will continue to be that intense aliveness for nearly another 9 months.

However, at this moment it is a distant home, as, a continent away, memories swirl through my head as the snowflakes around this house of my childhood. Here, the sleepy southern farmlands of Ontario offer an interlude of hibernation and healing with family, a space for writing and holiday merriment. I am happy to be in the moment though I am also anticipating changes that await in Cairo and the UK in 2009. As my reflections here have been largely poetry over the last few months perhaps it's time for a brief update.

Sometimes to relate the future one must begin with the past.

I have been continuing to work with PPIC-Work this fall, which has proved as challenging and full of learning as ever. Since September, I have also been volunteering part-time with Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), an organization that offers legal assistance and psychosocial support to asylum seekers and refugees that are living in Egypt. It seems that AMERA is a magnet for good souls; many dear friends have been working there this year (including past and present-flatmates). I am pleased to join the team full-time soon, beginning a six-month internship on the psychosocial side at the end of January. I am looking forward to connecting with, learning from and hopefully supporting refugee communities and individuals as they face the systemic and personal injustices of their lives in Cairo. And, as the internship is unpaid, I will also continue with PPIC-Work on a very part-time basis until the project wraps up in June.

November was a month of pieces falling into place both professionally and academically. I began some part-time consulting with a Swiss child protection NGO for a new project they are developing with four community development associations for working children in the Nile delta. In the coming months we will work with these CDAs to assess and create interventions to enhance enterprise-based learning for the children involved in the governorate's infamous furniture industry.

Early in the month I also discovered that I have been awarded a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to study at Bradford next year, a small university in the UK known for its peace and conflict studies department. I was attracted by the school's Africa Research Centre and newish MA program in African Peace Studies. I am very excited to have the opportunity to learn more about traditional approaches to conflict resolution, transitional justice processes and the reintegration of child soldiers throughout the continent, and hope to return to Uganda for thesis research next summer. I am extremely grateful to Rotary for their support, making this dream a reality!

And that brings us back to the present... enjoying the company of beloved family (all four of us together for the first Christmas in years!), supporting dear mom as she bounces back from surgery and remembering with gratitude the visits of friends this summer, family this Ramadan, and my own reconnections with friends in the UK this fall. Indeed this has been a year of much learning, beauty, and travel.

Wishing you peace, warmth, company, and adventures beyond the realm of materialism this Hanukkah/Eid/Christmas. And, as always, looking forward to connecting with you! Thank you for sharing journeys.