ana Amrekeea (أنا أمريكية) and July 4th

It is easily my favorite thing to say in Arabic -- I am American -- and it is so safe to say here (allhumdilliah).

I have decided that if I stick to lessons I am interested in, my kids are interested. When I teach about the things I love (deserts, superheros, and the Middle Ages), we have good days, but when I am trying to explain astronauts and nutrition I struggle.

So, needless to say our Fourth of July lesson was awesome. We talked about the American flag and learned the words stripe, independence, fireworks, parade, and barbeque. My kids are also quite the fans of George Washington now after the reading we did. While they all loved taking home their paper hats for a ''parade,'' the highlight was easily Yankee Doodle. It was great that most of them already knew the words, but I have a precious video of a happy and peaceful chaos striking my classroom while they marched around desks holding onto the lyrics shouting the words at the top of their lungs.

In other news on my love for the great country of ours, I had a pretty spectacular Fourth of July post a rather frustrating beach trip (will save that for another post). We had gone to Cairo so all the LE volunteers were together and we took a rather lengthy cab ride (it could just be the drivers didn't know where we were going) to the British School.

I know, I know -- irony anyone? The American Embassy held its Fourth of July bash at the British School -- and as soon as we got there and I was asked for my passport I was instantly in heaven. I took off the sweater I wore to cover my shoulders and we went to take advantage of the free food: hamburgers, hotdogs, beans, chips, corn, coleslaw... free coca cola... and cake.

That's right cake - we almost didn't discover the cake but we hear someone talking about it and asked them to point us in the right direction. The cake was huge - about six feet in one direction -- and while we ate quite a bit all of us added a side note on how we wish we could have fit more into our stomachs.

I forgot to add the best part - it was free. The food, the drinks - at the end Jake and I each grabbed a couple drinks for the road - free. and that's what's so great about America. They also had a pretty intense raffle (airline tickets, a weekend in Sharm al Sheik), but none of us one.

Sam disappeared for the beer (which, you did have to pay for), and the rest of us sat at a table listening to a live band play jazz and oldies while people danced. Men and woman danced together. I felt like a veil of oppression that had hit me earlier in the day had been lifted and even Steve (our token British guy) enjoyed the event.

The evening closed with Lee Greenwood and the releasing of balloons. Upstairs, the Marines who were selling the alcohol gave me a beer for free... which I put in my purse and is just sitting in Jake and I's fridge. It is a Heineken -- a good beer -- so I wasn't going to say 'no' -- but I am definitely not a beer person.

The thing in, on the train ride heading to Cairo that weekend I realized I could measure my life by my last Fourth of July. I hadn't realized it has been less than a year since I let for South Africa. July Fourth as my last weekend in Raleigh - where I cooked dinner for Rob, Jay, and Matt and then we picked up Kaitlin to get stuck in horrendous traffic and watch fireworks from Hillsbourough Street. After we set off some of our own fireworks (I always seem to have a stash somewhere), I went over and saw Blake and we had maybe our last sincere conversation standing by his yellow bike while Laura White and friends ran around in the parking lot across the street with roman candles. A lot has changed since then.

Kaitlin has been in the Dominican for almost ten months now. I spent four and a half of the last 12 in South Africa -- which feels like years away now. Then there was Switzerland, Germany, and my brusque decision to come here. It is not the traveling that has made me different, but the people and experiences I have encountered along the way. The people that I can count on and who are important to me have changed.

July 4th has been the first time in a long time where I have been able to say "I know who and where I was a year ago." Even though I have spent a good chunk of my last year out of the country, I feel like the one thing that defines me and my wanderlust is that ana Amrekeea.