Ana fi Masr

After making it out of Heathrow Airport (London) about half a day before the whole place shut down, I made it safely to Cairo and I'm settling happily into life here. After long plane rides beside very chatty men (one from Mauritius - a country in the Indian Ocean - and one who's originally Egyptian but now lives in London) I am currently recovering pretty well from jet lag. My internal clock is so messed up that the Egyptian way of life (stay up late, sleep late) is suiting me really well. Actually, that was how I preferred life in college, so maybe it's not so different after all. As it's summer, and school is out, the whole "stay up late" model of life is even more obvious here. The other night I was walking back to my flat with one of my friends at about 3:30 a.m. and there was a whole family just coming out of a fast food place- the little kids even had huge ice cream cones. That's just how things are here - Cairo is truly the city that never sleeps and especially as it's so hot here, the whole place just comes fully alive after the sun sets.

I've moved into my flat and I'm loving it, even with all its oddities. A few of the highlights:
-I can't figure out how to work the hot water heater
-I don't get essentially any water (hot or cold) between approximately 10:30 am and 8:30 pm
-There are two tiny little kitchen rooms, separated by the bathroom
-The fridge is in my roommmate's bedroom
-The washing machine is in the kitchen
-There are no cockroaches (Yet)
-I have air conditioning in my bedroom

All in all, I love it, although it's a little lonely right now because my roommmate is in Israel for a few weeks. However, I've met so many people in the last few days that I haven't had time to feel too alone. The other day we even played Ultimate Frisbee with a collection of people including Egyptians, Americans, and Sudanese. Yup, that's right, Ultimate Frisbee in Egypt (even I was surprised). I would guess that many Egyptians have never even seen a frisbee, but a few years back some American students taught some people how to play and the tradition has continued. Following frisbee, a friend and I went out until about 4 in the morning to a couple random restaurants with a Sudanese guy and an Irish guy. The Irish guy is exploring mysticism and meditation as a way of reaching the one Supreme Being, the Sudanese guy is a post-modern, relativist Muslim, and my friend and I are Christians, so I can safely say that our conversations were very, very interesting.

Yesterday I went for lunch with Diaa (our assitant director), his wife Carol (who is going to have a baby in November) and Steve (the other intern I'll be working with) and his girlfriend Anna (who is going to work in Afghanistan). There are a lot of good people here and I'm really blessed by that.

Last night we went to see "The Yacoubian Building", an Egyptian film with English subtitles. Based on a novel by an Egyptian, it's one of the most fascinating movies I've seen in a long time as it explores many of the things that are kind of on the "underbelly" of Egyptian society -things that are not really discussed, but ones which are very present (homosexuality, sexual harassment, the roots of radical Islam, abortion, arranged marriages, a kind of "caste" system, corruption, government censure, prostitution, the pragmatic role of religion in society, etc.). If you've ever spent time in the ME, especially in Cairo, you HAVE to see this movie if it comes out in North America. (Sara and Andrew, I'm especially telling this to you!). I'm trying to remember something that one of the characters said, I think it was something like this: "Egyptians don't hate Egypt, they love it. But they all want to leave because Egypt is so brutal to her children, and they cannot bear it." Almost more fascinating to me than the movie was the audience's reaction - to many of them, it seemed almost like a comedy, and they laughed at things we never would have laughed at in North America (partly because we're so concerned with political correctness). Part of it is that is because many of the subjects are kind of considered "haram" and so people laugh at it because they feel uncomfortable, much like younger people/kids in North American laugh at things like the word "breast" in a movie. Part of it may also be that some of them were denial about the fact that these things exist. And finally, another part of the reaction probably came from the fact that many of the people in the theater were Gulf Arabs (from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE, etc.) on vacation and so they were able to/trying to distance themselves from what they might perceive as solely Egyptian culture. Personally, I thought it spoke about more than just Egyptian culture, but that's my opinion.

Right now I'm getting ready for the students to come in a couple weeks and I'm really, really excited for them and for working here with them and with this staff. In the last few days alone, I've learned so much more about Cairo and about Egypt than I knew before and I'm ready to keep on figuring stuff out. My Arabic is a little shaky (OK, a LOT shaky) so I'm working on that too. Now I'll go, as this is too long already and the street vendors outside yelling about their bread and vegetables are making me hungry.

Here's my address in case you feel like sending me mail. If you do, I promise I'll send you back a postcard with something stereotypically Eygptian on it (camels, desert, pyramids, the Nile, you know... ) :)


Middle East Studies Program
P.O. Box 213
Zamalek, Cairo
EGYPT