Update Time

As time goes by, it seems I just get lazier and lazier about updating! I feel bad to the folks back in Seattle who keep up with my blog, and those dancers who stay tuned for any little scrap of dance-related info I may occasionally throw out there, because school is literally trying to eat my life right now. I sincerely apologize for it's rudeness.

A Partial Theory on Various Sources of Stress
Oho, they all said that the Swine Flu Vacation (see my previous post) was going to be so great and so much fun. And then they got surprised at me when I was angry and upset about it...why? Well, everyone understands why now. Class 6 days a week was bad enough, but now finals and term papers are beginning to descend upon us and suddenly the scene is looking quite nasty indeed with everything crammed into an already short semester. My brain's response to stress these days has been, "no no, you can't make me!" and then a prompt shutdown, which can't be good because usually I respond to stress quite well.

Then today my toilet exploded.

I was innocently flushing it just before walking out the door to go see a costumer when I literally heard it making a rumbling noise. As in thunder, or a large train passing nearby. Not so good. I poked my head back into the bathroom, then cautiously approached as I noticed the tank was steaming...uh oh. Really, really not good. At this point something went POP and my bathroom started being flooded with steaming water. I'm not going to lie, I screamed and literally wrung my hands! After rather brief hysterics I realized I needed to do SOMETHING as my bathroom was half an inch deep in water that was luckily not sewage-y looking.

I ran to the balcony as fast as my little legs would allow, and scanned the street below for my bawwabs. The policemen looked at me curiously as I looked probably a bit shell shocked. Spotting Sallah, my favorite bawwab, I screamed in Arabic something that pretty much translates to, "Come, please! Come quickly! Big water! QUICKLY, PLEASE!" and waving my arms which caused the policemen to move from curiosity to outright amusement. Good to know my Arabic hardly holds up in a crisis. Sallah hustled his butt up to my place, hiking his galabeya up and wading in, only to shake his head, smile at me and twiddle the knob that controls water flow to the toilet, causing the flood to halt. He then pointed out a plastic hose on the back of the toilet running to the bidet that had burst from pressure...thus explaining why the water was clean and hot, and not totally disgusting. I nodded with as much dignity as I could while still being in my shell shocked state and managed to inquire if he could bring me the required part today. He said sure, and went off to procure it while I opened the floor drain and began scraping the water towards it with a dustpan. A few hours and $10 later all was right with the world, but I'm still paranoid to flush the toilet!


Winter has arrived!
Fun and games in Cairo all the time, clearly. It IS starting to get cold these days though, although by cold I mean it's in the low 80s during the day and mid 60s at night. I assure you though, it feels cold after a summer of 100+ degree weather every day! We're wearing sweaters to school now, and the bawwabs have started wrapping little white turbans on their heads to keep warm, while the AUC crowd is surely looking forward to donning little Gucci jackets and that crap.

Eid is coming up--the second one, the big one! This will be the feast where animals are slaughtered for their meat and often meat is given to the poor who normally cannot afford to eat it. If you go into the poorer areas right now you can find pens of lambs and goats right next to the street, waiting to be slaughtered. In Mariuteya the other day I drove by a tent/pen with huge fluffy lambs eagerly feeding from a huge troth, their fur dyed in swaths of pink and yellow to look more festive (I suppose). Hallah tells me that she stays in on the day with windows, curtains, and ears firmly shut--apparently it is quite the bloodbath. I can't really see that happening in Maadi though, as the foreigners are doing there thing quite a bit more here, but I suppose we'll see as I am staying in Cairo over the break.

Dance Things
There seems to come a point--or many points--in a dancer's life when we are cut off from teachers, from resources, and community and must turn to only ourselves to keep practicing the art. It is difficult, requires a lot of discipline, and love to go on dancing like this. My whole college experience has pretty much always turned dance into an individual, internal practice for me from the first night I arrived, dancing in my dorm common room on a table while one other girl kept me company playing piano, to now. In between there has been a lot of practicing in tiny dorm rooms, that are no where near a proper "dance studio." My last room I was practicing/living in was literally 10 feet by 15 feet and contained a twin bed, a desk, my dress form, assorted bags of sewing work, sewing machine, nightstand, and a book case (everything else got shoved in the closet) but I danced anyway because I had to keep practicing. I don't know why exactly, but I felt driven, I was not directly attached to the community but I was a member of it, and a professional dancer within it so I had to practice to stay on the ball, to become better.

But I didn't...the truth is that it is so easy to fall off the horse, practicing all alone, in a tiny room, without a mirror but with your schoolwork laid out next to you on the bed. It is so easy to instead go, "oh crap, I haven't gone over those Genetics notes" or "I need to review for that midterm on Thursday!" or worst of all, "I'm just so tired, I really need some down time." The only way I kept myself motivated this last school year to dance like this was to keep improving for my coach, to keep my weight down, and so that I could be good enough to stand in front of teachers in Egypt without being embarrassed. I told myself I only had months to go before Aida Nour or Liza Laziza or (heaven forbid!) Dina was breathing down my neck saying the last girl had been SO MUCH BETTER. I danced like a maniac when I could, would stay up an extra hour after my school work was done because I was afraid I just wouldn't be good enough. Dancing was just more important than sleep to me at that time, I had to do it!

Then I got to Egypt, and the bottom fell out from under me, dance-wise. The teachers here are tough to have a relationship with, and I really want not simply a teacher of moves but also a mentor, plus my problem is that they are expensive and I don't want to waste my money on the wrong person. Coming to another country was expensive enough, getting myself set up in a proper apartment was also tough, AUC wants my soul, and after that I just don't have much time and money left to take lessons or find the people I really was sure I wanted to take lessons from.

I wasn't expecting the emotional jolting and draining I would experience from the second my flight landed. Egypt is tiring. It makes me tired and lazy to live here, I was expecting to get my sea legs within a month and be back to dancing every day like I used to. It didn't happen, I have only danced at weddings in the last two weeks, I have barely even danced in the comfort of my own apartment and it is making me incredibly depressed. Cairo was the goal, getting here and being good enough to be here as a dancer was the goal, but once the goal was attained, I lost my direction completely.

Yes, I am taking lessons from someone right now (it's a secret so don't even ask), and she's fabulous, but she doesn't have much time for me so I go a long time in between private lessons which I used to have once a week back in California. I feel disconnected from something that I'm surrounded by. There is great dancing happening in Cairo, there are fabulous people, but I can't quite get at them because I'm broke and no one knows me. So I'm having a pity party for myself here on the blog...moving on:

What am I reading and writing?
In complete change of subject, I am reading "The Liberation of Women" by Qusim Amin right now, who is excellent. He is an Egyptian philosopher, a disciple of Muhammad 'Abduh, who basically expands 'Abduh's thoughts on educational reform and brings those reforms into conversation with women's status in Egypt. Basically Amin is all about education of women, inclusion of women in the public sphere, including in politics, bringing women out of seclusion and out of veiling practices. Personally I have mixed feelings on veiling and I think I am actually going to write a piece for Gilded Serpent on it, so stayed tuned for that--it'll probably have a taste of Amin's theories in there. More on him later when I'm past the first 10 pages! I want to see what points he makes on Quranic interpretation and hermeneutics--always fun stuff!

Right now though, I'm writing a piece on parties and weddings in Egypt for Gilded Serpent which is nearly finished and I'm thinking of writing a piece on popular music and concerts in Egypt since I seem to keep ending up at them!

Swine Flu Vacation

Vacation?!
Just as I was getting settled into a regular schedule of classes, private lessons with Hallah Moustafa, and homework the Egyptian government decided to clamp down on the foreign colleges that were open. Apparently all the colleges were supposed to be delayed several weeks in opening because of swine flu, but AUC ignored them at first and now we have had a two-week vacation. This has resulted in general insanity, traveling, and chaos meaning that I haven't exactly felt like sitting down and blogging much.

I suppose it's a good idea in theory to keep people from congregating in a university to reduce the chances of swine flu...but seriously? Every. Single. AUC Student. Is. Going. To. Travel. Did the government and AUC not consider this at all? Not only does that mean they will not be reducing their risks of bringing back the flu to AUC, but that if they have it and don't know yet (or don't care) they'll be spreading it around the country or the world depending how far afield they go. Add that fact to two weeks without Arabic lessons and the disruption of my gear-change back to college mode from lazy-ass-sitting-around-Cairo-all-summer mode and I was PISSED.

Therefore the day they told us, I decided to host an iftar at my house.

Dinner Party
Remember in my last entry the not-so-hot state of my cooking skills? Well, for some reason that I think may be related to being incredibly angry over the vacation, I decided to invite some people over for Iftar or breakfast despite not really having cooked for other people in my life. During Ramadan you have Iftar right at sunset when you break your fast for the day, and things had worked out that I had attended only one here during Ramadan so I figured I would have my own.

Another AUC study abroad student invited me to her place and I was unable to attend, so I invited her and her room mates over, so that was three people. Tim was of course invited, along with Autumn and Carolyn's friend Andrew. I ran into a friend from Economics class at AUC that day who was just as distressed about the vacation as me, and wasn't sure what to do with himself so I invited him and his friend over too. I texted Ramy on the way home, who inquired in disbelief if I was cooking or ordering food before he said he would come straight from work to help me cook. Add me and my roomies and suddenly I was hosting an 11-person dinner. Whoops! Oh well!

I did a massive grocery shopping trip on the way home, which is a major feat here as we live a couple blocks from the grocery store and thus insist on just carrying everything home instead of having it delivered. It can get to be very heavy, sweaty work in 90 degree heat. I forgot a few items, including dates and milk for the traditional style of breaking the fast, so I was leaving to go out again when I ran into Ramy on the steps of my building carrying a bag. What was in the bag? Oh, dates and milk of course! That boy seriously does read my mind on occasion.

All things considered it went great, but I couldn't have done it without Autumn, Carolyn, and Ramy traipsing in and out of the kitchen to lend many helping hands. Dinner was served slightly late, the ma7shy wasn't quite great, but everything else seemed like it was tasty and we rounded off the evening eating chocolate chip cookies while everyone figured out where they were going for break.

Having just ordered a $900 costume from Hallah Moustafa I resolved to remain in Cairo and save my cash, so I politely listened to these vacation plans until it got too frustrating and went to clean up the plates and the kitchen. The rest day I woke up to a deserted apartment as my roomies had headed out to Jordan.

Sharm El Sheikh
Well, okay I meant not to go on vacation and spend money...buuut...after being bored in Cairo for a week I was worn down enough to be convinced to go along with my roomies to Sharm for the weekend and stay in the five-star comfort of the Sheraton resort there for Carolyn's birthday. Hats off to my mother for this one for helping me out financially a bit so that I was persuaded to go! I am so, so glad I did go because it was beautiful, relaxing, and considerably better than tromping around the apartment for a few days and bitching at my boyfriend on the phone about how I was bored!

The place had like 8 swimming pools, several of which have their own swim-up bars. I never knew I particularly liked swim-up bars until this trip, but then I went nuts on them! There's something about sipping a mojito not just beside the pool but IN the pool that tickles my fancy I guess!

Staying in Sharm was well...like being at a resort. We swam in the ocean, then laid on the beach in chaise lounges, then migrated to the main pool, then the lower main pool, then the pool bar, then the poolside restaurant, then one of the other pools with a cave and a waterfall (and a bar!) then one of the five-star restaurants...rise, repeat pretty much. The Sheraton was gorgeous, and really an unusual design for a hotel. The thing is sort of situated on a shallow cliff above the sea, so the hotel lobby sits on the cliff, and is wrapped around a man-made grotto in the center rimmed with a network of wooden walkways and pavillions--it really is totally cool! What confused us is that because the lobby sits on the cliff (along with the resort areas and villas which make the complex soooo huge), you go downstairs to go to your rooms, which line the facing of the cliff down to the beach level. It's a neat and unusual design that I found very refreshing, because in Cairo the hotels simply go UP, because they have nowhere else to go!

I was shocked at how much everything looked like Hawaii there, and am pretty sure everyone got sick of my remarks to that point. It seriously weirded me out though, because even the plants looked straight out of Hawaii, not to mention the beautiful tropical fish we observed in the sea! Here we are, on the Red Sea on the other side of the world from Hawaii and I was so surprised to see fish that looked exactly like the rainbow, iridescent, fuscia-faced fish I had seen as a child in Honolulu! There were a few different varieties hanging out in the shallows at the beach, forming a swirling treasure trove of color that got close but not quite close enough for Ramy to grab one like he wanted.

Ramy and I grudgingly returned to Cairo from our lovely weekend outing a couple days ago so that he and I could go back to work, and yesterday my roomies arrived back after visiting Mt. Sinai which apparently was great.

I probably have more to say and update since my last post, but I have to write a couple things for Gilded Serpent so it's over and out for now--stay tuned!

3 Months In

My, my school has been keeping me busy! I know I can be a slacker about updating, but this takes the cake, doesn't it? My camera is on the fritz, so stay tuned for photos in the next couple days.

AUC Stuff
This last week was the first week of classes, but also the week when I got to do lots of fun activities like running around trying to get my email activated, my ID card to scan properly, my pin # for the online portal reset, a class dropped, and so on. Let me just say that AUC has a lot to learn about organization. Here are two examples:

Exhibit A: I ended up not thinking my Literature and Gender class was right for me, so I wanted to drop it and replace it with a seminar on Palestinian/Israeli issues. Easy, right? Wrong! I first had to find the office to make an appointment to do so. Luckily I ran into another international student who had to do something similar, and HER friend luckily knew where we needed to go to make an appointment to go to another location to make the actual schedule change. So we trooped off to the office, made our appointments for a few days later, and I showed up at the appointed time at the computer lab to see my adviser and get my schedule switched.

The room was chaos. Literally 20 students running around the lab, looking at schedules on computers, sitting and waiting in a clearly backed up and disorganized non-line for their appointment, or just sitting reading something. I finally got to my adviser, who told me that the class I wanted to switch into was full and there was no waiting list, so I should look at the course catalog and come back tomorrow to make the schedule change as they were closing in 15 minutes. I said okay, and came back the next day.

I came in and the guy manning the door asked me if I had an appointment..."uh, well I had one for yesterday, and she said to come back today as it's the last day to add/drop." I was told to wait in the hall with a few other people, so sure, whatever. I waited an hour before I finally got to my adviser again, to tell her that I couldn't find a replacement course and I just wanted to do the drop and take 12 credits instead. What did she say? "Oh, sure no problem, I already dropped you."

Exhibit B: I couldn't log onto the student portal, which you are supposed to do using your ID # and your birthday. Mine should have therefore been 1213** but it wouldn't work at all, so I headed to the registrar's office to get it reset. The first time I went a harassed-looking lady said, "Okay you need to go see your adviser, in the CORE building." Umm...what? I sort of nodded and wandered off, figuring I would try again the next day when there was someone else working.

Sure enough there was, and she said, "Come on back, you want [so-and-so]'s office just over there." Great! I then noticed there were about ten people hanging out in the waiting area outside so-and-so's office...and one person waiting inside the office where the lady we wanted wasn't even present. Not good, but I had time before my next class to wait, so I just took a seat.

After one hour again of waiting I was informed that, "Yeah it's just your birthday, which is 1212**, right?"

More on AUC classes and student culture to come! By the by, looks like I'm joining the Dabke team and/or the Egyptian Folkloric group!

Cooking
If you start dating an Egyptian boy and tell him you don't really cook, he may begin to cry--or at least look like he's about to. Therefore out of love, curiosity, hunger, and embarrassment over my lack of ability to feed myself, I attended a cooking class a few days ago that ended up being a blast! I found about it through Cairo Scholars, where a girl was advertising the class for special Egyptian food, taught by an Egyptian lady, and we'd have Iftar after at her home. For 150LE that sounded great!

We learned to cook a few different dishes, including: Shorbet Lisan ‘Asfour (Orzo soup in homemade chicken broth), Khoshaf bel Laban (Milk with dried fruit & nuts), Ma7shi Felfel we Kosa (Stuffed Peppers & Zucchini), Reyash Dani (Egyptian style lamb chops), Makarona Bechamel bel La7ma el Mafrooma (Oven-baked pasta with Bechamel and Ground Beef), 2amar el Din (Apricot drink), Karkaday (Hibisucus drink).

Everything was delicious, but what I found really fascinating was the style of Egyptian cooking and how people acquire their ingredients here/prepare them for cooking. This is still a country where you CAN get things fresh from the animals or fresh from the farm so to speak, and so it seems like many cooks that live here prefer not to shop the grocery stores like we foreign girls have been doing, but hit up the suuq for your veggies and milk and the butcher directly for the freshest stuff. Tipping the guy who sells you bags of fresh milk or the one who cuts your beef for you ensures that you get the best products too, especially once you develop a regular-customer sort of relationship.

Also of note is that there can be extra steps that us Westerners aren't used to dealing with when you prepare ingredients. For example, when you buy milk here (not at the grocery store) it literally is from the cow, so you have to boil it and remove the heavy cream yourself. This means that you get high quality milk, but in addition once you scrape off the cream and refrigerate it you get the most delicious heavy cream ever to use in your Makarona Bechamel! By the way, that is a baked pasta dish to die for--actually literally because we all stared in awe at how much cream and fats went into it. It was out of this world tasty though!

As a result of this class I theoretically could make these dishes, but at the moment I'm content with just keeping a bottle of 3mr El Din in the fridge because it's delicious and easy! During Ramadan you'll see in stores these packages with pictures of apricots on them wrapped in orange plastic wrap. When you open them up there's something like a big apricot fruit leather inside that you rip into little pieces and soak in water overnight before blending (if you have a blender--we don't have a working one!) and adding sugar to taste. Egyptians and Westerners do tend to disagree on how much sugar to add though, so you can also just have people add their own!

Shopping
In Maadi the road the metro runs parallel to, and has stops on, is called "Road 9." Long story--basically the streets in Maadi DO have numbers...but they make no logical sense. Recently the girls have decided that Shari3 Tissa is pretty much the place to go hang out and shop around, and I have to agree. It's got all these cute little Khan Al Khalili-esque stores hiding beneath upscale cafes, that probably are a little more expensive than the Khan itself, but without the crazy hawking, crowds, and general insanity! I picked up some gorgeous scarves (15LE each) and a swath of the kind of tent fabric that I am craaazy about!

I also picked up a tray of awesome Egyptian desserts from a store next to an equally awesome silver store, with windows packed with boards of trinkets and pendants. So, we basically have been eating little mini-backlava style things of different varieties for the last day. Some come with pistachios, some in squares, or rolls and all are ridiculously decadent!

Ramadan
Ok, since people have been asking it IS indeed Ramadan! I would love to write loads about it, but I am doing an article for The Gilded Serpent on Ramadan in Cairo and don't want to repeat myself, so stay tuned! I'm getting some nice photos, and trust me it is a very festive, fun time of year unless you're hungry or need something between 5:30 and 8pm!