School: My Ostensible Reason for Being Here

Classes at the American University in Cairo are hardly worth writing about but not much else has been going on lately. So here we go. The campus is divided into at least four different segments. First you’ve got the Greek Campus, where most of my classes are. It’s a big quadrangle, much in the American university tradition, and it has a large open courtyard in the center where the cool kids hang out. It’s generally bustling, and getting to class often involves threading one’s way through clusters of cigarette-smoking Egyptians. Greek is also home to the AUC library, which I’ve been told is the largest collection of English-language books in Africa. Unless they’re hiding part of it somewhere, it’s only around two thirds the size of the Topeka public library. The Georgetown University outfit makes it look like a seven year old’s collection of Bernstein Bears books.

People not cool enough to chill at Greek spend their time hanging around Main Campus, about a block down the street. This is where most administrative offices are located, and it’s home to a gym, a soccer/basketball court, and a tennis court. Although well maintained and aesthetically pleasing, Main is pretty boring. Whether I’m at Greek or Main, I can’t help noticing the USAID stickers that adorn everything from computers to chairs to the machine that made my student ID card. Most of AUC’s equipment seems to be “a gift from the American people.” Egypt does receive around $2 billion in aid from the US every year (putting them third, behind Iraq and Israel), and I guess a fair bit of it goes here.

The Egyptian students remind me of American high schoolers. Outside of class, they tend to congregate in cliquish clusters and clog up stairwells. It depends somewhat on the class, but most of the local students don’t seem to care about school at all. They come in late, don’t open their notebooks, don’t have pens, play with cell phones, get up and leave randomly. I can’t much blame them though – most of my classes are fairly boring. My history class is particularly bad. The professor is a late middle aged Arab woman with shoulder length black hair parted severely to the left of middle. Always clad in multiple waist-length necklaces and several gaudy golden bracelets, she wears glasses on the end of her nose and doesn’t make eye contact with anyone. Instead, she stares at a point in the upper back of the room where the wall joins the ceiling and recites her lectures as if she were doing a PBS special. Unlike my other professors, she doesn’t get angry when people come in late, but rather plows inexorably onward in her speeches.

My Arab Society class has a fluttery female professor who likes to complain about the flaws of the Egyptian educational system rather than teach us anything. Ironic, no? The most interesting occurrence so far was a big argument on the first day about whether Egyptians are Arabs or not. Half the class said yes. Half the class said no, Egyptians have a unique heritage as descendants of the pharaohs. Identity politics is huge here. Ask two people what it means to be Arab and you’re guaranteed to get different answers.

International Politics of the Middle East is taught by short Egyptian man with squinty eyes, a respectable mustache, and a receding hairline. He has a high, nasal voice, and he always dresses in a suit. He’s a bit of a cynic, frankly admitting to us the first day that he’s bored with teaching this topic and he’s relying on us to make the class interesting. We haven’t succeeded so far. He ends up spending most of the class lecturing on random disjointed topics. It’s unfortunate, because it’s my last class of the week, from 4:00 to 6:25 on a Thursday afternoon, and I tend to zone out after a while. I tried doodling to stay awake, but I’m a terrible artist so I switched to writing poems. Here’s one I composed:

My True Love

The beauty of thine eyes
Shines forth with radiant glow
The luster of thy skin
Doth rival purest snow
To gaze on thy fair form
Unloosens my mind’s load
O who wouldst ever guess
That thou art but a toad?

I’m going to preempt any criticism of lines 3-4 and state that the subject of this poem is a rare African albino toad. I swear they exist. I’m going to preempt any criticism of the rest of the poem and say that anyone who doesn’t like it can go jump in a lake.

My favorite class is called Peasants, Nomads, and Rural Change. It’s an anthropology class, and I ended up in it for complicated, nonsensical reasons. It doesn’t even transfer back home except as elective credit. But I love the professor. She’s a small Egyptian woman with a sweet British accent. I don’t know why she chose peasant studies as a field (or why anyone else has, for that matter), but her passion for the subject is palpable and electric. I frequently forget that nothing we talk about has any relevance to anything ever. The kids in here actually care for some reason, and we have good discussions. This is my only class that I would say really promotes active use of my gray matter, and that’s why I like it.

My last class is Egyptian colloquial Arabic. I don’t even know what to say here. We spend 90% of our time repeating simple phrases until our heads explode or the professor decides we’ve finally gotten the pronunciation right. I can’t remember the latter option happening with any great frequency. My ability to correctly pronounce the words, bad enough as it would ordinarily be, is made exponentially worse by my two years of exposure to Modern Standard Arabic. Although the two dialects share a substantial bit of vocabulary, the intonation is different and it’s hard not to pronounce things the way I originally learned them. Sadly, I’m far from the worst in the class – in fact I’d say I rank fairly high. Sometimes it’s just maddening. I do like the class dynamic though; the kids are lighthearted and friendly and the professor is a riot on most days. Unfortunately, this class meets four days a week, and we’re in a different room in a different building each day. This can be confusing, as the following incident illustrates:

Log 02-20-08

15:54 Arrive at usual Wednesday room, same one utilized for prior three weeks. Area occupied by another class. Unacceptable.
15:56 Commanding officer not yet present. Rank and file unilaterally make decision to exchange fire with hostile occupying forces. Initial assault repulsed.
16:03 General Khaled arrives. Parleys with enemy commander. Negotiations unsuccessful.
16:04 Situation dire. Enemy fortified in encampment. Our forces outnumbered. Many hostiles wielding laptops, granting technological superiority. Morale low.
16:06 In the midst of planning highly sophisticated flanking maneuver designed to recapture room. Interrupted when enemy soldier launches preemptive strike with internet-based evidence indicating our assigned classroom has been changed without notice. Defeat.
16:07 Dispute in ranks over proper course of action. Many troops in favor of tactical retreat to café in order to obtain provisions and discuss strategy. Proposal vetoed by commanding officer.
16:08 Forced march to alternate building with purpose of locating new base camp.
16:20 Forward scouts discover new base camp is overrun as well.
16:21 Engage in skirmish with hostile forces and exchange fire for period of several minutes. Opposing commander advises we check with admin to confirm accuracy of our orders. Blatant chicanery intended to get us out of the room so the enemy can construct defensive fortifications.
16:27 Further hostilities prove pointless. Temporary ceasefire declared.
16:28 Rank and file again suggest café option.
16:29 Proposal vetoed.
16:30 Rank and file attempt to override veto.
16:31 Override of veto carries.
16:32 Override of veto vetoed.
16:33 Class commences in courtyard. Weather: cold and windy. Environment: noisy. Attention paid: none.

Alexandria, Part Three: Stranger in a Strange Land

We launched an abortive attempt to visit the Graeco-Roman museum Saturday morning, which was oddly closed on weekends. We instead headed for the catacombs, another popular tourist destination. On the way, we paid a small entry fee to visit Pompey’s Pillar, a massive (Corinthian?) column jutting from the top of a hillside near the catacombs. There were several sphinxes nearby, and we stopped to take pictures. I waited until none of the guards were looking and scrambled up for a quick photo. Liz and Steph were dying to follow suit, and they entrusted me with a camera so I could take a picture of them. This was a poor decision on their part, as I got a nice (i.e. not particularly flattering) candid shot of them climbing, which is now on Facebook.

We then made our way to the catacombs. After paying admission, we descended down a narrow stone spiral staircase into the depths of the earth. The air was dank and musty, and it would have been black as night without the dim yellow lighting installed throughout the complex. The main chamber was ornate, with pillars, archways, and small sculptures carved into the rock. Faded paint stained the walls in vague, washed out shapes. I wish I had more pictures of this place, but cameras were prohibited. We did manage to sneak ours in, but a suspicious old attendant kept staring at us, making it was hard to get good shots off. After doing our best, we set off to explore the numerous side passages branching out from the central area. This turned out to be less exciting than I had anticipated, as virtually all of the passages led to small rooms with chambers hollowed out for sarcophagi. To make things worse, we couldn’t descend to the bottom level because the caverns were flooded due to recent rain. Disappointed, I followed my group back up and out as a massive horde of Asian (I’m guessing Chinese) tourists flocked down the spiral staircase, chattering noisily and obstructing our path.

Our last tourist stop was the famous Library of Alexandria. I don’t really know or care why it’s famous, although I will admit the building is nice. Truth be told, I was far from impressed, and I sat down and went to sleep while everyone else looked at some old paintings and maps and other such museum stuff.

We finished up with the library late on Saturday afternoon. At this point, Dan and I decided we wanted to head back to Cairo because he was sick and I had class the next morning. We returned to the hostel, packed up our stuff, and took a cab to the train station. We found the counter for first and second class tickets without excessive difficulty and asked, in English, for two tickets on the 7:00 p.m. train. The man at the counter replied: “Seven o’clock train, full.” I had been afraid of that – a lot of Cairenes spend the weekend in Alexandria and head back Saturday night. Disappointed, we asked for tickets on the next train, which was to depart at eight. “Eight o’clock train, full.” Uh oh. What about the 9:00 p.m.? “Nine o’clock train, full. Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock train, full. No more trains tonight.”

You must be joking. After a moment of despair, we thought to try getting third class tickets. I had been warned not to do this because the conditions in third class are not particularly pleasant, but what choice did we have at this point? Reproaching the counter, we asked:

“Can we buy third class tickets?”

“Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock trains, full.”

“Right, but what about third class?”

“Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine…”

These seemed to be the only words of English the man spoke. We changed tactics.

“Daraga talata, daraga talata – fein daraga talata? (third class, third class, where is third class?)”

The man started speaking incomprehensibly in Arabic and pointed us down the station the way we had come. We walked until we found another counter. Egyptians were crowding around the windows, exchanging money for little stubs of paper that didn’t look anything like the tickets we had bought on the way down. Unsure of what to do, we drew near one of the windows and asked in Arabic for tickets to Cairo. The man pointed us to another window. We asked again. The guy there seemed to be telling us we were in the wrong place. All I could really understand was something about platform one.

We went back out to the platform and looked around. No place to buy a ticket in sight. We tried asking a security guard for help. Unlike in Cairo, he didn’t speak English. We got the point across about tickets to Cairo, but the only thing he would tell us was to go to the first and second class counter, where we had already been. We tried without success to explain the situation to multiple guards. It became inescapably clear that our paltry knowledge of Egyptian Arabic was utterly inadequate to the task at hand. We resorted to reading directly from Dan’s Egyptian colloquial phrasebook, an emasculating experience. Even then, we couldn’t follow enough of what we were told to make any progress whatsoever.

We went back and forth between the counters several times in a futile attempt to solve the great mystery of where third class tickets come from. The common answer, insofar as we could understand, was “platform one.” Desperate, it occurred to me to try outside sources assistance. My phone’s battery was almost dead, but I squeezed off a call to George, who I knew had visited Alexandria before. He had bought his return ticket upon arrival, thereby avoiding a situation such as this. He couldn’t help us. My last resort was to try Mohammed, who I thought might know these things since he’s lived in the country for a number of years, although he doesn’t seem the type to have ever ridden a third class anything. He answered the phone and I explained the situation. Silence. Dead battery. My phone, like my Arabic, had failed me when I needed it most.

Crestfallen, we left the station and caught a cab back to the hostel. It took a couple minutes, but I eventually realized I had never seen Dan so angry. Although completely calm and composed to all external appearances, he muttered under his breath nonstop about murdering people the whole way back, and wouldn’t stop saying, “I’m so pissed. I’m so pissed,” in a flat monotone.

We were not pleased with the state of affairs at the time, but it turned out to be just as well that we stayed in Alexandria, because it was a fun night. We still had our room in the hostel, and our companions were just getting ready to go out to dinner when we got back. We joined them in a trip across town to a strip mall where we ate in an American style restaurant called Cordon Rouge. I had a hearty meal consisting of an aptly named Mighty Beef Burger, fries, and a mango drink. The Mighty Beef Burger (or Mighty Morphin Power Burger, as I took to calling it) was truly gigantic. It wasn’t very thick, but its Frisbee-like size was too much for me to vanquish after an appetizer of bread and hummus.

After dinner we went back to the same bar from the previous night, Cap D’Or. It was even livelier this evening, and we sat in a corner of the main room instead of in the back. The owner gave us a hearty welcome back and accurately recited the drinks we had all ordered the night before. The music playing that night was of a particularly catchy Arabic variety, and people clapped along while a few middle aged women danced in the middle of the floor. We clapped along to the beat from time to time from the safety of our corner. The bar owner tried to get our girls to get up and dance, but they weren’t having any of it. A few minutes later, one of the particularly enthusiastic men at the bar noticed that some of us were participating in the clapping, and he started waving at us excitedly to get up and dance. In a betrayal that will neither be forgiven nor forgotten, Dan pointed at me. The man’s face lit up and he seized my arm roughly and pulled, while I struggled to resist. He was not halfhearted in his efforts. I found myself dragged to my feet and thrust across the room, almost into the arms of a much older Arab woman. This brought universal applause from the bar. Having no idea what to do, I tried an awkward two step, waving my arms frantically out of time, and then decided I was better off shuffling my feet and clapping. I did a discomfited jig for thirty seconds or a minute, and then I fled back to my corner refuge where my “friends” sat laughing at me. I spent the rest of the night plotting evil things to do to Dan in his sleep.

The bar left us to ourselves for a while after that. I started a game where we took turns trying to flip a bottle cap into an empty glass from around eighteen inches away. This was more difficult than anticipated, even for the sober ones among us, and it was some little while before Mike finally succeeded in winning. We burst into triumphant shouts, which attracted the nearby bar owner, who began giving us all high fives. When he clasped hands with Anthony, he wrapped around into an arm wrestling position, saying something about Anthony being strong. Anthony was obviously surprised by this, and not quite sure what to do. Although he didn’t appear particularly muscular, the bartender was a big man, probably around 250 pounds. I had full faith in our enforcer’s abilities, and I wanted to see this. We made way at the table and cheered him on, so the contest began. Still looking slightly bemused, Anthony held the smiling barman in place, biding his time. Eventually, he made a move and started gaining ground. With a laugh, the owner stood up and broke off their grip. “Left hand now,” he said. Anthony was not so confident in his left, but he consented. This didn’t go as well. From the beginning, the owner was putting some wacky moves on Anthony’s wrist. Anthony held on for a minute or two and then broke grip. After mutual compliments and applause from the audience, his jolly opponent waddled off to tend to other customers. Another challenger quickly stepped up – a nicely dressed businessman wearing glasses. This guy was a bit on the scrawny side, and I don’t know what he was thinking. Anthony beat him down in about a second and a half, at which point the man cheered loudly and started clapping his hands. Bewildered, Anthony glanced around to make sure no other contenders were going to crawl out of the woodwork, and moved gratefully back into his former seat.

(Photo courtesy of Mike)

We stayed for a while longer, but not much else noteworthy happened that evening. The guy who had forced me into dancing was very social, talking to people as they came into the bar and trying to get them to participate in the dance party. After a few more drinks he told me I was a good man and scribbled his email address and phone number on a piece of paper, advising me to call him if we were ever in Alexandria again. I guess I’m just irresistible.

The next morning we checked out of the hostel and headed to the train station. It being Sunday (the first day of the week in Islamic countries), we had no trouble securing tickets. We were all tired and didn’t talk much on the ride back. I watched a little boy giggle and play on the luggage rack for a while, and then I dozed off. When we arrived in the station back in Cairo, the weather was hot and the city felt dirty and hard to breathe in. The streets were crowded and traffic snarled everywhere, barely moving. Horns blared and street vendors swarmed us as we exited the station. We were cranky and not in the mood to argue with cabbies over the fare back home. When I finally made it back to my room, I took my first real shower in three days and slept from eight in the evening until nine the next morning. Traveling sure can take a lot out of you.

(One more from Mike)

Note: I’m not positive, but my best estimate for the total cost of the weekend in Alexandria, including train fare, four meals, two nights in a hostel, entry fees for attractions, and about a billion cab rides: $70. I love this country. Come visit anytime.

Alexandria, Part Two: Forts, Fish, and Flophouses

Walking out of the train station, we picked our way through the crowd toward a cluster of cabs waiting curbside. The drive through the city to our place of lodging was refreshing after the dull train ride. Alexandria is much greener than the parts of Cairo I’m used to, and the city was lively, with many people out and about on weekend business. The cab dropped us off on a main road a block or two from our destination, the New Hotel Welcome House. In spite of its pretentious title, the Welcome House is technically a hostel, and it occupies the fifth floor of a building right on the coast. It was recommended by a friend of mine who's been in Cairo since last semester. The disadvantages of such an establishment are manifold: crazy, semi-functioning elevators without doors; beds that consist of two blankets laid over some boards and pillows that feel like they’re filled with lumpy sand; and a bathroom with detachable faucet handles and no divisions between sink, toilet, and shower. On the other hand, the benefits include the price (an incredible 25 pounds per night, which is less than $5) and the truly stunning view from the room windows, which open out directly over the Mediterranean. Spectacular:

After settling in and marveling over the rooms for a while, we set out in search of food and adventure. We didn’t have a restaurant in mind and none of us was particularly forceful in setting a direction, so we ambled aimlessly for a while. It was a struggle to find a place to eat as we were in an unfamiliar city in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday (the Muslim holy day), meaning most sit-down restaurants were closed. It took more than an hour, but we finally found a spot and had a decent lunch of chicken shawerma sandwiches and Coke.

Afterward, we walked down the length of the bay to Fort Qaitbay, a big, old-school castle leftover from the 15^th or 16^th century. This place was awesome, and it was my favorite part of the Alexandria trip. It came complete with parapets and battlements and other such things as one would expect to find in any self-respecting stronghold. It was fun running around inside taking pictures and climbing all over things. Even better was walking along on top of the outside wall, which afforded a spectacular view of the city on one side and the sea on the other. Mike generously boosted me up into a few places that would not otherwise have been accessible, and I felt like Indiana Jones exploring the Temple of Doom.

After a while, we settled down a bit and found a good spot on the outer wall to sit and rest. Looking out, the sea seemed serene and endlessly expansive, populated only by a few massive cruise liners lounging lazily in the distance. A few men carrying massive rods fished along the shore. Anthony nodded off, and Liz and Steph seemed content to sit and stare at the sea for an interminable length of time. Mike worked on getting more pictures for a while, but then calmed down and stared pensively into the distance. Dan got restless after fifteen or twenty minutes (as did I), but he wasn’t antsy enough to come exploring with me, so I took a quick solo tour around the outer wall of the fort, snapped a few more pictures, and came back to find everyone as I had left them. After another half hour of restful contemplation, we left.

Later that evening, we had dinner at Fish Market, a classy upscale restaurant not far from the fort. I would not expect a joint by the name of Fish Market to be a quality institution, but it’s renowned as the best seafood joint in Alexandria (and, therefore, all of Egypt). For my part, I was enormously impressed. After being seated and ordering sides and appetizers, we made our way to a counter to select from a display of fresh fish, which the waiting chef then prepared. Anthony ordered first, and he was ridiculous, requesting shrimp, grouper, red bream, and sea bass. It was comical to see the waiters attempt to squeeze all of his food onto the table. I had grouper and sea bass, as well as the hummus and freshly baked bread shared by the table. The fish was incredibly flavorful and tender, rich without being heavy, and the bread and hummus complemented it perfectly. The meal ranked among my all time most delicious dining experiences. It was also far and away the most expensive meal I’ve had in Egypt – sixteen or seventeen American dollars, I believe.

It was fairly late in the evening by the time our meal concluded, so we ambled around for a bit and then started looking for a place to hang out for the night. We ended up in a bar called Elite, which resembled a 1950’s American diner. The music was odd, as it consisted almost entirely of old love songs and Mariah Carey, with occasional special appearances by Billy Joel. The atmosphere was not much to our liking (Mike fell asleep at the table after taking some pictures, while Liz started playing Snake on her cell phone), so we headed out fairly soon after arriving. Spitfire, our second stop, was a crowded little bar with not enough space to comfortably accommodate us. Our third try was a charm, however, and we wound up at a spacious bar in a back alley, the name of which escapes me. This place was pretty cool. Photos and drawings of old sailing vessels adorned the walls, and a large wooden model of a ship hung over the entry way. Lively Middle Eastern music played in the background and the joint’s owner was very friendly, exuberant even. We set up shop at a table in a small back room in the vicinity of a few middle aged guys and a little family. Before long, a wizened old man ambled back carrying an instrument resembling an oversized mandolin. He perched on a chair between us and the family and began playing what I took to be a traditional Arabic song. After a few bars he started singing as well. This was entertaining for a while, but it was difficult to have a conversation without seeming rude. It was fairly late, so Dan, Liz, and I walked back to the hostel, while Mike, Steph, and Anthony stayed behind for a bit longer. Up in the room, we discovered that the beds were not as comfortable as they first appeared, and Dan and Liz refused to use the blankets provided (despite the precipitous drop in temperature since the afternoon), nor would Dan take off any of his clothes. Being Survivor Man, I had no problem changing into my sleepwear and snuggling under the covers for the night.

Coming soon in the thrilling conclusion:
Trouble with trains, the Mighty Beef Burger, bar brawls, and more!

Alexandria, Part One: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I spent last weekend in Alexandria, which is around 200 kilometers from Cairo on the coast of the Mediterranean. I have to admit up front that this story doesn’t involve any planes – I just couldn’t think of another title. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing a plane since arriving in this country, quite a difference from life in Washington, DC, where the silver eagles are ubiquitous. On the bright side, readers interested in trains and automobiles won’t be disappointed.

I embarked on my journey to Alexandria with five other students, all of them from Georgetown like myself. For the reader’s benefit, I’ve included the following brief profiles of the individuals involved in the expedition and the roles they played in the course of our adventure:

Anthony – Enforcer
Anthony’s a big dude. Although no taller than I am, he nevertheless outweighs me by fifty pounds or so, all of it muscle. This guy is in the gym lifting pretty much every day, and it shows. I, at least, was not worried about anyone messing with us when he was around. Unbeknownst to us, the limits of his strength were to be tested before our journey's end.

Mike – Negotiator, Translator, Photographer
Mike speaks fluent colloquial Lebanese thanks to his home life, and he has a natural bargaining streak that saved us money on several occasions. I think we honestly would have been lost without him, or we would have at least struggled mightily. Mike’s one flaw is his OCD-like obsession with taking pictures, a condition that I believe merits professional treatment. Is it normal to have ten 2-gigabyte memory cards for your digital camera?

Dan – Navigator
If Mike could talk us out of any situation, Dan could walk us out of it just as easily. Armed with nothing but his Lonely Planet travel guide, with which he has some sort of spiritual connection, Dan always knew exactly where we were and where we were going. Simply by laying hands on the Lonely Planet, Dan was able to triangulate our exact geospatial position and determine the direction in which we should proceed. Actually opening the book enabled him to walk on water and talk to animals.

Steph –Lonely Planeteer
Although Dan was the Lonely Planet’s unquestioned master, he wasn’t keen on carrying it around all the time, as he found this annoying and it also made us look rather touristy. Therefore, when Dan wasn’t using it to raise the dead, Steph kept the guidebook in her large purse until its powers were again needed. Her repeated requests for a new role were ignored.

Liz – Name Master
It’s tough to pin down a single role played by Liz on this trip, but I have to say it struck me that she was particularly good about knowing the names of places we visited, suggesting a certain amount of cultural knowledge that I lacked. Where I saw a bunch of old rubble, she saw the Kom El-Shuqfa ruins. I was unaware that the catacombs we visited had a name, but she knew them as the catacombs of Amud El-Sawari. Although I was impressed by this knowledge at the time, it occurs to me now that Liz was not frequently seen without her sunglasses, leading me to suspect that she was using a James Bond-like satellite uplink to receive relevant data in real time.

Me – Voice of Reason, Survivor Man
Prior to our departure, I was designated the role of “voice of reason,” a position I play well due to years of experience. The voice of reason thinks things through and prevents the group from making foolish or short sighted decisions. This can be a tricky role to play because an overactive voice of reason quickly kills all the fun to be had from adventuring. The key is recognizing subtle distinctions, like the difference between trespassing and breaking and entering. It was somewhat ironic that I was assigned this role, because it quickly became apparent that I was the most adventurous of our party, more into climbing and exploring than the others. I also declined to use hand sanitizer before meals, and I wasn’t grossed out by our sleeping conditions, leading me to be rechristened “Survivor Man,” in honor of the Discovery Channel TV show.

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Our plan was to get up early on Friday morning and take a cab to the Midan Ramses train station, where we would catch the 8:00 a.m. train to Alexandria. To that end, our somewhat groggy party assembled in the dorm lobby at 6:45 and split into two groups to take separate cabs. There was no traffic, but the cab that I was riding in with Dan and Steph nevertheless moved at an unusually slow pace. Our driver was an elderly man with an impassive, tortoise-like face, so I assumed he was a fan of the slow and steady approach. After a quarter of a mile or so, however, the car started shaking from the rear and the man pulled over to the side of the road. Flat tire. Without a word (or a change in his expression), the driver got out and started to change the tire. I wasn’t sure of the proper thing to do in this situation, but Dan was for finding a new ride. I left a few pounds on the seat and we hailed another cab, which took us to the station without incident.

Midan Ramses was bustling, and we had a little difficulty figuring out where to get tickets since the counters were divided by destination. We got help from one of the many security guards lounging around, who was happy to take us to the proper counter, help us buy tickets, and show us where to board the train. Of course we had to tip him for his services, but that’s how things work around here.

We found our seats and settled in for a two and a half hour journey. Although far from clean, the train was fairly spacious and comfortable, at least in our second class car. Our seats were cushy and could be reclined, and there was leg room to spare. Truth be told, this was my first time riding a train, and I was pretty excited about it. When I said so to Liz, who was sitting next to me, she looked surprised and advised me that the experience would probably not be as thrilling as I anticipated. Once we got underway I realized she was right; there wasn’t a whole lot to see out the window. Not knowing Liz particularly well, I talked to her for the first hour or so, during which time I was conscious of the fact that we six Americans were the only ones conversing. There were no other Westerners in our car, and everyone seemed to be sleeping or reading newspapers. We weren’t being particularly loud and no one paid us any attention, but I still felt overly conspicuous.

When our conversation came to a lull, I looked out the window at the passing landscape. We were traveling through an agricultural district. The land was flat and covered with fields of crops. Minus the clusters of palm trees and an occasional mosque, I decided that it wasn’t too different from Kansas. I was exhausted, having slept only three hours or so during the previous night due to difficulties doing laundry, and I closed my eyes.

I woke up when the train stopped at a station on the outskirts of the city. After another ten minutes and a few more stops, we were walking out of the downtown station into bright, sunny Alexandria. The scenery was green, the streets were clean, and a fresh breeze from the Mediterranean washed over me in a cool wave. I knew then that it was going to be a great weekend.

Coming soon in part two:
The New Hotel Welcome House, Fish Market, 50's diners, and more!

Cleanliness Is Next To Allah-liness

My early attempts to do laundry here were not crowned with success, and I became progressively more worried as my clothing supply dwindled slowly away. There are a couple of options for doing laundry here in the dorms. First, there’s a laundry service that charges on a per item basis. From what I’ve heard, they do an excellent job, folding and pressing all of your stuff, and they’re very quick. But although the service is not too expensive, it’s a waste of money to use it for things like t-shirts and most whites, which don’t need to look particularly good. I’m also on a bit of a budget. The alternative to the laundry service is the dorm’s washers and dryers, which are scattered sporadically throughout the residence hall. These are old, somewhat unreliable, and always in use. Big surprise.

My laundry adventure began when I went to the local Alfa Market to pick up some detergent. The vast majority of the selection was powdered detergent in large plastic bags. I picked the cheapest one I could find, smelled the bag, and decided it was fine. It didn’t really bother me at the time that the detergent was called “Bio Cleana.”

The next day, I chanced to see that the washer was unoccupied. Having no laundry basket, I grabbed the biggest armful of clothes I could and headed for the washer. After cramming everything in, I reached into my bag of Bio Cleana and grabbed a handful of powder. Forgetting momentarily that I was using a front-loading washer, I started to put the powder in with the clothes. I caught myself and remembered that I instead needed to slide out a compartment at the top and put the detergent in there. I opened the hatch and, to my dismay, found it filled with a gooey concoction of water and soggy detergent.

Shit.

What do I do now? Try to run the machine as is and hope everything comes out fine? No, too risky. These were all my whites, and I couldn’t afford to lose them at this stage. Should I scrape out the mess and start from scratch? No, that could still cause a disaster if the machine was really broken. I had no safe options. Defeated, I tossed my handful of Bio Cleana into the trash and carried my clothes back to my room.

I told Dan my tale of woe. He was skeptical about any detergent called “Bio Cleana,” so I sought to reassure him by reading the ingredients list, which is as follows:

Phosphates 15-30%
Anionic surfactant & oxygen 15-30%
Based bleaching agent
Nonionic surfactant & oxygen < style=""> 5-15%
This detergent contains enzyme & polycarboxylates & brighteners

Upon consideration, I realized it was rather odd that the percentage values of the ingredients were listed in range format. Is this detergent 30% phosphates, or is it only 15%? Does anyone really know? Moreover, adding the maximum listed percentages together only brings the total to 80%, meaning that twenty percent of my white-and-blue-powdered detergent is comprised of some mystery ingredient. Dan’s opinion on the matter: “Sounds like Chernobyl in a bag.”

I pushed my doubts about the detergent out of mind and decided to give the washer another go the next day, as I was in dire need of socks. I found the washer empty, and the detergent slot relatively clean, although still quite watery. With a quick prayer, I crammed my whites into the small washer and fiddled with the controls until I thought it was set to go. The light came on, but nothing seemed to be happening. I reached inside and felt water trickling in at the bottom, so I hoped for the best and went my way. Miraculously, I returned an hour later to find the clothes done and the nearby dryer available. The dryer worked without incident and I managed to do my darks as well. A great sense of accomplishment swept over me when I fell asleep that night with my stock of clean clothing replenished.

Jazzing Things Up

Last Thursday night Mohammad took us to the Cairo Jazz Club, which is more respectable than most of the other, somewhat sleazy clubs, such as the ever popular Latex (I could make several jokes here, but I’d prefer to pause and let the reader do so instead). I don’t go to bars or clubs back home so it’s sort of ironic that my first club experience occurred in Egypt, but I have to say I liked Cairo Jazz. Unlike most other joints here, they have live music most nights, and there are a fair number of tables to sit at and order food if patrons so desire. I did so desire, but it was a busy night and the tables were mostly full; also, the female contingent of our party was more inclined to dance. In the end we ended up staking out a spot along a wall near the bar.

The band playing that night was called Skin Deep, and they’re one of Mohammad’s favorites. They’re Egyptian, but all the songs they performed were all in English. I was surprised to hear them playing Santana when we arrived, which they followed with Stevie Wonder’s Superstition, a personal favorite of mine. I recognized most of the songs throughout the night, especially since they kept coming back to Santana over and over again, inexplicably playing at least five of his songs, including Oye Como Va twice. Impressively, these guys were on all night, playing from 10 to 3 with only 10 or 15 minute breaks.

The other people in Cairo Jazz were mostly Arabs, and it was kind of an older crowd, at least for the club scene. There wasn’t a lot of dancing going on, but a few people were at least swaying rhythmically. Close male-female contact in public is frowned upon in this country, and Mohammad said an American friend of his got kicked out of Cairo Jazz once for kissing his girlfriend. Our girls did the typical college girl thing: circled the wagons and started dancing with each other. I joined in briefly and had my lack of dancing prowess made fun of (as anticipated), but I had fun nonetheless. All said and done I would have preferred a table and some food, but I liked the music and the atmosphere, so Cairo Jazz wasn’t a bad experience overall.

That said, the best part of the night occurred back in the dorm. I got back late in the evening, but a roommate of mine came home even later than I did. He had been out all night at bars with the Georgetown crew, and was in a talkative mood. The conversation we had was at least as entertaining as anything I've seen in Cairo, but I’ve sworn never to discuss it, upon pain of death. Suffice it to say I have sufficient blackmail information for the near future.

Boy, Interrupted

Morale is low. Internet has been down for around six days now. When I say that internet is down, I don’t mean it’s not working in the dorm. I mean internet is down in all of Egypt. I heard it made BBC news, so some of you may have already heard. Fortunately, I managed to register for classes before this happened, but just barely. Wild rumors flew around for a while at the beginning about the cause, but here’s what seems to be the consensus. Apparently, there are three fiber optic cables running under the Mediterranean connecting Egyptian servers to the rest of the world. Last week, a ship dropped anchor and damaged two of the three, obliterating seventy percent of the internet in Egypt and the surrounding areas.

This makes little to no sense to me. First of all, how could there only be three cables running under the ocean connecting Egypt to the rest of the internet? That’s the stupidest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Secondly, if the system really was set up in such a ludicrous way, you’d think the cables would be encased in titanium or something. With bioengineered giant squid guarding them, or at least a few tiger sharks and electric eels. I could understand if a massive earthquake caused a temporary disruption, but an anchor? You’ve got to be kidding me.

The estimates for when the problem will be fixed are running around a week from now, so I’d say it will probably be around three weeks before things are back to normal (that’s a useful conversion metric for any estimate regarding time given in Egypt or by Egyptians; if someone says they’ll be by for tea in half an hour, you don’t need to put the kettle on for another 90 minutes or so). The internet still works sometimes, albeit painfully slowly (think slower than dial-up), so I’ve managed to post this blog update. Due to the outage, I have a bit of a backlog of fantastical adventures to share, but I’ll just send one along for now.

One night last week, we went to Fakhfakhina, a university sponsored “cultural event.” That type of thing doesn’t usually appeal to me, so I thought it would be lame and attempted to find a way to avoid going. But everyone else wanted to see what it was, so I ended up tagging along. I’m glad I did, because it was awesome. In essence, the event was a massive party held in a palace with fantastic food and some traditional Arab dancing thrown in to boot. We took a bus across town early in the evening and arrived at a massive walled compound. The inside was like a miniature jungle, with crazy shaped trees lining the paths and vines hanging everywhere. Upon first arriving, we headed to the ballroom where the action was going down. Words cannot adequately describe that place, so I’ll have to include some pictures when I can. Suffice it to say that most of the room was decorated in ornate golden designs, and a huge 10 or 12 foot chandelier hung from the ceiling.

When we first arrived, I immediately headed for the food buffet, the first all-you-can-eat I had experienced since leaving home. Having gorged myself, I started paying more attention to my surroundings. A DJ was blaring loud Arab pop music, and the Middle Eastern students were dancing in the middle of the room. It was kind of goofy. I couldn’t really detect the rhythm that I assume was somehow involved in their dancing, and there was a lot of jumping around. The students were wearing Western dress, although most of the girls wore the hijab, or veil. Guys and dolls were segregated into two separate circles of dance. There were some questionable interactions occurring in the men's circle, such as one guy putting his scarf around another guy’s neck and pulling it back and forth. Apparently, this is fairly normal for Egyptians.

As this dancing occurred, some of the Western students sort of hovered around near the edges of the room, while others sat on couches and ate. The Egyptian students seemed to be having a really good time, and during a particularly popular song the circles started to combine and one larger group formed. A couple of minutes later, an Egyptian danced his way out of the cluster to one of the more Middle Eastern-looking female international students (whom he clearly knew) and brought her half-reluctantly into the group. A chain reaction began, and the circle started growing at an alarming rate. Panic spread as we Americans realized what was happening and scrambled frantically to stay outside the grasp of the rapidly expanding horde of dancers, selfishly pushing our comrades into the line of fire. Spooked, we stood awkwardly observing the dance from a safe distance around the perimeter of the room. A few of the braver among us joined in, but these were the exception to the rule.

A while later, the cultural performances began. The first one was by far my favorite, and well worth going for. A group of eight or so men dressed in white robes and turbans danced out of a side door beating rhythmically on hand drums resembling large tambourines without bells. They were Nubians, from the southern part of Egypt. The men made their way to the center of the room, where a large crowd formed around them. The music they played was produced entirely by beating the drums, clapping, and singing. Audience participation was huge, and almost everyone clapped along or even danced. Periodically, the performers would grasp hands and start to move in a circle around two men singing in the center. Egyptian students quickly joined in the circle, and then a few Americans after a bit longer. I was all for getting on board the gravy train, and I thrust my way in with Mike at an opportune moment. We trotted in circles around the singers and instruments, and then did a sort of conga line around the room, singing together in an odd language that resembled Arabic, but wasn’t. After an encore, the performance finally ended, and everyone resumed their former places dancing in the middle or conversing awkwardly at the sides.

About an hour later, the campus Folklore Society came on, doing a traditional dancing act. This was alright, but not worth going into detail about. More interesting was the compound itself, which Mike and I explored briefly during the interval between the performances. It had the feel of an old Arabian palace like something out of Indiana Jones, and I wanted to poke around some of the pathways a little more before we left. Sadly, guards barred our way when we tried to return at the end of the program, and I couldn’t persuade anyone to sneak around another way. Stubbornly determined, I spent about ten minutes stalking around in the darkness by myself, but I discovered little worth mentioning before I had to head back or risk missing the bus home. I’m convinced that Aladdin’s cave of wonders is located somewhere nearby, however, and I plan to return with proper archaeological equipment at a later date.