Of Mullahs and Men

Spring Break Part 2: Lambchops

2008-06-23T17:37:00.001-04:00

Home...?

2008-06-23T17:13:00.000-04:00

I’ve been sluggish in finishing this blog up. I was recently asked by a friend to hurry up and write one final post so he can take the darn thing off his bookmarks list. I don’t particularly want to end my short writing career, and I also don’t feel as if I’ve really settled into place in DC yet (this might be related to the fact that I’m still unemployed…). Some sort of resolution to this story is in order, but I don’t feel it, so I’m not going to attempt to provide it. Besides, there’s still more to tell. I have a feeling that there will always be more to tell.

For some of my friends, the adventure isn’t over at all. I know a few who are doing international summer programs hot on the heels of our Egyptian experience, including one who flew straight to Buenos Aires from Cairo, no down time whatsoever. The idea of beginning something new so soon, of launching into another voyage right from the first, is almost mindblowing to me. To take the plunge into another culture – one radically different from both the Middle East and the United States, with no time even to absorb and process the Egyptian experience, to let everything sink in… what a challenge that must be, and yet, what a unique perspective that must provide.

For me, it is an active struggle not to leave pieces of myself in Cairo. I don’t mean that in the usual “there’ll always be a little piece of my heart in X” way. I mean that I face the very real danger of losing, of forgetting what I learned and who I became. In my old environment, with my old friends, surrounded by the familiar, it is indescribably easy to slip gradually back into my former self. I must fight daily to make real in my life all of the personal changes I worked so hard for abroad.

So to embark on another adventure so soon, without fully internalizing the first… it’s hard to know what would happen to me. Would the second experience overwrite the first? Would each throw the other into sharper relief? Would the two mesh into some sort of inextricable web? I can’t say.

And then there are some of my peers who have been traveling for a long, long time (by my standards anyway). How they do it is far beyond me. When one journey bleeds into the next, and then the next, it is an understatement to describe the task of sorting out the layers of experience as a challenge. But then again, not everyone feels the need to do quite so much sorting as I do.

Reflections

2008-05-03T19:36:00.004-04:00

I returned to Cairo last night from a fortnight’s journey across the Middle East. It was strange to be back. I walked the streets this evening with a sense of intimate familiarity that I’d never felt before. After two weeks of adjusting to constant change and newness, Cairo felt not quite like home, but was still well-trodden ground. I had to remind myself that, to everyone else, I still look like I did when I stepped off the plane three months ago. The Egyptian locals I pass in the street still see an agnabee, a foreigner, a white twenty-something male with dark brown hair parted down the middle, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt. My level of comfort with my environment, my knowledge of the culture, the ease with which I now wield my Arabic to accomplish routine tasks, are not visible to the naked eye. And they never will be. Only when I speak a greeting, shove my way tenaciously to the front of a line, or cross a busy street do my knowledge and experience reveal themselves.

When I first arrived in Egypt, I marveled at the Westerners I saw living in Cairo. Zamalek, the island where I live, is an affluent area, home to many embassies and a significant foreign population. While I recognized that we students hardly blended in with the locals, the expatriates were shockingly visible. I saw women wearing skirts, men walking dogs, unorthodox clothing that was borderline taboo. Members of the Western community looked so obviously out of place. “How can they live like that,” I thought, “so un-integrated?” At the time, I chalked it up to lack of cultural sensitivity.

But I see now that I was wrong. The expats living here don’t perceive themselves as disconnected at all. Rather, they have attained a sense of familiarity with their environment. They have the knowledge and skills necessary to complete the tasks that confront them on a daily basis. They know the city, or at least the parts of it that they frequent. They speak enough Arabic to get by. And they are fluent enough in the culture, the way things work in this country, to live with relative ease. Like me, they are comfortable with their environment. And it seems that being comfortable with a milieu breeds the sense that one’s surroundings are equally comfortable with you. How much longer living here would it take, I wonder, for me to lose my own self-awareness?

That question will never be answered. I can no longer avoid the fact that my journey is near its end. I returned last night from my spring break travels with a strong sense of the finitude of time. I had but little of it everywhere we went, and I will probably never see the places I visited again. With one month left, I have much to do and much to see before I leave Egypt, and the full weight of school comes to bear at a most inopportune time. I am sorry to say that new posts to this blog will be infrequent, if they come at all.

This post would be quite a change of tone if it was all contemplation and no entertainment, however, so I leave the reader with this:

Spring Break Part One: Ahoy!

Two weeks ago, I set out with seven faithful companions on a journey across the Middle East. Our goal was to visit Jordan, Syria, and Israel, before making our way back to Egypt. Our travels began with a long bus ride across the Sinai desert to Taba, a low-key resort area on the Red Sea. Our plan was to take a ferry across the Gulf of Aqaba straight to Jordan in order to bypass Israel (an Israeli stamp on our passports would make us ineligible to enter Syria). After a thorough search of our luggage and a long wait on the beach, we finally boarded the ferry and set off. It was a pleasant cruise. Relaxing (although slightly odd) music played in the background. The passengers lounged about, sipping juice boxes provided by the boat company. My traveling companions settled in to read Time or the Economist. I enjoyed the scenery as we drifted along, and marveled at the deep blue of the water and the mountains visible in the hazy distance.

As we cruised across the Gulf of Aqaba toward Jordan, the wind picked up slightly and a gentle breeze drifted in from the south. It brought with it cool, fresh air. I breathed in deeply. I caught a whiff of something odd, something unnatural. It was a strong, musky odor, with a hint of… no, it couldn’t be. I got to my feet and scanned the southern horizon. Nothing. Odd… But then I saw something in the distance, a black shape, slowly growing larger. Concerned now, I started climbing up a ladder on the main mast toward the vacant crow’s nest to get a better look. As I neared the top the smell grew stronger, and it became unmistakable – rum. Three day old sweat, rum, and a hint of gunpowder. That could mean only one thing.

“Pirates!” I yelled. “Pirates ho!”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than our vessel shook violently as it was rocked by a cannon blast. We needed to move. Now.

“They got the engine! We’re done for!” our captain wailed.

Immobilized, we could do nothing but watch as a massive, three-masted pirate ship flying the skull and crossbones pulled up alongside our vessel. Thirty swarthy pirates swung from the riggings onto our deck, brandishing knives, cutlasses, and pistols.

“Avast!” cried their one-eyed, peg-legged leader, “Hand over yer booty, ye scurvy rapscallions, or walk the plank!”

The passengers around me cowered in fear. Our captain tried to tell everyone to be calm and hand over anything of value so we could all walk away alive.

Over my dead body.

I cast about for a weapon. My eyes fell upon Ainsley, our group’s petite Texan belle with a backpack of prodigious size. “Ainsley,” I yelled, “Bring that backpack over here!” She scurried across the deck as quickly as she could under the weight of the massive bag on her back. I seized her by the ankle and swung her through the air, backpack and all. I heard the sound of bone shattering against expensive cosmetics as the bag crashed squarely into the pirate leader’s jaw, knocking him overboard.

Their leader fallen, the other pirates hesitated, unsure of what to do. Several of them glanced at each other, nodded, and took a step toward Andy. Andy crossed his arms, furrowed his brow, and let loose a low, guttural grunt. Two pirates fainted, a third soiled himself, and nine more jumped screaming into the sea. Brandishing a nail file and a blow dryer (and shrieking like banshees), Ariel and Alison drove the rest of the crusty scalawags overboard as well. Leah sat calmly through the incident with a tranquil, bemused expression on her face, while Tim enjoyed a hearty brunch of salted pork and rum.

The pirates defeated, we now faced the challenge of reaching the shore with an engineless boat. Dan, being a Florida resident, was intimately acquainted with the workings of three-masted pirate ships, and after procuring a captain’s hat, he commandeered the vessel and set about making it ready. We reached Aqaba without further incident, and continued unfazed on our daunting journey.

Triumphant Return

2008-05-02T14:06:00.002-04:00

Despite all odds, I've somehow found my way back to Cairo. Lots of stories to share, but lots to do and see in the month remaining before I leave Egypt. I should at least be able to get a few pictures up sometime in the near future, so stay tuned.

Probability of Survival Now High

2008-04-29T12:29:00.002-04:00

Well, made it to Jerusalem. Heck of a lot easier to get into than Syria. Lots of IDF military personnel carrying M16s. Be back in Cairo sometime between Friday and Sunday.

Not Dead Yet

2008-04-25T07:36:00.002-04:00

I'm in Aleppo, Syria. Got here last night from Damascus. Facebook and Blogspot are blocked in most places in this country, so I haven't had a chance to update until now. Here for a few days, then headed south again.

Update: Still Alive

2008-04-20T17:03:00.001-04:00

In Amman, Jordan. Leave for Damscus in the morning. Keep your fingers crossed.

Out To Lunch

2008-04-16T09:52:00.003-04:00

Spring break starts tomorrow. Going to Jordan, Syria, Israel. Back May 3rd.

Mount Sinai

2008-04-16T09:22:00.003-04:00

I went to climb Mount Sinai two weeks ago. On the way there, my party of thirteen stopped in nearby Dahab, a low-key beach resort town on the Red Sea. We spent the day swimming in the clear blue sea, sleeping in the sun, and sipping drinks on the beach. I decided I could use a tan and foolishly declined to apply sunscreen before falling asleep. That turned out to be a poor choice.

In the late afternoon, before leaving for the mountain, I went with three other guys to ride all-terrain vehicles in the desert. Riding an ATV is probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done (if you don’t know what one looks like, go here: http://www.dandydirtbikes.com.au/images/uploads/300%20atv.jpg). As soon as I got going, thoughts of everything manly drifted unbidden to the forefront of my mind. Halo music played in my head. I saw myself cruising the Tatooine desert in a landspeeder. I heard Doc Brown’s line from Back to the Future: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!” I highly recommend this experience to anyone who hasn’t tried it already.

After dinner that evening, our intrepid band departed for Mount Sinai, two hours away by bus. Our plan was to start climbing at around 2:30 a.m. in order to make the sunrise at 5:30. The mountain trail was packed with other climbers and camels making the ascent. Although I had been looking forward to this experience for months, I ended up staying back to make sure the slowest member of our group made it up. The slow pace of ascent, frequent stops, my excessive sun exposure earlier in the day, and lack of sleep wore on me as the night dragged by.

By the time I made it to the top, the sun was almost up. I didn’t care. I was dizzy, nauseous, dehydrated, and exhausted. The seventy-five percent of my skin surface that was sunburned was chafing like no one’s business. As I stumbled up onto the large plateau just below the peak, someone called to me. I turned and saw several of my comrades sitting in a large tent drinking tea. They were hiding from the bitter cold while they awaited sunrise. I staggered into the tent and collapsed on a bench, where I passed out. I slept through the sunrise and didn’t wake up until my party was beginning the descent. Everyone wanted to get down out of the cold. I groggily lurched after them, moving in an awkward, bow-legged manner that minimized the friction between my legs and my jeans. I gradually woke up more as we went, and I finally began to enjoy the descent.

As we approached the base of the mountain and St. Catherine’s monastery at the bottom (reportedly home to the burning bush of biblical legend), we came out of the mountain’s shadow into a long stretch of unshaded mountainside. Partly to minimize sun exposure, but mostly because I was finally in the mood for some fun, I surged ahead of the group and bounded down the mountain, leaping from rock to rock like a lanky, bright red billy goat.

I spent the week after we returned from the mountain trying to recover from sunburn, as did many other members of the party. I had no moisturizing lotion of any kind, although Mike generously provided me with a 2 ounce bottle of aloe vera that worked wonders while it lasted. I limped to a nearby supermarket and tried to find more. I saw nothing useful. I finally stumbled across a bottle of Dove “Calming Night.” It was labeled primarily in Dutch, so I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. The English description read like this:

“The smoothing, soothing blend of Dove with ¼ moisturizing cream renews the skin’s lost moisture, and a sensuous fragrance of Sandalwood calms a tired soul. Use nightly.”

I bought it. I returned to my room and smeared a large handful on my leg, then began rubbing it in. The “lotion” started to lather. Huh. I typed the Dutch description into Google translator. It wasn’t lotion. It was body wash. Interesting. I left it on my leg.

After a week or so, I began a full body peel. Taking showers became interesting, as the running water would pool in pockets of loose skin, making it seem as if my entire body was covered in massive bubbling boils or pulsating slugs. Occasionally, the flow would enter a rip in my loose, molting skin and exit through another a few inches below, creating writhing rivers beneath the surface of my torso. As would be expected, everyone I talked to was delighted to hear about these developments. I won't even tell you about what happened to my legs when I worked out in the gym.

Homeward Bound: Luxor, Part 4

2008-04-12T13:10:00.003-04:00

We got up the next morning day to catch the 9:00 train. Diligent readers will remember that Mike and I had been unable to procure tickets for this train when we arrived three days prior. Phil, another AUC student, was in the same predicament. We all boarded the train anyway and found seats in a relatively empty car.

About half an hour into the trip, the ticket-checking guy came by. We paid him 52 pounds and he gave us pink slips of paper granting us the right to be on the train (but not the right to specific seats). “Well,” I thought, “that was pretty painless.” And for the first three hours or so, it was. The only eventful thing that happened during that time was Phil vomiting off the side of the train, probably as a result of some falafel we’d eaten that morning before we boarded. But at around the three hour mark, we got booted when a large family swarmed into our car with tickets for our seats. We lugged our junk to another car and found new seats. We got booted again at the next stop. We found new seats, this time separated from each other. We got booted again. Then we couldn’t find seats. Phil disappeared for long stretches of time, which I can only assume were spent making peace with his digestive system in the bathroom.

I wandered around the crowded train for a while in my t-shirt and jeans, feeling very foreign, with people staring at me the whole time. I would occasionally find an empty seat and sit for a few minutes, only to be kicked out at the next stop, or when someone returned from the bathroom. Eventually, Mike and I bumped into an Egyptian student from AUC. We stood talking to him for a while. He looked surprised when I said I spoke some Arabic.

“Really, you speak Arabic? When that guy was talking to you a minute ago, you just smiled and nodded and it was really obvious you didn’t understand anything that he was saying to you.”
Great.
“So what do you think of Cairo so far?” he asked.
“It’s good, I like it a lot.”
“Is it weird having people stare at you all the time everywhere you go?”
“Uhh…”

I decided I wasn’t much in the mood for this particular conversation. I went to talk to my six friends who had tickets. They offered various solutions to my seat situation. Dan volunteered a spot on his armrest, which was both uncomfortable and impractical considering how many people were passing by the aisle. I was offered a chance to sit in Max’s seat for a little bit while he stood, which I felt bad doing. Finally, I could sit on the floor where Tim and Ariel had their feet, provided I didn’t mind being a footrest. This was the option I chose. I wriggled my way back into the corner and leaned against the outer wall with my legs stretched toward the aisle. Although far from comfortable, it wasn’t a terrible position, and I was initially relieved to finally have a place to call my own. My feelings soon changed, as Ariel kept petting me like a dog, much to everyone’s amusement but my own. I was also decorated with tinsel and photographed repeatedly. I failed to see the humor in the situation. I whined repeatedly until I was given an issue of Time to read, which kept me occupied for a while. After about half an hour Tim got up to walk around, and I took his seat for ten minutes or so before being relegated to my former position, which was becoming progressively less comfortable. Eventually, Mike finished his conversation with the AUC kid and came by. He fed me cookies, improving my mood considerably. I’d had enough of the patronizing, though, and I got up to wander around with him.

We realized we hadn’t seen Phil in several hours. I found him passed out in a seat a few cars back. Either because the Egyptians are by nature a compassionate, warm-hearted people, or because Phil is big and bearded and scary looking, no one was trying to make him move. I was jealous. Mike and I went as far forward on the train as we were able and then worked our way back. Each car had doors to the outside at either end, and we had idyllic visions of sitting with our legs dangling out of the train as the landscape passed. We pried a door open when no one was looking. Wind rushed in. We were really moving. I stuck my head out momentarily and realized that the train was traveling far too fast and passing much to close to trees, fences, and buildings for our plan to be safe. We just stood and looked out for a few minutes until an indignant employee scolded us for our foolishness. He also tried to steal the newspaper we had been sitting on. This turned into a bit of a shouting match, which inexplicably morphed into an attempt by Mike to sell the man the newspaper for two pounds. That didn’t really work so we just shut the door and sat back down. I eventually fell asleep. Mike noticed that I kept falling sideways and finally procured me a seat where I slept for about an hour. It was dark when I woke up, and we were close to our destination. I was overjoyed when we finally pulled into the station. Cairo felt safe. I knew where I was and where I was going. I knew where I was sleeping and where my food was coming from. I was home.

The Best Nine Pounds I Ever Spent: Luxor, Part 3

2008-04-12T12:27:00.001-04:00

The next morning at around ten, our party of nine assembled and rented bikes from a dirty little shop down the street from the hotel. It was a mere nine pounds ($1.64) to use one for the entire day. Although this was unbelievably cheap, we got what we paid for, and not much more. These were old school, one-speed contraptions with iffy brakes. Mine had a bell, marking it as the deluxe machine in the group. Our plan was to ride these suckers to Karnak, an ancient temple complex on the outskirts of Luxor. It had been years since I’d ridden a bike, and I was a little nervous about my ability to cope with the traffic conditions we’d be facing. After a quick test drive, I decided I’d be ok. I checked out all the other bikes while everyone got adjusted. Brakes ranged from unreliable to nonfunctioning, and I had Mike get more air for his back tire since it seemed a little low. Everything else seemed fine. With everyone assembled, we plunged down the dirt ramp that led into the main street, and took off.

The bike ride was a trip. I’ve never experienced anything like the thrill of cruising through the rough, rocky streets of Luxor dodging trucks, motorcycles, buses, horse-drawn carriages, donkey-pulled carts, pedestrians, and other bikes, all the while trying to stay with the group. It felt like a scene from an action movie. After some initial confusion during which our party was separated, we made it to the paved road that would take us out toward Karnak. I rode ahead with Tim and Jordan, weaving through busy intersections and gliding between massive tour buses. So much fun.

We finally reached Karnak, where we left our bikes at the gate. The temple is my favorite tourist attraction in Egypt so far, and I expect that it will maintain that position. It doesn’t matter whether you know a lick of history or not – this place is impressive. Colossal pillars, elaborate hieroglyphics, ornate obelisks, and stunning statuary surrounded us at every turn. The place was jam packed with tourists like ourselves, but it was fairly easy to sneak off to quiet areas. I found a way to climb on top of one of the temple’s large chambers, which afforded an excellent view for pictures (which I would include if they didn’t take an hour each to upload).

After we finished up at Karnak, we rode back. Most of the group headed to the hotel after lunch, but five of us kept the bikes and took them on a ferry across the river to the west bank. Our goal was to reach Banana Island, which was rumored to be more of a peninsula. We weren’t positive how to get there. We rode out a ways until we reached the outskirts of town and then pedaled along a narrow dirt road parallel to the Nile. This was a rural area, filled mostly with palm trees and fields of tall sugar cane. Enmeshed in this scene were rich adobe-colored houses that fit perfectly into their surroundings. As we glided by, the men scattered throughout the fields and the women and children sitting near the houses shouted and waved to us. Kids ran along the rode with us, clapping and smiling. The scene was idyllic, serene, and I felt out of time for a moment, as if an illustration from a fantasy novel had come to life around me. I have probably never been more out of place anywhere in Egypt, but nowhere did I feel so welcome.

Eventually, we reached a small town, crossed the river again, and from there headed toward the “island.” It was protected by a tiny cluster of dwellings, which seemed to be inhabited mostly by small children occupied playing all kinds of indiscernible games. At the sight of foreigners, they abandoned their amusements and swarmed us. They were mostly dirty and shoeless, although one tiny tyke had a Spider-Man mask on. They babbled at us in Arabic and scraps of English, and tried to climb on our bikes. We stopped to entertain them for a few minutes, then tried to move on. This was difficult, as they clung to the back of our bikes, whether to detain us or amuse themselves I wasn’t quite sure. As we made our way away from their homes, they chased us and began signing a song:

Hello! Hello! Hello, hello, hello!
Hello! Hello! Hello, hello, hello!

As adorable as this was, the light was dying and we still had to make it to the island and back to the hotel. We extricated ourselves and made our way down a steep incline and around a sharp curve. A mass of greenery came into view separated from the bank we were riding on by a small land bridge. I coasted across and up to the fringe of the trees, where I was met by a cool wave of fresh, banana-scented air. Success! It looked like a jungle in there. We were ready to dive in, but wait, where was Mike? We looked back and didn’t see any sign of him along the path we’d ridden. After a few minutes, I called him.

“Yo, where are you?”
His reply, in the most excited voice imaginable: “I’m playing soccer with little kids!”

Lord help us. He finally made it to the island. It looked like a really neat place but we didn’t get to explore much, as we were quickly accosted by the island's residents/owners, who demanded money. We left rather than pay them anything. The ride back was relatively uneventful, and I think we all slept well that night.

Interlude: April Fool's Day

2008-04-02T14:17:00.002-04:00

Sitting in class on the morning of April 1^st, I decided I needed to pull a good prank. I haven’t participated in April Fool’s festivities since my junior year of high school, when a prank of mine backfired severely. I decided now was the time to break that streak. But what to do... I pondered for a few minutes and then came up with an idea. After class, I sat down at a computer in the library and wrote the following email:

Subject: Nonreceipt of payment for student housing

Dear Mike Y-----:

The American University in Cairo Office of Student Accounts regrets to inform you that your eligibility for housing in ZAMALEK DORMITORY has been withdrawn due to nonreceipt of payment. You have been granted a three day grace period in which to remove your personal belongings from the residence, after which time you will not be permitted to return to the premises. Please respond acknowledging your receipt of this notice.

Regards,

Mahmoud Ahmed al-Mouqtar
AUC Student Accounts

I thought this would work well because Mike hadn’t paid his $1300 housing fee yet, and his musings about the possible consequences were a perennial topic of conversation in the room. I wanted it to look like this email was coming from the AUC Office of Student Accounts. I realized that I could change my display name in Gmail to anything I wanted, but my actual email address would remain the same, so it would be hard to pull the joke off. I sent a text message to Anthony, who’s something of a computer wiz, asking if he could spoof an email address. Anthony said he could, and I forwarded him the text of my email. But he never got back to me, so I forgot about the idea until that night.

I was sitting in my room at around 11:00 talking to Dan and Mike when the topic of April Fool’s came up in passing conversation. Remembering my idea, I decided to go ahead and send Mike the message just for kicks. I thought the fact that it came at eleven in the evening would be a pretty big tip off that it was fake, but why not try? He got the email right after I sent it and started laughing incredulously while reading it aloud. There was about a second or two at the beginning when he almost bought it, but he realized it was fake pretty quickly. He was amused though. So I thought I’d had my fun. But Dan wanted to know what the commotion was about, so I forwarded him the email. He was a big fan and advocated sending it to more people we knew. At his suggestion, I added an address and phone number to the signature section. This made the message look significantly more official. My cause also was helped substantially by that fact that Gmail only shows the display name when users initially open an email – they have to click on the “show details” button to see the actual email address. I started sending the email out to people I knew one by one. I’d been at work for three minutes when I got my first reply:

10:51 pm
From: Jane
i will go to the student accounts office and pay my housing bill tomorrow. thank you,
Jane

No way. Did she really fall for it? I read the email three times, looking for some subtle sign of understanding or complicity. Nothing. Wow. I was momentarily caught off guard. What should I do now? I didn’t want to freak anyone out too bad, and I hadn’t even considered how to deal with the situation if the emails were successful. But, less than five minutes after starting, I already had at least one person hook, line, and sinker. I couldn’t stop now.

I sent eight emails in total, seven to girls and one to Andy, whom readers may remember as the guy I inadvertently saw urinating on a mountain at the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. I fully expected him to see right through my nonsense (both because he’s sharp and because he doesn’t use Gmail), but I wanted to see what his reaction would be.

The next reply was from Mary. I realized moments after I sent her the email that she doesn’t actually live in the dorm; she lives in a university apartment near campus. Whoops. But that only added to the fun:

11:01 pm
From: Mary
To whom it may concern,
I am sorry for the confusion, but I do not live in Zamalek. I live in Garden City and my University, ---------------------- University, is responsible for my accounts here. Please let me know what I need to do to fix this situation.
Thank you,
Mary

Wow. Never mind the date, did it not strike anyone as strange that this email was coming from the office of student accounts at 11:00 pm? Let’s think about that for a second. The true irony lies in the fact that university offices are never open. I have shown up at 2:00 in the afternoon only to have someone sitting behind a window tell me the office is closed, come back tomorrow.

Although I was getting a huge kick out of this, I became progressively more concerned as I thought about the situation further. Visions of people having money wired from the US and making international phone calls to their parents floated through my head. I didn’t want to stop the show completely, so I decided to compromise by keeping close tabs on the situation. I had Dan intervene in Jane’s case. Via instant message, he broached the topic of strange emails from student accounts. I don’t know if that did it or if she’d already figured it out, but I received the following email moments later:

11:13 pm
From: Jane
hahahahahahaha good one. very good. bravo.

Jane proceeded to use the fake name trick to mess with her parents and some friends back home [note: she told me the next day that this backfired pretty horribly; she ended up sending flowers to her parents to make up for some hurt feelings]. Louis, who was also in the room, wanted me to forward him my email so he could prank people he knew. I happily obliged. This was awesome! I was having the time of my life. Then this rolled in:

11:29 pm
From: Mary
Again, I apologize for this mistake. After reviewing my payment records with my home university I realize that my housing was, indeed, not paid for. My parents are having a very difficult time making ends meet and they were unable to pay this. If there is anything I can do to pay back this debt I would be more than willing to do it - wash dishes, clean the dorms, or work in one of the bathrooms on campus.
Please do not kick me out of housing. I will have to live on the streets next to the little boy that sits and cries near campus. I hope we can come to some sort of conclusion to rectify this matter in a way that satisfies all parties.
Thank you for understanding and I assume you maintain a strict confidentiality policy in your office. i would not want anyone to find out about this. I hang out with these students from Georgetown, who I would never want to know about this embarrassing situation - they are kind of stuck up and I already have to get over the "wait-list-school" stereotype.
Thank you again and I am so sorry for this mix up.
Sincerely,
Mary

I have to admit, she really had me going around the end of the first paragraph. I thought she was very upset, probably crying, and I felt like a terrible, despicable human being for a good ten seconds or so. Touche.

This was also about the time when Jane’s roommate Sarah got back to the dorm. Now, I don’t know Sarah very well. Moreover, this particular prank didn’t strike me as something that would appeal to her sense of humor. So I was reluctant to send her the email. The only reason I did was because Dan insisted. What happened, according to Jane, is the following: Sarah comes into the room. Sarah checks her email. Sarah doesn’t freak out. Sarah is ecstatic. Sarah doesn’t want to be in the dorm anyway – she’d rather move out and get an apartment. She gets ready to call her dad on Skype and discuss arrangements.

At some point, either Dan or Jane broke the news to Sarah that this was a joke. I received the following email a few minutes later:

11:44 pm
From: Sarah
good job brian

happy april fools

I heard from Andy next. I’d been waiting for this one.

11:47 pm
From: Andy
Deal with it. I need my falouse [money] to spend on Stellas [local beer]

Nothing gets past this guy. Things were quiet for a while after that, until Dan got an instant message from Tiffany asking if I was around. Upon his affirmative reply, she politely informed him that she wanted to strangle me.

12:16 am
GAHHH you gave me a heart attack!!! I will admit it was sort of the most genius April Fools Day prank ever ...

She had freaked out a lot. After reading the email three times, she was getting ready to call her dad in the US on her cellphone when her roommate Anna (who also received the email, but was apparently less gullible) was unable to contain her laughter any longer.

I stayed up for a while, but that was it for the night. There were only two people left unaccounted for, Emily and Megan. These characters have fairly level heads (and I’d dropped hints about my prank to Emily earlier in the day), so I decided it would be safe to go to bed without hearing from them. I nevertheless decided to wake up early and check my email to avert any catastrophes that might be brewing. That turned out to be unnecessary. Emily didn’t check her email until I told her about it later in the day, which was a bit of a disappointment. I didn’t see Megan until around 5 in the afternoon. She’d gotten the email late the night before and flipped out a fair bit before her roommate figured it out. She had worked all day on coming up with a sob story to feed me about the email wreaking havoc in her life, but she couldn’t keep a straight face. That’s too bad, because it would’ve worked like a charm. Megan’s mother and sister were visiting Cairo and I’d already been worried that she would get the email in the morning and go down to the student accounts office instead of taking them out around the city (hence my decision to rise early). If she were a bit more ruthless, Megan could’ve gotten me back pretty good. I guess I might be a little too softhearted to be a truly masterful practical joker.

Tombraiders: Luxor, Part Two

2008-03-26T21:50:00.000-04:00

With our options exhausted at the train station, Mike and I joined the rest of the group and headed for the hotel. We walked along wide dirt streets without sidewalks. Shops, restaurants, and vendor stalls lined the sides. The streets were much less crowded than in Cairo, but far more chaotic. When I first arrived in Egypt, I was overwhelmed by the rush of cars clogging Cairo's roadways and the lack of traffic control. But the sheer amount of traffic tends to limit the speed at which vehicles travel, and the flow is fairly predictable. It's also helpful that virtually all streets in Cairo are one-way. This was not the case in Luxor, where there seemed to be no method to the madness whatsoever. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes careened haphazardly in and out of our path on the bumpy, unpaved roads. The motorcycles were the worst, driving in both directions on both sides of the street and zooming unsettlingly close to pedestrians.

We eventually caught sight of our hotel, the Nubian Oasis. The place was packed, as several groups of AUC students were visiting Luxor this weekend, and the this hotel was the residence of choice. Unlike the rest of our group, Mike and I didn't have reservations. All the hustle and bustle made me worried about getting a room, but we were quickly shown to a nice, air conditioned place on the third floor. Everyone settled in, and we headed out for a nice dinner.

Mike and I got back to the hotel around 11:00 and were informed that we had to move. More people with reservations had shown up and they needed our room. Ok… so what now? Foreseeing the possibility that the hotel could be booked when we arrived, we had a backup plan: the Bob Marley Hostel. As enticing as this sounds, it was pretty late in the evening and we weren’t exactly sure where the hostel was. I was tired and not keen on going to look for it. The hotel owner felt bad for us and offered to let us sleep on the roof for the night. For free. Score.

Now when I say we slept on a roof, the wrong image probably jumps to mind. The roof of the Nubian Oasis is furnished with benches, tables, chairs, and a TV, and many guests spend their evenings socializing up there. Most of the rooftop is sheltered by a latticework overhang, and a large area covered in blankets provides an adequate (although quite public) place to sleep. There’s even a comfortable hammock that I napped in a couple of times during the day.

The next morning, we got up and started touring the sites. Tim and Ariel, who’d arrived a day early, had a bus lined up to take us around for the day. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings, home to the tombs of many ancient Egyptian pharaohs and one of the most famous landmarks in Egypt. I don’t have a lot to say about it. The place was positively packed with tourists, and we were herded through the tombs we visited. Some people were upset by this, but it didn't bother me too much. The truth is, I’m shallow and uncultured and all I saw was a bunch of old paint and carvings on a wall in some dank caves. I have no knowledge of the symbolism involved, nor have I studied pharaonic history. The thing that struck me as most interesting was the fact that the ceiling of every tomb was painted with identical white five-pointed stars. It surprised me to see this motif so well preserved over the course of centuries. And I felt sorry for whoever got stuck with the job of painting them all.

As unimpressed as I was with its contents, I thought the valley itself was pretty sweet. The area surrounding the tombs was comprised of sandy mountains, and our rugged band hiked over them in order to reach our next destination, which was some other temple thing that may or may not have had a name. As I scrambled up the dusty mountainside along with my companions, I made occasional forays off the path to explore what looked like promising alternate routes. Upon returning from one of these deviations, I rounded a corner to find myself with a full view of Andy urinating on the mountain fifteen yards in front of me. Awesome. Not realizing I had wandered off on my own, he had waited until everyone else had passed before going about his business. He didn’t notice me, so I passed without comment and waited until later to broach the topic. A true stoic, his only comment was, “You haven’t really been somewhere until you’ve peed on it.”

When we reached the mountain’s crest, we were accosted by a thirty-something year old Egyptian man who looked happy to see us. I can’t blame him. As far as I can tell, his job was to sit on top of the mountain all day long and point out the path down to the other side. The guy followed us around for a while and kept offering to take group pictures (in exchange for money, of course). He was also talking to Camille a lot, paying her the awkward, heavy-handed compliments to which Western women who visit Egypt are constantly subjected in markets and on the streets. After spending much of the train ride to Luxor getting to know Camille, I felt somewhat protective. I approached the pair of them from behind and squeezed between them at an opportune moment, then asked Camille some inane question that lent itself to a longwinded response. Her escort was not particularly pleased. He said something to me about how I should go ahead with the rest of the group. I pretended not to understand what he wanted. He grumbled a bit and fell back for the moment. He later apparently offered her something like ten million camels and fifty donkeys for her hand in marriage. Impressive. He must have been either very lonely or very into Camille, because that’s the best offer I’ve seen so far. Most fall into the one hundred-to-two million camel range, with no donkeys included. The only thing that really compares is the time in a Cairo market when I heard a vendor told my friend Jessi, “I kill my wife for you.”

View from the mountain overlooking Luxor. The transition between desert and cultivated land was surprisingly stark.

We finally made it to the other side of the mountain, took some pictures from afar of the temple thing, and boarded our bus again. It took us to the nearby Valley of the Queens, which kind of sucked. It was a lot like the Valley of the Kings, but smaller and less exciting. The coolest part was a preserved skeleton of a queen’s miscarried baby, which was on display in one of the tombs. A shadowy thing lying next to it under the glass looked like an umbilical cord, but further inspection unmasked it as a rubber hose.

When we got back to the hotel in the mid-afternoon, Mike and I were informed that we now had a room. We were in a triple on the first floor with a guy named Phil who also goes to AUC, but wasn’t part of our group. The quality of our lodgings had decreased noticeably when compared to the third floor room. We no longer had air conditioning, although there was a ceiling fan. The bathroom sink was clogged. Our room had no doorknob. But it was a place to sleep and keep our stuff, and I was happy to take what I could get after the night on the roof. Everyone was hot, hungry, and tired, so we ate a relaxed lunch and then slept until evening. Before I dozed off, I walked around outside for a bit and stumbled across a small herd of goats foraging for edible material around a dumpster. I couldn't decide what was more strange: the sight of goats munching trash on a public street in the middle of a city, or the fact that this scene had seemed completely natural to me until I stopped and thought about it for a few minutes.

We enjoyed a pleasant dinner that evening, and then whiled away the night on the roof talking and playing card games. I went to bed fairly early since we had big plans for the next day. I'm glad I got the rest, because Saturday was a real workout.

Trouble With Trains Times Two: Luxor, Part One

2008-03-25T17:59:00.006-04:00

The American University in Cairo generously granted its students a four day weekend for Easter. I traveled south with a small contingent of compatriots to Luxor, home of the Valley of the Kings and the Karnak Temple ruins. Our original plan was to take an overnight train Wednesday and arrive Thursday morning. Most of my group was in Dahab climbing Mount Sinai the weekend before we left, so I volunteered to buy train tickets for everyone. Before I made it to the office, I was informed by a fellow traveler that there were only six tickets left for the Wednesday night train. I needed nine. I hurried to the ticket office near the AUC campus, which closes at 4:00. The man at the counter didn’t speak English. I asked in Arabic whether there were tickets for sale. He told me no. He told me I needed to go downtown. This made little sense, as Ariel had bought her tickets there half an hour ago. I concluded that he didn’t want to deal with me so close to closing time, and left.

I came back the next morning. I knew from my failed attempt the day prior that I shouldn’t expect the man at the counter to speak any English. I would have to do this all in Arabic. That was fine. I made sure I knew all the words I was likely to need. Unfortunately, the situation was complicated by the fact that the time we had originally planned on booking was full, meaning I had to call the rest of the group in Dahab and confirm before I bought anything. The situation was further complicated by the fact that I was standing in line with a bunch of impatient Egyptians breathing down my neck (somehow, God be praised, there actually was a line here). When it was finally my turn, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Ticket to Luxor Wednesday night.
Guy: Luxor, Wednesday night… what time?
Me: What times are available?
Guy: How about 6:00?
Me: Ok great, 6:00.
Guy: Second class?
Me: Yes. I want eight ticket.
Guy: Eight tickets?
Me: Oh, tickets. Yes, eight tickets.
Guy: Ah. Wudjca fajf lamnip?
Me: I’m sorry?
Guy: Travelers utbukh Egyptian or faiod?
Me: Travelers… what? Oh. No, American. All of them are Americans.
Guy: Ah. Ok.

He started typing a bunch on his computer, which looked like it was running an Arabic version of DOS. He had asked me whether the party was Egyptian because that affects what trains we could ride, and possibly prices as well. I took the opportunity to call Camille. She confirmed that this was good, and I should go ahead and buy the tickets. Perfect. This was working much better than I’d expected.

After a few minutes, the guy looked up. He told me the train was full. I asked for a minute and quickly called Camille again. The line behind had grown substantially since I got to the window, and it was starting to shift impatiently. I told Camille the situation and heard her relaying the message, followed by background chattering. People behind me edged forward. Someone else came on the phone. It was Liz or Nur-E, I couldn’t tell. She said they needed a minute to ask everyone. I heard a lot of muffled rustling. Whoever had the phone was running. I waited. People behind me came forward and started using the window. I stepped slightly to the side, but kept my left leg in front of everyone. I knew this could get ugly, quick.

Finally, someone came back on the phone. Everyone wanted tickets for the next morning. I hung up and wedged my way back to the window. I told the man at the counter what I wanted and he pecked some information into his computer, then informed me that one of us would have to be in a separate car. Well, that was unfortunate, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. After a long process of entering information into the computer and triply confirming every detail of our trip with me, the guy at the counter printed out the tickets, looked them over, stamped them, and handed them to me. I grabbed them. I looked at them. They looked fine. I left. I felt good.

I took a closer look at the tickets once I was out of the line of fire. As previously established, one ticket in the stack was in a different car. This was fine. The problem was that it also departed from a different train station. Great. Well, at least it was for the same train and both stations were in Cairo. I was also a little confused by the fact that the destination station was listed as something that came out roughly as “Assyoot.” I assumed this must be the name of the train station in Luxor, just like the Cairo station is called Ramses. I didn’t worry about it.

Later that night, I had a bad feeling. I got up at around two and looked at the tickets again. “Assyoot.” Something about that struck me as wrong. I looked up the Luxor train station online. After ten minutes of searching, I still couldn’t find a specific name for it. Eventually, I stumbled across a railway map for all of Egypt. Luxor was simply listed as “Luxor.” Hmm. I traced our railway’s course as it snaked its way south. About halfway between Cairo and Luxor, there was a stop labeled “Asuit.”

Shit.

How did this happen? How could this happen? I had clearly told the man “Luxor!” He had confirmed every detail of the trip several times. How many tickets? Nine. What class? Second. Departure time? Thursday morning 8:00. Egyptian or foreigners? Foreigners. Destination… destination…... no, he hadn’t asked that, had he? Not a single time during the whole process did I mention where we were going except for when I said it in the beginning. Fantastic.

Determined to rectify the situation, I went back to the ticket office with several people the next day, including Ariel, whose Arabic is better than mine. The ticket salesmen told us he couldn’t change our tickets. Nor could he sell us tickets from Asuit to Luxor. We all had to go to class, but I promised to go down to the actual train station afterwards to see if I would have better luck there. In class, I told my tale of woe to Mark, a Georgetown student who’s been at AUC since last fall. “Why didn’t you book through the travel office?” he asked, “Getting tickets is the one thing they’re actually good at.” I headed straight there after class. Thirty minutes later, tickets were booked from Asuit to Aswan (a stop further south of Luxor) and I was told I could pick them up the next morning.

When I got the tickets, I inspected the first three carefully and glanced through the rest. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. We were good now. My mistake (if we’re even going to call it mine) was going to cost us an extra 25 pounds each (around $5), but at least we were good to go. I was happy again. Then people started backing out. For a variety of complicated reasons, several people decided they didn’t want the tickets and would prefer to make other arrangements. Because everyone was in Dahab when I bought the tickets, I had paid for everything out of pocket. I was worried about getting my money. This turned out not to be an issue, as everyone paid. In fact, the situation turned out to be perfect. Why? Although the first six tickets in the stack were correct, the last three turned out to be as messed up as the ones from the ticket office. Inexplicably, I had assumed the AUC travel office would make sure they were giving me what I paid for. How foolish of me.

We made it to the station in the morning and boarded the train without incident. The eleven hour ride was unremarkable, except for the part where the train stopped for a few minutes and then began going backwards. Even the Egyptians seemed thrown off by this. Eventually, though, we rolled into the station at around 7:00 on Thursday night. Mike and I went straight to the ticket window to buy return tickets for Sunday morning. Everyone else already had them, but we had been debating exactly when to come back, so we waited to buy ours. I wasn’t at all worried about getting tickets, for several reasons. First, Mike speaks fluent Arabic, so that wouldn’t be an issue this time. Second, we were buying tickets four days in advance, which is ordinarily more than enough time. And finally, we were buying tickets for a Sunday morning, hardly a peak travel time for Egyptians. We ambled up to the window.

Mike: We want second class tickets for Sunday morning.
Guy: Mafeesh.

There are none.

Mike: Mafeesh? Ah. Ok, what other times are available on Sunday?
Guy: Mafeesh.

There. Are. None.

Mike: No? Nothing on Sunday? What about Sunday night?
Guy: Mafeesh. Come back Sunday morning and check then.
Mike: Sunday morning? But—
Guy: Mafeesh.

No. Please. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Small Victories

2008-03-13T13:11:00.006-04:00

Life in Cairo is replete with small victories. In a city defined by pollution, traffic jams, bureaucracy, haggling, heckling, and Arabs not afraid to cut in line, it’s the occasional minor triumph that sustains my morale from day to day. There are many experiences that qualify as small victories, but crossing streets without changing pace or direction is one of the most rewarding of these achievements. My usual method for crossing a busy street (the only kind in Cairo) is to walk along the curb parallel to traffic at a moderate pace waiting for a break in the deluge of oncoming vehicles. When I spy an opening, I make a hard turn into the street. This allows me to preserve my momentum, one of the keys to establishing dominance in the showdown to come. There are on average three to five lanes of automobiles approaching (sometimes as many as eight), and the drivers can smell fear. Hesitation is defeat. I know this. I walk at a seventy degree angle from the curb, allowing me to cut in front of oncoming traffic. Cars, vans, and buses careen deftly around me. I’m halfway across the street, and life is good. But then it happens. Some guy sees a gap in traffic right in front of me. He zooms eagerly for it. We’re on a collision course. In the unwritten rules of the road that govern this place, I have the right of way. I think. I hope. In any case, I’m in front of him. If I hold my line without fear, he should stop. That’s how it works for the other Egyptian pedestrians at least. And in my two month career of street crossing, I haven’t ever been hit. But, without fail, the thought comes: “What if he doesn’t stop?” I flinch involuntarily and shorten my step by half a foot. Game over. Car after car plows in front of me without pause and, momentum squandered, I’m stuck waiting in the middle of the street for another opening. This is a frequent occurrence. I usually have to change speed and direction several times to get across a large road. But that’s not always the case. There’s the rare occasion when I step boldly into a packed street and some invisible aura of power and protection envelopes me. Deftly slicing my way through the shimmering torrent of steel with effortless speed and grace, I reach the opposite shore without incident. Jeff Gordon’s got nothing on me.

Another of Cairo’s challenges is getting water. The fundamental building block of life is not free in restaurants. Nor does it issue forth from public fountains. Drinking it out of the tap, even in the dorms, is not the wisest of ideas (after a few weeks I was brave enough to try, but I stopped a week or so later after beginning to feel a little yurpy). Thus, bottled water is the rule here. This precious commodity is available both in 20 oz bottles and in large 1.5 liter bottles. The larger bottles are much more cost efficient, and therefore highly preferable. The issue is transporting large numbers of bottles from the grocery store to the dorm. Granted, the store is easily within walking distance, but making the run every two days gets to be annoying. The solution that a brave few have adopted is to buy a case of 12 bottles at once and lug the beast back to the dorm. This lasts for a while, but those who attempt the feat are apt to sweat out as much liquid as they obtain. That’s why I was overjoyed to find a massive six liter jug of water tucked away in the corner of a grocery store a few days ago. After I got over my initial ecstasy, I started to have my doubts about it though. The jug was pretty dirty. I’d never seen the brand. It had no English on it. The label and the top were pink. But it was six liters of water rolled into one, and I decided it was awesome and I had to have it. So I lugged it back to the dorm. It’s too big to fit in the refrigerator and I don’t have any cups, so I just drink room temperature water out of it directly.

Getting laundry done continues to be cause for celebration, as the condition of the facilities has deteriorated recently. I’m nowhere near exhausting my 4.5 kilo supply of BioCleana, of which I now have a picture (see below). But, the washer did tip sharply onto one side about a week ago while my clothes were in it. This concerned me. The machine continued to function, so I let it be. We’ve also had some issues with the dryer. One night it started making a horrible screeching noise that could be heard all across the floor. It was even worse than the Egyptians in the common room. Every time someone turned the dryer on, Dan would get out of bed and turn it off again. This continued for several hours. Finally, someone called maintenance, which resulted in the dryer’s temporary decommissioning. The next day, half of it was gone – the base remained, but the central rotating mechanism had been removed. A few days later, the entire thing disappeared. This leaves the men’s side of the dorm with only two functioning dryers. As a result, I frequently air dry my clothes, hanging them from every available surface in my area of the room. This leaves my laundry with a consistency similar to cardboard. On the plus side, my shirts are stiff enough to be used as lawn ornaments and make my nipples bleed.

The final, and most pervasive, challenge I will share is the constant need to make change. If I go to a supermarket or a restaurant in the US and my bill comes to $12.50 I can pay with a twenty and get $7.50 back, no problem. In Egypt, it’s not that simple. There is a perpetual shortage of small bills, and one and five pound notes in particular are hoarded like precious gems. People hate giving change. Whoever I’m dealing with is going to ask if I have change, and if I don’t, there’s a chance I may not be able to get back all of what I’m owed. This is a constant refrain.

I obtain money by going to a bank and cashing traveler’s checks. Naturally, the bank employees try to give me the largest bills they can, and look exasperated when I ask for smaller ones. If I’m getting 762 pounds, I end up with seven LE 100 bills, one LE 50, a ten, and two ones. The hundreds are highly inconvenient since I’m never going to spend that much at once and there are few places where I can break one without a huge fight. Sometimes the guy at the bank will give me fifties instead, although these are only marginally better. But I’ve noticed something. Whenever I have a female cashier at the grocery store, she never gives me trouble about change, even when I pay with a large bill. The men, meanwhile, always want to fight about it. So a theory began to brew in my mind. I got to test it a few weeks ago at the bank. For the first time, I had a woman cashier. I was getting a lot of money – around 1350 pounds. I filled out the paperwork, gave her my passport and checks, and waited. As expected, she pulled a stack of hundreds out of a drawer and began counting them out. I didn’t want thirteen hundreds and change, so I interrupted her. “Could I get some smaller bills also please, like some fives and tens?” She looked at me, shrugged, said “ok,” and disappeared into the back. She returned with a massive stack of ten pound notes roped together with a rubber band. She then pulled out some twenties and counted out three hundred pounds, which I thought was most generous. To that she added a fifty and change. I expected her to give me fifteen or twenty of the tens and then round the rest out of my due with hundreds. I was perfectly fine with that. This was far better than I’d ever done before. To my surprise, she put the hundreds away. She then handed me the money she’d counted out, along with the enormous stack of ten pound notes, which was as thick as my fist. I stared at it in disbelief. Was this really for me? I picked it up with all the care I would use with a newborn baby and staggered away from the counter. A note under the rubber band said the stack contained one hundred ten pound notes. I counted them. Unbelievable. Somehow, it was real. I was holding the Holy Grail in my hands.

So how did I feel? Take the idea of walking around with a stack of one hundred of any bill (awesome!) and add to it the fact that I now had no worries about change – the bane of my existence – for at least a month. I was ecstatic! With this stack, anything was possible. If I held it out in front of me when crossing streets, traffic was sure to part like the Red Sea. Continuing with the Moses theme, I had no doubt that fresh water would spring from rocks at the slightest touch from my stack. And since I’ve already blasphemed myself halfway to hell anyway, I might as well add that I was confident that, much like the hem of Jesus’ garment, my stack was capable of purifying all that touched it, making my laundry woes a thing of the past. Put simply, I was unstoppable. I could do anything. I can't remember ever being happier. I realized there was just one problem: I couldn’t spend any of my money, because that would imply breaking the stack. That was unthinkable. After a week or so of limbo, I finally gave in when I completely ran out of other money. It’s been an emasculating experience watching my stack dwindle over the weeks. But, for a few days, I was a real life gangsta. Represent.

Team USA: The Untold Story

2008-03-09T22:04:00.004-04:00

AUC is currently in the midst of a massive soccer tournament, the League of Champions. This annual tradition is serious business. For an entry fee of seventy Egyptian pounds each, players can join a team, receive custom jerseys, and compete for the 1600 LE prize for members of the winning team (over $300 per person). My roommate Dan entered the tournament along with Anthony (who loyal readers may remember from the Alexandria adventure) and a few other Americans. The person in charge of registration remarked that they were the first Americans to enter the tournament in memory. The odds facing the Great White Hope were formidable: forty rough and tumble Egyptian teams were also vying for the championship, and they play soccer like it's their job.

The games were played outdoors on either a clay tennis court or a paved basketball court in the evenings. Only four or five players took the field at once, depending on the size of the court being used. Team USA consisted of six members. Dan, the team's trash-talking specialist, was confident that his brand of physical soccer, complete with strategically thrown elbows and surreptitious tripping, would catch the Egyptians off guard and ensure victory. Anthony, who was to serve as goalie, had never played soccer. He was, however, a collegiate-level baseball shortstop. He was fully capable of throwing the ball from one goal to another. Working with Dan, he devised a strategy whereby he was to throw the ball all the way across the field and have Dan head it into the goal (this never worked in practice). Charlie, who had obvious soccer experience and was particularly solid on offense, was the team's official leader. Steve, Ibrahim, and Mohamed (the lone Egyptian), rounded out the team.

I attended the first game as a spectator, along with Liz and Steph. When we arrived, the teams were warming up and a few Egyptians were lounging around watching. The teams played on a clay tennis court with three fielders and a goalie in at a time. The game consisted of two halves that lasted around 15 or 20 minutes each, with a five minute break in the middle. At 8:30 sharp the teams took the field and the game began. Team USA struggled in the first half. They weren't used to playing on clay and there was a lot of sliding around. One of our men managed to kick the ball over the twenty five foot high net surrounding the court. Twice. Team Egypt was far from fantastic and there were several good opportunities to put points on the board, but the shots just weren’t coming. The Americans couldn't manage to put a solid offense together.

Things are looking dire by the end of the first half. The score is 3-1, Team USA down. Anthony is playing his heart out, not afraid to dive to the ground to block shots, but his inexperience shows at times. It doesn’t help that he isn't getting much aid on defense. His frustration becomes obvious after the third goal, but he keeps his cool and stays in the game. When the second half begins after the break, it’s back and forth for a while with neither team taking firm control. As the midpoint of the half approaches, the score is still 3-1. Team USA has possession, takes the ball down the field, passes to Charlie and… GOOAAAAAALLLL!!! Momentum has definitely shifted.

The Egyptians begin playing more conservatively, trying to hold onto their lead as the clock winds down. They’re still aggressive with the ball when they have it downfield, however, and it’s a stellar combination of good defense by the fielders and knucklebiting saves by Anthony that keeps Team Egypt at bay. Anthony is definitely showing major improvement in the second half. After a particularly close call wherein the ball almost bounces between Anthony's legs into the goal, Steve suddenly fires a shot out of nowhere, tying the game at 3-3 and sending the American half of the crowd into joyful celebration.

With the game all tied up and play time quickly expiring, both teams are focused and the intensity level is high. Riding the momentum from Steve’s goal, our boys dribble down the court, pass, pass, and send it to Charlie... he takes the shot from outside ----- it’s good! Pandemonium in the stands! We’re up 4-3! Mike, who has arrived to support the team, erupts with shouts of U-S-A! U-S-A!

The Egyptians are crestfallen but hardly about to give up. They come flying back into action with a vengeance. The tension of the situation is heightened by the fact that only the ref knows exactly how much time remains – there’s no visible game clock. Good defense and goalie work by the Americans hold back the tide of Arab fury, but barely. With seconds (presumably) remaining, Team Egypt launches a desperate blitz and sends all four players down the field for a final shot attempt. Our boys hang back in a defensive perimeter around the goal. The crowd shouts excited words of encouragement to the two teams. Team Egypt passes the ball back and forth, looking for an opening. Our boys bring pressure, but one of the Egyptians manages to get a shot off. It rockets past the defenders toward the goal… the crowd gasps... but it’s wide! The ref blows his whistle three times signaling the end of the game, and shouts of jubilation erupt from the spectators! Sweating and out of breath, Team USA meets its adoring public on the sidelines. Team Egypt shuffles glumly off the court, ashamed of their failure to crush the infidels. After a few minutes of recuperating and a change of clothes in the bathroom, the Dream Team heads straight for a bar to celebrate. Appropriately, the bar is named Hureyya, which is Arabic for "freedom." The rest of the night is spent recounting game highlights.

Team USA had a rougher time the next two games. These were played without Anthony and on the larger, five-player court, meaning there were no substitutes available. I did not attend either game, but Dan told me the Yanks were up 4-2 at the half during the first contest, but didn’t have the endurance to hold it together till the end. Team USA was then blown out of the water in the third game by the defending champions, thus ending the American dream. R.I.P. Miracle on Grass.

School: My Ostensible Reason for Being Here

2008-02-27T12:52:00.002-05:00

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

2008-02-17T16:11:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-13T11:42:00.012-05:00

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

2008-02-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-05T13:02:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-04T15:52:00.000-05:00

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.

Settling In

2008-01-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

We had a dorm orientation two nights ago. There were around sixty or seventy kids who showed up, 22 of which were from Georgetown. That makes us by far the biggest group among the foreign students in the Zamalek dorm. Orientation wasn't particularly interesting, but the residence directors seem pretty laid back. Basically, we can come and go as we please, with only a few restrictions. Security guards check our bags every time we come in to see if we have any alcohol, guns, or drugs, which are, sadly, prohibited. If one manages to sneak any of those things in and later gets caught, it’s a stern letter of warning sent home to the parents. On the other hand, the dorm is strictly segregated, and should someone be caught on the opposite sex’s floors at any time, that individual gets kicked out of school, no and's if's or but's. This seems logical – I clearly pose more danger to the ladies of the dormitory than an AK-47 would.

The best part of orientation was when it was over, because we got free food. Alright, so this food happened to be Pizza Hut, but whatever. We all partook of a hearty meal, which was shared by one of the craftier stray cats that roam the dorm. This particular fellow jumped up on the table when no one was looking, and I caught him chowing down on olive pizza. I happen to have a grudge against this particular cat, so I shooed him away. The cat and I don’t get along for a couple of reasons. First off, he looks kind of like Hitler. He’s black and white, and the black across his face resembles a fuehrer-esque mustache. Secondly, little Adolf had the audacity to harass me the first night I was here. I was innocently trying to eat my Hardee’s in the lobby at 3 in the morning when, without invitation, the cat jumped up onto the table we were sitting at and meandered across it to check out my food, which I was holding in my hands at the time. It’s kind of a challenge to toss a cat onto the floor while eating a chicken sandwich, but I think I’m getting pretty good at it.

On a different topic, I’m not sure if I stressed enough how insane traffic is here. I saw four guys run out into the middle of a packed highway with cars whizzing by in order to board a bus that was in motion at the time. Seriously, who does that? I’m also slowly learning to decipher the meaning of various types of car horn honks, as they seem to comprise a highly advanced system of communication here. There are countless different types of honks, which vary in tempo and duration, and they’re very standardized. You’ve got your common wedding honk, your “we just won the game” honk, your “I’m coming in really fast off the bridge so you better watch out” honk. There are even honks that sound like swear words. Mostly, though, honking just means, “look out, I’m here.” Once a driver merging into traffic has honked, establishing himself as the “honker,” he’s sort of passed the responsibility for a collision onto the receiver of the honk (or the “honkee,” if you will). It’s very different from driving in the states, but the Egyptian traffic system has a charm all of its own.

I found myself in another weird situation two mornings ago. I was half asleep, and I heard Dan messing around with the door. I had no idea what he was doing, but he spent five or ten minutes flipping the door lock back and forth and jimmying it around. For a while I thought he was purposely trying to torment me, but as the haze of sleep cleared it eventually dawned on me that he couldn’t get the door open. At that point I switched from being annoyed at his obnoxiousness to being irritated with his incompetence. It was wrong of me to judge him so harshly though, because it turns out that for some bizarre reason our dorm room keys wouldn’t unlock the door when used from inside the room. Moreover, our door locked itself automatically when closed. So basically, we had locked ourselves in our own room. A random dorm worker happened to pass by and notice our predicament, and he tried to get Dan to shove the key under the door. It wouldn’t fit. There’s a locked door between our room and the one next to us, though, so Dan finally got the key under that and our neighbors gave it to the maintenance guy, who then bailed us out. Fun. And this happened again the next day. Today, though, someone finally came to fix the problem, which is fortunate because I thought it was kind of a dangerous situation. I mean, what if there had been a fire or a mummy attack while we were locked in our room? We would have been totally effed.

Cairo - First Impressions

2008-01-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my first full day in Cairo. After the late night, Mike and I slept in until around 12:45 and only reluctantly got up after that. The plan, as I understood it, was to meet Angela and Jessi at 1 and go out into the city. There was no sign of them when we got down, so we sat and waited. We ended up talking to another student by the name of George. I mistook him for a Middle Easterner at first because of his skin tone and hair style, but I eventually found out that he was from Spokane, and a student at the University of Washington. He’s been here since last summer through a direct matriculation program, so he really knows the ropes. Being an incredibly cool guy, he offered to show us around Cairo. Angela came downstairs up after a bit and we headed out.

First stop was a small Arab restaurant the name of which escapes me. George got us some taamiyya (similar to falafel, this is lettuce, tomato, and something like fried chickpeas tucked into half a piece of pita bread), for which we paid 50 piasters. That works out to roughly 10 cents in USD, and I've found my true love. We walked across the bridge over the Nile that connects Zamalek (the island the dorms are on) to the rest of Cairo, and then spent the afternoon touring the city. George was incredibly helpful, and he had answers to almost any question we asked about how to do things or where to find things in the city. I learned an incredible amount, and it’s a struggle to keep it all from leaking out of my head.

There are a couple of things to mention about Cairo so far. First, crossing streets is something of an experience. There are very few (functioning) stop lights, traffic signs, crosswalks, etc. If you need to cross a street, you just cross, regardless of oncoming traffic. This applies to everything from crowded one-way back alleys to huge four lane highways, which Egyptian motorists drive on as if they had six or seven lanes. All in all, crossing streets is a lot like playing Frogger, or at least that’s the best comparison I’ve heard so far. Honking horns are a near constant occurrence, but the honking generally doesn’t seem to be out of anger. In fact, I’m told that the Egyptian driving system works perfectly, and there are very few accidents. More on that in a bit.

After exploring the city for a few hours, we walked back to the island and went to a café near the dorms. We ended up staying for around two hours just talking and eating. It was very different from an American restaurant. Everything was slower and people sat around for a long time smoking or shooting the breeze. I started getting restless after we finished eating – my ingrained sense of American propriety kept telling me it was time to leave. But the culture here is much more relaxed and people aren’t in a hurry, so I’m going to have to adjust to that.

George got a call while we were at the café from an Arab friend of his by the name of Mohammad. When George told him where he was and what he was doing, Mohammad, who is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, wanted to take us out around town, despite having never met us. He came by the dorm with another friend in his mid-size Chevy, so Mike, Angela, George, and I crammed into the back and we headed off. Cruising through town, I started to appreciate the beauty of the Egyptian driving system. Because there are no real rules of the road, everyone is used to the insanity and is excellent at gauging distance and speed. They do whatever they need to in order to get where they’re going, and that approach works in a country where everyone is used to it. If you put a solitary Egyptian driver into an American city, however, I have no doubt that he could single handedly wreck the entire highway system.

After a quick stop at a huge Western-style mall, we ended up at Mohammad’s apartment, an upscale affair in downtown Cairo. Mohammad is quite the character. I’m not sure that he would appreciate the label, but the best word I can find to describe him is metrosexual. Around 23 years old, he’s a big, loquacious, well-dressed guy with curly hair, a soft voice, and perfect English. Bizarrely, he’s a huge American movie/television buff, and has three hard drives and cases upon cases of dvds on which he stores a ridiculously, obscenely large number of tv and movie downloads. Seriously, he has everything, ever. Mohammad was extremely friendly, offering to take us up to his apartment at 1 AM (where he lives with his parents, as is Egyptian custom). After making us food and tea, he showed us his room. Conversation turned to movies for a while, as Mohammad is an aspiring film director (although he graduated from dental school). He’s particularly into American classics (Stanley Kubrick is perhaps his favorite director), and he had seen anything that any of us mentioned. Struggling to catch him off guard, I played my trump card and brought up Incubus, the Esperanto cult classic starring William Shatner. To my delight, Mohammad’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped – he’d never heard of it. I smiled. Like a challenger reaching the top of the final tower obstacle in Ninja Warrior, I too had finally achieved total victory.

After discussing movies for a while, we switched to a more traditional Middle Eastern activity: an intense game of Cranium. At two in the morning. In Cairo. This turned into a two or three hour affair and afterwards, somewhat against my will, we watched segments of a downloaded American Idol episode and some of Britain’s Got Talent. That finished, Mohammad drove us all back to the dorm at a quarter to five in the morning. I finally got to bed around six, just as the sun was rising. All in all, it was an extremely Western night, and couldn’t have been more different from the night before.

The Adventure Begins

2008-01-25T23:09:00.000-05:00

Got in last night. So much to write about already. I hate to launch into this without giving background, but this entry is going to be long enough as it is, so it'll have to wait.

An old guy waving an AUC placard picked us all up from the airport and shepherded us through immigration. The assistance wasn’t really necessary, as the guy stamping my passport literally didn’t even glance at it. I wanted to get some Egyptian currency in the airport, but the AUC guy told us to do exactly what he said and nothing else. I snuck off to the bathroom when he wasn’t looking and found myself in a strange situation. I walked in and an airport employee standing inside pointed me to a urinal. I used it while he watched. He then pointed me to the sink. I used that. He then handed me a paper towel. After I threw that away he looked at me expectantly and said something about a tip. I told him I didn’t have any Egyptian currency. He said “Euros, euros.” I truthfully told him I didn’t have any of those either and pushed past him after some more arguing. This was my formal introduction to the Arab institution of “baksheesh” – tipping/bribery.

Driving from the airport to the university in a bus loaded with students, I was struck by how similar Cairo looked to a large Western city. There were frequent billboards, though not quite as many as back home (my favorite was an advertisement for Rambo 4, although the Coca-Cola and Samsung ones were pretty good too). There were definitely more mosques and fewer lights than I was used to, but the buildings didn’t strike me as particularly foreign in design. Our luggage churned along in front of us, roped down haphazardly in the back of a pickup truck that we followed. We eventually turned off the highway and down a side street, and I suddenly felt very much out of place. The architecture changed, the buildings looked older, and there were gangs of young men in the streets everywhere, despite the fact that it was almost 1 AM local time. They looked harmless enough, but we would discover otherwise before the night was over.

Arriving at the university dorm, we rounded up our luggage and checked in. Security guards did a quick search of our belongings while we waited for room assignments. I ended up in a quad room with two other students from Georgetown – Mike and Dan – as well as a guy named Louis from Rowan University in Jersey. We dumped our luggage and the headed back downstairs to see about getting some food or exploring. It was close to 2 AM, but I’d slept for several hours in Heathrow and none of us were about to call it quits on our first night. I was also incredibly hungry. We started talking to some guys downstairs who had clearly been around for a while. One of the people most interested in talking was Amir, a Palestinian enrolled full-time at AUC. We Americans wanted to go out for some food and supplies, and Amir was willing to show us around. Nine of us set out in total – six girls, Mike, Amir, and me. After a drawn out stop at a dingy market, we ended up heading for a Hardee’s – not at all what I was expecting for my first meal on Egyptian soil, but everything else was closed and I wasn't going to fuss about it.

This is where everything got crazy. The Hardee’s was at a four way intersection and there were quite a lot of young men hanging around in the streets outside, probably in their late teens. We got to the door and the girls started to go in first, followed by me, and finally Mike and Amir. I made it inside, but when I turned around I suddenly realized that Amir was in the middle of the street with at least ten of the young men swarming him, punching and kicking. I had no idea what was happening. He broke free after fifteen seconds or so and an older man wearing white robes and a headpiece tried to keep the gang off him while two other boys handed him his scarf and parts of his clothing that had been torn. Then he came inside. I asked him if he was alright, what had happened. He said “nothing, no big deal,” but that he was going to go get some friends and come back, so he would have to leave us for a little while. As far as I know, the girls had been ordering food and hadn’t noticed any of this. Amir went back outside and was instantly swarmed again, pushed into the middle of the street and beaten violently. Everyone noticed this time. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what the fight was about – I could only guess it had something to do with Amir being Palestinian and the fact that he was wearing a traditional scarf, like the one Arafat always wore (I know, I really should know the name for those things). Regardless, it was fifteen on one and I was afraid Amir would be seriously injured if someone didn’t do something. I started for the door, but a student behind me told me not to go, said this wasn’t our fight. I have to admit my resolution to intervene was hardly firm, and I stayed where I was.

With the help of the white-robed man, Amir escaped again and returned to the restaurant. He was bleeding from the nose, his lip was cut, his shirt was torn, and he was breathing heavily. He said nothing, but went straight to the bathroom, where he stayed for some time. During that interval, Mike explained some of what had happened, as he had seen the whole thing start and tried to pull Amir inside at the beginning. Apparently, some of the young men outside had made lewd comments about the girls we were with as we walked in (this is a common occurrence in Cairo). Mike, who speaks Lebanese Arabic, heard Amir say, “respect yourself,” to them in Arabic. Clearly they were not pleased.

Eventually, Amir came out of the bathroom and we talked to him. The guys were still hanging around by the door, and I got the sense he would have been for continuing the fight if he’d had backup. We persuaded him to tell the Hardee’s manager the situation instead. The manager was extremely helpful. He went outside with Amir and supervised a heated discussion with one of the gang. The manager and Amir came back in after a bit, called the police, and we had an escort out of the restaurant within five minutes. We walked back to the dorm shaken, but without incident. I sat downstairs in the lobby with Mike and two of the girls to finish our food and talk the events over. It was around 4 AM by the time we headed upstairs, but this seems to be a typical, if not early, bedtime for Egyptians on the weekend. The four of us made plans to meet up at 1 PM the next afternoon so we could get out to buy cell phones, but that’s another story entirely.