Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cairo (but were afraid to ask)

Pictures of Sinai

Hopefully I still remember how to do this simple bit of HTML and this picture link works for convenience.

Finally, Ramadan is over. It ended September 29^th and I was only too happy to bid it farewell. I participated in the traditions, I fasted, I was more charitable than normal, and it’s none of those things that makes Ramadan unbearable. It’s a month of tiny annoyances caused by irregular office hours and having to deal with starving people all day. Work hours are not only reduced so people can go home and prepare for the Iftar (breaking the fast), but they are far less productive because everyone is cranky and tired in general. Worse than dealing with that for an entire month is the realization that the novelty wore off on September 9^th and you still have 20 predictably poor days ahead of you. And lastly (this is only the Californian in me that cannot be silenced), I’m pretty certain that fasting like this, forgoing even water, is very unhealthy for the body, no matter the benefits for the mind and for one’s disposition towards other people who suffer.

When Ramadan is over, everyone is so happy that no one works for about a week. Its called Eid al-Fitr (Meaning festival of fast-breaking), and aside from its traditional observance, it provides students attending the American University of Cairo with a 7 day weekend. How to spend it??

I had the idea in my mind to go to Lebanon and Syria, in my mind the most beautiful and culturally rich places in the middle-east and the two places I most wanted to visit in my time here. It just so happened that another group of my friends from AUC had made the same plan and we decided to meet up there and travel together. It would have been an amazing journey, going to Lebanon, enjoying the club scene and amazing cultural identity, then saddling up for the trek into Syria without a visa and the long wait at the border while they call Damascus to get me approved. It would have been amazing. Alas, I missed the flight by a stupid technicality. I was not at the Airport early enough and they gave my tickets away. Personally, I feel that 50 minutes is plenty of time for a flight from Cairo to Lebanon, not even two hours away. They have the gall to try and charge me $60 per ticket to refund the two tickets that I paid for (for convenience and a discount, I bought Mitch’s ticket also). Of course, I can dispute the charge and make the airline eat it, since that fee is in no way justified.

The day I missed the flight, I had such a fine plan. Go to school Sunday, take a test early so I would not have to come in on Monday, do the rest of my classes. Come back on the 12:30 bus, get my passport from Dr. Fadi and Nancy from EAP who got my Egyptian Visa settled for me, then throw some clothes in a bag and go to the airport. Plans never seem to go as planned in Egypt though. First, the test time my instructor gave me was 12:00, exactly when I planned to be leaving school. No problem, I thought, I still have plenty of time to make it to the airport. Test done, I got on the next bus to leave school at 1:30. My flight leaves at 5:30 and it should take me 45 minutes to get home, perfect. Not so. Fate intervened and once the bus got off the freeway and into downtown Cairo, traffic stopped. Literally stopped. I can only imagine Hosni Mubarak needed to leave the office and so they shut down a block of the city for his limo. I begged the driver to let me off for 20 minutes while the bus ran idle in the same spot. Finally he acceded and opened the door. I got on my skateboard and took an alley to a side street and skated to AUC’s old campus (where my passport was) and hoped I would make it. I arrived at the front desk, asked if anyone had left anything for me, the guard handed me a brown envelope and I rushed home. A 10 minute skate later I was at my apartment building. Only for the Bowaab (doorman) to tell me “Atuul al-isancere.” Excellent, I thought, looking at my cell phone to see that it had just turned 3:00, the elevator is broken and I live on the top floor. I ran up the stairs, burst in through the door, said words that could have been English if I’d only had the breath to say them, threw a random assortment of socks, underwear, and pants into my backpacking backpack and said to Mitch “leggo now!”

Amanda, our British roommate who was leaving the following Wednesday came down with us to send us off and give us one last hug before she returned to Manchester. We took the metro to get out of the horrible downtown traffic, caught a cab and told him “LilMataar!” (to the airport!).

We came into the airport as my phone changed to 4:30 and I was relieved because I thought we could make it for sure. Then we became utterly confused. Apparently in Egypt you go through security before you get your boarding pass. We had no idea the procedures though, so we waited in line for security screenings. When we got to the front the guard asked “tiskara?” to which I replied “Andena tiskaraat electroniyya” (tickets? We have electronic tickets.).

He pointed to the office that we had to go to in order to get our tiskaraat and then we played another round of the waiting game. Finally we got to the front of the Egyptair office line and they checked us in and gave us two pieces of paper with an itinerary and the words “electronic ticket” on them. I assumed we were golden. We went through security, waited in line at passport control only to find out that we didn’t have tickets, but only receipts to get tickets from yet another Egyptair office inside the security gate. We played the waiting game a third time and then with 30 minutes to spare we asked the attendant

“Can we get our boarding passes please?”

“I’m sorry, the plane is closed, you are too late.”

“Well fuck!” I shouted internally. Not only did I fuck up my own plans but Mitch’s and the rest of the people in Lebanon waiting for us. I got quiet; Mitch tried to reassure me that it wasn’t that bad, but I was feeling pretty guilty and disappointed. On the cab ride back, I realized I’ve got to be a pragmatist, since now I’m just wasting time. That night I got an unusual call from Miriam, one of the other people here from a UC school. She was calling me on behalf of Nancy to let me know how I can get my passport. Apparently she didn’t know that I had already gotten it from the guards, but I proceeded to tell her the story about the airport and Lebanon and then she said

“Well you could still come backbacking with us in Sinai.”

A few days before, Andrew, a kid from UCLA had sent out an email asking anyone if they wanted to go backpacking in Sinai, climb and camp on Mt. Sinai and Mt. Katherine and rough it. Bring in our water, bring in our food, just be out in the wilderness. I thought it sounded like a dumb idea to be in the desert for the entire time, and it would have been. But it eventually became apparent that we had no itinerary, that we only had a vague plan and could do whatever we wanted. That appealed to me. Mitch agreed too and we decided to join the other UC students in Sinai.

We left Tuesday morning, the bus ride was an arduous 8 hours that left us in the tiny village of St. Katherine at dusk. We stayed at an interesting backpackers’ hostel called the Bedouin camp, run of course by Bedouins, who organized treks into the desert and hills. Unfortunately, because of the recent kidnappings in southern Egypt, the police said we were not allowed to camp on the mountain. Andrew, more fluent in Arabic than I, asked a little more insistently, told them how much we wanted it and finally the police chief melted and said we could, but that if anyone asked he never said that. We told the Bedouins, but they still wouldn’t have it. So instead we climbed Mt. Sinai starting at 1 AM, and reached the summit at 4:30 AM. We watched the sunrise at the chapel at the summit and then climbed down to the Orthodox Monastery at the base. It was beautiful. Sinai is a very alien, barren place, and strangely I find those to be some of the most inviting. When the sun is coming up, the contrast of the landscape becomes much more apparent and colors come out that during the day get washed out in red and brown. It was the only way to see it.

We were running without sleep the eight of us (Me, Mitch, Becca, Alison, Casey and Jan (the married couple), Andrew, and Miriam. We were delirious when we reached the bottom, went through the monastery like zombies, even though I love the art of Eastern Christianity, touched the reliquary of St. Katherine and stumbled back to the camp to fall soundly asleep. We woke up after midday and planned to climb the tallest peak in Egypt – Mt. Katherine, atop which another chapel sits dedicated to the same saint.

Even better, Andrew had been in contact with an Egyptian student from AUC, whose brother had wanted to organize a similar trip for their friends. So we embarked on a HUGE group trek up the mountain. We began at 9 AM and I reached the summit at 2:30. I say I because at one point something occurred that can only be called an event horizon.

We had stopped for lunch and prayer (for the Muslims in the group) at around 12 and suddenly, without warning, a group of elderly British people on holiday appeared. They had no weapons, in fact all they had with them was a very nice lunch, which they, being polite British people, were obliged to offer to share with us. I appreciated their gift of cheese, bread, salad, and kippers, but still I was somehow driven to consider them rivals. Looking back on it, I can only assume it was patriotism.

In any case, we left the British people, who had stopped to have lunch at the same place we were, and continued on the climb. We had just gotten to a peak when the Egyptians needed to take a short break. I think perhaps they smoke too many cigarettes to make good mountaineers. While we sat, I saw the British people, soldiering on, not 10 minutes behind us. I wanted to make a break for it, and so did the other Californians who were used to this sort of hike (honestly, it wasn’t that bad). We were all bored with resting, but I in particular HAD to beat the British. I chose my moment, told everyone else I’ll see you at the top, and made a run for it. I ran until I couldn’t run, then I jogged, then I walked until I started to wonder about the others and whether I was being silly. I turned back to see where the others were, since by this time I had climbed very high near the summit. Our group still hadn’t left, and the British had eclipsed them. I decided it was silly, but I didn’t care, I was not about to let those limeys make it to the summit before me. I kept going up and up and up, and then there was no more up to go. I had made it to the chapel and I was the tallest person in Egypt. 20 minutes later, Ali (Alison) and Ibrahim, one of the Egyptians who was also getting ready to serve his compulsory year of military service. I was impressed. Then ten minutes later. The British arrived. By this time I had already signed the summit book and immortalized the effort of the American/Egyptian team forever, but I let them have their consolation prize of 2^nd place.

Eventually the others made it to the top too. We stayed to watch the sunset from Mt. Katherine then booked it down the mountain. It gets COLD in the mountains of Sinai at night. We made it back to the Bedouin Camp at 10 PM and had a good rest before we left for Dahab, the coastal resort town the next morning at 9.

Dahab is only an hour and a half away from St. Katherine. When we got there, we knew immediately we had to go in the water. We dropped off our things at a fellow student’s hotel room. Changed for the beach and went it. Whatever aches any of us had were gone when we entered the Red Sea’s perfect blue water. It’s quite salty, but the temperature and the sensation of swimming after living in Cairo  for so long and just the sight of the Ocean after two months was rejuvenating. That begins Dahab, I can’t adequately describe its beautiful reef with millions of bright tropical fish that we snorkeled at, or its amazing vistas, or its perfect azure water, so I’m not going to, but I encourage anyone who is curious to look into it, if only a google image search. It is almost free (we slept for 10 egyptian pounds / night), aside from the food which is moderately priced, but delicious, fresh seafood. I don’t have many pictures from Dahab since I was too busy enjoying it, but my friends do, so maybe I’ll post a link if they ever get them up, until then just believe me when I say this was the best Eid al-fitr I could have had.

PS: sorry if anyone tried to contact me during this time, I wanted to disconnect as much as possible over this break, so I didn’t bring my computer or use the internet or my phone once from the time I left. I’ll get back to everyone who tried to reach me in the next day or so.

Pictures in the next post

Pyramids

Because you have to go to the Pyramids when you’re in Egypt

So, classes have begun and my three weeks of living libertine with no direction, no obligations, and no plan in Cairo have come and gone. They were good; I enjoyed them thoroughly, but it’s very good to be back on track with a goal and a plan. School does have its own problems though. I’ve been going to classes for a little more than a week now, so I’ll give a recap of last week after some important background info.

For those who are unaware of the state of the American University in Cairo, some history is in order. The University was founded in 1911 and has been the most important institution in the Middle-East for secular study (arts and sciences) since that time. For their long history, the institution was based out of an old palace in the heart of downtown in Tahrir Square. For students who came here before me, that was the shiznit, since it offered great education in the traditional Egyptian setting, downtown has great cheap restaurants, Arabic is spoken everywhere, and it is 10 minutes from my apartment. Those days ended with the commencement of the Fall semester.

The campus moved out to the desert, into a (they so often remind us) $400 billion new development. It is an architectural marvel, inspired by Cordoba and the Alhambra. It has open plazas, fountains, high ceilings, arabesque woodwork. It’s beautiful. Or, that is, it will be in 2 years, since as of right now it’s painfully unfinished. There’s lots of construction workers around, many buildings have unfinished upper floors, many professors have no idea where their offices are, and there are myriad technical difficulties. For example, I am taking a film class in a room without a working speaker system (we’re all hoping that will be resolved soon). There is also the fact that we have left REAL Cairo.

There is a window facing east, it’s the wall of a classroom on the third floor that is unoccupied in the morning when I am there after my morning class finishes. I love to look out through it. Extending out from the eastern wrought iron fence of the school is a vast desert for miles and mile. No development exists to the east. I joke that we go to Mars University when I show this spot to other people. And to the west, a hideous sprawl of buildings, acres and acres of them, stretching all the way back to the eastern cliffs that overlook the old city (where the recent rockslide occurred). I can’t stand this view. it’s like every mistake that city planners have made in the United States for the past 50 years has been done all over again, but this time on an even more epic scale.

I like to philosophize my opinions and I think my background definitely has something to do with the way I feel about the sprawl that is Masr Gedida, Nasr City, and Heliopolis. Nietzsche grew up raised by women, and as a result he ended up hating them and reaming them in his writing . Schopenhauer’s writing’s a bit bleak (to put it mildly) and one might attribute this to his horrible childhood and bad luck with extremely perishable family members. I lived in Riverside and you could say I have a slight problem with suburban sprawl.

The plan is for New Cairo (Masr Gedeeda) to become the intellectual center of the city. Quite a few universities are open there (AUC, German University in Cairo, British University in Cairo, ila al-akhirihi). I personally feel like they are making a big mistake emulating the west here. This part of town has a GIGANTIC MALL (the biggest I have ever been to), a GIGANTIC SUPERMARKET (6 stories), and all sorts of things that just don’t smell right in the Egyptian context. Maybe it’s guilt for American cultural hegemony. I do feel a bit like the American version of a British emissary visiting Egypt in 1890. Its striking how much the rest of the world wants to be America so badly, they don’t know exactly what that means but they know it means big malls and expensive t-shirts with English words on them. Honestly it’s repugnant making that 45 minute bus ride every morning when you’ve come to Egypt to experience that culture and you are presented with a derivative television doppelganger. That was a good healthy rant; it would be worse if I wasn’t usually asleep on those bus rides.

Ah yes, the bus situation. Every morning, Sunday to Wednesday, my phone sounds the alarm at 5:30 AM. The sun isn’t up yet, but I am. During Ramadan, all classes are shifted up and shortened so people can go home earlier. As such, my earliest class, Advanced Modern Standard Arabic, starts at 8:00 AM. To get there, I need to catch a 6:30 bus from the old campus. It’s painful, but only because I had things so good before in Berkeley. Naturally, I do a lot of sleeping on that bus and on the bus back home. I don’t have to leave until 6:20, which is nice, since I can just skate to the bus stop. That has been a really great experience. Skating here is so foreign that everyone takes notice when I skate around.

“Ya Enta! Al-skateboard! Ageeb!” everyone says. Kids, Policemen, people on their way to work. I’m a spectacle, but I like it. I think today I agreed to teach one of the children in my neighborhood how to skate tomorrow while I was in the market area today. While I was waiting to buy some grapes and eggplant a group of them sidled up beside me to spin the wheels while I held it at my side. At school it’s sort of become my defining characteristic too, since I’m the only one who has one (though there is a girl on roller blades). Other Americans are so jealous when they see it and always let me know “I wish I’d brought mine”. I can take some pride in being the quintessential Californian, Students have asked and when I told them where I’m from and they see the long (by Egyptian standards) frazzled hair, the tie-dye peace emblem shirt and the skateboard they get that “of course” look on their face.

That about covers it on the school joint. Class is going well, I’m not a complete idiot in my FosHa class, but we are 6 chapters ahead of where I left off in Berkeley, which is making some things more difficult than they might otherwise be. The colloquial Arabic class is awesome. The film class is more of the same and I don’t’ necessarily care about the subject (anthropology and film), but I bring a very distinct Frankfurt School (thank you professor Cohen) perspective to it that keeps the discussion lively. Middle-eastern history is breeze since I’ve basically already taken that class. I’m taking a risk since that probably won’t transfer back to Berkeley, but I have next semester to get that squared away when the classes are more varied. My Islamic art and architecture class is brilliant. I am getting a some compelling insight into illuminated manuscripts (probably my favorite of ancient relics) from Persian and Eastern Arab empires. When the architecture segment begins I’m sure that will be even more enlightening. Plus, this should transfer over to Berkeley to take care of my Major’s art requirement.

There’s some drama about my fees not being paid by EAP, apparently I completely misunderstood my obligation to pay and thought Berkeley was going to bill me. Not so, and now deadlines are approaching. Luckily the school is so overwhelmed with the move I can probably slip through the cracks or give them the “Will face” (I’m sure you guys in Berkeley all remember that one) and they’ll work with me. Thanks to Mom and Dad for floating me and helping me out of my mire while I’m here and unable to take care of things back home.

Oh, plus I went to the pyramids and Egyptian museum. They’re cool, not great. The best part of going there was being thrown onto a camel after refusing (literally picked up and put on it by the guy), then it got up before I could do anything so I decided to enjoy it then stiff the guy. I liked it so much I was tempted to steal the camel. I had the reigns and they are pretty fast. I could have riden it off into the sunset. Camels, who knew? I wish horses would sit for you to get on them. Seriously though, when I get back I would love to start riding horses again, I forgot how enjoyable riding and leading an animal like that can be. Its definitely in my plans to do some desert camping, I need to find a company that will let a group of us ride out and live out my Lawrence of Arabia fantasy.

Pictures are probably going to become less frequent (even moreso than they are now) as things become less novel and photo-worthy. It’s a bit strange to take pictures of your own neighborhood, especially when they have the small town feeling of this one.

Of course, I love and continue to miss everyone back home in Berkeley, LA, Riverside, and everywhere else I have left someone behind.

Dipset

Mithla Shahriyar waShahrezaad fee alif layla wa layl, na’oudu ila al-hikaya:

This week, the first week, has been a worthwhile begining. My philosophy is to embrace the things that I have no control over, and see positive experiences even in the worst of times, which is not so difficult when looking back on them. In specific I’m referring to the food poisoning that has kept me jumping between completely incapacitated, bedridden (or toilet ridden), on the one hand and moderately functional on the other. Today, Sunday, I’m feeling almost 100%, a solid 90 for sure, and without this excuse to take it easy, I might very easily have neglected writing down all the stories of the past 6 days, though since thursday most of those stories I don’t think anyone wants to hear.

Though Cairo may be an exception to this, I find that while travelling the fun of the city is eclipsed by the fun of relating to other travellers. Staying at the Wake Up! Cairo Hostel let me meet a bunch of fellow travellers, although I clearly won the global pissing contest whenever I told them that I was staying in Cairo for a year. I mainly crossed paths with Australians and Europeans, but the odd American did show up from time to time. When I first got to the hostel, dropped off by the driver and car the university had given me, there was only one other traveller, a photographer, a Canadian named Alex. He gave me the benefit of his few days in egypt, introduced me to Abu Taarek’s Kosharee (oh so cheap and so delicious), and the Canadian perspective in general. Exactly as I had previously stereotyped all Canadians, he was a very nice person. The only unfortunate part about meet him was that I somehow broke his voltage converter by plugging my laptop charger into it (not realizing that the charger could take up to 240 V), so I looked foolish and had to give him 150 pounds ($30) to replace it.

Many students arriving in Cairo subscribe to an email listserv to exchange information about apartments, roommates, things for sale, and everything else. It sounds sketch, even to me, but the people I have been exploring Cairo and apartment hunting with for the past week I met on the internet. Its worked out well though, since I haven’t been stabbed or robbed by any of them (yet). Mitch, History major from Chico State, had been living in Cairo for a few days before I arrived, so we met up after I got my phone (which would have been much cheaper if verizon would have just given me the unlock code, but w/e bad customer service is right on target for them, they’re lucky they have the best network, $40 for the cheapest phone is not too much to pay for communication). Its nice to have another Californian in my entourage, it means I can keep on with the slang and laid-backness that define us, plus no annoying incorrect (it’s true people from other states, California’s accent is that we pronounce things correctly) accents. We agreed to get past the sketch-ness of the internet, and got on fine.

I had already arranged to see an apartment at 4 that day, so he came with. It really was a great place, 11th flor, entire roof would be ours, and 5 bedrooms (I had other roommates lined up to go in on it too) with a crazy view, washing machine, internet, and satellite TV for 6000 LE /month (about $1200), for which my share would have been 1200 LE. That fell through today though, no one else was keen to commit without seeing it. Oh well, no big deal.

 
Then came number two

David, an aspiring filmmaker from New York studying at U of Wisconsin (same school as Phelps), saw that Wake Up! was the cheapest deal around ($7/night) and decided to stay there also by chance. I had been talking to him for a few weeks by email too, so meeting him in person worked out in the same way as with mitch. I passed on the knowledge of Abu Taareks, and things we’ve got along together fine. David had met another Mitchell through the Internet (Ha!) who worked as a documentarian in the same refugee camp that David had just come back from in Kenya. Mitch and I decided we’d just walk to Islamic Cairo that day, and the experience of being that old part of the city was very moving, it was like being in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, just sans the Nazis! These people live VERY modest lives, but they seem at home in them. The one eyed basket merchant didn’t seem terribly dissatisfied. The wide array of things that would disgust even the most open minded americans (sheep heads, eyes included, livers as far as the eye can see) was exactly what I was looking for from this part of the city.

We were walking with the Citadel (an old islamic mosque/fortress complex) in mind, and after about 2 hours of walking through mazes of spice markets and sheep heads, we were almost there, probably 10 minutes away. We passed by a school with two kids, maybe 12 and 13 years old, sitting out front on the veranda. They tried to speak some english to ask where we were from, and were very encouraged when I responded back in Arabic. They asked if I smoke, I said sure, on occassion, that is afterall the national passtime in egypt. Wryly, the older one then then specified: al-hashish, and pulled out a spliff from his box of cigarettes. Anyway, 15 minutes later we were at the Citadel, and it was beautiful. Took a taxi back — too hot to walk 2 hours at midday.

The last serious person i had contacted on the internet was Al, learning to teach english as a foreign language (TOEFL). He’d studied in egypt for a LOOONG time before i talked to him, and now he’s signed up for a two year stint to get his certification. Mitch knew someone else from Chico who was also studying at AUC, Christianna. The five of us had dinner at a pretty unimpressive yet expensive (in egypt terms) restaurant and that is where my troubles began. I bought and ate a mango in Islamic Cairo that day, and I have been drinking the local water since I arrived, so I don’t know what is responsible, but at around 9:50 I was overcome with serious fatigue. I went to sleep, only to awake a few hours later, my stomach tying itself in knotts, dizzy, with a fever, and struggling to get to the bathroom across the hall. That was Thursday. I’ll spare you the grittier details.

Being conscious was torture with the kind of nausea I was experiencing, so thankfully I managed to sleep all day friday, enjoying the extremely vivid dreams that accompanied my illness. As I said, I try to find the positive aspects of even the worst times, and if I remember correctly thats what kept my spirits up during my last bout with food poisoning too. These dreams had a specifically Egyptian twist though, which made them all the better. Long story short, I built a camel out of wood, it came to life, I rode him up and into the night sky. As my camel and I got closer to the stars, they turned out to be, because what else would they be, crystal starfish. With my army of crystal starfish beihind me, I freed the world from all military conflicts. I can compare it to the scene from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King where the ghosts kill the orcs and giant elephants to give you some inkling of the images of the dreams. Easily one of the better dreams I’ve had.

Saturday I was still getting over it, no more vivid dreams, my dizzyness was abating, my fever was gone, but I was still not right, and still having stomach problems. I had to go out tho, to meet the other people here through EAP, the University of California’s program in Egypt. I met some very nice, very bright people from the various UC campuses, and Dr. Fadi Fathallah, a very good humored agriculture/environmental science professor, who was taking over as UC liaison at the American University in Cairo. Overall, I’m extremely impressed with the UC program here, they are quite obviously going to take good care of us. Saturday was a private orientation meeting, sporting delicious catered food, with question and answer time and informational handouts, and constant assurance that if we need anything, UC and Dr. Fathallah are there to facilitate us, and promises of some very cool sounding events in the future.

Most people who would bother reading this blog know that I worked in a congressional office this summer (go Barbara Lee!), and that it was a really good experience. My direct supervisor was a half-egyptian, half-irish young woman from indiana, Maha Ibrahim. Maha really did right by me at that internship, and better still her dad lives in Cairo and makes his living as a, wait for it, landlord. I asked him if he could help me find a place, he said he could have some great places to show me and my new friends in Cairo on Wednesday, for something like 2000 LE for the entire apartment, which is almost nothing when split four or five ways, like $120/mo. Heres looking forward to wednesday.

And thats cairo up to now, there was the normal AUC new student orientation, but that was relatively uneventful. Dealing with the simsar (apartment broker) I got entangled with for the 11th floor place has been a bit of a pain, but I rid myself of him today. So its clear skies looking out to the next week. I moved out of the Wake Up! Hostel and into one for $18/night, but I have my own room instead of sharing it, and my own bathroom, and most importantly an air conditioner. Still missing everyone in America of course. I’m thinking weekly is a good schedule for blog updates, since it lets me serve up the mundane details without being too boring. Thanks for reading. More pictures coming soon.

PS: my arabic is getting soooo good 

Wasaltu bIl-Qahira sahilan jiddan, ala al-fadhl al-awal… <cough> sorry, but you knew going into this that you’d have to put up with a little arabic. To put it simply, Cairo is insane, but in the best of ways. You can’t walk outside without the grime of the city settling on you, sticking to your sweat (because you will sweat all the time), and consuming you. You have to drink it in, you have to embrace it.

I’ve seen cats with holes in their sides, babies in cages, 40 cent beers (1  egyptian pound = 20 cents), tasted the most delicious food I’ve ever had, argued with vendors in arabic over the price of a mobile phone, been woken up by the 5 AM call to prayer, been put to sleep by the 10 PM call to prayer, and been on the sidelines of extravagant wealth and abject poverty. And thats been the last two days.

The begining is usually a good place to start, so lets go back. Some of you know this story already, some more intimately than others, but for two weeks prior to embarking on this Rihla (journey), I was homeless. I had planned for this, however, by not letting anyone forget it. If I spoke with you at all during the month of july for more than five minutes, you damn well knew I was going to be homeless on August first. the only person who was surprised by anythng was me, by the support I got from my friends.

First there was Scott. not only did he let me abuse him for his storage space, but for the better part of a week he let me stay in his room. He never complained, he never made the slightest insinuation that I was overstaying my welcome or anything like that. All this while he was going through his ridiculous summer classload. Thank you habibi.

Then there was Alex Barnett. If, in the future, you are lucky enough to be invited to stay at his house, be gracious, be humble, but don’t let that opportunity pass you by. Its a resort. Nestled in davis, a quaint (very)white suburb of sacramento, its like a twilight zone episode. All you can eat sushi for $13, farmers markets, police that look like Don knotts and Andy Griffith, wide well maintained streets, its clean, and the smell of cookies wafts through the air. The barnetts did so right by me that I still lie awake thinking about it. They did my laundry, EVEN IRONED IT, made dinners, pancakes, took me out. They spoiled me. I arrived firday afternoon and left monday morning for lunch with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and I was sad to go.

Lunch with the Congresswoman was great. We talked about Egypt, Barack Obama, why McCain shouldnt be president the economy, her amazing life coming out of the Civil Rights Movement and the work I’d done as her intern. When it was over, I remembered that I had no more Barnetts to do my laundry and iron my shirts. Scott came to my rescue once again.

My departure date - saturday - was looming on the horizon. It felt strange to say when I would talk about it. To be leaving everything and everyone for a year, and by the way its happening in 5 days. This was probably when I was at my most annoying. But hey, I was overcome, its not my fault that I have the soul of a poet. I would be sitting and talking, then stare off whistfully for a bit, and then come back to this planet and gush to whatever friend was unfortunate enough to be hosting me about how much I love them and how much I’ll miss them. I was living the last scene of Pineapple Express for a solid five days.

I gave Scott the night off on Thursday when Christina Fan (watch out Lisa, she might be gunning for big sister) hosted my going away party. Wine, and cookies from the oven, and good friends, kuntu mufatnah (I was satisfied). And Cfan, I keep the luck charm you gave me whenever i go outside.

(This is starting to drone on, so I’m going to pick it up)Then more things happened and then saturday came. I spent my last hours at Anne and Eamons after wishing Scott and Dan Kaplan (who was sharing in the homeless glory) a good time at the Rock the Bells festival (you lucky bastards). They dropped me off at the BART station and off I went.

I think I look semi-semitic (fun fact: arabs are a semitic people), plus my ticket says egypt, so of course I got the heavy duty search at San Francisco Intl. and JFK. After leaving SFO at 9:45 PM Saturday and a gruelling 30 hours of travelling I arrived at Cairo International at 10:30 AM Monday. The last 20 minutes of the flight was the best, since it actually gave me the perspective to see what a city of 22 million people looks like. The school had a car and driver waiting for me when I got off the plane (he even carried my luggage for me), and so 40 minutes later I was checked in at my hostel.

Thats good enough for now i think, and a decent preface to the next installment: Apartment hunting, living in a hostel, and the American University of Cairo

Eh, one last gush for the road: DK, Christina, Scott, Eamon, Anne, Barnett. You guys made my Berkeley experience up to now worthwhile. Cairo is amazing in every respect except that you guys aren’t here to share it with me.