Church, a House Party, and Research Ethics

Hours ago, I had all kinds of delightfully witty and insightful things to put in this entry. Unfortunately, I've filled the intervening time with reading about research ethics, writing a reaction paper, and trying to finesse the germ of what will eventually be my Master's thesis into something submittable to my Methods professor. It follows thus that my brain is mostly of a mushy consistency at this point. Nevertheless, I'll recap the recent goings-on:
I went to Ma'adi Community Church with a relative of my Egyptian friend, Maged's, and his American wife. My friend Phil came with me. It reminded me of many a community church back in the States, except that we were in the middle of a Cairo suburb, no doubt in some proximity to where Jesus Himself actually walked while He was in exile, and surrounded by the Egyptian police (as many churches in Egypt are, for the protection of those within). Graham Kendrick, author of the song "Shine, Jesus, Shine" is currently a guest of the church and led worship which was all fine and well except that the service turned out to be exclusively a worship service with no sermon. It was strange to take everything in–trying to reconcile what seemed and felt like a distinctly American phenomenon in the midst of Egypt which, despite its emulation (or in fact caricaturization) of American consumerism and its adoration of various of our pop stars, is a world apart. The lack of Egyptians was conspicuous and felt wrong somehow. There are other evangelical churches with services in Arabic, though, which have a preponderance of Egyptian attendees. They are by and large converts from the more liturgical and traditional Coptic churches; the fact that conversion to Christianity from Islam is punishable by death in this country is something of a deterrent for Muslims.
Afterward, Phil and I went to a party there in Ma'adi at the apartment of a Somali-Norwegian friend of his. Several other Norwegians, a Swede, some Americans including a girl from Puerto Rico, many Egyptians, a German, and a Congolose guy made for excellent conversation. Many of us are AUC students and we ended up discussing aspects of our various graduate programs and how they fit with one another (I'm not even joking, we're huge nerds). Religion, African politics, gender, and a host of other issues kept us around the table chatting until well past 3 AM when the downtowners among us caught a cab back together. At one point, I met an Egyptian whose paternal grandfather was a Czech Jew who'd converted to Islam in order to marry an Egyptian Muslim woman, changed his named, and moved to Egypt. This same Egyptian's maternal grandma is Italian. It's stories like this that make me love studying migration. The converging of diverse cultures and the interplay between them is fascinating.
For lunch today, I went with friends to the French culture institute for galettes. I got to use my French with the waiters, but was reminded that I was in Egypt by the salade verte which was, in fact, shredded iceberg lettuce, and the fact that the establishment had no change when we were trying to pay our bill. Ma3lesh! I caught a cabride to Zamalek, did some grocery-shopping, lugged a few bags and a box of 12 1.5-liter bottles of water up to the fourth floor (by American reckoning) of my apartment building and into my apartment and then realized I had reading to do, a reaction paper on that reading, and a preliminary outline of my thesis proposal to turn in all by tonight. And so it was that I spent hours reading and writing about research ethics, which was ok by me because its actually quite an interesting topic. Tomorrow we have a Saturday class to replace our Monday class because our professor will be traveling elsewhere in the region.

News:
Sec. of State Clinton to come to Cairo in March for Gaza-rebuilding donors conference
Tourism in Egypt slumps compared to last year, global economic downturn blamed
Still no word on the whereabouts of Diaa Gad

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

Ok, so I'm not sure going to bed at 3 generally qualifies as going to bed early, but the way things have been going, it's an improvement to be sure. The night before, I went to be even earlier, though men operating jackhammers just across the street from 11:30 PM until 2:30 AM weren't conducive to my drifting off. Last night, the tool of choice sounded like a chainsaw. God only knows what they're doing out there.
Yesterday, I lazed around a bit before meeting my friend Amanda for a light dinner at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Zamalek. We talked about the ups and downs of Cairo life as I was positive when she was devising ways to leave the country and now that I've been down a bit she's hit an upswing in her appreciation of life here. It's good to have friends who can help bring some perspective and indeed, I've been feeling a bit better recently. After about an hour or so, a girl I'd never met swung by to pick me up in a black SUV and whisk me away to slightly trendy L'Aubergine, a restaurant in Zamalek. The professor at whose apartment I spent election night put me in touch with her because of similar research interests and so, over mediocre Egytpian white wine (all there really is available in terms of vino here), we talked about her thesis and life and the like. She also invited me to a party in Mohandaseen and, despite the fact that the following day (today) I had to lead discussion in my 9 AM Migration in the Middle East and North Africa make-up class, I stayed until 2:30. I met all kinds of interesting people from the expat community-Americans, an Australian, a Syrian, and more.
At precisely 7:34 I miraculously rose as if from the dead and somehow found the energy to shower and get ready for class. The morning sunshine, the brilliant blue sky, and the perfect weather made things just a bit easier and somehow, from somewhere, I felt rather positive about things. I paid more attention in class than usual and made a valiant effort in leading our discussion about the integration of the descendants of immigrants in Western countries for the second half of the class period. At noon, it was over and I returned home for a couple-hour nap. Just finishing replying to emails, I am now trying to come up with an outline and annotated bibliography for my Refugee Law class tomorrow.

News:
Egyptian court rules aid must be allowed to enter Gaza
Egypt's first lady downplays prevalence sexual harassment in the country
Egypt blacklists Saudi firms that allegedly abuse workers