I hear from friends in Zamalek that it looks like a war zone in the area where the "protesters" were. I failed to understand how translating a beef with another country's soccer team (or even a beef with the fact that your conationals are being attacked in foreign countries) into destroying the property of your countrymen is productive. Non-Egyptians have had to show their passports to get places within Zamalek itself and roads are blocked off. The Subway deliveryman made it here to bring Phil a sandwich though. Twitter's been abuzz with accurate and not-so-accurate reports about riots, mobs, and other collectivities chanting, protesting, rock and Molotov cocktail-throwing, Central Security arresting people, cameras confiscated from the media, and so forth. I'd heard there was a disturbance in Tahrir, but when Phil and I ventured out in the late afternoon, we saw only touts and families and lost-looking tourists—the usual. Who knows what will happen. Meanwhile, I'm hard at work finishing the conclusions section of my thesis!

• Ben Wedeman with CNN published this story, reportedly after having his camera confiscated.
• Sarah Carr published these photos to Flickr and wrote this article in Daily News Egypt.
• "'Thousands 'besiege' Algerian embassy in Cairo" from Monsters and Critics
• Weighing in on the row with Algeria, President Mubarak's oldest son says "When you insult my dignity ... I will beat you on the head"
• Infotainment channel FOX News asks the sensational question, "Could a soccer match spark the next Mideast war?" I think it's equally likely that FOX News will start the next Mideast war.
• Cairo ripe with denial in wake of "demonstrations"
  

Meanwhile...

• One fatality reported in clashes between Bedouin and police
• Study estimates that two-thirds of Egyptian girls aged nine and under will faced genital mutilation over the next decade
• Amnesty calls Egyptian military courts to task for failing to overturn sentences on Muslim Brotherhood members

Midwest meets Middle East:
I read a review of the movie Amreeka in Daily News Egypt and now I'm really curious to see it. It's apparently about a Palestinian family that moves to small town Illinois. Check out the trailer here.

Last evening, after an unspectacular meal at Zamalek's La Bodega (with which I had previously been quite impressed), I went with Phil, Marise, and Michelle to El-Sawy Culturewheel to see Wust el-Balad in concert. The venue is right along side the Nile and is small enough to be cozy but large enough to allow the acts to turn a profit. Now, I must preface my description by saying that I am one of those unfortunate souls who is generally unable to enjoy live music. I know my preference for polished, iPod-ready tunes makes me boorish and unsophisticated, alas. Anyway, the performance started out in true Egyptian fashion, that is to say, over an hour late. The people-watching and the company of my friends were enough to keep me occupied in the mean time. The crowd was mostly Egyptian, the young among them came primarily from that segment of society that loves knock-off Abercrombie and tees splattered with nonsensical English. Hijab-wearing girls sat next to unveiled friends sporting SpongeBob SquarePants paraphernalia. Wholesome-looking families were there too with plump children who enjoyed the music with greater vigor than most.
Before the band played, they were introduced by a man who, Marise tells me, suggested that the upcoming 'Eid holiday is not a time for air horns and firecrackers but for the appreciation of music. Parents were told that the idea of delighting in scaring adults with loud noises instilled in children a terrorist mentality. While I don't think firecrackers are at the root of terrorism, I do think the man should go on a lecture circuit touting the benefits of peace and quiet or at least of nicer noises than car horns and screaming.
Nicer noises like the (Middle) East-meets-West stylings of Wust el-Balad. To my untrained ears, about half the songs sounded like "Hotel California" as they started out except when they sounded vaguely Caribbean. The crowd favorite was "Antika", a song about how after a woman captures a man's heart, she keeps it on her shelf like a knick-knack or an antique leaving him beholden to her forever...or something like that. You'll have to find your own translator if want to truly sympathize with the lyrics of love and heartbreak. My personal translations were drowned out by off-tempo clapping and general enthusiasm together with the crackling of the sound system and the admittedly mellifluous voices of the band. Click below to hear "Antika".



All in all, the Nileside concert was a fun cultural experience. I hope to get back to Culturewheel again if my thesis-angst and swine flu don't do me in.

News & Issues
—Egypt

• NPR reports on the US couples convicted of human trafficking
• Soccer shoes intended for youth tournament in Gaza held up in Egypt
• Al-Masry Al-Youm says few swine flew prevention measures in place in schools

—Islam

• More and more Americans know their Muslims neighbors and more about Islam

  I trekked to and from Zamalek today to have some lunch and run errands.  At Café Arabica, my French friend Antoine was introduce to the joys of oatmeal.  I myself had my old favorite, fiteer with roasted bell peppers and haloumi cheese.

  Other than that, I've gotten another quarter of my Migration and Development about gender and people-trafficking and its relation to economic development.

News:

Members of an alleged Hizbullah cell may face life imprisonment or death.  A lawyer for the suspects says that reports denying they have been tortured may not be true.

Egypt's religious endowments minister encourages all able Muslims to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem (Al-Quds in Arabic) to "show the whole world" that the city is "something that concerns all Muslims".  Jerusalem is considered by many Muslims to be the third holiest city in Islam.

France's international news network, France 24, is launching its expanded Arabic-language news service in Cairo on Monday.

Individuals detained and jailed in Egypt Twittered their experiences from their cells.  Twitter, a micro-blogging service, was instrumental in the release of a UC Berkeley grad student from an Egyptian jail last year.

March Mirth

Today was one of my most favorite days in Cairo. I was productive, getting work for law class done, paying my rent, mailing post cards, etc. and I had a full day after all of that. After getting koshary for lunch, Phil and I trekked out to City Stars where I stocked up at Spinney's and found a nice hoodie on sale at Benetton. A metro ride and then a cab ride got us there, and chatting with the Coptic Orthodox cab driver was really interesting. We talked about America and how he perceived it as a place where people of many religions peacefully coexist. He also talked about the sometimes-uneasy relationship between Egypt's Muslims and its Christians.
For dinner Cynthia and I joined our Norwegian friend, Benedicte, in Zamalek at a place called Crave. I was blown away by the service, the quality of the food, the ambience, and every other category of restaurant satisfaction you can think of. It was literally the best meal overall during my half year in Egypt.
Cynthia and I talked about the recent violence in Southern Sudan and how illogical it is that there are efforts to repatriate Sudanese now living in Cairo who originate in the area. There isn't sufficient stability to support an influx of refugees back home. She and Ben and I reveled in the fact that we'll all be in Cairo together next fall. I'm still really happy with the decision I've made to pursue my Master's here.

News:
Another human case of bird flu in Egypt
American attacked in Khan al-Khalili unfazed, says event was isolated
Egypt may significantly up its export prices on gas destined for Israel

Zipping Around All Day in Zamalek and Doqqi

I'm sure I've kept everyone in suspense by not crafting a blog entry yesterday, but I was in fact being both quite social and academically productive. Before I get to that, though, I'll catch up on the rest of Thursday. My advising session served to eliminate one of my options when my adviser convincingly suggested I not leave AUC without having some kind of accreditation to show for my coursework. He also, unhelpfully, told me it really wasn't about the decision one makes as how one makes that decision. "Sometimes," he added, "I flip a coin." Gee, thanks. I'll just flip a fifty piastre coin to determine the entire course of the next year of my life. Anyway, at this point my inclination is to just bite the bullet and take the class I'm not fond of that will drag me out to the new campus simply because it will give me both the graduate diploma and leave open the choice of pursuing the Master's if I so choose.
After advising, I ran into Cynthia and ended up going with her and Reham to Canary, a typical Egyptian sandwich place. The novelty of getting "street ful" has not yet worn off. I ordered a couple ful sandwiches, Reham got one and Cynthia got ta3mayya and we headed back to the Greek Campus to have our snacks. All was good in well until one of the ubiquitous street cats swatted my second ful sandwich onto the ground and began devouring it. Ma3lesh.
Next came class. We discussing the integration of immigrants and, since that's the topic of one of my papers, I chimed in with my opinions and insights (mostly for the sake of my participation grade rather than because of having anything ingenious and brilliant to add). Afterward, I conscripted my friend Brandy to dine with me. She'd already purchased koshary for dinner, so I stopped for a ta3mayya sandwich and a ful sandwich hoping that this time I'd not run into any pawsy, hungry felines. We took our sustenance within the cat-free safety of my flat while watching Al-Jazeera International--a treat for Brandy whose pricey Zamalek flat is not, for some reason, equipped with a TV. Once our Egyptian eats had been consumed, we headed to meet the British girl and Indian guy I met at Sequoia the other night for drinks and shisha (though I had neither, but some delicious lime juice instead) at a rooftop bar above the Thai restaurant in Zamalek that I go to from time to time. I hadn't known about the bar until Thursday night, but was pleased to have been made to discover it. The view overlooking the Nile is amazing and, even better, you can order Thai food up to the roof. Through Sophie, the British girl, I met an Egyptian documentarian who told us about a film he made following the history of an Egyptian lion-taming family. Supposedly this family owns all of the lions in Egypt. Who knew?
After arguing yet again with a cab-driver and threatening to disembark from his moving vehicle, I made it home safely and paid the price I originally told him I was going to pay. Rather boring, really--I'd kind of hoped to practice my tuck and roll on the 26th of July Bridge.
The following day (now yesterday) saw me awake in the honest-to-goodness morning. It was the first time I'd awoken before noon in eons. Naturally, I had a new lease on life at 11:46 because of this and decided to clean the kitchen. Since I've a guest arriving on Monday, I keep feeling the urge to pretend that Ross and I are model apartment-dwellers by tidying up. I cleaned all of the dishes in the sink, then the sink itself and the adjoining counter. The Egyptian fates conspired against me and our water, as often happens, simply stopped working for a number of hours. Ma3lesh. I ate some muesli and yogurt and proceded to do some online chores--extending my trip in France, checking out train fares, making sure I have places to stay, etc. Once the H2O was restored, I showered and headed to meet my fellow ambassadorial scholar, Ambereen for coffee and to catch up. We ended up lingering there and working on various things (I managed to get seven or eight hundred words done on my integration paper). Coffee thus turned into dinner. Ambereen headed for the opera after that and I continued working until it was time for me to join Brandy and Erin to go to our friends' place in Doqqi. Cara is our classmate who's here on Fulbright and Justin is her husband, they're quite possibly the friendliest, most stable, most wholesome couple you could ever hope to meet--sickening, really. Just kidding. Anyway, it was Justin's birthday and a bunch of us gathered to wish him well and play games like Apples to Apples. The festivities, which started at 9 wound down after midnight, but another Fulbrighter (there were three of them there altogether), and I (much better off with my tuition-paying Rotary scholarship, of course) stayed and chatted until after 4 AM. It was a lot of fun and I find moments like these contributing to my feeling more and more at ease living in Egypt.
Today, I'm determined to finish off the Somali integration paper once and for all and begin fleshing out my next paper. I'm breaking to get Thai for dinner later with friends, though, to keep sane.

Notre Musique

Yesterday evening, I attended the CMRS seminar on protection and the roles of refugees in the humanitarian aid process. The lecturer, Anne Cubilié, also talked a bit about her experiences in Afghanistan and her interviews with woman and how their perceptions of themselves as people who simply aren't witnesses has shaped how they remember events and the narratives they construct to understand their experiences. I sat with my friend journalist friend, Liam, and chatted about with him, Anne, Maysa from the CMRS office, and another woman (Alana, might've been her name?) who's originally Palestinian. We then headed to Zamalek, where we were going to get coffee, but that turned into dinner and I already had plans, so I had to duck out, unfortunately.
At my friend Ewelina's apartment, a bunch of us gathered to watch Notre Musique over pizza from Maison Thomas (with their special Argentine sauce, of course). I really enjoyed the movie but, as others pointed out, it demands a second-watching to catch all of the symbolism. Every other line was as something from a book. So many different languages were used and conflicts touched upon, tying the human community together in a unique way. In one scene, a French-Israeli woman is interviewing a Palestinian author and they are speaking Hebrew and Arabic, respectively, without a translator.
Following the film, Andrea, who lives in my neighborhood and at whose place we watched the last Godard flick, headed to Metro Market in order for me to grab some long-awaited groceries (yogurt!) quickly before we hopped in a cab back to Bab al-Luq.
Not being able to fall asleep (quelle surprise) I listened to some NPR Talk of the Nation podcasts that were really interesting. One discussed whether or not it would be wise to bail out the auto industry, another the forgery of religious artifacts in the Middle East, and another tried to show that not all government lobbyists were bad people.
Tomorrow, my new host counselor, Omaima has graciously invited me to her house for lunch in Ma'adi. Setting the time at 3, she's a woman after my own time schedule! It should be fun.

News:
Article on Barbara Harrell-Bond, refugee advocate and former AUC professor
Emergency meeting on Somali piracy held in Cairo
Che Guevara's daughter comes to Egypt

Halloween Festivities and the Return of the Fridge

Yesterday, following my Intro to Migration and Refugee Studies course, a few of my classmates and I went to Felfela for Egyptian food. Afterward, the two young ladies among us went to costume up for an early Halloween party (most Halloween parties were held last night due to Thursday's status as the Islamic world's Friday) and Phil and I went back to my apartment where we hung out with Ross watching political YouTube videos and a show on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon until it was time to head to our friends Brandy and Mary-Anne's apartment in Zamalek for some festive Halloween fun. The cab-driver who negotiated the traffic rather artfully was keen on talking politics for us. He explained that he liked Obama because he was new and used the same logic against both Bush and Mubarak, but especially the latter–they've just been there too long without doing a whole lot of good. The cabbie seemed hesistant about the inevitable transfer of power to the president's son, Gamal as well. It was a surprisingely frank estimation of the situation. The group at the party consisted largely of our fellow CMRS students and it was a hoot hanging out in a non-academic, informal atmosphere. Such fun, in fact, that some us stuck around until sunrise. The ride back to Bab al-Luq in the early morning was quite pleasant. The way the city looked lit by the pinkish-yellowish sky, the lack of traffic on the roads, and the relative quiet made wonder if I was really in Cairo. Happily, the greyish haze also lit up by the morning light and effectively obscurely visibility past a certain point brought me back to reality, although it kind of lent a gauzy, impressionist feel to the whole seen.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ross had gone to bed, outfitted with earplugs and out of reach of his found and the cacaphonous racket of our trusty fridge repairmen who chose midnight as the optimal time to return our fixed refrigerator. My landlord called me and told me that they couldn't reach Ross and were going to leave the appliance in the hall. "Ma3lish," I thought. I ended up dragging the thing when I returned home at 6-something in the morning. The men returned while I was still sleeping to hook it back up and now, thank God, there is frost in the freezer anew and the fridge has cooled down to a respectable yogurt-preserving temperature. You really don't realize just how many things you take for granted (running water, a working fridge, a vacuum, electricity, cranberries etc.) until you're deprived of them every so often. Now I'm sitting down, having enjoyed my customary snack of 'aish baladi and halawa, trying to enjoy Friday without getting to stressed out about the things I need to get done for school and in life. Tonight may include dinner with friends or another Halloween party, but beforehand, it will ideally include lots of research.

News:
Condi Rice and others to arrive in Egypt soon for talks
Egypt donates equipment to Sudanese military
Egyptians fearful in face of uncertain times, flagging economy

A Busy, Breezy Day

My day started at 10:30 with me dashing around to get ready for a Center for Migration and Refugee Studies meeting at the Greek Campus. Once I'd showered and dressed, eaten my habitual muesli and yogurt, and grabbed my iPod, I headed to join my fellow CMRS colleagues who are on the Master's track (which I, of course, am still debating switching to). Ray and Philippe were the faculty there and filled us in on thesis requirements and expectations. Aside from actually choosing the topic, completing a Master's thesis seems a lot less intimidating (but no less challenging) than I had feared when imagining what life as a graduate student would be like. I also had the chance to talk to Ray a bit after the meeting about some of my hesitations and questions about the program, whether to remain and pursue a Master's, and how to come up with a sound thesis topic eventually. I'm hoping to explore the possibility of coming at an issue in migration from an international relations perspective, which might be a bit more work, but certainly fulfilling, I suspect. My classmate Phil and I also talked politics with Ray and ended up being invited to watch the election results at his house, which sounds like a lot of fun.
A small detachment of those attending the meeting, congregated outside in the courtyard in the wonderful weather who's only drawback is that the autumn breeze blows up all sorts of unpleasant things into one's eyes. There, we reviewed a number of possible cases needing to be analyzed for our refugee law midterm which we'll be discussing in class tomorrow. Most consisted of circumstances of people seeking asylum or resettlement and whether they qualified those people for either or not.
From this yet smaller group, Erin, Brandy, and I walked and chatted in Bab al-Luq on the way to my apartment where I grabbed the carrot cake Amanda and I purchased in Ma'adi yesterday, and ultimately Erin and I headed for Zamalek, while Brandy headed to Al-Azhar Park with the Middle East Studies folk.
In Zamalek, I got coffee with a new friend who's a freelance journalist here in Cairo. He's been living in Egypt for three years--I admire his mettle. He was following up on the Moqattam cliffs disaster that I'd mentioned a while back--the rockslides that crushed parts of poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. He also generously brought me back Tom's of Maine toothpaste from a recent trip to America. Ok, so I'm a toothpaste snob.
I met Amanda and Erin for dinner and, though we were suppose to have Ethiopian, we ended up getting Thai. In the short, but respectable, time I have under my belt here, I've begun to develop the ability to expect nothing to go as planned. I don't expect everything to fail, but rather if something I'm hoping for doesn't work out, that something different, but still good will spring up in its place. It's a much healthier and more flexible outlook than moping around blaming Egypt for being chaotic, inefficient, and illogical (though it is all of those things in infinite measure). After dinner, we went back to Erin's to enjoy carrot cake and wine and were joined by Brandy. Not being sated by the dessert and tempted by the presence of a cake shop that delivers even late at night at no charge, we ordered a couple of slices of cheese cake which were actually pretty good attempts. Whether this was calorically wise, I don't think we care to think about. Erin shared stories and pictures of Africa with us and we discussed our musical tastes and some of the things we liked about Cairo. I only just returned from my very full day after midnight, about a half hour ago.
Monday I officially begin teaching English in Ain Shams. I feel like I've been trying to actually volunteer as an English teacher for eons to no avail. We'll just have to wait and see if it works out this time. I'll be sharing my native tongue with Sudanese gang members in the bright pink room I helped scrubbed down last week.

Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that in Ma'adi, a beared, traditionally dressed and broadly grinning man tried to give me (or perhaps sell me) a live pigeon in the street yesterday. He had no other pigeons or any cages around him, just a single pigeon. "Hammam?! (Pigeon?!)" No thanks, thought I, after recalling all of the new facts about avian flu I'd just learned at the seminar on Wednesay. Though I won't say the idea of briefly owning a pigeon didn't appeal to me (it surely would've gotten away since I neglected to bring along a cage...silly me).

News:
The US pledges more money to fight bird flu at Egypt talks
Egyptian author pens fictional Chicago about Egyptian expats at the University of Illinois
Bloggers in Egypt arrested while an Egyptian blogger is honored in America

Up Early and Out of the Apartment

Something utterly miraculous befell me since my last entry: I was able to conk out before three in the morning and was up at quarter past nine! Dragging myself out of bed, I decided to be productive washing dishes, doing laundry, and tinkering with my winter break itinerary–I am now spending almost two weeks in France in January instead of one. Refusing to remain on this dastardly machine when Egypt, bathed in sunlight and particularly warm and welcoming weather, was waiting for me outside, I took off in the early afternoon with my cameras, my Qur'an, my iPod, and a map. I found myself on Mansour St., which took me to the neo-Pharaonic mausoleum of Saad Zaghloul, a national hero in early 20th-century Egypt. Like many monumental buildings and parks, the mausoleum and its immediate green but slightly unkempt environs were devoid of people who all instead seem to prefer crowding the streets. Not being able to visit, and not sure that it was the kind of site one did indeed visit, I continued on my merry way to Garden City whose winding, tree-lined streets choked with parked cars seemed a bit like what parts of London would look like if you sprinkled in copious amounts of sunshine and neglect. My ultimate destination was the island of Rawda at whose northern end is the Cairo Granda Hyatt (across the Nile from the Four Seasons) and at whose southern end is the Nilometer. I didn't visit either of these, but did meet with some curious sights as I wandered the al-Manyal neighborhood. The presence of what must've been colleges or high schools was attested by a thick layer of smug, boisterous young Egyptians, some dressed in shirts that had provocative English phrases they might not even have understood. If they did, they're quite naughty youths. One of them sporting a hairstyle that requires at least a gallon of gel to create began speaking to me in Arabic and so I politely told him in my own pidgin Arabo-English that I was less than fluent. He didn't seem to be mocking, so I wasn't bothered.
I ran onto a mosque that I took to gawking at, trying to find the best way to frame its minarets and dome in a photo when all of the sudden a rather quick-moving crowd of men precipitated toward me carried, of all things, an open casket. The deceased was a woman wrapped all in white (apparently, the burial cloth is called a kafan and is always white). I was quite shocked, but somehow not nearly as unnerved as I would've been should I have seen such a thing in the States or Europe. Somehow it sort of fit here. Presumably, they were going to the mosque. Islamic funerary and burial customs are very specifically regulated and governed by the religion and certain steps must be carried out within a precise timeframe.
After pondering what I'd seen for a little while, I headed toward the Nile. In between the storied river (which was quite emerald green today) and Al-Manyal Palace, I found a very shabby little park. I wandered in, amazed that a green space was open to the public only to find, of course, two men sitting on a bench, yammering obliviously away with a stack of tickets. They spotted me and told me that to "sit by the Nile" I'd have to purchase one of their tickets and that the "garden is not related to the museum" which, it turns out, was closed. "Bee kam," I inquired? "Foreigner price, two pounds." Having a bit of fun, I told him "ana mish khawaga! Ana aish fi Bab al-Luq!" meaning "I'm not a foreigner! I live in Bab al-Luq [the name of my neighborhood]". He smiled and shook his head and told me "Uh [yes], you are a foreigner." I forked over the two pounds. He was right, after all. The park with its broken, ant-covered benches wasn't particulary worth it, but I perched on one such bench anyone and watched the Nile flow by while listening to some music. I also read a bit of my French translation of the Qur'an and smiled uneasily at some young hijabis who were giggling and, apparently, mustering up the courage to say something to me in English. One of them managed to blurt out welcome before blushing, bursting into laughter, and scurrying off arm-in-arm with her friends.
I cross back to the mainland after leaving this greenish piece of riverfront mediocrity and found myself on Qasr al-Aini St. where I was approached by Arabic-speakers, apparently not from Cairo, who asked me for directions. Haha. I got out my big obnoxious map, tossed out a few Arabic words, and hoped that it was at least somewhat useful to them. My next stop was AUC's Greek Campus, but along the way I got slightly turned around and so asked a friendly-looking, tea-drinking old man if I was on Sheikh Ali Yousef St. Indeed I was, was the sum of his warbled reply in Arabic. At that moment, I decided that I so badly wanted a photo of him and his tea-drinking buddy, but was too chicken to ask permission and didn't want to be rude by just taking a snapshot. Dejected, I began walking away, dodging chickens who were themselves dodging donkeys and oncoming cars. "No!" I suddenly said to myself, "I'm not leaving without my photo." I went back to the man, pantomimed taking a photo asked if it was "kwayyis" (good) though I suppose I should've said "ok" or something. He indicated that it was fine, though his companion was less enthused and remove himself from the scene. I reassured him that I would take a photo of him. "Mish enta, mish enta" (not you, not you). I was pleased as punch with myself for my efforts as I headed toward Greek Campus.
In all three of my classes, I have a relatively large final paper. Int'l Refugee Law is between 10-15 pages (which is actually intentionally quite short to make us practice being concise but effective), Intro to Migration and Refugee Studies is 20+ pages, and Migration in the Middle East & North Africa is 7,500 words. Ok, so they're not thesis-length, but certainly no cakewalk, either. Anyway, we're supposed to be meeting with our profs about topics for these papers and so I took a chance that Dr Fargues, head of the program and professor of my Migration in MENA class, would be in. I rapped on his door and greeted him with a "bonjour", apologizing in French for not making a more formal appointment. He was quite amiable and made time to discuss possible topics with me. Tentatively, we settled on a comparison of American versus Egyptian policy toward Somali refugees. There are lots of Somalis in Minneapolis as well as in Cairo, so I think it might be a workable choice. Thankfully, in the Refugee Law, Mike had a list of topics for us to choose from. I'll be writing my paper for that class on whether persecution for reason of sexual orientation should be a grounds for refugee protection in countries that themselves prohibit same-sex relationships. Now, I just have to figure out what to do for Mulki's class (Intro to FMRS) and I'll be set to throw myself headlong into even more reading and writing.
Having about an hour to kill until I was to head for Mohandaseen to get Indian food with friends, I settled into a chair in the feline-filled courtyard outside the Social Science building and watched a many mother calico cat with her tiny calico kitten stalk the grounds. I'm not a fan of cats, but they were cute in a pitiful sort of way. I put in my earphones and listened to this week's episode of This American Life while realizing that the weather was bordering on gorgeous. A little less pollution and October in Cairo would be entirely liveable (well, at least from the perspective of one's personal comfort outdoors in courtyards away from the teeming masses and honking taxis). Barrages of tiny yellow leaves falling from the trees above were the closest thing I've seen to precipitation since I've been here and also made me wonder whether there's something like autumn in this neck of the woods.
For dinner, I went to Mohandiseen and had Indian. It didn't compare to Kandahar, but it was a fun enough outing nonetheless. I ended up in Zamalek at Alfa Market with my friend Erin afterwards. Grocery stores are some of my favorite cultural sites in foreign countries and shopping with a friend mitigates my insane indecision–so it was a good evening all around.
I'm definitely glad to the opportunity to have gotten out into the world today, so to speak: it's easy to forget when I spent too much time in the classroom or in my apartment that I'm really living in an entirely different world. I hope to take more advantage of the myriad opportunities waiting out there for me

News of Egypt:
Are the new laws governing divorce and the rights of women in Egypt a success?
Human rights group condemns Saudi arrest and detention without charge of Egyptian
Rotary making a difference in Egypt