dance, dance

My friend S3 belongs to a gym in Zamalek, and thanks to an offer to try a free class, she brought N and I along to a dance class last night to see the gym and think about joining. Our friend C was also there.

I am telling you, there is nothing more intimidating to someone as rhythmically-challenged as me than getting ready to go to a dance class with a roomful of women who have bellydancing in their national culture.

Luckily, it was not so much dance and more just basic movement, and there were other rhythm-less foreigners so I was not the only one flailing in the back. It ended up being a lot of fun and I am kind of thinking about the joining the gym now...

but i still want to see HSM3

It rained this weekend! It was on Friday morning so obvs I was asleep, but still: rain! I have not seen rain in four months, which is really weird to think about sometimes. Of course, there is no drainage system whatsoever in this country, so all the rain creates giant puddles/lakes in all the streets and tons of cars stall out after driving directly through them. At one point we passed streets with, like, post-Katrina New Orleans levels of flooding. From like one hour of rain. It's just that bad.

The rest of the weekend was good. I went to City Stars for a movie and Mexican food with N and S3 (S3 is the Egyptian friend who lives in Alexandria where I stayed last month). I seriously miss Mexican food. Whether it's one of the really good places near 26th and Cal where I went with Team Thomas, or Tacos del Lago in Evanston, or even Chipotle (don't judge me!), good Mexican food is just lacking in Cairo. So we ate at On The Border instead. (Again: don't judge me!) And then we saw Burn After Reading, which I thought was funny. I was pushing for High School Musical 3, but was outvoted. No worries, I'll get 'em next time.

On Saturday night I went to a little gathering for the Jews in Cairo, which we started talking about doing on Yom Kippur. There ended up being like maybe 25-ish people there, which was pretty nice turnout I think. We had Goldstar (!), Israeli wine (!!), kosher food (read: vegetarian), and plenty of nice Jews from America, Canada and Israel. Some of us are working in Cairo, others are students at AUC or elsewhere, others have grants or fellowships, or are just learning Arabic, so we made for a pretty varied group I think. We had a good time and exchanged many numbers, so I am hopeful that we will do something like that again.

The entire evening made me want to sing that old camp standby, "Wherever You Go (There's Always Someone Jewish)" and you can watch adorable children singing it here.

Also, the absentee ballot mystery was solved. It turns out that it went to my home in America instead of coming to Egypt, still not entirely sure why -- my best guess is that I did not format my address correctly, or the international zip code was not recognized or was incomplete, or some other small detail. Who knows for sure. But in any case, my parents were nice enough to ship it express, I filled it out, and it is back en route to NJ right now. Great success!

chicago on my mind

As some of you may recall (or may not, whichever), last summer, in June-August 2007, I interned at an investigative magazine in Chicago called The Chicago Reporter. I wrote several articles there and continued to freelance for them during the past year, and I also contributed research to several articles.

One of the articles I helped research was about police brutality in Chicago (you can read it here), a city which has had its share of problems with corrupt cops. Yesterday, one of the most notorious of those cops, John Burge, was indicted. That story is here. It's a really big moment for the people who have spent decades on this case, and it's still pretty big news for anyone who has heard about some of the atrocities he is alleged to have committed (and I have read a lot of those accounts).

Anyway, I know this post doesn't really have anything to do with Egypt, but it's my blog so you get to read about it anyway. And while you're at it, enjoy this as well. (Hint: it involves puppies.)

i love globalization

This has been a very productive week (and weekend?) for me. In addition to many getting settled things (see below), I also went to a fun party on a yacht on the Nile Friday night. They had a dance floor on the upper deck, and there was a nice breeze, and overall it was just really nice.

On Friday during the day I went to an AIESEC event, which was basically a welcome day for all the new members. They held it at the Sakkara Palm Club, which had a lovely pool and horseback riding and things like that. We used a big conference/meeting room, and the day also included a nice lunch. It was nice for me to see the AIESECers I know and also meet some other interns. Apparently there are like six interns who all work at the same place, so we exchanged numbers and hopefully will hang out.

This day was also nice because I enjoyed some of the AIESEC 101, like when they explained all the acronyms to the new members. AIESEC loves acronyms.

Trivia time! Did you know:
1. The GN (growth network) I am in is called MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
2. My LC (local committee) is CU (Cairo University)
3. I am an EP (exchange participant), though I skipped several steps in the AIESEC process, like I2A (initiation to AIESEC), TR (taking responsibility) and having an LR (leadership role)
4. If I want to help plan a conference, I could be on the OC (organizing committee), where I would work with the X (exchange) function to plan events for the interns and other AIESECers

Plus, in addition to the acronym explanation section (which was totally necessary as you can see), they also taught several role calls (I think I might hold off on those for now...) and had awkward ice breakers. I love awkward ice breakers. I think that's one of the main reasons I became a peer advisor in college.

The apartment is finally starting to look awesome. We have hung up some posters and arranged our books in a cool bookshelf-y way, not to mention some furniture rearranging and whatnot. To pick up a lot of apartment-related things we needed, we went to Spinneys (no, there is no apostrophe, and yes, that kills me) at City Stars. Spinneys is sort of like a Wal-Mart or K-Mart, in that they have appliances and cheap clothing in the same place as a large supermarket, but they still don't have quite as much variety as you might hope for.

Still, A1 and I spent a great deal of time just wandering through the aisles with our cart and admiring all the shininess. Bath mats! Cotton balls! Croissants! We were just so happy to be in a familiar environment and surrounded by Western products that we were overall just basking in the glow of globalization. And then we bought some truly unfortunate potholders that have pictures of ice cream on them, and also a spatula, tupperware, and various other things. I will try to post some apartment photos later this week.

Also, I heard (actually, read on The Daily's site) that Northwestern won the Homecoming game this weekend, meaning our record is 6-1 and we are bowl-eligible. Of course this would all happen after I graduate, but still, even in Egypt I can't help but feel a little NU pride.

homework and gossip

Lately, I've noticed myself understanding more and more of the Arabic spoken around me. This is particularly gratifying because when I first got here, that was not the case at all. True, I studied Arabic at Northwestern for a number of years, but the Arabic spoken in the classroom (fus'ha, or classical Arabic) is the language of the Quran and literature like 1,001 Nights, not the street Arabic I hear on a daily basis.

It was somewhat frustrating for me to find out that a lot of what I knew was completely impractical -- people would understand what I was saying but then reply in Ameyya (the Egyptian dialect), or ask me to repeat myself, or just turn to a friend and say "She doesn't speak Arabic." It turns out that what I learned was a really good background (it has helped an incredible amount with my studying), I just needed to build on that with some of the more useful stuff. And besides, it's from those classes that I know how to read and write in Arabic. (And I have to say that while my handwriting in English tends towards messy, my penmanship in Arabic is really nice. I have super-awesome handwriting.)

Recently, though, I just feel a lot better about my communication skills and my ability to express myself. Last week our TV was broken, and I was able to successfully talk to my landlord about the repairs. When two Egyptian friends were talking about plans for that evening, I realized that I no longer needed them to translate their conversation for me. I chatted with the eldery woman who lives next door while we were waiting for the elevator. I very rarely use the Spanish words for things I have forgotten (this used to happen all the time).

I think a lot of this is due to my tutor, E. Our lessons are pretty informal -- he teaches one-on-one out of his Zamalek apartment, where we have tea while we chat and review my homework. At first I was annoyed to have homework again (seriously -- did I not just graduate?), but I find that I am pretty motivated to do the work since I really do want to improve. One of the reasons I wanted to come live in Egypt for the year was to become fluent (or at least more proficient than I am now), so I am glad that I am on track to accomplish this goal.

The other great part is that through word of mouth, E is the default tutor for my extended group of friends. That's how I found out about him in the first place -- when I said I wanted to learn Arabic, three different friends gave me his number. Still, it's kind of funny because he always knows everyone's business and is a bit of a gossip, with the result that he sometimes knows things about me before I have told him myself. A1 told him about our new apartment during her lesson, so that when I showed up the next day, the first thing he asked was how the move went. I can think of several classes at NU that would have been a lot better if they'd included some gossip with all that homework.

where, oh where, is my absentee ballot?

The living situation has officially been finalized! A2 will move in with A1 and I, which we are excited about because he is a friend, and now we don't have to go through the trouble of screening someone from Cairo Scholars. Also, because we all have the same first initial we can now come up with a catchy name for the apartment. For example, I am pushing for "A-Team," because then we can make Mr. T jokes such as "I pity the fool who doesn't come hang out with us." But I bet my friends have more taste than I do, so I will probably be outvoted.

Other exciting things also happened! The magazine I edit celebrated its 10-year anniversary last week, so we had a big party at the Swiss Club. My boss really went all out, including hors d'oeuvres (I definitely spelled that wrong), an open bar, a live band and a DJ. It was basically a huge expat party, because that's pretty much the target audience for us, and it was cool because I actually knew a bunch of people. Plus I got to bring a lot of my friends, so that was fun as well.

Then another friend was working for a company that was sponsoring a bar opening downtown, so he invited all of us to come. Their theme for the opening was "baladi," the Egyptian word meaning "local," though it is often used in a derogatory way to mean low-class. We tend to use it to describe things that are very typical Egyptian. Anyway, this could not have been more appropriate for this bar, as it was located in a baladi downtown location surrounded by 'ahwas, they served baladi food (aka street food like kofta, ta'ameya, hummous, pita, samboussa), played baladi music, had baladi entertainment (i.e. bellydancers) and gave out baladi souvenirs (scarves and cymbals for the ladies, fez for the men). Overall, it was ridiculously over-the-top Egyptian in a fun way, plus they also had an open bar so we stuck around and had a good time.

A1 and I also decided this week that we could use a little pampering, and luckily that's cheap enough in Egypt. We went to a salon in Mohanessin not far from where I work, a place called Twins. It was just for women, though some of the hairdressers were men. It was not so much a place to get hair cut as it is to get styled -- upper class women just come in to get all done up for a big evening out. It's not a salon as you would think of one -- basically, you come and tell them what you want, and then you sit around chatting in folding chairs and people come to you. The facial-hair-removal operatives are mobile with their eyebrow threaders and mirrors, then you scoot over and the manicure-pedicure come around with large tubs of water for the feet and baskets of nail polish so you can choose your colors. We were just going to get our nails done, but on a whim decided to get our hair straightened as well.

The few times in America that I have attempted to get straight hair, it's always been an ordeal. If it was friends wielding straighteners it could take hours, and it was at the hairdresser it involved complicated products and multiple helpers. This was the easiest thing ever: all the women have thick, curly hair like mine, so it doesn't faze them at all. You just say curly or straight, they blow it out and then start styling. Mine took about an hour, which is the fastest ever. This could have been due to the hardcore straighteners they use, which are literally heated over an open flame. Then they came over to do my nails while I was getting the hair straightened (is that efficient or what?), so I felt like I was in that part of Miss Congeniality where Sandra Bullock is getting the makeover in the warehouse (aka best scene ever). Cost of everything together (manicure, pedicure, eyebrows, hair straightening): LE 80, or about $15. Awesome.

On a more serious note, I have been getting worried because I sent away for my absentee ballot more than a month ago (like seriously, in the beginning of September) and still have not received it. Nice job, state of New Jersey. According to all the other expats I know also freaking out over late ballots, I have other options. If I get it late, FedEx will mail it express back to the states FOR FREE (awesome!), and if I never get it then I can go to the U.S. Embassy and fill in an emergency write-in ballot (officially referred to as a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, or FWAB), which they will mail in for me. I think this way I would not get to vote for the NJ stuff, but since I have not really lived in NJ for more than four years and don't plan to be back in the near future, I suppose that doesn't matter as much. I would prefer to send in my regular ballot, but if it doesn't come (I'm giving it one more week before I just go to the U.S. Embassy), at least I can still vote.

in which i find the jews in cairo

I realized after Yom Kippur that I never really wrote about my experiences here with the High Holidays. (For the non-Jews reading this, that's Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.) Just a quick historical note: up until the 1950s, Egypt had a large, thriving Jewish population. There were about 60,000 in Alexandria, and a smaller but still substantial number in Cairo. As a result, there are a number of synagogues in Cairo and Alex, though most are just tourist sites now. In the Islamic area of Cairo there are a few, and there is a working one in Alexandria, though it's my understanding that they often have trouble making a minyan. There are around 100 Egyptian Jews left in Alex, and most are over the age of 65. The rest have left for Israel, America (many in New Jersey, actually), and elsewhere.

Anyway, I ended up going to services for both holidays at a working synagogue in Cairo, in an area called Maadi. The neighborhood where I live, Zamalek, is mostly younger expats and people who here for shorter amounts of time. Families of expats tend to live in Maadi, which is where there many international schools, nicer, bigger homes and a more suburban feel. The synagogue looks almost like a mosque from the outside, with a big dome, but if you look closely you can see all the Stars of David in the stained glass windows. The synagogue, called Mal'aab Yehudi, is locked up pretty tight; if you want to use it, you call the head of the Jewish community in Cairo and she comes to unlock it for you. Inside is really pretty -- lots of marble, a huge ark with at least three torahs inside (as far as I could tell, but maybe there were more), and huge chandeliers hanging from the dome. There is no separate women's section, so I guess it was meant to be egalitarian (woo!), but it's easy to have an informal split since there was just one really wide aisle in the middle.

For the holidays, the people asking for it to be unlocked were from the Israeli embassy in Cairo, who also provided security (quite strict, as you might imagine. I was told to bring a passport to get in). The security guards saw my passport, and they were like "oh, Aliza! Of course you're Jewish with a name like that." We chatted in Hebrew, they asked me some security questions (what do I do in Cairo, have I ever been to Israel and do I plan to return, do I carry a weapon, etc.). I didn't really have any problems getting in. Inside there were about 30 people, all Israelis and other temporary expats like me. On several occasions people started off by talking to me in Hebrew, and I must say that it was nice to be mistaken for Israeli instead of Egyptian for a change. Actually, one girl and I spoke to each other in Hebrew for a good 15 minutes before we realized we were both Americans. Whoops!

I first went to this synagogue for Rosh Hashannah. I called the Israeli embassy, they gave me the address, but then the taxi driver didn't know it so I wandered around Maadi for 30 minutes too freaked out to ask someone for directions because I was not sure that I was comfortable asking for directions to something with "yehudi" in the title. Eventually figured it out, but at that point I was stressed and just wanted to go on Eid vacation after a really long week, so I was in a bad mood and I didn't know anyone so I just stayed for a bit and then left. It was underwhelming, to say the least.

But Yom Kippur actually ended up much better. Basically, there was an e-mail on Cairo Scholars saying they were having Yom Kippur services and needed a minyan and e-mail if you wanted to come. I e-mailed, and received much more excellent directions (i.e. get off the Metro at this stop, make a right on this street, go past this store and then turn left, etc.), to a place that I assumed would be a small community service because of the different directions. But once I started walking I recognized the neighborhood and realized it was the same synagogue. Anyway, this time I knew/recognized a few people (a friend's roommate, some AUC students who are friends of friends, etc.), and then stuck around long enough to make friends after. I mean, it was Kol Nidre so none of us were going out that night, and what else did we have to do afterwards?

As for the services, well...that's funny too. The synagogue had no mechitza, but people had kind of loosely segregated themselves into a women's side and men's side, though there was plenty of crossover due to people wanting to chat with each other or chasing children. I don't think women led anything, but then it was Kol Nidre so there's not too much opportunity for that. And then although you might think it would be a Sephardic (i.e. Oriental) service due to there being many Israelis and taking place in Egypt, it was actually Ashkenazic, with tunes I mostly recognized. Such a change from Madrid, when I went to huge Sephardic synagogue with Spanish Jews, with Ashkenazic services led by the local Chabad rabbi in the basement. Most of the siddurim (prayer books) were provided by the embassy and were entirely in Hebrew, which was fine, but I was much more interested by all these really cool old siddurim, machzorim and Tanachs, some with print dates that were more than 100 years old. Those were in Hebrew with some Arabic. I was looking through a few of them, and I think they were pretty awesome.

When services were over people started talking and a lot of us have been having a lot of the same frustrations re: keeping Jewish identity a secret in Egypt. Almost everyone is planning to go to Israel as soon as possible (I have planned a trip for the beginning of November). Everyone tells very few people they are Jewish, and though they generally receive a positive response, they generally don't want to say anything just the same. We have all realized that it's possible to meet another Jew in Cairo but never know it because no one wants to be the first one to say anything.

Anyway, it ended up with a big group of us all saying that we should have some kind of cultural Jewish club so we could all drink and commiserate about being the token Jew in our group of friends and meet other nice Jewish professionals to tell our parents about. There seemed to be a lot of interest in this (a Jewish drinking club? Why not!), so one of the guys from the embassy passed out his card and told us to e-mail and said he would set something up. Am excited to hang out with the Jews!

This left me with two weird thoughts: 1. It's possible that this was my most fun Yom Kippur ever. Not really a holiday big with the fun, but I actually did have a good time in this case. 2. If I do in fact go to meetings of a cultural Jewish club, I will essentially have re-created my life from Northwestern in Egypt. My two major activities in college were Hillel (Jews) and writing for The Daily Northwestern or freelancing (journalism). Let's check Egypt: journalism? (My job, plus freelancing) check. Jews? As of last week, that's a check. Awesome.

acceptable outdoors-iness

I am now back at work after Eid vacation, which was pretty excellent. The place we stayed, El Hammra Eco-Lodge, was nice and relaxing, with the just the right amount of "roughing it." On the Aliza Scale of Acceptable Outdoors-iness, for example, there were mosquitoes and huts (roughing it!), but still indoor bathrooms with hot water and plenty of electricity (not roughing it, thank god).

Eighteen of us left Cairo in a caravan of four cars and a taxi, armed with plenty of bug spray, bottled water, speakers, and other essentials. The huts had room for 2-6 people in each, though sleeping arrangements varied. For example, some people claimed nice beds with mosquito nets, others got these kind of narrow cots, and others piled together a bunch of floor cushions and just kind of crashed. I was lucky enough to score a bed, which was awesome, though it did not have a mosquito net, which I now regret. We designated one hut as the "hanging-out" area, which was a nice place to set up camp. Two other friends joined later in the weekend, so we were a total of 20 people. There were other guests at the lodge, but we were definitely the biggest (and probably loudest) faction. It was actually kind of fun to take over the place for a few days.

Our stay also included three meals a day (though most of us managed to sleep through breakfast nearly every day). The meals were traditional Egyptian food and were generally pretty good, and were served in the main house of the lodge in an area fondly called the "restaurant" (though there were no menus and no one paid until the end of the weekend). The schedule was something like breakfast at 10, lunch at 4, dinner at 9. And whenever the meal was ready they would ring a bell; we were always hungry by the time mealtime rolled around, so there were plenty of good-natured jokes about our developing Pavlovian response to the food bell.

There were also some fields (grass! So exciting!), a pool, hammocks, three dogs running around, and some Egyptian-style gazebos with floor cushions for lounging. The whole place is run by a former police officer everyone calls "The General," who seems to spend most of his time wearing large hats, overseeing the cooking, and taking mildly creepy photos of guests by the pool. We spent plenty of time chilling in the hang-out hut, sitting by the pool reading and talking (a huge number of us were reading books on Middle Eastern politics -- imagine that. My reading list has just doubled), and just overall enjoying the "countryside" and being out of the city. The air was so clear, smog-free and breatheable, the skies were beautiful and we could see the stars, and it was overall just really lovely.

(Side note about the reading: I spent the weekend reading Thomas Friedman's latest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded," which is about globalization, America's loss of purpose since 9/11, and the need for a "green revolution" and renewable energy. I am a big fan of his and mostly enjoyed the book, but part of it was kind of meta. The "crowded" in the title refers to overpopulation, and Friedman spends quite a bit of time talking about overcrowded mega-cities in developing countries. As I was reading about these cities, I could not help but reflect on Cairo, my current home, with its very definite overcrowding and population of approximately 20 million people. Weird to be reading about this phenomenon when right now, I am kind of a part of it...)

Anyway, the whole thing reminded me a lot of camp (in a really good way): late nights spent talking and bonding, meals as an event served at certain times during the day, sleeping in communal huts/bunks, spending so much time outdoors, just the overall feeling of relaxation, and of course, the mosquitos. (Hilariously spent 15 minutes pantomiming killing bugs in Metro since I could not figure out how to say "bug spray," only to have the guy finally go... "You want Off?" I was like... gah, I actually knew that one. But they ended up being out of it, so I bought the Egyptian brand, which judging by the number of bug bites I have does not appear to have worked.)

Though we were sad to leave, it was also really nice to come back to my NEW APARTMENT in Cairo. A1 and I are moved in now, and it is excellent. We still need to decorate, but we got all our stuff moved in before Eid, and that was enough of an ordeal.

Basically, to get from my old apartment to my new one, I had to walk all the way down a pretty major street called Ismail Mohamed. So after packing up everything from the old place, I divided it up into three trips. Cabs in Cairo are pretty cheap, but still, they all add up, and I am trying to save money. So I got my first load of stuff down the stairs (third floor, no elevator) and into a cab, brought it into new apartment (14th floor, multiple elevators, phew!). Then I walked all the way back down Ismail Mohamed to save cab fare. I grabbed the next load, hailed another cab, unloaded, and walked all the way back. At this point I was kind of exhausted, and the only stuff I had left was my two huge suitcases, which there was just no way I could attempt on my own. My bowab (doorman) was conveniently absent just then (I am convinced he saw me moving my stuff and decided to go elsewhere before he could be coerced into helping), so I was kind of stymied as to how I was going to move the heavy stuff.

I was standing around in the lobby trying to figure out what to do when one of the construction workers asked what was wrong. (In my old building the lobby was under construction, and since this was during Ramadan people mostly worked at night when they could eat, drink and smoke.) I asked if he had seen the bowab, and he said he not but asked if there was anything he could do. I told him I had two big, heavy bags and needed some help, and he said he would do it. He grabbed a friend and they did the heavy lifting for me, including heaving both bags onto a taxi's roof-rack (no trunk space). Trust me, that was one nerve-wracking ride, I just kept waiting for one of them to fall off in the middle of Ismail Mohamed. In any event, I tried to tip them but they wouldn't accept, so it was just two nice guys helping out, which I really appreciated.

So in short, everything is in the new apartment. It is nice and classy and clean, and has no cat hair (Pookie: adorable cat, lots of shedding). Will update when we have decorated and found another roommate so we don't go broke paying rent.

On the job front, the first issue that I was mostly in charge of came out this week, and I am really proud of the way it turned out. Everyone in the office has been telling me how nice it looks, so overall I am just really pleased. Here's hoping the next one is just as good!