نجاح - Success

Success = NajaaH
Stupid teenagers = Muraaha'een ghubeeyeen

I'll probably regret this post tomorrow, but it bears typing.

Living here is never boring nor dissatisfying, and as I've said before, I'm usually either thrilled to be living in Egypt and in a state of giddy "Ican'tbelievetheUSgovernmentPAYSmetolearnthislanguage" bliss or in a moody state of "Ican'tbelieveIsignedupforayearorlifetimeofthis" annoyance. It's always always always more often the former, I swear, but in the middle of a fabulous run along the Corniche today, I almost lost it.

Exercise is not a huge value among Egyptians, it seems, and so running outside in public is often strange even when an Egyptian man is witnessed in the act. So I do understand how, culturally, it's odd when a foreign woman is jogging, even if she's clad in long sleeves and long black pants, as I always am. I get that. It's something unusual. Okay. But, my hair is tucked up tightly into a baseball cap, all my skin save for hands and neck are covered, and I try to get in no one's way. Usually my runs are great and nothing happens, other than a lot of whispers, the occasional catcall or hiss, and a lot of pretty hilarious "run, go, run!" "yallah! yallah!" and the occasional spat of applause which is actually nice and encouraging. It reminds me of that man who perches with his accordion and harmonica on the Austin hike and bike trail on Friday mornings and yells out encouragement to all who run by. He grew used to the sight of Megan and I on Friday mornings, and I welcomed the familiar calls he'd throw out between harmonica interludes.

But today, when three little teenaged whippersnappers decided to run alongside me, trying to trip me, hissing and yelling disgusting things, I grew annoyed. I decided to just ignore them, per the usual, as we are taught and advised to do. (I know, Jamie, and Maggie, and all the other wonderful feminists in my life, that that's just communicating that the behavior is alright, but seriously, the culture is broken in this respect, and my trying to do something about it isn't going to change the system, which for generations has NOT taught many of the young men respect for women, khaaaaalas).

I was content with just running and ignoring them, hoping they would grow bored, but when one reached up to grab my hat, while another threw a BIG rock at me, and the third reached to touch me, I surprised myself, whipped around on my right foot, feigned a backhand toward the little jerk who had his hand nearly around my ponytail, and screamed. The language that tumbled out of my mouth veered on hysterical, even though I wasn't actually losing it, I just wanted to startle them. In an exasperated, LOUD mix of somewhat incoherent Arabic and French, (I think my brain was pulling whatever it could think of from the 2nd language spot which does indeed exist deep down somewhere, according to my personal language expert and friend, Dylan) I shrieked various things like "what do you want from me? what do you want from me? you think this is funny? you think it's funny to do something dangerous like throw rocks at people's heads? You're disgusting, you're disgusting. Find something better to do." At first they laughed but as I sped up and made to grab them, and threatened one with a (tiny) rock myself, the tallest one started WHIMPERING and begged me to stop following, and started asking a passerby to help him. I am not kidding. A COMPLETE success and a total surprise to me as well.

So in short, today I scared an Egyptian jerk-in-training and I've never been happier. (And the run that I completed afterward was the sweetest and longest, yet!)

Lovin' Egypt, y'allllll.

متشكر - Grateful

Grateful, thankful ~ mutashakar

In Egypt as of late, there's been a whole lot of crazy going on. If you haven't seen the news, just open up NYTimes, CNN, Drudgereport (whatever floats your ideological boat), click on through to the Middle East page, and ta da, you'll find a smorgasbord of confusing tales of aging autocracies and police states committing atrocities against their citizens. In places like Yemen and Syria, the violence is often unthinkable. Places like Kuwait and Morocco are making changes, thankfully with less bloodshed. When the dust settles from the nightmare that's happening in Syria right now, it's going to be a bloody and impossible event to understand. Here in Egypt, Tahrir square in Cairo last week became the site of a renewed revolutionary spirit, carrying demands unfulfilled since January and February. Though united by a deep desire for positive change in their beloved Egypt , Egyptians' opinions on demonstrations, on who to elect to Parliament, or how to reach lasting transformation all differ considerably.

The closest I've gotten to a demonstration. See mom? No bullets! The yellow banner in the foreground is an advertisement for a Muslim Brotherhood funded and organized Eid celebration. 

Places where you'll hear politics discussed in Egypt : The nut roaster, the coffee roaster, the bakery, the falafel and ful joint, the public plaza in front of the library, over your forehead between two arguing coiffeurs busy threading your eyebrows, the juice bar, coffee shops, the newspaper vendors.... Yes, really truly anywhere, and people are excited, curious, nervous, apprehensive, and unsure about the future of Egypt. The term "silent majority" is the stupidest thing I've heard used to describe the millions of people in Egypt not expressing their opinions loudly in the press. Sure, maybe not in the press to a foreign journalist, but between their friends, families, and coworkers, favorite fruit-cart man, EVERYONE is talking! 

The elections Monday and Tuesday of this week went as calmly as could be hoped for, and a number of runoffs will take place this week. We've just learned that the Islamists, if one combines the the Salafist Noor Party and the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, have taken upwards of 60 or 65 percent of Parliamentary seats. Many of my friends and professors here are upset about that, not because they won, necessarily, but because these are the candidates who will be writing the constitution of the country in March. Yep, the constitution. Which will remain forever. Regardless of who is elected into power every four years. Forever. Such a constitution might include imposed restrictions on movies, clothing choices, tourism, etc... But I realize that the university population I speak with differs from the majority of Egypt, so many people will be pleased with the new Parliament. The majority of Egypt wants stability, ease in feeding their family, steady work, and a smoothly running society. The Justice and Freedom party and the Noor party have promised this and more. 

Egypt could look very different in the near future. Oh lordy.

Noor party (Salafist) campaign banner on my street. They be everywhere, yo.

But for now, it's an encouraging place. Here's a widely circulated picture of Alexandrians waiting in the rain for hours to cast their votes in the first free elections in Egypt since, well decades? Centuries? Ever? Opinions differ.

We celebrated Thanksgiving last Friday with upwards of 50 people, crowded into an apartment in Ibrahimiyeh. The food was random and delicious (an overwhelming assortment of Egyptian and American delights. Deep fried eggplant and cauliflower, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes of all sorts, turkey, chicken, meatballs, and an entire kitchen full of desserts. We ran out of surface space to place food.) I felt all warm and fuzzy and grateful, thankful, blessed to still be in Egypt. (Tuesday of last week, it wasn't clear if we'd be able to stay, and coming home that day felt honestly a little creepy, as all my familiar storekeepers and vendors told me to "go home, now!" No one knew what to expect concerning the demonstrations that were popping up throughout the city. In the end, the violence was very localized and occurred in two places in Alexandria. We enjoyed a few homebody days in pajamas, holed up in our apartments. My nescafé consumption doubled, and I learned that Twitter is a very dangerous way to follow news. I thought the whole city was going to explode in a shower of bullets and tear gas canisters during one particularly uneasy 2 AM hour. In the morning I saw that it was all smoke and mirrors and that I still had class at 9 AM.)

Prepping sweet potatoes and green beans with Kelsey and Laura, night before Thanksgiving. (OK, when American holidays occur and you're NOT in America, the holiday becomes even MORE important. Thus, many pictures.)

Robert (our resident director) made our turkey!

He also made some questionable decisions concerning the turkey's head, which wound up in the stuffing.

Turkey head before cooking on the right, and after cooking on the left. Sam found it. Sorry Sam.

Nada and her beautiful fattoush, Corey and his beautiful cornbread. All homemade!

Thank God for unfinished apartment rooftops, great for party overflow.

During the Thanksgiving feast (which we timed around the start of the marches so that we wouldn't get our little foreign selves in the way), we watched large demonstrations march down the street, seven floors below. We witnessed a particularly beautiful scene when the demonstrators stopped to pray and from open windows up and down the facade of the nearest apartment building, newspapers cascaded through the air. Egyptians in their homes were tossing out the papers, to give the praying demonstrators a clean surface upon which to pray (not a requirement but a much preferred way to pray in Islam.)

Our view from the roof.

Random joyful experiences of the past couple weeks include:

Sitting for coffee (which always comes with a brownie at this one place. Um, oui? très bien) next to the Corniche with a friend, in the beautiful midday winter weather of this Mediterranean city.

Accidentally stumbling into museum galleries underneath the famous library. The tiny yet carefully curated Anwar Sadat museum showcases his bloodstained clothes and Rolex from the day of his assassination, which is ew and impressive. At once.

Dance parties and trips to the Greek club in Ibrahimiyeh both do WONDERS by way of catharsis and stress relief. The Egyptian word for tension or stress is "tawater" and as fun and fulfilling as life often is here, I also often feel so wound up by the time I'm home from homework, pollution, or harassment, that it's sometimes almost a physical act of unfurling my tense little self. As such, it's important to take any chance to get rid of that tawater. As such, talking, coffeeing, strolling with my Egyptian friends, drinking Stella at the Greek Club, or working up a sweat to Jeremih at a dance party are all very, very good things, for which I am very, very grateful. 

It also helps that Alexandria can be downright beautiful. :)

رحلة حلوة - Beautiful trip

Rahla heluwa = Beautiful trip

Ahem. So, I wrote the below post days ago and just forgot to actually post it. It might now seem silly and frivolous to describe our trip to Siwa, considering that in Egypt yesterday, tonight, and almost certainly tomorrow there are far more important, pressing, and dire current events unfolding. Elections begin in exactly one week and some violence in very localized, specific places has occurred. I will write about the protests, but it does behoove me to first learn more about them as the events take shape. Right now, everything I'm learning about the protests in Cairo and Alexandria are filtered through twitter or word-of-mouth. Follow Al-Jazeera English or Almasryalyoum for decent info, friends and loved ones! And do keep Egypt in your prayers, puh-leeze. As I type these words, an embarrassing number of my classmates and I are abuzz on facebook, trying to calm each other's fears or suspicions that we might be evacuated. There's no talk of that yet, whatsoever, we've just been told from the beginning of this program to be ready for the worst. Anyway. Back in time a week or so to Siwa.

Not expecting much aside from a nice break from the usual, the day after eid al-adha, I was happy to embark on a trip to Siwa with the whole group. All of us in one big ol' bus. Siwa is an oasis town in the Sahara not far from the Libyan border, and it was reachable only by plane or by camel not too many decades ago. As such, the once very isolated bedouin culture is different, the language is derived from the amazigh berber tongue, and tourism, farming dates and olives, and drug trafficking (unfortunately) are among the only major economic activities. The fresh dates on the palm trees are unbelievable in texture and taste, the views are rustic and often spectacular, and the locals know how to cook some daaaamn good chicken in pits buried under the sand. 

In short, because pictures are more fun than any written post...

The ruins were intriguing.

 Riding bikes through them and hushed date fields was a lot of fun.

Sunset on the salt flats was stunning. 

"Safari" means bedouin drivers speeding up and down stories-tall sand dunes at 100 mph. Like a roller coaster, without seatbelts and with Arab music on cassette tapes in the background. It also means sand in your ears for days and oh my gosh I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, and you too, yes even YOU Sophie, would undoubtedly enjoy it as well. 

The views in the Sahara were oft-eerie, oft-beautiful and prompted us to have all sorts of half-assed philosophical discussions.

Sandsledding is harder than it looks.

After the sun set in the desert, we alternated between huddling around a gigantic olive wood campfire and wandering up and down full-moon lit sand dunes. The night was surreal and chilly, and unfortunately, a good  portion of our crew didn't sleep a wink because it was simply TOO COLD and apparently a sufficient number of blankets wasn't included in the price of the safari. (I was part of a group of girls who huddled under one filthy, yet cozy, tattered rainbow blanket all night. When we awoke we thought our frozen feet might fall off before we could crawl to the campfire). At least we slept. Sorry sorry sorry to my friends who were literally huddled around the campfire outside, in the sand, sans blanket!

The next morning, happy yet unshowered and pretty exhausted (ain't no bathroom in the desert) we arrived at a resort in Marsa Matruh, on the Mediterranean Coast a few hours west of Alexandria. I don't think any of the students in my group expected a night in a nice resort, and it was a little strange (all of our scholarships come from government money - thanks taxpayers! :/ ) but welcome. It was probably the first night on a normal, comfy, warm mattress that I've had in Egypt, even if the water turned off in the middle of the night, and I got chided by reception for not returning my towel to the 16-year old towel man. (What? Why? Why am I not allowed to leave my used towel in the hotel room?)

 The color of the water was astounding, and we realized that the familiar grey-green of the Mediterranean that we see every day in the city results from Alex's proximity to the Nile delta. In Marsa Matruh, no rush of fresh, silty water dilutes the pristine blue of the Mediterranean, and lord have mercy, it was gawgeous. 

As a great finale to our trip and a crazy coincidence (it was Veterans' Day!) we visited German and Italian military tombs and a Commonwealth WWII Cemetery in Alamein, not far outside of Alex. Desert campaigns were fought on Northern Egyptian land in '41 and '42 and imposing memorials stand on little patches of carefully manicured and maintained land, all to commemorate the loss of life that occurred there years and years ago.

I honestly had a sinking feeling in my heart as we pulled into Alex, that's thankfully evaporated now. Alex comes with homework, sleep deprivation, and cold, rainy weather, but currently it's home home home.

(But man, with the current unrest, we'll see what happens... )

الله عالم وربنا يستر

Eid al-Adha عيد الأضحى

عيدالأضحى = Eid al-Adha
Holiday/Festival of Sacrifice

This weekend marked the beginning of the biggest holiday weekend in Muslim culture: The first day of Eid al-Adha.  It's really been a fabulous weekend, marked by the tapering of our workload in class, hanging out throughout the weekend with friends, and making preparations to head to Siwa Oasis and Marsa Matruh for five days tomorrow.

'Twas nice sleeping in, reading what I wanted to read, going to a concert, a party, and having fun food and drink and the like. The air was festive all weekend, and this morning, the first official day of the Eid, the party mood was so tangible, it truly felt (a little bit) like Christmas as we sipped Nescafé and ate peanut butter honey toast on the balcony. At 6:30 AM, I woke up to a LOUD "Allahuwakbar" (God is great) repeated again and again on a loudspeaker, in the street in front of our apartment. Hundreds of men were gathered to pray on green, red, and yellow mats on Shariya Delta. An Imam spoke into the loudspeaker for about 15 minutes; I caught phrases like "women's rights," " abundance and giving," "service," "gratitude." As soon as the prayer and address were over, mats were rolled up and a whole lotta goats, cows, and sheep met their fate in the street. Per tradition, to commemorate Abraham's willingness to follow God and offer up his son Isaac, families purchase and sacrifice an animal each year, keep 1/3 of the meat, give 1/3 to close relatives and friends, and give 1/3 to charity. As we descended into the street post-prayer, the energy was palpable and children were shrieking happily, eating cotton candy and playing with new toys. Kelsey and I were handed gift bags paid for by the Muslim Brotherhood. (I think I'll keep the gently politicized coloring book for life.) Everyone wished us a happy eid and a good year and a blessed holiday; It was fun.

SO I don't want the focus of this post, or any of my talk on eid al-adha to necessarily be on the gruesomeness of the animal slaughter. Because most of it was just fine. Sheep and goats, sad, yes, and bloody, but not a huge deal, sorry.

But. Honestly. Cows? Cows ARE huge and have a LOT of blood, and seem really frightened before the moment they're done in. Despite all that thesis research, and that chapter that I wrote on certain slaughter methods being superior to other slaughter methods, I never actually in person witnessed life leave the body of any creature as large and as sentient as a cow before today, nor splashed through puddles of its blood. I still feel nauseous, and it might be a long time before I'm able to eat beef. I'm currently retooling everything I thought about animal slaughter in my head. 

Really and truly, the focus of Eid al-Adha is commemorating obedience to God, service, celebrating abundance, and giving to others. It's not about killing animals in the street; It's about celebrating in the street, with everyone! It just shocked my senses, all of them. (Who knew slaughter smelled like that?) 

 I took a lot of pictures of the weekend (and people were happy to oblige my taking them, and even wished me a happy eid!), but out of respect for you dear readers, and out of respect for the sanctity of the holiday, I've only included a couple distantly bloody ones. Warning, they be down therrr below.

Laura grieving for the unsuspecting lambs.

America night. Chocolate chip cookies, 25th of January Monopoly (wait, did we really forgot to play it?) and Domino's pizza that truly tasted exactly as it does in Austin, TX.

Sunrise prayer

Oh no, sheep!

:(

It's a community affair.

شغال ومش شغال to work and to not work

مش شغال

mish shaghal =  to NOT work

شغال

shaghal = to work!

Easily the first new phrase I and several others picked up here was "mish shaghal." Meaning, it doesn't work. The phone? Mish shaghal. Water heater? Mish shaghal. Internet? oh DEFinitely mish shaghal. But seeing how 1) everything will eventually shaghal or you'll find a way around it (who needs a shower head?), 2) God really provides exactly what I need, just often not at the moment I most think I want it, and 3) how everyone in Egypt just keeps on keepin' on in a country where many things break or simply never worked efficiently... This ALL continues to instruct me in patience and awe for how the world just continues to turn. I'm growing in admiration for this country, admiration for my own country, appreciation for Hans Wehr (an intimidating and beautifully organized tome of an arabic dictionary, that I've fallen asleep with here more than once. ugh), and independence from google translate or anything electronic.

Egypt feels cozy and homey now, I enjoy the markets, and I like running next to the ocean (though I can't run as fast, dunno if I want to blame it on the pollution, the too-warm long-sleeved clothes I wear, or my embarassing, skyrocketing sugar consumption). I even like the crush of people on the trams in the morning (but NOT in the afternoons. Deodorant is not of the highest quality here, and in the morning, it's still too early for deodorant to have failed). I love this one tunnel I pass through every day on my way to the university. All the footsteps echo and all the women are dressed beautifully and all the hijabs adjusted just so and all the men look dashing in their business suits. (Why am I in a good mood when I walk through that tunnel in the morning, but often in a not so good mood on the way home? Haven't figured that one out yet.) Sometimes there are puddles of sandy seawater from the Mediterranean waves that seeped into the tunnel overnight. There are sleepy, stubbly guards flanking the entrances and they always perk up when anyone greets them. I wonder if they get any sleep?

A shoe store named King Paris opened directly below our apartment, and to herald the grand opening, there were two nights of LOUD pop music and vines of Christmas lights strung up and down the street, twinkling randomly. Fireworks were shot up into the air, (sort of) aimed at people's balconies, and fourth of july size explosions left ash, dust, and a lingering burning smell on one of our little patios, but no matter. It was fun to not hear ourselves in our own living room due to the FIREWORKS outside the window, and it's actually a relief to be in a country with so little attention put on safety liabilities. I knew not to step on the balcony, for instance. Personal responsibility, people.

Internship work these past couple weeks entailed calling up international schools in Alex, asking for meetings with the principals. Harder said than done. I can't stand selling things, and in America, such a process, just cold-calling and requesting meetings, would never fly. Hanshuf, bekhir insha'allah.

We celebrated my roommate's 21st birthday on Halloween, fêting the occasion at Café Latino on the Corniche. 25-30 of us ate classy, flashy but mediocre-tasting cake, laughed a lot, stood up when the waiters decided our arrival was the best moment to change the lightbulbs directly above the table, and overall itbasatna (enjoyed ourselves). It made me realize I've had nothing but great roommates my whole life. Sophie, Saloni, Ashley, Caroline, Jamie, Amira, Rania… All wonderful! And now Enas and Kelsey. Humdulillah, really and truly.

With the tangibly positive attitudes my roommates and classmates have, I'm able to remember that when the shower head breaks, the hot water disappears, the padlock sticks, the internet company has somehow broken the internet for the day (it happened… at least the government didn't censor it or take it off line like it did in January), it's all so minor it's not worth getting upset over. We're always trying to look for ways to drop the "mish" and say, hey, yeah, shaghal, it works, because therein lies the beauty of so much of egypt. You might not understand how something works and forget about knowing when it will work, but eventually, most everything works, and another day starts again.

King Paris opening. Christmas lights! I wish you could hear the Pussycat Dolls blaring. I don't think the lyrics were understood...

Bakeries everywhere. Sort of like France, but cheaper. (i.e. dangerous)

That, my friends, is indeed a bookstore. He is selling books. See? His bookstore just, well, works. Doesn't look like it would, but it does. ma'alesh.

Inside an immaculate, white-tiled dairy. Milk in bags!

Suq cleopatra

Part of Café Latino crew on Halloween

Happy 21st birthday Enas!

سنة حلوة يا جميلة

غرق - to drown

To drown = gharaqa

I feel like I'm drowning, but in a good sense. Sensory overload is easily come by in this city, and daily life ranges between relaxing to happily overwhelming to utterly stressful back to calm and relaxing. Usually in the range of a few hours, and then the cycle repeats. My dad tried to encourage me by saying that immersion language learning should always feel like you're "taking in a little bit too much water." Truf, dadman, truf!

Over the past two weeks, I started work in my internship at a wellness center in Loran (near the bougie San Stefano area), began a direct-enrollment class in the university, and figured out how to buy ARUGULA SMOOTHIES from the amazing juice stand between my apartment and the tram. I also tried the famous melukhia soup (Jew's mellow soup… a great taste and beautiful green color but an odd consistency that's disconcertingly like, well, snot) and "swallow's tongue" soup (really just orzo pasta, butter, lemon and chicken broth, named for the shape of the orzo, but a jarring name, non?).

Direct-enrollment was a trip and, as we were assured by our director, is more cultural experience than academic. I understood little in my class - Cultural Relations between the East and West - and at the end of his swiftly-spoken lecture, when the professor asked me (and ONLY me!) what I understood, in front of all my Egyptian classmates, I said something that must have translated roughly to: "This class was interesting general case of looking at history of political marriages in the times of the history when east and west were not friends, yes." I can only guess it sounded like that, perhaps worse. Hopefully in the future I can string something better together.

Hints of homesickness have crept in for a lot of us, but nothing more than occasionally wanting certain, silly things we can't get here. (Driving, wearing tank tops in green, grassy parks, tofu) I wish at different moments that specific people could experience something with me. Megan, I wish you and I could run along the corniche (the sea coast), and Ashley and Dyl, you would love the famous library. Dane would enjoy the dusty, colorful "yacht" we rode today, and so many others - Brianna, Sara, Michael - would love the organic, cheap, overflowing fruit and veggie markets, in neighborhoods with names like Ibrahimiyeh and Cleopatra.

Today some of us took a trip to Nelson's Island, a small, deserted spot of sand and tufty hills off the coast of Alex. It's still home to tombs of British soldiers and apparently saw some battles in Napoleon's day. It was a strange and fun friday of riding in boats, gettin' sandy and feeling like castaways. Lunch was delivered to us by boat (the typical, but delicious, blackened fish 'n guts, fisherman's rice, tomato/cucumber/onion salad, bread, and tahini) and I still have sand in my ears from the constant wind.

We've also experienced Egyptian bureaucracy in its glorious inefficiency. A couple examples: Our entirely unnecessary crack of dawn trip to a government office to extend our visas brought us face to face with an entire office of people more concerned about breakfast than helping us (and we even had an appointment!) Turns out we had to wait for one specific man to arrive and , well, allahuaalam where he is. Probably also more concerned about breakfast than us. Fair enough. When he did arrive, he didn't do much, and they just called each of our names aloud and then we left. Hmm.

Second example of pointless bureaucracy, and everywhere having a million employees and very little actual help: Bought a new washing machine, after our resident director finally got our less than great landlord to agree to pay for most of it. (We currently have a semi-functioning half-automatic Japanese contraption in our bathroom. Aside from spilling gallons of dirty water on the bathroom floor and not rinsing or spinning any of our clothes, it's not terribly useful, so we're happy to see it replaced. Sorry 1972 Sanyo.) 

At Carrefour (Walmart, French/Egyptian style) when Robert and I decided on a washing machine, an eager attendant typed in our order on one computer, then took us to a cashier, then took us to an after sales desk, then to another desk where we had to wait for "exactly the right man" to come LOOK at our receipt and draw a check mark. Then because someone in that silly chain of events had torn off the top corner of the receipt, along with a couple of allegedly, apparently, important numbers, we had to do it all again, and wait at some different places along the way.

A long process, but entertaining, since while waiting, Robert and I talked about Ghadafi's death and the Ohio animal park fiasco in Arabic, which just made both events sound even more surreal. Surrounded by swarms (QUITE LITERALLY) of Thursday night Carrefour shoppers (Friday is the weekend, Thursday is getreadyforweekend day), and the ubiquitous, fun, way-too-loud Arabic pop music, it was one of those laugh out loud "whoa, I am not in my home" moments.

An entire entry should be devoted to topics like the traffic (Lord save us all), some of the fun and unique food, hilarious signage, revolutionary graffiti, and other shtuff, but perhaps later. It's time to head to my direct-enrollment class and mumble another ridiculous answer to my professor's questions.

The disaster left on the conference table, after our director from D.C. visited and surprised us with Costco bags of Halloween candy. Plus there was pizza. I can't remember why. 

Internship work, tea, and shisha at Rihani café in Camp chezar

The "dar," where we flop around on couches, study, drink nescafé, and avoid speaking in English except at 6 PM when we're always REAL tired.

View from our window of the Kuliat al-adab (college of liberal arts)

Drinking Sport Cola at an adorable seaside café in Abu Qir, waiting for the boat man.

Then he arrived, our barefoot boat driver.

Arrival at Nelson Island

Island of Nelson.

Our grilled fish picnic in the sand. We were pretty ravenously hungry, don't judge.

Some pictures of the homestead. This is the living room. Note the cozy chairs and red walls! Also, one of three balconies. However, also note the absence of a coffee table. The landlord took it and thought we wouldn't notice. We still notice.

View to the right outside my window

View to the left outside my window.