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| Outskirts of the market Khan el Khalili |
Thursday night (the beginning of the weekend for us here) the "family" went to a chinese restaurant downtown and a french night club (how very Egyptian, right?) It was a nice night though. The manager of the chinese restaurant gave us complementary Irish Coffee on flambe, it's coffee with scotch and cinmon and a ton of cream, and then he lit it on fire... there was a whole show involved, we were impressed. Then he told us he was the king and to never forget him, hahah. Then we headed out to the nigh club where we were the absolute only english speaking group, but that was really fun in itself. We met a few randos and practiced arabic =) Night life in Cairo is amazing, everyone is out literally all night long, but the dynamic is so different from a city in the states. Even with everyone out late I always feel completely safe and confident in this huge city. I guess that might stem from the muslim standard of decency and knowing that most of the people wandering around are only socializing and avoiding the heat, not getting completely waisted. Its nice.
Did I mention here yet that once we went to the grocery store at midnight and it was jam packed with mothers and babies and little kids running around? Crazy Cairo man!!
Now here comes friday =) I had been looking forward to it for a long time!
I FINALLY got to meet a beautiful woman named Zakia, who is a good friend of my aunt's and originally from the states. Her name is actually Charlotte, and she's a retired principle who now teaches english in Egypt. She's wonderful. She moved to Egypt on a whim, because Allah told her to. And she says she has never been happier. =)
My friend Margaux and I met Zakia and her driver Ahmed in a part of the downtown area that we are very familiar with. Ahmed is just a regular taxi driver who she hires out on certain days, he's a really sweet man, he's a sheikh which is basically a teacher of Islam or a kind of pastor to put it in western terms. She's taught him all the english he knows, and she must be a great teacher because he's almost got it! He calls her Mom sometimes too, they are very sweet together.
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| Some windows are covered for extra privacy and to for the sake of modesty |
After the bazar we walked down some very rural side streets to Islamic Cairo to visit a mosque and see some "real Egypt." The streets were dirt, children running all over with no shoes on, women in habias carrying babies and bread on their heads, laundry hanging out the window, goats stealing cumquats from the street vender, little boys playing in the street, old men smoking shisha on the sidewalk. It was really different than the Zamelek area, which is where we usually spend our time because of the bus that goes directly there. Zamelek is where half of my school's dorms are and is the more upscale neighborhood in Cairo. Its all embassies, cafe's and night clubs.
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| "Off Praying" (Muslims pray 5 times a day, and always take their shoes off, we've even seen empty police boots with just shoes, waiting for their owner to come back. I always think it's really beautiful) |
Zakia also took us to a beautiful mosque. She had given us advance notice so we had scarves with us to cover our heads. It was a beauuutiful mosque, and it wasn't even a prominent one. The courtyard was my favorite, the tile on the grown reflected the mosque really nicely and there were birds flying around. I feel really blessed to be able to visit things like that. I feel it is important to see how other people worship, and if you visit sites like that, you might be able to feel god's presence there too. Its really beautiful. I'm also verrry excited because I've been able to read a few words around the mosques and I an recognize "Allah akbar" (praise God) and "la illaha ilAllah"(no god but God) =) And the call to prayer is gorgeous, as I've probably mentioned a thousand times. It's one of my favorite things in Cairo, I know I'll miss it when I go home. (Why don't I hear it from the one by my house, are they not allowed to play it? I know in some cities they can't because it offends people... which is awful... ok if you know the answer let me know.. moving on)
It was really nice =)
Then we headed back to the bazar for dinner. Have you by any chance seen Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations?? The Egypt episode??? Welllllllllll!!!! He goes to a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant for authentic Egyptian food... and that is where Dr. Professor. Charlotte Zakia Naugle took Margaux and I to eat our very first (and wonderfully delicious) stuffed pigeon!! It was delicious. Na'am na'am naaa'aaam!!! =)
We finished our time with Zakia and Ahmed at the coffee shop again for mint tea and shisha.
After our Khan el Khalili adventure, Margaux and I went back to Zamelek and waited for the rest of the family to come downtown for a good old American style party at a flat where some of the military AUC students live. It was fun, I met a ton of people!
Then the week began again, sunday classes were good, monday classes were good. I have a paper due tomorrow and a presentation on thursday. I love all my classes though, my Egyptology class is just fascinating. And Im HERE, which is insane. And my Shi'i Muslims in History class is really realllllllly intereseting, it's a ton of information and I feel behind because most of my peers are Sunni, but I still really enjoy it. My literature class is reading stories and poems from all around the world about people who feel displaced and people who travel a lot, so that's been wonderful too. And Arabic... as difficult as it is and as much as I whine about it, it really is great. Actually looking at how much time we've spent in class, we've learned soo much in the last month. Last night I was able to order in Arabic!!! "Midfudluk, iyisa kushari" Please I want kushari (I know that's very basic but I can do it!) And "hashrob bepsi" I will drink pepsi. "Shukran" Thank you. =) And then there are those words that have become part of our regular vocabulary: Yalla- come on, habibi- sweetheart, walla- I swear, yanni- you know?, mish- no, humdid'Allah- thank's God!, insha'allah- God willing (AKA maybe or never), moompkin- maybe... Its so bad.. but I mean now I know future tense and if I think about it really hard I can conjugate all the regular verbs, and we just learned how to negate them too.
Anyway, the point being, I am learning a ton here, working hard and playing hard, and I absoluuutly love it here. I can't describe it. =)
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| The family at one of our favorites, a club called "After 8" They play house music and there's also a live band, it's tons of fun!! |
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