Woo Cairo

The countdown on the Amideast program site is ticking ticking ticking. Forty days and counting, I'd better make the best of them.

This weekend was fun. Thursday after class we traveled en masse to the village of our Arabic teachers' boss. Met his family, helped (uh, questionably) them make fteer for all of us. Which was delicious. Saw lots of little kids running everywhere. Had them tell us the Arabic names of the animals that were wandering around, that I've now forgotten. Picked strawberries and mulberries and you know, rejoiced in a life of simplicity away from the noise and anger of Cairo proper. (That last statement was kind of tongue in cheek, dunno how well tone gets conveyed here—don't want to exoticize/simplify/excessively valorize/etc. rural life, but it was a nice change of pace.)

Friday we went to the Ahly–Zamalek football/soccer game. We were Ahly fans, and wore red and got our faces painted appropriately to show it. We sat in first class with like, a super clear view of everything. Right by the field. Also a super clear view of the helmeted-and-masked policemen surrounding it. And of the less intense policemen who protected us Amurricans as we entered and left the stadium.

I don't know anything about soccer but it was super intense, was tied 2-2 for a while, Zamalek scored again real close to the end, we left to beat traffic, as we were walking out we heard the cheers etc surrounding another Ahly goal. Woo. So it was tied. And I guess you're allowed to leave it tied, apparently. So yay, or something.

Saturday I went to Khan al-Khalili again. Probably the coolest place in Cairo haha. Bought a sweet looking dagger with the shahada inscribed in the scabbard. I'm kiiiiind of a Muslim terrorist. It happens. I also really want to buy an oud but I don't know how much that would cost / how feasible that is. Hm.

Anyway yeah weekend. Ho hum classes now. Islam and Politics midterm today. As usual I'm terrible at that. Wrote the long essay and time was up. Oops. Didn't get around to the short essay. So I guess uhhh we'll see how that goes.

Speaking of Islam and Politics, we have a term paper due coming up prettttty quickly. I want to write about the idea of fitna, I think. Something about the relation between women's bodies and political bodies it creates, between chaos and seduction, and the impact this has on the creation of a feminist Muslim imaginary.

Or at least, I thought it sounded like a good idea. I asked my professor if she could like, point me in the right direction and give me some resources to start out with, though, and she was just like ... uh, no, maybe try emailing this other person? So I did, but she hasn't responded yet. Rawr. I will be grumpy if I have to change my topic. This idea makes sense, darn it! ...Right? If you are reading this and can help me out PLEASE DO. I will be eternally grateful.

Ha. Okay that's it for now. Later!

oops i forgot to give this post a title. ramblings.

Oh wow. It's been a month since I last updated. Hm. Things in Cairo have settled, I guess. Life's more ordinary than extraordinary at the moment but I suppose that's how it's supposed to be. Apparently there's a protest in Tahrir Square today, though I haven't been downtown so I don't actually know. Something related to the April 6 Youth Movement, protesting to free the people who were arrested in their protest last week, to raise wages, to push for various constitutional amendments, to generally reform the country I guess. It's a pretty intense time here politically, I think. (Although I'm not sure it's ever not.) Parliamentary elections are this year and presidential elections are next year and that's gotten people talking and advocating for reform in the system like whoa. Of course it's possible (probable) that nothing'll really come of them, that the Watany party will continue to be the waaaay dominant one and that either Mubarak or his son'll be president come 2011 but still. Not everyone's as cynical as I am I guess.

The past couple of days the police seem to have been more ubiquitous than usual though, their little street corner booths supplanted by the large boxy green vans with barred windows they have lining the streets. It's strange though to look at their faces. We rode by in our little tourbus, staring as Americans tend to, them staring back equally though which in some ways made it okay. One man in particular stood out. As we passed by one of those dark green trucks, sitting there all ominous with its caged windows and armed guards, we noticed the individual behind one of those windows, a young policeman, a grin on his face, his hand waving at the group of harmless tourists (us) passing by. Like so many little kids before him have done. And in fact, he wasn't much more than a kid. His mustache was of the variety grown by people who can't really grow a mustache yet but are too proud or excited to shave it off, a hint of a mustache, a wisp of a mustache, the sort of mustache that can only dream of one day becoming as mustachey as those mustaches sported by the middle-aged Egyptians who wander the streets (and boy do they have some inspiring mustaches). Point being, who are these people? Pretty much all the police seem his age. Seem my age, or maybe younger even. Sometimes they look sleepy, sometimes they look excited, sometimes they do pull off threatening (because lord knows the police here have wrought carnage and brutality in the past and for sure they will again) ... but yet there's an inevitable incongruity in seeing these kids with guns in their hands and uniforms on their backs. Hm.

Speaking of kids, sometimes (like today), if I walk back from school at a certain time, I pass by hordes of them also headed home for the day. They are dressed in the identical uniforms that make me sometimes wish I had gone to a private school, all navy pants and striped button-downs and the poorly tied ties that characterize elementary-schoolers allowed to dress themselves. A soccer ball deflated and ripped in half suffices nevertheless as a soccer ball for the youngest kids as they gleefully charge after it down the street. The older ones amble in groups. Either way, there exists a nice sense of community and solidarity and general happiness (the universal feeling of yay! school's over! that I guess everyone experiences) that makes me long slightly for an earlier time, and also wish I'd grown up somewhere where I could walk places instead of having to take the bus or have my parents pick me up and drop me off alllll the time.

Walking back from school, I also pass this sign:

بتحب مصر ... بتعمل ايه لمصر؟؟

Which translates to, "You love Egypt ... What do you do for Egypt??"

These billboards are everywhere, prodding, interrogating, asking why exactly it is I love Egypt and what purpose that love serves. They're good questions, and the fact that they're advertisements for the Bank of Alexandria doesn't change that. Why do I love Egypt? Or, I love Egypt, but what do I do for it?

I come here, I study, I party, I leave. I fall in love with Egypt as an outsider, as someone for whom the grass is and will always be greener on the other side. I love it because of the dirt, the za7ma, the noise, the feeling of being alive that these things produce. The feeling of being swallowed. The feeling that you are part of something larger than yourself, the feeling that's not really to be found in midwestern college towns no matter how hard you try. But what of the people who were born here, who live here, who can't get out of here? For them Cairo is as stifling—more so, no doubt—than America, that land of blue skies and endless opportunities. It's ironic how the American dream has produced a generation of youth who want nothing more than to leave the country, and has given them (us) the sense of entitlement that allows them (us) to do so and market it as something "courageous" or "enriching" and not just a luxury that they (we) inevitably take for granted. By mere virtue of travel, of being here, you are in some way proclaiming your superiority. And the fact that you're not really doing anything other than selfishly falling in love only heightens that. At the same time, trying to "help" Egypt in any way would also reinforce your status as an outsider who thinks they have more status/power than native Egyptians. It's a Catch-22 I guess. Blah.

Hm. In other news, I guess in the past month I've traveled to the Black and White Desert (which was beautiful), and to Alex, which was also cool I guess. We had a week of spring break, but I just stayed here and tried to catch up (at least somewhat) on work for my research mentor back home. We had field trips for my IR class to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, which were fascinating. Basically listened to important people talk about Israel/Palestine. And of course claaaaaasses. For MSA today we read this really great poem by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet. Here's the first stanza:

على هذه الارض ما يستحق الحياة:
تردد ابريل
رائحة الخبز في الفجر
آراء امراة في الرجال
كتابات اسخيليوس
اول الحب
عشب على حجر
امهات تقفن على خيط ناي
وخوف الغزاة من الذكريات

Which translates (I think) as:

On this earth what makes life worth living:

The coming of April

The smell of bread at dawn

Women's opinions of men

The writings of Aeschylus

First love

Moss on a stone

[uhh something i don't know what it means]

And the occupier's fear of memories

Ummmmm it sounds better in Arabic. But you get the drift. Cool cool.

Annnnnnyway I should really be doing homework. So, peace. Just figured I should (finally) update this...