­­A few days ago in the wee hours of the morning I found myself sitting on the couch scribbling furiously in my journal.  I’d just got back from a night out with two friends in a bar known to one of them. We wound up sitting with two diplomats Ghana who were interesting and fun … Continue reading →

I helped my roommate out a few days ago by mailing her ballot while she was at class. This actually turned into a whole rigmarole because unbeknownst to me the Fast Mail option in the Egyptian Postal system requires not only the address of the recipient but also their phone number plus the sender’s whole … Continue reading →

I woke early this morning to get ready for a talk I delivered to the AUC Foreign Students’ Association today.  (Only one person showed up for the talk; no surprise given the number of people I know who were staying up all night to watch the election results.)  Shortly after getting up I flipped the … Continue reading →

I woke up late today.  I could feel my heart fluttering like an anxious bird and I decided it was because my body wasn’t getting enough oxygen from my weak lungs so it was just pumping the blood around faster in a futile effort to make it up.  I rolled over and went back to … Continue reading →

“So what are you doing in Cairo?” asked the young man. I explained about my PhD in belly dance, tourism, and globalization.  (That’s not what it was about to start with, but that’s a whole other story…)  Whereupon he said brightly, “Oh, I know somebody who’s doing a Fulbright about the same thing!” I nearly … Continue reading →

When the table crashed over spilling beer and broken glass everywhere for the second time, I decided to go home. Before I even say anything about this whole event I have to confess that I know who reads this blog and I’m afraid that in writing about it I’ll be setting a poor example and … Continue reading →

About a week ago I went to a dance show with my friend Lorna, some visitors she was having and my roommates.  We went to see a dancer called Randa that none of us had seen before.  There is an internationally famous dancer named Randa Kamil; the one we were seeing wasn’t her. At the … Continue reading →

In the middle of downtown Cairo is a huge and imposing gray building known as the Mugamma.­  If you search for it on Google most of the sites that pop up are other people’s blog entries about trying to get visas renewed or do any other bureaucratic task that involves a government office here in … Continue reading →

On Sunday my phone rang at 6:30 in the morning.  “Hnh?  Snzx!”  I said, looking at the screen to see that it was a number I didn’t know. Waking up a little more I thought to myself, “who on earth would be calling me from an unfamiliar cell number on Sunday morning at 6:30?!” And … Continue reading →

The other night I decided to go to a dinner party with some friends of my roommates.  Before we leave Eva warns me for asthma-related purposes that in the apartment there will be a kitten.  I happen to love cats despite being deathly allergic to them, so I am pretty excited. We arrive at the … Continue reading →