Shorn

I got a haircut. Not just any haircut, but a HAIRCUT, by a barber who clearly knew what he was doing with a scissors and a straightedge razor. We were able to communicate clearly enough to understand what I wanted. He still cut it shorter than I wanted, and miraculously straightened by curly hair. But wow, was he good.

I understand now why barbers often doubled as surgeons back in the day.

The Muslim Brotherhood rolls on...

The multi-stage parliamentary elections will finish up in a couple weeks, but already the Muslim Brotherhood has shown it has the grassroots support it needs to be a viable political force . . . in a functioning democracy, at least.

The numbers don't lie:

444 - Total available parliamentary seats
15 - Number of MB candidates in the last parliament
1/3 (148) - how many of the available seats contested by an MP "independent" candidate
75 - Seats the MB has won so far - with one more round to go.

Let me put it do you this way: the MB has won HALF of the seats they've targeted. With one round to go.

Cry tears, secularists.

Looking for a home...

I'm in the midst of an apartment search, here in Cairo. I'll probably be living with some friends, so it takes a bit of logistics to find a place.

Here, the newspaper isn't the best source for housing. The newspapers here aren't good for news, either, but thats another story.

First, you can use your friends. The AUC community is still small, so if you don't know of a free apartment, you probably know a friend -- or a friend of a friend -- that does.

Second, you can use the bowwabs (the building doorman/watchman/all-purpose-man) in the area in which you're interested in living. The bowwabs seem to all know each other, and if they don't know of a place, their friend probably does. Sound familiar?

Third and finally, you can work through a simsar - probably best translated housing broker. The upside is he'll probably know several places that fit what you need. The downside? He'll get a cut of your rent. And not all simsars are beautiful souls with your best interests at heart.

Caveat Emptor, indeed.

Sinan unites Lebanon

My roommates and I were talking about what it would take to bring the Lebanese together into one big happy nationalistic family, and suddenly there he was, shakin' his booty for Lebanese nationalism.

To the Lebanese: if you don't want a groovin' Turk to unite you, you better figure something out soon.

I "monitor" the Egyptian parliamentary elections

Patrick F. and Michelle S.'s head - at the polling station

The biggest news was that I was allowed to be there. Technically I was under the authority of an Egyptian NGO, but mostly I was just rubber-necking. The elections went well compared to the presidential election and was a bit more interesting . . . from what I'm hearing, the ruling NDP remains dominant, the Muslim Brotherhood picked up some seats, and the other opposition parties got beat like a rented mule.

The NDP (and the MB for that matter) was much in evidence at the polling station I attended. Although campaigning was legally barred 24 hours prior to the election, scores of party reps clustered near the entrance of the polling station. Even inside, young NDP'ers with their distinctive t-shirts and neck cords wandered around with party propaganda.

One man told our little student monitoring group that the "Look, I voted" finger ink was bogus. Another man, outside the polling station, said employees from the nearby Gezirah Sporting Club had been bussed in earlier that day. the deal was simple: vote for the NDP man, get paid 150 Egyptian pounds each. For many of them, that was a half-month's salary.

From a VOA article:

The monitoring group Shayfeencom reported that police briefly closed one polling station in Cairo's Sakakini district after the judge running it was caught stuffing the ballot box for the ruling National Democratic Party candidate. Voting resumed after the judge was replaced.

Ah, democracy. On the other hand, I got a cool Muslim Brotherhood pocket calendar -- dates on one side and "Islam is the Solution" slogan on the other.

Bombin' Amman

I leave Amman, and it gets bombed by Al-Qaida. While it's tragic, and I'm sorry it happened, why didn't it happen while I was there? I wouldn't have been in any of those three hotels (too poor,etc.) but it would've been interesting to be there.

Does that make me a bad person? Maybe just a hindsight thrill junkie....

My first story in Egypt Today!

And hopefully not the last...

It's about a program at AUC that pays for head-of-their-class public school students to attend here. I'm currently in the process of comparing it with my original to see how much my writing was deconstructed. It looks like they kept the essence of my lede and ending. Hooray.

View it here.

Jordan: Chapter 2 - The Christian Restaurateur tells me how to be happy

His name is Ashraf. He is the proud owner of Clepatra's Restaurant, what he calls his "colloquial" restaurant. "Treasury," his tourist restaurant, is where he makes food wanted by rich tourists. Clepatra's is where he serves the People kebabs, chicken, rice and beans. Tonight, that meant us.

"Good, cheap food" had been the request, and with that - one of the young hotel front desk workers led me and Allison (as a scout team) to Clepatra's, just around the corner from the hotel. On the way he grabbed Ashraf, who had been yakking with the owner of a dry-cleaning place.

A bit later, our caravan dismounted in his restaurant. Much bread and rice was consumed. Delectably tender kebabs were savored. A good time was had by all.

Afterwards, with everyone going to bed back at Al-Anbat II hotel, I decided to stay at the restaurant and drink some tea. It had been a long day: traveling in a large group came with its own set of frustrations, and 24 hours of travel and waiting was enough to wear me down to a nub.

"Stay as long as you like," said Ashraf as he brought me tea in a small tin teapot. It was quiet in the restaurant -- a few workers in the back, a tourist couple from our hotel sat in the corner with one of the front desk guys and talked about . . . something. I sipped the sugary tea and wrote in my little black journal, hoping to wind down a bit before sleep and another long day.


I was in mid-sentence when Ashraf breezed back in from the chilly outdoors. "You smoke?" he asked, handing me a cigarette. I didn't, but it seemed like he wanted to talk and in this part of the world, it's almost rude to turn down the triple offer of nicotine, tea and conversation. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

We both lit up and exhaled, blowing smoke towards the front door and the traffic outside. We talked about what I was doing in Jordan (tourism) and where I was from (US, but studying in Cairo). I guessed probably didn't like Bush. I was wrong.

"I'm a Christian, not Muslim," he said. "And I think he is good to do what he thinks is best. It takes a tough man, a strong man." He sat back for a second, eyeing me to see if I got it. I wasn't sure I did. He leaned forward again.

"It is what is important to you," he said. "With many people, it's money."

"You don't think money is important?" I asked.

"It's useful to do things, yes," he said, stabbing the air with his cigarette. "But I want to make my God happy. I want to be happy, I want my guests to be happy."

But money can buy a lot of happiness, I said. Not so, he replied. At his upscale restaurant, rich tourists come in and expect meals with quality should equal the size of their wallets.

"I want them to be happy," he said. "And they're not happy unless I charge them one-hundred US dollars."

I sat back a bit, feeling the nicotine.
"That's a lot of money," I said. He smiled.

"But they're happy, so I'm happy," he said.

But that's cheating them, I said.

Suddenly two tall tourists walked in to Clepatra's, led by one of Ashraf's friends. Some referral business, this time from Russia.

"We want feesh," they demanded.

Ashraf sat them at a corner table and yelled at Mahmoud in the back to see if there Clepatra's had any fish.

"But why do you want fish?" He asked the tourists. They looked confused. They just wanted some fish. But Ashraf did not feel like feeding fish to the Russian tourists. They left, still confused, and Ashraf returned to my table.

"You see them?" he asked, as he lit up my second cigarette. "They weren't happy."

"But, don't you have fish?" I asked.

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently, "but they were not happy. I could see what they were thinking, like maybe my fish had bird flu or something. They're not happy, I'm not happy. And why would I have them in my restaurant?"

Jordan: Chapter 1 - to Petra

It was late when we finally rolled into Wadi Rum, the tourist-town just outside the old Nabatean capital of Petra in Jordan. We were a motley group: 9 AUC'ians and Julia the German. Together we had braved the overnight bus across the Sinai and spent all morning and afternoon figuring out how to get on the Nuweiba, Egypt speedboat ferry to Aqaba -- Jordan's port on the eastern finger of the Red Sea.



It was a close thing: Since Annie looked like the ticket seller's daughter, several of us got to buy the ticket in Egyptian gineeh instead of US dollars we didn't have. Our time in Nuweiba reminded me of of how a World War II fighter pilot once described his job: long hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.

Kofi and Me

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, will speak at AUC tomorrow. I have no doubt it'll be a packed house. He has a lot on his plate: Syria, Iraq and Iran as well as the oil-for-food thing hanging on like an angry dog.

He's in Egypt to palaver with Pres. Mubarak and the foreign minister. In case you didn't know, the Egyptian diplomatic corps has been in the thick of regional issues, and has a good combination of Middle East clout and powerful friends in the West. Annan's visit is proof of both.

We'll see what he has to say tomorrow.

Decision

Wow. Gotta love anonymous posts saying I should stop making excuses and spending all my time on the Internet.

To all of you out there who are (anonymous or no) concerned with my classes, I am dropping Arabic. Not because I'm failing -- since apparently I actually wasn't -- but because I need to spend more time in media here. I'll take a less intense Arabic class next semester, never fear. It's simply a matter of priorities.

In some ways, I'm sorry I brought it up on this blog. While I appreciate all of the concern and comments, this wasn't meant to be a public decision. Silly me.

Thanks for your concern, and if you feel like I'm a 'quitter,' than maybe you don't know me very well.