THINGS THAT I AM EATING

While I’m in the process of reconsidering my role as an itinerant blogger (thusly expressed in a Christmas acrostic poem by my dad, Cliff), I think I’d like to talk to you all about one of my favorite things in the entire world.

Not clothing (though I have a lot to say about that!), EATING!! This one time (Bostonians will appreciate this, I think), I had only recently been to my beloved Allston staple Yo Ma and was waxing poetic to Joel and Luke about it. I think I was going on a rampage about Burmese tofu and chickpea flour and shallots and tamarind and FLAVOR and they both went off in hysterics about how I should be a food blogger. I don’t think I should be a food blogger, or any kind of blogger, because I don’t think I have the adequate descriptors (or discipline) to talk about food ALL the time, but let’s be honest. I THINK about food MOST of the time, and even though Egyptian cuisine is ubiquitous at best, bland at worst (and food poisoning at VERY worst, but I have an iron constitution, SO.), with the help of a few friends I’ve discovered some really amazing establishments that seriously boggle my mind and bring tears to my eyes (yes. delicious food is apt to make me cry. along with beautiful mosques and deaths of authors).

All these establishments are considered “holes in the wall”, I guess, but I feel like enough khowagat frequent them for them not to be totally Baladi. I also take some issue with claiming authenticity because it’s a really muddled and contentious thing to claim, so I’m not writing this to talk about how I’m oh-so-Anthony-Bourdain, but more to talk about some really delicious and insanely cheap food that I ate and loved.

POMODORO is this place on Tahrir Street (a little past Hurriya, and on the other side of Midan Falaky) where you hang around awkwardly until the waiter brings you plastic stools and rickety tables and you plop down on the sidewalk. Then you wait for about an hour (at this point you’re getting relatively hangry, because you were hungry an hour and a half ago). Then you are handed a MASSIVE platter of pasta COVERED in seafood (clams, squid, fish, et. al.) and a big ol’ crab on the side. It sounds super sketchy to get seafood (street seafood at that) in a city that is three hours from the ocean, but TRUST. This ish will BLOW YOUR MIND. It’s a) SPICY (such a rarety in the Cairo of Secrets!) b) FRESH (hence the hour it took to cook it. I bet they have a little pond in the back!) and most importantly c) MIND BOGGLINGLY DELICIOUS. Even my gourmet friends like Max agree. Then you’ll be really full and have to take a doggy bag home and only have paid approximately $3 for this meal that would have cost $30 in Amreeka. WIN.

Then there is this place off Talaat Harb, down a little alleyway with a lot of lady-friendly ahwas off Mohammed Bassiouny. Y’all turn the corner, and there’s this little kitchen set up (outside, natch.) and this young lady tells you what she’s serving today (standard Egyptian mom cuisine, so a lot of mashi and beans, et. al.) and you tell her what you want and her mom COOKS IT FOR YOU. RIGHT THERE. So you get this super sizzling fried chicken and kofta and fresh SALAD and amazing beans and potatoes, et. al. and again. Tears stream down your face because what you just placed in your mouth is so much more delicious and cheap than the overpriced excuse for Baba Ghanouj you ate at Estoril two nights ago. Again, you’ll pay less than $3. WIN.

And, I just went to a new place on Falaky (I forget the name, of course) that serves pigeon. Pigeon isn’t super meaty, but besides the pigeon (which is funny to say in Arabic because it sounds like BATHROOM. ha, ha.) your waiter (once he acknowledges you) inundates you with this chicken broth and amazing salad and tehine and PICKLES (good, half-sour pickles! not the gross, limp kind you get with your falafel). Then you get your pigeon, stuffed with delicious rice, head still on and all (yeah, not for the faint of heart, I guess) and you pig out and you are SO FULL. Oh, and with a Coke it’s like $7. WIN.

In addition to all that, I also am apparently a great judge of character because I’ve somehow got friends who are AWESOME cooks. Last week Max made calamari with chili peppers and wilted arugula and beet and carrot salad and drool drool drool. Last night my friend Sam made us Iraqi beans and livers with rice and eggplant salad and garlicky yogurt pasta and okay. I just realized that it’s kindof cruel to boast about all this delicious food so much. I guess just think of it as incentive to come visit me so I can take you to these places and we can have a snaccident together. Okay? Okay.

THINGS I MISS PART 24389234:

SHORT SHORTS

KOMBUCHA

DRIP COFFEE

SPICY FOOD (Punjab Palace, mostly.)

HARPOON IPA

BACON

MAKING THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH MOM AND GRANNY AND AUNTIE CAROL

CATS THAT ARE OLD ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES

 

But whatever, there’s a lot more things I DON’T miss. Countin’ my blessings, y’all!

WHITE GUILT-INDUCED POST #1

Thanksgiving, and ‘Eid el-Adha, have passed, and thus another November (generally my least favorite month, followed by February). Kelsy and I spent our Thanksgiving day doing data entry for a research project we’ve been recruited for. As a theory person, I generally look at numbers and mock them. Now that I’ve been exposed to such tedium, every time I look at statistics I will think, “Oh! but the poor grad student who had to do all the data entry for that!*” New found sympathies abound!

While I’m not clear on the Bigger Picture of the project, it involves investigation of smuggling and the Somali and Ethiopian refugee communities. I am learning a lot, namely that White Guilt is a nagging thing that never goes away, and that I am beyond privileged, and that I don’t deserve it, and why did I get security and education and CITIZENSHIP, and these people got nothing? (so THIS is why humanitarians become raging alcoholics.)

Thanksgiving Day gave me pause to consider the bountiful blessings bestowed upon me (yes, that alliteration is annoying, but I DON’T CARE). Here in Cairo I can live like a princess for a mere pittance, and moreover, more importantly, I have a really amazing community (comparable, even, to the diaspora of friends in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and DC) composed of Americans, Canadians, Germans, Greeks, and self-hating Egyptians¹. And, I have CATS². I am 100% content, and not a day goes by where I don’t sit back for an introspective moment and bask in this Glowing Moment of My Life.

But I want to get back to this issue of theory and practice. I can talk all the jive I want about how I need theory to engage in my Academic Future, but though this is certainly true I know I also use it as a crutch to avoid the Harsh Realities present in my field. Most of my colleagues are really engaged in their communities-of-interest, and I’m not, and I know it’s because, to a certain extent, there’s a crippling despair hanging over the whole thing. Hannah Arendt, who is essentially the founding mother of my thesiswork and, along with Spivak and Butler’s Who Sings the Nation-State? and Anderson’s Imagined Communities, inspired me to pursue my current discipline(s), spoke of the refugee as threatening the very fabric of the nation-state system. For me, the fact that the Nation-State and “international community” (the puppet of the Nation-State, essentially) are incompetent (at best) and yet hold all the power in electing who receives citizen-ship, is beyond frustrating, and speaks to my own powerless-ness (and incompetence, for that matter) as someone in a very small, very elite community (Academe). It’s one of those things that consistently keeps me on an existential plane of wondering, “is this right? Why do I care? Why don’t I care enough?” Somedays, I wonder if I should be doing more, and other days I wonder if I should just give up and stop caring. But I know what I’m good at, and I know that I’m happy, and this is enough to convince me that I’m Doing the Right Thing (BUT AM I??).

I don’t mean to bomb the blogosphere with existential wanderings and bleak statements, but November, though I hate it, is above all my favorite time for introspection. YOU’RE WELCOME.

*Actually, I need to give Kelsy all the credit for this statement. She’s the one who said it. I’m just repeating.

¹Up for discussion: is self-hatred always the province of the upper echelons?

²One of whom is sick right now so SAY YOUR PRAYERS FOR THE LITTLE DUDE. Please and Thank you.

HALF-HEARTED APOLOGY (SORRY I’M NOT SORRY.)

I guess I should apologize for a lack of content, but I don’t really feel like offering a pitiful little apology. Last night I asked someone (half-jokingly) if he blogged and he said, no, he didn’t, because he didn’t feel like he could continually provide New Content. I feel a little bit this way too, I think, because I haven’t been doing anything magnanimous or amazing (though I went to Istanbul, and that city WAS magnanimous and amazing, but I am still trying to compile all my journaled FEELINGS about it into something somewhat coherent and maybe profound¹), I’ve mostly just been living and schooling and building relationships with people, things around me².

On a daily basis, I have somewhat of an established routine, and by routine I mean wake up and make coffee (it was very wise to bring my MokaExpress with me) as soon as possible, then sip it and try to plot out my day. Classes are in the evenings, and since I am loathe to learn new tricks (e.g. stop procrastinating), I am usually scrambling to finish readings and writings up to that point. What else? Oh, I eat a lot. Lots of bread and cheese and delicious tomatoes and koshari and cookies. Nights are usually composed of studying and taking dance breaks and sometimes a beer or two at the local watering hole, Horreya, which is composed solely of old Egyptian dudes and international youngsters³. Of course I’m compiling things in my Things-to-Write-About-and/or-Analyse bank, but most of the time I don’t really have the inclination to do so… yet.

But you all should know that I’m alive, and Really Alive at that, and that Cairo is loathsome and wonderful and chaotic and everything, all at once. I think people who have been here know what I mean, but I don’t think you can know what I mean until you’ve been here. You dig?

With this half-hearted apology, I also present some Things on the Internet that I’ve found intriguing lately:

• “Questioning the Veil, Questioning the Questioner” [Muslimah Media Watch]
• One of my favorite professors from AU, recently published, interviewed with Oliver Bancoult (president of Chagos Refugees Group) on DemocracyNow! [DemocracyNow!]
• “Favourite bits from fashion month” [the ever adorable Kris Atomic]
• “Brand New Pygmy Hippo Hits Rotterdam” [ZooBorns]

¹Ha. Haha.

²To Certain Persons: did you find that sentence CLOYING??

³A certain Mr. Gupta recently g-chatted, “you hang out at huriya? why am I not surprised?” OF COURSE I DO, boy!

CAIRO POTTER & THE CULTURE OF RUMORS

One of the most simultaneously annoying and endearing things about Egypt is its prevalent CULTURE OF RUMORS. Egypt’s Minister of Information works way, way over-time ensuring that RUMORS don’t get too out-of-hand. This guy is on TV at least once a week dispelling some myth. When I was eight, no one was going NEAR the tap water because EVERYONE was scared of cholera (hey, Moom, remember that?). When I was here three years ago, no one was eating chicken because EVERYONE was scared of bird flu. THUS, it follows that this year’s Top Rumor is our beloved H1N1¹. Upon arrival to the airport back in August, everyone had to fill out a card ensuring that none of us were carrying it (don’t worry, Egypt, I’m clean!) in addition to all that “nothing-to-declare” schtick.

“Oh, this H1N1 hype will die down soon enough,” I chuckled to myself as I pranced through customs². Three weeks later, I received an email from AUC:

AUC will be suspending classes beginning Thursday, September 17 until Saturday, October 3. The decision follows a request by the Egyptian government that the university suspend its classes in line with government universities, which have suspended classes due to concerns relating to the H1N1 flu.

Uh, what? I’d been in class for two weeks and was already going on holiday for ‘Eid, and now my vacation’s being EXTENDED? I scarcely know whether to be angry or utterly DELIGHTED!

So, it’s with some regret that I have to apologize for a lack of content re: THINGS I AM LEARNING. I haven’t had class long enough to tell you (though I assure you that I am learning lots about myself and promise to return a stable, self-actualized young woman). I will inform my readership that, in addition to my ‘Eid el-Fitr journey to Dahab, I’ll be taking a quick trip to Istanbul prior to resumption of classes. I figure that I’m here already, I might as well take advantage of Cheap Tickets and Close Proximity³. When I return from Istanbul, I’ll be in the thick of things: classes, kitten adoption, late night discussions at Odeon and Huriyya, eating Koshari everyday, planning for Halloween, etc.

¹of which I am a Proud Survivor.

²I DID prance! I always prance when I get to that airport. You can only contain your nostalgic joy for so long, y’know?

³I should note as well that at least Turkey has some semblance of relevance to themes I want to explore in my thesis, e.g. National Identity and Migrant Identity! &c.

But while the rumors persist and enable me to jetset round-the-region (no desire to jetset round the globe, really. too much to do here!), allow me to grace you with a very few pictures from my time in beautiful Dahab (in Sinai). The bulk of our time was spent lounging, breathing clean air, and scraping our legs on the reef while snorkeling.

Reveling in the fact that I don't have to wear sleeves

My roommate Kelsy loungin' seaside

Adorable kitties abound

lovely sunset horseride

SITUATING MYSELF (PART ONE)

Readjustment is two-fold, here.

First, a readjustment to Academia. Time management (ever my weak suit), course loads (I hurt already), nocturnal schedules (this, at least, I can take a liking to).

Next, a readjustment to Cairo. This provides the real source of my exhaustion. If you’ve never been here, then you need to picture it in your mind as a sort of dirtier, noisier, low-rent version of Manhattan¹. Save a brief few years as a youth in Small-Town New England, most of my life experience has been informed by an urban setting, so it’s not the city itself so much as atmosphere that lends to fatigue. While fair New England seems to be exhibiting symptoms of Autumn already, Cairo is still in the throes of summer. I’m a child of Sun, so it’s not the heat so much as it is the heat-cum-pollution, this in addition to cultural readjustment: waiting in lines, navigating sidewalks, crossing the street (my friend Javier calls it his favorite extreme sport!), enduring leers and cat-calls², stumbling through your broken lexicon of Egyptian Arabic- you get the point, I think! Readjusting to school after two years’ absence would be overwhelming enough without the cumbersome aspects of learning and relearning how to live in a place. There are days, and there are Days. My mom is certainly not wrong though. She noted once that the best thing about living here was that every day there was a Story, and I’ve found this to be completely true since my arrival.

Fortunately, Egyptians love a good holiday, and with the end of Ramadan comes a lovely ‘Eid el Fitr, during which I’ll be traipsing through the Sinai on a relaxing journey to Dahab. It hasn’t even been a month, and yet I feel that this is a well-timed and well-deserved vacation!

With all this complaint though, there is something to be said for living downtown and being able to hear the thousands of calls-to-prayer throughout the city. With every negative feeling comes an extreme sense of gladness that here, at least for the time being, this must be the place.

¹This is not to portray NYC as exemplar of The Metropolis, but since most of my readership is American, it’s a fair enough frame of reference, I think.

²Harassment here requires an entry unto itself. Forthcoming!

HOUSE HUNTING IN CAIRO

It is common sense not to agree to a flat sight unseen (THOUGH I CAN’T SAY I HAVE NOT DONE THIS IN THE PAST), so I arrived in Cairo in a very transient moment, in the midst of hundreds of other international students trying to do the same thing. I am lucky, because I have a billion (or, like, five) surrogate aunts and uncles who are infinitely gifted in the realm of hospitality and serve as this reminder that I’d be hopelessly lost without this vast, global network of friends, loved ones. I’ve been staying in my old ‘hood of Maadi, which is a fairly Westernised south-eastern suburb of Cairo, and since I grew up in this district primarily I feel very comfortable here. It has seen rapid, rapid development since my family left, so there are more grocery stores and skyscrapers than there were thirteen years ago, but it maintains the same quietness that makes it appealing to a lot of expats, and to girls who need to recover from jet lag, but now that I’ve adjusted to the time zone, it’s time for me to apartment hunt for my picture-perfect, Egyptian flat (gilded Egyptian furniture requisite. Cat-friendly would be nice, too!).

AUC, future Alma Mater and Beacon of Bureaucracy, provides incoming students with a vague idea (in brochure form) of how to go about apartment searching, so, like good little students, my Selected Roommate and I followed suit.

SUGGESTION: “Walk around in pairs, ideally with an Arabic speaker, and when you find a building you like, ask the doorman, or bowab, if there is an apartment for rent.”

Energized by some freshly squeezed ‘asir limon (that’s me, being hoity-toity and evading the obvious English word, which is lime juice), we bopped on down Qasr al-Aini, which is where many government buildings are located (many embassies are in close proximity, as well) and established that, yes, we like this ‘hood (Garden City, if you like the visual) for a variety of reasons. And so we commence wandering into buildings that we like. Tips for the Cairo Traveller: don’t think about what they look on the outside. Just don’t. A lot of these places are less than a hundred years’ old, but a hundred years’ worth of Cairo dirt and dust makes them look Decrepit and (not to be subjective, but…) Ugly. But if you know me then probably you know that I really love Ugly, Dirty things and thus this isn’t exactly a deterrent. Garden City apartments are mostly built between 1905-1940 so, if you can overlook the dirt (Real Talk: if you can’t overlook the dirt then you should not be here), you’ll find some pretty stunning early 20th century architecture up in this piece. But this is bordering on tangential.

There were essentially two things we overlooked when we ventured out. One was Ramadan, and the availability of bowabs. Ramadan, in general, leads to an overall decrease in productivity from the Egyptian Workforce-At-Large¹, so, instead of engaging in requisite bowab activity (watering plants, drinking tea, smoking, fetching groceries, carrying heavy things), most bowabs are sleeping (most WORKERS are sleeping, I should note. EVERYONE is sleeping because they’re HANGRY²!)

Our second major faux-pas was the convenient notion that the bowabs we encountered spoke English. Uh, whoops. Between my roommate (arriving straight from Texas) and I (hi, I’ve taken Arabic courses on-and-off since I was five and still know zilch³), we can manage “please” and “thank you” and “how much?” and “NO” and “WHAT, DO YOU THINK I’M CRAZY?”, but this is about it. The one bowab we encountered who was not napping or hiding from the hot sun hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were trying to pantomime to him (guess I should brush up on charades) and so we left, awkward, dejected, determined to improve our Arabic skills.

SUGGESTION: “Many people get apartments by hiring local brokers, or simsars, who are sometimes bowabs. They might show you a lot of places that are unacceptable, prolonging your search. It’s possible to negotiate out of their fees because landlords usually pay them, but you’re likely to pay half or full month’s rent.”

On Day 2, we went for angle #2: the simsar. Bottom line in Cairo: all venues that you are pursuing will be totally shady in some way, shape or form. That’s the beauty of it: everything here is infinitely more relational, so you’re not finding out about products from stupid Yelp reviews, you’re establishing a network and finding out from experience, or from hearsay, and hopefully, 3 out of 10 times, maybe, you’ll have some success. With all this said, utilizing a simsar is almost identical to using a broker in my old digs of Allston. The only discernible differences will be the Office* and the Service**. Some career fields are just universally sleazier than others, I guess, but at least Egyptians offer you food!

In the end, we didn’t go either traditional route and instead opted for an offer on the Cairo Scholars email Listserv, which serves as another venue for building up a supportive network here. Traditional “networking” and conceptions of that leave a bad taste in my mouth† (I do not schmooze, and never, ever will) but when you’re utilizing networks in a situation like this, you understand why they exist in the first place.

¹I mean, duh. Don’t eat for 12 hours and see what it does for YOUR productivity. At least here, there’s a support network! So much harder for Muslims in the States, in this regard.

²This term explains itself, I hope.

³I am not sure why I didn’t get Baba Cliff’s linguist gene. I thought I had it, but it turns out it’s only an interest in linguistics and not an actual penchant for it.

*Allston brokers will have a nice one with A/C and weird uncomfortable modernist furniture, Cairo simsars will have one that is currently “under renovation” with The Count of Monte Cristo on the bookshelf and a sagging sofa (they will be smoking indoors, of course).

**Allston brokers will forget your name and act stand-off-ish and snooty and insist that there is nothing in your price range in That Neighborhood, Cairo simsars will offer you soda and coffee and cigarettes and insist that there is nothing in your price range in That Neighborhood, and then they’ll say that you’re all family and invite you to Iftar that evening.

†Network theory, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame…

BREAD

I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable when biting into any American/Western iteration of “Middle Eastern Bread”, and every time I am back here I remember why: IT’S BECAUSE IT TASTES LIKE CARDBOARD.

On the other hand, American coffee remains superior.

LIVE FROM HEATHROW

As I write this I’m watching the sun rise from Heathrow in a most luxurious lounge chair where I intend to take a long nap. I am truly sorry that technology is not so expansive as to allow me to live-blog from the airplane, because believe you me, I would have utterly adored recording the minute details of Flight #1¹: the 9 year old boy who fell asleep on my shoulder², the first movie³, the second movie*, the flight attendant who asked if I was old enough to be drinking**, the dad-slash-photog who kept snapping pictures upon take-off and landing***, &C. &C.

All this to say that I’ve arrived half-way safely, and certainly not without the help of a great deal of people (many hands make light work, I get by with a lil help from my friends, &c.), so thanks all and I look forward to updating you all on the next leg of my journey. My departure from Ye Olde Hub was framed by frantically lowering my baggage weight (all the while muttering Mean Things toward the airline agent under my breath) and bursting into hysterical tears as I hugged my mom goodbye†. Sort of an appropriate goodbye to a city that I have a really wretchedly Love/Hate relationship with, I think.

¹Yeah, I could wait until my actual arrival, but I’ve got time to kill and Free Wi-Fi.

²I wasn’t annoyed because I love little boys.

³Did not anticipate I Love You, Man being as funny as it was

*I love bad movies but Ghosts of Girlfriends Past was painful in that way where you find yourself halfway through writing a discursive analysis of class, race and gender as portrayed by H.M. Matthew McConaughey and then go, “Wait. I’m doing a discourse analysis on a MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY MOVIE.”

**I tried to reassure him with a, “No, no, no, I’m actually 24!” but the man looked skeptical.

***Only a white dude can get away with that on an airplane.

†I’m certain many of you will be delighted by this fact that I am continuing my longstanding tradition of Crying In Public. The perfect Catharsis for what has been a fairly stressful several months.

WHAT I WILL BE DOING WHILE I AM IN CAIRO

Many of those in my peer group travel abroad to either a) have ludicrous adventures or b) commit acts of altruism. While I am certain there will be no shortage of “a)” and my present field of study will inevitably lead to “b)”, I cannot really paint myself as either adventurer or altruist; a) I am too lazy and b) I am too cynical. This is not to say that I don’t care about a) or b), necessarily, it’s just that, while I don’t have any certainty as to What I Want To Do With My Life 24-Year-Old Life just yet* I do have this vague goal of making The Academy more accessible to The Public, and what necessarily follows is that I move what I study in Academia from dusty old books to dusty old streets. Do you follow**? I guess, than, that I am traveling to pursue a third option, c) Research (and what an ugly word that is!), with an attempt to sprinkle in a little a) (for fun) and b) (for sanity).

I am not really sure yet how Migration & Refugee Studies will fit into this. My intention for a Master’s Thesis is to examine notions of National Identity and how it fits into both the Egyptian experience and the Migrant experience. I can tell you, semi-enthusiastically, even, that if there is one thematic that I’d like to continue to explore in my academic future, it is Nationalism (Masculinity and Whiteness come in close second and third, respectively, but that is ANOTHER day) and how it affects the immigrant/refugee/migrant experience. Nationality as a concept holds a lot of power in determining whether or not a subaltern community (say, refugees) legitimately has agency. Eventually, I would like to pursue a doctoral degree and so really, these two years are determining whether I want to continue in this region/topic or not, while also leaving me an option to potentially do more hands-on work with refugee, immigrant, and migrant communities worldwide.

While my primary occupation will be as a student, I am also looking forward to interacting with the Cairo community-at-large and examining the varying things I come in contact with as an expatriate, as a woman, and as someone who really loves this place. I am hoping to hone my writing skills as well, in hopes that this can help me both scholastically and on a personal level, so any and all commentary and observations from the diaspora that is my extended community of friends and family worldwide is wholly welcome.

*Well. I have ruled out some things that I Don’t Want To Do and some of these things are Work in an Administrative Office, Pursue a Career in Business, Be a Housewife, &c.

**Bear with me. In spite of having the best intentions, I am a product of my surroundings and yes, this sometimes means Great Critical Thinkers who use the most obtuse and inaccesible language. This language got me A’s on papers but really won’t get me anywhere else very quickly, and it’s something that I am still learning to harness and combat.