Mule

I went by the neighborhood by John, Ryan, Amin, and I lived this summer. It's one of the nicest areas downtown, with pedestrian-only cobblestone streets and plenty of foliage. The occasion was to order some books for my spring Modern Arab Literature course from the small, independent bookstore right by our building. It has a liberal slant, with the door covered in stickers proclaiming: End Emergency Rule; Free Palestine; Free Darfur; and American Goods = Israeli Bullets, Join the Boycott, and other slogans characteristic of the more radical Egyptian left, with a book selection to match. Our old bawwab (doorman), Hagg Muhammad, was delighted to see me, showering me with hugs and kisses, though he had usually been grumpy during our presence, complaining that John closed the elevator door too violently and that our American neighbor let sketchy Egyptian drug dealers into the building (which was true, but not our fault). I don't really have a point to this story, so I'll just go get some sandwiches now.

Christmas Day itself was pretty depressing. I found myself wishing I had gone back to the States like almost everyone else in CASA. Cairo had a rare rainy day, and downtown was almost empty when I got there around 5:00, after spending the day at home cooking vegetable soup and reading. The only highlight was that I talked to my folks on the phone at about midnight (4:00pm on Christmas Eve CST), I think maybe only the fifth time I've talked to them while I've been in Egypt. The day after Christmas I went out to Abu Sir in the early afternoon, enjoying beautiful weather, 70F with a nice breeze.
There I did the usual Abu Sir agenda of lots of tea and sitting around talking. When the kids get going in a conversation, it can be really hard to follow them, both because they don't pronounce too clearly and since they can make sudden, unexpected jumps from topic to topic. When I went with the two youngest kids (Ali 4, Hasna 8) to Uncle Abdul Zahir's house, I was able to have one of those all-too-infrequent moments where I could follow everything in a minute of conversation, between Ali and his cousin Hamdi, 6. They had been comparing which verses of the Qur'an they had memorized, and from there it was:
Hamdi (triumphantly): I know all of Surah Al-Fath.
Ali: Shut up, Abu Himaar [meaning "Father of a donkey" or "someone who has a donkey", in reference to a donkey the family had recently acquired].
Hamdi (taking pride in the name): The donkey sleeps in our room.
Ali: Where's it sleep?
Hamdi: On the bed.
Ali (incredulously): On the bed?
Hamdi: Where else would it sleep?
Ali: I'd make it sleep outside on the stairs [which lead up to another apartment].
Hamdi: But what would the people say?
Ali (with a sudden ferocity): If a donkey was sleeping in my bed, I'd poop on it!

I saw cousin Hani, who's about my age, for the first time in a couple weeks. I had tried to call him, but couldn't get there, as his mobile wasn't working. As I learned when I got there, it had been damaged by water in a car accident. He and a Japanese student (Tariq) living with their family, the other foreigner in Abu Sir, had gone out to the White Desert to visit some hot springs as Tariq was suffering from a skin disease. On the way back, just a couple kilometers from Abu Sir, a water buffalo meandered into the middle of the road away from its herder. Their car struck the buffalo and the driver panicked and veered off to the side, but went to far and the car started to fall into the irrigation canal. The driver jumped out, but Hani lost consciousness. Luckily there were some villagers around to come rescue Hani and Tariq, and they were physically fine. It still took a few hours to get home, since they had to get checked up on at the hospital and file a report with the police. In the meantime, through some awful misunderstanding, someone had gone to the Hagga (Hani's mother--Nori and Joanna, you'll remember her, the really funny, sweet old lady in a black abaya, Abu Ahmad's older sister) and told her that Hani had died in the accident. It all ended well, al-hamdu lillah, despite the unnecessary stress for the Hagga and the rest of Hani's family, and Hani's mobile is kaput.

My travel itinerary for break:
-Now until January 5th: go around exploring Cairo more, maybe a short trip to Ismailiyya.
-January 5th until January 9th: go to Asyut (an Upper Egyptian province that's about 50% Christian) for the Coptic Christmas, visiting my Egyptian Arabic professor and a friend who worked across the street from the hotel I stayed at when I first got to Egypt in 2003).
-January 13th until January 17th: go to Sinai or the Red Sea.
-January 20th until January 24th (?): go to Istanbul, visit Joanna.

I went to a party for Dan Murphy, the Christian Science Monitor reporter, on Thursday--he's going to Iraq for the next three months. Walid and several of the Afghans ('Abd al-Baseer, Yahya, Amin, and Shams) came with, since they all knew Dan either from ultimate frisbee or since Dan went to the Afghan house in Giza for the article he wrote about CASA. Seeing Dan sipping a beer upon our arrival, Amin pulled out and butchered an American English phrase I had taught him, trying to ask if he was drunk, saying "Your face, yaa Dan, it is a shit face".
I went by the souq (market) by Al-Azhar around 11:00 the next day to get fresh vegetables for some soup, which was difficult to make since the water's been cut off for the past week as they allegedly do repairs. It just started to come back this morning. Since it was just an hour before Friday prayers, the area around the mosque was swarming with Mubarak's black-clad riot police and National Security trucks full of more police were lined up and down the street. I spent the rest of the day in the apartment studying--finals are Sunday through Thursday, then we're off for Christmas. I'll be staying in Egypt for the vacation, but I might go visit my sister Joanna in Istanbul (notice the link to her new blog) after she arrives there January 15th.

There was an anti-Mubarak demonstration near the Al-Ahram building Sunday, at the Judiciary on 26th of July Street.
I've been staying busy with getting ready for finals, from the 20th to the 23rd.

"The Mosul attacks appeared to have been planned well in advance, according to American commanders. 'The terrorists told the civilians they were going to attack the Americans and to stay indoors,' said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, the commander of the First Battalion of the 24th Infantry, which controls much of western Mosul. Shops near the biggest ambush closed just before the attack, the commanders said."

Terrorism being generally definted as: the use of armed force targeting civilians for political purposes.

That's odd.

Mubarak boldly speaks up to praise Sharon and discourage the development of a multi-party political system in Palestine, which would be a dangerous precedent no doubt.
"We urge the Palestinians to have one voice and there is no need for differences at a time when we want to avoid differences," he said after criticizing Mr. Barghouti's decision to run.

I hadn't seen Amin for about ten days until Monday, when he made a dramatic entrance into the Gamaliyya apartment in a pimpin' new purple and black jumpsuit, and promptly launched into invective against the administration of Al-Azhar. After a quarter of an hour of swearing, claims that all Azhar students graduated from the institution with mental problems thanks to the University (Amin luckily seems to be in no danger of graduating before 2010), and him elaborating on his wish that some medieval conqueror who killed off a bunch of opposition clerics at Al-Azhar, had destroyed Al-Azhar for good and "made the world a better place", he finally came around to the reason for his wrath. The fee for replacing lost ID cards had just been raised from LE 35 ($5.50) to LE 50 ($8).
Amin and Walid came with me to play ultimate frisbee yesterday in Ma'adi. True to form, after learning the most basic rules (though not very well, since after making a swing pass from me he tried to run for a touchdown), he started lecturing me, Walid, and anyone else who could understand Arabic on what we should be doing.