As of tomorrow, I will only have one week left in Egypt, which is sort of a sad thought. Worse, both Max and Lizz are actually leaving to go on vacation a few days before I head out, so my last couple days here may well be alone.
Not a great deal has been going on recently. Lizz’s mom came to visit a few days ago, so we’ve been doing some house activities to acquaint her with the city. Also, a guy I know from law school is goign to be in Cairo for the next few days, and I’ll probably meet up with him for a meal or something.
Last week I once again cooked Mexican food for my roommates. I’m not sure what it was, but it’s a recipe of Gilbert’s that I’d really liked when I had at his house – cubed beef in a spicy Mexican tomato sauce. I also made Mexican rice, and both were quite excellent. Plus, there was enough for us to eat leftovers for another couple days. One problem in cooking the dish was that the canned tomato sauce that the recipe called for couldn’t be found at the supermarket here, so I bought tomato paste instead for something like 20LE (~$4) a can. Ridiculous. On the other hand, dinner tonight was 4LE (~$0.75), and when I return to NYC I definitely won’t be living like that anymore.
More amusing was my attempt to find tortillas. I went to the Alfamarket, where I had bought them before, but I couldn’t find any where they had been last time. I asked one of the employees where they had tortillas, and he just looked at me confused. Clearly he had no idea what a tortilla was. Egyptian bread, called 3aysh, though, is like a tortilla – round and flat – but thicker. I tried to explain to him in Arabic what a tortilla was by saying it was like 3aysh only thinner. He says, “Oh!” and takes me to the 3aysh. No, like 3aysh, but thinner. He takes me to the cookies. Not sweet, I say. He asks someone else, and while asking that person a wealthier looking Egyptian also starts trying to help, saying it’s from Spain and some other things. Again, he seems as if he knows exactly where to take me, but it’s still futile. He asks me again, “Spanish bread?” and I realize the small mistake and correct him, “no, 3aysh mekseekee.” And off he runs and brings me directly to the tortillas. So, all, if you want tortillas in the Middle East, just call it Mexican Bread.
To go with the dinner, Lizz and I decided to try to make this drink that I had had once when I worked at the Dip Net Restaurant up in Maine during high school. My boss had called it Brazilian limeade, and as far as I could remember it contained lime juice, cocunut milk, and club soda. Coconut milk was easy enough to find after we decided on what the correct term for it was in Arabic, but lime juice is not something you can find in a grocery store here. Many ahwas sell it, though, so we thought we could maybe buy it from a juice shop in a large quantity. But no, the several we tried didn’t sell it. So, we decided to make it ourselves. We went tot he market and bought two kilos of limes (I think this is around four pounds, but I’m not sure) and brought them back to the apartment and spent the next couple hours juicing them by hand. It was totally absurd, and to make it really wonderful I’m pretty sure that I got the recipe for the juice wrong and so no one really liked it (except Lizz, who loved it and drank it for days).
Otherwise, not a great deal has been up. I watched a pretty funny Palestinian movie today with Max and had my penultimate Arabic lesson. Also, went to the French Cultural Center for lunch and had a savory crepe with good cheese, which was a nice treat. Problem with the French Cultural Center, for me, though, is that they respond to everything you say in French, a language that I speak far, far worse than Arabic. So, over and over I would say things to the waiter in Arabic and he’d respond to me in French that I couldn’t understand. I hoped that speaking in Arabic would indicate I wasn’t French, but no such luck.
I really am not sure what I’m going to do with the little time I have left here. There are a few more places I want to go, but I suspect it won’t be an extremely busy week. Some people have said I should do another trip, but I don’t think I will – what has made Egypt great for me has been the people I’ve met more than the things I’ve seen, and I think I’d rather stay in Cairo which, for a bit longer, I can call home.
Nick, glad you enjoyed the recipe—Kathleen who works with me knows the lady who is ceo of the newspaper “Eygpt Today”. Kathleen just found out you were there and as was asking about it . She is trying to track her friend down and will try to make an introduction for you. Keep in touch and see ya soon!!!!