Leaving

People ask me a lot why I came to Egypt.  I’ve never really given a coherent answer – I used to study Arabic, I’ll say, or I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt;, or I wanted to do human rights work – and every time I answer I feel like I’m faking.  Which makes sense, [...]

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Thirty Hours

As I write this, I have just under thirty hours left in Egypt.  One more full day.  I’m really quite sad about the prospect of leaving.

The last two days have been really great.  Yesterday was Lizz’s mom’s last day in Cairo, so I went with them and Matt in the afternoon to do a bit [...]

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May Your Children Look Like Washing Machines

One of the many amenities of our elegant aparment here in Cairo is what is charitably known as a semi-automatic washing machine.  It works like this: you put your clothes in a big vat on the left side along with soap which you have to manually fill with water using a hose connected to a [...]

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Winding Down

I haven’t written much the last few days because I’ve been a bit sick – allergies or a cold – for the last few days and haven’t been up to anything really.  It’s sort of annoying to be sick my last week here, and I hope that I’m better tomorrow so I can actually get [...]

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One Week

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 [...]

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Siwa

I’ve been remiss in not writing these last few days about my trip to Siwa, which was probably the highlight of my time in Egypt.  The plan is to correct that.
After driving through the desert, all the sudden there are palm trees by the thousands.  Then there are small buildings and dusty roads.  And then [...]

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Ice Cream

Lizz and I went to Zamalek tonight to meet a friend for dinner, and afterwards we decided to go to this really good ice cream shop for desert.  While we were walking, a young looking kid came up to us with a bunch of fresh mint, trying to sell it to us.  Lizz and him [...]

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Alexandria

I got back from my trip Sunday, and I’ve been a bit lazy about writing.  Because it was pretty long and I did a lot, I’ve decided to break it up into two parts so that, hopefully at least, no single post approaches the length of my Istanbul post.

The best way to get to Alexandria, [...]

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Another Trip

Blogging will take another brief hiatus, as I’ve decided to go on another trip and will most likely not have internet.

I spent most of today just sitting around and doing nothing exciting or interesting, and I realized that I don’t want to spend my last few weeks here like that.  So, around six this evening [...]

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Egyptian Journalism and Hijab

A few days ago, I remarked to Max while reading some article in Al-Ahram Weekly, the English version of the main government paper here, that the level of journalism was pretty horrible.  The articles seemed to constantly be criticizing the Copts or talking about a nascent Shia takeover.  Plus, the writing was absolutely atrocious.  Max [...]

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