One Month Down

The week has been relatively uneventful as far as seeing new sights. My classes are interesting, but I am not used to such a small class size! I haven’t been an active participant in a class since high school, and I am finding it exhausting especially because of the language component. My one on one class was the highlight of this week, as I learned in depth about the five pillars of Islam, including how Muslims pray, and perform abolutions (the systematic and specific way to clean your body before you pray). Along with this came a lot of fun facts like, a menstruating woman cannot read the Qur'an, and that if it was a life and death situation it would be ok to eat food that is not Halal, like pork products, as long as one doesn’t indulge and just eats enough to stay alive. My first class on Islam (two weeks ago) was really long and it was difficult to focus because it was just the teacher and I for two hours. This time I made a conscious effort to have a dialog instead of a two-hour lecture and we fell into comfortable discussion, which was a great improvement from the first meeting’s stiff lecture.
My other teacher for my one on one is a little more extroverted, and we clicked immediately on our first meet. At the end of the lesson he invited me over to his house for tea, along with the other students who are studying the same topic! We are going over tonight to meet his family and I am so excited!
Going out in Alexandria is definitely a feat. Most of the women in the dorm don’t leave except to go to class. Additionally, there aren’t a ton of places for women to go at night, and some of the Ahwas (cafes) don’t even allow women inside. All of the bars and clubs are tucked away in alleys, and you can’t ask anyone on the street where they are because then you are automatically assumed to be a prostitute. It is important to know the location of the place and some of the landmarks around it. For example, Andi and I found an ex-pat bar after looking for half hour. We went into the Sofitel and asked the receptionist there, who told us to look for Partners Loyal Hotel. We inquired on the street about the hotel, but very few people knew of it despite the fact that it was a massive hotel, and only one street over. Finally we found the bar, a little hole in the wall that looked like it was out of an Ernest Hemingway novel and it was really fun! After that, we met up with the rest of the group at a local haunt that has an upstairs with music. Tuesday nights are the first nights of our weekends, but nobody else is off, so usually we have most places to ourselves, which is really nice. Wednesday was pretty uneventful. It is still over ninety degrees here everyday, and it that makes walking around and exploring really difficult. I personally cannot stand the heat, and when I am in jeans and a sweater and a scarf it is even less fun. But I just did my homework and relaxed in my air-conditioned room. After dinner we met up with some of the boys and hung out along the Corniche. All in all it has been a low key, but not boring, weekend. Tonight we are going to try a fish restaurant and then I am going to my teacher’s house.
I am still definitely processing life in Egypt, and I may be processing it until I leave (only 74 days, 11 hours and 4 minutes…but who is counting?). It is hard for me not to feel like an orientalist at times, especially when my Internet shuts off in the middle of a conversation, or when people on the street or in a tram car who have really extreme body odor (Egyptians do not take the same measures for personal hygiene as Americans do...deodorant is not a necessity, they change your clothes once a week and showers are infrequent). I am making an honest effort to be more relaxed, and even if I don’t want to embrace the differences here, I can just accept them. September is almost over (TOMORROW) and October is going to be crazy! I am going to Luxor and Aswan on the fifth, my parents are coming on the thirteenth and we are doing a group trip to Marsah Matrouh (a beach town two hours away) on the twenty-seventh, so hopefully this month will move by a little faster.