Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 1st, 2009 No Comments »
I am sitting in an internet cafe in Casablanca, Morocco, preparing to fly back to New York tomorrow to start playing music in various cities on tour for a month, and I am chatting with various travellers. In the past week, an extended detour through Morocco on my way home, I’ve met many: from Australia, Sweden, England, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 11th, 2009 No Comments »
Four days a week, I actually leave Cairo to take classes at the American University in Cairo (AUC), which is itself kilometers away from the center of the city. The trip, an hour in each direction, leads one to feel both a connection to the city, as countless neighborhoods, juice stands, historical sites, monuments, businessmen, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 26th, 2009 No Comments »
Two days ago I returned to Cairo having spent two weeks traveling through Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, and I have been reflecting on how my experience as a tourist in these countries, having thought of Cairo as a sort of “home base,” differed from how I would have seen them coming straight from America. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 2nd, 2009 No Comments »
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On some days, as I leave the metro at Midan Ataba, I pass televisions sputtering the latest pop music videos, and on others, they are tuned to one of the many Qur’anic recitation channels. Ascending the steps, I enter the space of the midan (square), where street vendors hawk shoes, tapes, and books, competing in the air for [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 22nd, 2009 1 Comment »
As a student in a country with a bustling tourism industry like Egypt, you inevitably reach a point in between the tourist and the expatriate resident. You’re haggled by shop owners, but you already know the tricks they use to get you to their shop. You’ve ridden the metro and the microbus, but still get [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 10th, 2009 1 Comment »
A “Mawlid” (related to the Arabic word for birth) is a festival that occurs several times a year in Cairo to celebrate the birthday of important historical figures in Islam, as well as Sufi saints. Today thousands of Egyptians, many foreign Muslims, and a few tourists filled the streets of Islamic Cairo for the birthday [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 28th, 2009 No Comments »
Malls are not a typical feature of the musings of American students abroad. They are the places we go to be reminded of home, to drink Starbucks and take a break from the more adventurous seeming experiences. The City Stars mall in Heliopolis, about a half hour from downtown Cairo, certainly reminds one of America, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 19th, 2009 No Comments »
Every week I spend approximately eight hours on a bus, travelling from Zamalek, near the center of the city, to the campus of the university, located in the suburb of New Cairo. Clustered with Americans, Egyptians, and others on a ride that can take up to an hour and a half, I literally experiene the the expansion [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 9th, 2009 2 Comments »
I have just begun a semester abroad at the American University in Cairo, an outsider in a university that is itself outside of Egyptian society. My hour-long rides on the bus to the outskirts of the city, where the brand new campus is located, bring to mind its inaccessibility to the vast majority of Egyptians [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 5th, 2009 No Comments »
One of the most fundamental sources of difference between my home and this new place is in how people relate to their cultural past. In Egypt, ancient history seems to be everywhere, displayed in sterile glass cases in countless museums, and on maps that spill out from tour agencies. Just as the pyramids rise up [...]