a new life begins

well, it's been nearly two weeks since i touched down in Cairo, and tonight i find myself sitting in a cafe not far from my new apartment. i'll be living in Dokki, a neighborhood smack in the middle of this city of 20 or so million, in a fourth floor apartment in a huge building on a major city thoroughfare. it's a far cry from my little house on a quiet street in Cayo. the traffic on my street - both human and vehicular - is astounding. Cairo is teeming. and this city truly never sleeps. i don't know if it's a strategy for living in extreme heat, but everything here starts later than i'm accustomed to. a friend of mine was invited to dinner the other night at midnight. i've routinely seen entire families complete with small children having a nice stroll past brightly lit shops at 2 and 3 in the morning. and the sounds of traffic and street conversations never end. and from what i understand, i've only seen the tip of the iceberg. i arrived a day after the start of Ramadan, during which life in Cairo tends to slow down (comparatively speaking, of course). the notoriously clogged streets are nearly empty for the couple hours surrounding iftar. everyone rushes home to eat with their families after a day of abstaining from all food, drink and nicotine. Ramadan is a celebratory time, but people can also get a bit testy. whether your pleasure be food, caffeine or nicotine, going without can definitely affect one's mood. but driving around the streets you also find great generosity. men with trays of drinks and boxes of sweets stand in the middle of the street just before sunset, bestowing their gifts on passing drivers. and in what i understand to be a particularly Egyptian tradition, large banquet tables are set up throughout the city where the poor gather to eat a free iftar meal. you'll find these feasts set up wherever room can be found - in alleys and under bridges. space is limited, so people start gathering a couple hours before sunset. and everywhere you find store fronts hung with colorful lanterns called fanooses.

it's been an education already, and i've only just begun. i've gotten a taste of mind boggling Egyptian bureaucracy while trying to negotiate my way through the mine field of school orientation. it doesn't help that it's Ramadan, and all offices close at 2 for the duration of the month. i've stumbled through five four-hour days of Survival Arabic class. the words are floating around there somewhere, i'm just not sure i've got the correct translations attached to them. i've found an apartment and made a few friends and even taken a day trip to Alexandria. i've learned to recognize a few landmarks, though the scope of this city is absolutely overwhelming. tomorrow is a day off, and i have no more ambitious plan than to unpack and wander the streets of my new neighborhood. then monday i start school in earnest with Intro to Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. only in Egypt would my classes run from 8-10:30 at night. where exactly have i landed? can't wait to find out...