Work and play, week 4

Felucca, wine, and friends

Cairo at night from felucca

It's coming up to the end of our fourth week here, and though complex, we like life here. Our week began with a call from Barbara Price, a dive buddy, who invited us to join them on an impromptu felucca ride and picnic on Saturday, the 10th. After a day of work and lots of news in Egypt, we were delighted to accept. Walking from the Corniche in Maadi down the steps to the feluccas was magical: the noise of the street disappeared, replaced by the sounds of the water.



The river was breezy and cool (relative to the 90+ degree days) and the quiet delightful. Anyone can rent a felucca without a reservation for about LE50 per hour, around $9 USD. You can bring as many friends as you wish, and we look forward to felucca picnics with everyone who comes to visit us here--that's a promise.

My teaching schedule is Sundays and Wednesdays--Sunday is the start of the work week, which is taking some mental gymnastics still--and the students at AUC are engaged in rallies in addition to classes. The students here are very different from my grad students at Trinity, less academic (you don't see a lot of backpacks heavy with books), very polite, and I am addressed simply as "Doctor," a little unsettling to me. Harris and I went to a great lunch meeting with the dean of humanities, and Harris is making his own academic connections at AUC. I am hopeful that my midday classroom's air conditioning will be functioning on Sunday. You can imagine what a sauna the classroom is when it's on the blink.

Annemarie and Bruce

The Nile from the Lohof's Zamelek flat

Fulbright in Egypt has come through for us in all kinds of ways. My boxes finally arrived at the flat, and both of us feel like our partial lobotomies have been reversed. I'd no idea how much I missed my stuff until it arrived. In addition, my brother Bruce succeeded in sending us our marriage certificate, so Harris can get a residency visa (handled by the capable staff at Fuylbright). FYI, those of you traveling to the middle east who are married with different last names: bring your marriage certificate! On Wednesday, we attended a required orientation at the US Embassy downtown. It was fascinating, partly for the information we gleaned (lots of common-sense stuff about security, food safety, etc.) and for getting a glimpse of the Embassy from inside. Visitors are intensively screened, all electronics must be left at the front desk, and access is only available with an Embassy escort. After the orientation, Bruce Lohof, director of the Binational Fulbright Commission in Egypt, hosted all the Fulbrighters at the beautiful Nile-front flat he and his wife Annemarie share. Dinner was as good as the view.

So life proceeds. We are probably getting fat from Kiki, the housekeeper's, superb Egyptian cooking, so we added Pilates in the morning to push-ups and lots of walking. An early "happy birthday" to friend TC (a frequent commenter on the blog) for the 29th. Looks like we may see Harris's sister Nancy and husband Tom next month, possibly my uncle Bill and aunt Rita in November, and we are counting on McCombies and Andrew in December. Everything we have learned tells us that though Egypt is going through a lot of change, things will work out well. We hope so. The Egyptian people are wonderful.