Mashallah!

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I have not had “Western” food since arriving. My new favorite Egyptian dish is called “Koshrii”, known in American girl terms as “Carb Heaven”. It consists of rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and tomato sauce. Beyond that, there is a yellow sauce (lemon) and a red sauce (kill-yourself spicy) that you can add on at your leisure. There’s a spot on Shariah al-Tahrir, about a minute’s walk from campus that serves Koshrii and only Koshrii.

That’s a trend I’ve noticed among restaurants here: they all have specialty. You go to one place for falafel, another for shwarma, and still another for mukhayara.

 Another inescapable observation is the abundance of felines. I challenge you to go anywhere in Cairo and not see at least 3 cats. Seriously. Cats are to Cairo what pigeons are to New York. This is probably not the best metaphor, as pigeons are edible here. I hope cats aren’t edible in New York.

 Cairo-lung is starting to catch up with me. I don’t understand how people can continuously smoke cigarettes and shishah and cope with the smog.

Another obstacle has been my Arabic. My study of the language has been by no means extensive, but I can hold a good conversation in what is known as fusha, or Modern Standard Arabic. This is the Arabic you hear on al-Jazeera or read in the Qur’an and newspapers. However, when you tell the falafel guy about yourself in fusha, you get some pretty astonished and confused looks. So I’m currently enrolled in a ‘Survival Arabic’ course that lasts until Saturday. It’s taught by all CASA professors. For those of you unfamiliar with that program, it’s the premier international Arabic Language program. Highly selective, the AUC CASA program admits only a few students a year. For those lucky enough to have been chosen, there is no tuition. Alhamdulilah! After a few hours of class today, I already feel much more comfortable with the dialect. The patterns are easy to pick up on, especially having studied so much fusha. At least the shwarma vendors seemed pleased with my progress.

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