Member of the Portugeuse Club and more...

Last night witnessed everyone at the TAFL center (Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language...the "institute" we all gather at)-- Britishers, Germans, and Americans alike-- gather for the Iftar (sunset breaking of the fast). Aside from the prune-juice being a little too strong for my liking, it was quite tasty.

Ended up upstairs and talked with the professors (who had sequestered themselves off on another level. I insisted that there was a caste system at work, much to Nehad's embarassment and what seemed like their bemusement). Then the stories from summer school came out-- mainly from Nagua and Nehad, who told everything about my chess addiction to dandyism on test days (they seemed impressed, actually) to chasing after the girls in the Spanish and French Schools over the summer. THAT was a little embarrassing, though I got a few conspiratorial winks from Mahmoud. We laughed loudly until the time for the evening prayer rolled around and the head table disappeared into the carpeted back room.

Interestingly enough, all of them wear the exact same shoes, only in different sizes. While they were absorbed in prayer, shoulder to shoulder, Magda (the office go-to, as it were) in her brightly colored turban decided to mix up their shoes behind them. When I pointed out that she was being mischievious while they were being pious, she turned to Nehad and asked her "Did you see Michael switch the shoes?" I'm very fond of the sense of humor here.

We caught cabs with the Brits down to Rushdy, which is something of th known expat quarter, to get into the Portugeuse Club. To enter, you have to knock on a giant gate to a villa, and you're hard pressed to even see a sign-- it all reminds you of a speakeasy, until you get past the grumbling doorguard into the courtyard, which is very tastefully lit and makes ample use of shadow. It's not much, as far as clubbing goes, but everyone inside is a foreigner (they actually don't allow Egyptians inside unless their English is unparalleled) and you buy your bottles of Stella five at a time. Chef's pretty decent, too-- we had a pizza that, despite lacking tomato sauce, was fantastic. Ended up buying a membership from the bartender-- won't have to pay to get in and now get twenty percent off drinks.

At the bar inside met a couple of guys from Stateside that hailed from Alabama-- one was an electronics instructor to the Egyptian Navy (who has no cultural sympathies whatsoever) and two maritime inspectors. All had been here for more than two years, and the first questions they asked me were: "How many times were you cheated from the airport to the house?" and "Does it suck yet?" Was actually quite embarassed for my own culturally empathetic tendencies. But it was still pretty nice to kick back a beer and a cigarette with a couple of blue-collar guys. Wouldn't trust them further than that, though.

Smoked so many cigarettes last night-- it was absurd. Largely do to sitting down next to an extremely interesting economics major from England who has a pure Orientalist interest in the Sudan. Made an agreement to go to Damascus with him in the winter.

Then the subject turned to Islamic theology.

We must have argued extremely vocally for quite some time-- I think I was the only academic with any background in the subject, the rest were Muslims, albeit knowledgeable ones, putting the quotidian spin on the religion. Unfortunately, I kept combating with scholastics. Snobby as it sounds to say that, it was remarkably unhelpful; everyone knows that the religion as an orthopraxy differs from the orthodoxy of the belief.

When we got into Sufi interpretatioins of certain ayahs, I looked at my watch, realized it was 3 AM and that I had had quite enough to drink. Said my goodbyes, and Lauren and I stumbled home.

What a night.