Here are some photos from my walk through the old Islamic quarter of Cairo. Its rustic streets and alleyways were the city’s main thoroughfares for a thousand years after the Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969 AD. Today, a stroll along the dusty paths that crisscross among the historic mosques and crumbling walls is quite a …
October 6th is a national holiday in Egypt. It was on this day, in 1973, that President Anwar Al-Sadat launched a surprise attack, crossing the Suez into the Sinai, starting – with Syria attacking simultaneously in the Golan Heights – the Yom Kippur War. It was also on October 6th, 1981, during a military parade …
It’s about 5:30 and I know I am on a fool’s errand. I want to find a school notebook and some index cards so I can rewrite the notes from today’s Arabic class and make flash cards to learn my numbers. But during Ramadan at this time of day, you can see the lights going …
Some of you have heard me talk lately about my suspicion that I’m the main character on some kind of Truman Show. You may remember the 1998 Jim Carrey movie, where a man’s entire life, from birth, is a reality television soap opera and everyone he knows is just an actor on the series. I …
For the near-sighted, getting a haircut is often an act of faith. Once the glasses come off, you are at the mercy of the guy with the scissors and clippers as you gaze hopefully into your own fuzzy visage in the mirror. Add language and cultural barriers, and you end up in your own Lasik …
Thursday night, as the driver brought me home from a shopping spree at the French supermarket Carrefour, we drove from the eastern outskirts of Cairo toward the sunset and the area of Giza. With the sun dipping below the horizon, the orange light silhouetted the great pyramids, making them visible through the city’s haze. It …
Yesterday, I went on a tour of greater Cairo with other new AUC faculty members. The bus meandered through the streets of various Cairo neighborhoods, with a running commentary provided by Associate Provost John Swanson. Here’s the view from the cliffs overlooking Cairo. Swanson says on a clear day you can see the pyramids. But …
In my nearly two weeks at The American University, I’ve noticed something about the campus: The place is full of cats. I think the cat to student ratio rivals the faculty-to-student ratio by a wide margin. The well-fed felines lounge on chairs and hang out below tables and munch on the piles of cat food dumped on …
Here are a few images of the place where I’ll be teaching (that is, if any students enroll in my class — see post below): The courtyard outside the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism. The Islamic architecture of the administration building. A warning sign in the garden outside the classroom where I’ll be …
Today was to be my first day of classes at the American University in Cairo, but I had no students. I’m told it’s because I’m an unknown quantity, teaching an elective course that’s never been taught before. Since students had no idea who I am or the strange subject I’m teaching — just what is …