Mysterious Smog

And the beat goes on. . .
So I’ve uploaded some videos. One is the audio recording I took at the café last week set to some pictures I’ve taken around Alexandria. The pictures are poor quality because I had to compress the video in order to be able to upload it, but enjoy anyway.
The second video is an audio recording I took standing on our balcony listening to the adhan, or call to prayer, in the evening. We have at least 3 or 4 different mosques in close proximity to our apartment, so we get a deep, rich chorus of voices at prayer time. My favorite time to hear the call to prayer in our area is the very first one of the day around 5am. The streets are so quite that it is the only noise around and it has a very strange, eerie echo. I will try to get a recording of that, but as you can guess, I’m usually asleep at that time. It woke me up the first couple of nights I slept in our apartment, but I sleep through it now.
Just a couple of updates from the week. First, the weather has been insanely hot and humid here this week. I mean, it blows your mind that one can actually sweat that much. There’s also a thick haze that settled around the city. It’s like a fog- you can see it down the streets when you look out our window. Normally when looking out onto the sea, you can see the coast of the city and the citadel in the distance. However, this week, you can see nothing but a white thick mist. We’ve heard several reasons from various Egyptians as to why this is. Reason A) it is pollution from Cairo that got carried in on some wind and will be blown out again before getting cold. B) It is sand blowing in from the desert. This usually occurs in the spring time, but rarely in the fall. Either way, it should clear out in a few days, we hope.
My roommates and I have switched from taking taxis in the morning to taking the tram. It actually turns out to take about the same amount of time because there is so much traffic on the roads that even the slow moving tram moves faster. It’s nice in the morning, but it’s rough taking the tram home. It moves a lot slower and it’s a ton more crowded. I was so packed in the tram today that I couldn’t lift or move my arms because I was pressed against other people. That’s why I always ride the women’s car- being that close to a bunch of men only invites trouble on the tram. But I was way more up close and personal with a bunch of Egyptian women that I ever really wanted to be today. Add the super hot humid weather we’ve been having- and you’ve got yourself one LONG tram ride.
Finally really starting to get into work at my internship. Mona and I are actually sitting down to write our article on the TAFL (Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language) Center as we speak. It will be our first official accomplishment. We also got to attend a conference over the weekend hosted by an NGO that discusses issues in Egypt today and also looking into Egypt’s future. It was a very high level of Arabic, so it was difficult to understand, but a very interesting experience. The panel I attended on Thursday night talked about the opportunities and obstacles in Egypt’s future. The speakers seemed very worked up about the Iran-Israel-U.S. love/hate triangle, and also kept mentioning Turkey, though I couldn’t exactly pick up the context on that. Also, they were very concerned about Egypt being able to protect its own borders, though they never did say from whom, and also referred to the Iraq war as “America’s failure in Iraq.” Overall, very interesting to listen to. I attended a panel on Saturday about education and scientific research and development, but I understood far less from that lecture.
American Councils had its official meeting this week in Alexandria with all of the heads of the Arabic department of the Universities in flagship. I was super excited to get to see Dr. Rammuny. We all had a group meeting where we discussed our first impression in Alexandria and our classes. Then Valeria and I sat with Dr. Rammuny for a little while on our own and got to talk to him. It was nice to see him and it makes me miss being in Ann Arbor. على فكرة ala fikra- be the way- The wolverines totally kicked butt this weekend and OSU lost. GO BLUE!