(no subject)
Mohamed and I went for our Friday coffee morning in Zamalek in the gentle sun and people-watched and bought Pandora special super fancy persian kitten food, some toys for her to bat around, and they gave me a nice grey fleece cat travel blanket as a free treat. I'm having a real moment of fetishising 'travel' items - they're inherently glamorous - but even I cannot quite see the point of a cat travel blanket. Cat's feet towel, yes. Cat's travel blanket, no.
Spent the day writing a proposal, and then went to Mar Girgis to catch the last day of a show at a space called Darb 1718. I've been congratulating myself lately on no longer getting hassle and general travel stress - I feel so smug next to the wild-eyed, indignant visitors who come through - but today I totally regressed, somehow managed to get a taxi driver who went several miles in the wrong direction, who unintentionally got into a fight with another driver and his three friends, got us lost, and when we got to Mar Girgis, which is very poor, labyrinthine, and easy to get lost in, with the basically useless gallery map, I was soon being followed by two adorable little girls who took me, now flustered, under their wing, singing 'hello teacher, hello teacher, how are you? How are you? My name is ___, my name is '___ , thank you miss, thank you miss' to the tune of Frere Jacques, and they delivered me to a street food guy who took one look at me and said 'Mr Motaz?' which is the name of Darb 1718's curator and he walked me there out of pure kindness. Much of this could equally happen to a Cairo person, but I have this superstition that merely by having the glow of naivety around you you just magnetically *attract* the ingredients of a stressful and bemusing journey that requires the intervention, energy and goodwill of people with whom you can't even communicate properly. But apparently I still have many, many more episodes of feeling helpless, bemused and slightly like a dickhead ahead of me.
After that I met Hassan at Costa for a coffee (I told you before, Costa Coffee is like Al's diner on a Friday night in Cairo). A lot of fun. I forget how few friends I have here and how antisocial my life has been the last couple of weeks.
Anyway Hassan. We have this imaginary press conference where N is the speaker and when it comes to questions we'll stand up and highlight - investigative journalist style - all N's petty failures. 'And I have it on record - that in August 2008 - you admitted - and I quote - that you didn't know what the word 'bourgeoisie' means.' I'm not sure why we find this so funny, but we act it out with accusatory gestures and everything and then seriously we think we're hilarious.
N gets here! In ten days! He's bringing concealer for pale skin, Tanqueray gin, and his lovely long legged self.
Tomorrow I've set aside the whole day for the Cairo book fair. It has a considerable English language section, and a second hand section the size of several hundred football pitches or something. Can. Not. Wait.
Spent the day writing a proposal, and then went to Mar Girgis to catch the last day of a show at a space called Darb 1718. I've been congratulating myself lately on no longer getting hassle and general travel stress - I feel so smug next to the wild-eyed, indignant visitors who come through - but today I totally regressed, somehow managed to get a taxi driver who went several miles in the wrong direction, who unintentionally got into a fight with another driver and his three friends, got us lost, and when we got to Mar Girgis, which is very poor, labyrinthine, and easy to get lost in, with the basically useless gallery map, I was soon being followed by two adorable little girls who took me, now flustered, under their wing, singing 'hello teacher, hello teacher, how are you? How are you? My name is ___, my name is '___ , thank you miss, thank you miss' to the tune of Frere Jacques, and they delivered me to a street food guy who took one look at me and said 'Mr Motaz?' which is the name of Darb 1718's curator and he walked me there out of pure kindness. Much of this could equally happen to a Cairo person, but I have this superstition that merely by having the glow of naivety around you you just magnetically *attract* the ingredients of a stressful and bemusing journey that requires the intervention, energy and goodwill of people with whom you can't even communicate properly. But apparently I still have many, many more episodes of feeling helpless, bemused and slightly like a dickhead ahead of me.
After that I met Hassan at Costa for a coffee (I told you before, Costa Coffee is like Al's diner on a Friday night in Cairo). A lot of fun. I forget how few friends I have here and how antisocial my life has been the last couple of weeks.
Anyway Hassan. We have this imaginary press conference where N is the speaker and when it comes to questions we'll stand up and highlight - investigative journalist style - all N's petty failures. 'And I have it on record - that in August 2008 - you admitted - and I quote - that you didn't know what the word 'bourgeoisie' means.' I'm not sure why we find this so funny, but we act it out with accusatory gestures and everything and then seriously we think we're hilarious.
N gets here! In ten days! He's bringing concealer for pale skin, Tanqueray gin, and his lovely long legged self.
Tomorrow I've set aside the whole day for the Cairo book fair. It has a considerable English language section, and a second hand section the size of several hundred football pitches or something. Can. Not. Wait.