Is Someone in the Fridge?; It's Okay, We're Regular Twins

omgzr, it's, like, almost April? I still haven't done my taxes or thought of my New Year's resolutions or anything. Where does the time go?

Funny you should ask:

• the Cairo Jazz Festival, where Kim made friends with kitties and Fathy Salama, who will now be featuring her in a performance about a week from now
• the birthday party, for our neighbor Patrick, where we surprised him with cake and people whom he didn't know
• the unbirthday party, which started on the houseboat but was eventually relocated to Jon's apartment (after a few hours of trying to get people moving), where I was greeted with chocolate cake and a poker game
• the poker night, inspired by the above, where I split the pot with Andy, the couch surfer
• the six days where I hosted Andy, the couch surfer, who is from Australia and who is also doing an around the world trip for a year (or two)
• the four days (some of which overlap with the above) where I hosted Ruth and Leo, the Germans (though she is actually from Vienna), who were finishing up their jaunt around the Middle East
• the three hours per week spent volunteering in Ain Shams (which is an hour's travel one way) where Sarah and I "teach" English (we mostly just hang out) to people from places like Chad, the Ivory Coast, Iraq, and Ethiopia
• the attempted chess game with backgammon pieces, which lasted only about six moves before everyone was thoroughly confused to the point of despair
• the twelve hour LAN party which ended in frustration and dashed expectations
• the party where Kim bought a rubaba (an ancient pharoahonic instrument, which looks like what a violin would have been if it were made with a stick, some wires, and a coconut shell) and scheduled practice sessions on my deck
• the aforementioned practice session on my deck, which was actually quite nice, despite the high pitched, screechy nature of the rubaba's "music"
• the frequent breakfast/brunches where I cook for all my friends and we eat on my deck, enjoying the Nile and all it's trash-filled goodness
• the Indian food night where we ordered Indian food, watched Flight of the Conchords, and danced naked in the street (well, maybe only I did the last part)
• the 3,000 piece puzzle Kim and I bought, which still sits mostly in its box (except for the edges) because my table is too small for it
• the unfortunate incident where I woke up one morning to find my iPhone's screen to be cracked, ensuring that the bottom half no longer detects any touches (it now serves as an iPod with not very much space that only plays songs via shuffle and as an instrument for me to read people's texts with no hope of returning them [sadly this also means that I shall not be uploading any more pictures {at least until/if I get it fixed}])
• the class presentation which required me to read a 400 page book and condense everything worth knowing about it into three hours (though, luckily, my teacher likes to talk and thusly did most of my work for me)
• the presentation on X-Files that I didn't prepare for except to find humorous pictures, like Mulder and Scully in an awkward romantic pose, Weekly World News covers, and Chris Carter making a funny face
• the one or two hours I slept
• the past two days we've spent without water in the houseboat, thinking that it was just another quirky quirk of life on the Nile, only to discover that someone had turned off our water in an attempt to turn off the toilet
• the blog writing

Anyway, I think that'll do for now. I was this close to getting the really good pictures of the houseboat on my computer, but I fell asleep instead. Next time, mumkin.

We Will Win in the End, Ciao!; Severed Phallus of an African-American

I've been guilted into writing another entry. You should know that I'm doing this instead of homework. Feel special.

So, last night we had a party at the 'awama (houseboat). We bought a giant tub of white acrylic paint and some little color tubes (one for every color of the rainbow, plus brown and black) with which we (we being Wolf, Nathaniel, and I, plus all our friends) decorated the walls. Everyone who came left something behind, such as: a tree, a squirrel smoking shisha in the tree, a pastel butterfly, purple pyramids, car emblems, a Koi yin-yang, or a Mayan space pirate. As soon as I get the pictures off of Kim's camera I will share them with all of you.

I painted a robot.

We also played Mafia until five in the morning. I watched the sunrise. It was nice, because, hey, I live on the Nile.

I will never get tired of saying that.

There was another party two weeks ago. A lot more people came to that one, but there was also a knife fight, so it kind of evens out. We tried to gather all the glass bottles of beer and bring them in for the deposit (like a friend did last semester, getting some pretty nice returns for the effort), but they told us that the bottles we had were not the two-way ones. Lame.

Since we've moved in the slant of the structure has leveled out (it was pretty dramatically tilted due to the Nile's water level being lower than normal), however, there are still plenty of boats that drive by, shaking our house at its very 'foundations' (read: pontoons). It's a two bedroom place, but we have three people living here. This entails one of us sleeping on the couch in the living room. Usually it isn't an issue because we either sleep at someone else's house, are too tired to care, or just cram into the bed together anyway. Other than the occasional quirk (an overflowing toilet tank which has to be monitored closely, a very clog-prone sink, constantly moving the clothes washer between the kitchen and the bathroom, stray cats), I would say this place is perfect. In fact, most of the previously mentioned quirks only serve to make living here more interesting, so I'll go ahead and say it is perfect.

Classes are going fineish. I told myself I'd do my work this semester, and I'm still telling myself that in the hopes that it comes true, but apparently you actually have to do the work, not just say that you should do it. Sounds familiar, I know.

I went to Marsa Alam with Amr (the guy who was supposed to go to India with me, but got delayed and ended up traveling on his own), Kim, Mohamed (Amr's brother), and various others. We dived in the Red Sea (Kim for the first time) and saw lots of really awesome undersea creatures, including: giant sea turtles (seriously! some of them were as big as refrigerators, with Remoras hanging off them and everything), crocodile fish(?), sand calamari(?), Bluespotted stingray, and Parrotfish and triggerfish of various varieties. There were supposedly Dugong (not Dewgong, the Pokémon) swimming around somewhere, but we couldn't find them. Bastards.

After our freezing underwater adventure, we trekked into the desert to Wadi El Gamal (valley of the beautiful; beautiful valley) which is a national reserve run by Amr's uncle. He set us up with desert huts like those built by the indigenous nomadic tribes. Then we took a camel 'safari' into the 'desert' and watched while Hamad, AKA Superman, threw rocks so fast that you could hear them buzz like a whistle. Also, we ate bread cooked in the sand, drank gibana (coffee that must be drunk in odd numbers), and camel cheese. My camel tried to kill me on multiple occasions, but what else is new?

I've also: celebrated Kim's birthday with [no sleep and] an early morning jaunt to the pyramids for the sunrise, acted as an extra in an Egyptian director's move (Moondog, and apparently it is going to be at the Cannes Film Festival?), gone on a picnic in the desert near Cairo, finished all the easy parts of a puzzle, played Double Dragon, honed my cooking skills, taken a shower, saw a performance put on by deaf actors for children, made people uncomfortable, etc.

Time is going by quickly. I start my English teaching tomorrow in the supposedly "ghetto" area of Cairo, which should be interesting. Midterms are coming up, allegedly, but I don't know if I have one. I'm planning on going to Morocco and Spain for break? or maybe Aswan, Luxor, and Sudan? or maybe Tunisia? or maybe I'll just stay home. I'll let you know. Life is good.

Satisfied? Sheesh.

P.S. Philip was released to his family safely, and is now attending classes as per usual. He was blindfolded the entire time, but they didn't beat him up or leave any scars that I can see. Additionally, Ayman Nour (whose son attends AUC), the opponent in Egypt's 2005 presidential elections (who was jailed for forging the signatures required for the creation of his party after "losing" the election with 1% of the vote) has recently been released for "medical reasons". Perhaps Egypt is finally rethinking its 'jail first, ask questions later' policy?

Naw.