Restaurant, cafe, and other things

Last night Nate and I went to a Sudanese restaurant Downtown, somewhere near Midan Talat Harb. It wasn't exactly a restaurant, more like a little stand in an alley that makes food. Nate met a bunch of his Sudanese friends there, so they obviously knew Sudanese food well. We had something called boosh, a sort of mixture of beans, pita, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and some sort of sauce and spices. It tasted much as one would expect it would, almost like a Mexican dish. The unusual part was that it was served in a single bowl, and everyone eats with their hands from that bowl. I couldn't exactly figure out the best way to eat the boosh without use of utensils, but it was good nonetheless.

We ran into some guys in Downtown who were studying abroad in Israel and were visiting Cairo for the weekend. Normally it's unusual to just strike up a conversation with total strangers on the street, but when you see Americans your age in Cairo, chances are you have something in common with them. We talked for awhile and invited them to hang out with us but they had other plans for the evening.

Afterwards we went to an ahwa (cafe) not far from the restaraunt in Downtown. This was one of the bigger ahwas I've seen, as it encompassed two complete streets in parallel. The setup, of course, simply consists of chairs and a little table in the middle of each group on which you rest your drink. I got ahwa 'ar reeha, meaning coffee with a hint of sugar. The coffee here is so strong that adding a little bit of sugar tastes as if they added none, but it's still quite good.

I spent the rest of the night hanging out with these Sudanese guys. They were really interesting to talk to. The conversations eventually turned into language lessons, as I knew English quite well but only moderate Arabic, and they knew Arabic well but only moderate English. I found out the Arabic they speak in Sudan is very different from what they speak in Egypt, but they knew Egyptian pretty well also. One of them was an aviation engineer in the Sudanese Air Force and eventually left because he disagreed with his orders in Darfur. It's amazing how much can still be communicated when no one has mastered the other person's native language.

Perhaps the funniest thing I saw last night occurred while we were waiting in stopped traffic in a taxi cab at Midan al-Galaa' in Doqqi. The minibus driver that was probably two or three car lengths behind us beeped his horn and asked for change for a five pound bill. Our cab driver said yes, so the bus driver got out of his car, leisurely walked across traffic, got his change, and went back into his bus.

Similarly, when I went to Alexandria over the weekend, the minibus driver asked for directions to the minibus driver in the lane next to him on the highway, while we were driving around 150 km/hr.

In my time here so far I've found that a lot of the Egyptians are quite friendly, at least most of the ones I've dealt with on the street, in the cafes, on the train, and so forth. Cab drivers are particularly friendly and always want to converse. For some reason, I don't get that feeling from the Egyptian kids at AUC. It's not that they aren't friendly, it's just that they only seem interested in talking with their own friends. It's very clique-like, and lots of other study abroad students have also noticed the same thing.