Midnight tea.

My last blog post was written from the luxurious comfort of my own lovely (if lumpy) bed--my favorite place to email from. As many of you know, my laptop lives beside my bed, and often the last thing I do before shutting my eyes, and the first thing I do once I open them again in the morning, is check my email. I won't pretend otherwise--I love to check my email. Mostly, my gentle readers, because my inbox gives me access to all of the people I love who are so far away.

Tonight, however, I'm emailing from what may easily become my new favorite spot--my balcony. It's nearly 11 at night, and it's the perfect sleepless summer night. I always loved this growing up in Chicago, too--the nights that were so hot that you can't sleep, but don't even try to. Instead, you listen to the sound of the insects or traffic, read until the early hours of the morning, enjoying the blessing of a few quiet hours to stop and think.

My evening chi is getting thrown off slightly by a family that lives somewhere downstairs, in the next building over, I think. They're arguing loudly, but the only word I can understand is "engineer." That's not too illuminating, I guess. Sometimes I have a hard time telling if Egyptians are arguing or just talking--they might be one of the few cultures that actually talk louder than Americans. When they get really excited about something, good or bad, it all comes out at a yell.

I spent the evening in an outdoor cafe inside the Cairo Opera House complex. The middle of this large complex is wide open and grassy, with various performance centers lit up and surrounded by palm trees and flowers. It's beautiful, and the tea is cheap. I was there with my friend Nagla, a 40 something woman who is a culture writer for Egypt's famous newspaper al-Ahram. I met her through an American friend (here's a little shoutout, Pat) who was in Alexandria teaching last year. She's a small, feisty woman who smokes her cigarettes hand-over-fist and drinks her body weight in tea. She had invited me to have tea with her and her equally brilliant, artsy friends--tv show directors, poets, journalists. The evening was all in Arabic (I hung in ok thanks to lots of hand motions, occasional translations to English, and by having them talk as fast as you would to a fairly stupid child) and centered on Arabic grammar and various aspects of Islam. When we had sat there for 2 hours or so, I walked back home across the Nile. In all, a very pleasant evening.

We've been amazed at what kinds of friends we've made over the past month--from every level of society, every religious persuasion, every occupation. The diversity of our friend group backfired on us slightly when we threw ourselves a house warming party on Friday. We had invited nearly all of our Egyptian friends, plus a few British guys who teach with us in the evenings. We figured that if we invited enough people, everyone would have a few people they'd feel comfortable with. A few people weren't able to make it at the last minute, however, so we ended up with a fairly stark dichotomy.

On the one hand, our friend Farek (the taxi driver I've introduced you to before) came, along with his aunt, sister, a 10 year old nephew and 9 year old niece. The women in the family were veiled. We'd met his family before, and love them. Since they were the first to arrive, we filled their plates with food and kept the tea and fanta flowing. I taught the kids how to play "Pass the Pigs" (thanks, Lauren) and it was an instant success--even despite the fact that pigs are unclean in Islam.

A little while later, however, our co-workers from the language center started arriving. They're all single guys, maybe aged 17-24. Most of them have a penchant for drinking, and all of them love smoking hash. We made a very firm "no hash" rule before they got there. When they arrived and saw the family, they got really squeamish. "When can we drink? When can we drink?" They kept asking me. I could understand where they were coming from, but I was disappointed that they didn't have the decency to sit and talk with Farek and co. first.

In any case--the evening turned out well, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves even with some strange social dynamics. But it's been repeatedly impressed upon us over the past 6 weeks that class differences matter here. As outsiders, we have friends from every segment of society. But for them--as it would be in America, to be honest--it's not entirely comfortable to mix together.

Mm. I just finished my tea, which means I should bring this post to an end. Just an informal little update from my balcony in Cairo.