eudaimonia & anagnorisis

Overflowing washing machines, bum shower heads without any approximation of water pressure, light fixtures that stay in the wall out of habit rather than legitimate nails or screws… living in an apartment in Cairo is a comedy of errors. Nevertheless, when I turn off Shari’ Botan onto the little alley that leads to our building I feel the sensation of home, so home it is for the time being.

This weekend was the international study retreat at el Gouna, more aptly described as a vacation away from Cairo air pollution and city noise into an oasis of European luxury on the Red Sea. Despite the AUC elitism that seemed to pervade the gathering, I found a pretty hip little group of friends and enjoyed eating-sleeping-swimming-eating-sleeping-swimming cycle tremendously. We went out one night to a dance club that was open air and it was so nice to be with the aforementioned group of friends simply dancing all the subliminal frustrations or anxiety of our first full week in Egypt into oblivion. At 4am on Sunday I went down to the beach all by my onesy and preceeded to wade into the Red Sea wearing a sweatshirt and my undies. The sea seemed like an inifinte, dark abyss and the sky above was lit by thousands of stars….it was unforgettably beautiful. The true highlight of the trip was probably seeing whirling dervishes for the first time. The dervishes were quite literally human spinning-tops, but watching the passion on their faces brought it to a level beyond visual interest and into spiritual eudaimonia. Wahdat (unity), the main principle of Sufism, is based on the belief that everything is a manifestation of a single reality: al-Haq (God, Truth); yet the essence of this reality does not have a form, therefore the pursuit of every Sufi is to separate themselves from the duality of essence and existence, to realize divine unity.

Classes start tomorrow and this evening Sasha, Greg, Amanda and I are headed to Khan al-Khalili, the biggest souk in Africa, for some evening hijinks and vicious bargaining. *I have extremely cool videos of both the dervishes and an awe-inducingly-attractive bellydancer, just shoot me an email or pop a comment.