16 to 18/11 : Candy, Fame and Red Tape

16/11 was a study day. In the morning I went to the NVIC with my laptop, I talked to Guillaume, wrote on my blog and worked on my museum assignment. After eating pancakes at Beano’s, I started reading an article for tomorrow, when we have a workshop on Early Egypt at Cairo University. My article was clear and interesting (about royal mastabas from the 1st Dynasty in Saqqara, by Stan Hendrickx), but Amy’s (who sat in the same room) was sheer disaster. She had some real difficulties with the blurry contents.
I had received a package by my philosophical friend Isabelle (thank you, Isa!), containing, amongst many other hilarious things, a bag of candy! To motivate ourselves reading our articles, Quentin, Amy and I rewarded ourselves with a bit of candy every time we read a certain amount of pages.
In the evening we ate and watched the Big Bang theory, and I felt a bit nauseous because of all the candy.

On 17/11 we had a workshop on Early Egypt at Cairo University. We were welcomed by Dr. Tarek Tawfik, who teaches there. In Egypt egyptology is a very popular study, Dr. Tawfik said he teaches about 1500 students a year! Most of them end up as an inspector at sites or working for the SCA.
Then we took a look at their small museum collection (which had a lot of English mistakes again, and even an amulet of Sarapis being shown uside down!). All the time a photographer was flashing our eyes blind. 8 students from Cairo University joined us, and several group pictures were taken. Then we walked to an aula for 2 lectures from Ilona and Dr. Tawfik, and on our way the students outside looked at us with awe : foreigners on their campus! Lectures done, door opened again : HUNDREDS of students were gathered in front of the door! Tawfik cried to make way for us, so they formed some sort of honorary lawn. When we walked through, all eyes were on us, and they were fighting each other to have a better look. I felt famous. After lunch and a nice chat with some of the 8 Egyptian students (Ahmed and Ghaida were very sweet), we had discussions about some very egyptological things, that wouldn’t interest you readers.

On 18/11 Quentin, Steffie, Cathelijne, Kenny and I had to go through some red tape : renew our visas. We went to the Mugamma (Department for visas & residence etc) at Midan Tahrir. There’s only one word to describe what was going on in this building : CHAOS ! People were fighting to get in front of a guichet, then downstairs, then another guichet, down again, back to guichet number 1,... It all felt like in the movie of Astérix et les 12 travaux. Finally we had everything we needed, the woman took our form and passports and said : ‘Come back in 2 hours’. I thought : ‘I’ll never see my passport again’.
To kill the time, Cathelijne, Steffie and I went to the Egyptian museum, where each of us watched our favourite period (Old Kingdom for me, of course). Once more I felt famous. A group of school girls ran to us, wanting to take pictures. I think I posed with at least 5 completely unknown Arab girls. They also asked our e-mail adress, although I fail to see how they will contact us, because they barely spoke English. One girl asked whether Steffie and I were twins, because apparently we look so much alike! Steffie is a head shorter than me, has red hair and bright blue eyes.
Back at Mugamma, we fought our way to guichet 38, and our passports were ready. Renewed not for one month, as I asked, but for 5 months! Oh well, it only cost me 11 pounds (about 1,20 euros).
Then at our appartment Sanaa Khalil came and we paid the rent for the 2nd month. I worked the entire afternoon on my kashkoul. In the evening I went for the first time to Steffie, Cathelijne and Kenny’s appartment to watch TV. Everyone was there (except for Quentin), including Amy’s boyfriend Koos, who arrived on Tuesday morning. Koos is South-African, and his name’s pronounced Kwez (or something). He talks this really funny South-African Dutch. We can understand each other, but only if we speak slowly, so mostly we just talk English.
We watched a very aggressive football match (Egypt-Algeria rematch) : 9 yellow cards and 3 really hurt players taken off the field. Then a boring golf movie with Kevin Costner and a part of the Stepford Wives, all with Arab subtitles (luckily they don’t dub here).
Then Amy and Koos walked me home, bless their hearts!