Rama lama ding dong

It´s two in the afternooon on Friday. I have just woken up. Lise is in the kitchen washing dishes, having been up for longer, but she attests to her need to go back to sleep, for she too was up with me until 4:30, laughing and talking about our wonderful evening, which had only ended a short while ago. I apologize for the next part of this post, which will probably only make sense to a few Athens people, but it´s the only way I can really share the whole night.

Lise had two friends who were having a party in their flat that she had met through some Goethe Institute design thing between Germans and Egyptians (I think) and was told the more the merrier, so she invited a few others from the Goethe Institute and Jayanthi and I. I was almost left behind because I was late returning from a "practice English" date with an English student. I walk in and they are all about to run out the door, but they thoughtfully wait long enough to fix me some eggs and allow me to put on Lise´s clothes to feel cuter : ). We all go downtown, find the flat, walk in....

Le Tigre is playing. There is a (Norwegian!!) girl wandering around wearing converse shoes, a cut up loose t-shirt, a slightly flouncy skirt that hits her teeny, tiny knees, and has a toussled "indie-rock haircut". There are other such characters sprawled around the apartment, which is nice and spacious, and has blown-up Victorian cutouts of little faces with wings and girls in dresses scattered along the walls. There is also an old Soviet/Egyptian poster on the right wall and the hallway has a row of Coptic icons spread down its side. There aren´t too many people there yet, and we certainly don´t know anyone, so we sit and chat and I try to wrap my head around the fact that they are playing The Rapture, The Hives, Interpol, Stone Roses, The Cure(which prompts me to begin dancing through the rooms, alone, in front of really chill people) and all sorts of music that though I don´t particularly always enjoy, was very familiar to me. I would like to say I helped kick the evening off when Annie "Chewing Gum" came on and I made Lise start dancing with me and another Converse-wearing, indie-styled Egyptian guy started along.

How had I ended up in this place that was, in a sort, the most ´familiar´place in Cairo that I had been? Jayanthi and the Goethe Institute kids were pretty tired and left after maybe an hour, when the novelty of familiar music had slightly worn out and we were now just sitting around, still without knowing anyone, even though I had had a brief conversation with a guy named Alaa (Alaa Eddeen sound familiar to anyone? Aladin! The name means raising up religion. I think that´s cool) about the current music ´scene´in Cairo. I think I horrified him because he asked me what music I liked in Cairo and I said "pop music." But it´s true! I quickly scared or bored Alaa, and then Jayanthi and co. left, but Lise still wanted to stay and I decided to stay with her, curious about what would happen in this magical place warp.

To make a long and wonderful story shorter, after "Chewing gum" got some people dancing the music selection started to change. There were now a lot more people at the party, and it was a multicultural mix, a few Italians and Germans and many Egyptians, and quite a few other Africans and, because I had answered "South" confusedly when asked about America, there was now a sortof Latin American in the house. All of these Egyptian and other "alternative" folks had grooved along to the sounds of dirty, gritty New York, but when the oriental music came on, there was no question about what everyone wanted. We all started dancing, mostly men, but a few of us non-Egyptian ladies thrown in, and I started to practice the moves I´m learning in my bellydancing class. Though I contest this, Lise claims that they "adored me" and were surprised and laughing and eager to dance with me, trying to help smoothen some of my "moves" out : ) It was so much fun to be dancing to the oriental music in a group, and later to Latin salsa music, and get to watch these men who, as I have posted about before, are consumate dancers. I briefly freaked out when a girl came out wearing practically nothing and proved herself to be a real bellydancer, but then she left the scene and I felt more ok about my pretty weak skills. Slowly but surely, even though we hadn´t known anyone there, Lise and I became part of that strange and amorphous party atmosphere, where you are accepted as a part of it and feel welcome. It was interesting that though I had walked into a very familiar atmosphere, I was much more comfortable when the oriental music started coming on and everyone was getting into it. Around 2:30 they played a huge hit by the hugely popular Nancy Agram, after which I grabbed Lise and told her it wouldn´t get any better than that and so we had to leave. I was both radiant and a little sad, knowing I won´t find hordes of well-dancing Egyptian men back in the U.S. and that the music which often projects "cool" far more than "fun" will once again become my soundtrack at parties, but getting to experience that great mix here was quite wonderful. Lise was even a little watery-eyed, reminded of her multi-cultural study abroad in Spain as part of the European ERASMUS program, which allows European students from all over to participate in study abroad (made famous in the movie L´auberge espagnole).

Such a wonderful night. I never expected to write about parties in my blog, or even that there would be any like this to go to in Egypt, but I just had to share.