Wust El-Balad

Hey everyone, just back at the apartment from a much more restful day in Egypt. There was only one official DukeEngage activity of the day: finding St. Andrews Refugee Ministry (where we'll be working most of the time we're here). After that quick walk and a tour of the center (we'll be returning for orientation in a few days), we headed back to the apartment to finally catch up on sleep.

In the evening, we headed out for the first time without our phenomenal guide Zoe, an American from our university who has lived in Cairo for the past two years. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous for this - my formal Arabic is a bit rusty and my knowledge of the Egyptian dialect is almost nonexistent. However, the night was both fantastic and successful. I grabbed dinner at the ful restaurant down the street, which was absolutely delicious and more than I could eat, and then went to an Egyptian pop concert in Zamalik, the island in the middle of the Nile. The band was called "Wust El-Balad" and they were great! (even though I didn't understand much of their lyrics). Then came our attempt to get a cab home. We (amazingly) managed to hail one and negotiated a price to Garden City; the problem was giving directions to our cab driver. Fortunately, he and every other person on the street were helpful and more than happy to give us directions as we sat in the backseat and repeated "Sifara Canada" (Canadian Embassy, which we live near) and "Shar'ia Ibrahim Naguib" (Ibrahim Naguib Street) until we finally recognized our apartment building. Even if I make them laugh with my overly formal and antiquated attempts to speak, which will hopefully improve before long, everyone in Egypt is kind and amazingly patient enough to figure out what help we need.

Check out Wust El-Balad here!