Kittens and Clotheslines

Assalam u alaikum,

I love watching the kittens near our apartment building. There's a little patch of ground behind the "Hookah Station" that has a few bushes and a lot of garbage. Four small kittens play there every day in the morning, while their mother basks in the warm Cairo sun. It's amazing to see how they sharpen all their necessary survival skills through their play. One small gray kitten stalks the orange-and-white striped kitten, and suddenly pounces. They have a funny way of playing ferociously and then suddenly stopping completely, like those old stop-motion films. Today they weren't in the square at their usual time. I wonder what happened?

We also managed to use our clothesline for the first time today. As usual, a simple operation like putting a towel on the clothesline became a tricky manouvre involving much observation of other Egyptians sticking their heads out of their windows. We realized that we need to fold the towel and place it over the clothesline, not just attach it with the closepins. This is important because we are eight stories up and if the towel falls, we will probably never get it back. When the towel was dry, it had the most delicious smell, as if we had put it in the dryer with a Bounce dryer sheet.

Alhamdulillah class was good today. I was really tired, however, by the end of it because I didn't go to sleep in the afternoon because I was worried about being late. Insha'allah I will try to go to sleep at around ten tomorrow and then wake up at Dhuhr time insha'allah.

The youth here have a funny dynamics. First of all, there are always a bunch of fatan and fatayat hanging around on Makram Abeed. Mustafa and I tried to figure out if they are just there for lunch, but they're there at all times (except in the morning, for obvious reasons-it's too much for their tired bodies). The group system is rather funny as well. There are three or four boys clustered together smoking cigarettes. One of them is always a big fat guy with glasses who continually tries to assert his dominance by walking one of the others on the head, pulling the other guy's cigarette out of his mouth, laughing at him, or just generally screaming. This performance is for the gaggle of girls, who despite their hijabs, are not quite what we would call modest. It is scary.

:)

Alhamdulillah, everything is good. The landlord came today to show us how to use the washing machine, but ended up reading the instruction manual. We decided it would be best if he simply left the book with us instead of him trying to operate the machine by cross-referencing the English section of the book with the Arabic section: "Fill the try will soap?" The landlord's name is Khalil Mahmoud, and he is a really nice man. "You know, if you give to someone address, say you are behind the famous Caltex petrol station and famous Zamzam pharmacy." (which turns out to be a small shabby store).

How can a gas station be famous anyways?

Alhamdullillah ala kuli hal.

Today our lesson was about going to the meat store and grocery store. We talk about many things during our class, including our favourite foods, the availability of liver in Canada, and the beauty of bilad ul kanada.

Ma' asalam,

~Ameer