Olive oil in my ear...

I have olive oil in my ear. That's what I get for refusing to give in to the temptation to order lunch every day, like most people do in Egypt. Huge meals of insanely non-nutritious foods like fuul (beans) sandwhiches and kosheri (a startling combination of tiny tube pasta, spaghetti, penne, lentils, garbanzo beans, tomato sauce, onion/garlic juice, and hot sauce) which you can get for one or two pounds (20-40 cents) are delivered right to your office by local restaurants. But since there's no way I can eat that much food at one sitting (or even three), and because eating two pounds of carbs in a single daily meal is probably not the best for me, I sautee some vegetables the night before and eat them for lunch on soft Lebanese flatbread. It was just one of these tupperware containers of vegetables, or rather the oil and herbs leftover after I'd eaten the vegetables for lunch on Sunday, that leaked in my backpack directly onto my right headphone earpiece. Stubbornly refusing not to listen to my audiobook this morning, a ritual that helps me forget the chaos of morning traffic and avoid conversation with my cab driver (and subsequent marriage proposals), I now have olive oil in my right ear. Yick.

Apologies for allowing nearly a week to fly by without a blog post. I have been EXHAUSTED since Saturday's trip to Alexandria, which was one long non-stop day of strenuous tourism and socializing from beginning to end. Also, the guy who works next to me has some kind of cold and I think my immune system is spending a lot of energy fighting it off because no matter how much sleep I get, I want more. Unusually, I have also been busy at work, drafting a grant proposal for the Australian equivalent of USAID (appropriately called AUSAID) to fund some human rights educational courses, publication of a couple books, and an ongoing series of Youth Forums for past participants in CIHRS courses to come together and network, and another proposal for the US Institute of Peace for a course on youth advocacy and democratic participation through social media and an accompanying film series. The deadlines sprang up out of nowhere so I went from having nothing to do at work to having a TON to do in very little time.

I will no doubt be more exhausted after this weekend's upcoming trip to St. Catherine's (site of the famous burning bush), Mt. Sinai, and Dahab. I leave Thursday evening straight after work. We drive all night, then climb Mt. Sinai in the dark (and this is a real, hardscrabble hike up a real, hardscrabble mountain, not some casual tourist stroll) in time to catch Friday's sunrise from the summit, then spend all day hanging out in Dahab (no doubt sweaty and dirty from climbing up and down a mountain and marveling at a not-currently-burning bush). We spend what will no doubt me a long, uncomfortable night in a backpacker's hostel (which I once would have been okay with but am now too old and cranky to endure without whining), then spend all day Saturday driving back to Cairo just in time to go to crash for a few hours and go stand in line to get my visa renewed the next morning, or rather, the entire next day if I've learned anything about Egyptian bureaucratic efficiency.

The good news is that after last week's visit by the plumber (the bolt connecting the input hose to the water heater tank exploaded, creating a spraying leak that necessitated turning the entire water main off whenever we weren't using the bathroom and the showerhead fit the water input hose so badly it forced all the water back down the outside of the hose such that we had to hold the middle of the hose to our heads to rinse the shampoo from our hair) and yesterday's visit by the maid and doorman (whose combined efforts changed the single lightbulb in my room, which had been out for three days), we now have a functional shower and light in every room of the apartment. These simple things will make it much easier to function next week when I will most certainly be too tired to think straight.

I close with two comments on recent entertainment news:

First, I saw GI Joe a few days ago and I think that if movies like this could win Oscars, then the sound guys should definitely be up for a sound mixing or sound editing award. Sound mixing at least. I've never heard so many unique kinds of explosions!

Secondly, I am THRILLED that Roman Polanski has been arrested and now faces extradition for the rape charges pending against him for decades. Shame on Whoopi Goldberg for saying it wasn't "rape-rape" because the girl and her mother knew of his reputation with the ladies and went to meet him at Jack Nicholson's home anyway. And shame on the many of Mr. Polanski's colleagues in the film industry for implying that just because he is an artist he should not face trial for his actions. Shame on his friends for calling it "a little mistake 32 years ago" and "an arbitrary arrest." It is irrelevant that the victim has forgiven him and does not want a trial. I'm glad she's received the therapy she's needed and has moved on but this has no bearing on the fact that he broke the law. The math here isn't hard: sex with a drugged, drunk, semi-conscious thirteen year old girl = all kinds of nasty = ILLEGAL= trial. Moreover, jumping bail + fleeing the jurisdiction + avoiding an arrest warrant by hiding out in a foreign country for decades = even more kinds of criminal = trial. I will be really disappointed if the State Department steps in and invalidates the extradition warrant here and I'm even a little disgusted they've agreed to review the case.

Okay, the IT guy is doing his best Jimmy Fallon impression instructing me that I am to save my files to the public server rather than to my desktop. He is doing everything except the eye-rolling "MOOOVE!" so I have to transfer my files before I annoy him further.

Best to everyone!