onilecraM | Marcelino
Cairo After Hours
Tonight’s artist was a producer named Fathy Salama. He’s an Egyptian based out of France, where he’s very well known. We shot about an hour’s worth of footage. Fathy asked for a dub of the footage, and we exchanged contact info.
Towards the end of the shot, I met some of John’s friends from Cairo, including his ex-girlfriend, who’s also a grad student of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, and is half Mexican, half American. She introduced me to some of her friends – a guy who’s in a local dental program and is originally from Palestine, an Egyptian teacher who currently lives in Saudi Arabia (and is remarkably similar to my friend Carolyn) and some other friends as well. The most interesting person out of that group was this girl Memba, who along with her friend Isabella, were visiting Cairo for one month while they are on summer break before their final year of medical school in Brazil. Let’s just say this – Memba is Penelope Cruz in Woman On Top. She’s a little shorter than what I imagine Penelope to be, but she looks almost identical to her, and has all the Brazilian energy of Penelope’s character in that film. And boy can she dance. Fathy’s performance, which consisted of two percussionists, a male vocalist/rapper, a Algerian female vocalist, and himself on the turntables, provided just the right electronic Arabic-Latin fusion of music that made this girl feel right at home. Anyways, we had a great time at the jazz club.
We followed that up with another visit to After Eight, where we danced to Mediterranean music for another hour or so. That was followed up with an after-party at Kristin’s (John’s ex) that pretty much lasted till the sun rose. This after party consisted of more Arabic music, some salsa, and a little reggae. My lack of jet lag and my feeling that it’s still seven hours earlier has greatly helped my social endeavors. Overall had a pretty solid time – John’s got a fun group of people that can mix a good conversation with some great dancing. Busy day, long entry. Until next time.
- M
