onilecraM | Marcelino

So after waking up on Kristin’s couch this morning, John and I cabbed it back home. We called Jan to apologize for missing our appointment with one of her students. She wasn’t too pleased, but set another appointment for 9:30 AM tomorrow.

We showered and headed out to a book store called Diwan to meet with Ahmed. We figured surrounding him with books would make him feel right at home. We weren’t granted permission to shoot, so we chilled out at the bookstore cafe for a bit and talked. Ahmed got into a discussion with John about the root for the word giraffe, which comes from some Arabic root. Ahmed couldn’t remember that root’s meaning so he went to go look it up. In his bringing back to the table a large dictionary, he broke the rule prominently displayed on a sign above our table - “Cafe is for coffee and food only - NO BOOKS ALLOWED.” This prompted a non-Egyptian girl to ask the guy working there if she too could bring a dictionary to translate some Arabic herself. The guy said no, then gave Ahmed a dirty look. I found the whole incident hysterical (and John did too, probably because we were both exhausted) so I started teasing Ahmed about how he was causing problems for all the patrons at the cafe. He proceeded to explain to the cafe guy that his breaking of the rules was for an academic purpose - to find the definition of the Arabic root of the English word giraffe. His delivery of this explanation was so ornately elaborate (yet awkward) that at this point the whole cafe was laughing too, including cafe guy. Ahmed finally put the book away, and then upon some encouragement from John and I, went over to help the girl with her Arabic.

Without permission to shoot at the book store, its use to us decreased considerably. So we headed over to the Nile and rented a faluka, which is a small wooden sailboat guided by a captain. After haggling the hourly rated to 40 Egyptian pounds (under seven US dollars) we headed out. Our purpose was to interview Ahmed in the middle of the Nile, surrounded by water, or as he put it, so that he could become a social island, island in Arabic is jazeera (like the news channel,) jazeera which is a passive Arabic root, means something which is ebbed by water, it is an object upon which water acts. So too is he an island, which in its isolation observes as it is acted upon by an outside force - in his case society. Ahmed also indicated to us that he is the curator of the lexicographical museum. (He alleges that a google search of the preceding only has one unique result - him.)

After our boat ride on the Nile, we crossed the street and walked a few blocks to the Cairo Hilton, where we met the assistant to an owner of a club located there called Latex. The owners from Cairo Jazz had mentioned her to us, and had helped us set up an appointment with regard to shooting there on Wednesday night, when a prominent Italian DJ is supposed to spin. We met with her and her assistant, and explained the scope of our project. They were both cool with us shooting there, and granted us permission to shoot. They gave us four passes (for John and I, as well as Konga and a guest) to get into the club. We left the meeting feeling pretty positive about our progress thus far in procuring locations to shoot.

We went back to the apartment and ordered Italian food from a place called Cafe Mo’s. Pretty good, pretty cheap. I’m really enjoying this whole 6:1 exchange rate over here.

- M