After settling in, taking a shower and changing my clothes, I needed something urgent. Well, three things: a shower, food and making a phone call. Since everything on campus was closed (Saturday 8:30 pm) I decided to walk into town to find anything that could be open. Man, it was a deserted town -either nothing seemed to be open or I was wandering around a residential area, which it happened to be then. But being so covered with trees, the light barely got to the sidewalks, so I was like "OK, where am I heading to?", which made me decide walking straight always on the same street; I walked for about 8 blocks until I saw something magical on the distance: two golden archs! For the first time in my entire life I felt as though I had seen the heaven itself!
But when I got there, something struck me -I realised that all cleaning personnel, and all the people who does the lowest-paid jobs in the US are Latinos. I had noticed that at the airport also, but for some reason I didn't realise it then. Who knows? maybe I was so focused on enjoying the experience that I ignored such details. But when it did, it hit me like a meteor!
Anyway, after eating, I walked towards a 24/7 pharmacy I saw nearby, and to my amusement, all the clerks were Desis. It was like being in "The Simpsons"! Those pharmacies are very much like ours Farmatodo and Locatel, but these guys lack something .. I don't know what it is, but there's something I missed. Anyway, I bought my band-aids, the phone card, and some sugarfree bubble gum (every Delta Nu oughta keep some in the pocket to make sure the ice-melting smile is accompanied by a fresh breath) and then back to GMU on the same way I took to get out of campus.
The student dorms at GMU are not THAT bad I think, apart from the plastic-covered matresses and the fact that I realised I had air conditioning on the 4th day of my stay at GMU. Anyway, the chiller was good enough, but I didn't like the levels of humidty in DC -no wonder the whole city has been built on a swamp! But it is certainly a beautiful one, with lots of greenery and wide forests even close to downtown
One always makes good friends at conferences and courses, even if you're not as sweet and handsome as I am *LOL*. A very interesting fact is that the closest friends I made during my stay in DC were all arabs: Khalil and Kaouthar from Morocco, and Mazen from Lebanon and, to a certain extent, Mahmood, Mona and Danya from Egypt. Why? I have no idea, but it might have helped that when I was just getting into my room I saw Kaouthar, who cam and introduced himself and, when he said he was from Rabat American School, I quickly replied that I attend a moroccan synagogue, which seemed to break the ice given the fact that moroccans have been very tolerant of jews (even King Hassan II's counselor was jewish) and that moroccan jews are as proud of being moroccans as arabs and berbers alike, even speaking arabic at ahome and keeping so many habits and customs that within less than a year I have started feeling as my own. I think the fact that Khalil's sister lives and works in Melilla helped a great deal also, since jews from Melilla are considered moroccan jews as well and the origins of the people that attend my synagogue are almost evenly divided between Tétouan, Casablanca or Melilla.
Of course, being with K&K and sharing some jokes in arabic made Mazen get close to us, and the same with Danya and Mahmoud, especially because all of us were techies.
Mona was a different case. She teaches at Cairo American College and she is a very conservative lady; she even wears a ħijāb! We shared a table one day because her closest friend was Celeste, an american lady who happened to meet Jean, my school's superintendent like 20 years ago and that was like our link, since she used to ask me about Jean and her family. So one day we sat down at a food court on campus, and I was wearing my famous coca-cola t-shirt and Celeste asked why I was wearing that shirt. So, we started talking and talking, and we exchanged so many different pints of view, and Mona's glad surprise when I told her than Umm Kulthum was a reference in sephardic and mizrachi music among jews and the fact that many israeli musicians release quite a few songs in arabic and many sephardic and mizrachi jews speak arabic very fluently with an accent like that of Egypt and Jordan. I even sung a fragment of "Inta Omri" to prove my fluency in arabic music :-)
The student dorms at GMU are not THAT bad I think, apart from the plastic-covered matresses and the fact that I realised I had air conditioning on the 4th day of my stay at GMU. Anyway, the chiller was good enough, but I didn't like the levels of humidty in DC -no wonder the whole city has been built on a swamp! But it is certainly a beautiful one, with lots of greenery and wide forests even close to downtown
One always makes good friends at conferences and courses, even if you're not as sweet and handsome as I am *LOL*. A very interesting fact is that the closest friends I made during my stay in DC were all arabs: Khalil and Kaouthar from Morocco, and Mazen from Lebanon and, to a certain extent, Mahmood, Mona and Danya from Egypt. Why? I have no idea, but it might have helped that when I was just getting into my room I saw Kaouthar, who cam and introduced himself and, when he said he was from Rabat American School, I quickly replied that I attend a moroccan synagogue, which seemed to break the ice given the fact that moroccans have been very tolerant of jews (even King Hassan II's counselor was jewish) and that moroccan jews are as proud of being moroccans as arabs and berbers alike, even speaking arabic at ahome and keeping so many habits and customs that within less than a year I have started feeling as my own. I think the fact that Khalil's sister lives and works in Melilla helped a great deal also, since jews from Melilla are considered moroccan jews as well and the origins of the people that attend my synagogue are almost evenly divided between Tétouan, Casablanca or Melilla.
Of course, being with K&K and sharing some jokes in arabic made Mazen get close to us, and the same with Danya and Mahmoud, especially because all of us were techies.
Mona was a different case. She teaches at Cairo American College and she is a very conservative lady; she even wears a ħijāb! We shared a table one day because her closest friend was Celeste, an american lady who happened to meet Jean, my school's superintendent like 20 years ago and that was like our link, since she used to ask me about Jean and her family. So one day we sat down at a food court on campus, and I was wearing my famous coca-cola t-shirt and Celeste asked why I was wearing that shirt. So, we started talking and talking, and we exchanged so many different pints of view, and Mona's glad surprise when I told her than Umm Kulthum was a reference in sephardic and mizrachi music among jews and the fact that many israeli musicians release quite a few songs in arabic and many sephardic and mizrachi jews speak arabic very fluently with an accent like that of Egypt and Jordan. I even sung a fragment of "Inta Omri" to prove my fluency in arabic music :-)
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