Tom in Egypt // توم في مصر

I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to say Eid Mubarak to Tom in Egypt readers! Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan and today is the first, and biggest day of Eid al-Fitr celebrations. I won't go into the religious traditions of the celebration, Wikipedia has a thorough entry on the feast that's worth a read if you're interested, but it suffices to say that it's a very big deal here in Egypt. I also found a beautiful series of photos on HuffPo showing how Eid is celebrated around the world

Sadly, recent Eids have seen some pretty nasty incidents involving serious sexual harassment in downtown so we're hoping to avoid a repeat (as is the government by the looks of things). Andrea and I are getting into the spirit of things and are organising a small dinner for a few friends, hoping that we have enough cutlery and crockery to go round! Our good friend Clare arrived last night, just in time for the party, and is going to stay with us for a while, which is very exciting as I haven't seen her since I left Manchester just over 3 and a half months ago.

Everything else is going well, I have a few days off from teaching so will hopefully get a few more pieces written for Bikya (follow here on Twitter) in the break. Ramadan has been nice, but it will be nice to be able to hang out in a few downtown 'ahwas  and speak a bit more Arabic. This is something I really want to knuckle down on over the next few months, as I've gotten a little lazy. Last week I noticed that, because I was writing and working in the days for Meedan, I wasn't really speaking much Arabic at all apart from exchanging a few greetings with people at the ETC - this can't be allowed to continue! In spite of this, I'm reading a lot of blogs and news pieces, and (as you may see via my GoodReads status) I'm also getting stuck into a great pair of novels - Bahaa Tahir's Wahat al-Gharoob (recently translated by the man who lives down the street Mr. Humphrey Davies) and one of my favourite books when I read it in English, Mourid al-Bargouthi's Ra'aytu Ramallah (I saw Ramallah). Either way, talking more is something I'm resloved to working on, hopefully whilst drinking tea and learning to play backgammon in a local coffee shop.