I've gotten my microphone working, so I've been recording at home and at the Sudanese guys' house. they just got all their gear stolen, so I brought over my equipment and we did some tracks with traditional instruments. Last night I jammed with two other guys in a rehearsal studio (which is only place you can get access to drums), and then went to check my friend Shams' gig at a nightclub. He was playing percussion with a DJ, congas and timbales, and so I sat in for pretty much the whole gig. It was my first gig in Cairo actually. My arms didn't hurt too bad last night, and today they feel ok. I think I'm ready to practice on a regular basis. Of course, getting home at 5 and waking up at 1 every day doesn't really lend itself to a productive day, but I'm going to try and make it work. The whole schedule for musicians is like that: up all night, sleep all or most of the day. If I get a real job like teaching in a school or something like that it's going to be rough waking  up at 8 or 9 everyday to work.

I am racing all over Cairo trying to maintain meetings with all kinds of people. It's really crazy, I keep making appointments with a ton of different people and end up double booking myself all over town, so I have to cancel. Wanting to play with Wa'el is actually causing problems, because I'm getting asked to play with other people and I have to turn them down. One part of me feels like, well, I'm here to play with Wa'el, so it's ok to turn them down, but the other part knows that it's a bad idea to limit your contacts right off the bat when you move to a new city. Losing the phone was bad too, cause I already had a ton of numbers in it. And to find some people again I have to go trekking through the city to their neighborhood, and since I lost the phone I haven't had time to do that, so some people might think I'm dead or something. I'm going crazy! Things have gotten out of hand so fast and I'm not good at handling it. I wanted things to be simple, to play with Wa'el, but since I took so long in nailing him down, in the meantime I met a bunch of other people that now want a piece of me, and as usual I'm out trying to make everyone else happy before myself. I don't like problems man. I want things simple. I notice that I really have trouble feeling at home, even with the ultra hospitable Egyptians, I can't let myself settle, even when I'm invited into their homes as their friend. The Sudanese guys that I hang out with are always so excited to see me, and I know they love me, and they're great people, but when I'm at their place I still feel like an outsider, like I'm just there to observe. We jam and tell jokes and have a good time, so I guess I participate, but I can't help feeling like I'm not part of the family. That's just me tho, it's not that they're showing me in any way that I'm not part of the family. Thats just me ragging on myself and not allowing myself to get comfortable. I'm in their home, I should feel at home, right? I brought over another friend of mine named Shams to their house, and I could see how immediately at home he felt. Of course, he knows some of them well from before and has played gigs with others. I think I'll feel more settled with time and things will become clearer. I had a great lesson with Wa'el the other night. he is just such a pleasure to watch, as he has the most refined technique and amazing sound ever. It just makes me happy to watch him play.  I really want this band to happen, I know it would be amazing. Little by little, shwaya shwaya, I know things will fall into place

Things are starting to come together. I've definitely found my crew here in Cairo, a bunch of Sudanese guys that jam all the time and have a reggae band that they would like me to play in. They live on the roof of an old building in downtown Cairo, and I love going over there to jam late. I've got some good videos that I'll be putting up too. This last week has been a lot of fun between music and chillin in random places and hanging out with new people. I still want to see more of Cairo, check out some of the big mosques. I also lost my phone with all my numbers, so there  are some people I will have to roam around Cairo to track down again. thinking about trips outside the city, to Alexandria or Sinai, which would be good to do soon before it gets rediculously hot.

I've already gotten a little sidetracked, cause I haven't been calling Wa'el every day to hang with him and tag along to his gigs, like was my original plan. There are groups right now that I've met that I would like to bring him to. I don't know if he'll have the time, but we're meeting today in order to talk about this . There's one group that's doing Nubian songs with a modern instrumentation, and another that might be more of a rock funk thing. Either one would be a lot of fun, and I just wish that Wa'el will be down for one of them. My first commitment is to him, and so I want some kind of band to happen. Each one of these groups comes from a different circle of guys, so there's a lot of musicians to choose from.

فرح مصري

I went to an Egyptian wedding last night with my friends Mohsen and Waheed. It was in the province of Banha in the Nile Delta, in a small village. The bride and groom basically just sit on a raised stage while everybody comes up to congratulate them. Apparently they had been sitting there for a good four hours when we got there around 9:30 pm. The second I got there I was whisked up onto the stage to meet the bride and groom. Then I was brought back down off the stage and given a mic to make a speech! It was so fast I hardly knew what to say, which I think was something like "Egypt is beautiful, I love it." The men were dancing while the women sat up near the stage. Somebody picked me up onto his shoulders danced around like that along with two others which were also on their friend's shoulders. The groom, named Hassan, was hoisted up too to come dance with me. They took us to eat at the groom's house, rice and meat. Soon after we went back to the dancing area the bride and groom came down from the stage to go back to their house. The custom is to give the groom money so that he won't have to work for the next couple of weeks. In the village, the mother of the bride will come out the next with the blood-stained bedsheet and wave it around for everybody to see that her daughter was indeed a virgin. The bride and groom were 21 and 25 respectively. After the bride and groom went home, I stayed around talking and drinking tea with a few other men there, and at about 12:30 we came back.  It was a short fun evening. Hopefully I'll get to see more weddings in the future! There weren't any musicians, just a DJ with a big soundsystem. It must have been tough to get all that gear into the village on those small dirt roads, but they managed somehow. 

I feel like I've been here for so long even though it's been less than two weeks. I've met so many people and gotten so many phone numbers that I almost don't know who to hang out with. I've been asked to join a band, playing some classic Egyptian songs, and it would be great, except that I've come here to play with Wa'el and if I dedicate myself to another band that would take away all my time to play with him. Today I have to get a haircut cause i'm going to a wedding tonight. My friend Mohsen and I are leaving Cairo at 8 pm, so I'm guessing it's going to be an all night affair. Pictures coming soon

So I came back to cairo to play with a great musician that I had met the last time I came, a guy named Wa'el al-Fashny. A few nights ago I talked to him on the phone and we met up. He told me that the next night he was playing a gig in Beni Sueif, a town about two hours south of Cairo, with a pretty famous Egyptian pop star named Ramy Sabry. It was funny how laid back the whole thing was. Wa'el told me to meet him at 5, and we'll go. I met him up, and over the next two and half hours the rest of the band showed up, sitting, talking, having tea, and it wasn't until about 8 that we left for the gig. The ride down was lots of fun, with everybody laughing and cracking jokes. I was kind of overwhelmed because I still really can't even hold a conversation in Arabic, and most of the guys didn't speak English except a couple. I was telling Wa'el how I would really like to start a band with him, or at least get together often to jam. Some of the other guys in the band like the bass player Amr Gamal, who I talked to for a long time on the way back, were also interested, and it looks like today we'll be getting together. The band travels with a full team of roadies, sound crew and camera man, and even though it takes a while to get everybody on the bus once we got to the gig the team got set up really fast. There were hundreds of young people at the concert, and some random old guys that I couldn't figure out why they were there. The crowd went nuts for the music, which, although I didn't understand the words, was pretty straight forward pop based on traditional rhythms. After the show, the stage was torn right down and everybody headed back to the bus. 

I started a language school yesterday, and they actually placed in a class that's a little bit too advanced, so I asked to be put in one level lower. Hopefully that will work out better. Days are long here, I wake up early and go to bed really late. But I'm starting to find a group of friends, mostly foreigners, who I can hang out with. I've met a couple other people that live in my building, and they came over last night to have dinner. Now I'm just at home, getting ready to work on some music, doing laundry, gonna clean the house. You know, interesting stuff.

I sat outside the mosque near my house to listen to the sermon. Everyone knows the prayer and when to stand and sing and kneel and touch his head. Only men pray outside, but I saw a couple women going into the mosque. After the prayer, I went around the corner and got my first Foul sandwich, just a piece of pita bread with sloppy beans inside. In many street stands you tell the guy at the cashier what you want first and he gives you a little reciept to give to the guys making the food. There are several things in the window, but I only know the name of the foul. At some point I'll find out about the other stuff. Noise is picking up on the street now that the prayer is over. I think I'll look foward to the quiet of Friday morning every week. Last night I went with my new roommate and the guy whose place he took to downtown to walk around and have a beer. Downtown Cairo is always packed with people out shopping, getting ice cream, going to the movies, or just walking. Although it gets pretty chilly at night, the days seem to get hotter every minute. I can't imagine how the women here can stand to go so covered up, wearing full length robes to cover their faces and even gloves. The heat is tough to deal with and I'm still a little sick, with a cough and a headache. Today I might go to Khan al Khalili, a great market, or maybe to a fruit and vegetable market that is near my house. I've sort of avoided going to the supermaket yet, but for example yesterday I spent $1.50 to eat and that was plenty. I could save money living here, which would be fantastic in case I decide to travel again after this time here.                                                                                                     

So much?

It's amazing how much I feel like I've already seen in these first two days. There are just so many people and sounds and smells that it's hard to process it all. It's hard to imagine how one would be used to this, but if you grew up here of course you are. This is Friday April 3rd, and as I'm writing this I can hear the muezzin giving the beautiful prayer calls across the city. There is a mosque near my house and so the streets are empty this morning. 

The first day in Egypt اليوم الاول في مصر

After spending a long day in London during my layover, I got to Cairo at 1 am to my hostal. The next morning, this morning, I called my roommate Alejandra, a Spanish girl, and made it over to my apartment. The cab drivers are almost as clueless as you are (Cairo's a big city), and mine had to make 3 stops to get directions to my place. We found it, and I spent the afternoon getting settled in and getting to know my neighborhood. Had dinner with two friends  who are living in Egypt right now, and it turns out we live about a 5 minute walk from each other. After dinner I wandered more around the streets, knowing that I wanted to find a cafe to sit and have tea. After passing several places I finally saw the one. Egyptian coffee shops are always small, dirty, and the best place to have a conversation. Started talking to one guy sitting there who couldn't really understand why this blond dude was speaking to him in broken arabic, but the great thing is that as soon as you talk to one guy all his buddies start talking to you, and that way two other guys sat down whom I chatted with for a long time. One of them tried to convert me to Islam, so I did, and that made him very happy. Al-Hamdulilla. These conversations made me remember why I loved Egypt so much the first time I went. People genuinely want to be your friend, and they love to talk and ask you questions. I know that I will be doing a lot of sitting and talking, which is more or less all the Egyptians do, during my 6 months here. I'm going to put up links, probably to a MySpace page, where I'll be posting songs that I record. Please comment or write back or whatever and keep in touch. Lotsa love