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The man who’d watched me for a bit yesterday let me into the studio. He’s actually a dance teacher and he and his wife have a school in Taiwan. I started rehearsing. About 20 minutes later, Mme. Hassan came in and checked on me. She taught me and new step, left and came back and left again.
The next person who opened the door was a camera man. A two-man crew from Business News Asia (or something like that) had come to film a profile on Mme. Hassan. So I was dancing some of her choreography (and messing up like crazy) while they filmed. I also turned on a cassette on film (even though we were using a CD). And filmed some footage of Mme. Hassan instructing me. We also did a shot where she watched me and crossed her arms L
I’d told my partner I’d only be 2 hours today and that we could do something after, so as soon as the shooting wrapped up, I booked out of the building. We had found a good grocery store near her home so we went back there and stocked up on a few essentials (PB&J) and went to the aquarium.
It’s in a nice park and we were having a good time until one of the park employees started waving at us not to go into the aquarium at a certain entrance. Then he told us we had to go left. Then we had to follow him right. He was pushing us along and ignoring all of the Egyptian couples. There were a lot of couples out (as usual). Egypt is so love, love (as the Japanese say). It’s really beautiful to see all of the hand-holding and hugging-especially with the older couples. Anyways, we got sick of the employee and just left the park.
Then we decided to check out Arkadia. The 500+ shop mall. Yawn. Not much there. A lot of the same stuff over and over again. And honestly, a bit of a depressing vibe. We caught a taxi home and watched some TV episodes we’d downloaded to our laptop to entertain us.
9/12
Traffic was super light this morning and I was about 15 minutes early for my class. I went up to the apartment anyway because there aren’t places to hang out in Cairo really (like Tokyo) and I was alone so ignoring all the “welcome to Egypt” guys makes it harder when you are stationary. About 15 minutes later, her brother arrived and let me into the apartment. He offered me some water and let me into the studio to practice.
I was on my own for about an hour and a half then Mme. Hassan’s assistant arrived and I went over the choreography with her. She said it was beautiful but I needed more strength in my hips (which is why I came to Cairo). Mme. Hassan often tells me what I’m doing wrong but not always how to perform the move correctly. I was really happy her assistant showed up because she explained so much to me about Egyptian dance (for example that my camels were coming too high into my chest).
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