Sufi dancing madness

Class 9-1. Yesterday during class, Hasna told us that if we did well on our homework she would bring us "basbousa" the next day. So today during our break from class, we had an assortment of Arabic desserts. SO GOOD. Basbousa essentially tastes like angel food cake saturated with sugar-water. Which is fine by me, but I guess you wouldn't like it if you don't have an unnaturally high tolerance for sweetness.

Anyway, after class, we went out to lunch at Cafe Noir with Professor Sullivan to discuss some articles we had to read about the restoration of Islamic monuments in Cairo and movie theaters in Cairo.

At night, we went to see Sufi dancing and the Whirling Dervish. It was absolutely amazing. There was a man who was spinning for probably half and hour (the same direction the whole time). I don't understand how a person can do that without falling over or getting sick. Somebody said that the dancing is sort of mystical, so they may go into a trance-like state while they're spinning, but who knows?

1. Class photo: In the middle of the front row is my teacher, Hasna.

2. bizarre bazaar: We had a little downtime before the Sufi dancing/whirling dervish, so we wandered around the bazaar and ended up following this one guy down a strange side-street. I felt like I had entered into an alternate universe. There were hundreds of these white square plastic bags filled with shirts, dresses, tourist-y souvenirs, etc. and they were in every little shop stacked really high. They created a sound barrier to the rest of the noisy bazaar, so it was eerily quiet. So strange. I really want to go back and take a video while walking through there, because there really isn't an effective way to explain it.

3. Whirling Dervish: We weren't allowed to take video, and unfortunately pictures just don't have the same effect, but here's the best I could do:this old, toothless man played the finger cymbals and he was having a grand old time literally spinning for 20-30 minutes nonstop. unbelievable.