It's raining cats and dogs...or at least dogs

So I managed to get sick and thus missed my classes with Raqia and Shalaby the last days. Not a good idea to exhaust yourself with dancing right after a climate change. Should probably have realized that I was overdosing a bit on dancing when I realized I was eating almost all my meals at Raqia's! Today I finally managed to drag myself out of bed to do a workshop with Lorna Gow, who works at the Nile Pharaoh boat here. AND she keeps a great blog at bellylorna.blogspot.com. Go to hers for the glamorous life of a fannana, and come to mine for the blood, sweat and tears!

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect of her. Yes, Cairo does have some of the best dancers I've seen in my life, but I have also seen some "professional" dancers here who wouldn't even cut it on the restaurant scene in little Norway. And the sad truth is that you don't necessarily get hired in Cairo based only on your dance skills. Anyway, long story cut short, she blew me away. She is tall, abolutely striking, has this wonderful positive energy about her ( I really tried to re-write this as I start to feel rather new-agey writing about all these energies, but can't find a better way to put it) and the cutest, most expressive face ever. Her dancing has that wonderful balance of earthy/heavy-ness and elegance that I would just kill to have myself. Fantastic strong, "gooey", sassy moves. For Norwegian readers: she is the only dancer I have seen that can match Lee Figenschow in facial expressions and authority in her dance. So now I'm just dying to go and see her show, if she impressed me this much in a beginner workshop, I can't even begin to imagine how she must be when she's "on". Definitely someone I want privates from, I just need to get well first. The bad news is that after standing next to her faboulousness for 3 hours I feel like a dustbunny myself...

This single week it has rained more than during my 3 months here last year, and today the skies just exploded. Cairo is just not prepared for rain. When the workshop started, the studio already had leakages here and there, and the traffic was just snailing along (is "snailing" even a word in English? Well you know what I mean). The roads don't have any ditches so all the water gathers in the dumps in the road, at times I felt more like a duck than a car-passenger. It stopped raining at about 2 pm and still when I went back to the hotel at 9, the traffic was really slow several places. Went to eat at a fairly nice restaurant and the water was dripping down on our heads through the roof, and the waiters had to mop the floor every 20 minutes. You can't help but laugh!

I spent the last half of the day visiting the ESMA dog shelter in Abu Sir at the outskirts of Cairo. It's a fairly new shelter, managed by Mona Khalil, who I met at the SPARE shelter last year. I immediately went to SPARE the day after I came to Cairo, and was both happy and disappointed when I was told that one of my favourite dogs, Roy, had been sent to Germany for adoption. However, it turned out there are 2 Roy's and MY Roy is still here in Cairo! He recognized me within a nanosecond, and we had a looong reunion with tales a-wagging and me crying my eyes out. Argh, I'm still welling up just thinking about it.

I will write a LOT more about the shelter later, but for now:
ESMA's website, still under construction: http://www.esmaegypt.org/
An article about the shelter: http://network.bestfriends.org/egypt/news/21532.html

After running around in the rain and cold (ok, so not cold by Norwegian standards, but I didn't bring any Norwegian clothes here either!), not to mention playing in wet sand with about 30 dogs, I can feel my flu flaring up again. I returned to the hotel armed with pills, nosespray and cough sirup and will hopefully be back in business soon. Should go to bed and rest but I will never sleep now, knowing I will see Roy, habibi Roy, again tomorrow!