Well, I haven't posted in a while, primarily because there hasn't been much to post about and I've been busy with work and wondering what the hell was going on with my field work this fall. I think I've established the following: we leave 1 November and return 20 December - not a long season, unfortunately, and this also removes the possibility of traveling after the season as everyone wants to come back to the States to be with their families for the holidays. At least I don't have to pay for anything. I do have to make arrangements to vote early, but no big deal.
I have also been provided with a guide to colloquial Egyptian Arabic for archaeologists. I'd have preferred to have had all summer to have it lying around so I could pretend to be studying it and procrastinating about doing so - instead I only have about a month to pretend to study it and procrastinate doing so. Actually, as I work through it, I may post some of the more entertaining phrases. I've already found one in the "Dining Room Comments" section: the very first phrase in the section is "this is not clean" - this does not bode well. There are also phrases for "do you smoke?" but unfortunately not one for "can I bum a cigarette?" And while I will probably get relatively proficient in speaking while I'm in the field it will be the Upper Egyptian dialectic, which most people in Cairo consider to be the country-bumpkin dialect. At least I'll be consistent, y'all.