Rufio & Zena

My two little bengal kittens are doing well. I am very happy with them. Zena has become a little more affectionate, and Rufio is my lover boy who loves attention. Mojo has adapted very well, and loves them dearly.

Every time I sweep up the living room they decide to destroy the pile of dirt in the middle of the floor. It does not fail every time! you would think I would be prepared by now. They are always into trouble, enjoy destroying things, and knocking everything over that can be knocked over. Well they are babies what to expect. Rufio has the loudest meow I have ever heard. When I feed him in the morning he screams so loud. And he is still responding with a meow when I call him by name.

They seem to think that the huge litter box I decided to buy for them is a sand box and play in there all the time. They have playing matches in the litter box, I have to get them out. They like to even use the litter box at the same time. And if one is using the litter box the other one will poke his head in and attack with a paw. There is no privacy!

Rufio and Zena do not like being separated at all. If I carry one into my room the other comes runing and screaming! As you can see I am very happy with my babies.

Fun parties

I recently performed at a party that had an Arabic theme. It was in Pennsylvania two hours away. Believe me I had second thoughts about going so far. They made the offer quite attractive so I could not say no. It was a group of about thirty people or so, mostly from Russia. The woman who hired me was hiring me for her husbands birthday.

When I walked in everyone was very excited to see me. I was shocked to see that all of the woman were dressed as belly dancers and all of the men were dressed either as sheikh's or Sultans. They all had different type of turbans and head dresses. Gold and black, flashy and very colorful. I was totally amazed that everyone, absolutely every one was in costume from head to toe. The costumes were not cheap costumes that one would by in a store. They were professionally done, and done well.

I later found out that one of the woman at the party was responsible for making all of the costumes for everyone. I also found out they often have parties with themes and usually go all out. I think it is great that all of these adults agreed to wear costumes and be apart of creating something unique and fun. The pictures are going to be great!

I performed for twenty minutes and then gave all of the woman a lesson, since they were really into it. There was a photographer taking pictures constantly and I hope to get a hold of some pictures. They all danced and had a great time. I changed costumes and performed again, they loved every minute of it. Usually a second performance is not really paid much attention, but everyone really watched me intensely both times. I was enjoying myself so much that I gave the ladies another dance lesson until they were exhausted. They appreciated me so much and everything that I had to give them. It was really a wonderful experience.

The food was fantastic and the hospitality was great! After I ate we were all told to go out side to see the fire works. Wow! Fire works! They were amazing, They asked me if I would stay and hang out, well why not I was having a blast. I found out that the person in charge of the fire works always does it, and sometimes the cops come, but they don't care they do it anyway! The cops did not come by that night.

This is a great example of a what a wonderful job I have. Meeting and getting to know different people is a wonderful experience. This was a great party and I am happy I was a part of it.

Thank you Kacy for hiring me.

Living Life and Loving It!

After coming from Egypt and two spiritual retreats I must say that I do appreciate life a lot more. I love my life and I am so happy that I am doing what I love. Life is very precious and I appreciate every moment I get to spend with my family and friends. My two new little kittens Rufio and Zena have truly blessed my life and filled my heart with love. I am enjoying every moment with them.

Zena has a little eye infection, but she will be fine. She is a little distant, and very much a loner. The other day she actually layed on my lap and let me pet her and love her. I was so happy to have her on my lap. So she is coming around and getting a little more affectionate. Every time I pet Mojo or Zena Rufio comes running and screaming because he wants all of the attention. He gets very jealous. When I call his name he always responds with a very loud and long Meow. He is quite a character. Mojo is very happy he has company now. I call him papa Mojo and Rufio is my lover boy. Zena well she is still adjusting.

I have never danced so much in my life. The drum circles at these retreats I went to were so high in energy and going into a trance under the moon and stars was more than I ever dreamed of. I danced into the morning almost every night for one week. All of the drummers were just as inspired as I was. The energy exchange between the drummers and the dancers was just so intense. There were two drummers that drummed until morning for me . Dorian which is a wonderful close friend of mine and I think the other drummers name is David was just incredible. It was 9:00am and I had been dancing since 3:00am they ended up being the last drummers that could actually keep up with me. We just could not stop it felt soooo good. Dorian, and David were still able to play so precisely even though hours had passed they were both still incredible. Thank you Dorian and David for sharing your wonderful energy and love of life! It was truly a gift to have you there under the stars drumming for me as I was the only dancer left I feel truly blessed to share those moments with you.

I am a little bit overwhelmed with work and a little behind. I am teaching so many classes and performing so much that I barely have time for myself. I really need to change that. I would like to just teach two classes a week instead of four. I need some time to take workshops myself. I love taking classed and dancing 10 times or more a week between performing and teaching just seems to take up all of my tim. So for the new year I need to make some serious changes. I have not been to a movie in a long time, and although I love dancing I need to create some down time also. Having a sense of balance in life is not easy especially for me, since I am deffinatley a high energy person.

My six week vacation all revolved around dancing, classes, and performing. My love of dancing has me very inspired to continue on this wonderful journey and fly with it. It is never too much, and I hope to excel in this art as far as it will take me. I love my life and I feel so fortunate to have found dance which has inspired me in my life unlike anything I have every experienced.

My bengal kittens have arrived and so have I

I am back from Egypt and I had an incredible time. I did go on a short spiritual retreat to regroup myself. My spiritual retreat was amazing! I met a lot of old friends and bonded with new ones. I took some amazing classes and had plenty of time to meditate and cool down. It was a camping trip so being out for five days in the wilderness was wonderful. The entire time I was very excited since I would be adopting my two little Bengal kittens as soon as I got back.

I named the boy Rufio and the girl Zena. They are so adorable. They have already taken over the apartment. Rufio is very sensitive and needs lots of love and attention. Zena is very dominant, and she does not like to share her toys with Rufio or Mojo. Mojo is my roommates cat. Mojo seems to be getting along with them. They are very active and have already brought so much joy into my life.

I am in the process of creating a cat jungle on the ceiling of my living room. I already have three cat houses and two reach the ceiling. I have gone a little overboard for my little kittens. I think they have everything and more. They are filled with love and affection and I have never ever been happier. I will be having a little baby shower for them so that all of my friends can meet my two babies.

I am going to begin teaching again on Tuesday and look forward to dancing again full time. I miss my friends and especially my students. I will never go away for 6 weeks ever again. It was not as easy as I thought it would be. I became so home sick and after coming from Egypt I must say that my perception of life is very different.

Traffic In Cairo

Those of you who have not been to Cairo are not aware of the traffic here. It is pretty scary riding in a cab, and even scarier crossing the street. There are no traffic lights, in some places there are, but they are ignored. Cars scrape each other and mark each other and no one screams or yells at anyone. It is almost normal to hit a car and keep on going, no one is going to complain. I was sitting in the back seat of my friend Atef's car, and he scraped two cars hit one car slightly and bumped his side mirror twice. No one yelled or complained, everyone went about there business as if it were normal.

Sometimes in a busy area there are traffic police and they do help out, but they are not everywhere. Just imagine New york with no traffic lights and cars doing what ever they want! Well that is what it is like here. Cars just do what ever they want when ever they want and I basically hold my breath when ever I am in a cab. I can't believe how many times this cab almost gets into accidents.

Crossing the street is another matter. The cars don't stop and people basically run into the street while cars are still going. It is really scary! I saw so many close calls. I am always affraid to cross the street here. I usually wait for someone to cross with. They just start crossing while a bunch of cars are still moving very quickly. The cars just slow down, but they do not stop.

Being a Famous Belly dancer in Cairo

I did not really have enough time to write everything I wanted to about the festival. My time here was very limited since I had 6 hours of dance classes every day. I just wanted to add what incredible performers were at the festival. They all did a beautiful job.

The opening Gala was filled with more than 2000 people, and everyone was all dressed up in gowns and dresses. All the men wore suits and ties, everyone looked amazing. As you know here in Cairo most woman are covered from head to toe. So ofcourse all of the men at the festival were going nuts with all of these woman in gowns without covering much skin. Diana and I were asked to take our pictures more than a dozen times. In fact this is the night we got in the News Paper. The photographer interviewed us and asked us if we felt safe here. He also asked who we looked up to as a dancer. We could not walk two feet with out cameras flashing.

The dancers for the opening Gala were Katia, Rhonda, Dina, and Sorraya.
Katia entered in an Egyptian outfit. She sat on a royal golden platform that was carried by four men. She wore a gold dress and egyptian head dress. It was a beautiful entrance. Katia used Egyptian poses using her hands and arms. It was a grand entrance.

The musicians were incredible. I noticed that for each dancer the musicians changed. I found out that they all had their own musicians. It is nice to be famous and have your own musicians when ever you perform.
They all had fabulous costumes and I was shocked to see them all change about 4 to 5 times during the show. When ever I perform in New York I would dance for 20-30 minutes straight! Some times with a live band 45 minutes in the same sweaty costume, while I am dripping wet! No costume changes no breaks, no breathers. Wow these woman were lucky!

I loved watching Rhonda, I was lucky enough to see her perform twice. She performed at the closing Gala as well. Asmahan and Rhonda both performed at the closing gala. I am sure those of you reading my blog know by now that Asmahan is my favorite.

I loved Sorraya she is deffinatly a little fire cracker. She is a great performer and teacher. She mixes brazilian dance with belly dance and can really wake up any crowd. I enjoyed watching her. She is a very dedicated dancer and one of the most creative. I took her shimmy work shop and when I tell you three hours in a class with this woman and you will understand her dedication. She pushed us and did not stop, oh and by the way she did not take a ciggarette break! Sorry I had to stick that in, I was just shocked to see how many of these performers smoke. I have nothing against smoking, I will even have a ciggarette now and then, it's just that these women have really made it in this field and I am amazed with the amount some of them smoke.

Well now I am up to Dina, unfortunatly my least favorite dancer. I could not wait to see her, I have heard so much about her that maybe my expectations were to big. She stumbled on to the stage as if she were drunk or on drugs. She lost her balance a lot, and did not appear graceful at all. I kept waiting to see how amazing she supposedly was and I just kept waiting. She did not do anything spectacular or amazing. She did not do anything different or refreshing. Oh yes as a matter of fact she did do something different!

She wore a costume that was made out to be a thong panty sticking out in front and in back. The audience gasped! Everyone was shocked and dissapointed. It looked like she just came out of her bedroom. Her other costume had garter belts attached to it hanging down. This really was not neccesary. These two costumes were not classy at all, and I thought to myself why is she doing this. Then I realized, maybe she needed to compensate since she was not the best dancer that night. Maybe if everyone looked at her costumes they would not pay attention to the way she danced. I spoke to a lot of dancers in the audience after the show and also in the classes that week. Every one was appalled at what she wore. I took her workshop and was equally dissapointed. I ended up walking out. I don't want to knock Dina completely, please do keep in mind that this is my personal opinion and I am sure that there were girls that enjoyed her performance and her workshop I just was not one of those girls.

Still in Cairo

I had a great time riding a camel at the pyramids. The desert is beautiful and the camel ride was very scary. Finally getting to see the pyramids in person was such an uplifting experience. I will never ever forget it. It is very hot here, but I am enjoying myself very much. I am home sick and I can't wait to go home to see my family and friends. I purchased so many things that I needed to buy an extra suit case. I miss all of my students very much and I can't wait to see them all.

Our pet rabbit Alli has really warmed up to us and even greets us at the door when we go home. He lets me kiss him on the head and even follows me every where. He is sooo cute. He loves tomatoes, and hazel nuts. He hops around the whole apartment. He is very happy and Diana intends on bringing him to New York. If she can't keep him I hope that someone reading this will be interested in adopting our little Egyptian bunny rabbit.

Every time I have dinner here at a restaurant out doors I have to order two meals, one for me and one for the many cats that I feed. They all flock once they see that I am feeding one cat five to 8 cats come running and all wait for me to throw chicken to them. They are all hungry and skinny it breaks my heart and I have to constantly hold my tears back. There are so many homeless cats.

Every one here in Cairo smokes. It is unbelievable! Even during one of my dance work shops some girls took a break to smoke right in the class room. No problem. if you can't handle smoke don't come to Egypt! The cab drivers smoke, almost all of the dance teachers need to take a bunch of smoking breaks during the class and will smoke there cigarettes right in the class room. Most of the cab drives smoke and in all of the restaurants there is smoke. There is smoke everywhere, you can even smoke on the bus in the bathroom especially in any store that you go into . I am amazed.

I saw the whirling dervish show yesterday, it was great. There were many musicians and they were all brilliant. There were four men dancing with these beautiful colorful skirts. They spinned for so long I don't know how they did not get dizzy. It was an incredible show.

I have been to the bazaar four times already and the amount of belly dance costumes is so overwhelming. I got some really nice costumes and great souvenirs. I love the camels and could not resist buying a cute stuffed camel for my living room. When I was sitting at the vendors I decided I wanted to get camels as a gift for my students. And when I asked the boy for 20 camels he almost fell over. What?! He said 20 camels? I said yes 20 camels. They did not know what to do, they went crazy they did not have enough camels and they had to send to boys out to find more camels. When he returned all sweaty and tired. I said o.k. 5 more camels. What?! He said 5 more camels? So he had to rund out and find 5 more camels. Then when he returned I said o.k. 5 more camels NO I am just kidding then they all started laughing. I had no idea that these little stuffed camels would be so heavy. I had to cary them with me all day. I hope my students appreciate my gift of camels I will be bringing to New York. They were a lot of work to get.

Living in Cairo

I love my apartment, it is beautiful and very spacious. I am happy we have a bath tub, but there is no shower curtain or rods to put one on. The entire floor gets wet anyway. Also there is usually no water during the day. We have to shower in the evening and save water in bottles so that we can brush our teeth and wash up in the morning. There is no hot water ever, but that is o.k. since our apartment is so hot. Diana has an air conditionerin her room but I don't. When I wake up I am soaked and I have to take a bath with the bottles of water we save. The landlord came over and left us plenty of water to use in these huge plastic containers. At first we didn't know why he did that, but of course now we realize why.

Diana and I are the only Americans living in this Arabic neighborhood, and everyone stares at us all of the time. We get stared at a lot no matter where we go. People in the neighborhood have been very nice to us and I am sure they wonder what we are doing here. The first time we moved in the super and his wife had to help us with our luggage since the elevator did not work. Diana gave them a very nice tip and now the woman will not leave us alone. She keeps ringing our bell and pushing her way into our apartment. She wants to do our laundry, take out our garbage and clean our apartment. She is very desperate to work for us. I would love to help her, but Diana says it is not a good idea, because she will be here all the time bothering us. Wow, was Diana right! The woman rings the bell at all hours pushes her way in and is constantly trying to get money from us. We really need our sleep and this woman keeps on and on. She even went into our kitchen did our dishes took our garbage out and then demanded 15 pounds. She started becoming very aggressive and pushy. We started sneaking into our building afraid she would hear us. Eventually we had to talk to the landlord, because it really got out of hand. I would have loved to help her, but I like my privacy and especially my sleep! After we spoke to the landlord she still did not give up, but things did get better. We still come into the building very quietly.

There are so many homeless animals here. It breaks my heart! I now walk around with chicken in my bag. I have candy for the kids in one pocket and little pieces of chicken wrapped in aluminum foil for the cats in the other pocket. Cats are everywhere and they are so skinny. I have to hold my tears back. When we go to a restaurant that is out doors so many cats are just passing by under the tables looking for food. I thought about taking a cat home with me, but it is just a lot of work. They have lots of diseases and I can't risk that. The cat may not be completely healthy. I would also have to get permission to take the cat to New York, and the cat will have to get certain shots etc. I don't know we'll see. The street cats are really afraid of people anyway,and I can't have a cat that will not let me pet him.

Diana and I went to this Bazar and stopped when we saw this man selling rabbits. Oh my god they were sooooo cute! So what do we do? Well we decide to buy a rabbit for a pet while we are here. I would love a cat, but they are impossible to catch. The rabbit is clean and healthy. When Diana gave me the idea I agreed instantly. There was a professor that teaches French for the university showing us around the bazaar. He thought we were both nuts! So here we are shopping in the festival now holding a box with a cute little black rabbit. We decide to name him Alli Baba. He loves the apartment! He hops all over the place and he even lets me pet him. We are having so much fun with our new pet Alli. We have taken a bunch of pictures of him and hopefully we will find a good home for him. Every one wants to eat him, and that really makes me angry. We are just trying to save his life. Well I just might be coming to New York with a cat and a rabbit.

Taking a taxi here is driving me crazy. All of the taxi drivers want to charge so much money. They know we are not from here and want to take advantage of us. Today I had to buy an extra suit case to take home with me. Diana decides to stay at the market and I go home alone with the suite case. While I am in the cab the driver negotiates a price with me. I already know all of the prices. I told him I only have 15 pounds and I know that is how much it costs, he agrees. I gave him my note book which has my address written in Arabic. The huge suite case is on top of the car. We arrive to my apartment and he demands more money. I had just spent all of my money and in reality 15 pounds was all I had. So I got out of the car and struggled to get my suitcase out of the top of the car, while he is screaming and cursing at me. I don't know why he got like this we made an agreement and now all of a sudden he changes his mind. I ran into my building. He starts to chase me into my building. This is the second time this has happened to me. But this guy was a little more aggressive than the last one. Just like out of a movie I ran into the elevator with this huge suitcase and the elevator door closes just before he gets there. Whew!!!! He is still yelling and screaming. The super of the building comes up to talk to me with the money from the driver in his hand. I can't really communicate with him because he does not speak English, but I try to tell him as best as I can that the cab driver is wrong. I am completely shaken up by this cab driver that chased me into my building. The super understands and brings the money back to the driver. I am safe behind my locked door and I am happy. Then the door bell rings again. Now it is the supers wife asking for garbage, ofcourse I will never give her my garbage again, it will cost me 15 pounds and a head ache of her ringing my bell 6 times a day at all hours.

I can finally relax and play with my little black bunny rabbit Alli. I decide to take a nap, since I am so exhausted. As I lay down, I realize that I left my little book in the taxi cab. In that little book was my address and phone number to my apartment which I can get. All of my New York phone numbers. All of the choreographies that I had learned in my dance workshops were written in that book. Everything that I learned here was all in that little black notebook. I put hours, and hours of steps and ideas from 13 workshops that I took. HOURS of work! There is no way that I can remember everything that I learned here and I took so much time and have so many pages of ideas that I poured in that book! I took that book with me to each and every workshop and wrote everything down! I sat and cried for two hours, I am at the computer right now and I am still crying! I will never see that little book again. Today is a very sad day for me. What I have to look forward to is going home and running away from another cab driver. It really does not matter how much money you give them they will still yell at you and sometimes even chase you. I can't believe I left my note book in his cab.

Last day of Ahlan Wa Sahlan festival

Wow my body never knew such pain. I can barely walk and feel every single muscle in my body from my neck to my toes. Dancing 6 hours a day has been a real challenge for me. I realized that I took more workshops than most students would do. Some of these teachers were such drill sergeants. I loved every minute of it and I am so happy it is all over now. Tonight is the last performance for the competition and other belly dancer's performances.

Last night I stayed at the Mena House till 3:30am got home at 4:00am and had my first class from 10:00am-1:00 This was a Masters class with all of my favorite Masters Suhaila, Amir Taleb, and Raqia Hassan, they are brilliant!!!!!!

I am not going to mention the teachers that are masters that I did not like, but just for your information some of these workshops were really bad. I even took one workshop with a master, and I honestly felt like I knew more than her. Everything she did I already knew. I was very disappointed. Oh and another great star taught a workshop where there were over 400 girls in the class and a fews guys ofcourse. I will give you a hint. Her nam begins with D
her workshop was the second worst. Any way that is just my opinion and maybe some students did enjoy and like these workshops . I learned nothing from. As I said before everyone is beautiful in there own way. However not everyone knows how to teach.

I am surviving on 4 hours of sleep and I got lost in a taxi this morning for one hour looking for the Mena house for my Masters class. The Mena house is only about less than 10 minutes from my apartment. I was only 5 minutes late to class and did not have time to eat. My classes were pretty much back to back today, so I did not get to eat until 3:30pm But I have the runs all of the time anyway, so food was not something I was looking forward to.

The Masters class today was very impressive. I may not want to master Suhaila's technique, but her choreography was amazing. Amir Taleb again took my breath away!!!!!!! I love him Love him love him. In my opinion he is the very best. And I know that him and Yousry have studied together. So there that says it all. Amir Taleb and Yousry Sharif are the best teachers, dancers and choreographers that I have come in contact as of now. Please do keep in mind this is my personal opinion, and I do enjoy their particular style.

I will write about the competion in two days or so, since I know I will not be able to get out of bed and I need to catch up with my sleep. Suhaila's daughter Isabella was amazing on stage she danced three times and even did a small choreography with her mother to live music. She danced for the competition and it would not surprize me at all if she won. She blew everyone away. She is great and I enjoyed her performance emensly.

I am going to find a sofa in this hotel so that I can try to take a nap for the show, I am beat!