My elective will be Contemporary Social and Political Writings in Egypt. It may make up for my lack of contact with Egyptian intellectuals and serious students my age. AUC has been taken over by gobs of rich Egyptian fashion plates full of giggles.
-Letter Home, September 1978
That semester I learned more from Ahmad the Bawāb [Doorkeeper] and Abdu the Makwagi [Ironing Man], one who spoke through toothless gums and the other who spat water onto wrinkled clothes straight out his mouth, than I did from reading the travelogue of America written by Ihsan Abdul Quddous, which I recall was full of bigoted and simplistic observations made about my country by a hack writer and Sadat stooge but reflected worse on his own. And from those fashion plates I learned about Francophile code switching, the meaning of Merci Awi [Beaucoup] and Chic ‘ala Tūl [To the Max].