You Need Wind to Fly a Kite, or Day 28 in Doha

Just being on a college campus is enough to add a bit of spice to my day.

This week is the "EC for Haiti" campaign. A few organizations from different campuses are all banding together to man table everywhere around here for a week to solicit donations for the victims of the earthquake that will then be given to the Red Crescent. If you are at EC, come say hi to me tomorrow (Monday) in LAS from 11:00-noon. And donate money.

Today was the kick-off event, which was possibly planned by Cornell, who decided that kites would be necessary**. I didn't really understand the theme, but there was also egg-tossing, cotton candy, chocolate pebble candies, and an iPod raffle. Yay donating to Haiti?

While attempting to fly a kite, I ran (thankfully not literally) into Matt, an exchange student at Texas A&M. Sadly, there was no wind for him either, so he got to run next.

I did mention the egg-toss, but I don't think I mentioned the fact that the first friendly face I saw was a chicken-embryo-covered Utsav. He's male; what do they know about taking care of eggs? (Nevermind that Swapnil and I went through three eggs before we could get more than five feet apart.)

After closing shop on that event, I went with Yahya, a half-Egyptian Cornell student, to watch the final match of the African Cup at Georgetown. Apparently they've been showing all the Egypt games there, and the last game (the one I couldn't attend because I'm a girl) was a lot more exciting than this one (since they did get four goals instead of just one this time).

But, during that goal, which was scored five minutes before the end of regulation time, everyone was on their feet chanting "Masr" (Egypt) and singing along. You can see the low-quality video, but, trust me, it was the reason I seek out these things. Excited fans make me excited!

My final adventure for the night was accompanying a friend to pick up another friend at the airport. At 3am. We were a bit early, so got some tea at bandar (which I then spilled on myself. It is the first time I have spilled tea, and, of course, it happens the day after I do laundry.) When we got to the airport, the flight was a bit delayed. I haven't been raised in this sort of multi-culture, so while we were in the airport, we began guessing where each person was originally from. Fun fact: most people with moustaches are from India. Who knew?

Tessa finally arrived, and we went to the nearest Starbucks to feed her coffee addiction. What costs $8 in America costs $5 here and $1.75 in Brunei. I've included a menu in Arabic, for those of you who need the translation for "cafe americano." (I personally need the translation from "cafe americano" into "a diluted shot of espresso".) We also went to McDonald's for a late night snack. There is nothing like having classes in the morning and pretending like you don't.

**EDIT: This just in from Utsav: "Basant is a traditional kite flying festival in India. At Cornell we celebrate it annually as a picnic. This year we decided to charge for the kites and all the funds collected will be either sent directly to the Cornell center in Haiti or via Red Crescent." So now we both know!