Another Halloween Party and Egypt's Elections

Happy Halloween everyone!  A friend from American University (AUC) invited me to a party hosted by another AUC faculty member last night.  As I was looking around our apartment to think of what I could make into a costume for the party, I saw a piece of fabric with the world map on it that I had brought from the U.S. to hang on Cameron's wall since we wouldn't have much to decorate with.  I decided to wrap the fabric around in a wrap-around skirt and make it part of a United Nations costume.  The picture below doesn't show the world map very well, but it's there.  My scarf is color of the U.N. flag.   Maybe you can guess the meaning of the five countries cut out and labeled on top?  (U.S., UK, France, China and Russia).

Here was one of the most interesting foods brought to the party:  finger cookies to be dipped in 'blood' (a grenadine juice dip).


The party was at a lovely home full of art from all over the world.  Here are some photos from the party.

In other news, some of you have asked me what current events are happening.  One of the big things is that there are elections coming up this month.   The date was recently set for November 28.

If you would like to read some of the election coverage in the newspapers here, I'm providing you a link to the Egyptian Gazette, which is the paper we get delivered to our home:

http://www.egyptiangazette.net//news_cat-71-The%202010%20legislative%20elections.html

This election is only for Parliament with the presidential election scheduled for next year.   

One interesting thing discussed in this BBC online article ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11589354 ) is that 64 of the 508 seats up for election in Parliament will be reserved for women.  The time frame for advertising campaigns of candidates and political parties set by the Higher Election Commission (the group that sets election rules) is November 14-26, ending two days before the election.