begin at the beginning

Thanks for visiting! To read about my year in Egypt from the beginning, please click here. To advance through the posts in chronological order, just keep clicking "newer post" at the bottom. Feel free to leave comments, and I hope you enjoy!

all things go, all things go

Well everyone, this is it: the farewell post. I wanted to take this time to write some things that I love -- and am going to miss -- about Egypt, and the Middle East in general. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Street food. Many people complain about the food in Egypt, but I don't agree. True, it's far from gourmet; if that's what you wanted, you'd be better off in Morocco or Lebanon. But for cheap, delicious, and occasionally greasy local street food on the go, you can't beat Egypt. My favorites: tall glass of mango or guava juice, or banana with milk (sounds weird, but it is so good!), or as'hab, a juice made of sugar cane; fuul, aka stewed fava beans with tahina and salad and sometimes hot peppers, especially from Mah'roos, aka Biblical fuul, aka the fuul place in Garden City; koshari, the classic Egyptian vegetarian peasant dish made from rice, noodles, chick peas, fried onions, lentils, spicy red sauce and some of that garlicky/vinegary stuff on top; fiteer, a kind of fried dough eaten with honey as a dessert or with veggies and cheese or meat as a meal; and of course fatta, which is rice, fried pieces of bread, chicken schwarma, and taamayya (garlic sauce) on top. So good. All of it. Now I just have to find a decent Egyptian restaurant in New York.

2. The call to prayer. When it comes to speaking Arabic in Cairo, Egyptian Ameyya has been much more useful to me than the classic fus'ha I learned at Northwestern. But there is something so beautiful about classical Arabic: when it's written, I love the calligraphy, the flowing script, whether its the inticate designs on Islamic buildings or sprawled across a store front or on the cover of a book. And I love the sound of it, the allahu akbar echoing around me five times a day, marking time and filling the streets and alleys. Hear it at 4 am? Stayed out too late. Hear it at 9 am? Woke up too early. Hear it at 6 pm? Time to start wrapping up work and head home. Though I am not going to be joining anyone at a mosque to pray, I really like hearing the call to prayer sound around me; it reminds me that this city, my home, is filled with people coming together to share something special every day.

3. Chilling. I don't think I can emphasize the relaxed, chilled out nature of this country. Egyptians have a flexible concept of time, and are often late; I respond well to this. Everything is late: buses, scheduled performances, parties, people. I don't think I could live in a country where everyone places such a high premium on time. Everyone is very relaxed about everything; one of my favorite Egyptian words is malesh, meaning: it's OK, no worries. Bus is late? Malesh. Air conditioner broken? Malesh. I seem to be locked out of my house? Malesh! And one of the things I have learned to do here is stop worrying about time so much. I am not usually in a rush, and it's been pretty great. It makes some people anxious, and I will admit that I have moments of wishing things could run more efficiently. But it's worth it for the laid-back atmosphere all around the country. I have chilled all over Egypt: by the Red Sea, by the Mediterrean Sea, in Upper Egypt, on the Nile, in several types of desert, in Siwa, in tents, in Mosques, with Bedouins, and more. In Basata, I took off my watch for four days, and it was heaven. The most popular set-up I see in Egypt is incredibly conducive to chilling: mats and rugs and oversized pillows on the floor, a long, low table, some shishas and trays of tea, all shoes left by the entrance. You can lay out, you can lay back, you can nap or read a book or play a game of tawla/shataranj, you can forget that you were ever supposed to be doing anything else. And if you're late to whatever you were supposed to be doing next? Malesh.

4. Cairo, in all its faded glory. (Get ready, this is a long one!) In the days before Nasser took over, Cairo was a international city. There were gilded buildings and chic pastry shops, and a dignified sort of feeling to the city. Now, many of the streets have been renamed and the facades are cracked and all that grandeur has begun to crumble. Going to have a beer on the rooftop of the Odean, or passing by Groppi's in downtown, or sitting in of the Farouk-era, Victorian-style chairs in my apartment: these are reminders and relics of a more glamorous time. It's true that Cairo is not a beautiful city. But it's intriguing and interesting, and never boring.

I love the Nile, especially at night. During the day you can see the garbage washing up along the shore if you look too closely, but at night it whispers past, just a few buildings away from my Zamalek apartment. In Upper Egypt, down in Aswan, you can take a small boat back and forth across the Nile, where it's wide and quiet and sparkling blue. For three days on the Nile cruise, you can gaze off the side and see quiet fishing villages on either side, and animals, and it's beautiful. But my favorite thing of all is to get on a felluca with a group of friends, whether it's three people or twenty, and just sail and talk and chill. Some of the best conversations I've had in Egypt have been contemplative ones on the Nile. I love, whether sailing or walking along the corniche or on someone's balcony, to watch the Nile at night, gently reflecting the neon lights of the billboards and hotels, silently and eternally flowing north to the Mediterranean.

I love the minarets of mosques piercing the skyline, I love walking in the streets because there are no sidewalks (or because the sidewalks are not passable), I love the way things are built on other things so that in the same city there can be a building from medieval times across the square from an Ottoman one, I love the noise and chaos and energy of the city. They say New York is the city that never sleeps; in Madrid, they said "Ellos que dicen que Nueva York es la ciudad que nunque duerma no conocen los madrilenos" (those who say New York is the city that never sleeps don't know people from Madrid), and now I can safely say that Cairo is truly a city that functions on its own inner clock and rhythm. Everything is open past midnight, everything delivers, it is not unusual to find traffic even when it's 3 am, and the streets are crowded no matter the hour. When I first got here I considered it is the most overwhelming place I have ever lived, and now that assault on the senses is both familiar and welcome; I would not have it any other way.

5. The people. I don't even know how to put into words exactly how awesomely amazing the people I have met here are. They are from all over the world, they speak a dozen different languages, they are fun and silly and fascinating. They shared their cultures and opened their homes; they have opened my mind, as I can only hope I have opened theirs. Some I saw every day, some only once a month, but I always felt welcomed and supported. They are my Cairo family, they are such a big part of what made my year so great, and I will miss them more than I can say.

Cairo is not a perfect place, and neither is Egypt. But I'd rather think about the things I love instead of dwelling on the negative. So with that, I will say goodbye to you. I hope you enjoyed reading about my life in Egypt this year as much as I enjoyed writing. Thanks!

orientalist architecture

My farewell post is coming soon, I promise. But first: some photos of one of my favorite neighborhoods in Cairo. Islamic Cairo has many beautiful mosques, which I find so innately peaceful. You take off your shoes, women make sure their hair is covered, find a spare bit of carpet and enjoy the quiet. I like the beautiful vaulted ceilings and striped arches and the minarets you can usually visit if you provide a little baksheesh (tip/bribe).

It's the way I had always pictured the Middle East.

At Al-Azhar Mosque, one of the most famous in the Middle East. It also has a school attached, Al-Azhar University, which is one of the oldest universities in the world.

A view of the Citadel and Mohammed Ali Mosque from an Al-Azhar minaret. Everything in the middle is part of Islamic Cairo.

The Al-Ghoury Mosque, school and tomb in Islamic Cairo. It's very centrally located near Khan al-Khalili, and is one of my favorites since it's really beautiful inside.

Stained glass windows in the Al-Ghoury Mosque.

Me in the mosque. Note the gorgeous arches...sigh.

Climbing a minaret! This is where the muezzin come to sound the call to prayer.

This is in the Mouayyid Mosque down by Bab Zuweila. To those who have never been in a mosque, the indented area on the left is called a mihrab, and it indicates the direction of Mecca (i.e., the direction in which one should pray). The stairs on the right is where the Imam will go on Fridays to deliver the sermon.

Bab Zuweila, one of the oldest gates that was an entrance to Old Cairo. These minarets you can climb normally with a legitimate ticket, but really, where's the fun in that?

middle east road trip 2009

Sorry to have been a bit absentee in the last week, blog fans, but I was doing a bit of traveling that I have deemed my Middle East Road Trip. Last weekend I went to Dahab, on the Red Sea, to get my scuba certification. After an extremely tiring two days that included four open water and two confined water dives, I am now a certified scuba diver! Very exciting stuff. The thing is, with diving you can't just get certified and then forget about it. The more you dive, the better you'll become and the more advanced you get, which means you can go on more intense dives. Translation: if you want to do cool stuff like explore shipwrecks or dive at night or try underwater photography or get additional certification as a rescue diver, you have to keep diving as much as possible. So I have really enjoyed my start this week, and I look forward to diving all over the place now that I am certified.

Then in the beginning of this week I went back to Jerusalem one more time. Though in the past I was going to meet up with family or take a friend from Egypt, this time I went alone and figured I would meet up with some people there. I have really enjoyed being so close to Israel this year, and this time (my fourth this year) was a great final trip to Israel. I stayed at Heritage House in the Old City, saw some friends, drank lots of Aroma, and even made time for some tourist-y activities. For a while now I have been meaning to go to the Museum on the Seam, a socio-political contemporary art museum. I found it incredibly interesting, so I highly recommend it for anyone going to Jerusalem in the future.

I would also like to take a moment to point out that this is my 100th blog post, which is very exciting for me! I know it might not seem like a big deal, but lots of people start a blog and then abandon it, or aren't sure what to do with it, or any number of other things. But I feel like I have gotten out of this blog what I wanted: it has been a great way for family and friends to see what I am up to in Egypt and the Middle East, and a way for me to write about my experiences, thoughts which I am sure in the future I will be grateful to have recorded here (with photos in some cases!).

But don't worry, it's not goodbye yet! There are still a few things coming on this blog. There are some underwater scuba photos courtesy of my instructor, which I will post when I receieve. And of course, there will be an exciting farewell post from me in which I say goodbye and share some parting thoughts about Cairo and Egypt and my time here and all that good stuff. So check back for that later!

when jesus was in egypt-land

Today I finally went to see Coptic Cairo, the oldest part of modern Cairo that contains the Coptic Museum, a number of churches, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue (entrance pictured above), which is the oldest in Egypt. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million, but most of the Copts live in Middle Egypt. Anyway, the Coptic language is like a combination of Greek and ancient Egyptian, I think, and they are famous for their textiles and the monasteries, several of which are still in use today in places like Fayoum and Wadi Natroun.

First I went to the Coptic Museum, where they have recreated parts of monasteries and things like that. They also have complete garments that priests used to wear, as well as religious books from the 13th and 14th centuries. The oldest that they have, which is also actually one of the oldest books in existence, is a 1,600 year old (as in, from the year 400-ish) Book of Psalms in the Coptic language. I went in some of the churches, including the St. Sergius Church, which is where Jesus and family was said to have hidden out when they were passing through Egypt, and is probably the best-known church in the country. I also went into the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which was really cool. When repairs were being done on the building in the 18th (or maybe it was early 19th?) century, that's when they found the Cairo Geniza, which helped show a lot about the life of the Jews in Cairo and Egypt, including when the community was led by Rambam, a scholar also known as Maimonides (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon = RMBM = Rambam). There were not supposed to be any photos allowed, but I gave the guard a little baksheesh (bribe/"tip") and he let me take some photos, sans flash of course. The synagogue is not in use anymore, but given that so few monuments remain to Egypt's Jews, it's nice to know that this one at least is being taken care of.

Also interesting, is that this is the first time in Cairo I have seen so many signs in Spanish as opposed to just French. Most guards, when addressing me, spoke to me in Spanish instead of Arabic (what I usually get) or English. I think it must be because lots of groups come from Spain and Latin America to see all the churches.

A plaque outside one of the churches...you can see what the Coptic language looks like on top, above the Arabic.

The outside of the Church of St. George, which people can't enter (but is one of the oldest in Cairo).

The inside of the synagogue. If you look, you can see the ten commandments above the ark, as well as the Stars of David. There was also a place to donate money for cemetary upkeep, one Torah on display, and menorahs that said "Zion" in the middle.

The outside of the Hanging Church, so called because it was built suspended over water (though it has been rebuilt since then I think).

The Hanging Church from the inside.

moving day again

The contract on my apartment was up yesterday (July 1), so that means the last few days have been a blur of packing and moving. I am now relocated to a few floors below me, staying with some friends (actually, many friends: several other guests in addition to me mean that there are currently six people staying in three bedrooms and on a couch).

Leaving the apartment was a little bittersweet. I know my landlord (well, I suppose he is more like the manager, but he is the one who collects the rent and who I deal with), Mr. Adil, likes me because I speak Arabic and am nicer to him than other roommates who shall remain nameless (or, in this case, initial-less). He calls me "Miss Leeza" and said he was sad I was leaving (I said I was sad as well...even leaving the landlord is hard!). We kept the apartment in good shape (and with considerably more stuff than it came with), and he told me that he would keep the rent at the same level if we wanted to stay (we can't), or if we knew someone else who wanted the place (we don't). When he came to collect the keys, he was teasing us and joking. Initially he said to me "enti mushkila" (you're a problem), and when I got mock-offended he smiled and said, "la', ana araf. Naas kwayyesin, naas kwayyesin." ("No, I know. Good people, good people.") Saying someone is from good people is a very high compliment in Egypt, so that made me really happy. the building I live in is famous for having lots of foreigners and some people feel it is not an "authentic" Egyptian experience, but I have really enjoyed living there.

Packing was interesting: I have been trying to avoid needing to ship a package home, and luckily I was able to ditch some stuff here. I am donating some things to a local refugee service in Cairo (serving mostly Sudanese, Somali, Ethiopian and Iraqi refugees, I believe), and threw away some other things. Let's just say that Cairo's dusty streets, a lack of paved sidewalks and many other things have conspired to kill all but 1 1/2 pairs of my jeans, and nearly all my shoes. I get a pedicure, and by the end of the week my feet are gross again. Suffice it to say that some things were not even worth donating. So I have one large suitcase containing winter clothing, sweatshirts and other items I will not be needing in the next three weeks, and I intend to leave it closed and ready to go. The other one I am living out of, in addition to a duffel bag that I can use for travel. Hopefully this foresight will also make it easier (and faster) to actually pack when it is time for me to leave in three weeks.

Today was my last day of work. I have been saying goodbye to people this week, and although I am looking forward to the traveling I am doing in the next few weeks, I am still sad to leave. I helped select my replacement and feel that I am leaving the magazine I edit in good hands, and I guess that helps, but not a lot. I have begun applying for jobs back in the US already, and am hoping to at least have a few interviews lined up for when I go back. In the meantime, I guess this means that, freelance work aside, I am temporarily unemployed as of 6 pm tonight. Uh-oh!

zen by the red sea

In what seemed like an official start to summer, I spent this past weekend at Basata, a relaxing, chilled-out, eco-friendly camp between Nuweiba and Taba on the Red Sea. We could see the lights on Aqaba (Jordan) and Eilat (Israel) at night, and the mountains of Saudi Arabia across the sea during the day. In fact, all our phones automatically went on the Saudi Arabia network; given my desire to actually visit that country (minimal), that's probably the closest I will come to going there.

Basata is a cool idea -- basically, there are all these huts on the beach (literally, on the beach, with the Red Sea like 5 feet away), all of which have no electricity or running water. They have "beds" (mats) with carpets/rugs/more mats, a few low tables, a few pillows, etc. Ours was a double-decker with a small loft area, the whole hut sleeping a total of eight people (though we were 10, which was fine as two people opted to drag their mats outside and sleep on the porch). At either end of the camp is a bathroom hut with showers and toilets etc., and there's also one big communal hut. This one features a bakery (freshly baked good every day...yum!), kitchen and cooking area, as well as huge spaces to chill on oversized cushions and the floor, long tables and etc. Oh! And a library, a "take one, leave one" kind of situation. English books are quite expensive, so my friends and I usually trade around what we have, plus I get a new one each month to review for the magazine I write for. Anyway, they had a lot in German, but I did read Tar Baby by Toni Morrison (I love Toni Morrison -- Song of Solomon is one of my favorite books of all time) and American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, a fictionalization/reimagining of the life of Laura Bush. Both were excellent.

For food, you are on your own for breakfast and lunch. You can take raw ingredients and make your own, or eat some prepared stuff (i.e. from the bakery, or some corn flakes or whatever). For lunch they usually had out mini-pizzas. And then for dinner you could sign up for prepared food (everything vegetarian!) or make your own. In both cases, you just write down what you took and then pay for everything at the end. We were there three nights and four days, so we did some of our cooking the last night, but ate their food the first two (and it was so amazing). Also, in a very un-Egyptian manner, they recycled! Very exciting stuff.

There was also some beautiful snorkling right off the beach with some great stuff -- saw loads of fish, crabs, sea urchins, etc. And also some lionfish, which apparently are poisonous, so we did not get too close. All in all, an excellent and extremely relaxing vacation. Could not ask for a better start to the summer.

Below, please enjoy some photos of the sea and beach to make you jealous.

in which i get a visitor!

Big news of the week: I have a visitor! Marcy, who has spent the year teaching English in Madrid (another city I love), is visiting me in Cairo for five days before returning to America. It has been a welcome chance for me to revisit some tourist sites in Cairo, like the pyramids and Egyptian Museum, as well as Cairo staples like a felluca ride on the Nile and some shopping at Khan el-Khalili. She has done some exploring on her own, like in Coptic Cairo and in Zamalek, so I have just posted some photos (below!) of the things we did together. Enjoy!

In other news, last week I went with N to see an installment of the Refugee Film Festival. They had been asking for volunteers for the festival, but with my work hours it didn't work out. However, on the day we went we managed to see two films (with dinner in between). I much preferred the second one, which was about mistreatment of Sudanese refugees in Cairo, a problem that many Egyptians don't know anything about. I have friends who teach and/or work with refugees so I have heard about the issue before, but I still found the documentary to be really interesting.

Illicit inside-the-pyramid shot! That's Marcy on the left, rando tourist on the right, and the sarcophagus in the back. This was inside the middle pyramid.

It looks like they are re-painting the Egyptian museum. It seems pink-er than usual...

Green area in the Khan at night

More green area in the Khan at night.

bahrain costs just 90 LE

Last night at my friend L's house, I played a game of Bank el-Haz, the Egyptian version of Monopoly (haz means luck). Instead of purchasing properties named after streets in Atlantic City, you can buy countries and cities in the Middle East -- Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem, Casablanca, Beirut, Riyadh, Oman, Algeria, etc.

But the game is a Nasser-era relic from what we guess to be the early 1970s, which means that the UAE (including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, etc.) is non-existant, and other Gulfie states, like Bahrain, are the cheapie properties available at just 90 LE (in current prices that comes to a whopping total of about $18. Qatar was also a steal at around 150 LE). It also means that at the time the game was made, there were very close ties between Egypt and Syria, so all the most expensive properties were in those two countries -- Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria and Aleppo in the first tier, followed by other locales in Egypt like Aswan, Luxor and Port Said.

The principles of the game were similar to Monopoly: purchase or trade for a monopoly, then build on it, etc. Instead of houses and hotels there were rest houses and markets, but it's the same idea. There's a banker and a jail and GO, and even chance cards, etc. Everything is in Arabic, so it was slow going for me whenever I needed to translate one of the chance cards, but overall it was a lot of fun. It was definitely a simplified version of Monopoly, but for the novelty it was pretty great. I think next week we will go back to Scrabble.

my stylish swine flu mask

This was a weekend of weird (and fun) cultural experiences. On Thursday night I went to a stand-up comedy event at the Sawy Center. I have heard about comedians performing before in Cairo (there are several well-known comedians, especially Egyptians, thanks to popular specials like Axis of Evil and Arabs Gone Wild), but I always skip them because I was pretty sure they would be in Arabic. My friend L heard about this one and said it was supposed to be in English, so I decided to give it a shot. It turns out that it was an evening hosted by well-known Egyptian-American comic Ronnie Khalil, and featuring some amateur and established Egyptian comics...in English and Arabic. First there were four performances in Arabic, an "interlude" by Khalil (in English, making fun of the Obama speech), and then four performances in English, including a much longer set from Khalil.

I had an initial moment of panic when I heard that half the sets would be in Arabic, but surprised myself by understanding more than I expected. It helps that they were all speaking Egyptian ameyya, which is what I have been studying this year, and that my friend L was there to help translate the jokes I didn't get. I understood the most in the first act, and found him to be pretty funny. One of the next three I understood barely anything (though no one seemed to find her too funny, so I think it was OK), one I sort of understood, though he used a lot of slang I didn't pick up on (really, how am I supposed to know the words for "to hit on" and "PMS"), and the third I also picked up on some, others went completely over my head. But that's OK, I am still pretty proud of myself for what I did get. For the English set, the first two were so-so, the third was a radio personality from Nile FM, and he was really funny, and Khalil went last and he was hilarious (not to mention quite a hit with the ladies in attendance).

The best part of the whole comedy evening, though, was the Official Swine Flu Panic. About 10 cases of swine flu have been found in Zamalek (the Cairo neighborhood in which I reside, thank you very much). They are all AUC students, and the entire AUC dorms have been quarantined (as in, 150 people trapped in a college dorm and unable to leave), with classes canceled through June 15. Since the show was in Zamalek, the venue was passing out free face masks and politely requiring people to wear them. What really happened was that everyone took a free mask and then promptly took it off upon entering the hall. Still, enjoy this photo of L and I modeling our fancy swine flu masks:


Then on Friday, my friend A3, who teaches English to Sudanese refugees downtown, was invited by some of her students to come to a hip hop show they were having in their church. I went with her, and though we stood out by being the only non-Sudanese refugees present, it was definitely an experience. They opened the show by having "praise and worship" (in Arabic, but accompanied by electric keyboard and a great deal of singing), and after several of the hip hop groups had performed, there was a break for the pastor to get up and share "the word" (aka a sermon?), also in Arabic, but which appeared to be about Adam and Eve. I have been to church services before (with my Tanakh class in high school, to get into St. Paul's cathedral for free in London, other cathedral-related experiences as a by-product of living in Madrid, etc.), but none quite like this. Anyway, A3's students were quite good, or at least the ones we saw.

The third was later on Friday, when I went with some friends to see a ballet at the Cairo Opera House. It was the tour of the Canadian National Ballet, and it wasn't really traditional -- it was a much more modern take on dance. There were two acts, each a separate performance; although the first part was interesting, the second part was really fantastic. The music for the piece was traditional music from Southern Italy (according to the pamphlet), and was performed live on stage. Very enjoyable. Also, much like the last time we went for the opera, we were able to pay for the cheapest tickets and then were moved up to like the fifth row because there were so many empty seats. It's a shame more people in Cairo aren't coming out to support the arts, but I do appreciate the benefits of being one of the few who do so.

Anyway, I did other things this weekend, including a futile search for ice cream (seriously it's like 95 degrees and I would kill for a Ben and Jerry's right now), a friend's house-warming party, and more. Now that my time here is winding down, I am looking forward to making the most of all my remaining weekends.

more thoughts on the speech

I know I have written about Egypt's Jews before. Just the same, I saw this article today and thought it was interesting -- and sad.

"Mr. Obama had harsh things to say to the Arab world about its treatment of women. And he said much about America’s debt to Islam. But he failed to remind the Egyptians in his audience that until 50 years ago a strong and vibrant Jewish community thrived in their midst. Or that many of Egypt’s finest hospitals and other institutions were founded and financed by Jews. It is a shame that he did not remind the Egyptians in the audience of this, because, in most cases — and especially among those younger than 50 — their memory banks have been conveniently expunged of deadweight and guilt. They have no recollections of Jews."

So true -- the people my age in Egypt have very little idea of what their country is missing. They know that their parents or grandparents used to have Jewish friends and spoke positively of them in many cases, but they have no idea about the cultural legacy they have lost.

the cairo speech

Obama was in Cairo Thursday to address the Muslim world from Cairo University, and though I was only able to watch the speech on CNN International just like everyone else, I wanted to share some thoughts anyway.

First, the atmosphere in the city all day (well, even all week leading up to this) was pretty interesting: there was a lot of anticipation for the speech, and Cairo got a pretty impressive sprucing up. Freshly painted bridges, redrawn traffic lanes on major roads, working street lights in the more bustling areas of the city, and an additional effort to get rid of the garbage normally clogging the city's few fractured sidewalks.

Every taxi I got in last week, when the driver figured out I was American (usually they assume Egyptian...until I start speaking Arabic with my very obvious accent), the first questions they would ask was whether I was excited about Obama, the speech, what did I think he would say, etc. Most Egyptians seemed to cautiously optimistic -- they felt that Obama was coming out on a limb by coming to Egypt and promising to address the Muslim world, and they hoped he would live up to their expectations. The fact that Obama was coming was all anyone could talk about -- and it was really refreshing for me to see how highly anticipated the leader of my country was in a place where, prior to November, invoking the name of the previous leader (Bush) led only to snide remarks and sneers of disapproval. (And yes, I am guilty of both snide remarks and sneers of disapproval when it comes to discussing Bush and his policies.)

Then there was the day of the speech itself. All schools were given the day off to curtail traffic and people in the streets, and many of my friends were given the day off from work. My gym was closed ("in honor of Obama's visit to Cairo" according to a sign), as were many other businesses. Mostly this was because everyone wanted to watch the speech (live at 1:15 pm), and also an attempt by the government to keep car and foot traffic to a minimum on the day of the speech. Cairo University, in Giza, was completely blocked off for blocks in all directions, making it completely impossible to come anywhere near the school. I had thought about going to see if there would be protesters or something, but it was pretty clear from photos I saw that there were nothing but hundreds of extra armed soldiers and a surprising dearth of cars.

Cairo has a huge traffic problem, going through all hours of the day and spread through most of the city (residential area at 11 pm? Traffic still sucks...), so there was something almost spooky about the quiet streets everywhere, kind of like that scene in Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise runs through a completely empty Times Square. No honking, no exhaust, no traffic jams -- sorry, Obama, but that's not the real Cairo experience. Anyway, it turns out that this car-free effect was achieved by closing down entire roads for hours at a time, resulting in horrible traffic in other parts of the city. Most people stayed home or worked from home if possible (luckily, I was able to do that) to avoid the traffic and the excessive police (because really, why deal with that if you don't have to). But following the reactions people had to the speech, in person and online (I think I finally found the point of Twitter, people!) was very enjoyable and educational.

If you missed it, you can find the whole text of the speech here.

just like raiders of the lost ark

In part of my quest to go explore something new in Cairo each weekend, I have recently become very closely acquainted with my Lonely Planet Egypt. In perusing, N and I discovered that in addition to Cairo, there are things we both want to see in Alexandria as well. We have both been to Alex before (N multiple time, me just in September ), but had not seen the catacombs of Kom al-Shuqqafa, which we both wanted to see. So on Saturday, the two of us caught the 9 am train from Cairo to Alex, and our Egyptian friend S3 (who is also N's roommate) picked us up at the train station. She is from Alex and goes home some weekends, so it's always nice to have a knowledgable friend on hand to show you around. After a quick lunch, we went to the catacombs (no cameras inside so I only have pictures of the outside, check below!), which were really cool. Apparently they were discovered by accident in 1900 when a donkey feel through the ceiling, and our tour guide then proceeded to give us a full history of "things discovered in Egypt when a horse or donkey fell through a ceiling." FYI, this happens more than you think. I guess if you really want to find some ancient Pharonic treasures, bring along a horse and hope they take care of the hard part for you.

Inside the catacombs, there was this huge hole through the center of the ceiling that they used to lower the bodies through, plus all these side passageways with tons of tombs. There was also this area that apparently used to be the tomb for a private (and wealthy) Roman family, and it included this stone archway and entrance. The whole thing looked like a booby-trapped scene from Indiana Jones, so you kind of got the impression that when you tried to enter you might be bowled over by a large stone ball, or that some wooden spears would suddenly come flying out of the sides. We decided to brave it anyway, and it was fine. Which was both a relief and slightly disappointing at the same time.

Also, the last time we went we saw the outside of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but it was already closed (because it was Ramadan), so this time we were able to go inside. They had a really cool exhibit called "Impressions of Alexandria" that featured maps, drawings and photos of Alexandria going back hundreds of years, and N and I also took the time to select a book and sit down and read for 15 minutes, so we could say we read books at the library of Alexandria (OK, it's not the fabled great library anymore, but it's still pretty cool). I read from Macbeth (I've always loved that play, at least partially due to the witches), and the complete works of T.S. Eliot (not for Cats! It's because his poem "The Hollow Men" is one my favorites), and N read from a collection of English literature from Ceylon (this is the old name for Sri Lanka, where N's family is from).

After all that, we went back to S3's house for lunch/dinner, which included some deliciously prepared seafood, which we don't get all that often in Cairo. In Alexandrian fashion, the fish were served whole on the bone, and N and I didn't really have any idea how to go about eating it. But S3 and her mom helped us, and I think we were at least pretty entertaining trying to figure it out -- so at least the ridiculous foreigners can be the dinner theater. Her family is great, and I enjoy spending time there when in Alex. We also went for a sunset stroll by the sea -- S3's family lives about a block away from the beach, and I think if I lived that close I would never get any work done at all.

N, me and S3 outside the tombs of Kom al-Shuqqafa

My arm being devoured by the stone lion, S3 freaking out in the background

Not inside one of the catacombs, but a separate tomb. Still, a cool drawing I think.

Inside the library...look at all those books! It goes so far down. A reader's paradise...

Me, jumping for joy to be near a beach

adventures in baking

This weekend is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and one of the traditions of this particular holiday is the eating of dairy foods, especially cheese blintzes and cheesecake. Another Jewish friend of mine, SK (I can't even remember how many S friends I have written about on the blog or which numbers are which ones, so I am just going with initials at this point), is a good baker and asked if I wanted to help make a cheesecake for Shavuot, which I absolutely did.

Now, I will just say that with proper planning and foresight, we probably could have obtained most of the items we needed to make a proper cheesecake. But we did not do this. Instead, we decided at 3 pm yesterday (Wednesday) to make a cheesecake, both worked late, and finally met up around 10 pm in Maadi to start cooking. A supermarket chain called Alfa Market usually has imported foods, like cream cheese (the main ingredient in most cheesecakes, by the way), but there are none by SK's house and I didn't think to check the one by me on my way to Maadi. So instead we went to a local market by her house, where they had several varieties of Egyptian "cream" cheeses, none of which were actual cream cheese. Let's just say we improvised on many ingredients.

Soon enough we were in the kitchen of SK's neighbor -- which was, by the way, the nicest kitchen I have seen yet in Egypt. He had a microwave! It was so nice and shiny... But I digress. Anyway, we opted for an Oreo cheesecake, though we had to go with Egyptian generic brand Borio (once we mashed them up you couldn't even tell the difference), which we put in the crust and also crumbled into the filling. No graham crackers, so we made a crust out of crumbled Borios and McVities Hob-Nob biscuits, plus flour/eggs/sugar/butter/baking powder, etc. While that was baking, we improvised a filling out of...many things. Our independent taste-tests confirmed that it tastes mostly like cheesecake (and vaguely looks like it too) and smells really good, but the consistency is not quite right. It is sitting in my fridge right now, doing some thinking (and some hardening, inshallah), and we will eat it tonight.

To my friends in Egypt: come have some! To friends and family reading at home: chag sameach!

life on hold

Last week, Mohamed Alaa, the 12-year-old grandson of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, passed away. While the death of a child is undoubtedly tragic, I have to see that I have never seen anything like the mandatory nation-wide mourning that ensued. Popular radio station Nile FM banished its stacks of pop tracks and played only Islamic tracts or somber music for about 24 hours. On Thursday night I showed up at Harry's Pub with a group of friends, only to be told that all karaoke had been suspended "out of respect" for the Mubarak family. It seemed excessive to me, but apparently it's a national tradition here for life to literally be put on hold.

This month I've been enjoying the EU Film Club, which has been screening movies from different countries at European cultural centers around the city since the beginning of May. They screen a different movie from a different country each night, with that host country providing some (free, occasionally alcoholic) refreshments before the (free) film, which is why I believe they are so popular. So far I have seen movies from Ireland (Once -- I love that movie!) and Austria, with plans to see Italy's entry today and Greece's later this week.

Anyway, as I guess you can tell, there aren't a lot of particularly exciting things happening around here. I mean, life continues as usual: work is going well, I feel like I am making good progress with my Arabic classes (my tutor says my reading is improving, which I believe is thanks to those children's books I bought), and friends are also good. As for the apartment, well...the Internet we finally arranged for never quite worked the way it was supposed to, and after three months of fighting with Mobinil, our provider, we are finally calling it a day and returning the modem. I am able to access other apartments' networks just fine, and though the connection isn't stellar it's better than no Internet at all. I can't believe what a struggle it has been to find reliable and consistent Internet in such a major city -- seriously, this is Cairo, not the middle of nowhere. Actually...

obama is coming to egypt!

Obama has said he would deliver a speech from a Muslim capital in his first 100 days in office. It's a little after that by now, but I am extremely excited about his planned June 4 speech in Egypt. No confirmation on whether it will be in Cairo, but really -- where else would it be?

Anyway, I'm excited because I think having such a major speech in Egypt sends a positive message. Egypt is a moderate country in the Middle East (for whatever that's worth) and plays an important role in the region as a moderator (i.e. between Israel and the Palestinians). So I say well chosen, and not just because I live here. Now, how to get tickets?

UPDATE May 12: More thoughts on what Obama should speak on when he comes to Cairo.

the problems with pigs

This weekend I went to an Egyptian hospital for the first time. Don't worry, nothing happened to me, but my friend H got sick so I went to visit him with some friends. As someone who has been fortunate enough to grow up with first-rate doctors and medical care, getting sick while abroad was definitely something I worried about. I got traveler's health insurance from STA travel before I left, but my line of thinking went something along the lines of...I hope I never EVER have to use this, because health care in the developing world is scary.

Turns out, not so much. Al-Salam Hospital in Mohandiseen is a very nice facility; obviously it's no Columbia-Presbyterian (where I spent some time both pre- and post-back surgery back in 2005) or anything, but it's clean and the rooms are pretty spacious. I have legitimate health care courtesy of my job (EgyCare, and it comes with a photo ID card and everything!), and although I still hope to never need to use it, the idea of being sick in Egypt is no longer as horrifying as it once was. I think a lot of people used to doctors and medicine in the US (or the West in general) worry about the standard of care in other countries, but I think that in such a major city like Cairo, there isn't really anything to worry about.

And on the topic of falling ill, swine flu panic has come to Egypt. The government is responding by deciding to slaughter all the pigs in Egypt -- about 350,000 of them. This is problematic for several reasons. The first is that it is now pretty well acknowledged that swine flu is spread by people, not actual swine, so killing them won't really accomplish anything. Of course, it's not like anyone here has actually caught swine flu (nor will they, because the percentage of the population who have enough money to travel somewhere they might catch it, like Mexico, is so miniscule), so it's not like there's even anything to spread. But no, the real problem is that the group most likely to be raising pigs is Egypt's Coptic Christian minority (about 8-10 percent of Egypt's total population of 80 million, depending on which statistics you're using), an already marginalized group who are the targets of a lot of hatred and discrimination.

A lot of people are saying that the decision to kill the pigs is not because the government is worried about the spread of swine flu, but because they want to make things even more difficult for the Copts. It's almost like the government is saying, this flu is a sign from god that eating pigs is wrong, and having them in our country is wrong, so we will get rid of them all. Farmers rely on the sale of those pigs for a big portion of their income, which now they won't get. Obviously there was already only a small market for pork products here (Muslims don't eat pork, same as Jews), and with the swine flu panic no one is really eating it at all now. There is already something of a Christian-Muslim divide in this country, and I would hate to see this make the whole situation worse.

a modern muslim country?

Really interesting article about the "other side" of Dubai. Yes, I know a lot of this has been said and/or written about before, but one part in particular stood out to me. The writer is interviewing a young Emirati and asks about Dubai's ongoing downward slide, and the Emirati says (emphasis mine):

"The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying – I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."

Just...interesting. I haven't been to the UAE (yet), though I often hear it described as being overwhelmingly fake. It would be weird, I think, to transition from Cairo, with its 4,000 year old pyramids, to Dubai, a city that sprang up from almost nothing in the last 30-odd years. I get that there are incentives, but it lacks the culture that makes the Middle East so appealing to me. Still, it's interesting to hear the country, now in a magnificent state of decline, described as the great hope for the Middle East. For everyone's sake, I hope that Egypt, and the rest of the region, can do better.

I'll end just by mentioning another quote from the article. While interviewing another Emirati, this one a political dissident who was blacklisted and had his passport revoked after speaking with Human Rights Watch, the man says something very telling in regards to both Islamism and freedom of the press in the Middle East:

"People who are told to shut up all the time can just explode."

sketchy bowling

I love bowling. I'm not very good at it, but I love the inherent tackiness and sketchiness of a bowling alley, everything from the questionable rental shoes to the pitchers of cheap beer. But the thing is, I often forget how much I like bowling until someone brings it up, and then I realize I really want to go. So I haven't been bowling in a really long time -- definitely not since I came to Cairo, and before then I can't even remember the last I went in Chicago.

But a friend told me about a bowling alley in Giza called Nile Bowling, and after going this weekend with four friends I am delighted to say that it was spectacularly sketchy. First, no bowling shoes necessary: you bowl in whatever footwear you have on, which in my case was a pair of flip-flops. Second was that in our lane, the bowling pins seemed to have some slight wobbling issues. Sometimes they just fell down of their own volition, even if a bowling ball was nowhere in sight, or the ball would roll into the gutter halfway down the lane and then the machine would give you credit for two pins down anyway (this actually happened to me on several occasions). Other times when you would go to bowl, the machine would just decline to acknowledge that roll, automatically reset, and randomly give the bowler extra frames. Ultimately, I bowled a 56, which might be a lifetime high for me without bumpers.

The whole point of this, though, is that after having been here so long, I expect things in Egypt to run inefficiently. That's part of the charm of Cairo, in my opinion. If we had gotten to the bowling alley and everything had worked properly, I think I actually would have been disappointed. Yes, people, it's come to that: my expectations are so low that I don't even need something to function to make me happy, I just need it to exist.

sandboarding is my new favorite sport

Well this is definitely a week late, but last weekend I was in Siwa, an oasis in the Western Desert. Siwa is almost completely isolated, and is the farthest away from everything of all the oases -- it is almost at the border with Libya -- and is about a 10-hour drive from Cairo. Because of its isolation, Siwa is known for having a culture different from the rest of Egypt. The people speak Siwi (a Berber language) in addition to Arabic, the women wear these really ornate outfits (though they are also exceptionally covered up), and Siwan crafts (like woven baskets) are very well-known. So yes, I was very excited to be going after hearing about it for so long.

We left Thursday night late and arrived on Friday morning, ready to explore the town. On Friday we did the tourist-y things in Siwa town, including some springs (Cleopatra's Baths, where apparently Cleopatra used to go bathe), the Temple of the Oracle of Amun, which used to be very sought after, and the fortress of Shali in the old part of Siwa, which has a great view of the whole oasis. (It's a huge oasis, with something like 30,000 people.) Friday night we slept in a hotel in Siwa, and then on Saturday we woke up and headed into the desert after lunch.

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were out in the desert. We went to more springs (hot, cold, salty), went dune riding in jeep 4X4s, which was awesome: the drivers speed around the desert up and down the dunes so it feels kind of like a roller coaster. So much fun! We also went sandboarding, which is like on a modified snowboard but used on a sand dune. Photos below! The camping was nice: two big tents, one for food and one for sleeping, and then a fire with a table for chilling at night. The food was really good -- Siwan food is more North African than Middle Eastern I think, i.e. cous cous and tagines instead of shwarma and falafel -- although one night definitely included a whole baby goat that had been cooked in this pit under the sand, and which I definitely did not eat. Seemed to be a popular local delicacy though.

I think my favorite part is that the desert around Siwa is very much like the kind of desert you expect to see in movies: just dune after dune stretching out as far as the eye can see. It's really beautiful, and really desolate. In the Black and White Deserts, there were rocks and formations and all kinds of things that sort of broke up the monotony, but out there was just...nothing. And it was amazing. We also took lots of evening walks and did some stargazing -- one of the best skies I've ever seen.

Temple of the Oracle in Siwa town. This oracle is the reason people in the ancient world used to seek out this oasis.

A view of the oasis from the Temple -- look at all the palm trees!

A2 and I on a donkey cart in Siwa

Siwan handicrafts

Fortress of Shali at sunset

Cold springs in the desert by the oasis

Ah, the peacefulness of the desert...

Part of the desert used to be an ocean, and those rocks are actually pieces of coral

Look at me sandboarding!

A1 and I attempting to roll down one of dunes