Symbols of Egypt

As a foreigner stopping over or passing through a country such as Egypt, a place so different from what might be considered 'home', it can be easy to give in to the temptation to make judgements, justified or otherwise, of the life we find ourselves surrounded by.  Nine months does not by any means make one an expert, in reality I have barely scratched the surface, however every now and then you happen upon a symbol that explains things better than words could.

That being said my friend Emily lives in downtown Cairo across from a massive rundown and abandoned house.  Sitting on the balcony having a drink before dinner we decided it needed to be explored.  All it took was 10 LE and a smile and we were in.  

It turns out it was built in 1899 for Prince Saiid Halim Pasha, whose father would have ruled Egypt had his nephew not upstaged him.  With the British occupation Prince Halim's assets were confiscated and the palace was turned into a boys preparatory school in 1939 and was considered the chosen place of education for the sons of the Egyptian elite.  "With the extinction of titles and Egypt's old bourgeoisie, the palace became the unlucky ward of the ministry of education. Thereafter, the deterioration came in steady increments fueled by ignorance and greed. A dispensary here, an office for the ruling party there, plus the indiscriminate building of brick walls on the balustrades and the pilfering of the priceless pink marble and other rare historical rarities. The rest is shameless history."

Wandering through the house you can imagine how grand it must have been in the beginning when it was well cared for, although the cartoon drawings on the walls might not quite fit the architect's intended style.  Inefficiency, neglect, chaos, nepotism, wealth and a losing battle with time and the desert dust, all in the life of a building in Cairo.  We also thought it'd make a great spot for party.

There was supposed to be pictures with this post but I'm in Egypt...enough said so if you want to see what I'm talking about check it out here.

A small diversion

I've been MIA for over a week, but for good reason...I spent the last week in Jordan!  With the office closed for Easter (a week later on this side of the world) and a few days of holidays left, I set off for Amman just over a week ago.  I spent the first 5 days with my mom's cousin's family who live in Amman.  It was great to be with family again, even if just for a few days.  The family meals and conversation around the table cause a few moments of feeling homesick but that was short lived and I had a great time.

Friday we went to Jonathan's baseball game in the afternoon and had homemade pizza for dinner.  Saturday I went out on my own to explore a bit of Amman.  I visited the ruins of the citadel and had a look at the roman theatre in town.  I didn't pay to go in since you could see most of it from the outside and after Turkey I've seen my fair share of roman theatres.  Sunday we all went down to the Jordan river which is now more like a creek which means I was close enough to Israel for my phone to send me a message saying 'Welcome to Israel" and went on out line the various roaming charges I might incur.  Next we headed over to the dead sea where Matt and the boys and I had a little float and gave our selves our own dead sea spa treatment.

Then it was back to Amman where a few of Matt and Robyn's friends came over had we had some amazing lamb for Easter dinner.

Monday I had booked myself onto a tour of a few sites north of Amman.  We stopped first at a place called Umm Qais with views of the sea of galilee and the golan heights.  Next was an old crusader castle called Ajlun, complete with guards dressed up in period clothing.  Finally we stopped at Jerash, again Roman ruins...on a side note I knew from history classes how big the Roman Empire was but when you get over here and at half the sites you've got a Hadrian's gate and a Roman theatre it really is amazing how much territory they controlled.

On Tuesday, since it was spring break, we all took the 3 1/2 hour drive down to the desert at Wadi Rum.  We stopped at a few points of interest and then spent the night sleeping under the stars.  Oh, and we had smores at the campfire while one of the bedouins played music.  The next morning I parted ways with everyone and set off to Petra.  While I went there on my own I ended up meeting and joining up with other travelers and it was a great two days.

While I was fortunate enough to fly from Cairo to Amman, I made the trip back over land which took 18 hours from getting on the bus in Petra at 7 am and getting off at 1 am at Ramses station in Cairo.  But I made it, and our bus managed to stay on the road coming through the Sinai peninsula which was a bit of a miracle in and of itself.  I do have a bit of a bruise on my forehead from banging it on the window when the bus took a sharp turn to get out of the way of oncoming traffic.

That's all for now, I'll be on my way back to Aswan this evening and back to the office tomorrow for the start of what's looking like a busy last month in Egypt.

Lights Out???

Okay so I know I get no sympathy from all of you back home where winter just won't leave and people are spending their weekends sandbagging but here in Aswan we just skipped spring and went right into summer. It's been about 40 C everyday for the past week and a half, and although someone tried to tell me it's going to cool off a bit, I don't believe them. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to wear so much clothing whenever I leave my flat but this is Egypt so...

The one good thing about the timing of the current heat wave was that we had visitors from the MEDA office in Waterloo over the weekend a week a go, and their hotel had a great pool! So after after spending much of Thursday afternoon in an overcrowded, hot car making client visits we spent a good part of the day on Friday sitting by the pool.  We also went on the obligatory felucca ride at sunset, although this is getting more difficult to time correctly since the wind almost dies completely if you're out too late, and ended up having to get towed part of the way back.  The next day we walked through the market and then and got henna tattoos, something I haven't done since I got here.

Now another week has passed and it is still hot out so they really didn't know what they were talking about when they told me it would cool off a little.  I did spend my weekend...Thursday and Friday...in Cairo which is always 5-10 degrees cooler which was nice.  With only a couple months left before leaving for home the job search is on, but if all else fails it seems I could make a half decent living as an English tutor.  I've been helping out the two sons of the guy at the spice shop and this evening I spent some time with my boss's daughter.  They go to an English school so all the textbooks are in English but it seems that the teachers are teaching a lot of things in Arabic which doesn't really help.  In general the education system here is lacking and anyone who can has their kids going to tutors at least a few nights out of the week for help with any or all of the classes they're taking.

Outside my flat the construction continues.  I got back from Cairo to find they have now dug a trench down the middle of the street and are putting in new pipes...actually they're bigger than what I would call a pipe since it's the sewer they're working on, and it doesn't look like they'll be finishing any time soon.  On top of that there's a chance I'll have my electricity cut off soon.  I got an electricity bill and a notice from one of the security guys this afternoon.  It's in Arabic, obviously, so I took it with me to Dr. Mamdouh's house tonight.  The bill looks a little steep even though it should be for the past two months...I wasn't here at all in February...and the notice basically says because I haven't paid they will be cutting off the power.  It doesn't really make any sense...lots of things don't here...because I've been back since the beginning of March and no one has come to read the meter, but hopefully I don't end up in the dark tomorrow!  On the other hand, at the rate somethings tend to happen here I might have plenty of time before we reach that point, but you never know.

I'll end by wishing everyone back home a Happy Easter...we're a week behind over here so there's no sign of a holiday yet.  While I'm sure I'll be missing out on some great food, a recent trip to one of the upscale grocery stores in Cairo...where you can find lots of imported goodness...means I'll be cooking with a little more variety over the next week.  The store wasn't that big, but after months of buying whatever is available in the stores in Aswan, I felt a bit like a kid in a candy shop, overwhelmed by the possibilities and excited by the smallest of things like soy sauce and Campbell's mushroom soup!

Random happenings from the last week...

So nothing terribly exciting has happened in the past week, but since some of you out there get impatient when I wait to long between posts here are some random happenings from the past week...

1. A construction update....still happening.  They are fixing something with the sewer, which apparently meant they had to rip up the entire street...Rachel suggested maybe the forgot where they had to dig.  Because it has to do with the sewer things don't smell to great at street level so I'm thankful to be 8 floors up.  The ridiculous work hours have become sporadic but it seems some of them work best at 3am.

2. In my next life I will be a computer software technician.  With the launch of the computer contest with a new version of the game, Aswan has become the test site and I've spent the past week fielding questions about error messages and anything else that someone thinks isn't working properly.  "Why?", is a question I'd like never to hear from older than 5 years old, more than once in a day.

3. Even Egypt can be a small world.  Out for dinner in Cairo after returning from Turkey I met, or I guess re-met, Eric, who runs a tour company in Egypt and arranged my felucca trip with my parents.  He brought a group through Aswan last weekend so I had drinks with them on Thursday night, and then went across to the west bank for dinner with them on Friday.  Yay, for a social life in Aswan!

4. Hot and sunny is normally all I have to say about the weather, but last week in the space of two minutes the weather went from calm clear skies to gale force winds and dusty.  Dust storms are normal around this time of the year but normally they arrive gradually.  I think I've finally gotten rid of most of the dust.

5. I had to sweep up a dead bird yesterday...a baby one.  While I was in Turkey some little birds made a nest in the hole above the door to my balcony.  I've tried to avoid going out there too much since I wouldn't want to be responsible for the parents abandoning their nest, but after all the dust I went out to sweep yesterday.  I couldn't tell what it was at first but then I noticed it had a beak and tiny wings.  I'm thinking it fell from the nest because it didn't even have feathers yet so it's not like it was trying to fly.  There are still babies in the next though because the parents keep flying back and forth with stuff in their mouths, so I'm steering clear of the area for a little while longer so I don't cause any more death.

6. I've started running in the mornings.  Since I did invest in new running shoes before I left, I figured I should put them to use.  I've had great intentions for a while now but last week I finally acted on them.  I also uncovered a plot by some of my colleagues to have me bring a little more of Egypt home with me than I intended...the kind that might result in needing clothes of a slightly bigger size.  You can't go to someone's house here without eating, and while I'm comfortable enough by now to refuse seconds and thirds, the words "oil" and "fried" are good descriptors of many foods here.  And I just feel better in general afterwards, even if I have to get up a bit earlier.

That's all for now...tune in to next week's update for exciting stories including walks along the nile, and all you needed to know about sewer repairs in the middle east

Not the wake up call I was looking for

It's been three weeks since I left Josh in Istanbul and flew back to Egypt, and I'm slowly settling back into some routine.  As much as I enjoyed Turkey, it has been nice to spend time with friends, speak a language people can understand, and be surrounded by something familiar.

Work has brought some changes in the past couple weeks.  We've started an Egypt wide contest for the computer game (www.baalty.org) that was developed to teach business skills to the kids in Aswan.  There has also been a new group of kids that has entered the program and my work has shifted to helping them articulate their experiences with work, the thought being that if we can do some initial documentation of their experiences, once they have completed the program it will be easier to look back and see how far they've come.

It has also been nice to be welcomed back by my colleagues at work, who seem to have all missed me.  I've been out a few times with Lamia and her friends on Thursdays nights as well which has helped me feel more a part of people's lives.  Even the man who I buy bread from maybe two times a month asked where I had been...and then have me at least 1/3 more bread for a pound than usual...so either I've been over paying or it was a welcome back gift.

Last weekend I went back to Cairo for a few days to visit friends.  Most people would think it counter intuitive to want to 'get away' from the peace and quiet of Aswan to spend a few days in the chaos of a city of 20 million, but me it provides some mental sanity.  Three days of good conversation, a lot of laughs, a panel discussion on the psychosocial needs of refugees, and way too much food was just what I needed.  Oh, and I also went with a bunch of my friends to a church in Maadi that too me right back to the time I spent in Kenya a couple years ago.  There was the typical call for every visitor to stand up and say where they were from and of course the music and dancing.  All 8 of us somehow managed to avoid the introductions but definitely got our groove on from the back row.

I got back to Aswan after a 4:45 am flight out of Cairo and had planned on getting a few hours of sleep before heading into work.  This plan however was not shared by the public works department in Aswan and woke up feeling like the ground was shaking.  Apparently this is what they had in mind...

Needless to say I was not impressed.  While many things in Egypt seem to take forever and require much negotiation and encouragement, these workers must be very motivated.  At 11:30 last night they were still hard at work.  Hopefully they keep it up and are finished soon.

Just a few photos...

hiking the rose valley near Goreme...yes that's snow

one of the million orange and pomegranate juice stands

the old Roman harbour in Antalya

Hadrian's Gate, one of the entrances to the old city in Antalya

the beach at Olympos

a quick stop with murray and sonja on the mediterranean coast

sunset in Kas...could've been romantic but oh wait...I'm with my brother

paragliding!

Josh was pretty excited...and then he threw up after landing...

what used to be the market street in Hierapolis

Josh crawling into small spaces...it happened often

at the top of the travertines in Pamukkale

in Sirince with Carly...the lady wanted us to pay for these...

the Roman public bathroom in Ephesus

the library at Ephesus

Galatasaray football (soccer) match in Istanbul

turkish delight in the Egyptian spice market

fishermen on the Galata bridge in Istanbul

the Blue Mosque

Night buses, home cooked meals and snow!

This is the home stretch everyone so brace yourselves for a long one. Our last week in Turkey included the best bus ride of the trip, underground cities, fairy chimneys, a language exchange, and the closest I've come to perogies and chewbereka (sp?) in many, many months.

Starting at the beginning, you would’ve thought that it was -40 outside the way they had the heat turned up for most of the night on our bus to Goreme. I think the temperature in the bus might have gotten up to 30 degrees, and I had the window seat, right beside the heater that was blasting hot air. At one point I had my socks and shoes off and, if it had been appropriate, would’ve been in a tank top. Instead I hugged the cold 1L bottle of water Josh bought at one of our stops while I tried to fall asleep. Early the next morning around 6 am I woke up to a blinding light and was a little confused…turned out it was just the glare of the sun off the snow…that’s right, snow, something I hadn’t seen since last spring when it was all melting away back home. At our hostel, we were reunited with Sonja and Murray who had arrived a day earlier because they didn’t stop in Antalya for the night. After a breakfast of French toast, a welcome change from Turkish breakfast, we set off to hike one of the valleys near by.

I should probably explain where we were a bit. The region is called Cappadocia, “land of beautiful” horses, which is a nickname that I don’t understand because we really didn’t see to many horses. The reason people travel there is the strange rock formations, fairy chimneys that have been formed by wind and water erosion of layers of volcanic rock. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Back in the day people used to live in them and now when you walk through the valleys you can crawl and climb through the tunnels and caves they built. Josh and Murray had to explore each one including squeezing ourselves underneath the locked door of a former church to take a look inside.

The next day we took our first and only organized tour of the entire trip because there was no way we could’ve gotten around to all the places in one day on our own. We made a number of stops for views of different valleys, but the best parts were the underground city and the Ihlara Valley. There are something like 36 of these cities in the area and they date back 4000 years to Hittite times and were used when the people came under the attack of invaders. The one we visited had 8 floors and passageways so small I felt like I was crawling…not good for the six foot something French guy we were with. Our hike through the Ihlara Valley was the next stop. You can hike the entire 14km of path that winds along the stream through the valley but we only did 3 or 4 before having lunch. The last place we visited was a monastery that used to be a caravan stop on the silk route from China. We had a little while climb through the different floors of the kitchen and living areas as well as a church, which made Josh happy, although not as excited as the Korean guys were when a flock of sheep came by…you’d think they’d never seen them before in your life…then again maybe they haven’t??? For dinner we found a restaurant that served the famous pottery stews we had been hearing about. They fill a terracotta pot that looks like a vase for flours and then seal the top of with bread and cook it in an oven, sometimes for 2 hours. To break it open you hit it with the end of your knife at the base of the neck of the jar and it’s supposed to break off so you can pour out the food inside. Josh and I weren’t as successful as Sonja and Murray and our lids ended up in pieces…or maybe we just had defective jars.

On day three in Goreme, we rented a moped again since the public transportation is too infrequent during the winter to get places without waiting a long time in between stops. We spent the afternoon driving around, stopping at lookout stops, valleys, and anything else that looked interesting and then headed back, hoping to beat the dark cloud coming our way. We did pretty well until the last 10 minutes when it started to rain and we wished our helmets had had visors so we wouldn’t be stung in the face by the rain. We finished off our stay in Cappadocia with a horse back ride through the Rose Valley the next afternoon before taking a night bus to Istanbul.

Josh could probably give a much more enthusiastic description of our last bus ride but I’ll do my best to communicate how good it really was. First, Josh was most impressed that the guy’s pinstriped vest and dress pants matched up perfectly and he was efficient to say the very least. We got the standard glass of water to start, which was followed by coffee or tea. However, instead of the Styrofoam cup we were used to getting they actually wanted us to reuse our water cups…points there for being somewhat environmentally friendly. Then came the ever important cake. Also the best one we’d had on the trip it had hazelnut filling…hazelnut chocolate is my favorite, bueno chocolate bars are the best…and Josh thought about trying to charm his way into seconds but chickened out. Oh, and I didn’t nearly break a sweat trying to get to sleep which was an added bonus.

After 3 weeks we had come full circle, and were back in the same dorm room in Istanbul for two more days. Feeling the end of the trip around the corner we were both ready to relax a little and didn’t try to pack too many things in. We had planned on taking the public ferry on a day trip up the Bosphorus River, which would’ve taken almost as far as the Black sea, but the weather never cooperated. The second day we might have been able to do it, but since there would be no turning back if the weather got bad we decided against it. Our first night we were stopped at the reception on the way down to our rooms and were asked where we were from. I thought it was a strange question since you have to give that information when you book the room, but they guy was looking for native English speakers to help out a friend of his who runs language classes. We hadn’t made big plans for the evening, and we were going to get paid so we, along with an American guy staying at the hostel, jumped in a car around 6pm, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. It turned out to be a language exchange thing for a business association in the city and we basically spent an hour each with two different groups, having them introduce themselves and what they do and then just having them ask us questions to practice their English. It was a bit strange and somewhat entertaining and we got a free dinner out of the deal as well as the $40 they paid us the next day. On our last night in Istanbul we went back to the place we had dinner the day we arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of the trip. Having made some money the day before we had our most expensive meal of the trip. We started with these meatballs rolled and fried in dough that tasted like the chewbereka my grandma makes. The for the main course Josh had beef stroganoff…my last meal at home before I left for Egypt, and I had Turkish Ravioli which tasted almost like my mom’s perogies. Finish that off with some apple pie and we were both very full but very happy. Oh, and there was live music… a guy on his guitar playing some kind of Turkish blues music.

The next morning it all came to an end at 6am when Josh caught the shuttle to the airport. I left 5 hours later and was back in Cairo and out for dinner by 6pm. A week later it’s all starting to feel like a little like a dream. I’ve always wanted to go and Turkey definitely did not disappoint. If anyone is ever looking for someone to join them, I’m in! For now I’m back to adventures in Aswan for three more months where winter has come to an abrupt end with 35 degrees today…bring on summer!