7.23.2005

"This war will not be over by the next commercial break"

Okay then. I am safe, most importantly.

I just arrived back at the dormitories from a fieldtrip. Cairo is a very different city right now. In limbo. The attacks upon Sharm el-Sheikh have effectively converted Cairo into a hyper-militarized state of alertness and confusion. Many tourist areas cease to function, they're inaccessible. People kind of don't know what to do or where to go, I suppose that's the best way of putting it. The embassy is providing US nationals here with frequent updates.

And now this may sound an awful lot like the rhetoric of a Mr Bush and Blair, but terrorist attacks such as this (or all) are designed with the implicit intent of instilling fear and disrupting lives. This was a hit targeted to the tourist industry, immensely important to Egypt, perhaps as a consequence of discontent concerning the election, as well as the West in fundamentalist rage. Whatever the case, allowing such an event to interfere with your life or deter you from pursuing that which you desire, will be their victory. Many may dismiss the notion of travel to the Middle East because of the violence. But they are in turn preventing themselves from a exploring a region rich in culture and history. I don't know. But, I love Cairo, and I love Egypt, and I pray people continue to visit here. It's a sacrifice worth making.

And the quote? That's a White House spokesperson in a press conference during the Gulf War. And it's true, war is no longer cut and paste, black and white destruction. It's an insidious engagement which knows no boundaries or victims. It's this. And no, I am not confusing going to war in Iraq now with 9/11, but merely highlighting the underbelly of the media feed you're perhaps watching right now of the situation unfolding here in Egypt.

Somber day, smiling face? Hence the scaled grays of an otherwise sunny day. Donning the hijab for the sake of...who knows what anymore? We managed to visit a few mosques today. All the women had to wear them.



And a thank you for the many numerous, concerned emails I woke to this morning. I won't lie, I was out very late last night, well past three in the morning with classmates. We attended a concert of a group from upper Egypt at this cultural center on the other end of Zamalek. From there we hopped from two hotel cafe-bars for espresso and sheesha (the latter, not me). Just a few hours later, oblivious, I went on my laptop after my alarm clock went off. I opened a web browser, logged into my email account, eyes somehow glazing over the obvious breaking news column, and, well, a lot had happened. You knew before I. And I was most appreciative once more of those emails, it is very reassuring to know I have people looking out at home.

And a POSTSCRIPT to the parents since you may read this before email seeing it's the weekend--mobile service right here is very erratic right now. Placing or receiving calls is typically met by a recording of some sort followed by a Nextel recording. It's like this for everyone.

7.22.2005

Cognitive Dissonance of a Cairene Dissected


One of Cairo's antiquated and classic vehicles. I always found it interesting how developing and Third World nations come into possession of automotive relics discharged by the modern world. Daily, I find gleaming and well-preserved 1950's Cadillacs, original VW Beetles, like WWII era Mercedes SUV's and so forth.

I legitimately fear I may not remember how to drive upon my return. Or I will be zooming down Main Street doing 90, fluent in horn usage, vehicularly irascible, and shouting obscenities at other drivers. But if exceptionally foul luck enhances later tranquility and success, then I shouldn't have a problem if you would all mentally revive Sasha's winter of 2004 mishaps in a brand new, perfect, reflex silver VW Jetta busted up (minorly) twice (only once was it my fault) and restored to its absolute perfection. And now it awaits me in Hingham. If I can remember how to drive. And I am good driver, really.

This weekend is the Revolution celebration, as I have mentioned to some of you. Tomorrow, word on the street is a huge military parade is to be held in Heliopolis. My attendance at such an occasion is uncertain at best. Millions of Cairenes congregating in a grand demonstration of their fealty before Hosni (the creation of new murals and posters has resumed since Condi's departure)...despite unemployment, poverty, pollution, illiteracy and vacillating levels of despair, Mubarak's enraptured myrmidons somehow find celebrating a coup which effectively revoked or diminished their horizons possible. This startling incompatibility is evident to the outsider, irrevelent or non-existent to the average Egyptian. Perhaps it is Mubarak who is dangling greatness before the eyes of his people, which is all the more alluring, however unobtainable, therefore evoking illogical behaviors? Egyptians are wary of the state of their homeland, and yet convinced of Mubarak's power to improve it. Egyptians are instructed in devotion, incited to rebellion. Sometimes it is reversed. This is a public display designed to create an outward reflection of pride and progress so often silenced by quite the contrary, which in turn substantiates the beliefs of the Egyptian (and supports the discrepancy of views), leading to greater esteem in their own understanding and greater faith in the regime. Maybe the point is, the psychology of the Egyptian is far more complex than I imagined.


Meringue Opel


These posters are now plastered all over the city. They're health warnings about heat stroke and dehydration. Most street corners yield these giant stainless steel contraptions with nozzles from which one may draw water. For free I believe. Although, I am not in the market for dysentary while preventing dehydration.


Love, find it.

7.20.2005

Mars Bar Diplomacy



Here's Muhammed (not Goha, that was a street name), the little guy I spoke of in the previous post. I took this photo tonight, after our "purchases." He was, of course, mesmerized by the camera as well as my iPod. This was a pose invented of his own volition. I enjoy the few minutes I see him every other evening or so. I'd like to think I am giving him a decent impression of an American, or the one I would like to present to the world. Maybe one day he'll recall it was an American who bought him some meals, and drift from the notion of the American who is bombing his neighbors and placing him at an extreme disadvantage in life.

7.19.2005

Extraneous matters



Garbage. Every city has it. Every city manages it differently. The vibe I am getting these days (and the stench) is that Cairo decides it won't manage it in the summer. The "Department of Public Works" diverts their attention to far more urgent matters, yes, concerns which require immediate commitment of manpower and funding. Like, say painting the lamp posts black once a week. That is correct. Three men, usually different men, re-paint lamp posts at least once a week with a fresh coat of black paint. I have seen them in action. In addition to the fact speckles of fresh paint reside beneath the posts, and the posts are often wet. It's yet another ingenious solution of Mubarak's for unemployment. Anyhow, bags of garbage, and garbage sans the 33 gallon plastic shroud litter the streets...food wrappers, cans, paper, and yes, even dead cats much to my dismay and disgust last week. Raw and heady aromas dominate in the late afternoon as the thermostat rises. Urban living au naturel. Life in Cairo is a perpetual series of hyper-stimulating forces which have the senses on the highest level of alertness. Garbage is certainly a factor. Gritty and human smells. And strangely, that's part of why I LOVE this city so much. It's humanity. This is a city of 22 million people (the left column summary is incorrect, that's an old estimate). It's ALWAYS alive. Never calm. Certainly never boring. It's bursting with life.

On other tales of pollution and environmental hypocrisies...entire books could be written of toilet paper in Cairo. You see, bathrooms don't provide toilet paper typically. Therefore, five year old boys scramble and duck through rush hour traffic to sell it to you. This was not initially evident to myself or others. I don't know, maybe toilet paper costs too much for places to provide. Cut corners where possible. I sense it is not a measure of conservation. There's this one boy, Goha, he's seven, not a word of English, who had been trying to sell me a package of tissue/toilet paper a couple weeks ago. Rule of thumb is you shouldn't respond to beggars or kids here. That's what everyone tells you. But that evening, I was particulary sympathetic or irritable maybe, and was walking casually back to the dorm, it's maybe 10pm. He's persistent. He snatches at my hand, motions to his mouth. I can't proceed walking. I continue eye contact. I have a vague plan. I see a convenient store ahead. I take him there and let him pick out a drink and something to eat. His eyes assume a new dimension wide and stunned. He grabs a Sprite and a bag of these bagel chip things. Of course there are no price tags on anything here, so I just slip the owner 7 LE hoping that covers it. I figured out he lives in a little blanketed hut under the entrance to a mosque down the street. I see him nearly every night. He often doesn't see me, he's distracted. If I can I dodge into a market and buy him a Mars bar, or his Sprite and bagels chips deal. He's always thrilled. I think I should be buying him sandwiches and fruit, he doesn't look any worse for the wear with the Mars bars, his Body Mass Index still about six points too low.

I bore witness to quite the "situation" this afternoon outside one of the AUC's entrances near the bookstore. A situation I believe I may have been the only bystander to have appreciated as the commotion which transpired allowed the outside world to infiltrate the urban oasis which is the AUC, frustrating my colleagues. Let's see, it's around 3pm, 110 degrees, and there are perhaps two dozen random, unidentified Egyptian men attempting to unload two large, white pick-ups of big, apparently heavy cardboard boxes. They're obstructing the entrance, and the pick-ups are parked atop the curb, blocking street and pedestrian traffic. As I approach, what do I see on the sides of these boxes? "Wiley Publishers...Thomson Learning...Reed Elsevier...O'Reilly...Cambridge Press...Pearson Learning..." all your goonie publishing friends my darling publisher readers, of which there are a few here. And their shipments are being HURLED off of these Ford trucks onto the curbs of Cairo, some of the boxes torn open and packaging in shambles. The walkways into the university are lined with boxes as well as the street. The "movers or shippers" are screaming as torrents of sweat pour down their backs and faces, grunts heard as they attempt to dislodge larger boxes from the truck at once. And we are departing campus through a labyrinth of a publishers worst nightmare. What would Mr. O'Reilly think if he saw this? Rhyme or reason needn't prevail on the streets of Cairo, but I should think publishing houses wouldn't have shipments distributed in this fashion. But this was how the delivery was being performed. There are better ways, like, I don't know, FedEx, DHL, Airborne anyone? Maybe I'm crazy, but you don't want your books strewn on the street. And maybe only you publishers appreciated that too.

7.18.2005

Peace Train


Bullet to reality.

Back to Cairo.

Took the 2pm train from Sidi Gaber Station, as opposed to Ramel Station downtown where I debarked from, which is further from my hotel. Sidi Gaber, again, the only Westerner there. I arrived early, you never know in Egypt about schedules and traffic, rather go into my cautious Phileas Fogg mode than find myself stranded in Alex. So, crouched beside a pillar under the covered platform I sat and read, and did my homework for my Quranic Readings class. Then a woman on a bench with her husband, wearing a full black chador with only her eyes visible reached over and tapped me on the shoulder. She wanted to know what I was doing, as she saw I was writing in Arabic. From there began one of the most memorable and endearing conversations with a stranger I've ever had. She was most curious as to my class, if I thought "Islam was good," and if the "Quran was true and real." She seemed sincerely insecure as to the credibility I had in her religion, and was simply shocked I should be learning Arabic or the Quran. Her husband spoke decent English, and he was Egyptian, she was in fact from Medina, which explains the chador. Every now and again the husband had to translate, but fortunately Saudi dialect Arabic is the closest to pure Modern Standard. This woman, Mona, was so sweet, and so kind, but that's not saying enough, anyone can be sweet and kind, I suppose for her I don't know she had ever held a conversation with a Western woman. This was new ground for her. In the span of an hour as we sat, I felt like the world we seal women in chadors was ripped open. I mean, you see a woman in only black, eyes piercing through, she seems untouchable, doesn't she? Other worldly. Unapproachable? And I do think she was reserved, initially especially, but then she opened, she seemed to be smiling, but it wasn't a smile I could have seen anyhow. She began touching my arms and hands and thigh and it was as though she suddenly opened. Humanized.

Train ride was fine. Hailing a cab and honking through Cairo in the 104 degree heat made me realize the beauty of Alex. But, I am glad to be back into my routine here.


Back into the grimy Cairo grind after the pleasant train ride above. It's out of order, je sais. Life is out of order. We hit another guy outside Ramses train station, I presume as a function of it being "rush hour" as we departed...the streets were flooded with guys rambling about.


More backseat photographing.


Harry's back...


The amusements by night beside a fair I ventured into (and received just four marriage proposals! whew!).

7.17.2005

Broadcast on a Beach, please


Another lazy day upon the plush maize sands of Alex, with pristine green waters lapping at the shore. Being at the beach allows me access to an often obscured prism of Muslim and Egyptian life. Life of the families, the children and their parents who have taken refuge by the shore, and the evident love and bonds between them is unparalleled. Unparalleled in regards to the visible degree of affection between parents and their children.

But perhaps it was the contrast to the polar images we are blinded by in the Western media of Muslim life. Particularly considering the fact I had just been in my room, watching BBC World as the CCTV images of the suicide bombers were being shown at Luton, along with other graphics of the tale of the London bombings and those of a Turkish resort yesterday. Stark, grainy and cruel pictures of men in their twenties and thirties. Vacant faces and hollow eyes. This is what we see when we turn on the TV.

At the beach, these same men, Muslim men, Egyptian men who are the comrades and neighbors of "terrorists" and who might as well be terrorists in the eyes of many Americans, you receive a different strain of Middle Eastern stimuli. Watching these grinning men, as they clutched their gleeful young babies prancing in the water, seems to nullify, at least temporarily, all that you'd see on TV. And if you aren't watching grainy passport shots of terrorists, you are seeing chaotic Arab streets, 1983 Vauxhalls transformed into mini incendiary bombs, bodies in a shroud of the Palestinian flag, the heels of women in chadors, markets ridden in filth and hyper-vigilant and detached reporters before them. I'd like to see CNN and Fox News come spend a day at a beach in Alexandria. Broadcast from there. At the beach, a simple setting, you've come to swim, be with your family. Life deconstructed and decontextualized. Under the same sun here as on the South Shore. As sympathetic as the media can claim to be, including many of the left-leaning outlets, they inadvertantly are perpetrating negative perceptions--by way of failing to present positive images. Aside from relaxing, my beach here is uplifting in its ability to provide a glimpse into the happiness in these rare of moments of leisure Egyptians have. They leave the world on the curb and dash to the water. Forget Mubarak. Forget oil. Forget Iraq. Forget pollution. Forget poverty. Forget traffic. Forget terrorism. Forget America. Do we Americans do the same? To an extent. But it's all the more profound here seeing how little these people have and how much they appreciate what they do. With one another.

The below meal is becoming cold. So, I am going to go and eat it, while watching the Tour de France--live, naturally.


If you get smart, order on the kids menu. Cheating, I know. But everything is expensive at hotels here (even though I am techinically not paying for this, thank you mum and dad--I could be ordering up Moet and caviar), that if you can sneak by with a meal that equals 3.47 USD, why not? Additionally, this is special as it's the first splurge on American food, or a real meal. For example, I am the only person I know who hasn't snapped and scurried into a KFC or McDonald's (I wouldn't if they were the last places in Cairo anyhow) or the restaurants at the Cairo Four Seasons.

My diet here is bizarre. I eat a lot of whole wheat Syrian flat bread, hummus, Greek yogurt with honey, Washington apples ($$$), unrefridgerated milk (there is no such thing as cold milk), Egyptian cereals and pretzels, and yes, gallons upon gallons of Siwa and Bakara water, along with diet Coke. Then there is the occasional restaurant fare, which consists of zataar manaquish, koshari and pizza. And right now, I am so freakin' hungry that I will have to say adieu and eat.

In addition to this meal, I must give McVitie's Original Digestive Biscuits their props. They're addictive. Brit cookies have a solid market here, probably in part because of me and my foreign comrades. But, Mr. McVitie, I love you.


Left the Arabic in the dorm. Resigned myself to Mr Kircaldy's summer reading. There it is, for the record, I am on a beach on the Mediterranean doing my summer reading. Everyone else should too!


The "view" opposite the seaside view of the Mediterranean. Two radically different worlds. But Alexandria's charm of pastels lingers into its architecture...