Friday, January 7, 2011
Luxor, Egypt Sunday clouds and a desert walk
http://picasaweb.google.com/janetadams/20110102LuxorSundayCloudsAndDesertWalk#
Monday, December 8, 2008
Bahariya to Kharga
Cairo Journal October 4, 2008 teacherai@hotmail.com
Well! I am back in Cairo and what a trip! As I mentioned, I signed up with the Arabic Language Institute for a four day trip through the oases of the Western Desert. After the marathon bus trip to and from Siwa Oasis last spring, I swore I would never take another bus trip, but we had a four day holiday, and the appeal to visit the oases was strong, so I joined the group at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning and set off for Bahariya oasis—about 350 kilos southwest of Cairo.
Our holiday from classes was for the Eid al Fitr. The Eid al Fitr is the three day feast that ends the month of Ramadan, the 28 days of sunrise to sunset fasting. In the Middle East, the Eid al Fitr began on Tuesday, and just after midnight on Tuesday, friends in Yemen and Saudi Arabia sent Happy Eid phone messages. The end of Ramadan is a raucous time in Muslim communities, but I had not heard anything special out on the streets of Cairo, so when I got to the bus, I asked a Muslim friend if Ramadan had ended and the Eid begun. NO! Not in Egypt! Although Ramadan and the Eid are based on the lunar calendar, the Eid does not begin until the sheikh sees the thinnest sliver of the crescent moon. I tend to believe that the moon can be counted on to maintain its schedule whether or not I see it, but here, it is not assumed that any thing definitely will happen. If God wills, it will happen; if not, well... So, the end of Ramadan should be confirmed by a visual sighting of the crescent moon, and if it is not seen, the calendar is used. The calendar confirms by dint of numbers that the lunar month has indeed ended and thus the extra day, just to be sure, here in Cairo. I hope my Muslim friends will feel free to correct any of my misunderstandings. At any rate, my friend’s slightly aggravated response was, “Of course he could not see the moon. No one can see that sliver of the moon in Cairo because of the pollution, so we have to go by the calendar!” We had a wry laugh over the situation, and our Muslim travelers had to spend the day in the desert without even a sip of water.
The oases of Egypt, naturally, since aside from the occasional well there is no water anywhere, are sites of ancient communities. Only a few years ago, near the Bahariya oasis, a donkey discovered a cemetery filled with ‘golden mummies.’ The donkey’s owner got the credit for the discovery of what would come to be called the Cemetery of the Golden Mummies because he called the local archaeologist who called the director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. The cemetery was partially excavated and the few mummies in good condition were moved to museums. Their face masks were painted with gold, thus the name, and we saw several adult mummies, one child mummy and an infant mummy. No photos were allowed. Egypt is so rich in ancient artifacts that they can not all be properly housed. The Museum of the Golden Mummies was a desolate building—judging from the outside it could have been a tire warehouse or a small factory. Inside, the mummies were in glass cases but without temperature or humidity control and the windows, high in the wall, were partially covered with plastic that flapped and drooped with age. We also visited two painted tombs—just up a mound from a poor community of mud brick houses. The striking reality of a modern community existing at the foot of the tombs felt all wrong.
The town was poor, but the green of the oasis was refreshing. I love the desert, but the truth is, the desert is hot and dry, and if you do not have a strong support system, the desert will be the death of you. (Photos attached, maybe.)
On Wednesday morning the plan was to send the bus down the road about a hundred kilometers while our group divided into nine 4-wheel drive vehicles for our 'on' and 'off' road adventure into the deserts. We set off to Farafra Oasis via the Black Desert, the Crystal Desert and finally the White Desert. The Black Desert (maybe a photo attached) is colored by iron pyrite pebbles which have eroded from the tops of rock formations. On the hills, the slopes alternate between sand and black ribs. Very interesting. I picked up dense iron pyrite nodules and calcite crystals along with a dozen other colorful fragments which will be my souvenirs of the trip.[Correction: It has been explained to me that the black stones are not pyrite but are clusters of calcite crystals that have blackened by chemical reactions--by desert 'varnish.']
Then the real adventure began. One of the jeeps stalled in the road, a second jeep stopped to see what was wrong. The jeep I was riding in swerved to miss the first two, but the jeep behind us plowed into the second jeep forcing it into the back of my jeep and I don’t know what happened after that. Seven of the nine jeeps were involved; two had to be left on the roadside. The woman who organized the trip received the worst injuries—cuts and bruises and a sore jaw. Another woman was cut by flying glass, and another woman’s back was twisted. I was thrown against the back of my jeep but just have some sore spots on my body. Golly. What a mess. We were all milling around trying to recall the sequence, but none of us could recall the order of the collisions. We had no phone signals and could not call anyone. Incredibly, after about an hour, a car came and inside the car was a doctor! He looked at the injured—there were six—and found that the injuries were relatively minor. After some time the bus appeared, but the injured would not give up the desert trip so we all divided up into the remaining seven jeeps and took off again. I swear those Egyptian women are tough.
We journeyed on through the White Desert—weird formations of white limestone [chalk] carved by the wind and blowing sand. It was beautiful, and I could have spent days wondering through the White Desert. I took scores of photographs, but they can not show the smooth trackless silence.
(This address might have photos of the trip, but who knows. I am working with dial up internet which makes loading photos very slow, and in the end I am not sure what has been accomplished. http://picasaweb.google.com/janetadams/FromBahariyaToFarafra#) Note: I just opened this site and indeed the photos are there, but all of the oases photos, when clicked on and enlarged, are fuzzy. So you can view the small version, or wait until I reload the photos in a different size.
We drove on and arrived in Farafra oasis but there hit a snag. The university wanted an accident report filed but the police would not file a report without medical checkups. The bus dumped us at the only open teahouse in the village—this was Wednesday, finally the first day of the Eid, and everything else was closed. The poor victims went off for three hours of bureaucratic trials. The teahouse had plenty of tea but only three bottles of water! And those three bottles were recycled—one was an orange Fanta bottle—and filled with tap water. During the aftermath of the accident, we had milled around on the road and most of us had finished, or nearly finished our water supplies. The man at the teahouse called a friend with a car and the friend brought a couple bottles of water. When they realized they needed a lot more water, the driver went to the car but the car wouldn’t start. Several men pushed the car to get it going, and off the driver went to search for water. He returned with one case of water which only began to satisfy the 36 of us and quickly sold. The men again push-started the car, and the driver eventually returned with several cases of water. The men at the teahouse have probably never had a more entertaining three hours. We became passing friends, shared photos, gave English lessons, received Arabic lessons. After that final run for water, we had enough for the next leg—on to Dakhla Oasis. The men from the teahouse stood at the roadside waving as we left. We arrived in Dakhla almost six hours late. The hotel spread the buffet out again, we ate, and slept.
But that is enough of my holiday. The trip really was wonderful—the deserts, the Hot spring of Mut, the Temples of Amun, the fantastic Christian Necropolis of El Bagawat, the beautiful pastels of oasis villages, the pleasing color contrasts between deserts and fields.
But nothing in Egypt is simple. We left El Kharga oasis on Friday morning to return to Cairo—a nine hour bus trip. Tourists are kept track of in Egypt, and tourist busses, in fact all vehicles to a degree, are very carefully tracked. On the long journey home, we were made to stop at every checkpoint to show papers and tell where we had been and where we were going. There were checkpoints about every half hour. When we finally we reached the southern edge of the Fayoum road to Cairo, we were told that now that night had fallen, we were not allowed to continue on this road. This road carried all the produce vehicles pouring overnight into Cairo; the road itself was unsafe; the drivers were crazy. After an hour of roadside waiting, we were permitted to travel on the Fayoum produce road—with police escort fore and aft. Policemen are dispensable; tourists are not.
I will try to attach at least three photos: jeeps, the White Desert and the tea house. There is much to see in Egypt and the only major sights I have not visited are the ones below Luxor. I will try to get to Aswan before leaving the country. I am already investigating new jobs for next year--perhaps something in Central Asia. As Aaron said, “Mom, do you know that you are the nosiest person on earth?” Yes, indeed, and I am happy for it.
Very best,
Janet
Well! I am back in Cairo and what a trip! As I mentioned, I signed up with the Arabic Language Institute for a four day trip through the oases of the Western Desert. After the marathon bus trip to and from Siwa Oasis last spring, I swore I would never take another bus trip, but we had a four day holiday, and the appeal to visit the oases was strong, so I joined the group at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning and set off for Bahariya oasis—about 350 kilos southwest of Cairo.
Our holiday from classes was for the Eid al Fitr. The Eid al Fitr is the three day feast that ends the month of Ramadan, the 28 days of sunrise to sunset fasting. In the Middle East, the Eid al Fitr began on Tuesday, and just after midnight on Tuesday, friends in Yemen and Saudi Arabia sent Happy Eid phone messages. The end of Ramadan is a raucous time in Muslim communities, but I had not heard anything special out on the streets of Cairo, so when I got to the bus, I asked a Muslim friend if Ramadan had ended and the Eid begun. NO! Not in Egypt! Although Ramadan and the Eid are based on the lunar calendar, the Eid does not begin until the sheikh sees the thinnest sliver of the crescent moon. I tend to believe that the moon can be counted on to maintain its schedule whether or not I see it, but here, it is not assumed that any thing definitely will happen. If God wills, it will happen; if not, well... So, the end of Ramadan should be confirmed by a visual sighting of the crescent moon, and if it is not seen, the calendar is used. The calendar confirms by dint of numbers that the lunar month has indeed ended and thus the extra day, just to be sure, here in Cairo. I hope my Muslim friends will feel free to correct any of my misunderstandings. At any rate, my friend’s slightly aggravated response was, “Of course he could not see the moon. No one can see that sliver of the moon in Cairo because of the pollution, so we have to go by the calendar!” We had a wry laugh over the situation, and our Muslim travelers had to spend the day in the desert without even a sip of water.
The oases of Egypt, naturally, since aside from the occasional well there is no water anywhere, are sites of ancient communities. Only a few years ago, near the Bahariya oasis, a donkey discovered a cemetery filled with ‘golden mummies.’ The donkey’s owner got the credit for the discovery of what would come to be called the Cemetery of the Golden Mummies because he called the local archaeologist who called the director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. The cemetery was partially excavated and the few mummies in good condition were moved to museums. Their face masks were painted with gold, thus the name, and we saw several adult mummies, one child mummy and an infant mummy. No photos were allowed. Egypt is so rich in ancient artifacts that they can not all be properly housed. The Museum of the Golden Mummies was a desolate building—judging from the outside it could have been a tire warehouse or a small factory. Inside, the mummies were in glass cases but without temperature or humidity control and the windows, high in the wall, were partially covered with plastic that flapped and drooped with age. We also visited two painted tombs—just up a mound from a poor community of mud brick houses. The striking reality of a modern community existing at the foot of the tombs felt all wrong.
The town was poor, but the green of the oasis was refreshing. I love the desert, but the truth is, the desert is hot and dry, and if you do not have a strong support system, the desert will be the death of you. (Photos attached, maybe.)
On Wednesday morning the plan was to send the bus down the road about a hundred kilometers while our group divided into nine 4-wheel drive vehicles for our 'on' and 'off' road adventure into the deserts. We set off to Farafra Oasis via the Black Desert, the Crystal Desert and finally the White Desert. The Black Desert (maybe a photo attached) is colored by iron pyrite pebbles which have eroded from the tops of rock formations. On the hills, the slopes alternate between sand and black ribs. Very interesting. I picked up dense iron pyrite nodules and calcite crystals along with a dozen other colorful fragments which will be my souvenirs of the trip.[Correction: It has been explained to me that the black stones are not pyrite but are clusters of calcite crystals that have blackened by chemical reactions--by desert 'varnish.']
Then the real adventure began. One of the jeeps stalled in the road, a second jeep stopped to see what was wrong. The jeep I was riding in swerved to miss the first two, but the jeep behind us plowed into the second jeep forcing it into the back of my jeep and I don’t know what happened after that. Seven of the nine jeeps were involved; two had to be left on the roadside. The woman who organized the trip received the worst injuries—cuts and bruises and a sore jaw. Another woman was cut by flying glass, and another woman’s back was twisted. I was thrown against the back of my jeep but just have some sore spots on my body. Golly. What a mess. We were all milling around trying to recall the sequence, but none of us could recall the order of the collisions. We had no phone signals and could not call anyone. Incredibly, after about an hour, a car came and inside the car was a doctor! He looked at the injured—there were six—and found that the injuries were relatively minor. After some time the bus appeared, but the injured would not give up the desert trip so we all divided up into the remaining seven jeeps and took off again. I swear those Egyptian women are tough.
We journeyed on through the White Desert—weird formations of white limestone [chalk] carved by the wind and blowing sand. It was beautiful, and I could have spent days wondering through the White Desert. I took scores of photographs, but they can not show the smooth trackless silence.
(This address might have photos of the trip, but who knows. I am working with dial up internet which makes loading photos very slow, and in the end I am not sure what has been accomplished. http://picasaweb.google.com/janetadams/FromBahariyaToFarafra#) Note: I just opened this site and indeed the photos are there, but all of the oases photos, when clicked on and enlarged, are fuzzy. So you can view the small version, or wait until I reload the photos in a different size.
We drove on and arrived in Farafra oasis but there hit a snag. The university wanted an accident report filed but the police would not file a report without medical checkups. The bus dumped us at the only open teahouse in the village—this was Wednesday, finally the first day of the Eid, and everything else was closed. The poor victims went off for three hours of bureaucratic trials. The teahouse had plenty of tea but only three bottles of water! And those three bottles were recycled—one was an orange Fanta bottle—and filled with tap water. During the aftermath of the accident, we had milled around on the road and most of us had finished, or nearly finished our water supplies. The man at the teahouse called a friend with a car and the friend brought a couple bottles of water. When they realized they needed a lot more water, the driver went to the car but the car wouldn’t start. Several men pushed the car to get it going, and off the driver went to search for water. He returned with one case of water which only began to satisfy the 36 of us and quickly sold. The men again push-started the car, and the driver eventually returned with several cases of water. The men at the teahouse have probably never had a more entertaining three hours. We became passing friends, shared photos, gave English lessons, received Arabic lessons. After that final run for water, we had enough for the next leg—on to Dakhla Oasis. The men from the teahouse stood at the roadside waving as we left. We arrived in Dakhla almost six hours late. The hotel spread the buffet out again, we ate, and slept.
But that is enough of my holiday. The trip really was wonderful—the deserts, the Hot spring of Mut, the Temples of Amun, the fantastic Christian Necropolis of El Bagawat, the beautiful pastels of oasis villages, the pleasing color contrasts between deserts and fields.
But nothing in Egypt is simple. We left El Kharga oasis on Friday morning to return to Cairo—a nine hour bus trip. Tourists are kept track of in Egypt, and tourist busses, in fact all vehicles to a degree, are very carefully tracked. On the long journey home, we were made to stop at every checkpoint to show papers and tell where we had been and where we were going. There were checkpoints about every half hour. When we finally we reached the southern edge of the Fayoum road to Cairo, we were told that now that night had fallen, we were not allowed to continue on this road. This road carried all the produce vehicles pouring overnight into Cairo; the road itself was unsafe; the drivers were crazy. After an hour of roadside waiting, we were permitted to travel on the Fayoum produce road—with police escort fore and aft. Policemen are dispensable; tourists are not.
I will try to attach at least three photos: jeeps, the White Desert and the tea house. There is much to see in Egypt and the only major sights I have not visited are the ones below Luxor. I will try to get to Aswan before leaving the country. I am already investigating new jobs for next year--perhaps something in Central Asia. As Aaron said, “Mom, do you know that you are the nosiest person on earth?” Yes, indeed, and I am happy for it.
Very best,
Janet
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Cairo bazaars with friends
March 1, 2008
Yes, thank you all, I am well. I like my job and I like my students. My teacher coordinator is a kind and patient woman. I have a great apartment in a great part of the city—on the island of Zamalek! in the middle of the Nile! Cairo is many things: exciting, irritating, polluted, noisy, ancient and interesting. The traffic is crazy, the honking is endless and the government blames many of the traffic accidents on the pedestrians, who, God bless them, just want to cross the street. I would say that Cairo is an interesting mix of the old and the new, but truth is, there is not a lot of NEW in Cairo. Oh, there are nice western hotels along the Nile, and you can see one or two newish government buildings but the razing of the old to put up the new is absent here. There is no center of glitter and glamour. The heart, hearts might be more accurate, is the Midan Tahrir—Tahrir Square. The ‘squares’ are actually circles with thousands of cars entering, exiting and changing lanes—and occasionally drivers stopping to make a phone call, or check the oil, or have an argument. And the other chief ‘organs’ are the bazaars where the average person shops. I have attached a folder of photographs from the Bazaar of the Tentmakers. This was, and is, truly the place where people ordered their tents. One photo shows miniature and model tents that you base your order on.
I was at this bazaar last week with my friends from America, Mike and Jonathan, and my friend Jill who lives and works in Cairo. She led us on a tour of the Citadel then down into the two most famous bazaars of Cairo—the Khan al Kahlili and the Tentmakers. The Khan is an enormous tourist trap though it still has useful shops—just don’t go on Saturday or Thursday evening. When I learned Mike and Jonathan were coming, I began thinking of places to go and that is when it struck me that there is no sparkling downtown here. The view of the skyline from the Citadel will show you that Cairo is a hundred shades of tan and grey
and you won’t see a single “mirrored” building. The city has millions and millions of people, about 20 million in fact, but many of these people are poor. They would not be shopping in shiny skyscrapers. They are selling carrots and apples off of carts pulled by donkeys.
I rarely get out of the city and when I do, it is fantastic. My earlier letter described the trip to the Coptic monasteries of the Red Sea. Two weeks ago we went on a field trip to the Step Pyramid at Saqqara with an archaeologist who is conducting a dig at the site and who has found the only mummified lion that has been found in Egypt. Today we went to the Wadi Degla. A wadi is a dry canyon, and this beautiful place is just south of the city. It is lovely...except for the thousands of plastic bags that are caught in the bushes. Coming up in two weeks, over a four day weekend, I will make a trip to the Siwa Oasis, a beautiful region in the Western Desert near the border of Libya. On the way there we will stop in the WWII cemetery at El Alamein.
I was very happy to learn that one of my students from Yemen is going to medical school at Cairo University. I met him, Ahmed, yesterday for lunch and got to hear about his brother’s recent wedding in Aden.
It was a beautiful day. We ate lunch, and afterward walked up on the 15th May Bridge. We were watching the water and Ahmed said, "Teacher, I saw you drinking water from a bottle and I read about the bacteria in the bottle water.” He said, "I didn't want to worry you but I am worried about you." And then we looked at the Nile and Ahmed said "bilharzia.” “Yes,” I said. I had read about bilharzia. Guide books say don't get into the Nile water ever. We watched three boats of fishermen. Two were oared and one had oars and a motor though it was using oars. The latter one had an entire family -- fishing family, not fun family outing. There were the parents and 4 kids--say about 4, 7, 9, and 11. The mother, father and two boys were fishing. The oldest looking was a girl and she bent over the edge of the boat and splashed water on her face, washing her face, then she RINSED HER MOUTH with the Nile water. I saw her taking the water in then spitting it out. I told Ahmed, “My gosh, she is putting that water into her mouth.” He watch for a moment then said, “Teacher, let us go because I know what bilharzia does and I can not watch this." So we left.
And that just about sums things up for the moment. I am not taking time to proofread, edit, polish or anything else this letter. I am just sending it. I must get it sent!
Yes, thank you all, I am well. I like my job and I like my students. My teacher coordinator is a kind and patient woman. I have a great apartment in a great part of the city—on the island of Zamalek! in the middle of the Nile! Cairo is many things: exciting, irritating, polluted, noisy, ancient and interesting. The traffic is crazy, the honking is endless and the government blames many of the traffic accidents on the pedestrians, who, God bless them, just want to cross the street. I would say that Cairo is an interesting mix of the old and the new, but truth is, there is not a lot of NEW in Cairo. Oh, there are nice western hotels along the Nile, and you can see one or two newish government buildings but the razing of the old to put up the new is absent here. There is no center of glitter and glamour. The heart, hearts might be more accurate, is the Midan Tahrir—Tahrir Square. The ‘squares’ are actually circles with thousands of cars entering, exiting and changing lanes—and occasionally drivers stopping to make a phone call, or check the oil, or have an argument. And the other chief ‘organs’ are the bazaars where the average person shops. I have attached a folder of photographs from the Bazaar of the Tentmakers. This was, and is, truly the place where people ordered their tents. One photo shows miniature and model tents that you base your order on.
I was at this bazaar last week with my friends from America, Mike and Jonathan, and my friend Jill who lives and works in Cairo. She led us on a tour of the Citadel then down into the two most famous bazaars of Cairo—the Khan al Kahlili and the Tentmakers. The Khan is an enormous tourist trap though it still has useful shops—just don’t go on Saturday or Thursday evening. When I learned Mike and Jonathan were coming, I began thinking of places to go and that is when it struck me that there is no sparkling downtown here. The view of the skyline from the Citadel will show you that Cairo is a hundred shades of tan and grey
and you won’t see a single “mirrored” building. The city has millions and millions of people, about 20 million in fact, but many of these people are poor. They would not be shopping in shiny skyscrapers. They are selling carrots and apples off of carts pulled by donkeys.
I rarely get out of the city and when I do, it is fantastic. My earlier letter described the trip to the Coptic monasteries of the Red Sea. Two weeks ago we went on a field trip to the Step Pyramid at Saqqara with an archaeologist who is conducting a dig at the site and who has found the only mummified lion that has been found in Egypt. Today we went to the Wadi Degla. A wadi is a dry canyon, and this beautiful place is just south of the city. It is lovely...except for the thousands of plastic bags that are caught in the bushes. Coming up in two weeks, over a four day weekend, I will make a trip to the Siwa Oasis, a beautiful region in the Western Desert near the border of Libya. On the way there we will stop in the WWII cemetery at El Alamein.
I was very happy to learn that one of my students from Yemen is going to medical school at Cairo University. I met him, Ahmed, yesterday for lunch and got to hear about his brother’s recent wedding in Aden.
It was a beautiful day. We ate lunch, and afterward walked up on the 15th May Bridge. We were watching the water and Ahmed said, "Teacher, I saw you drinking water from a bottle and I read about the bacteria in the bottle water.” He said, "I didn't want to worry you but I am worried about you." And then we looked at the Nile and Ahmed said "bilharzia.” “Yes,” I said. I had read about bilharzia. Guide books say don't get into the Nile water ever. We watched three boats of fishermen. Two were oared and one had oars and a motor though it was using oars. The latter one had an entire family -- fishing family, not fun family outing. There were the parents and 4 kids--say about 4, 7, 9, and 11. The mother, father and two boys were fishing. The oldest looking was a girl and she bent over the edge of the boat and splashed water on her face, washing her face, then she RINSED HER MOUTH with the Nile water. I saw her taking the water in then spitting it out. I told Ahmed, “My gosh, she is putting that water into her mouth.” He watch for a moment then said, “Teacher, let us go because I know what bilharzia does and I can not watch this." So we left.
And that just about sums things up for the moment. I am not taking time to proofread, edit, polish or anything else this letter. I am just sending it. I must get it sent!
Welcome to Cairo
Cairo Journal September 1, 2007
I typed this letter last night at the internet club and when I hit SEND, the page had expired and I lost the entire letter. To get home internet, I call Nile Online and speak to Mahmoud whose English is good. He sends the ‘Collector’ to my door to collect 50 LE and to sign a contract (LE is Pounds Egyptian, but in spoken language it is ‘guinea.’ 50 LE is about $8.50). Last week was teacher orientation so I could not be here to get the service connected. This week, Inshallah.
I hope you all are well. Thank you for so many responses to my first letter home—no matter where I am, I love hearing about what you are doing. I am well and am adjusting to the climate and the city. The streets of Cairo are congested canyons of supercharged heat augmented by car engines. I thought the air would be consistently dry, but there have been several very humid days and on those days if breeze dies down, people are miserable. Cairo is hot but I saw in the newspaper that the temperature in Riyadh, my former home, has been 113/114 recently. Wow!
On the final night of orientation, we met at the Nile Hilton rooftop café. I love the panoramic views of cities. From there I could see the island that I live on, the river boats, the busy part of town where the university is located. The river as it passes through Cairo is not the romantic, majestic river of literature; it is an economic and entertainment entity, but it is still very energizing to be near it.
Classes have not begun yet and the university spends four days on new teacher orientation. Part of our orientation was a session on Living in Cairo, and it was very informative. I admired one woman in particular; she was honest and unapologetic: “We are a male dominated society. The men dominate our lives. Our fathers, our husbands and our sons dominate our lives. If there is a question, we ask advice from our fathers, our uncles, our husbands.” “Our families are the most important thing. Our children live at home until they are married. If the son is 45 and still not married, he still lives at home.” Another of her topics was social occasions: Dinner Parties—“If you are invited to a dinner party at 8:00, you do not go at 8. If you go at 8, no one will be ready for you. You go at 8:30 or even later. Even if I invite you and I say 8, do not come at 8.” Hospital Visits—“If you visit someone in the hospital...it is not like in the West. You can take flowers or chocolates, but you will find many people in the room. The whole family will be there, laughing, talking.”
Another topic was Social Customs: Dating and Marriage—“Young people can not just marry themselves.” (I love the language of non native English speakers). “There is no dating........well, young people date but we don’t talk about it.” (such honesty!) “That way there are not mothers alone.........THAT does not happen.......I mean.........it happens, but not very much. Maybe it happens one percent. But when happens one percent that doesn’t mean it happens.” (right)
My favorite presentation was bits of advice from another Egyptian woman. She broke her topic up into 10 categories. (The comments are mine unless in quotation marks or otherwise indicated to be the speaker)
Her topic:
Try to Live Up With:
1. Dogs and Cats
I have not seen many dogs—of course there is one barking just twenty feet down the road from ME—but there are countless cats just as in the other parts of the Arab world. I believe the prophet Muhammad liked cats so they are left in peace to get by as well as they can eating from the garbage (# 6). There were countless cats in Azerbaijan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. In Yemen there were neighborhood dumpster containers and at night if you tossed a sack of trash in, you were startled by seven or eight cats jumping out. One of the teachers here was at a restaurant and had mercy on a stray kitten. She decided to take it home and the Egyptians were totally aghast. They probably would not recognize the kitten now in its second life—fat and sleek, but cross eyed, and it has a tendency to balance itself against the back of the sofa, on its round fat bottom and stare at you with its crossed eyes. Very disconcerting. The teacher, says its crossed eyes adversely affect the cat’s peripheral vision and it frequently attacks her.
2. Nightlife: “We love noise.” I have often wondered about this. The Arabs I have worked with can work with any degree of noise and distraction. Not only that, but they are supreme multi-taskers. In a job interview in America you might be asked if you can multi-task and you nod ‘Yes,’ knowing you can answer the phone while you are reading the paper and drinking coffee. I promise you that in a contest, the Arabs will win hands down and leave you feeling like pencil and paper in an instant messenger world. They will talk on the phone, wait on three or four people at once, ring up items on the register, make change, smile, pat a child on the head, greet a new customer, and insist on giving you an Arabic lesson—all at once, or at least, all within the same two or three minutes.
3. Honking: Honking is a problem here because it is used so often but the horns are for the most part, the beeping kind, and they are nothing compared to the horns in Azerbaijan where cars have horns that reproduce ambulance sirens, fire truck sirens, any trite piece of rhythmic Western music, any irritating electronic pulse sound you have ever heard... and a pack of wild dogs. Again I refer to Kamran. He and his friends were walking in Baku and suddenly a pack of crazed dogs was behind them about to attack. They were instantly terrorized. But, no, not dogs-- it was a car horn. Well, young Azeri men don’t like to be frightened especially in front of their friends, so Kamran and his friends opened the car door, jerked the guy out and beat him up. I haven’t seen THAT here.
4. Seat-belts. I haven’t seen one so I am not sure what she is talking about.
5. Crossing the street. This was so funny. The speaker came to this point. “Crossing the street....” (she paused and looked out at us innocents).....she grabbed her head with both hands and cried, “Oh my God!”
It was so funny. “The worst thing you can do......problem even for us.” Her advice, “Go to the light, wait for the light......... (another long pause)....... but sometimes, the cars, they don’t follow the rules...they don’t stop, so you must wait and maybe the cars will stop.” Then she told a joke: There was a driver and a preacher who died and went to heaven. Allah said to the preacher, “You go to the low place”, but to the driver he said, “You go to the high place.” The preacher said, “Why? All my life I tell people about God. Why do I go to the low place?” And God said, “All your life you tell people about God but they don’t pay attention. The driver gets into his car, and all the people begin praying.”
6. Garbage. The Egyptian advice? “Well, there is garbage so we have to live with it.” In my building there is a small interior open core, and a special door in my kitchen opens to the trash can that sits in that open space. Each apartment has its own door and trash can. The man comes daily and takes the trash. Golly. This place is labor intensive and there is labor to fill every need. That is interesting but there is more—I know because I saw the garbage truck on the road. It is a little red Toyota or something like, with some decorative paintwork and with the sides built up, and it is heaped with plasticized white gunny sacks and odd bits of cardboard and other things. I see it every day because the physics of keeping the trash on top of the truck is complicated and takes time to arrange. I first noticed the truck one day, parked under a tall acacia tree and looked up at the top of the heap and there was my trash man, about 14 feet in the air, rolling trash bags around. I was surprised. He gave me a shy smile and raised his hand.
7. Weather. “The weather is hot. What can we do? Nothing. And there is dust. But this is not the fault of the government.” We laughed. There are so many problems that are the fault, by deed, misdeed, or no deed, of the government, but the weather and the dust, well, those are God’s business.
8. Beggars. There are quite a lot of beggars, especially around this time of year—near Ramadan. I am afraid that it has been my habit to ignore the beggars unless I am moved at the particular moment. In Baku, there are elderly beggars and Elchin says some of these old folks really must beg in order to eat. But here, the women in orientation agreed that we should give to the beggars. It is not our business why they beg, but it is good for US to give.
9. Driving and 10. Parking. Both are big problems in Cairo. It is a very densely built city and there is simply not enough room for all the cars. Even the streets here multi-task serving as traffic corridors during the day, and parking lots at night. Double parking is standard. Cars are required to be left in neutral so the street parking attendants can push them bumper to bumper when needed. I laughed the other day though when the cars on a nearby street piled up for a block or so. I looked and at the intersection, bounded on all sides by parked cars--a man had parked his car in the single moving lane to take something to the dry cleaners. In the countries I have visited, cars and parking interest me because you know that by and large, Americans follow the rules, and are considerate drivers who plan ahead when possible, usually indicate turns etc. And when we don’t follow the rules, trouble happens. I remember once on Montana Street that two of the kids happened to park facing the wrong way and both got $30 tickets. The street in front of the house was only about 120 feet long and had no traffic but for the three houses that fronted it.
I arrived in Cairo in the daytime, and I could pay attention to the traffic. I knew I would see something funny. Within about two miles of the airport, I counted five cars that, for various reasons, had stopped in the right hand lane of traffic. I imagined the driver thinking, “Ah, this looks like a convenient place to stop...plenty of room.” I remember in Aden, Yemen, our director telling us about a ticket he received in Aden. There are still not a lot of cars in Aden so drivers can really get up to speed, and regulations, if there are any, are not enforced; anarchy rules the roads. When I was there, in that city of about 400,000 people, there was not a single traffic light, but at some point in the past there was one, and Edward got a ticket for turning right, after stopping, on red. Years later, the memory still rankled.
That was the end of orientation and it was all very good, very useful information about living in Cairo. I would add a couple of other items that we must put up with. The trouble with ‘small change’ and ‘rounding up’ to the benefit of the market, but, I think I will save that for the next letter.
And by the way, the maid is in the kitchen cooking today. The maid story is a long story involving much misunderstanding, many Egyptian pounds, English as a curious language and lots and lots of food. Right now, as happened last week also, she is cooking several different dishes and cooking multiple servings of everything. I am one person, but that just can’t be, can it? When she leaves I will have about forty servings of food. hmmm...why don’t you all drop by!
Midnight at the Oasis
Siwa, Egypt March 2008
It was midnight at the oasis. I heard the gentle clip clop of the donkey carts and the quiet roll of the tires on the dusty street, and I heard no other beasts so the camels must have gone to bed. A few locals and a few friends were lounging in the Arab style—barefooted, reclining on firm cushions which were positioned on thick mats of Bedouin carpets. A decorative tent of colorfully pieced cotton triangles stretched around and over us. The table before me was very low so I shifted my feet to my side, later stretching, just getting my ankles under the table, careful not to jostle the tea setting.
The Siwan tea was strong and minty and sweet. The teapot came with three small glasses the size of a shot glass, a slightly larger glass, a squat metal sugar bowl and a spoon. The man half filled the larger glass with sugar, poured some tea into the sugar, swirled it around and returned the sugar tea to the pot. Again he poured tea into the sugar glass, swirled it, and poured it back into the pot. He repeated this until the sugar glass was empty. He swirled the teapot, poured the mixture into the tiny glasses and passed them around. The tent was set in a cluster of palm trees, deep in the cool night. I would have dreamed, but the conversation kept drawing me back. Two talkative young men kept us entertained and laughing with their personal style of English.” Yes, Yes, the tea. too much. yes. the sweet. oh. too much.”
The small tea glass held about two ounces—enough, as it turned out, to keep me awake until 2 in the morning. My head was spinning but the buzzing of the mosquitoes was the only sound I heard. So unlike Cairo one can hardly believe they are in the same country. And in fact, the Siwa Oasis, part of an archipelago of oases, is indeed a long, long way from Cairo, almost to Libya.
I arrived in Siwa on the bus with the other teachers and found my room in the curious and peaceful hotel, the Siwa Safari Paradise. Dinner was served as we arrived. I am like a child, and isn’t life like a movie? I noticed a waiter with dark, lowering brows, black eyes, several scars on his face and a lean, lean body. I told my table mate, “That man has a dagger stuck in the back of his pants. His camel is probably tied up out back.” Dan just looked at me. I was serious, but, Dan thought, “How could she be serious?” and he wrinkled his lips into a smile but kept his eyes alert for other perception oddities.
After dinner, I set out to look around the square. The feel of the American West, but what should have been horses were donkeys in this little desert town. The pace, slow. The saloons, juice bars. And the cowboys were Berbers. They rode bicycles and motorcycles and donkey carts. They parked their carts in orderly lines at the curb, tossing out greens to keep the donkeys occupied. They hauled wives and children, mint and forage in their wooden wagons. I investigated the carpet shops and the date and olive oil shops. The vendors are very low key here—no grabbing, no persistent offerings.
I paused in front of a fruit stand gazing up at the truly bizarre remains of the old town of Shali. It is, and was, a walled city, built inside and out of ‘karshiif,’ a mixture of salt, mud and stones. The houses were cool in the daytime and warm at night. Unfortunately, in the rare event of a heavy rain, ‘karshiif’ is subject to dissolving, and this ancient city, originally established in 1203, washed away, or I should say, dissolved away, under a torrent of rain in 1920. It had dissolved at other times in its history but was rebuilt and reoccupied. In 1920, perhaps because other building materials were available, most of the residents left.
Suddenly, it seemed, I was high upon a lookout, formerly a housetop, or more probably the house floor, looking down onto and into Shali. While I was standing, gaping, in front of the fruit market, a waiter from the hotel restaurant passed by. He saw me and asked if I wanted to go up to watch the sunset. As we climbed, I noticed that he did not, after all, have a dagger in his waistband. He was escorting another guest, and we quickly climbed the pile of what had once been walls, and floors and ceilings and through short passages that had once been doors and windows. The sunset was in fact hidden by a hilltop sited directly between us and the sun, but the ruined city was remarkable. Though most of the residents left, many remain, and when overlooking the small city within a city, you see lighted windows, and you see goats and ducks in roofless stables.
I suppose I was being introspective and philosophical about life and rain when suddenly, a group of ten or twelve young people arrived. Berber or Egyptian, I don’t know. Wild and crazy, definitely. Cell phones and laughing and plans and photographs. I was co-opted into one photo with a young girl much like an animal at the zoo appears in the background: wild foreign woman still wearing her winter fat; short, shaggy fur concentrated on the head; tiny eyes.
I left the hilltop, happy and alive. I was so glad to find myself in the middle of the unexpected—at least the benign unexpected. The waiter walked us to the hotel but as we passed the New Star Restaurant, someone suggested tea, and there I was...Midnight at the oasis.
I don’t know about you, but I find the Arab/desert/Bedouin/Omar Sharif type image extremely appealing. The image has been tarnished a bit over the last three years, living as I have been, with just a toe in the culture, and the rest of me in the cities where the natural life of the Bedouin has been tethered. Meeting the tamed Bedouin, such as Ali the Rat, long distance taxi driver and thief, forced me inspect the reality behind the image, the fantasy. How can this tubby, rude and gruff man fit the dream? Aren’t all Bedouin lean and handsome? And the waiter? Not Bedouin—an ordinary Egyptian escaping the dreary life of a fellahin-laborer-from a small Nile Delta city.
So it was with an eye to taking my place, my true place on this earth, in the great sands of the desert that I planned my trip to the desert. The great emptiness. The place of dry thoughts and minimalism. And, I was doing it on a rented bicycle which had one working brake and a bent axle, so with every rotation my foot slid off the pedal. I returned it to the shop to exchange for a better bicycle. Ha! I already had the best.
My guide was taking me to a spring about five kilometers from town. We had seven oranges (do take oranges on a bicycle ride to the desert), a kilo of bananas (do not take bananas on a bicycle ride into the desert), four and a half litres of water (do take more than four and a half litres of water) and one bag of potato chips. (Yes, Chipsys). I did not plan well. I had no hat and no sun block. Fortunately, as I was flying out the hotel room, I grabbed an extra scarf. One scarf was on my head, and after a mile or so, I draped the second scarf over my bare arms, grasping the ends with my bicycle handles, and saving myself from really serious sunburn.
The spring was not where the guide remembered it to be. We never did find that spring. We twice saw workmen and asked for directions. Pointless, because everyone in Egypt will give you directions to any place even when they have absolutely no idea of where or what you are talking about. After another half hour of peddling, we found another spring. The spring fed pool at the hotel was so cold that after swimming in it my fingers were numbed, and that is what I was imagined was waiting for me at the end of this road. I needed that cold pool. I was quite, quite warm. I learned that there are also hot springs in the desert, and it was a hot spring that was waiting for me. I sat on the edge and drenched my clothes. Sitting in the strong wind, I cooled my overheated body and avoided dying on my first day as a Bedouin on a bike. There was, just one step outside the ring of this oasis, the desert—the Great Sand Sea—and according to my “Traveler’s Guide to the Geology of Egypt,” this desert “falls into the zone of hyper-aridity with less than 5 mm of rainfall each year.” It’s a dry place.
We lazed in the hot spring, ate the oranges and the chips, drank the water. The guide swore he knew where we were and promised the ride back to town would be quicker. And it was. In a short half hour, we were skirting the edge of Siwa, past the house of President Mubarak, or any president if he would only just come, along wide, dusty streets where a tourist still attracts attention, especially a female tourist on a bike. Back to the familiar, the safe, the hotel room, with its cold shower, my own little oasis. I placed my dream of living the Bedouin life back onto its shelf in my mind. I do plan to take it out again, but I do not plan to leave it out long.
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