This post will be especially for those of you who are jealous/curious about what I am eating here in Egypt. Before this trip one of the things I was most excited about was trying new foods, especially since I have liked every other food I've ever tried from Middle Eastern cuisine. Well... Egyptian foods are a little different.
First of all I heard while we were still en route to Cairo that a staple of Egyptian breakfasts is cold beans. If I had not already eaten breakfast beans when I was in England last year, I might not have believed this to be true... but it is, in fact. One travel book I read confirmed this very emphatically, or so it seemed, when I read: "Fool, fava beans are eaten for breakfast." Fool?! Whoa now. I thought at first that the author had gotten a little too much American pop culture influence (Mr.T?) but then I realized that the dish itself is called fool. Ah.
I haven't quite acquired the taste for cold, oily fava beans in the morning (somehow the British baked beans were easier for me), but I'm trying. It didn't help that our first introduction to them happened to be the one morning I was feeling really queasy in the first week...
Other than fool, our breakfasts usually consist of some combination of the following: scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fig jam, soft cheese, and falafel. All of this (excluding the jam) prepared with copious amounts of SALT, which I am not used to at all, but at least it is encouraging me to stay hydrated! And did I mention bread... whole wheat pita bread that accompanies any and all of those breakfast elements, as well as every other meal. Our group's appetite for pita bread has drastically dropped since the first day, though we are still served basketfuls at every meal.
We buy lunches on our own, which is usually a desperate attempt to either a) stock up on fruit to combat our grain- and grease-heavy diets, or b) when we can't afford fruit on our lunch budget, opting for the 3-guinea (~50 cents American) bowl of "kushery"-- a mixture of lentils, rice, macaroni, spaghetti noodles, spices, and some more macaroni. Both options are within a short distance of our school, so we basically decide based on how our insides are treating us on that particular day...
I'm definitely enjoying the fruit options here, though many are not in season now because of the heat. Since our arrival, though, I have tried my first fresh figs (love), my first fresh dates (if I could figure out how to choose the right ripeness, I would probably be a fan), and my first fresh guava (DISLIKE). I've also discovered that the type of bananas I am used to have to be imported to Egypt, since local bananas are more or less the size of a large adult's thumb. That is okay with me, it just takes a lot more peeling.
Other favorite new dishes in Egypt are kofta sandwiches, which are kind of like meatballs and tahini in a pita, and fiteer, which I can best describe as a cross between crepes and pizza-- pancakes stuffed with vegetables, meat, olives, and cheese. Genius.
But by far my greatest gastronomical discovery so far has been a lovely thing we call "Fantaloube" (also known as cantelope-flavored Fanta for the unenlightened). :) It is a beautiful shade of green, since Egyptian "kanteloube" is actually green, and the orange melon is called something else... and it may sound questionable, but oh my. Delicious. Unfortunately for us, the cantina that is part of our church compound home ran out of bottled Fantaloube immediately after we developed our obsession, so the search is on for another mass provider. I think the main issue was that the cantina gave up on trying to restock it at the rate we were buying it... but we haven't given up on pleading them to order more! We have almost four weeks left of our study term in Cairo, so I'm hopeful...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
week 3
Update:
(this is getting really difficult with the computer situation here, but I'll try to remember key points since the last post)
-We have now gone on another group field trip to Anafora, a Coptic Christian retreat center a couple hours from Cairo. It was absolutely beautiful. The entire compound is the brainchild of Bishop Thomas, the "top guy" there, which includes the designing of all the buildings, gardens, etc. They are fairly sustainable with food, growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables organically there in the compound. We picked fresh dates right off the trees outside our guest rooms. The buildings are mostly all made of straw and mud/plaster materials, most with dome shapes and skylights and stairs leading up to the roofs... I loved it! I shared a guest room with one other girl in my group, and we each had separate bedrooms complete with double beds, high ceilings, and princess-style mosquito nets (which are not actually as awesome to sleep under as I imagined as a child! Unfortunate.)
While there at Anafora we were able to end the evening prayers and the morning mass, which was very different from my past church experiences. The Coptic church makes up about 10% of the population of Egypt, and their liturgy is often spoken in the Coptic language, which is a mix of Greek and ancient Egyptian. It's really amazing that they are still so tied to the ancient Egyptians, and most Copts consider themselves the original population of Egypt--as opposed to much of the Muslim population, which has more mixed Arabic descent (I'm doing a terrible job of summarizing Egyptian anthropology, but that's one part that was really interesting to me!)
-This week our field trip is a 2-day excursion to Alexandria, where we will get to visit the library of Alexandria and swim in the Mediterranean, among many other things I'm sure. This will be the farthest we have been outside of Cairo so far, until our trip to Upper Egypt in a couple weeks.
-I feel like I should include at least one little anecdote about life in Cairo, but it's hard to narrow that down... but yesterday I had my first real interaction on the metro, which was exciting! Summer and I sat down in a corner of the women's car on the metro, and suddenly the women across from us said "Welcome to Cairo!!" and presented us with a tupperware container full of sweets. We took a couple and ate them, then spent about 5 minutes trying to come up with any sort of response besides "shukran" (thank you). Finally I managed to formulate the phrases to ask her if she had made the sweets herself, and what they were each called. We talked in really broken Arabic-English to each other until the end of our ride, and I really did feel welcomed. With the gender issues here on top of our limited language skills (I am definitely improving but still only know how to speak in past tense) it is difficult to strike up a conversation with just anyone, but any little bit is really encouraging. Every day the time here seems to go faster and faster, as we get more immersed and comfortable exploring the city.
Update about the Alexandria trip coming soon... :)
(this is getting really difficult with the computer situation here, but I'll try to remember key points since the last post)
-We have now gone on another group field trip to Anafora, a Coptic Christian retreat center a couple hours from Cairo. It was absolutely beautiful. The entire compound is the brainchild of Bishop Thomas, the "top guy" there, which includes the designing of all the buildings, gardens, etc. They are fairly sustainable with food, growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables organically there in the compound. We picked fresh dates right off the trees outside our guest rooms. The buildings are mostly all made of straw and mud/plaster materials, most with dome shapes and skylights and stairs leading up to the roofs... I loved it! I shared a guest room with one other girl in my group, and we each had separate bedrooms complete with double beds, high ceilings, and princess-style mosquito nets (which are not actually as awesome to sleep under as I imagined as a child! Unfortunate.)
While there at Anafora we were able to end the evening prayers and the morning mass, which was very different from my past church experiences. The Coptic church makes up about 10% of the population of Egypt, and their liturgy is often spoken in the Coptic language, which is a mix of Greek and ancient Egyptian. It's really amazing that they are still so tied to the ancient Egyptians, and most Copts consider themselves the original population of Egypt--as opposed to much of the Muslim population, which has more mixed Arabic descent (I'm doing a terrible job of summarizing Egyptian anthropology, but that's one part that was really interesting to me!)
-This week our field trip is a 2-day excursion to Alexandria, where we will get to visit the library of Alexandria and swim in the Mediterranean, among many other things I'm sure. This will be the farthest we have been outside of Cairo so far, until our trip to Upper Egypt in a couple weeks.
-I feel like I should include at least one little anecdote about life in Cairo, but it's hard to narrow that down... but yesterday I had my first real interaction on the metro, which was exciting! Summer and I sat down in a corner of the women's car on the metro, and suddenly the women across from us said "Welcome to Cairo!!" and presented us with a tupperware container full of sweets. We took a couple and ate them, then spent about 5 minutes trying to come up with any sort of response besides "shukran" (thank you). Finally I managed to formulate the phrases to ask her if she had made the sweets herself, and what they were each called. We talked in really broken Arabic-English to each other until the end of our ride, and I really did feel welcomed. With the gender issues here on top of our limited language skills (I am definitely improving but still only know how to speak in past tense) it is difficult to strike up a conversation with just anyone, but any little bit is really encouraging. Every day the time here seems to go faster and faster, as we get more immersed and comfortable exploring the city.
Update about the Alexandria trip coming soon... :)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
week 2
Ahlan wasahlan! I made it safely to Cairo last Friday, which already seems like weeks ago though today is only my 9th full day here. The trip went smoothly other than a little trouble with customs (the official thought our group visa looked sketchy, but we argued our way through).
We were bussed to our home for the next 7 weeks, a Christian church compound in Helwan, which is on the southern edge of Cairo. Our group of 19 is split into three dorm-style guest rooms, which are not luxurious by any account, but very livable. Our single shower is generally cold and has a tendency to flood if we aren't careful (though this is more the fault of 5 long-haired girls rather than the shower), and I had an exciting moment of panic the first night when I accidentally locked myself inside it. One pair of tweezers and a few shrieks later, I got myself out, no worries... And so far I haven't minded the cold water, as our room is extremely stuffy by the end of a hot Egyptian summer day. The beds have proven to be more of an adjustment-- we sleep on thin stuffed mattresses on basically a cot made of loose planks. But I'd been sleeping on the floor during my last week in the States anyway, so no big deal... that is, until I went to bury my face into my pillow and realized it was more sandbag than pillow. (thus, these heavy pillows have inspired the creation of a roommate exercise plan, which we call "Cairobics"... but that's a story for a different blog post!)
Our church hosts are very friendly and accommodating, and we are also lucky that they happen to have a full kitchen and dining area included in the compound. We are served full Egyptian meals for breakfast and supper every day. Since it is still summer vacation here for a few more days, the compound is full of church kids of all ages at pretty much any time of day. Many of these have become our main source for entertainment and conversation partners, though they have a better English vocabulary by age 6 than we do right now in Arabic. Ah well. When we get exhausted of trying to talk about brothers and sisters and dogs and cats (which is about the extent of my vocab, at least), we can always join in a game of soccer or volleyball in the dirt lot.
So far, our typical school days consist of getting up around 7 (though I personally am still waking up to the 4 a.m. call to prayer every day which resonates on loudspeakers from about three different local mosques), eating breakfast, then catching the metro to our language school. We are split into three classes with two teachers each--one for grammar and one for society vocabulary. Class is done by noon, at which point we set out in small groups to find lunch. This will be significantly easier this week since Ramadan is now over, so restaurants are reopened. Then we often have a lecture on the culture and history of the area, then are free until our 7:30 dinner.
We also have just had our first field trip: yesterday we left early in the morning to spend the day at the Pyramids, Memphis, and Saqqara. It is amazing that we are only half an hour or so from some of ancient wonders of the world! I'll probably write more about those later, but so far it's difficult to get time on the computer regularly, so this is already getting longwinded and I need to close!
Thanks for reading and thinking of me... I miss you all and think of you often, even with so much going on here. :)
We were bussed to our home for the next 7 weeks, a Christian church compound in Helwan, which is on the southern edge of Cairo. Our group of 19 is split into three dorm-style guest rooms, which are not luxurious by any account, but very livable. Our single shower is generally cold and has a tendency to flood if we aren't careful (though this is more the fault of 5 long-haired girls rather than the shower), and I had an exciting moment of panic the first night when I accidentally locked myself inside it. One pair of tweezers and a few shrieks later, I got myself out, no worries... And so far I haven't minded the cold water, as our room is extremely stuffy by the end of a hot Egyptian summer day. The beds have proven to be more of an adjustment-- we sleep on thin stuffed mattresses on basically a cot made of loose planks. But I'd been sleeping on the floor during my last week in the States anyway, so no big deal... that is, until I went to bury my face into my pillow and realized it was more sandbag than pillow. (thus, these heavy pillows have inspired the creation of a roommate exercise plan, which we call "Cairobics"... but that's a story for a different blog post!)
Our church hosts are very friendly and accommodating, and we are also lucky that they happen to have a full kitchen and dining area included in the compound. We are served full Egyptian meals for breakfast and supper every day. Since it is still summer vacation here for a few more days, the compound is full of church kids of all ages at pretty much any time of day. Many of these have become our main source for entertainment and conversation partners, though they have a better English vocabulary by age 6 than we do right now in Arabic. Ah well. When we get exhausted of trying to talk about brothers and sisters and dogs and cats (which is about the extent of my vocab, at least), we can always join in a game of soccer or volleyball in the dirt lot.
So far, our typical school days consist of getting up around 7 (though I personally am still waking up to the 4 a.m. call to prayer every day which resonates on loudspeakers from about three different local mosques), eating breakfast, then catching the metro to our language school. We are split into three classes with two teachers each--one for grammar and one for society vocabulary. Class is done by noon, at which point we set out in small groups to find lunch. This will be significantly easier this week since Ramadan is now over, so restaurants are reopened. Then we often have a lecture on the culture and history of the area, then are free until our 7:30 dinner.
We also have just had our first field trip: yesterday we left early in the morning to spend the day at the Pyramids, Memphis, and Saqqara. It is amazing that we are only half an hour or so from some of ancient wonders of the world! I'll probably write more about those later, but so far it's difficult to get time on the computer regularly, so this is already getting longwinded and I need to close!
Thanks for reading and thinking of me... I miss you all and think of you often, even with so much going on here. :)
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