So much for my plans of writing at least once a week now that I have internet access! I've been getting spoiled and lazy by this, so instead of writing blogs, I've written more personal e-mails in the last week or two. During the days I store up all kinds of things that I think I should share in a blog, and then I promptly forget them when I get home and see my bed.
To be honest, the bed wins an easy victory over most things right now... I still cannot seem to adjust to the Egyptian schedule, which starts early in the morning with work and ends around midnight or later with... supper. This has proven to be one of my most difficult adjustments in Beni Suef. In Cairo at Eman House we were served dinner at 7:30 every evening, which I assumed was on the early side of normal for Egyptian suppertime. Turns out, at least according to my host family's schedule, 7:30 p.m. is more like the late end of lunchtime. !! Most nights I struggle to decide if a third meal is even worth staying awake longer, and usually my decision to stay up for supper is more out of a desire to be social than a desire to eat.
This schedule means, of course, that I am getting only 6 hours or so of sleep a night... which, though it is very normal for me during the school year when I'm on campus, is not sufficient for adjusting to a new culture. I'm doing much better this week than the last two, but still my days at school are often a struggle--(how can I actually doze off sitting in a room full of active preschoolers? Yet I seem to do this rather often.) so basically what I'm saying is... that is my best excuse for not writing blog posts: complete exhaustion and little desire to stare at a screen when I get home. I'm so grateful to be able to check messages daily, though, not complaining about that.
As far as the rest of my home life is concerned, I'm also settling into that much better by now. I attempt to help Jacqueline in the kitchen most days, which usually results in a lot of laughing (on her part) and confusion (on my part). As with most kitchens, my mom's included, the main cook has a specific way of doing things and I try to follow suit and not mess everything up... so it makes me feel pretty much at home to have Jacqueline show me the correct way of cutting cucumbers in her kitchen, etc. :) Today I learned to make kofta (sausage shaped meatloaf-ish things), and other than the spices being some mysterious premixed Egyptian concoction, I think I could recreate it at home pretty easily... this makes me really happy and was one of the things I was hoping for most in a host family setting--learning to cook Egyptian foods directly from the source. I'm also learning a lot of cooking terms to supplement my extensive knowledge of Arabic fruit and vegetable names. Hooray!
On to something new: I feel I did not give Kookoo sufficient time in my first post, and she is a character worthy of a lengthy description. So here we go. My first impression of her was that she looked somewhat like a baby Lauryn Hill-- the same big brown eyes and delicate features, though obviously a 2 1/2 year old, Egyptian version. Her hair is short and curly, but it poofs at the top, Jimmy Neutron style... mostly this is because she goes to school every day with a little ponytail on top and comes home without it--> poof.
The first few days that I was living here, she eyed me skeptically at best, or more frequently ran from the room crying when she saw me. With my limited vocabulary and limited small-child skills, I decided to just bide my time, and sure enough, she stopped crying by about day 2 or 3, and by about day 4 I had a major milestone when at school she was crying for Jacqueline and couldn't find her, so she consented to come to me instead. Major confidence boost for me! By this time Kookoo had also started calling me "Tant" (though not to my face, because we were still not on speaking terms)... which, as I understand it, means "aunt" but also can be used for roughly any female who is older than you and of some sort of relationship that calls for a descriptive word rather than a name. As a strange woman in her home I fit this ambiguous relationship. I believe Kookoo now fully accepts me as part of her household--she speaks to me, "bothers" me like an appropriate little sister (i.e. poke in the leg while I'm on the computer), and asks for me occasionally instead of mama or baba. I'm flattered, of course. :)
More to come, but it's almost midnight already...
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
about time for a Beni Suef update
I'm here! I'm alive!
(now that I say those words, I'm laughing at myself because those are the exact phrases some tourist-vendors have used to get our attention here in Egypt...)
but really. I am here now in Beni Suef, and have been for over a week already. And contrary to what one might assume since I haven't written a thing on my blog until now, I actually have a computer with internet access in my home! A computer with a littllllelllllllllllllllllllllll bit of a sticky "L" key issue.. so bear with me.
Let me back up though.
More important than the computer, I have a home with a host family! Just when we thought there was no hope for living in Egyptian home settings, several of us ended up getting hosts for the service portion of our semester.
I'm living with a Coptic Christian family made up of host parents that are about 10 years older than me, Ehab and Jacqueline (not sure how she spells that in English letters, but... it sounds like Jacqueline), and their small daughter Clara--aged 2 1/2, and informally known as "Kookoo."
Their flat is on the fourth floor of Ehab's family's building, with his parents and sister one floor beneath us. The other floors are empty due to the other siblings/their families living outside of Beni Suef right now.
Both Ehab and Jacqueline speak English-- Ehab very fluently, and Jacqueline not fluently but much better than my Arabic still! Both of them are also teaching and encouraging me with my Arabic, which is great and exactly what I was hoping for.
Their home is really nice, definitely much homier than Eman House. I have my own room with 2 double beds, because Kookoo doesn't sleep by herself yet. Those of you who know me well will understand how great this is for me-- I really enjoy having a space that is mine, and being able to retreat to a quiet place when I've had too much extrovert-time. And Egypt is certainly a setting for lots of extrovert time, especially when you are a foreigner in a city that barely sees any!
As for my service placement, my main volunteer work is helping at a church-run nursery school just a short distance down the road from my home. Jacqueline also works there as a secretary and Kookoo attends, so we three go to school together every morning. I don't have too many official duties there, but since it is a "language school" I occasionally help with the English lessons. More commonly, though, my post is as an official lap to sit in, someone to blow up pre-slobbered balloons for all the kids on the playground, and as a funny big person participating at 3-4 year old level in the Arabic lessons and songs. I'm not the world's greatest kid-magnet, but I really love it. :) Every day I can feel my Arabic improving bit by bit-- like today when I celebrated to myself being able to understand a few new baby-Arabic requests: "I want to play." (that's infinitive form grammar right there, yay me.) "I'm sitting by you!" <--(present continuous form!) and "I want a drink of water please" <--(mix of Arabic and very accented English... which threw me off for a second). This is a vast improvement from my first couple days, in which kids asked me all kinds of things but I could only understand "I want mama/baba." And for lack of a more helpful response, I told them mournfully..."I want mama and baba too!" Luckily my spirits have been improving day by day as well as my Arabic skills. This week I think I'm past the point of almost having a stressed/homesick meltdown right along with the preschoolers. (Al-hamdu-lillah... Thank God.)
In additional to being at the nursery school (or "baby class" as they call it) from about 7:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day, I am also helping Ehab teach 2 adult English classes twice a week in the evenings. Most of these students are around my age, which is really great because up until now I have had very little opportunity to make friends with Egyptian women my age. Same as with the nursery school and the population of Egypt in general, the majority of the students are Muslim-- which is really exciting and interesting for me since we've primarily only had contact with the smaller Coptic population before this.
The combination of these two very different settings is really interesting and keeps me on my toes, though I think it is a lot more hours of work than I was initially expecting. This is why they tell us not to compare our settings with other SST groups... I'm trying not to think about all my friends who told me how much spare time they had at their service location! That said, though, I'm enjoying what I do and I appreciate every opportunity to try new things and socialize with all kinds of hospitable local people. The people in Beni Suef are wonderful!
I already have a long build-up of stories from the past week, but I'll go ahead and post this... more of those to come. Thanks for reading, and I miss you all!
(now that I say those words, I'm laughing at myself because those are the exact phrases some tourist-vendors have used to get our attention here in Egypt...)
but really. I am here now in Beni Suef, and have been for over a week already. And contrary to what one might assume since I haven't written a thing on my blog until now, I actually have a computer with internet access in my home! A computer with a littllllelllllllllllllllllllllll bit of a sticky "L" key issue.. so bear with me.
Let me back up though.
More important than the computer, I have a home with a host family! Just when we thought there was no hope for living in Egyptian home settings, several of us ended up getting hosts for the service portion of our semester.
I'm living with a Coptic Christian family made up of host parents that are about 10 years older than me, Ehab and Jacqueline (not sure how she spells that in English letters, but... it sounds like Jacqueline), and their small daughter Clara--aged 2 1/2, and informally known as "Kookoo."
Their flat is on the fourth floor of Ehab's family's building, with his parents and sister one floor beneath us. The other floors are empty due to the other siblings/their families living outside of Beni Suef right now.
Both Ehab and Jacqueline speak English-- Ehab very fluently, and Jacqueline not fluently but much better than my Arabic still! Both of them are also teaching and encouraging me with my Arabic, which is great and exactly what I was hoping for.
Their home is really nice, definitely much homier than Eman House. I have my own room with 2 double beds, because Kookoo doesn't sleep by herself yet. Those of you who know me well will understand how great this is for me-- I really enjoy having a space that is mine, and being able to retreat to a quiet place when I've had too much extrovert-time. And Egypt is certainly a setting for lots of extrovert time, especially when you are a foreigner in a city that barely sees any!
As for my service placement, my main volunteer work is helping at a church-run nursery school just a short distance down the road from my home. Jacqueline also works there as a secretary and Kookoo attends, so we three go to school together every morning. I don't have too many official duties there, but since it is a "language school" I occasionally help with the English lessons. More commonly, though, my post is as an official lap to sit in, someone to blow up pre-slobbered balloons for all the kids on the playground, and as a funny big person participating at 3-4 year old level in the Arabic lessons and songs. I'm not the world's greatest kid-magnet, but I really love it. :) Every day I can feel my Arabic improving bit by bit-- like today when I celebrated to myself being able to understand a few new baby-Arabic requests: "I want to play." (that's infinitive form grammar right there, yay me.) "I'm sitting by you!" <--(present continuous form!) and "I want a drink of water please" <--(mix of Arabic and very accented English... which threw me off for a second). This is a vast improvement from my first couple days, in which kids asked me all kinds of things but I could only understand "I want mama/baba." And for lack of a more helpful response, I told them mournfully..."I want mama and baba too!" Luckily my spirits have been improving day by day as well as my Arabic skills. This week I think I'm past the point of almost having a stressed/homesick meltdown right along with the preschoolers. (Al-hamdu-lillah... Thank God.)
In additional to being at the nursery school (or "baby class" as they call it) from about 7:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day, I am also helping Ehab teach 2 adult English classes twice a week in the evenings. Most of these students are around my age, which is really great because up until now I have had very little opportunity to make friends with Egyptian women my age. Same as with the nursery school and the population of Egypt in general, the majority of the students are Muslim-- which is really exciting and interesting for me since we've primarily only had contact with the smaller Coptic population before this.
The combination of these two very different settings is really interesting and keeps me on my toes, though I think it is a lot more hours of work than I was initially expecting. This is why they tell us not to compare our settings with other SST groups... I'm trying not to think about all my friends who told me how much spare time they had at their service location! That said, though, I'm enjoying what I do and I appreciate every opportunity to try new things and socialize with all kinds of hospitable local people. The people in Beni Suef are wonderful!
I already have a long build-up of stories from the past week, but I'll go ahead and post this... more of those to come. Thanks for reading, and I miss you all!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Leaving Cairo
Since I am leaving on Saturday morning to start my Beni Suef adventure...
Things I Will Miss About Cairo:
--riding the women's car on the metro-- safe place for people-watching and being people-watched.
--Otta ("Cat"), my calico BFF at the compound... I was elated to find that there are resident cats at the church compound, especially since our leader Tom forbids us to pet the many feral cats in the streets. And I mean, they are pretty mangy to be honest. But Otta is different... slightly bug-eyed, perhaps, but endearing and mostly tame (thanks to Adel the cook, a fellow cat person who very soon caught onto me and started giving me frozen bones for Otta feeding time. Crazy Cat Woman strikes again.) Many days I'm disturbed from journaling or reading in my room by the sound of lonesome yowling down the hall. I answer the call and spend a few minutes of quality time with Otta in my lap.
--Adel the cook. Started out as a minor character in our Cairo lives, but is now the bodyguard big brother you always wanted to have. He alternates between beating all our guys at arm wrestling using only 2 fingers, and making us watch his favorite movies, like "Up" or "Spirit, Wild Horse of the Cimarron". He's taking cooking classes right now and already we've noticed a very appreciable improvement in our meals here. When he is not cooking or entertaining us with epic stories from his past, he is watching our backs in the streets like Spiderman. A few days ago he clocked a shebab in the back of the head just for looking at me wrong (There are a hundred more shebab where that one came from, but that's the way it is. It was a nice gesture and at least this one guy will think twice next time)
--Amer. Adel's second-in-command in the kitchen, who has a gravelly voice and the best laugh ever. He is about our age and lives here in the compound with Adel, who summons him from any corner of the building with a booming "ahMEER!!"
--the calls to prayer (sort of). And I do mean calls, plural, because there are at least 5 that layer over each other in our immediate neighborhood. Not to be sacrilegious but some are... let's just say... more pleasing to the ear than others. Every so often an imam who seems to be suffering from a severe cold fills in for the regular, which never ceases to amuse us throughout the entire cycle of croaking phrases, always at top volume. Of course.
--my room and roommates at Eman House. Already our population is dwindling, with Elizabeth gone and Summer already in Jordan for service. But we 5 had a good run of it, lots of laughs and failed attempts at Cairobics and multi-colored hairballs in the shower (black, dark brown, reddish brown, medium brown, and blonde--never any question whose was whose).
--and of course I will miss all 14 members of the group that I will not be on service with. Despite coming from an impressive range of majors, social circles, and classes at Goshen, we've gotten along and developed friendships with each other with very little conflict and drama so far in these past 7 weeks. Most of my group are people I had never had classes or much interaction with before other than Arabic class but now they know me better than most people at Goshen ever will. It will be fun to see what kind of stories we will come back with from our separate service locations, but still we will have the shared experiences that no other SSTer from Goshen has had so far... Egypt SST group #1. :)
Things I Will Miss About Cairo:
--riding the women's car on the metro-- safe place for people-watching and being people-watched.
--Otta ("Cat"), my calico BFF at the compound... I was elated to find that there are resident cats at the church compound, especially since our leader Tom forbids us to pet the many feral cats in the streets. And I mean, they are pretty mangy to be honest. But Otta is different... slightly bug-eyed, perhaps, but endearing and mostly tame (thanks to Adel the cook, a fellow cat person who very soon caught onto me and started giving me frozen bones for Otta feeding time. Crazy Cat Woman strikes again.) Many days I'm disturbed from journaling or reading in my room by the sound of lonesome yowling down the hall. I answer the call and spend a few minutes of quality time with Otta in my lap.
--Adel the cook. Started out as a minor character in our Cairo lives, but is now the bodyguard big brother you always wanted to have. He alternates between beating all our guys at arm wrestling using only 2 fingers, and making us watch his favorite movies, like "Up" or "Spirit, Wild Horse of the Cimarron". He's taking cooking classes right now and already we've noticed a very appreciable improvement in our meals here. When he is not cooking or entertaining us with epic stories from his past, he is watching our backs in the streets like Spiderman. A few days ago he clocked a shebab in the back of the head just for looking at me wrong (There are a hundred more shebab where that one came from, but that's the way it is. It was a nice gesture and at least this one guy will think twice next time)
--Amer. Adel's second-in-command in the kitchen, who has a gravelly voice and the best laugh ever. He is about our age and lives here in the compound with Adel, who summons him from any corner of the building with a booming "ahMEER!!"
--the calls to prayer (sort of). And I do mean calls, plural, because there are at least 5 that layer over each other in our immediate neighborhood. Not to be sacrilegious but some are... let's just say... more pleasing to the ear than others. Every so often an imam who seems to be suffering from a severe cold fills in for the regular, which never ceases to amuse us throughout the entire cycle of croaking phrases, always at top volume. Of course.
--my room and roommates at Eman House. Already our population is dwindling, with Elizabeth gone and Summer already in Jordan for service. But we 5 had a good run of it, lots of laughs and failed attempts at Cairobics and multi-colored hairballs in the shower (black, dark brown, reddish brown, medium brown, and blonde--never any question whose was whose).
--and of course I will miss all 14 members of the group that I will not be on service with. Despite coming from an impressive range of majors, social circles, and classes at Goshen, we've gotten along and developed friendships with each other with very little conflict and drama so far in these past 7 weeks. Most of my group are people I had never had classes or much interaction with before other than Arabic class but now they know me better than most people at Goshen ever will. It will be fun to see what kind of stories we will come back with from our separate service locations, but still we will have the shared experiences that no other SSTer from Goshen has had so far... Egypt SST group #1. :)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Aida at the Pyramids... or, Microbus Night.
The first part of this blog post is dedicated especially to Kate Walker and the rest of my Barcelona travel companions. :)
Part I:
Last week the majority of our group threw down 50 LE to see a performance of the opera Aida, at the pyramids. Literally on a stage set up right in front of them. In order to get there we rode the metro line as far as we could and then piled into a microbus for the rest of the trip. I was frustrated that we got way overcharged for the bus--for some reason there was a miscommunication between our fearless leader Ben and the driver, who saw an easy opportunity to trap us into renting the entire microbus, etc..-- anyway... grumpy Rachel recovered significantly from the 400% price inflation when the driver decided to put in a CD of "Western music" for us... which ended up being almost entirely made up of songs that played constantly on the one and only working TV channel (Mola TV) in my Barcelona apartment during May term. !! After headbobbing to a French song I recognized but couldn't understand, I screamed with happiness when the second song was... "Parachutes" by Cheryl Cole (a Brit-pop singer that of course no one else was as excited to hear as me) . But... noticing the excitement in the backseat, the driver turns his radio up to a ridiculous volume. So... here is the scene:
Driver and random other guy in the front seat. In the second seat, Summer, myself, and a random Egyptian guy in a suit who is also going to Aida (and who proceeded to attach himself to our group for the rest of the night). Back seat crammed with Ben, Nora, and Phil. The vehicle a small VW bus with a blue flashing heart on the windshield, faux fur across the dashboard, a baby-doll head on top of the fur (yes, just the head. ?? I know!) and a plushy heart hanging from the rear-view mirror. I'll never understand Egyptian vehicle decorations. All 5 Americans and the tagalong Egyptian singing and dancing loudly to Kesha, Usher, Lady Gaga, more Kesha, and Beyonce as we weave and jolt along the Cairo highway. All laughing with embarrassment at how loud and stereotypically American our microbus is, which only gets worse when Egyptian Tagalong Man gets hot and we have to stop so that the driver can run around and open the sliding door from the outside (because they don't open from the inside)... and then we carry on with our music-blasting, careening voyage.
When we finally reach the destination we each pay 8 LE while our Egyptian pal pays only 5 and explains that it is fair, because we are tourists. Right. But what can you do...
We rush off to find our seats in the opera crowd, and Egyptian Tagalong Man gives up his 100 LE seat to sit by us, because, as he says, he "doesn't know the people up there." But we are now his friends, so...
The performance was beautiful--costumes, sets, music... though I didn't know the storyline at all. In a perfect world I would have looked up a synopsis online before going, but with the rush and stress plus computer situation... didn't happen. Instead, Egyptian Tagalong Man explained the general idea of the scenes he recognized, or when that was insufficient we made up our own interpretations. All of this was passed telephone-style down the row, prompting us to get shushed by European Tourist Man in front of us who had arrived 20 minutes late (hmmph) but so it goes.
PART II:
We had to leave early because the metro doesn't run all night, so we caught another microbus and negotiated a ride for half the cost of the first one. Once again a fur-lined, plush-decorated, careening bus, with a driver who (as I thought to myself) didn't make me feel all that comfortable as a passenger. But I've had about one taxi/microbus driver so far who did seem safe in the Cairo traffic, so I shrugged it off and tried to ignore the constant lurching and braking and incessant honking that is part of average Cairo driving.
Not so fast.. only a bit down the road we pull dangerously closely alongside a taxi, and sure enough the next thing we know there is an awful crunch and the shrieking tear of metal, annnnd...
Nice Taxi's back end has been owned by Not-So-Nice Microbus's fender. Taxi Driver stops and leaps out of his car, followed by Microbus Driver. Lots of screaming and pointing and lifting by the back of the shirt ensues. We, by now the only passengers in the microbus, look at each other in terror--finally decide to just get out and quietly leave, but realize of course that the sliding door... doesn't open from the inside (see Microbus Story #1, above). A random guy appears outside to let us out, but as soon as we get out, Microbus Driver yells at us to get back in and he'll take us, don't worry. We follow orders and the bus continues on...
Only to be chased down by still-angry Taxi Driver, whose back end is hanging and scraping all the way. The two drivers are yelling at each other as we drive along, all the while lurching and braking and honking. I think we're probably not going to get to the metro by midnight and start to feel like a hostage. We pull over again for another round of yelling and shirt-pulling, while being pointed at, waved at, and laughed at by a microbus full of Egyptians on our starboard side...
Finally, finally, Microbus Driver finds a solution. The best we could figure was that he played the "I Have Americans In My Bus And I Have To Take Care Of Them" card and told Taxi river to meet him at the metro stop, and THEN they could fight it out. Whew. So, long story short, we made it to our destination intact, paid our far and scooted off.
But so far I have not yet felt the need to ride another microbus.
Part I:
Last week the majority of our group threw down 50 LE to see a performance of the opera Aida, at the pyramids. Literally on a stage set up right in front of them. In order to get there we rode the metro line as far as we could and then piled into a microbus for the rest of the trip. I was frustrated that we got way overcharged for the bus--for some reason there was a miscommunication between our fearless leader Ben and the driver, who saw an easy opportunity to trap us into renting the entire microbus, etc..-- anyway... grumpy Rachel recovered significantly from the 400% price inflation when the driver decided to put in a CD of "Western music" for us... which ended up being almost entirely made up of songs that played constantly on the one and only working TV channel (Mola TV) in my Barcelona apartment during May term. !! After headbobbing to a French song I recognized but couldn't understand, I screamed with happiness when the second song was... "Parachutes" by Cheryl Cole (a Brit-pop singer that of course no one else was as excited to hear as me) . But... noticing the excitement in the backseat, the driver turns his radio up to a ridiculous volume. So... here is the scene:
Driver and random other guy in the front seat. In the second seat, Summer, myself, and a random Egyptian guy in a suit who is also going to Aida (and who proceeded to attach himself to our group for the rest of the night). Back seat crammed with Ben, Nora, and Phil. The vehicle a small VW bus with a blue flashing heart on the windshield, faux fur across the dashboard, a baby-doll head on top of the fur (yes, just the head. ?? I know!) and a plushy heart hanging from the rear-view mirror. I'll never understand Egyptian vehicle decorations. All 5 Americans and the tagalong Egyptian singing and dancing loudly to Kesha, Usher, Lady Gaga, more Kesha, and Beyonce as we weave and jolt along the Cairo highway. All laughing with embarrassment at how loud and stereotypically American our microbus is, which only gets worse when Egyptian Tagalong Man gets hot and we have to stop so that the driver can run around and open the sliding door from the outside (because they don't open from the inside)... and then we carry on with our music-blasting, careening voyage.
When we finally reach the destination we each pay 8 LE while our Egyptian pal pays only 5 and explains that it is fair, because we are tourists. Right. But what can you do...
We rush off to find our seats in the opera crowd, and Egyptian Tagalong Man gives up his 100 LE seat to sit by us, because, as he says, he "doesn't know the people up there." But we are now his friends, so...
The performance was beautiful--costumes, sets, music... though I didn't know the storyline at all. In a perfect world I would have looked up a synopsis online before going, but with the rush and stress plus computer situation... didn't happen. Instead, Egyptian Tagalong Man explained the general idea of the scenes he recognized, or when that was insufficient we made up our own interpretations. All of this was passed telephone-style down the row, prompting us to get shushed by European Tourist Man in front of us who had arrived 20 minutes late (hmmph) but so it goes.
PART II:
We had to leave early because the metro doesn't run all night, so we caught another microbus and negotiated a ride for half the cost of the first one. Once again a fur-lined, plush-decorated, careening bus, with a driver who (as I thought to myself) didn't make me feel all that comfortable as a passenger. But I've had about one taxi/microbus driver so far who did seem safe in the Cairo traffic, so I shrugged it off and tried to ignore the constant lurching and braking and incessant honking that is part of average Cairo driving.
Not so fast.. only a bit down the road we pull dangerously closely alongside a taxi, and sure enough the next thing we know there is an awful crunch and the shrieking tear of metal, annnnd...
Nice Taxi's back end has been owned by Not-So-Nice Microbus's fender. Taxi Driver stops and leaps out of his car, followed by Microbus Driver. Lots of screaming and pointing and lifting by the back of the shirt ensues. We, by now the only passengers in the microbus, look at each other in terror--finally decide to just get out and quietly leave, but realize of course that the sliding door... doesn't open from the inside (see Microbus Story #1, above). A random guy appears outside to let us out, but as soon as we get out, Microbus Driver yells at us to get back in and he'll take us, don't worry. We follow orders and the bus continues on...
Only to be chased down by still-angry Taxi Driver, whose back end is hanging and scraping all the way. The two drivers are yelling at each other as we drive along, all the while lurching and braking and honking. I think we're probably not going to get to the metro by midnight and start to feel like a hostage. We pull over again for another round of yelling and shirt-pulling, while being pointed at, waved at, and laughed at by a microbus full of Egyptians on our starboard side...
Finally, finally, Microbus Driver finds a solution. The best we could figure was that he played the "I Have Americans In My Bus And I Have To Take Care Of Them" card and told Taxi river to meet him at the metro stop, and THEN they could fight it out. Whew. So, long story short, we made it to our destination intact, paid our far and scooted off.
But so far I have not yet felt the need to ride another microbus.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sinai and Dahab (Oct. 5-7)
Well... I spoke too soon about feeling better, apparently, because I had another flare-up just in time for our trip to Sinai, in which I was to climb to the top of Moses' mountain. I was more than a little stressed about this idea, but a few sorta sketchy Egyptian pills later, I managed to make it up and down the mountain without an emergency mountain-goat-esque bathroom run. There are no mountain goats on Mt. Sinai, but neither are there trees or any sort of sheltering vegetation (this, like the library of Alexandria, was a shock that should not have been a shock. Of course there wouldn't be vegetation on a mountain in the middle of the desert! What was I imagining, the Rockies? Sadly, yes... I was.) so at any rate, the stark and rocky terrain would not have been a pleasant bathroom experience...
We left our hotel at 2 a.m. in order to start the hike and make it to the top in time for the sunrise, and because of the altitude plus nighttime desert temperatures, I was cold outside for the first time so far in Egypt. (!!) We had a Bedouin tour guide to help us up the mountain, though we could have followed the whole string of pilgrims with flashlights and lanterns if we were truly lost-- it was really impressive to look above you and see a line of lights slowly ascending in a squiggly switchback line. All nationalities of people were there, from Romanians in head coverings to Spaniards quoting the Bible in Spanish as they climbed. (for myself, considering my lack of energy from the sickness it was all I could do to breathe on the ascent, let alone sing or read, but I was impressed.) The sunrise was quite a respectable sunrise, and though my camera doesn't do it justice at all, I have many pictures that I will be posting to Facebook in the future. However, the main highlight of the Sinai hike was the vast number of camels that we got to share the trail with. I can't imagine anything worse than riding a camel up a steep, rocky trail, but there were more than enough Bedouin camel owners who thought that we were going to poop out every time we stopped for a breath. "Camel ride, very cheap? You will be tired soon?" The poor camel guides closer to the top of the mountain got a far less gracious rejection, I'm afraid. And I cannot even describe to you the sounds a camel makes, but I can say that they do not help when you are already feeling rather queasy.
And did I mention my very favorite camel encounter: the love nibble. After being run off the trail several times by camels that I couldn't see because it was still dark, our group stopped for a break in a small space next to several resting camels. I tried to squeeze between one of my group members and a seated camel to look at something, and suddenly felt HUGE LIPS touching my side. I yelped and sprang forward just in time to miss getting nipped by this big guy's yellow teeth. Way too early for that kind of closeness.
The rest of the trip went by without much event... we returned to our barely-used hotel rooms to shower, then visited St. Catherine's monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai before continuing on to Dahab, a tourist town on the Red Sea. This was by far the most Westernized place we had stayed so far, and it was honestly a really nice change after several weeks of the constant harassment and attention we get out in public. I was able to walk around without getting stared at, even when I was wearing my swimsuit to go snorkeling--and this was such a mental and physical relief. And the snorkeling itself... amazing. This was my first time, and though I am not a strong swimmer, I managed to get the hang of it eventually (after swallowing an awful lot of seawater) The reefs were fantastic, and the water was the perfect temperature for splashing around on a hot day. Completely worth the 25 LE (less than $5, that is) that I paid for renting water boots and flippers.
We left our hotel at 2 a.m. in order to start the hike and make it to the top in time for the sunrise, and because of the altitude plus nighttime desert temperatures, I was cold outside for the first time so far in Egypt. (!!) We had a Bedouin tour guide to help us up the mountain, though we could have followed the whole string of pilgrims with flashlights and lanterns if we were truly lost-- it was really impressive to look above you and see a line of lights slowly ascending in a squiggly switchback line. All nationalities of people were there, from Romanians in head coverings to Spaniards quoting the Bible in Spanish as they climbed. (for myself, considering my lack of energy from the sickness it was all I could do to breathe on the ascent, let alone sing or read, but I was impressed.) The sunrise was quite a respectable sunrise, and though my camera doesn't do it justice at all, I have many pictures that I will be posting to Facebook in the future. However, the main highlight of the Sinai hike was the vast number of camels that we got to share the trail with. I can't imagine anything worse than riding a camel up a steep, rocky trail, but there were more than enough Bedouin camel owners who thought that we were going to poop out every time we stopped for a breath. "Camel ride, very cheap? You will be tired soon?" The poor camel guides closer to the top of the mountain got a far less gracious rejection, I'm afraid. And I cannot even describe to you the sounds a camel makes, but I can say that they do not help when you are already feeling rather queasy.
And did I mention my very favorite camel encounter: the love nibble. After being run off the trail several times by camels that I couldn't see because it was still dark, our group stopped for a break in a small space next to several resting camels. I tried to squeeze between one of my group members and a seated camel to look at something, and suddenly felt HUGE LIPS touching my side. I yelped and sprang forward just in time to miss getting nipped by this big guy's yellow teeth. Way too early for that kind of closeness.
The rest of the trip went by without much event... we returned to our barely-used hotel rooms to shower, then visited St. Catherine's monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai before continuing on to Dahab, a tourist town on the Red Sea. This was by far the most Westernized place we had stayed so far, and it was honestly a really nice change after several weeks of the constant harassment and attention we get out in public. I was able to walk around without getting stared at, even when I was wearing my swimsuit to go snorkeling--and this was such a mental and physical relief. And the snorkeling itself... amazing. This was my first time, and though I am not a strong swimmer, I managed to get the hang of it eventually (after swallowing an awful lot of seawater) The reefs were fantastic, and the water was the perfect temperature for splashing around on a hot day. Completely worth the 25 LE (less than $5, that is) that I paid for renting water boots and flippers.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Upper Egypt... which is actually the south...
This week we had only 2 Arabic classes, then took off for a 4-day excursion to Upper Egypt. And most people probably learned this already at one point or another, as did I once, but I forgot, so:
to clarify, Upper Egypt is the south of Egypt, and Lower Egypt is the north-- because the Nile flows south to north. This is why after getting (slightly) spoiled by Cairo temperatures that were only in the 90s for the last couple weeks, we once again had to plunge into 110+ degree heat down south. Blarg! Luckily most of the places we were staying had air conditioning, for a change... including the sleeper train that we took both ways.
I had high expectations for this sleeper train after watching The Darjeeling Limited, and yes... it was pretty much that awesome. We arrived in Aswan by mid-morning and spent the day visiting a couple temples there. Then we had a felucca ride (sailboat) in the Nile, which was beautiful and excellent for tourist-watching. We saw some excellent British tourists all wearing neon orange life-vests, as well as a very Amurrcan cruise boat that was in fact flying a huge U.S.A. flag from the front. Wow.
It was interesting to see how different everything is in that part of the country-- the countryside is much lusher since we were out of the metropolis, and even the people look significantly different there. I also noticed there was a significant change in selling tactics: many of the street merchants tried flattery and reverse psychology to get you into their shops, whereas in Cairo I feel there is not quite so much strategy! I lost track of how many people yelled "nice eyes" at me before even mentioning what they were selling, and I also got several offers of camels for marriage. Anywhere from 5 camels (conservative offer) to 10,000,000 camels (desperate attempt to sell me a scarf).
We were in Aswan just one day, then traveled to Luxor for the next 3 days. Luxor is one of the ancient capitals of Egypt, and it is also going to be one of the service locations for a couple guys in my SST group, so we needed quite a bit of time there. Probably the most exciting part of Luxor for me was visiting the Valley of the Kings. I had no idea what to expect, but I definitely didn't realize that this was an entire area full of excavated tombs that you can go inside. Our tickets allowed us to go into three different tombs of our choice. Because these tombs have been pretty well sealed in the desert for thousands of years, they have an amazing amount of color still inside them... Many of them had several huge connected rooms, all covered on all the walls and ceilings with huge painted carvings. We weren't allowed to take pictures but I sat and gaped as long as I was allowed to. One of the tombs I went into was a pretty far hike up the side of the rock mounds, followed by a huge set of stairs down inside and then another back up to get to the inner chamber of the tomb. This led me to accidentally think of another bad pun... in addition to Cairobics, we were now experiencing... (wait for it...): Luxorcise. By the time we got to the inside we were already dripping sweat, only to find that this tomb was at a much higher elevation and therefore unbelievably hot and stuffy. I'm pretty sure I have never been so sweat-soaked in my normal clothes-- it was like my job in Kansas this summer, only I was just standing still instead of doing manual labor in work clothes. But totally worth the Luxorcise that it took to get there, and totally worth the jello-legs I had for the rest of the day!
In Luxor I also experienced my first serious illness since arriving in Egypt. We for some reason went to McDonald's for our group meal one night, which I'm sure would have been at least a little more appealing to me if I hadn't already been having stomach pain that day... and then I ordered my meal, a harmless(?) hamburger which ended up to be AS BIG AS MY FACE! This, on top of the internal issues I was already having, led to me and my stomach rejecting all food and water for most of the next day. The most exciting stomach upheaval happened in the very first room of the Luxor Museum, while I was surrounded by a huge group of tourists... lovely, I know. Luckily I had brought a plastic bag! I'm actually the third in our group so far to throw up at a museum, so it's kind of a badge of pride... haha. And no worries, it has been a few days now and I am feeling mostly recovered.
to clarify, Upper Egypt is the south of Egypt, and Lower Egypt is the north-- because the Nile flows south to north. This is why after getting (slightly) spoiled by Cairo temperatures that were only in the 90s for the last couple weeks, we once again had to plunge into 110+ degree heat down south. Blarg! Luckily most of the places we were staying had air conditioning, for a change... including the sleeper train that we took both ways.
I had high expectations for this sleeper train after watching The Darjeeling Limited, and yes... it was pretty much that awesome. We arrived in Aswan by mid-morning and spent the day visiting a couple temples there. Then we had a felucca ride (sailboat) in the Nile, which was beautiful and excellent for tourist-watching. We saw some excellent British tourists all wearing neon orange life-vests, as well as a very Amurrcan cruise boat that was in fact flying a huge U.S.A. flag from the front. Wow.
It was interesting to see how different everything is in that part of the country-- the countryside is much lusher since we were out of the metropolis, and even the people look significantly different there. I also noticed there was a significant change in selling tactics: many of the street merchants tried flattery and reverse psychology to get you into their shops, whereas in Cairo I feel there is not quite so much strategy! I lost track of how many people yelled "nice eyes" at me before even mentioning what they were selling, and I also got several offers of camels for marriage. Anywhere from 5 camels (conservative offer) to 10,000,000 camels (desperate attempt to sell me a scarf).
We were in Aswan just one day, then traveled to Luxor for the next 3 days. Luxor is one of the ancient capitals of Egypt, and it is also going to be one of the service locations for a couple guys in my SST group, so we needed quite a bit of time there. Probably the most exciting part of Luxor for me was visiting the Valley of the Kings. I had no idea what to expect, but I definitely didn't realize that this was an entire area full of excavated tombs that you can go inside. Our tickets allowed us to go into three different tombs of our choice. Because these tombs have been pretty well sealed in the desert for thousands of years, they have an amazing amount of color still inside them... Many of them had several huge connected rooms, all covered on all the walls and ceilings with huge painted carvings. We weren't allowed to take pictures but I sat and gaped as long as I was allowed to. One of the tombs I went into was a pretty far hike up the side of the rock mounds, followed by a huge set of stairs down inside and then another back up to get to the inner chamber of the tomb. This led me to accidentally think of another bad pun... in addition to Cairobics, we were now experiencing... (wait for it...): Luxorcise. By the time we got to the inside we were already dripping sweat, only to find that this tomb was at a much higher elevation and therefore unbelievably hot and stuffy. I'm pretty sure I have never been so sweat-soaked in my normal clothes-- it was like my job in Kansas this summer, only I was just standing still instead of doing manual labor in work clothes. But totally worth the Luxorcise that it took to get there, and totally worth the jello-legs I had for the rest of the day!
In Luxor I also experienced my first serious illness since arriving in Egypt. We for some reason went to McDonald's for our group meal one night, which I'm sure would have been at least a little more appealing to me if I hadn't already been having stomach pain that day... and then I ordered my meal, a harmless(?) hamburger which ended up to be AS BIG AS MY FACE! This, on top of the internal issues I was already having, led to me and my stomach rejecting all food and water for most of the next day. The most exciting stomach upheaval happened in the very first room of the Luxor Museum, while I was surrounded by a huge group of tourists... lovely, I know. Luckily I had brought a plastic bag! I'm actually the third in our group so far to throw up at a museum, so it's kind of a badge of pride... haha. And no worries, it has been a few days now and I am feeling mostly recovered.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Alexandria/Iskandria
I promised an update after our Alexandria trip, then realized when I got back to Cairo that I was more pumped to talk about food... typical.
But there were some things of note in Alexandria, such as the amazing amazing library there. Silly me, I was not aware enough of history and thought maybe there was still a small bit of the original library still in existence-- there is not, but the rebuilt modern library was still extremely awesome to see. It's built (they think) about 200 meters from the original site, and is a huge complex that includes the actual library with a million books (literally... they have capacity for 8 million, but since the library was only finished 7 years ago, they have "only" one million so far), connected to a planetarium, connected to a huge conference center. All of these connecting passages are filled with artifacts from all throughout Egyptian/Middle Eastern history, set up museum-style so that you basically have no idea where you are going to come out next. I would have gotten myself thoroughly lost, except for the fact that we were limited to 45 minutes of free exploring. Was this enough time for the biggest library in the world? Definitely not.. so obviously I am going to have to come back some day.
Next we visited Pompey's Pillar, which I'm pretty sure I read about in my Art History class. And in comparison to most of the ancient sites we have seen so far, I have to say it was not all that impressive. The issue was mostly the hot September sun, which made it hard to rally group spirits-- especially considering the growing number of monuments we've taken in, in a short span of time. (I'm reminded a bit of my complete lack of appreciation for geysers and hot springs after stopping at about the 34th "point of interest" in Yellowstone Park that one vacation... ahem.) :) We slugged our way up the slope and did the necessary poses by the pillar and the sphinx, but I think all of us were a lot more excited about climbing underground into some catacombs, which is what we did next...
I don't have my ticket stub in front of me so I don't remember the exact name of the catacombs, but there were 90-something steps leading down into a space that was carved full of hieroglyphics and Greek/Egyptian imagery. That's one of the most interesting parts of Alexandria--the fact that you can still see how much Greek culture has intertwined into the architecture, the religious symbols, the monuments, etc. The statues from this time period look like normal Pharaonic style, until you look at the faces and hair that are completely Greek, curls, bow-shaped lips and all.
That was about it for our sight-seeing, after which we had a seafood dinner and roamed the city, then spent the night in a hotel close to the sea. Another opportunity to get really confused by a new and different shower (so far I have struck out three times with getting the water to actually come out of the shower head), and another opportunity to hear some new call-to-prayer recordings through the night. The next morning we visited the Alexandria museum and then concluded the trip with a couple hours splashing around in the Mediterranean. This would have easily been the biggest highlight, except for the huge conundrum we faced upon arrival at this beach... where absolutely none of the other women there were dressed in less than a fully covering pants outfit and hijab. Very self-consciously we ladies finally decided to swim with shirts and shorts over our swimsuits, though this still drew a lot of attention to our group. And also led to some pretty awkward tan lines.
And now as I'm finishing this update, I've actually just returned from another trip, this time to Upper Egypt (Aswan and Luxor). More stories to come in the next post!
But there were some things of note in Alexandria, such as the amazing amazing library there. Silly me, I was not aware enough of history and thought maybe there was still a small bit of the original library still in existence-- there is not, but the rebuilt modern library was still extremely awesome to see. It's built (they think) about 200 meters from the original site, and is a huge complex that includes the actual library with a million books (literally... they have capacity for 8 million, but since the library was only finished 7 years ago, they have "only" one million so far), connected to a planetarium, connected to a huge conference center. All of these connecting passages are filled with artifacts from all throughout Egyptian/Middle Eastern history, set up museum-style so that you basically have no idea where you are going to come out next. I would have gotten myself thoroughly lost, except for the fact that we were limited to 45 minutes of free exploring. Was this enough time for the biggest library in the world? Definitely not.. so obviously I am going to have to come back some day.
Next we visited Pompey's Pillar, which I'm pretty sure I read about in my Art History class. And in comparison to most of the ancient sites we have seen so far, I have to say it was not all that impressive. The issue was mostly the hot September sun, which made it hard to rally group spirits-- especially considering the growing number of monuments we've taken in, in a short span of time. (I'm reminded a bit of my complete lack of appreciation for geysers and hot springs after stopping at about the 34th "point of interest" in Yellowstone Park that one vacation... ahem.) :) We slugged our way up the slope and did the necessary poses by the pillar and the sphinx, but I think all of us were a lot more excited about climbing underground into some catacombs, which is what we did next...
I don't have my ticket stub in front of me so I don't remember the exact name of the catacombs, but there were 90-something steps leading down into a space that was carved full of hieroglyphics and Greek/Egyptian imagery. That's one of the most interesting parts of Alexandria--the fact that you can still see how much Greek culture has intertwined into the architecture, the religious symbols, the monuments, etc. The statues from this time period look like normal Pharaonic style, until you look at the faces and hair that are completely Greek, curls, bow-shaped lips and all.
That was about it for our sight-seeing, after which we had a seafood dinner and roamed the city, then spent the night in a hotel close to the sea. Another opportunity to get really confused by a new and different shower (so far I have struck out three times with getting the water to actually come out of the shower head), and another opportunity to hear some new call-to-prayer recordings through the night. The next morning we visited the Alexandria museum and then concluded the trip with a couple hours splashing around in the Mediterranean. This would have easily been the biggest highlight, except for the huge conundrum we faced upon arrival at this beach... where absolutely none of the other women there were dressed in less than a fully covering pants outfit and hijab. Very self-consciously we ladies finally decided to swim with shirts and shorts over our swimsuits, though this still drew a lot of attention to our group. And also led to some pretty awkward tan lines.
And now as I'm finishing this update, I've actually just returned from another trip, this time to Upper Egypt (Aswan and Luxor). More stories to come in the next post!
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