Nuweiba

Nuweiba, Kum Kum (pronounced koom koom), and Sinai are all words that should arouse various images of paradise and feelings of contentment in the reader.

In the Sinai there is a small town called Nuweiba, about 10 minutes north of this town is a small beach camp named Kum Kum 3. I think this translates into roughly three pots of tea, something Hebrew in origin I am told. Either way the tea is delicious, the food was fresh, the huts have sea views, the sun was bright and I did not get burned, and I read two books.

The camp at dawn when we arrived

The Boys

Shahira, outside of my hut.

Camel eating trash out of the dumpster in the actual town of Nuweiba.

The main eating/seating area.

The Kum Kum at sunset

Shahira, Nigel, Rames and I arrived early, like 4am early, on Thursday. I stayed until Monday night, getting back to Cairo technically Tuesday morning.

I wish there were lots of stories to tell, but the beauty of the vacation really is the lack of crazy stories. I laid out in the sun, read the fourth Twilight book (awesome!), started reading “In the Name of the Rose,” and the Hemingway novel about bullfights in Spain, chatted with other visitors, ate salad and rice, drank sweet tea, got in the water, got out of the water, showered, slept under a mosquito net (after I got eaten alive the first night), went on a short jaunt to town where Ibought some mad comfy pants which I wore all weekend, said goodbye to other visitors, said hello to new ones, and napped.

Perfect.

Now I am back in Cairo. It really is spring and getting hot. The seniors have senioritis, it a global affliction, and I have six more weeks of class, one week of revision, and then exams. Looking forward to a short trip to Siwai and maybe some weekend beaches. Otherwise I have spent my vacation budget for April, maybe my food budget too. You know, if I can’t afford to eat I will at least look better in a swimsuit, hahaha.

Dear Maya

Dear Maya

Why is it that this year, of all years, you and your family no longer live in Israel? I was hanging out at the beach this past week, Nuweiba, and everyone there was from Tel Aviv. Not only does Hebrew sound a lot like Arabic, but all the Israelis there were mad chill and made Tel Aviv sound like paradise. Maybe there is some truth to these rumors about Israel being the Promised Land? Ha!

So my point is that now I really want to go to Israel and go hang out at an Ashram, grow dreadlocks, learn about various religious mysticisms, and chill. Well, ok, I don’t really want to grow dreads and my desire to seriously get into religion is still pretty much non-existent. That pretty much rules out the Ashram, unless I want to get into yoga. I can see myself getting into yoga, mildly athletic and somewhat spiritual in a non-defined malleable sort of way.

Do you still know anyone who wants to hang out with me in Israel? Does anyone know anyone who would want to hang out with me in Israel?

Love,
Faye

See how close Israel is to Nuweiba, see??? The map is not really to scale, but it is less than two hours from Taba to Nuweiba. See???

Cairo Spring

It is spring in Cairo. The weather alternates between dry sandy wind, cool and sunny, and oppressively hot. The heat does not quite lock you up and throw away the key, it is more oppressive in the way a time out is to a five year old. Time outs are also just hints at summer's future plans for total lock down.

Smells around the city tag along with the weather. Dry sandy days make your skin crawl with dust you will never get off and never stop smelling. The cool days are fresh and make the beige seem green. As it gets hotter the trash smells worse and the city’s stench is only paused when you walk past a fruit stand and over ripe guavas fill the air. I love the way they smell and hate the way they taste.

School had become a larger joke than any of us expected. Chrissie and Paul are basically done teaching their reading program because the entire national school is cramming for exams. They get out an hour early and have nothing to do at school except sub. Katie is almost done teaching the ABCs to the little ones and will also have nothing to do starting in May. Anna is leaving early; most likely around May 1st. Tom and I have classes to teach until about the second week of June, then revision, and exams. For being a pretty valuable resource, native English speakers, the school has squandered us, especially in the national school. Chrissie and Paul have been passed around from classroom to classroom, given no clear guidelines as to what or to whom they are teaching, and then expected to perform at peak. Silly, in the words of my Grandma Ehrich, just silly.

I have had the same job the whole year, but still no training. All of us are fed up and pretty sick of teaching, the school, and dealing with all the unmotivated and uniformed bossing around we get. Oh well. Almost done!

We actually had semi-cloudy weather in Dahab and one day it rained three drops in the morning. That might sound like a bad thing, but it never rains there so I thought it was pretty cool to see some moisture in the air. Our last day in town was perfect and sunny, we even did some non-burning sunbathing.

The Blue Hole is that large dark spot near the shore.

Underwater madness, I love these little orange guys.

Octopus. Pretty rare during the day.

Same octopus, different colors.

Underwater dork shot.

I went down this canyon for my first official deep dive. You just go straight down to 30 meters and poke around a little canyon. On the way back up you swim through everyone's bubbles, which are also popping out of every tiny crack in the nearby sand and rocks. A little bubble field.

More giant clams of a different pattern.

fishy fishy

School of fishy fishy

Scuba buddies on the go

Everyone loves a clown fish, thank Nemo and Disney.

Underwater fun!

Spring break has arrived! Praise the high heavens, whoever is up there knows I was sick of teaching. The best thing about Egypt is the Red Sea, where there are hundreds of glorious dive sites for underwater friends to play in. I headed up to Dahab again and this time got in the water long enough to get my advanced diver certification. Woot woot, now I can go deep!

Dancing with my instructor Mahsen at the end of my last dive in the Blue Hole.

I believe this is Els Bells, the three sided tunnel. You descend 26 meters in order get to the around 250 meter coral wall, which stays on your right side until it leads you to the Blue Hole's entrance at 7 meters. The Blue Holes goes down over 100 meters and the only sea entrances are at 7 meters and I think 80 meters. Dangerous dive because people go down to far to the bottom entrance, where you have to travel through a 20 meter tunnel to get out to sea. Many things can go wrong on the tunnel. Nothing went wrong when I was there and it is pretty awesome to look down and see nothing but an aptly named blue hole. There were even people practicing free diving while we were there, that is some crazy stuff.

Paul, Kaite and Sarah. Epic snorkelers at the Blue Hole, Dahab.

My favorite giant clams, they remind me of the Little Mermaid. Underwater really does look just like Little Mermaid illustrations.

Underwater awesomeness.

First dive of the advanced course, out of five required.

Sharm el Sheikh

I had a three day weekend and decided to take advantage of the fact that Hend had a free place to stay in the under-expensive vacation spot Sharm el-Sheikh. What followed was an amazing weekend, to much whiskey, to much sun, and a refreshing dose of tourists and feeling comfortable walking around in shorts.

Large scale map of the Sinai. Funny tourist stuff.

Flower photo for mom. There were also Plumeria everywhere mom, smelled yummy!

Hotel in Sharm, Kanabesh. Also, the pool we never went in except to wash off my sandy feet.

Faye and Hend, epic faces.

Mix tape in Cairo

Caitlin Lomen, number one homie to the max, posted something about mix tapes on her blog. I decided to join the bandwagon. So here is a mix of stuff I have been listening to while in Cairo, some is new and some is not. You can download it here. Enjoy!

Ps. Not all the songs are totally clean and sober, some bad words may have survived.

Random photos

Amr's new puppy and Shahira's hands. As of this posting the puppy does not have a name. I am voting for puppy because I am hella original.

Please take a moment to read the titles of the books from a random stack I found at the Nasr City book fair about a month ago. There are some good ones.

Comfort

My main interest these days is comfort. Not because I am uncomfortable, but just because I am into being comfortable. This means I come home, relax, relax, maybe clean, go to the gym, shower, eat, and relax. Luckily there are friends that want to stop by and I enjoy the company of my roommates. I think I am into comfort because life is about to change and I am clinging onto some sort of stability.

That sounds really drastic and the situation is not dire, but we are almost done with school and I have no life plans after June. Ana and I are planning to travel during July, so I guess I have no life plans after July. Either way I am used to life plans and have been debating my next move in my head for the past few months. Part of me really wants to stay in Egypt, actually learn Arabic, and keep hanging out with all the good people here. Another part of me wants to move to a new city, find a job, settle down, and start a “career.” Hahaha, career, yeah right. Another part of me wants to move to a hippy commune in New Zealand, grow something organic, and get a lot of freckles while wearing wool sweaters. Those are my immediate options, please let me know what you all think is best. I am into feedback.

Job searching in Cairo is a bit of a mystery for me. There is no Craig’s List with any viable jobs, mainly the Craig’s List here functions as advertising space for foreigners to get rid of old furniture. I trudge along blindly hoping that some fabulous friend will help me, so far so good. I will keep everyone posted on any interesting changes.

Getting back to comfort I have become addicted to the beach and try as hard as I can to get next to the sea every weekend. Ain Sukhnah is less than two hours from Cairo and sits on the Red Sea coast, gorgeous. We have met quite a few people with small vacation homes in various compounds and some have been nice enough to bring myself and the roomies along for the day.

We have one more week of school then spring break. I need a spring break, As of now the plans are to head back to Dahab and get my advanced scuba certification. Katie, Paul, Katie’s sister and Hesham will most likely join me. Then after a couple of days in Dahab I think I will try to explore the rest of Sinai, hit up a few beach camps and get super tan. Diving and tanning, my only goals.