That suit!

There is no reason for this post other than the photo below. You know you were a gangster when you had a pin-stripped suit with your name as the stripes.  WOW. Do you think Qaddafi has one? Would he know how to spell his name in English? Qaddafi Gaddafi, Kadaffi, Q'addafi and the list goes on. Even Hosny is potentially misspelled. Could by Hosni. Hope his tailor did not get in trouble for that. What do you think it is like to the tailor to someone like Mubarek?

This photo is second possibly only to the creatively hilarious website that is...

Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things. You will not be disappointed.

Or is the winner the Will Ferrel as Harry Carry vs Qaddafi mashup?

Not sure who wins. 

Maybe this amazing story I heard from a friend about Libyan state TV before Qaddaffi started killing everyone. The brother in law of my friend, let's call him Jim, was in Libya for work. Noting the extreme lack of night life Jim went back to his hotel room after dinner to watch some TV. A few minutes into his program the broadcast cuts and Qaddaffi appears on screen for a service announcement. In this announcement he immediately begins to yell at the TV audience, screaming "You are wasting your lives watching TV. You are useless, lazy and good for nothings. Get up and do something." The PSA  abruptly ends and regular programming continues. Um, what? Can you imagine watching a CSI rerun and all of the sudden Qaddaffi is on the screen screaming about how lazy you are for watching state TV? Amazing.

But, I don't want the epic stories of craziness to over shadow the cruel, murderous and senseless actions of Qaddaffi. Crazy or not he is one horrible SOB who is joined by far to many dictators we tend to pass off as "crazy," "delusional," or "eccentric". When really they are just murders.

New year, still in Egypt

This update is long overdue. I left the Sinai and the castle, ultimately we were not a match made in desert hipppy castle heaven. Luckily the timing was perfect and I was able join cousin Ted and dad David on a fairly epic, historical, round about trip through Cairo, out to the Sinai, through the waters of the Red Sea to pay homage to Indiana Jones at Petra, a little further North to float in the Dead Sea, then across a bridge to Israel and all the old religious stuff that Israel entails.

Let me just say that could not have imagined a better trip. Kudos for Ted for just being awesome to travel with, really into fun stuff, easy going, and enthusiastic when we needed enthusiasm! As for dad I don't think there are many other people I would have rather visited the Holiest of Holy lands with and the much needed daddy-daughter time was much appreciated and loved. My friend Katie joined us for the Israel adventure and was an amazing trip buddy, cheerful, fun, picture taking snap happy silly bus! All in all a lot of love went into the trip and I enjoyed every minute of it. Causalities were low; besides a few annoying modes of transportation and delayed flights most things went smoothly. I have not yet organized my thoughts about Israel and am really waiting to pass judgement until I visit another part of the country. I hate it when people judge America based on New York or Florida, so I am reserving judgement until I am more traveled. I will say this though the Crowne Plaza Jerusalem has the worst customer service of any hotel I have ever stayed in. Never go there, ever.

After the trip I returned to Cairo and began a new job search. Why am I staying in Cairo? Who really knows. I have found a job, but will reserve judgment on it until a few weeks or months have passed. Am I staying in Cairo for the job? Maybe, the pickings seem pretty slim in America at the moment. Am I staying in Cairo for the fun? Maybe, there are beaches, craziness at every turn, and good friends around. But, ultimately I don't have an exact reason why I am here other than I feel like I should be for the moment. The other day someone asked my why I was here, I have no real answer for them. So, maybe I will search around for a few months and come up with a reason to stay or leave.

Until then I am apartment hunting! Frustrating in any country, it is even more so here. The first step is having friends who will help you, thanks be to the universe I have these. The second, third, fourth, and so on step involves wandering around neighborhoods you want to live in and asking doormen if there is anything open in the area. Then phone calls are made, hands are shaken, streets are walked, names are called across the streets, and maybe you find an apartment to look at. So far I have only looked at a few and did not like them, but I do have plenty of promises of showings tomorrow, inshallah. My budget is not very high and one bedrooms are really hard to find, people get lonely here quick or something. I may have a roommate, but who knows. Life is fickle, minds change, and you never know what an Egyptian day will bring you (thanks Rebecca W for that quote).

Honestly my head is full right now. Between leaving a job, traveling, being a semi-permanent house guest at a few houses, starting a new job, looking for an apartment, and being a little homesick I cannot evaluate my life right now. I realized that I have not unpacked all of my bags, has everything in one room or lived in the same bedroom for more than seven weeks since I packed my bags to travel in June 2009. I can handle change, I can adapt, I can fluctuate, but really this is getting old. I want all my shoes in the same house and pictures on the wall. The urge to nest is strong. Hopefully things will calm down and I will find a place. Then, life will be put on blast and I can figure it out, inshallah.

Inshallah. What a great word.

May 8th, 2009

May 8, 2009 happens to be a Friday and Fridays in Cairo are the best day. The vast majority of people are off work and spend their mornings sleeping only to wake up and go to services. The streets are quite, you can cross them almost without looking and life always seems calm, a rarity. Like every Friday at one in the afternoon the call to prayer is going off, a sound I resent and find fascinating at the same time. On Fridays the services are broadcast out loud, forcing you to listen to the Muslim version of a Sunday service. As a complete nonbeliever it is hard not to want to shut the windows and block out the babble, but you can’t really. I catch the few words I understand, “why,” “God,” “thanks be to God,” “easy,” and “what is this?” The whole thing is forced upon everyone within earshot, making the service and devotion feel contrived in my mind. But, I am wrong. People here have genuine faith and use religion as a real guide for social and spiritual order.

So, I am sitting on our balcony, trying to block out services with Bob Marley and am struck by a strong desire for the most familiar things. I want my friends here with magazines and coffee, I want the smell of Seattle spring time, I want rain and clouds interspersed with sun, I want the sounds of birds instead of services, I want books instead of bad movies on TV, I want to be able to walk around in a tank top and short skirt, and I want to be able to find mountains peeking out between rows of houses. My wants are especially conflicted as our school year comes to a close, my roommates are all getting ready to leave by the end of the month, and my lack planning for life past July becomes more obvious. Yet, at the exact same time I could not be more happy and excited about still being in this very unfamiliar place and getting to know it more. I am still happy figuring out how to adapt to the lack of short skirts and walking paths, the lack of used bookstores and small boutiques with carefully selected spring fashions on the racks, and best friends and family within a ten minutes drive.

I guess the point of going to another place is to figure out how to bring the essentials of your familiar life to a non-familiar place, how to adjust to the conflicted feelings. Maybe Nescafe on the balcony instead of Americanos in the kitchen, and Bob Marley rivaling prayers instead of KEXP’s Positive Vibrations rivaling NPR next door is my way of bringing my familiars to this totally unfamiliar place.

The coffee is different, the music is not as varied, there are no other women within site, and the screeching of this priest is driving me nuts, but the idea of a Saturday morning is present and that makes me happy. It is good to be happy in such a strange place. It is good to be happy in any place.

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.

Personal Note

I need a haircut real bad.

I am really sick of not being able to stand upright, this is how cave men must have felt. Hunching over constantly was definitely the ultimate motivating factor in evolution.

I love the Internet. Right now I am sitting at a Starbucks (no love for this place), reading about three news site, facebooking it up, checking bank statements, emailing homies, ordering books, and downloading a movie. How did people survive before this? I mean I know how they survived, but life was lacking and we did not even know how lacking. Thanks CIA and US military and Al Gore for inventing the Internet!

Mid-November

November has cemented my thoughts that I don’t like teaching. I do like my kids, they are pretty cute and when they shut their mouths and try to work hard they are almost perfect. That rarely happens though. The truth is the kids would be easy to handle if I had any clue what I was doing. Since I received zero training and I have almost no idea of what I am doing, I blunder along daily and figure out as I go how to explain things like 3 digit addition and subtraction, conjunctions, proper nouns and ecosystems. I still feel like I yell all the time and because (believe it or not) I do not like to yell all the time I am making an effort to talk in a very soft but stern librarian voice. Let you know how that one goes.

One recent addition to life is being an usher. A friend of a friend finds people to work at fancy events, showing people to their seats and passing stuff out etc at a pretty decent wage for a night's work. Chrissie and I did one wedding, which was the gaudiest display of wealth I have ever seen in my life. Their wedding planner was probably thinking “What are the most expensive things you can put in one room?” To which the answer was orchids, lilies, candles, sushi (no one ate), open bar, 20 piece band, concert pianist, well-known DJ, outdoor and indoor venue, heating lamps, full table settings for the sit-down dinner that was not served, laser type lights on the walls, a venue in a private community, fur on everyone, tiki torches, camera men, video camera men, and my favorite the video crane. All this and it was only an engagement party. Apparently there were lots of famous people there, but because I have no Egyptian celebrity facial recognition I am sure they walked right past me and I am smiled at them like I smiled at the rest of the chumps.

Really my favorite three things about the event were…
1) The enormous amounts of blue eye-shadow the makeup artist put on me. Yes, that’s right we got our makeup done and all we did was stand there and smile by a door.

2) My poodle like early 90s prom up-do. I made the lady tuck a few strands in here and there and not let all the curls hang to the right side of my head. Centered is usually better with these things.

3) The four Asian nannies who must have been forced to wear matching Chinese embroidered dresses. You know these classic Chinese dresses, I think they are called Mandarin dresses and they have the buttons on the shoulders with no sleeves. Who would do that to their nanny? The bride-to-be must have wanted them to match the sushi and orchids.

Pictures of the event from across the pool/pond/lake in the compound.

Looking good Faye, yeah right! This picture is for you Amber :)

Joining the gym has not happened yet. I did however manage to go once alone and promptly loose my iPod. I am trying not to think about this past event because it makes me want to cry for hours about all the music that can no longer flood my ears. If you happen to have an extra one kicking around send it my way!

On the self-improvement front I have started trading Arabic for English lessons. After two lessons I can sort of pronounce 10 out of the 28 letters and know a few more words. I cannot recognize the letters or even come close to reading squiggly, don’t get your hopes up for me to read you the Koran at bed time when I get back. I thought I would be able to stomach not having a clue what people were saying around me, but curiosity is forcing me to learn something. Damn. Another top priority is learning how to cook Egyptian foods and desserts, so much honey yummy! I bought a cookbook and will be stumbling through the kitchen for the rest of my time here.

Speaking of food my favorite holiday is only days away! Yeah for Thanksgiving! In Cairo we are working on Thursday and it is parent’s day at that. Pray for me, I think the parents are going to eat me alive. Then on Friday we have “Fun Day II” at school. Hopefully there will be some fun unlike Fun Day I. All the teachers are being forced to attend and I am not happy. This means turkey day feasting is put off till Saturday. Oh well. We are hoping to host a big group even though we only have three forks on the kitchen. More news following the event.

On a side note everyone in the whole wide non-American world is beyond happy that America voted for Obama. Well-done America!!! We got congratulated when we came to school and it comes up at least once in all group settings. I am happy that I will be able to come back home if I choose. I would rather have self-enforced exile than McCain enforced exile.

In general I am happy here. Sometimes extremely exhausted with the pace of life (slow and slow and then super fast) and being in a huge city, but good people seem to be filling in the cracks with sunshine. On that cheesy note bye!

A little update on life

Never was there a place where the saying “assumptions make an ass out of you and me” is truer than Egypt. Here are some things it is not safe to assume…

-There is toilet paper in any bathroom.
-The school you work for will explain things to you in English and not only Arabic.
-The matrons will figure out you do not speak Arabic at all and speaking to you in Arabic is pointless.
-The books, courses, and schedule of the school you work for will be explained before week six.
-The grading system will be explained before six weeks into the year.
-That one-hour means one-hour and not four.
-That the electric guy is actually the electric guy and not just trying to get 500 pounds from you.
-That signs outside stores mean what they say, so the gym by your house with the sign “For men, women and children,” allows women, children and men.
-On a bus with 26 seats only 26 people can ride, not 32 people.
-That the letter “p” is pronounced “p,” and not like a “b.” Bizza, Bebsi, Boto, Byramid, I could go on!

Other than learning how to never assume anything, at all, ever Egypt is coming along. Luckily I was warned by my good friend Maya, who told me the it takes at least two months to adjust to the Middle East or Egypt (it is close) and I should not give up until after a good two-months. Cairo has taken a solid two-months to sort of adjust to and I am probably still not there yet.

I have completely readjusted my definitions of clean, sidewalk, on-time, quick, dinner (which is around 11pm), lunch (which is around 6pm), breakfast (which does not really exist), early (which is now around noon) and late night (which is now closer to 4am than 12am), and weekdays (which start on Sunday and end on Thursday), but I am happy to do so. I can now tell whether or not the cab is taking me where I want to go or to Sudan. We have hot water in our apartment. I know the numbers one through 5 and a few vital words for directing cab drivers. We do not have Internet, that might take forever so please do not hold your breathe.

In the meantime I am trying to branch out and make new friends who like to do non-AIESEC things. New friend making was helped by my new roommate Chrissie who know teaches at Kenana. She is ton of fun to go out with and plans on being here for close to three years; she is hoping to go to a grad program at the American University in Cairo. Chrissie was greeted by no one because we were all in Marsa Alam for the feast/vacation at the end of Ramadan. Yeah for Ramadan being over! She had no room and for a while was living in the living room, now there is a wall sectioning off a good chunk of out living room. She does not have a dresser yet, but give it time and it just may happen!

While adjusting I have also gone on some fun tourist trips. The AIESEC bunch took a trip to Marsa Alam and it was nowhere near as awesome as my first trip. Traveling with 30 people who all have different needs and the ability to complain is just never fun. Also singing on a nine-hour bus ride makes me want to cry and scream and hurt people. So, no singing on busses for me ever again. Otherwise I spent two solid days on a boat diving with a good group of five people, all excellent divers and we had a killer time. Our friends who were snorkeling did not have as much fun and the guys who were learning how to scuba might not be certified. Traveling with 30 is never a good idea!

The AIESEC bunch also organized a walking tour of Islamic Cairo, the older part of the city. Beside being kept nice and clean for tourists the area is home to some of the more interesting and “Moorish” architecture in the city and lots of mosques. Our tour started at a glass blowers home who was really happy to have us all, about 20 people, wander through the twisting and turning five stories that was his home. We walked through kitchens and bedrooms to get to the top floor where we were greeted by a jungle of roughly blown glass Chiuly it was not, but I never liked him that much. Actually incredibly cool stuff and as usual my pictures do a better job of explaining than my words, see below! After the glassblowers house we wandered to a beautiful mosque. Religion and churches seem to make more sense to me in a city as crazy as Cairo, they are one of the only calm places you can find. Then we toured a little bit of Khan El Khalily, the tourist trap bazaar, and had delicious Egyptian pizza named Fitir, a yummy end to one very long and fun day.

I went up to Alexandria with one car, aka four people, just for the day and had a wonderful time. During the two-hour drive our happy group stopped at the weirdest roadside stop of my life, Lion or Tiger Town, I cannot read Arabic signs. Whatever the name it was a restaurant/crappiest zoo of your life. They had three tigers, three lions, crocodiles, one hog, llamas, dogs, fish, birds, red-butted baboons, other monkeys, horses, mini-ponies, goats, more dogs, one wiener dog which was caged and looked vicious (Hahaha), and the ugliest animal I have ever seen. If you can figure out what it is I promise to bring you a prize when I get back to the states. All the animals were in 19th century style cages, no room to move and they depressed me. Still, live lions and tigers are pretty cool.

Oh my!

Once in Alex (as the hip locals call it) we went to the Bibliotheque, a delicious Egyptian restaurant, King Farouk’s old summer home-turned vacation get-away/garden/beach, and the Qiatbey Fortress. I ate way too much, walked a little and touched the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, also saw blue sky and breathed non-polluted air.

In between Marsa Alam and Alex I participated in my first official AIESEC official event: an introduction to AIESEC for new members joining through Cairo University. We spent the day at a very nice country club down in Giza, tried to ride horses, but really spent the day napping in large super comfy chairs and finishing a good book. I did not participate in the conference because I had no idea what was going on, I was very tired and I also am not a new member through CU. I did learn a few basics about AIESEC, all very useful and will be saved for another post as this one is already to long.

A bunch of pictures should follow. Excuse my absence October has been a long month and has finished with a very bad cold and some tough stuff, but I will survive and try to make the best of it all!

Next stop the White Desert, more attempted horse-back riding, the Pyramids and beyond!