Faye in Egypt

Sunday, November 2, 2008

November update

Everyone here is anticipating the election. Sadly I missed the boat on voting abroad, which is the lamest act of my life. Please feel free to yell at me via email, I deserve a good talking too about my responsibilities as a citizens and how democracy only works if people participate. On the other hand I like to think I am improving America's reputation abroad one Egyptian at a time.

I am swearing right now that if McCain wins I will figure out a way to stay out of the country for another year. It is amazing how many people abroad want Obama to win. I have seen a few Egyptians wearing Obama t-shirts and almost all know his name. Paul told a story about having a random man stop him, ask if he was American, show him his store, and his sticker of Obama on the wall.
McCain is unknown and Bush is hated.
Also, they love Bill Clinton, love him!

November is going to be my month to commit to Egypt, finally start acting like I am living here for a year and not just on vacation. Chrissie and I are in talks to join a gym, which sounds mundane but seems to be one of the first steps I take when I commit to a city. We are hustling on Internet and I have stopped trying to convince people that 70 degrees constitutes a winter. My friend Mousaad has offered to give me riding lessons and we are planning on starting as soon as I get paid! Speaking of getting paid the school finally got around to giving us our debit cards and supposedly out paychecks will be deposited into an account at the first of every month. I am not holding my breathe about this one either and am prepared to get paid cash for the rest of the year.

Another small group and I took a trip to the outskirts of the Pyramids and road horses to get pretty sweet view. Plans to go inside the pyramids were scratched when we got a late start. Sadly the days of free pyramids and camping underneath the Sphinx are over, wish I was born in the 50s so I could have seen them in the 70s. Sad face. You now have to pay around 100 pounds, about 20 dollars, and even more to ride a camel or a horse. We opted to a the 40 pound horse ride nearby.

The cab on the way to the pyramids. Yes, fake fur on the dashboard is typical and no the meter does not actually work.

The Cairo sky during a few drops of rain and a crazy strong dust filled wind.

We road up this hill on the horses and looked out upon the city of Giza. Cairo proper includes Giza, but most people here talk about Giza and Cairo as two cities.

The Pyramids.

Mandatory pretend to hold the pyramid shot. Just wait till I go to the leaning Tour of Piza, there will be on of those too.

Katie, Paul, Chrissie, Faye, Moussad, and Christina.
Fun Group.

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!

Islamic Cairo

AIESEC organized a full day of tourist activities around Islamic Cairo. We walked the streets, saw a mosque, Khan el Khalily and ended the night with delicious Egyptian pizza.

One of the many mosques and the beginning of our tourist session.

Typical methods of transportation, on top of the truck, not inside.

Yes, this is an empty room of trash.

Street shots.

Tiny glass animals.

Two of our fellow AIESEC tourists.

Walls of glass.

Looking down from one of the five stories of the glass blower's home.

The name of the mosque, I realized the only way I would remember any names was if I took pictures of signs.

One of the hallways around the inner square.

Inside of the mosque.
Extremely peaceful.

Anna and Faye dominating tourist activities.

Group shot in alley around Islamic Cairo.

The courtyard of the merchant's house.

Bayt el Suhaymi, a remodeled merchant home. The government bought the huge house and has turned it into a tourist activity.

Beautiful wood window screens. All of the woodwork was remodeled in the traditional manner.

One of the dozens of rooms inside the merchants house.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Marsa Alam, AIESEC Style

In honor of Ramadan being over about 30 AIESECers crammed on a bus to enjoy four days of seaside activities along the Red Sea. I dove, a few learned how, and most people snorkeled. This was my second trip to Marsa Alam and I could feel myself getting better at diving and getting even more tan.
Ha
Ha

A small snapshot of the bus ride to Marsa Alam. Nine hours later I was ready to kill everyone.

Our oh so lovely camp. Actually it lacked all the charm and grace of our first camp in Marsa Alam, but the nights were cooler so it was easier to sleep.

Dear Tom,
One day please let me take a picture of your when you are not posing.
Love,
Faye

PS Thank you Nour for the smile

Deep South Dive Camp bar area. Home to some fun parties and owned by a man who has taken Che as his personal idol. He even sort of looked like an overweight version of Che. Egyptians loves Che, but who doesn't?

All in all not a bad trip. Ignore the bus ride at it was an amazing trip.

Egyptian Museum and downtown shots

Katie, Paul, Christina, and I headed downtown one sunny day for out first real life tourist activity! The Egyptian Museum!

Officially the most unorganized museum in the world, we were only able to navigate the buses on German and Japanese tourists, maze like stacks on mummified things, and boxes on ancient crap because of the Lonely Plant guide. Shout out to Lonely Planet. Woot woot!

Two highlights were...
All of King Tut's stuff and fulfilling a childhood fantasy of seeing everything that was in the book I remember reading non-stop for about year around age 10.
The animal mummy room, where beloved pets and revered animals were stored.

I would have taken more pictures but it was illegal.

The front of the museum and the inside was just as gorgeous and very unprofessionally laid out. There are boxes of ancient stuff just lying around with tiny diary sized locks on the glass doors to keep people out. I heard through the grape vine that there was not even a security system until about five years ago, who knows how true that is.
We saw King Tut's mask and all the fixings along with tons of mummy tombs, a gazillion small carved gods and about nine thousand pieces of jewelery.

I was not supposed to take pictures inside the museum, but I decided it was a good idea. Until a police man came up, tried to walk away with my camera, at which point I yelled at him "if you wanted it you should have taken it at the door." He replies "Baksheesh," aka tip me. I hand him 5 pounds, he says "this is very little." I walk away with a few pictures, he walks away with five pounds.