I want to be here...

with this beer.
This photo is by Adham too. Stella is the official beer of Egypt. Not to crappy and I don't really like beer that much.

102 in May

It was apparently 102 degrees Fahrenheit in Cairo, Egypt. Thank Allah, God, Ganesh, Gaia, and whoever that my classroom's ac was working.

The bus ride home was miserable and I have no ac in my room. I want to be drinking beer, white wine, rose or a gin and tonic by a pool. Instead I have to teach. ugggggggghhhhhhhh

ps. The photo is courtesy of my friend (I met him through Hend) Adham who takes awesome shots. I am going to more of them up soon!

roomies blog

Katie and Paul have a shared blog. Check it out for stories about other places in Egypt and their life here, we do a ton together too.

www.triumphantcity.blogspot.com

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.

Trip to Alexandria with the pros

Katie and Paul's friend Nate came to visit this past month and we all used him as an excuse to visit Alexandria one more time. Katie and Paul are Alex pros, having gone by themselves and with Katie's parents. We did not even need a guide book. The four of us found a pretty nice hotel room, tall ceilings and pink walls, at a very decent price. We also found the Mermaid bar with cheap Stellas. The Mermaid gave us a blackout for a little less than an hour and we got to drink our beers by candle light overlooking the Med Sea while Nate played a guitar that our waiter brought out for no reason. Mainly we walked around and just gazed at the sea and the general craziness of a different Egyptian town. We were there for a weekend and had a wonderful time, yeah Alex.

Big girls need love too, so do Panda Big Girls

If I ever have kids they will never be allowed to go to this amusement part because they will die. Either from the goats everywhere or from the crapptastic rides. Or maybe they will get shot by other kids playing shooting games. I do love Egypt though, do love it.

What Disney princesses are really like

The bay

Alexandria is home to a legitimate wooden ship yard, a very lost art. These small boats are everywhere in the bay and used for fishing, but they also make huge yacht. I did not think people made yacht likes the one below out of wood, figured they were all fiberglass. Who needs modern technology though when you have epic craftsmanship.

Just a small part of the fish market we walked past. Fish basket market really.

The bay again

We of course had to check out the library. These are some shots from the inside, I should have outside shots in an older post from my first trip to Alexandria.



Fabulous books being sold outside of the library. These two were right next to several translations of Mein Kampf, by Hitler. Ironic?

HAHAHAHAHA

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???