Superb Substitution!

My must share lesson for the day was this: Cinnamon is as good as, if not better than, hot cider. At the very least a hot cup of it satisfactorily deals with the winter induced cider cravings I've been having. I bought it on a whim (along with a $1 cactus) and I have to say it's one of the better purchases I've made.

Oh yeah, and the elections went off without a hitch. Yay Egypt!

That is all.

Egyptian Food

Alright, I still don’t feel like going to bed or doing homework, so you’re getting a double feature the second of which isn't news at all. I've already told you about halawa, but I thought I'd share a few other interesting Egyptian food tidbits as long as I’m thinking about it.

Fruit: is awesome. Mostly. It's all brought from street vendors who got shipments that morning, so it’s very fresh. You can only get what’s in season, but I’ve never been that picky. Oranges and bananas are cheap. Apples are going up in price. Mangoes were always expensive but Egyptian mangoes have this pleasantly spicy flavor that make it worth splurging on occasion. I just had my first Egyptian kiwi, the price of which I didn't check. It tasted like there was no sugar in it, and I don’t plan to buy one again. The dates are fresh, but I don’t like them until they’re dried so I usually buy them pre-packaged anyway.

Meat: is terrible. It's expensive and law grade. Most of my protein comes from eggs, which are cheap and readily available, fava beans, because they're super cheap and delicious, and peanuts, which are cheap for nuts but still not dirt cheap. When I do eat meat it's usually…

Shawarma: See the link for pictures and a detailed description. Because it's meat, it's a bit more expensive than other Egyptian staples, but it's delicious on a sandwich with some garlic mayo and veggies. I always do the chicken.

Koshari: is a favorite of mine. It's carb loaded: mostly macaroni, lentils and rice topped with tomato sauce, but the things Egyptians can do with spices are amazing and the fried onions make it perfect in all senses of the word.

I usually start my day with a plain yogurt and a piece of fruit and get Egyptian fast food, which isn't at all like American fast food for lunch. There is no shortage of food stalls serving shawarma, koshari, and ful (fava beans). I like my ful with humus, which probably comes as no surprise to those of you who know my eating habits. But for fast food it's relatively healthy. Of course, most of these food stalls serve "burgers" that really aren't and french fries too, but I steer clear of those. For dinner I do a variety of things, but in an attempt to watch my weight I've been trying to cook omlettes with some veggies on the side. There isn't a wide variety of vegetables here. If you order a salad you usually get a bowl of chopped of tomatoes and cucumbers. But I'm not complaining. Tomatoes and cucumbers are among my favorite vegetables, ignoring that whole tomatoes are really fruit thing.

Egyptian junk food is a whole nother beast. It's a good thing I don't like potato chips because they're everywhere in a bunch of weird flavors like tomato and pepper. Chocolate is coveted, but expensive. In addition to your regular old chocolate bars in plain, hazlenut, fruit and nut, and crunchy varieties, they also have many American candy bars like Twix and Snickers. I am of the opinion, however, that Egyptian Snickers are far superior to American Snickers. They're made here and they have far more peanuts in them. It's like eating a chocolate covered peanut bar more than anything. Delicious.

Then there's the biscuit category divided into tea biscuits and wafers. I was nearly addicted to wafers when I first got here. They also come in a bunch of flavors. I prefer vanilla, but there's also chocolate and strawberry and lime and probably some others I don't know about.

Ice cream is nearly a staple here. Alexandrian ice cream is unique, and any Alexandrian will tell you so. It's called gellati, like gellato, and it tastes a lot like gelatto to, which is dangerous for those of you who know how much I love gellato. I'm proud to report, however, that I haven't had any in more than a month. Watching the weight, remember? Also, any ice cream store (and there's one on every corner) serves rice pudding and sometimes custard, which is a nice alternative.

I suppose I should mention something about drinking in Egypt too. Bottled water always. Duh. But tea and turkish coffee are also staples. I was drinking tea like it was oxygen, but I've slowed down recently. At least I take it black, so I don't have to worry about the sugar. Egyptians think I'm crazy because here everything is extra sugar. Juice is also very popular. There are little juice bars lining most busy streets. I live by the most popular juice bar in the city, which is nice, but I try not to drink there too often because like I said, extra sugar. They even have something called Borio juice, which in America we would call Oreo juice except the Oreos here are off brand. Cafes also offer a plethora of shakes and cocktails, but at fifteen pounds a pop I've had one since I've gotten here. I'll stick with my two pound tea, thanks.

Sodas are popular, but diet is almost non-existent. They do have Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet Seven Up and Coke Zero, but they don't mean exactly the same thing as in America. Sure, they're still made with aspartame, but they're not zero calorie. It doesn't make much of difference - Diet Pepsi only as 6 calories and Coke Zero has two - but I thought it was funny.

And I almost forgot the bread! Probably because it's so essential. It's literally impossible for an Egyptian to have a meal without bread. The bread here is subsidized, so it's the main part of any diet. Flat bread is used like a spoon for most things, but rolls are also available. My favorite bakery makes rolls that taste just like Mom's. It's amazing. I try to stick the wheat flat bread though, health and all. I usually eat it with some cheese or olive oil and zaatar. My Egyptian roommate thinks my love for zaatar is crazy, because it's mostly a levantine thing and not found in Egypt at all. The box I bought at the local supermarket actually says "for the first time in Egypt." She didn't even know what it was when I opened it up, but I still feel Arab when I eat it.

There are, of course, a number of other Egyptian dishes, but I don't eat them that often and as such don't know much about them. Chicken Penne (not the pasta) is very popular. It's pretty much just breaded, fried chicken. My roommate makes it several times a week. Then there's mulukhiyah, which I can't stand. The taste wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the texture. It feels like you're eating slime, and the green color doesn't help.

The cakes here are pretty, usually covered in fruit and chocolate designs, lit with sparklers for birthdays, but the taste is nothing to write home about. They're pretty bland. I haven't tried many of the other pastries, but if I do I'll let you know. There's a crepe stand outside one of the food stalls I frequent. It's not Egyptian, but I did get a delicious chocolate banana crepe there to celebrate our sale to the American House of English last week. There's also a table of donuts, but I haven't tried any and my friends tell me they're hit and miss. The donut guy is more popular for his balah al-sham which are kind of like bite size, honey covered funnel cakes. I tried one of my friend's, but I've never bought a plate for myself. They're tasty, but not my favorite.

Speaking of honey, it's expensive. I used to have some for breakfast on my flat bread, but I've given it up in the name of cost effectiveness. On occasion I'll put some in my tea, but it's rare.

Alright, I'm finally getting tired, and I can't think of any other food tidbits to offer up at the moment. Hopefully I've given you a good glance into a day in the life of my ever growing stomach. People complain about Egyptian food, but I think it's wonderful. It's simple, but they've done a lot with what they have. As always, questions and comments are welcome. I know there were some problems at first, but I've opened up the comments section for anonymous postings. If you sign with your name though it will help me know how to respond.

Thanks for reading!

Internships and Insanity

So, I have a lot to report on at the moment, and it’s late, and I’m tired, but I have the next two days off so I’m going to write for you all anyway.

It occurred to me on Saturday when I went to yoga that I’d missed an important catch up post. My internship. An essential requirement of the program here is that every student participate in an internship to help improve their Arabic in an authentic workplace. Some students are working in charitable organizations, others with journalists or lawyers. Quite a few are doing translation work in the Library of Alexandria. Most of them aren’t doing much though, and are overall unsatisfied. I, however, am having the exact opposite experience.

I mentioned in a previous post that the American Center in Alexandria hosted an internship fair for us our first week here. The Voluntary Youth Service Initiative (VYSI), founded and run by a young Egyptian girl names Suzan who has since become a good friend of mine, invited a number of their partner organizations to come talk to us and recruit volunteers (i.e. interns). At said fair I talked to a number of organizations, but found myself drawn to Hayat Center, the first wellness center in Alexandria to holistically treat the mind, body, and soul. Do I sound like an advertisement yet? I’ve repeated that last phrase ad nauseum in Arabic, but I still like the way it rolls off the tongue.

Anyway, I picked Hayat Center for two reasons: the boss and the message. Hayat is trying to spread the word of what we would probably refer to as “new age” treatments. They offer classes in everything from yoga, meditation and tai chi to cupping and candle making and mind mapping and I could go on and on and on. The yoga classes by the way are awesome. They’re obviously much different from yoga classes in America, and a little expensive by Egyptian standards, but I get an amazing discount because I work there. I’m paying about $3 a class, but I would pay much more for the weekly escape and relaxation it offers.

Hayat Center takes great pride in its yoga, mostly because of all the courses they offer, it incorporates the mind, body and soul more than any other. The class usually begins and ends with meditation, and in between we do a mix of stretching and strength exercises, but nothing as official and the series’ you find in most yoga classes. Our trainer learned most of her yoga from books, so some of what I considered essential to yoga is missing, but at the same time I’m learning a variety of new poses and exercises that I’d never heard of before.

I wanted to work for Hayat in large part because I thought I might have a lot in common with the types of Egyptians who would take yoga, and it can be difficult to find Egyptians that we have a lot in common with. I wasn’t disappointed. The staff alone are some of my favorite people I’ve met in Egypt. The center is small, just the owner, his wife, and three female employees, but that means joining the center was kind of like joining a family. They’re all so genuine it makes me want nothing more than to sit down to tea and chat for hours every time I see them.

The owner, Mister Wesam Elgendy, is a successful engineer who lived in America for a couple years and started the center, I assume, as a side project for his wife Marwa. While he certainly believes in the message and is highly involved in the business end of things, when we want to schedule a class or refer someone to the center we always go through Marwa. Mister Wesam was the one I met at the internship fair, and his friendly and open attitude made me want to be a part of Hayat. You could tell just by the way he spoke about it how invested he was in the project, and that kind of enthusiasm always leads to good results. The center only opened a year ago, but it already seems to be flourishing. Our work there, in sha’ Allah, will help it flourish more.

My partner Emily (also from the program) and I are responsible for marketing some of Hayat’s classes to international schools in the area. We think we may have been chosen because Americans are naturally attractive to the international schools, but we’re happy to use our foreignness for the benefit of the center. We spent a few weeks with Mister Wesam writing, editing, and practicing sales pitches, in Arabic of course, and then we started calling up schools to set up meetings. We had our first one with the Alexandria House of English last week and I’m happy to report that they definitely want us to come teach their students yoga. We’re still working on getting them to implement a healthy cafeteria and/or offer speed reading classes, but for now we have our foot in the door.

It can sometimes be difficult to get together with Mister Wesam to work. He always makes time for us, but meetings would often get pushed back or rescheduled. At first we assumed he was just busy with work, but then Emily stumbled across an interesting Facebook page. As it turns out, Mister Wesam is running as an independent for the Egyptian parliament - elections to be held today. It gives me hope that someone so invested in the good of others is running. I hope he wins, but competition is stiff judging by the fact that each district has at least fifty candidates. His has eighty. Still, we’ll have to see what today holds.

On the topic of politics… well, there’s a lot to say, and I’m not even sure where to begin. As you might imagine with the number of candidates, the streets are plastered with signage. Banners hang across all the major streets and posters are plastered everywhere. One of the interesting things I learned from the posters is how they’re solving the problem of illiteracy. Every candidate has a symbol (Mister Wesam’s is the mobile phone) that voters can use to indicate their choice on the ballot. This should also help for those who aren’t very good at remembering names. Campaigning, of course, isn’t limited to signs and posters.

On our drive to the American House of English, Mister Wesam told us that he’s been spending most of his time going out to talk to the people of his district. One of the biggest problems facing the candidates is that they’ve had almost no time to campaign; it’s been something like a month and a half since candidacy was announced. Parties, therefore, have had an even bigger advantage than usual. If you remember, the Eid al-Adha celebration I went to was sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice Party. Hizb al-Nour, the Sufi party, has also been very visible. Last night there were vans with speakers strapped on top driving through residential areas broadcasting platforms. It’s all been very hectic.

As for the elections themselves, that’s why we have two days off of school. The University is definitely closed today, but since the elections will last two days the program has told us to stay inside for both of them. As I’m sure you’ve all heard, there have been a lot of demonstrations in Egypt over the last week or so. First and foremost, in case the fact that I hadn’t gotten to it yet didn’t tip you off, I’m perfectly safe. The protests tend to take place in very specific places, the potentially violent ones in even more specific places, and no one in our program is stupid enough to go looking for trouble. I saw a tiny and rather peaceful protest at the University when people first started demonstrating again (see below), but other than that I didn’t see hide nor hair of a protest until Thanksgiving. I can sometimes hear them from my balcony, but that’s to be expected as the usual marching route falls between my apartment and the Corniche.

Thanksgiving was fun though. As expatriated Americans, it’s no surprise that we organized a gigantic cover-dish Thanksgiving Day celebration. Since many of us have classes on Thursdays, however, and therefore would not have had time to cook, we had the party on Friday. In case you haven’t heard, Friday is protest day. What’s more, we were expecting upwards of fifty guests (we probably had more around eighty) and the only place available to us that could hold that many was a pair of apartments connected by a huge balcony situated on the above mentioned marching route. Oops?

Once we noticed this little faux pas we took precautions. There is, of course, nothing wrong with fifty foreigners being on the marching route as long as we’re inside, but we didn’t want to be coming or going during the protests. As such, the party got moved up from 7 PM to 3 PM, and then again from 3 PM to 1 PM, and then we were told to try to make it by 12:30 just in case. Friday prayers, which are usually the launching point for the demonstrations, take place around 1:00, but for a couple of hours after that we didn’t see more than a few small groups of ten or so individuals wandering down the street waving flags. Then came the commotion.

It’s really something to see thousands of people moving en masse, and we had a perfect vantage point from the balcony. I don’t have too many pictures, because even inside we didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, but I managed to snap a couple (see above). It was entirely peaceful, as the marching routes usually are. When people have a goal (i.e. getting somewhere) they don’t tend to get restless or violent. The laissez faireness of it all caused some of us to dub it the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Muzaahiraat (Demonstrations) – credit to Laura Chen for the name. It really was like watching a giant parade right down to the banners, flags, and people shouting things from the backs of convertibles.

Just as the tail end of the crowd passed, the afternoon call to prayer went off and it was amazing to see everyone buying newspapers to use as prayer mats in the streets before continuing on their way. I’m not sure why I enjoyed the sight so much, but their ingenuity astounded me.

I don’t want to comment too much on the reasons behind the demonstrations. I’m not Egyptian, and therefore it’s not really my business. But suffice it to say for those of you who are curious that the country is much more divided this time than the last. I’ve talked to a good number of Egyptians who don’t agree with the protests at all. As I heard an Egyptian put it in a café last night, the people got their biggest demand, and now they’re trying to protest for the details on which not everyone agrees.

Whatever happens tomorrow, it’s going to be monumental. The first free elections in Egypt in more than thirty years. I hope you’re all watching, because this is one of those time periods that our children’s children will ask us about. I for one am ecstatic to be able to say I was here to see it all.

Catch-Up 3: Day Trips

This years program coordinators are really great about organizing events even when we don't have official breaks from school. So far this year we've taken two day trips on random weekends and have been promised many more.

Trip 1: Rosetta

About an hour from Alexandria in the Nile River Delta lies the village of Rosetta (al-Rashid in Arabic), best known as the city where archaeologists discovered the Rosetta Stone. We toured some old mills and the citadel where they display a replica of the Rosetta stone, then had lunch, took a boat ride on the Nile, and climbed a giant sand that filled my shoes with so much sand I swear I grew two inches. It was a nice day, but overall not too much to talk about.

Trip 2: Nelson's Island

About forty-five minutes from Alexandria off the coast of a city called Abu Qir is an island that's really more of a giant brown rock, best known as the site of a famous battle between Napoleon and the British. We took a boat out for a nice, relaxing day of sand and sun. A lot of people went swimming and I passed the time taking a break from Arabic by reading the Hunger Games. Great book, by the way. I tried to stay in the shade of our umbrellas, but still managed to get a sunburn. It wasn't too bad, and it did help my psoriasis, so there's always an upside. I had pictures from the excursion, but they seem to have gone missing. I like to think it's a conspiracy because photography was forbidden on the dock we launched from that happened to be right next to an Egyptian navy base. In reality, I probably just didn't notice my camera was out of memory.

I think that's all for my catching up. Of course there are all the little cultural things I've noticed or liked, but for now I'll leave you with this: I have a new addiction that goes by the name of halawa. It's an Egyptian desert of tahini (seasame paste) and sugar that's usually eaten on bread, but I'm quite content eating it with a spoon or, when I'm trying not to be a pig, with an apple. If you can find it wherever you are in the world I sincerely suggest you give it a try.

Catch-Up 2: My Apartment

The experience of getting my apartment here is definitely a story worth a post of its own. Robert, our director, spent his summer securing apartments and host families for us before we got here so that we could move in as soon as possible. Our first night in the city we stayed in a “budget hotel,” which in Egypt is… well, an experience. We were slated to meet our families and move in to our apartments the next day and for most of us that’s exactly what happened.

My roommates and I, on the other hand, were in a taxi headed to our apartment when we got a phone call from the realtor. The landlord, as it turns out, had taken our deposit from Robert and then turned around and sold the apartment. So we turned around and went back to the hotel. Staying another night in the hotel was not an appealing option, so instead we bunked with Kelly and Andrea, two grad students from the program who had a few extra beds in their apartment. I don’t’ want to go into too much raving detail, but they’re awesome, by the way.

We stayed at Kelly and Andrea’s for something like a week while Robert found us a new apartment. As anxious as we were to start settling in, we didn’t take the first apartment we saw. It was super fancy, a little on the expensive side, far from our friends, not on any tram or bus lines, and our Egyptian roommate, Salma, was far too ready to claim the gold encrusted master bedroom without any discussion.

The apartment we finally moved into a week later is much more my speed. With the plaid couches, bulky wood furniture, and shelves full of World's-Greatest-Grandma knick knacks it looks a bit like something out of a seventies sitcom, but it's located on a tram line that runs straight to the university and is only five blocks from the Corniche. We’re also within easy walking distance of at least nine other apartments affiliated with the program which makes getting together to do homework or hang out a lot easier.

Much like the situation with the master bedroom in the first apartment, Salma mad sure to claim the only bedroom with air conditioning, but my American roommate, Leila, then insisted I take the bedroom with the balcony. I love said balcony. It’s like a sunroom, because it’s walled in by sliding windows. There is the downside that Leila and Salma are always wandering in and out of my room to hang their laundry to dry, and when the wind gets really strong it sometimes rattles the doors and wakes me up, but it’s all worth the tiny glimpse of ocean I can watch while drinking tea.

In case you hadn’t figured it out by now I’m living with two girls: Salma, an Egyptian engineering student from a small village in the Delta, and Leila, a fellow student from UT. I feel blessed by my living arrangements. Leila and I mesh really well, probably because she’s so easy going, and while Salma and I have our differences she’s always willing to help when we have language questions, and I can’t deny that I get along with her better than most Egyptian girls. She’s very down to earth and has a number of endearing qualities. For instance, she watches reruns of Um Kalthoum concerts every night on television and has this dependent streak born of living so long with her family. The running list of things she has asked us to do for her includes: lighting the stove, turning on the air conditioning, plugging in the space heater, ordering takeout, flushing the toilet, starting the washing machine, opening a bottle that was not stuck in the first place, unwrapping a tea box, and explaining the use of a shower curtain. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Our second month here, however, we did get a chance to see what Salma’s life was like before the apartment. She was kind enough to invite us to visit her family in her home village of Mahmoudia for an engagement party. It was a fun weekend, and a beautiful glance at Egyptian country life. Her mother is an engineer and her father a lawyer who owns a kitchenware store. She has three sisters and a brother – two younger, two older – and she’s the only one who lives away from home. They were spectacularly hospitable, and I felt much more welcomed and at home than I had at the last wedding I went to.

The last thing I should probably mention about my apartment is the internet, and why it took me so long to get this blog going in the first place. Internet companies in Egypt suck, and my land lady… oh! My land lady!

So, side note: My landlady is this sweet old lady named Doctor Hurriya. She bought this apartment for her son to live in, but he recently moved to New Jersey for work, hence why we’re living here now. Unlike most landlords she lives right next door, which is really convenient when we need something. The power went out once a month or so ago and she brought us over a candle. She even offered to let us use her car if we needed to go anywhere, but I don’t intend to take her up on that one. My only complaint, and it’s a tiny one, is that she doesn’t really like to speak Arabic with us. She lived in America for ten years getting her doctorate, so while she has a heavy accent her English is perfect and even when she tries to speak Arabic with us she usually slips back into English anyway. Considering some of the problems other students have had with their landlords speaking English is a downright gift.

Anyway, back to the internet.

So I started the process to get internet in the apartment the day we moved in. It took a few days for them to install the telephone landline (they don’t have cable here), and then Doctor Hurriya told us that she’d worked it out with the technician so we just had to call the company to turn on the net – except she’d ordered us the same net she had which wasn’t fast enough to do more than check e-mail. She didn’t seem to mind going back to order the faster one though. So in a few days she knocked on our door to give us the receipt and ask if the internet was working. And it wasn’t. And so started the month long routine of calling the company, being told the problem was fixed, waiting a few hours for the internet to come on, and then having to call them again. Doctor Hurriya tried to help us, she was on the phone with the internet company as much as we were, but the language/age barrier was a problem. While I had figured out what the problem was, I couldn’t explain it in Arabic. And when I explained it in English to Doctor Hurriya, she didn’t understand the technology well enough to explain it to the company. In the end Doctor Hurriya called an engineer to come out to our apartment and take a look, because I obviously didn’t understand what I was doing if my explanations didn’t make any sense. It was for the best though, because his bill wasn’t too high and he was able to reach the same conclusions I had, but then call the company and explain them in Arabic. It was a source of great frustration for the month, but at least the internet is working now – if still too slowly for you tube downloads or video chat.

And so concludes the story of my apartment.

Catch-Up 1: Alexandria Sightseeing

So I went to start my homework this evening only to find that I don't have any of the necessary videos. I'll go to the University to get them on Saturday, but until then I thought I'd spend some time playing catch up on what I was up to in Egypt before I started this blog. For organizational purposes, this catch up will take the form of multiple posts, each dealing with a different topic. Topic #1: Sightseeing in Alexandria.

The first week in Egypt was a whirlwind of sightseeing masquerading under the guise of an orientation. We visited a number of landmarks in and around Alexandria, a number of which I will now list and define for your vicarious traveling pleasure.

The Citadel: Anyone who kept up with last years blog knows all about Qaitbey Citadel built on the ruins of the ancient Alexandria Lighthouse. Despite the fact that I visited the boardwalk surrounding the citadel something like a dozen times last year, I had never been inside until that first week.

The Library of Alexandria: Another landmark that I missed last summer (I never bought the required ticket to go in farther than the entrance and the gift shop), the Library of Alexandria needs no introduction. Due to its close proximity to the University, I see it almost every day, but their no bags policy makes studying there difficult. Fortunately, the outside is beautiful enough.

Montazah Gardens: At the Eastern most end of Alexandria lies a sprawling green paradise, home King Fouad's palace, King Farouk's summer home, and the nicest public beach in Alexandria. By nice I mean it costs ten pounds to enter and isn't as covered in trash. It's nice, but considering we live in West Alexandria not often worth the trek.

American Center: This isn't exactly a tourist attraction, but it was a nice new place to visit. Since there is no American embassy or consulate in Alexandria, the American center serves as our connection to the embassy in Cairo. Housed in a gigantic classic villa, the center contains a library and a computer lab for Americans and Egyptian alike, hosts a number of cultural events, and was kind enough to invite us to an internship fair when we began looking for this semesters internships.

Agami: Alexandrians who really want a nice beach experience tend to keep a beach house in Agami, a little city about an hour outside Alexandria that's just far enough away to escape the water pollution. The beaches still aren't spectacular, you have to go to Marsa Matrouh for that, but they past most basic qualifications for hygiene. Mama Hoda, the kitchen director at the girls' dorms and a host mother with the program, owns just such a house and invited us out for a day at the beach our first week here. It was a good bonding experience for us and gave us a chance to get to know our Egyptian counterparts as well.

There were a few other non-specific stops to get us acquainted with the city that don't warrant full explanations: San Stefano Mall, Green Plaza Mall, the shopping district in Mahatat al-Raml and probably some other unimportant things that I'm forgetting. If they're at all relevant to my life I'm sure they'll make an appearance in a future post.

Outside of orientation week, most of my Alexandrian sightseeing can be grouped into two catergories: ruins and museums.

Most of the museums in Alexandria have been closed since the revolution due to fears of looting. My language partner and I didn't figure this out until after we'd made the trip out to the Royal Jewelry Museum, but I saw that museum last year so it wasn't such a let down. I was a little bummed that we couldn't get in to the Graeco-Roman Museum, but the National Museum, the only one left open, made up for it with its Graeco-Roman floor sandwiched in between a basement celebrating the Pharaonic era and the top floor preserving relics from the Islamic empire.

As far as ruins go, I did a bad job of making the time to see them last summer, but I have since rectified that mistake. When my friend Laura who's studying at the American University in Cairo came to visit, we spent a full day exploring the Catacombs and Pompey's Pillar, two of Alexandria's most famous attractions. During Alexandria Cultural Week last month, I also spent a morning with my friend Kelsey at the Roman Amphitheater. The cultural week brochure had said in English that admission would be free the day we went, but it serves me right for reading it in English because the Arabic clearly stipulated that it was only free for Egyptians and Arabs.

The final thing I want to mention about Alexandrian sightseeing is less a place than it is a phenomenon. Since the revolution, graffiti has popped up everywhere, and no the ugly, vulgar, American graffiti we so often find in alleys and on subways. It seems like everywhere there was a blank piece of stone, be it a wall lining a major street or the stones used to block the waves along the Corniche, Egyptians have used paint to express themselves. The majority of the graffiti consists of uplifting messages about loving Egypt and the freedom and unity of her people, a few of the murals are Qur'anic verses or reminders about Islam, and only one of the countless messages I've seen was a hateful comment about Israel. I feel like this distribution is reflective of the the peoples' opinions. Most of them are just happy to be facing a new future. Near all of the graffiti is beautiful and inspiring, and rather than being a blemish on the city it serves as a decorative definition of her people's character. I've even gone walking a couple times with the sole intention of "reading the writing on the walls," as it were.

That's about it for this topic. Now, on to something new.

Al-Gow Shitty

I'm not swearing, I promise! The title is a common Arabic phrase that means the weather is rainy, which it is. And just after I'd put my sheets in the wash too. I had to sleep on a naked mattress last night. I'm just glad I had an extra clean pillow case stowed in my closet.

That's not what I wanted to talk about though.

Walking around in the filthy, drainless, pool sized puddle ridden streets made me realize one of the things I love so much about Egypt. Getting around here is like an obstacle course. You're always looking, planning, thinking - and while it's a little bit exhausting, it makes you feel alive. Getting through a day is an accomplishment in and of itself. Walking down the street without getting your pants dirty is something to write home about. I know it sounds bad, but it's exhilarating as long as you can teach yourself to go with the flow.

Also, it's not just me as a foreigner. Walking home from school today I saw a little old Egyptian lady staring across a puddle that used to be a parking lot as if it were the Atlantic Ocean. I wish I could have helped her, but my jacket hardly would have covered that expanse.

That was really all I wanted to share today. Now I'm going to go wash my slimy feet (you can only dodge so many obstacles) and start my homework. I have the feeling it's going to be a long night....

Update: One of my Egyptian friends just posted this picture (taken today) on facebook. I thought it was a good example of what I'm talking about.

Siwa, Marsa Matrouh and Alamein

As I mentioned in my previous post, last weekend was a big holiday for Egypt and as such we got the week off school. In order to take advantage of this vacation, the program organized a weeklong trip across the north coast and western desert from which I have just returned. In keeping with my short and undetailed posts (because I have a week’s worth of homework to do in the next twenty-four hours) I’m only going to summarize our stops with a few cultural observations, but I’ve included links if any of you would like more detailed information about the sights we saw.

We left Alexandria bright and early Monday morning for the eight hour bus ride to Siwa, the largest and most famous desert oasis located in the middle of the Egyptian Sahara near the Libyan border. We spent the first night exploring Shali, a tiny village situated around the ruins of a not-so-ancient fortress that was destroyed by rain in the last hundred years or so. Our nearby hotel was lovely. Though sleeping three to a room meant that there was literally no floor space once we’d rolled out the cot, the beds were comfortable enough and the establishment itself was much cleaner than I would have expected. Both mornings at the hotel we had a delicious breakfast of cucumbers, tomatoes, bread, cheese, jam and ful (fava beans) on the roof overlooking the village.

The second day was allotted for tours of the nearby ruins. We were allowed to choose between two tour groups, one riding bikes and the other donkey drawn carts called karettas, or exploring on our own. I chose the bike and it was one of the better decisions I’ve ever made. Apart from its beauty, Siwa is best known for its dates and olives, and biking through the palm groves was a spectacular experience. Our guide was also amazing. He’s the son of the education minister in Siwa and knows every last detail about the oasis, many of which he communicated to us.

We saw two temples built by the ancient Egyptians in honor of Amun Ra, the sun god, the first of which once contained an oracle that Alexander the Great made pilgrimage to confirm his status as the son of Zeus since the occupying Greeks had adopted Zeus Amun Ra as a manifestation of the head of their pantheon. We also visited Cleopatra’s spring which has nothing to do with Cleopatra except that she might have visited it once and her name draws tourists – as evidenced by the excessively fancy and expensive cabanas set up nearby. Male tourists are welcome to swim in the spring and many of them did.

After the temples and the spring we went to Dakrour Mountain, an old alabaster quarry that is now used only once a year as a gathering place for Eid al-Siyaha – a specifically Siwan holiday commemorating the end of the civil war between the Eastern and Western tribes of the oasis and oddly reminiscent of American Thanksgiving. Tourists come from all over to participate in the celebration in October, but the gathering was cancelled by the Egyptian government this year for security reasons associated with the revolution. Though Siwan children attend with their fathers, the local women gather in their homes rather than on the mountain with the others.

The last stop of the day was the Mountain of the Dead, a giant mountain of catacombs. We entered the tomb of a rich family of Greek descent and though it was gorgeous, photography was forbidden, so unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the inside.

Once we’d finished the tour, we loaded onto the bus to drive out to Western Siwa and have dinner on the salt flats. I honestly can’t imagine a more beautiful scene, though I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The third day was dedicated to the desert, and here even the photos don’t do it justice. The sand stretches on forever, and despite it being essentially dirt it all feels clean. We loaded into a fleet of nine land cruisers and drove across the dunes to various springs for swimming and various mountain size dunes for sand boarding.

The sand boarding was fun, but not quite worth having to climb back up the dune afterwards. That night, we slept in the desert with the Siwans. While everyone was complaining the next morning that they’d hardly slept at all between the intense cold and the hard ground, I found the experience rather comfortable. They’d warned us we’d be sleeping in the desert and I’d come prepared with multiple socks, sweats, and thermal shirts. I’d say I got a solid eight hours.

Our night in the desert was an eye opening experience. While the Siwans appear more conservative than most Egyptians, especially when it comes to women, they’re also more liberal in many ways. Though nominally Muslim, many of them drink and I heard from more than one Siwan that there’s a sizeable contingent of people that practice magic. I don’t want to get too deep into the details, but suffice it to say that Siwan culture has informed me a great deal about the variances in Egyptian culture as a whole.

When we woke the next morning, we had a simple breakfast of bread and ful and headed back to the village to stock up on dates (which we had been eating and would continue to eat at an almost constant pace throughout the trip) before hitting the road headed for Marsa Matrouh.

Marsa Matrouh is a port city with a strong military presence, known for having some of the most beautiful beaches in Egypt. While I would have liked to explore the city more, we spent most of our time there in the five star hotel. Since it’s the off season, I’m pretty sure we were the only guests in the hotel. We had the beach, the pool and the spa all to ourselves, and that night the program hired an eastern dance team to put on a beautiful show for us in the patio café. Ironically, I didn’t sleep very well that night and I suspect it’s because the beds were too comfortable.

Our final day we woke to the kind of breakfast you would expect from a five star hotel and hit the road for our last bout of sightseeing in Alamein. For those history buffs among you, you may recognize Alamein as the sight of one of the most decisive battles of the second World War,

conveniently located on the highway between Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria. We visited the Italian Memorial, the German Memorial, the Alamein Military Museum, and the Allied Graveyard in that order. Though they were all spectacular historical sights, I have to say the graveyard was my favorite. Many of the gravestones had personal inscriptions from the families of the soldiers, and while reading them was heartbreaking it created a real connection between the past and the present.

That’s the trip in short. A few additional details:

1. My friend Laura who’s studying and Cairo and her boyfriend came with us, but I got the feeling they weren’t used to or comfortable with the real Egyptian experience that our program promotes – possibly because their Arabic isn’t quite on the necessary level to interact with Egyptians on a daily basis. Regardless, I think they enjoyed themselves over all.

2. I definitely prefer the simplicity and authenticity of Siwa to the five stars of Marsa Matrouh, even if it means having to squat in the desert to pee.

3. I love dates. Speaking of which, I think I’m going to go open the two kilos I bought in Siwa. Questions and comments are welcome!

Eid Al-Adha

The world is quiet. The world is peaceful. And yet today, the streets run with blood.

I know I said I wasn’t going to blog this year, and I probably shouldn’t for the sake of my Arabic, but at the same time try as I might I’m not speaking with loved ones often enough to keep them up to date on anything. As such, this blog shall serve as a compromise. I don’t plan to write often, I don’t plan to write a lot, but when I have something interesting to report on it will go here. On slow days, or days I want to procrastinate, you may even get a back story or two. We’ll see.

Now, back to that opening. Today is Eid al-Adha, or the big eid as compared to Ramadan’s small eid, Eid al-Fitr. (Eid translates as holiday in Arabic.) It occurs yearly in the Islamic calendar and coincides with the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca that all able bodied Muslims are required to complete at least once. As the term big eid might suggest, it's not taken lightly and people have spent weeks preparing in addition to the week we now have off of school. It was not an event I was willing to miss.

The adhan (call to prayer) went off this morning bright and early as usual, rousing me at 4:30 AM from the hour or so of sleep I'd gotten. I'm usually able to sleep trough the adhan, or at least roll over and go back to sleep, but this morning I was excited and so I rolled out of bed and began preparing for my day. A little after 5:00 AM, the second call went off - but this one was insistent. The carefully measured tones of the muezins filtered through my bedroom window for more than an hour while I began to make the morning's round of phone calls.

While I have a beautiful view from my balcony, everything I can see is private space while Eid is very public. As such, I'd made plans last night to go to a friend's apartment this morning to watch the festivities. She lives next to a mosque and on a main street, which is the perfect recipe for celebration.

When I called at 6:15 my friend assured me no one had arrived yet, but in the five minutes it took me to walk over there the entirety of Alexandria had descended upon the streets. Prayer mats had been laid out last night, covering everything but the sidewalks, lights and balloons had been draped between buildings and a stage bearing the seal of the Muslim Brotherhood had been erected in the intersection at the head of the street. People were everywhere, and for the first time I saw women and children alongside the men. Representatives from the Brotherhood were giving out goody bags filled with stickers and balloons, and the adhan continued to reverberate off the buildings. Despite the crowd, I managed to make it up to my friends apartment without drawing too much attention, and we were able to watch the proceedings from her balcony.



After the prayer and the short sermon afterward came the real spectacle, and it only took us a few minutes of watching from above before we decided we needed a closer look. Apart from the prayer, the most important part of Eid al-Adha is the animal sacrifice. As a way of thanking God for his blessings and performing an act of charity at the same time, every financially capable family is obliged to purchase and ritually slaughter an animal, the extra meat from which will be donated to the poor. Goats will cover an average size family, but larger or more well to do families and multiple families wanting to go in on an animal together sometimes buy cows. Immediately following the clearing of the prayer mats, these animals are slaughtered publicly and en masse. It's a literal assembly line of killing, gutting, skinning, and hanging - and in accordance with the hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad) it is best for the believers to watch the slaughter. As a result, crowds of solemn worshipers gather around the butcher shops to see these animals put to death. I've heard some of the more vocal Christians complain that there will be blood in the streets for weeks. The experience is surreal.



The world is quiet. The world is peaceful. And yet today, the streets run with blood.

I didn't stay out long before returning to write this post for you. There are obviously more details, but after last night's lack of sleep I have neither the desire nor the presence of mind to give them to you. Since I'm not giving a blow by blow account of my daily activities, I have opened up the comments section if you have any questions about this post in particular or life in Egypt in general. No topic is off limits and it will let me know what you guys are interested in hearing about. I hope to hear from you.

That's all for now. Kul sinna wa intou tayyebin!