The 11th and 12th Plagues of Egypt

I know everybody is at least vaguely familiar with the ancient plagues of Egypt. You know, the whole "the rivers ran red with blood". All the historical texts are going to have to be updated with these latest two.They  both  happened in the past week, hopefully with some tag such as "the streets ran dark with mud/oil/blood/sticks and stones"; take your pick.

Sunday appeared to be a glorious day. I woke up at the beach, the sun was out and it was hot. Unfortunately, I had to go to school so no beach that day. After breaking all the nonexistent speed laws in Egypt to get to school slightly late, I rushed through the sunny and surprisingly warm campus to get to class. An hour later, it was raining. It wasn't just a slight sprinkle that happens maybe twice a year and still manages to make Egyptian drivers freak out. No, it was a full out downpour, including thunder and lightening. These sort of things are as common as revolutions in the Middle East before January 2011. That being said, Egyptians don't know how to drive in the rain, considering it never rains. And traffic in Cairo is beyond annoying on any given day just because the roads are not equipped for all the cars that frequent them. A normal one way trip to school or home will take a little over an hour, depending if I want to get off early and take a train (which you usually want to do since its quicker than driving into Tahrir) So I hope on my bus at 3pm and hope that I will get home by 415. How idealistic. At 430, I had only gotten half way home. The traffic on the main ring road was stop and go, and at this point, the rain had ceased to a light drizzle. Luckly, I got to the Metro, and was home by a little after 515.

I texted my friends who were supposed to leave a little after me, and unfortunately for them, they got the short end of the stick. One left at 530 and got home around 10pm. The driver decided to take random back roads and take a quick trip up to the pyramids in Giza and the Citadel (which is NOWHERE close to our house or Tahrir) For him, the rain had again picked up and was a solid (acid) rain that continued well into the night. My roommate and another friend left at 630 and they too got home after 10, quite wet and discontent. It took them about 2 hours to get to the Metro, and they decided to get off, as I had. By this point though, the train had basically stopped running and people were walking along the train tracks trying to get to where they wanted to go. Matt and Louis ended up walking for half an hour in the rain, found a cab, and finally got home. Another friend said his bus driver didn't want to waste gas, so he refused to turn on the defroster and used a newspaper while driving to continuously wipe the windshield.

The next morning, with the sun trying to come out, the commute to and from school was just as ridiculous. Streets in Cairo do not have any drains or anywher to filter all the unexpected water so it just formed lakes in the streets. Many of these 'puddles' were so deep that when cars drove through them, the water came up to the bottom of the car and tops of tires. The good majority of streets were like this, and stayed like this for a few days. Thus ended the 11th plague.

Plague number 12 was not so natural. It too involves the same sort of stop and go traffic on the main ring road only two days later.  After an unknown and unexpected 2 hour drive to school, Rami and I were anticipating a hopefully shorter trip back. No such luck. As his car is slightly more comfortable than a bus, and with excellent reclining seats, I was able to fall asleep for about 45 minutes as he went maybe a mile down the road. Soon after I woke up (and realized we had gone now where in an hour when it can, on good days, take 45 minutes to get to Maadi) we saw the reason for this charlie foxtrot. And it was black. Stretching a few kilometers in both directions from the main accident point, was pools of oil in one lane on the side of the road. I still am unsure what exactly happened, but one or two oil tankers and maybe a regular passenger car had some sort of collision that caused a lot of oil to flow freely into the streets. By the time we were passing it, bulldozers had appeared and had driven into the jersey barriers on the side of the street and were trying to create a place for the oil to go. For the rest of the street, they had dumped tons of sand on top of the oil that couldn't or wouldn't go anywhere (thank God that the ring road is through the middle of the desert I guess)

After such a crazy week, its only appropriate that the protests that have been happening every Friday since the fall of the regime finally escalate. Unknowingly, we ventured into Tahrir to get food late afternoon on Friday (4/8) and stumbled into the biggest protests since February. At this protest, however, was many members of the Muslim Brotherhood and many more fundamentalists, which apparently caused clashes during the day. At night, however, protesters refused to leave and defined the 2am-5am curfew. The military stepped up and started firing round (they claim they were not live rounds but 2 people died of gunshot wounds). I woke up at 3 and 4am and there was steady and continuous gunfire and a lot of shouting. At some point, the military withdrew and the protesters blocked the streets into Tahrir a la revolution days are are now vowing not to leave until Defense Minister/Field Marshal/Head of State Tantawi leaves. There were at least 3 burned out cars in the street and many wounded this morning. It will be interesting to see what Tahrir looks like tomorrow morning when I have to walk through it to get to the bus. And lets hope there is a bus to catch to school.  At any rate, I have almost two weeks off starting Thursday. How much worse can it get, right?

"You Say You Want A Revolution..."

I landed in Cairo on Thursday, Jan. 26th. My friend Rami picked me up, literally, and said look over there, see that crowd to cameras and TV crews? Mohammed el-Baradi landed when you did and he’s going join the protests. The next morning on the news, he was arrested and put under house arrest. As a Noble Peace Prize winner and former head of the IAEA, he was and still is an outspoken critic of Mubarak and his government and is a leader in the opposition. Cairo is a megacity and it consists of the main downtown area and hundreds of other areas; Rami and I lived in the area called Maadi, which is a nicer part of town and about a fifteen minute (sans traffic) ride from downtown. Rami’s apartment looks out over the Nile, and mine was 5 minutes away in the middle of a little market area. Friday was my day of doing nothing tried to recover from jet lag; it was the last ‘normal’ day. Up until then, there were peaceful protests downtown at Tahrir and other areas, there was some people going about business as usual at night and on the streets. At this point, the US and major news networks at begun to cover events in Egypt, and flights were quietly being canceled.  I spent the night hanging out watching the news, which had been dubbed the Day of Rage. As night fell, protesters grew in number and intensity and the culminating event of the night was the torching of the National Democratic Party headquarters. After a few hours it was apparent that no firefighters were going to show up to put this out and a legitimate concern was that it would spread to the Egyptian Museum. That night, protesters formed a human shield to make sure it would stay say and that no looters would get in.  As  the protests escalated, around day 4 the police, including the hated riot police, fled. They had previously engaged in clashes the past few days, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The old minister of the Interior (also hated) had told them to ‘take an extended vacation/leave of absence’.  This resulted in traffic police, boarder police, hotel police, antiquities police, tourist police and all the others to abandon their posts, leaving a truly unguarded Cairo to the hands of nobody. Later, many of the secret police formed gangs that were behind much of the looting and terror on the streets. The military was called in, and their arrival was met with cheers and handshakes. The people have great faith in the military, who are more autonomous and have greater authority to do what they would like, not be the puppets of the president.  With their arrival, the people were hoping that the military would support their movement. What we didn’t know until well after Mubarak stepped down was that on January 30^th, he ordered the military to start killing the protests in Tahrir, similar to China’s Tiananmen Square. The military commanders refused and continued to protect the people. 

On Saturday, Jan. 29th, I convinced Rami to go visit our friends Andy and Louis who had arrived around the same time I did, but lived downtown and a stone’s throw away from Tahrir Square, where most of the protesters were gathered. This is the area that has been broadcasted live on most networks, but from the other end of the square.  We took a cab downtown, and we got closer to their apartment, we could see a black cloud of smoke rising from behind the trees.  Once on the bridge, we could see the NDP building still on fire. It was blackened and smoke filled and you could see the fire working its way upward, but structurally it looked stable and in no danger of collapsing. At the top of the bridge we could go no further so we, along with hundreds of others got out and walked or joined the protests. Andy told us that he had heard gunfire the night before, but it had been mostly quite. The five of us went out and up to a bridge overlooking Tahrir so we could see what was going on without being in the middle of it.  With the museum on the left, a cloud of black smoke still rising, protesters were gathering by the thousands, chanting “Down with Mubarak” “Mubarak must go” “Yalla ya Misr”. It was such an energetic and positive thing to witness. Despite reports of police beating people with cameras and phones and confiscating them, everybody was taking pictures and videoing this historic event. As the people started moving, we followed them and went down the Nile to the state TV and communications building .

Around 3 Rami and I decided to get out of dodge, because tonight the newly imposed curfew was from 4pm to 8am. We got back and got some food and thought we would spend the night watching the news. Wrong. Tonight, men had gotten reports that there had been some pretty massive prison breaks and now looters and criminals were on the streets. Apartments here have bowabs, or doormen whos job is to make sure the building is safe and things run smoothly. Saturday, every man in each building joined the bowabs in security. As night fell, the buildings went dark, with all non-essential lights being turned off and heavy dark curtains placed in front of all the windows in an attempt to make the building inconspicuous. As I had not been in touch with my roommates, I had been hanging out with Rami in a safer building than my own. He went downstairs with the other men and I went to his neighbors were many of the wives, mothers and sisters were spending the night. Until then, men outside had regular guns, knives, sticks, fire extinguishers and anything they could find and stayed out from dusk to dawn. During this time, one guy was dumb enough to try to break into the building; he was quickly stopped, beaten, and taken down the street to the military, who are currently on each street corner with a few tanks, machine guns and many personnel.  Throughout the night, you could hear gunfire echoing across the Nile; mostly it was the military firing warning shots but you could tell when they weren’t. When the sun rose, reports came in from across Cairo; in Mohandaseen, which is not far from Maadi, there was many reports of violence and looting, and men had building brick walls in the stairwells of the buildings that had the greatest risk. Many ATMS, including the one down the street were in shambles in the morning, but the saddest reports were firstly that looters had gotten into the Pediatric Cancer Treatment Centre and were stealing equipment and barricading themselves in. When the military arrived, they were unsure how to handle the situation, not wanting to start randomly firing into a children’s hospital. The other was that they had gotten into the Egyptian museum and had smashed priceless artifacts; things that the people had been desperately trying to protect. When the looters are caught, in most instances it is apparent that it is an organized operation, with former policemen heading the groups. With the military in charge, they have given contact numbers to men on the streets and given general directions to them on how to handle the situation should it arise. Once caught, the men have one military trial, and if found guilty, the penalty for looting is death. 

Sunday we both tried to catch up on sleep, and didn’t start the day until 2pm. Rami’s dad and other extended family were going to try to come back from their beach house on the Red Sea. There had been constant reports of people on the ring road stopping and breaking into people travelling these roads, so after talking to the military, they came back before curfew. We went food shopping, which took forever because some many people were nervous that the store might get looted or they will be stuck somewhere with no food. The stores are running out of food, of course, and nobody knows how, when, or if they will be restocked anytime in the near future.  During the evening I had been in touch with Andy and Louis and our other friends, Maja and Nick. Maja and Nick had arrived in Cairo, and nervous and not able to talk to anybody, went back to our campus about an hour away from Cairo to see what was going on. AUC was advising students to get on a plane out. Until then, the State Dept. and Embassy was advising caution, and many had cancelled flights and. At 10pm, Maja called and said that tomorrow (Monday) the State Dept. was going to make a formal announcement stating that all non-essential Americans to leave the country; only embassy and military personnel should stay. She and all the students at AUC were hopping flights to Europe and the US possibly that night. After much deliberation, I decided to ride out the storm, as was Andy, Matt, and Brett. This was not an anti-American movement. This was the Egyptian people speaking out for the first time against their oppressive and corrupt government. With the military appearing to side with people and supporting a regime change, the only people in danger was Mubarak and his government. It is only a matter of time before he is gone, and the hope and thought is that this cannot keep going as it is for much longer.

Of course, as we are bunkering down for the night hoping that this in fact will not going on much longer, we heard gunfire, and this time it was not across the Nile. It was instead down the street. Four criminals with guns had managed to get down the street and were hiding in the tall grass right next to my temporary apartment. The men outside had called the military who arrived in a tank and had blocked off the way in and out and fired warning shots. When they of course refused to get out, they started arbitrarily firing many rounds into where these men were trying to hide. No luck. More MPs were called in and they began a search. They captured two, and found a door locked from the inside and knew that the third man was inside. Solution? Call the guys with machine guns. So for a good 10 seconds, right next door, we listened and watched  the military firing rounds into the door and at the guy. Victory

The second week was a turning point and you could see how stressed the regime was as they turned to violence to quell the growing protests.   Rami and I went to the store on day four and found incredibly long lines and no bread or milk. We were able to get some other things then headed home for curfew.  The guys are getting increasingly competent at nighttime security as they are slowly devising habits. They found real roadblocks and cones and began blocking off two of the three lanes that are closest to the buildings. They began stopping and checking people in some cars and trucks and are taking their information and really checking to make sure it adds up. They stopped one truck that was being driven by a guy who didn’t own it. They took the guys information and got the number of the supposed owner of the truck and called him to confirm that the driver was who he said he was. It turned out to be fine but that is just one example of how serious they are about making sure that they area stays safe.  Overnight reports indicated that criminals in Helipolis, where the presidential palace is, that 4 criminals got a hold of assault weapons and a car and drove around gunning people down before they were captured or killed. Men from across the river went up into the minarets of a nearby mosque and would periodically broadcast updates for all to hear about what was going on and what information they received and if any criminals or looters were on the loose in any nearby areas. The next day was much of the same although when we went to the store they were completely out of bread. One place wasn’t getting any in and the other ran out of materials to make their own. We listened to the news all night which was broadcasting information about the Million Man March that was being planned for Tuesday. We talked about going and tried to figure out if it would be safe for me, an unveiled American who knows no Arabic to go but in the end we didn’t. Rami talked to Andy in Tahrir and he said it was loud and that the military started flying what appeared to be F-16s very low overhead, probably to try to get people to leave. Of course, that didn’t happen. 

Tuesday’s march of millions was amazing. We could see people going downtown and it was a very jubilant atmosphere, as it was reportedly downtown as well.  The military and the people were peaceful and many had their entire families there to support the movement to end Mubarak. There was a rumor that they would march to Heliopolis to the palace, but that never materialized.  This night was a little more scary, however, because at around 330am Rami came in and said that criminals in our area had shot and killed men in the military, stolen their uniforms and vehicles, and were now on the loose.  It was a disquieting report, and thankfully, nothing materialized, and as far as I know, these men were eventually caught.

Wednesday and Thursday were sad days here as violence broke out downtown and many were killed between these two days. Thugs from the regime were set loose on horseback and camel back and went wild, attacking people and running people off the streets. Pro-Mubarark supporters rallied on the 6^th of October bridge and rained stones down on the protesters. From high vantage points and windows, they also lobbed Molotov cocktails at protesters and some buildings were set on fire.  It was quite obvious that these so called “pro-government” supporters, who had thus far been silent suddenly, appear on camel and horses. These are not animals you find trotting around downtown; these people, as Jon Stewart said, were trained in the art of violent crowd control. Many were former secret police taking a break from their nighttime looting but most were regular people paid off to support the government. Depending on where you lived and how far you lived from Tahrir determined how much the government was willing to pay. When some of these men were captured, the military found sometimes large sums of cash on them. The first thing they said was that they weren’t paid off, but when asked why they had that much money on them during this or where it came from, they could not answer. 

With things stabilizing and people going back to work, Rami and I went downtown to meet our long lost friends Andy and Matt. We went for lunch and headed over to Tahrir.  “Someone” told me that I didn’t need any ID, so we were unsure if the military would let me in, since they were IDing everybody going into Tahrir.  Thankfully it was fine, and after about 5 checkpoitns and patdowns we were in. There was barbed wire blocking off some streets and others were blocked by tanks. When you finally got into Tahrir, you walked in between lines of people, chanting and clapping for you, welcoming you the protest for democracy. It was incredible. Inside, tent cities had sprung up; hardcore protesters vowed not to leave until Mubarak left and they had taken up residence on the streets. There were vendors selling flags and people were giving out food and water; some were selling it as well. Everybody was milling about, and there would be small groups with someone speaking, with others making chants for others to follow. We walked towards the Egyptian Museum and the 6^th of October bridge were all the violence had taken place not even a week ago and it was shocking. Once you got there, we went through more checkpoints and we would have to go through more to get back in. you could not walk down the street as there were burned out cars everywhere and tanks and soldiers making sure nobody would throw anything off the bridge. There was makeshift clinic with medical professionals and medicine and band aids. On the street, somebody had taken the stones and written “Go To Hell Mubarak”. We were on ground level but it must have looked great from up high.  The area, however was a warzone.  There were buildings smashed and looted and burned out. The sidewalks had been ripped up and the stone parts were used as weapons.  There was a greater military presence in this area, and you could not turn around and walk back. We looped around and had to go through checkpoints at every street. By now, night had fallen and many more people had shown up. There were kids there with their parents and there were bands and songs. We left to try to get back to Maadi at least before curfew. 

This turned out to be the last week of the protest. On February 10^th, Mubarak was set to give another speech and there were many rumors that he would step down. Rami and I went to Tahrir with Matt and Andy. It was unlike any other day. There were millions of people there, and most were already singing and dancing. It was like a carnival. There must have been projectors somewhere because every few blocks there were giant white sheets that had the news on. When Mubarak came on, everybody rushed to get as close as possible to witness his speech.  People slowly realized that he would not be leaving and you could see the disappointment in people. Chatting started again, louder and louder and while Rami, Andy Matt and I left, so too did some of the people, stating that they were going to march to Heliopolis to the palace and made him leave. As it turned out, it was Mubarak’s last speech as president. As it was late and well past curfew, Rami and I stayed at Andy’s apartment and left the next day.  In hindsight, we should have stayed, because at around 5pm, the VP Omar Suliman made his announcement saying that Mubarak had stepped down and the military would take power.  The party that had erupted right after that announcement went on all weekend. 

Its surreal looking back now on the Revolution. Things are getting back to normal. There is still a curfew at midnight that’s occasionally enforced. There are still tanks on many streets (the ones on my street like to do maneuvers at 1am on Saturday night). But it was one of the most amazing things that I have ever been a part of.  While there is still many disagreements between Muslims and Christians, during the Revolution, it was common to see Muslims praying and Christians holding hands protecting them and vice versa. It didn’t matter what you were; everybody was Egyptian fighting for the same rights. Also, in retrospect,  Mubarak was a cruel oppressive ruler, but he was not like Gadaffi (or at least was unable to act as Gadaffi is doing now) The military made a responsible choice and this revolution did not turn into a civil war as it has unfortunately done so in Libya. 

It’s a great time to be in Egypt right now…come visit if you can.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.

"Oh Your American? Sit Here Then" -Egyptian/Israeli Border Patrol

So. The equivalent of Christmas just happened in Egypt (and the Muslim world)  mid November. I had 10 glorious days off as 5 million Muslims made hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Eid el Adhr is a time to celebrate with family and friends. Its tradition for a family to slaughter a lamb or a cow ( I saw the end of a cow slaughtering...it was very..interesting) You prepare and eat a third of the animal then share the rest with friends and the poor. My friend here was given a third of a cow to eat. If your curious, a third of a cow can feed about 9 hungry post college age kids. At any rate, it was a chance for us to get off campus and forget about Arabic homework for a little while.

Oh course, I decided it was a great time to get sick, so the beginning of this nice vacation I had a fever and strep throat. The bright side of living in Egypt is nobody really cares if you have a perspiration for anything. You can walk into any pharmacy, ask for a drug, and get it immediately. And very inexpensively too. Three USD for Penicillin and I was good to go. Five of us headed to Dahab, which is about 7 hours away by bus on the Red Sea. It is a very popular diving location and there are tons of different spots  you can go to. It is also a very relaxed and layed back atmosphere, which not much to do besides go to the beach everyday and go to dinner at night. It was an hour from Sharm el Sheik, so if you wanted to go wild, you could go there, but this was more relaxing. We would pack our speakers, wine and beer in bags and lay around on the beach and contemplating swimming to Saudi Arabia. There were stray camels that would occasionally walk by, along with the many dogs and cats that inhabit all of Egypt. We spend one day going to various dive holes and snorkeling and seeing some amazing fish and coral and all that snorkeling entails. It went by way too fast, but at least the weather was nice (it was warmer than Cairo, and much prettier)

Two of our friends left early and the three of us decided to go on the "adventure" of a lifetime. The Israeli border is 2 hours by bus from where we were staying, and as Israel is not a particularly large country, we would be able to see some places. So we signed up for this tour that would take care of all the hard details, such as visas, getting into and out of the country, busing from all the places, and lunch etc. It was priced at 160, and the website said that " a Russian tour guide will be with you throughout, and an English tour guide will be available in Israel" When we met with the representatives from the company before we left, they informed us that they forgot to update their website, but for 20$ more, we could get on a full day tour with an English only guide. Probably more useful than the Russians. So we paid up and went on our very merry way.

In typical Egyptian fashion, nobody is on time. In this case, we were supposed to be picked up at 8pm and taken to the bus which would take us to the border. At 815, we called the people and they said (scam!) they forgot to tell us that they pushed the time back to 11pm. So after watching some House and South Park, we tried again. And we were thankfully picked up. We were taken to a rest stop in the middle of no where and we waited for our big bus. By 1130 we were zipping up the coast to Israel and trying to sleep a little. Everything on this trip took about 2 hours, so around 2 am we get to the border and got ourselves in line. A very very long line. There were maybe 5-8 coach buses dropping people off (most of then were Russian). The distance we had to go between to get from Egypt to Israel was about the length of a football field. It took 5 hours to walk 100 yards. At one point, I saw somebody start taking pictures so, since I delight in taking pictures of places I go to, I did to. Until some Egyptian officer walks up to me (speaking very little English) and motions with his wrists locked together. Oh. Boy. Am I getting arrested? I decided quickly that couldn't be the case since he walked past girl number one taking pictures and said nothing to her, or even looked her way. So I just laughed, but said I would delete the pictures (pictures of the people who were with me with Egypt in the background actually). But no. He says, come with me. Oh dear. What is there to do but laugh nervously? So I cut this pretty long line right to the front (as he is still motioning with his wrists together) and tells me to take out my passport. So I dig it out, all the while insisting that I will delete the pictures and I'm really really sorry. I give two Egyptian officers my passport and they look at it and ask "Oh your American?" Not the time to be a smartass and tell than no, I'm not American. So I said yes and they looked at each other and said, "Oh, okay. Go ahead to the next (long) line." I told them I was with some friends so they said "Okay, sit here" And proceeded to take my two friends out of line, and we went along to stand in another line for 4.5 hours.

By 730am and after watching the sun rise and get detained for a very short about of time (and questioned about father and grandfather's names, why we were in Egypt and why we were studying Arabic) we were finally on the bus and very tired and hungry. We tried to sleep a little as we zipped through the surprisingly beautiful Negev Desert and we stopped at a rest stop to get some breakfast. We walked in a la zombies and blindly started looking for something edible. And did I find gold. There, amongst all the fake candy, were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! After jumping around and shoving a package in my friends face in excitement, I proceeded to buy every single Reese's in the store. Due to some excellent rationing, I ate the first one immediately, and can now enjoy two Reese's a week until I go home and I can get all the Reese's I would like. The trip got infinitely better from then on. 

Back on the bus, however, we realized we were slightly scammed. Instead of getting out English only tour we got a German tour. Yes, we toured Israel with a bus full of middle aged Germans and a tour guide who spoke primarily in German for their benefit. Never a dull moment. Anyways, our first stop was the Dead Sea. It is 37% salt, and in about 10 years, it will be all gone, unless a pipeline from the Red Sea is made. So we went and they had us change into our bathing suits. Except it was this really small room and I'm the youngest person in there with all these middle age European women who have absolutely no qualms about getting butt naked in front of each other. We'll leave it at: I hid in a corner. So we went swimming. Or more like floating. You can say yeah you float in the Dead Sea as much as you want, but until you do it... It is by far the weirdest feeling I have ever experienced. I'm guessing its sort of what being weightless must be like. You bob around, and if you flip from your back to your stomach, the momentum keeps going and you can roll/flop around, weightlessly. Incidentally, there are lifeguards on duty because you can drown. Except I'm not really sure how. It has something to do with suction and not being able to get back on your back. But in this scenario, you would have to have your head underwater, and that water is like acid. It is not pleasant. We spent about an hour there and then back to the bus for, yes, another 2 hour drive.

This time, 2 hours took us into Jerusalem. It is an extraordinarily beautiful city, and we drove to the top of the Mount of Olives to see it. It is pretty big and you can see clearly major landmarks, such as the Dome of the Rock. We didn't spend much time there in the afternoon (it was about 1230 or 1 at this point) and we were off to Bethlehem, which is maybe 20 minutes from Jerusalem. The drive was gorgeous, and you could see olive trees everywhere, as well as the infamous settlements that the Israeli government are building in Palestinian land (Bethlehem is in the West Bank, which is Palestinian). One tidbit they fail to tell you in the papers is that the settlements are all on top of hills so the Israelis are in prime defensive position. Another non-related tidbit is that Bethlehem in Arabic means "House of Meat". So we got into Bethlehem with no problems and we went to the Church of the Nativity. It is the place where they believe Jesus was born; there were hundreds of people there of course, so we quickly walked around and also went into the neighboring Catholic Church (the only one I've seen in the Middle East thus far). It was gorgeous. We ate a quick lunch, then spent about 3 hours trying to get back into Jerusalem (Israeli land) from Bethlehem (Palestinian land). It was dark at this point, maybe 6ish. We went directly to the Wailing Wall, or Western Wall. This remaining part of the wall date back to 19 BC from Herod the Great. So its old. It was built encompassing the Temple Mount, which Jews believe is the site God chose the Divine Presence to reside.  Its an extremely holy site in Judaism as well as Islam, as it is right next to the Dome of the Rock (third holiest site in Islam). Muslims, however, are forbidden to call it the Wailing Wall. We spent an hour or so there, manged to get lost in the souq, or bazaar and miss the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Figures. I did get to overhear this gem, though. 
One of the German ladies in our group was talking to our tour guide. He was a young guy from Egypt but spoke fluent German, but they were speaking in English at this point. So she points to some Orthodox Jews, and asks who they are. Our guide says their Orthodox, you've never seen an Orthodox Jew before?. She goes, No! To which our guide responds, "Oh right, I forgot. That's because they don't like you" She, immediately asked us if we had ever seen Orthodox Jews and my friend replied, "Of course. I live in NYC, there more Jews there then this entire country". It was 10pm, we were ready to go.

Our bus ride back to the border took 4 hours this time, since we were further North and would not be making all the previous stops. We were hoping that walking across the border this time wouldn't take 5 hours. It didn't. It took maybe 3.5 to 4.  Such an improvement. Back on another bus we went, for, yup, 2 hours back to Dahab. We finally got back to our hotel at sunrise, aka 530am. So after leaving at 11pm on Wednesday, we got back at 530am on Friday. Quite. An. Adventure.

The next day we had to go back to Cairo. We got on another bus. For 7 hours.

Back in Cairo, I slept a lot. Shocking. Anyways, break was great. It was a short week because we had Thanksgiving off. Thanksgiving in Egypt is a story in itself so that will have to wait for a rainy day. I hope you all had great holidays and until then, enjoy your last day of November :)

Now Aint That Some Shit

So November thus far has been pretty boring. And its getting cold. Que laughter from everybody reading this at home, where, from what I'm hearing, there is a nice blanket of snow on the ground. Okay, so I have absolutely gotten used to Egypt and yes I get cold when it is anywhere below 85 degrees. So what if I am beyond screwed for when I go home in a month? No. Big. Deal. Anyways, I know nobody really wants to read about how midterms in Arabic went so I wont bore you with all those details; instead, lets chat about random Egypt things.


Halloween
Many of you asked if Halloween is celebrated in Egypt and my standard answer was something like "I don't know, but Americans do".   Flippant and slightly arrogant? Yeah, just a little. So I asked someone (after I and all the other Americans celebrated Halloween like we do at home... :) And the answer is no. Halloween is not officially celebrated here. It is actually not allowed to be celebrated by Muslims and the Islamic culture.  As a monotheistic religion, they respect other monotheistic religions but they can't practice or celebrate a holiday that glorifies polytheistic deities. And as Halloween is originally a pagan celebration, it is not acceptable for Muslims to follow this. However, the West is a huge influence on, well, everything, and you can find some Muslims who believe that it is okay to celebrate it or who will let their children dress up. But you wont find anybody trick or treating. That would be without a doubt one of the sketchiest things to do around here.

Stike!
No, not baseball strikes. (Ha ha ha) People strikes. You hear of them from time to time, participate in one, or see one somewhere. Not that they are overly common, they are also not that uncommon. In Egypt, they are very uncommon. In some (ie alot) of countries here, if you go on strike, you have a high chance of getting beaten and/or automatically losing your job. And you absolutely need that job.  At school, we have maids who will clean our rooms, change our sheets, wash the floors etc and janitors who keep the school really clean. Without them, the school turns into a garbage pit because for some reason, "students" feel that they cannot through away their own trash. They will let it blow away or leave it at their tables and chairs for somebody else to clean up.  The tables in the food court after lunch are always piled high with trash while the "students" go hang around outside, smoke, and not go to class. So the janitors and maids went on strike not because of this but because the administration is retarded. They workers were being paid about 600 LE a month and were expected to feed and provided for their families with this. That is about 100 USD; and 600 LE a month for a family of four is nothing as you can well imagine. The administration decided to cut their wages down to 400 LE a month and give them health care. Well, the workers who already can't feed their families don't want health care, they want to be able to feed their hungry kids. They asked for a salary increase of 1200 LE instead. And went on strike for five days. They had meetings and held a sit in for five days in front of the Admin Building and the school got really really dirty. And after five days, they realized that it was an unfortunately pointless cause because the administration wasn't budging and they weren't getting paid. So they went back to work unhappy and hoping that the administration will follow through on the decision to discuss this after Christmas.

inshaAllah
This has to be one of my favorite Arabic sayings. It is used everywhere in every context. It is translated as "hopefully" or "God willing" So you can say " Will I see you tomorrow?" and you can respond "inshaAllah". That's fine. And so on and so on. But what kills me is when the teachers say "Tomorrow, you will have a quiz/test/midterm inshaAllah" Hopefully I will have a quiz tomorrow? How am I supposed to be hopeful about that, or God willing I take it tomorrow. God willing what? I pass it? Should I pray to God right before I take it or should I study my butt off because its going to be that hard? Also, I'm pretty sure that it is you Osteza who decides the quizzes and you should probably already know that most of the students aren't that hopeful that you give us one. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're hoping that you DONT give us a quiz/test./midterm. Okay, I know I'm reading into this a little too much, and that context isn't exactly what you mean, but still, it makes me laugh every time you say it. So does saying "Homework IN a piece of paper" :)

Reese's and Bacon
This is quite a large bone of contention with me as most of you who've had any sort of conversation with me in the past 3 months already know.  One is understandable, the other NOT AT ALL! This is Egypt okay? This is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world and has one of the only surviving ancient wonders of the world in the middle of their freakin mega city and nowhere and I mean absolutely no where can you find Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And if you know me really well, you know that I have looked. EVERYWHERE.  They. Do. Not. Exist. You import everything else, including some pretty ridiculous and unnecessary things, so get on the ball and get me some Reese's . I have even gone as far as googling "Reese's in Egypt"  and "Where can I find Reese's in Egypt" (I got instead "Jake Gyllenhaal Rumored Buying Engagment Ring, Whisks Reese" .....WTF?!?!) As for bacon (real bacon) you can't find that either. But its not kosher and pigs are dirty dirty animals that are not allowed for religious reasons, so okay. I can live with and accept that. Beef bacon is just not the same though. In fact, I usually won't even eat. But let it be known that with the 20 USD that I didn't exchange, I am buying more than one bacon egg and cheese from a DD's (which also don't exist here) as soon as I get off that plane at JFK at 5 am. Don't judge. In fact, if you see me over break, show up with a BEC and I'll probably kiss you.

Beds
Suck! Egyptians sleep on cement, I swear to God. I had a legit cloud that I slept in at school. I absolutely loved my bed. If you sat on it, you would sink, and if I was in it, you probably couldn't find my legs. Too many down comforters and blankets, but it was beyond fabulous. I have upgraded to a piece of plywood I think. I have to sleep on the thing they call a comforter because I would be in serious need of a chiropractor if I didn't. Actually, I might need one anyways....

Okay, this is turning into a bitter rant. Or maybe just a rant. But this is what happens when nothing happens in November. Maybe its the perpetual sun that is getting to me. At any rate, I have 2 days of school left before I am off to lay on a beach and drink martinis for 10 days (inshaAllah) I hope you all aren't too cold and snowed in at home yet and I'm sure after vacation I wont be as bitter and will have some sort of adventure to talk about, not just Egyptian nuances.

Ta Ta!

The Adventures of L,P

It might have been almost two weeks ago, but I went to Asia. And that in and of itself makes up for delays. So my last adventure began on a Tuesday afternoon. We had Wednesday off because it was some Egyptian holiday or something and we were excused from Thursdays classes so we had a nice few days to go run wild. We were going to Sharm el Sheikh and St. Catherine. It is a a solid seven hours to Sharm and the delightful Indian family from last trip were back. Before we got into the fun part, I just have to say that the mother with the 5 month old baby is a nut. To entertain her child, she meowed at him. Loudly. We would be sitting there and all of a sudden hear "Mewwwwwwwwow, meooooooooow". All the time. By the end of the trip, people in the back were started barking when she meowed. It was really weird. Anyways, we had to go under the Suez Canal, which has a pretty cool history. In brief, it was completed in 1869 but its history dates back to the 2nd Millenium (BC). Aristotle wrote in reference to a canal here way back then, too. Construction for the 'modern' canal began in 1856 and it officially opened ten years later.  Due to debts Egypt owed to Britain, the British took control of the completed Canal in 1882, and Egypt only regained control and rights to it in 1956. Okay, done with the history lesson. (I can actually say that sentence in Arabic :)

We got to Sharm around 930 and of course we went right out. Sharm is a big destination for European travelers and it is very influenced by Western ideals and it is pretty obvious in the dress of its tourists. It is very liberal and there's nightclubs everywhere. We went to a rooftop bar until they kicked us out around quarter of three. We tried to get into another club down the street, The Buddha Bar, and we managed to get in without paying cover due to our friends fantastic negotiation skills. We didn't stay long because they were closing too, so we headed back to the hotel and decided to go swimming. Who doesn't want to swim in the Red Sea at 4am? That unfortunately didn't last long because some guards kicked us out. So we went to the pool. That didn't last long either because the guards came back and told us we were going to get "chlorine poisoning". Ooookay. Thus ended the first night. The second day we just hung out at the beach and went swimming. You could lay on a beach chair and look at Saudi Arabia across the sea. We thought about swimming over but we'd probably get sniper-ed out of the water so we stuck to snorkeling. There were reefs and really cool tropical fish everywhere so it was fun. And the water was like bathwater and for all you in New England, it was around 100 degrees (still is actually :) We had a lower key night and went downtown again, but just walked around and hung out.

Out last beach day was a blast. There were 14 of us and we rented a private boat and spent the day on the water. We went to two snorkeling sites and saw some awesome fish and more reefs; our diver guide told us after we got back on the boat that there was a seven foot shark near us. Didn't see that, but we did see two sting ray.  There was a camera guy who spent the day taking pictures of us doing random stuff and swimming so were were able to get those pictures at the end of the trip. It was a great time and we were out on the boat until almost 4pm so it was a good long day.  Of course, pre-departure we walked into a Drinkies (what they call packies around here) and asked for two cases of beer; I'm pretty sure they had never gotten that request before. Typical Americans. Of course the only way to end a great day is to go out and have a great night. So we did. We went to a popular club called Pasha Sharm. It was four floors with no ceiling on the upper floors (perks of never getting rain or cold) and there were all the typical club things with the added bonus of having a pool and foam pit on the first floor. It was wild. There is one in NYC and/or Las Vegas too. So we paid cover but didn't really want to spend the rest of our money on the absurd drink prices so since we had time to kill, we went to another Drinkies, bought beer there and sat outside on the sidewalk for a couple of hours. I found 10 English pounds, which is about 100 Egyptian pounds so that was a fantastic perk (especially outside of a Drinkies....) It was of course another late but very memorable night. And the last night we slept until Saturday.
 
We had all morning to kill before we hopped on the bus again so we got a few beach hours in and lunch. I somehow managed to miss that Daylight Savings had happened here the previous week and I had somehow been living an hour behind and still making it to class on time. True genius right here. We had a three hour bus ride up to the Dahab area to the place we were staying at over night. We were in the middle of the mountains and stayed at St. Catherine's Monastery.  We would be climbing Mt Sinai in the morning, since the monastery is at the base of the mountain. Mt Sinai is of course the mountain where Moses got the 10 Commandments. I just have to say that even though I know 40 is just a symbolic number, if it really took them 40 years to cross that desert, I totally believe it now. Now, climbing mountains in Egypt is an adventure. (Especially if you stay up all night and ...watch... 5 people consume 8 bottles of wine beforehand...) But Egypt is a hot country. You can't climb mountains during normal mountain hiking times aka daylight hours because it is too hot and its the desert, meaning there are no trees and no shade. So you climb Moses Mountain in the middle of the night. So 130am finds us bright eyed and ready to hike for 3 hours. The initial part isn't that bad. Of course, my flashlight dies after 5 minutes, so there is no light but other people's lights and the stars. Which I do have to say I have never ever seen stars like this in my life. It was absolutely surreal and beautiful. The camels everywhere really added to the 'scenery' of course, as we almost walked into them every other step and they obviously smell great!. The last 45 minutes or so are what really get you,  because it is 750 vertical 'steps' to the top. Steps is quite a relative term, because one you cant see shit, two they are all different sizes and three there are no straight lines so they're all windy and twisty and its almost 4am. We finally made it to the top and basically collapsed for a half hour and froze our asses off. You get all hot climbing for 3 hours but then freeze at the top because its 4am in the desert and its cold and your sweaty clothes are drying. So the alternative is to wrap up in smelly camel hair blankets. Truly attractive group. But the sun started rising at 515ish and when it came up, it was gorgeous. You got your first look at the landscape (and realize why they make you climb in the dark: so you can't see down). But it was nothing but mountain ranges for as far as you could see from all angles. We sat up there until 6ish then began the trek down. We went a different way down which consisted of 3000 'steps' down, which you could see this time. You can see the Monastery from almost the beginning of the hike down and you think that it won't take long, but then realize how wrong you are. There were a few choice words running through my mind. But we made it down around 8 or 830, had time for a quick shower in the worlds dumbest shower. How the expect you to shower AND hold the shower head above you is beyond me. We took a quick tour of the monastery, which was built by Emperor Justinian I (527-567). So its old. It has some of the oldest surviving relics and icons  and manuscripts dating  back to the 6th century and there were no pictures allowed.  (The Vatican is the only site that has more ancient manuscripts) It is also the home of the burning bush as in THE burning bush that is mentioned in the Bible. The one Moses saw. As a plant, it is the only one of its kind in Egypt. It wasn't burning when I saw it thought. Just hanging. But it was still cool. There are all sorts of scientific dispute about it, but it hey, that's nothing new. We left for Cairo soon after and after almost 10 glorious hours on a bus, we finally arrived back in time to finish some Arabic homework we all neglected and pass out so we could go to classes on Sunday.

Fast foward the week (Happy Birthday Melanie!) and we rented a falluca (a Nile boat thing) for Thursday night. It was our friend's 21st birthday so we had a little party on the Nile and saw a crocodile (floating trash is not a cool explanation for it, so were going with croc :) We had dinner and drinks on the falluca then got lost, ended up at the wrong hotel, and finally went to a stationary boat on the Nile that had a cool nightclub on it. So its been a pretty legit month thus far. I've gotten some people ask if they celebrate Halloween in Egypt. Answer is no, but Americans do. So we will be doing something for Halloween. Any costume suggestions are welcome (please keep in mind location). So I hope you are all not freezing in America and enjoy the rest of your week!

Bye habibis!

"Its Not A Gay Bar, There Are Just A Lot Of Gay Guys..."

First, Happy 2nd Birthday to Princess Amelia :)

Second, I'm going to preface the gay bar story with typical behaviors and attires of young Egyptian men. Cause its just weird. First, their clothes. Some of the attire I've seen thus far on guys would fit in very well if they lived in Ptown or certain parts of San Fransisco. Im a personal fan of the jeans. They are usually blinged out and bedazzled skinny jeans, and I mean very skinny jeans. Sometimes they are faded, which usually just makes it all the better.  Ed Hardy shirts are also pretty popular, as are pinks and purples; I've even see some pretty sparkly shirts that I wouldn't be caught dead in. All this would be manageable if not for the fact that Egyptians are very touchy feely. The guys here will go around in big groups and they will all be holding hands, or will walk down the street with their arms around each others shoulders. Yet you will see very few men and women doing this in public. Okay, yes, I know its all a cultural thing, and they probably think we're weird too, but when you put the bedazzeled skinny jeans on with purple sparkly shirts and start holding hands, most people assume you are gay. But the thing is, being gay in Egypt is not exactly accepted. Its essentially forbidden in the Quran; actually, I had a sub in my Quran class this week and he compared being gay to watching the windows screen saver all day: its pointless and unproductive. So that's why we had a hard time believing we somehow ended up in a gay bar in Alexandria. Because who knew they even existed?

Last Thursday, ALI had a trip to Alexandria, which is a little over two hours from Cairo. It turns out that you don't have to be a student to go on these trips; as long as one person is somehow affiliated with AUC and/or ALI, you can sign up your whole family if you so choose. Which people so chose. The first family was awesome. It was a young couple with a 10 month old baby boy, who sat behind us. The mother was an American from Minnesota who was in the Army and had been studying Arabic for the past ten years. Her husband was Yemeni and an Arabic professor who helped us with homework on the bus when we weren't playing with his son. They were very nice. The second family was more like a circus. As far as we could figure out, one of the guys was an Indian diplomat and his mother, his wife and family, and his two sisters, and their two husbands and all the kids. Yep. It would have been alright except they let one of the sons, who was about seven, run around during all the tours and push people out of the way and generally be disrespectful and disruptive every time we went somewhere. There was a collective sigh of relief when they finally left.

Anyways, the first night we got there we had a free night so a bunch of us decieded to go out. Some other people from AUC were planning on coming up for the weekend so we were going to try to meet up with them. In the meantime, we decided to try to find a bar, because we had heard Alex had a few good ones. So we hopped in a cab and asked the driver to take us to a bar called Cope D'Or. He of course had no idea where it was, but he told us he knew exactly where it was. After stopping a few times for directions, we get out on this pretty sketchy street and he says follow me. We go into this whole in the wall place and there is maybe 4 people in there, all guys. There is no sign saying where we were and we were convinced that the driver took us to the first place he could find and say that it was Cope D'or, because how would we know? So the cabbie leaves us there and we decided we would at least get a drink and then profitably try to leave. Well, one turned into two and two turned into four and all of a sudden there are a ton of young dudes in this bar. In their blinged out skinny jeans and popped collar Lactose shirts and fro-hawks. We weren't paying that much attention to them because the bartender looked like an Egyptian version of Steve Carrell until a few guys sat next to our guy friend and after about five minutes they are stroking his back. We of course thought it was hysterical and we just sat there and watched all this. I was one of two girls in this bar so me and my friend went to find the bathroom. We came out and there was a guy standing there. We didn't know what he wanted so we told him that this was the girls bathroom (it was the only room at the top of a staircase and he was blocking the way down) He said (with a hand wave) I know, its just like, cleaner then the guys bathroom. Oooookay. Back downstairs our friend now had more than one guy touching him, but one of them leaned over and said "When I was 16, I had eyebrow like him. Now I'm 27 and I wax . You like?" And on and on it went, with the comments getting more and more inappropriate, but said with pretty poor English so it was hysterical. This is so far out of the norm for Egypt; we had no idea what we had gotten into, but we had a great time. We got home around 430am.

As we didn't go to Alex for a gay bar, we did do all the typical historical tours the next day, which was very cool. We went to the catacombs, which only a third are excavated. The rest are still underwater and under the city. You could actually see the water that was flooding them. There were a few sarcophagus' that we were able to see. We saw Pompeii's Pillar, which has nothing to do with Pompeii, but was built for Ptolemy. Its still mind boggling to try to fathom how these things were built using very primitive tools and whatnot. The last stop for the day was the Roman Theater, which apparently still has productions held there. The rest of the day was spent at the Automobile Club, which had a pool overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Afternoon at the beach; it was fantastic. That night was much more uneventful, unless you want to count when we asked a waiter for the bathroom. We actually asked the guy where the pigeon was; thankfully he knew what we meant. The word for bathroom and pigeon is very similar, the difference is how long you pronouce an 'a'. Arabic at its best :)

Saturday was our final day there, and we went to see the Library. The original one of course burned, but the built a new one, which was very cool.  An ariel view would show water surrounding it and an obelisk meant to represent the sun rising out of the water.  They were able to save some of the texts from the ancient library and we saw those and took a few illegal pictures. All in all it was a really fun trip. Its so easy to get to Alex from Cairo so it is definitely a place to go back to and spend more time at.

The weeks are as always just go by in a blur. Last night there was a sandstorm. That shit's pretty legit. They actually canceled a trip that was planned for this weekend for it. There were chairs and tables and umbrellas overturned and now there's piles of sand where there usually aren't piles of sand.  This coming week is a short one; we have Wednesday off, and ALI has a trip to Sinai and Sharm el Shek from Tuesday to Saturday. Maybe ill get to swim in the Red Sea. Who knows.

Happy Friday! Masalama :)

My Life According To Jeff Anderson

And this is why I love you.  Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrNV_5LhNE&feature=related

Watch it. Now!

With love :)