Delta to Delta

Citizen participation is a powerful thing - Iran record turnout, defiant rallies

2009-06-15T19:20:00.006+03:00

So, besides the record turnout for voting in the Iranian Presidential election, thousands are protesting what are widely considered to be fraudulent election results (normally the results are certified by the supreme leader--Currently Ayatollah Khomeini-- after three days, but this election was called a landslide for Ahmadinejad (the incumbent) after only three hours.)

Great crowdsourced coverage on Twitter #IranianElection
Great live blogging on The Huffington Post
Continuously updated images from PicFog

And Mashable's how-to guide so you can choose your own social media to track the Iranian Election and other current events in the future

Interestingly, CNN is getting repeatedly lambasted for its abysmal coverage of the rally. I wonder if it's because getting video out of Iran is so difficult, even under the best of conditions (only the state-run media have the equipment to send up a satellite beam), and according to reports the Internet has been variously blocked, tampered with, and shut off to prevent protesters from communicating and prevent journalists from getting the story out.

Favorite slogans: "WHERE'S MY VOTE?" And where indeed, when you read Juan Cole's analysis

Democracy. Wow. I attended a blogging conference in 2005 where someone gave me the book We Are Iran, which contained excerpts from Iranian bloggers intended as a counter-narrative to the image of Iran portrayed in the Western media; they definitely evidenced a desire for greater freedom and democracy -- had no idea this was coming so soon though. What an election.

Calling a spade a spade

2009-02-25T20:25:00.003+03:00

India's Muslims have defied popular jihadi "martyrdom" rhetoric, instead calling Mumbai terrorists by the Koranic term for "murderers," and refusing to bury them. Thomas Friedman discusses the situation in The New York Times here. He notes that by making this distinction within Islam, India's Muslims are creating an ideology that is the way forward for successful, peaceful democracy in the "Muslim world." Since India's Muslims are the second-largest Muslim group, this is no small thing.

Home!

2009-01-06T07:41:00.002+03:00

I am back in the United States, making a quick stop in Louisiana before heading to Washington, DC to begin working. It's so strange to be here, resuming my former life, knowing that all the while

There, drowsing in golden sunlight,
Loiters the slow, smooth Nile,
Through slender papyri, that cover
The wary crocodile.
The lotus lolls on the water,
And opens its heart of gold,
And over its broad leaf-pavement
Never a ripple is rolled.
The twilight breeze is too lazy
Those feathery palms to wave,
And yon little cloud is as motionless
As a stone above a grave.
- "Cleopatra" by William Wetmore Story

I would like to say a final thank you to the Monroe Rotary Club for this absolutely amazing opportunity. I am happy to report that in my new job I will be using my improved Arabic and increased understanding of the region to work for an NGO on their pro-democracy programs in the Middle East and North Africa region. And on that note, I would like to share a final editorial by renowned commentator and Middle East expert Robert Fisk. A bit harsh, but timely and insightful into the general political state in Egypt: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-rotten-state-of-egypt-is-too-powerless-and-corrupt-to-act-1220048.html

Happy New Year!

Adventures in Ethiopia, or Why Ex-pats Overwhelmingly Favored Obama

2008-11-23T17:06:00.007+03:00

I had some time off of work following the US Elections, and I took an amazing trip to see two of my college friends where they now work/live in Tanzania and in Ethiopia.

I was in Ethiopia at the end of my trip. I miscalculated how much time I had in Addis Ababa and found myself with an extra day. Having done and seen all I had set out to do and see there, I was a bit at a loss for how to spend the afternoon. A bit worn out from my travels, I was hankering for the mellow pastime of shisha smoking, a veritable national sport in Egypt.

Contrary to what many people assume, shisha is not "Hashish" or any other illegal drug -- it's flavored tobacco smoked out of a water pipe. Many people think it is healthier than smoking cigarettes because the smoke is very smooth -- even non-smokers tend to find it pleasant. It's actually about the equivalent of smoking cigarettes, health-wise, and so not a fantastic habit. It is a very Egyptian thing to do, however, and sitting in shisha cafes playing backgammon is one of the most effective and authentic ways to get to know everyday folks in Cairo.

"Smoking a shisha is nothing like smoking a cigarette," a 71-year-old man said as he looked up from his Hookah."Cigarettes are for nervous people, competitive people, people on the run," he said. "When you smoke shisha, you have time to think. It teaches you patience and tolerance, and gives you an appreciation of good company. Shisha smokers have a much more balanced approach to life than cigarette smokers."
-- shishapipe.net

So, when I wanted to relax and catch up on my journaling, a shisha cafe is the first place I thought of. However, since I was in Addis Ababa and not Cairo, I wasn't sure where to go. After asking a few kind strangers I wound up in what appeared to have been a private residence converted to what could only be termed a shisha "den." Unlike the "cafes" in Cairo, with little tables and chairs, or (in very upmarket or tourist places) plush sofas and pillows, this shisha place had cushions placed on the ground, lining the 4 walls of every room, piled with pillows. Rather than a few general shisha guys walking around and refilling coals like a US waiter refills glasses of water, in Ethiopia you get a dedicated attendant, kneeling by your pipe and fetching tea. And this was no highbrow establishment, either!

I should add that many patrons were not partaking of shisha, but rather the local drug of choice, Chat (known in Yemen as "Khat"). It's an herb that is chewed, giving an effect most often compared to caffeine. Clearly a foreigner, they gave me a room to myself (several were full of robicund locals) and enjoyed my sisha in peace (while reading the MOST AMAZING biography ever written, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt). After a while, a gentleman entered and ended up being a cambridge-educated international law professor. He was keen to talk and I wasn't, but we did exchange small pleasantries including a commentary on the election of Obama. Quivering with excitement, he had this to say,

I thank America. I thanks America, because you really showed us something big. America is the moral of the world, and they have taught us even more about democracy and what democracy really means. Really they do, they do live this democracy, when a black man can be elected President. Now when people discuss human rights, they can no longer point to slavery in America as a distraction and an excuse, or the 'oppression' of the blacks. America is really an example now.

It's amazing, given that this came from a fairly internationalized black man. It's also amazing to know that he isn't the first person who has told me that African countries point to America's history of slavery as a tactic to stymie pressure on their governments to curtail human rights abuse. So I guess we can think of this election, whatever your thoughts on the outcome, as one more diplomatic advantage for America just because the election of a black man happened. This apparently (more than all of the other things America has done) proves that we can practice what we preach.

This was further notable as the first conversation in which I didn't have to vehemently defend America in the face of raised eyebrows and angry accusations. Reflecting on that at dinner with friends last night, we all agreed that the following conversation has been common:

"Where are you from?"
"America"
"Bush-- not good, yes?"
**Ensuing discussion of American politics.**

People seem to find this completely ordinary, whereas the reverse almost NEVER occurs.
"Oh, are you Egyptian?"
"Yes."
"Mubarak -- pretty corrupt, no?"

That just wouldn't happen. And I really can't articulate why, except to say that my first thought when I think "Egyptian" is shisha, pyramids, camels. I guess that, when it comes to America, Bush/American foreign policy is the association nearest the surface for most foreigners -- especially most foreigners living here.

Tough Love for Israel?

2008-10-19T19:56:00.001+03:00

Tough Love for Israel? - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

I never blogged on our spring break trip to Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Jillian posted the article linked above to her Facebook profile, and I think it sums up the way we all felt after seeing the situation firsthand.

At least I know that I am totally with Kristof until the end--I've been there, I've crossed through the checkpoints. As it is now, it's degrading and annoying -- we were 3 American girls, and we still had to wait 6 hours on the way in --but if that's needed, then fine. But there must be a less restrained flow of tourists and commerce, however possible. The communities that have been walled off are literally sucked dry. No tourists, no income -- even Bethlehem, which should be teeming with pilgrims -- was virtually deserted. If people have nothing to lose, then what's to discourage becoming a suicide bomber?

It should also be said that all residents we met (and graffiti on the wall) considered America to be completely complicit in the building of the wall and equally responsible for their subsequent suffering, so this directly affects our interests as Americans. Our taxi driver was Palestinian and, pointing out the illegal settlement next to Bethlehem, addresses us, truly baffled, "Americans, why?"

Below are photos of the wall, known euphemistically as a "security fence." It's also worth noting that Israel has been building this structure further into the Palestinian territory than their actual border goes. The last one is especially telling:

In case you can't tell, that's a gate in the wall, an Israeli soldier, and an American one-dollar bill.

A real Delta to Delta connection!

2008-08-19T17:30:00.003+03:00

According to this article on CNN, Louisiana crawfish (referred to here as "crayfish"-- the author is clearly not one of our southern brethren) reached Egypt by accident and have been wreaking havoc on the river ecosystem ever since. A plague to fishermen, they are known locally as "the cockroach of the Nile." However, scientists from Ain Shams university in northern Cairo are on a campaign to teach the population how tasty, nutritious, and helpful the "crayfish" can be. In the fertile Nile, they reproduce at twice their normal rate - and they have no natural predators. Check out the video -- these mudbugs are ENORMOUS!

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/17/eco.crayfishegypt/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Earthquake!

2008-07-15T14:55:00.001+03:00

I woke up early this morning to do some homework before class, and as I was sitting in my bed squinting, sleepy-eyed, into the morning sun that was streaming through my sliding glass doors, I noticed that Cairo was refusing to stay in one place. I put on my glasses and peered out, and everything was still shaking a bit, and then I felt the whole tower (I live on the 20th floor) swaying. For a moment, I thought perhaps it was the people who live above us moving around in unison, as we have concluded through highly scientific comparative analyses of the way they walk that at least two of them are quite large. But no, I thought, that wouldn't make the whole building sway--would it?

It wasn't until I peered into my open closet and saw all the clothes on hangers swaying in unison in the reverse direction of the rest of the building that we really were having an earthquake. My internet is being spotty so I haven't been able to identify a news source for confirmation, but my teacher confirmed it at school today. She told me that it was announced on the radio but unable to be covered in print due to a government ba on printing articles about earthquakes. Apparently after the disastrous earthquake in 1992 much of the population slept outside, filling the streets with pallets and bodies and bringing all traffic to a standstill as well as causing safety and sanitation problems. Afraid of a repeat, the government forbade covering earthquakes in the media -- or so my teacher said.

Insha'allah!

2008-06-22T10:55:00.002+03:00

You can't go 10 minutes in Cairo without hearing the phrase "Insha'allah" or "God-willing." (It literally means "if it is the will of God"). If you mention anything in the future, or with an uncertain outcome, Insha'allah better trail that answer or you run the risk of jinxing yourself, a bit like refusing to knock on wood.

This article from the International Herald Tribune writes about the ubiquitous word and its cultural significance. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/19/africa/20inshallah.php?page=1

My favorite excerpts are:

Egyptians have always been religious, from Pharaonic times to the present. Any guidebook to Egypt alerts tourists to Egyptians' frequent use of inshallah in discussing future events, a signal of their deep faith and belief that all events occur, or don't occur, at God's will. "See you tomorrow," is almost always followed by a smile and, "inshallah."
But there has been inshallah creep, to the extreme. It is now attached to the answer for any question, past, present and future. What's your name, for example, might be answered, "Muhammad, inshallah."

"I say to them, 'You are already Muhammad or you are going to be Muhammad?' " said Attiat el-Abnoudy, a documentary filmmaker in Cairo.
... (The article goes on to explain the rising importance of religious symbols to both the pious and the secularized people, as Islam becomes ever-more the cornerstone of cultural identity)...
But it is not just about faith in the celestial, that has people invoking God. It is also, at least for some, a lack of faith in the earthbound rulers who run the place. People here are tired — of the rising prices and the eroding wages, of the traffic, of the corruption, of the sense that it is every man for himself.

"In this place, when something works, or you want something to work, you thank God, because it's certainly not the government who is going to help you," said Sherif Issa, 48, a taxi driver in Cairo with a nicotine-stained mustache and a fair size belly. "It's because everything is going in the wrong direction — who can we look up to except God?"

The Vagina Monologues--for Egypt

2008-06-09T14:41:00.000+03:00

The Christian Science Monitor recently spotlighted a project put on by a club at AUC to highlight some of the challenges women in Egypt face. Over the past two years, The Bussy Project

"has collected stories from Egyptian women about some of the country's most taboo topics, including street harassment, sexual abuse, divorce, female circumcision, and the confusion that arises in a culture that discourages male-female interaction but makes women's primary social responsibilities marriage and childbearing."

I have mentioned street harassment in previous postings. It is virtually impossible to walk anywhere without having men mumble comments into your ear as you walk past or shout things at you from the other side of the street. These range from "Wow! Wow! Wow! Niiiice!""and "You come with me? I give you 100 pound." I have been told by native speakers that some of the Arabic comments are quite a bit dirtier--I suppose that is one instance in which the language barrier is quite welcome.

I know that foreign women are subject to a bit more harassment than average as we don't blend in and therefore attract more attention, but this problem is by no means limited to ex-pats. However, I was surprised to see it listed here as most Egyptians pretend that it does not exist, or that wearing a head-scarf proves your respectability and eliminates the harrasment. This is not the case, and I'm impressed that this project calls a spade a spade in the face of a lot of cultural pressure to ignore the situation or blame women for creating the problem by being sexually tempting.

The article states:

Project participants say they are tired of women's issues being ignored or pushed aside in Egypt, but are also upset at the way that many in the West think about Arab and Muslim women.

"I'm passive, weak, uneducated, veiled from head to toe, one of his four wives, work in the kitchen all day," says "Muslim Woman." "That's what you think, right?"

"My liberation won't come from the one who has oppressed me – bringing me democracy?" retorts her companion on the stage. "You think you're really gonna send Condi to tell me how to be free?"

While the directors cite The Vagina Monologues as their inspiration, the use of character names like "Muslim Woman" reminds me a lot of the concept behind the Broadway show Avenue Q, with it's confrontation of stereotypes in character names like "Christmas Eve" and "Princeton," and songs with titles like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."

Most importantly, though, in a country where 44 percent of the women are illiterate and 90 percent of married women have experienced some form of female circumcision/genital mutilation, feminists still have a lot of progress to make. It's good to see them finding a voice, and great to see international coverage of that fact.

The original article is here.

Sandstorm!

2008-06-08T22:39:00.003+03:00

We are having a sandstorm! I would like to post a picture of it but you can't really see anything because it is at night. The wind is blowing so hard that it blew the door of Sarah's bedroom open and wind came gusting through the house, producing a high-pitched screaming through all the cracks--it's still whistling eerily through all the windows. The entire apartment is shaking and vibrating and we keep hearing things knock around outside. Visibility is terrible--normally I can see almost to the edge of Cairo, but today I can barely see across the Nile, which is only about 200 meters from our building!

If it is still going on in the morning, which I think is unlikely (although I am not intimately familiar with sandstorms) I will take a photo!

Interesting slant on the Lebanese peace deal

2008-06-06T11:57:00.009+03:00

When we were in Lebanon over spring break, the country was clearly not at ease. The downtown area was breathtakingly beautiful--but disconcertingly deserted because of Hezbollah protests outside of the nearby Parliament buildings. The protests had become merely empty tents as they had been going on for 16 months, and the actual people had returned to their lives. The country had been without a president for some time, and when the next one would be elected was unclear.

The recent wave of violence began about one week after we returned to Egypt. No one could have predicted if, or when, it would occur; hence the country's anxiety for the past 16 months. The political standoff was resolved by a recent agreement in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

A continuing bone of contention between Hezbollah, which began as a resistance organization/militia during the civil war, and the Lebanese government is Hezbollah's continued refusal to disarm despite the conclusion of the civil war in 1990.

The stipulations of the Doha agreement underscore just how tightly the Lebanese government's hands are tied when it comes to controlling Hezbollah, the largest Shiite Muslim political party. Hezbollah has been given the power to veto acts that would even suggest that they disarm, among other concessions.

Hezbollah (see photo of flag) riles against its classification as "terrorist group" by the US, Australian, and UK governments (though, interestingly, not by the European Union), claiming itself to be a legitimate political party. But they will never be legitimate, and Lebanon will continue hurting from their influence, for as long as they use violence as a trump card for enforcing their agenda, even when some policies are fairly and democratically thwarted through an accountable political process.

For a sign of the way US global influence is eroding, skim this article from Lebanon's Daily Star on the peace deal and its lament for Egypt's declining status--which it credits directly to Egypt's close ties to the US.

The discouragingly visionary word of the day

2008-06-05T17:31:00.003+03:00

My Gmail has a small bar at the top that shows headlines and other trivia. Occasionally it displays a "Word of the Day." Today's word:

Potemkin village | An impressive facade or display that hides an undesirable fact or state; a false front.

As in:

Unless U.S. imperial overstretch is acknowledged and corrected, the United States may someday soon find that it has become a Potemkin village superpower -- with a facade of military strength concealing a core of economic weakness.
-- Christopher Layne
"Why the Gulf War Was Not in the National Interest"
The Atlantic, July 1991

If only we learned from the past.

On the Bright Side

2008-05-26T16:19:00.002+03:00

I recently affirmed that I won't be able to return to Princeton for Reunions, a huge celebratory weekend when all alumni classes hold a reunion on campus at the same time. While the multiples of 5 are still the "biggest" reunions, every class holds a well-attended reunion every year--it's one of the best things about being a Princeton alumnus. (Note to inquiring minds: Rotary asks its scholars not to go home during the scholarship period; plus, the plane ticket alone would take a substantial chunk of the money I'm planning to use for the remainder of my stay. Mish momken, not possible, as we say in Arabic.)

Last week, I was consoling myself about my imminent absence by the fact that I had gained roughly in the neighborhood of 10 pounds due to my inability to cook for myself and the nullibicity of the concepts of "diet" "light" "low-fat," etc. in Egypt. In fact, the motto here is more like: If the dish is already sweet, add 1 tablespoon sugar; if it's not sweet, add a cup. (For a while I was thrilled to discover something called "Frapaccino Light" at a cafe and got one every day...until I realized that it's opposite was "Frapaccino Strong" and I was just getting a low-caffeine version of the beverage.)

However, I was quite pleased to note today that I have probably lost about 5 of those pounds. Unfortunately that is because I have had some nasty combination of food poisoning and the flu for the past 5 days and today is the first day I've been able to retain nourishment. Every cloud has a silver lining though, right?

Teetotaling at the Hyatt

2008-05-25T07:42:00.003+03:00

...and tipsy fish in the Nile?

This article offers a glimpse into some of the Islamic-Western tensions at play in many of Egypt's political decisions and social fabric. To really understand the significance of this decision, you need to know that most Cairenes who can afford to do so socialize--at least some of the time--in hotel bars and restaurants. So it isn't just Western tourists who are affected--it's also the (mostly upper-class and Westernized) Cairenes who have a culture of going out and socializing in ways similar to those in the United States.

Particularly important is the way conservative (some might say "Fundamentalist" Islam is spread by wealthy Saudi Arabians whose money gives them undue influence in other countries--it works the same way in Southeast Asia (where fundamentalist Islam is growing the fastest) because Saudis fund schools there where there might otherwise be none, and use them as ways to convert/expose the public to their radical (though rapidly becoming mainstream) version of Islam.

The (succinct) article is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7415495.stm

Otherwise, I'm taking spring final exams and preparing to move out of the dorm and into my new apartment!

Egypt moments

2008-05-10T03:09:00.004+03:00

Tonight, we decided to be good students and do homework...so we decided to order in food, because going out to dinner takes a lot of time (and we can't cook because our dorms don't have kitchens). Jillian called McDonald's.

Jillian: I'd like a chicken sandwich
McD: I'm sorry, chicken sandwich finished
Jillian: You don't have chicken sandwiches?
McD: No not tonight, only double chicken sandwich.
Jillian: Isn't a double chicken sandwich just two chicken sandwiches together?
McD: Yes.
Jillian: So can you just make it with one chicken instead of two?
McD: I'm sorry, this is not possible.
Jillian: But I just want a chicken sandwich.
McD: Chicken sandwich not available.
Jillian: Ok, I'll have the double chicken sandwich.
McD: You are welcome to McDonalds.

My friend Alex wanted to see a movie recommended to him by a friend. He called the cinema to find out what times the movie was playing. They told him it was playing that night at 9:00 and 10:30, but when he arrived at the cinema to purchase tickets, they told him that it hadn't been showing for a week!

We were headed to the British club for an ex-pat meet and greet. We knew that the British club was about 5 minutes away in Mohandiseen, but we didn't know its exact location. We asked a taxi driver whether he knew the location of the British club; he said yes, so we got in. After 20 minutes of driving around, he turned around to inform us that the British Club is not, in fact, in Mohandiseen, and that he was very sorry but he did not know where it was.

Tonight I was having shisha at a cafe with Alex, and I needed new coals, so I said "Excuse me" in Arabic to a man inside the cafe. He told me that he did not deal with Americans and that we were not welcome here. Alex asked him why, and he said "Because they are devils!" I am pretty sure, though, that he was wearing Nike shoes and a polo shirt. We weren't really sure how to respond since we had been sitting ther efor a while and would have needed to pay before walking off, so we just asked someone else and it wasn't an issue. Still, though, that is the most blatant anti-Americanism I've run into yet. (NB: That is atypical...most Egyptians, while usually game for a good round of Bush-bashing, are very friendly to Americans.)

In America, people find a way to trace most problems to the usual scapegoats like the Catholic church. Here, it is "The Jew" and "The Bush." A man who we met during our first two weeks told us over the course of our dinner conversation that "Israel and the Jews orchestrated 9/11. They want to reflect on the Muslims badness. I tell you, not a single Jewish person died in 9/11. They knew! They planned it!" I tried to tell him that you can't throw a penny in the financial district without hitting a Jewish person, but he was unconvinced.

We noted with excitement on the bus home from school that a Starbucks is opening in our neighborhood soon (although probably not soon enough for us to enjoy it--much to the benefit of our pocketbooks and waistlines.) One of our Egyptian friends on the bus exclaimed "No! You should never go to Starbucks!" Puzzled, we asked why. "It is owned by the Jews! It is from Israel!" I don't think she found Jillian's explanation that it originated in Seattle persuasive!

Funny things like this happen all the time. The perfume salesman doesn't carry my brand "but might if I come back next week." The cell phone store doesn't sell pink phones but "will try to get one if I come back tomorrow." They mean it, too! In a lot of places if they don't have what you're looking for, all you need to do is ask and then wait a day. And you can get everything, I mean everything delivered.

Spring Break

2008-04-26T01:07:00.004+03:00

We're on Spring Break. I will write more details later, as we have thus far been to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and are now in Israel before making our way back to Cairo. All is well here in Jerusalem. We just had the most interesting shisha chat with three Palestinians who are also Israeli citizens. Did you know that Jewish and Palestinian children, even if they are all Israeli, still go to separate public schools? Possibly changing this policy would do wonders for the future of the country...

More to come when I am back at home with my own internet and not borrowing wi-fi here and there from various hostels and kind strangers.

Two articles from the NY Times

2008-04-14T17:31:00.003+03:00

featuring Cairo. One on the political situation and the significance of the recent riots (not only are the people afraid of the government...these days the government is also afraid of the people)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html

And an article about the wonderful absurdity of living in Cairo, and the way that this city, as I have written before, manages improbably to function in spite of itself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/world/middleeast/14cairo.html

I have somehow, through my postings, made my father doubt whether he wants to vist Egypt. I have made a note to myself to write more about all the things that I love in this city. I suppose, just like a newspaper, the annoying and disturbing seem more worthy of comment than "things still good."

While, in similar fashion, neither of these articles is a particularly glowing review of Cairo, both, I think, demonstrate the triumphantly dogged pragmatism of Cairenes. Cairo is loud, and dirty, and vexing in many ways, but this is what makes it such a real place to spend time. To live here is to live a gloriously unsterile existence, where one is confronted by beggars and crippled people and trash and weddings and funerals and barbers and car accidents and noise and all other components of human existence every minute of every day. There is no fluid infrastructure to sweep the unpalatable, the unsanitary, the raucous, out of the way.

This is precisely why ex-pats can come from England and America and fall in love with something that seems, in its differentness, to be less desirable--to be almost unliveable. When you have been confronted by life in all its terrible, wonderful, difficult, thrilling realness, the street-cleaned suburbs of America start to seem a snow globe by comparison. These very difficulties, and the lifestyle and worldview that Egyptians have formed in response, are what give Cairo its ability to indelibly impact all those who have the intrepid lucidity to come.

The only places in Egypt that aren't crowded

2008-04-09T23:00:00.000+03:00

are the polls. Local elections were held yesterday, but almost no one bothers to vote in a country that has elected the same president in a landslide victory for over 25 years.

A friend who works at the US Embassy went to several polling sites to "observe." Observers were not allowed into many of the sites, but were still able to see NDP (the ruling "National Democratic Party") workers literally "cramming" the ballot boxes.

The NDP hands voters a card that allows them to match the faces of candidates with a symbol to represent them so that persons who can't read can still vote. Then people show a handwritten ID card, check the symbols they wish to support, and place their ballots in a central collection box.

The whole thing is really a ridiculous farce, as the NDP announced before the voting occurred that they had received 70% of the votes. The Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the elections, and my observing friend said that she only saw 3 actual people cast ballots all day. Below is a photo of an elections worker; you can see that it is deserted, and in the foreground you can see the empty glass ballot box:

This is an excellent article that recaps all of the recent unrest both within Cairo and in the textile factories outside of it, and gives the shortest accurate summary that I have seen of the political situation: An excerpt:

Thousands of people, including factory workers, junior office clerks, young people skipping school and political activists, marched through the streets of Mahalla al-Kobra on Sunday evening. Their numbers included those who had always been poor, and those who had watched the rising cost of living in Egypt eat into their modest prosperity.

They wanted to protest against the rising price of bread and demand an increase in their salaries. However hundreds of uniformed policemen and thugs in civilian clothes put paid to the dream of a peaceful protest. Police used tear gas and there were reports of shots being fired. The demonstrators responded by throwing bricks. Some took advantage of the chaos to carry out looting -- two schools went up in flames and computers and air-conditioning units were stolen.

The death toll at the end was at least two people, who were killed when a tear-gas grenade exploded next to them. Around 80 demonstrators were injured, some of them seriously, and police made around 150 arrests.

The street battle in Mahalla al-Kobra, located one and a half hours by car from Cairo, on Sunday evening might be considered normal in other parts of the Middle East. However such scenes are rare in the tightly run regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The government well remembers the bloody bread riots in the 1970s. Then, too, crowds gathered because food prices were rocketing. Hundreds of people died in the unrest. (Emphasis added).

It has been business as usual around Cairo, though, and you would never know that anything is happening elsewhere in the country.

Not much occurred

2008-04-08T20:35:00.006+03:00

Aside from a small gathering that quickly dispersed under police pressure in the morning, the hoopla was largely for naught. The only things gathering in Midan Tahrir around noon on Sunday were scores of Egyptian policemen, hopeful foreign would-be journalists, and windy swirls of warm amber khamseen dust.

Interested parties can read more about the strike in the links that follow. The first details what has actually been quite an issue up north, in the Nile Delta, whereas the latter two focus on different strikes occurring now in Cairo:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6333251.stm
http://libcom.org/news/university-strike-egypt-24032008
http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1161673〈=EN

It was a nice excuse for staying home, it seems, as almost none of the Egyptian students came to school. Traffic was also noticably lighter, as the fifteen to forty-five minute ride to school took me only seven.

Here is a picture of AUC's main administrative building from across Midan Tahrir. You can see a Metro sign and the typically heavy traffic and smoggy air. Rumor has it that just breathing in Cairo has the same ill effects as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Pregnant with anticipation...

2008-04-06T09:35:00.003+03:00

I'm not sure if the air is actually abuzz with tension or if it just seems that way because I live in a dorm full of 80 girls, making it easy for us to run from room to room and across the lobby to pass on the latest tidbit or repeat the same story yet again. The top of the list today: today's expected strike in Cairo.

Planned for today is what I have been told will be the largest organized strike in Egypt, ever. Since I arrived at the end of January, the price of food has been steadily increasing. There have been outbreaks of violence in government bread lines because it is so profitable to resell flour (due to the national shortage of wheat) that bakeries often sell what should be feeding Egypt's poor on the black market, meaning that there's usually not enough for those who aren't in the front of the lines.

From what I can gather, today's strike began with the doctors, who are public sector employees in Egypt, and who generally earn around 400 to 700 pounds per month, which is between $80 and $140. Some prices for comparison:

Basket of bread: 3-5 pounds
Can of Coca-Cola: 6 pounds
Taxi ride across Cairo: 25 pounds
Stella, the standard Egyptian Beer: 20-25 pounds per bottle
A pair of ladies' boots: 110 pounds
Cup of coffee: 10 pounds

The primary complaint is not just that salaries are absurdly low--although they are--but rather that the public sector salaries have not been increased despite the government having raised food prices. (Why the price of food, and the price of other neccessities, like cooking oil, has been skyrocketing is a whole other can of worms that has to do with Egypt selling essentials to Israel despite the domestic shortage because it's more profitable for the government).

The strike began with doctors, and now includes the professors at Cairo University (and other public universities), transit workers (the Metro is supposed to be closed) and other public authorities. People have been encouraged not to do anything that the government generally profits from--including using mobile phones (many of the revenues go to state-owned Mobinil).

The dorm has generally been in a tizzy because we aren't sure whether to go to class. While AUC is not participating in the strike, many individual professors have cancelled classes in solidarity and others have said they will not count students absent today if they skip for moral or safety reasons. I say safety reasons because the demonstration and main strike is expected to occur in front of the largest government building--the behemoth Mugamma--in the largest downtown square--Midan Tahrir ("Liberation"). AUC's campus is across the street.

AUC is generally very concerned about our safety. There are at least 6 security guards at our dorm entrance at any given time, we must fill out forms informing them of our whereabouts at all times, etc. We received e-mails from AUC letting us know that school will be open as usual on Sunday, and the school-sponsored shuttle that runs between campus and our dorm is still operating, so it's quite likely that all the worry is unnecessary. Jillian has to give a presentation today and I have to meet with the ALI director, so both of us are obliged to go. Jillian's close friend, who is Egyptian, said he expected things to be peaceful because the demonstration was organized by white-collar employees and is registered with the authorities, but we will nevertheless heed his advice: "Don't get curious." I will let you know what, if anything, goes down.

A regular day

2008-03-12T00:39:00.002+03:00

I haven't been posting very often because I want to describe everything in vivid detail, and that takes time, which I am finding to be in short supply in between taking advantage of opportunities to go and do things and making a valiant effort to be a diligent student. I'll try to at least keep a log of what is going on from now on, even if I have to leave out some of the color and anecdotes...I'm also going to be going back and posting about things that ocurred in the past, so those posts will have old dates and you'll have to scroll back through past postings to find them, so keep an eye out for that.

This past weekend we were invited by Krissy, a friend from the dorm who is dating an Egyptian (and has been for 4 years) to go with them and some of her boyfriend's friends to stay in a villa in Ain Sukhna, a resort town on the Red Sea. It is just beginning to get warm enough for that here (it was in the 80s for the first time this week) and we were eager to get tan...we are all winter-pale, particularly compared to most of the Egyptians walking around, who are naturally a lovely olive shade. We were there Thursday and all day Friday, and we spent Friday evening singing and playing the guitar on the beach...it's funny the songs that the Egyptians knew--they knew all the words to "Hotel California," but no one had ever heard of "Brown-Eyed Girl."

Nothing in particular happened today...I went to class all morning, then sat in the school courtyard and had some tea and talked to some of my friends, including some who came over to AUC to visit although they are currently enrolled at ILI, another language school in Mohandiseen. There is a fair amount of crossover between the schools as ILI is offered on month-long terms and is cheaper, which is more amenable to many students for various personal reasons. After that break, I met Tanisha at the dorm and we went to Beano's (which is kind of like Starbucks) and ate dinner and did homework for 5 hours.

Some girls from my class are having a potluck dinner at their apartment on Friday. Class is relaxed, but most of the chatting that we do is in Arabic about topics pertinent to our current vocabulary as part of practice exercises, so it's not too terribly conducive to getting to know people beyond a superficial level. We do a fair amount of mingling in the courtyard, but the girls in my class were already friends with each other because they had class together last semester, and I had my own friends whom I met in the dorm in the week or so before class started and who were new students like me, so me and my classmates haven't really had a reason to do too much bonding (except to commiserate over the volume of new vocaublary that we are assigned). They seem like very fun, normal girls, and I'm looking forward to spending some time with them outside of class.

I am now about to do my final worksheet for the evening, read a chapter of The Other Boleyn Girl, and call it a night.

And that's an average day.

Morning traffic in Nuweiba, a small town on the Red Sea

2008-03-03T03:17:00.002+03:00

They let the goats out every morning to clean the city by eating the trash, and then a real-live goatherd calls them back to where they belong with a horn!

Lawrence Wright, Author of The Looming Tower

2008-02-26T22:15:00.006+03:00

Today after our Listening class (I take five Arabic classes: Grammar, Writing, Media, Speaking, and Listening) a friend and I were lamenting the 5 minute presentations we are supposed to give tomorrow. I seriously doubt my ability to deliver a 5-minute monologue entirely in Arabic (or at least one that is mildly coherent), but I suppose this is how one learns. They say the intermediate stage is the hardest stage in learning any language, right?

Anywho, she mentioned that Lawrence Wright was coming to speak on campus later that afternoon, so instead of heading home to start figuring out wtf I could say for 5 whole minutes, we decided to head to a cafe in an alley about two blocks from school to meet some friends and have shisha and mango juice.

A few games of backgammon later, we ended up in Oriental Hall, the largest (or at least the nicest) lecture hall on AUC's main campus. The place filled quickly, and Wright (who taught ESL at AUC for two years to fulfill his "conscientious objector" service during the Vietnam War) proceeded to lecture about what I understood to be roughly the same content as his New York Times bestselling book.

Perhaps trying to condense a book into a lecture was his problem. The narrative history that Wright wove together was definitely interesting. Unfortunately, the Q&A section at the end concluded before I was able to ask him about his assertion that "The War on Terror had ended prior to the beginning of the war in Iraq." Wright proceeded to explain Al-Qaeda's reorganization from a vertical business model to a horizontal cell model, which he then credited as the reason for its ability to continue to grow and operate despite initial US/coalition successes in Afghanistan. The Iraq connection was never established or mentioned again. I wondered how the present need for US troops in Afghanistan and the apparently insurmountable lawlessness that continues to allow the northern tribal areas of Pakistan to be a safe haven and training ground for terrorists jived with his theory that the War on Terror was over prior to Iraq. I don't think the situation in Iraq has done much to prevent terrorism, but how Al-Qaeda owes its continued existence to the Iraq War remained unclear.

Additionally, I had serious doubts about some of his facts, such as that Al-Qaeda, at 20 years old, is the second-oldest terrorist organization remaining in existence--the other being the IRA. What about Hezbollah and FARC? Moreover, I found his claim that "There are more Muslims than Catholics in northern Europe and more Muslims than Protestants in southern Europe" equally objectionable. Those things may be true, but stated as facts to show how overrun European nations are becoming with foreigners (so much so that they are losing their sense of national identity) they are misleading. Southern Europe is predominantly Catholic and northern Europe is predominantly Protestant--not the other way around-- so it isn't all that shocking that Muslims aren't the smallest religious minority in those places, which is really all that those statements mean.

To his credit, Wright handled himself well under pretty heated questions after the lecture, and maintained his position that most terrorists are motivated by a variety of sociological and political causes that are not really the fault of the USA even in front of his Egyptian audience. His presentation was captivating, but could have been stronger if he had omitted the things that cast doubt on his credibility. However, if nothing else, it was a thought-provoking way to spend the afternoon.

Masr! Masr! Masr!

2008-02-12T19:15:00.004+03:00

While walking from a party to a friend's apartment last weekend, we happened upon a huge gathering of people dancing in the streets and shouting. Cars everywhere were honking in the pattern: beep (pause) beep (pause) beep beep beep. I started to get nervous when people began setting things on fire, and thought for sure we were about to witness a riot, but it turns out that everyone was just celebrating Egypt's unexpected victory in the quarterfinals of the African Cup of Nations. Check it out:

For whatever reason, the United States hasn't gotten on board the global soccer obsession. Someone told me that it is because soccer is played in two continuous halves without ever stopping the clock, so it hasn't caught on with the big networks because they can't have as many commercial breaks. Nevertheless, for most of the rest of the world, soccer is a BIG DEAL. Two examples: (1) during the World Cup last summer, Cote D'Ivoire temporarily suspended their civil war so people could watch the games, and (2) according to a recent article in the New York Times, universal support for the Iraqi national team has made headway in bridging sectarian enmity in the country.

While I can't tell you the name of a single player on the USA national team, I couldn't help but get caught up in the enthusiasm that absolutely permeates every corner of Cairo for Team Egypt. People tape Egyptian flags to everything, wear them around, and cover their cars with black, white and read banners--all to demonstrate their support for the team.

Having seen the ruckus the victory on the quarterfinals caused (see video above), you can bet we--me, Jillian (my roommate), Rafaela, and Tanisha--decided to do it up big time for the finals. We bought flags the night before the game (after bargaining down the price since we wanted to get four at once) and as we walked home with them people yelled "Egypt!" and "Misr!" (which is the Egyptian word for Egypt) at us from stores and car windows, while cars greeted us with the celebratory pattern of honks.

One of our dorm mates is a really fun Egyptian girl named Dina, and she offered to take us to watch the game at a place where locals go to watch games (as opposed to a hotel bar or somewhere similarly upscale, which is where most expats hang out but would be too pricey for the average Egyptian.) We eagerly accepted and joined her downtown, where many local coffee shops and small shisha bars had moved all of their furniture outdoors into the alley. The place was packed with people--we had to sit on tables or stand--and we watched the game from the crowded alley on an outdoor projection screen. For this the store owner charged us 3 Egyptian pounds--the equivalent of about 75 cents--well worth being able to chant "Masr" with a rowdy Egyptian mob. Two of our upper-class Egyptian friends, Omar and Ahmed, met us downtown and marveled that we were showing them around Egypt - having spent all of their time with the upper crust, they had never before seen how the average Egyptian watched a game.

For a long time the game was zero to zero. Halfway through the chicken shwarma sandwich that I purchased from the stand around the corner at half time, Egypt scored. The bedlam that ensued gave a whole new meaning to the concept of a crowd "erupting." Not only did a roar and the sound of drums reverberate through the alley, but people were shooting fireworks and lighting hairspray (and other things of unknown identity) on fire everywhere.

When the game ended and Egypt won, the energy went through the roof. It really felt like the population of the city had been on hold watching the game and then turned out into the streets simultaneously. People were blasting plumes of hairspray ignited with cigarette lighters into the air, beating drums, and chanting "misr!" It was completely amazing. Tanisha noted that the only time we had ever seen anything like it are when American news plays clips of crowds cheering, shouting, and dancing after something like the American Embassy is bombed--but that's misleading, because it appears that this happens all the time!

After the game the 4 of us went with Omar and Ahmed to an underpass in Heliopolis (their neighborhood in Cairo) where crowds often gather on occasions such as this. We watched the pulsating throng from the slightly less crowded street above until Omar and Ahmed got nervous about the number of guys who had stopped chanting cheers and gathered around to take our picture instead. I am sure that four obviously American girls with Egyptian flags was an unusual sight; however, due to the prevalence of verbal harassment and unwanted touching on the Egyptian streets, staying any longer wouldn't have been prudent. We gave our flags a final wave and headed to a nearby cafe for some fresh mango juice. It was a thoroughly memorable night.

Settled In

2008-02-10T23:52:00.002+03:00

My first two weeks in Egypt have been so full of things to do that I've hardly had a chance to look around and be fully cognizant of the fact that I am in Egypt, the land of King Tut and mummies and oases and hieroglyphics.

My flight landed at 3:00 in the morning, and even at that odd hour the airport was crammed full of people. I had to walk through a gauntlet of them in order to make it past baggage claim, and I imagined as I walked through the rows of jostling, curious faces craning their necks for a glimpse of the disembarking passengers that this must be something like what it would be like to be a celebrity on the red carpet.

School registration happened, slowly and inefficiently (in true Egyptian fashion), over the course of several days. In order to obtain my student visa, for example, I had to:

(1) go to registration and obtain instruction sheet
(2) go to the Business Support office to see if the forms that I sent in to the New York office had actually been passed along to the office here in Cairo
(3) I then had to leave my passport for a few days
(4 )then come pick it up
(5) take additional form to the Visa Services office to have someone sign and verify that I am registered for class
(6) take said form to a third office for verification that I have paid
(7) return all red tape to Business Support Office
(8) wait for visa ~ 2 weeks
(9) go pick it up.

Step 9 is yet to be completed. But I must say it seemed like it would have been simpler for everyone if the necessary people had come to the registration fair and sat at the tables the students had to circle around anyway rather then requiring several hundred students to run the Indy 500 around the campus!

Nonetheless, like the rest of this wonderfully Eastern and Western city, bursting at the seams with activity and relentlessly developing even amidst rubble and general decay, the system somehow manages to function in spite of itself.

Alive and well

2008-01-25T06:42:00.000+03:00

I know you were all on pins and needles to hear that. I made it without any trouble (if you don't count the fact that the drivers are insane. When I reached for the seatbelt and realized there was no clasp, the driver said "no problem"--the first of many times I will hear that phrase, I am sure, since "no problem" and "okay" are the two English phrases everyone knows and uses abundantly, whether or not they apply). As we ran yet another red light while simultaneously crossing several lanes of traffic, I sort of felt like it was a problem, but I guess my opinion didn't count.

Going to bed to the sound of the morning call to prayer from the ubiquitous minarets...

Ahsfar ila Misr!

2008-01-22T08:20:00.000+03:00

I depart tomorrow, and after a short stay in Amsterdam (9 hours in the airport, to be exact) will arrive in Cairo in the wee hours of the morning on January 25th. American University in Cairo (AUC) has helpfully arranged for a representative and car to meet me there so that all goes smoothly, inshallah.

Along with saying goodbye, changing my cell phone plan, and concluding my job at CenturyTel (see photo), my preparations for leaving have included brushing up on a little Arabic. When I said my farewell words to the Monroe Rotary Club, I mentioned that the origin of the word "Algebra" is the Arabic word for Mathematics, al-jabr. Another common English word originates in Arabic. The title of this post means "I travel to Egypt!" The root of the word for travel, safara, is s-f-r, which is where we get the word "safari." So now you know two loan words from Arabic: algebra and safari.

I can't believe I am actually, finally going--I will be sure to post upon arrival as soon as I am able!

Housing details coming together...

2007-12-31T08:19:00.000+03:00

I received an e-mail from AUC today confirming their receipt of my housing deposit. I was hoping to be placed in the largest co-ed residence near campus (Zamalek), partly because I get the sense that it is the "main" residence, and partly because it has a gym. However, I have been placed in the Kanzy Residence instead.

I suppose Kanzy might have some perks--it used to be a hotel, so an in-room refrigerator is included. It's also in a different neighborhood--Dokki--which sounds a little more happening than Zamalek. However, that might end up being a con, as I have heard that retreating into Zamalek's quiet, embassy-laden bubble can be a pleasant reprieve from the total sensory overload that is Cairo. I guess we'll see; I'm hesitant to make any changes without checking things out for myself. I'm also afraid to mess with fate! I ended up in a spacious apartment with great roommates by just letting the dice fall when I went to Morocco.

A girl who spent the fall doing exactly what I'll be doing (intensive Arabic study at the Arabic Language Institute) and living at the Kanzy residence describes its '70s decor here.

Orange shag carpet, here I come!

Monroe Rotary Meeting

2007-08-03T22:19:00.000+03:00

On August 18, I will be joining Monroe's Rotarians for their weekly meeting so that we can get to know each other a little better and talk about my upcoming trip to Egypt. I'm excited to meet the people who are making it possible for me to go!

A photo!!

2007-03-11T11:34:00.000+03:00

This is a test. This is a photo of me and some friends during the first week of our senior year at Princeton University.

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2006-11-06T11:44:00.001+03:00

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