On the Bright Side

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

...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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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!