My program in Egypt is scheduled to end in about ten days. I have decided that I will travel to Israel during my last days here. I plan to visit friends that I made during my study abroad program two years ago and to network and explore potential career options related to Arab-Israeli business relationships, sustainable energy, and/or venture capital. In the meantime, I have much to tell about Egypt since my last posting! Rather than writing a long description of my adventures I have decided to illustrate some of my experiences in Egypt with the pictures and captions below.


I have included this map mostly for reference since some of the photos below are taken outside of Cairo.














This meat hangs in front of one of the two butcher shops on our walk to class each day. Some students find it unbearable, but I think it is healthy to see where our food comes from. I must say that the smell walking past the butcher shop is very distinct. The smell of the meat baking in the 100 degree sun isn’t necessarily even foul – just distinct.











Here is our Arabic teacher, Muse (Moses in English), with one of our fellow classmates in a headlock. Abuse of the students (in the friendliest of ways of course) was a daily occurrence and made for many good laughs during class, sometimes so much so that I would start crying from laughter. Fayez, the student in this photo, was Muse’s favorite to pick on.


Here is Eddie (one of my roommates) dancing his tail off at the wedding party while the Egyptain guests cheer him on. By the end of the night the entirety of that golden shirt was brown with sweat.


Pictured here is my level 0 Arabic class. Although I have graduated to level 2 by this time, I will never forget this first class, which was my favorite. Unfortunately, my Arabic studies have taken a turn for the worst. I would prefer that the classes move more quickly and I have become bitterly frustrated at the Fajr Center’s inability to be flexible to the students’ needs. My roommates and I have a field day complaining about the center together, which, if nothing else, at least gives us lots of good laughs. I must say that my roommates and I are a terrific match and that the amount of laughter that takes place in our apartment on a daily basis is phenomenal.


From left to right Eddie (roommate), Mohammed (Egyptian friend), and Skyler (roommate) eat salad, pita, tahina, and baba ganush while discussing politics between Israel and Egypt. We met Mohammed at a local stationery store and have become good friends. Amazingly, our common language is Spanish, which is very rare in Egypt. The layout of the restaurant in the background is ubiquitous in Cairo – this represents the quintessential sandwich/falafel shop that can be found on every street.


Here a woman walks her children across the tram tracks that split one of the main roads in Nasr City (the area of Cairo where I live). The fully covering black gown she wears is called a niqab. While the majority of women here wear only a hijab (a head covering over the hair), I small percentage wear the full niqab. Perhaps 0.5%? (This is a very rough estimate that comes only from my observations). I am told that just 15 years ago Cairo was far more liberal and that even the Hijab was rare. Since then a wave of conservatism has swept across Egypt.


Here is Skyler and our friend Michelle looking up at the Colossi of Ramsis, which were once part of an enormous temple that is now completely gone. These statues reside near Luxor in southern Egypt (called upper Egypt). During our vacation we traveled to Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel in upper Egypt and saw numerous unbelievable statues and temples of a magnitude similar to, and large than, what is depicted here.









These goliaths overlook Lake Nasser at Abu Simbel, south of Aswan, just 40km north of Sudan. The doorway on the left side leads into an extraordinary, multi-room temple carved into the mountain.












Here Michelle, Skyler walk with our Nubian friends in Aswan who are leading us to a Nubian wedding. In addition to Arabic, the Nubian people have their own language that is only verbal and is not written.


These children are dancing at the Nubian wedding. The robes they wear are called galabias and are very common on men around Cairo and Egypt.


Posing for this photo (left to right) are Lorenzo, Sarah, and Mira all studying Arabic at the Fajr Center and all from Italy. Sarah wears a Hijab over her hair. This is the same garment that the vast majority of Egyptian women wear today. I took this photo at a party organized by the students that might be considered scandalous since it is considered inappropriate to invite people of the opposite sex to our apartments here.

Weddings etc.

Jul 21, 2008

Last week I was sitting in the internet café down the street from my apartment when music began to pour into the café from the outside. I stepped outside, next to the café window that was rattling from the bass, and saw that the source was across the street. The apartment building directly across from the cafe had streams of colored lights strewn from top to bottom, down all nine stories, and a DJ was testing his sound system next to the building. I asked the owners of the café about the event and they informed me that there was to be a wedding party there.

My roommates and I decided that this was an excellent opportunity for a new cultural experience. That evening I dressed up in the one button down shirt that I brought and by 10:30pm I was ready to go.

Walking up to the wedding the three of us felt a little nervous because, after all, we were technically crashing the wedding. Upon reaching the entrance, however, my apprehensions quickly diminished. The first man with whom I made eye contact quickly stood up, greeted us, and offered us a seat. Between the language barrier and the volume of the music, communicating effectively was out of the question. The great part is that the communication barrier did not matter. Two minutes after sitting down we had drinks in our hands, non-alcoholic of course, since this was an Islamic marriage, and I thought to myself that this would never happen in the states.

Eventually we communicated that we wanted to see the inner courtyard of the wedding (still outdoors) and we were happily shown in. Being the only pale white folk inside, we stood out tremendously, which seemed to be to the amusement of everyone inside. Before I could take in the whole scene I was being dragged by the arm to the middle of the dance floor.

I was placed in front of another man and was apparently expected to have an Egyptian style dance-off with him. The rest of the men stood around us clapping and cheering. Only men were dancing since it would be inappropriate to dance with the women in this culture. After about 20 minutes of dancing someone had managed to duck between my legs without my noticing and I found myself suddenly hoisted up to sit on top of his shoulders. Four of us, all on shoulders, then held hands and danced in circle. The celebration was quite wild.

All eyes were on us, the foreigners, and at first I felt like we were inadvertently stealing the show. I felt that the attention should be on the bride and the groom. One of my roommates later suggested that we were actually honoring the bride and groom by dancing at their party. I can only hope that this was the case and I feel that it was since we received an invitation to the second party the following night.

We had danced an hour before we were able to step out without being pulled in again. By the time it was over my roommate, Eddie, was so soaked in sweat that I would have believed someone if he told me that Eddie just jumped in a swimming pool. Although it was night time, the temperature must have still been in the mid 80’s and the air was humid as well.

Although this was the first wedding party I attended here, every day I see one or more wedding motorcades driving down the street with the drivers honking to their hearts content. This leads to the issue of population in Egypt. This is a place where pre-marital sex is absolutely forbidden, where marriages often take place at a young age, and where multiple children is the norm. Egypt current is home to 78 million people. 33% of the population is under 15 years old and estimates predict 140 million people by 2050 at the current birth rates. Commercials on television here encourage families to limit the number of children but I am unsure whether these have any significant effect on the people's actions. The government seeks to reduce forecasted number to 100 million by 2050.

A couple days after the wedding a small group of us hired a felucca boat, similar to a sailboat, to take us on the Nile for two hours. The experience was blissful. We arrived at sunset and had the chance to relax and see the city from the river both in daylight and at night. When we left the shore the temperature dropped to a level that felt perfect and a slight breeze picked up. It was the first time in Cairo that I wasn’t sweating. On the river we were even spared from the overwhelming honking of the roads. We had also prepared a dinner of rice, vegetables and chicken smothered in spices, local cheese, and pita bread to scoop everything with, which we ate on the bow of the boat. A felucca ride is a terrific refuge from the intensity of Cairo and is an absolute must for anyone visiting. And what was the price for two hours? $20 to split amongst five people.

One of my favorite parts of my daily routine is picking up lunch on the walk home from the language institute. I stop at the same places every day and order pita “sandwhiches” filled with various combinations of local and middle eastern foods such as falafel, boiled egg and fuul (essentially refried beans with some extra oil), shakshuka (a type of tomatoe stew), salad, tehini, eggplant, and potatoes. Before that I stop at the juice bar next door and pick up some fresh sugar-cane juice. The price for all of lunch? About 80 cents.

You notice that the price of food and entertainment here is miniscule by American standards. This reflects on the level of poverty in Egypt with the majority of the population earning a salary of ~ $70-$100/month. While it is true that food is less expensive here than in the states, by no means is the price sufficient to enable the average person to live comfortably. Life in Cairo is a serious struggle for the majority of the population.

Frustration is increasing as the price of food increases. I spoke with the son of my landlord, Osama, or Sam, the other day and he expressed his frustration with the government and President Mubarak who has ruled Egypt since 1981. Sam explained that the price of gas fluctuates severely day to day and pointed to his can of coke asking rhetorically, “Why was this can 2 pounds ($1 ~ 5.3 Egyptian pounds) yesterday and 2.5 pounds today? The government offers no explanation.” You may have heard about food riots taking place in Egypt recently. I have not seen these riots but I see that poverty is a very significant and troubling issue here.

It is time for me to go home and study Arabic. That is all for now.

Danny

Adjusting to Egypt

This vegetable vendor works in the Suuk (market) in Alexandria.

Here I am in Alexandria rowing out to a castle on the peer.

A panorama from our living room window. The greenery in this photo is deceptive. While we are very lucky to have this small park in front of our building, standing in front of this window constitutes braving intense heat from the sun and listening to incessant honking below. My favorite time of week is Friday afternoon because most people are at the afternoon prayer and sermon which means fewer cars outside and more quiet.



This is a photo of our elegant Egyptian style living room.










July 7, 2008

I am currently writing from Cairo, Egypt. For those of you who don't know, I arrived here two weeks ago and plan to stay and study Arabic intensively for the next two months.

I arrived in Cairo on a Tuesday and spent the next week settling in and finding my residence. My first apartment was shared with a couple British students, a German student, and and Dutch student - all great people. We seemed to be raising a large family of baby cockroaches in our kitchen, however, which made cooking a less than pleasant task. Additionally, one of my roommates smoked cigarettes like a chimney and between that and the severe pollution here, I was confident that I would need a new set of lungs by the end of my stay. I decided to move apartments and am now living with a couple Americans, no cockroaches, and only natural air pollution - I am very happy here.

I spent my next week adjusting. I quickly came down with a stomach illness, along with 90% of the students, and was mostly housebound after my classes. I am happy to say that I have recovered and have developed a better and stronger immune system.

On top of my stomach illness, adjusting to the heat has been very challenging. It's so hot that all I want to do when I arrive at my apartment is fall asleep. I had a pretty bizarre sleep schedule for many days, sometimes falling asleep at 7:30pm and waking up to start my day at 4:30am. The heat is supposed to become more intense in the coming months, but I can tell that my body has begun to adjust.

Islam drives the culture here. Our classes and living accomodations are completely segregrated and I learned that it is not appropriate to have a person of the opposite sex visit the apartment even if it is only as friends. The neighbors are always watching and the concept of privacy is basically nonexistent.

An interesting anomaly in Egypt is that although the majority of the population is extremely poor, crime is very very minimal here. Walking around at night is far safer than many places in the states and although locals will often try for an extra baksheesh (tip) from foreigners, most would never harm another person for it. The Islamic influence certainly drives this remarkable behavior.

People are also incredibly friendly here. Egyptians are renowned for their sense of humor and whenever I give a smile, I always receive one back. On more than one occasion I've had a stranger, after only two minutes of chatting, hand me his phone number and tell me where lives in order to help me if I need anything.

My roommates and I recently befriended an Egyptian, whose name is Mohammed, who we met at the stationery store. Our common language is Spanish. This was a total surprise and is very rare here. The trip has become a mishmash of language. I learn Arabic at the school, speak Spanish with Mohammed, speak English with my roommates, and listen to Hebrew music on the side. Wow.

Driving in Cairo is the scariest thing you have ever seen. I thought the driving in Israel was scary, but then I came here... There are no lanes, no street lights and no laws, and every inch of the roads is packed with cars and people (weaving between traffic to cross). The best way I can describe the driving style here is to say that the drivers are analogous to bats, which guide themselves with sonar rather than their eyes. Egyptian drivers don't use lights at night and use their horns as their main form of communication. Cab drivers will honk every 10 seconds just to let others know that they are present. When passing, holding the hand on the horn is the way to let someone know. If you thought that New York had a lot of honking, forget it - there is no comparison.

Now that I've explained the driving in Cairo, I can give an accurate picture of my adventure going downtown to the suuk (market) yesterday. Mohammed was our leader for the trip and he decided that we take a bus there. The buses are packed shoulder to shoulder and the drivers never fully stop to let people on or off, they just slow down. The side doors remain open and the only way to board is to jump on, grab the bar, and HANG ON! I couldn't imagine that all four of us would succeed in doing this but somehow we managed to push our way on (while hanging off the side of the moving bus). It was quite exciting. The bus ride was over an hour and once at the suuk Mohammed helped us haggle for clothing. The Spanish was quite useful because the vendors could not understand our personal conversations.

That brings me up to the present, where I am sitting in the internet cafe down the street from my apartment. The guys here just asked me if I can pay today, since yesterday I could not pay since I only had a 100 Egyptian Pound note (just under $20), which was too large to break. The workers are very trusting and often let me pay the next day. I have two more days of classes and then it is the weekend - on Thursday and Friday.