Why I am lacking on the blog-front:

I am a little busy:

Writing a short story

Completing a seven page anthropological research paper

Fusha presentation

Writing a regular Fusha essay

Preparing for a Fusha final exam

Composing poetry (yes, for class)

Making a film of do’s and don’ts

Drinking three cups of Nescafe a day

Sleeping very little

And bracing myself for goodbyes and travel from my beloved Egypt.

All in Arabic, 3la fikra.

Zift.

In a little while…

I learned the word for “microcosm” in Arabic the other day. Of course, I have since forgotten it, since that’s all a studier of Arabic tends to do- forget words (and English grammar for that matter). But microcosm made me think. I mean, in the context of the discussion (it had been on the issues in Somalia), I didn’t really think about the many different meanings of the word.


As I was walking down the Sha’ri3 Port Sa’id yesterday morning, it occurred to me that I live in a microcosm, in a very real, bubble like sense of the word.


Bag on shoulder, Nescafe balanced precariously in my other hand, I was wearing my wiish el-sha’ri3 [street face] and glaring at the world. I reached the corner between the bus stop and the bank, having stared down two potential muakksats (talk from horny shabab). I was pretty much ready to sink into one of those “moods” when my furious glare met that of a smile.


I’ve gotten pretty good at rebuking smiles: my face contorting into an even more threatening look, my body tenses, and my hand balls up into a tight fist.


It took me half a second to realize that the face that was smiling at my scowl was not a potential muakksater, but rather a young girl in her school uniform, light blue shirt and navy blue skirt. Her thick dark curls were haphazardly pulled back, and her glasses were twice as thick as mine.


I attract a lot of attention from little kids here, especially girls around 8 to 10 years old. They tend to pick me out of the crowd of hewagat (foreigners) and ask me in near perfect English “what’s your name?” I love kids- I want to have a huge family- but this can get annoying as 10 year old Egyptian girls are the most persistent people in the world (seriously, I am considering starting a revolution and having them lead it).


I tend to reply to them with my Egyptian name (Gigi) and in Arabic, so that most definitely keeps the conversation going. But I usually can’t help but smile at them- I mean, it takes guts to confront someone different from them. Besides, the shock on their faces when they realize that I know Arabic is priceless.


The little girl on the street yesterday morning was different.


My encounters with anyone in the street tend to leave me angry, frustrated, or nervous. It’s all written very clearly on my street face- Egypt has changed my reaction toward strangers, and not for the better.


But this girl seemed to overlook that without a second thought. I approached her, glaring and intense, and she burst into a smile.


Like I said, my initial, Galen in Egypt reaction was to put on a tougher street face. But then real instinct took over, and I burst into a smile too- something that hasn’t happened to me in a street here in a long time.


Unlike my typical 10 year friends, this little girl didn’t say anything. We shared our smiles, and went our separate ways.

I just had my strangest experience in Egypt to date.

Some of the girls and I were returning in a taxi from Grand Café, where we had been celebrating Eman’s (my roomie!!) new job as the Middlebury TA for next year (mabroooooooook ya Mama!).

So there are five of us piled in the taxi, and the driver seems relatively normal. Then he puts on a CD.

“Evanescence” croons to us, and of course we all have to start singing. Then Eman mentions that the song makes her sad. The driver, eager to please his random foreign customers and the random Egyptian with them, changes the song.

Eminem blasts through next…although it was probably the worst choice for him to make. I mean, obviously he had no clue what the words meant, because if he had realized that the song was about a guy getting horny off of a girl’s backside…well that doesn’t fly in this polite society.

(3la firka I just explained the meaning of the song to Eman, and she flipped out).

When we started laughing (I mean, it was seriously unbelievable) the driver turned the song up even louder. So we cruised down the Kornesh, windows rolled down, and Eminem throwing out every inappropriate expression and word in the English language.

Dear Egypt, I just don’t understand you sometimes. . .

I’ll give you five camels if you marry me!

I spent the last weekend in Cairo- my first time actually being there!


Ok, so I have been in Cairo before, but I totally spent all of my time in the Egyptian Museum…and didn’t actually see any of the city.


This trip was “ra-e3a” (amazing, enjoyable, ishta, etc). There were about 11 of us who all met up and explored the city together.


Eight of us arrived Wednesday night and headed over to the African House Hotel, in Wust el Balad (middle of the city), where we settled in and then explored some side streets nearby (some rather sketchy details are being omitted here), and ended the night at Greek Club, a high class bar/dance club, without the dancing. Our waiter was ridiculous and fun.


The next day, we went to el-A3la (the Fort?) and to mas-jed (mosque) Muhammad Ali and Suliman Basha. Yes, we girls covered our heads, out of respect (it is interesting how much my perspective has changed on things like this, but I’ll save that for later). We ran into Brett (a student from the Butler Program, also studying abroad here in Alex) and his parents. They were adorable, and they all ended up tagging along with us to Ibn Batool (another mosque), to get an “Egyptian” price, and Brett and I got married in the taxi (some things are just necessary).


After drinking some amazing mango juice, exploring the mosque (we even climbed the turret), we all got went to Hana Kha-li-li, the biggest and busiest sooq (market) in Egypt. Clara, Brett, his parents and I all got lost whilst looking for some tombs off to one side of the market, which was quite the tegraba (experience).


After that, we all met up again for some yumminess that is Yemini food- wow. There were about 12 or so of us piled around a tiny table, and it was probably one of my favorite times here.


Afterwards, we returned to the hotel, with the full intention of hitting up Cairo Jazz club that night, but enjoyed playing it chill in the hotel instead (and the Midd kids figuring out housing stuff).


On Friday- Clara and I hopped on over to the Giza Pyramids, no big. But seriously, it was a ton of fun. We not only played on the pyramids, but also visited the boat museum (an amazing wooden boat that is over 4,000 years old!!), have pictures “petting” the Sphinx, got camel crap in my shoes, claimed I was from Transylvania, was offered five camels for my hand in marriage, and met a family from Sudan who offered to let me live with them if I ever want to visit the country, and even found some ridiculous presents.


Our adventures then took us to Coptic Cairo. We crashed in a nunnery/coffee shop for a while, ate some delicious pasta (the first since being here, 3la fikra), explored some beautiful Coptic churches, a synagogue, and found our way back to another mosque.


The experience in this mosque was completely different. First, it was the only mosque that the girls were made to enter in a separate area, and then, not only did they make us cover our heads, we had to wear these ridiculous green robes because we were wearing pants. But this was not the main problem with the experience. What bothered me the most was that I didn’t have the same feelings of happiness and peace that I had had before in the other mosques. I was behind a high, wooden wall, and didn’t even get to see the center of the mosque, etc.


But here’s the culminating bit: as we were sitting outside (Emily, Clara and I) waiting for Chris, who was still in the mosque enjoying the view, experience, etc (gad I hate men- but not because of you Chris!), we were “stoned” by some shabab (young, sexually repressed asshole boys who have no means venting their frustrations) (really, it just means young guys, but still). I mean, it’s really, really, punny in a sick and twisted way (women who did something haram were often stoned outside of mosques [a practice still found occasionally in more extreme areas], and our appearance, at least in Egyptian terms, was not monasib [appropriate], as we are without hijab, but let's not get me started on that...) We weren’t physically injured at all, but it was still wahish.


Afterward, however, we made our way over to Lucille’s, an amazing little American restaurant. While waiting for tables, we found a coffee shop and I enjoyed what was by far the best American coffee I have had here. Dinner was a grilled cheese with tomatoes (on REAL bread!) and French-fries. Although the best thing was probably Jade’s Texas burger that was bigger than her head.


We then had to run back to the hotel to grab our bags and run back to the train station, where we caught our 9PM train back to Alex with two minutes to spare.


On Saturday, Jade, Sarafina, Hima, Lizz, Nehad, Khalid and I made our way over to King’s Mariout, an unbelievably beautiful (and ricccccchhhh) neighborhood/ countryside just outside of Alex. This specific group of houses belongs to the neighbors of my manaqasha fardia professor (one-on-one) and we had a blast. I went swimming, played Frisbee, at delicious food and desserts, played sardines in the dark, and ended the night with Nescafe mixed with coca.


In terms of time, life here is winding down. But in terms of actual living, not at all. I went to another Wust el-Balid concert last night at the Alex Library, and actually knew a lot of the words this time!


More mugameras (adventures) to follow, in sha Allah!

So this was supposed to be on Luxor, but life intervened...

Tell me- what defines right and wrong? Where do cultural “values” play a more important part than any other factor? What makes something 3adi (normal) and something a thing to be concerned over?

I have lived in Egypt for the last four and a half months, and while I feel I understand and have adjusted extremely well to living here, there are still things that leave me completely shocked.

Tonight was one of the times that I absolutely bakrha (despise) the social norms here, heart, body, soul. One of the Egyptian girls (dorm-mate of an American student here) suffered what was probably the equivalent of a panic attack tonight, although it could have been something quite worse.

When the American student came to the Egyptian students for help (she had been trying to wake her roommate up because she had been crying and thrashing around in her sleep) they were also concerned, of course, and tried to wake her up, talking to her to stop, etc. Now, I agree that this would probably be the first thing I would do too, in the situation, as it was something like a fainting spell, so use water, perfume, etc, to wake the person up. But when that person doesn’t wake up or respond AT ALL after 15 minutes of this, well, you don’t call it NORMAL.

So I went to two other American girls, who both study medicine, to see if they knew the symptoms, etc. My initial reaction was a seizure of sorts, because the girl was clenching her fingers and twos backwards, eyes rolling back in her head, clammy- pretty clear signs that something is wrong.

After a while, some of the heads of the dorms came by, stood around, left.

They said that there was nothing wrong, she didn’t need a hospital, and that she would be fine just resting.

After the NON- doctors left, the benat msrieen (Egyptian girls) tried to brush the situation off. I am not kidding. They literally were like “oh no, she’s fine,” “see! She’s talking,” “it’s not a big deal.” I told the Americans that we should call one of our program directors, and one of Egyptian girls was like “no, not necessary, she’s fine, etc.” All it took was one look at the girl lying there to know that this was not fine. We called the program asst. director.

Needless to say, the Egyptians girls were angry that we had done so. But you know what? I don’t care. Be as angry as you like, my friends, but I am not going to let someone potentially die because it is embarrassing for someone to go to the hospital in a panic attack.

When I spoke to our asst. director on the phone, the Egyptian girls were all like “it’s not a problem,” etc, but less than two minutes later, the girl started convulsing and couldn’t breathe properly.

But let me stop the story aspect of this there- they eventually listened to us and took her to the hospital (a complete ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATER), and she is now back, I suppose okay, and in her room. The Egyptian girls haven’t really said much to any of the Americans. I think they are somewhat miffed. In fact, I was told that I shouldn’t have brought the asst. program director into the picture, that they knew how to handle the situation.

Ma3lish.

But here is the point of this: did we, the American students, do the right thing, suggesting that we bring in medical help? Absolutely. Are we justified in what our Egyptian colleagues view as an extreme reaction? Without a doubt.

And yet, how did I hesitate to call the asst. director? Why didn’t I call an ambulance myself (aside from the potential language barrier)? Why did is this culture so intent on the idea that one cannot seek medical attention if the situation is a psychological one?

I’ll be honest and say that I bakrha nefsi (despise myself) for hesitating to call our director. I can also say that I don’t even understand why I didn’t think to take some initiative and call an ambulance myself.

But here is the kicker: how can something like a girl convulsing and twitching and having her eyes roll back in her head and not being able to breath be something “normal”??? It can’t be. It isn’t.

Did I commit a total social mistake? I am beginning to think so…

The Egyptian girls aren’t mad at us for our concern, as we all were reacting from our hearts, but they are definitely not pleased that we were applying our societal reaction to the situation. I said to one, “If we were in America right now, she would be in a hospital. She needs a hospital.” Her answer, “this isn’t America” and proceeded to ignore any further suggestion from us.

Am I angry? Yes. But not at my friends. I am angry that social norms dictate that something like be brushed off as a normal thing, and that it is better to suffer from convulsions than to be subjugated to public embarrassment of going to a hospital for a panic attack.

Was I terrified? Unbelievably so. I have never been so scared - I didn’t know what to do, I had know idea who I should call, and I was being told over and over that there was no need to do anything. There was, as one of the Americans put it, pressure to NOT call an ambulance.

I’m sorry Egypt, but that’s not normal.

I play in Ancient Ruins for fun..

So I fail on the blog-writing front. But I have a great excuse!


I spent 10 days exploring Aswan, Luxor, and Cairo, and pretty much ignored internet, etc.


A quick summary of my adventures:
Elephantine Island (rocks shaped like elephants)
Aswan Antiquities Museum (old pottery and jewelry)
Abu Simbol (Ramses II ode to himself)
High Dam (or damn, there’s nothing there…)
Phillae Temple (set in the middle of an island!)
Edfu Temple (with very old hieroglyphics)
Kom Ombo Temple (also with very old hieroglyphics)
Luxor Temple (or rather, Fertility Temple)
Karnack Temple (speaks for itself, right?)
Valley of the Kings (super hot, but super worth it)
Valley of the Queens (don’t get me started on why the Queens’ had smaller tombs…)
Temple of Hatshepsut (Take that Ramses II!)
The Colossi (two super huge statues…was once a temple)
Deir el-Medina (tombs of the workers that made Valley of the Kings and Queens)
Habu Temple (another temple…)
The Ramesseum Temple (yes, Ramses II built yet another ode to himself)
The Egyptian Museum (two days here- and wanted more)
Royal Mummy Museum (saw crusty mummies of good ol’ Ramses II & Hatshepsut)


(Feeling overwhelmed?? Yeah, it was a lot to see…read the following in doses, it gets a bit long)…


This grand adventure began a little sadly, as our entire original group was not able to go.


But I made the trek with Cooooooookie (or Karen) and Scott, and we made quite the team.


In the beginning, there was: The Train.


Train rides are an experience in Egypt, and we took one from Alex all the way to Aswan…18 hours. On a train. In Egypt. It wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the helfa (party) that raged on in the middle of the night, or the creepster that insisted on standing behind our chairs.


My very mature reaction to the noise and the man behind me was to put on headphones super loudly, pull my hoody up, glare at my neighbors, and occasionally knock around my chair, just to be a tart.


All these inconveniences were forgiven, however, when I awoke to a brilliant sunrise on one side, and the Nile on the other. I never realized how beautifully green Egypt was, until I looked out at endless fields of vegetation.


Aswan:


So I lied, I only spent two days in Aswan, but that was enough.


After checking into to our adorable hotel (Memnon, not Menmon, ye Scott!), Scott, Karen and I took the local ferry over to Elephantine Island. On the ferry, we met a very nice man who took on a tour of the town, introduced us to little school kids (who all thoroughly enjoyed yelling my name “Gigi”), showed us the elephant rock, invited us to tea, made us pet a baby crocodile, and took pictures with us. Unfortunately, around this time, my camera battery died…


Afterwards, we made our way to the old Antiquities Museum, and then to one of the old Temples on the island. The temple was the first of many that we were to see, and had Pharonic, Greek and Roman influences in it. We acted like children and played in the ruins, and afterwards went to a delicious lunch in a boat beside the Nile (it’s a hard life I lead).


That night, exhausted from travel and with the knowledge that we visit Abu Simbol the following day at 3AM (there is a reason behind this, to be explained after), we proceeded to watch an excellent film (The Soloist) until about 11PM.


But first, why did we leave our hotel at such hour to visit a wannabe god’s shrine? (Mommy probably wants to skip this next bit…)


Abu Simbol, beautiful as it is, lies about 40 minutes north of the Sudanese border. But that’s not really the problem. The problem is irhanibeen, or terrorists, that target tourists on the road between Aswan and this deserted desert place. So all tourists to Abu Simbol are required to travel in police convoys. (So see Mommy, I was safe!) It is also about three and half hours away from Aswan, so we had a lovely, long drive in which I slept and woke in time to catch a beautiful sunrise.


Abu Simbol was unbelievable. You walk up around a corner, on a path beside the Nile, and then suddenly- there it is! I literally saw it from the corner of my eye, and as I further rounded the big loop, it was even more amazing…


But one of the best things about this place? (Other than its sheer size and beauty??) Ramses II built it as a dedication to one of the ancient gods, but this god is represented as a tiny, tiny figure up in the middle of the entrance surrounded by four statutes of Ramses II.


It became the start of a beautiful relationship Ramses II.


Then there was the temple to Nefetariri (sp??) in the same area. Not as big, but still impressive, especially since her statues are at the same height as her husband’s…not too common in Egypt to have men and women on the same playing field.


After this colossal experience, we went to the very unimpressive High Dam.


Ok, that’s not very nice, I know. But seriously, we had to pay to look at a lot of water. And the security check point was just silly. Just a silly place, maybe important, but mostly silly.


Phillae put us back in excellent moods- I seriously can’t believe the talent and devotion that ancient people had…


Set off in the middle of an island on the Nile, Phillae is massively beautiful, carved full of ancient hieroglyphics, and there were still colors on the walls!!! We explored there for a bit, and then returned to Aswan.


3la fikra,
Joining us on our adventures were several people, including three deaf guys from Britain. They all knew how to speak, but they taught me the English Sign Language, which was super cool, and it got to be a joke that we kept running into them in all the places we went (as in for the next four days we kept seeing them...)


That night, rekebna (took? hired? rode in?) a fuluuka (boat) on the Nile. We enjoyed karkadi tea (from hibiscus!), dragging out feet in the Nile water, pretended we didn’t speak Arabic when the tourist police came by- instead being ditzy Americans playing the English alphabet game “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing, etc (I mean, we kind of had to, we kept accidentally using Arabic), ate a scrumptious dinner, and then slept under the stars.


But then…
The boatman only had one blanket for us. Scott and I, gamadeen that we are, decided we didn’t need to share the blanket (the daytime had been quite hot, and the night breeze was still warm). Lel-asif, at about 4AM, we both woke up freezing, and proceeded to get in on the blanket sharing. I should probably mention that there were already three other people sharing the blanket, making it five of us trying to fit under the thing…


In the words of Karen (who was in the middle of all of us) she “got squeezed out.”


But the sun rises quickly on the Nile, and we woke to a wonderful breakfast and Nescafe. (What is it about traveling that makes the food that much more leziz [tasty]?)


But here I shall leave you- there is no way in heck I can write all of my adventures in one blog post.


Coming up:
Ramses II, about 14 more Temples, heat-stroke and translation, weird waiter, wedding-crashing, Australian dude and path, Catholic Church on Easter, crazy Egyptian lady, fertility symbols, jumping pictures in Karnack, Scott leaving, Sham el-Nassim, tombs, crepes, real American coffee, and if I continue, you’ll probably refuse to read any more…

Food for Thought:

Just an update on life...mostly on food, but hey, that's life too.

We made pancakes today in the boy’s dorms…there is nothing quite as satisfying as pancakes I have decided. Maybe it’s because I miss eating pancakes every Sunday at home. Maybe it’s because I love when the whole group is together doing something silly and rewarding.

Maybe it’s because we also had French toast (toast france-owi), strawberries, bananas (in the pancakes!), nutella (chocolate spread), ful, and falafel. I actually helped cook the falafel (or falafels, as Amie says). There was also a watermelon.

Seriously, my life was complete after that breakfast.

We also watched a terrible film. No, that’s a lie. It was actually a very good film with one of my favorite Egyptian actors. I just hate absurd endings. Politics and martyrism aren’t my cup of tea….especially when I know that these are real things that I don’t have much power to change.

However, Wednesday, I watched an excellent film in my Ammiya professor’s house. I forget the name, but it was a documentary type film on the identity of a family in Egypt…it discusses some pretty major issues of what it means to be defined as Egyptian (esp. after Israel and 1948). I’m not too surprised that it is banned in the Middle East…

My teacher also had snacks for us…including snickers bars. It was the first thing I ate, and my life was instantly wonderful. Her mother also made a wonderful fruit salad of sorts…it was nut and dates and milk combination…yummy.

Thursday, I went to an outstanding restaurant (Coffee Roastery) and had an unbelievable Greek salad- fresh veggies, feta, garlic bread….sigh. Dessert was also quite the kicker: an amazing chocolate tort/icecream thing, and a strawberry cheesecake tort/icecream thing.

The conversation was fun, fast, and in Arabic (of course). I was pleased to discover that I am at a level of Arabic where I can understand all kinds of grammatical jokes in Arabic.

Tomorrow I am going exploring with friends, and will hopefully eat fa-teer…a wonderful bread pastry thing that is best eaten hot. I will also mix more food with thought, as I plan to take an absurd number of pictures of the daily Alexandrian life…I shall let you know the results.

And just 3la fikra: I would sell my first camel for some veggie bacon. I do not, however, miss normal sandwiches, because ben-tingan is just sooooo much better.