Category Archives: Three minute read

Jun 08 2012
16 Comments
Egypt, Three minute read

We Can Make America Better

Sunsets can make anywhere beautiful.

I graduated from college on Sunday, May 22, 2011 and one week later I was in Boston Logan International, throwing my sheets away to make weight for baggage and wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Within twenty four hours, I was standing in the lobby of the Mayfair Hotel in Cairo, suppressing the urge to cry as I begged the concierge to let me check in without my passport, which I had left at the airport when I was filing a claim for my lost baggage. No possessions and no identity, I was ready to start the year.

Things looked up from there, however. I made friends with people in my program, found an apartment despite the fact I had never been to Cairo and didn’t speak Egyptian Arabic, and never died on the Metro (by asphyxiation) on my way to class.

That being said, Cairo was not an easy place to live for me. My (subjective) opinion of Cairo is that it’s not a great place for humans to live in general. There’s no room for them and the poverty crushes everyone. Though I had traveled before to the Middle East, to countries with dictatorships and to places with poverty (including the U.S.), I never felt it like I did in Cairo.

This was a people that had been robbed of their money, of their dignity, and in some cases of their humanity. The former regime stole billions of dollars, exploited and oppressed the people, and dis-empowered them completely through poor education programs, through intimidation, and through endless lies.

As the year went by, I slowly became more resentful of the city, of the pollution, of the seemingly endless harassment, of the constant nuisances, and at the bottom of it all I was reminded daily that I, through no power of my own, had been born in America to a nice middle class family. I was a walking symbol of power and of global injustice. The fact I carried an American passport gave access to more respect and opportunities than most Egyptians would ever get.

When people in the states ask me, “Did you love Cairo?” or something about the Muslim Brotherhood or if it was safe over there, it’s hard for me to know how to respond because these questions don’t mean anything to me.

I want to talk about a people crushed by the boots of an exploitative government and how repression reflects itself in every social facet. I want to talk about women’s rights and equality in the Middle East and in the United States of America. I want to talk about how ignorance affects political systems in America and in the Middle East (I’m not saying that people who support the Muslim Brotherhood are necessarily ignorant. That’s a different blog post). I want to talk about how violent crime is more prevalent in many American cities than in Cairo.

Usually I come back from abroad slightly more patriotic. I want to kiss the sweet American earth and hug Uncle Sam while setting off firecrackers and singing “God Bless America.” It was the same this time but different.

As I looked at the rows of American flags in the Chicago O’Hare International Airport and listened to patriotic music in the immigration line, I kept on thinking, “We can make this better.”

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May 30 2012
16 Comments
Ethiopia, Three minute read, Travelling

Four-Cheeked Baboons and Dinosaur Birds: the Animals of the Simien Mountains

Look but not too closely at the four cheeked butt.

As promised I’m now going to talk about the animals that we witnessed in the heights of the Simien Mountains. This will conclude the whole me-talking-about-my-journey-to-Ethiopia thing for now because to be quite frank, the details are starting to get a little hazy and when that happens I just start making stuff up.

I’m typing this blog post on my grandma’s computer, who asked not to be mentioned in the blog, so I’m going to respect that and not talk about her or our discussion at the dinner table about the European meaning of shag.

Anyways, the animals of the Simien Mountains.

Eye contact makes everyone nervous.

High in the mystical mountains of Ethiopia lives the Gelada baboon, which spends its day sitting on its four butt cheeks and using its bizarrely dainty little hands to pull up grass and chomp on it before using those same dainty hands to scratch itself and groom its friends, lovers, and cousins.

According to Wikipedia and me, these baboons are awesome because a. they are only found in the “high grassland of the deep gorges of the central Ethiopian plateau”  b. they are the only primates that are primarily graminivores and grazers, and c. they sleep on the edges of cliffs.

I would also add that they have beady bronze eyes that lurk out from under a permanently furrowed brow so they always look pissed. One morning we were about to leave the campsite and a band of baboons came strolling along, like it was no big deal. We were freaking out and taking tons of pictures while our scout was probably thinking, “They’re just baboons….” It’s like when people take pictures of the squirrels in the states. Quick question: what if humans had four butt cheeks. On second thought, forget it.

Gander at those butt scratching horns.

Another awesome animal: the Ibex. First you’re probably thinking, these aren’t that cool. I have deer in my backyard too. Think again and take a look at the horns on that mother narker.

We stumbled upon an entire herd of these beauties near our campsite and were captivated by their grazing. This dude with the horns was clearly the king of the pack. As we came over a hill we saw him there, a magnificent creature, and as we looked upon him, he majestically tilted his head back and scratched his butthole every so gently with the tip of one his wondrous horns. It was breathtaking. We were sure that every Ibex in the bunch was jealous of his butt-scratching skills.

A raven, an oracle, or a god. Who can tell?

Finally, the thick-billed raven. Personally, I didn’t find this animal terribly interesting except for the fact that it could fly (what!) and that it had one of the most dinosaur-like calls that I’d ever heard.  I first heard it when one was taking off from a rock, and it sounded like a very heavy, very throaty door groaning open. It was probably the call that my grandpa would make if he were a bird, complaining about wanting to watch a different sports game.

On our last day, we woke up surrounded by an entire group of these ravens and boyfriend was really happy to finally be able to use the phrase “an unkindness of ravens.” We rejoiced in the fulfillment of linguistic possibilities and then left the mountains, maybe forever.

Coming up this week: bachelorette party, bridal shower, and food tour madness in Chicagoland.

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May 28 2012
28 Comments
Anecdotes, Three minute read, Travelling

Two Chicken Dinners and an All-Star Airplane Sleazebag

That’s my neighbor’s house. Don’t stare too much.

I take a brief intermission from the land of Sheba to proudly announce that I have made it through homeland security and am now in the United States of America. After over 24 hours of being in-transit, I and my half eaten box of McVities digestive biscuits arrived unharmed in the wonderful state of Oklahoma, where I was greeted by exactly half of my family who were unaware of the severity of my state of jetlag and country immersion shock.

This shock became quite apparent only 45 minutes later when I brought up, in the company of my bride-to-be sister, her fiancée, and a friend of his that I had just met, how I had been thinking about lingerie for sister and how it would be funny to buy a bra and panty set made entirely out of bacon.

All this talk about meaty panties made the crowd a little uncomfortable, especially because where I’m from we pretend males don’t know that we buy and wear underwear. The joke still got big laughs from me, however, and you can expect a meat lovers’ lingerie post to be coming up.

The travel from Egypt was fairly uneventful and I successfully slept open-gobbed on three different flights and one café table.

The flight from Amman (flew there from Cairo) to Chicago was about 12 hours long and I was looking forward to passing out because I hadn’t slept at all the night before. The plane wasn’t full and I had high hopes that I would have the two seats next to the window all for me.  I planned on curling up and traipsing through dreamland as soon as possible.

However, I and my sleepy dreams were in danger. One over-gelled man was planning to ruin everything.

I was looking out the window for a few minutes and when I looked back all of the sudden there was giant man sitting next to me. He had mild halitosis and clearly thought he was God’s gift to the entire airplane and to me in particular.

Almost all of the seats around us were empty, yet here he was, leaning his girth into my personal space and polluting my air with his foul breath. Why was he tormenting me, I thought. He introduced himself by saying he name was Toffee (or something similar) and that he planned on talking for the entire flight. I wanted to die.

From the outset, he made it clear that he was putting his moves on me, which included asking me to prove my Arabic skills by saying I love you, offering me some of his sleeping pills, verifying if the boyfriend I had in Cairo was just for fun or not, and inviting me to come to Northern California, with or without my bf (wink.) It was pretty pathetic.

After about five minutes of painful and unwanted conversation, I told him that it was a pleasure meeting him and that I was going to go to sleep. I turned my back towards him and after about three minutes he took off, having realized that this “sweet, good-looking girl” (his words, not mine) was not going to take his magic pills or waste any more breath talking to him. In the end, the flight was quite pleasant and I slept, watched 2 movies and 2 television shows, and ate chicken twice.

If you’re reading this, Toffee, thanks for the blog fodder. I look forward to avoiding eye contact with you very soon in San Francisco.

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May 25 2012
18 Comments
Ethiopia, Three minute read, Travelling

The Story of One Scout, His Rifle, and Four American Lungs

The man himself

En route to the national park on Friday, we picked up our scout whose name I unfortunately could never remember and who spoke perfect Amharic but not a single word of English. About three minutes after he hopped in the captain’s seat, we stopped on the side of the dirt road and he suddenly dashed across the street and around the corner. As he reappeared and ran back to the car, I noticed he had picked up a new friend: his trusty rifle. It was go time.

Based on personal observation, I think he was a mild mannered man accustomed to spending large amounts of time in complete silence and solitude especially in the presence of other people. On our last day, he was sitting on a park bench as we waved goodbye to him and went off to explore the area around the campground.

One such mountain sprinting youngster. It gets cold up there.

When we came back hours later, the sun had gone down and he in the exact same position, scouting away. It’s possible he may have moved but I prefer to imagine that he was sitting sentinel-like over the grounds for the entire time.

Our scout and his rifle were our constant companions. He was our living trail marker and a continual reminder that we

were not built for those mountains. He never tired, never lost his breath, never rushed, and never stumbled. Regardless of how fast I felt I was going, he was always at least a few paces ahead and never noticeably changed his speed.

In contrast to his easy movements up and down the slopes, I always felt like I was trying to keep up with him, panting ridiculously on every uphill, and collecting bruises on my right knee from falling down. Children who lived in the mountains would sprint to greet us as we trudged uphill and I wondered if they would resist if I tried to switch our lungs.

You’ll be seeing this picture in the next North Face catalog

Part of the stumbling business might have something to do with the fact that I decided use Chacos as my trekking shoe, because I had gone on a 3 hour hike in them once. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that their incredible arch support does not make up for the complete lack of ankle support. They are sandals and should not be used for trekking. To make matters even better, after about two hours of hiking on the first day, I began to get blisters on my feet and donned thick wool socks for the rest of the journey, because functionality beats fashion every time.

My main concern before leaving on the trek had been to purchase Snickers.  Sun protection, for some reason, was not on my radar. In fact, I remember making the conscious decision not to pack sunscreen, bringing my SPF 15 face lotion instead. It was like fighting a wildfire with glow-in-the-dark water balloons and at the end of the first day we were crispy. Though we were more cautious over the next few days, the sun’s roasting was still impressive.

Note my position…note how you can barely see the scout.

My mother’s worst fear of bridesmaids with unsightly tan lines is coming true. I would implore her, however, to consider the fact that my farmer’s tan just might work within the context of my sister’s “rustic” themed wedding.

No time to talk about the animals today but I promise they’re coming up soon and very soon. Don’t get your chacos in a tizzy.

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May 24 2012
30 Comments
Ethiopia, Three minute read, Travelling

Step Out of the Van and Into a Postcard

View on the way to our starting point at Sankaver.

We’d heard about the Gelada baboons and wanted to see them. This was all we knew. We didn’t consider the fact that sunny mountain sides are perilous for pasty white skin, that cool breezes turn lips into raisins, or the fact that sitting inside and using the internet for the past five months had in no way prepared us for our 3 day mountain trek at altitudes ranging between 12000-14000 feet.

Chapstick-less, sunscreen-less, and fitness-less, we lumbered into a van at 5:20 am Friday morning and made for the mountains in the most uncomfortable car ride of my life. It was the equivalent of traveling in a mobile washing machine and I would rather re-experience birth than go through those painful five hours again.

We wound higher and higher on gravel roads, through land patch-worked with crops and grass, and the sun was shining over the peaks. We hadn’t even done anything and it was already beautiful. All of the sudden, the van stopped, our driver opened the door, and we were tumbled out onto the mountain.

I did nothing to earn this view.

At 10:20 we started our trek and at 10:25 we saw our first incredible view. It was like we had stepped out of the van and into the Google Image search I did of the Simien Mountains a few weeks earlier. Somehow we had reached close to the top of the world and were looking over infinite valleys and peaks that tumbled and cut into one another. Hawks flapped off the side of a mountain and were instantly soaring thousands of feet in the air. I had never wanted to fly so badly in my life as I did while I was in those mountains, to be able to go from standing on the ground to gliding ten thousand feet over it in a single breath.

We ate it up, taking pictures and laughing, giddy with the novelty of “trekking,” which at that point had been nothing more than a car ride and five minutes of walking amidst intensely gold grass set against the blue, blue sky. The entire world felt right and fresh and new.

Eventually we hit our first uphill and realized the journey would not be all smiles and baboons. We would have to pay for some of the views with our own sweat and blisters and sunburns. Damn the altitude.

View from our tent at Geech.

The first day of hiking ended at a campsite near Geech village, which in my mind is distinguished by the fact that a never ending hill preceded it. After only four hours, my legs had been replaced with lead stumps and I was silently bargaining with God to make it all end.

Miraculously, we finally arrived and collapsed as our awesome porters made us tea and then helped set up our tent at the edge of the golden plain. The cows went home as the sun set, the sky fading through shades of purple and blue as stars began their twinkling. Soon we wrapped ourselves tight against the mountain cold and fell fast asleep, our bodies resting up for another day of overwhelming natural beauty.

How did we get so lucky?

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