Aug 01 2011
2 Comments
Fiction, Three minute read

Twas the night before Ramadan

Some Ramadan decorations…not the most impressive, just the closest

Twas the night before Ramadan and all through the flat,

No one was stirring, not even the mat

In front of the bathtub in spite of its mold,

Not to mention the pile of laundry to fold.

Emily was curled next to her laptop with care,

Playing too much with her freshly washed hair,

As she wondered what sights the morrow would bring,

The possibilities all in her head turning.

She had seen sprucing up for the past several weeks,

Lights and lanterns appeared and people clogged up their leaks.

She saw tapestries hung all full of colours bright

Pleasant figures in Alpha Market’s window one did spy,

The buzz in the air causing life to blur,

Evidenced by families buying twenty kilos of sugar.

“But,” she wondered, “how will this affect me,

I who have not yet embraced muslimery?

When will stores be open and how should I eat

if I cannot slaughter pigs on the street?

And what about alcohol, if I may be so bold?

Where will my 8th rate beer be sold?”

Oh life without urine-like drink did sound foul,

And just when she thought of giving a howl

She remembered the wonder of Ramadan here.

The streets, they say, be they far or near

Fill up with people as the sun departs

From sidewalk to sidewalk citizens satifsying their hearts

And their stomachs with delicious iftar vittles,

Not being shy, or taking too little,

Dates being thrown into the car windows of those

rushing home from their shops after they’ve just closed.

“Oh I wish,” she thinks,  “to eat with these folk

and though I’m not fasting I will hardly croak

at being invited to such a magnificent feast

where I will chow down on all kinds of roast beast.

“Until then,” she informs, “I still do not know

at what hours for my peanut butter I may go

to Alpha Market and for that matter

I remain clueless as to types of Ramadan clatters.

So please stay tuned as I absorb more culture

and I will pass it on to all of you for sure;

less facts than feelings as is my wont

But at least you’ll know all my favorite haunts.”

No complaining.

A few notes: I’ve noticed people buying food in ridiculous quantities at all the supermarkets, which have set up special Ramadan sections with all the necessities for having a proper iftar (break fast, occurs after sundown). One of the most important foods are dates, which are traditionally the first food one eats after fasting all day. Apparently people hand out dates to those struggling to get home in traffic or on the metro before the iftars. Water is also distributed since people fast from both food and drink.

I have been told about big tents that are set up all over town where rich people will prepare huge feasts for the less fortunate, and entire streets are full of those breaking the fast together. If this is real, I will take a picture of it. I will then post the picture onto this blog.

No alcohol may be sold to Egyptians during Ramadan (I think. This might just apply to bars.) and so you have to show your passport in order to get a beer. The hours for liquor stores are especially weird, though other places of commerce also have reduced hours during the day. At night, however, things get crazy. People stay up really late and feast and then sleep during the day. Unless, of course, you’re employed, and then life is a little harder.

More Ramadan madness to come!

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Jul 31 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Two minute read

You’re not from these parts are you

One of these things is not like the other

Brace yourselves. This might shock some of you.

I am not fluent in Arabic. It’s unbelievable, I know, and after 4 years of studying it no less. Moreover, I do not believe I will ever be “fluent” in Arabic. Though in the far future I may be able to consume the Arabic language perfectly through the mediums of reading and listening, I am completely certain that my language production will remain quite obviously non-native.

I dream of future self like this:

Native Arabic Speaker: “Hey you down for getting a bite to eat after we ditch this joint”

Me: “I think that a nice plan but first of all it is necessary for me to go to the house and get my knapsack since I have left her there.”

Despite my language short comings, I can still speak Arabic better than most infants, toddlers, and other foreigners. Therefore, I feel my Arabic studies cast in a particularly ironic light when someone, perhaps a toy shop employee, sees me, surmises that I am not Egyptian and instantly becomes mute, believing he cannot say one word to me unless he says it in English, a language in which he never progressed past “Welcome in Egypt.” He quickly determines that his only other option for communicating with me is through a complicated series of sounds, hand motions, and facial expressions that would be much simplified through the miracle of speech, which he has already ruled out.

Should I begin this mode of vocal communication by speaking in Arabic, the result is usually confusion, surprise, and then disbelief, sometimes with a swift return to hand motions and one word sentences. In the most depressing of cases, the person will not recognize that I’m speaking Arabic (albeit poorly) and will ask someone passing by if they speak English, and I’m standing there like an idiot thinking about my past four years of Arabic study, realizing it’s all led to this point of me being unable to find out where the spices are at the grocery store.

Here’s another example:

Man who comes to check the gas meter knocks on the door. I answer it. He notices I’m probably foreign, tipped off by the American flag I drape around myself at home. I’m speaking in Arabic, he’s speaking in English.

Me: Good morning.

Him: Good morning. (motions to his notebook) Gas.

Me: Please come in.

Him: (motioning with questioning signals, asking where the meter is)

Me: It’s in the kitchen.

Him: (goes into the kitchen, checks the meter, emerges) Eight pound.

Me: (I pay him and he gets ready to go) Goodbye

Him: Bye Bye

Of course, there are plenty of circumstances when I have wonderful conversations with people who are delighted to know that I can speak their mother tongue despite the fact they are slightly baffled that anyone would learn Arabic, saying

“Why? Why do you learn Arabic?” (I often ask myself the same question after every disaster similar to the spice search.)

But occasionally you meet a person who simply will not believe someone of my appearance could speak scribbly. Encountering this disbelief  is just another one of the joys of learning Arabic.

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Jul 29 2011
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Anecdotes, Humorous, Three minute read

Why yes, there is a puppet horse

When someone said they were going to go to the circus tonight, I ditched my plan of watching The Aviator alone and got

I'll put a real pic up when I get it. Imagine this big enough for two men.

myself in a taxi, more than ready to terrify screaming children along with the clowns. We never made it to the circus, however, somehow missing the big top and going to another venue close by that houses the National Folk Dance Troupe. Since anything with folk dance is bound to be a good time, our night ended up being well worth the entrance fee and initial confusion.

The show promptly began forty minutes late, but it made up for the initial annoyance by being incredibly long. Most of the evening consisted of crowded dance numbers with gaudy costumes covered in more sequins and tassels than you could shake a stick at, the ladies swiveling their hips like they were trying to get a rabid beaver to release their right buttocks and the men sometimes shaking actual sticks. The dances were certainly not authentic Egyptian, but they won first place in Drevets’ book for use of agricultural props, such as water jugs and sieves. The award in unnatural costume design went to the number right before intermission for its use of neon orange and green spandex in the ladies’ costumes, using it in a style boldly combining eighties aerobic wear, sixties bell bottoms, and mermaid themes.

The highlight of the night, however, by general consensus with myself, was the horsey puppet dance. The black horse puppet wore a loosely crocheted, neon colored harness and reign apparatus that contrasted nicely with the slick of green and sequins the woman donned from her head to her toe. I do not know of any Egyptian tradition in which women flirt with life size horse puppets or real horses, but apparently the ritual is quite extensive and quite real. The horse (two men in a horse costume) was by far the stand out performer of the night, nuzzling its snout and prancing its paws with incredible humorous dexterity, outshining the woman who also pranced about and slapped the ground with a stick. And then the night got awesome.

The black horse descended into the sparsely populated auditorium and bothered people, pretending to bite people’s shoulders and giving girls kisses on the cheek, something especially loved by the older ladies who expressed their pleasure by wagging their fingers at the horse and trying to shove it away. One lucky girl even got pulled up to the front of the room and was forced to dance with the horse. She was a good sport about it, though not as good of a dancer as the horse.

Though I caught myself saying “Is this still going? Ah yes, it is,” a number of times after zoning back in during yet another belly dance (though they certainly were impressive the first fifty times), long after everything had sunk into a haze of bright colors and amateurish dancing, it was still a quite enjoyable night. I really wish the whole thing had been done with puppets though. I also wish I had my camera…must steal pictures from friend.

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Jul 29 2011
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Best blog posts, Humorous, Lists, Three minute read

Sowing, Winnowing, and Manuring

Today we went to the Egyptian Museum of Agriculture, a gem that has and will be overlooked by hordes of tourists for

Hands on learning.

years to come. In this context, the word museum is misleading since the Agricultural museum is, in fact, more like a playground. Here are some of the differences between a “normal” museum, and the Egyptian Museum (playground) of Agriculture:

1) A museum has guests.

The Museum of Agriculture does not have guests. From the disbelieving looks on the employees’ faces, we were the first foreigners visiting the museum since the woman or man from Lonely Planet discovered it. The other few museum patrons were there for picnicking or loitering purposes, but certainly not to see the museum itself.

2) A museum requires and undergoes regular upkeep.

The Museum of Agriculture requires but does not undergo regular upkeep. It is set up similar to the National Mall in that the museum is a group of five buildings centered around a green space that has trees and statues in it, but the comparison ends there. The statues are placed without any apparent design and the lawn and trees have been left to their own devices ever since they were planted. The museum employees are hired to be present at the museum but not to do anything to it, in order to preserve the natural deterioration process. Thus, a thick layer of dust and one case bird droppings coat all display cases, broken exhibits remain unrepaired, and all textiles within the museum are in danger of turning into dust at the touch of a finger.

3) Some museum employees are knowledgeable about the museum and its contents. There is a curator.

From what we saw, no museum employee knew anything about Egyptian agriculture or this museum dedicated to its existence aside from its hours of operation. The Agricultural museum employee’s job is this: “Sit or stand near the entrance of the hall. Should anyone walk in, stare at them. Open and close the doors at the appointed time. Avoid dusting or improving the museum in any way.” As for the curator–should he exist– he is either dead or has been on vacation for the past three decades.

The star museum employees assist people in entering the exhibits and taking pictures with the mannequins while sweating on them and gesturing wildly, afterwards demanding extra money for having clearly gone above and beyond his normal call of duty.

4) The museum exhibits are educational.

Are you getting the dusty attic feeling?

In theory, the Museum of Agriculture is filled with educational material, and yet it would be an Olympic feat to actually learn anything from it. Aside from the fact most things are unorganized and poorly labeled, you will be too distracted by the ridiculousness of the place in order to do anything besides contemplate the museum’s existence itself and the thickness of the cobwebs on the windows. The two things I took away from the Horticulture hall, for example, after seeing dusty glass case after dusty glass case of different kinds of wheat stalks and seeds, corn stalks and seeds, bread, fruits, vegetables, stages of growing of wheat, etc, were: “There is a lot of variety in the world” and “This took a long time to assemble.”

5) The museum exhibits are not to be touched so as to preserve them for the next visitors. For this reason, there is surveillance of some kind to prevent the most curious from overstepping their bounds.

In the Museum of Egyptian Agriculture, you are almost completely alone and can do whatever you want. The entire place feels forgotten if not yet abandoned. Climbing into the exhibits and taking pictures is encouraged, as well as exploring blocked off parts of the halls and rifling through anything that isn’t encased in glass.

6) The opportunity to interact with material not yet put on display is minimal.

At the Museum of Egyptian Agriculture, there is a cabinet full of documents and photos as well as bin full of antique cigarettes on the second floor of the Hall of Horticulture in a nook on the landing with some agricultural tools in it. Feel free to look at the photos and guess what they might be. Consider the very slim odds of them every being used or seen by someone who might actually be interested in the information.

7) The only fun to be had is through the joy of learning.

The best part of the agriculture museum experience was being able to run around in it like kids and cause a ruckus, feeling like we were breaking all the rules even though there were no rules to be broken in the first place. Also, the green space within the complex was a real joy, complete with nice trees, cool birds, and two little pergolas. Though using the word paradise might be too strong, it certainly felt like a land preserved outside of time and space, which I suppose is the purpose of a museum though in this case it was achieved accidentally.

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Jul 28 2011
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Anecdotes, The Cairo Metro, Three minute read

Transportation: A post in three acts

As the daughter of a doctor, I would venture to say that I feel like 20 percent of our lives are spent commuting. Sometimes mortals like to enrich this transit time by reading, listening to music, or bothering other commuters with forced conversation. In Cairo, however, this is not possible since chance of death or severe injury during transit jumps from 80 percent to 100 percent should one lose focus on self-preservation. Transportation in Cairo will never, ever, be relaxing.

Today I had the pleasure of using three different kinds of transportation, most of which have already been discussed here and yet not exhausted due to the layers and layers of stress and discomfort found in all of them, layers that continue to be peeled back like the proverbial modern Egyptian woman who wears tons of…layers.

Act one: Rebirth on the Metro

Always in a class of its own, my Metro experience today was particularly moving. Switching trains at Sadat in order to head south, I felt my personal will fade away as I was sucked onto the woman’s car in a mass of bodies. While on the train, I was held firmly in place by the bubbly behinds of the ladies in front of and behind me. It was an intimate experience. Between me and the door was a group of perhaps 12 women, women I thought I would either need to squish through or shove aside in order to get out. Apparently there was a third option. As the train reached my stop, I was reborn as we, the mass of woman, formed one being and squeezed ourselves through the aperture of the metro car. To carry the metaphor further, all of us were also hot and sticky as we parted our separate ways. Too much?

Act two: If you can’t see the bones being crushed, do they still make a sound?

After partaking in the most delicious Mexican food this side of the Arab World (including Lebanon and Jordan), we were faced with the task of making it back home from Heliopolis, a faraway land filled with the richer segments of Egyptian society. We had arrived by a busy 8 lane highway and we were to leave by the same 8 lane highway, but in the opposite direction. This meant we had to cross the first 4 lanes (hell), make it to the grassy median (purgatory), and then cross the next four lanes (hell) to safety (paradise). It was nighttime, only 70 percent of the cars had their headlights on, and they were all going fast, about 70 miles an hour if my feelings are right. The speed, nighttime, and invisibility of the cars heightened the terror of the what could have been a normal highway-crossing experience. We made it to the median safely, and as we finally breached the last stretch like little black ants, I watched the lights rush towards me and imagined hearing my bones crunched against cold steel as the truck behind the headlights made contact with my unprotected, human, body. But we made it to the other side and hailed a cab, only to experience near death again all too soon.

Act three: Misfortune and self-interest

We were speeding along back to Doqqi on one of the many Cairene overpasses that look eerily similar to the skeletons of concrete giants when all of the sudden, we heard a screech, glass shattering, metal impacting, and more screeching. And then we saw the car wreck in front of us as our taxi driver skillfully slowed us down just in time to avoid hitting anyone. He stopped the car, got out to help yell at people, and then got back in and nosed his way into traffic that had been further bottlenecked into one lane, down from three. No one was hurt in the wreck, which made me feel better about the fact that my first thoughts upon seeing it were a) I’m glad that wasn’t us b) I’m glad we’re close to the wreck so we’ll be able to get through faster and c) I hope the meter wasn’t messed up when he stopped the car. Cairo does something to your priorities.

I have yet to ride any animals in Cairo, the most prevalent of which are donkeys and horses, as opposed to camels. I have also not ridden any form of bus except for the yachts rented by AUC, so there is still ground to break in the depths of Cairo transportation.

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