The Desert

Walking through a dried up river bed. There were still shells around!


Amazing multi-colored sand dunes - the photo doesn't do it justice.


Exploring the dessert.


Driving the jeep down a dune - it wasn't as scary as I thought!


Standing in an ancient temple we came upon in the dessert.

These photos are from a day of off-roading in the desert. It was, needless to say, a very bumpy ride, but worth it. It was beautiful! The guys we went with were preparing for the Egypt 2005 Rally in which a bunch of guys get into fancy jeeps with a bunch of fancy equipment and follow different cooridnates and directions to race off-road through the desert for four days...

Photos...

View of Mt.St. Helens and Mt. Rainier from the plane out of Seattle!

Living in Maadi

As some of you know, I've been invited to stay at a friend of a friend's flat in a nice neighborhood in Cairo. It's 25 minutes from downtown, and It is a world of difference from the downtown/hostel life! I'm so greatful to be invited to stay here. There are lots of foreigners in this neighborhood because the American School is just down the street. I was walking around and I happened upon a big group of people playing baseball in the evening! I could hear the familiar sound of bats hitting balls, and it took me a minute to remember that I was still in Cairo! One of the guys told me the American School has leagues that play every night! How funny is that? I'm getting to see what it is like to live as an expat here in Cairo. There are many conveniences about living here - the biggest being that you can get everything delivered straight to your door. Literally. People will come, pick up your dry cleaning, take it to the cleaners and bring it back... with no extra charge (just a tip to the delivery person!) Have a hankering for rice pudding at 11pm? Just call up a resaurant that serves it, and they will bring it to your door! I think a person could live here for years and never have to leave their flat! Well I found a roll of film I shot when I first left Seattle... still missing a roll I shot in Alexandria... I keep losing things in my luggage!

Questions...

So a few questions have come up...
Did you get to the Valley of the Kings? No, I have not gone down to the Valley of the Kings... I might depending on how much longer I'm in Egypt.

You mention foreign women attracting unwanted attention. Could you elaborate on that? What sort of attention from who? Well let me just give you a little background first. As foreigners, people stare at us no matter how we dress or what gender we are. One of my classmates pointed out that we are kind of like celebraties without the money! Everyone wants to talk to us... Some seem to want to practice their English, others want to get us into their or their friends shops, and at times it seems like it's a little bit prestigious to be walking around with foreigners. Being a woman can attract additional attention. Many things appear to play into this. In my experience, women here are not nearly as likely to approach a foreigner, so most people who talk to us are men or children. In Egypt, the concept of "dating" someone isn't very common. If you like someone, you marry them, and that's it. (I've heard that to say "I like you" and "I love you" in Arabic, you use the same words. There isn't really a difference...) Another friend of mine mentioned that all lot of Egyptian people's exposure to western people comes from the movies, so they have a very skewed concept of what western romance is actually like. Or what western women actually want for themselves (which often isn't romance at all, but you wouldn't know that from the movies!) Of course, I don't know what people are thinking... I'm not them! Many people just leave us alone, or give a friendly hello. Others though will persistently ask us to a cafe. We also are often told we are very beautiful, and whoever is talking to us will make us very happy! We also get all sorts of cheesy bad pick-up lines, like you would get at a bad bar in the States. Men also make a hissing noise, which is not malicious, but is similar to a "hey" or whistle in the states. (They do it to get each other's attention all of the time. One women hissed to get my attention and indicate that I had dropped something.) In short, on certain days this really gets to me. It reminds me of the ways that women are subtly oppressed all over the world including the US. But I've always felt safer here then in the states. I can walk around at 3am by myself, and no one will lay a finger on me. And if someone did, the next person I met (and there are always people out) would help me out... Not to mention that in Cairo, there is a cop on every corner.

Have you figured out the dress code yet? Who does the enforcing of the dress code?
Well, the dress code in Alexandria is a bit different then Cairo. People who live here wear a huge variety of Egyptian and western clothing. Egyptian women are not required to cover-up or wear a headscarf, but some choose to do so. My understanding is this choice comes from a combination of family/religious tradition and fashion. (I've heard that the berka, and hijab are actually quite fashionable here.) Overall though, it is rare to see a women expose her knees or shoulders. It is common for women to cover to their ankles and to their wrists. There are different expectations for westerners. In Alexandria it was best to wear short sleeves and pants that covered the knees. Less then that and women would approach you and speak in Arabic... It seems that they want to make it known that they have their traditions and don't approve. (This never happened to me, but I dressed conservatively on purpose.) In Cairo there are a lot more foreigners, so I've seen all sorts of shorts and tank-tops. It just seems like the normal attention is multiplied when foreigners were such things, so I haven't tried it. As one of my classmates explained (she's lived in Yemen) to them, it's like seeing someone partly naked...

What kind of food is the standard Egyptian fare?How many meals per day? When is their big meal?Do they shop for food daily or weekly or ... ?Are cold drinks commonly available? Or are drinks normally served tepid?
Well, of course there's Egyptian restaurant food, and what Egyptians eat at home... My understanding is people eat a lot of fish and rice at home. I don't know what else. Common food in restaurants includes: lamb, taamia (falafel), fouul (beans), lentils, koshery (a lentil, noodle, rice, tomato dish), pizza, feteer (pizza like, but the toppings are inside instead of on top), rice pudding, cookies, bread, croissants, hard-boiled eggs, salad (tomatoes and cucumbers...), tahini, baba ganoush and lots of flatbread/pita! The biggest meal seems to be dinner (which can be anytime during the night!) There are also fruit stands and juice shops everywhere. People just drop in for fresh mango, lemon, or strawberry juice (among others). I'm not sure how many meals per day or how often people shop. Drinks are sometimes served cold, sometimes room-temperature.

You mention getting used to being stared at: Is the staring that of curiosity or of nosiness?
I'm not sure I'd describe it as either. People just seem to be interested. I experienced this in Italy as well. It's not considered rude to stare there like it is in the States.

A few more pictures...

Mohommed Ali Mosque in Cairo.

View of Cairo from the Citadel.

A large market in Alexandria at night.

Giza

Here I am, standing on the base of the largest pyramid at Giza!

A couple of my friends rode in this cart around the desert surrounding the pyramids.

Most of these photos are from my second trip to the Pyramids of Giza. On my second trip, I rode a camel around to the back side of the pyramids. The side that faces the Sahara Desert. It was a beautiful view, and less crowded which was really nice!

What now?

Well, I finally have gotten some of my stuff posted here! I'm sure more stories will come to mind as I have more free time. But these are the basics of what I've been up to. I know my friends and family will ask, "Where are the pictures?", so don't worry - they will be posted. Posting them has proven a challenge, as my photos are on disk, and most computers here do not have CD drives (just floppy)... As most of you know, I've had a great time in Egypt. My course in Alexandria finished last week. (Yes, I passed!) After travelling down to the Sinai Penninsula this weekend, I'm back in Cairo sorting things out. My boyfriend and I have decided to apply for jobs in Asia instead of Morocco. There are more opportunities, and better paying jobs there. We are still planning to travel to Africa, and I would love to spend 6 monthes or something just traveling all over the continent. Anyway, I'll let you all know where I end up! I miss you all!

Traveling

While I've been here, I've gotten to sight see quite a bit. I've been to Cairo several times, and am currently staying here. I, of course, went to the Pyramids. I got to go in one of them. I almost turned back because you had to crawl in the first part! It was a little too tight for comfort for me. I'm glad I stuck it out though - there's nothing like standing in the middle of one of the Great Pyramids! Actually, there wasn't a lot to see inside... We could only access one chamber in the one we went in, and it had been looted long ago... The Egyptian Museum was interesting as well. There are so many treasures there, important artifacts, etc. But, in it's typical Egyptian way, the museum appeared disorganized to us westerners... Oh well. I got to see the treasures from King Tut's tomb (that man was loved! He was basically buried in gold, inside of gold, inside of gold, with a gold mask on, in a gold room, which was next to another gold room full of all of his gold belongings for his afterlife!) I also got to see the mummies of Ramses and Ramses II among other royalty. They were so creepy! You can still see hair and nails on some of them! Other sites worth seeing in Cairo include many mosques (especially the old ones - and by old, I mean 1,000 years or more!), the Citadel, the City of the Dead, and the huge market Khan el Khalili.

As part of my tuition for my course, I got to go to Sharm El Sheikh at the Red Sea. The devastation to business since the bombing there is very apparently. The resort town was basically empty. Ironically, this is probably the safest time to travel there. We went through about half a dozen passport checks on the way there. Egyptians cannot go to Sharm or other Red Sea resorts without their ID card showing they live or work there. (Though there must be some travel permission, but I don't know how they get that.) Restrictions for other people of Middle Eastern decent are also very high. Unfortunately, there is a lot of racial profiling that seems to occur at these check points. As a westerner, my bag is barely searched, and my passport just gets a glance... My friends and I really enjoyed our time staying at a five star Marriott, and eating lots and lots of the free buffet breakfast! And of course, laying on the almost abandon beach, getting tan, going dancing at night... A few of us even made a mad dash up Mount Sinai on the last night we were there. (It's best to hike at night, since it's so hot during the day. We started our hike around three am! Saw the sunrise, and headed back down. Then we had to take a cab, bus and a minibus back to our hotel (about three hours away.) We arrived back exactly one minute before check out! (And then we found out we had an extra hour since our bus was late!) Anyway, I'm still sore from that hike and it's three days later!

Learnin' English

The certificate course was very good. I loved my classmates, so that made it a very enjoyable experience! There were about 10 other people in the course from Jamaica, Australia, Germany, the US and the UK. It was an intensive course, so the first two weeks were all grammer and related classes. It was a lot to learn in a short amount of time, and my grammer is horrible! Luckily, most students and schools want teachers to teach conversational English anyway... The teachers were all very good. I feel like a lot of information went into my head, and hopefully some of it stuck! We taught a variety of adult and child classes for the last two weeks. The kids were so cute, and well-behaved. They were really excited to learn English. One boy, whom I worked with one-on-one, was particularly cute. Hewas turning 13, but he looked much younger (10 or so) and he was the most eager student. He wouldn't sit on the floor because he would get his pants dirty! He literally wanted to be Harry Potter. EVERYTHING was about Harry Potter! One time he told me, "Next week, I learn German, French, Italien and Chinese." If only I could learn four languages in one week!

Swimmin' in my Clothes!

So one weekend, my friends and I decided to head to the beach.There are beaches everywhere, but one particular beach was recommended to us. Beaches in Egypt are very different then beaches in the States. The beach we went to was very crowded, and everyone put their chairs right along the surf. (The sea is on the other side of all of the umbrella's and tables in the photo!) So you have to kind of walk through all of the chairs/umbrellas/tables to get to the water. Some of my group tried to sneak onto one of the hotel beaches, but they blew their whistles at them right away. So aside from having to go in the water fully clothed, (and observing that the men could wear the tiniest of swimsuits and still be appropriate!) and sitting further back on the beach, it became very obvious quickly that we were a main interest on the beach. People kept coming over to talk with us. Hussein, our driver, sat with us most of the time, so less people came over to us. One guy came over to us and handed his baby over and started taking pictures of us with his baby! He had us pass the baby all around! I swam a bit on my own, but once I was with the others, (some of whom were wearing tank tops - gasp!), there were people all around us talking to us. I eventually just got out of the water.

I'm still fascinated by the clothing norms here, especially for women. I don't think I know enough about the traditions to write a whole lot about it. From what I've heard though, some women wear hijabs (headscarves) because it's traditional to do so in their families. Others though, wear them because they've become fashionable again. (I guess they went out for a while.) There are all different styles of dress around, combining traditional middle eastern fashion with western fashion. Foreign women who where clothing that reveal knees, or shoulders will attract a lot of unwanted attention. This has also taken me a while to adjust too. (Especially because dress for men is not at all restricted...)

Culture Shock

My first few days in Egypt were overwhelming to say the least. It certainly took me some time to adjust to an entirely new culture and environment. The biggest adjustment was that my classmates and I quickly learned that we were without a doubt, a minority in Alexandria. Not as many tourists make it to Alexandria as Cairo, so Alexandrians were not used to seeing foreigners. It was bizarre to walk around with a group of people and not see another foreigner for the entire day. I learned that Alexandria is just a place that Egyptians go to for vacations, but not a lot of foreigners visit. We were also living in the neighborhoods with the locals, so we weren't staying in areas the tourists would go anyway.

Being in Egypt like this has been a good experience for me though, because I've never been in a situation of being completely in the minority. Everyone here stares very openly. I don't think it is considered rude, they are just fascinated at the site of us! Within a week,I adjusted to the stares, and don't even notice them anymore. Everywhere we go, people want to talk to us too. Mostly men, as women seem to be less out-spoken. People are extremely friendly, and mostly genuinely want to help and/or practice their English. It does get exhausting after a while because you can't walk more then a couple of minutes without someone approaching you.

My first few days in Alex (as the locals call it!) I walked around in a state of bewilderment. There is nothing like being surrounded by an environment that is completely foreign. It took me some time to adjust to seeing and hearing Arabic all around me. I also didn't have a clue where to go for simple things (like food!) or even what those things were! It was also a huge adjustment to get used to the level of poverty here. I'd say more people are poor, then middle class or wealthy here. Of course, people are very interested in all of the things that we are interested in the United States (music, movies, hanging out with friends, shopping.) But the standard of living for many people is fairly low. It certainly has given me a lot more perspective on how people live all over the world. After the first few days of getting oriented though, the shock has worn off, and I feel very comfotable here.

The Accomodations

From day one, many of my classmates were displeased with the school provided accomodations. I shared a three bedroom apartment with two of my classmates. The apartment was tiny, hot (no AC), and in need of a new coat of paint. There were ants and roaches, but they mostly came out at night! Could have been worse I guess! Most of the other students stayed in the same building, so we had a lot of fun, always back and forth to each other's apartments. We seemed to take up most of the apartments on the 7th floor. I had my own room, which was nice. The mattresses on my bed were extremely soft and thin, so I moved another mattress from and extra bed, and proceeded to sleep in the sunken hole in the middle of the three mattresses for a few weeks. Everyone who walked into my room couldn't help but laugh! This was an improvement over my hips hitting the boards underneath the two soft mattresses. I eventually got firmer mattresses from one of the other apartments, and it was all good! One afternoon, I wsa sitting in my room and I heard a loud bang from the other room. At first I thought one of my roommates had dropped something, but I went out for a look, and our ceiling fan was on the floor. Thank God none of us were in that room at the time! We told the guys who took care of the building that our fan had broken. When we came back to the apartment, the fan had been put back up, but looked a bit off kilter. It wasn't even centered on the fixture that hung down from the ceiling! And, not surprisingly, it didn't turn on when we flipped the switch either... probably for the better!

Live Video Games

Two of my classmates pretending to push the car out of the way of our van!

Riding in any vehicle feels like a video game! There are absolutely no rules. The lines on the road (when there are lines) mean nothing. There are about 3 stop lights in this entire city, and stopping when they are red is apparently optional. As is driving the right way down one-way streets. The scariest thing is that humans, horses and donkeys pulling carts, cars, mini-buses (vans) and trams all share the same spaces. There are sidewalks, but they are fair game for businesses and usually blocked by chairs, tables, and vendor's carts. One afternoon, my classmates and I set out for Monteza, a popular beach. We hired the school's driver to take us. When he parked the car at the entrance to the beach, we noticed that the cars had been parked in (one row in front of another row...) and no keys had been collected. When we returned to the car, sure enough, another car was sitting in front of it. "How are we going to get the van out?" we asked. The attendents indicated that they were going to push the other car (apparently they don't use parking breaks here, and all cars are manual transmissions) out of the way... We, of course, got a huge kick out of this and two attendance proceeded to push the other car out of our way, and then roll it into our spot when we were out!

The Beginning

After some sudden changes of events, I found myself on a plane not to that dear city of Roma, Italia, but instead to Alexandria Egypt via Frankfurt, Germany. I was in Frankfurt for a LONG 10 hours or so. I took the 20 minute metro ride from the enormous airport into the city. After relishing the feeling of being back in Europe, getting some pizza, and checking some email, it started raining and the floor started to move in waves. So jet-lagged and exhausted I returned to the airport, where I slept off and on. I woke with a start at least five times and panically (is that a word?) thinking, "is it time to go now?"

I started to get really nervous as I boarded the flight (to Alexandria) and realized I was one of three "westerners" on the plane. Being in the minority is certainly something I've had little experience with. Everyone was really friendly, and after helping an older man who was struggling to put his suitcase up, and another man next to find his glasses which rolled under the seat, I felt a lot more comfortable. As we were landing I was looking down at the city and the idea that I was in Africa really started to hit me! And then I started thinking, "what the hell did I do!"

The Alexandria airport is really really small. It took a while to get through passport control, and once I did, I realized that I didn't see the driver who was suppose to pick me up anywhere! I was really nervous already, and then started to stress about what I would do if the driver never showed up! I didn't even bring a guidebook with me to give me hotel names! There were guys trying to "help" everyone with their bags. I waved the first one off, but was too tired to argue with the second guy who didn't really give me a chance to argue anyway. He grabbed my bags and was three steps ahead of me the whole time. I kept saying, "wait, there's suppose to be someone here to pick me up!" As we walked outside, I saw a man with a "TEFL International" sign and was VERY greatful! Hussein was really nice, and led me to his car (they guy with my bags was still three steps ahead, and had to be called back to go the right way to the car!) At that point I hopped into Hussein's old Volkeswagon van, and we headed on our way. (After the guy complained about the tip I give him, which I've since found out was quite high.)

The ride was hilarious because the van kept dying as he went around turns, and Hussein would just restart it as we were driftng along... The headlights kept going out on the van too, but apparently you don't really need to have them on while driving through the city in the middle of the night! It was also my first introduction to Middle Eastern traffic.
We drove along the Cornish (sea wall), which was beautiful, and arrived at the apartment building I have been staying in.