Christmas in Cairo

I’m pretty sure being in Egypt makes me closer to Jesus than everyone else in the States so, Hah!

I was originally really excited about skipping out on all the Christmas shenanigans…the insane last minute holiday shopping, Christmas music played everywhere you go, excessive holiday cheer, juggling family gatherings…but Christmas here pretty much felt like every other day of the year, and I found myself missing home a little.

Well, I guess Christmas wasn't completely forgotten this year. For about a week there were some street kids selling the creepiest Santa masks you've ever seen. I also asked my students' parents to send Christmas decorations so I could decorate my classrooms. That got me a whole lot more than I bargained for. I got streamers and ornaments galore, as well as other random party favors like party hats and balloons which said “happy birthday”. One mom was particularly generous and made a trip to the school so she could deliver a life-size fake Christmas tree. She said she thought this year would be difficult for me being away from my family and friends so she wanted to make me feel at home…aaawwwww.

On Christmas Eve we threw together a last minute dinner party with some friends and then went down to the British Club for drinks. Definitely an “old fart” bar. We befriended the bar owner, a spunky white haired British chap dubbed “Uncle Mike” by friends. Being the youngest and probably the drunkest group of people at the bar, we took to the dance floor shakin’ it to tunes like “if you think I’m sexy” and Cher’s “do you believe in love after love”. “Uncle Mike” offered us free seats at the big Christmas dinner the next day, but admittedly, none of us felt very good, so we had a very late dinner with friends at a little Italian place in Zamalech. All in all, a pretty decent Christmas.
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Chauvinist Non-Alcoholic Birell Beer Ad :)

Paul and I have taken to reading the Herald Tribune whenever we happen to find a copy, which isn’t as regular as I’d like. Funny thing is my favorite part is reading the Egyptian Daily News that comes inside. It has far more weird, outright hilarious, or just plain head-shaking articles than whatever the Herald Tribune prints. Gently put though, it’s probably because some of the stuff just doesn’t make for topical discussions in the U.S. and Egypt is generally a more conservative society. So things that typically aren’t that scandalous make headlines, and things that just simply wouldn’t be a problem in the U.S. are printed here.

There was a scary article about activists taking a stand against local bloggers being taken by “state thugs” to unknown destinations. Writing anything about Mubarek or the government is a big "no-no". (Perhaps I should not be blogging this?) If you want to know more, you can read it here.

The article that really caught my attention was printed only a few days ago and it’s HILARIOUS…as well as terrible. It’s titled “Birell Beer ad Campaign Triggers Debate on Egyptian Blogosphere”, which is only really eye-popping if you know that Birell is a non-alcoholic beer. They sell it at all the kiosks and Paul and I can never figure out why you would want to buy the stuff. Anyway, the new ad’s slogan is “be a man, drink Birell.” So article talks about how chauvinist the ad is, but I can’t help but laugh as it’s a non-alcoholic beer…what is masculine about that?! Only in Egypt. I highly recommend reading it for entertainment value. The article is here. I couldn't dig up the actual ad, but if someone else finds it, let me know.

As for American news, has anyone heard the infamous story about Bush being hit with a pair of shoes? I’m sure it’s old news by now…but hilarious! Paul was actually at the grocery store the day the video came out and the check-out guy asked him if he was American and then excitedly offered to send him the video from his phone if he had blue tooth. Too funny.



He really hurls those things!
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Dowtown and Zamalech Pictures

So I published the last post a little prematurely. I was hoping to keep things orderly and in a chronological fashion. Anyway, the pictures I’m posting below aren’t terribly exciting, but are a kind of narration of the afternoon of the “Town’n it up” post. They give you an idea of what the open streets of downtown and Zamalech look like…and of course there are some pictures of the Nile.

Mogamma. This is the large government building on Midan Tahrir where Paul and I got or Visa's.

This is a general picture of Midan Tahrir. It's basically a really big round-about with really tall buildings and small shops below. It's the center of the city and a common location where Paul and I start our aimless walks. The museum is about a block from here.

Big lion statues adorn each end of the 6th of October bridge that crosses the Nile and takes you into Zamalech.

One of the Lion's from the 6th of October bridge and the Ciaro tower behind it. Cairo tower is actually a controversial piece of architecture. The American's tried to bribe President Gamal Abdul Nasser with a bunch of money so he could buy arms, but he used the money to build the tower. Basically, it was big "finger" to the U.S.

Downtown liquor store. They aren't much. I only drink I.D. vodka or beer. Most of the Egyptian stuff looks like it should belong in a medicine cabinet rather than a liquor store.

Picture of the infamous black and white Cairo cab.

Pretty view of the Nile.

Another pretty view of the Nile.

Pretty view of the Nile, along with the beginnings of the set-up for the Cairo film festival.

Look! It's green! Welcome to Zamalech!

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women, sex, dating...scandalous!

Busy, busy, busy! Man, there has just been so much stuff going on this week I am a pooped puppy, but I can’t resist the urge to write. This week has been “wrap-it-up” week at school since it’s the end of the first quarter and the second Eid is coming up. Yay for vacation! I need one bad. I had to fill out progress reports this week. We also had “fun-day” which was the most pointless waste of a school day ever. “Fun-day” basically consisted of a bunch of blow up bouncy things, music and a lot of just standing around. I will say that there was a rather intriguing blow up thing that was basically a life size Foosball table. The sides were air filled tubes with big nets on either end with poles running all along the middle where small children could Velcro themselves into their respective spots on the “table”. There was also some gladiator type stuff where the P.E. teacher set up a balance beam and put kids in plastic vests and gave them jousting sticks. The only protection from the hard asphalt below were a few scattered quarter inch thick mats. Paul and I watched for impending doom but luckily no one was seriously injured.

I also had parent-teacher conferences today, which I found out about…this morning! Parents are stressful. But Ms. Samar was so wonderful! She teased me for being so nervous, and then acted as my translator.

Thanksgiving was also this weekend. We had to postpone celebrating until after the weekend with all the school stuff. We managed to pull off a feast on Saturday which was surprisingly American, hahaha! No turkey, but a ton of chicken complete with stuffing, green bean casserole, orange-ginger carrots, ambrosia, mashed potatoes, gravy, and apple pie…mmmm. The ingredients were a pain to come by and our gas tank for the oven and the stove ran out about halfway through. Nothing to stress about though, with a little help from the door guys downstairs, we successfully had the tank replaced within the hour. I’m really excited about all the leftovers in our fridge.

Besides looking for tutoring gigs, I’ve also been hosting events with my roommates. I feel a little skeazy about it, but the events and the pay make it worth it. Basically it’s this agency that gets cute girls to dress up and temp-host high end events which could involve anything from seating people, passing out fliers, giving out prizes, etc. etc. etc. The one I’ll be working in December is a concert Mobinile is hosting at the pyramids, and it’s my job to seat the VIP’s…yeah!

I’m kind of disappointed we’re not going to wear the original dress for the event. It the weirdest outfit I've ever seen! Think black witch/gladiator costume. It was black and silver with a giant cross at the breast, another big dangling cross on a belt, complete with a headband and a cape. I would have loved to have gotten some pictures in it. Anyway, it was terrible, and they were having trouble getting girls to agree to wear it, so now we’re wearing black pants with white button up shirts. They’re providing the pants and shoes, and I get to keep them along with the 300LE they’re going to pay me for one night of work! Pretty sweet deal. Not to mention the event is going to take place at the pyramids in the evening and there’s potential for a light show. I haven’t even been up close and personal with the pyramids yet!

So I mentioned last time I’d talk some about women, sex, dating, etc. in Egypt, and once again, I’m at a loss for where to start. On the surface, it seems like Egypt’s a relatively progressive society. “Relatively” is the key word here. There’s a pleasantly surprising mix of veiled as well as un-veiled women, with about a handful of Burka’s thrown in. But the veil is really the least bit confusing part about women’s role in Egypt.

Let me stress that women here do have the potential to achieve anything they put their minds to, and some overcome the obstacles and succeeded…however, you can still seriously sense the oppressiveness in the air. There are a lot small instances or circumstances that may strike the average liberal American as a bit strange.

Egyptians have incredible respect and love for their families, and thus divorce rates are relatively low, but they still exist. I happened to be doing a little research on Egyptians right to divorce out of plain curiosity and was disturbed to discover reforms to women's rights to divorce have only recently leveled the playing field a little. Men have an unquestionable right to divorce. They have the power to divorce their wife for any reason, and assets and alimony are always distributed equally. In the wife’s case, she must go to court and apply for an “at-fault” divorce, which basically means she has to provide proof that she has been harmed during her marriage. One article stated that even in domestic violence cases, the woman must have eye witness testimonies in order for her claims to be valid. If she "wins", she's free and alimony is distributed equally. Until now, those were the options. If she wasn't able to prove she was harmed by her marriage, that's it. She simply had to live with it. The only recently added the option for a “no-fault” divorce. This allows the woman to divorce her husband for any reason, but she relinquishes any financial rights and is required to pay back the dowry gifted to her by her husband.

My roommates have also noted many Egyptian women tend to be total gossip hounds, and are incredibly jealous and catty. I sympathize. I can’t help but think of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex where she discusses the habits of the women in the Victorian period. Many of these women were backstabbing and viscous, which De Beauvoir pointed out was because women were only able to improve their social standing through marriage; therefore women were in constant competition with one another. Now maybe it’s a stretch, but because Egyptian women are (for the most part) expected to get married and play the typical role of the good housewife, their catty gossiping ways may be similarly attributed to De Beauvoir’s observations.

Dating is one of the most difficult things to understand in Egypt. There’s no one answer you’ll get for anything, it’s contradictory, and full of unwritten rules. The first thing I noticed while I was here was that almost every Egyptian we knew between the ages of 20-23 is or has been engaged. The ending of an engagement, in my humble opinion, is similar to the ending of a serious or long-term relationship. After a lot of questions and a lot of ambiguous answers, the way I understand it is this. While youngsters are able to do a mild bit of dating, if they continue to see the same person for an extended period of time; questions get raised and family members begin to get skeptical…so to satisfy the older generation, youngsters are agreeing to get engaged so they can hold the relationship in this dating period without upsetting tradition. This allows them to continue a long term relationship by basically legitimizing it to the rest of society. But, as many of you have probably guessed, these relationships seem to end before they make it to the big day.

Sex? The big question. It’s another confusing one, but I’ll give it what I can. Couples are technically not supposed to have sex until they're married. There are several parts to the marriage. After the paperwork is completed, they young couple is officially married and able to consummate the marriage. After some time, there is a big ceremony, and a party after which I would equate to a wedding reception. At this time, everyone knows the young couple are sleeping together and there are giggles and the guys are slapping the groom on the back and the girls are asking the bride what it was like, etc, etc, etc. So this is the ideal situation. Young Egyptians do have sex, but it’s complicated and generally more complicated for women. Courting is a must and the relationship moves much, MUCH slower than a typical American relationship. Also, women that have sex are not always regarded very highly. A man might casually date a woman he's having sex with, but just knowing they "put-out" means they get the boot from the marriage market. I can’t forget the disgusted feeling I got when one of our Egyptian friends, during a discussion, said he would only marry a virgin, not long after discussing some of his escapades with various women. “Why? You’ve had sex? Why can’t she have sex?” was the general consensus, which only got us a few mumbles and something about how men need more practice at sex than women.

On that note, one of my roommates recently dated an Egyptian guy. Apparently the sex wasn’t so great. From the gist of it, he simply had no idea what to do, and was completely opposed to giving oral sex (but okay with receiving it). Now this guy did turn out to be a pretty all around douche bag, but (and I may be generalizing too much here) I would still venture to say that this may not be too far from the norm. If women are supposed to be submissive, I’m not sure pleasure on the women’s front is highest in a list of priorities.

My roommate Faye had a much more interesting discussion in the teachers lounge about masturbation. Funny thing is I can’t believe these women were bold enough to be talking about it in public. I don’t know the whole story since I wasn’t there, she explained many of the women had differing views. Some felt it was hazardous to your health. Some felt the men in their lives would not approve of such a thing. And, some felt that it may be “okay”. One woman, who just got pregnant, blamed birth control for the 7 years prior of trying without success, and was hell bound on convincing the other young women that birth control was unhealthy. I guess her doctor attributed her infertility to her birth control. Another friend of ours told us that another doctor told her the small bumps you can sometimes get on the back of your upper arms were due to masturbation. What?!!!

Also, men and women, who are not married, are not supposed to sleep in the same home together. Not usually a problem for Egyptians in that most of them live with their parents, but it does become a problem even when traveling together and getting a hotel room. Egyptians of the opposite gender who are not married are not allowed share a room. In order to rent a room, they must provide their marriage certificate. If they were to rent separate rooms, and then sneak into one another’s rooms, the police would be notified and the guy would be taken home and the woman to jail. Paul and I didn’t have any trouble on our trip because we are foreigners. All we had to do was show the hotel a copy of our passports.

Foreigners have their own standard of conduct which is far less restrictive than any Egyptians. We are not held to many of the moral codes here. But that’s a whole other story. We are however having some recent problems at the boy’s apartment. Because our apartments are parent free (unique to many Egyptian apartments as I mentioned earlier), they have become kind of a hub for other Egyptians to hang out at. Fine, except that apparently the neighbors in Paul’s apartment are very upset at the amount of girls coming over all the time, which is putting Paul and Tom in a possible homeless situation. No reason to worry yet. I have high hopes for this one. Paul and Tom’s apartment leaves little to be desired and this whole thing may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Well, I’m exhausted and I’m hoping to post some more pictures so I’ll go ahead and end this here. There should be several more posts rolling in so happy reading! more...

Town'n It Up

So no big events this month minus the White Desert trip, which was amazing, but Paul and I are trying to save for our next big adventure to Alexandria and Siwa, so money is a little tight. I’m super pumped though since we’ll finally be doing something on our own. Everyone here is so generous we get picked up and toted around everywhere without having to do a whole lot of fending for ourselves. I swear, you can’t hang out with anyone for more than 10 minutes before they offer you a ride to somewhere. It’s great, but like I said, I’m really excited to be doing something off the beaten path. We’re going to stay in Alex for a couple days, eat some kick ass seafood, party it up in the Mediterranean, and then head to Siwa to see some crazy ruins and ride bicycles.

Paul and I have taken to aimless walks on the weekends. Our favorite thing is to take a cab to Midan Tahrir and just start walking. Last time I came prepared. We hit the rode in the afternoon with my purse stocked with a change of clothes for the clubs and a water bottle full of vodka. We meandered through Zamalech, the pretty green island on the Nile, and then got terribly lost in some part of town which I’m still not sure the name of. We picked up a Herald Tribune from the newsstand to keep ourselves updated on the withering American economy while we sipped Turkish coffee at an outdoor café. We met an interesting Egyptian engineer who has lived virtually everywhere on the planet. After a lot more walking and random stopping we found the culture wheel that promotes smaller concert venues, puppet shows, old movies, and seminars…it had some really great prints of the White Desert as well as our future destination, Siwa. Then we stumbled into Mahandaseen where we peaked in some cute shops and surprisingly hip thrift store that had a furry hat I should have bought (dammit!). Then we passed the cab the address for Abu Tarek, which we got from the perfume guys we met during a previous adventure and ate delicious Koshary. And just when we thought we were done we saw a beacon of light…a neon sign declaring ‘STELLA’! Oh it’s the little things. We walked hopefully down the dark alley to be greeted by an incredibly loud Egyptian Bartenderess who led us into a dark room with music you could barely hear yourself think over and served us an icy cold Heineken…heaven! After a few beers, the locals asked to take pictures with us, which has become kind of the norm, but they were friendly and less weird than the creepy matron at school who is always insisting that I kiss her. After a few beers, Paul and I got antsy and were debating whether or not we wanted to kick it downtown for another few hours and wait for the clubs to pick up or head home. We ended up getting even more lost and decided it was time to break out the Vodka, bought a bottle of 7up and started walking again. This time we stopped at an outdoor café and smoked sheesha while we discussed my crazy roommates and kept drinking. Then, speak of the devils, my phone started blowing up and it was Faye telling us they were all headed to the Cairo Jazz Club. Sweet, exactly where we were headed! I hit up a fast food joint and put on my dancing shoes and we hit the rode again this time with a little more bounce in our step.

The Cairo Jazz Club is my favorite bar/club so far. I had been there one other time with Faye so she could see her new guy do his DJ thing. The place has decent music played at excruciatingly high levels which leaves your ears ringing. It’s the first place I’ve seen some people that remind me of home. The place is crawling with hipsters. I was getting a huge kick out of this guy sporting the tightest pair of yellow corduroys I’ve ever seen, topped with skinny suspenders, and white sunglasses breakin’ it down on the dance floor. Yay for funky fashion! Anyway, after a lot of wiggling and toe tapping, we hitched a ride back with friends. I slept like a baby. I guess that’s what 8 hours of walking and 4 hours of dancing will do to you. All together a good day.

So this is totally out of the flow of things, but I forgot (and how could I) to mention an interesting incident that occurred during our first few hours in Zamaleck. After we crossed the bridge over the Nile, went down to walk along the esplanade underneath and got stuck at the other end. We jumped the fence and ended up on a typical downtown street where we were greeted by an 8 year old kid asking for money. This is very common, they’re everywhere. You feel bad, but there’s just too many to give to them all. A typical response is a firm “La-a Shukran” (no thank you) which means they follow you for second hoping you’ll change your mind and then scamper off to someone else. This one however decides to pull out a teeny tiny knife to which Paul and I responded with surprise and slight amusement. He wasn’t very serious, but started waving it around. When an 8 year old starts waving a knife you realize that logic has nothing to do with it, and start getting a little nervous. I think he was just messing around at first, but once he got a whiff of “the fear” he got coy about it and started getting a little closer. A loud, “get back!” and a hand raise that’s says “I’ll smack the shit out of you kid” and he ran off. Totally random and weird. I was quite amused after and kept joking with Paul that he almost got jumped by an 8 year old.

So that’s my story for now. I really do plan on writing some interesting culture stuff, but I get distracted every time I come to the Café. Thanksgiving is this weekend and we’re planning on making a feast and inviting some fellow teachers. Happy Turkey Day!!!! more...

The White Desert

This was an amazing trip. It was only 2 days long, but really cool and laid back. Basically we set out in a van to an Oasis and then jumped in an all terrain jeep driven by a local Bedouin. Then Saule (the driver) drove like a madman through the desert; quite possibly the best part of the trip. You bounce around while the driver either shifts the jeep on the sand or drives at about 100km per hour around rock formation obstacles. I felt a little like I was part of an Indiana Jones movie. Throughout the trip we made pitstops at different areas like the black desert, crystal mountain, the mushrooms, and the white desert where we camped out for the evening. Saule made us one of the best meals ever! We brought a couple bottles of Vodka with us and played cards, traipsed around the surreal landscape, and then slept out under the stars. It was amazing! At night, when I went to find a spot to pee I kept hearing all these little howling noises which turned out to be desert foxes, one of which tried to sneak into our camp and steal our marshmallows. Anyway, the pictures are way better than anything I could really tell you about the trip. But really, you just had to be there.

This is some of us inside the jeep getting ready to take off.

Another picture of the Jeep.

Pretty desert scene at the beginning of our adventure.

The Black Desert. Basically a big Mountain covered in some kind of volcanic rock. No worries Mark, I saved you few pieces :)

More of the black desert.

Me being a dork.

Amazing view from standing on top of the mountain. Our jeep is just a tiny spec in the distance.

Part of Crystal Mountain. Basically it's a big rock completely covered with quartz.

When we rolled up to this spectacular view Paul and I had the insane urge to start humming the theme to Star Wars.

Rock that looks like a wave...you can see Faye taking a little snooze inside.

The mushrooms. This is what the white desert is covered in, strange white rock formations. The rock is made of chalk and is eroded by the wind into strange shapes.

White desert landscape.

Really amazing view of a mushroom.

How's is it standing like that? Pretty neat, huh?

Since the white stuff is chalk, you can do fun stuff like this.

And this is where we camped, right next to the jeep. Some friends claim the rock on the right looks like George Washington, but I'm more apt to think it looks like a goat or something...you be the judge.

I'm really excited about our vacation trip to Alexandria and Siwa at the beginning of December. Siwa is supposed to be gorgeous so I'm looking forward to getting some more pretty photos. Unfortunately I'm on the run...I get to fill out progress reports today. Ugh.

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Persepolis

I played hooky from school today…I've got a pretty awful cough and a sore throat. So I thought today would be a good day for blogging.

In the meantime, last week I was reading a copy of “Stop Smiling” magazine when I stumbled upon an interview with Marjane Satrapi about her graphic novel “Persepolis”. So Paul was sweet enough to download it for me and I have spent the last 24 hours reading it feverishly. It’s absolutely wonderful.

The novel is basically a memoir about her extraordinary life which is separated into two parts. The first part takes place while she is very young and living in Iran with her family. The second part takes place while she is a teenager living in Austria and her later return to Iran to be reunited with her family.

Much of her book revolves around her liberal minded family who are activists and avid protesters in Iran. Many members of her family and friends are sent to prison or executed for being communists. Other members of her family flee to Russia. While her parents and family members are inspiring and her relationship with them is really touching, she still allows you to see their imperfections and imbedded hypocrisy.

She does a really beautiful job of interweaving her personal experience with the complex history and conflict of her homeland. Coming from someone who has little to no knowledge about the history of Iran, I found the politics and complications of the country easily accessible. Much like the simple black and white illustrations, her writing is very simple and to the point. Yet, she’s still able touch on complicated themes like isolation, borderlands, and assimilation. I found myself thinking back to discussions I had in my Latina Literature class where we spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of borders and the feeling of belonging, along with complications of embracing parts of one culture while still assimilating to another. Iran is often depicted the “axis of evil” by our own country, and I felt like she made a point to show that you can’t always characterize historical disputes as good versus evil. There’s always a grey area, and it’s important to recognize that much of the media only portrays one side of the story. While she doesn’t necessarily portray Iran in a positive light, she lets you have a sneak peak at people working to make it a better place, as well as provide insight as to what role the western part of world has played in it’s problems.

A large portion of the second half of the novel takes place in Austria where she is estranged from her parents. She recognizes the opportunity and freedoms she has there, but she also misses some of the values found in her own culture. She winds up changing in such a way that she never fully accepts until the end of the novel. She knows her culture is oppressive, but she feels this great burden of guilt that in some way she is betraying or denying her own heritage. She winds up assimilating to some degree, but realizes she’ll never fully be accepted in her new culture. In the end, when she returns to Iran, she comes into a further realization that she isn’t really accepted in her original country either as she’s been tainted by the west.

Everything about the book is incredibly interesting. I felt like I learned so much. But it’s also great entertainment. Her life is thrilling and the novel is touching and at times heartbreaking. I found myself with the warm and fuzzies and at other times (I hate to admit it) a little blurry eyed, but I’m a sap sometimes. I’d recommend the book to anyone and everyone. It’s a really easy read…I’ll give my personal guarantee you’ll be hooked in the first 5 minutes.

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Shortest Post Ever!

Ahhh! I'm sitting in a cafe and I feel like I've warped into the twlight zone. There's a football match and everyone's gone mad! I keep jumping whenever a goal is scored because the place erupts with shouts and screams and clangs. I'm having severe flashbacks of Brazil during the world cup. We even got out of school early today so everyone could get home for the game...just like in Brazil. So why is U.S. the only country that doesn't give a hoot about soccer? It's so much more interesting than American football.
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Pyramids!!!

So we've finally seen the pyramids relatively up close and personal. Not that looking at them from Mousad's balcony wasn't already impressive. We went to this part of town that's full of horses and camels and basically rented them for a few hours to ride around in the desert with a spectacular view.

Giddyup!

Paul's horse refused do anything he wanted it to. At one point it stopped to eat some garbage. But if you want to see something entertaining, you really have to see Paul ride when the horse is going at full trot, he'd just let himself be bounced violently up and down. Faye and I couldn't stop laughing. I have to say he looks rather dashing in this picture though.

Pyramids, Camel, Desert, Cairo...perfect! It's been awhile since I've seen a camel. The things are TALL! When you get up on one, they get up with their back legs first so you feel like you'll topple over. I witnessed this actually happen to a fellow teacher on a field trip. Scary...but a little funny.

How would you like to four-wheel it here?!

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Insert Witty Title Here...I got nothin'

EEEEEeeeeeee!!!! I’m super duper caffeinated! Paul and I woke up really early this morning and made a fabulous breakfast of eggs, veggies, and potatoes, all of which were purchased from the veggie stand on the corner, and we’ve been drinking coffee ever since. I have Turkish coffee in front of me right now and I’m almost afraid to drink it. I was really hoping all the caffeine would spur a writing extravaganza. With all the positive feedback I’ve been getting on the blog I’m feeling a little like I need to write something fantastical. Before I felt like I was writing, but no one was really paying any attention. Unfortunately, nothing super fantastical has happened as of late. I love the comments though so keep ‘em coming. (Bob-"the road of dangerous curves" should be a strip club-Brilliant!)

So Halloween just happened…yesterday. The sad part is that Halloween really isn’t an Egyptian holiday that’s celebrated; they're aware of it, but people don’t get dressed up. The kindergarten section at school did throw a Halloween party for all the youngsters though on Thursday. All the little one’s came dressed up. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many Spidermen in one place. The costumes with the built in muscles were especially hilarious. One of my kids came in traditional Muslim garb with the turban and the flowing white scarf complete with a band aid which his mom had colored black and stuck to his upper lip to look like a mustache…hahahahahahaha. He kept having me reattach it since all the chocolate smeared on his face kept it from sticking. Eventually the band aid was lost which caused him much distress.

Just to clarify things in case I didn’t earlier, Paul and I are working in the same school so we have all the same holidays…yay! We are both working in the National school instead of the American school so we get slightly fewer holidays. I’m pretty sure both of us will be working on Christmas, but we’ll see.

The Kindergarteners are kept in a seperate section of the school. They have their own play area, and classrooms. I wasn't sure how I'd fair with kindergarteners, but they've really warmed up to me. Plus, kindergarteners get a party or go on a field trip every week.

Speaking of Kindergarten parties you should see these things. I was in my classroom one day and all of sudden there’s this loud techno dance music outside. All my kids run out of the classroom to find a DJ and many of their favorite animated characters dancing around. Mickey, Spiderman, Baby-bop, Barney, and some Egyptian character I’ve never heard of. At one point while I was trying to comfort all of the terrified children, the other teachers ganged up on me and sent Spiderman over to ask me to dance. I had no choice, I danced with Spiderman, which if you’ve ever danced with a giant headed cartoon character is really, really weird. My students loved it!

In other news, the elections are coming! Man oh man am I excited…Paul is fortunate enough to get CNN international so we’ve been following the campaign closely. The debates were on really late so we could only watch one. I find myself actually really excited about Obama. He’s young, eloquent, tolerant, and I really feel like he’s in this thing for the right reasons. I feel like he has a plan of attack for the whole economic crisis, a pretty decent health care plan (one which doesn’t exclude those of us with pre-existing conditions), and he’s up for diplomatic conversations with foreign countries.

Egyptians are also pro Obama. I can’t help recall the cab ride I took to Paul’s where the cabbie asked my nationality (don’t ask me how I knew what he was referring to because he didn’t speak a lick of English). After discovering I was American he kept asking “anti-bush? Anti-Bush?” to which I nodded, prompting the cabbie to give me a double handed thumbs up and a huge yellow toothed grin. Let me tell you, a double handed thumbs up in Cairo traffic is terrifying. He then proceeded to chant “Obama” the rest of the way.

Well, Paul has finally successfully downloaded “Pineapple Express” and I’m dying to see it so I’ve got to pack things up. If anyone has fun pictures from Halloween I expect e-mails.
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El Fishawy and Downtown Alleys

In alley one block west of Midan Hussein is an Ahwa (cafe) called el Fishawy as denoted by the sign above. It's supposedly been open continuously for over 200 years. The walls are hung with huge mirrors, archaic chandeliers, a leather stuffed alligator, and black and white photos from the 30’s and 40’s doting famous Egyptian artists and pseudo intellectuals. Inside it's packed with people smoking sheesha and drinking coffee.

Me smoking sheesha.

Paul smoking sheesha.

Another view of the alley directly outside el Fishawy. You can tell these people think I'm photographing them. Oh well.

This is the fruit and veggie market Paul and I stumbled upon while meandering downtown. They still use the old scales with weights. I bought one kilo of tomatoes and cucumbers for 4 LE (less than a buck). Smaller versions of this stand can be found on just about every street corner in Cairo.

This is just to give you an idea of how packed with traffic the tiny streets downtown are...beware, drivers will not hesitate to run you over.

This is a Fiat, an italian car that you see absolutely everywhere! I think they are so cute. Can't you picture me driving this?

These are the sheep I mentioned in a previous post. We are drinking coffee at an open air shop when these guys come strolling by.

Another downtown street packed with people and cheap clothes.

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Pretty Things

This is the Mosque of Amr-Ibn Al-As. The mosque itself is a large square with a central open air plaza flanked on all sides by immense hallways with a wooden roof. Glass oil lamps float from all of the rafters…its a very simple masque…the walls block out the chaos of the buzzing traffic, merchants, and crowds and leave you with quiet and a pleasant breeze. No one is allowed to enter any mosque with shoes and women are required to cover their heads with a scarf.

More of the Mosque. Apparently the general who erected the mosque was an eccentric…one of the laws he tried to enforce was that women were not allowed to buy shoes, so merchants were also forbidden from producing or manufacturing women’s shoes. This is because women were meant to stay in the home.

This is just a guy wearing a traditional galibaya pushing a cart. Galibayas can be seen everywhere in Cairo, but are far more prevalent in Old Cairo/Islamic Cairo.

This is the outside of the Merchant's House. It's basically a very old house which has been maintained over the years. An entire family lived here once upon a time. Really it's just a very pretty house with a lot of traditional furnishings.

Me sitting in the Merchant's house...isn't this room so pretty!

Another room in the Merchant's house. I thought mom would appreciate the antique tile, ceramic bowls, and antiques.

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The Tower of Glass

So this is the tower of glass from the outside. It's basically a house, where people do actually live, but filled with glass. There are four floors which you clamor through on a tiny, tiny staircase. The top floor has an amazing view of a cemetery.

This is just one example of the amount of glass items you'll find here. It makes for the most surreal scenery. Imagine relaxing in a room like this, smoking sheesha, and looking out from the fourth floor.

More and more and more glass.

This is what you see from the top floor if you stick your camera out through all the hanging glass fixtures. It's a cemetery, but not like you and I would imagine. These are more like tombs than graves. I'm really excited about visiting "The City of the Dead." It's a cemetery where people live and have created a kind of community.

This is me desperately trying to make my way down the staircase without breaking anything...if you know me, you know this is very, very difficult.

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