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.
more...
26 December 2008
17 December 2008
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!
more...
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!
more...
13 December 2008
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.
more...
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!
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...
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)