So what have I been doing? Well, lots of things. Most recently, I spent the last three weeks of January doing nothing but reading in our staff room. My kids were too young for the Ministry exams so they haven't been at school, and while I did a little tidying up, and catching up on my grading, I still wound up with a great deal of free time. I spent that time reading several books all of which I would recommend.
Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All; the book was highly topical because it dealt with Jerusalem and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Tom Robbins uses highly figurative and sometimes absurd language to describe characters and situations which I found particularly amusing. And this particular book has more than a few oddities for characters: Can-O-Beans, Walking Stick, Conch Shell, and Spoon. To answer your question, yes, those are inanimate objects, not goofy names for human beings.
Rajaa Alsanea,The Girls of Riyadh; this book has been called the Saudi version of Sex and the City because it originally started as weekly e-mails. However it’s far more interesting than anything from the popular American T.V. show. It’s about the high society in Saudia Arabia, specifically about the friends of the author and their experiences. The book is an easy read…I devoured it in about 2 days, but really disturbing. It doesn’t do much to change your views about Saudi culture (it’s really messed up), but it does give you the sense that these women are at least able to pick up on the hypocrisies of their society, and how their strict religious laws don't really mesh well with the modern world. Well worth a read.
Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Woa; this is a really great book. I had been looking forward to reading it for awhile now. I randomly discovered Junot Diaz while reading a copy of the New Yorker which contained the short story this book is based on. It’s a sort of generational novel about a family and their curse which is brought on by their history as Dominicans and the terrible time of Trujillo. If you don’t know anything about Trujillo, check it out, a horrible dictator, but really interesting man. Worst part is the U.S. embraced him based on the fact that he wasn’t communist.
Once the last 3 weeks of testing were over, Paul and I went on a traveling extravaganza. We went to Dahab first, so we could hang out on the Sinai. It was awesome to be able to walk down the boardwalk, take a gander at one of the many menus of the numerous seaside restaurants, and hear the prices drop the longer you looked. Cheap beer was also readily available at a majority of the restaurants, and if it wasn’t, they brought it from somewhere else; always a plus. Sitting on the beach in February, soaking up the rays, looking over the sea, with the red mountains of Saudi Arabia only a Jet Ski ride away…it was, how should I say…amazing! (We heard a young tourist rented a Jet Ski and attempted to ride over to the red mountains in the distance only to be greeted by the Saudi police.) Our main purpose for the trip to Dahab was so we could climb the infamous Mt. Sinai where that one dude, Moses, carried down those sacred rocks with that list of the ten ultimate “no-no’s”. The idea of the trip is to climb the mountain just in time for sunrise. So you climb this crazy camel path, and it’s cold outside, not so much when you’re walking, but when you stop it really gets to you. So we’re climbing and climbing, and Paul and I are relatively warm…and then we get to the last stop 20 minutes before the top…it’s only 4am, sunrise isn’t until 6:30am...We had 2 1/2 hours to burn. We froze. Even though we wore tons of layers and hid inside this little rock café, it was soooo cold. I must proudly state that I hardly complained, but I must have looked cold though because this adorable pair of Polish dads with their daughters put a blanket over me and gave me a shot of cinnamon vodka, and the Bedouin guy at the café gave me this giant fuzzy hat. I have great picture where I look like Sherpa of the Mountain, unfortunately pictures will have to be posted at a later date. The sunrise was beautiful and well worth freezing for a bit.
Then we went home for a day, partied at Purple, and then set out for Aswan. Unlucky for us, the train station was a disaster and we ended up waiting forever pushing around in a mob, which is an Egyptian version of a line, just to find out the tickets were sold out till the end of the week. So we bought a bus ticket instead. I would not recommend; 16 hours on an Egyptian bus is brutal, especially when you only stop for a “pee-in-a-hole” break every 4-6 hours. Luckily I had some Egyptian bus experience before and knew to limit my liquid consumption.
Aswan is beautiful in its own right. The Nile is beautiful, everything is green, and the culture is predominantly Nubian…but it is hassle/haggle/harass central. You can’t walk more than 2 feet without someone asking you if you want a “garish” (garbled English for Carriage), taxi, felucca, food, scarves, religious merchandise, hash, etc. And, if say for instance, you needed a cab ride into town, some asshole will try and tell you 50LE when it should be 5LE. It’s a terribly exhausting back and forth argument, where you start to walk away and the cabbie says “okay”, and then still tries to charge you 30LE. So we stayed for a day, which was more than enough time, walked about town and took a boat ride to the Temple of Isis. In the evening we spent more than a few hours throwing back Stella’s and generally being ornery.
The next morning, we took another bus (only 3 hours, thank Allah!) to Luxor. Luxor turned out to be far more amazing than I had imagined. The town was bustle-y and full of people out till all hours of the night. I also managed to find us an amazing hotel near the Luxor Temple. The room was only 40LE (about 8$) which got us a spotless room, breakfast, sunset tea, and an amazing place to hang out in the evenings with the cheapest beers and sheesha in town.
We decided to cover a bunch of ground the first day, so we could chill and see the stuff closer to town over the next few days. First stop, Valley of the Kings, this was really cool, we saw some crazy old tomb paintings that were incredibly in tact, although I do wish we had been able to go into a few more. There’s something like 62 tombs total, but you can only go into 12, but even then, you have to buy a ticket that will let you go into that many, Paul and I only had the budget for 3. But, you know, without a guide, a lot of the Egyptology stuff can get repetitive if you don’t know what you’re looking at, so in hindsight, 3 was more than enough. I am obsessed with all the scarab imagery. The most fascinating part was that people were there excavating other tombs while you walked around. There’s these guys sitting with piles of old ceramic pots/urns/bowls glueing them together like they're putting together the ultimate puzzle.
From there we went to Queen Hatshepsut’s tomb which I was all giddy about. It’s carved directly into the mountainside and it’s been on at least 2 art history exams I’ve taken. It was pretty incredible, and even more amazing that some guy decided to sport roller blades in the parking lot. The size and landscape are intimidating, but the tomb itself was smaller than I had imagined. There were a gazillion tourists milling about, but that’s what we get for going during high season.
After that we went to the Valley of the Queens, but Nefertiti’s tomb is the “must-see” out of all of them and it’s apparently been closed for no apparent reason by the government for the last 2 years. Otherwise, the tombs are very similar to the one’s we saw at the Valley of the Kings.
My favorite thing we saw in Luxor though had to be the Temple of Karnak. It’s simply monumental! It covers 2 square kilometers and has a pillar forest. These pillars are Massive, some still complete with original paint. It also has a giant scarab sculpture, 3 outrageously high obelisks, a small lake, and hundreds of hidey holes all over. Faye and I have decided it would be the perfect spot for an epic game of capture the flag, which we are attempting to put into motion. We’re thinking different colored ninja outfits or galibayas to differentiate between teams.
That’s basically it for Luxor. Other than that we drank beer on the roof of our hotel, or were chilling at this amazing coffee place called the Oasis Café. It’s adorable on the inside featuring local artists as well as old black and white photographs of Egyptians wearing Fez hats, which apparently the owner found in an abandoned suitcase in the restaurant, and several copies of the New Yorker were laid out for our reading pleasure. It also had a menu that had a wide assortment of coffee, and Nescafe wasn’t even on the menu…Yay! I never thought I’d see the day my main source of caffeine would be instant coffee.
Anyway, we’re back in town now and school is back in full swing. Paul and I have been looking for other things to do with our extra time, either another job or some kind of volunteer work to boost the ole resume. Our friend Shahira works for an economic magazine, and put Paul’s CV through to her boss. He made the interview, but once he dropped the bomb that we were leaving in 6 months (why Paul, why?), he told him up front that with the economy being what it is right now, he really didn’t need any extra temporary help. But the guy was cool enough to sit around and chat Paul up for an hour about Egypt’s economy. He was talking about how Egyptians don’t invest, that it’s only really the uppermost tier, and that many Egyptians don’t even use banks. Apparently a lot of people just hide cash in their house somewhere. It doesn’t really surprise me though considering our banking experience. I have a card which allows the school to direct deposit into an account, but it’s virtually impossible to get a balance, and it doesn't work like a credit card, so I usually empty it completely upon payday. Oh, and the number you can call on the back isn’t even a working number.
Outside of that, it’s been the same ole same ole. Faye’s mom was here for awhile which was fun. It’s always fun to have someone here visiting since it’s an excuse do the touristy stuff. I always feel highly unmotivated to do that kind of stuff when it’s just the usual crowd. I figure it makes sense though, it feels like I still have plenty of time to see everything, and people are coming to see me, so I’ll get to see everything then.
I did celebrate my 24th birthday on the 18th which made me feel hella old. Faye made me a cake, which we all enjoyed on a falucca ride, and then we went to a new club that opened up near my house. Free stuff yay!
Well, that’s the news for now. I will try and get pictures posted soon, but unfortunately the internet at the apartment we were so excited about finally getting has decided to stop working, and like everything Egyptian, its taking longer than necessary to get fixed.
Beard and moustache party anyone?
