Safe amidst the excitment

Today is a pretty big day for Egypt. I'm reluctant to write too much on this open forum, easily traceable public document, but I will say that if you google search things like Egypt riots, Egypt protests or anything of the like, you will figure it out. Please read reputable sources. Keep checking in on this country, things are happening.

So what do we do when school has been (yet again) canceled because of the strong potential for political unrest????

Nothing extraordinary.

We certainly don't go downtown Cairo. But in our neck of the woods, a mere 12 KM from all the action, nothing is different.

We share a meal with friends, watch a movie, and go to bed.

I want to assure everyone of my safety. I am not here for heroics. If things become unstable, and if I feel unsafe, I will be on the next airplane out of here. The school has an evacuation plan, and I will fully comply, if necessary.

In the mean time, pray for Egypt.

long weekend bliss

The past two Sundays we were not allowed to have school. Egypt was scheduled to have parliamentary elections. The reason schools would be closed? Riots. Or at least the possibility. Of course elections in this country are a bit of a joke - very few people are allowed to vote, the results are decided ahead of time ...

But what is a girl to do with two 3 day weekends in a row??? Explore Egypt, of course!

Long weekend numero uno was a close to home affair.

Now I have previously written about things we call "Egypt Tacky," but this place takes the cake.


I present to you The Japanese Gardens of Helwan. I went with a friend as far south as the metro would take us, and then walked into these gardens, which were a gift from the Japanese about a hundred years ago. Who knew that we would find countless Buddha statues in a Muslim nation? It was so wonderfully hilarious. We explored for about an hour, watching little Egyptian children achieve Zen by climbing all over the statues. Egypt Tacky yes please!


Weekend numero dos was a bit more of an adventure, Egypt style.

I had a friend in town from the US, and she wanted to leave Cairo and see something else. In order for me to go with her, we had to see something new to me. So we flew to Aswan, and took a four hour bus ride to see the sun rise at Abu Simbel. This is pretty much the closest you can get to the border of the Sudan, and risk factor is slightly higher than living in Cairo. But we did it anyways.


We were the only two women (and only two white people) on a public bus from Aswan to Abu Simbel. Upon arriving in the town of Abu Simbel, we realized we were the only two people staying at a very sub-par hotel by the bus stop. Sandra looked at me and said "You live in this country. I'm okay if you're okay. I shrugged my shoulders and said "where else are we going to sleep???"

The owner left us at our room with a roll of toilet paper and a can of bug spray saying "I see you morning." We slept with the bugs and the grossness, woke up at 5:15am and headed to the ancient temple of Abu Simbel.
It was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. The sun came up over Lake Nasser, the largest man made lake in the world, and shone on the temples. The facade of the temples is quite impressive. One toe of the god is bigger than my head!

Days like today

I'm at an impasse. It is decision time. I have until January 9 to sign next year's contract, and that's pretty much tomorrow. Sometimes I think that I really want to stay here a third year, and enjoy this country and all it's charm. And travel some more. And live cheaply. And attend an amazing church. And hang out with wonderful friends. And learn more about the Middle East. And learn more Arabic.

And then I have a day like today.

I spent the weekend exploring Aswan and Abu Simbel (more on that in a happier post) and arrived home after taking the Red Eye flight up the Nile. I walked into my apartment at 9am, and stopped dead in my tracks. I heard running water.

Now, if you have ever walked into your place of residence after an extended absence and heard running water, you will know why my heart was in my throat, and why I was immediately grabbing for my phone.

I tip-toed into the kitchen. No water. I walked cautiously into the living room, which was dry. As I turned the corner into the bathroom, I was relieved to find the source of my panic. The bath tub faucet was spewing water full blast. Fortunately, it was only into ... the bath tub. I tried to turn off the faucet, but much to my dismay it was already off. What the !@#$?

Here's where the fun begins. I have a tap I can't turn off, it's first thing in the Egyptian morning, and I have to find my Arabic-only boab and ask for help. Here's a rough translation of what I come up with:

"Good morning Rabeya. Water. Not good." (Imagine wide eyes, lots of pointing to my apartment and hands motioning for him to come, with a sense of urgency).

Rabeya inspects the tap, and wanders into the kitchen where he turns off the water source to my apartment. He speaks super quick to me in Arabic, and ends by slowly saying "miya, la'a" (water, no.)

Crap. I've been backpacking for 2 days in the desert, and now I have no running water. I woke up at 5am to catch a flight back to Cairo and I cannot shower.

I call the landlord, and hand the phone to Rabeya. They talk for a while, and the phone is given to me. The Landlord says "miss Shannon, Rabeya will fix, God willing." I know what this means. This means I will be staying with friends until next Thursday, because I will not have running water. This means if God wills it, Rabeya will find a friend who knows more about plumbing than he, and they'll smoke in my bathroom and maybe, if God wills it, eventually fix the pipe.

So I say good-bye to Rabeya and I set about doing all the things you try to do when you are back from vacation: dishes, laundry, cleaning floors. But wait, I don't have water. Hours pass. I go to Rabeya and I say "he coming?" The best I can do. I say plumber, thinking it might be a cognate, but I'm wrong. Rabeya's response? "Key."

I leave the key to my apartment and I go out for lunch with friends, greasy hair and all. At 4pm I return home, thinking maybe, just maybe, the pipes will be fixed. I search out my key, and the boab's wife is pointing at the apartment. "Rabeya fee" (=in). I knock on my own door, and am greeted by the cutest 4 years old boy you've ever seen. He takes me by the hand and leads me to the bathroom, where his dad Rabeya is standing in his bare feet, covered in water, with my broken faucet. Smoking a cigarette. In my apartment.

Rabeya gives me his phone. It is the landlord, and he explains that Sunday is a day off for many service people, and that he cannot find a plumber today. In a city of 28 million people, we do not have a plumber working on Sunday. Then he says that the water must stay off until it is fixed. "Have a good night miss Shannon."

I head to Devin and Ryan's for dinner and a shower, and fill up more water bottles with tap water, so that I can have a water bottle shower in the morning.

At the end of days like today, there are 2 thoughts that will not leave me:

I chose this. I chose this. I chose this.

and,

Can I really do this for another entire school year???

Israel/Palestine

We ascended to Jerusalem last Friday evening as the sun was setting. Sabbath begins. It's an internal call to prayer, different from what we are used to in Cairo-land.

I've been avoiding my blog this week, trying to figure out what to write about our trip. I'm so naive, and that embarrasses me. Our tour was both religious and political, but I think those two are always going to go together there. Listening to any of our speakers throughout the week assured me of one thing: politics and history are driven by perspective. Our Israeli guide had a very different version of current events than our Palestinian bus driver. They both think they are right, and they both think they know the truth.

All of that aside, Israel is a very beautiful region. Having lived in the desert now for over a year, I can understand, at least geographically, why it was called the promised land. Pomegranates were everywhere, and the nature was incredible. (Either that, or I've just been living in the desert too long).


Walking the streets of old Jerusalem gives new context to my faith. It is irrelevant to me whether or not a lot of the places were the exact location where certain things happened. But I can picture things that I could not previously.

Egypt tacky and other musings

Where did October go? I am sitting here, days before my mom and Marilyn arrive back in Cairo, thinking about the blur that was October. The expression "time flies when you are having fun" certainly is true!

I'm starting to view life in terms of fresh produce: we've come out of a delicious mango season, followed by pomegranates, and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of strawberry season (yes! in November!).

Being in the same place for a second year has been great, and I think October brought a lot of feelings of déjà vu all over again....

Caroline and Alexandrine arrived from Paris.

We had the Spirit of Giving Auction at the Church. This event raised 50 000 USD for development projects in Egypt. It was an odd 'welcome to Egypt' event for Caro and Alex, but they really enjoyed losing at Blackjack!


School has been flying by. The kids are cracking me up this year. Middle School is good for my ego...(notice the spelling of French and Mademoiselle...)

Living alone here might be one of the best decisions that was ever made for me. I love my apartment, especially these elements, which I call "Egypt tacky."

This couch is bright orange, as is the love seat, and both arm chairs. The tile is orange-y peach, and the decorations are all some shade of orange, peach or pink. That is a tassel. It is also orange.
This Greek god watches me shower every day. Yep, it's creepy.

The best compliment of the month: "wow, Shannon. You cross the road just like a local."

Kuwait

Last weekend Jen and I took advantage of a 4 day weekend to fly to Kuwait. We visited with a fellow Durham/Bowmanville - ite named Katie. Katie and I had never met, but through the wonders of technology had discovered that we were connected through mutual relatives and also through 2 degrees of Dutch separation.

Kuwait was an interesting place. It was a lot like Cairo, except ... not at all. At first, I fell in love with all the things it had that Cairo did not - big grocery stores, organized highways and roads, no harassment of any kind, and lots of good places to shop.


As the days went on, I realized there are aspects of Egypt that I love, and that are not actually 'Middle-Eastern;' they are Egyptian. I missed that everyone is outside here, all the time. Even though it occasionally drives me crazy, I missed that I go to an outdoor market for my food, and a tiny squished up little inside store for my perishables. I missed walking everywhere. I especially missed that when I can't walk, I can take a super cheap taxi.

Having said all of that, Kuwait is beautiful. The Gulf is right there, and there is a beautiful view. The wind blows and being by water all the time makes you feel fresher. There is much, much less garbage on the streets.

I learned that there are more foreigners in Kuwait than Kuwaitis. All the service and retail employees were not Kuwaiti. They were, among other nationalities, Egyptian, Philipino, and Indian.

I learned that Kuwaitis called oil "black gold." This is probably accurate.


It would be fair to say that Kuwait as a whole is not a big fan of Iraq, or of Sadam Hussein. We went to a museum called the "Kuwait house for national works not to forget museum saddam hussain regime crimes." In said museum we watched a pyrotechnic display that showed us the destruction brought on Kuwait by the 'barbarians.' And we learned that "even the air conditioning control centre was harmed by the barbaric invaders." Although I am not a huge fan of Saddam Hussein myself, history was so grossly one-sided it made me laugh.


Katie is deeply involved and is happy there. It was so fun to experience that, to attend church with her, and see where she works. It looks like an amazing place. We were so grateful to have a great host!

It was also great to return to my Cairo: 10 degrees cooler, being whistled at and stared at in the airport, and having a treacherous ride back to Maadi in Mostafa the driver's new car, which he proudly demonstrated to us "goes very very fast."

Mostafa the driver gets ... Married???

This story epitomizes my life here in Egypt - random, loud, late at night, completely unexpected, and one week later still has us saying "um, what???"

Some background:
I have a driver. A chauffeur, if you will. He drives for me, and several of my colleagues. Over the past year he has helped me on many occasions, and also provided hours of entertainment with silly jokes and play on words. His name is Mostafa. We call him Mostafa the driver. When my parents were here, they were instantly enamored with this fun-loving Egyptian.


Last Saturday I got a text from my coworker Tao.
"Do you want to go to Mostafa's wedding? It's tomorrow."

Um, What???


I thought Mostafa was married? Is this his second wife? And, moreover, What???

It is not unusual to be invited to a wedding days before it happens. Mostafa was kind enough to arrange for a van for us, and provide all necessary details, in his Mostafa way. "Yes, yes, 9:30, Degla. Van. No problem."

It is also not unusual for a wedding to be in the middle of the week, very late at night. [late at night for us teacher-types, that is. A 10pm start is early in the evening here in Egypt.]

We met the van at 9:30. We were 8 - four men, four women. The van started driving to the very outskirts of Cairo, past the pyramids and then down a random dirt road. We did not know our driver, and it was not the first time in my 14 months here that I thought, "I've put my life in the hands of a complete stranger. I don't know where I am, or how I would make my way home." At the same moment, one of my fellow travelers said "Isn't this how horror films usually start?" Thank you, fellow traveler, for voicing my thoughts.

Upon arriving at the site of Mostafa the Driver's "wedding," two things became apparent almost immediately.
1. There was not a single woman in sight.
2. We were the guests of honour.

Mostafa the driver greeted us at the van, shaking our hands and welcoming us with his huge Mostafa grin. We entered the wedding 'area' where a bunch of men were sitting around small tables smoking shisha and drinking tea. We were very over-dressed for the occasion. He led us to the very front table, the only one with a table cloth, and the only one with padded chairs. As the evening continued, we were always served our food first, and were on the official wedding videos more than once. (in fact, way more than once).

The music was loud. And as soon as we arrived, it got louder. Shouting across the table louder. Can't hear yourself think Louder. My ears ringing until 5am louder.

A man got up and started singing. My Arabic is not strong, but I heard numbers. As the song continued, other men went up to stage, and started giving him money. Every time, he would sing about the amount the men gave him. They would say something to the singer, which we can only assume was a message for Mostafa, a greeting, or an explanation of whom exactly the money was from.

This went on for hours.

Eventually Mostafa came over to our table to say hello, and bring us a light snack. Tao asked him about the bride and the actual wedding.

"No no, is tomorrow."

Um, What???

There would be no bride that evening. There would be no wedding. So what, then was this?

A bachelor party? What was I doing there?

The anti-climatic ending to the story is that we never figured it out. We left at 1am, after politely explaining that we had to work. The party was still going strong; Mostafa told us it would go on until the wee hours of the morning.

I do know a few things, and please don't read cynicism in these comments.
We were invited as a status symbol for Mostafa. If he could bring foreign guests to his party, he would somehow be elevated in the eyes of his friends and family.

We were invited because we would give a very generous gift. This is true. We did give a very generous gift, inside a card, and no one sang a song about it. :(

The next morning, I asked my sweet little 13 year olds what it was. Classic Middle school moment:

"Ya miss, you should not have been there." End of story, no other explanations needed.

And that, my friends, is Egypt.