Ba'ad Ramadan

The Muslim Holy month of Ramadan is coming to a close this weekend. School is off for four days as the country celebrates Al Eid and then everything goes back to normal. I have never seen a society change so much as Cairo has during this month. The schedule of EVERYTHING changed. My classes were pushed forward and backward to allow for Iftar (the daily breaking of the fast that began at around 6pm and is now at just past 5:30), waking me up early for my 7:30 Arabic (previously at 8) and keeping me out late for my 9:30 to 11:45pm Supply Chain class (previously at 7:30). Even after 30 days of this, I still haven't figured out the operating hours of most of the shops downtown. Thankfully my cafe kept their normal hours, but every time I'm sitting there in the window and I look across the street at Radio Shack and the Ahwa next to it, my theories are always proved wrong.

I think the most interesting time to observe Ramadan is right during the 5 o'clock hour. At this time I'm usually walking to Costa to work on homework. It's always eery because the streets are virtually empty of cars and without fail every fast food place on Mohammad Mahmoud is PACKED to the seems with people. The queues are full and the seats and tables are holding Cairene's with food lovingly set out but untouched. The street along the University has the sidewalks full of tables where the poor are all gathered over bare breakfasts of bread, helweaat (a sweet licorice drink which is drunk before the proper meal) and sometimes Tamay'a or Kosheri (two Egyptian foods. Tamay'a is a falafel sandwich and Kosheri is a bowl of rice, chickpeas, pasta, and tomato and hot sauce... very good!!). The anticipation is almost palpable before the Iftar prayer rings out over everybody's heads. The devout ones take time for prayers before indulging, but most Cairenes plunge right into their meals before the prayer call is even finished.

A few weeks ago a few of us spent the afternoon in Islamic Cairo, which is the heart of Islam for the entire region, and had the chance to witness the festive nature of Iftar. Thousands of Egyptians were gathered together in the square, sitting in family groups on blankets with picnic dinners brought from home, under the watch of the grand Al Azhar mosque. The restaurants on the square had truckloads of extra tables and chairs brought in and all were packed with eager diners with their dinners tied up in plastic bags or set out on trays before them. When the call rang out, a wave of activity washed over the crowd as they all began to eat in unison. Definitely an unforgettable sight.

But now Ramadan is coming to an end. It was interesting while it lasted, and I'm a little sad to see it go, but not too sad.. I'm looking forward to being able to eat in public again.

New York, New York

I am currently at the Student Honors center of the SUNY New Paltz university in up-state New York. I met my house mate Marius M. in Times Square yesterday and we walked around the city for the evening and ended up at Grand Central Station where we hopped a train for the country. Nicole, my other Cairo house-mate, picked us up. The ride to New Paltz was steeped in talk of the good times in Cairo and general happiness for the unexpected reunion. Northwest Airlines won't have a flight until tomorrow so today Marius and I are road tripping further up with Nicole while she meets with her father. I'll be on the flight tomorrow for Mpls. Inshaallah. Amazingly nice day here. Everything is so clean!

Kids

Today Campus was raided by over a hundred little kids. They swarmed into the tennis court during my afternoon class and all gathered in the shade to watch a punch and judy show that, from what I gathered, was meant to teach them English. As I watched after class, the puppet was trying to count to ten in English but would always revert into Arabic until the kids, counting along with him would help out. They proceeded to sing songs together and generally goof off. Something I have noticed here is that children are the same everywhere in the world. They think alike and find the same things interesting and fun. I wonder, when does that begin to change as the different cultures really take root?

Friends

Over the weekend I dropped my laptop and broke the screen. Shattered it really. How typical of me. I didn’t think I could function without a computer so a few days ago I went to the computer mall, a big building a few blocks from AUC that is home to around a hundred little computer shops, to find a cheap monitor to hook up to my laptop. A few of the shops sold monitors and I found a place that sold all used/old screens “mish ghalee”. So I dropped a hundred guinea and walked out holding this dinosaur of a screen and managed to grab a cab back to my flat. I was so happy to have my screen I decided to set it up “alatool”. After ten minutes the screen was glowing and I was busy installing the software for my $10 webcam. It was then that I noticed the half-inch long “saraseer” (cockroach) sticking his head out from under the base of the monitor. Immediately, I flashed back to my friend Mark’s story about a friend of his who’s apartment building was being torn down because of an extreme cockroach infestation. She asked Mark if she could leave here television at his place until she could find a new apartment. He agreed. A few days later he thought to move the TV from the middle of his dining room over to the wall, and when he picked it up, twenty cockroaches bolted for cover. He never thought that the bugs would be living IN the television and from that day forward his house had it’s own cockroach infestation. Sad story. Well, all this dawned on me in a split second and I exploded from my room and ran downstairs to fetch the Raid. The can was practically empty but for fumes. I ran back up and grabbed the monitor without slowing and lugged it onto my balcony where I tipped it on edge and sparingly sprayed into the porous base. FIVE huge roaches wriggled out and I had just enough spray to kill them before they scampered out of sight. This was serious. I immediately brought the screen through my flat, careful that no roaches climbed out in transit, and brought it down to the street in the elevator. The bowab was there and I told him to watch it on the sidewalk while I ran to Isis Market to buy a new can of Raid. Once I got back I opened up the can on the monitor, eventually pulling off the back case to have better access to the insides. At first a whole pile of roaches tumbled out and I had to scramble to kill them all before they escaped. I sat out there for about an hour with the monitor in the middle of the sidewalk. The people walking by probably thought me a strange sight standing over it with my can of “mabeet a-saraseer”. Finally the bowab weighed in, (I think he was a bit amused at my frantic battle with the bugs) telling me they were probably all dead and I might finish upstairs on my balcony. I agreed and allowed him to carry it up and set it on the ledge outside my room. I was scheduled to have a call with Kristi that night so I hesitantly brought it in after a few more rounds of spraying until the thing was literally dripping. During our conversation about four more roaches tried to make a run for it from the monitor and each time they met their death as I talked. I knew I couldn’t leave it unwatched so I got a big garbage bag and put it in and sealed it up with a final blast of Raid. The next day I had daylight and a screwdriver. I took the front cover off and found their main hideout: a series of nooks in the plastic molding. They must have succumbed to the overnight fumes because the whole lot of them were dead. With one last series of Raid sprays I determined that, finally, I had beaten them and it was safe to bring the monitor in permanently(the monitor now no more than a bunch of circuit boards and a TV tube), although I have never really been at ease with it, even until now. Even though I was vigilant, there is no way to really know if one or two of the vermin managed to escape. I guess only time will tell. And thinking back I should have known better. The whole computer mall was infested with roaches. I saw one or two in half the shops I visited. And when the shopkeeper picked up the monitor to test it, I now remember the one little roach that ran for cover.

Chillen

Spring semester is well over and I have taken the last week to relax and work on some design projects. We finally got a cleaner to help control the mess that accumulates so quickly here. Seriously, I dust a countertop and by nightfall there is already a new fine layer of dust. Sha'bam comes twice a week and we pay him the equivalent of $7 each time for four to five hours of work. Definitely worth the money. It's nice. The place seems better, no more pizza boxes left out for a week and no more dusty floors.

Last week I spent five days at a camp between Cairo and Alex. The Christian group on campus was responsible for organizing the time and they did a great job. The place was nice with a huge pool, sports facilities and comfortable living quarters. The entire time was filled with enjoyable activities, singing, sunbathing, etc. I even rode a horse for an afternoon and have the chafe marks to prove it!

Well, Kristi and I are getting married. It still feels weird to say that. I even blanch at calling her my fiancé, but every time I get more used to it. We’re both really happy and excited for the future. The time doesn’t seem to pass fast enough! Of course wedding plan talks have already begun. There really is a lot to decide even this far out. I can see why people hire coordinators for this kind of thing, but I really don’t mind being involved in all the details. I’m stuck here in Egypt for another six months so I can’t really provide anything but moral support, a listening ear, and opinions. The hard work is left up to Kristi! We don’t have a date fixed yet, but we have it narrowed down to next summer. You all will know when I do!

The doctor came over today (our landlord) and I signed the contract for the place over the next six months. He’s installing a new air conditioner in my room, part of the bargain I struck before signing the contract. It’s going to be new and the split kind that cordons the loud portion of the unit outside and the quiet vent inside; supposedly it’s almost perfectly quiet. We’ll see. It should be installed in a few days.

Marius and Nicole are gone now, off gallivanting around Palestine, saving the world with some NGO. It was definitely sad to see them go. The four of us really got along well. At least they will be back in a few weeks for a day right before their flight takes them to New York (Marius is going along to spend the summer at his girlfriend’s place in upstate.) In the meantime their rooms have been filled by Sandra, a graduate student, and Neal a recent arrival from Boston and here for the summer to study Arabic. They are both really cool and I’m happy to have them.

The sun has just set here. This time of day is especially beautiful as the daylight fades and all the lights emerge over the Nile. Night is prime time for feluccas and the river is quickly crawling with neon illuminated boats playing loud music that I can hear clearly from my balcony. On the other side of the flat, Midan Tehrir turns bright with street lights and the shining billboards held aloft above the buildings. My favorite is the Coca Cola sign which alternated between English and Arabic: “Drink Coca Cola” and “Ashrab Koka Kola.” All the workday traffic congestion has emptied by now and the giant traffic circle is filled with cars of people headed out to for shopping in Talat Harb, or one of the many cinema’s. Arabic films are dominated by Egyptian filmmakers and Cairo has its own miniature Hollywood district where all the big film companies reside. And oh! are the movies ever bad! Terrible acting, cheap production, but the locals still love them and turn out in droves across the middle east. It’s actually beneficial to learn the Egyptian dialect over others because people across the middle east generally understand Egyptian colloquial because of the pan-influence of the media industry here.

It’s about time to start dinner. Rob and I went shopping at Alpha Mart yesterday and we picked up some butter curry sauce to go with a bunch of chicken I had in the freezer. I pulled it out earlier today and it should be thawed enough by now to get started on it. Better get going.

Dahab

So I am writing this post sitting in the Funny Mummy in the resort town of Dahab in Sinai. A mini-bus picked us up Thursday at 1am and we got into town at 9am Friday morning. Dahab is wonderful. It's a stretch of frumpy hotels and chill restaurants along the gulf of Aqaba. As one reclines on a Baudoin style couch and sips fresh squeezed juice he looks out over some of the best coral in the world. Of course one would never know without taking advantage of the many diving and snorkeling centers that are a ubiquitous part of life here. We spent the entire day yesterday relaxing, reading, talking, and sunbathing. Truly a nice change from the chaos of Cairo. Of course a bunch of us brought work to do, and we actually made some progress on all those late semester projects that are quickly coming due. And now it's time to leave. I got enough of a taste to determine that a week is needed after the term is out to really soak up the relaxation that Dahab offers. We're taking the 3pm bus which is supposed to deposit us at our homes by nine tonight. Insha Allah. Pictures soon.

Last Day

I last saw Kristi twenty one and a half hours ago. The airport had a glass walled security area surrounding the ticketing area so we were surprised to have to say goodbye so soon, and time didn’t allow us to linger. Just a quick hug and she was through, following her luggage which I had hoisted on to the x-ray conveyor. For twenty minutes I watched her through the glass as she waited in line, checked her luggage, and was handed her boarding pass. One last quick wave and there was nothing for me to do but go outside—back into waiting Egypt, and catch a cab home. My driver was probably disappointed for my haggling was insistent but without all the theatrics that make it satisfying once the deal is struck. By the time I fell into bed, Kristi’s plane was certainly in the air flying away from me at 500 miles per hour.

Somehow the pyramids had been shunted off to the last day. We were going to see them at the front end but ran out of time, and likewise, yesterday morning, we decided to push them off yet again. The things have been there for over 3000 years. Surely they will still be there the next time we find ourselves in Egypt again. We decided not to stress ourselves with a long haul out to Giza and confined our day around downtown. I made a persistent attempt to give Kristi a basic tour of campus but was thwarted by the “no visitor” policy (which was so frustrating let’s not talk about it). We re-visited Fishawy’s coffee shop and Khan Al Khalili to pick up some Egypt supplies for Kristi to bring home: Sahlab powder, saffron, Egyptian whisky (tea), scarves, shoes, scarves, shoes, and a nice Turkish coffee pot. At sunset, while Kristi was packing upstairs I walked over to Taboula, one of my favorite restaurants here—a Lebanese place, tasteful, very classy, very inexpensive—to make reservations. We were there 30 minutes later enjoying an array of middle eastern dishes and the cozy, quiet atmosphere. During dinner we both noticed ourselves struggling under a background heaviness. It’s like the day came with a shadow. Like we both knew something terrible was going to happen, and it was inevitable. OUR trip, the one we had both been looking forward to, preparing for, even dreaming about was now completely behind us. It was what it was and there was very little left to make of it. Not that we wanted to change anything, or make it better than it was. We both embarked with little or no expectations and very simply enjoyed each other and our time together. It was more that the opportunities to create memories together were dwindling and soon would be gone. The-2007-Egypt-Visit would soon be fixed in the past, and we would be apart again with only the task of reflecting and appreciating at a distance the depth that is hard to grasp within the thrill and happening of life.

Kristi finished packing. We took another swing by Café Zahara for conversation. A walk over the Nile. Picture business. Then the bags needed to get in the elevator. Call a cab. “Nathhab Illa Matar, Min Fundhlik” Wrong terminal. Wrong building. Running late. Departure Hall. Then we suddenly found ourselves stumbling into the very last part. Almost by surprise.



PS. we're getting married.