Things I miss about Cairo:
$.40 falaffel sandwiches at FelFel Beh
The call to prayer
Fresh-squeezed juice
Shisha
Being able to find food at 2:30am
Arabic
26 July St.
the Party Bus
Sunset over the Nile
Setting my own cab fare
Koshery
Omar [and his driving], Ziko [and the Italian we would speak], Sherio [and his endless knowledge] and Lyna [and her quiet, contagious smile]
Conservative dress
The night staff at Flamenco
Getting a tan just being outside
Nile FM
Café Vivant/Versailles Palace
The magenta curtains
Syonara
Zamalek
Arab men with green eyes
Abduh
Arabic commercials
Route 66 runs at 2am
The 5-to-1 conversion rate
Dry heat
Sunny blue skies every day
friendly tourism police officers
aSiir limuun
MBC 2
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Reflection.
With about 4 hours left in Cairo, I'm sitting on the balcony of our hotel room at the Marriott, looking out at the skyline over the Nile, and as much as I've been looking forward to going home in the past few days, I know that I'm going to be missing it as soon as I realize I'm not in Egypt anymore. I've said it a few times before, but in living in the same place for close to eight weeks, getting to know the people and making many new friends, this has essentially become a third home for me.
I’m having a really hard time deciding about how to go about condensing the past seven and a half weeks of my life into a reflection paper. It seems like I’ve learned and seen too much to put it into coherent sentences. I don’t think it ever really hit me that I was living in Cairo, waking up to the Nile every morning and going to sleep to the call to prayer most nights, just like it hasn’t yet hit me that it’s over and I have to go home now. I remember thinking, as we walked around Zamalek on that first day, that this was a place I could really love. There is so much life on those streets, there are so many things going on all at once, and all of that liveliness is an atmosphere that I’ve always craved. I felt right at home. I think a huge contribution comes from the fact that I’ve always felt at ease adapting to new living situations, but even without that, the hustle and bustle is a comfort for me. I don’t do well in rural situations. The day after our introduction to Cairo was the visit to the Pyramids. I do appreciate the beauty and significance of the Pyramids of Giza, but I wasn’t as moved by them as I had anticipated. The same goes for the Sphinx. My experience at the Sphinx was tainted by the amount of tourists that flooded the observation area. I understand that our group, in instances like that, qualified as a tourist group but these were a different breed of tourists and having to deal with the discourtesy, rudeness and general roughness of people like that put a blemish on that memory. It’s still something I enjoyed, and will never forget, but I expected a different kind of reaction when I imagined seeing both the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It made me feel jaded and unappreciative, looking at one of the few genuine beauties left in this world.
A huge part of this trip was our Arabic class. Being taught by Syonara, and hearing about the life of an Egyptian Muslim woman first hand was one of the most important aspects of this trip. There are things the she taught us both about society in Egypt and life as a woman that I don’t think anyone else on the trip could’ve possibly taught us. She also provided us with a sense of familial warmth. We called her our “Mama Duck”. She showed us where to get lunch on a tight budget, she invited us into her home and taught us how to cook traditional Egyptian dishes, she helped us work out problems all while teaching us a new language and how to adapt to a completely new culture. Without all of the time that we spent with her, I feel that there would be a gaping hole in our knowledge of what Egypt is and what it has to offer. Trying to learn Arabic, even though Syonara is a great teacher, was a serious challenge for me. Italian has always been my fallback language, and to try to think and respond to questions in a new language proved to be a daunting task, and I could tell whenever I threw an Italian word into an Arabic sentence without realizing, Syonara would get frustrated and have to bring me back. The emphasis on spoken Arabic in the class proved to be my downfall, but with help, I was able to recover. Even using simple words such as shukran, aywa, la, dilwa’ti [my personal favorite for no clear reason], “eh da?”, and “momken take away?” is something I will miss, though I’m sure they’ll slip into conversation every once in a while without me realizing.
I can’t really talk about my Egypt experience without talking about all the time we spent with our Egyptian friends, Omar and Ziko. I briefly met Ziko at the second Dialogue, when I heard him speaking Italian and immediately jumped in and said something so stupid and basic that he just laughed. I recovered, of course, by introducing myself, and we talked for a few minutes, but it didn’t go any further than that, and I met Omar through Bridget. In my honest opinion, just like Syonara, there are things that we saw with them that we would have never seen otherwise. Not that we saw anything so major, but just things like spending time in places that only “locals” [I hate that term] frequent and learning what the different horn honks mean that only real Egyptians would know. We also got to ask them things that we didn’t touch on in the Dialogue, and got to hear them speak candidly on issues that we probably wouldn’t have discussed in front of a moderator. Spending mostly every night with Omar and Ziko, and sometimes Sherio and Lyna is one of the brightest highlights of the experience, for me, and I will miss them all very dearly. It’s amazing how close a group of people can become despite the knowledge that it won’t last. We all knew that, eventually, we would leave Cairo and it would have to come to an end, yet we still let ourselves get so attached. I hope, one day, either they’ll come to visit us in Boston or wherever in the States they so desire, or we’ll be able to return to Egypt to see them. It would be a pity to let such a rapport die so easily.
As much of a disaster as the Service Learning Project started off to be, I believe that it really did end in success. When we had our first orientation at AUC and we were told that one of our tasks would be to pick up the trash that’s infested with snakes and scorpions, I seriously questioned my dedication and commitment to the program. I was relieved when that project was nixed. I ended up working to help catalogue the massive amount of products available from the knitting center. Although I’m glad no one had to pick up trash, I do feel that there were far too many of us. We were six people working on a three-to-four-person-tops job - one person to take the pictures and two to write down information for crosschecking purposes later on. We all took turns in each job just so no one would be left standing around the whole time, and I think our team ran pretty smoothly and efficiently. My favorite part of the whole thing was that one of the women, Fadwa, loved having her picture taken and took pictures with all of us. She asked if we would bring her back copies the next time we visited, and the smile on her face when we did was priceless. It’s always nice to make someone else happy when there’s nothing in it for you.
I want to conclude this reflection with a discussion of my two favorite days of the Dialogue. Chronologically first, on May 31st, Omar took eight of us back to Giza to go horseback riding in the desert. A friend of his is clearly very into equestrian and led us. The reason this horseback riding experience was more special than the other two was because the guys who rode with us, from the stable, let our horses, and even encouraged them, to gallop. That was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever experienced. It felt so liberating to be riding a horse in the sunshine with no restraints. I was just totally relaxed. We had a freedom that we had yet to experience since we’d been in Egypt, and it was refreshing. Another reason this day is one of my favorites is because later that night, a few of us and Omar went to get dinner and had one of the more meaningful conversations of the entire dialogue. We talked about our first impressions of each other and then of how we Americans saw Arabs before we knew firsthand and how Omar saw Americans before he knew us. The things that we knew before and after were so vastly different, and we were all a little shocked at what our societies are teaching us, and just how false they can be.
My other most valued experience was being in Siwa. As much as it felt like a ghost town, I had never been in a place where women were simply not seen. In the two days that we stayed there, we saw maybe 4 women, all of whom were completely covered, face and all, as opposed to hundreds of men. It was eye opening to say the least. It is a very small, isolated town in the middle of the desert, so it’s easy to see how they can be still very old-fashioned and extremely conservative in their ways. It was even the first time that we could walk through town with just a group of girls without being harassed with every step. The desert trek, although causing the death of my camera, was also a huge highlight. I never though it would be possible to swim in the desert while still maintaining sanity but I now know that it is, if you know the right people. I never thought I’d go sand boarding in the Sahara, but I did. I never thought I would see the sunset over the desert, but I certainly did.
There are so many things that I experienced on this dialogue that I never dreamed a girl like me would get to do or see, and now that I’ve done them, I believe that my life will never be the same. After living in Egypt for nearly two months, in a completely separate culture than my own and experiencing new perspectives on various issues, my perspective has come to encompass all of the things that I’ve learned. I feel like being able to look at things from the points of view of both the west and the east makes me a better person in some ways. I also think that in enriching myself in other cultures, ones with more in a tenth of their history than in all of American history, I better prepare myself for things I may have to deal with in my life. I feel like a broken record, but this is something that will stay with me forever and I will always cherish and value my time in Egypt and all that I’ve learned from it. God, I miss it already.
I’m having a really hard time deciding about how to go about condensing the past seven and a half weeks of my life into a reflection paper. It seems like I’ve learned and seen too much to put it into coherent sentences. I don’t think it ever really hit me that I was living in Cairo, waking up to the Nile every morning and going to sleep to the call to prayer most nights, just like it hasn’t yet hit me that it’s over and I have to go home now. I remember thinking, as we walked around Zamalek on that first day, that this was a place I could really love. There is so much life on those streets, there are so many things going on all at once, and all of that liveliness is an atmosphere that I’ve always craved. I felt right at home. I think a huge contribution comes from the fact that I’ve always felt at ease adapting to new living situations, but even without that, the hustle and bustle is a comfort for me. I don’t do well in rural situations. The day after our introduction to Cairo was the visit to the Pyramids. I do appreciate the beauty and significance of the Pyramids of Giza, but I wasn’t as moved by them as I had anticipated. The same goes for the Sphinx. My experience at the Sphinx was tainted by the amount of tourists that flooded the observation area. I understand that our group, in instances like that, qualified as a tourist group but these were a different breed of tourists and having to deal with the discourtesy, rudeness and general roughness of people like that put a blemish on that memory. It’s still something I enjoyed, and will never forget, but I expected a different kind of reaction when I imagined seeing both the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It made me feel jaded and unappreciative, looking at one of the few genuine beauties left in this world.
A huge part of this trip was our Arabic class. Being taught by Syonara, and hearing about the life of an Egyptian Muslim woman first hand was one of the most important aspects of this trip. There are things the she taught us both about society in Egypt and life as a woman that I don’t think anyone else on the trip could’ve possibly taught us. She also provided us with a sense of familial warmth. We called her our “Mama Duck”. She showed us where to get lunch on a tight budget, she invited us into her home and taught us how to cook traditional Egyptian dishes, she helped us work out problems all while teaching us a new language and how to adapt to a completely new culture. Without all of the time that we spent with her, I feel that there would be a gaping hole in our knowledge of what Egypt is and what it has to offer. Trying to learn Arabic, even though Syonara is a great teacher, was a serious challenge for me. Italian has always been my fallback language, and to try to think and respond to questions in a new language proved to be a daunting task, and I could tell whenever I threw an Italian word into an Arabic sentence without realizing, Syonara would get frustrated and have to bring me back. The emphasis on spoken Arabic in the class proved to be my downfall, but with help, I was able to recover. Even using simple words such as shukran, aywa, la, dilwa’ti [my personal favorite for no clear reason], “eh da?”, and “momken take away?” is something I will miss, though I’m sure they’ll slip into conversation every once in a while without me realizing.
I can’t really talk about my Egypt experience without talking about all the time we spent with our Egyptian friends, Omar and Ziko. I briefly met Ziko at the second Dialogue, when I heard him speaking Italian and immediately jumped in and said something so stupid and basic that he just laughed. I recovered, of course, by introducing myself, and we talked for a few minutes, but it didn’t go any further than that, and I met Omar through Bridget. In my honest opinion, just like Syonara, there are things that we saw with them that we would have never seen otherwise. Not that we saw anything so major, but just things like spending time in places that only “locals” [I hate that term] frequent and learning what the different horn honks mean that only real Egyptians would know. We also got to ask them things that we didn’t touch on in the Dialogue, and got to hear them speak candidly on issues that we probably wouldn’t have discussed in front of a moderator. Spending mostly every night with Omar and Ziko, and sometimes Sherio and Lyna is one of the brightest highlights of the experience, for me, and I will miss them all very dearly. It’s amazing how close a group of people can become despite the knowledge that it won’t last. We all knew that, eventually, we would leave Cairo and it would have to come to an end, yet we still let ourselves get so attached. I hope, one day, either they’ll come to visit us in Boston or wherever in the States they so desire, or we’ll be able to return to Egypt to see them. It would be a pity to let such a rapport die so easily.
As much of a disaster as the Service Learning Project started off to be, I believe that it really did end in success. When we had our first orientation at AUC and we were told that one of our tasks would be to pick up the trash that’s infested with snakes and scorpions, I seriously questioned my dedication and commitment to the program. I was relieved when that project was nixed. I ended up working to help catalogue the massive amount of products available from the knitting center. Although I’m glad no one had to pick up trash, I do feel that there were far too many of us. We were six people working on a three-to-four-person-tops job - one person to take the pictures and two to write down information for crosschecking purposes later on. We all took turns in each job just so no one would be left standing around the whole time, and I think our team ran pretty smoothly and efficiently. My favorite part of the whole thing was that one of the women, Fadwa, loved having her picture taken and took pictures with all of us. She asked if we would bring her back copies the next time we visited, and the smile on her face when we did was priceless. It’s always nice to make someone else happy when there’s nothing in it for you.
I want to conclude this reflection with a discussion of my two favorite days of the Dialogue. Chronologically first, on May 31st, Omar took eight of us back to Giza to go horseback riding in the desert. A friend of his is clearly very into equestrian and led us. The reason this horseback riding experience was more special than the other two was because the guys who rode with us, from the stable, let our horses, and even encouraged them, to gallop. That was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever experienced. It felt so liberating to be riding a horse in the sunshine with no restraints. I was just totally relaxed. We had a freedom that we had yet to experience since we’d been in Egypt, and it was refreshing. Another reason this day is one of my favorites is because later that night, a few of us and Omar went to get dinner and had one of the more meaningful conversations of the entire dialogue. We talked about our first impressions of each other and then of how we Americans saw Arabs before we knew firsthand and how Omar saw Americans before he knew us. The things that we knew before and after were so vastly different, and we were all a little shocked at what our societies are teaching us, and just how false they can be.
My other most valued experience was being in Siwa. As much as it felt like a ghost town, I had never been in a place where women were simply not seen. In the two days that we stayed there, we saw maybe 4 women, all of whom were completely covered, face and all, as opposed to hundreds of men. It was eye opening to say the least. It is a very small, isolated town in the middle of the desert, so it’s easy to see how they can be still very old-fashioned and extremely conservative in their ways. It was even the first time that we could walk through town with just a group of girls without being harassed with every step. The desert trek, although causing the death of my camera, was also a huge highlight. I never though it would be possible to swim in the desert while still maintaining sanity but I now know that it is, if you know the right people. I never thought I’d go sand boarding in the Sahara, but I did. I never thought I would see the sunset over the desert, but I certainly did.
There are so many things that I experienced on this dialogue that I never dreamed a girl like me would get to do or see, and now that I’ve done them, I believe that my life will never be the same. After living in Egypt for nearly two months, in a completely separate culture than my own and experiencing new perspectives on various issues, my perspective has come to encompass all of the things that I’ve learned. I feel like being able to look at things from the points of view of both the west and the east makes me a better person in some ways. I also think that in enriching myself in other cultures, ones with more in a tenth of their history than in all of American history, I better prepare myself for things I may have to deal with in my life. I feel like a broken record, but this is something that will stay with me forever and I will always cherish and value my time in Egypt and all that I’ve learned from it. God, I miss it already.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
As much as I missed being home, and am happy to see my family, I still miss the life of Cairo. All the energy of Zamalek is still a part of me, and now, being home in a pretty quiet town, I'm starting to feel restless.
Our last night in Cairo was as it should have been. Grace, April and I shared a room in the Marriott, and spent a lot of the day either sleeping, or lounging in bed. We walked across Zamalek to get our last Ta9maya sandwiches and rearrange some luggage in Flamenco and then took a cab [where Grace left her phone] back to the Marriott. We relaxed and tried to nap for most of the day and just before 10pm, April and I walked over to Versailles to meet everyone and watch the Germany/Portugal Euro Cup game. I was glad our last night was spent relaxing and with shisha. It was pretty appropriate, seeing as it was how we spent many of our nights in Cairo. By the time the game ended, we were all ready to leave, so a few people hopped in Ziko's car, and the rest of us set out on foot to get back to the Marriott and hang out until we had to leave. About halfway there, Sherio jumped out of Ziko's car to walk with us, and ended up being congratulated by some friends hanging out on 26th of July street on his four wives. We made enough fun of him for the rest of the walk that I don't think he'll ever want four wives. It was all in good fun though.
When we got back to the hotel, we all pretty much collapsed out of exhaustion, and spent the hour and a half until we had to leave watching British comedy and making fun of it. After a bit, we got some energy back and there was a pillow fight and some general ruckus. Omar was out for dinner, and said he would get to the Marriott by the time we had to leave, but with ten minutes left, he still wasn't there, so April and I went up to our room to bring our stuff down to the lobby, and the girls in 644 started getting their stuff together. We met them, now with Omar, downstairs, and crowded around a little table, just like we always do. We started saying our goodbyes in the lobby, continued them through the hotel, on the way to the bus, and then as we were still getting onto the bus. Everyone looked so sad, and Lyna was crying, and it really sucked to have to say such a definitive goodbye when we became such good friends in such a short period of time. I already miss the nights that turned into early mornings and the laughs and the stupid conversations we would have. It's some of the most fun I've ever had, and now it's over. And that sucks.
Our last night in Cairo was as it should have been. Grace, April and I shared a room in the Marriott, and spent a lot of the day either sleeping, or lounging in bed. We walked across Zamalek to get our last Ta9maya sandwiches and rearrange some luggage in Flamenco and then took a cab [where Grace left her phone] back to the Marriott. We relaxed and tried to nap for most of the day and just before 10pm, April and I walked over to Versailles to meet everyone and watch the Germany/Portugal Euro Cup game. I was glad our last night was spent relaxing and with shisha. It was pretty appropriate, seeing as it was how we spent many of our nights in Cairo. By the time the game ended, we were all ready to leave, so a few people hopped in Ziko's car, and the rest of us set out on foot to get back to the Marriott and hang out until we had to leave. About halfway there, Sherio jumped out of Ziko's car to walk with us, and ended up being congratulated by some friends hanging out on 26th of July street on his four wives. We made enough fun of him for the rest of the walk that I don't think he'll ever want four wives. It was all in good fun though.
When we got back to the hotel, we all pretty much collapsed out of exhaustion, and spent the hour and a half until we had to leave watching British comedy and making fun of it. After a bit, we got some energy back and there was a pillow fight and some general ruckus. Omar was out for dinner, and said he would get to the Marriott by the time we had to leave, but with ten minutes left, he still wasn't there, so April and I went up to our room to bring our stuff down to the lobby, and the girls in 644 started getting their stuff together. We met them, now with Omar, downstairs, and crowded around a little table, just like we always do. We started saying our goodbyes in the lobby, continued them through the hotel, on the way to the bus, and then as we were still getting onto the bus. Everyone looked so sad, and Lyna was crying, and it really sucked to have to say such a definitive goodbye when we became such good friends in such a short period of time. I already miss the nights that turned into early mornings and the laughs and the stupid conversations we would have. It's some of the most fun I've ever had, and now it's over. And that sucks.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
That's what $40 a gallon gets you.
We left to fly to Abu Dhabi fairly early on Saturday morning. We were all a little bummed at the prospect of flying Egypt Air, just for the sole reason that we'd heard pretty bad things about it, plus it was no Emirates. The first thing we all did in Cairo Airport was rush straight for the Starbucks a floor above our terminal, and we pretty much took it over. I spent 35LE on an iced latte and a beanbag chair muffin, but it was so worth it. We were all enjoying our Starbucks in the terminal, waiting to get on the buses that would bring us to the rickety staircase that would lead us to the plane, and we discovered free, fast, wireless internet. Starbucks and free internet? Is this Christmas, you ask? Yes, Christmas in June. That it was. Unfortunately, by the time we all had our laptops out and ready, they called us to get on the bus, so nothing substantial was accomplished. We checked through and packed onto this huge bus that drove us to the plane. The first thing that I noticed, not even ten steps in, was this rank smell that permeated the whole plane. It smelled like the worst bathroom you could possibly imagine. I wanted to throw up. It was so gross. I was humming "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd through the whole flight, and that pretty much sums up my feelings on Egypt Air. I'm glad I was too nauseated to eat the food they served because a few people got really sick from it.
Now, everything the Abu Dhabi involved was VIP, even from the time we left Cairo. Our bags were taken care of for us, we didn't have to wait in line to check in - the only thing we had to do ourselves was get our departure stamps on our visas. That didn't change for the rest of the trip. When we landed in Abu Dhabi, we were immediately rounded up by four very chic-looking Muslim women and taken to a VIP lounge inside the airport. No one knew what was going on, we just all assumed this was part of the treatment. We handed over our passports for new visas, and were told not to worry about our bags, and that we just had to make sure they were on the truck outside, and then it was into minibuses, and off to the hotel. We drove for a while through fields of palm trees, and men in funny outfits watering flowers, and we finally came to a hotel on a hill, with a big I on the side, and we knew this is where we'd be staying. We walked into a marble lobby, dripping with crystal chandeliers, were handed an envelope telling us that food, laundry and various other amenities were free, and were led up to our huge rooms.
We had two fluffy, pillowed-covered, down-comfortered beds next to a huge picture window that overlooked the front of the hotel, and a plasma TV. When you walk into the bathroom, there was a sink right in front of you, a tub to your right, then to the left, a standing shower stall, and further in, a separate little room for the toilet. It was slightly ridiculous. Joyce and I pressed every button and touched everything in the whole room to figure out what it did. We both showered and sunk into the most comfortable beds ever, and around 7:30pm, our doorbell rang and a guy wheeled a cart full of food into our room. We had pasta and chicken and french fries and bread and soda and just food galore. They told us they'd send us up a snack before dinner at 9pm, and this is what they sent. It was delicious.
An hour after we finished, we had our first "ice breaker" with the Arab students, and it went pretty well. They led us into this huge ballroom with like, 30 tables and three long tables lined with food. We dispersed ourselves so it wasn't all Americans at a table, and we ended up sitting next with Azza and Jinana. All of the Arab students are so nice and friendly, and really eager to get to know all of us. We took more group pictures in the first 10 minutes than I've ever taken in my life. It's so sad that we only got to be with them for a few days because I'm sure we could've all become better friends than we did. Dinner ended around 11, which is the time they told us they want us back in our rooms by, and some of the Arab students wanted to party more, so they invited Joyce and me up to one of the rooms. We knew better than to start trouble on the first night, so we just went to bed and enjoyed a nice long night of sleep, before the work began. Sunday morning we all we requested to dress formally for our first session of the conference. We didn't really know too much about what we were going to be doing in Abu Dhabi before we got there and were actually told that we would be participating in an Arab-Western Youth Dialogue sponsored by the Arab Women's Organization, and that our findings and presentations would be published. It was crazy official. There were cameras on us at all times, and reporters roaming around the room we were dialogging in and it felt really official-like. The first day we broke up into groups to cover different groups to discuss different arenas of women's rights. 
I was in the Social Group [which, grammatically, annoyed me, since Society would've been the right word] and we discussed things like marriage, divorce, women in the workplace, violence against women and other things like that. We were told that we had to have a 20-minute presentation ready to give on Monday afternoon at the session. We were all a little surprised by it, but we were keeping pretty thorough notes, so aside from the statistics we needed, we were pretty much set. It was just a matter of putting it all together into a powerpoint presentation.
Once everyone heard that we had actual work to do and present, they disappeared. It ended up that out of ten people, the four Americans and Stephanie from Lebanon were the only ones actually working on it. No one showed up to the group meeting we had that night either, aside from me, April, Mary, Stephanie and Ussama. That was really frustrating, and I did end up confronting Maria from Morocco about it the next day. We had gotten pretty much all of the presentation done, but we needed one last thing from the internet. We wanted verses from the Qu'ran in English that talked about hijab. We sent Maria to the internet room to find them, and fifteen minutes later, she came back with nothing. I went, and 30 seconds later [literally, I was timed], I came back with three. They were on the first website that came up in a search for "Qu'ran verses hijab". I told Maria I didn't believe that she really looked, and she took me to the computer she was on, found the exact search she did on the drop down menu, and the first website that came up was the one I printed out. She swore up and down that that didn't come up when she searched, but I still don't believe she really looked. She was messing around just like the rest of the group was sleeping. Dr. Moataz heard me talking to Stephanie about it, and ended up highlighting the names of the people who did all the work in red on the title slide, so at least he knew about what really went on. The presentation went off without a hitch and it was a relief to get it done and over with. We had a report due the next day, but that was only a page for each side, so we weren't worried about that.
That night, we went to the Picasso Abu Dhabi exhibit at the Emirates Palace Hotel, which was so sweet. Me, Molly and Andrew we unlucky enough to be stuck behind someone who was dropping bombs through the whole exhibit. We could always tell when someone was smelling it when they turned their head to the side and their entire face contorted. We died laughing to keep from dying of asphyxiation. The rest of the week was mostly chill. The only time it wasn't fun was when I was supposed to go out to see the Italy/France soccer game with Laith and Molly and a few other people, but we weren't allowed because we're girls who were going to be out in public, at night with Laith, a guy, and that's not okay. It was frustrating because that's something I've never been told. I've never had to miss out on anything because I'm a girl and I ended up watching the first half by myself. I ended up watching the second half with Molly, Ruthie and Diana, but it would've been really nice to actually go out out of the hotel and hang out with the Arab students. Not just go on the field trips they organized for us. It's not a big deal now, but it was upsetting at the time. But Italy won, and I saw Laith later that night and everything is everything now.
Tuesday was spent visiting various places around Abu Dhabi. First was Sheikh Zayed mosque, which was a beautiful, although overdone mosque whose patrons seemed only concerned with world records and not really what mosques are for. It reminded us all of the Sultan's palace from Aladdin. After the mosque, we went to Abu Dhabi University for what seemed like an open house. I felt bad for the guy giving the presentation though, since everyone fell asleep as soon as the lights went out. I'm sure our paparazzi got some great pictures of all of us snoozing. They took us on a tour of the main building, and everything was really shiny and expensive but I guess that's what $1000 per credit hour gets you. Not for me, thanks. After Abu Dhabi University, we went to the Center for Strategery and listened to more presentations and slept in really comfortable chairs and got some pens and saw the news center, which was pretty cool to see. There were something like 24 monitors, each on a different news source, and there were 2-3 people monitoring them at all times. The Center for Strategery gave us a little snack, and then we headed back to the hotel for lunch. I had a really nice conversation with Rachid from Morocco on the bus ride. I never knew how involved he was with kids and getting them involved in music and all the things that he does. I think the programs he was talking about that he has in the works are amazing.
Wednesday we had most of the day to ourselves, aside from a visit to the Arab Women's Organization. That was pretty cool. There was a lideshow at the beginning that used "Eye of the Tiger", "Beauty and the Beast" and then the overture from Phantom of the Opera. I lol'ed. We saw a bunch of different small workshops with Emirati women working in them, wearing the traditional dress and it was definitely different. We got a chance to wear the abiyas with the face covering, and it was weird. I don't mind the abiya, but the face thing is just too much for me. I don't like things covering my mouth, plus it left this nasty blue ink all over my face, as well as everyone else who put it on. We ended the day in a huge tent drinking water and juice and a lot of people got henna tattoos, and sat around talking for a good hour before they corralled us back onto the buses to go back to the hotel. The day before, there was a terrorist warning for all non-natives of the United Arab Emirates from the UK, so our trip to Dubai got canceled. We still had to go though, because our flight was out of Dubai airport, so we left at 7pm to drive there on our sweet leather-seated bus and go straight to the airport. We stopped at the Emirates Mall and some indoor market en route. The mall was pretty cool. It was just like any other big mall in the states, but it had an indoor ski slope, which I would love to do one day, despite my aversion to skiing. I had a mini-breakdown in the airport when our flight number was announced as 911. I know that mostly everyone was affected by the events of 9/11, but I also know that not everyone was affected in the same way. The memories of being sent home early from school and seeing the smoke on the horizon while driving to get my sister are still too vivid for me to not have a reaction to those numbers put together. I still miss my cousin Tommy, who was a fireman lost in one of the building collapses, and because of that, I have a different reaction to the numbers than some others. I was questioned for "overreacting" and told that "the number means nothing" by people who live in places like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania who weren't affected in the same way I was. I had my mini breakdown, and Diana sang an Alicia Keys song to me, and it made me smile and after an hour or so, I got mostly over it, but I was still nervous until our plane touched down in Cairo. Seeing the sunrise from a plane window is something I'll never get sick of.
I'm glad to be back in Cairo. I've missed it.
Now, everything the Abu Dhabi involved was VIP, even from the time we left Cairo. Our bags were taken care of for us, we didn't have to wait in line to check in - the only thing we had to do ourselves was get our departure stamps on our visas. That didn't change for the rest of the trip. When we landed in Abu Dhabi, we were immediately rounded up by four very chic-looking Muslim women and taken to a VIP lounge inside the airport. No one knew what was going on, we just all assumed this was part of the treatment. We handed over our passports for new visas, and were told not to worry about our bags, and that we just had to make sure they were on the truck outside, and then it was into minibuses, and off to the hotel. We drove for a while through fields of palm trees, and men in funny outfits watering flowers, and we finally came to a hotel on a hill, with a big I on the side, and we knew this is where we'd be staying. We walked into a marble lobby, dripping with crystal chandeliers, were handed an envelope telling us that food, laundry and various other amenities were free, and were led up to our huge rooms.
We had two fluffy, pillowed-covered, down-comfortered beds next to a huge picture window that overlooked the front of the hotel, and a plasma TV. When you walk into the bathroom, there was a sink right in front of you, a tub to your right, then to the left, a standing shower stall, and further in, a separate little room for the toilet. It was slightly ridiculous. Joyce and I pressed every button and touched everything in the whole room to figure out what it did. We both showered and sunk into the most comfortable beds ever, and around 7:30pm, our doorbell rang and a guy wheeled a cart full of food into our room. We had pasta and chicken and french fries and bread and soda and just food galore. They told us they'd send us up a snack before dinner at 9pm, and this is what they sent. It was delicious.
An hour after we finished, we had our first "ice breaker" with the Arab students, and it went pretty well. They led us into this huge ballroom with like, 30 tables and three long tables lined with food. We dispersed ourselves so it wasn't all Americans at a table, and we ended up sitting next with Azza and Jinana. All of the Arab students are so nice and friendly, and really eager to get to know all of us. We took more group pictures in the first 10 minutes than I've ever taken in my life. It's so sad that we only got to be with them for a few days because I'm sure we could've all become better friends than we did. Dinner ended around 11, which is the time they told us they want us back in our rooms by, and some of the Arab students wanted to party more, so they invited Joyce and me up to one of the rooms. We knew better than to start trouble on the first night, so we just went to bed and enjoyed a nice long night of sleep, before the work began. Sunday morning we all we requested to dress formally for our first session of the conference. We didn't really know too much about what we were going to be doing in Abu Dhabi before we got there and were actually told that we would be participating in an Arab-Western Youth Dialogue sponsored by the Arab Women's Organization, and that our findings and presentations would be published. It was crazy official. There were cameras on us at all times, and reporters roaming around the room we were dialogging in and it felt really official-like. The first day we broke up into groups to cover different groups to discuss different arenas of women's rights. 
I was in the Social Group [which, grammatically, annoyed me, since Society would've been the right word] and we discussed things like marriage, divorce, women in the workplace, violence against women and other things like that. We were told that we had to have a 20-minute presentation ready to give on Monday afternoon at the session. We were all a little surprised by it, but we were keeping pretty thorough notes, so aside from the statistics we needed, we were pretty much set. It was just a matter of putting it all together into a powerpoint presentation. Once everyone heard that we had actual work to do and present, they disappeared. It ended up that out of ten people, the four Americans and Stephanie from Lebanon were the only ones actually working on it. No one showed up to the group meeting we had that night either, aside from me, April, Mary, Stephanie and Ussama. That was really frustrating, and I did end up confronting Maria from Morocco about it the next day. We had gotten pretty much all of the presentation done, but we needed one last thing from the internet. We wanted verses from the Qu'ran in English that talked about hijab. We sent Maria to the internet room to find them, and fifteen minutes later, she came back with nothing. I went, and 30 seconds later [literally, I was timed], I came back with three. They were on the first website that came up in a search for "Qu'ran verses hijab". I told Maria I didn't believe that she really looked, and she took me to the computer she was on, found the exact search she did on the drop down menu, and the first website that came up was the one I printed out. She swore up and down that that didn't come up when she searched, but I still don't believe she really looked. She was messing around just like the rest of the group was sleeping. Dr. Moataz heard me talking to Stephanie about it, and ended up highlighting the names of the people who did all the work in red on the title slide, so at least he knew about what really went on. The presentation went off without a hitch and it was a relief to get it done and over with. We had a report due the next day, but that was only a page for each side, so we weren't worried about that.
That night, we went to the Picasso Abu Dhabi exhibit at the Emirates Palace Hotel, which was so sweet. Me, Molly and Andrew we unlucky enough to be stuck behind someone who was dropping bombs through the whole exhibit. We could always tell when someone was smelling it when they turned their head to the side and their entire face contorted. We died laughing to keep from dying of asphyxiation. The rest of the week was mostly chill. The only time it wasn't fun was when I was supposed to go out to see the Italy/France soccer game with Laith and Molly and a few other people, but we weren't allowed because we're girls who were going to be out in public, at night with Laith, a guy, and that's not okay. It was frustrating because that's something I've never been told. I've never had to miss out on anything because I'm a girl and I ended up watching the first half by myself. I ended up watching the second half with Molly, Ruthie and Diana, but it would've been really nice to actually go out out of the hotel and hang out with the Arab students. Not just go on the field trips they organized for us. It's not a big deal now, but it was upsetting at the time. But Italy won, and I saw Laith later that night and everything is everything now.
Tuesday was spent visiting various places around Abu Dhabi. First was Sheikh Zayed mosque, which was a beautiful, although overdone mosque whose patrons seemed only concerned with world records and not really what mosques are for. It reminded us all of the Sultan's palace from Aladdin. After the mosque, we went to Abu Dhabi University for what seemed like an open house. I felt bad for the guy giving the presentation though, since everyone fell asleep as soon as the lights went out. I'm sure our paparazzi got some great pictures of all of us snoozing. They took us on a tour of the main building, and everything was really shiny and expensive but I guess that's what $1000 per credit hour gets you. Not for me, thanks. After Abu Dhabi University, we went to the Center for Strategery and listened to more presentations and slept in really comfortable chairs and got some pens and saw the news center, which was pretty cool to see. There were something like 24 monitors, each on a different news source, and there were 2-3 people monitoring them at all times. The Center for Strategery gave us a little snack, and then we headed back to the hotel for lunch. I had a really nice conversation with Rachid from Morocco on the bus ride. I never knew how involved he was with kids and getting them involved in music and all the things that he does. I think the programs he was talking about that he has in the works are amazing.Wednesday we had most of the day to ourselves, aside from a visit to the Arab Women's Organization. That was pretty cool. There was a lideshow at the beginning that used "Eye of the Tiger", "Beauty and the Beast" and then the overture from Phantom of the Opera. I lol'ed. We saw a bunch of different small workshops with Emirati women working in them, wearing the traditional dress and it was definitely different. We got a chance to wear the abiyas with the face covering, and it was weird. I don't mind the abiya, but the face thing is just too much for me. I don't like things covering my mouth, plus it left this nasty blue ink all over my face, as well as everyone else who put it on. We ended the day in a huge tent drinking water and juice and a lot of people got henna tattoos, and sat around talking for a good hour before they corralled us back onto the buses to go back to the hotel. The day before, there was a terrorist warning for all non-natives of the United Arab Emirates from the UK, so our trip to Dubai got canceled. We still had to go though, because our flight was out of Dubai airport, so we left at 7pm to drive there on our sweet leather-seated bus and go straight to the airport. We stopped at the Emirates Mall and some indoor market en route. The mall was pretty cool. It was just like any other big mall in the states, but it had an indoor ski slope, which I would love to do one day, despite my aversion to skiing. I had a mini-breakdown in the airport when our flight number was announced as 911. I know that mostly everyone was affected by the events of 9/11, but I also know that not everyone was affected in the same way. The memories of being sent home early from school and seeing the smoke on the horizon while driving to get my sister are still too vivid for me to not have a reaction to those numbers put together. I still miss my cousin Tommy, who was a fireman lost in one of the building collapses, and because of that, I have a different reaction to the numbers than some others. I was questioned for "overreacting" and told that "the number means nothing" by people who live in places like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania who weren't affected in the same way I was. I had my mini breakdown, and Diana sang an Alicia Keys song to me, and it made me smile and after an hour or so, I got mostly over it, but I was still nervous until our plane touched down in Cairo. Seeing the sunrise from a plane window is something I'll never get sick of.
I'm glad to be back in Cairo. I've missed it.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Did we just get kidnapped?
Yesterday morning, we moved back into Flamenco. I finally got a room not on one of the top two floors and instead ended up in a huge Junior Suite with Joyce on the fifth floor. It was pretty sweet. My first objective was laundry. I desperately needed to clean some of my clothes after Siwa and before Abu Dhabi, since we were supposed to look nice through the whole few days. I did that really quickly, in our bathtub, before Syonara was supposed to stop by Flamenco for a quick goodbye. All we had had planned was that she come by the hotel, have a few minutes together, maybe even grab some dinner nearby. She called us when she was down in the lobby and the next we knew, we were sitting in her dining room eating Molokhia and asking each other what happened and how we got there. Her husband actually spoke to us this time, even the five words he did say. The last time we were at her house, for the kids' birthday party, we barely saw him because there were so many unveiled women in the living room and he's very religious. He seemed nice enough. The food. Oh, the food. Definitely interesting. It's this green, leafy, kind-of-slimy vegetable in a broth eaten with bread. It's what I imagine the Egyptian version of collard greens would be. It wasn't bad. I ate most of it, but started to feel a little uneasy towards the end of the bowl. The consistency just isn't something I'm used to, and it didn't really sit well. After we finished eating, we went to sit in the sun room and help Syonara put the pictures of her kids that we had printed in their photo albums, and that turned into her showing us their baby albums and then her wedding album. She looked absolutely gorgeous in her wedding. One thing that I think we all felt a little weird about was when she showed us a picture of the bride's father and the groom's father, and we were all like, oh, they look alike, and then we realized oh yea, it's because they're BROTHERS. Her husband being her first cousin is a little strange, but is acceptable in that culture, so c'est la vie.
My favorite thing about going to Syonara's house is playing with Balkheis and Soliman. They're absolutely adorable and have SO much energy. We spent a good 45 minutes playing with them, and chasing them around, giving Syonara and Russell a break, and it was so much fun. When we were looking at the pictures, Balkheis climbed up onto the couch and plopped herself in my lap, and it was pretty cute. I'm glad they started to feel comfortable with us because the last time we were over, they didn't really know what to do with us.
When we finally escaped back to Zamalek, we met up with Bridget and went over by AUC to find fake soccer jerseys. Somehow we found this palce around the corner and down the block and through the whopper layer and ended up buying a few Zamalek jerseys and some L'EgpytiOn [spelled wrong because they're not real] jerseys for various friends and family members, and headed back to Flamenco. We split into our respective rooms and decided to meet back up later to go to Vivant. By the time Joyce and I finally got there, the table was completely packed, and we somehow managed to squeeze in a couple of chairs. I'm definitely going to miss asiir limun wi shisha n3e'na when we get back to America. If I try to order lemon juice anywhere, they'll probably just squeeze some lemons and that'd be gross. It took forever to get our order, and everyone started leaving. Pat, Oscar, Ted, Mohammed, Hussein and Joyce and I were the only ones left. When we went to leave, Joyce and I just wanted to go back to the hotel, but that small group of Egyptians [Mohammed, Adam, and their friend I had never seen before] are not really good people. They tried really hard to convince us to go out for a drink with them, almost to the point where it seemed like they had dishonorable intentions. We all knew Mohamammed had tried things before, and it seemed like this time wouldn't be any different. Joyce and I steered absolutely clear of them, and pretty much ran back to Flamenco, and even Ted apologized for him later on. When we got back, there was a Family Guy party up in Sonja and April's room, so I joined in on that. It was cool to just sit and relax, and pretty much fall asleep before Sherio and Omar came to Flamenco to hang out and say a second goodbye before we leave for Abu Dhabi. By the time they did get to Flamenco, Ted had said they weren't letting visitors in, especially two guys with a bunch of girls, and it was a little late to go anywhere, so we walked over to Coffee Bean, and sat in the comfy chairs upstairs for a little while - probably the calmest night so far. We had another 20 minutes of goodbyes even though we'll be back in a week and finally made it up to our rooms. I'll miss those guys when we're back in the states. They're so much fun, even when we're just sitting and talking.
My favorite thing about going to Syonara's house is playing with Balkheis and Soliman. They're absolutely adorable and have SO much energy. We spent a good 45 minutes playing with them, and chasing them around, giving Syonara and Russell a break, and it was so much fun. When we were looking at the pictures, Balkheis climbed up onto the couch and plopped herself in my lap, and it was pretty cute. I'm glad they started to feel comfortable with us because the last time we were over, they didn't really know what to do with us.When we finally escaped back to Zamalek, we met up with Bridget and went over by AUC to find fake soccer jerseys. Somehow we found this palce around the corner and down the block and through the whopper layer and ended up buying a few Zamalek jerseys and some L'EgpytiOn [spelled wrong because they're not real] jerseys for various friends and family members, and headed back to Flamenco. We split into our respective rooms and decided to meet back up later to go to Vivant. By the time Joyce and I finally got there, the table was completely packed, and we somehow managed to squeeze in a couple of chairs. I'm definitely going to miss asiir limun wi shisha n3e'na when we get back to America. If I try to order lemon juice anywhere, they'll probably just squeeze some lemons and that'd be gross. It took forever to get our order, and everyone started leaving. Pat, Oscar, Ted, Mohammed, Hussein and Joyce and I were the only ones left. When we went to leave, Joyce and I just wanted to go back to the hotel, but that small group of Egyptians [Mohammed, Adam, and their friend I had never seen before] are not really good people. They tried really hard to convince us to go out for a drink with them, almost to the point where it seemed like they had dishonorable intentions. We all knew Mohamammed had tried things before, and it seemed like this time wouldn't be any different. Joyce and I steered absolutely clear of them, and pretty much ran back to Flamenco, and even Ted apologized for him later on. When we got back, there was a Family Guy party up in Sonja and April's room, so I joined in on that. It was cool to just sit and relax, and pretty much fall asleep before Sherio and Omar came to Flamenco to hang out and say a second goodbye before we leave for Abu Dhabi. By the time they did get to Flamenco, Ted had said they weren't letting visitors in, especially two guys with a bunch of girls, and it was a little late to go anywhere, so we walked over to Coffee Bean, and sat in the comfy chairs upstairs for a little while - probably the calmest night so far. We had another 20 minutes of goodbyes even though we'll be back in a week and finally made it up to our rooms. I'll miss those guys when we're back in the states. They're so much fun, even when we're just sitting and talking.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Live free, Charliiiiie!
Breakfast at Beau Site is a pretty interesting time. It’s elderly-folks galore, and the spread is full of greasy, unrecognizable bowls of mush. Joyce and I stuck to the hard-boiled eggs, cereal and bread, and just as we sat down and started eating, this industrial-sized bug zapper started freaking out. We both busted out in an uncontrollable giggle that lasted through breakfast and into the bus ride. We were all pretty awake for a while, but a little bit later, we were all zonked for the four-hour ride. It was turning out to be a nice nap until I woke up to the smell of burning rubber and the bus coming to a complete stop in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. 
It was ironically perfect timing. We were about halfway between Marsa and Siwa, and the fan belt of our bus broke, so we absolutely couldn’t go anywhere. We all sat on the bus for a little bit, to enjoy the last bits of air conditioning, but after like, 30 seconds, the bus turned from salvation from the sun to a hotbox. It got so hot on that bus so quickly that we all just ended up wandering around outside, taking lots of “omgwe’restuckinthedesert” pictures and joking around while the grown ups loitered around the back of the bus to try and make it look like they were doing something. After a while, we all ended up sitting on the side of the road, in the shade of the bus and just really joking about what was going on. 
Our police escort showed up a bit later,
and their plan was pretty entertaining. Their idea was to just hijack any vehicle that passes by and redirect it to Siwa and our hotel with all of our baggage. It was pretty funny at first, but then when we realized they were serious, it wasn’t so funny anymore. Sure, it would get us out of the desert, but I would rather sit in the middle of nowhere for a few more hours to wait for our own transportation than play into the stereotype of the aggressive Americans who take whatever they want, no matter what effect it has on others. Thankfully, the first and only bus that was stopped was full to max capacity with men, and we definitely weren't getting on that. After a little longer, two minibuses showed up for us [I think from Alexandria], and we packed all 26 of us, along with all of our bags onto them and raced to Siwa. I swear, They couldn't have been going less than 120km/h. We made the 105 leftover kilometers to Siwa in less than 90 minutes, and it looked like the town that the world forgot. As we got further in, we began to see people, but they were all men. There was not a single woman to be seen. We were told that it was a pretty conservative place, but this seemed a little ridiculous to me.
We got to our hotel, which was down this tiny little alleyway past a few abandoned-looking buildings, and all pretty much fell into the chairs in reception. Before dispersing to our rooms, we agreed to meet later on for a "walking tour" of the area. Joyce and I decided to watch The Darjeeling Limited, instead of going swimming, and both ended up asleep. We got up just in time for the tour. I don't really know how you can call our walk a tour because there isn't much in town to see, besides men and donkeys. We took a lap around the town, and it took less than ten minutes before we climbed up this hill where people used to live. It was all houses carved out of the hill and we thought no one was there, but it turned out that we could see down into a home, and there was a family there, looking up at us. It was definitely strange. On the way back down, we cleaned out a small shop of their bottled-water supply and headed back to the hotel.
Breakfast at Siwa Safari Paradise is pretty nauseating, not gonna lie. I think anything after Flamenco is pretty subpar. I stuck to the bread, and some hardboiled eggs, since those seem to be pretty consistently clutch. Our first stop of the day was at the Mountain of the Dead. It's [seemingly] the highest point in town, and it's the sight of hundreds of tombs which have already been excavated.
It was pretty cool to stand at the top and look around to see a forest of palm trees and even water in the distance, surrounded by a sea of desert. We spent a little bit of time listening to some history about the city and enjoying the cool breeze before walking down the side of the mountain. We left the mountain, admiring the donkeys on the way down, and got back on the bus to go to Cleopatra's well. We were supposed to take donkey carts to the well, but the police escort wanted us all to stay together, so that didn't happen. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think it was what I saw. It was this big, circular pool, enclosed in a mud-brick-looking wall, and a thick green foam around the edges. We just kind of stood around, looking at each other for a bit, and finally someone jumped in first, and then it was a free-for-all. 
I think maybe 7 or 8 people jumped right in and started swimming with a young boy who was already there. Most of us didn't swim, mostly because we didn't want to be in wet clothes for however long we were going to be out for, so we hovered around the pool taking pictures and laughing at the mysterious white cloud in the water. After about 10 minutes, we piled back on the bus with a bunch of people who looked like they just peed their pants, and I thought we were just going back to the hotel, but we stopped at two other sites in between. Both were ruins of ancient temples, neither were very memorable.
We got back into town, and had a few hours to kill before the desert trek later on, so a few of us went and had lunch at a place called Abduh's, which is only so appropriate. The food was really good, but they forgot Bridget's, so she got it to go and we walked back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped in this little shop across the path from our hotel, and looked around for a bit while the guy who owned it, I'm assuming, invited us for tea and kept saying things like "maybe this one". I bought a gorgeous veil, and got a free postcard. The guy was really nice and if we didn't have the trek, we would've gone to have tea with him. Joyce and I both passed out and slept all the way through the down-time. It was much-needed with all the traveling that we've been doing. Joyce and I did come into custody of a new pet spider who we named Charlie. We kept him under a cup on our fridge with some granola in it.
At 4, we all met and split into 6 Toyota 4Runners for our evening desert trek with the Bedouins. I could tell as soon as we took off that the car I got stuck in wasn't doing very well. It fell behind immediately, and was driving really slowly the entire time. I was kind of annoyed, to be totally honest. I was all ready to be bouncing around and speeding over dunes and everything, yet this car could barely keep up with the others on the road. It was thoroughly disappointing. I tried to see past it, and before I knew it, we were stopping. There was a huge dune overlooking a kind of sand basin.
We stopped to climb it, and take 12307235897234 pictures, and then got back in the cars to go to the oasis. That was probably one of the most amazing experiences in my lifetime. As we drove up to it, all we could see was a calm body of water surrounded by green in the heart of the Western Sahara. It was incredible. We could hardly wait to get out of the car before we were getting rid of our clothes and running right in. It was soooooo refreshing. It wasn't too cold, but it wasn't warm, and it wasn't clear, but you could tell that it was clean, fresh water. We all swam all the way out to the other end and back to sit and relax on the muddy/sandy bottom where it was shallow enough. It was fantastic to be sitting in water staring at the desert around you. We stayed there for much less time than I would've liked, but we did have other things planned. We all ate a quick snack from the hotel [some weird kind of chicken sandwich], got dressed, and got back in our cars. We started driving again, and all of a sudden, something made a really ugly sound and smoke started pouring out of the hood.
That was comforting. NOT. All the other trucks were speeding off in the distance, and there we were, stopped, with our driver chest deep under the hood and no idea what the hell was wrong. After a few minutes of wandering in circles and wondering if anyone noticed we were gone, two empty cars came back, fiddled with the car a little bit and then told us to get back in. I was a little skeptical. No, screw that. I was REALLY skeptical. I did not want to get back in that car when there were two other perfectly healthy ones right there. They assured us everything was fine, so we got back in and followed them to where the other cars were. Everyone was sitting in this tiny hot spring, waiting for our car. We had about 30 seconds to enjoy it, and then we left again. It wasn't nearly as refreshing as the oasis just because it was a HOT spring, but nice nonetheless.
Our next stop was what used to be ocean floor. The ground was rich with all kinds of seashells and fossils and all of us spent the first few minutes bent over at the waist trying to dig them out. After that, we ran in four different directions to climb various rock formations.
We all started running toward this one huge mountain when Abduh whistled, and we were summoned back for sandboarding. We drove to a different spot and got out to stand on the edge of a 'uge drop off. We were all pretty excited for the sandboarding. The Bedouins hopped into the trunks of the trucks and came out with these long, whitewashed, plywood boards with two burlap straps nailed into them, and gestured to get going. We were all a little taken aback, but went with it. Most people [myself included] fell before they got very far, and I managed to re-anger my tailbone, but a couple of people made it all the way down. 
It was hard with the boards needing to be sanded after every trip and not having the best construction to begin with, but we made the best of it and still had an awesome time. We each went once or twice and then sat down for tea at sunset. The sky turned the most gorgeous shades of pink and blue as the sun neared the horizon and it happened so quickly that a few people nearly missed it. My camera survived the entire trip up until this point. I left it in the truck for sandboarding and just before sunset, I took it out to take some pictures, and it was fine until later that night when it was giving me a lens error and wouldn't stay on for more than half a second. 
On the way out of the desert, I switched cars and rode with April, Asha and Andrew, and I'm glad I did. This car actually had the engine capacity to go more than 40km/h and the driver was a lil مجنون, if you catch my drift. It was more fun, though, even if it was only a ten-minute ride back. Instead of going straight to dinner, a bunch of us just jumped right into the pool/spring at the hotel to try and de-sand ourselves.It got so windy at sunset that it was absolutely everywhere. It was nice. We ended up playing some Marco Polo, and swinging off of palm tree branches, which turned out to be a bad idea, and relaxing. I went to bed pretty early to be ready for the drive back to Marsah. I was so excited to get back to the beach.
The drive wasn't bad at all. I slept through most of it, and we made it back without a hitch, and after exploring our hideous bathroom a bit, Joyce and I spent a good four hours on the beach, swimming and tanning and napping. It was glorious. We all met for shisha in daylight, which was strange because it's usually a strictly-after-dark activity, but it was still good times. I ended up staying after everyone else had left with Pat, Oscar and Ted and got some good quality time in with the boys. We went back to the hotel around 7, in time for dinner, and I spent the rest of the night working on this baby. Tomorrow is back to Cairo for the night, and then we leave at around 7am for our flight to Abu Dhabi. I'm kind of excited, but kind of not. We know little to nothing about the whole thing and that makes me unhappy, and we're going to be scheduled at all hours of the day, which is also unhappiness-inducing, but we're staying in a bangin' hotel fo' free, so that makes up for a big part of it. It has some potential.
It was ironically perfect timing. We were about halfway between Marsa and Siwa, and the fan belt of our bus broke, so we absolutely couldn’t go anywhere. We all sat on the bus for a little bit, to enjoy the last bits of air conditioning, but after like, 30 seconds, the bus turned from salvation from the sun to a hotbox. It got so hot on that bus so quickly that we all just ended up wandering around outside, taking lots of “omgwe’restuckinthedesert” pictures and joking around while the grown ups loitered around the back of the bus to try and make it look like they were doing something. After a while, we all ended up sitting on the side of the road, in the shade of the bus and just really joking about what was going on. 
Our police escort showed up a bit later, and their plan was pretty entertaining. Their idea was to just hijack any vehicle that passes by and redirect it to Siwa and our hotel with all of our baggage. It was pretty funny at first, but then when we realized they were serious, it wasn’t so funny anymore. Sure, it would get us out of the desert, but I would rather sit in the middle of nowhere for a few more hours to wait for our own transportation than play into the stereotype of the aggressive Americans who take whatever they want, no matter what effect it has on others. Thankfully, the first and only bus that was stopped was full to max capacity with men, and we definitely weren't getting on that. After a little longer, two minibuses showed up for us [I think from Alexandria], and we packed all 26 of us, along with all of our bags onto them and raced to Siwa. I swear, They couldn't have been going less than 120km/h. We made the 105 leftover kilometers to Siwa in less than 90 minutes, and it looked like the town that the world forgot. As we got further in, we began to see people, but they were all men. There was not a single woman to be seen. We were told that it was a pretty conservative place, but this seemed a little ridiculous to me.
We got to our hotel, which was down this tiny little alleyway past a few abandoned-looking buildings, and all pretty much fell into the chairs in reception. Before dispersing to our rooms, we agreed to meet later on for a "walking tour" of the area. Joyce and I decided to watch The Darjeeling Limited, instead of going swimming, and both ended up asleep. We got up just in time for the tour. I don't really know how you can call our walk a tour because there isn't much in town to see, besides men and donkeys. We took a lap around the town, and it took less than ten minutes before we climbed up this hill where people used to live. It was all houses carved out of the hill and we thought no one was there, but it turned out that we could see down into a home, and there was a family there, looking up at us. It was definitely strange. On the way back down, we cleaned out a small shop of their bottled-water supply and headed back to the hotel.Breakfast at Siwa Safari Paradise is pretty nauseating, not gonna lie. I think anything after Flamenco is pretty subpar. I stuck to the bread, and some hardboiled eggs, since those seem to be pretty consistently clutch. Our first stop of the day was at the Mountain of the Dead. It's [seemingly] the highest point in town, and it's the sight of hundreds of tombs which have already been excavated.
It was pretty cool to stand at the top and look around to see a forest of palm trees and even water in the distance, surrounded by a sea of desert. We spent a little bit of time listening to some history about the city and enjoying the cool breeze before walking down the side of the mountain. We left the mountain, admiring the donkeys on the way down, and got back on the bus to go to Cleopatra's well. We were supposed to take donkey carts to the well, but the police escort wanted us all to stay together, so that didn't happen. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think it was what I saw. It was this big, circular pool, enclosed in a mud-brick-looking wall, and a thick green foam around the edges. We just kind of stood around, looking at each other for a bit, and finally someone jumped in first, and then it was a free-for-all. 
I think maybe 7 or 8 people jumped right in and started swimming with a young boy who was already there. Most of us didn't swim, mostly because we didn't want to be in wet clothes for however long we were going to be out for, so we hovered around the pool taking pictures and laughing at the mysterious white cloud in the water. After about 10 minutes, we piled back on the bus with a bunch of people who looked like they just peed their pants, and I thought we were just going back to the hotel, but we stopped at two other sites in between. Both were ruins of ancient temples, neither were very memorable.We got back into town, and had a few hours to kill before the desert trek later on, so a few of us went and had lunch at a place called Abduh's, which is only so appropriate. The food was really good, but they forgot Bridget's, so she got it to go and we walked back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped in this little shop across the path from our hotel, and looked around for a bit while the guy who owned it, I'm assuming, invited us for tea and kept saying things like "maybe this one". I bought a gorgeous veil, and got a free postcard. The guy was really nice and if we didn't have the trek, we would've gone to have tea with him. Joyce and I both passed out and slept all the way through the down-time. It was much-needed with all the traveling that we've been doing. Joyce and I did come into custody of a new pet spider who we named Charlie. We kept him under a cup on our fridge with some granola in it.
At 4, we all met and split into 6 Toyota 4Runners for our evening desert trek with the Bedouins. I could tell as soon as we took off that the car I got stuck in wasn't doing very well. It fell behind immediately, and was driving really slowly the entire time. I was kind of annoyed, to be totally honest. I was all ready to be bouncing around and speeding over dunes and everything, yet this car could barely keep up with the others on the road. It was thoroughly disappointing. I tried to see past it, and before I knew it, we were stopping. There was a huge dune overlooking a kind of sand basin.
We stopped to climb it, and take 12307235897234 pictures, and then got back in the cars to go to the oasis. That was probably one of the most amazing experiences in my lifetime. As we drove up to it, all we could see was a calm body of water surrounded by green in the heart of the Western Sahara. It was incredible. We could hardly wait to get out of the car before we were getting rid of our clothes and running right in. It was soooooo refreshing. It wasn't too cold, but it wasn't warm, and it wasn't clear, but you could tell that it was clean, fresh water. We all swam all the way out to the other end and back to sit and relax on the muddy/sandy bottom where it was shallow enough. It was fantastic to be sitting in water staring at the desert around you. We stayed there for much less time than I would've liked, but we did have other things planned. We all ate a quick snack from the hotel [some weird kind of chicken sandwich], got dressed, and got back in our cars. We started driving again, and all of a sudden, something made a really ugly sound and smoke started pouring out of the hood.
That was comforting. NOT. All the other trucks were speeding off in the distance, and there we were, stopped, with our driver chest deep under the hood and no idea what the hell was wrong. After a few minutes of wandering in circles and wondering if anyone noticed we were gone, two empty cars came back, fiddled with the car a little bit and then told us to get back in. I was a little skeptical. No, screw that. I was REALLY skeptical. I did not want to get back in that car when there were two other perfectly healthy ones right there. They assured us everything was fine, so we got back in and followed them to where the other cars were. Everyone was sitting in this tiny hot spring, waiting for our car. We had about 30 seconds to enjoy it, and then we left again. It wasn't nearly as refreshing as the oasis just because it was a HOT spring, but nice nonetheless.Our next stop was what used to be ocean floor. The ground was rich with all kinds of seashells and fossils and all of us spent the first few minutes bent over at the waist trying to dig them out. After that, we ran in four different directions to climb various rock formations.
We all started running toward this one huge mountain when Abduh whistled, and we were summoned back for sandboarding. We drove to a different spot and got out to stand on the edge of a 'uge drop off. We were all pretty excited for the sandboarding. The Bedouins hopped into the trunks of the trucks and came out with these long, whitewashed, plywood boards with two burlap straps nailed into them, and gestured to get going. We were all a little taken aback, but went with it. Most people [myself included] fell before they got very far, and I managed to re-anger my tailbone, but a couple of people made it all the way down. 
It was hard with the boards needing to be sanded after every trip and not having the best construction to begin with, but we made the best of it and still had an awesome time. We each went once or twice and then sat down for tea at sunset. The sky turned the most gorgeous shades of pink and blue as the sun neared the horizon and it happened so quickly that a few people nearly missed it. My camera survived the entire trip up until this point. I left it in the truck for sandboarding and just before sunset, I took it out to take some pictures, and it was fine until later that night when it was giving me a lens error and wouldn't stay on for more than half a second. 
On the way out of the desert, I switched cars and rode with April, Asha and Andrew, and I'm glad I did. This car actually had the engine capacity to go more than 40km/h and the driver was a lil مجنون, if you catch my drift. It was more fun, though, even if it was only a ten-minute ride back. Instead of going straight to dinner, a bunch of us just jumped right into the pool/spring at the hotel to try and de-sand ourselves.It got so windy at sunset that it was absolutely everywhere. It was nice. We ended up playing some Marco Polo, and swinging off of palm tree branches, which turned out to be a bad idea, and relaxing. I went to bed pretty early to be ready for the drive back to Marsah. I was so excited to get back to the beach.The drive wasn't bad at all. I slept through most of it, and we made it back without a hitch, and after exploring our hideous bathroom a bit, Joyce and I spent a good four hours on the beach, swimming and tanning and napping. It was glorious. We all met for shisha in daylight, which was strange because it's usually a strictly-after-dark activity, but it was still good times. I ended up staying after everyone else had left with Pat, Oscar and Ted and got some good quality time in with the boys. We went back to the hotel around 7, in time for dinner, and I spent the rest of the night working on this baby. Tomorrow is back to Cairo for the night, and then we leave at around 7am for our flight to Abu Dhabi. I'm kind of excited, but kind of not. We know little to nothing about the whole thing and that makes me unhappy, and we're going to be scheduled at all hours of the day, which is also unhappiness-inducing, but we're staying in a bangin' hotel fo' free, so that makes up for a big part of it. It has some potential.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Mmmmm. Salty-rific.
Monday morning we left Cairo bright and early to make our way to Marsah Matruh and Siwa. I was pretty sad to leave Cairo and Flamenco and to leave everyone behind because, as I've said before, I feel as though I had put down roots there, and was very used to the routine that I fell into in Cairo. It's a place I could see myself living in the future. April and I woke up early to finish some last-minute packing and get breakfast before the bus was leaving around 8am. We got down to breakfast to find Ruthie, alone, and none of the rest of our group to be found. After a little bit, Molly came down, but even still, it was just the four of us. We were all a little skeptical about what was going on and why no one else was around, but didn't really do much about it. We put our suitcases in the storage room and headed for the bus. Abduh was outside, but no one else was around, so we just got on the bus. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to leave at 8am, and we were on the bus at 7:50, and people started showing up after a few minutes. We could've waited a little longer though, since people were still showing up until after 8:15am. I wouldn't have done that, though. Lateness is a huge pet peeve with me.
Everything was peachy keen and everyone was sound asleep until we stopped for gas a little more than halfway there. We woke up to a super strong smell of gasoline, and it turns out that the gas filter was bad and needed to be changed before we could go any further. It just so happened that we were in El Alamein and there was a war museum right there,
so we made a "pre-planned" pit stop at the biggest joke of a museum I've ever been to for a good hour and a half. We all got a pretty nice kick out of the mannequins in there. Most of them had these ridiculous looks on their faces and it looked like some of their legs were on backwards, and one's face was the same color as his shoes. They're what nightmares are made of, really. The place was deserted aside from the people who worked there, of which there were maybe 3. It was just strange all around. After we left the museum, we stopped at a Commonwealth cemetery for English soldiers who fought in World War I. 
There were only two things that we saw, through the entire trip, that made me cry. The first was the sheikh at the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the second was the cemetery. It was so quiet, and set apart from everything else, and the serenity got to me, along with one of the inscriptions that I read. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to the effect of a father and son being reunited in heaven, and it was so sad and hopeful at the same time that it made me cry. Being there was humbling, to say the least. Many of the soldiers were my age, if not younger, when killed. With things like this, I don't understand how war can continue as and be as proliferative as it still is. We all left in a pretty somber mood, skipping the Italian and German cemeteries because, apparently, they aren't as important or worth our time because they weren't fighting with the Allied powers. Screw that. I wish we could've gone to see either one or both of them and I'm not the only one who felt that way, but it wasn't really our decision, unfortunately.
We finally got to the hotel and it was this tiny little town which seemed like it was a constant carnival. There were bright colored lights strung around all the lampposts, there were rides lining the streets and colors everywhere, and everything smelled like cotton candy. It was beautiful. We got to our hotel, Beau Site, and the first thing on all of our minds was getting onto the beach. And that's exactly what we all did. Joyce and I are roommates for this leg of the trip. It's nice to switch it up, and we have a lot of fun. We got to our room and it had a gorgeous view of the water and the shore and the tip of the beach across the water. I've never seen water as blue as it was there in my life. 
I'm so used to Jones Beach and water that you can't see though past 4 inches of depth. We checked out our room a little bit, discovered a sweet internet connection and then headed down to the beach. It was way after prime beach time, but it was so nice nonetheless. I haven't really been to the beach since August and I missed it so much. We ran right into the water and swam out to this sort of floaty island thing where a lot of the rest of our group was and enjoyed the sun. The first thing we noticed, aside from how clear the water is, is just how salty the Mediterranean is. It's so that when you lay in the sun and start to dry, theres a flaky layer of salt that forms. We compared the feeling to that of a Pringle. Swimming was glorious, and so relaxing, and just what we all needed, I think, to close out the hectic, stressful week of finals and leaving Cairo and splitting up the group.
A little later, we walked down the street our hotel is on to find a good shisha place, and ended up finding a few people on their way back from one, so they turned around and came with us. We stopped at an ATM and ended up at a small, outdoor cafe about a five-minute walk from the hotel. There were about 15 of us and we had four tables pushed together and we all had our little conversations going around the shisha pipes and it was really nice. We talked about things like, if we could do one more thing in Egypt, what it would be, and what the most culturally shocking thing we saw was and what we were going to miss the most. It was really nice just to sit and talk about serious things. We got onto the topic of the war in Iraq and what needs to be done about it, and our frustration about not being able to do much about it. We hung out there for a while before heading back to Beau Site to leave early for Siwa tomorrow morning.
Everything was peachy keen and everyone was sound asleep until we stopped for gas a little more than halfway there. We woke up to a super strong smell of gasoline, and it turns out that the gas filter was bad and needed to be changed before we could go any further. It just so happened that we were in El Alamein and there was a war museum right there,
so we made a "pre-planned" pit stop at the biggest joke of a museum I've ever been to for a good hour and a half. We all got a pretty nice kick out of the mannequins in there. Most of them had these ridiculous looks on their faces and it looked like some of their legs were on backwards, and one's face was the same color as his shoes. They're what nightmares are made of, really. The place was deserted aside from the people who worked there, of which there were maybe 3. It was just strange all around. After we left the museum, we stopped at a Commonwealth cemetery for English soldiers who fought in World War I. 
There were only two things that we saw, through the entire trip, that made me cry. The first was the sheikh at the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the second was the cemetery. It was so quiet, and set apart from everything else, and the serenity got to me, along with one of the inscriptions that I read. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to the effect of a father and son being reunited in heaven, and it was so sad and hopeful at the same time that it made me cry. Being there was humbling, to say the least. Many of the soldiers were my age, if not younger, when killed. With things like this, I don't understand how war can continue as and be as proliferative as it still is. We all left in a pretty somber mood, skipping the Italian and German cemeteries because, apparently, they aren't as important or worth our time because they weren't fighting with the Allied powers. Screw that. I wish we could've gone to see either one or both of them and I'm not the only one who felt that way, but it wasn't really our decision, unfortunately.
We finally got to the hotel and it was this tiny little town which seemed like it was a constant carnival. There were bright colored lights strung around all the lampposts, there were rides lining the streets and colors everywhere, and everything smelled like cotton candy. It was beautiful. We got to our hotel, Beau Site, and the first thing on all of our minds was getting onto the beach. And that's exactly what we all did. Joyce and I are roommates for this leg of the trip. It's nice to switch it up, and we have a lot of fun. We got to our room and it had a gorgeous view of the water and the shore and the tip of the beach across the water. I've never seen water as blue as it was there in my life. 
I'm so used to Jones Beach and water that you can't see though past 4 inches of depth. We checked out our room a little bit, discovered a sweet internet connection and then headed down to the beach. It was way after prime beach time, but it was so nice nonetheless. I haven't really been to the beach since August and I missed it so much. We ran right into the water and swam out to this sort of floaty island thing where a lot of the rest of our group was and enjoyed the sun. The first thing we noticed, aside from how clear the water is, is just how salty the Mediterranean is. It's so that when you lay in the sun and start to dry, theres a flaky layer of salt that forms. We compared the feeling to that of a Pringle. Swimming was glorious, and so relaxing, and just what we all needed, I think, to close out the hectic, stressful week of finals and leaving Cairo and splitting up the group.A little later, we walked down the street our hotel is on to find a good shisha place, and ended up finding a few people on their way back from one, so they turned around and came with us. We stopped at an ATM and ended up at a small, outdoor cafe about a five-minute walk from the hotel. There were about 15 of us and we had four tables pushed together and we all had our little conversations going around the shisha pipes and it was really nice. We talked about things like, if we could do one more thing in Egypt, what it would be, and what the most culturally shocking thing we saw was and what we were going to miss the most. It was really nice just to sit and talk about serious things. We got onto the topic of the war in Iraq and what needs to be done about it, and our frustration about not being able to do much about it. We hung out there for a while before heading back to Beau Site to leave early for Siwa tomorrow morning.
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