Lola and Linda's birthday, Thanksgiving meal no. 1

Tuesday night I was invited to my neighbor's house up on the 6th floor (I'm on 3) for a birthday/early Thanksgiving celebration. They are all going out of town Thursday, and there were two birthdays in their circle of friends, so we had a party on Tuesday night. The party was hosted by the residents of flat 6A in my building: a couple from Columbia, Lola & Fernando, and Heidi, who is from Canada. Lola and Heidi are teachers at the Canadian International School which is located near the new AUC campus where I teach.

Our hosts have decorated their home for the holidays, and also provided turkey, sangria, wine, dessert, good music (an ABBA DVD was playing, and some Columbian music) and wonderful conversation. Some pictures follow. Honestly, I took most of these so my Mom would know I was eating well and around real Christmas decorations at this time of year...

A picture with the Christmas tree.

Here is the turkey, salad and wine. It was all delicious!

Here is Fernando.

A picture of me with Lola.

Here are all 3 hosts: Lola, Heidi and Fernando:

And the birthday cake. It was Linda's birthday and Lola's birthday.

Linda & her husband are from Sweden. Also attending was Heidi from Canada; Lola, Fernando and one of their friends who are all from Columbia; an Egyptian; Angus from Poland; Alessia from Italy; 2 more Canadians; Laura (I think) from China, and actually I was the only American at this Thanksgiving celebration.

We sang Happy Birthday to Linda & Lola in English first, and then someone mentioned how many languages were in the room. So they sang it in Swedish before I got the camera rolling, but then it was sung in:

Polish:

Italian:

Chinese:

German:

And finally, Spanish:

Pretty cool, eh?

A nice time. I have an invite to another Thanksgiving meal tomorrow (Thursday, which is yom el khameese in Arabic) in Dokki and then I am going to Alexandria on Friday, if I can get a seat on the train, en shallah. So more stuff to post then.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the US!

Friday in Maadi

The work week in Egypt is from Sunday-Thursday, so our weekend is Friday/Saturday. Which takes some getting used to. Actually, I think I could be here 10 years and still think of Sunday as Monday, if you know what I mean. Even the language reflects this, the days of the week are just the number of the day, so Monday is yom el itnayn, since itnayn means "2" in Arabic. But whenever I try to come up with the Arabic word for the day, my mind just starts numbering from Monday as 1. So I usually have to correct myself (or I just end up saying it in English, which most everybody I deal with understands).

My usual routine on Fridays is to sleep in and then head out for coffee at Cafe Greco on Road 9. Road 9 is a busy street in Maadi, it has the Metro station, and lots of Cafes, restaurants and shops. It is a 10 minute walk or a 5 pound (about 80 cents) taxi ride. I was going to take a picture of the Cafe Greco sign, but they had the umbrellas outside up and I couldn't get a good picture of it. I taxied to the cafe, but I walked home. My walk home takes me by McDonald's on Road 9:

Mike, the sociology professor I know, recently asked his students to write an essay along the lines of the "westernization" happening in Egypt (I don't know the exact assignment--sociology stuff is beyond us finance folks). Anyway, he said he was struck by the comments his students made about McDonald's. Most of them said, "We like McDonald's!" They said the appeal was that is was efficient, consistent, clean, predictable. Which most business ventures in Egypt are not! I find I generally see western things here as seeming out of place and a bit colonialist, if you know what I mean, but it was nice to hear a positive spin of what I too often see as simply crass consumerism pushed out of the US.

I turn at McDonald's and head up Road 85 (I think) in Maadi to go back to my apartment. This is a beautiful walk along quiet neighborhood streets, and it always reminds me of how lucky I am to live here. Maadi is a bit of an oasis in crowded, noisy Cairo, and it is nice to be close to but not in the midst of the city (this is a great article about Maadi: link). There are few places in Cairo like this:

Here is a picture of the gourmet eating establishment conveniently located in the bottom floor of my apartment:

I am starting to make real progress reading Arabic (hum di li lah!). The sign on the restaurant here says" domynoz bytza." There is no "p" in Arabic, so they spell things with a "b" but they will pronounce "p." I have been practicing reading Arabic, so the last time I was in there, I looked over the menu which is printed in both English and Arabic. . I still have to study each individual character to read the Arabic. So I see in English "cheesy bread" and then I try to decipher the Arabic. I'm expecting to find the Arabic word for cheese, and then Arabic for bread, right? I work out "sh" then "y" then "z" then "ee" and hey! wait a minute! It just says "cheesy bread!" Then I notice that it says "chicken wings" in English, and right below it in Arabic it says "chicken wings" spelled out phonetically in Arabic. No wonder they think we are nuts some times!

Dominoes being Dominoes, of course, they run a busy delivery business. Actually, one of the neat things about Cairo is that nearly everything can be delivered. Virtually all the restaurants will deliver, even the high class ones, and so will grocery stores and dry cleaners. The cleaners will even come pick up your laundry and then bring it back the next day. I really have not taken advantage of this because I like to get out and walk around, but I know it is possible.

Most of the deliveries are by scooter, so you see these things zipping around all the time:

It takes a certain amount of courage to drive those things in Cairo traffic, which I'm glad to say I do not possess and hopefully will continued to live the privileged life of a professor and never have the need to develop such intrepid driving skills. Those guys drive around in ways that makes me cringe, but I have never seen one in an accident, although I am sure they occur. I am also convinced that they target me as a westerner and pull off their most harrowing maneuvers when they know I'm watching, and I'm also convinced they gleefully zip by me leaving only inches to spare just to get a rise out of me.

Here is the grocery market where I do most of my shopping:

Actually, I eat out virtually 85% of the time, but when I buy groceries it is usually here.

I have been playing softball in the Cairo American Softball League. After a slow start, I have really enjoyed it. The guys are easy going and we all have a good time. It is good for this slightly middle aged man to get out and compete too. Not that I'm getting older, you understand, I'm just saying it is good for me. This really is a little slice of Americana carved out in the middle of Maadi. Here is a picture of the field:

We play the games on Friday, which is the "church" day for Muslims. (The days of the week are numbered in Arabic, as I mentioned, except for Friday, which is "el gommA," loosely translated as "mosque day.") The field backs up to a mosque, and the call to prayer and services are broadcast over a loudspeaker. Imagine a fire and brimstone preacher's Sunday morning sermon being delivered via loudspeaker through the entire neighborhood, and you will pretty much get the idea. This used to seem weird to me, but now I don't even think about it. Anyway, our games on Friday often have this going on in the background. Here is a brief video of the game with the sermon in the background.

My comments are about the extra player we picked up to fill out our 9--the league has some wonderful rules such as (1) You can get as many as 2 players out of the stands to bring your team number up to 9 so you do not have to forfeit. (2) You are allowed to pinch run once an inning for anyone at any time without having to bring that player out of the game. (3) You start batting with a count of 1 ball and 1 strike, before any pitch is thrown. This is great, because it really speeds up the game. If you let what might be a good pitch go by, and it turns out to be a strike, then you have 2 strikes, and you can't let another go by. I also like the way they call balls and strikes--they have an orange mat that fits right behind home plate and extends for maybe about a foot(?) behind it. Then it is simple--it the pitch hits the orange, it is a strike--it is doesn't, its a ball. That really makes the game go along faster and eliminates a lot of worrying about the umpires calls.

Here are some pictures of the guys at the game:

The only softball league I've ever been in where smoking between innings is a major part of the game!

Most of the players are either working at the embassy for the state department or are working for the US military. But there are several AUC folks on the team--here is a picture of Scott (political science professor) and Justin (biology professor):

And of course, the star player:

I've never hit all that well, but I've been in a real slump the last few games. So I was elated to have a well hit run scoring double to left center in this game.

A picture of Coach Charlie. He is a Vol fan, but we let him play anyway:

After the game, I met Scott and another Fulbright professor (visiting Cairo for the weekend from Alexandria) at Abu El Sid for dinner. This is a great Egyptian place very close by in Maadi. We had a lot of Egyptian food, including koshery and um ali (a dessert.)

Scott then headed home, so I met Justin and Nate at a local bar in Maadi called 55, because it is located at 55 Road 9 in Maadi. We had a few beers and listened to a local band. The band was a cheesy pop band (they played Kool & the Gang's Get Down on It, for example), but exactly what the locals in there wanted. By midnight the place was full of young Egyptians enjoying the music and dancing.

I taxied home a little after midnight. Not a bad day! Back to my grueling life as a college professor on Monday (which is really Sunday!).

Egypt vs. Algeria Part 1

If you live in the US, you are probably completely unaware of the recent Egypt/Algeria soccer game, but here it was an extraordinarily big deal. I tried to get a ticket to the game but was unable to do so. But that was probably a good thing, because even though I am quite adventurous about going out and mixing in with down to earth Egyptian life, I think (in hindsight) being with 100,000 crazy soccer fans on Saturday night at the Cairo stadium would have been more than I wanted.

I did spend the afternoon before the game downtown and it was like one giant tailgate party. People flooded the streets honking horns, waving Egyptian flags, painting their faces, and getting the good seats at the cafe hours before the game started. Here are some pictures from downtown the afternoon of the big game.

I have no idea who this is posing with me. I asked a western couple on the street to take my picture (they were from France, I think) and this guy just worked his way in. I'm wearing the Egyptian jersey, so I guess he thought I was just part of all the festivities.

Boy--my hair is getting long!

Here is a scene on one of the main streets downtown (Talaat Harb). Keep in mind that this is all spontaneous--there are no traffic cops, roadblocks, etc. There are policemen everywhere (there always are in Egypt) but not exactly a lot of oversight on the streets.

I took a video of an impromptu parade up Talaat Harb street. this was at about 3PM in the afternoon.

Here are a few more scenes on the street. Everybody was out waving Egyptian flags or flying them on their car.

Here is a young man who noticed my camera and jersey, so he struck up a conversation. His English was about 80%, and my Arabic is about 2%, so we understood each other about 82% of the time.

I have also learned to be wary when people approach me downtown. There is a typical game downtown--the locals spot a Westerner looking around, come up and say "Hi! Can I help you find something." And if you ask for directions they will tell you they know exactly how to get you there. So you follow them and you just happen to end up right by their shop, where you can buy lots of lovely perfume, or pictures, or pyramid statutes, etc. I've also learned that the better their English, the more likely they are just trying to hustle you into their shop. So since this guys English wasn't that great, I wasn't too suspicious. I think he just thought it was cool that I was wearing the Egyptian team shirt.

On that note, I do find the hustlers annoying, but in terms of language they are pretty amazing. They almost always start in English, but they can switch to Italian, or French, or Spanish if they need to. It seems a tremendous waste of talent.

Once, I was walking downtown at night looking for a particular restaurant called Tabula. I knew it was near the American Embassy but not much beyond that. So I walked down the street by the Embassy where there are a lot of policemen stationed around. The address of the place was on South America Street, so I tried to ask one of the policemen in Arabic if this was "Sheera Latinya Amerikeya. " He looked at me and answered in English "Are you looking for Tabula?" Evidently, most Westerners on that street are heading for that restaurant. But the language thing threw me off, and for some reason, when I got flustered in Arabic my brain reverted to Spanish (go figure) so I answered him "Si, si." So then he started speaking to me in Spanish, I think giving me directions, but after a minute he noticed the blank look on my face, so he asked me, "English, or Spanish?" To which I replied, "English--please!" So he gave me directions to Tabula, in English. So Dr. Williams, professor at the American University in Cairo, walked to that restaurant feeling quite humbled by the traffic cop working the post in downtown Cairo.

That same afternoon downtown I took some pictures of the places and things most familiar to me in downtown Cairo. Here is a Cairo staple, the black and white taxi:

How they keep some of those running I have no idea. They mostly seem 30 years old and held together with bailing wire and chewing gum, but they find a way to keep them working. There are newer cabs around, but you haven't lived until you've been in a rickety, shaky old black and white cab in Cairo and smelled that lovely exhaust.

Here is a picture at Tahrir Square. The Cairo Tower is in the picture, with the Nile Hotel to the right.

Below is the Semiramis Hotel, which is my favorite place to go to the bathroom downtown. Public toilets are difficult to find in Cairo, but as a Westerner you can stroll into any 5 star hotel just like you own the place.

This is the Mogamma building, which is the center of bureaucracy and red tape in Cairo. Thankfully, the university takes care of my visa, etc. so I don't have to deal with this, but I have heard that it is quite an experience to have to go here and find your way through the system to get your visa renewed, etc.

The picture below is one of my favorite squares downtown, Talaat Harb. The square has a great bookstore with lots of books in English, Groppi's (a bakery), several clothing stores, and nearby is Cafe Riche, where you can have Stella beer and a snack, and Felfella's, a reasonable place to eat dinner, and lots of other bars and food places are close by.

By the way, Egypt won the game 2-0. That means they will have a playoff at a neutral site (in the Sudan) Wednesday night. The winner will advance to the World Cup in South Africa next year.

Living in Egypt...

Moving to Egypt involves struggling with a lot of new things: The Arabic language, social customs, food, water, traffic, etc. Yet all of those things are quite manageable after you have been here for even just a short time. The largest struggle for me, however, has been my sense of social justice. Before I left Florida, I got a physical from a doctor in Pt St Lucie. Upon hearing that I was moving to Egypt, he told me, “You have more money in your pocket than most Egyptians make in a year.” I didn’t really believe him, but it is absolutely true.

The per capita income in Egypt is $2,000 per year. That means that on average a person in Egypt earns $2,000 per year. But the vast majority of the wealth is concentrated among a very small slice of the population, so most people make far less than that. I’ve tried to find statistics on median income, but I have not found any for Egypt (in the US the median household income is about $50,000 per year). But from asking around and through some hearsay from people connected to government circles, I think a rough (and probably generous) estimate for median income in Cairo is about 1,000 Egyptian pounds per month. At the current exchange rate of 5.6 Egyptian pounds per dollar that amounts to less than $200 per month. Now, things are certainly a lot cheaper here, but it still is difficult to live on $200 per month. And I think that is sort of middle class Egyptians, the people in the villages they have far less than that.

Food and fuel are heavily subsidized here. So most of the population can afford to eat the basic staples (rice, pasta, corn, beans) but little else. But the biggest sign of poverty is in basic services like health care. Things we take for granted, like basic dental care, vaccines, emergency rooms, etc. are not available to the vast majority of Egyptians.

This has become obvious to me because I feel enormously wealthy living here. I never felt that way in the States. I felt better off than most, but not part of the patrician class, shall we say. But here, there is no doubt that I am way, way, way ahead of virtually all of the locals. And it is entirely due to the fortunate accident that my birth occurred in the United States.

I am even more keenly aware than ever that I absolutely won life’s lottery at birth. If you are reading this, you did too! If you had been born to a poor Egyptian family, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how hard you work, you will never have the choices and opportunities that are available to me just by virtue of having been born in the West. The whole situation is weighing on my sense of social justice, and I often ponder how to respond. You can’t change the world, or really even make that much of a difference, but I wonder just what is the decent thing to do in light of the disparity in resources that I have compared to almost everyone else I live with? It is something I’m going to sit with for some time, but I do hope to find a way to feel like the incredible good fortune I have wasn’t wasted.

I have a friend who pointed out to me that (a) saying “ooh those poor little Egyptians, they cannot live like us Westerners” is really an arrogant and unproductive attitude, and (b) it isn’t necessarily given that I’m happier or even that my life is better just because I am wealthier and (c) the real difference is in the choices and opportunities that I have available to me that simply are not available to the vast majority of Egyptians, and that is the important difference to work on. Food for thought.

Other random observations about living in Egypt:

(1) I drink a lot of water over here, I guess because of the desert climate. And in the US, I would only drink water that was ice cold. Now, room temperature is just fine. That goes for beer too, surprisingly. And I have learned to live without air conditioning. The general temperature indoors is just higher here, and you get used to it. And I like feeling like I’m helping the ecology of the planet. But if you come to visit, I’ll turn it on for you!

(2) I eat a lot less meat. Mostly pasta, rice, corn, beans (the stuff in fuul and kosharey), and of course cheese pizza. I need to add some fruits (I do buy OJ from time to time).

(3) I am learning Arabic, albeit at a snail’s pace. Recently I was coming back from a café, hailed a taxi, and the driver was unfamiliar with both my neighborhood and the English language. But I was able to tell him “no problem" (mufeesh muskella), and I know how to say left, right, straight and stop here in Arabic. So I made it fine. If you think about it, you really only need about 20 words or so to get by in a taxi. So I’m a graduate of taxi-cab Arabic, now I need to learn some of the harder stuff. I have a tutor coming twice a week (provided by the University, which is a nice perk), but boy, it is a difficult language. The alphabet is completely alien, and a lot of the sounds are also. She will ask me to repeat something, so I will, and she will say no, it isn’t said like A, but like B. And I tell her that A & B sound exactly the same to me! It is frustrating, but I’m going to keep trying a little at a time and over a year or two I guess I’ll make pretty good progress. On the other hand, when you live in a western dominated neighborhood like Maadi, teach at the American University, and all your friends are from the West, it is easy to go along without learning much of the language. And there are enough people around who speak at least a little English (because we have all the money) that I can always get by. So I continually fight that and try to get out and at least hear Arabic spoken. I am pleased that at least I have started to understand a little of the conversations around me. Not that I can follow the whole thing, but I can get a few phrases here and there.

Here is Sesame Street in Arabic, singing the ABCs for the Arabic alphabet. My tutor recommended this one to me:

(4) It seems like everyone I meet here has traveled the world. I meet twenty something’s who have been to India, Bangladesh, South America and Europe before settling in Egypt. Boy, I am behind the curve!

(5) I miss the boys. If you guys are reading this, I really, really miss you and I wish you were here.

Other than #5, however, this is a wonderful experience, and has changed me for the better. But I do look forward to spending January in the good ole USA. Starbucks coffee, vanilla soy milk, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, college football on TV. And seeing family and friends. See you then!

PS: I think I will have a ticket to the Egypt vs. Algiers soccer match on November 14. I know, doesn’t sound like much to you guys, but it will determine whether Egypt qualifies for the World Cup or not. So think of it like an NFC championship game, or game 7 of the NLCS. If I go, I’ll take my camera, and that might be my next blog. En shallah!

Dinner at Sequoia

Not too many pictures to post. Really, I have been working at the university more than I have been out lately. I know it is hard to believe, but really.

I did go out with some friends from AUC to Sequoia restaurant in Zamalek 2 weekends ago. The place is fabulous, right at the northern tip of the island with great views of the Nile and the city. But it was dark, and I'm not the best photographer (I need Michelle Haley here). But here is a picture of part of our group at dinner.

3 of those pictured are AUC professors: Justin is a marine biologist, Lori is in linguistics, Daniel is in rhetoric and composition. The other girl, Laura, is here visiting until December. I talked to her a few nights after this and found out she has a degree in Russian literature and has read Tolstoy (and others) in the original language, so I'm quite impressed and jealous.

The only other new pictures I have are of some signs in English. I find some of the signs in English here quite entertaining. For instance, I can't help but wonder what kind of services are provided to the business men?

And this one is right outside my apartment: