Off to the USA

Sitting at home waiting on the taxi to come take me to the airport. Direct to JFK (a 14 hour flight!) then to Charlotte, then Savannah, en-shallah!

So the first semester in Cairo comes to a close. It has been a neat experience, and I am awed at all you guys following this blog. I can't wait to see (most) of you. [I mean, I will only see most, but not all, of you--I would love to see you all, but I cannot travel that much!] I hope at least some of you will make plans to travel to Cairo in the spring, I would love to have you here and I assure you I am a terrific tour guide, and my Arabic is getting better.

What a feeling it will be to get off that plane in NYC!

Wedding in Bani Suwayf

I have spent a little time with the Boab’s son here. Boab is an Egyptian thing, that is the person who looks after the apartment building, kind of like the apartment manager in the US. His son is named Mohammed. Here is a picture of him:

His English is just enough that we can communicate, so I have talked to him some. I asked him to teach me to play dominoes (the Egyptian game) so one night we sat outside his apartment and he showed me how to play. I had my English/Arabic book which helped us communicate some, but it was difficult for him to talk to me sometimes, so I the next day I gave him an Arabic/English dictionary as a gift.

I went out for coffee Monday morning (Nov 30) and when I returned to my apartment I saw Mohammed at the entrance to my building. I greeted him in Arabic, the usual, and then he told me that today was his brother’s (Mahmoud’s) wedding day. I said wow! And then, after some careful Arabic/English translations and a lot of gesturing, I realized that Mohammed was inviting me to attend the wedding that evening. The wedding was in their home town of Bani Suwayf, which is about 100 km south of Cairo. Once I realized what he was saying, I accepted without hesitation.

Mohammed asked me if I could drive in Egypt, and I told him absolutely not, so he said we would take a bus there. Again, after some careful deliberations and consulting my Arabic book, I think I understood that we would return that evening and get home about midnight. He told me to be ready to go at about 3PM that afternoon.

At about 2:40 my doorbell rang, and it was Mohammed ready to go. So I grabbed my things and we headed out. We took a taxi to the bus station, which is really kind of like a parking area with a lot of vans queued up. It is absolute chaos, with a lot of people running around and lots of traffic moving in and out. I think most of the rides are just private citizens with their own van, who stand outside their car and shout their destination. Once their van is full they take off. We walked until we heard someone shout “Bani Suwayf!” and then Mohammed told me to hop in that van. We waited another ten minutes or so until the van was full and then headed out. It was a harrowing 2 hour ride down to their small farming village near Bani Suwayf.

I didn’t know where we were, obviously, and all the conversations were in Arabic, so I was bewildered and lost the whole time. Eventually, the driver pulled over and Mohammed motioned to me to get out. We jumped out of the van and a motorcycle was parked there. Mohammed jumped on and motioned for me to get on also. I hesitated (as you might imagine) and he said in English “problem?” After a short moment of deliberation I said “mafeesh muskella” (no problem) and hopped on with him. He took off down this small country road, with me hanging on for dear life.

Mercifully, his village was only about 5 minutes away, and Mohammed dropped me off and then sped off somewhere else (I think to the mosque) leaving me with his father, who is the Boab of my building. We were in a pasture area next to the village, and the men were setting up the lights and sound system for the party that evening. They found me a seat, and as the guests arrived they all came over and shook my hand, and I used all the Arabic I knew (which didn’t take long) to say hello and thanks for the hospitality.

Here is a picture of Mohammed's father at the wedding party site:

After about 30 minutes of sitting around, the Boab got up and said “Mister” to me, which I think is the only English word he knows. He motioned for me to follow him. We walked into the village to a small home (I found out later it was the bride's home) where we went upstairs and a meal was brought to us. The women brought the meal in, set it on a small table in the middle of the floor, and once everything was ready the Boab motioned for us all to take a seat on the floor and dig in. I was obviously the guest of honor, and everyone waited on me to start eating. The meal consisted of lots of flat bread, beans, rice and roasted meat (I wasn’t sure what kind). I’ve been in Egypt long enough to be wary of eating things I’m not sure about, but I really had no choice but to dig in enthusiastically or terribly embarrass my host. I will say, however, that it was all delicious. Not fancy, but very good and I ate until I was stuffed, because my host kept pushing food onto my plate. But I was sure I would be in the Maadi hospital the next day, just because I know that my stomach has never seen the microbes that were in that food.

After eating, we went back to the pasture area and everything was set up. The bride and groom arrived in a car followed by a motorcade consisting mostly of motorcycles. The music was turned on (very loud) and for the next 2 hours or so the family, and most of the village I think, spent the evening dancing and carrying on. It was much like you might expect from any wedding, although there was no alcohol. There was some smoking of hash, which I was surprised to find done out in the open with very little fuss. I was offered, but politely refused. I also noticed that the men danced on one end of the dance floor (very energetically) while the women had a much more subdued style at the other end. Mohammed did dance with his mother at one point, but that was the only mixing of the sexes that I saw all night.

Some pictures of the bride and groom. She is 19, he is 20, and I must say (because I know none of them will ever read this blog) they looked terrified most of the time.

Here is a picture of some of the kids at the party. They thought I was fascinating!

A picture of the bride and groom leaving the party to their awaiting car. I'm not sure where they went:

The party wound down, and I was invited to another house, which turned out to be Mohammed’s home, for another meal. This is a picture of Mohammed's Mom and younger sister (who was just adorable) in their home before the meal:

The food was pretty much the same thing, bread, rice, meat, but with some pickled vegetables too. I showed Mohammed the word for “beef” in my phrasebook (it is written in English and Arabic) and asked him if that was the meat I was eating. He said no. So, I turned to “goat” and he said yes! That was it. Again, I ate enthusiastically and as much as I could. Once the meal was over, we got into his uncle’s car and drove back to Cairo, which took about an hour and a half. I was in the car with 4 Arabic speakers, who chatted on most of the time, and I didn’t understand a thing. I’ve learned a lot of Arabic, but in that situation where they are talking so fast and about random things, what I have learned seemed pretty useless.

We got home about 12:30. Quite an experience! Oh, and by the way, it is Wednesday evening now and I guess I digested all the food with absolutely no problem. Either just lucky, or adjusted to Egypt. Maybe a bit of both.

A poorly planned trip to Alexandria

I traveled to Alexandria the Friday after Thanksgiving. I didn't plan the trip very well, I just went down and hopped on the train, and I really did not enjoy it too much. The train ride was nice, and the catacombs were interesting, and dinner at the Fish Market was good. But I had to catch a late train back to Cairo and I ended up tired, impatient, and just ready to get home. And the library was closed for an Islamic holiday, which is the main thing I wanted to see.

I will say that the train ride was inexpensive, comfortable and easy, so I will have to go again. I also enjoyed the moment of getting off the train in Alexandria, a city in a foreign country that I have never been to before, with no idea about where anything was, but just striking out on my own to explore, armed only with my guidebook and a very limited knowledge of Arabic. I felt as if I had finally made it as a world traveler.

Fortunately as I rounded the first corner in Alex I ran into a young lady (Kate) who I saw on the train, and after a brief conversation I saw that she seemed to have a much better plan for seeing the town than I did, so I tagged along with her for the afternoon. She lives in Dubai and works for FIFA, the soccer organization, planning some big upcoming soccer event in Dubai in the very near future. I'm sure my ignorance about soccer was obvious to her, but I got a pass because I'm from the US. She is originally from Australia, but (like everybody I meet here) has lived all over Asia and the Middle East, mostly because of the rotating locations of the big soccer events.

Anyway, our first stop was the Roman theater, which isn't much really. But here are a few pictures:

Then we took a cab to Pompey's pillar. Again, not a lot on this site other than the obvious pillar (which actually has nothing to do with Pompei), but I took a few pictures:

From there we walked to the catacombs. On our way down there, we passed by some of the hides stacked in the street from the Islamic holiday that same day. The holiday remembers Abraham taking his son (Ishmael in the Koran, Isaac in the Old Testament) up the mountain to sacrifice, but then God allowed a lamb to be sacrificed instead. So observant Muslims celebrate this holiday by literally slaughtering a sheep. The picture below is hides stacked in the street from the slaughter. I was reminded of the saying that if we all had to slaughter our own meat there would be a lot more vegetarians.

Anyway, we got past the slaughter and to the catacombs. These were interesting, but I don't know what to write about them--you walk down into the tombs and wander through the passageways. The link above has some nice pictures, and here are some that I took:

From there, we headed over to see this old fort, but it was closed for the holiday, and so was the library. So we went to the Fish Market and had dinner, which was excellent and very inexpensive. From there, Kate took a cab back to the train station for the 7PM train, and I was going to check into my hotel. But it turns out the hotel I reserved was a long way from the area I was in, and I really just wanted to get back to Cairo. So I caught a cab to the train station, hoping to get on the 8PM train. But there were no seats available, so I had to wait on the 10PM train, which left me with 2 hours to kill in the train station. It reminded me of Greyhound bus stations in the US because (1) there wasn't much for food, drink or entertainment available at the station and (2) it wasn't in the nicest part of town. So I was tired, hungry, and bored during my two hour wait for the train ride home. Fortunately, the train was right on time, the ride home was fine and I had my iPod to pass the time. I got to the train station in Cairo around 12:30 AM and caught a cab to Maadi, so I got home about 1AM.