The Cairo Dispatch

Last Days

2006-12-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

Some Reading

2006-12-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

Interesting article from the NYT Magazine on the gay culture in Egypt.

Camel Market

2006-12-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took a trip out to the camel market that is about an hour from Cairo. The drive out there was worth the trip as it's fascinating to see how quickly things transition from Cairo to village-spotted agricultural land. The market was also quite interesting though not so lively as I expected--not auction block where the camels were being sold. The market was mainly made up of traders standing with their groups of camels, regularly beating them with sticks and hobbling or unhobbling them as circumstances dictated. We had pleasant conversations with some kids in the market and had tea with a scarf trader. We started bargaining for scarves, a process that was undermined by some locals interjecting into the bargaining to tell us not to pay more than 10 L.E. for a scarf (the trader wanted 25-30) which pissed the trader off and almost resulted in a fight.

Luxor/Aswan/Abu Simbel

2006-12-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving weekend I toured the ancient monuments of southern Egypt. Not much to narrate other than a list of temples. Look at pictures!

Dinner

2006-12-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

I had a very rewarding experience about two weeks ago--a student in the english class for refugees that I am teaching invited me and my fellow teachers to meet his family and have dinner with them. Andrew's (the student) family is from Southern Sudan and have been in Cairo anywhere from 2-5 years. Though I am not particularly well-educated on issues regarding Sudan, I should note that they are not from Darfur but from the regions in the south that have been conducting a separate rebellion against the Muslim government in Khartoum. A peace treaty has recently been signed that sets out various terms of agreement for the next several years until the southern half of the country will vote regarding whether to secede in 2011. Andrew and his family were very welcoming, cooked us delicious food, and engaged us in interesting discussions on politics (they like Bush), the treatment of Sudanese in Cairo, etc. Many of them were also present at the Sudanese protest outside the UNHCR offices in Cairo last year, a protest that was eventually bloodily ended by the Egyptian police (I think I linked to several articles about this in one of my first posts). I've posted some pictures that Andrew sent me and have some on my camera that I will likely upload soon.

Great Moments in Cairo Cultural Life (I)

2006-11-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

A few friends and I attended a concert by a local heavy-metal cover-band called Sirens, and I think it deserves mention for various reasons, among them: head-banging, hijab-clad Egyptian girls throwing up the devil-horns; almost two hours of bad (in the good way) late 70s metal that everyone appeared to love; the lead singer saying before each song, "We are going to play (insert name). We all know the lyrics, so sing along" and every Egyptian knowing the lyrics; and more Iron Maiden t-shirts than I have seen in awhile.

Israel and the West Bank

2006-11-10T12:48:00.000-08:00

Catching up….

I spent a week in Israel during the end of Ramadan break. The bus trip from Cairo to the border at Taba was incredibly long, and then made longer by the fact that the Israelis decided to hold me up for an hour at the border. I had to proceed through three sets of questioners who asked me gems such as: “Do you know anything about the Muslim culture?” (failing to understand that Islam is a religion, not a culture), “You do realize these are holy sites?” (upon learning I hoped to visit the Western Wall and the Temple Mount), “So I hear you want to visit the mosque [i.e. Al-Aksa]” (misconstruing my earlier statement that I hoped to visit the Temple Mount and seemingly forgetting that, as a non-Muslim, I am not allowed into Al-Aksa), “You do realize this is an Israeli place?” (upon learning I intended to visit my relatives in Kochav Yair). After my cheerful encounter with the Israeli border security, I proceeded on to Jerusalem, by chance running into some friends within 30 minutes of arriving in the old city.

I enjoyed Jerusalem, though after Islamic Cairo it feels like the DisneyWorld of medieval cities. I think we were also there at a rather unfortunate time as the Muslim Quarter was almost deserted due to the ongoing Eid holiday and the Temple Mount complex was closed for the same reason. Nevertheless, the visit was enjoyable.

The friends with whom I toured around the city met a college student from Singapore/Canada who was spending a semester volunteering for the UN Relief and Works Agency in the West Bank. At dinner, he offered to take us into the West Bank for a day, an offer we accepted. So the next day we took a minibus to Ramallah before proceeding onto Nablus and two of the refugee camps around Nablus. Ramallah was quite bustling and seemed to be thriving, but the situation was much grimmer in Nablus and the refugee camps. Poverty is rampant, suicide-bomber posters are everywhere, every kid seems to be playing with a toy gun, and the results of various battles with the IDF are in evidence all around. It’s also quite amazing to look around as one drives through the West Bank and feel surrounded by Israeli settlements, as well as drive out of Jerusalem and see the settlements arranged in concentric rings about the city. We spend a couple hours walking around, chatting with children who wanted us to take pictures of them posing with their guns like the suicide-bombers, and having coffee and playing foosball with some men at a coffee shop. Everyone was very kind and welcoming (although we did tell them we were Canadian…) but one didn’t get the feeling that people held much hope for the future. Leaving Nablus we had to pass through an Israeli check-point, which was quite an experience—over one hundred people waiting patiently to be let through one-at-a-time. Two more check-points and we were back in Jerusalem feeling thankful we had not run into any militia.

The next day, I went to visit our relatives in Kochav Yair, a very nice suburban community. During the day I spent with them, we went out to the Roman ruins of Caesarea on the coast, quite impressive. I then took a train down to Be’er Sheva to visit our other relatives. The train ride was interesting because, as it was just before the weekend, all the Israeli soldiers were going home on leave, and so I was on the train with several hundred armed 18-22 year-old Israelis. Even after living in Cairo where there is a large police presence, the number of soldiers in Israel was quite overwhelming, especially as they are almost all teenagers/twenty-somethings. I spend a great day with my mom’s cousin Helen—we went to the Ramon crater (a stunning piece of landscape in the Negev), the Nebatia ruins at Avdat, and David Ben-Gurion’s grave. We drove to Jerusalem for dinner with my grandfather’s cousin (Helen’s father) and the whole extended family. I had hoped to return the following day to Cairo but no buses were running to Eilat on the Saturday, and so I passed a lazy Saturday in Be’er Sheva before embarking on what turned out to be the 16 hour journey back to Cairo by bus.

Quick Update

2006-10-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

I went to two concerts this weekend, both of which were quite good. The first was a band called Eftekasat (an Arabic slang word meaning "new invention" or some such). They were composed of guitar, bass, keyboard, drum, electric violin, and percussion and had a kind of jazz/prog-rock/80s/world music vibe. A little heavy on the Weather Report/Mahavishnu Orchestra/80s synth influence for my taste, but still very enjoyable. The guitarist and violinist in particular were very impressive.

The next day we saw a band called Nagham Masri at the British Council. The guitarist and drummer were both from Eftekasat and were joined by a percussionist, oudist, kanun player, bassist, and keyboardist. A similar style of music with maybe more Oriental influences and less rock. Also enjoyable, but I think the lyrics were quite high-brow, and so not being able to understand them I think probably takes away from the experience.

In other news, I'm continuing to teach an English class twice a week to refugees. It's been very rewarding as they are all very greatful, but also a lot of hard work. Embarrassing too, at times, when I realize how poor my knowledge of English grammar is (like when my fellow teachers and I struggled for a minute or two to remember the distinction between a word such as "cooking" used as a gerund and used in its form as part of the continuous tenses). So, if any of you want to offer some lesson plans...The most frustrating part of the course has been that we aren't given a syllabus, and so it's up to us to figure out what level people are perfoming at and decide what we're going to teach over the course of the class.

Soccer and Trash

2006-10-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd just post quickly on two interesting activities from the last several days:

1. On Tuesday night, an Egyptian friend from one of my classes invited me to a soccer game between Egypt and Lebanon, being held as part of a charity event for Lebanon called "Lebanon As It Was." It didn't turn out to be much of a game--Egypt won 7-0--or a very lively atmosphere--the 80,000 capacity Cairo stadium was over 3/4 empty--but still a fun time. Also interesting to see the a couple Hizbollah flags waving in the crowd...

2. Yesterday, some friends and I visited Mokattam el-Zabaleen, also known as trash city. The city is a neighborhood of Coptic Christians who have taken it upon themselves to collect much of Cairo's trash and bring it back to their neighborhood for sorting and recycling--it now resembles a living garbage dump where people, trash, and animals live side-by-side (for those of you who think this a horrifying situation read the links below for some perspective on the issue). Perhaps the oddest thing about the neighborhood is the large population of pigs that are kept by the inhabitants--a very strange sight in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. Above the town, a Coptic monastery has been built into the limestone mountain, with huge rock carvings of Bible scenes and the Ten Commandments. As we walked up to the monastery, we spent a fair amount of time chatting with some adorable kids who wanted to show us their cross tatoos, play marbles with us, and recite Bible verses in Arabic to us.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0106/p07s02-woaf.html
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/mokattam.htm

3. Last night, I went with some friends to a gathering at some students' apartment in the nearby neighborhood of Dokki. On the way home, I had a conversation with a cab driver that I've had often enough with other Egyptians that I thought it might be interesting to report. In the course of asking me why I was studying Arabic, whether I liked Egypt, whether I thought terrorism was a problem in Egypt, etc., the cab driver asked me where the black residents of New York live, and then whether I'd feel safe in those neighborhoods late at night. I've faced this question a number of times. Egyptians pride themselves on how safe Cairo is at any hour (which is mostly true, though I believe there are some quite dangerous neighborhoods that they tend to ignore). A number of times, this has led to conversations regarding the safety of U.S. cities, particulary in regard to African-Americans.

Hopefully, some pictures of trash city and the soccer game soon.

Post

2006-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

So I actually wrote a long post several days ago but then the internet deleted it as I was trying to post it, which discouraged me for a little bit. So, here is what has happened in the last month (that I can remember):

Orientation trip to the Red Sea: All us study abroad kids spent a very nice couple days at a resort called El Gouna. I didn’t take any pictures, but just picture beautiful beaches, warm water, sun, sand, etc. The resort itself is a bit surreal—they’ve constructed a huge canal system that goes inland from the sea and the resort is built on it like a faux Venice.

Sudanese refugees and STAR: I’ve gotten involved with a student group Students for Action on Refugees. The group offers, among other services, English classes to refugees living in Cairo. Registration for the classes was held several weeks ago, and instead of 500 people competing for the 250 available slots, as was expected, 2800 people showed up to the campus, filling an entire street next to the university and causing a scene of total havoc. As the campus security became increasing nervous, we had to barricade ourselves inside the campus and write down everyone’s name and phone number through an iron-grill fence. Last week, after 250 people had been randomly chosen and contacted, we conducted language placement tests, and tomorrow classes begin. I will be teaching a class two days per week with two other study abroad students.

Yacoubian Building: I finally went to see the “Yacoubian Building,” Egypt’s most popular movie this year, several days ago. I believe it is coming out soon in the U.S., and I recommend seeing it for an interesting picture of modern Egypt. Plus, most of it was filmed around Talaat Harb, which is about a ten minute walk from the university.

Ramadan and Iftar: Ramadan started about ten days ago, which throws the entire country for a loop as people begin fasting (no food or water during daylight), university classes all change times, the city turns into a madhouse as people rush home for Iftar (the breaking of the fast) just before sunset, and the city is abandoned during Iftar. Some friends and I were lucky enough to be invited by some Egyptians in the dorm to an Iftar in their hometown about 1.5 hours north of Cairo. We arrived too late to eat with the family, but nevertheless had a wonderful meal and spent the evening with our friend’s friends who were mostly students at the local university. This last Friday, a big group of exchange students were invited to our friend Mohsen’s apartment for an Iftar. Again, the food was delicious. A friend and I had a very interesting conversation with Mohsen’s brother-in-law, who works for the Ministry of Interior Affairs and is responsible for all the Palestinians living in Egypt.

SOS music festival: I went with some friends to a large out-doors music festival held in Nasr city (a suburb of Cairo) several weeks ago. All of Egypt’s top bands were there, and the music was quite enjoyable. I met an Egyptian from one of my classes who is really into the music scene in Cairo (and who’s favorite band is Dream Theater-hahahaha) and has promised to give me the scoop on all the concerts in Cairo.

Wandering in Islamic Cairo: Some friends and I spent an afternoon wandering in Cairo’s ancient Islamic district. I believe Cairo is known as the best-preserved medieval city in the world, and the oldest parts of it are a sight to behold. Unfortunately, this district was also severely damaged by the 1993 earthquake in Cairo and most of the damage remains.

Classes: Classes are alright, y’know. Arabic is going well.

Uh, that’s all I can think of for now. I’m still trying to get around to putting some pictures up, though I haven’t taken many recently. I’ll try to post more regularly in the future. Send me an email or something.

Back in the Cai-rizzle

2006-08-27T03:29:00.001-07:00

Due to popular demand (aka my mom and one of my roommates), I am resuming my position in the blogosphere after a short hiatus (cue the trumpet fanfare from Jay-Z's "The Ruler's Back"). I didn't update during my vacation because I didn't think people would be too interested in my little jaunt to Europe. To provide a brief re-cap, however: I spent nine days in Paris where I wandered around like a mute (because I speak no French) and went to lots of art museums and other historic sites; then it was off to England where I spent a wonderfully relaxing couple days with my uncle and aunt in Bridgnorth, before joining a couple friends in London for a weekend, and finally spending a week with my grandmother in Abergavenny. I didn't take too many pictures, as I figured Google images has more interesting pictures of the Eiffel Tower than I could hope to produce, but I did take some (including some of my uncle's adorable new puppy, Dylan) that will be up shortly.

I arrived back in Cairo on the 23rd at the delightful hour of 3 am. Since then I have done...nothing, really. School doesn't start until the 5th, and having been to most places around the city I haven't joined the new exchange students in their mad rush to do and discover everything in their first week. So I have been rather anti-social--just reading, brushing up on some Arabic vocab, getting on the email. But I have already once again experienced some of the standard delights of Cairene life--getting sick, showing up to meetings and learning they are not where they are supposed to be, and being hot.

The next several days should continue to be quiet, but there is an orientation trip to the Red Sea from Sept. 1-4 which should be fun, and then classes start on the 5th. For those interested, I am taking (accelerated) Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, the History of Economic Thought, and a class on American philosophy focusing on the history of American pragmatism.

Photos

2006-07-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

New photos of Sinai, Coptic Cairo, and the Black and White Deserts are up. Click on the link to the right. There should also be an album up soon containing some photos friends of mine have taken, so look for that (the two at left were taken by Heather on top of Mt. Sinai).

More Doings

2006-07-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

My friends Heather, Aditi (they complained about not being mentioned by name in the first draft of this post) and I took an exciting three-day trip out to the White Desert last Saturday. We hopped on a bus Friday afternoon for the five-hour trip to the town of Bawiti, in one of the desert oases. On bus-ride, I managed to keep up a conversation (mostly in Arabic) with the guy sitting next to me, a young man named Ahmed. Things went so well that, upon reaching Bawiti at around 10 pm, he invited us to his house for dinner to meet his family. Since they insist on being mentioned in this account, I should note that Heather and Aditi were extremely nervous about this dinner invitation and were unsure of my evaluation of the situation. Ahmed's father is one of the village sheikhs who performs the local marriage ceremonies, and we ate some delicious Bedouin food with Ahmed and a couple of our friends. We arranged to do a one-day desert safari with one of Ahmed's friends, which began on Saturday afternoon. We first drove through the beautiful Black Desert on our way to Crystal Mountain, the White Desert, and the Mushroom Valley. My descriptions couldn't possibly do justice to the scenery, so I'll just try to post some pictures soon. We slept outside in the White Desert (enjoying the lack of light pollution and regular pollution) after dining on more Bedouin food and delicious Bedouin tea. We arrived back in Bawiti on Sunday aftertnoon and caught the one o'clock bus back to Cairo.

This week has just been more Arabic so far. My colloquial Arabic class took a nice little field trip to Al-Azhar Park yesterday, where we sipped tea and chatted. Summer classes end next week. My travel plans for my month break have been disrupted by the recent events in Lebanon (I had hoped to visit Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan). I haven't had enough time to monitor the Egyptian media, so I don't have any interesting insights to offer about local sentiments, though it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that people are quite angry at Israel.

Sinai, etc.

2006-07-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

I went to Sinai and Sharm El Sheikh last weekend and didn't die, so I thought I'd report what I did. On Thursday, we took an eight hour bus ride to St. Catherine's monastery and Mt. Sinai. We woke up at 2 in the morning to climb the mountain in order to reach the top for the 5:45 sunrise. The vista from the mountaintop is quite spectacular but I didn't really get any religious vibes (or any stone tablets). In the morning, we vistied St. Catherine's monastery, a monastery that has been continuously occupied since the 600s and began receiving significant numbers of visitors only in the 1970s. The burning bush is there (more or less a large blackberry bush) as well as some very ancient icons, and a couple pages of Codex Sinaiticus (the oldest copy of the New Testament. The monastery used to have the entire codex but then the British and the Russians did what they seem to have excelled in doing in all of Egypt--stealing ancient treasures).

Exhausted, we took the bus to Sharm El Sheikh, a gaudy, crass, sprawling resort on the Red Sea that attracts terrorists angry at the fact that it is a den of excess, licentiousness, materialism, and sin. We stayed in a very nice, but very fake, resort, enjoyed the snorkeling (some of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world are located just of Sharm), watched the World Cup, and lazed on the beach.

This week has been one of recovery: from the exertions of the trip (lying on the beach may not sound like an exertion but it kind of is when the temperature is over 100 degrees), from recently being diagnosed with strep throat, etc. The Arabic studies have been going quite well, though we all have good Arabic days and bad Arabic days. I feel my vocabulary is slowly starting to reach critical mass, though my colloquial is still fairly weak.

I don't have many plans for the weekend except watching the "kas el-a'alam" (World Cup)--who is also rooting for France? We have one Italian guy and one French guy in the dorm, but unfortunately both are rooting for Italy. Go figure.

Photos

2006-06-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

As promised, more photos. Click on the link to your right that says "Photos." The new ones are in the album labeled "Alexandria, Saqqara, Memphis." The photo at left is of the Bibliotheca Alexandria, built to replace the ancient library.

Doings

2006-06-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile so there a number of things to write about:

Last weekend we went on a short trip to the historic sites of Saqqara and Memphis. It was quite an interesting bus trip out to the sites--it's possible to leave the city within 15-20 minutes at which time one becomes completely surrounded by fertile farmland that is often tilled with methods that haven't changed much in centuries. All of this farmland is, of course, irrigated by water from the Nile. Irrigation channels can be dug only so far, however, before the rock desert begins. At this point there is an abrupt transition (and by this I mean there is actually a straight line) on one side of which there is verdant land and on the other side of which is a barren wasteland. Memphis was the site of the capitol city of the ancient Egyptians. It now lies in the middle of a bunch of farms and virtually nothing remains other than several massive statues and a sphinx.

Saqqara is the burial site used before and then after the construction of the pyramids at Giza. The first pyramid was the step pyramid. Several more were then built before the massive ones at Giza. Subsequently, however, the pharaohs returned to building smaller pyramids and also abandoned the construction methods of the earlier pyramids. The later pyramids, in fact, were just mounds of rubble that were then encased with limestone. Since the limestone has long since been pillaged, these later pyrmaids are simply piles of dirt and stone. Inside, however, they are quite impressive with walls covered in hieroglyphic texts.

The programs has also arranged weekly Sunday-morning lectures for us that have been quite interesting. Our first speaker was a political science professor and parliamentarian from the ruling National Democratic party. Though he certainly refrained from criticizing the government too heavily and glossed over the government's shenanigans during the recent elections, I thought he presented a very sophisticated portrait of Egypt's transition to democracy. In particular, I thought his portrayal of the reactionary actions taken by the government (ballot-stuffing in the elections, using violence to intimidate some voters, cracking down on demonstrations) as the actions of a government that is committed to democratization but does not know how to handle pluralism, rather than a government committed to stifling opposition, merited consideration. Our second speaker was an economics professor at AUC who discussed the successes and failures of economic reform over the last two decades. He was quite optimistic about reform given the government's actions over the past two years but was quite concerned about how long it would take the benefits of liberalizing reforms to reach the poorer classes. Just walking around Cairo and observing the large amount of unemployment, but also the large amount of over-employment (the huge number of government officials everywhere), it is clear that the transition to a more competitive, private-sector-dominated economy will be difficult.

If you skipped the above, that's cool 'cause I'm sure it was fairly dry. Unfortunately, not too many exciting details to report. School is lots of work and I want a vacation. We are going to the Sinai (where we get to climb Mt. Sinai) and Shawrm el-Sheikh this weekend. Shawrm is a resort on the Red Sea where there have been some bombings over the last several years. If I don't post again, you'll know why.

Alexandria

2006-06-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a two-day, school-sponsored jaunt up to the beautiful city of Alexandria. The drive from Cairo took about three hours along what is known as the "desert road" (just a big highway). The sides of the highway are lined the entire way with farms, desert reclamation projects, and hotels. It's hard to see how far off the road any of this development extends, however, giving one the impression of a bunch of Potemkin villages.

Our first stop in Alexandria was the new Bibliotheca Alexandria. Built to resurrect the ancient library that was burned, it is quite a beautiful building. Though the library is built to house 8 million books, however, at present it contains only 500,000. In the evening we went to the Opera house to see a performance by the national Arab music ensemble. Fairly boring, unfortunately.

The next day we visited a number of historical sites. First was the Roman catacombs, the only of its type in Egypt. Carved out of the rock, the catacombs are quite extensive and impressive. Next was the mis-named Pompey's (Pompeii's?) Pillar, the lone surviving pillar from what was once a massive Roman temple. Then on to a Roman amphitheater before finishing the excursion at the fort of Qaytbay. The fort is built on the site of the famous lighthouse of Alexandria and supposedly incorporates some of the material of the lighthouse which was destroyed by an earthquake.

The rest of the afternoon we spent lolling on our hotel's private beach on the Mediterranean. In the evening, I went out exploring with my friend Aditi. The nightlife along the waterfront is hopping. All the shops are open til past midnight and families, couples, and young people pack the boardwalk and the surrounding streets. Alexandria has a much more relaxed vibe than Cairo which was quite refreshing. After wandering around, Aditi and I managed to convince a security guard to let us look in on an wedding party we could hear from the street near our hotel.

Today we spent a couple hours in the royal gardens of Montaza before heading back to Cairo.

Ok, the second half of the U.S.-Italy match is on so I must go. Pictures of Alexandria soon.

Here they are

2006-06-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

Photos! Here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kazander_9/my_photos

I'll try to make the gallery more presentable by tagging all of the photos and rotating them (though yahoo keeps messing things up when I try to rotate them) but daaaaaamn doing that stuff takes a long time so don't get your hopes up.

Pyramids

2006-06-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

The university offered us a free driving tour today that took us around Cairo and then out to the pyramids. The driving tour was interesting because it made Cairo feel very small. I think this was mostly because it was early Saturday morning, meaning the streets were nearly empty--without the crowds, it's easier to realize that the main part of the city is actually quite small and that the feeling of enormity is mostly a factor of population density (which in some parts of Cairo is, supposedly, the highest in the world).

The pyramids were imposing as one might expect, though the effect is lessened somewhat due to their proximity to the city (standing next to the Sphinx you can see a Pizza Hut and a KFC). Nevertheless, fairly awe-inspiring. We got to go into the pyramid of Cheops, an incredibly claustrophobic experience. There's not much more to say about the pyramids: they're just there and you look at them and kind of shake your head.

Our next planned adventure is to Alexandria next weekend.

Some things about Egypt that have been interesting to observe:

1. There are police everywhere. Downtown, there is an avereage of four policemen per block and it is similar in Zamalek (the neighborhood where I live) where there are lots of embassies. Not only are there lots of policemen, but they are all incredibly bored--they all have to just sit around in the blazing heat doing nothing all day. It's hard to tell how much of the police presence is due to the country's bloated bureaucracy and how much is due to real security concerns. The police presence doesn't really feel like the oppressive hand of an authoritarian police state (because they look so bored) but it's hard to gauge how the locals feel about it.

2. There is an extraodinary shortage of small currency. If you shop outside of an establishment that caters to Westerners, you're going to have trouble getting change for any note worth 20 pounds and above (the exchange rate is between five and six Egyptian pounds to the dollar). Sometimes, shop-keepers will balk at a 10. This is problematic for all us American kids who get money from ATMs, which give you 50s. But we hear it's a problem for many Egyptians as well. One wonders how many transactions this costs the economy per year.

3. In addition to the crazy traffic, people double-park everywhere. We're all trying to figure out if there's a system regulating when you can double-park someone or whether people just do it and too bad for the people who's cars get stuck.

Alright, pictures soon. I promise.

2006-06-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

So, I've gotten this thing started. Hopefully, the bells and whistles (i.e. my ruminations on life (j/k) and pictures) will be added shortly.

We had our first day of classes today, which was a little over-whelming and, like everything else here, somewhat confusing. I think we've all managed to figure out our textbooks and what our homework is, though, so let a weekend of studying begin. Seriously, for all of you who thought I would just be gallivanting around Cairo all summer, that is not the case--it looks like my nose will be in a book most of the time.

The highlights of the last few days have been 1) learning (the hard--or should I say soft...--way) to stick to safe, Western food for a while so I don't get sick, 2) visiting Al-Azhar mosque, the oldest mosque in Cairo, 3) wandering around the bazaar and 4) continuing to meet more people in my program. Also, we've all made resolutions to try to stay indoors between noon and 3 (not hard since we have class then most days) to avoid the worst heat of the day. We've all kind of figured that walking around for 5 hours in 100-degree heat while jet-lagged and eating food that was making us sick was probably the reason we've all been sleeping at least 10 hours per day.

Alright, maybe I'll upload some photos soon. I'm sure I'll get plenty of "This blog sucks!" comments in the meanwhile but there're always lots of haters when you're in the upper echelon of the blogosphere.