Health Woes of Egyptians

A friend at work today came into our office and commented "My colon is very tired." This, apparently, is a common Egyptian "ailment", as a surprising number of people have commented on the state of their colon. As an American, and that too a daughter of doctors, I'm barely aware of my colon's placement, much less its activity or energy level.

The way people here talk and think about health is ... well, frankly, strange. For instance, our relatively new, relatively nice office building has no heat. Though Cairo is not as cold as many, many other places, it does get into the 40's during the winter months. This meant we would often come to work with sweaters and coats and double layers of socks in order to keep relatively warm. The reasoning behind all of this? According to our colleagues, one is much more likely to get sick coming in from the cold to a warm place. This change of temperature causes all sorts of maladies; the solution, of course, is to keep the temperature inside the building as close as possible to the outside temperature.

Egyptians also seem to blame allergies for a number of their health woes. Every time either Nate or I have been sick, some Egyptian friend, sighing and slowly shaking his head, has said, "It must be allergies." Coughing, headaches, body aches, sore throats, stuffy noses, fevers, stomach aches, chest pains ... all of these things can easily be attributed to, you guessed it, allergies. Mind you, the last time I got sick I actually went to a doctor, and it turned out to be bronchitis. My friends insisted that bronchitis must be a kind of allergy.

Sick again

I work at Egypt Today one long weekend per month, and I am always sick that weekend. Literally every time. I could set a calendar by it: ok, time to get that cold again...

A bit odd, isn't it, to catch a cold when it's 100 degrees...

"Abibas"

We've seen a lot of pretty funny clothing misspellings... I've seen Adidas spelled at least three different ways.

Birth, death and re-birth

It's been a weekend chock full of holidays.

This past Thursday was the Prophet Muhammad's birthday. We had the day off work, mostly lazed around. Lots of people go picnicking, but we stayed at home, avoiding crowds.

The next day was Good Friday, when we remember Jesus' death by crucifixion.

Then on Saturday we celebrated Easter, a day early, because our church meets on Saturdays. It was strange to be celebrating on Saturday, but no great matter: He is risen indeed!

This morning we had brunch with Nadia, Samuel and Elsa (our floor mates) in honor of Easter Day. Tonight we called my sister Lauren to wish her a happy birthday!

Al Azhar University

Al-Azhar is the oldest university in the world, established in 988, about a century before Oxford. It is the religious authority within Egypt, and often considered the center of Sunni Islam.

The dark brown balcony above Milli's scarf-clad head is where the teachers used to preach to students in the huge courtyard below. They don't anymore; I believe they use classrooms.

Poverty in Egypt

The other great Egypt Today article is a profile of Egyptian poverty. The author quotes at length interviews with a variety of analysts and public figures, and they're sometimes quite interesting. I recommend reading it if you'd like to know more about the economic situation here in Egypt.

A detached World Bank assessment:

"Poverty in Egypt is not severe or deep. Moreover, we have four percent of the population around the poverty line, who keep moving up and down. These people are very sensitive. A shock in expenditures or an LE 5 increase in their income per month can change their position, driving them down or pulling them up. This means that poverty is shallow. Since we have no panel data whereby we survey the same people every five years, we cannot determine whether poverty is transient or permanent."

A former politician:

"Housing is scarce. More than half of our real-estate is dilapidated. Millions live in communal homes. This is called social impoverishment, where a family of husband and wife and seven or eight children live in a single room. Can you imagine the social decay such a situation can lead to?"

A newspaper editor:

"Living standards have definitely deteriorated. I hear it from the women, who do the shopping all the time. It is especially true of the middle classes. There is frustration. The increase in the price of construction material has made the real-estate prices soar. No one can find an apartment to live in. You tell me this is all normal, it is the capitalist mechanism. But you cannot hear about someone who makes $40 billion (LE 220 billion), and then you ask a young person to work for LE 400 per month. If you have a million pounds, you are now considered poor. I live in a rented apartment because I cannot afford to buy an apartment, although I am not considered poor."

A historian and activist:

"Sometimes things do look hopeless. Look at the health sector and the educational sector. They have deteriorated so much. Egyptians pay LE 10 billion to private tutors every year. I find that investment in education is very important. Although the dividend is not immediate, just imagine what it would be like if the educational system was much better and graduates actually knew their material. We would export professionals to the Arab world. Unfortunately, our certificates are no longer recognized."

A retired grandfather:

"I have five daughters and one son. All the girls were married and living with their husbands, but the youngest got divorced a year ago and is now living with us together with her three children. She does not work, but sometimes gets a job altering dresses and then we have enough to get us through a day or two. My son is married and lives with us. I had to agree. His mother and I gave up our room: He lives in it with his wife and two kids. My wife and I, together with my daughter and her kids, sleep in the living room. We get by, al-hamdulillah [thanks be to God]. My son is a good craftsman, but is moody sometimes. He keeps quitting jobs, so one month he makes money and two or three months he does not. We have to make this pension last, which is becoming more and more difficult every day. Prices are increasing all the time. The money is barely enough to keep us eating bread."

What can you do for us?

Egypt Today, the magazine at which I work as a part-time copyeditor, has a couple good articles this month. One is about the American University in Cairo (AUC) and its study abroad students [article here]. Americans' interest in the Middle East has skyrocketed in the last decade, with many more kids coming to place like Egypt. But the cross-cultural exchange hasn't been much of an exchange:

"With America’s recent record on foreign policy, it is easy to see where some Egyptians’ skepticism might arise; that is, wariness of the ‘learn about them to beat them’ mentality. Discussions with some of AUC’s study-abroad students reveal that growing American interest in the region has carried with it a stereotype: that of the political science or international relations major, putting in a requisite year in the Middle East before jetting home to a Capitol Hill think tank."

I am not an AUC student, but I feel a little implicated by this statement. Milli is here, in part, to gauge if she is more interested in international law or domestic (American) law. But I am here, in part, out of the hope that a year in the Middle East will help me get into grad school and after that a job at, yes, a think tank. [Not one on Capitol Hill, because there aren't any, but possibly one in DC.]

But it is not merely a cynical "what can you do for us" mentality: we wanted the international experience, we wanted to learn about another vastly different culture, we wanted to serve the poor through our job. And we have done those things.

The Green Mile

It looks like this poor cow's time on death row is about over...

Native? Hardly.

I got a chance to test my Arabic today. At the juice stand, as I stood drinking my strawberry & juice cocktail (only 40 cents!), the juice guys started asking me questions -- about how long I was living in Egypt, about where I had been, about America. To some of their inquiries I was ready with an answer, but much of the time was spent staring blankly, even after they repeated their questions...

Like a native!

We went to an outdoor cafe tonight, braving the slightly breezy weather. Midway through our time there an Egyptian guy our age came over and started talking to us. Mark was a friendly guy and spoke very good English (had just returned from 3 years in DC). He said he was impressed that I had ordered in Arabic and wanted to find out our background. Now I hadn't said more than 6 or 7 words in Arabic, but apparently it was enough to impress him. I don't think the compliment was really warranted, but still nice :)

We have an Arabic lesson tomorrow. That is the true measure...

Intercultural dialogue

One of the things CEOSS does is promote dialogue between Egyptian Muslims and Christians and between Egyptians and Europeans. One of the Danish meetings the other day was about this program, and CEOSS had brought in someone from the prominent website Islam Online to talk about his experience in dialogue groups. He talked about how he had been scared to interact with Christians and assumed they all thought the same (weird) things. But through involvement in this dialogue he found that some Christians are good people, respect others, don't think he's necessarily a terrorist... etc. A victory for "positive co-existence."

Then, since the group he was talking to was largely Danish, he inevitably turned to the cartoon issue. He emphasized how open he was to dialogue and how good it was to build relationships, but that dialogue will fail if people keep insulting the prophet. In other words, everything is cool if you act according to our rules.

The Danish bishop responded by trying to explain their perspective. 1. Denmark is a free country, where people can say what they want. 2. In a free country religion is sometimes derided, jockingly or otherwise. The newspapers often make remarks about Christians, for example. 3. A lot of newspapers reprinted the cartoons that hadn't the first time in 2006, in an effort to demonstrate solidarity with the cartoonist and his worldview, in effect saying, "If you kill him, you'll have to kill all of us."

The blogger nodded often during the bishop's explanation and didn't say much in response, except to reiterate his point: free speech is fine, just don't do stuff like this.

End result: impasse.

The website

Our major project at CEOSS thus far has been to overhaul the website. (You can see it here.) Well, "overhaul" is perhaps too strong a word; we've rewritten everything, but the website design is still miserable. CEOSS paid a design company far too much money, and got an immutable website template complete with misspellings, broken features, inconsistent formatting, and ridiculous layout. There seems to be nothing we can do about this. It's sad that an organization as competent and admirable as CEOSS has such an unprofessional website.

(One example of former text:

"...The course for girls covers every major aspect of a young woman's life, from child development, nutrition and first aid, choosing a marriage partner and the dangers of early marriage, pregnancy and family planning..."

The unfortunate sentence structure says something we doubt they meant...)

Those pesky Danes

Into the mix of the cartoon controversy comes the visit of a dozen Danish religious leaders and donors. They had been scheduled to visit CEOSS long before the issue re-emerged, and the timing was unfortunate. CEOSS asked (indeed, begged) them to postpone the visit, but the Danes decided to come anyway.

It's true, they probably weren't in mortal danger as long as they weren't stupid, but there were other factors at play here. The policy security that watches over foreign visitors to Upper Egypt refused to protect them. The police chief insinuated that if CEOSS were hosting a Danish group, then CEOSS must agree with the cartoon publishers! Accusations such as this could jeopardize CEOSS' entire mission.

The Danish group is here now, but they are not going to Upper Egypt and they are not visiting any program sites. Instead, CEOSS partners came to HQ to meet with them. Milli and I are hoping to sit in on a meeting tomorrow.

Was it worth it to fly all the way over here and not visit any projects? I suppose they did get to see the pyramids and the Red Sea...

Making "canned" pumpkin

Step One: Lug the pumpkin back home. The smallest pumpkins we could find here for 15 kilos! Luckily, the fruit guy around the corner sells them from time to time, so it's not too far to carry.














Step Two: Hack through the pumpkin in order to cut it into small and more manageable pieces.















Step Three: In multiple batches, boil said pieces until they become tender.
Step Four: Once the pieces cool, peel the thick pumpkin skin off of them.
Step Five: Blend the peeled pumpkin pieces to make pumpkin puree.
















And then you have the stuff of pumpkin pies.

It makes you kind of grateful for canned pumpkin.

$10 if you can put that in your mouth...

Mean streets

I saw an accident yesterday while walking home from the store. A taxi stopped suddenly (presumably to let out its passenger), and a motorcycle slammed into the back. I was just across the street when it happened and one of the first people on the scene – though within a minute there were 20 people there. (I don’t know where they come from. The street was relatively empty.)

They pulled the motorcyclist off his bike, which was lodged under the car. He was limp, not moving. Someone tried to wash some of the blood off his face with a water bottle another person had. The man’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t responding. I wanted to do something, but plenty of people were attending to him. Someone was calling an ambulance.

Just a couple days ago we saw a pedestrian get hit by a taxi. His suitcase flew 20 feet through the air – some indication of the force. This man was conscious at least, though probably had two broken legs. In time he’ll be fine. Though the man last night… I don’t know…

It’s actually surprising that we don’t see this more often. Drivers here are insane, and pedestrians are fearless. Close encounters happen every day. It’s rather miraculous, really, that most of the people in this city are still alive.

And before y’all say anything: yes, we try very hard to not get killed.

Asking to be mugged

Yesterday I road a crowded subway with LE 5,300 in my pockets. That's almost $1,000. (For reference, average annual income in Egypt is about $1,500.) One thick wad filled each of my front pockets. People were pressed up against me the whole time. I kept my hands in my pockets the whole ride.

So why was I carrying so much money in cash? The only way to buy tickets with Egypt Air is to purchase them in the office; their website does not work and they will not sell anything over the phone. Their customer service is astoundingly bad, with each person telling you something different. Each method -- internet, phone, in person -- yields different rates. We use cash to avoid the extortionary fees they hit you with for using a foreign credit card. We were buying six tickets for a flight to Upper Egypt when our family visits in May.

So, lots of cash. I felt much better once I had tickets in my pocket instead of eight months' wages.

High culture

With Japanese financial support, Cairo built a grand opera house 20 years ago to serve as a venue of all types of performance arts. We had been thinking about going for a while and finally did this past weekend. Tickets are heavily subsidized by the Ministry of Culture -- $7 for the best seats in the house! (We should go more often.) We went an hour early to get tickets, but the ticket booth wasn't open until just before the show. Not that you really need to book in advance; it was only half full at most.

We had thought it was the Cairo Symphony Orchestra performing that night, but it turned out to be a string-less wind ensemble. We still enjoyed it very much. The marches and concertos reminded me of stuff I used to play in the high school band (though they were a bit better). They even played music from Indiana Jones! Not the place we expected to find John Williams, but it was great.

Since we were dressed up, we had planned to make an evening of it and go to a nice Thai restaurant. Unfortunately, it was closed -- too early in this evening! By the time they opened at 7:00 we wouldn't have had enough time to eat. Our nice dinner will have to wait for another night.

So instead we sadly walked around looking for food near the opera house, finally finding... KFC. We might have stuck out a bit in our operatic attire...

(Interesting sidenote: this KFC was staffed entirely by deaf employees! They took orders through pointing and hand gestures, and actually communicated pretty well. There was some miscommunication, though, about being charged too much, which required the manager to emerge and actually talk to us. But, all in all, a laudable enterprise.)

The Samuel Habib Award

A couple nights ago we had the distinct privilege of attending an awards ceremony wherein CEOSS annually bestows honor and certificates upon worthy partners in the development field. We were told by our supervisor Medhat that it was an extraordinarily fun event, that everyone dresses up in their best finery, and that the music was wonderful. Oh, and that it would only last 20-30 minutes. Turns out few of those things were true. Many of the men were indeed wearing suits, as I did, but none of the other women had on dresses like Milli's. The music turned out to be a DVD of a Yanni concert, which they let run for almost half an hour! Quite strange (but no on else seemed to think so from our observance). Needless to say, it lasted a bit longer than 20-30 minutes... And it was in Arabic. One of our friends (loudly) translated for us for a bit. The most interesting part was that one of the award recipients was blind and read his acceptance speech with three placards of braille.