This is the end.

Dear loyal readers,

We leave the US again tomorrow to travel in Europe with our families for 6 weeks. It should be a really good time. This means, though, that this blog is unlikely to get updated anymore. A lot of stuff happened in Egypt that went unwritten -- a car accident, a broken arm (unrelated to the accident), and a lot of traveling -- but it looks like that will remain unwritten. All further inquires can be directed to nrhansen@gmail.com or millikhansen@gmail.com.

Our adventures will continue, but I think this blog is finished. We hope you have enjoyed reading it. We have certainly enjoyed living it.

Cheers.

Why I love Alexandria

This view of the harbor was from our restaurant table. We sat very near the place where a wonder of the world (the Pharos Lighthouse) once stood. Alexandria is nowhere near the city it once was, but it's still beautiful.

Tunisia

Arab/Berber grain storage house



The largest Roman colosseum in Africa



Roman ruins in Carthage



A quiet corner of Tunis' medina

Home

Well.

There are at least a few dedicated readers of this blog out there to whom we wish to extend apologies for our reticence this past month (and some). This blog was created to keep interested parties abreast of our life abroad, so it's ironic that our busiest period should go so unannounced. That is to say: so much happened since I last posted, and we got so behind, that we gave up keeping up and just stopped.

We're home now in Dallas and have been for a couple weeks. It's great to be back. To see family, to eat great food, to just be. Don't get me wrong, we've been almost as busy during this period of "relaxing" too, but it's still nice to be back.

It's unlikely at this point that we will describe all of our final adventures in the land of Pharaohs and smog. I'll try to at least post some pictures (now that we again have a fast enough internet connection). If you crave the info that falls through the cracks, please email or call us. We'd love to talk with you.

Secret service

We haven't posted anything in a while and will try to catch up...

A couple weeks ago, we went to Minia, a city in Upper Egypt, to visit some of CEOSS’ projects. Jeannette, a girl from Denmark who started working at CEOSS a couple months ago, also went with us. She had been trying to get down to Minia for weeks, and had been rebuffed or delayed four times. We think it’s partly because of a lack of organization, but partly because she’s Danish (see earlier posts). So our experience in Minia, we think, was because of her.

As soon as we got to the train station in Minia, and looked outside for our ride, police escorted us back inside “for our safety.” We waited there until the CEOSS van came. Two armed men joined us in the van, and a military truck followed behind us, carrying six gun-toting soldiers. If we encountered any traffic on the road, the truck behind us would turn on a siren and we would cruise onward as other cars pulled to the side. Faced with a checkpoint, our car merely cut in front of a dozen other cars. We owned the road.

This was basically how it went all three days. We didn’t always have the military escort, but we had at least one bodyguard the whole time. They didn’t wear uniforms but had strange bulges under their shirts; occasionally the tip of the gun showed itself rather conspicuously. They never bothered us, but they were always there. We slept on a houseboat in the Nile, and one of our bodyguards slept in a chair on shore next to it.

We visited some farmers who CEOSS is helping to export their crops. We visited a section of town where CEOSS has implemented a huge waste removal, housing improvement, and environmental health project. We visited a profit-generating furniture and plywood factory that CEOSS runs. Our bodyguards tagged along to each of these places. On the third day we had a different set of bodyguards, and at first I thought they were part of the CEOSS staff.

It was all a bit strange because Minia seemed like a very safe place to us. All of this security was a bit excessive.

The Syrian embassy

We have good news for our mothers and anyone else who may worry about our safety:

We are not going to Syria.

The original plan was to go to Lebanon and Syria, but with Lebanon currently in political paralysis as the Christians and Shiites vie for power, we decided that maybe Beirut is not the safest place to be. Syria seemed safe enough to us – the Arab League summit in Damascus last month passed without incident.

We had read and heard that Syria required everyone to get visas from their home country, which is obviously impossible for us right now. However, when we talked to the American embassy here, they said that since we were living in Cairo, the Syrian embassy should give us a visa no problem. The Syrian embassy apparently doesn’t have a website. We did, though, find another website that listed a phone number. We called: wrong number. Luckily, our Lonely Planet had hours listed when visas could be obtained (9am-1pm) and we found the location by poring through our book of Cairo maps.

We struggled to wake up relatively early last weekend, then took two subways and wandered around until we found it just before 11am. Unfortunately, the guards would not let us in when we inquired about visas. The visa period was over, they said. Come again tomorrow at 9am.

The next morning we woke up even earlier. Milli wasn’t feeling well, so I went alone. I took a cab because I was running late; the cab took 45 minutes, just as long as the subway, but they let me into the embassy without a problem.

The embassy was incredibly derelict. Two ratty couches sat outside the main entrance that a college student would be embarrassed to own. The small reception room was dominated by a huge table covered by boxes and rolled-up posters; next to it lay some 2x4s and a framed picture of the Syrian president. Except for three old arm chairs, that was it. On a small table across the room I found an English-language Syrian newspaper and was excited to read it until I discovered it was two months old.

A few other people were also there for visas. They were filling out paperwork and seemed to be getting them successfully. When my turn came I approached the man who seemed to be in charge and made my request. When I revealed that our Egyptian visas are merely one-year tourist visas, not work visas, the discussion was over. My pleas fell on obstinate, uninterested ears. “Mish mumkin,” he said. Not possible.

So, no Syria. Maybe we’ll be able to come back someday and go there, but for now we had to change plans.

We’re going to Tunisia next week instead!

Noise pollution

Our story of the Siwan desert will continue shortly...

All we can post today is a link to the New York Times, which just ran a story about the insane level of sheer NOISE in Cairo. It's called "A City Where You Can't Hear Yourself Scream."

Money quote:

"This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away..."

Into the Desert: Part I

The next morning we visited the mud-brick fortress of Shali, which looms above the town of Siwa like an apparition. Built in the 13th century, it stood up well against the scourges of time, up until the great rains of 1926 did heavy damage (more than any invader throughout history) and washed away like a third of it. It now looks a bit like Dresden in 1945. The houses at the base of the hill are still inhabitable and people live there, have shops and restaurants there.

The highlight of our time in Siwa started that afternoon: our excursion into the desert. At 3pm we hopped into a 10-year old 4WD outside our hotel and they drove us out of town and onto the dunes. As our 55-year old driver took us hurtling through the sand, I discovered that my window did not close, which was unfortunate given that it was a windy day. The first time we stopped I found that my door was bent and would not open unless the driver (directly in front of me) opened his door first. And there were no seat belts. Our driver appeared to be the leader or the most experienced in our small caravan of cars, but he ditched the others and we went off on our own. He would take us criss-crossing up to the top of a dune, pause at the top for a second, and turn around to say something to us in rapid Arabic. While still looking behind him, he would edge over the sand cliff and we’d go sliding down the bank – which often seemed to be near vertical. The Scandinavian girls in our car would scream sometimes.

This “dune bashing” was similar is some ways to our experience in Dubai, but also markedly different. In Dubai, we had youngish 30-somethings driving new SUVs, following each other in a buddy-system caravan. They made sure our seatbelts were tightened before taking off, which they could ask us in English. In Siwa, it was a middle-aged man in a dented, beat-up car, taking us on a “Live Free or Die” joy ride. The only English he seemed to know was “No baby? No problem!” which he repeated a couple times with obvious amusement.

There were no roads, of course, and few obvious landmarks out there surrounded by sand. But somehow our intrepid driver knew where to go. I really don’t know how. We stopped at a few places throughout the day and each of them suddenly loomed before us like a mirage. The mirage-like quality was only enhanced by the sheer unlikelihood of there being a small lake or a hot spring flanked by trees in the middle of sand dunes that extend to the horizon. Our first stop was at the hot spring. Milli and I changed into swim suits in a convenient little building with two changing rooms, and got in the water. It was indeed rather warm, much more so than Cleopatra’s. We talked to an Australian guy who, curiously enough, was in Egypt working for a gold mining company near the Red Sea. Also interestingly, he was traveling with a Muslim Egyptian woman; we doubt that happens too much as it seems like it would be rather scandalous. The drivers of the four cars that were congregated there made us some strong tea.

Our second stop was a cold lake, with reeds growing out of the dunes at the water’s edge. It was strikingly beautiful, especially given its incongruous location surrounded by arid desert. I wish we could post a picture…

After that they drove us “the fossils.” There, in the middle of empty expanses of sand, lay fossilized remains of fish and sea shells! I mean, it makes sense to find a sand dollar in the sand, but usually they’re found in sand within a few meters of the ocean – not hundreds of miles into the desert! Evidently, the desert used to be covered by the Mediterranean in the distant past. Incredible. Unfortunately, all of the easily snatchable shells had already been confiscated by years of visitation, so we have no souvenirs but photographs.

A bike tour

Well, the internet is still too slow to upload any pictures, but we can put a few of our oasis adventures in writing.

After rising from our nap, we rented bikes and embarked on a tour of the oasis and its surroundings. First stop was a series of old tombs cut into a hill, about a mile outside the town. A few of the tombs had paintings on the walls, but we didn't want to pay the entrance fees so we contented ourselves with the tombs just downhill. They looked rather like craters on the moon. We read that during World War II the Italians had bombed Siwa (for some inexplicable reason), and people took shelter into the tombs! The bombings raids actually opened up many more tombs that they didn't know existed.

We took a short-cut back to town through a village on the outskirts. It was really fun to briefly see scenes of village life as we rode past. Donkeys sleeping and kids running and old men smoking and boys standing around.

Our next stop was the Temple of Amun, which once harbored one of the most influential oracles in the Greek world. Alexander the Great came here to legitimize his claim on Egypt. And kings sometimes sent armies to destory it (which always disappeared in the desert), so great was the oracle's professed power. The temple was in ruins, but still pretty cool.

A few minutes down the road was another temple. Was. Not even the ruins are left. An Ottoman ruler blew it up in the nineteenth century because he needed more stone for his house. Only part of one wall is left.

At one point my bike chain came off the gear. A couple little boys came out of nowhere and helped me get it back on.

Our last stop was at Cleopatra's Spring. It is rumored that the lady herself bathed here, but that is almost certainly made up. Good advertising though. The spring was about 20 feet in diameter, stoned-walled and rather green. And for a hot spring, it was disappointingly cold. Two Egyptian boys were the only ones swimming in it. We thought about getting a drink at the nice tourist cafe that recently sprung up next to the spring, but didn't.

Back at our hotel, we lounged around for a little bit, had some juice, played Uno. (Milli won all five times.) Then back on the bikes we set out for Fatnas Island, where supposedly one could watch the sunset. We left about 5:30 and tried to follow our hand-drawn, very-much-not-to-scale map of Siwa. Not at all convinced we were going to right way, we stopped to ask people like four times. Turns out we were. The island was just much, much farther than we thought. Meanwhile, the sun was sinking...

We got there just in time to watch the last five minutes. Watching the sun dip over the horizon, spreading an orange glow across the lake, I forgot this was the middle of the desert. It was beautiful. And over all to quickly.

Then we biked back again, racing again against the sun, whose embers of light were dying rapidly. We were about halfway back by the time it was dark. The moonlight shone enough for us to see the outline of the road, and luckly there were very few cars. One guy followed us on his bike for a few minutes, but then ditched off when we ignored him. It could have been much worse and we got back fine.

It was nice to get the exercise. The only exercise we get here in Cairo is walking, which doesn't really cut it.

Sorry for the delay...

We have been trying to post pictures from our oasis trip for days now. The internet is just not cooperating. Hopefully it will be working better tomorrow -- though there's no reason why it necessary will be...

At a desert oasis

We had been thinking about going to Siwa Oasis for a couple months now; this past weekend we finally went. Siwa is quite far from Cairo in Egypt’s northwest corner, just 80km from Libya. That translates into a 9-10 hour bus ride. The only non-stop bus is a red-eye that leaves Wednesday night and arrives Thursday morning, so that’s what we took.

Luckily, the bus wasn’t entirely full; we each got a whole seat in which to sprawl out. For a couple hours they showed an Arabic movie (entirely too loud), but the rest of the time was relatively quiet. About two-thirds of the way there most of the people got off. With entire rows now open, we attempted to sleep by lying across the aisle. Unfortunately, “sleep” as such didn’t really come. But it could have been worse.

We arrived in Siwa at 6am. It was light but the sun hadn’t risen yet. The first hostel was checked had no room. The second did and, at $10/night for the nicer room, wasn’t too expensive. Unfortunately, the first thing we found—this after a long bus ride—was that the toilet was broken. The owner said he could try to fix it later that day, but we needed one now and tried a different room.

This second room didn’t have a bathroom, but access to one down the hall with a toilet that worked—but a shower that didn’t. We used the toilet, and then told the guy that we would take the first room, hoping that he would actually fix it that afternoon. Took showers, and slept until noon.

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...