Phone jockeys

It's rather absurd and fetish-like how much people here love their mobiles. Almost everyone has one, in their hand or not far from it, all the time. People answer their phones everywhere: during lunch, during meetings, during church. And no one puts them on silent or vibrate, always loud; we went to an Egyptian church service last weekend and heard at least a dozen phones ring during the service.

When not talking on their phone, people on the train will fiddle with it or pull it out periodically to make sure no one has called. Or they play games on it. Or flip through the pictures they have stored on it. Or -- our favorite -- they'll play music with it, with everyone else on the train obliged to listen along with them. Once I was waiting in a deserted train station and someone came and sat right next to me, music blaring; he could have sat anywhere else, and yet he apparently wanted to share the moment with me.

Our phone hardly works and we rarely have it with us. We don't even know what the number is.

Amid saints

I recently went on a trip with a work colleague and 20 or so Copts to the Monastery of St. Mina near Alexandria. (Just me, Milli didn't go.) It was built by the beloved Pope Kyrillos VI, who is almost as revered as Mina, his patron saint and the monastery's namesake.





























This monastery was hardly an oasis of calm and meditation. People were everywhere -- and they told me it was a light day. Praying, chanting, singing, taking pictures with their camera phones... Here you can see a bit of that activity.















People praying over the pope's coffin.















The monastery was nice, and it was fun to meet and hang out with people, but my favorite part of the trip was a solitary vigil over the Mediterranean at sunset...

In the barber's chair

I finally gave in and submitted myself to the stylistic whims of a barber who understood no English. The conversation was rather like one between two-year-olds: I would haltingly offer Arabic words I knew, like those for "please" and "short" and "here," to which he responded with hand motions or nods of apparent understanding.

My hair ended up being a little different than usual (parted on the side! at least until I walked outside...), but wholy passable. And it only cost me $2.15, including tip.

In a suburb called Giza...

The only surviving wonder of the ancient world is less than 20km from our flat here in Cairo. And we lived here for over three months without paying the pyramids a visit.



Here's Milli looking for the public bus we took to get there. It didn't stop, so we ran across 4 lanes of traffic, knocked on the door, and hopped on.



Isn't globalization great?



The Sphinx looms large in the public mystic, but is rather small in person.



You can count a few of the 2 million blocks.

Facebook

Since moving here, I've gotten a series of friend requests from completely random Egyptians. Most recently, I got requests from Ahmed Al-Khilefat, Jack Jabbour, and Emad Emad Emad. Many send me messages too, mostly filled with "words" like "ru" and "4". My favorite so far, from Honko Momo, an Egyptian, 26 year-old, male:

i ll gonna to send to u a 3 angels ,
&
i ll aske them to :......
surround u with love ,
touch ur face with a rose ,
kiss u r head ,
&
finally whisper in ur ears "hi"

Really, what do you say to that?

The joys of travel

Much of our day yesterday was spent trying to get a Nigerian entry visa for our supervisor at work, who has a business meeting there in a couple weeks. A few other people at CEOSS had been jumping through hoops and red tape for two weeks prior to our involvement. We seemed to be the last ditch effort, the rearguard.

This was the story: To obtain an entry visa, one must fill out the online application, pay through on online server, and then physically walk a printed copy of the application over to the embassy. Problem: the website didn't work. One woman claimed to have filled it out the online application 30 TIMES, only to have it stall or malfunction. An emissary sent over to the embassy was told (rather snottily) that the Nigerian government does not accept hardwritten applications, and that the website DID work. Or, if it didn't, "Try again tomorrow!"

Now we enter. The application asked for all the normal things: height, "visible identification marks," contagious disesases, drug busts on record, how much money you were bringing into the country... Y'know, normal stuff. But our favorite was this innocent question: Colour Of Hair? The options: black, white or grey.

The first two attempts to fill it out failed. On the third, we made it to the payment page (!) only to discover an insurmountable issue. In the drop-down list of countries in which the applicant's credit card was registered, Egypt was not a member. It had Vatican City and Trinidad and Tobago, but not Egypt. They did not accept credit cards from Egypt. We tried fooling them and listing different countries, but they called our bluff. And then the website got stuck on Yemen for a while and wouldn't let us change it.

Finally, after many demonstrations in front of other staff members and assurances that we'd be paid back, we used our credit card. The Nigerians sure as heck allow those. And it worked.

"What about Egyptians who need to go to Nigeria but don't know any foreigners?" one of our colleagues asked.

What about them indeed.

Al-Azhar Park

Ahhh, green:













Lots of couples:













Sun setting over the city:













Our own philosopher-king:

The start of a new career...?

I now have a second job -- a part-time proofreader for the magazine Egypt Today. I've worked there a few days now. It's going to be only a few days toward the end of each month, during the production period. I'm excited to see the world of journalism from the press room.

It's the largest and oldest English-language magazine in the country. A little ambiguous whether it's a domestic or international magazine -- they kind of claim both. Most of the writers are Egyptian, but most editors are expats. All the proofreaders are American. One of the editors looks and sounds like a young Peter Jackson. The managing editor's named Patrick FitzPatrick; I wish he had an Irish accent.

I doubt my career aspirations will shift too dramatically, but it should be interesting. Maybe I (or Milli) could actually get something published...

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

We were lucky to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with 50 or so people from a nearby church and the seminary here in Cairo. And, as we live in one of the few large and freely available spaces around, Thanksgiving was right outside our door! The common dining room held most, and the others spilled out into a beautiful table set in the common living area.

The woman playing the piano below is Martha Roy. She played us some Thanksgiving songs (well, 2 Thanksgiving songs, then we couldn't think of any more) and then Christmas carols!

Subway Ettiquette

I have been genuinely surprised at the subway etiquette in Cairo.

On the one hand, when the doors of the subway open at each station, groups of men push their way onto the train with little regard for those trying to exit (or for anyone for that matter). This is especially true during rush house; I often here someone yelling "Push, push!" (in English) as people get on the train.

On the other hand, more often than not a man will offer me his seat. Men will always get up for women with children, elderly men or women, and pregnant women. Men seem to be aware of those around them and responsive to their needs -- and far more consistently so than I ever experienced in New York.

(Note: The subways are full of mostly men. There is often only a handful of women in any given subway car at any given time. This is partly due to the existence of "Female-Only" cars at the front of the train. That doesn't account for all of the huge discrepancy in numbers though.)