Things I saw yesterday (in chronological order):
Smog:
The air has been terrible this week. Since I only have two pairs of shorts and I just joined a gym, I've done laundry several times this week. I wash the clothes at night and hang them out on our eighth floor clothesline. I wake up in the morning and the desert air has dried them even in the dark. Unfortunately, the morning smog also gets at the clothes, coating even the clothespins in a brown dust the color of everything in Cairo. When I looked out at the city yesterday, I saw only a light brown smudge where the city should be.
Bag of blood:
Seriously. Stepping up onto the curb as I got out of my taxi, I passed a clear plastic bag, knotted at the top with maybe eight to ten ounces of blood in it. I spent last week reading articles about how Egypt is one of the top five locations in the WORLD for organ trafficking and organ tourism (there is no law against taking someone's organ without permission...if a case can be made at all, it is only a crime of simple assault). So a bag of blood on the street at nine in the morning was both surprising and not particularly surprising. I tried to imagine someone the night before running out of meat in his small café and buying some extra to get through the remaining customers…then pulling the meat out with his hands, neatly tying the plastic bag full of blood and dropping it on the street. Okay, that probably isn't what happened but I'm not willing to consider the alternatives.
Mean people:
I went to a meeting at the European Commission's offices in Egypt. CIHRS had been invited to discuss a project we are conducting as a junior partner with the European Organization for Human Rights. The EC instructed us to come ready to present on our part of the project and to bring a member of the accounting staff to answer questions if necessary. We arrived at the meeting and my supervisor introduced our junior accountant. The two women we were meeting shook their heads and said in their French accents that since we are the junior partner in the project, and their contract is actually with EOHR, all questions had to go through EOHR and that we could neither ask nor respond to questions in the meeting. They were very rude.
Second-largest "Medium" cappuccino I've ever seen:
Necessary to cope with the hurt feelings of the EC meeting.
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2QX9sMV5xI
Awesome.
That trainer again:
The trainer who could not stop looking at my belly when I was first introduced to him on my first evening at the gym came by my treadmill to tell me that an abs class was starting. Sure, he told everyone in the cardio room so I assume he was just trying to fill his class, but instead of saying "If you want to come…" he said "YOU WANT TO COME." It is common among people with okay but not great English here to never use the conditional, "if." Doesn't matter, call me unforgiving, but I still maintain that this guy sucks.
The largest cockroach IN THE WORLD:
Seriously. I saw this guy one other time and was so ambivalent about what the proper course of action should be (step on him with my sandal? Go change into hiking boots to step on him? Knock him off the counter and then step on him? Try to kill him where he stood? Spray him with ant spray? Break a glass bottle over his head?) that I wound up merely watching in frozen horror until he scrambled back under the sink and into the pipes from whence he came. He became my Moby Dick. I winced every time I turned on the kitchen light for a week hoping I would not see him on the ground because then I'd have no choice but to step on him and in my flip flops I am pretty sure I'd just slip right off his nuclear winter-proof back causing no damage. This was a month ago and it wasn't until last night that he again reared his ugly…well, the whole damn thing is ugly. Lucky for me, he revealed himself by FALLING OFF THE COUNTER behind me as I stood at the stove and landing helplessly on his back, tiny double jointed evil-haired legs flailing. I beat him over the head with the full garbage can several times, then with a full water bottle, then folded a plastic bag (not filled with blood) into a thick hand-sized pad and scooped him into the garbage can. With plastic bags on both my hands, I tied the garbage bag securely and put it in the dumpster.
Nerve damage in my ear:
Okay, so I didn't exactly see this. But I have a tingling, creeping sensation just inside my right ear. Has been there for about a week. The internet tells me this is nerve damage and I probably have either myocardial infarction (heart attack) or multiple sclerosis. Ugh. I am going to treat it by skipping the gym tonight (no coincidence, I'm sure, that the nerve damage started around the time I started the gym!) and drinking beer with a friend instead.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Aero Folklore
Tuesday started weird and ended weirder.
Like every day, my taxi was sitting in traffic in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, an enormous traffic circle in front of the Egyptian Museum that houses King Tut's tomb and the Mogamma, the huge government building where I went to renew my visa. A white-uniformed traffic cop armed with a walkie-talkie had just waved on oncoming traffic. There are traffic lights in the square but since everyone ignores them, the traffic police are needed to literally stand in the street and direct traffic. After starting the flow of oncoming vehicles passing in front of us, the officer wandered off to a distant part of the square to chat with friends. Usually this only happens after the officer charged with directing traffic at a certain intersection has been replaced by another officer in a shift change.
Not yesterday.
I guess the guy just lost interest and gave up on manning his spot, leaving my taxi and the other hundreds of cars backed up behind us to sit and groan as car after car continued to pass in front of us blocking our way forward. Finally, after several minutes, the cars in front of us just nosed out into traffic until the oncoming cars were forced to stop to avoid collisions, then zoomed ahead, permission be damned.
This wasn't really the weird part. Things like this happen all the time. The cops are extremely lazy and unreliable. It is a job that men take when they can't pass any tests to get other jobs. And traffic is notoriously arbitrary in Cairo. People just drive where they want when they want, people get angry, then distracted from their anger by something else, then get angry at someone new. Whatever. The weird part was my taxi driver's reaction. "That guy!" he shouted to me, vaguely glancing at the road as he steering the car in a wobbly circle toward our street. He pointed in indignant surprise out the window at the officer who had wandered away from his post. "That guy just left, did you see? He waved them on, then walked away!" He was actually surprised, I realized. He could not believe someone would do that. "Really?" I thought to myself, "This is a shocker?" "You drive a cab in a country with no traffic laws or enforcement and a cop forgetting to change traffic directions still gets your blood pressure up?" But he was absolutely aghast, shaking his head, eyes wide. "Egypt!" He shouted. "Egypt," I agreed wholeheartedly.
The second weirdness of my day came in the evening. I went to join a gym near my apartment. I already knew the exact plan I wanted, how much it would cost, and that the gym takes MasterCard so it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes to fill out the paperwork, pay, and get my photo taken for my ID card. I had also been warned ahead of time by two different people that although I get 3 free weeks with a personal trainer as part of my membership, I should decline.
Apparently the "head coach," or trainer, told each of these young women, both quite thin, that they really needed to lose a lot of weight, that this would require many hours in the gym, and then wrote workouts that would demand two and a half hours in the gym every night. My friend insisted she could only do an hour a few times a week and he said that that would never be enough to lose ALL THE WEIGHT she needed to lose (she's about 5'4" and maybe 120 lbs.). She asked him to write her a workout that would only take an hour. He agreed, then wrote another 2.5 hour workout. She told him she didn't want to take advantage of any more free personal training, but he'd still come hang out at her elliptical and criticize like an uninvited drill sergeant. Sure enough, our conversation went like this:
Him: (with a totally straight face) Have you ever done any exercise? Ever, in your life?
Me: You're asking me if I've ever exercised before? In my entire life?
Him: (nods)
Me: Um…yeah, I was a pretty serious athlete when I was younger and I've always been a swimmer. I do yoga and was running pretty regularly this summer.
Him: Hmmm. Do you have any goals (looking meaningfully at my belly…or maybe at my boobs, not sure)?
Me: I want to run on the treadmill for an hour a day.
Him: You don't have a fitness goal? Maybe you want to (pausing to look at my belly again) become in good shape? Or (really staring at belly now, but pretending not to) lose some pounds?
Me: My goal is to run on the treadmill for an hour a day.
Him: For my training to really work it is better to have a goal.
Me: I just want to run on the treadmill for an hour a day. I've decided not to take advantage of the free personal training sessions. Thank you.
Him: Well, that is your choice. It is free, but you can choose to do whatever you like. (in a tone that suggested I'd just chosen to die with dignity).
Me: Thank you.
He looked at my belly again, sighed, and left. My friend reports that he used to stare at her belly all the time too. She does not have a belly to stare at. I can't imagine the hours of fascination mine will offer.
By now I was wondering what on EARTH was taking the receptionist dude so long to run my credit card. Left alone in the office, I leaned out to see what he was doing. He was holding the little handheld visa machine, talking on his cell phone and the landline at the same time. Not good. Apparently, he had run the credit card but the machine only had enough paper to print the receipt without the signature line. He couldn't find new paper (hence the cell to call his boss) and didn't know how to reprint the transaction for me to sign the receipt without double charging me (hence the landline to call Visa). Then the handheld ran out of power and another boy had to go find what looked like a computer cord to plug the device into the wall so both boys had to crouch beside it as they frantically pushed buttons as instructed by the Visa rep and their boss. The receptionist would periodically notice me and say "so sorry, one moment, no problem" which is the Egyptian way of saying "I don't really know what is happening, this could take hours, you are totally screwed." He was so frazzled he was sweating, even in the severe air conditioning of the gym and he did seem sincerely sorry and embarrassed, so I left him alone, gave myself a little tour of the gym, read some signs on the walls, listened to my audiobook, texted my friend and examined the list of aerobics classes.
Which is where I encountered my favorite line of English text so far in Egypt. Apparently there is an instructor named HAPPY (in all caps, despite the fact that the other instructors named things like Dina and Ahmed were in lower case). Even weirder, whereas Dina, Ahmed and the others teach recognizable classes like Yoga, Pilates, and Spinning, HAPPY teaches an aerobic class on Wednesdays and Sundays called "Aero Folklore." Let me say that again: AERO FOLKLORE. I am absolutely DESPERATE to know what ON EARTH that is.
Slightly less weird but still worthy of note is a class called mysteriously "Fight Club" (I thought the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club?! Can you put it on a laminated list of aerobics classes?) and another one called "Go Boyin' " Huh?
After nearly an hour, they came up with the solution of having me sign the bottom of the receipt he'd printed when I first arrived in the empty space at the bottom rather than on an actual signature line. Really? I waited an hour for THIS? Whatever. I am now a proud (okay, not yet) member of the very same gym where the contestants on the Arabic version of the Biggest Loser work out. I guess the head coach I met is the patronizing, steroidal, uber-masculine version of Jillian Michaels. So basically the Jillian Michaels version of Jillian Michaels. And tonight I will meet my complex fitness goal of running on the treadmill for an hour. I hope Jillian isn't there to keep a disapproving eye on my belly as I run. Urg.
Good bye, self-esteem…fitness, here I come!
Like every day, my taxi was sitting in traffic in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, an enormous traffic circle in front of the Egyptian Museum that houses King Tut's tomb and the Mogamma, the huge government building where I went to renew my visa. A white-uniformed traffic cop armed with a walkie-talkie had just waved on oncoming traffic. There are traffic lights in the square but since everyone ignores them, the traffic police are needed to literally stand in the street and direct traffic. After starting the flow of oncoming vehicles passing in front of us, the officer wandered off to a distant part of the square to chat with friends. Usually this only happens after the officer charged with directing traffic at a certain intersection has been replaced by another officer in a shift change.
Not yesterday.
I guess the guy just lost interest and gave up on manning his spot, leaving my taxi and the other hundreds of cars backed up behind us to sit and groan as car after car continued to pass in front of us blocking our way forward. Finally, after several minutes, the cars in front of us just nosed out into traffic until the oncoming cars were forced to stop to avoid collisions, then zoomed ahead, permission be damned.
This wasn't really the weird part. Things like this happen all the time. The cops are extremely lazy and unreliable. It is a job that men take when they can't pass any tests to get other jobs. And traffic is notoriously arbitrary in Cairo. People just drive where they want when they want, people get angry, then distracted from their anger by something else, then get angry at someone new. Whatever. The weird part was my taxi driver's reaction. "That guy!" he shouted to me, vaguely glancing at the road as he steering the car in a wobbly circle toward our street. He pointed in indignant surprise out the window at the officer who had wandered away from his post. "That guy just left, did you see? He waved them on, then walked away!" He was actually surprised, I realized. He could not believe someone would do that. "Really?" I thought to myself, "This is a shocker?" "You drive a cab in a country with no traffic laws or enforcement and a cop forgetting to change traffic directions still gets your blood pressure up?" But he was absolutely aghast, shaking his head, eyes wide. "Egypt!" He shouted. "Egypt," I agreed wholeheartedly.
The second weirdness of my day came in the evening. I went to join a gym near my apartment. I already knew the exact plan I wanted, how much it would cost, and that the gym takes MasterCard so it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes to fill out the paperwork, pay, and get my photo taken for my ID card. I had also been warned ahead of time by two different people that although I get 3 free weeks with a personal trainer as part of my membership, I should decline.
Apparently the "head coach," or trainer, told each of these young women, both quite thin, that they really needed to lose a lot of weight, that this would require many hours in the gym, and then wrote workouts that would demand two and a half hours in the gym every night. My friend insisted she could only do an hour a few times a week and he said that that would never be enough to lose ALL THE WEIGHT she needed to lose (she's about 5'4" and maybe 120 lbs.). She asked him to write her a workout that would only take an hour. He agreed, then wrote another 2.5 hour workout. She told him she didn't want to take advantage of any more free personal training, but he'd still come hang out at her elliptical and criticize like an uninvited drill sergeant. Sure enough, our conversation went like this:
Him: (with a totally straight face) Have you ever done any exercise? Ever, in your life?
Me: You're asking me if I've ever exercised before? In my entire life?
Him: (nods)
Me: Um…yeah, I was a pretty serious athlete when I was younger and I've always been a swimmer. I do yoga and was running pretty regularly this summer.
Him: Hmmm. Do you have any goals (looking meaningfully at my belly…or maybe at my boobs, not sure)?
Me: I want to run on the treadmill for an hour a day.
Him: You don't have a fitness goal? Maybe you want to (pausing to look at my belly again) become in good shape? Or (really staring at belly now, but pretending not to) lose some pounds?
Me: My goal is to run on the treadmill for an hour a day.
Him: For my training to really work it is better to have a goal.
Me: I just want to run on the treadmill for an hour a day. I've decided not to take advantage of the free personal training sessions. Thank you.
Him: Well, that is your choice. It is free, but you can choose to do whatever you like. (in a tone that suggested I'd just chosen to die with dignity).
Me: Thank you.
He looked at my belly again, sighed, and left. My friend reports that he used to stare at her belly all the time too. She does not have a belly to stare at. I can't imagine the hours of fascination mine will offer.
By now I was wondering what on EARTH was taking the receptionist dude so long to run my credit card. Left alone in the office, I leaned out to see what he was doing. He was holding the little handheld visa machine, talking on his cell phone and the landline at the same time. Not good. Apparently, he had run the credit card but the machine only had enough paper to print the receipt without the signature line. He couldn't find new paper (hence the cell to call his boss) and didn't know how to reprint the transaction for me to sign the receipt without double charging me (hence the landline to call Visa). Then the handheld ran out of power and another boy had to go find what looked like a computer cord to plug the device into the wall so both boys had to crouch beside it as they frantically pushed buttons as instructed by the Visa rep and their boss. The receptionist would periodically notice me and say "so sorry, one moment, no problem" which is the Egyptian way of saying "I don't really know what is happening, this could take hours, you are totally screwed." He was so frazzled he was sweating, even in the severe air conditioning of the gym and he did seem sincerely sorry and embarrassed, so I left him alone, gave myself a little tour of the gym, read some signs on the walls, listened to my audiobook, texted my friend and examined the list of aerobics classes.
Which is where I encountered my favorite line of English text so far in Egypt. Apparently there is an instructor named HAPPY (in all caps, despite the fact that the other instructors named things like Dina and Ahmed were in lower case). Even weirder, whereas Dina, Ahmed and the others teach recognizable classes like Yoga, Pilates, and Spinning, HAPPY teaches an aerobic class on Wednesdays and Sundays called "Aero Folklore." Let me say that again: AERO FOLKLORE. I am absolutely DESPERATE to know what ON EARTH that is.
Slightly less weird but still worthy of note is a class called mysteriously "Fight Club" (I thought the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club?! Can you put it on a laminated list of aerobics classes?) and another one called "Go Boyin' " Huh?
After nearly an hour, they came up with the solution of having me sign the bottom of the receipt he'd printed when I first arrived in the empty space at the bottom rather than on an actual signature line. Really? I waited an hour for THIS? Whatever. I am now a proud (okay, not yet) member of the very same gym where the contestants on the Arabic version of the Biggest Loser work out. I guess the head coach I met is the patronizing, steroidal, uber-masculine version of Jillian Michaels. So basically the Jillian Michaels version of Jillian Michaels. And tonight I will meet my complex fitness goal of running on the treadmill for an hour. I hope Jillian isn't there to keep a disapproving eye on my belly as I run. Urg.
Good bye, self-esteem…fitness, here I come!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Wrecked weekend plans
As some of you may have seen from my Facebook status, my totally awesome trip to the remote oasis town of Siwa was cut depressingly short early Saturday morning. About four hours into a ten hour bus ride, some idiot in a van decided to flip a U-turn and head back toward Cairo. What he didn’t realize was that the highway away from Cairo and the highway toward Cairo were separated by a 50 foot stretch of sand. He was heading the wrong way down the highway at 3am in dense fog. Our tour bus hit him head-on.
No one was seriously hurt, or at least not as seriously as we could have been. The driver went into the windshield, as did my friend Karim, whose tour company organized the trip. The driver went to the hospital right away, obviously in shock and possibly with a broken arm. Karim stayed with the group over the next few hours, as ambulances took us all to a nearby police station where we waited for another bus to take us back to Cairo.
When we finally got back, Karim underwent a complicated surgery to repair a deep cut to his cheek and might have to have another surgery in the next couple days, but beside the wound to his face, he is also okay (though he said if he has to have another surgery, he’s flying back to Canada for it . The only other bad injury was a kid who didn’t wake up right away after the accident and who couldn’t remember certain things like where we had been going and what Siwa was for a few minutes afterwards. It turned out he had snapped his clavicle and had a concussion, which we were pretty certain of, but he also waited until we were back to Cairo to go to the hospital.
I had taken a sleeping pill around 11 so by 3 I was totally zonked, a long scarf triple-wrapped around my face and eyes and my noise cancelling headphones blaring Sugarland. I was sitting sideways in my seat, which was a single, across the aisle from the double seats. A few people shouted right before we hit and someone yelled “Car!” Even as out of it as I was, I pulled into a little ball, lifting my knees to my chest, ducking my head, and protecting my head and neck with my arms to make a kind of a frame. When we hit, the impact threw me into the seat in front of me so that I now have a big bruise on my right thigh and right bicep but I was definitely one of the least injured people on the bus. It is true that you hurt even more the next day and even this morning, I was still finding new sore spots in my back and neck but I’ve loosened up since then and will go into work tomorrow.
The bus itself was a total wreck. The luggage rack on top was torn completely off and every seat inside snapped at the hinges where the back meets the seat from the people behind slamming into the seats in front of them. The windshield was completely shattered but stayed intact so there wasn’t much loose glass around (good thing because a lot of people ran off the bus barefoot because we weren’t sure oncoming traffic could see the bus broken down in one lane in the fog) but there was a big pool of oil that leaked on to the highway. The front of the bus under the windshield was inset about a foot from the impact but the van we hit was in good enough condition for the guy to make a run for it after he made sure everyone was more or less okay.
In Egypt, the person responsible for the accident has to pay for everything, vehicle damage, property damage, hospital bills, medicine, etc. and there is no such thing as auto insurance so it comes out of pocket. I imagine that the guy who learned he just about killed 20 or so foreign tourists was scared to death. He didn’t get too far though because someone had taken his plate number down and, too much in shock to keep driving, he had to pull over at a rest stop a little ways down the road.
I took the day off work and am recovering quickly, with just some bruises and soreness in my abs and back. If anyone is planning to survive a similar wreck, I do recommend the curling into a ball idea, but if possible, try to keep your abs relaxed so they don’t get pulled out of whack…laughing and sneezing are both killers right now.
I am really disappointed we didn’t get to go to Siwa, but, eternal optimist that I am, I did take note that I have never been in a car accident before. So although this was not the weekend adventure I signed up for, it was a new experience nonetheless.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Walid's Betrayal
Walid's betrayal hurt my heart all the more because he was so nice about it.
Yesterday morning, I realized that my bedroom and one of the bathroom outlets had no power. I tried flipping the fuse switches to no avail. Weirdly, the air conditioner in my bedroom still worked fine, as did one light and power outlet in the bathroom. Whatever. I dried my hair in the living room, where things were working fine and went to work, not noticing that the kitchen power was also out, leaving our refrigerated items defenseless.
When I returned home around six, there was no change. I'm not sure why this was surprising, as if our apartment had somehow assured me it would rewire itself during the day and then failed to follow through. My roommate and I called the bowab, the doorman/handyman that the tenants in our building pay to hang around and be available in such circumstances. Ali, the bowab, came up to the apartment and, unsurprisingly, flipped the fuse box switches with no success. He informed us we neededn electrician, which we already knew since only about a third of the available lights in our apartment actually work and even those require tricks like jiggling switches, pressing the bulb until it turns on, etc. We didn't think we'd be able to get someone after six on such short notice but Ali called around and found Walid.
The first thing we noticed about Walid is that he spoke English. Not just a few words related to his trade like "light" and "cord" and "on" but he really spoke English and understood what we said, even the jokes. This was disconcerting and Marisol and I switched to Spanish a couple of times so we could discuss him and our electrical woes more privately.
Walid spent over an hour and a half in our apartment. He fixed all the lights, leaving twice to buy replacement parts. He rewired the fuse box, replacing an entire switch at one point, installed a light in the ceiling of my room, and popped the light switches off in my bedroom and the kitchen, and the air conditioning switch in the living room, to tighten things up. Room by room, Walid revived our apartment and kept saying, "if you have anything else, you'd better tell me now," and again and again we'd come up with just one more thing that we realized had either stopped working or had never worked.
Finally around 9:30, Walid charged us 77 pounds, the equivalent of $14.00 for parts and services. We tipped him to even out the total at 100 pounds, or $20 and he left happy and exhausted. Marisol and I reveled in our well-lit apartment, wandering dreamlike from room to room staring at the glowing bulbs until we had to blink the burning spots from our eyes. We both retired to our rooms, she to read, me to do yoga, now that we could see what we were doing in that part of the apartment.
Which is when the trouble began.
A half hour after Walid left, the fuse overloaded again and clicked off the lights in my room, Marisol's room, half the bathroom, and the whole kitchen. The same line of wiring that had tripped the fuse and blacked out in the morning. Marisol was in the shower so I had to wait to mess with the fusebox for fear of picking the wrong switch and leaving her in total darkness (remember that one of the two lights in the bathroom was on a different circuit and still worked). When she came out of the bathroom, I went to the fuse box, found the right switch and switched it back and forth. The lights came back on and Marisol and I went back to our respective reading and workout.
The fuse tripped again. I switched it back on again. It switched off again almost immediately. Marisol tried her hand at the fusebox but the lights did not come back on. I tried and they did flip on again. Things seemed to stabilize for twenty minutes or so. I wound down my workout and Marisol's boyfriend Megid came over to hang out. Marisol was showing him our well-lit, if finicky apartment, and I was about to get in the shower, when the lights went out again. This time for good. No amount of fusebox tampering, switch flipping, and frustrated cursing could bring the power back.
The lights going out at 10:45 has a different meaning than the lights going out at 5:30. After my shower I was headed to bed and Marisol and Megid were planning to turn in before long as well. So at first it didn't seem we needed to demand that Walid return immediately, though we did call him to tell him that the problem we'd originally called him to solve was back in full force. He reluctantly confirmed that he would come back if we made him despite the late hour because electrician's ethics demanded that he finish what he started. We told him it was okay if he come back the next day, today, after work hours, instead. As soon as we hung up, however, we remembered the fridge.
The fridge had been out the entire day yesterday, though we did have a good number of frozen items in the freezer that has kept the rest of the fridge cold during the day, even as they thawed out. One of these items was a full package of chicken breasts that was already suspect after partially thawing, then refreezing on Monday when the maid defrosted the fridge. By 11pm, when we said goodnight to Walid for good, the frozen items were thoroughly thawed and the fridge was starting to warm up, risking the health and safety of everything inside.
We also had the problem of Marisol and Megid being confined to the living room because there was no light in Marisol's room. This is when Marisol's genius kicked into high gear. For a while we joked about cooking all of my chicken, and the ground beef, shrimp, and calamari Marisol had in the freezer, all at the same time. She suggested mixed meatballs. I suggested stew. None of us could think of the recipes for too long without shuddering or gagging. Marisol had joked about planning to solve one problem at a time, then set about in all seriousness to actually doing it. First, she ran an extension cord from the bathroom to a lightbulb on a cord we'd been using to light the kitchen before Walid fixed the central ceiling light in that room. The lightbulb she ran to a curtain hook in her room and poof! bedroom mood lighting.
Then, she had Megid and I help her slide the refrigerator away from the wall in its corner of the kitchen and turn it around so its back faced the corridor between the kitchen and the bathroom. She unplugged the extension cord from the lightbulb in her room and ran it in the opposite direction to plug in the fridge. I heard her bemoaning the fact that she had only one extension cord and only one working plug in the bathroom and saying if only she had a splitter for the outlet she could solve both problems at once. I did have a splitter and soon we had a working fridge and light in Marisol's bedroom. I'm pretty sure the chicken is too far gone to use, or at least to use safely, but everything else in the fridge will be safe until Walid can bring juice back to the affected areas this evening. Just in time for me to leave for the weekend. I plan to throw out the chicken and the last Tupperware of some shrimp chow mein I made earlier in the week right when I leave so that if the bowab doesn't throw it out right away, I won't be around to gag at the growing stink in the stairway garbage can outside our apartment. Insert evil laugh here.
I am going on a whirlwind trip to Siwa this weekend. I leave at 11pm tomorrow night, drive through the night [hopefully] sleeping on the bus, spend the day Friday doing tourist activities, camp out Bedouin style (no showers or bathrooms) Friday night, sandsurf the day away (or in my case, photograph others sandsurfing while reading and improving my tan) on Saturday, then drive back all night Saturday getting back into Cairo around three in the morning in time for work at 9am on Sunday. I am hardcore.
If I survive the trip, I will report on Siwa in detail when I regain consciousness next week.
Yesterday morning, I realized that my bedroom and one of the bathroom outlets had no power. I tried flipping the fuse switches to no avail. Weirdly, the air conditioner in my bedroom still worked fine, as did one light and power outlet in the bathroom. Whatever. I dried my hair in the living room, where things were working fine and went to work, not noticing that the kitchen power was also out, leaving our refrigerated items defenseless.
When I returned home around six, there was no change. I'm not sure why this was surprising, as if our apartment had somehow assured me it would rewire itself during the day and then failed to follow through. My roommate and I called the bowab, the doorman/handyman that the tenants in our building pay to hang around and be available in such circumstances. Ali, the bowab, came up to the apartment and, unsurprisingly, flipped the fuse box switches with no success. He informed us we neededn electrician, which we already knew since only about a third of the available lights in our apartment actually work and even those require tricks like jiggling switches, pressing the bulb until it turns on, etc. We didn't think we'd be able to get someone after six on such short notice but Ali called around and found Walid.
The first thing we noticed about Walid is that he spoke English. Not just a few words related to his trade like "light" and "cord" and "on" but he really spoke English and understood what we said, even the jokes. This was disconcerting and Marisol and I switched to Spanish a couple of times so we could discuss him and our electrical woes more privately.
Walid spent over an hour and a half in our apartment. He fixed all the lights, leaving twice to buy replacement parts. He rewired the fuse box, replacing an entire switch at one point, installed a light in the ceiling of my room, and popped the light switches off in my bedroom and the kitchen, and the air conditioning switch in the living room, to tighten things up. Room by room, Walid revived our apartment and kept saying, "if you have anything else, you'd better tell me now," and again and again we'd come up with just one more thing that we realized had either stopped working or had never worked.
Finally around 9:30, Walid charged us 77 pounds, the equivalent of $14.00 for parts and services. We tipped him to even out the total at 100 pounds, or $20 and he left happy and exhausted. Marisol and I reveled in our well-lit apartment, wandering dreamlike from room to room staring at the glowing bulbs until we had to blink the burning spots from our eyes. We both retired to our rooms, she to read, me to do yoga, now that we could see what we were doing in that part of the apartment.
Which is when the trouble began.
A half hour after Walid left, the fuse overloaded again and clicked off the lights in my room, Marisol's room, half the bathroom, and the whole kitchen. The same line of wiring that had tripped the fuse and blacked out in the morning. Marisol was in the shower so I had to wait to mess with the fusebox for fear of picking the wrong switch and leaving her in total darkness (remember that one of the two lights in the bathroom was on a different circuit and still worked). When she came out of the bathroom, I went to the fuse box, found the right switch and switched it back and forth. The lights came back on and Marisol and I went back to our respective reading and workout.
The fuse tripped again. I switched it back on again. It switched off again almost immediately. Marisol tried her hand at the fusebox but the lights did not come back on. I tried and they did flip on again. Things seemed to stabilize for twenty minutes or so. I wound down my workout and Marisol's boyfriend Megid came over to hang out. Marisol was showing him our well-lit, if finicky apartment, and I was about to get in the shower, when the lights went out again. This time for good. No amount of fusebox tampering, switch flipping, and frustrated cursing could bring the power back.
The lights going out at 10:45 has a different meaning than the lights going out at 5:30. After my shower I was headed to bed and Marisol and Megid were planning to turn in before long as well. So at first it didn't seem we needed to demand that Walid return immediately, though we did call him to tell him that the problem we'd originally called him to solve was back in full force. He reluctantly confirmed that he would come back if we made him despite the late hour because electrician's ethics demanded that he finish what he started. We told him it was okay if he come back the next day, today, after work hours, instead. As soon as we hung up, however, we remembered the fridge.
The fridge had been out the entire day yesterday, though we did have a good number of frozen items in the freezer that has kept the rest of the fridge cold during the day, even as they thawed out. One of these items was a full package of chicken breasts that was already suspect after partially thawing, then refreezing on Monday when the maid defrosted the fridge. By 11pm, when we said goodnight to Walid for good, the frozen items were thoroughly thawed and the fridge was starting to warm up, risking the health and safety of everything inside.
We also had the problem of Marisol and Megid being confined to the living room because there was no light in Marisol's room. This is when Marisol's genius kicked into high gear. For a while we joked about cooking all of my chicken, and the ground beef, shrimp, and calamari Marisol had in the freezer, all at the same time. She suggested mixed meatballs. I suggested stew. None of us could think of the recipes for too long without shuddering or gagging. Marisol had joked about planning to solve one problem at a time, then set about in all seriousness to actually doing it. First, she ran an extension cord from the bathroom to a lightbulb on a cord we'd been using to light the kitchen before Walid fixed the central ceiling light in that room. The lightbulb she ran to a curtain hook in her room and poof! bedroom mood lighting.
Then, she had Megid and I help her slide the refrigerator away from the wall in its corner of the kitchen and turn it around so its back faced the corridor between the kitchen and the bathroom. She unplugged the extension cord from the lightbulb in her room and ran it in the opposite direction to plug in the fridge. I heard her bemoaning the fact that she had only one extension cord and only one working plug in the bathroom and saying if only she had a splitter for the outlet she could solve both problems at once. I did have a splitter and soon we had a working fridge and light in Marisol's bedroom. I'm pretty sure the chicken is too far gone to use, or at least to use safely, but everything else in the fridge will be safe until Walid can bring juice back to the affected areas this evening. Just in time for me to leave for the weekend. I plan to throw out the chicken and the last Tupperware of some shrimp chow mein I made earlier in the week right when I leave so that if the bowab doesn't throw it out right away, I won't be around to gag at the growing stink in the stairway garbage can outside our apartment. Insert evil laugh here.
I am going on a whirlwind trip to Siwa this weekend. I leave at 11pm tomorrow night, drive through the night [hopefully] sleeping on the bus, spend the day Friday doing tourist activities, camp out Bedouin style (no showers or bathrooms) Friday night, sandsurf the day away (or in my case, photograph others sandsurfing while reading and improving my tan) on Saturday, then drive back all night Saturday getting back into Cairo around three in the morning in time for work at 9am on Sunday. I am hardcore.
If I survive the trip, I will report on Siwa in detail when I regain consciousness next week.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Classic Margaret
I just bought a BRAND NEW 250 mL bottle of olive oil for $6, a small fortune in Cairo, and then KNOCKED IT OFF THE COUNTER immediately after unpacking it from the grocery bag. It SHATTERED across my kitchen sending green glass slivers in all sizes and waves of green goo EVERYWHERE. Took forever to clean up. Ugh.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Technical Difficulties
Nothing works in this country. Correction, nothing works exactly as it is supposed to. Elevators, for example. None of them have internal doors so you see every floor as it passes and if you lean over far enough you can see through the crack between the elevator floor and where the door ought to be you can see all the way to the ground floor. The one in my building only stops on odd numbered floors. The one in my building at work can only be called to go up, which means at the end of the day when all you want to do is go DOWN to the street to go home, you have to go up to the seventeenth floor first, then head back past the tenth, where I work, and finally down to street level. The one in my friend’s building rests inside a shaft of heavy wire like if chickenwire were used to make prisons. The cage door on her floor is so heavy, I actually couldn’t open it for a minute the other day and had to call her from about five feet from her door to announce “I’m stuck in your elevator.” Neither of us was much surprised.
Another example: my entire office is moving to new digs downtown. A whole new address so all the shelves, doors, etc. CIHRS has added to its current office over the last few years needed to be disassembled, transported about 10 minutes away, and put up in the new office. Same with internet, phones, furniture, etc. An American office would simply move stuff a little at a time starting with the non-essentials like storage cabinets, the shelving and contents of the library, etc. Then either a moving crew would be hired over the weekend or staff would be enlisted to transport all the essentials and set up the office in time for the new workweek. Not in Egypt.
I am now in my second day of “working from home” because even though the move supposedly started after work on Thursday, there are currently no computers, phones, office furniture, or internet in the new office. They are not in the old office either, which begs the question of where exactly in the time-space continuum these items ended up. Unfortunately, my entire job depends on me being able to surf the internet for new grant opportunities and access web-based applications for the projects I’m already working on. And I don’t have internet at home, so this “working from home” thing has turned in to two days of me reading novels. Which is great for my mind but kind of tough on the neck and shoulders since I am famous in my family for my awkward reading posture.
Worried I might read myself into a migraine, I took a field trip from my apartment and bought some internet time at Cilantro, the Cairo equivalent of Starbucks. Actually, Starbucks, I suppose, is the Cairo equivalent of Starbucks, since they do exist here, but Cilantro is more common, even though their iced mochas are a little more watery and made w/ lower quality chocolate.
My roommate and I joke that we are WAY more tired than we should be at the end of a normal workday because just getting through eight hours and the trip to work and home requires so much more mental and physical energy in Cairo than it would take in our home countries. Cobblestones missing from sidewalks and curbs that actually seem to rise to meet the street, sometimes almost two feet high demand that we constantly watch our feet or risk a bad fall. Unfortunately, omnipresent young Egyptian men known for near-constant sexual harassment also require us to watch the street at least twenty feet ahead to avoid coming within arm’s reach of anyone who looks a little too smug or eager to see us. The safest bet is actually to walk in the street, though this means that every car will honk at you as it passes by, either to tell you it is there, in the case of private cars, or to ask if you want a ride, in the case of taxis, which account for about 80% of vehicles. So between all this honking, close driving and narrowly-missed vehicular collisions, watching the feet with one eye and assessing threats in the street ahead with the other, turns a normal day into a mental marathon.
Rather than coming home to the relaxing, spotless, cozy, air-conditioned palace that we deserve, we have had constant problems with the plumbing, electricity, and landline (which we need to get internet in the apartment). The plumbing is finally fixed except a few wayward drops in the bathroom and the fact that we have to crank the cold water handle in the kitchen about twenty turns before the water EXPLODES out of the faucet with frightening force that rebounds and splatters everywhere before finally running smoothly. We’ve decided to postpone the electrician until we both get paid at the end of the month, which means that for the next two weeks we have only a red plastic flower-shaped nightlight as the sole source of illumination in the kitchen and I need to stand on a chair to reach up and PRESS my tube-shaped fluorescent bulb into the wall socket above my door until it flickers on (about 20 seconds) each time I want to turn on the light. Now, I just don’t turn it on during the day. Still not sure what is wrong with the land line, but once we finally get it operable, to get internet, we need to rent a router from the GOVERNMENT, turn in copies of our passports to get SECURITY CLEARANCE and permission to have the internet, then wait SIX WEEKS for someone to bring the router and plug it into the phone cord.
These same sorts of labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures rule everything in Egypt, with similarly spectacular results. In addition to human rights education, my NGO does projects on democracy and freedom of expression. We are specifically preparing for next year’s parliamentary election and 2011’s presidential election. Yet only ONE woman in my office of nearly 30 employees is registered to vote. Not even the director is registered. Why? Because you can only register to vote for two weeks out of the year and it requires filling out paperwork and presenting your ID for inspection at the POLICE DEPARTMENT, where they tell you several times to come back in a few days until you either get so sick of coming back that you refuse and are denied your voter ID or until you run out of time in the two week registration period, or until you miraculously are added to the voting registry.
In other news, I was asked by JURIST, the Webby award winning legal news website to write a commentary on private military and security companies and human rights violations. I finally turned it in and their editor said it didn't look like it would require much tweaking before publication. I'll let everyone know if/when it eventually makes it onto the site.
Also, in my own gloating, competitive, American way, I am proud Obama won the Nobel. Now I can say to other foreigners, "Yes, but does YOUR president have a Nobel?!" But in my Hillary-supporting heart of hearts, I am dismayed and annoyed that this award comes when he has promised everything but done nothing. Not "done very little," but actually done nothing. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. We still have not extended the rule of law to contractors that commit crimes abroad. We still have hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status. Drug companies and insurance companies are still kicking citizens around. I still can't get health insurance or a job in my own country. If they are handing out Nobels for the simple act of NOT BEING GEORGE W. BUSH, then I will take mine gift-wrapped, please.
The internet connection I purchased at my dear Cilantro is, unsurprisingly, phasing in and out so I had better post before it, like everything else in Egypt, stops working for the day. Rest assured, however, that this is not a depressed or negative post. I am taking everything in stride and all the hassle, so far, at least, for the most part rebounds right off my ironclad sense of humor.
Another example: my entire office is moving to new digs downtown. A whole new address so all the shelves, doors, etc. CIHRS has added to its current office over the last few years needed to be disassembled, transported about 10 minutes away, and put up in the new office. Same with internet, phones, furniture, etc. An American office would simply move stuff a little at a time starting with the non-essentials like storage cabinets, the shelving and contents of the library, etc. Then either a moving crew would be hired over the weekend or staff would be enlisted to transport all the essentials and set up the office in time for the new workweek. Not in Egypt.
I am now in my second day of “working from home” because even though the move supposedly started after work on Thursday, there are currently no computers, phones, office furniture, or internet in the new office. They are not in the old office either, which begs the question of where exactly in the time-space continuum these items ended up. Unfortunately, my entire job depends on me being able to surf the internet for new grant opportunities and access web-based applications for the projects I’m already working on. And I don’t have internet at home, so this “working from home” thing has turned in to two days of me reading novels. Which is great for my mind but kind of tough on the neck and shoulders since I am famous in my family for my awkward reading posture.
Worried I might read myself into a migraine, I took a field trip from my apartment and bought some internet time at Cilantro, the Cairo equivalent of Starbucks. Actually, Starbucks, I suppose, is the Cairo equivalent of Starbucks, since they do exist here, but Cilantro is more common, even though their iced mochas are a little more watery and made w/ lower quality chocolate.
My roommate and I joke that we are WAY more tired than we should be at the end of a normal workday because just getting through eight hours and the trip to work and home requires so much more mental and physical energy in Cairo than it would take in our home countries. Cobblestones missing from sidewalks and curbs that actually seem to rise to meet the street, sometimes almost two feet high demand that we constantly watch our feet or risk a bad fall. Unfortunately, omnipresent young Egyptian men known for near-constant sexual harassment also require us to watch the street at least twenty feet ahead to avoid coming within arm’s reach of anyone who looks a little too smug or eager to see us. The safest bet is actually to walk in the street, though this means that every car will honk at you as it passes by, either to tell you it is there, in the case of private cars, or to ask if you want a ride, in the case of taxis, which account for about 80% of vehicles. So between all this honking, close driving and narrowly-missed vehicular collisions, watching the feet with one eye and assessing threats in the street ahead with the other, turns a normal day into a mental marathon.
Rather than coming home to the relaxing, spotless, cozy, air-conditioned palace that we deserve, we have had constant problems with the plumbing, electricity, and landline (which we need to get internet in the apartment). The plumbing is finally fixed except a few wayward drops in the bathroom and the fact that we have to crank the cold water handle in the kitchen about twenty turns before the water EXPLODES out of the faucet with frightening force that rebounds and splatters everywhere before finally running smoothly. We’ve decided to postpone the electrician until we both get paid at the end of the month, which means that for the next two weeks we have only a red plastic flower-shaped nightlight as the sole source of illumination in the kitchen and I need to stand on a chair to reach up and PRESS my tube-shaped fluorescent bulb into the wall socket above my door until it flickers on (about 20 seconds) each time I want to turn on the light. Now, I just don’t turn it on during the day. Still not sure what is wrong with the land line, but once we finally get it operable, to get internet, we need to rent a router from the GOVERNMENT, turn in copies of our passports to get SECURITY CLEARANCE and permission to have the internet, then wait SIX WEEKS for someone to bring the router and plug it into the phone cord.
These same sorts of labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures rule everything in Egypt, with similarly spectacular results. In addition to human rights education, my NGO does projects on democracy and freedom of expression. We are specifically preparing for next year’s parliamentary election and 2011’s presidential election. Yet only ONE woman in my office of nearly 30 employees is registered to vote. Not even the director is registered. Why? Because you can only register to vote for two weeks out of the year and it requires filling out paperwork and presenting your ID for inspection at the POLICE DEPARTMENT, where they tell you several times to come back in a few days until you either get so sick of coming back that you refuse and are denied your voter ID or until you run out of time in the two week registration period, or until you miraculously are added to the voting registry.
In other news, I was asked by JURIST, the Webby award winning legal news website to write a commentary on private military and security companies and human rights violations. I finally turned it in and their editor said it didn't look like it would require much tweaking before publication. I'll let everyone know if/when it eventually makes it onto the site.
Also, in my own gloating, competitive, American way, I am proud Obama won the Nobel. Now I can say to other foreigners, "Yes, but does YOUR president have a Nobel?!" But in my Hillary-supporting heart of hearts, I am dismayed and annoyed that this award comes when he has promised everything but done nothing. Not "done very little," but actually done nothing. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. We still have not extended the rule of law to contractors that commit crimes abroad. We still have hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status. Drug companies and insurance companies are still kicking citizens around. I still can't get health insurance or a job in my own country. If they are handing out Nobels for the simple act of NOT BEING GEORGE W. BUSH, then I will take mine gift-wrapped, please.
The internet connection I purchased at my dear Cilantro is, unsurprisingly, phasing in and out so I had better post before it, like everything else in Egypt, stops working for the day. Rest assured, however, that this is not a depressed or negative post. I am taking everything in stride and all the hassle, so far, at least, for the most part rebounds right off my ironclad sense of humor.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Immigration Schmimmigration!
Got back last night around one from another exhausting trip designed by my new friend Karim, an Egyptian-Canadian who, at 24, runs four international businesses ranging from tourism to internet marketing. His tour company offers partially-subsidized trips to foreigners in Egypt when they need to send their photographer to take updated photos of different tourist sites. This trip was to St. Catherine’s monastery and Mt. Sinai (where Moses received the Ten Commandments), and Dhahab, a tiny resort town on the Red Sea known for incredible snorkeling and SCUBA diving.
Moses was a STUD, let me just say. The hike up Mt. Sinai is 7 kilometers at sometimes more than a 45 degree angle straight up. Huge boulders and many smaller, sharp, uneven stones pockmark the path and since most visitors climb the trail before sunrise, in order to see the sun come up over the range of rocky cliffs surrounding the mountain, you climb the entire distance in the pitch black dark. We were fortunate to have almost a full moon but many of us still lost our footing and went down several times. I hiked about 2 kilometers before realizing there was no way I could keep up with the majority of our group, who were around 22 years old. I rode a camel the rest of the way up and it is a testament to the truly death-defying nature of the path and the true BADASSNESS of Moses that even the camel nearly fell twice when it lost its footing in the dark. Despite my issues with vertigo, made all the worse on camelback, and the embarrassment of taking the easy way up while the youngsters trekked on their own, I was granted some satisfaction when my gassy, gassy camel emitted literally GUSTS of buttcheek flapping farts into the faces of those exact youngsters with nearly every step.
After about two hours climbing on the “path,” already a horrorshow of false steps, sharp stones, cactuses, camel poop and donkey pee, we had come as far as the camels could go and the rest was up to us. The rest, it turns out, was a switchbacking trail of 750 “steps,” really enormous, uneven boulders arranged one above the other straight up the side of the mountain. By this time the light from the imminent sunrise made it possible to at least see when the boulder you were standing on jerked to one side and sent your foot whooshing into a crevice, turning your ankle. Which of course everyone had the privilege of seeing several times!
The sunset was incredibly beautiful, as was the view. The rocky cliffs jutting straight out of the desert below had a coyote-and-roadrunner scenery feel and the sun lit the stone first pink, then orange as it rose. We stayed only long enough to see the sun itself pop up over the horizon and once it became a full red-orange sphere, it was time to head back down. Though we could have gone back down the “long” way we had come up, and thus had a leisurely stroll complete with the smug triumph of passing all those stones that had tripped us up before, but this time in broad daylight with a nice view and a comfortable downward angle of travel, the majority of the group opted for the “short” way down. It took easily as long as the trip up, but was another series of “steps” – boulders again, set impermanently directly into the mountain side on what was often a FULL VERTICAL ANGLE STRAIGHT DOWN. Each step was over a foot high, sometimes two, making it necessary to cling to the rocks on either side (often pre-treated with cactus and donkey pee), and even sit down before swinging your legs down to the next step.
It was a holy terror on the knees and ankles. Several of the group fell hard and skidded some terrifying distance and nearly over the cliffside before wedging some body part in between the bigger boulders to stop the fall. After two hours, everyone’s legs were shaking so bad that more and more people fell, increasing the danger that one faller above would slip into the row of climbers on the stairs below and cause a crash of dominos down the mountainside. All of this in blazing desert heat.
Dhahab was a welcome change. Our hotel had a pool, which was freezing, and was only about 20 yards from the ocean itself, with near-perfect snorkeling as long as you could navigate your way 15 feet or so over the rocky beach. Five kilometers up the road was the famous “Blue Hole,” a wide hole in the reef over three hundred feet straight down. Skilled divers can go down this hole in the reef, navigate a series of tunnels through the reef, and surface in another location further on but many inexperienced and reckless divers drown every year when they lose their way, panic in the tunnels, or miscalculate their decompression or oxygen figures. I stuck with snorkeling, which was amazing and beautiful, and helped loosen up my sore legs from the climb the day before, but diving in Dhahab is going to be a NECESSITY once I have some savings. Screw the Blue Hole, though, I will stick to lovely shallow reef diving, where the sunlight is bright and perfect and the fish are plentiful and accustomed to tourists. What is the point of diving deeper than an underwater camera can go?!
The other adventure of the last few days was my trip to the Mogamma, the GIGANTIC grey building in the central square of Cairo that DWARFS the Egyptian Museum across the road to get my visa renewed. The tourist visa you can get at the airport lasts only a month and mine expired today. It is a process that gives a whole new dimension to the word “bureaucracy” and puts even the American postal system to shame with its unnecessary complexities and frustrating lack of sense and flexibility. Even so, the ease with which foreigners are allowed to get legal permission to stay in Egypt indefinitely and for absolutely no reason is awe-inspiring compared with how difficult it is for foreigners to enter the U.S. for even a short time for very good reasons.
First, one goes to window 12 to get the visa extension application. You then leave, fill out the application on any nearby flat surface (where you must jostle the sweaty people around you for a few square inches to write on), then return to window 12. You give the woman there your passport, a photo and photocopies of your passport and visa page. She then tells you to go to window 43 and ask for 11 pounds and 10 piasters of stamps. You go to window 43 and, after shoving and being shoved for several minutes, you reach the window and announce “11 pounds, ten piasters!” The woman at window 43, way more adorable and polite than the woman in window 12, gives you four stamps and announces, “four stamps!” You return to window 12 with your hard-earned stamps and she tells you to come back in two hours.
When you come back, you pick your passport up at window 38, buy more stamps at window 43 (yep, the nice little old lady was still there!), go to window 2 (what a hobag!) and get a different application, this one for multiple entries. After you ram your way to the flat surface again and fill in your info, you return the application and your stamps and passport to window 2 and leave again. You then need to wait AN ENTIRE DAY before you can pick up your passport but when you do, you have legal permission to stay in Egypt for six months, for purposes of “tourism” and come and go multiple times during that period.
If only the results of our immigration process were so certain, I’m sure immigrants to the U.S. would put up with equally labyrinthine requirements!
I have slept less than 12 of the last 72 hours and now really need to rally to have a productive afternoon at work. Second wind, where are you?!
Moses was a STUD, let me just say. The hike up Mt. Sinai is 7 kilometers at sometimes more than a 45 degree angle straight up. Huge boulders and many smaller, sharp, uneven stones pockmark the path and since most visitors climb the trail before sunrise, in order to see the sun come up over the range of rocky cliffs surrounding the mountain, you climb the entire distance in the pitch black dark. We were fortunate to have almost a full moon but many of us still lost our footing and went down several times. I hiked about 2 kilometers before realizing there was no way I could keep up with the majority of our group, who were around 22 years old. I rode a camel the rest of the way up and it is a testament to the truly death-defying nature of the path and the true BADASSNESS of Moses that even the camel nearly fell twice when it lost its footing in the dark. Despite my issues with vertigo, made all the worse on camelback, and the embarrassment of taking the easy way up while the youngsters trekked on their own, I was granted some satisfaction when my gassy, gassy camel emitted literally GUSTS of buttcheek flapping farts into the faces of those exact youngsters with nearly every step.
After about two hours climbing on the “path,” already a horrorshow of false steps, sharp stones, cactuses, camel poop and donkey pee, we had come as far as the camels could go and the rest was up to us. The rest, it turns out, was a switchbacking trail of 750 “steps,” really enormous, uneven boulders arranged one above the other straight up the side of the mountain. By this time the light from the imminent sunrise made it possible to at least see when the boulder you were standing on jerked to one side and sent your foot whooshing into a crevice, turning your ankle. Which of course everyone had the privilege of seeing several times!
The sunset was incredibly beautiful, as was the view. The rocky cliffs jutting straight out of the desert below had a coyote-and-roadrunner scenery feel and the sun lit the stone first pink, then orange as it rose. We stayed only long enough to see the sun itself pop up over the horizon and once it became a full red-orange sphere, it was time to head back down. Though we could have gone back down the “long” way we had come up, and thus had a leisurely stroll complete with the smug triumph of passing all those stones that had tripped us up before, but this time in broad daylight with a nice view and a comfortable downward angle of travel, the majority of the group opted for the “short” way down. It took easily as long as the trip up, but was another series of “steps” – boulders again, set impermanently directly into the mountain side on what was often a FULL VERTICAL ANGLE STRAIGHT DOWN. Each step was over a foot high, sometimes two, making it necessary to cling to the rocks on either side (often pre-treated with cactus and donkey pee), and even sit down before swinging your legs down to the next step.
It was a holy terror on the knees and ankles. Several of the group fell hard and skidded some terrifying distance and nearly over the cliffside before wedging some body part in between the bigger boulders to stop the fall. After two hours, everyone’s legs were shaking so bad that more and more people fell, increasing the danger that one faller above would slip into the row of climbers on the stairs below and cause a crash of dominos down the mountainside. All of this in blazing desert heat.
Dhahab was a welcome change. Our hotel had a pool, which was freezing, and was only about 20 yards from the ocean itself, with near-perfect snorkeling as long as you could navigate your way 15 feet or so over the rocky beach. Five kilometers up the road was the famous “Blue Hole,” a wide hole in the reef over three hundred feet straight down. Skilled divers can go down this hole in the reef, navigate a series of tunnels through the reef, and surface in another location further on but many inexperienced and reckless divers drown every year when they lose their way, panic in the tunnels, or miscalculate their decompression or oxygen figures. I stuck with snorkeling, which was amazing and beautiful, and helped loosen up my sore legs from the climb the day before, but diving in Dhahab is going to be a NECESSITY once I have some savings. Screw the Blue Hole, though, I will stick to lovely shallow reef diving, where the sunlight is bright and perfect and the fish are plentiful and accustomed to tourists. What is the point of diving deeper than an underwater camera can go?!
The other adventure of the last few days was my trip to the Mogamma, the GIGANTIC grey building in the central square of Cairo that DWARFS the Egyptian Museum across the road to get my visa renewed. The tourist visa you can get at the airport lasts only a month and mine expired today. It is a process that gives a whole new dimension to the word “bureaucracy” and puts even the American postal system to shame with its unnecessary complexities and frustrating lack of sense and flexibility. Even so, the ease with which foreigners are allowed to get legal permission to stay in Egypt indefinitely and for absolutely no reason is awe-inspiring compared with how difficult it is for foreigners to enter the U.S. for even a short time for very good reasons.
First, one goes to window 12 to get the visa extension application. You then leave, fill out the application on any nearby flat surface (where you must jostle the sweaty people around you for a few square inches to write on), then return to window 12. You give the woman there your passport, a photo and photocopies of your passport and visa page. She then tells you to go to window 43 and ask for 11 pounds and 10 piasters of stamps. You go to window 43 and, after shoving and being shoved for several minutes, you reach the window and announce “11 pounds, ten piasters!” The woman at window 43, way more adorable and polite than the woman in window 12, gives you four stamps and announces, “four stamps!” You return to window 12 with your hard-earned stamps and she tells you to come back in two hours.
When you come back, you pick your passport up at window 38, buy more stamps at window 43 (yep, the nice little old lady was still there!), go to window 2 (what a hobag!) and get a different application, this one for multiple entries. After you ram your way to the flat surface again and fill in your info, you return the application and your stamps and passport to window 2 and leave again. You then need to wait AN ENTIRE DAY before you can pick up your passport but when you do, you have legal permission to stay in Egypt for six months, for purposes of “tourism” and come and go multiple times during that period.
If only the results of our immigration process were so certain, I’m sure immigrants to the U.S. would put up with equally labyrinthine requirements!
I have slept less than 12 of the last 72 hours and now really need to rally to have a productive afternoon at work. Second wind, where are you?!
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