Today is exactly three weeks until I come home to the USA. Mixed feelings for sure, but more on that later... This will just be a quick life update, because I'm procrastinating, but only a little bit!
I was supposed to go to occupied Palestine (aka Israel) for Thanksgiving, but ended up deciding only half an hour before I was due to leave that I couldnt, because I have way too much to do. I just would not have enjoyed myself at all, and I've never really wanted to go to a place as badly as I want to go to Palestine. Most places I go, I'm excited about it just because its more travelling & whats not to like about travelling?! But, I really specifically want to go to Palestine, and see the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre & Bethlehem and the Wailing Wall and just... everything. Which is ultimately why I decided I can't go this semester, b/c I wouldnt have the time to do it all, and if I was stressed out like I was about the number of papers I have due this week I would not enjoy it at all. My next trip to the Middle East insha'allah!
Instead I just stayed in Cairo & locked myself in my room to study/write. It was pretty productive. I managed to find Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with Max Soren & Soren's girlfriend, which was a lot of fun. Pumpkin pie made me so happy! Friday night I let myself out to bake cookies & drink wine with Max & Soren at our friend Drew's apartment, & Saturday night was coffee with Chris & the movie Me You & Everyone We Know with a bunch of people. If you have seen it, then )) <--> (( .... and if you havent, you should!! I'm trying to find a good balance between hanging out with all my friends as much as possible before we're all over the place forever, and doing the necessary typical student finals work. Its a little rough!
Last night we all went for dinner at an amazing Lebanese restaurant for Meghan's birthday, which was a lot of fun. the night before I went to see Egypt play Saudi Arabia in the final match of the Pan-Arab Games. It was so cool. The game itself was pretty boring (Egypt controlled possession & won 2-1, Saudi played a man down almsot the whole game) but the atmosphere was fun. We bought ski masks made out of Egyptian flags as souvenirs. Theyre amazing.
Thats pretty much it for me recently - now its just a few more classes some papers & some finals between me & coming home. Yikes!
Tuesday, November 27
Saturday, November 17
Parental Visitation!
I've been terrible about updating this, sorry - life is just crazy & theres been no time to write about it! Mom & Dad came to visit and it was just so so much fun to see them!! Being in charge of showing them around Cairo made me feel much more competent in this city than normal, and it was really nice to have most of my observations about Cairo completely validated. Like no matter how much I tell people about the craziness of the traffic or the hell that is AUC, you don't really understand how truthful I'm being unless you've been here & seen it yourself. (which is my subtle way of saying EVERYONE should come to Cairo!!) It was also fun to see my parents as more of a married couple than as parents. I guess Simon and I are pretty much all grown up now, and its pretty awesome that the first coupley-independent thing they decided to do was come to the middle east! I was so proud. :-) And I loved seeing how helpful all the knowledge I've gained from living here was. Cairo is really intimidating, and so being able to tell Mom & Dad exactly what to say to taxi drivers and how much to pay them and what to do if they yell at you and have it make their trip easier was great - all of my mistakes & stupid learning experiences have not been for nothing!
In addition to hanging out & doing touristy things in Cairo, we went to Sharm al Sheikh for a weekend, which was just incredible. Sharm is a resort town on the Red Sea about an hours flight from Cairo. You might have heard of it b/c there was a pretty big peace conference held there a few years ago, & there was also a bombing in 2004(?). Its absolutely beautiful and I got to go snorkeling and get rid of the shameful farmer's tan that has developed from the lack of tank tops and just be generally spoiled rotten. It was amazing!
Despite all the amazingness though, it was so strange. Sharm was much, much more like Europe than Egypt, and it was just very confusing for me. The number of European tourists was completely mind-boggling, and I could tell I'd been in Egypt too long when I was genuinely scandalized by what some of them were wearing! In my head, anyway, there was this distinction between what one wears at the waterfront/poolside of the resort, and then what one wears to go shopping/eating in the market outside the resort. The distinction in my head of course was that while in the resort you are in quasi-Europe, so bikinis/shorts/etc are okay, but once you leave the resort you should remember that you're in Egypt & dress accordingly... but clearly no one does. It hurt my head to have all the weird contradictions of men in galabiyas (the stereotypical dress of Arab men) speaking Arabic with gaggles of usually overweight German/Italian speaking crazies in tank tops, shorts, or bikini tops that really show so much more than any sane person would ever want to look at. My favorite moment was being by our pool and seeing a young Egyptian woman jump in fully clothed, hijab and all, while her husband videotaped her awkwardly swimming around, and then 2 feet later, lying on her back in the sun, seeing a wrinkly old European woman tanning topless. I literally did a double-take (wait, are those - oh my god. nipples. AH!). It was so weird...
At any rate, parents visiting = amazing. There will be pictures eventually, I'm just slow at this stuff. On another note, the other exciting thing thats happened recently is I have no housing in DC for the spring! So if anyone reading this knows of a 2bedroom place near campus for a reasonable price, PLEASE let me know right now! Its driving me crazy b/c I cant picture going back to DC until I have a house to live in ... eek. Insha allah it will work itself out, sooner rather than later!
In addition to hanging out & doing touristy things in Cairo, we went to Sharm al Sheikh for a weekend, which was just incredible. Sharm is a resort town on the Red Sea about an hours flight from Cairo. You might have heard of it b/c there was a pretty big peace conference held there a few years ago, & there was also a bombing in 2004(?). Its absolutely beautiful and I got to go snorkeling and get rid of the shameful farmer's tan that has developed from the lack of tank tops and just be generally spoiled rotten. It was amazing!
Despite all the amazingness though, it was so strange. Sharm was much, much more like Europe than Egypt, and it was just very confusing for me. The number of European tourists was completely mind-boggling, and I could tell I'd been in Egypt too long when I was genuinely scandalized by what some of them were wearing! In my head, anyway, there was this distinction between what one wears at the waterfront/poolside of the resort, and then what one wears to go shopping/eating in the market outside the resort. The distinction in my head of course was that while in the resort you are in quasi-Europe, so bikinis/shorts/etc are okay, but once you leave the resort you should remember that you're in Egypt & dress accordingly... but clearly no one does. It hurt my head to have all the weird contradictions of men in galabiyas (the stereotypical dress of Arab men) speaking Arabic with gaggles of usually overweight German/Italian speaking crazies in tank tops, shorts, or bikini tops that really show so much more than any sane person would ever want to look at. My favorite moment was being by our pool and seeing a young Egyptian woman jump in fully clothed, hijab and all, while her husband videotaped her awkwardly swimming around, and then 2 feet later, lying on her back in the sun, seeing a wrinkly old European woman tanning topless. I literally did a double-take (wait, are those - oh my god. nipples. AH!). It was so weird...
At any rate, parents visiting = amazing. There will be pictures eventually, I'm just slow at this stuff. On another note, the other exciting thing thats happened recently is I have no housing in DC for the spring! So if anyone reading this knows of a 2bedroom place near campus for a reasonable price, PLEASE let me know right now! Its driving me crazy b/c I cant picture going back to DC until I have a house to live in ... eek. Insha allah it will work itself out, sooner rather than later!
Thursday, October 18
Al Ordon, Habibi! or, Jordan my love!
This last weekend was Eid al Fitr, or the feast holiday marking the end of Ramadan. I ended up going to Jordan with 2 guy friends, Max & Soren. It was so so much fun that I really don't know where to start. The short story is we went to Nuweiba, got a ferry to Aqaba Jordan, then campe din the desert of Wadi Rum for a night, saw Petra in 3.5 hours, and then spent about 20 hours journeying back to Cairo. Parts of the adventure included some awesome bug bites from an overpriced shitty hotel/hostel, nearly missing the ferry due to a lack of immigration stamp & literally sprinting all over the port to get it before the ferry left, meeting an Aussie, a Brit, & 2 Canadians & spending 2 days in the desert with 6 men, and using more Arabic (successfully!) than I ever have in Egypt. It was incredible, but unfortunately there are also midterms and creepily fast approaching finals that need writing/studying, so I can't elaborate anymore at the moment. I've been tyring to get all my pictures up on Google's picture web site, which is http://picasaweb.google.com/AshleyVEvans , so you can look at pictures more easily now if you don't have facebook. The picture at the top of this post is of the enormous Jordanian flag in Aqaba. Aqaba is on the Israeli-Jordanian border, and so we are pretty confident the flag is just a giant fuck you to the Israeli government. Its very interesting how you really cant remove politics from anything over here. Also, I drove my road signs that said "Saudi border, 19km." AWESOME!
Studying here I come!
Sunday, September 30
Top 4 Worst Things about AUC
I recently returned to the dorm from campus and was unfortunately reminded of all of the reasons I harbor a distinct dislike that borders on hatred for the school I take classes at here in Cairo. Don't get me wrong, it has its redeeming qualities, but I know something is wrong when I find myself almost instantly grumpy & sometimes even angry whenever I walk onto campus. I am generally very cheery. Anyway, the following are my top 4 least favorite/worst things about AUC.
4. Disrespect for professors:
This is fun. Students show up late (when they show up), argue, aren't prepared, don't pay attention, and just generally dont give a shit about the professors opinion. At AU (I assume this is true of most universities in the States) almost everyone is on time to class all the time, you speak to the professor in a very respectful manner, you don't have side conversations in class, and you participate in discussions etc when appropriate. All of this has been super basic classroom etiquette in all my college classes, even when you really dislike the professor and think you know more about the subject than she/he does. It essentially never happens that a student at home would respond to a professor's description of the homework by saying "No, we're not doing that. That's too much, we are doing something else." And yet it happens here. It reminds me of how we used to test new teachers in high school by seeing how 'flexible' (ie how much of a pushover) they are. Its childish and has no place in college. This attitude probably stems from the next point ...
3.Lack of motivation: Pretty much no one wants to be in class. You can tell the vast majority of students are here just to go through the motions and end up with a piece of paper that puts them in a higher social class than those who can't afford university. Its disgusting, there are students (even in the US) who would work themselves into the ground trying to afford this kind of education, and most of the students here would much rather sit in the sun and give themselves lung cancer than go to class and have something intelligent to say. This is most likely a result of point #2, and also brings down the level of education for those of us who do really want to be here & learn. I can't explain the frustration.
2. Snobbery: This is a good one, which they actually tried to warn us about before we got here. Nearly everyone has designer bags, jeans, sunglasses, shirts, headscarves (yes I have seen Chanel & Armani headscarves!) shoes etc etc. I am a big fan of jeans, tshirts, & flip flops, but when I wear my usual attire I tend to feel like a huge slob. Its the kind of thing where the girls sometimes size you up as you walk past and immediately dismiss you because your jeans are from the Gap and not Diesel. Or whichever ridiculously expensive place girls buy jeans from. This snobbish way of thinking about clothes really just informs the wider issue of how painfully spoiled rich these kids are, & explains my all time favorite AUC behavior....
1. Invisibility: Erin tells me that study abroad/international students make up about 10% of the AUC student body at any given time. Also, since most students are rich & all are at least bilingual, they tend to be well traveled. They are no strangers to white people who can't speak Arabic well. You would think this would have evolved into a general lack of judgment about where people are from or whether or not they 'look' Arab or what language(s) they speak. No no, instead, they like to pretend we aren't there. Greek campus is where everyone hangs out in between classes (think the centrality of main quad, but the crowding &social aspect of the LA quad on warm weekend evenings plus1000 more people). There are people abso-fricken-lutely everywhere, on every bench step chair table tree wall hallway you can see, and they dont fucking move. ever. I will have 5minutes to get to class, and there will be people blocking the stairs I need to take. I used to try to catch their eyes and politely motion for them to move. They would literally look through me and pay no attention. You can tell they know you're there and understand that you need to get through, but they just don't care and will not move under nearly any circumstances. Its like high school at lunch time, but worse, and all day long. Now I know the only way to make any progress is just to push, but gently, otherwise you risk pushing a cigarette into someones eyeball. Maybe I will learn how to light/hold cigarettes just to wave about as flaming weapons when walking across campus. So out of control.
DISCLAIMER: I suppose these are supposed to come at the beginning, but I just reread this and while its all true, there are obviously exceptions to all of these behaviors/attitudes and I'm sure theres a great population of kids somewhere in AUC who don't conform to any of the above. Those are the kids I actually interact with sometimes, because they will bother to talk to me after class or whenever. They just aren't nearly as ubiquitous as the kids I described.
4. Disrespect for professors:
This is fun. Students show up late (when they show up), argue, aren't prepared, don't pay attention, and just generally dont give a shit about the professors opinion. At AU (I assume this is true of most universities in the States) almost everyone is on time to class all the time, you speak to the professor in a very respectful manner, you don't have side conversations in class, and you participate in discussions etc when appropriate. All of this has been super basic classroom etiquette in all my college classes, even when you really dislike the professor and think you know more about the subject than she/he does. It essentially never happens that a student at home would respond to a professor's description of the homework by saying "No, we're not doing that. That's too much, we are doing something else." And yet it happens here. It reminds me of how we used to test new teachers in high school by seeing how 'flexible' (ie how much of a pushover) they are. Its childish and has no place in college. This attitude probably stems from the next point ...
3.Lack of motivation: Pretty much no one wants to be in class. You can tell the vast majority of students are here just to go through the motions and end up with a piece of paper that puts them in a higher social class than those who can't afford university. Its disgusting, there are students (even in the US) who would work themselves into the ground trying to afford this kind of education, and most of the students here would much rather sit in the sun and give themselves lung cancer than go to class and have something intelligent to say. This is most likely a result of point #2, and also brings down the level of education for those of us who do really want to be here & learn. I can't explain the frustration.
2. Snobbery: This is a good one, which they actually tried to warn us about before we got here. Nearly everyone has designer bags, jeans, sunglasses, shirts, headscarves (yes I have seen Chanel & Armani headscarves!) shoes etc etc. I am a big fan of jeans, tshirts, & flip flops, but when I wear my usual attire I tend to feel like a huge slob. Its the kind of thing where the girls sometimes size you up as you walk past and immediately dismiss you because your jeans are from the Gap and not Diesel. Or whichever ridiculously expensive place girls buy jeans from. This snobbish way of thinking about clothes really just informs the wider issue of how painfully spoiled rich these kids are, & explains my all time favorite AUC behavior....
1. Invisibility: Erin tells me that study abroad/international students make up about 10% of the AUC student body at any given time. Also, since most students are rich & all are at least bilingual, they tend to be well traveled. They are no strangers to white people who can't speak Arabic well. You would think this would have evolved into a general lack of judgment about where people are from or whether or not they 'look' Arab or what language(s) they speak. No no, instead, they like to pretend we aren't there. Greek campus is where everyone hangs out in between classes (think the centrality of main quad, but the crowding &social aspect of the LA quad on warm weekend evenings plus1000 more people). There are people abso-fricken-lutely everywhere, on every bench step chair table tree wall hallway you can see, and they dont fucking move. ever. I will have 5minutes to get to class, and there will be people blocking the stairs I need to take. I used to try to catch their eyes and politely motion for them to move. They would literally look through me and pay no attention. You can tell they know you're there and understand that you need to get through, but they just don't care and will not move under nearly any circumstances. Its like high school at lunch time, but worse, and all day long. Now I know the only way to make any progress is just to push, but gently, otherwise you risk pushing a cigarette into someones eyeball. Maybe I will learn how to light/hold cigarettes just to wave about as flaming weapons when walking across campus. So out of control.
DISCLAIMER: I suppose these are supposed to come at the beginning, but I just reread this and while its all true, there are obviously exceptions to all of these behaviors/attitudes and I'm sure theres a great population of kids somewhere in AUC who don't conform to any of the above. Those are the kids I actually interact with sometimes, because they will bother to talk to me after class or whenever. They just aren't nearly as ubiquitous as the kids I described.
Monday, September 24
Returning to my roots
Tonight was my first soccer game in probably 6 years .... we tied 1-1 and it was awesome, & I took the corner kick that set up the goal! I also nearly died from an inability to breathe, but ma'alish! its 5-a-side indoor-ish (the 'field' is concretetype stuff, but outside) ramadan tournament, 10minute halves, & competitive but also pretty low-key. I got essentially badgered into joining the team by the captain Samira, who didnt answer any of my questions about how intense it was or anything & just told me to sign up, so I followed instructions. I'm so glad I did - its typical Egpytian crazy disorganized, but the girls are mostly really nice & fun, & it will definitely get me in shape. I have been chasing around rumors of a hip hop dance club, but I can never actually connect with someone who is involved, so I've kinda given up & soccer will be the replacement activity. I'm still really proud we tied - the other team has been playing together for a while, & us 5 had never even practiced together. Yay!
That's all. I just wanted to boast. :-)
That's all. I just wanted to boast. :-)
Thursday, September 20
Ole Ole Ole Ole!!
Monday night we went to see Ahly play Zamalek, the 2 biggest soccer teams in Egypt & arguably much of the Middle East/Africa. Obviously, they are huge huge rivals. Erin & I had planned to go with a bunch of friends, but we were not given enough advanced warning as to when we were leaving, so I wasn't at all ready. Erin & I decided we would take a cab by ourselves & meet them there - giving them pretty clear instructions to pay attention to their phones so we could meet up.
We found a cab easily and headed off to the stadium. Our cab driver happened to be a Zamalek fan, but we had been told that 'nobody' supports Zamalek! I feel badly about this, since I actually live on Zamalek. Although in a strange twist of events, the Ahly team apparently usually plays & practices on Zamalek, where as the Zamalek team actually plays elsewhere? Very strange.
On the way to the game we could tell this was going to be a bigger deal than we had initially thought, b/c most cars had red Ahly flags flying out the windows and were honking what we soon became familiar with as the Ahly anthem sort of thing. We even saw a car full of Ahly supporters speed by with two guys sitting in the trunk!! of a normal sized, (small by US standards) 4 seater car!! on the freeway!! it was madness. I genuinely thought they might die.
We made it to the stadium and headed in the general direction of the flow of Ahly fans - Egyptian men of all ages dresses in red. As we were 2 unescorted white women, we caused quite a stir and got attentions of all kinds. My personal favorite was the guy who followed us almost all the way from the cab to the entrance ( a good 15-20min walk) shouting a pretty ridiculous progression of things. He began with the usual "WElcome to EGypt! You speak English?" etc, progressed to "You so beautiful! I love you!" and then, the icing on the cake " Fuck you! I want to fuck you!" as if, since we hadnt responded to his more polite requests for attention, this last vulgar comment would be enough to make us swoon & fall for such a charming gentleman on the spot. Completely ridiculous. I am slowly cooking up some good Arabic phrases to toss out - Would you say that if your mother were here? for example. By the time I leave Egypt I will be such a pro at deflecting unwanted attention I might not know what to do in the US when I finally get attention I do want!
We ended up being protected by a group of three 8-10year old boys. I think they befriended us because when they had started chanting 'Ole ole ole ole' etc, Erin & I had joined in. We had just been having a conversation wondering if this was in fact a universal soccer anthem, & it turns out it is. Anyway, in retunr for our quiet 'oles' we got a small ring of little boys protecting us from older gross men! It was pretty awesome. At this point we had been herded onto the sidewalk by the quite literally hundreds of riot police to await security screening to enter the stadium. We were trying to keep our distance from the crowd in front of us, & the boys stood a few feet behind us to keep the men from crowding in. And every time one of them said something to us, the boys would yell at them in Arabic. Totally adorable. I really really need to improve my colloquial, because i wanted nothing more than to tell them that their mothers would have been so proud of them for being such gentlemen. The verb 'to be proud' however, is currently out of my reach.
After standing in this line for a bit, we noticed that the Egyptian women, almost all of whom were wearing the veil, were bypassing the line with their husbands/fiances/brothers/other male escort. When we tried to get past the riot police we were told to stay where we were, but then our young allies talked to them & we were told to go on past.
This put us at the front of the line, but still in line surrounded by mostly men nonetheless. At this point an Egyptian woman wearing hijab caught my eye & saw how lost Erin & I were, and she grabbed our hands & pulled us through behind her fiance/boyfriend/maybe her brother through 'security' (all the guards were male so we were just waved through) to the stadium entrance. They spoke some English & with bits of that & our Arabic we were able to explain that we weren't really here by ourselves, we just couldnt find our friends, & thank them for saving us. When we still didnt hear anything from our friends, they invited us to come sit with them, because their friends were 'in the club' .... this meant that they sat at the end of the stadium behind the goal, all of them wore red (Ahly's colors), and they quite literally never sat down the entire game, & chanted & yelled through most of it. Pretty awesome, but also mildly overwhelming!!
Walking into the stadium we saw something that really reminded us that we are in a Muslim country: the entrance to the stadium had several straight lines of men praying. they had all walked in, taken off their shoes, laid down their red Ahly flags as prayer carpets, & started praying. it just so happened that the entrance we were using pretty much perfectly faces Mecca. It was awesome.
Eventually we met up with a bunch of other AUC international students from our Arabic class & hung out with them for the night. The game was crazy, Ahly won 1-0, but it was a fairly hotly contested game & quite frankly Zamalek is a much better team in terms of passing & playing together, but Ahly capitalized on one of the chances they had. Also, poor Zamalek had to deal with the Ahly goalie, who was truly stellar. If not for his many great saves (including blocking a penalty!) Zamalek would have won hands down.
We were quite the spectacle for the people around us as we tried to learn some of the cheers & join in - thankfully Ole ole ole ole etc is a universal soccer cheer, so we got really into that one! Surrounding guys also felt the need to take dozens of pictures with all the white girls with their cell phones, which got more than a little irritating - i just wanted to watch the game, & they really wouldnt take no for an answer. A woman behind us shared some sunflower seeds with us, and we were all secretly plotting to kidnap her toddler, who was possibly the most adorable little boy ever.
When the game ended we left pretty quickly & found a cab a lot quicker than expected. The drive turned out to be an Ahly fan, so when we told him they won he was quite happy & honked the horn the entire 15ish minute ride to Zamalek. he also encouraged us to wave our Ahly flags out the window, so we happily complied. Most people we drove past started honking in sync with us, or at least cheered too. We only got flipped off once or twice, which seemed pretty good all things considered!
This was definitely my favorite night in Cairo so far. It just embodied so many of the aspects of living here, both good and bad, into one night ... the irritating harassment, the kindness of the people, the huge police presence, egyptian's desire to be our friends, the praying .... pretty much everything. It was fantastic. Everyone should go to a soccer game, right now. go! have fun! :-)
We found a cab easily and headed off to the stadium. Our cab driver happened to be a Zamalek fan, but we had been told that 'nobody' supports Zamalek! I feel badly about this, since I actually live on Zamalek. Although in a strange twist of events, the Ahly team apparently usually plays & practices on Zamalek, where as the Zamalek team actually plays elsewhere? Very strange.
On the way to the game we could tell this was going to be a bigger deal than we had initially thought, b/c most cars had red Ahly flags flying out the windows and were honking what we soon became familiar with as the Ahly anthem sort of thing. We even saw a car full of Ahly supporters speed by with two guys sitting in the trunk!! of a normal sized, (small by US standards) 4 seater car!! on the freeway!! it was madness. I genuinely thought they might die.
We made it to the stadium and headed in the general direction of the flow of Ahly fans - Egyptian men of all ages dresses in red. As we were 2 unescorted white women, we caused quite a stir and got attentions of all kinds. My personal favorite was the guy who followed us almost all the way from the cab to the entrance ( a good 15-20min walk) shouting a pretty ridiculous progression of things. He began with the usual "WElcome to EGypt! You speak English?" etc, progressed to "You so beautiful! I love you!" and then, the icing on the cake " Fuck you! I want to fuck you!" as if, since we hadnt responded to his more polite requests for attention, this last vulgar comment would be enough to make us swoon & fall for such a charming gentleman on the spot. Completely ridiculous. I am slowly cooking up some good Arabic phrases to toss out - Would you say that if your mother were here? for example. By the time I leave Egypt I will be such a pro at deflecting unwanted attention I might not know what to do in the US when I finally get attention I do want!
We ended up being protected by a group of three 8-10year old boys. I think they befriended us because when they had started chanting 'Ole ole ole ole' etc, Erin & I had joined in. We had just been having a conversation wondering if this was in fact a universal soccer anthem, & it turns out it is. Anyway, in retunr for our quiet 'oles' we got a small ring of little boys protecting us from older gross men! It was pretty awesome. At this point we had been herded onto the sidewalk by the quite literally hundreds of riot police to await security screening to enter the stadium. We were trying to keep our distance from the crowd in front of us, & the boys stood a few feet behind us to keep the men from crowding in. And every time one of them said something to us, the boys would yell at them in Arabic. Totally adorable. I really really need to improve my colloquial, because i wanted nothing more than to tell them that their mothers would have been so proud of them for being such gentlemen. The verb 'to be proud' however, is currently out of my reach.
After standing in this line for a bit, we noticed that the Egyptian women, almost all of whom were wearing the veil, were bypassing the line with their husbands/fiances/brothers/other male escort. When we tried to get past the riot police we were told to stay where we were, but then our young allies talked to them & we were told to go on past.
This put us at the front of the line, but still in line surrounded by mostly men nonetheless. At this point an Egyptian woman wearing hijab caught my eye & saw how lost Erin & I were, and she grabbed our hands & pulled us through behind her fiance/boyfriend/maybe her brother through 'security' (all the guards were male so we were just waved through) to the stadium entrance. They spoke some English & with bits of that & our Arabic we were able to explain that we weren't really here by ourselves, we just couldnt find our friends, & thank them for saving us. When we still didnt hear anything from our friends, they invited us to come sit with them, because their friends were 'in the club' .... this meant that they sat at the end of the stadium behind the goal, all of them wore red (Ahly's colors), and they quite literally never sat down the entire game, & chanted & yelled through most of it. Pretty awesome, but also mildly overwhelming!!
Walking into the stadium we saw something that really reminded us that we are in a Muslim country: the entrance to the stadium had several straight lines of men praying. they had all walked in, taken off their shoes, laid down their red Ahly flags as prayer carpets, & started praying. it just so happened that the entrance we were using pretty much perfectly faces Mecca. It was awesome.
Eventually we met up with a bunch of other AUC international students from our Arabic class & hung out with them for the night. The game was crazy, Ahly won 1-0, but it was a fairly hotly contested game & quite frankly Zamalek is a much better team in terms of passing & playing together, but Ahly capitalized on one of the chances they had. Also, poor Zamalek had to deal with the Ahly goalie, who was truly stellar. If not for his many great saves (including blocking a penalty!) Zamalek would have won hands down.
We were quite the spectacle for the people around us as we tried to learn some of the cheers & join in - thankfully Ole ole ole ole etc is a universal soccer cheer, so we got really into that one! Surrounding guys also felt the need to take dozens of pictures with all the white girls with their cell phones, which got more than a little irritating - i just wanted to watch the game, & they really wouldnt take no for an answer. A woman behind us shared some sunflower seeds with us, and we were all secretly plotting to kidnap her toddler, who was possibly the most adorable little boy ever.
When the game ended we left pretty quickly & found a cab a lot quicker than expected. The drive turned out to be an Ahly fan, so when we told him they won he was quite happy & honked the horn the entire 15ish minute ride to Zamalek. he also encouraged us to wave our Ahly flags out the window, so we happily complied. Most people we drove past started honking in sync with us, or at least cheered too. We only got flipped off once or twice, which seemed pretty good all things considered!
This was definitely my favorite night in Cairo so far. It just embodied so many of the aspects of living here, both good and bad, into one night ... the irritating harassment, the kindness of the people, the huge police presence, egyptian's desire to be our friends, the praying .... pretty much everything. It was fantastic. Everyone should go to a soccer game, right now. go! have fun! :-)
Mt Sinai
This last weekend I adventured to Mt Sinai and St Katherine’s Monastery with Adam, Adam, Erin, Meghan, Carrie, Tim, & Chris (mostly AUdc kids). It was an amazing trip, but I have a lot I want to write about – so get comfortable! Sorry its taken me so long to write anything interesting, but school is getting a little busy - I can't believe they actually want study abroad students to study!!
We got bus tickets through the AUC travel office for 45LE each – about $8 – and planned on getting a room in the monastery to sleep for a few hours before climbing the mountain in time to watch the sunrise on Saturday morning. However, after various cell phone connection problems & lack of minutes etc, when we finally got through there were no rooms left. The obvious decision for cash-strapped young travelers? Sleep on the mountain!!
We packed backpacks of all the warm clothes we brought to the desert, charged our digital cameras, & carried our blankets onto the metro as we had heard this was the easiest way to get to the bus station. Unfortunately we ended up wandering around frustratingly close to the bus station before we were led by various kind Egyptian men to the right place. The bus ride was wholly uneventful, lots and lots of sleeping and wishing we could stop to pee and mild excitement over passport checks. Most of us had turned our passports in to the AUC visa office so we can get our residence visas ASAP. Instead, we all had copies of our passports & our AUC IDs. Some people hadn’t copied their tourist visa, & the passport-checkers were less than pleased. Regardless, we managed to arrive safely about 7 hours later.
The bus actually drops you off in a small town about 3km from the monastery. As soon as we got off a random guy started asking us if we needed to go back to Cairo the next day, & even though we have learned to be super skeptical of anyone talking to us (so often it means they want to sell us something we don’t want) we told him we did need a way back, & he promised to drive us the next day for 50LE each. This seemed totally reasonable price, especially since friends who went the weekend before paid 120 each to come back. We all felt quite pleased with ourselves & tried to walk to the monastery. There was some heated debate about which direction the monastery was, & after about 30mins of general confusion we set off in the right direction. We ended up being picked up by our driver for the next day & taken the last 10mins of the walk. Hes a nice guy.
After dinner at the monastery (pasta with tomato sauce … weird!) we sat and chatted until the rest of our party arrived, at which point we planned to head up the trail. Meghan Adam & Carrie had some issues getting past the tourism police at the entrance to the monastery – they were told they could not enter without a guide. They though
t this was very odd, but since they really had no choice they had a random 16year old boy with them when they finally met up with us. We debated for awhile, & since no one else we knew had a guide, we sent the kid on his way. At the bottom of the trail, we had our own encounter with the ever-present tourism police, where (surprise surprise!) we were told we needed a guide b/c it was dark and we could get lost. They completely ignored the fact that there were at least 100 mostly elderly Russian Orthodox pilgrims making their way up the trail ahead of us armed with intense headlamps. Getting lost seemed highly unlikely. They wouldn’t take no for an answer though so we ended up with Amin, our guide, and because we’re incapable Americans we got a tourism policeman too. How lucky we were!
So began the hike. It wasn’t quite as easy as it had been portrayed, but it wasn’t too bad. Mainly it was just awkward b/c most of us were carrying huge blankets in our arms in addition to backpacks full of snuggly fuzzy clothes. Erin decided to take a camel b/c she tore her ACL awhile ago & so understandably hiking in the dark makes her nervous. The catch is that at the top there are 750 'stairs' (stairs is a loose term for piles of rock of varying degrees of flatness and stability) that the camels can't make it up. So we met Erin at the bottom of the stairs and started the final ascent. By this point it was 2am and we were pretty tired, so it was slow going. Also, the hundreds of elderly pilgrims tended to have a particularly hard time with the stairs (i can't imagine why!) which made things a little slow. About halfway up, Erin decided to stay where she was b/c she was very concerned about her knee, & so Bahran, the tourism policeman, stayed with her. We reluctantly carried on without her to the top. All the way up there were these little 'coffee shops' that sold tea coffee water chocolate etc for ridiculous (Egyptian) prices, but they had the most glorious tea, so we stopped more than once to enjoy it.
When we finally reached the top of Mt Sinai, almost every surface was packed with people - people sitting, talking, praying, sleeping, singing. Definitely not the quiet mountain-top experience I had been hoping for, but it was interesting nonetheless. There is even a tiny church perched on the summit. At this point it was 3am, & so we found a pretty flat place to lay out our blankets. By 3:30am we were all huddled into a pile of blankets and backpacks and clothes and people in an effort to be both warm and comfortable. In the end I dont think any of us really got any sleep, & we woke up around 4 or 4:30 to see dawn breaking. We huddled precariously on the edge of a rock facing the east and waited. Of course I was the one on the end, closest to falling off, so that was fun. Thankfully everyone, particularly Chris, was quite concerned that I actually would fall, so they did their best to scoot over & make reassuring comments about being able to grab my leg if I started falling. That made me feel much better. (ha.ha.ha.)
The sunrise was just breathtaking. I might have said this when I described hte sunrise over the Red Sea, but I'm pretty sure I'm addicted. I have yet to see anything that is so reliably awe-inspiring as watching the sky and the world around you go from pitch black (and in this case, filled with incredible stars) to shades of gray and blue and eventually to have everything burst forth in brilliant color. If you havent watched a sunrise recently, I suggest you do so, because its truly amazing.
The trip down the mountain was pretty uneventful, we happily met up with Erin at the bottom of the stairs & all decided to take the Stairs of Redemption back down to the monastery. It quite literally cut straight down the side of the mountain, and concentrating on not missteping and falling head over heels all the way down while having had little sleep and no breakfast was no small task. I sort of befriended these two Russian women who were helping each other down these crazy stairs. One of them walked with a cane normally, so how she managed these stairs that young spritely (and waaay out of shape) Ashley was having trouble with is a mystery. They were really nice, we sort of talked at each other in strange combinations of Russian (them) & Arabic/English (me). The one thing I understood, more through mime, was that they too were scared I would fall dwon the mountain! Apparently I look unstable or something....
Upon arriving at the monastery I have never been so happy to see a bathroom, flat ground, and some chairs. We all just pretty much collapsed for an hour and bought overpriced snacks from the monastery's coffee shop. meghan carrie adam & i eventually got up the energy to go look around the monastery itself, which was neat. i wasnt overly impressed, but the main mosaic over the alter that the church is famous for is being restored, so that was disappointing. it was quite pretty though, & if nothing else its just amazing to look at everything and know that most of it was made quite literally centuries ago.
By then it was time to get picked up by our crazy driver friend, and so 12 of us piled into a 13person van and we began the trek home to Cairo. We just slept and played ridiculous "who's your soulmate based on as much random criteria as possible" games. my soulmate, by the way, is either my Arabic teacher from AU or my RA from last year. Clearly, this is some high tech science we're dealing with! The driver decided we should stop at the Red Sea near the Suez Canal for some reason. Although no one else looked particularly impressed, and even though its only a sea, not my beloved ocean, large expanses of salt water make me very happy.
Thats pretty much it! We got back to Cairo safely about 7 hours later and I had the most refreshing shower and collapsed into bed for a good 12-14 hours! A week later I am finally fully recovered ... Hopefully sometime this weekend I'll have time to write about the crazy soccer game I went to on Monday night, the soccer team I think I have some how joined (eek!) as well as what its like to be in a Muslim country for Ramadan. Hope everyone is doing well with your own respective adventures!
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