I had a bunch of my pictures printed, and I’m working on putting them into an album in some semblance of order. I realized that I hadn’t posted any of the photos from the boat ride on the Nile from the city of Aswan in southern Egypt to a Nubian village. Which is a loss because it was absolutely beautiful. So, here are a few :) There was a ladder to the flat roof of the boat. So, naturally, I needed to climb it. Awesome times.

See, in Cairo, the Nile is dirty—murky grey and lots of floating trash. I didn’t really get why everyone made such a big deal about it. Then we went for this boat ride from Aswan, which is way upstream of Cairo. And I took pictures. And now you and I both understand what everyone was on about :)

Have a good day

Eye of Horus at Edfu temple

jhnmyr:

Light Saber chopsticks. Yes please thank you.

This is a video of our group getting out of a van we took from Muqattam back to our hotel in Cairo….a van meant to hold 15 people, into which we fit 21 people, including the driver, his wife, and our tourist police security man.

Monument thing built next to the High Dam to commemorate its construction, which was the result of cooperation between Egypt and the Soviet Union

Pompey’s pillar is really big.

Alexandria, June 6

Beach time in Alexandria, June 8

Alexandria is so lovely. We stayed at the Cecil Hotel, which is elegant and very famous. Lots of famous .historical figures have stayed there (Jimmy Carter, Elvis Presley, many others). Our room had a fresh rose in a vase on the table in it J The Cecil is right on the Mediterranean. Our room had a little balcony from which you can see the sea (and incidentally, put your clothes to dry), and there’s a very good open-air Asian restaurant on the roof. We ate there last night. They have sushi, Thai, and Chinese food. A little pricey compared to the other places we normally eat (but we don’t usually go to nice places unless it’s a group dinner, meaning that the cost is included in what we are paying for the trip) but not compared to restaurants in the States.

     The Corniche is this road that runs all the way down the coast in Alexandria. The Cecil is on it, as is the library of Alexandria and many other historical sites as well as lots of nice restaurants and shops. All these books about Egypt I’ve read, novels and things mention these places like the Cecil Hotel and the Corniche and the Omar Khayyam Hotel and this patisserie next to the Cecil and these other places in Cairo and it’s just so cool to go to them. This book we had to read for the class is a memoir written by an Egyptian woman. In it, she went for ice cream at this patisserie during summers in Alexandria and we went there too. Incidentally, while Aswan and Luxor are considered winter vacations spots for wealthy Egyptians, Alexandria is a summer one. OMG the weather has been wonderful.
    Yesterday, Monday June 7, was a completely free day (a deviation from the itinerary, yes). It was great. In the morning, a group of us took taxis to the mall, which is huge and underneath the Four Seasons hotel off the Corniche. It was very upper class. We shopped a little but most of us didn’t buy anything. Prices were really high—300 LE for a single shirt (about $55). There were some shops that only sold scarves, which I guess is reasonable since women wear them every single day. There are even fewer unveiled women here than in Cairo and a lot more women wearing the big black things over their clothes with their faces covered (sometimes even the eyes are covered with black mesh panels in the veil over the face) and with black gloves.  I don’t remember what the exact term for that kind of dress is—we just call it veiling but there are many Arabic words for the different kinds of veiling and ways women wrap their scarves.
    In the late afternoon, we went to a beach. You had to pay four pounds to get in, but there wasn’t any trash on the beach and there were chairs and umbrellas and lifeguards. I wore my swim suit under my clothes but brought an extra shirt and a big pair of shorts I’ve been sleeping in. I didn’t know if it would be kosher for us to be there in swim suits—it was a public beach—and I’m glad I brought the extra clothes. There were no adult women swimming, and very few men. Mostly children were swimming, and mostly the girls wore shirts and shorts into the water. All of us ladies wore big shirts over our suits. Even so, we attracted some creeper peepers, some guys who sat on the wall above the beach, the short wall on the ocean side of the Corniche. Also there were a couple of guys who came and sat close to us but who weren’t swimming and didn’t seem to be with anybody, who I think were creeping on us too. We had a great time, but damn it was weird. And Mallory and I and this really weird guy on the trip who I initially thought was just kind of shy and socially handicapped but who’s actually just an asshole got ahead of the group when we were waling to the beach along the Corniche. We came upon this big group of young guys. Mallory and I looked at each other and went “oh shit.” We slowed down a bit and gave the guys in our group behind us meaningful looks. However, the group of Egyptian guys slowed as well and we met them before our guys got there. Sooo uncomfortable. They were kind of in our faces, so eventually I put my arm through the creepy asshole guy’s arm and then they left us alone. And then our guys caught up. Ugh. The creepy guy has BO and ugh. Not fun. And on the way back to the hotel, I was wearing a long, loose skirt and this huge XXL t-shirt that I have been sleeping in over my swim suit and walking with another guy, but I still got some looks and things. What the hell? Why do guys think they can treat us like this? Yeah, women in Western movies are often promiscuous, but everyone, even children know that movies are not real life.

It’s really getting old though. I want to feel comfortable going everywhere without a man, let alone by myself, and I want to not be hassleed by people trying to sell me things, especially people who sometimes ignore my “no, thank you” until whatever guy I’m with repeats it.

I love this trip and being here and everything, but I miss home. How can people do entire semesters abroad? I don’t think I could.

OMG, y’all. Aswan, where we are now, is in the south of Egypt. It’s absolutely beautiful and is mostly used as a winter vacation spot, similar to how people in the US take winter vacations to Florida. You know why it’s a WINTER vacation spot? Today the forecasted high is 108 F and tomorrow it’s 112 F. Not even kidding!

I was looking for my family to be online so I could chat with them and was surprised they weren’t…because somebody’s always on. But then I realized it’s 6:30 am there. On a Sunday. Oops.

The only reason I know what day of the week it is is that my wristwatch says. Otherwise I would have no idea.

Yesterday (Saturday, May 29), we went n taxis to Muqattam. It is a community of Coptic Christians in Cairo. We visited a couple of their cave churches, which were unbelievably large. There are also lots of beautiful relief carvings in the cliffs. The churches were dedicated to Saint Simon the Tanner. Simon had plucked out one of his eyes because he had admired a woman’s inappropriately exposed leg because the Bible says “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Matthew 5:29). In all the depictions of him, he looks like he’s squinting but it’s supposed to mean he only has one eye. His bones were in the one church (St. Mary’s? I don’t know.) Anyway, the Holy Virgin is supposed to have spoken to Abraham and told him that a man of Simon’s description (i.e. with one eye) would effect the miracle of moving the mountain. And Simon prayed for a long time in a certain way and the mountain was lifted (the cave churches are in a “mountain”—limestone cliffs but the closest thing to mountains in Cairo). Or something. The story is kind of involved but I’m pretty sure that’s the important part :-P

After the churches, we went to … Muqattam is the community of garbage collectors. There aren’t waste management systems in Egypt, so there’s garbage everywhere. We’ve seen people in more rural areas just dump trash into the Nile. Anyway the people in Muqattam originally we not paid anything, they just got to keep the trash they picked up. They recycled it and fed the food waste to their pigs. The pigs were killed during the swine flu thing so now they either dump the food into the street or compost it and sell the compost.

We visited this center in Muqattam where they teach women how to make things using the recycled materials—which used to be trash but are now leftovers from factories and things. The women learn a trade and are paid during their training. After training, they bring the things they make back to the center and are paid for the number and quality of the items. They also can get free literacy training. There is a school and a daycare. The women weave rugs on big looms, which they take home and pay for in installments after training, sewing various patchwork quilted items (same deal with sewing machines are with looms), and make paper, which is sold are cards, envelopes, gift bags, etc. The things they make are then sold to people like us—they had some really cool, pretty things at good prices. And it’s helping the women and recycling and everything, everybody gets to feel good about it. The woman giving us the tour said Marc Jacobs (the famous designer, for you males) had placed several orders for these woven rag-rug handbags. We went to the school too, and played with the kids, which was awesome. They were so cute and they got to try out their English.

We took a 14 passenger van back to the hotel from Muqattam. (I should also add that it was beastly hot that day and no breeze.) Now, take a minute to appreciate what that means: 19 students, 1 professor, our 1 tourist police guard, the driver, and one additional woman (no idea who she was or what she was doing there). That’s 23 people including the driver in a van meant to hold 15 (also including driver). On a very very hot day. With our backpacks and cameras and water bottles and all of the things we purchased in Muqattam. It We were all pretty comfortable with one another by this time, but damn! People on laps, Julie was lying across a row of people. Sheri (prof) took a video of us getting out of the van. It’s pretty funny—you think the van HAS to be empty but people just keep coming out of it. I should see if I can get it!

Lunch (felafel, which for some reason is tamiyya in Cairo but not Giza) and a trip to El Abd: one of the most fantastic places in existence. It is a really epic bakery. They have all kinds of pastries, cakes (which you can buy by the slice), cookies…and everything else. They also have ice cream. It was crazy busy but so worth it.

Then we went to the Giza rail station to catch our overnight train to Aswan. It was kind of cool but the food was sucky (not surprising I guess though). We had a little sink in a cupboard and two bunks that folded down. The bathroom was in the same car but down the hall, which was very similar to an airplane bathroom but more spacious, in case you wanted to know :-P All of us from UMM were in the same car, which was fun, although I think the porter thought we were nuts.

We got off the train at Aswan and got on a boat. A 45 minute ride took us to a Nubian village. We went to the school there and the teacher taught us Arabic and Nubian numbers and the Arabic alphabet. Then he taught us all how to write our names in Arabic, which is done right to left! Tricky. We had some Nubian snacks and karkarde (hibiscus tea) in someone’s house and then we wandered for a while, shopping. I would just like to mention that it was 100 F today in Aswan. Ew. So much sweat. Then a boat ride to the hotel. The boat rides were much cooler and the Nile is very pretty and a lot clearer than it is near Cairo. You could also see a stark line between the green, growing things and the desert. It’s weird what an abrupt change it is. Lush foliage to red sand hills.

The hotel is the Iberhotel, and it is very fancy. I almost don’t feel I’m in Egypt, it seems very European (not that I’ve been to Europe). Big and clean, sterile. Lots of marble, very new-feeling. There’s a pool! Which we’re all excited about. We could shower on the train and it was so hot in the Nubian village…I showered right away when we got here, felt sooo good.

I guess I’ll add photos when I get them off my camera. I’m the the Iberhotel lobby for internet, forgot to bring my camera with.

Oh, update on the foot situation: it doesn’t hurt that much but it’s more swollen than it was initially. It’s gross. Ian, the EMT, said it was okay though, just the inflammatory response. We didn’t manage to get an ACE wrap in Cairo but I put a compression stocking on the foot (that I’d had for the plane ride) and tied it up in a bandana, which worked okay I guess. I’m almost glad I had the stockings. Almost.

Love you and miss you and sorry for such long, rambling posts…..