Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. So I ended up moving out to Abu Seer, an hour and a half out of downtown Cairo. None of the noise and pollution of Cairo, but with noise and pollution of its own, both primarily emanating from the omnipresent grumpy water buffaloes. My new family's great though--there's Abu Ahmad (the dad, whom I met not long after I got into Cairo, and works at a papyrus and perfume place downtown), Um Ahmad (the mom), Ahmad (a 17 year-old boy, who's incredibly sweet for an Egyptian teenager), Ulfat (13 year-old girl, I'm giving her and Ahmad English lessons after school), Hasana' (8 year-old girl), and Ali (a very energetic 3 year-old boy). So I ride two metros, take a microbus to the Giza pyramids, change and ride another microbus 35 minutes south to Abu Sir.
The metro rides are usually mercifully uneventful (except for the time I accidentally got in the car reserved for women-only with another Egyptian guy), but the buses are always more exciting. Yesterday, for example, on the way from the Giza metro to the Pyramids, the driver unexpectedly stopped, not quite in the middle of the incredibly busy road, but definitely not on the side either. He got out to warmly embrace the driver of another vehicle that had also stopped, and they exchanged pleasantries for a couple minutes, seemingly oblivious to the honks of passing cars and impatient (Let's go, driver!) yells from microbuses, which are like 12-passenger vans but carry 14 to 16 passengers, plus sometimes people just hanging on to the van from the side or back. Finally, the driver got going again but five minutes later pulled over and announced this was the end of the line. Since it clearly wasn't supposed to be, the passengers were a little miffed, but he refused to budge and everyone had to go find another microbus. I got on one pretty quickly, and we had almost made to the Pyramids, when in conversation the driver found out that a passenger who had just boarded was also a microbus driver. Delighted, he invited the passenger to drive, and so they switched spots. The newly-appointed driver couldn't get the van out of first gear, though, so we lurched along Pyramids Road at about five miles an hour, until he gave up after a minute and let the original driver take over.
The ride to Abu Sir is always more congenial, since it's a small town, and everyone in the bus gets on and off in the same place. Since most of the people know each other, there's always a big fuss over paying, as everyone insists on paying everyone else's fare.
I'm one of two foreigners in town (there are also a few Kuwaitis, Sudanese, and what not but both officially and unofficially, there's always a three-level classification of Egyptian (or Jordanian, Syrian, etc.)/ Arab/ Foreigner), the other one being an American that married an Egyptian women a few years ago and is living in Abu Sir. I can see his house from my window, but I still haven't met him. Anyway, so I have to walk through the fruit and vegetable market on my way home between the microbus stop and the Nassar residence, so there I get a continuous wave of "Hello"s, with the occasional "What you nationality?", "HowareyouIfine!", and "Where you go?" Maybe I'm just getting used to it, but it seems like it's been dying down a lot now that I've been there almost three weeks. A lot of the little kids know me as "Captain Khalid" since I played soccer with them a few times.
For the first week I was there, I was also hosting Julia, a good friend of Caitlin Engelhard's (a Swat classmate). She's off to Sinai to be a governess and teach English to some kids at a small resort on the Red Sea, but the family was out of the country as she was getting ready to come to Egypt, so she stayed with me for a while. It was fun to have another American to talk to (she became Spanish while meeting my Norwegian or Ukrainian friends) and the family was very generous in giving her a place to stay. They were completely enchanted with her, renaming her Warda (Rose) and urging her to stay in Abu Sir instead of going to Sinai. Hasana', later deciding that Julia had been named Warda because she likes roses so much, proclaimed that my new name was Captain Tuyoor, because I like birds (Tuyoor) so much. I have no idea where she got that from, but luckily Khalid has stuck, and nobody even remembers my American name.
The metro rides are usually mercifully uneventful (except for the time I accidentally got in the car reserved for women-only with another Egyptian guy), but the buses are always more exciting. Yesterday, for example, on the way from the Giza metro to the Pyramids, the driver unexpectedly stopped, not quite in the middle of the incredibly busy road, but definitely not on the side either. He got out to warmly embrace the driver of another vehicle that had also stopped, and they exchanged pleasantries for a couple minutes, seemingly oblivious to the honks of passing cars and impatient (Let's go, driver!) yells from microbuses, which are like 12-passenger vans but carry 14 to 16 passengers, plus sometimes people just hanging on to the van from the side or back. Finally, the driver got going again but five minutes later pulled over and announced this was the end of the line. Since it clearly wasn't supposed to be, the passengers were a little miffed, but he refused to budge and everyone had to go find another microbus. I got on one pretty quickly, and we had almost made to the Pyramids, when in conversation the driver found out that a passenger who had just boarded was also a microbus driver. Delighted, he invited the passenger to drive, and so they switched spots. The newly-appointed driver couldn't get the van out of first gear, though, so we lurched along Pyramids Road at about five miles an hour, until he gave up after a minute and let the original driver take over.
The ride to Abu Sir is always more congenial, since it's a small town, and everyone in the bus gets on and off in the same place. Since most of the people know each other, there's always a big fuss over paying, as everyone insists on paying everyone else's fare.
I'm one of two foreigners in town (there are also a few Kuwaitis, Sudanese, and what not but both officially and unofficially, there's always a three-level classification of Egyptian (or Jordanian, Syrian, etc.)/ Arab/ Foreigner), the other one being an American that married an Egyptian women a few years ago and is living in Abu Sir. I can see his house from my window, but I still haven't met him. Anyway, so I have to walk through the fruit and vegetable market on my way home between the microbus stop and the Nassar residence, so there I get a continuous wave of "Hello"s, with the occasional "What you nationality?", "HowareyouIfine!", and "Where you go?" Maybe I'm just getting used to it, but it seems like it's been dying down a lot now that I've been there almost three weeks. A lot of the little kids know me as "Captain Khalid" since I played soccer with them a few times.
For the first week I was there, I was also hosting Julia, a good friend of Caitlin Engelhard's (a Swat classmate). She's off to Sinai to be a governess and teach English to some kids at a small resort on the Red Sea, but the family was out of the country as she was getting ready to come to Egypt, so she stayed with me for a while. It was fun to have another American to talk to (she became Spanish while meeting my Norwegian or Ukrainian friends) and the family was very generous in giving her a place to stay. They were completely enchanted with her, renaming her Warda (Rose) and urging her to stay in Abu Sir instead of going to Sinai. Hasana', later deciding that Julia had been named Warda because she likes roses so much, proclaimed that my new name was Captain Tuyoor, because I like birds (Tuyoor) so much. I have no idea where she got that from, but luckily Khalid has stuck, and nobody even remembers my American name.
Friday, September 05, 2003
Uh-oh. Ukraine's got troops in Iraq. , as do the Mongolians, which I had also contemplated as a possible identity, except that there might be some lingering anger at the sacking of Baghdad in 1258.
I discovered in my Lonely Planet that there are some Pyramids sitting across the road from my new home in Abu Seer.
Also, I was talking to Muhammad yesterday:
Muhammad: Hani [the groom from last week's wedding] is travelling to Italy tomorrow.
Me: And Fatima [the bride] too, right?
Muhammad: No, just Hani.
Me: That seems a little strange. This isn't the honeymoon?
Muhammad: No, no, no. That was an engagement party, they're not married yet. The entry [literal translation, tells you something about Egyptians' obsession with female virginity] is in one year. There will be a huge party then.
I discovered in my Lonely Planet that there are some Pyramids sitting across the road from my new home in Abu Seer.
Also, I was talking to Muhammad yesterday:
Muhammad: Hani [the groom from last week's wedding] is travelling to Italy tomorrow.
Me: And Fatima [the bride] too, right?
Muhammad: No, just Hani.
Me: That seems a little strange. This isn't the honeymoon?
Muhammad: No, no, no. That was an engagement party, they're not married yet. The entry [literal translation, tells you something about Egyptians' obsession with female virginity] is in one year. There will be a huge party then.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
I went to my second Arab wedding Saturday night, between two people that I really don't know at all. Muhammad (the one who keeps trying to pressure me into granting him a visa to Norway or letting him marry any female from the 1st World) invited me. Apparently he didn't know the bride or the groom either, but a friend of his, Ayman, is one of the groom's best friends, so the more the merrier. Although the attendes were mostly lower middle-class Shubrawis, like for the earlier wedding, this time the groom's family had some money saved up and some connections. They were able to rent out a really nice air force officers' club along the Nile (for LE 6,000/ $900 according to Muhammad) for the occasion, and had tons of desserts, several DJs (playing the music at a more reasonable level), and eight waiters running around the place. As in the first wedding, there was a longish period of gathering the guests while the wedding procession made its way towards the club. They shelled out money for a video camera with live feed to a television screen inside the club, so we could watch the bride and groom's every step in the slow walk down from the street to the club. Once again, there was an American song (in the Shubra party it was "Everybody Clap Your Hands", this time it was thumping rap, "It's Your Birthday") which changed to a recital of the 99 attributes of God from the Qur'an as soon as the bride and groom arrived on stage. After that the waiters stormed back in, each carrying a tray with a single glass of Tang, and paraded around the bride and groom in a highly synchronized dance for a few minutes, before offering them and six other people some Tang. A classy affair. I'm not complaining, cause later they finally came out with enough Tang for everyone, not just the select few.
Since I was with Muhammad, I had to assume my Norwegian identity, which ended up being broadcast to the entire party when Muhammad passed a note to the DJs to announce "Congratulations from Muhammad the Shubrawi, Khalid the Norwegian, and Ayman who works at Qatar Airlines". And yet again, everyone thought it would be fun to pick on the foreigner, so I was forced to dance to entertain the people. The music (all Arabic after the first song) was better this time, and it wasn't as hot, dusty, and outdoors, so I got into the mood a little more this time. I thought I had performed my duty by dancing with the groom and one of his friends for ten minutes or so, but later a few of the guys dragged me out again, saying they had to teach me to belly dance. I gave it my best shot, trying to ape the moves of the guy teaching me, but they said I wasn't shaking enough. Somebody else behind me helpfully grabbed my jeans at the waist, and followed along as I danced, forcibly adding more shakes to my moves.
In other news, I've decided to move to Abu Seer, and go there this weekend. What the heck, I didn't come to Egypt so I could live in a modicum of comfort. I'll be living in my own apartment, but eating all my meals with the family, paying about $80 a month for room and board.
Congratulations to Ben Ben and Alicia on their recent engagement. If you two need a wedding dancer, you know where to look.
Apparently some Brits are wilder than they look
Since I was with Muhammad, I had to assume my Norwegian identity, which ended up being broadcast to the entire party when Muhammad passed a note to the DJs to announce "Congratulations from Muhammad the Shubrawi, Khalid the Norwegian, and Ayman who works at Qatar Airlines". And yet again, everyone thought it would be fun to pick on the foreigner, so I was forced to dance to entertain the people. The music (all Arabic after the first song) was better this time, and it wasn't as hot, dusty, and outdoors, so I got into the mood a little more this time. I thought I had performed my duty by dancing with the groom and one of his friends for ten minutes or so, but later a few of the guys dragged me out again, saying they had to teach me to belly dance. I gave it my best shot, trying to ape the moves of the guy teaching me, but they said I wasn't shaking enough. Somebody else behind me helpfully grabbed my jeans at the waist, and followed along as I danced, forcibly adding more shakes to my moves.
In other news, I've decided to move to Abu Seer, and go there this weekend. What the heck, I didn't come to Egypt so I could live in a modicum of comfort. I'll be living in my own apartment, but eating all my meals with the family, paying about $80 a month for room and board.
Congratulations to Ben Ben and Alicia on their recent engagement. If you two need a wedding dancer, you know where to look.
Apparently some Brits are wilder than they look
