El Minya

I know I haven't posted anything in a while and that I should write more about my experience as a whole, but my trip this weekend was too memorable not to include it on the blog. Feel free to skip it, but let's just say it was an exciting adventure. Enjoy!!

El Minya - What started as an innocent trip for work turned into an adventure I’m never going to forget. Ray, the professor with whom I am doing research, thought it would be a good idea for me to visit some of the research sites in upper Egypt since this is the focus of much of the discussions about education policy. (More than half of the girls in upper Egypt never attend school.) For years, Ray has worked with a family from upper Egypt who leads his research team there. He works primarily with one woman, Amel (translates to Emily), but she has a number of brothers and sisters who also work for Ray. The plan was for me to go to Minya with Amel and tour around a bit. I was somewhat nervous because Amel’s English is somewhat shaky, but I thought I’d manage. Ready to learn about how research is done, I hopped on a train on a Friday night to take the four hour trip to Minya.
Well, things don’t always go as planned. Amel’s brothers met me at the train station. More aptly, I was waiting by the door to get off the train wondering how to meet them when Amel’s brother jumped onto the still-moving train, yelling my name and indicating that he wanted to carry my bag for me. It turns out Amel wanted to spend time with her family since she would be away for work all week and her brothers were going to be more tour guides. One brother spoke a very basic level of English and the other spoke hardly any at all. The first was my tour guide around Minya the first night. We walked along the river which was packed with very young children at midnight on a Friday night, drank tea on a ship called the Mermaid (which has been docked for years because of a questionable law saying ships aren’t allowed on the river for security reasons), and talked about the destruction of historical buildings for the construction of more profitable modern buildings as well as his desire to move away from Egypt. I was impressed by his intelligence and depth despite the language barrier. The next day, he would surprise me by bringing me a print of one the political cartoons he had drawn. It was an elaborate drawing of a bull standing in the dark trying to push an unmoving lion. He said it represented the people of Egypt trying to push an immovable president. When I inquired about his aspirations as an artist, he said he would never dream of publishing things like this in Egypt.
The real adventure was Saturday, however, when the second brother, Sham, showed up to take me on my tour. Sham knew probably a few dozen words in English, and I know far less in Arabic so I never knew quite what was around the next corner. He had hired a taxi for the day, and he had brought his fiancé, Suma, along for the day. Suma but spoke absolutely no English – she kept telling me merci instead of thank you. While I thought I was going to see research sites, Sham thought he was supposed to take me to touristy sites. We drove for an hour and a half (in a hot taxi which would stall out every fifteen minutes or so) to get to Tuna, a place with Pharoanic and Roman ruins. The day stretched into a sequence of driving to place after place of ruins, alternated with stops at Egyptian museums. At most of these stops, I had a private tour, accompanied by the site’s guard, a police officer, the taxi driver, Sham and Suma. Our saving grace was my camera and my incessant picture-taking which gave us a way to interact and converse (sort of).
More interesting to me than the touristy sections, though, were the towns we drove through along the way. We drove by farm after farm filled with workers tending the crops. In upper Egypt, families believe in having as many children as possible. Children, thus, are omnipresent. They were in the fields harvesting crops, riding tired donkeys laden with wheat, carrying baskets filled with mounds of trash, or helping their mothers wash clothes in the dirty water of the river. The number of animals easily outweighed the number of cars, and the houses mainly consisted of brick sheds with straw roofs. Occasionally, I would catch glimpses of the modern world – a satellite perched precariously on top of a run-down apartment building or boys dressed in Nike attire while running around in their front yard.
The thought crossed my mind that I was supposed to feel sorry for these people. In a way, I guess I did. I was appalled by the lack of running water, the abundance of flies and litter, and the harsh daily labor. I knew that I could never survive in such conditions. And yet, it was hard to feel sorry for a group of people who seem so content. I know that most of them could have better lives and that there are ways their lives could be so much better, but it was hard to feel sorry for the children who splashed in the river or the men who walked down the street touching every child on the shoulder as if he were his own. The primacy of the family and the presence of responsible men was refreshing, especially in contrast to poor American neighborhoods where the men are nonexistent. Again, I know there is much discrimination against women that occurs here, but I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps we could learn a thing or two from these tight-knit families.
After our long day of sight-seeing, Sham, Suma and I went back to Minya to Suma’s house to kill the time before I was supposed to leave. I met a four of her five sisters as well of one of her many nephews (although her three brothers were nowhere to be found). The conversation was awkward and slow with my lack of Arabic and their lack of English until Sara (or some derivation of that name) decided to take me to the roof to see their dog. They lived on a long alleyway, packed with apartment buildings. The rooftops were so close that one could almost get across the city by hopping from roof to roof. Looking down, I noticed the small alleyway was filled with laundry, litter, and of course children. On the roof was not only a dog (which looked alarmingly like a street dog), but also turkeys, roosters, and other unidentifiable birds, as well as old shoes, tires, and other items. Sara began pulling birds out of their cages, insisting that I hold them. Suma ran to get a camera. By the time I left, we were all laughing and hugging. Suma tried to tell me it was nice to meet me, but her variation of it didn’t quite make sense. (All day when she wanted to tell me thank you, she would tell me merci. Good thing I know at least that much French.)
Finally, I made it to the train station where brother #1 (with a name I couldn’t pronounce nor remember) met me. All the train tickets were taken so we had to take the bus instead. The four hour bus ride easily turned into five in which I kept dosing off but was awakened frequently by the bus driving stopping to avoid animals in the road, to allow the police to check the bus, or to yell at one of the passengers who had decided to smoke illegally on the bus. Amel’s nameless brother took me to my house in a taxi with promised to tour me around Egypt whenever I wanted him to. I agreed eagerly, thinking it might be a while before I take him up on his offer.

Cairo Pictures

Cairo Begins

Okay, sorry for being slow about posting Cairo stuff. I've just been rather busy here! I'm not so good at giving play-by-play info, but I'll try to post some of the funny occurrences periodically. There certainly have been plenty from which to choose! Feel free to read it all or to just look at the pictures! Here goes:

The job: I'm doing education policy research with the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo. Basically, this means I get to analyze data and use STATA all day which I like, but it also means I sit in a chair for 8 hours each day staring at a computer which I don't like so much. I work for an ex-pat researcher who's really nice and extremely enthusiastic about his research. I sit in an office with three research assistants who are middle-aged Muslim women who like to chat in loud voices in Arabic all day and feed me Egyptian food. It's fun, but I wish I could understand more of their conversations.

The living: I lived with Amr's family briefly when I arrived in Cairo, but now I'm sharing an apartment across town with a girl from Taiwan. She's friendly and helps teach me things about Egypt, i.e. you can't flush toilet paper (oops), the bowab (the doorman) is annoying but good at fixing light fixtures, cab drivers rip you off if you speak to them in English, etc. As of this Tuesday, I'll start house-sitting for an AUC professor. I have to watch over her two cats (yeah, not much experience there), but I don't have to pay rent and the apartment is really nice and has a great balcony. I'll post pics eventually...

The running: Kind of sucks. I've been getting up by 5:30 about every other day or every third day to run, but it's not ideal. It's rather hot even in the mornings especially since I wear long pants when I'm running by myself. I joined a running group last weekend, though, which was fabulous. The guy in charge is really rich and his "secondary house" is a mansion along a golf course on the outskirts of town. We ran 12 miles (albeit slowly), went swimming in his personal pool and then had a fun pseud0-Egyptian brunch which a bunch of ex-pats from all over the world.

The pyramids: They really do exist! And, they are very big. The Sphinx is cool even though it's missing its nose. I went inside the Great Pyramid, but it was not worth the 50 pounds I spent to do so. I had to climb up a narrow, steep passageway filled with sweaty tourists and screaming babies. At the end of the strenuous hike, my reward was getting to see a dark room about the size of my bedroom with stark black walls and a little modern graffiti. I understood quickly while Amr had declined to join me.

The food: Is yummy. Amr's mom is a fantastic cook. Egyptians eat a ton of fruit but not too many veggies (which of course makes me sad). Amr hadn't ever seen broccoli until he came to the States. Oh well! I guess I'll have to suffer and eat juicy watermelon.

The horse-back riding: Craziness! As a "treat" during my first full weekend in Cairo, Amr decided to take me on one of his favorite outings here - horse-back riding. I told him I hadn't ridden in many years and would need help. Before I knew it, he was jumping on a horse and telling me to do the same. He took off before I got on my horse. My horse, Sheina, caught up and trotted right past Amr and the guide. I was a little scared but could handle the methodical trotting. That is, until I turned around. I looked back to get directions as to how in the world to ride a horse when I saw Amr off his horse and his horse sprinting in the other direction. When I screamed, Amr waved and then sprinted after his horse. The guide who was supposed to be helping me took off about both of them, leaving me to trot along into the desert on Sheina. They finally came back, but then at a full-sprint. As they passed me, my horse took the hint and started sprinting behind me. For the next hour, Amr fought to stay on his horse while the guide swatted mine in the butt telling it to go faster. Let's just say I was a little sore for a few days not to mention shell-shocked!!

The culture shock: The biggest difference between Cairo and the US is that in Cairo, anything goes. It would be a misnomer to say that things are unregulated because there are cops on every street corner, but people don't follow small, petty rules very well (or, actually, at all). Traffic lanes and lights have no meaning. Drivers simply "go with the flow." Cars fly by each other, weaving through whatever space they can find on the road. On the more narrow streets, the drivers fold in their rearview mirrow in order to slide by the cars that park on either side of the street. Pedestrians boldly jump in front of cars, knowing the cars will stop instantly to let them cross the street. It's going to be dangerous for me to cross the street when I get back to the States!

Okay, that's enough for now. I promise I'll post more boring stuff soon. Thanks for reading!!

Rome pictures :)

A Surprise Day in Rome

Pictures to come as soon as my luggage and camera cord arrive in Cairo. Check back soon!