It's good to be home

'nuf said.

This is the end

Last full day in Egypt and going fast. Don't have much time. If anyone is buying Oilers playoff tix, can you please buy me one - I'm going to be flying when the go on sale, I think.

See you soon.

Home stretch

Barring any unforseen complications, I will be returning to Edmonton in less than one week. Is anyone besides me excited about this fact?

BTW

By the way, Morocco is super nice. I'm really having a good time. It has really beautiful countryside, and lots of places to see. If you're reading this, you should come here some time. I'd recommend it.

"Don't hate the player, hate the game"

Yo. What's up from Fes?

This now famous quote (one that incidentally I don't like all that much in some of it's applications), would have to be my theme quote for my couple hours in the medina (refers to old city) here in Fes. This thought made (hopefully) a lasting impression on me. If not, at least I'll have this blog entry to look at.

And by extension, it is easy to see the application of this quote to much of my time in the Middle East and Morocco. So what do I mean by this? Now it seems so obvious that I'm almost ashamed to discuss it; only 30 min ago it felt brilliant and freeing. The point is this:

You spend half your time focused on what you want to be doing while in the medina, and the other half dealing with people hassling you to take you somewhere, to show you something, to have you eat at their restaurant. After a while (not very long), you become frustrated with the people, hating them, their greed, their persitance, their laziness, their lack of sentsitivity to your needs, until you can't take it anymore! And then, your remember, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And you realize that on the whole, people are playing a game they don't want to play. In general, I didn't like this idea because of how closely the player and the game were in my mind. But here, people don't have a choice of games.

So what then is my job? And how can I live this quote properly such that I acomplishe the simultaneous goals of (a) having a righteous passion against an evil that destroys freedom and beauty, for the purpose of maintaining motivation to conquer this evil while (b) still maintaining compassion and love for those who are forced to play by it's constrictive rules?

Sounds grand doesn't it? Unfortunately honestly leads me to admit that indeed I feel so far from this ideal that I am likely more of a problem than a solution, and further that I have no idea how to move in this direction. Most hindering is a forgetfullness that removes the problem from my mind when it's not in front of me and an absence of burning heart to spur change. So what now? I don't know.

But I don't want to forget.

I keep forgetting but I don' t want to forget.

As CS Wiersmq put it one time, how can we be changed so we don't have to hear the story again?

I don't know. And I'm not impressive. I'm really bad at this; I'm just the only one saying it.

On Spontaneity and Stars

Yo. I think I’m not very good at this because my posts are too long. I talk too much. It’s just that I love to tell stories. So I can’t do anything about it. Anyways, I last posted Wednesday, March 22. That night I went to an end of the course party, arriving at about 11pm or so. I was invited by my friend Niko, whom I met at the Arabic course, of course. Niko is a German, from Berlin. Actually, the party was a celebration for a number of Germans who were all studying together at a different Arabic institute. They had been together since October, studying here on scholarship. Since Niko lived with a couple of them, the party was there and he invited me. It was the same place and many of the same people as the party I posted on earlier. But don’t worry, I’m going in a different direction.

While I was at the party, I was talking with Johannes (one of Niko’s roommates) about my travel plans and my ambivalence due to traveling alone. He said, “well hey, why don’t you come with us, we’re going down to the Sinai tomorrow.” I thought about it for a while, discussed a few more details with Niko, and decided, “sure, what the heck?”

So, after a bit longer, I went home, packed, went to bed at 2:30, up at 7 to go drop off a dictionary at the school from another guy in my class since it was the last day (which I was now skipping), and off to the bus station (hopefully there are still tickets). There were tickets, so indeed less than 10 hours after being invited, I’m now on a bus with 4 guys, 3 of whom I barely know, in the direction of Nuweeba, Egypt, for a trip I indeed know very little about. Sweet!

So the group of 5 guys was Niko, Johannes, Mattis (a German friend just visiting), Zed (an American studying at AUC) and myself. We were on route to meet 3 Israeli girls, one of whom is Niko’s girlfriend. They had found the place we would be staying at. So the plan is to arrive in Nuweeba, then get a call from them on how to meet them.

It’s a long story but eventually we found the guy that Niko’s girlfriend arranged to pick us up and bring us to our location (more on that later). Since we didn’t start our journey through the desert until after dark, we got a real treat. All 5 of us rode most of the 1.5 hour journey through the desert sitting in the bed of the truck with all our stuff, looking at the stars, listening to music and chatting. It was fantastic, a really precious time. The sky was totally clear, no lights except those of the truck, and no pollution, so it was one of the most beautiful skies ever. Just lolling over the rough desert, with mountains to the right and left under ten thousand stars was something else. And I saw 2 shooting stars, one of them fantastically bright and super long.

The place we stayed is called Laguna. It’s a collection of huts (thin wood frame, sticks/straw for walls and roof) as I said way off the highway through the desert. The place is named for its position on a beautiful green/blue lagoon, which is surrounded by mountains. We saw camels wandering through the desert within view.

Despite the upsides, the location is “rustic” at best. No electricity, no running water, no beds (and our part forgot to mention sleeping bags to Zed and I, oops). Bathing facilities were almost non-existent with the latrine being little more than a hole in the ground. But we certainly made do. It’s nice to be away from the comforts, actually. The place is run by a group of people who cook for you, and also help arrange some transportation.

So what did we do? Well, first off, we arrived late Thursday night, met the girls and some of the other people they had met there. We ate and then went to bed, Friday the weather was super nice, hot and sunny. Swimming was a very common activity. Besides this, there was a lot of sitting around, lying in the sun, some reading, a lot hanging out, some chess, backgammon, chatting and a lot of smoking weed. (Oops, did I say that)? Most of the people there were stoned a good deal of the time. Niko and I were the only two that didn’t smoke up at all. Actually, as you likely know, this would be a pretty standard approach to this type of holiday except that I and most of friends don’t generally partake of this type of activity so it was pretty new to me. But it was okay, overall. I mean it didn’t really affect the weekend too much given the type of activities we were doing anyways, though it probably limited the motivation to come up with other more active, adventuresome and exciting things to do, given the dulling effect of weed. But it was a good learning experience for me.

The wind began to howl late Friday night, and indeed didn’t let up for the whole rest of the time we were there (Zed and I left with a bunch of the Israelis on Sunday around noon, while the rest stayed another day). Thus Saturday and Sunday morning were slightly affected by the wind. There were no clouds, not much dust, no rain, just wind. So it just was a bit cooler and the sea was rough so we couldn’t go snorkeling.

One time swimming, we found sea urchins. Unfortunately, Johannes found them to be painful; he took a huge number of stings all through his right leg, so we had to carry him out of the water and back to camp. But he was treated well, so he’s currently healing quickly.

At night, Zed and I were quite cold, because we didn’t have sleeping bags and of course there are no beds or sheets, just a thin mattress. We were okay the first night, actually, but the second and third were cold ‘cause of the wind. But the nights were highlighted in mind by the stars. Seriously. Amazing. Amazing. What can I say? Perhaps see Job 38-41.

And one evening was also punctuated by a sweet conversation with Niko as the sun lowered and the stars came out. He’s a super guy. It was great to get to know him a lot more. As friendships often do, it ours started out at school during a break. He was looking for fool, I for a place to be outside. After that, we went regularly for fool or taamaya or koshery (falafel). So it grew there, but much more on the trip too. I’m really sad that I’m not going to really be able to continue this friendship on more than an email basis pretty soon; it sucks to just get to know someone just to have it be so short. But, I’ll just consider myself blessed for the 2 weeks or so that I did get. At least with my closest friend here, Diana (have I mentioned her? Sorry if I haven’t. She’s worth mentioning.), we’ve had a couple months to be friends, so while maybe it’ll be worse to leave in some ways ‘cause you know each other better, at least it’s more than a teaser.

So yeah, as I said, Sunday around noon we headed back through the desert. It was a neat and still extremely beautiful ride. The Israelis went to the border but Zed and I got off earlier, picked up some food and bust tix and were back on our way to Cairo. I got some reading in on both ways that was really sweet. I’m reading the Journey of Desire by John Eldrigde. I’d recommend it.

Okay, so anyways, that’s most of what I wanted to say here, and some other things thrown in there. I’m still figuring what’s up with the rest of my travel plans. I’ll let you know when I do.

The long awaited...

The long-awaited, long-anticipated (and perhaps, highly enlightening, or more likely, disappointing) post on Jobs in Cairo. (BTW 'cause this is a long post, note that there is another new one below it. That post is more about me, so choose your poison.)

Okay so here’s the disclaimer. This post isn’t going to be based on statistics, numbers, research, or anything else that lends any scientific credence to it. So off the top, be wary of taking too much from anything you read. This post is based on my observations in extremely limited setting, and based on biases and predispositions inherent in my world view. Indeed I recognize the inherent problem in this, and also the chance that I’m going to say some dumb stuff so anyone who has information on this, feel free to point out mistakes or correct any assumptions you like. AND forgive my sensationalism. Because I’m a bit ashamed of the parts of this blog that are too sensational in that regard.

That being said, here’s the deal. This post (perhaps there will be most, I don’t know – these things have a bit of a mind of their own) will be concerned with 2 main concepts, which are intrinsically tied together: Population and Transportation.

Quite simply, there are too many people in this city. It is jam-packed. There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. This makes finding any job at all quite difficult and finding good jobs extremely difficult. The more education you have the better you are to find jobs, but even having lots of education doesn’t guarantee you anything, and you’re certainly not necessary to find something in your field. Now, of course I have to note that indeed this is true of jobs anywhere in the world. But it seems to be on a larger scale than that of Canada.

The other thing about over-crowding is the extreme stress on transportation. I’ve already mentioned to you about the problem with traffic. That in itself is a huge issue and of course it is a multi-faceted problem, but one of the key points is simply the overabundance of people wanting to go somewhere. The result of that is you’ve got so many cars, taxi’s and buses that the streets are usually filled to the brim with vehicles.

So one thing about jobs here, is that for the above reasons, plus for simple cultural reasons that are not readily explained out, in Cairo, you’ll find the existence of a host of jobs that are not present, or at least not common in say most Western cultures. Or if you find it in both places, there is a disproportion to what I’m used to.

Parking guy. This is the guy that helps you park on the street, when you’re out somewhere, visiting some place. Because there are so many cars and such little space, parking spots are commodities. This guy directs you to the spot, then helps guide you into it, because the spot is guaranteed to be about 10cm larger than the smallest physically possible space to put a car into. You pay this guy about 1 or 2 pounds when you come back to your car to leave. They may also clean your car.

Garage attendant. If you live in an apartment, a similar job exists for people who care for the parking garage of your building. Here, this group of guys (for the attendant is a 24, 7days a week kind of job) are paid out the monthly fee you pay to keep your car in the garage. Of course, they also clean your car, and look after the place to ensure the safety of the garage. But when I talk about crowding, you still don’t understand…

Cars on the street and in the garage are not parked like here. In Canada, you park in such a spot that you can get out, and so can everyone else. Here, not so. Impossible because there aren’t enough spots, and unnecessary because of the parking guys. Thus, cars are in many places double and even triple parked, and in the garage, many more cars fit that would be possible by each person parking his own car.

Thus, the job description of the above includes this work: moving cars around so that more cars fit, and people can go in and out when they come and go based on their schedule. Most cars here are standard shift. Thus, when you arrive home from work, you bring your car into the garage, and leave it somewhere central, in neutral, with no parking brake on. This allows the parking guys to move cars around to fit more cars into the same space. When you leave the next morning, you ask the parking guy where your car is. It has been moved, once or more than once to accommodate the coming and going of others who also keep cars in the garage. Hopefully, the garage attendants are good and the way of your exit is unimpeded by other cars. If you are leaving at a non-standard time (i.e. not a regular time based on your schedule), it is a good idea to phone down to the garage to have them move your car, so that they can have it ready. If you know when you’re going out next, it’s a good idea to tell them, for the same reason. It’s especially interesting to watch when cars are double parked tightly and your on the inside.

The idea is very simple, but since you never saw it in action, and I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it when I came, I used a lot of words to describe it.

Public Transportation. As I mentioned, transportation makes up a huge part of this job discussion. Indeed, I think many people are employed in the transportation sector. This involves 2 main classes of jobs – taxis, and buses.

Taxis are everywhere here. Seriously. At any given time when I’m walking down the street, (I’m guessing here but) 1 out of every 4 cars that drives by me is a taxi. And taxis come in a variety of shapes and conditions, but they’re almost exclusively black with white on the body over the wheels and most of them are old and in rough condition. Taxi’s here are quite cheap. And you have to know the price you’ll pay (of course there is no meter, don’t be silly). If you ask – especially as a foreigner, he will tell you a much higher number than usual. So in this case, you just know from family or friends who live in the area the appropriate price. When I arrive, I get out the taxi then hand the money through the window. And usually he’s moderately happy, sometimes quite happy and sometimes upset. How you deal with that depends on the situation but I won’t get into it.

Next, there are tonnes of buses and microbuses. I’ll save that for next time, because, well, this is enough for now.

The joy of finishing

Hey Folks,

So what’s up? I hear E-town got a huge dump of snow this weekend. I hope you had a chance to go skiing, or will do so in the next little while. Indeed hitting the slopes for some spring snowboarding is one of the things I’m really looking forward to upon return. BTW today’s weather is 33C and sunny ;)

So back to the present. I’m feeling that same feeling I’ve experienced so many times and it’s as good as ever. The feeling after finishing a course, the one that comes immediately after handing in an exam paper or giving that final presentation. I did both of those today, and so I’m really enjoying the resulting emotion.

I had an oral presentation in my spoken Arabic class, 15 minutes on anything, in Arabic of course. I gave it on my time at Behman Psychiatric Hospital. I owe many thanks to Amani, Nabila and my friend Diana for their help in editing. The presentation went really well: everyone enjoyed it; people understood it in part (which in itself is a great success), asked lots of questions when they didn’t, and were in general interested in the topic. So I was really pleased.

After that, I had a written exam in Modern Standard Arabic. It also went really well, I think. We’ll see tomorrow, but it felt good. So we’ll see. I actually think I learned a lot in that course.

So now what? This is the big question. My return ticket is for exactly 4 weeks from today, so now I need to either: fill my time here with something useful, take my time elsewhere in the region, or come home early. I’m not interested in taking the next course. I don’t think it’d be a good use of my time and money. It was expensive-ish, it took a lot of time and I don’t have the motivation. Also, I’m not thinking there’s a lot I can start and finish here in one month that’ll keep me busy.

So my top 2 options are coming home early and traveling. The biggest knock against traveling is that I would be on my own for a great deal of it. This of course is one unique feature that isn’t in itself bad, but given that I’m a fairly social person, built for having a smaller number of more long-term, deep relationships, it’s a bit a scary proposition. I'm one who's not super interested in history or stuff like that - I just like stuff that looks nice and I enjoy sharing it with others. When I say scary, it's not as much the fear of the experience as it is thinking that I'm just not sure I'll really enjoy it. The advantages are seizing the chance to do and see stuff I have while I'm here, the learning experience of traveling, and the growth that can come from that, and especially from traveling alone, and the fact that I simply don't know how it'll be till I try.

The advantage to coming home early is that I can start working (insert sarcastic cheer here). But that has the advantage of bringing in, rather than spending, money. The influx of financial resources is considered useful for the partial funding of such educational endeavors as I will be undertaking in the upcoming 6 years. The other advantage is to come home and spend purposefully, as opposed to putsing around Cairo with little purposeful work or service driving my time. The disadvantage is that I’m here, it’s now, and there aren’t a tonne of opportunities like this, so I don't want to miss something that I'd miss just 'cause of laziness or lack of personal investment and some types of risk.

So I’ve thrown my thoughts of the present situation at you (like I’ve done with all blogs). I hope you don’t judge me for them. BTW You can be sure I’ll let you know what I plan is shortly after I know it myself.

Oh yeah, other people exist too.

I finally got around to adding the links of other blogs that I visit (and by implication, you should also visit), though not all of them are regularly updated (ahem Marcia. Okay perhaps you're not blogging anymore since you returned from abroad [like I probably won't do for the summer] but how could I put your sister up and not you?) though actually you will find Marcia's blog interesting even if it's not updated 'cause she was also in the Middle East.

I especially encourage you to read my cousin Monica's blog 'cause even though she'll hate me for writing this, her blog is only a minute reflection of the inspiriation of a person that she is and it challenges me in my own life in so many areas.

If you are my friend and have a blog I don't know about and want me to link it, please tell me.

Special thanks to Alison for giving me the information on how to add the links to my sidebar.

Still alive, but the kicking has ceased

Hey Peeps,

Seems I was better at updating the blog earlier in the trip, huh? I blame school. I regularly study 4 hours a day on weekdays. (on top of 4.5hours of classes). Maybe it doesn’t sound like too much for you grad/professional school types (I’m especially looking at my med school and optometry school friends) but it’s still a lot and it means I don’t sit down to BS on my blog as often.

Okay, so that’s the biggest thing that’s eating my time in Egypt. The course goes by fast and there’s lots to learn, and since the course is everyday, you have work to prep for the next lecture every day, plus homework. Okay so I’m just whining. This is just a warm-up for my own grad school experience, but I think there’s something about spending most of your time not understanding most of the words that you hear that makes it difficult.

Weather is usually decent, but sometimes up and down. The down happens when we have sand storms. I guess it was bad enough that one of you from Canada heard about it from somewhere. Yeah the sand storm sucked. That one last week was like the 3rd one we had. It must have been bad to get on your news (implied from your comment). It's been gone for a couple days, though today another light one started. It's hard to breathe, there's no sun and every thing gets covered in dust. But oh well, everywhere has it's version of bad weather, and our season for this is ending soon.

What else? I must admit I’ve really lost a lot of energy to be pure Egyptian. The western me has crept back in and resumed his place in my mind and heart. I think there are a number of reasons.

First: being at school. I now interact with a bunch of westerners, and if you ever went to school (which you all did) you know that you don’t spend all of your non class time working on your classwork, so that most of my chatting with new friends is in English (which everyone speaks, even though not everyone is native English speaking; not even the majority.) On that note, I went to a party last weekend, thrown by a roommate of one the guys in my class. It was his (the roommate’s) birthday. The party was really weird, really fun. It was weird in that except for the “Fool” and “Ta3maya” on the table along with all the other party food, you could have been in any house party in Canada (or, more likely, Germany, given that many of the people there were German). It was pretty sweet, it was the most western thing I’ve done since I got there. And indeed once you get sucked in, get given a taste of westernism, it’s easy to slip back into it. And it’s happened to me.

Second: loss of purpose. I think I’ve lost some of my feeling of purpose in Egypt. I’m learning the language at the end of the trip, and I haven’t done anything so far that has told me, “this is, without a doubt, THE place where you belong.” So while it’s good, I have enjoyed it, and I could see returning with a more clear sense of purpose, there is currently an absence of purpose that seems to influence my attitude in the direction away from exerting a lot of effort to put myself out to experience more of Egypt.

Third: awareness of the end. I know I’m going home in about a month. And most of my free time (except on weekends) is spent studying. So it hardly seems worth it to throw a whole bunch of energy into efforts and relationships that will be ending very soon. This is most especially given that I’ve sort of experienced a pattern of relationships here. This city is big, and not having a car and a super clear idea of getting around (or just an absence of desire to expend the large amounts of energy it requires to get around if you don’t want to take cabs everywhere, which I don’t) means sometimes relationships are difficult. This is coupled with an absence of activities that people seem to do regularly as things they use to pass the time (e.g. play pool/go to sporting events), and my conversational skills just means it’s a bit challenging and for the above reasons, my energy isn’t up to it.

So how are you reading all this? Good? Bad? Ugly? Don’t worry about me. I’m okay.

By the way one of my good friends here (my family who came to Egypt knows him) has had a couple of serious medical incidents in his family – his dad was just diagnosed with acute leukemia and this just 2 weeks after his nephew with found to be having a very serious congenital disease. So if you’re the praying type, please send a prayer up to our God for his family.

I know I didn’t post on jobs yet. I’m sorry.

And to those of you waiting on emails from me, I’m sorry. I’m thinking of you all the time. I’m just not writing lots. It’s hard to be super-super regular on those too. I hope this blog will satiate you until I get to it. I hope I make good use of this weekend for that, but don’t hate me if I don’t.

BTW what happened to the Oilers? I’m still following them over here (of course) and I hope they get back to reality. Bold prediction 1: they’ll make the playoffs.

Back to School

Hey folks,

Sorry it’s been so long. It seems whenever I sit down to write, I don’t have the energy or the time or the computer or something. Since these are the same excuses, I’ll chalk it up to energy, which if it were present, would let me work something out for the other two.

Okay, so what’s up? Here’s the news from here.

Weather is nice (I know it’s not so nice where most of you are, I hope it’s okay for the rest of you). This is much more what I expected (highs 22-27) and sunny. This is much better than the dust storm which we had last week (did I tell you about that? I don’t remember. It meant you couldn’t see much in the distance, and everything inside and out was covered with a layer of dust.

Okay, so I did start school last week, Monday to be exact. Sunday was placement testing, actually, then classes on Monday. There are 2 courses, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (the language spoken on the streets, in the houses, on the non-formal media of Egypt) and Modern Standard Arabic, which is the universal written Arabic language, and is found in anything written, including newspapers, and anything formal, like news, government speeches, etc. I’ve been put in level 6 for ECA and level 4 for MSA. The MSA is what I studied at university, but ECA is what I’ve used since I got here, so ECA feels more comfortable since I’m so out of practice in the other, and also I didn’t take a lot of the grammar rules of MSA. Oh well, we’ll just do our best.

Actually, I think it will be good for the month anyways. I’ll reassess after a bit to see if I want to take another level next month. It will definitely improve my speaking and my vocabulary. And it’s a good reminder of what it’s like to be back in school (lectures and participation and homework) – all that good stuff that I haven’t done in just under 11 months but will be fully immersed into in 7.5 months. We have about 7 people in our ECA and 10 in MSA so they’re pretty standard.

It’s a funny little world, this institute. It only teaches Arabic, so all the people there are foreigners, and they come from all over the world, in all different levels. I don’t think you appreciate how multicultural Canada is until you come to a place like this. There are some parts of Cairo that are multicultural (e.g. Maadi) but mostly, when you see someone not-Egyptian, they stand out quite a bit, and it doesn’t happen all that frequently. So back to the institute, it’s like this weird little multicultural bubble swimming in a sea of Egyptians. It’s a lot like University in Canada (aside from the studying) in the ages, the attitudes and mostly the multiculturalism, again b/c (I get the feeling that) even University here doesn’t have the same diversity. BTW I like it, it’s a different feeling of acceptance, no one looks weird ‘cause everyone looks different.

So my schedule is Mon-Thurs, 9-2pm, (9-11: ECA; 11:30-2: MSA). After that it’s standard – homework and evening plans. I’m gonna see about continuing at the Hospital one day a week to work with a couple of the mentally handicapped people but it might tough, it might be busy with homework, gym, church and some social life (wow that makes me sound amazing self-centered. My only other excuse is I’m not a fan of the 1.5hr commute).

Okay so I really wanna post on job creation, the type of jobs you’ll find here and the economic situation of Egypt, but I’ve going to a church where one of my friends’ bands is playing tonight and I’ve never been there and I don’t really know how to get there and it’s far away, so I need to leave lots of time to make my way there (best compound run-on sentence ever!).

Another time.

Some thoughts

Yo.

Casey (ahem: Canada) stuck out. But no one here cares, because they don't even know that the winter olympics are on. Oh well. I saw the last 13min of the 3rd period. Sadness. But oh well. It's hard to be broken up about it when no one else is. And we're doing well elsewhere, so good for us and good for the atheletes that get greater spoltlight now that the people who usually get the spotlight 8 months of the year (NHLers) no longer have it for a couple days.

Actually watching the olympics is fun. You guys take it for granted. I only get it in German from the satelite. But I enjoy it. Especially speed skating, 'cause they talk about the Cindy Klassen.

What else? You know why they don't have winter olympics here? Here's why: Today was a high of 25C. Yes, that's right. Tomorrow about 31C. I'm going to Alexandria again, this time on the train. Should be fun. But back to today. 25, sunny, not much breeze in the afternoon. I'm walking in a golf shirt, khaki's, and a full backpack. I've been walking for about half an hour. So I'm sweating lightly. Lo and behold, here passes this guy wearing...long pants, turtleneck, medium wool coat, and toque. I'm not kidding you. It was wild.

What else? Bird flew. Birds fly all the time, what's the big deal. No, bird flu. Oh, I see. It's big news here. But I haven't died yet. I don't think it's a huge concern. But stuff like the aquarium was closed today (I wanted to go) and indeed closed for the next ten days. I don't know why, but I think it's related.

I had lots of random thoughts but I forgot them, it seems. Oh here's another one. This country runs on carbohydrates. Atkins would have had a heart attack if he saw how much carbs they eat (oh wait, didn't he have a heart attack?) Anyways, it's a bit sick, to be honest, you can have like 3 starches in a meal. And you don't find a lot of fresh crisp vegetables. Though I was all like, 'Okay, I'll be fine eating whatever and I can throw my died out the window when I get here,' I'm hurting a bit. Seriously craving crispy vegetables. Not like they don't exist, it's just not regular. And most people I talk to say you can't eat salad from anywhere in the street, (i.e. anywhere not at home) except very few restaurants that you know and can trust. So for a salad guy like me, I'm hurting b/c of it. And it's not a taste thing, I'm doing fine with the tastes too. (For those of you who don't know my diet, I'm not a vegetarian or anything - I love meat and I'm not an Atkins either).

Okay. Enough complaining. I have registration and placement testing on Sunday for Arabic class, and classes start Monday. We'll see how it goes. Bye Bye.

A couple of pics

I know you're just dying to see what I look like in the Middle East...you can imagine it's really different.

Okay, to appease you, here are two pictures...

I don't know how they'll come out, so this is a trial for size and embedding and such. Plus I'm tired and want to go home.

The pics are:
Me, with a background of Jordan, and Israel beyond. This is Mount Nebo where God showed Moses the promised land before he died (see Deut 34. We couldn't see quite as far as Moses did 'cause it wasn't super clear, it was a bit hazy.

Me with friends at the football match. BTW Egypt won the championship yesterday and it was total mayhem, and very exciting.

Random (?) Song Lyrics

Here are the Lyrics of a fun song by Hawk Nelson:

Title: California
Album: Letters to the President

I’m not falling for anymore of these tricks
I’m so tired of everything here
This sun is calling me to the west
Everyone’s having fun out there

My bags are packed as I’m looking out the window
Everything is so outdated here
I wanna move west to where the sun is shinning
I want my friends to all be there

Let’s pack up and move to California
She’s got lots of friends out there
We’ll never get bored cause we can go boardin’
Let’s let the sunshine take us there

I’m tired of taking it slow
So tired but I’m not sleeping
I’m wired about to pick up my board
Cause we’re all heading out for the weekend

Let’s pack up and move to California
Hop on board before we get older
Raise your hands and shout for California
Come on, come on, come in, come on

Let’s pack up and move to California
She’s got lots of friends out there
We’ll never get bored cause we can go boardin’
Let’s let the sunshine take us there
Come on, come on, come on, come on

Let’s pack up and move to California
She’s got lots of friends out there
We’ll never get bored cause we can go boardin’
Let’s let the sunshine take us there

Let’s pack up and move to California
She’s got lots of friends out there
We’ll never get bored cause we can go boardin’
Let’s let the sunshine take us there

Let’s pack up and move to California
Hop on board before we get older
Raise your hands we’re heading for the border
Come on, come on, come on, come on

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go

The Metro, as promised. And other modes of transportation. I’ll do this by describing my trip to work/volunteering. So I leave my building and walk about 5 minutes to a major street that intersects perpendicular to my street so I can take the bus (whatever your picture is, my guess is that it’s wrong) to the underground train. I stand on the corner and wait until a bus looks to be turning right. I then wave to the guy who’s standing out the bottom step, leaning out the door and calling out the bus’s direction (Giza). If he waves me, I get on the bus, which may or may not come to a complete stop. I may or (much, much more likely) may not have a seat, and I may stand in the entranceway and hang on to whatever I can. (Don’t tell my aunt that I climb into moving buses and stand on the entrance. To my grandparents, don’t worry, I’m never hanging outside the bus, the guy who calls the direction is always outside of me.) I ride the bus 10 minutes to the end of the bridge over the street where you can find the Metro Station. The bus ride cost’s me 50 ersh (there are 100 ersh in a gineh). Since you can buy about 4.8 gineh for 1CAD, I’m looking at about 12 cents for my bus ride.

After getting off the bus, I walk 5 minutes to the Metro Station, and a buy a ticket for the Metro. Any ride on the Metro is worth 75ersh. I ride that line for just two stations to a major station, then switch trains at Tahreer. I then ride this line to either of the two places I volunteer. The psychiatric hospital is at the very end of the line, so it’s about 45 min on the train from Tahreer. The school for kids with learning disabilities is closer, about 25 min from Tahreer. From either station I walk to my place of work (10 min to the hospital, 15 minutes from the school. On the way home, I do it in reverse. So the total cost of my trip is 2.50 gineh (or just over 50cents Canadian). And it takes me 1.5 hours to the hospital, 1hr 10 min to the school. So as you can see, I have lots of time to think. I also now carry a book, so that I can read it while I’m on the train, if I’m fortunate enough to get a seat (not super likely until the end of the line, and only in the morning), or if I’m fortunate enough to be in an empty enough car that standing with a bit of room to lean on something and read is possible.

So that’s my commute. Let me just conclude it by saying this…How many of you see goats on your way to work/school?

I spy, with my little eye...

I realized something yesterday, while thinking about what I might write about. I have a lot of time to think during the day, as you will soon learn. One thing I realized is that I have neglected one of the most important discussions, that of the everyday visual. That may be in part because it’s so obvious to you that you see with your physical eyes what you see, so why would you need to tell anyone about the ordinary view. Your thoughts are obviously something that others aren’t privy to, and from a visual sense, only when something spectacular enters your field of view do you consider it noteworthy to share. But you don’t see what I see.

What do I see? If you could describe Cairo in two words, they would be “big” and “brown.” Big. Of course the city is big, in a square area. It has to be, to hold the some 20 million it does (don’t quote me on that number, I hear lots of different numbers from different people). But what else is big? The buildings are. In this I mean that the majority of buildings are apartments, ranging from 5-12 stories high. And brown. All the buildings are brown, if they were originally made of stone, or reddish-gray if originally brick. This is because of the dust. This is a very dusty city. (A brief gross interlude: I learned that mucus and nose hair both have very useful filtering purposes. Now, when I blow my nose, I find that there is lots of grey in the Kleenex, because it is a collection of filtered dust and pollution.) As I was saying, all the buildings are the same color, a dirty, dusty light-ish brown.

There is a conspicuous absence of space and color. There are a few trees, but they do not dominate the landscape to say the least. Those trees that do persist are often quite dusty, and they don’t have a strong and healthy appearance. But of course, I’m painting a broad picture with a broad brush. It is more correct to distinguish between regions. The richer the area, the more trees, the lower the buildings, the more color, the greater the space. The poorer areas are more grey and brown and devoid of trees and color. I work in both types of places, and you can really feel the difference.

Then…the people. How to describe? Moustaches aren’t quite as out of fashion here as they are there, so you find lots of men with them. Most people look Middle Eastern, but there is a range of light/dark. Still, you don’t see many foreigners at all, except in certain places. Men dress conservatively, either button shirts and slacks, or galabayya’s (I don’t know the proper spelling). A galabayya is basically like a nightgown. It’s more common for older men and people from Upper Egypt. The galabayya is often accessorized by a scarf wrapped around the head. And it’s still winter, so for everyone sweaters and (regular) scarves are common. (This is a guess, but) about 70% of the women (i.e. females above say 15) wear veils of some type. These come in a variety of shapes and styles. This percentage also varies by region, with some regions having a higher percentage of Christians/Muslims, or varying by conservatism. When you consider that this 70% of women includes 20% Christian, the figure comes closer to 85% of Muslim women are veiled (again, this just by my estimation).

I can’t put a percentage on it, but a very small but present population is fully veiled, exposing only eyes or not at all. And almost always she is wearing all black. This was one of the biggest culture shocks for me when I first came, but I’m fairly used to it now. It’s still weird to see a fully veiled woman when she’s walking with her regularly dressed husband, and they are talking or shopping or doing anything normal that couples do. It’s weird because 2/3 of equation (the activity and the husband) looks totally normal to me, and the other 1/3 seems out of place. But, like most things, I’m getting used to it. I expect some visual reverse culture shock upon coming home.

Okay so that’s just a bit on what you see here.

On Media, Matches (and Metro next time)

So…sorry it’s been too long. What do you want to know? I guess until I guess a response for that question, you’ll learn whatever I talk about. I’m always hurting for time to type, ‘cause I have lots to say. But I’ve only got so much time and computer access. So here’s what I got for now.

Media. So I know it’s somewhat inappropriate in certain circles to discuss the musical, moral and lyrical prowess of America’s own Marshall Mathers from a positive point of view, but, given my safe distance from the majority of my readers, I’ll dive in.

I saw the video for “When I’m Gone” a couple nights ago. Since I don’t know how modern the Arabic music station is, pardon me if I’m out of touch and this song is old. Nevertheless, though I only saw maybe 2/3 of it, missing the beginning, I have to say it’s an all around grand production. First of all, the song is great…nice music, classic talented beats and beautiful rhyme scheme as per the known talent of Eminem. Furthermore, the lyrics are great, exploring the relationship of father and daughter, father and wife, and musical demands. The video itself is good, putting forth the group setting and integrating his daughter and her lip-syncing for the parts designed to be her speaking. You gotta think it did something to me to write about it given what I just said about time, and given it’s not all that different from what I get at home, as opposed to riding the bus here (consider that a teaser till next time).

What else? I saw about 20 minutes of the beginning-middle of a movie called Julian Po. Did anyone see (even hear of) this movie? It looked good, it looked intriguing in its story and the commentary it made on people. Now you know what kinds of movies I like. I think I’ll try to see it sometime.

Matches. Just another example of the difficulty of language. Did you think I was talking about the little wooden things you strike to make fire, or about the noun to describe a sporting contest? FYI I was referring to the latter.

Since the middle of January, the African Football (read: Soccer) Championship has been going on, and Egypt is the host country. The city has been fairly nuts about the whole thing, whenever Egypt plays it is a big event. It’s been magnified by the fact that Egypt has been doing well. I finally made it out to a game last Friday, after trying (through friends) to get tickets. I owe Friday’s game to Kareem and his friend Dalia, and her brother Shady. Tix were not easy to come by, we paid twice their face value on the black market, though it’s not quite the same as scalping at the door.

It was quite an event. The tix are not assigned seating, only assigned by section according to the class of the ticket. Level 1 had the best seats (and is therefore the most expensive). There is level 2 and 3. We sat in level 3. Since there is no assigned seating, we had to get there early to hold good seats. We tried to get there early, but Kareem forgetting the tix on the way to picking us up, and one girl from our group hitting a child while driving (before meeting us) and giving him a broken leg (so we all went to meet her at the hospital) meant we didn’t get there that early. In fact, our friends (the larger group) were having a hard time saving us our good seats. So we only made it by like 2:30. For the 7:00pm match. Imagine! The plan was more like 12:00. It was nuts. They showed the other quarterfinal that day, which was playing in Alexandria, on the big screen. It was from 3:00-5:00pm. Which still leaves a lot of time for free time. This time was spent singing songs and yelling and clapping. It was an experience. I was tired before the match started.

Actually, Egyptians are a loud, fun, sing-y, type of people, in the right situations. I am reminded also about the retreat I went on. During the sports, everyone (and mostly, especially the girls) shouted/sang about the group, and whenever one of the players did something well, they would sing about them. Actually, it’s fun to be sung about. They’re not like complicated songs or anything, and definitely more of a shout/cheer than anything, but enjoyable nonetheless.

For the match, the whole stadium was clothed in Red, White and Black (the colors of the flag if you didn’t guess). It was pretty spectacular. And you’ve never seen so many flags. We had at least 4 good productions of the wave. And Egypt won handily, 4-1, which made it all the better. But for me, it was too long a day (i.e. I’m not going to any other matches – the semi-final is tomorrow, and the final on Friday). Still, I’m glad for the event.

Ode to Akhuya

“Ode to Akhuya”

Akhuya in Arabic means “my brother”. And since today, Jan 29 is my brother’s birthday, I want everyone in the world to know how wonderful he is. So happy birthday Simon! You are fantastic – as a person, as a brother, and (for all those ladies out there) I’m sure you’ll one day be a fantastic husband too :)

So welcome to geezer-hood, you old 21 year-old. Know that I and lots others and God all love you. But of all those people who love you, I love you fourth! (honestly, probably God, Mom and Dad, are all ahead of me, so fourth is pretty good).

Akhuk (your brother),

Adam

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Okay, this type I'll copy and paste properly.

And I realized this...the starting things are lower down, so don't start here, start at the post lower down called...I forget...the one more recent than Going, going, going.


The only other thing I want to say today, comes from a sentence or two I put in the last post. It goes something like this. Yes, things I write are neat and weird and different. But, on some level, I’m not living a really different life, I’m just having an opportunity to look at things a little differently, then talk about it. Yes, I write for your enjoyment and entertainment along with an interest to convey culture. You’re also feeling the part of me that is a bit of an exhibitionist, as I shine the spotlight on myself at the same time as I do the whole culture and experience. But the point is that indeed, were any one of you to actually hold a candle to your own life, analyze, question, and document it, it would be of the same interest and value. And if you think that all you live is the same as everyone, and there’s no way to experience a different culture where you are, then I think you are subjecting yourself (by choice or by default, an even worse way to live) a very narrow range of experiences. Because even those living in Edmonton, if they wanted, could spend a good deal of their free time with people who live a whole different type of life. So, yes, enjoy my stories. Enjoy the differences. Learn from what I say. But don’t think that what I’m doing is not possible from where you are. And if you like it, find it enlightening, enjoyable, whatever, then use this as inspiration to start re-examining your life, the life of people around you and, put yourself in a different culture in the area you live if you need to be stimulated in that way.

(If you’re stuck for where to find a different culture, I think the easiest thing to do is hit up the inner city. When I was working downtown, I learned that you can, without even trying to, by not ignoring people in the place they are, and not being so busy that don’t have time to accept an invitation to a rooming house, or carry a drunk on the way out of your office, meet a whole different world than the college/university educated semi-affluent, good-looking, socially supported collection of people that predominate my circle, and perhaps yours.)

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