Photos from Alex and Rashid

Here are some photos from around Alexandria and of my day trip to Rashid.

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062696&l=b5446&id=1707686

I realize I've been doing a terrible job of updating my blog recently, and I'm going to try to get a bit better for my last month or so here! So check back again soon for updates, in sha allah!

More Luxor and Aswan pictures...

Here are more of my pictures from Luxor and Aswan.

As usual, I have tons more, but they're from my new camera and the files are too large to upload.

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060266&l=461e7&id=1707686

Enjoy!

Luxor and Aswan pictures!

here's the link to my photos on facebook...this is just the beginning, many more to come!

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060048&l=664c8&id=1707686

Starbucks

So I'm sitting in a Starbucks on the Corniche because there's wireless here, and visiting a Starbucks in Egypt has made me reflect on some of the differences in everyday life here. I thought I'd share some of them.

Bathrooms. This is the major thing...you use them everyday, and a small difference in bathroom culture can cause a big disruption. So Egyptians don't really use toilet paper, which was a bit of a shock the first day when I arrived. Instead of toilet paper, there is a bidet-like attachment on most toilets. I was forced to try that out for the first couple of days, since there was no TP in my apartment. I ended up purchasing some toilet paper, however...I guess some aspects of your home culture are harder to let go of than others.

and tomatoes and pickled vegetables. One of my favorite places to eat is called Ahmed, where you can get (the breaking of the fast), my family usually serves me a soup with beef, vegetables, potatoes, and sometimes macaroni, and then another beef or chicken dish, with rice or potatoes, or sometimes kebab and Food. This one's hard to classify. I've had some amazing meals here, I've had some not-so-great meals here. I've (very luckily) not been seriously ill from something I ate so far, which is more than everyone else on my program can say. Let's hope I'm not next.... A staple of the Egyptian diet is fuul and felafel. Fuul are beans, mashed up, and often served with tahinaMohammedfuul and felafel served up with hummus and tahina and warm pita bread...delicious. Egyptians are also really big on meat and chicken. During Ramadan, for iftaarkoofta. Basically they feed me entirely too much, and then insist that I've barely eaten. I've discovered that food equals love here; one of the best ways to show you care about someone is to force them to gorge themselves on food you've prepared. And of course, you can find some tastes of the US - MacDonald's and Dominoes deliver amazing likenesses of their food in the US.

Family. Family is of the utmost importance to Egyptians. Children don't move out of their houses until they marry, and if they don't marry, they continue to live at home with their parents. My host sister just didn't really get why I wasn't planning on moving back in with my parents after I finished college. The idea of gaining independence from your family is not really present here. My host sister speaks to her sister who's married and lives across town every single night, and she speaks to her cousin every day. I haven't talked to my cousins in months! It's kind of nice that you're so close to your family here, it gives you an automatic support system. On the other hand, I don't think I could live with my parents until I married (no offense guys), so it's probably good I'm an American.

Dating. This is where some huge differences lie. Women and men date, but it's usually pretty secretive (their mothers may know about it, but definitely not their fathers). And dating here is not as we think of it in the U.S. - there's no kissing until marriage (maybe engagement, if you're more liberal), and pre-marital sex is definitely a no-no. It seems like most people get engaged and married fairly young (mid 20s or so), although there are a lot of people in the US married by mid-20s, so not so different. There does seem to be an expiration date on marriage here, as women over 30 are seen as too old for marriage (according to my host sister Sara).

Divorce. This is an interesting one: surprisingly similar to the US. I expected the divorce rate to be low here, but the director of the program here (who's divorced herself), told me that it was about 40%. I don't know what it is in the US, but I don't think it's too much higher than that. The down side to that number, as my host sister informed me, is that women are usually blamed for divorce.

But despite all of these differences, Starbucks remains almost exactly the same as it is in the US. Amazing what globalization has managed in a culture so different. Although I have to say, I prefer the grungier cafe's where you can get a cup of turkish coffee or tea and smoke shisha for a dollar to Starbucks where you pay at least $5.

Photos from al-Alamein

here's the link to photos from a trip i took yesterday to ruins of a Coptic monastery at Meri Menos and the WWII battlefield and cemeteries at al-Alamein:

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058413&l=e6048&id=1707686

The trip was really nice, especially our stop at the ruins. The ruins are situated near a present-day Coptic monastery, so we started our trip there, where we ran into hundreds of Coptic pilgrims who were there attending mass. We then hiked out about 20 minuted from there across desert-ish terrain, where we ran across a herd of sheep and then a herd of camels, very exciting. We finally reached the ruins, which were a lot more extensive than I was expecting based upon the description I had been given by one of the guys with us who had been there before. The ruins were actually of an entire pilgrim town where this monastery had been in the 3rd century (if I'm remembering my history correctly), including the town's hostel that had hot and cold baths. The town had a bit of the feel of Pompeii, although on a much smaller scale. And sadly, the ruins are not all that well preserved (you're allowed to climb all over the ruins if you want). There is, however, a guide who showed us around a bit. He was very nice, and I was excited because I was able to understand a lot of his explanations about the history of the monastery in Arabic. Unfortunately, he seemed to take a liking to me, and after he told me my Arabic was good and that I was beautiful, we felt like it might be time to go before he got the chance to ask me if I was engaged. (Which, for the record has happened on a few occasions now...and more than once I've pretended to be engaged so as to not be hassled any further.)

After that, we continued on to al-Alamein, the site of the famous WWII battle, which was considered a turning point for the Allies. As I was with 3 guys who are really into history, I think they might have been a little more excited about this than I was. But I definitely enjoyed it - we visited the museum, where we were allowed to actually climb onto the tanks used in the battle (the guys I were with suddenly turned into 5 year old boys playing tanks), and then visited both the English and German cemeteries. All in all, a very enjoyable, if exhausting day.

"If the police ask, just say you're from Holland."

First of all, here's the link to my pictures of Marsa Matrouh on facebook:
http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057340&l=daf50&id=1707686 (remember mom, copy and paste!)

Second of all, sorry I haven't updated in a while...I've been busy, and I'll try to relate some of what I've been doing in this post and others to come.

I'm going to start by talking about what I did two weekends ago, because the story's pretty good. Two weekends ago, I went to a beach about an hour west of Alex with a few of the kids from my program and a group of British students who are also studying at the TAFL Center (Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language) at Alexandria University. We rented a minibus for the day that sat 15, and headed to a private beach resort called Marina. Along the way to the beach, we came to a police checkpoint (they occur periodically along the major highways here in Egypt). As we approached the checkpoint, our driver, Mohammed, told us "if the police ask, say you are from Holland." We all kind of looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and as we started to protest, he just said, "just say you are holandeen, from Amsterdam." At that moment, we reached the checkpoint, our driver rolled down the window, and I heard the police ask him how many we were and where we were from - to which he replied, 13 from Holland. Great. We were waved through without further question, and as we sped away, Mohammed explained that had we said we were British and American we would have had to fill out all kinds of unpleasant paperwork and would have been delayed a half an hour. OK, fine, thanks Mohammed for sparing us. When we arrived at the beach, however, it was the same thing - he told us to say we were from Holland. So when two very enthusiastic beach attendants came up to Lauren and I and asked us where we were from, we dutifully answered, Holland! Then came the awkward moment: one of the girls replied to us in Dutch. Lauren and I were extremely confused for a minute, and then just went for the smile and nod. The rest of the day passed without much excitement - the beach was beautiful, and the water warm, and it was a private beach so we could wear our bathing suits without being harassed. I'm still not sure why it would have been such a hassle for us to be American and British versus Dutch...I may never know, Egypt's full of mysteries.

I have more to come from this past weekend's trip to Marsa Matrouh, so check back soon!

Photos

Here's the link to my photo album on Facebook...I still haven't managed to get photos on here.

I also haven't been able to upload the photos from my new digital SLR camera to either the blog or Facebook because the file size is so large...but I'll keep working on it.

http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2055809&l=d06f0&id=1707686

Ramadan Kareem!

Yesterday was the first day of Ramadan, a month-long holiday where Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. The fast is broken at sundown with a meal called iftaar. Last night I had my first iftaar - the highlight of which was the sweets. I had kamar adeen, which is a drink made from apricots, very thick, absolutely delicious! I also had kunaafa, yum! People tend to go out after iftaar, so the streets around me were loud and busy last night. The streets are also decorated beautifully - with shiny streamers and lights. I've decided to try out fasting for a little bit - although I'm still drinking water because I think I would have some serious problems otherwise. As my host father explained it, the purpose of fasting is to empathize with the poor and those who feel hunger all of the time. So I figured I'd give it a try, really try to immerse myself in the culture. I've gotta say though, I'm pretty hungry right now, and I'm sitting in a cafe where they have wireless...so we'll see how long this lasts.

One other amusing point to share...

Rugby exists in Egypt!…well, sort of. Wissam, the roommate of one of my classmates, told me a few days ago that he knew of a club where there was rugby. So I went with Lauren and met Wissam and Norman at this naadee (kind of like a gym plus sports club, with playing fields and a swimming pool - hard to explain, truly a Middle Eastern thing), where there was a rugby practice going on! It was actually pretty hilarious…thanks to language differences, they at first thought I was going to play with them, but I was wearing street clothes and flip flops, so I said I didn't think that would be a good idea. So we just decided to watch. When we first got there, they were running fitness drills…and it seems some Egyptians don’t understand the notion of hustle. Their coach was an Australian named Mark – he was hilarious, this huge, beefy man who apparently doesn’t speak Arabic, and was booming out instructions in his great accent, even though most of the players didn’t understand him. Oh, and he was wearing nice short little shorts, and a tight tank top…which would be odd in the U.S., but is absolutely absurd in Egypt. So that was great. After a while, they moved on to touch sevens. Some of them were pretty good, but overall, they definitely didn’t look all that great. But hey, I found rugby in Egypt, it doesn’t have to be great rugby. At the end of the practice, the captain came over and introduced himself to us, and told me and Lauren that they were trying to start a girl’s side, and that they just needed seven people. Meaning they have none right now. So me and Lauren make 2 (if I can convince Lauren to play…), and apparently there’s some German girl who wants to play. Only four more…haha. Oh Egypt. Anyway, I was told I should go practice with the men on Wednesday, but I don’t know how I feel about that. It would be great to get some rugby playing in, but I really don’t know a. if I could play with the men, and b. (and more importantly) if it would be culturally acceptable for me to play with the men…I think not, even though Wissam’s friend on the team told me I could. We’ll see, maybe we could actually get a girl’s team together. Apparently there’s one in Cairo, but not Alex. The one thing my grandmother told me not to do in Egypt: start women’s rugby…haha.

Back to school...

Classes start today! I'm at the unveristy right now, savoring some internet time before my classes start at noon. I'm excited to start classes...hopefully once I start learning 'amiyya masriyya (Egyptian colloquial), I'll actually be able to understand what people are saying to me. It's really amazing how different the Arabic I learned at home (fusha) is from the Arabic spoken on the street. OK, time to go...more later!

Day 5...

It seems like month 5! I've done so much, and have seen so much. I'm working on uploading photos from our trips to the Citadel and Montazah palace and beach, but the blog upload thing doesn't seem to like my computer. I might try to put them on Facebook, so check that out.

OK, so not enough time for all of my stories, but here are a few, that are indicative of my time here so far.

First of all, traffic and driving here is absolutely insane. There are very few stop lights, and although there are lane lines on the larger roads, no one seems to pay any attention to them. Cars weave in and out of the lanes, and horns and hand signals replace blinkers. I think my favorite cab ride so far was when I was returning to my apartment one night with a girl in the program who lives near me. Our cab driver had the Arabic music blasting, and we were careening through the streets. You learn to put your trust in these cab drivers - I think it's well-placed, nothing bad has happened yet! Anyway, we looked up, and there was a car coming in the other direction headed right for us. Our cabbie flashed his lights, and we swerved out of the way before we hit. A ride like no other - better than Disney World, as the director of the program told us.

The prettiest place I've been in Alex so far is definitely Montazah. Montazah used to be King Farouk's palace and compound, before he escaped to Italy to live in exile after the revolution. Anyway, beautiful gardens, huuge palace, and most importantly, amazing beaches. Now, Montazah is open to the public (for the price of 5 Egptian pounds, or $1), and there are a couple of hotels, and private beaches. We all wanted to go swimming, but Nehad (the director of the program) told us we couldn't wear bathing suits except on private beaches (welcome to Egypt). Luckily, a couple of the Egyptian girls we know who are hosting people knew someone with a place on a private beach. So, we got to wear our bathing suits and swim on this gorgeous beach. We stayed for a couple of hours, and ordered dinner there are watched the sunset - it was absolutely beautiful.

Finally, the trip to the beach brings up the cultural issue of being a woman in Egypt. Most of the women here wear some form of hijab (hijab meaning both modest dress, and the scarf used to cover women's heads). In many ways, however, the hijab is more of a fashion statement than a part of the religion. It seems more cultural than religious, in other words. And some of these women dress so well - matching their hijab to their outfit, and carrying designer purses and wearing designer sunglasses. But for me, it means that I'm very identifiable as a foreigner, and that I have to think carefully each morning about what I wear. Right now, I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and while some Egyptian women wear similar clothes, I still feel like I'm showing a lot of skin on my arms. But I haven't faced any serious harrassment yet - just a few comments, and a LOT of stares.

OK, well that's it for now... salaamu aleykum min masr!

ahlan wa sahlan!

greetings from al-iskandariyya! I arrived here two days ago, although it seems like weeks ago. Alex is amazing, indescribable, and so different from the US (obviously). Right now I'm sitting in al-markaz al-amrikiyya in Alex (the American Center), and they have reliable internet..hooray! We're all leaving now to go to dinner, but inshallah I will write more soon.

Here it goes!

This is pretty high-tech for me, but I thought blogging would be an easy way for my family and friends to keep tabs on me next year while I'm off exploring Egypt and Spain. So here goes nothing! I'm not really even sure if I'll be able to post, or how often, but it's worth a shot. So stay tuned over the next year and hear about my experiences studying in Alexandria and Madrid.