Azhar Park

This is a beautiful park on a hill above Cairo. It is actually the biggest park in Cairo, but smaller than most of the parks that I am used to in Rochester we walked our dogs. It affords views of a number of mosques, the skyline of Cairo, the cliffs of Moqatam (where they carved a lot of the stone for the pyramids) and on a clear day, like yesterday, we could actually see the Pyramids.

On our way out, I had a hilarious thing happen to me. There was some folklore show going on right in front of the gate, and a bunch of Egyptians were crowded around it, so naturally we went and took a look. It was mix of dancing and comedy sketches about the time of the sultans in Egypt. All of a sudden, the MC came over to me when he noticed that there were foreigners in the crowd (we were the only ones) and gave me a hearty kiss on the cheek. Then two minutes later, he dragged me out of my spot in the crowd into the show, and I found myself in the middle of a competition for his "daughter" adorned with a rifle, a robe, and a tall hat. This went on for a good ten minutes, and in the end, I made it out a live to a large applause and new fame, with a free papyrus from the group, with the name of the group (which was lead by Hassaan - the guy who kissed me), and a slogan that says "We want peace for Egypt and all of the world." Sweet.

The Muqatam Cliffs

Can you spot the pyramids? (to the right of the minaret)

Standing with the suitable bachelors..

This is the last two minutes of it...

sha3bee

Egyptians have a problem with pronouncing "p's" because it doesn't exist in the alphabet. So it's called "Bing-bong." Aywa, uhib bing bong. So far I have met a bunch of Egyptian dudes in different groups, either through David, or through people at school, who from there invite you to hang out with their group of friends. For the most part, they are incredibly generous, like not letting me pay for a thing, giving me a bed to crash, or driving me home so I don't have to take a cab. It is part of their culture to be hospitable, and they are enthralled to have a western friend, or one from America. These days they all want to know about Obama, and are happy that he has Muslim blood in him and are optimistic about the renewal of America's image. Probably the biggest difference in how we hang out is the complete lack of females and alcohol in where we are. To be fair, these guys are not part of the crust of the rich baller Egyptians who are going to nightclubs or parties on Nile boats, but part of the "shah'bee" culture - which means folk,  or popular - where the norm is to play ping-pong, and go to cafe's to smoke shisha and play backgammon and dominoes day in day out. 

Keeping the funk

Part of me has to keep the music going in some way or another. Once a term, each class has to put on a presentation during the assembly that is once every other week. Since I am currently directing and practicing Oliver Twist with my class, I decided to have them, do a couple of Oliver Twist songs. "Oliver Twist, with a Twist." Enjoy the rap, and the dirty beat I drop to "Consider yourself."

I've also found ways to get to see some live music. I went to see a Mohamed Mounir concert a couple weekends back. He is one of the most famous Egyptian singers, very genuine Egyptian, and loved and known by all. One of the teachers at school had extra tickets, so I took one. Although the teachers who originally were going to take me couldn't go, I went anyway, by myself. It was in the middle of the desert on the GUC (German University in Cairo) campus, and I had no way to get back. I found myself swept up thick into the middle of the crowd with a bunch of Libyans who had driven 14 hours to get there, enunciating the song lyrics in my ear, and exhaulted by the fact that I was rocking out with them. I ended up getting connected with a brother of one of the teacher's who was there, and drove around with him and his friends until 3 in the morning, playing ping pong, eating dank food, and learning effective and useful curse words.

This week it is Cairo jazz festival. The opening night was in Manial Palace, and I went with David and an Egyptian friend because there was some Norwegian group playing. It was a really cool outdoor concert behind a grove of palm trees. It was put on by a number of European embassies as an effort to bridge cultures by performing in a language that everyone can understand. This one cuban band brought on a bunch of Nubian drummers at one point, and amongst the high-rolling diplomats, palm-trees, and afro-cuban fused with Nubian rhythms, the point seemed to be made.

It turns out that today, the school is having a field trip to another show that is part of the Jazz festival, at another palace on an island in the Nile. Who knows if the kids will appreciate it, but I will.

walks

Every Saturday, I try to find a new place to explore in Cairo. Now that I have a camera, I can take a lot more pictures.

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In the Coptic section of Cairo. St. George slaying a dragon. 

From the Catholic cemetary

My Subway stop. Helmiyat el Zeitun

A Roman tower built in 200AD ish. The Nile used to sweep up against this tower.

This bike is leaning against a Mosque that was built in the 14th century. 

This is taken from a park in Cairo (one of the few). I really enjoyed watching these pigeons take off and fly circles around a mosque, among the dissonance of prayers, traffic sounds, and arabic music coming from the nearby cafe.

Me.

back to "normalcy"

Since Italy, life has gotten back to “normal.” I am definitely earning my keep doing this teaching business though. I leave at 6:30, get back at 4, and am usually putting in a good three hours of prep a night. It is exhausting; as a teacher you get no second chances, lots of the time I have no idea whether what I am going to do is going to work, and my class’ behavior depends on the day, not on how many grueling hours I put in the night before lesson planning. I still enjoy coming to work though.

The school gives a lot of emphasis to teachers being doing things outside of the class room, which demands more, but at least gives good variety. This week I was running a football match during the second break between primary six houses (there are four), but I made the mistake today of forgetting about the final today between the Green Pharaohs, and the Blue Vikings. I was ten minutes late, and even though I let them play extra and be late to class, everything is always unfair for this age, there was one boy in tears, and they wanted my head. There are a number of field trips that classes take (all the other classes have taken one, so I think I will get one soon), and there are a bunch of optional socially conscious trips in the near future which I will definitely go on –the politically tame ones of course, like fighting against poverty, or a food drive for charity. It should be another good way to see Egypt. We also have clubs once every other week, and I am in charge of “drumming club.” Today was our first day (because we didn’t start clubs until after Ramadan), and after talking about rhythm with the 8 kids who signed up and teaching them a couple of rhythms on the tambourines the school has, I got to rock the school’s drum set much to the kids’ (and even more so my) enjoyment. I can’t explain how good it felt, it spoke to a part of my soul that will always be soothed by playing music. Gravitating towards the things you love also just sort of makes things work out, because after speaking with the school music teacher, I found out that there is a demand at her music school for an English speaking drum teacher. So I found myself a new job for the weekends, and a new exposure to Egyptian life.



I still get time to go horseback riding, at least once every full moon. The flame from the bedouin pitstop where you can get pepsi, cigarettes and tea, the glow from Cairo, and the full moon add to the surrealness of it all. To the left imagine three pyramids lit up in green and purple by the nightly "sound and light show"

La vita e bella

So my first vacation (and round trip ticket in a while, up to now there has been Rochester -> Boston, New York -> London, London -> Geneva, Geneva -> Cairo) took from Cairo on the red eye land landed me bright and early in Roma Fumacino for an unforgettable week with my family. It was four days in the Italian countryside in Umbria in a house which my dad had rented, and two days in Rome. Michaela, who I hadn’t seen since June and is now working in Dublin, was able to find cheap flights to Perugia. I also found out a week before that I got an extra day of vacation, because eid el-fetr, which was the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan depended on the lunar schedule on when to start, and the flight was easily changeable. It was one of those vacations that was almost too good to be true, and I had to keep pinching myself to know that I really had escaped the smog and squalor of Cairo. It really took a parents meeting, and a sleepless night of preparation for talking about children and lesson planning to bring me back to earth.

In Umbria, as a family plus two “appendages” we spent lots of time walking through old medieval Italian towns and villages, exploring large churches, making amazing dinners with the fresh food from the market and pluckable herbs from the garden, biking, walking, sampling cheese, salami and wine, and having many gelatos. It was a breath of fresh air, and walking through the charming towns of antiquity.
On a walk up from the house to the town of Aqualoreto, Michaela and I bumped into the same lady that I had seen with my family on our bike ride when we got off to explore the town on foot the day before. She greeted us in Italian with the same question as yesterday. “Are you Christian?” Yes. “Catholic?” Well, she is. She then went on to talk about a bunch of things that I couldn’t really understand, although very enthusiastic about talking. At least I found out that her name is Ada and she is 90 years old, and it’s Ok if you are protestant because you still believe in God and you will still go to heaven. Like the day before, she gave us a benediction, but this day she wished us “Siempre amore como oggi.”
Rome was equally amazing, but in a different way. It was so cool to see all of these old ruins, and try to imagine what they looked like 2000 years ago. It was also nice that our hotel was located with a view of the Colosseum about 300 yards away. It isn’t every day that you get a text from your dad saying “meet for lunch at the Pantheon.” It was also nice because my grandfather, uncle and aunt, all came from London to come celebrate my Uncle’s birthday with us in Rome. They were all doing really well, and I am all about family reunions.
Some more highlights include:
Dancing in the square of Saint Peter to Mambo Italiano on the iPod, and then watching Roger do the same dance.
Lying down like Romans on the Colosseum and feeding grapes to ourselves that we had bought on the way there to the laughter and jealousy of tourists who wished they had come up with such a brilliant idea.
Walking through Rome at 2 in the morning and enjoyably getting lost in the heart of it, and then finding our way to some outlook where you could see the Colosseum, the forum, and many old churches, all illuminated.

All told, I am incredible appreciative when the order of the universe works out like that.

Things to know about Cairo

Egypt is a paradox. In the words of a colleague, it is "hypothetically Islamic," meaning that it is important to appear Islamic, and go through the motions of being Islamic, but that is because everyone else is Islamic, and you do not want to lose face. In other words, one does not do something because it is Haram (which means absolutely forbidden by the Koran), but because one does not want to be seen doing it. Behind closed doors, it is fine for all Egyptians to drink and have sex with unmarried people, but this is not talked about.

On to more superficially obvious things...

-In the sha'(g)bee (popular/middle class/egyptian) parts of town, everything you could ever want is in a specific shop on the street. If you live above one of these shops or markets, a the best way of getting things you want is by letting down a bucket attached to a string, with some money in it and a list, and then pulling it right back up.
-For the upper class, there are malls. I went to one mall, called city stars, seven stories, more western and opulent than the west actually is, had absolutely everything that you could imagine, I wish I had taken my camera.
-There are a few traffic lights, but they are meaningless and should be disregarded. Intersections can have four scenarios.
  1) they are directed by a traffic cop
  2) there is no traffic cop and it is honking-match grid-lock
  3) the big vehicles and the cars moving in the flow win and you wait your turn
  4) you honk your horn and go (most common in the back streets)
-There is an abundance of police officers doing nothing.
-Smoking Hashish is more morally and socially acceptable than drinking beer. This is because the Prophet Mohammed explicitly condemned beer more times in the Koran than he did hash.
-It’s not gay to walk elbow to elbow. Lots of men do this, it’s how Cairene men walk.
-It’s been cool to litter for 5000 years. Poor people will go through the trash on the street. There are some trash disposals, but waste just sits on the street everywhere.
-When there isn’t a price on something that means that you are supposed to bargain for it. In certain scenarios an accepted Egyptian/Non-Egyptian price for things. This can also be true in certain restaurants where the non-Egyptian menu prices are standard, and you have to fight to pay what the guy next to you is paying.
-There is a beer delivery service. This is because there is no way to buy beer otherwise during Ramadan. After Ramadan these places open up, as do the bars.
-Egyptian kids love saying “What’s your name?” “Welcome to Egypt” and “How are you” to you if you are white.
-The society is class based and will stay that way. In different parts of the city, there can many self-contained areas of the wealthy or the poor.
-Lots of men have a “raison” on their head, or a mark. This means that they pray a lot.
-Most women are veiled. This means that you do not touch.
-There is no drainage system for water because it never rains. Even so, when there is water on the street it just festers for days.