Ramadan serves up some awesome ta3meya sandwiches in the morning. He also wants my sunglasses because "there's no sun in Imriika."
Keni

pixel skylines
$LAYYYTER
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Not today Justin
trying on a metaphor
Sade Olutola
KIROKAZE
styofa doing anything

Love Begins
noise dept.
NASA
Misplaced Lens Cap
No title available

No title available
Mike Driver
art blog(derogatory)

Janaina Medeiros
will byers stan first human second

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Netherlands

seen from Albania

seen from United States
seen from Italy

seen from Türkiye
seen from Australia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Ukraine

seen from United Kingdom

seen from United States

seen from Canada

seen from Netherlands

seen from United Kingdom
@vacilador
Ramadan serves up some awesome ta3meya sandwiches in the morning. He also wants my sunglasses because "there's no sun in Imriika."
Bicycle*
*I updated the final paragraphs with some insights that occurred to me, coincidentally, on my ride to work. (6/4 9:03 EET)
I bought a bicycle earlier this year for 675 Egyptian Pounds. That’s under $100. I’ve been riding it almost daily since. It’s not much. It weighs far more than the decal Light Roadster hints. The components droop, squeak, loosen, and are gritty with Cairo’s exterior. Suzanne, as she was not-so-affectionately named after Suzanne Mubarak, is a lovely emerald green, but she is covered in a thin layer of ocher building with every passing commute, trek, and sandstorm. Even her rear wheel was slashed by a police officer within the first couple weeks of her consecration.
(Suzanna before a new coat of Cairo-colored paint. The chain guard has also been removed, the pedals replaced, the lock now blue)
By now the bike has paid for herself. Everyday I paid 20 LE for taxis to shuttle me to and from my office -- just far enough away that it was an uncomfortably long walk to complete, especially if I am in a hurry or in the summer heat. I also have that feeling of being beyond the traffic. Riding here is incredibly efficient, but part of what makes traveling by bike is existing in that blindspot of pedestrians and automobiles. That obviously has its perils.
I have had close calls. I’ve even gotten hit by cars. Hit might be too strong of a word. They brushed up against the wooden crate I bound to the rear rack. A car nearly t-boned me in Tahrir Square. Fortunately I haven’t been doored, but I have nearly been sandwiched between the curb and converging cars. I have been rear-ended, but because the traffic was so heavy the car actually gave me a push forward. It’s tempting to say that all of this is Cairo’s fault. That would deny my own culpability, but it wouldn’t do Cairo’s drivers justice or reveal the organized chaos on Cairo’s streets.
Often I’m asked how I have the courage to bike on these streets and what biking in Cairo is like. One explanation -- the original -- was that biking in Cairo is dirty, adrenal pumping, polluted, but rewarding. That is true, but I have also come up with a secondary explanation. Biking in Cairo is a lot like biking in Washington D.C. but without the pretense of rules. Washington D.C. is the home to 50+ driving cultures converging on one dense area. Everyone has their own taboos, courtesies, rules, forbidden and tolerated behaviors, and all of these things fit within the framework of Washington D.C. traffic laws. It’s a mess. Everyone thinks they’re driving properly, but it doesn’t mesh with the other drivers or individualized traffic laws. In Cairo, there are no rules. It is chaos. Cars do what the guy with the gun and badge tells them to do -- that is if the officer is doing anything at all.
It’s quite common to see two cars stop abreast in the middle of a busy street to chat. Sometimes it’s benign questioning on how to get to their destination. Perhaps one car cut the other off, and, instead of speeding off leaving the conflagration behind him, he stops and sticks his hand out of the window pleading for forgiveness but simultaneously saying if you don’t like it, I could hardly care less. That is such a regular occurrence because while Cairo drivers are almost insanely alert, they have zero respect for personal space. Drivers will send their cars barreling into traffic to force intersecting traffic to yield. Other cars will just cut off the abreast car to gain a marginal 6 foot advantage. (Additionally people walk much like they drive, and they people also abuse public space by littering, leaving public areas decrepit, and generating earsplitting noise). Less than 20% of Cairo drives a car, but the city planning is so poor that it feels far more crowded than it really is. This is most felt by Cairenes in their daily commute and parking. Miraculously, Cairo drivers can turn any 2 lane highway into 3 while moving swiftly along at 30MPH, but they can also turn any 3 lane road into a single lane pile up.
So all of this horrific description of what traffic and driving in Cairo is like must have you wondering just how I do manage to bike in Egypt’s capital. It’s quite simple. I just love being on my bicycle and its meditative property. To be sure, there are times, like all cyclists, I curse under my breath or outright yell. Buses glide up behind me with the stealth of a panther and pass me with inches to spare. Private cars whiz past me at freeway speeds, giving me about the same space. Some taxis pretend like I’m invisible and turn right in front of me. One of these days I’m just going to run into their driver-side window and light their cigarette.
I forgot the statistic, but the amount of time an average Cairene spends in a car is counted by years. That is terrifying to me. I see and hear far more on my bike, not just because I have to, but because I am totally immersed in the city around me. My head is on a swivel, and I record my experiences through repeated travel. Before heading out to a new location, I have memorized my route and the relevant streets. I would not do that if I were taking a taxi. Biking here is hectic, but in the mornings around 8:00 it’s peaceful, and Cairo affords me a short reprieve. In the afternoons, it’s hot, congested, and loud. The traffic works to my advantage allowing me to criss-cross in between cars and up the gutter. I often try to count how many minutes I save with every 10 feet of stalled traffic I pass.
Other than the obvious advantage of bypassing traffic, there is a certain camaraderie that unites me with other cyclists and Egyptians of a similar class. So many people have approached me asking me for how much I’ve purchased the bike, complimented Suzanne’s stature (even when she needs a bath), and one man in the street even told me I was just like Egyptians for putting the handcrafted wooden crate on the rear rack. It’s an affirming experience to feel like I fit in here when I often feel alienated. As a result, biking has generally been entertaining and rewarding.
Biking in Cairo has also been a reluctant learning experience. I’ve become a more masterful Arabic speaker, having to argue with a police officer about retrieving my bike from impound, learning any variety of vocabulary words, and explaining what has gone wrong with the bike. And many things have gone wrong. Today, I realized just how broken the crankset was. If you can imagine that on your downstroke, the apogee of rotation is about when you feel resistance, and the generation of forward movement begins. Well my pedals would only reach that point of movement at about 25 degrees or so down, which is about 50% of efficiency (0% is gained on the upstroke). I also was missing a front brake because I had pulled so hard stopping the day before that it had sheered off from the lever.
The shop from which I had purchased the bicycle is closed for repairs in the summer. Ironically, they are so busy “selling” bicycles they can’t even stand by their sale and fix my bike. I still go there weekly to fill my tires up with air because the tubes leak like sieves. Tonight I went to get my brake line re-attached and the crankset adjusted. No Egyptian maintenance can be completed without pounding on something. True to form, the mechanic slammed the cranks down with a hammer before adjusting some screws to secure their positioning. Before Cairo, I had a healthy collection of tools, lubricants, and spare parts to make all of my own adjustments. Here I’m reliant on the imperfect Cairo street knowledge to make everything continue working until it’s totally broken. In Arabic the word for break is keser (كسر), but Egyptians don’t use it in this context. Egyptian colloquial uses bawz (باظ) to label something defunct or not working. To call something broken with the former is to say it’s totally destroyed, broken in two.
The beauty of Egyptian repair is that nothing has a premature life cycle. Things are used and reused until they are truly broken (مكسور). I absolutely love that, but one thing that is noticeably hilarious is, as my friend Adam put it, that Egyptians have lost the fundamentals. It’s sort of abstract, but the idea is that the concept of how something works and why has been lost. Masterful craftsmanship has mostly been replaced by Do It Yourself ingenuity -- a whole different set up imaginative genius passed on.
That is part of what makes this place work. The informality of Cairo’s largest institutions make it the struggling success it is today. Of course, Cairo is a tough city, but it’s determined to succeed based on people’s needs and their wherewithal to provide for his own and her neighbor.
It was peculiar watching, but the guy handled the whole process with veteran grace. I knew I was in good hands. As he wrapped up and handed him 10LE for his service, a gaggle of kids ran over calling his name and shoving crumpled bills and tarnished coins upwards. The mechanic rents out bicycles to children in a neighborhood lacking many luxuries of an average American kid’s upbringing. It was a privilege to see how excited those kids were to rent out a bicycle for an hour. Hashem reminded them of the time before they raced off into the ebbing evening traffic. I got on my bike, it felt brand new and responsive, and the elation I felt mirrored that of the children’s as I slowly meandered up the busy one-way street.
There is a 115 (45) degree sandstorm roiling outside. Can't wait for my bike ride home. #Cairo #sandstorm #biking
Four stories up. For a little bit of money. I really don't think those metal braces are meant to hold so much weight. #Cairo #repairman
Siwa
We drove up to the Siwa oasis on a Wednesday morning. The drive is about 450 miles and it took about eight and a half hours. We were bumped and hurled around on the desert roads that led us to the Mediterranean, and again on the two lane highway sprinkled with military checkpoints. The amount of speed bumps brought headaches and backaches. Strangely, a nabbed us and we were handed a $20 fine. At first I thought it was a shakedown because we were traveling in a car with diplomatic plates. It turns out my friend could commit a felony with impunity but would still have to fork over the 150 Egyptian Pounds for speeding down a desert road.
The police officers warned us of a second speed trap down the road. I suppose it still could have been a shakedown. Either hat gesture rid them of wrongdoing, or they were the cleverest officers I have encountered. They let us go, and I stayed mum.
We stopped for lunch in Marsa Matruh on the Mediterranean coast at what surely must have been the nicest McDonalds in the world. We drank up the view of the turquoise waters over hamburgers and fries we only permitted to ourselves as desert travelers.
After Marsa Matruh, there are no gas stations until Siwa. We topped off the Toyota at a remarkable $1.30 a gallon – dirt cheap. Hurdling no less than two dozen speed bumps at the city perimeter, we started down the pocked desert road to Siwa. It made for a bumpy ride. Combined with the bleak countryside, I could only content myself by closing my book and my eyes. I wanted to read but was too distracted by blaring “driving music” (that can mean different things depending on taste) and the road tousling the page everywhere but in front of me.
There were no less than three checkpoints between Marsa Matruh and Siwa. The closer one gets to Siwa, the closer ones gets to the Libyan border. Tubruq, a coastal city in Libya, is apparently human trafficking port. We did not have any humans stuffed away in our bags in the boot, and nor did diplomatic convention prevent the conscripted soldiers from rummaging around. On a few occasions, the soldiers pulled out a bottle or two of alcohol before waving us on. During the return drive, one soldier pulled out a partially-filled plastic bottle. Its reddish contents were slightly more expensive rum than warranted bringing the whole bottle. Oddly enough gasoline has a coral hue that resembled the alcohol in our water bottle, and so the soldier was concerned that we had criminal intent.
I was in charge of translation this time and explained to the soldier that it was alcohol. He wanted the receipt to which obviously there was none. I explained that we had not bought it in Siwa but had brought it from Cairo. He went off to show his superior and assured us it wasn’t a problem – as if 100mL of gasoline would be a problem anyhow.
If the roads to Siwa were bumpy, the roads weren’t all that much better in Siwa. That became a minor inconvenience for one of the most astounding landscapes I have yet to see.
Siwa, a city of 20,000, is situated between two sizable lakes. It is surrounded by pristine, gorgeous, and inhospitable dunes of desert. The downtown area is about two or three blocks of shops dominated mostly by the thriving olive and date storefronts.
We arrived, dropped off our bags, and went to the roof to take in the view – admittedly it was not much except for the anachronistic architecture: mud huts that could not possibly stand the test of time, or the rainy season. Half of the buildings were mud huts, some still used, while more recent buildings resembled the ocherous brick and mortar found throughout Egypt. Unexpectedly trucks rumbled and horns blared in the streets well past sunset. That was probably the biggest letdown of Siwa. I was expecting ethereal silence, a town retrenched in a lifestyle from another century. What I found was a hubbub of enormous semis traversing the streets transporting building materials and the latest siphoned water from deep well.
We stayed in a hostel nestled in a hill crumbling with (what I assume to be) ancient domiciles. A stones throw away was a Sufi mosque. I first noticed something different when the muezzin began chanting a verse repeatedly before the call to prayer. It was melodic and reminded me very much of Jewish prayer. In unison the mosques began the adhan, and in unison they ended. After the isha, Siwa becomes the sleepy desert city I had imagined.
The water was delicious. At first I dismissed this as an overreaction after a long day’s trip. I took another gulp mentioned the obvious: of course the water here is better, it just came out the ground. Instead of the chemical purification processing, the bottlers use an oxidation process that makes for an amazingly refined beverage. The dinner too was refined and overindulging. I ate too much, but after McDonald’s I felt my body deserved nourishment, and I hate to waste food.
We crashed early, in part due to food-induced stupor. The next morning we walked across the town center to the tourism office and bank. We made a stop at the Siwa House where we found an introduction video available only in Arabic and German – typical Egyptian nonconformity. The displays next door were slightly more elucidating on the oasis’ traditions and history. Different garb and improvised tools were on display but lacked narrative and adequate descriptions. We set off for a tall hill known as the Mountain of the Dead. A ring of tombs of the ancient city’s inhabitants encircled the base. These are not kept like the tombs in Luxor. I circled the base mostly looking outward. Hamlets of buildings connected by narrow dirt roads pocked the burgeoning growths of palm trees. Far past the copses and verdure the salt lakes carve out large swaths of the desert, and beyond the rolling dunes the sheer faces tall plateaus stand placid in the beaming sun.
We descended and went to meet a contact who would take us into the desert the following day. Our hotelier offered us similar services for an obviously inflated price. Fathy brushed aside the hotelier’s price, and we learned that the military now required a $20 fee for “permission” to enter the dunes. They were discussing tomorrow’s activities and outlining the schedule for the following day.
Throughout the conversation I had begun noticing Siwan phenomena, most noticeably the dress and treatment of women. Siwa is so far away from mainstream Egypt that it hardly resembles any of its milieux or fashion. The men wear flowing white kaftan, understandable in the summer heat. The younger women, presumably unmarried, dressed in striking color. The married women, however, are resigned to a uniform but far less agreeable to the elements. Most women that I saw were carted around in the bed of a pickup truck, tuk-tuk, or donkey-pulled carriage. They were draped in a coal shawl over a black abaya. Whereas even a Cairene woman would leave her face uncovered, these women covered their entire face with a plain black veil, through which I’m not sure how much of their surroundings they saw. Traditions vary so wildly and solidify through calloused time. I got the impression that little influence from the outside world finds traction in Siwa.
We rallied our strength and navigated to Fatnas Island. A thin strip of pavement bisected the swampy shoreline and connected the mainland to a dense wood. We piled out and the lakeshore view emerged serenely and as picturesque as a scrim. We chose to walk out onto the dock, a promontory of about 15 meters. Zero sound, except for tedious faux clicks and pops of digital cameras. I forced myself to pocket my phone and rely upon my senses to record what tops a long list of gorgeous sunsets. The serenity of the moment distinguished this sunset from all others. In catch-22 fashion, I reminded myself that if such sunsets were so easily accessible – as in not located in another world 9 hours away – their value would be naught.
The morning of our highly-anticipated trek into the dunes, we visited the Temple of the Oracle and Cleopatra’s Bath. The Temple of the Oracle evoked memories of past trips to Luxor. Decaying walls once replete with detailed hieroglyphics and ornate carvings. This temple however overlooked the oasis’ salt lake. Alexander traveled there to receive a prophecy about his rulership of Egypt and other lands. Nobody knows what he heard, but I doubt that whatever it was stopped his conquests.
Cleopatra’s bath is situated literally in the middle of a road. It could be mistaken for an ornate roundabout, but instead this is one of many freshwater springs in the area. We surveyed the pool. Streams of bubbles rose to the surface. Those indicated it was indeed fresh. Chunks of olive algae floated about. A few cafes opportunely formed a crescent around the spring. The water was warm yet refreshing. We had our fill and took our positions on the open-air second floor of one of the cafes. It was under new Dutch management. In between swatting persistent and legion flies and itching previous failures, I tried a date shake. It was rich and perhaps suited for cooler temperatures, but it was tasty and definitely unique.
+++
The dunes are majestic. Simultaneously the rolling pristine beauty is also harsh and forbidden, and nature will not relent. The only thing that might save you is an oasis, and they are a dreamscape. I can only imagine the trepidation followed by imminent disbelief and shocking euphoria when a nomad stumbled upon this oasis. It must have been beyond belief to find an uninhabited oasis such as this.
Our Toyota did have four-wheel drive. Unbeknownst to us and to our guide, the 4WD faulted and we abruptly stopped at the top of the first dune. Sinking in sand is akin to snow, except that there is infinitely more sand. When the wheels spin at a downward angle, the car sinks, and so we sunk. Our guide tried a few maneuvers that reminded me of Minnesota winters, snow emergencies, and tardiness my first hour class.
After a few failed spinning attempts and the pungent scent of burning clutch, we disembarked and crawled around shoveling out with our hands as much sand as possible. It was folly. We hadn’t been stuck ten minutes before I turned around to see two puppies running at us from God-knows-where. Our guide, perhaps slightly delirious from self-loathing and dehydration, started cackling at the sight of these two. I was still shoveling out sand, and one pup parked itself ostensibly in the shadow of my rear. I suspect it really just wanted to sniff out the news. A call was made and 15 minutes after the plunge a second 4x4 arrived with big burly men headed on the same excursion. We pushed the Toyota out in 5 seconds.
Deep in the dunes it is easy to lose all sense of direction. I do mean direction in the sense of geography, but I also mean it in the sense that if we are unfamiliar with our surroundings, have no visual clues to point us to safety, and entirely exposed, one’s basic perceptions also change. If it weren’t for the fact that Vodafone had so effectively blanketed the area with 3G coverage – and I totally would have preferred none of us having cameras or cellphones – the effects of desolation would have been far more pronounced.
And I doubt that it is just the desert that does this, but staring into nature unadulterated is a reassurance. It’s a calm reification that problems and issues are a perception. Lifelong struggles and contrivances are trivial: I’d assume that there is zero trace of my name that I etched in sand, and after the earth circles the sun a few thousand more times, memories and legacies will fade away.
We paused intermittently to take in different vistas and to dip into a cold and hot spring. The cold spring was more like a lake. The hot spring was sulfuric, smelled of eggs, but relaxed me further. We darted across the dunes to catch the sunset. By this point I had completely lost my sense of direction. Our guide knew and seemed to choose his favorite dunes to climb, slopes to descend, and barren plains to speed through as the sun vanished.
I sat up on the top of a dune with our guide, Fathy. I remarked to him that it was easily understandable how the Prophet Mohamed could so easily have wandered off into the Hejaz and experienced his revelations. Sensory deprivation is spending days or weeks at a time in the desert, deprived of sound, adequate food and water, and sight – the sun is too bright in the day and it is pitch black at night.
I was only exposed to a sliver of the desert’s serenity and it led my mind to some astonishing places. Turning off the phone and camera and capturing with the senses is almost lost. I had to make a conscious effort. My pictures are probably not as great or as many as those taken by my friends, but I cannot possibly forget this trip. The sunsets, the scenery, and such forbidding terrain demanded my respect for the insignificance of now but the untraceable past.
Revised August 30, 2015.
Siwa Photos
Sorry this space has been temporarily abandoned. I went to the desert last weekend. It was so wonderful to breathe some fresh air and go stir crazy not from truck horns and shouting but actually from unadulterated silence. I’ll write more later, but for now here are some of the photos I took. They really don’t do this oasis any justice.
Also, I’ve been working on a few pieces I’d like to publish here. I’ve lost my mojo and I feel few bursts of inspiration to write nowadays. There’s plenty to say but it requires more analysis and concentration. Hope those of you still out there can read them soon.
A Hell of a Day
For the last couple months I had been preparing for the FSO test offered three times a year. The plan was to take it last Wednesday at 9:00 in the morning at the US Embassy. Walls, barricades, and soldiers surround the campus. It’s a scene fitting for the dystopian thriller Equilibrium. I biked over, parked my bike at the corner, and entered from the single known entrance at 8:30. After I went through the lengthy security process, I told a guard of my appointment only to be assured that I would indeed be sorted out after my number was called below. How would I know any better that I was in the completely wrong place?
Indeed I was told in two minutes after waiting over an hour that I needed to talk to HR.
Where is HR?
Ask the guard, he’ll direct you.
The guard had no clue where to find HR, but told me I needed an appointment and I should go request to speak to an American downstairs. I immediately recognized the quintessential Egyptian situation of deferring without answering with valuable information and demanded he ask his supervisor.
The supervisor pointed me in the right direction immediately. As it turns out, there are two other entrances: one for the residence and the other for personnel. The short distance between the two gates was blocked by a mammoth concrete checkerboard wall left over from the Revolution, so I had to walk 300 degrees around what must be about three square blocks. On my way, I noticed my bike was missing. Even though I feared the worst, I proceeded to my primary objective: am I going to be able to take this test even though I am now over an hour past the appointment?
After the security guard badgered me for being an hour late and not checking the (unmarked) street names listed in the email, a very friendly FSO came down to explain the situation to me. Unfortunately the new company administering the test locks the proctors out after the appointment time elapses. Apparently the new system is overly complicated and prevented the FSO from getting ahold of the test takers in advance to give them accurate directions.
I relished talking to the FSO for a few minutes. He was the third American diplomat I’ve met in a year and a half here. That’s a disappointing statistic because I’ve long viewed the embassy's security protocol as draconian. It was birthed by the politicization of the death of a brave and true diplomat, Christopher Stevens. I told him that I face zero animosity as an American here. Occasionally I’m told that my president is no good -- not my fault. We parted ways knowing we’d likely be seeing each other again in June, the next testing period.
I began the long walk back around the rear of the embassy to investigate the disappearance of my bicycle. I approached a plainclothes officer and some other uniformed peon, one of dozens stationed between the British and American embassies.
What happened to the bike here?
A bike? Are you Egyptian or a foreigner?
I’m an American. What happened to the bike?
Why did you park your bike here? That’s not allowed.
Nobody told me that.
This is a police area, you can’t park your bike here.
I’m looking at the vicinity. There are bikes across the street at the corner store and dozens of cars parked all around. While they had to be checked by a bomb-sniffing dog, I’m skeptical such attention and weariness need be given to a bicycle.
At this point, I demanded the bicycle back. The officer was already uncomfortable and agitated but kept repeating himself anyways. Admittedly I was not taking it easy on him. I was upset, though not devastated, after missing the test appointment. Upset enough that I was shouting and visibly angry about the obvious absurdity of the situation.
He made an effort to call over the American Embassy security staff for reasons I still do not understand but remain ever thankful for.
Why did you think you can park your bike here?
How would I know that? Nobody told me.
Because it’s a police zone.
How many of there are you here and nobody could tell me that I can’t park my bike here?
We were matching each other liter for liter of blood rushing upwards to the head. He walked away leaving me standing in the middle of the street wondering if I’d ever see my hardly two-week old bike again. After half a minute I started in again asking him what he was waiting for. I was told to wait. Fuming, I waited.
I could see the security official coming. He immediately went over to the plainclothes and posse. They all shook hands and exchanged greetings, as is customary, however extremely frustrating given I was trying to get to work. The plainclothes explained his version of the situation about this crazy khawaga, an old somewhat pejorative for foreigner, parking his bike in a restricted area. He wouldn’t even look at me, which further infuriated me. I called him out on it, which remediated me to stand across the street while the security staffer sorted the situation.
He walked back across the street and asked for my name. Apparently they were filing a police report to retrieve my bike from the police station. At least that process was happening. After a few minutes he ushered my back to the embassy entrance where I waited inside like a child in trouble at school wondering when his parent would pick him up from purgatory.
The security supervisor who had helped me find my way to the other gate noticed my entrance and wondered what on earth I was doing back on his side of the compound. Egyptians can create such a mess capable like no other sending anyone to the bad place. I was in one such bad place. I felt oppressed, belittled, and utterly resolved not to give in. Egyptians can also be remarkable allies in times of crisis.
It’s an odd contradiction in the culture that I haven’t been able to reconcile. Sometimes a foreigner can be viewed suspiciously and even mistreated or stolen from, but a guest is never treated poorly, especially one in need. I was beside myself, so mind numbingly hopeless that I was easily brought to laughter explaining my situation to the people in the room. In between flows of visa applicants filing through security, the two women working behind a counter asked the supervisor why I was just standing there. I understood what they were asking and began laughing, which, as intended, informed them I was listening and understood.
They asked me if something like this would ever happen in America. I solemnly shook my head. They were kind, as was everyone from that point on.
As we walked back to the corner to retrieve my bike I jokingly asked the security staffer if there was a chance they'd pay for the lock. He told me I was far too patient with these idiots. I agreed wit him, and if it weren't for him, I probably would have ended up assaulting an officer.
The guard pointed out the tire was flat. Somewhere between ecstatically amazed my bike was returned and further peeved, I accepted his offer to go back towards the entrance where he said he could pump the bike up. Another man got the pump for him and we set to inflating the rear tire. No such luck, so we went down into a garage to use a mechanical air pump for car tires. No air could stay in the tire. The few people helping asked me how I had stumbled across such poor luck. I explained the situation. Tongues clicked, heads hung low slowly shaking, shoulders slumped, all except mine.
I was resolved not to lose. I told myself, I'm not going out like this.
My shoulders did slump a little as I lugged the steel behemoth home. The plainclothes was nowhere in sight. At the foot of the stairs, I propped the bike’s top bar up on my shoulder and set it down at my flat’s landing. Only one of the two doors opened, so I wiggled the handlebars and slammed the body of the bike into the door, further scraping the wood grain. I dropped the kickstand and headed out to get a few sandwiches for lunch before heading to work.
+++
Work did not improve my day. Fortunately I had the opportunity to run off most my aggression at the gym. I hastily pounded out whatever transferable stress and walked my bike into downtown to see about repairing the flat tire. The technician reluctantly accepted the chore at 8:30. He wanted to get home, but set to work anyways, my face still fresh in his memory from the purchasing ordeal only two weeks earlier. He had tuned up the bike before I took it home, and we’d bonded over bike mechanics and DIY principles.
After five minutes he waved me over and asked who did this to my bike? I told him unequivocally the police. He raised an eyebrow out of surprise – I had enough certainty for the both of us – and pointed to the 3mm gash in tire. A knife was the culprit.
Good to know the police carry knives, too.
The whole day was fraught with crippling bureaucracy, unabashed ignorance, and dreary prospects for a better Egypt, yet somehow I came out of that day never better. I was so convinced that now I am meant to succeed in a place never ending the assault on sanity, reason, and comfort – at least until I pass that damned test.
I took this on my way back from work. It's the worst sand storm yet, and it reminds me of the post-apocalyptic Half Life. I can say that I've biked through snow, rain, and now sand storms. I'll take the snow, ice, or rain any day. #Cairo #sandstorm
#Alexandria
Alabaster cats (at Valley Of The Kings Luxor)
Vazad Pottery (at Tunis village , Fayoum)
#cairo (at قلعة صلاح الدين الايوبي بالقاهرة)
Copper lamps #khanalkhalili
#Cairo #sandstorm
A Year and a Half Later
Today marked the last day of my Arabic intensive course. I started in September last year at AUC and moved quickly to a center closer to home. It's by no means the end of my studies. Nobody learns Arabic -- at least not in this short of a period of time. It's a lifelong pursuit, and I'm excited to say that it's just only begun.
They say this is the hardest step. I had always thought of learning a language like an airplane flying through the air. English has a quite simple and speedy takeoff. Our grammar and syntax is pretty easy to put together into simple sentence structures. However, to master English and all of its tenses, prepositions, and all those tricky verbal phrases is really quite time-consuming and difficult. Arabic, by comparison, requires more of an upfront commitment to learning the initial sentence structures and grammar before one can begin to speak. Then after the up front investment, learning the patterns and the vocabulary becomes easier.
One thing that has constantly irked me are constant questions of Arabic fluency. Fluency (with regards to Arabic) should be banned from lexical conversations barring the native speakers, their children, or people who have lived in the region for many years. Modern Standard Arabic ( fusHa / فصحى ) is an incredible repository of grammar, organization, and style. Fewer and fewer Arabs are learning this brand of formal Arabic that is reserved for the news in print, radio, or television. A literate person will understand and be able to read this kind of Arabic but he probably can't speak it, let alone write his university essay in fusHa. The reason for that is because each country has its own distinctive brand of Arabic. Egyptians are really quite proud, and so when any foreigners try speaking in fusHa they'd be laughed at.
I was aware of this before coming to Cairo. Actually it was for this reason that I chose Cairo to study because the dialect was more appealing than say Moroccan (of which very few other Arabs actually understand anything). Speaking the Egyptian dialect became an imperative when I realized how much of this society is unaccessible without functional Arabic skills. When I started at AUC I began with advanced beginners Modern Standard arabic because I had taken a few night and weekend classes in Minneapolis and Washington D.C. Along with the fusHa, I took Egyptian colloquial lessons and media Arabic. After I moved to the new Arabic center, I continued on this route against the advice of my teacher. I was banging my head against a wall for months on end. I hated fusHa. I couldn't control how bored and unenthused it made me feel when compared to the Egyptian colloquial. This resentment carried on until a substitute, who became my full-time teacher a few months ago, told me I'd only end up learning both fusHa and Egyptian colloquial only to an average level, but if I focused on one or the other, I'd end up with skills that could be related to the other. That's exactly what happened. Although she wasn't the first person to urge me to pick one or the other, she certainly made a better argument. I decided to start studying Egyptian colloquial exclusively, and admittedly, she was right.
On my certificate my Egyptian colloquial level says something like "very well." What that means is that I can speak to just about anyone in the Arab world and be understood. However I might not be able to understand them. Egyptian culture has thoroughly pervaded the Arab world through song and television, so that most Arabs understand Egyptian Arabic. So while they understand Egyptian Arabic, they still speak their own dialects. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer people speak fusHa, and as a result that didn't become a major focus of mine until a couple months ago when I finished the Egyptian colloquial books. At that point, I had studied more cultured Egyptian Arabic that shares similar grammar and vocabulary with fusHa. We ended up studying fusHa through media Arabic sprinkling in grammar lessons here and there.
The transition was brutal. All I wanted to do was talk and I suddenly felt muted when trying to speak in fusHa. Even though Egyptian colloquial derived from fusHa, the grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary are all different. I began reading and writing more to process the information while not forcing myself to reconfigure my brain to speak in fusHa, which would surely be catastrophic. I do regret not studying fusHa more because it is important for understanding the news and literature. However had I studied more fusHa than Egyptian Arabic, I might very well be lamenting that I cannot communicate in my surroundings. It is also far easier to continue fusHa studies anywhere in the world.
Overall the experiment has been successful. A series of drastic swings marks the beginning and end of this lengthy Cairo chapter. It's bewildering and satisfying to contemplate just how difficult the journey began and how rewarding its been for me. I remember defining success as arguing with my landlord and winning. I have reached that point and perhaps exceeded my goal by gaining more cultural understanding to avoid such prickly situations all the while getting what I want. When I first started studying five hours a day, my energy was depleted at the end of class, and the rest of my day deprived of productivity. I had to come home and lie down because my head felt numb. Today I spent over seven hours at the center -- far more than any other day -- including an exam, lessons, and an extended farewell party all four people insisted on having for me. Admittedly I started to lose my wits in the end but I hadn't eaten anything substantial since before class and was probably having a hypoglycemic moment. While I think I've come a long ways, I know I have much left to learn. I am happy to report that I have conversational skills and the platform from which I can review and continue studying on my own until I choose to jump back in. It's hard to move on from an unfinished project. It feels like I've done something wrong, but I know the gains I've made and what it will take to progress. I have to look at this like an interlude -- the beginning of something far more beautiful.