Am I allowed an opinion??

I had a successful start back at work..... I went in on Sunday morning with a positive attitude and swore to myself that I would be calm and serene and avoid any quarrels that might cone my way.... Did I manage?? did I hell!
we had training and the day started off quiet well, lots of cheek kissing and happy new year wishes, normally I hate all of this but for the first time ever I walked around the room greeting people and being nice ( I can do it if I really try) it was a jovial few minutes which was then followed by the Indian (or should I say native American?) " heeya heeeeeyaaa heeyaaa heeeyaaa" song, I even managed to smile through this and actually sung along to some of the heeeeyaaas.... so far so good. I behaved well throughout the day and even managed to keep quiet when the training lady stuck her middle finger up at everyone whilst trying to explain some sign language concept (she also did a thumbs up and a point but the middle finger was the one she put up for longest). Later our boss offered around a huge box of chocolates and everyone was happy and gobbled them down a few minutes later on of the veiled girls looked at the box and discovered they were champagne truffles!!! delicious for some but haram for most, this caused quiet a stir and the day went on. Now the training lady isn't a native English speaker but she normally does really well anyway I guess she was having an off day as she kept on saying "shit" of paper as in "if you need a shit then take a shit" and "simply write it on the shit" and "be sure to pass the shit on" it really was too funny but I managed to hold myself together and refrain from laughing unlike the girl sitting to my left who was in fits of giggles. The training lady got pissed off and turned to me and ordered me to take over the training!! I was actually speechless at this suggestion but the giggling girl informed her it wasn't me doing the laughing and I thought that would clear things up...... but it didn't!! she absolutely insisted that I continue the course and the whole room was looking at me, I could feel the anger swelling inside me and I kinda sorta flipped out...... I refused to say a word and told her she was trying to make an example of me which was just wrong as it wasn't even me laughing! Somehow the situation calmed itself and she resumed her training after a few minutes she told us we would finish an hour earlier and everyone was relieved. As we finished we entered a discussion about our next training day and decided to take a vote, the people who lost the vote got very upset and started to sway the others to their course, this was way too much for me and I shouted out "but we had a vote and they lost!!" this might have been ok but I followed it up with a very sarcastic "yeh well we are in Egypt where a vote doesn't count anyway!" there was a collective sigh and I sensed I had pissed the whole room off, we voted again, they lost again and we all went home, well actually me and giggling girl went to the flower shop to buy flowers for our friend who just gave birth. Whilst picking flowers my bag started to vibrate so I dug into the bottom of it and pulled out my phone aggggghhhh 3 missed calls from my boss and an angry text telling me I had to do a public apology the next morning! No bloody way!! so here it was from this comical day it wasn't the training lady who stuck her finger up at us and singled me out who had to say sorry, and the feeding muslims alcohol didn't seem to merit an apology either! but stating the fact (and yes I mean fact) that a vote counts for shit in Egypt means I now have to say sorry??? NO WAY. Anyway I didn't do the public thing but I talked to the people who were most offended and what I learned from that was that they agreed with me! but as I am not Egyptian I have no right to say something like that. This got me thinking, so am I not allowed to say that Cairo is dirty? am I not allowed to say that when I blow my nose the snot is black? am I not allowed to have an opinion on the sexual harassment? am I not allowed to say the truth about something happening where I live just because of the passport I hold? and the sad truth is no, Egyptians would rather you didn't and if you do then you are met with the phrase " if you don't like it then go home!" I want to scream "but you don't like it either!!" but it doesn't work. maybe it's because I have lived in different countries and maybe it's because I look at my own country through a strangers eyes but I really think I come from the world and I should be able to speak up about things I see in the world, there are things I hate about England and things I hate about Germany and I never ever become offended when a foreigner says something about the UK number one it is their opinion and number two they are mostly right!
And I think the reason I find all of this frustrating is that I am not trying to change the world, I am not Naive enough to think that I can but I like to observe and I like to make comparisons, I will write soon about my recent trip back to the UK but as a preview I will tell you I was absolutely disgusted by the lack of morals and the lack of clothing on the women. I think I feel for the first time what it is like to live without freedom of speech... it sucks! but I guess if I don't like it I can just leave.....
That was my first week back at work anyway people.....

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Downtown

I adore Cairo's downtown. Yes it is polluted and dirty and crowded and full of traffic and yes since the revolution even more rules have been thrown out of the window and it becomes genuinely dangerous some days, and yep when you walk the streets you can't help but think of all the blood that has been shed in the past months But oh how I love it. It's so full of eastern promise, the hustle the bustle, the unavoidable signs of poverty, this is a place where the poorest of the poor have smiles on their faces and spend their days working hard, chain smoking Cleopatra cigarettes and joking with passers by. There is the Tahrir area which is the center of the craziness, crossing the road is at its most daunting here... the buildings are huge and the entire square is over looked by the massive Mogamma (register office type building). Then you walk down some side streets and you enter the world of the street cafe's, the air is thick with the smell of shisha and the almost musical sound of the backgammon pieces being shifted around the boards. Old men sit next to young students, foreigners sit next to devout Muslims, artists and poets sit chewing the cud with political activists and AUC students, A tea costs a few pounds and the atmosphere is priceless, it is the perfect place to sit and people watch and allow the mind to wander. Street vendors pass by selling a wide range of products, tissues, watches, shiny Chinese gadgets, nuts, telephone cards, you name it they sell it.
The further you delve the more you discover, on the other side of Tahrir is Garden City, which boasts leafy green streets and beautiful architecture, it;s easy to imagine Cairo as it was in the first half of the last century here and it's just pleasing to see greenery so close to the concrete jungle just a short walk away, life seems slower in garden city and the apartments are just Devine. If you cross the main road you will find yourself in mounira, mounira is not green but it still has it's charm (I used to live there so I am biased), it's a little poorer then Garden City and the buildings are run down but there are the most quaint narrow ally's that have so much character, It is also home of the French culture center which in my opinion is the best culture center ever, they throw amazing parties and have a cute little cafe that sells all of the things normally forbidden (beer and pork of course)
Yup so that was my quick tour of downtown Cairo, it's a lovely place :)

El Tur a weird place....

At the beginning of Ramadan (Early August) I met a guy in Dahab who knew a place that issued 1 year visas rather then the measly 1 month the Mogamma in Cairo were currently offering. I took him up on the offer and the next day we drove to El Tur, El Tur is the administrative capital of South Sinai, I didn't see much of it in the few hours we were there, but I remember thinking it would be interesting to see more of the city.
A month later I got that chance, more friends needed visas (it is really becoming a big problem in Cairo) so we decided to go on a mission to El Tur, we found a hotel that said it was on the beach and we envisioned a few hours doing passport stuff and the rest of the day at the beach.......
So the journey started at 8am, we rented a minibus and were all at the arranged meeting point early and excited. The actual trip there was uneventful, we sang along to the spice girls and ate lots of chipsy (why does traveling make you want to eat so much?) We stopped at a place called Moon beach, most normal people had a coffee, Me and another girl decided to have a beer which was a terrible decision as it meant we needed to pee 10 minutes after getting back into the bus. Anyway we finally got to El Tur and drove directly to our hotel... ha ha ha on the beach? It was situated next to a drainage pipe and the beach was nowhere to be seen, hmm great maybe we could relax at the drainage pipe, set up a few chairs and drink a pinacolada whilst dipping our feet in the waste.... we thought about finding another hotel and drove around the city for a while, the other hotels were shockingly expensive (why? who comes here?) so we ended up back at the original one which was really dismal, full of cockroaches, no toilet paper in the bathrooms and damp all over the walls.
We then decided to go on a bit of an adventure and looked for somewhere to have dinner, we drove around for what seemed like forever and finally found a meat place, wow and there was a real clash of cultures as we walked in, there we were a group of mainly blonde girls/women (do I have to call myself a women?), inside was a table of fully covered women wearing the niquab (burka), their bearded husbands sat a table away, they looked at us and we looked at them, a cross cultural staring contest ensued. We ate our meal and were overcharged (I assume) and then vacated the place pretty fast. We then decided to find beer, one women with us decided she wanted to go back to the hotel to relax and made her way back, on the way children begged her for money and when she declined they threw stones at her... (what a lovely place this was).
So back to the mission of finding beer, we asked around for a beer shop and kept on hearing the name Fawzy, we assumed that Fawzy would be a "Drinkies" style shop and not too hard to find I mean liberal Sharm el Sheik was only an hours drive away so there had to be some form of alcohol here?? We searched and we searched and we almost gave up hope when we got right to the edge of town and still hadnt found the elusive Fawzy, but then one of the girls spotted a tiny handmade sign with a bottle of wine on it attached to a hut. Stooooooooooooooooop we all yelled in unison and we hoped out to take a closer look. We knocked on the door and an old toothless women opened the door, "Fawzy" we asked "Yeeeeeeeeeeeees" she replied and ushered us in. The room consisted of a big freezer, a bed, an oven and her son sat eating his dinner at a tiny table, they obviously lived here, we took in the surroundings as she threw open the freezer; it was full to the brim of all sorts of beer and alchopops. We went for the super strength lager, this place was strange and we thought we might well need it.
Next stop was a beach... well we all had the idea that we would relax on a beach somewhere and watch the sunset, everyone had their bikinis/swimsuits on under their clothes and were ready for an early evening dip in the sea. We finally found a place but there was no way we could strip down as it was very conservative and all of the women were veiled if not totally covered. The strange thing was it seemed totally fine that we were drinking beer, some of the girls ordered shisha (water pipe) from the beach sales guy (nice title ha) and we sat until late eating more chipsy, infact I should probably rename this post "the chipsy weekend" or something.
The next day everyone got their visas and then we set back to Cairo... leaving the strangeness of El Tur far behind us.
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Sux in the city....

Listening to my friends tales and spending hours having "Sex and the city" type conversations with the girls (hence the title and no its not a typo) I have come to a realization. Egyptian men cheat. I know a lot of you will say but all men cheat, but Egyptian men do it to a scale that actually makes me laugh with disbelief.. One of the girls I know is with a married guy (warning signs already I know) but they somehow have a normal relationship, well they did until she recently found out that he is  sneaking around going to events where he meets foreign women and trying his very best to contact any foreign girl he can. His reasoning when found out? Ahhh nothing happened, they were all fat and ugly. wow so she got lucky, but what if they were cute? So he pushed her to the point where she finally said, you are dead for me and it is over, and I was so proud of her, but then what did he do? He turned into a charmer, showed up at her place with a sign saying how stupid he was, brought flowers, begged for another chance, did everything he could to make her crack and back down, he became her dream guy for a few days and the entire time with a face like the cat who has got the cream. When he is secure in the knowledge that he has got her back he will return to his old self and she will be banging her head against the wall again.

Another guy who she works with spent years living in Europe, so one would assume he is more in touch with what is acceptable and what is not. He got together with another girl from work, a sweet Egyptian who was very much in love with him and willing to give up her own plans to be with him, the second he knew she was his he became bored and started to text the foreign girls he worked with telling them how into them he was...... Another girl I know is totally in love with a guy, they have been together for almost 3 years and all this guy wants to do is change her, she tries and tries to change but of course isn't able to change her entire existence so he tells her he will cheat, and her not changing is the same as him cheating, and the times he has cheated in the past are all her fault (!!!!). Another friend of mine is pregnant and of course married to an Egyptian, her husband didn't physically cheat but did go to the movies with another girl behind her back and spent time at the pool with her, one of his arguments for that was that he felt trapped because she always suspected him.  The same thing happened with all of these girls, they became angry, tried to end things and show that this was not behavior they would tolerate, their boys began to act perfect for a few days, if they were lucky weeks, they reeled them back in and then continued to act in exactly the same way.
Even my taxi driver.... the guy has a wife and kids and an English girlfriend on the side, he talks to the girlfriend on the phone in front of the wife and its obvious that the wife knows exactly what he is doing and who he is talking to, and you can see on her face that it hurts her (she traveled with us once).

But why is it that the men are so unable to stay monogamous? Well i think that part of it is society, its considered normal to have a women on the side here, they witness their fathers doing it without shame and on almost every TV show the guys have a mistress, to put it simple they believe it is their god given right to have a women on the side and actually get annoyed if their wives make it too complicated for them by checking up on them. Conclusion? Not really a conclusion but a warning maybe... if you are going to be with an Egyptian guy you should probably face up to the fact that he will cheat on you at some point, I know of a couple who haven't so far and I live in hope that they wont so I can be proved wrong, but honestly 95percent of the men I know or know of are cheating on their partners.
Yeah for us girls it truly sux in the city.

I am a slut!!!

Really! Every thing makes you a slut in Cairo.... You leave the house with wet hair, you are a slut, you accidentally make eye contact with a man, you are a slut, you smile at a man whilst talking to him, you are a slut, you smile and make eye contact at the same time, you are a mega slut, you ask a man for the time, a light, directions what ever then yep you got it right, you are a slut. You get into the front seat of a taxi, you are an incredibly stupid slut, you get into the back seat of a taxi and accidentally make eye contact with the driver through the rear view mirror you are a slut. You laugh too loud on the street with a bunch of female friends then you are a group of sluts. You smoke shisha, you are a slut, you smoke cigarettes in public, you are a slut bordering on a prostitute. You close the front door when a repair man is inside your house, you are a slut, foreign male friends visit you in your home you are a slut, Egyptian male friends visit you in your home you are an even bigger slut. You take your shoes off whist dancing... you are a slut. You are late for the train and hop in the mixed carriage, you are a slut. Seems like just existing makes you a slut!!
Ok rant over :D

an hour into my journey.....

I think I forgot how much I enjoy traveling alone, there are so many things that can happen, I love the unexpected it makes me feel alive :) and there is nothing like listening to a well selected playlist whilst watching the world fly by and Cairo that great big dirty city fades away.... goodbye Cairo. goodbye smog, good bye cats goodby dogs good bye street cafes, good bye shisha goodbye micro buses at said ayisha, goodbye piles of trash sat rotting in the sun, can't stand the rancid smells that's why I have to run!!'la yeh sorry I went on one there ok so I guess you have guessed I am sitting on a bus that's taking me far away from Cairo. so I am excited right now actually I always get excited about traveling alone ANYTHING could happen and I just adore that feeling.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Oh what a night......

Late December back in 63.... nope not that night, I wasn't even born then waaaa ha ha ha the night I am talking about was the 20th August 2011 which in itself didn't really grant blogging about but the day after became rather interesting.
So last night I hung out with a friend for a while then went to another friend who had gotten a room at an ultra luxury (they call themselves that) 5 star hotel, I wont mention the actual name of the hotel and you will see why later. So the original plan was to get all dressed up and have a girly night at the casino hustling rich Saudi guys and sipping the complementary drinks, we, well at least I managed the dressing up part and spent the first part of the evening feeling like totally over dressed to be hanging out with a friend, anyway finally got to the hotel, the traffic was hell getting their as the whole of the army seemed to be stationed outside the Israeli embassy. entered the hotel and waited for her to come and get me (you can only get to the rooms with a card). Got up to the room and sat for a while with my friend and can you bloody believe it we ended up sitting in bath robes and watching TV all night, like 2 old ladies. So we slept in the amazingly comfortable bed and the next day tried to recapture some youthfulness by putting on loud (and modern) music and dancing around the room. Check out was at 3pm so at 2 we started to get ready to leave, my friend took a shower and I continued bopping in front of the mirror, thinking I was a spice girl :D
I heard a strange noise but thought it was a part of the song, the music changed but the noise continued so I went to the door to investigate. Can you imagine what I found?? My friend standing naked in the bathroom and the room service guy with his head poking through the door looking at her!! What the hell?? I rushed to the door and told the guy off, he then stood there for another 10 minutes and argued with us, his reasoning was, he wanted to clean the room and we didn't put a do not disturb sign on the door. Our argument was our check out was at 3pm, the music was on in the room and even if he still made the mistake of entering the second he saw my friend naked he should have averted his eyes immediately and left the room, not stand there and stare!!
 This went on and on and back and forth until we finally said look it's enough give us your name and LEAVE.
The thing is, we are used to men behaving badly here but if you go to a place like a 5 star hotel then you expect more respect then if you were staying in a down town hostel, and to be honest this wouldn't even happen in a hostel downtown as men are not allowed to enter women's rooms at all! Secondly when a customer complains you are supposed to suck it up and NOT stand there and discuss the matter with them.
We went downstairs to check out and then on to the guest relations to make our complaint, this put us in the very awkward position of having to discuss the matter of sexual harassment with a group of fasting guys. As people are nosy in Egypt this got more and more embarrassing as more and more employees came over to see what was going on. We finally ended up with the house keeping manager, who seemed like a nice lady but all she could offer was "Well he says he is sorry and the sign wasn't on the door" this is where I began to get pissed off and I said look, "He was watching her while she was naked, do you want us to make a police report because that is how serious this is". I think she got the seriousness of the situation as she scuttled of to find the hotel manager. He broke off a meeting to see us (nice ha) and took us to one of the many cafes there, he offered us juice and water and was very, very professional, he listened to our story in horror and sympathized with us, I think more so as we told him, look we live in Cairo we deal with this stuff all the time and we know it exists but when you come to a place like this it shouldn't happen AT ALL. He agreed totally and told us a little about his life in Cairo, he was french and was living in the same suburb as we do. He promised to take action and investigate the matter fully, he also took care of the bill (which included spa treatments and room service) and on top of that he provided us with a private limousine to Maadi which saved us taking a cab.
His reaction was wonderful which is why I wont give the name of the hotel, they handled the situation perfectly and well it left us both feeling very happy and smug in the end.
Our limo arrived and we traveled in style to Maadi (haaaaaaa not really, we got stuck in the most terrible traffic but that is another tale....)

Americans, Americans, Americans.........

I have dealt with a lot of Americans in my life, now before I go into my rant I should say the Americans I have met in Egypt have been for the most part worldly and intelligent people, although there was one girl who told me her entire sexual history like 10 minutes after meeting her (that's weird no?). So yeah this rant is about the Americans I met in Europe, most of them at the airport. So where do I begin? Lets start with the Irish pub in Mainz, this place was a favorite with the US army guys back when I lived there and at first it was like walking into a film (well I had only ever seen them on TV before). I will never forget the first time a soldier slid up to me at the bar and asked in a southern drawl "Excuse me, do you speak American?" I almost sputtered on my drink, I looked him up and down and gave him the most haughty answer I could muster which was "No I bloody well do not!!". American?? Is that even a language?
Then there were the guys who wanted to meet at the "big ass church", Huh sorry what? Oh you mean the CATHEDRAL!! Once a girl came into the pub, she was a teacher in the States and was visiting her brother who was stationed in Germany. She looked up at the map of the UK and Ireland that was hanging on the wall and ran over to it excitedly, "Ohhhh my god, you mean there is sea separating Ireland and England? Where can I get a copy of this to show my friends???" I think every European in there had their mouths open in shock, I mean really? and shes a teacher, what hope are there for the rest of them??
The airport was a wonderful place to experience Americans at their best. I used to check passports for United Airlines and was once standing at my desk at the United counters, now its pretty obvious that they were united counters as they had United written on them...... So an American family approches, they stop and stare at the counters for 2 minutes then come to me and say "excuse me, is this United Airlines?" THEY WERE JUST STARING AT THE TV SCREENS ON TOP OF THE COUNTERS!! and well me being who I am, I just couldn't resist the urge to be sarcastic and replied "No, No this is British Airways, we just write United to confuse people" well can you imagine what they did next??? They apologized for taking my time and turned away to continue their search for United!! Of course I ran after them and brought them back but dear me!
There was once a guy who had a very high position with a leading junk food company. Our conversation went like this:
Me - "Hello sir, where are you coming from today?
Him- "London"
Me- "So how long have you been in Europe sir?"
Him- "I wasn't in Europe I was in London!"
Me (totally ignoring this) "so how long have you been in Europe?"
Him (pissed off) "SINCE WHEN HAS LONDON BEEN IN EUROPE?" 
ME (in my sweetest voice ever) "Since the continents were formed sir?"
Isn't that just shocking? I mean here is a guy with a decent education and a wonderful position in his company and still he is capable of complete and utter ignorance.
The UK flights always proved to be funny, Non europeans have to fill out a landing card upon entering the UK and we had to give these things out. For most nationals it was a simple procedure, we just asked them if they are in transit in the UK, if they said yes then it meant no card if they said no it meant a card. So of course we quickly figured this was a bit too complicated for most Americans who fly and we simplified the question a little, well a lot, what we now said was "Will you be entering the UK and staying there or will you be getting onto another plane and flying to another country?" To which the answer would be "What do you mean?" god give me strength!! What do YOU mean, what do I mean?? I cant make it any more simple can I???
So once we had figured out that they are staying in the UK we would hand them the landing card back with their passport... the next gem came "Do I have to fill this out???" Nooooooooooooooooo you have to wipe you ass with it as there is no toilet paper on the plane! Wtf of course you have to fill it out. Why the hell would I give you a form that you don't have to fill out!!! Boooooooom that's it for now, my rant about yanks is over. Peace.

Cairo.... Do I love it or hate it??

Well I often ponder this question, there are days when I love, love, love Cairo, the mystic, the feeling of being in another world, the fruity smells of  shisha smoke filling the air, the constant background noise, the lights, sounds, smells, all of it. Then there are days when it all just gets on my nerves, the rickety taxis with their doors hanging off, the smell of exhausts, the comments ohhhh the comments, the complete lack of customer service, the stares, the inability to stand in a line, the phrase "Bukra Inshallah" (tomorrow if god's willing).

Some days it makes me smile that everything seems to arrive by donkey, Gas bottles, watermelons, lemons, prickly pears, you name it you can find it on a donkey cart. Other days when I am rushing to work (I always have to rush) I end up getting stuck behind a donkey and its load and I scream internally "WHERE THE HELL AM I?"
So which is it? Do I love or hate Cairo in all of it's craziness?
The special thing about Cairo, which I haven't experienced in other places is the fact that everything can change in a heart beat, so when it seems like every thing is going wrong and that things can't get better, something happens and it all seems OK again very, very fast. This something could be a person, it could be a party invitation, it could even be seeing poverty and thinking wow my life is not that bad after all. And then I think about my life and how privileged I am, even compared to western standards, like seriously how many of my friends back home have a cleaner? how many of them have an ironing guy? how many can afford to get the majority of their clothes dry cleaned? how many can get a bottle of vodka delivered at 1am or a big mac meal at 4 am? How many of them can go swimming every day after work on a roof top pool? How many of them can go to the beach at the weekend? How many of them get so much vacation time that they get so bored and actually want to return to work? how many, how many, how many??? See when I think about all of that it makes me smile to myself and say "Wow, actually you are ok!".
So the next thing is, how do I make the negative things here seem positive, I mean everything can be seen in a positive light right? Its just a matter of changing the way you think anyway. So I took the thing that annoys me the most which is sexual harassment and I thought about it for a while.... well firstly it makes me want to learn Arabic, I want to be able to shout more then "you are a shoe" at them, I actually want to say something intelligent and make them feel small (evil, yes I know but its a motivation so its positive) OK then it makes me grateful for my upbringing and the fact that I have an open mind, it makes me appreciate all of my male friends who think its disgusting and it makes me speak out to Egyptian women, hopefully getting them to see that it's not ok and they are not at fault (that's a big hope but who knows....). Lastly, well too be honest, if I am in a bad mood and am not feeling OK sometimes its nice to find an idiot to shout at and let all of the stress out :)
So in answer to my original question, I love Cairo, I really do and I think it will keep me for some time yet.

wow I can blog from my phone!

isn't that wonderful? I can sit anywhere in the world and blog... this blog entrance could be coming at you from the toilet, the beach. the back of a taxi who knows!!!!! seem's like there is an app for everything this days... just can't wait for the "skip work and let the app do it instead" app or the "don't get out of bed cos your dying to pee" app or even better the " drunken dialing prevention app" that one would be a winner for sure!
Anyway that's it! Cairo is fine so am I. Just so Appy about my apps..... ok, ok I know that one was lame but I couldn't resist.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Memories of the airport....

Kati came over for beer last night as she does most nights of the week... love you Kati :)
Anyway we got to talking about the famine in Somalia which is of course terrible and I sure worthy of it's own blog post entirely, but this posting isn't about that. It made me think of the Somali's I had dealt with at the airport and one guy in particular.....
I was taking a smoke break in the staff area when I got a call asking me to check on a situation at the gate, there were problems with a Somali passenger....
The agent working the flight was originally from Pakistan and he was one of the nicest, calmest, politest people you could meet, really a charming guy, we will call him Khan as I have terribly forgotten this nice mans name.
So I stubbed out my cigarette, left my coffee standing and ran to the gate expecting to find a forged passport or an impostor (Someone using another person's passport),  what i found was a very angry looking Somali guy and a very stressed looking Khan. I spoke to Khan quickly to check the situation, the guy had a British refugee travel document and Khan had simply asked him about his trip, how long he had been out of the UK and a bit about his life in the UK, now it might sound strange that we ask this but we really needed to ascertain that the guy in front of us really was the one in the passport, and we needed to be sure that he really did live in the UK and know about general life there. We have to do this because so many Somali's send their travel documents to Somalia for their (Very similar looking) family members to use, so normally a few simple questions about the UK have to be asked in order to make us feel that the Doc is in the right hands. Anyway so as I was saying Khan was basically doing his job and doing so in an incredibly cool and polite way. The Somali guy was waving his hands around and screaming "I am a British Citizen" (he wasn't as I mentioned he was an official refugee with the right to stay in the UK).
So here's where it gets good.... the guy turns to me whilst pointing at Khan and yells "THIS FUCKING PAKI IS A RACIALIST!!!!" I wasn't sure if I correctly heard and asked him to repeat himself "I SAID THIS FUCKING PAKI IS A RACIALIST!!" Wow he really did just make one of the most contradictory and wrong sentences I have heard in my life! I stopped myself from laughing and put on my best snooty voice "Sir if it is racist you mean, I can assure you that the only person I can hear being racist at present is you" he carried on with his tirade and I then went on to tell him we were calling the police to make a report about his insults (don't you just love Germany, you can make reports about EVERYTHING) and that he wouldn't be flying tonight, I then walked over to the desk to inform the airline of the decision and while I was on my way the Somali guy rolled up his newspaper and smacked Khan over the head with it!!!!!!!!!!!! Now when I think about it I have to laugh like hell but back then it was serious and it almost escalated,Khan finally lost his cool and went to push the guy, which is of course a huge no, no so I ran and get between them and stayed between them until the police showed up and arrested the crazy Somali guy!!
Wonderful days at the airport really

Cairo Craigs list... a delve into the dark side

My lovely roommate has decided she needs more light in her life, and has found a new lighter place in Mohandeseen. This has set me on a roommate searching frenzy.
I posted on Cairo Scholars and on a few Facebook groups but didn't really have much luck. So I decided to give Craig’s list a go....
Well the replies were many and some were normal and legitimate but there were also a lot of weird, weird replies; one guy offered to pay me 200 le to allow him to massage me and if my landlady was up for it, he would like to massage her too. Another guy, who seemed normal at first sent a mail saying his girlfriend needed a room, I told him she is welcome to come and take a look. He called me and said that she was in Italy and would I mind having a few Eastern European girls to stay?? Do I have to even comment on that?
A Dr Waleed wrote and assured me he would be polite and well behaved, he also promised me that we would have "good times" together and that he would make me pleased (language barrier?)
All of this made me think, "Well, what kind of people use Craig’s list in Cairo?" so I took a deeper look......
I started off with the community pages and was pleased to see a few legitimate sounding ads, a kitten that needs to be adopted and a driver offering his services for 30 le an hour, so far so good. Ahem then I stumbled upon the first shady listing titled " Help everyone become free of oppression" this was a listing urging people to boycott all Israeli businesses and goods as this would miraculously cause them to withdraw from the West bank, seemingly leading to an oppression free world!. Shady yes, shocking not really, and so I went on. Next up was truly shocking, the listing title: " A son for Adoption" the listing itself : " As the title of the ad says: A Son for Adoption Thanks for everything". Really! People are using Craig’s list to donate/sell their children? This one led me to a real "where the hell am I" moment! And as I really couldn't believe it, I went ahead and emailed the poster asking for more information, haven't yet received a reply but will keep you posted.  I went on and sifted through a lot of work from home and earn $$$$ type ads which I am sure are not exclusive to the Cairo branch but are still dodgy in their own way.
I moved on to personals, well Egypt is a conservative place right? There couldn't be anything too shocking here for sure..... first up was strictly platonic where I found offers of toe licking and requests for rimming from a 70 year old 300 lb heavy weight (is that for real???) and then there was the request from a FAMOUS author (yes he really capitalized the word) he wanted friends and was very proud of the fact that he already knew so many important, famous (not capitalized this time) and wealthy people. Ufff next is women seek women and no listings!!! What! No lesbians in Cairo???? Ok next, on to women looking for men, this is actually quite tame just one listing offering a relationship for the financial compensation of 5000le a month which might be a good deal for the Saudi men coming over and looking for partnership. So now it's time for men seeking women, well when I think of the way men act in this country I feel this is going to be the worse section by far, I held my breath and took a look, and was actually pleasantly surprised, most of the ads here were decent and seemed genuine. There were a lot of lonely and looking for love types, the odd foot fetish, and one guy wrote a wonderful piece on how he wanted an intelligent but submissive women. Next was men looking for men.....there were only 3 ads in this section (I imagine Egyptian homosexuals are more cautious then to advertise on Craig’s list). Now where the real "fun" starts is the "Casual encounters" section, the listings and indeed pictures on offer there made me blush!!! I am not going to go any further with this, not because I am disgusted (actually I find it funny), but because I feel if you are interested then you should go and take your own plunge into the dark side....
Just to conclude, I haven’t checked it out, but a friend tells me that London's Craig’s list is just as bad, although I am pretty sure there are no children for sale there, maybe just a lot of freshly looted goods :D
Ok people I am signing off, Ramadan Kareem and all of that.

Harassment... yes it is an issue

June the 20th was the day to blog and tweet about sexual harassment in Egypt, I was sick so I am late. I actually thought about avoiding the issue as it seems it will never get better, but then I thought about all of my friends who have made the effort to write something and I thought about how much the issue pisses me of so here is my piece on it. I shall start by giving you an example of a normal day in Maadi, which is a upscale neighborhood on the outskirts of Cairo inhabited by lots and lots of expats, so foreigners aren't such a strange site here.
I leave the house for work at around 7:30 dressed in jeans and a t shirt that shows no cleavage, I walk to the end of the street to hail a cab, before I reach the end of the street I am already shouted or hissed  at by at least one man. I hail a cab, I get in without making any eye contact and tell him my destination, he already has a face on him like the cat who has got the cream, he stares at me through the rear view mirror for the entire duration of the journey and every now and then he will ask me if I am single and if I like Egyptian men, sometimes he will go on to say I have beautiful eyes, I don't respond to this and put on my best "mean bitch " face. At my destination I get out and pay him and head towards the bridge that takes me to work. As I am walking to the top of the bridge a few guys ride by on mopeds, they make comments and get far too close for my liking, I get as close to the railing as I possibly can. Some days there is a guy on top of the bridge, he waits until I pass him and begins to masturbate as he walks behind me, I am sadly so used to this that I now just roll my eyes and continue walking at my normal pace. On the final street I encounter a group of school boys who laugh and point and make lewd comments. Then I get to work which is thankfully a harassment free zone, except for the days when we have work men in, but our caretaker quickly tells them to avert their eyes. From 9 to 9:30 the parents arrive with their children, the mothers often have horror stories from their own short journeys; one got flashed at with her two children in tow, and one pregnant mother was recently grabbed, more worryingly another mother spotted the masturbater doing his thing right outside the school. At 4 pm I leave work and maybe do some chores on the way home, I am constantly hissed at and guys seem to deliberately walk too close and bump into me. I get home and realize I need to order water, I call the local shop and 10 minutes later the delivery guy turns up, I answer the door in my most ugly clothes and with no make up, his eyes open up like he just saw a porn star, he greets me with a "Hey beautiful" and takes a step into my apartment; I give him an icy stare and tell him to get out, I shut the door on his face while I sort out his money, when I open the door again to give him his money he lets it drop to the floor and expects me to bend over in front of him to pick it up, when I refuse and slam the door he screams to me that I am a cunt!

This is a day when I stay in Maadi, where harassment isn't as bad as it is in the rest of Cairo, if I choose to go downtown, the taxi driver may try and grab my boobs, he may also offer me money for sex, as I walk down the street guys in nice cars will pull up close and tell me "oooh I wanna fuck you in the ass", if I choose to take the metro; guys at the metro station will begin to play porn on their phones and hold it in a way that I have to see it. The point is, it happens but people here, both male and female choose to deny it happens, and while they keep on denying it it will continue to happen. Women feel they can't speak out because it is somehow their fault and decent women don't get harassed.... BULLSHIT men made you feel like this OPEN YOUR EYES!! People say it happens everywhere and to some extent it does but I have never experienced it to this extent and neither has any foreigner I have spoken to. This blog won't change a thing, facing up to the fact that it is a problem will set the wheels of change in motion but I really wonder how long it will be before that happens... maybe we will all have to were a niquab to stop the poor men lusting after us. Until then I guess we will have to resign to kicking them in the balls... bastards

Giza Zoo a pile of poo!!

It was Easter, I had time off and no travel planned, all of my friends were on the beach and I was sat at home feeling very sorry for myself indeed. Spent a few days sleeping then thought "no, bugger this, I am going on an adventure!!". Sent my ex room mate Emily a message and we made plans to go to the zoo. Now, my friend Mike had  repeatedly warned me about the Zoo, but hey I am stubborn and well I like to see things with my own eyes.
In the morning I took a look at the Zoo's website which actually makes the place look like a nice day out. Here is the link http://www.gizazoo-eg.com/ , looks nice right? So here is the grand entrance to the zoo,

it is located on one of the  busiest streets in Giza not far from the Israeli embassy (I mention this because recent protests took place in front of the Embassy and the Army sprayed tear gas, this gas drifted over to the zoo and the animals could be heard howling!) We paid the "foreigner price" for our tickets which was 20le, I wonder how long this has been the case as wherever I read reviews on the Zoo written by foreigners, they always states the entrance price as being 1 or 2 pounds, I was quite worked up about this but Emily calmed me down and said "we are here now so yalla" or something to that effect.
Once inside, the first thing we saw was a caged Persian cat! We began to laugh at this and wanted to take a photo, unfortunately a group of young men saw us laughing and thought that two laughing foreign females simply had to be easy sluts and proceeded to bless us with profanities, we decided to vacate the area and failed to get a picture of the cat.
A few minutes later, I accidentally made eye contact with a teenage boy, I am actually quite good at not making eye contact these days but every now and then it happens, and damn don't I pay for it when it does, these boys followed us for ages, shouting at us and making vile gestures; I would say they were the worst behaved animals in the Zoo. We tried our hardest to shake them, we threatened to call the police (big laugh, this was post revolution and there wasn't a police man in site), we tried to shame them in front of others (also a big laugh, people stared and laughed at us), we tried hiding in the Hyena house but it was far too depressing. Finally I started to take pictures of them and they fled. We headed over to the lions....

which I think were the most sorry looking things I have seen in my life, the cage was a concrete prison smaller then my living room and the inmates were bored out of their lives and skinny as hell pacing back and forth, their manes were matted and it was just cruel, cruel, cruel, I was truly disgusted, at this point a zoo keeper asked if I would like to pay a few pounds to hold a lion cub; I looked at him with my very best "you are an idiot" face and walked away. The next stop was the monkeys and if you look at the following pic carefully you can see the zoo keeper encouraging punters to poke the monkey with a stick. Do I need to say anything further on that matter?

A few minutes after taking this shot, we saw visitors poke a bear with a stick and feed the monkeys cookies and chips. I was at boiling point and it started to rain so we though it best to leave and went to eat cup cakes in Zamalek.

Something I wrote during the revolution...

To say that the past days have been unprecedented is an understatement.
Most people know me as being adventurous and a bit of a thrill seeker, but this? Well its fair to say, this has pushed me to my limits.
It started on Cairo scholars when someone asked about the ATMs being out of order in Maadi, he suggested it may be because people have emptied them in a panic, preparing for the results of the 25th January protests. It seemednobody took this mail serous and a few people even mocked him.
Then came Tuesday, on Tuesday I was restless and followed the news all day ( I am a news junkie anyway). I had vowed to be sensible and stay home but the second twitter got cut I felt the biggest urge to be there... nothing like censorship to make one more curious!!.
I called my roommate and admittedly at this point I could have been persuaded against going, but it turned out she was as eager as I was. We arranged to meet at the Maadi metro station and I had to smile to myself as she showed up in full demonstration mode; Pepper spray at hand and money stuffed in her bra in case we needed to pay bribes. We assumed Sadat metro station would be closed so departed the metro at Saad Zagoul. It was the quietest I have ever seen downtown and to tell the truth it was a bit of a anti climax, yes it was eerie and felt a bit  like the calm before the storm but I wanted the bloody storm! Had they cut off twitter for this??? We wandered towards Tahrir square and eventually came across a load of people praying in front of lines and lines of police. This seemed quite interesting so we hovered and gawped at that for a minute or two. The roads were blocked so we had to enter Tahrir from the Cornish (road next to the Nile) We followed a group of Chinese men who looked like they knew what they were doing. No one stopped us I don't even recall any strange looks. Upon arriving at Tahrir we scouted the area for a women friendly view point and decided on the big plant pot outside the Mogamma. We stayed on this plant pot for about an hour, taking in the buzzing atmosphere around us. After a while my feet started to hurt so we packed up and took a taxi home... That was it, protest over. Never in my life did I expect the following events.
The next day I bragged about my Tahrir trip to everyone who I came across. Some thought I was brave, some thought I was stupid. The protests went on and the Egyptians who lived downtown left work early. By Thursday it seemed the situation was becoming serious, work was normal, fewer children maybe ahh and 2 teachers didn't make it in as there were problems with the metro. After work the internet was sketchy and there were talks of massive protests... a few hours later Facebook went down, I turned on a proxy and congratulated myself for being so clever, posted a status saying Facebook, twitter and sms is down what is next?? They turned out to be my famous last words as just minutes later the internet went down and suddenly everything seemed very serious indeed. We didnt believe it at first, it had to be T data or something, surely its not possible to pull the plug on the internet? A few calls later and it was confirmed; Egypt was officially internetless. We made the best of the evening by watching movies but I think everyone went to bed that night with a heavy heart. The next morning we awoke before the prayer, tried to make a call and discovered that now the phones were down too.... The outside world was getting further and further away. We sat at home and watched Al Jazeera English all day, they had by now, given up on the Palestine papers and started some pretty impressive coverage of the protests. Things were getting crazy. Police stations had been burnt as had the government's head office. By Saturday morning the police had vanished, I decided to go with my friend to his families house as they had been worrying about him. We arrived at his place in Shoubra shortly before curfew and not long after we got there the gun shots started. The looting had begun. Places that had made me forget I was in a developing country were being destroyed one after another, my sense of security was slipping away. The shots outside were loud now. My friend stated to assemble an arsenal of home made weapons. Bats, metal bars, Tequila Molotov things (I wanted him to use cooking oil and save the tequila). I contributed by taping a knife to the end of a stick and spent the next few minutes waving it around menacingly. We pushed the fridge freezer against the front door and spent the night barricaded in the house. Seriously, it was frightening and I don't think anyone got much sleep.
Everyone handles stress like this in a different way. My friend's Mother and Sister were crying, I was jumpy and asking questions like a crazy person, and my friend was silent. The atmosphere was heavy and what made it worse for me was not being able to talk to anyone about it. The next day was just as bad, constant shots outside and reports on state tv about all the areas in Cairo that had been looted. It felt like the world was falling apart and my friends were starting to flee the country. The internet was still down and I felt totally isolated. I was getting on every ones nerves by constantly asking for the international news and translations of the state news. At some point during day two of what I will call the Shouba siege I actually got my stuff and tried to leave my friends house. I wanted to be in Maadi, I wanted foreigners, I wanted to talk....This of course was a stupid thing to do as it was dangerous as hell outside. I spent the afternoon sleeping and  playing angry birds then came nightfall and with it more shots. My friend decided to join the men who were protecting the neighborhood. I spent some time looking down at the street and couldn't help thinking that they seemed to be enjoying themselves. They lit fires to stay warm, drank tea and watched the teenagers play football. State Tv was driving me crazy, I couldn't understand but just the visual was enough for me to know it was propaganda. I spent the night calling friends in Maadi. The next day the shots died down. I longed to go outside and was starting to feel like Anne Frank!. Spent the day mooching around feeling sorry for myself. I had now given up on getting translations for the news and shut myself in a room with the house phone and my I phone... yep more angry birds.. oh how I missed the internet. I think my friend saw how unhappy I was and how much I longed to be in Maadi, he offered to escort me back in the morning.There were less shots that night (Monday). On Tuesday I woke up bright and early eager to get back.
We walked to the metro station, every one on the street seemed to be on edge. There were no police although it had been reported on State TV that they had been redeployed all over the city. People were paying even less attention to the rules then they normally do. The woman's cart on the metro was full of men and when one brave woman screamed at them to piss off (or the Arabic equivalent) they stayed were they where and laughed. I don't think I have ever felt so tense on the metro. We got to Maadi and looked for a working ATM which, we of course didn't find. I headed towards the shop to pick up some pasta, my answer to all of this has been pasta. If in doubt, stock up on pasta!
On the way to the shop I heard someone shout my name, it was a girl from work and boy it felt good to see someone I knew. At this point my friend figured I would be safe alone and headed off back to Shoubra. I got my Pasta and toddled of on my way. Before reaching home I bumped into another friend yippee I was feeling normal again.
That night we went to a friends house in Degla, it was so nice to be with people again. All of them foreign and all of them understanding the thoughts and concerns I had. This by the way is no disrespect to my friend, he had enough to worry about himself.
When we got back to our flat, we decided to make arty farty things to kill the time, whilst doing this I painted my cat pink, one of many curfew killers I have had to come up with.
The protests that day had been massive and Mubarak was to make a speech. We were convinced he was going to step down. As we now know, he didn't step down, his big speech was to tell us that he wouldn't stand again for the next elections.
The next morning was amazing.... the internet was back yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay and things seemed calm, brilliant, dare I say, over?
I spent some time reading the messages my friends had left me, all of them very touching. Googled all of the things I had written down for future googleing. Google was the thing I missed most
Then I went to meet friends for a coffee at Villa 55. It was a beautiful sunny day, the internet was back, I was sitting with my friends, it felt normal, it felt over, it felt like we were survivors.
When I got home and turned on the news my heart sunk.
Pro Mubarak protesters had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked the peaceful protesters. This was awful, horrid. It looked and felt like civil war, this beautiful day had turned into a sad, sad day of dread, unspeakable things had happened. It was a disgrace to humanity.
On Thursday the fighting went on. State Tv started blaming "foreign influences" so people began to turn on foreigners.On Friday I was afraid to leave the house. Cairo scholars were reporting foreigners being picked up all over the place and being taken for interrogation. The protests were huge but thank god they were peaceful.
Now its Saturday, well to be fair its early Sunday morning. Things were quiet today and I am told that normality shall return on Sunday. People are going to work and the banks will be open.
So do I feel its over? Let me get through Sunday then I will make a prediction......