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.