Bedouin Kidnappers

This past weekend was very tense, the football tragedy happened on Wednesday and people were already out protesting about it on Thursday afternoon, they were marching towards the interior ministry which is where loads of people got killed in November so it was obvious that shit was going to kick off.  On top of that 2 kids got kidnapped on their way to school, they were from a super rich family and went to the German school in Dokki, this was scary as we also have a lot of super rich kids and well we are an international KG too, so everyone was on edge, then there were reports of more robbery's and it was all a bit scary and reminiscent of the revolution's darkest days. I spent Friday watching the news and at some point I read about 2 Americans being kidnapped in Sinai by armed Bedouin guys, my initial thought was wow way to go, another nail in the coffin for the tourism industry, as if the protests, crazy shit going on downtown and the Salafis weren't enough now we have kidnapped Americans woo hoo!! So I followed the news for the entire weekend and the next day the Americans were released and it actually made my day to read what they had said about the incident; the kidnappers were kind! they made tea and lit a fire and then served them bread and dates... they even told  one of the kidnappers that his smoking disturbed them so he went ahead and put out his cigarette! They were constantly told not to worry and to look at it as a special tour of the desert. It was strange, I was surrounded by dark, gloomy, serious and depressing stuff yet reading this made me remember how much I love Egypt and the Egyptians. This is not the place that they show on the news, it's not 24 hour fighting and there is no civil war, the people are warm and kind and are always willing to help. It's so easy to get swept up in the media storm and to believe that nothing is safe anymore, and yes the crime rate has risen but it is nothing compared to other huge cities around the world. there is some horrible stuff happening in certain areas and we should be aware and more cautious  but we should never ever forget the Egyptian people's hearts. I get very frustrated here at times but deep down when I look at the Egyptian people, I just know this country is going to be fine.

There is always a reason to celebrate....

The holidays never seem to end, once one thing is finished another thing starts which means a lot of eating sweet stuff and a lot of days off :) let's start with western Xmas you all know what that's all about and you know it's followed by more celebrations on new years eve, but that's it right? Holiday season over ... Well not if you are in Egypt the next one up is coptic Christmas on the 6th Jan, more cakes and more meat yaaaay then it's a few weeks at work until we have the 25th Jan which means a long weekend to celebrate the revolution so we then go back to work all refreshed to work another week which is followed by another long weekend because of the profits Birthday on the 5th of feb, this is another one that involves lots of eating, oriental sweets are the fare and they are simply delicious. Then we have western Easter in April, followed by Coptic Easter and then the Egyptian spring festival ( this always happens a day after Coptic easter and is a big family day) then at some point Ramadan happens which means finishing work early everyday and feasting every-night Ramadan is of course followed by eid which means a week off and lots of fun :) (the beer shop opens again so I normally celebrate this all week). Then it's the slaughter festival or as we call it at school "the sheep festival" this is a bit of a gruesome one as people sacrifice cows and sheep out on the street and well if you are not into gore it can be a bit much... On the plus side it means a week off. Then we role up to Xmas again ohhhh and of course I have a month in the summer too. He he he love Egypt and love my job xxxx

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