Shaken Not Stirred

 What's it like living in a country that is still in the middle of a revolution? It's actually a lot like living in a lot of countries these days, just a bit more dramatic. Almost everywhere I look I see change occurring at a phenomenal rate, partly brought along by the changes in communication that this blog exemplifies. When I began blogging in 2003, people were much more reliant on the main stream media for information about events whether at home or abroad. In the almost ten years since then, events have taken on an immediacy never anticipated through media such as Twitter, Facebook and Storify. Where once I felt I was happy to be able to go online to read commentary on events from a wide-ranging collection of news sources via the internet, now I go online and check the comment on Twitter from their correspondents in our ever-boiling part of the world to see what happened overnight before it even appears in the media.  One of the results of this increase in media availability has been an increased sense in the instability of our world. I'm not sure how more unstable it is, but I am sure that we are more aware of it. I also am very aware of the fact that I am one small cog in this huge global information machine.

When the Egyptian revolution started in January 2011, my children in the US contacted me to see if I wanted to go visit them for the duration...but they weren't terribly surprised to hear that it wasn't in my plans. I chose the location of my farm with care, knowing my neighbours and the social structure into which I wanted to fit. It is probably as safe for an older woman who lives alone with an unholy amount of dogs as anywhere can be. Once they'd assured themselves that I was still the stubborn old lady that they knew and loved, they did lay down some ground rules. With the outcome of the revolution very much in the air, I was NOT to post anything at all on my blogs. The few times I did, I was the recipient of immediate angry feedback from my offspring. But it's really hard for someone who naturally resorts to writing not to write, especially when the country around her is almost literally boiling. So we came to a compromise. I was allowed to post other people's articles about events in Egypt on my Facebook page which became a defacto news service. Writing by proxy saved my sanity. I've tried to keep a fairly balanced viewpoint about events, although clearly my feelings could not be denied. Over the past couple of years, my Facebook page has become less a personal account of my activities and more a forum for my friends all over the world to read news, blogs, and snippets from Twitter and to comment on or argue over them among themselves. I've likened it to the old fashioned literary salons of the 19th century at times. I love watching the discussions although often I don't take part in them if a couple of people are really into a topic. When life gets REALLY interesting in our neighbourhood, like it is now, I find that I really have to make the time to sit and write my own words because there is so much out there that others are saying.  So far worries about retribution for what ideas we are putting out on the internet are relatively small, since to worry about a little old lady on a farm in Giza who never shows up on TV or at a protest would appear to be a waste of time when half of Egypt is online complaining about one thing or another.

So, what is Egypt like in the middle of a revolution? Because that is where we are, in the middle, in a process that no one knows the ending of. I think everyone in Egypt has been anxious in the past few weeks with many people going down to Tahrir and gathering in other squares in other cities to protest the actions of our fairly recently elected president and with the knowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of said president were planning to have their own protest in support of the president. One of the main, not always unspoken, fears was that somehow the two groups would simply explode if put in contact, like a match to a stick of dynamite. A while back the Ikhwan bussed in supporters from outside of Cairo to come to Cairo University to support Morsi as he prepared to announce the acceptance of a draft constitution for a public referendum. The fact that the committee drafting the constitution did not contain any constitutional experts in any general sense was extremely worrying to many people. After all, a constitution of a nation isn't exactly a set of rules for a children's backyard club. It is supposed to protect the rights of all the members of the nation and with limited representation by minority groups and women, there has been an enormous amount of concern with what the output would be. On Thursday an Arabic version of the draft was released, which has been the topic of enormous amounts of discussion. I've printed up copies of it for my staff to read and think about. An English translation of it was published by Egypt Independent which I have been reading as well. Late in the evening yesterday, Morsi announced that this would be either approved or disapproved in a referendum on December 15, giving voters only two weeks to consider the issues.  I'm not sure that more time would necessarily lead to more clarity of thought on the subject, but it's fairly sure that only having two weeks to find, read, and discuss the draft does make it harder for people to object to it. Most referendums in Egypt have ended in a "yes" vote out of inertia. And in the end, this referendum was no different.

Does this signal the end of the process? By no means, and not the least of the reasons is Morsi himself. He's put people who even many Muslims and revolutionary types can't approve of on the Shura Council (the upper house of parliament) like generals and members of the Islamic Jihad. There is such a thing as appropriate, really Dr. Morsi. Virtually everything he has done, while he may have words to say that it has been expedient or for the good of the country, simply screams authoritarian Islam. And this is wildly offensive to Egyptians of all varieties who were thrilled to get rid of Mubarak. We are nowhere near the end of the tunnel and no one is sure what those dancing lights are. They could be Salafi cigarettes (soon to be taxed at much higher rates!), the steam engine of economic collapse, fireflies, fairies, or, heaven forbid, the end of the tunnel. My personal bet at this time is not the last, but the fairies or fireflies sound good to me.

So am I packing up for what might be the stability of the US or Canada? Not at all. First, I'm not all that sure of the stability of either state, to be honest. Both are awash in political and religious conservatism themselves, albeit both Canada and the US are so much larger than Egypt physically that the effect is diluted, and both are facing serious domestic political issues. Gun control in the US is vital, although many people are extremely vocal against it. My personal cynical view of the gun issue is that given the US is the world's largest manufacturer and seller of weapons and ammunition, the gun enthusiasm has been created in the same way that other consumer appetites have been and that no one is going to try to control the selling of guns for fear of damaging an important part of the economy, just like all the calls for cutting back on the "aid" for Egypt is going to lead to nothing because that "aid" is actually a government subsidy for the arms industry in the US and the money goes directly to the companies producing weapons and ammunition and to those servicing such weapons. What happens to them later is irrelevant to the US government or those industries, but the sooner they are used or blown up the better because that simply creates a new demand.

Canada, aside from the environmentally wasteful behaviour of the current government, is facing a deeper and perhaps more dangerous domestic issue that could easily splash over the border to the south. Both countries were created by wave after wave of immigrants primarily from Europe over the past three hundred years or so...a brief second compared to the history of Egypt. These immigrants, having now the positions of power in a land that they essentially invaded and confiscated (no wonder that both their governments are fairly staunch supporters of Israel, the most modern European colonial power) are crying now about how new waves of immigration are threatening their life style. Oddly enough, the indigenous peoples of North America, who for the most part live in poverty and on marginal properties to which they were pushed by the immigrants of their times, are getting rather fed up. A movement that started in Canada with a tribal chief Therese Spence, who is on a hunger strike for assistance for her people, Idle No More, is gaining support from other indigenous people's groups worldwide. At some point, the urge for justice that seems so keen in many semi-European countries in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa is going to have to thrust itself inwards to examine the morality of how those countries came to be in the first place. This is going to be intensely painful for many people. On the other hand, they could try to ignore it like they have in the past, but with the character of communication in our societies these days, that simply isn't so easy.

All things considered, I'll stick with my Egyptian revolution which for the most part is relatively straightforward even if we haven't the foggiest where the path is taking us tomorrow. I see shudders of change running through countries all over the globe and I don't think that anywhere is going to be immune. All the patterns I see forming are indicating that with information becoming so much more readily available and so much more easily placed in the public eye, many profound changes in human society will be seen in the relatively near future. My analysis is, of course, done very much by eyeballing events and getting a vague sense of movement. There is nothing scientific about it and I'm sure that some of the things I suspect will happen will not come to pass, but of this I am sure: Change is inevitable and will be faster than expected. It will likely make many people unhappy.

copyright 2012 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Goodnight, Ali

I lost an old friend today. Ali, also known as Ali Capone, Alibird, and AliDon'tBiteMyFeet, was found dead in the aviary today. There was no indication of attack, illness or anything to suggest why he would have died. I have to assume a coronary or something. He was about 22 years old, a fairly respectable age for an African Grey parrot. We don't know exactly how old he was but he was a fairly young bird when he came to live with us.

My kids bought Ali for me for Mother's Day when we were living in Alexandria. He was young, frightened, and not at all happy with human beings. I put his cage in the kitchen so that he would see people all the time. We put a bowl of treats (nuts, grapes, and so on) next to the cage. Every time someone came through the kitchen they would take a treat from the bowl and offer it to Ali, usually saying as people do "Here, Ali". Gradually he calmed down among us and got to look forward to the attention. It took months before I was able to touch him without significant blood loss, but in a year or so he would come out of his cage and wander around the house on the floor quite comfortably. African Greys are well known for their speaking ability and Ali was very vocal. With people talking to him all the time and giving him goodies, he began with whistling. When we copied his whistles, it became a game where he would copy any whistle he heard. Soon he began muttering. It was extraordinary to hear long conversations from this little grey bird, but the meaning was just out of reach. Without really thinking, you found yourself hearing this voice coming from the cage and saying "What?". We felt silly responding to a parrot like that but he sounded so real. Then one day in the midst of the mutter a word came out clearly: "What?". Well, of course. The next word he said was "Here", another natural since that was what people said to him when they gave him treats.

When we moved to Cairo from Alexandria, Ali came with us and he really came into his own in the new house. By now he was used to being loose in the house much of the day and sleeping in his cage at night. He had a nice perch on the top of his sleeping cage and when I came down to the kitchen I would hear a quiet "Hello Ali" from under the covers. If I didn't take them off and open the door, the greeting would come with greater volume and urgency until I finally did. During the day if I was cooking in the kitchen he would wander around the kitchen floor, pulling on cupboard doors trying to get them open and murmuring "What here Ali?" to himself. His vocabulary was increasing and his use of it was more skilled. He would encourage himself in his activities by saying "Come on Ali", and would be totally delighted if he got the cupboard doors open. He loved to pull all the pots and pans out of the cupboard. The sound of them banging on the floor seemed to give him enormous pleasure. He would follow me out to the living room and climb up my leg to sit on my lap while I read, or cuddle up under my chin when I took a nap on the sofa. Every now and then he would say something so direct, real, and off the wall that it would astonish me. One day when my daughter came home from school to find me making spaghetti sauce in the kitchen. She wandered in asking me what smelled so good. A little voice came from the cage saying "What's it look like, stupid?" We were both dumbstruck and looked over to Ali who merely scratched his head and looked innocent.

Ali didn't like the kitchen cupboards in our next house. They were too heavy for him to pull open, so he turned his talents to other occupations like removing the rubber seal of the refrigerator....like about three times. Expensive hobby. He also proved himself to be incredibly efficient at stripping the toaster cord of its covering while it was still plugged in, and we decided that maybe Ali needed a safer place to live. We built an aviary in the garden and found him a nice African Grey girlfriend Mona to share it with him. He liked the arrangement and after a couple of years he and Mona surprised us with two baby African Greys. They were great parents and took good care of the babies, but when they were fledged we moved the kids into the house to work with them so that they would be comfortable with humans. We didn't think that keeping four Greys was such a good idea. The babies, Pobble and Atilla the Hungry, were female and male respectively, and were so much fun to train. They were being hand fed so we took them with us to our house in Sharm el Sheikh that summer and had to clip their wings when they learned to fly in the living room. We found homes for them with good families. Pobble took after her father and was a real talker but Atilla was like his mother Mona and specialised in whistles.

While the years were passing, we collected other birds in the aviary. At various times we had African Ringnecks (the infamous Killer Kelly and her motorcycle gang) and some Cuban Amazons that I found sick and miserable at a bird seller. A friend brought me a really unhappy Grey who had pulled out all his feathers, but Fritzi recovered well in the company of Ali and Mona. When I finally moved from Maadi to Sakkara, I built a big aviary for the birds so that they would have plenty of room to fly in. Brilliantly, I thought that I might be able to use chicken wire to screen in the rooms inside (three 3 metre x 3 metre rooms joined by a small service room) but Ali, Fritzi and Mona had other ideas. They chewed through the chicken wire to make holes so that they could fly from one room to the other. Life was getting interesting. I bought some chickens to clean up the food that the parrots loved to toss on to the floor, then someone brought us a couple of ducks, a pair of turkeys, a couple of geese, some doves and pigeons and we had a major avian habitat going on.

You might think that a duck, goose or turkey could bully a half pound parrot but that is definitely not the case. Ali and Fritz took over monitoring the terracotta jar where the chickens liked to lay their eggs and we had to coax them away from it to collect them. There was no question....ever....who ran the aviary. Every morning when I'd go out to feed him, I'd hear a cheery "Hello Bird". As far as Ali was concerned we were all birds. If I was late with breakfast the calls of "Here Ali" "Here Bird" would increase with time. And everyone loved playing the whistling game with him. He would copy your whistle and embellish it a little with a sort of competitive streak. He drove the gardeners crazy when they cleaned the aviary because he would waddle along behind them and nip at their feet. They never would wear closed shoes for that work. I knew better.

There is great disturbance in the birdosphere today. A wonderful little grey creature is sleeping under the papaya tree and I will miss him forever. Goodnight, Ali Bird.

copyright 2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Thoughts on Recent Events

I began this blog about 18 months after 9/11 in an effort to help friends and acquaintances of mine, mostly from the US, understand why I insisted on living in this backward, terrorist-ridden woman-hating country...that was pretty much how Egypt was described in the media back then. I looked online for webpages or information about the joys of living in Egypt (and there are many) but I couldn't find anything. So with all good intentions, I decided to write about living here as a long term resident and lover of Egyptian society and life. In March, my blog will be about eight years old.

From the beginning, I chose to avoid discussions of local politics, partly because I'm not an Egyptian citizen, not for want of trying but because of some utterly inane bureaucratic hitch in the Mogamma that prevents me from being given citizenship even though my husband and children carry it. As someone without formal citizenship I was very aware of my precarious position under a regime that was notoriously touchy about criticism and I had no wish at all to be deported or barred from entering the country that I consider my only home. In addition, I don't read or write Arabic and I really felt that it was rather inappropriate for me to be sounding off about things here that I could only partly understand for lack of complete information...and I was quick to find a group of much younger Egyptian bloggers who were doing an infinitely better job, at great personal cost.

I chose instead to try to talk about aspects of daily life here that could give the country a more human face, things that anyone could relate to in terms of family life, philosophy, those smaller things that keep us going when the larger events threaten to trample our souls and that are universal to all people. Sometimes I feel that maybe I did too good a job as I get a lot of email from people who for various reasons want to come here to live and work. I always have to point out that Egypt has never been without its problems (no country is), that it is essential to learn to speak (at least) Arabic so that there is a possibility of communication, and that this isn't Indiana with pyramids. Egypt has its own culture and way of life and doesn't need to have anyone else's imposed upon it. With my children grown and studying in the US, I had a constant pressure to remember to be tactful as they were not keen on hopping a flight to try to dig their old mother out of one of the Egyptian prisons.

With the January 25 protests and in the days following, I found myself sitting by the television at the farm, following events on Twitter and the net, and biting my tongue almost off. My son and daughter are still in New York studying and working, and they pointed out the wisdom of not being in Tahrir given my citizenship and the knee surgery that I underwent last summer. (I'm not so nimble on the ground although I am still fine on horseback.) I was devastated like everyone when Mubarak unexpectedly did not step down on Thursday night and cheered with most Egyptians when he finally left on Friday. And again, I was constantly asking myself if it would have been right for me to be there or not. A large part of my spirit says "Hell, yes!", while the part that probably keeps me alive, fed and safe, says "Maybe no". In the end, the deciding vote was cast by my work and lifestyle which meant that if I disappeared a group of people who depended on me for their living and a bunch of animals to whom I am terribly attached, would be set adrift with no one to provide for them. In addition, I actually hold my farm in trust for my daughter and I need to protect that trust. So discretion won out, at least for the short term.

Watching the revolution from the safety of the countryside was rather surreal. Out here the main difference in life was that many of us had a very hard time getting hay and feed for our animals. In our area people helped each other out with supplies so that no one would suffer too much. Thankfully, I'd withdrawn a reasonably large amount of cash from the bank before they all closed during the protests, and this helped a lot. I still had staff responsibilities even if the banks were closed, and animals could care less about politics...they simply want to be fed. Out here the neighbourhood watch was quickly instated and extremely efficient. At the height of the problems you had to go through about 6 checkpoints to get near my farm. If the driver and/or passenger wasn't recognised, they had to show ID, declare who they were coming to visit, and they had to call that person to verify the fact. Even now the checkpoints are in place and cars are carefully vetted. We could hear the tanks rolling around in the desert for much of the revolution. I understand that some archaeological warehouses were raided the first night that the police vanished, but things were quiet here other than the odd time the villagers caught people who had been stealing from stores in the Pyramids Road area trying to smuggle their loot through this area.

My staff, like many rural Egyptians, are mostly at the lower end of the educational scale with many of them illiterate. Even those who could read were incredibly confused. They were accustomed to reading the usual newspapers and watching state TV, so when Al Jazeera began showing what was actually happening in the streets, they didn't know what to think as the government newspapers and TV shouted out that A) Nothing was happening at all; B)There were small protests instigated by foreign powers variously and sometimes simultaneously identified as Israeli, Iranian, Hamas or simply "foreign"and C) Al Jazeera was lying about everything just to make Egypt look bad. I guess that the unspoken word there was that Qatar was also trying to bring down the Egyptian state. When the government satellite cut Al Jazeera Arabic, we would let people come to the house to see it in English, as that hadn't been cut. I spent hours talking to them about what was happening, what was hoped and why it was so important to them...and how it might change their lives but that it would not be an easy road.

Family and friends were, naturally, concerned. My children offered me a flight to NYC, but I declined saying that I felt safe and I wouldn't miss this for the world. As long as it was possible we spoke to each other daily. I don't want to think about my long distance bill. When the net returned after being cut off for a bit, reception out here was still a bit dicey and it took days to respond to people who were writing worried about me. And at the end of it all, I felt drained, happy, bewildered, concerned and frustrated. It's taken a week at least to work out all those emotions.

I was drained as many of the young people who were involved in this revolution were those who I'd been following online for many years. After a while they feel like friends, although I'd never met them, and concern for their safety and relief when they were released from custody was enormous. I was delighted with the outcome inasmuch as our unesteemed head of state departed finally with his family. The cronyism, corruption, and violence were never far from anyone's sight, so I was cheering for the revolution from day one. I think everyone in Egypt is a bit bewildered at this point. This is the first time in probably over eight thousand years that Egyptians have had a say in their government. They have gone through any number of systems of monarchy to military dictatorship and now finally have a chance to have the people of the country speak for their needs. In a sense, they have the chance now to reinvent democracy on their terms. There certainly isn't much in the way of baggage to encumber them since everyone acknowledges that what existed here was certainly not any kind of real democracy. Everyone is looking about asking where to go from here, but they are not simply looking. This afternoon a neighbour took Catherine (a friend of my daughter who is staying here and helping me) into Zamalek for a meeting of a group of people who are wanting to help to rebuild Egypt. There are many groups of this sort on Facebook that I know of and quite likely many more being organised offline. People are collecting money and hospital supplies to help the victims of violence during the protests, they are establishing food banks, going out and sweeping and repairing the streets, directing traffic and taking care of neighbourhood security. Many of the police are either on strike (the lower ranks do get appallingly bad wages and working conditions) or in hiding.

While in many respects, the country seems to be quite normal in these post-revolutionary times, in many others it is not. The stock exchange has been closed indefinitely for some time now. I don't understand stock exchanges when everything is terrific, so I have nothing to say about that now. The strikes that are being held are totally understandable in that no one has had the freedom to complain about anything for longer than anyone can remember, but they are definitely inconvenient at times. Banks were closed all last week and we have had no assurance that they will open this week. This is primarily because the employees of the National Bank are on strike. But the strikes are not indefinite, they come and go causing temporary problems. These are growing pains and I remember being inconvenienced plenty of times by strikes in Canada. In Egypt, people simply have not become accustomed to any labour unrest. A group of my neighbours got together on Friday morning to check out the situation for horseback riding in the desert here, something that is important for both our sanity and some of our budgets. On Friday it was fine, but one neighbour reported seeing soldiers jogging in the desert on Thursday morning. No one is quite sure what that means.

My theory is that Egypt works on a special chaos filter and very close to the red line at the best of times, so when things aren't quite normal...they really aren't that far off normal. On February 12, Catherine and I drove down to Beni Suef (with the ever protective Mohamed of course) to buy some goats to improve our flock. We picked up two males (one Alpine/Syrian cross and the other Saanen/Syrian cross) and three females (all Saanen/Syrian cross) to breed with our flock of baladi goats. The males were named Google and Twitter while the females were dubbed Mona, Zeinobia, and Nadia, after three of my favourite Twitter posters during the protests. We saw nothing unusual other than a couple of burned cars on the side of the road, a couple of tanks and a four year old boy in the village where we bought the goats who picked up a stone and brandished it at us shouting "Horreya" (Freedom)...only to be firmly scolded by his mother who told him that was enough. The revolution is over.

But is it over? Not really. The military leaders are the same military leaders who were in power under Mubarak, while the cabinet is largely made up of the same old gang of suspects. There is still an awful lot of housecleaning to do. Much of the frustration I mentioned has to do with the influence of other countries in Egypt's affairs through the use of the aid given, primarily to the military. Most of the US aid was given in the form of credit that could be spent in the US arms industry to buy tanks, planes, guns and tear gas canisters...though oddly enough many of the latter were way beyond their expiration dates apparently. Wonder where the money for the new tear gas went...or are there huge warehouses of the stuff lying about? Basically the aid went to prop up a regime that was everything the US government claims to hate. They've gone into Iraq and Afghanistan to rid the poor citizens there of repressive regimes supposedly...while causing major collateral damage to both countries. When the protests in Egypt began, the leaders of the free world sided with Mubarak, although no one can believe that they were unaware of the real situation here. Maybe they only lead the "free" world and don't really have anything to do with the oppressed world except to sell the governments there arms. At any rate, the Egyptians "freed" themselves and with a much lower cost than we would have had with help from the US military.

During the protests there was much discussion of the "Tunisia" effect referring to the overthrow of the Ben Ali regime only a short while earlier. Of course, there are still issues there as the "interim" government of Tunisia has also kept on entirely too many of the old regime. Within days of February 11, protesters in Bahrain marched to demand reform and more voice in their government, perhaps a constitutional monarchy rather than what currently exists. Like the Egyptians, they marched without weapons, chanting in peace, and when the government soldiers, mercenaries for the most part unlike the Egyptian army, encountered the protesters, they were fired on with tear gas canisters at point blank range. The army's responses to peaceful protest has been so violent in Bahrain as to be termed a massacre at times. And the governmental tactic has been to ban the press, penning them in the airport so that there can be no international oversight...except that there is no such thing as no oversight anymore. Telephones shoot videos and can transmit them abroad. The protesters across North Africa (Libya is fighting a vicious battle with largely foreign troups as well against the citizens) are for the most part following the nonviolent doctrines of Gandhi and the governments opposing them fail to realise that they'd get further by allowing discussion and participation than by reacting with violence. Watching the idiocy of the regimes' responses is wildly frustrating. We all know that they have huge stakes to protect, but the violent approach in the long run simply does not work. Soldiers might be able to shoot 10, 20, 100 people...but can they hold out over 1000 or 1,000,000? What the Egyptians learned early in February is that you are as free as you can imagine, or you are as oppressed as you allow yourself to be, and that lesson seems to be one that is easy to learn.


Photos of Tahrir by Zena Sallam

copyright 2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Mobinil User Warning

I'm one of Mobinil's oldest users in Egypt, and theoretically thereby accorded special privileges and consideration. When I have a complaint, for example, I have a special number for their first class customers that always gets answered although satisfaction is not always guaranteed. I know because I have been calling that number at least 6 to 8 times a week for the past few months.

Over a year ago I noticed that my bonus points on my Mobinil account was up over 20 thousand and a friend suggested that I use them before some accountant decided I wasn't interested and took them away. I went into the Mobinil shop in New Maadi near the area we fondly call Junk Food Alley, the line of fast food restaurants that greet you when you take the first exit off the Autostrade into Maadi. The only thing that they had that interested me was an iPhone and since it was practically free, I got it. I talked to the clerk about whether there was any necessary adjustment in my account plan and he very kindly said they'd take care of it. Cool...a new toy. At the time I had access to the internet through a broadband landline so I didn't use the internet part of the iPhone much at all, but when some local construction destroyed the landline, I did some research and went back to Mobinil for a USB modem connection. By this time, Mobinil had built a massive faux palm tree at Sakkara Country Club to improve our signal out here and we could get 3G service. Wonderful. I now had internet at home that didn't cut out every time there was a rainstorm and my iPhone as back up.

Living as I do outside the city, I'd made arrangements that my Mobinil bill (which was always in the neighbourhood of LE 700 a month since I do have kids in the US that I call every so often) would be paid automatically from my VISA card. I like having my bills paid. Now imagine my shock when I got a phone call in December to say that they were having a problem deducting my bill from my card. I figured that my bank was having some kind of glitch, this is Egypt after all, so I told them I'd be coming into town the next day and would stop by to pay in cash. Could they tell me the balance, please? The balance was LE 6920.39! No wonder the VISA was refusing it. When I picked myself up off the floor, I very firmly suggested that they do some serious checking on what exactly was going on with my bill. I was informed that there was a charge of 5307.06 LE for Mobinil LIfe, their telephone internet services. What on earth was going on here???

I don't use my phone for internet as a rule. Typing on a phone keyboard isn't much fun and I'm much happier to use my computer at home. Besides, I have a package with the modem that was supposed to charge me LE 150 a month for up to 3GB downloads with things like Facebook and YouTube free. As I wasn't downloading music or movies and I'm not a fan of YouTube, there was absolutely no way I was overusing my account. And the counter on my computer indicated that I might reach 3GB in 8 to 10 weeks, so that wasn't happening. I stomped my tiny consumer's foot soundly on the phone beginning the close and intimate relationship with the First Class customer service line. I was assured that my complaint would be looked into and that they would hold back on needing payment.

In January, Mobinil cut off my service and I was on the phone in a rage. My January bill included a charge of LE 3232.12 for Mobinil Life as well as my more normal charges of LE 548.77 bringing my total bill to LE 11,126.82. This time my initimate relationship with the First Class service personnel got a little heated. I sat on the phone until they dug up my past complaint and duly noted that it was "under investigation". They turned my service back on. Thank you, Mobinil. When I inquired about the status of the investigation, I was told that there was a "global problem with some aspects of the billing system".....a DUH statement if I ever heard one...and that someone would be in touch with me in 24 hours. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Every so often I would call and ask how the billing problem was coming along only to be told it was "under investigation".

On February 25, Cairo was hit by a thunderstorm of biblical proportions with hail falling all over to the fear/delight of people who had never seen the stuff before. I happened to be in town with friends when the storm hit and as we were driving back to the farm we could see massive bolts of lightning striking all along the edge of the desert near the farm. There are some huge high tension power lines a short distance away from where I live so I was hopeful that the strikes were hitting those rather than my pipe corrals around the horses, and indeed the horses were wet but safe. A number of strikes were in the neighbourhood of our Mobinil palm tree which was quite close to the power lines, and in fact, we were without internet service for some time after the storm...a "global problem" according to my buddies at the First Class Service line. Eventually the service did come back but it was rather spotty. Service would slide from E to 3G to a dot to nothing in the course of half an hour. Calls were being dropped or not getting through and the modems were very unhappy, as were all the modem owners out here.

This ushered in a new era of complaints. "Hello, madame. Is this complaint about the bill or the internet service?" Well, how about both? We went through the requisite gymnastics of checking settings on computers enough times that I can do them in my sleep. Hello, Mobinil....the issue is not the computer or the modem. It is the fact that your signal sucks, despite a relay station palm tree the size of Godzilla. Please send someone out to see if there was damage during the storm. Eventually, they did send some nice engineers out to do measurements and play with wires I assume and the service got marginally better.

Meanwhile back on the bill front, my connection fees had gone up to LE 300 a month but my Mobinil Life was down to LE 240.10, which was an improvement but I still had problems understanding what this charge was for. A deduction in my bill of LE 5752.98 brought my total back down to a measly LE 6146.02. Whoopdedoo! I thanked heaven for small mercies and urged my voices on the First Class Service line to do a bit better. In March Mobinil Life was creeping up again at LE 590.64, possibly because the internet on my modem wasn't working...who knows actually?...and there was another adjustment of LE 3418.11. Mobinil was kind enough to deduct a relatively normal payment in the neighbourhood of LE 700 from my VISA. I was hoping I was seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

In April, my Mobinil Life was LE 332.88, with a reasonable total, an overdue balance from previous periods just over LE 3000, and Mobinil took a bit over 1200 from the VISA. This was a bit more reasonable but at no time had anyone from Mobinil contacted me to explain what gremlins had been dancing through my account. In May the gremlins struck again with Mobinil Life bouncing back up over LE 2400. Were the "global problems" fixed or had they simply been incarcerated for a brief period? In June with the Mobinil Life charges down to about LE 300 or so, Mobinil helped themselves to over LE 3400 on my VISA card in payments, leaving me with an overdue balance of over LE 3000.

So how do I rate Mobinil customer service? Would -399 be appropriate? We still have the signal problems and no feed back whatsoever on what is going on. Yesterday alone I was on the phone three times to tell them that we couldn't use our modems, that the iPhones were getting coverage that varied from none to 3G but that we COULD check our email on them so the issue was the data signal as opposed to the phone signal. Obviously, I currently have internet service but the explanatory phone calls have never arrived. I've arranged to be able to check my bills online and so far my July bill isn't showing up so who knows what exactly is going on. I will never, ever just allow my bills to be paid unchecked by my VISA and I know many people who have withdrawn this option from Mobinil due to similar problems. Do I have the option to change carriers? Unfortunately no. Vodafone has appalling service in my area and can't be used for the internet. I know. I've tried. Etasilat, while quite reliable for phone calls, can provide back up phone service for when Mobinil drops the ball out here, but they have no 3G service in this area. So I'm left to poke a large orange elephant in the butt with a stick in the hopes that it will find me tiresome enough to actually pay attention. It's sort of like an experimental trial to see if the Japanese are right that the nail sticking out will be the one hammered down or whether the American saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease is correct. In the meantime, squeak, squeak, squeak.


copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Harder To Call Home?

A recent article on TheNextWeb says that Telecom Egypt is blocking Skype after March 13. Whether this will include Skype on computers as well as on iPhones and mobiles remains to be seen. As someone with a couple of kids in North America, I'm sure not happy about it. I'll be interested in hearing comments from people who find that this is true...and even more interested if it isn't.




copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

The Egyptian Onion

As someone whose favourite "news" shows are the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, I have also long been a fan of The Onion, a American satirical "news" source. My theory is that these things aren't funny unless you have a fairly good idea of what news is the basis for the satire, so they are a reasonable jumping off point for news. Recently a group of young Egyptian writers who are only known by their pseudonyms: Makarona (pasta), Ward Zeyada (extra fried onions), and Subar Lox (a term for a standard size for koshary) have started up an Egyptian version of The Onion. El-Koshary Today is named after an Egyptian dish that is a conglomeration of dark lentils, chickpeas, rice, and pasta topped with fried onions, a spicy tomato sauce and a garlic/vinegar sauce. Cheap and filling, koshary is a streetside favourite in Egypt and this literary version is fast on its way to becoming just as enjoyable. While locals like myself can laugh at their send-ups of Egyptian news, the stories might entice people elsewhere to explore some of the issues brought up in some of the more mainstream sources.

You can make up a batch of koshary with this recipe and giggle your way through the wesite.

Happy nibbling!

copyright 2009 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Only In Egypt

In my constant scanning of other blogs about Egypt, I've found a new one today called Life in Cairo. The author doesn't post often but she had a total gem in her August post, some YouTube videos from Egypt. I went to YouTube to get one of them. Some of the humour is definitely local, with the humour only in Arabic, so this isn't a foreigner laughing at the locals but the locals laughing at themselves, which Egyptians do with great frequency, bless their hearts. But do check her blog.

copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Bananas and Other Samples

One of the best things about having a farm is being able to plant fun things all around you. We planted fruit trees: apple, peach, guava, pomegranate, ishta, oranges, lemons, tangerines, and bananas, as well as very playful crops like sugar cane. The cane is tall now and visitors over the Feast that begins on Tuesday will get to cut stalks down and chew the sweet juice out. What's left over is more than appreciated by the horses, donkeys and goats.

Banana trees were some of the first things planted here and I have a couple of varieties. One type is the larger banana that is familiar in Europe or the US, but my favourite is the smaller type, what my kids used to call "banana samples". These tiny bananas are only a couple of bites but the flavour is wonderful and they don't go immediately to banana mush as they ripen. When I began visting Egypt in the late 70's, one of the first things to be imported here was a total mystery to me because they were importing Dole bananas...big tasteless yellow things in a country where the tiny bananas were so good. My husband's family learned very quickly that I was not at all impressed with imported bananas. These were simply not in the same class as the sweet little local bananas like the stalk being inspected in the photo by some of the dogs who were hoping for bones.

Now as we prepare for about four days of complete idleness (well, maybe not depending on how many people decide to take advantage of the holidays to stay and play in Cairo possibly at the farm rather than going to the beach...it's still hot here) I've taken more time on my collection of Egypt blogs and would suggest that they are a marvelous way to realise the richness of the experience here. I've found blogs from students here in Arabic courses, professors at the American University, housewives caring for young and not so young children while husbands pursue their careers, and locals of all flavours. They talk about so many aspects of life here, both good and bad, that a wander through the blogs will give you a wonderful tour. I know that elsewhere the Feast is not an occasion of idleness, but maybe during low points in news programs or evening TV you might pick one or two to try out. These samples of Egyptian life are just as tempting and tasty as our tiny bananas.


copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Probably Elsewhere Too

Today's New York Times asks if Jon Stewart of The Daily Show is the most trusted men in America, and then looks at why this may be. With my subscription to Showtime Arabia I get to watch Mr. Stewart every day followed by Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, a fact that my daughter in New York finds hilarious since she has to follow it online as she, being an impoverished grad student, doesn't have a cable subscription. I read my news online, following the BBC World, New York Times, Washington Post, and the International Herald Tribune among others through Google News. I haven't trusted television news for many years. The Daily Show is the only "news" show that I watch and I find that it keeps me remarkably up to date with American politics, certainly as up to date as I want to be.

Perhaps it would bear examining Jon Stewart's following in the world outside of North America as well. He is incredibly popular in the Middle East among English speaking viewers for his ability to get to the point of the matter, eliminating the political fluff. I am delighted that my cable subscription gives me access to his sanity on a daily basis. It's funny the things you find in Egypt....


copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

The Importance of Staying In Touch

I recently took a brief holiday to the US to see my kids. When I got back to Egypt, I arrived to find my niece from California, along with her five year old daughter, a fellow teacher, and ten high school students, happily installed at an alternative school not far from the farm where they would be staying for a two week visit to Egypt as a part of their school program. I also had an old friend from New Zealand who came to think out some major life decisions at the farm and within a couple of days, another friend and her daughter from California had arrived via Luxor. If I'd been rested after two weeks of bouncing between Boston and New York, a matter of conjecture only since I certainly wasn't after a flight home on a plane carrying every small child in the US with an Egyptian grandparent to visit over the summer, I wasn't rested once I got home. My animals apparently miss me a bit when I'm gone and the greeting from the dog pack was riotous to say the least, but it was later in the evening that I noticed a real difference. When I sat down...and later when I went to bed...I found that all the dogs, even the big ones, had to sit or lie close enough to me to touch me. With temperatures during the day of over 90 F/38 C, this could get to be a burden. Night time temperatures in the high 70's/high 20's, made things a bit better but I didn't get much sleep the first few nights. It was as if the dogs needed to reassure themselves that I wasn't going to vanish again while they were sleeping. Silly dogs...but are they?

When I spent some time talking to my niece and catching up on family happenings, I was astonished to find that I'd missed some pretty important events abroad. Living on the opposite side of the globe, more or less, from part of my family and a minimum of 11 hours flying time from the kids, I rely on internet communications a lot. Emails, chat, Skype, even Facebook are all helpful in keeping up with family and friends who are wandering the globe, but in the end, we only know what others tell us about their lives, and they only know what we are willing to disclose. That can be a problem. "Oh, I didn't want to worry you." "Well, I figured that it would blow over." How many times have we all used this excuse as a reason to keep our problems to ourselves? We all do it. We share the good times and hide the bad ones, but at what cost?

When my husband died, I soldiered on. I sat through years of horribly confusing negotiations, miserable meetings, and generally disabling work in fields that I really had no experience with. It was not fun. Without a group of women friends who gathered around me, held me as I cried, and encouraged me when I wanted to just give up and run away, I would never have made it. Ladies, I salute you and I would never have survived without you. A core group were also going through some pretty gut-wrenching life changes...divorces, separations, career issues...and we would meet about weekly for a meal and an exchange of woes. How depressing...but not really...and how therapeutic. An Irish grad student friend of mine used to tell me, while we were suffering from being the first major influx of women grad students in our department in Canada with all the weirdness that entailed, that a problem shared is a problem halved. It isn't really that other people are going to solve the problem for you as it is that simply carrying the burden of our problem alone adds to its weight.

So the dumb animals aren't so dumb at all. They understand the need to be with the ones that they care about even if they can't speak in words. Years and years ago, AT&T, the American telephone company ran an ad campaign to boost long distance calling (I'm not so naive as to think that they approached it as a public service!) that featured someone saying "Reach out and touch someone." It's good advice. And don't only share the good news. It really is okay to say, "I know you can't do anything about this, but just knowing that someone is thinking about it with me helps...." And if you are on the receiving end, know that hearing about a problem doesn't necessarily mean that you have to rush out to slay a dragon. Sometimes just swatting a fly will do.
Oh, and the dogs? It only took a few days of sitting on me for them to decide that I'd returned for the duration and to go back to giving me space to breathe...thank heaven.

copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Nice To Feel Appreciated

A couple of days ago I received a note from Vicky Zhou asking if it was all right to include Living In Egypt in her book about useful weblogs. Sounded okay to me, so I wrote right back giving my permission. Always nice to be published, even if it is a bit indirect. Here's some information on the book:

Living in Egypt Included in Book About Top 500 Blogs

In the early days of the internet, if you didn't know how to write
code, you couldn't publish anything on the web. Well, nowadays with
software such as Wordpress, Blogspot, and Myspace, anyone.. yes anyone
can tell the whole world what is on their mind through blogging.

But, there really isn't a robust way to search for the best blogs on
any specific topic. Sure, there's Technorati, but what else? Besides,
much of the world wide web is full of splogs, spam, and
made-for-adsense blogs. And how many times have you read the same
exact post over and over in different blogs?

That is why a project, listing the top blogs by general categories
would prove useful. The book, titled "The Top 500 Blogs" is being
written by Vicky Zhou, an author and writer who offers href="http://www.gotacrush.com/best-online-dating-site.php">online
dating advice. From topics ranging from online dating to
technology, lifestyle, sports, music, health and love, the books aims
to be a comprehensive list of the top 500 blogs.

The Top 500 Blogs will be available in Amazon and all bookstores by
the end of 2008. Living in Egypt will be included in the category of
"Personal Blogs", so look out for that!

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Keeping In Touch

Rebellious Arab Girl had an interesting post today. She suggested that everyone post about their favourite blogger and why this is their favourite. I have to admit to very eclectic tastes and the site where I saw the reference to her suggestion is one of my favourite sites for blogging: Global Voices Online. Technically, I suppose Global Voices isn't a blog, but for someone like myself who is interested in things all over the world, a site that collects blogs and keeps track of who is saying what where is invaluable. I also have a Google News alert set up to give me a link to every news article and blog that mention "Egypt", "Giza", or "Cairo", which drops a little email into my box that gives me pages of reading every morning. This arrangement has brought me travel blogs by people just passing through the area, keeping-in-touch-with-home blogs by people who are living in the Middle East temporarily, and of course some of the more mainstream blogs from Egypt, as long as they are in English. I find, however, that Global Voices still has more depth in the blogging field than Google when in comes to aggregation. So they have my vote for a favourite blog/blogging tool.

I was chided this morning by an email correspondent who was worried that perhaps something was wrong because I hadn't posted for so long...almost two weeks. Well, there was a minor bug that was slowing me down, and I'm finding myself very busy these days on the work front. I've been mostly working my riding trips by word of mouth and such. My website is out there and I get quite a few inquiries from there, but I haven't done much advertising. A week or so ago, however, a newspaper from the UK was doing an article on unusual vacations and they listed my farm. Free advertising is always nice, and this prompted quite a few people to contact me about riding here. Between my usual daytime work with horses, lessons, rides and such, plus correspondence at night, I've been neglecting the blog. The fact that I am still cameraless doesn't help either. I really like having photos to illustrate my posts. But hopefully that will change for the better soon and I will be back to my chatty self.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Egyptian Humour is Special

Hannah Allam's blog Middle East Diary today listed some great jokes that Egyptians tell about themselves. The sense of humour here is a special gift.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Please Contact Them

The story as I understand it is that some of the villagers in Menawet decided that the Mobinil relay tower there was causing cancer or some such thing. Or maybe they decided that the steel and concrete could be put to better use...who knows? At any rate, from what I understand, and this hasn't been published in any papers that I am aware of, they dismantled the relay tower last week and the area roughly from Shubramant to Abu Sir in Giza has been left with no Mobinil service at all.

To understand what a disaster this is it helps to realise that there are about forty thousand people living in the area, of whom probably less than 10 or 20% have land lines. The rest of us, including myself, make do with mobile phones. Some of us use Mobinil, some Vodafone, and a few adventurous ones the new carrier. To be honest, Mobinil, until recently, had the best reception out here and was the most reliable. Vodafone has improved a lot lately after calls to technical support brought engineering staff out here to check out and improve the situation. Because I do a lot of distance riding and the mobile reception in the desert is spotty...sometimes Vodafone working better than Mobinil, sometimes the opposite...I've had lines with both carriers. Right now I have my Mobinil line forwarded to Vodafone so that people can reach me at home.

Today one of my neighbours called me with the news that Mobinil has apparently decided not to replace the missing relay tower for at least a year, leaving the area completely without service for residents and visitors alike. Bloody brilliant. By the time they do replace the tower there will be no Mobinil customers to need it. As someone who depends on my mobile phone and who has been a Mobinil customer almost since the company opened, I am seriously ticked off. Probably someone in the higher echelons of the company decided that a bunch of ignorant farmers don't need a relay...so who is really the ignorant one?

The link in the title will reach the customer support page at Mobinil. If you are a Mobinil customer and find the idea of leaving 40 thousand residents and who knows how many visitors to the area with all of its antiquities, hotels, clubs, restaurants and so on without Mobinil service, do use the link to let Mobinil know.

We would appreciate it.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani