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

Seeing In A New Way

This has been a very busy spring for me. We've been trying out a new type of work, equestrian tourism, at the farm and all of us have been spending a lot of time in the saddle. As well, I've had some friends come to visit during February, right in the middle of one of the riding tours of course, and wanted to have some time to arrange some things for them. Laurie and I have been friends on email for over 15 years and friends face to face for almost 10 years. We got to know each other on Equine-L so it was only natural that, having recently retired from her work, she should decide to come and visit me in Egypt and go riding. What might not seem so completely natural is the fact that she brought a friend along to "see" Egypt who is blind. I was a bit taken aback at the idea of Gail wandering around our stretch of the Sahara with only someone calling out directions, but all went well and will be in a Sarcophagus post soon. When we were planning activities for Laurie and Gail the seeing issue was an interesting parameter. We talked about museums, but as Gail said "Once you've felt one glass case, you've felt them all". So true.

BUT...I'd read that the Egyptian Museum was instituting special tours for the blind so I called them. Mona, the assistant to the director Dr. Wafaa el-Saddik, told me that so far the tours had been done for school children and not for adults but she would see what they could do. I was totally delighted when Mona called me back to say that they would be happy to do a special tour for Gail, but not nearly as delighted when I realised that I wouldn't be able to participate because I would be working with some riders.

The museum has taken their tours for the blind very seriously and has engaged blind guides to give them. They know the pieces that they present to visitors and also understand how best to "show" them. So not only are blind visitors benefiting from this new service but it is creating work for blind guides as well. Because Gail and Laurie don't speak Arabic, Dr. Wafaa arranged a translator to go with them as well to enable the conversation among everyone concerned. The lovely photographs of Gail examining pieces were taken by a professional photographer since photography is forbidden in the museum.

Gail and Laurie had a great time exploring the museum and many of the more ordinary patrons were rather jealous that she was allowed to touch things while they were being told not to...but there have to be some perks to being blind after all. The last day of their visit we went to the Coptic Museum as well where many of the displays on the ground floor are stone carvings that could be "seen" by Gail. No one minded that she was "seeing" them with her fingers there as well, but without an official photographer to take photos inside the museum, I could do nothing with my camera for my sighted friends to enjoy.



copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Worth A Read

A lot of my friends are younger than I am, though each year that is easier and easier. The post that can be read by clicking on the title here is one by a very thoughtful young woman who I'm very pleased to count as one of my friends...as are her mother and younger sister. Maybe it's the teacher in me that gets all warm and fuzzy when I see the lights shining in the young, but whatever it is, I wanted to share it.

copyright 20010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Finding a Voice

A group of young Egyptians are working to spread the word to their countrymen to register to vote by the end of January. They've produced this video and it should be seen and passed on.





copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Books Are Your Friends

When I moved to Egypt from Canada we packed 48 boxes to be shipped, 18 of which were books. I come from a reading family and bedtime stories were a tradition for us. I knew from visits that there weren't that many bookstores in Alexandria and that they weren't that well stocked, so I brought along what I felt was the essential library for a pair of growing children. This included everything from Dr. Suess to Lord of The Rings. My son was already quite good at reading at 7 years old and my 4 yr old daughter did fine with the Dr. Suess. Every evening they got a chapter of one of the longer books before bed, something from the Narnia series, Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers...whatever. As they grew older they began reading the longer books by themselves and I only read aloud on special occasions such as while we were sailing to Cyprus in the summer or something like that.

One of the objectives of moving to Egypt was to make the children and myself fluent in Arabic. I accomplished this primarily by stumbling through the days shopping and managing a household in Arabic. We specifically DID NOT hire English speaking staff so that I had to learn Arabic to survive. It wasn't easy, and often wasn't pretty, but it was remarkably effective. The kids had daily Arabic lessons after school with a wonderful young woman in Alexandria who was actually a professor of dentistry, but who, with her American mother and Egyptian father, understood the cultural and language issues for my children. I told Mona that she could do anything she wanted with the kids as long as it was in Arabic, be it cooking, watching a movie, or going out for a walk. As someone with a background in language teaching and the study of its acquisition, I didn't think that they would be learning Arabic simply from books.

It was a very good thing that I had this approach because the books in Arabic available to children at the time were simply appalling. I would search through bookstores abroad at every opportunity, but it was unbelievably frustrating. Because there were no interesting easy-reading books in Arabic, unlike their libraries in French and English, the children really never really got into reading Arabic. We had Tintin and Asterix in English, Arabic and French, as well as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics, but the pickings otherwise were really, really poor.

The result of not having appealing books for children in Arabic has always been horribly obvious to me. The Egyptian school curriculum is brutal with its emphasis on rote learning and the imposition of language learning that is not designed for children who have little or no help at home with their language homework. Children struggle through classes that are intended primarily to get them through exams and at the end of the school day, if they never see another book, they are thrilled. My in-laws' homes had virtually no reading material other than a newspaper and the Quran, unlike our home where each of the kids had a wall to ceiling bookshelf full of favourite books by the time they went off to college. My husband shared the national aversion to literature at first when we were in grad school, but he gradually became more convinced that books could be friendly as time went on.

For the past couple of years I've been tutoring a few of the children in the village next to me in English. I've been quite horrified at the complexity of what they are required to learn, especially since their parents don't speak English and really can't help them with their homework. Nevertheless, they soldier on and are learning. A month ago a friend of mine from Canada, Paddi Sprecher, came for a holiday with me and she got involved in the tutoring, being something of a sucker for charming kids. She's also part of an English as a Second Language organisation in Edmonton where they help immigrants to learn English. Paddi, being something of a high energy individual, went into high gear and we began acquiring workbooks on phonics for the kids to colour, magnetised letters to spell out words, and she hauled out some simple toys, like a xylophone...a word that appears in their workbooks, but something that most of them had never seen or played.

Paddi and I were soon joined by India Martin, a young English vet student who was staying for a month to work with the Donkey Sanctuary, and where we started with three students for English tutoring, within a couple of weeks we were up to almost ten and there were children begging at the farm gate to join. We were doing the lessons in my verandah, a rather chilly location with lighting that wasn't the best, but this didn't deter our students. It was also getting rather crowded as time went on and we had to institute stern hours for the tutoring because the children would show up in the morning on their days off and be happy to work and play all day. Unfortunately, we didn't have all day to oblige them.

As Paddi, India and I were riding through the village on our last ride together, we had children calling from all sides that they wanted to join the lessons and four sets of parents came to the gates to ask for lessons as well. A young friend of mine, who I've known since her childhood in Alexandria, is currently working as a teacher at a fairly expensive private school in Cairo and she was totally blown away by the enthusiasm of these children who begged for homework, in comparison with her more privileged students who really aren't all that interested in learning...yet another convert to the tutoring program. Finally, I spoke to the omda of our local village and asked if we could have one of the empty appartments to use for tutoring. We would organise a library and tutors if they could give us a room for classes and another one for the library with a bathroom. He most readily agreed and we are hoping to organise the space very soon.

Meanwhile riding clients of mine have expressed an interest in the project, as have people back in Canada who work with Paddi, and they have donated money for books for the library in Arabic and English. We currently have about 20 books on our library list and are looking into ways to make it easy for people to buy books for this children's library with the local bookstores. Other riders have offered to help tutor and to find others to tutor, while some of the ESL people in Canada are interested in coming to help teach the tutors how to work effectively. Our hope is to try to get some of the older youngsters in the village to help us with story times in Arabic for the young ones to give them a sense of the fun of reading. Happily, the availability of children's books in Arabic has turned around completely and there are many titles available for very reasonable prices. We also visited a local school and Paddi will try to set up a letter exchange for the elementary classes here and in Canada. It's a wonderful opportunity to open the world for children both here and in Canada.

Like I really needed another project....

copyright 2009 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

When Football Isn't Just A Game

Global Voices Online is one of the most interesting sites for the analysis of blogs from all over the world on any topic imaginable. Recent excitement over the Algeria/Egypt football shootout for a place at the World Cup has been making the news and blogs throughout North Africa and Global Voices has picked up on it.

Egypt won the first match in Cairo after people in the streets attacked the bus of the arriving Algerian team causing some minor injuries. The second game saw a lot of street action in Khartoum after the Algerians won with Egyptians reportedly being targeted, as well as a couple of days of demonstrations with some violence outside the Algerian embassy in Zamalek. As one who was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in the "violent" days of the late 60's when there were "riots" everyday from noon to one in Sproul Plaza, I'm a bit skeptical about news reports of riots. I had a noon class and missed the entire season, much to my siblings' disappointment. I never saw a single "riot". Rats! A friend of mine in Zamalek, however, was able to tell me that things were a bit tense there for a while.

In all the ruckus after the match in Khartoum, Alaa Mubarak, the second son of the President of Egypt who is usually a low profile businessman, called in to some talk shows to express his displeasure at the Algerians who had, on their own turf, taken out their frustrations on Egyptian workers and companies with their own riots. Many Egyptians, apparently, are quite taken with this action and are looking at Alaa with a new light. Marwa Rakha wrote a longish article examining the responses to Alaa Mubarak's outburst as well as looking at the political possibilities presented. After all, in this part of the world (as in most of the world) EVERYTHING is political of course.

Okay, boys and girls. If you can't play nicely, we will have to take the ball and go home.




copyright 2009 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani