The Language of War and Peace

I find myself very subdued these days, and not simply from the aftereffects of the ubiquitous flu virus that has apparently engulfed most of the world. Being forced to "take it easy" and to stay indoors for a while to get rid of the pernicious bug, I've had more time to read the news online and think about things that are going on in the world. This is not very cheering. I was horrified to read of the bombing outside the church in Alexandria just before the Coptic Christmas. There have been incidences of violence before that have had aspects of religious issues, but the idea that a suicide bomber might want to target a church was never really considered by anyone, I suspect. News that Muslims went to the churches at Christmas to show solidarity and in hopes of deterring further violence helped quite a bit to restore my sense of the Egypt that I have always loved.

But the problem of religious divisions is not new and it isn't going away any time soon. Various members of the Egyptian community have been thinking, speaking and writing about what is ailing our country in this regard. A blog on Arabic literature summarized the thoughts of Egyptian writers on the topic, and Global Voices posted a translation of an Egypian blogger's thoughts on the subject. He notes that he is soon to become a father and vows that his son will not grow up in a country with the same issues of distrust between Muslims and Christians. BikyaMasr posted a report of governmental and society support for the Christian community, but notes that many issues of contention are not likely to be addressed or solved any time soon.

With the recent shooting of a US Congresswoman and a judge, among others, in Tucson, Arizona, discussions of who and what is to blame for such an action have flown over the internet. I find myself seeing far too many similarities between the founding issues of the killings in the US and in Egypt in the use of language. Keith Olbermann on MSNBC called everyone in the US to task for the ease with which people use words and images of violence in political discussion these days, the prevailing culture of violence expressed on television shows, in the news media, and even in games for children. I've never been one for strict prohibition of games with guns (especially when having refused to buy them for my son, I found him "shooting" one of his buddies with a sneaker as a four year old) and I don't think that my kids' fondness for shooting zombies on an XBox during their odd bit of free time has made them into potential mass murderers. But I do have to wonder about the current fondness for zombies, vampires and other ordinarily rather frightening topics as entertainment on television. A bit of a thrill is one thing but hour after hour of being chased by the undead week after week....am I the only one who finds this a bit odd? I'm highly relieved to note that the previously mentioned offspring prefer such things as Dr. Who.

I had a lovely Coptic family here at the farm last week. They had come from Australia, Germany, and the US for a famly reunion in Egypt. As one might expect among a group of sixty-somethings, conversation naturally ran to comparisons of the Egypt that they had left about the same time I moved here and the Egypt of today. While there were things that we could agree on that seemed to be improvements, discussion of the recent bombing found us all agreeing that there was a greatly heightened sense of differences among Egyptian communities and extremist stances than we had been accustomed to in the past. But, then again, we all agreed that we noticed this in communities in other parts of the world. I found myself realising that I simply didn't categorise my friends by their religious beliefs or affiliations. For me, it isn't relevant information, and my guests noted that this had been the case in their relationships in Egypt before they left. They were quite saddened to think that it had become relevant for people.

Five years ago I wrote about Dr. Leila Ahmed's autobiography, A Border Passage, in my blog. Aside from it being a marvelous book, I was struck by the difference in Egyptian society that she described before and after Nasser's revolution in Egypt. Many people I've spoken to have commented on the multilingual, multinational, multireligious nature of the old Egypt. Could some of the changes be due to the introduction of new words that were brought in to describe this country and the concepts that they suggested? During Nasser's rule, the name of Egypt (at least in English) was changed to The Arab Republic of Egypt (after the United Arab Republic of Egypt, Syria, and Libya sort of fell apart). I find the term "Arab Republic of Egypt" to be something of a conundrum. In the first place, Egyptians aren't Arabs. They never have been and probably never will be. They are Arabic speaking natives of North Africa...not the same. They are Egyptians. And then you have that magic word "Republic"....that sort of still remains to be seen. But by using words like "Arab Republic", my sense is that it makes a fertile ground for some divisive qualifications to be made. It's sort of a chicken and egg question, I guess and I don't pretend to have any brilliant answers, only questions.

I honestly don't know if we can roll back the violence of language to stem the violence of action. I hope that we can. I think that the world now is too complex for most of us to comprehend in its entirety, but at the same time seems often to be so small as to be encroaching on our back porches. Finally, I suspect that our Egyptian blogger has the right idea. We must each do the best that we can to make our part of the world right for our children and our neighbours. Speak softly and with love.
copyright 2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Season For Horses

As I have been reminded by friends, Christmas is coming, and a trip into Maadi reminded me as well. I drove past a very expensive florist to see real Christmas trees for sale. These trees probably sell for about a thousand pounds....but they do smell right. The usual Christmas tree in Egypt is a cypress or juniper and they don't have the same scent at all. With both kids in the US for grad school this year, it's going to be quiet in some respects around here at Christmas. But not in all respects. I have guests arriving beginning day after tomorrow and staying on until after New Years. The people coming are riders so there's going to be quite a lot of work done over the next couple of weeks.

Winters in Egypt are the stuff of legend, both in the sense that a winter in Egypt was the ultimate in luxury many years ago, and in the sense that unfortunately they are no longer what they once were. Even five years ago we would have weeks of air so clear that the stones on the pyramids of Giza could be seen from Abu Sir. This is no longer the case, unfortunately, because the inversion layer over the Nile Valley is keeping a thick black pall over the city. When there is a strong north wind, the smog is dispersed to the south and we have the lovely clarity that was once so common. When there is no wind, I have to ride out into the desert to find clean air. The wind also sculpts some extraordinary cloud formations that the sunset paints with vivid colours each evening.

We now have another new face on the farm with the birth of Lily's son Rayyan. I was wakened at 5 am on the 12th. I wrapped myself in a shawl and went out to find the most enormous fuzzball on stilts I've ever seen. Lily was a cart horse when friends of mine found her working on the streets. She's probably got some draft horse in her because she is a big, fairly heavy, black mare. She spent some time as a riding horse and was recently retired to my place because of her gentle nature. A sneaky little bay colt got to her and to Shabboura the mother of Shams, giving us two totally different babies to enjoy. Shams still thinks that she's a dog and I have to put a chair in my front doorway to be sure that I won't find her exploring the living room with disastrous effects. At three days, Rayyan is almost the same size as Shams at about 6 weeks. Extraordinary. Her legs have half the bone his do and she must weigh less than he does despite the fact that she stands around eating berseem and drinking roughly 15 litres of milk a day. We still have to wait until April to see what the combination of Wadi and and Anglo-Arab will produce. This next crop, aside from being siblings, is going to be interesting.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Even Chickens Like To Eat Out

First of all, I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas...or maybe it's an early one. We celebrate Christmas twice in Egypt, first on December 24/25 (Christmas Eve is often more celebrated by the Europeans) and second on January 7 with the Copts and Eastern/Greek Orthodox. Egyptians love a party and really have no problem with any excuse for one. This year the Eid el Adha, the Greater Feast that celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son in obedience to God's orders, will be starting on New Year's Eve so we have that as well. Crowded holiday season we are enjoying.
How did I spend my Christmas? First of all, my children are in the US this year so we aren't together. That is a bit sad, but life is like that. Airfares are expensive and school holidays are not so long. On Christmas Eve, I went to my friend Kati's home in Maadi for a Christmas Eve dinner as I've done for the past three or four years. Kati is a Finn raised in the Middle East who was married to a Lebanese businessman and has raised her three daughters in Egypt. The oldest who is the same age as my daughter is currently studying in the UK, her middle daughter couldn't make it home from San Diego where she is studying, and the youngest is still in school here. Kati's ex-husband and our friend Mona and her son Ali joined us all for dinner. Ali, is an irrepressible seven year old, who gave people a good excuse to buy toys to put under the tree and then had all of us playing with him. I'd been so busy out at the farm that I hadn't been into the city for almost a week and I gave a selection of farm produce: fresh lettuces, homemade pesto, and chicken and turkey eggs. A lovely evening. Then Boxing Day (December 26 for non Brits or Canucks) I found myself with an invitation to a Norwegian Christmas brunch with my neighbours. Norwegians eat an amazing selection of smoked and cured meats and fish for Christmas; moose salami, reindeer paté, various types of salmon, trout and herring. Eating out is such fun.

The poultry at the farm are becoming more and more entertaining. Every morning when I go to feed the parrots, ducks, turkeys, and chickens they all rush around to try out breakfast at every one else's house. The poultry eat the leftover birdbread and fruit/vegetable mix as well as their own corn and greens daily. The food in every flight cage is identical, so it must be the ambience that causes the moving around. The chickens live with the Cuban Amazons and sleep on a wooden curtain rod that serves as a long perch in the center of the cage, while the Amazons seem to prefer to perch in a corner near the top of the cage. It's quite funny to go out to the cages and see a long line of baladi hens on the long swing. I have about eight chickens, seven hens and one rooster. While a friend was visiting a while back we began naming them after explorers and got as far as Erik the Red for the rooster, Henry (for the Navigator for a beige hen who is always wandering out of her flight, Vasco, Pizarro, and a number of others. But they are pretty hard to keep track of. They give me about 5 small eggs daily.

The turkeys live with Ali the African Grey and Bamba the Bahamian Amazon. They also seem to prefer to sleep at altitude, having taken over a corner perch for the nights. Otherwise they patrol the ground looking for fallout from above. African Greys are interesting diners in that they will look through the bowl for the most delectable bits and toss anything in the way onto the ground. It didn't take the turkeys long to figure out that standing around under the parrot dishes was a very good idea. My housekeeper bought me the turkeys who are lovely bronze birds with low chortling vocalisations. They were supposed to be a male and a female and were originally called Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemimah, but as it happens they are both females and Uncle Tom is now called Oprah. They give big speckled eggs that are collected for eating since they aren't fertile. We are planning to have a male join us soon, but for now the eggs are delicious and I love the sounds of the turkeys. There are no plans to eat them. Instead , I'd prefer the eggs and to raise the young turkeys. Turkeys are surprisingly good flyers and I have to be careful to herd them gently back to their flight cage after breakfast so that they don't go airborne and frighten the other birds.

When I was considering ducks for the farm, I went online to learn something about ducks. According to the sources that I found, most domestic ducks are descended from two duck lines, either the mallards from Europe and North America or the Muscovy ducks from South America. Most of the ducks in the farming area are Muscovy or a mix of Muscovy and Mallard. I have one male, called Donald naturally, and then there are the girls, Daphne and Daisy. They have a plastic tub to play around in and they live in the flight cage with Fritzi the African Grey and his flock of budgies and the lovebirds. Donald is black and white with a small crest of feathers that rise up if he gets excited. There are two eggs in the nest box right now so hopefully we will have some ducklings soon. Again, these three will not be for dinner but for parenting. I get a kick out of the ducks because they are the least shy of all the birds and will eat out of my hand. Although the picture of the ducks shows a bare concrete floor, they all have chopped straw spread over the floors to give them some warmth in the winter winds and something to scratch around in.

The eggs that you get from properly fed poultry are absolutely wonderful. The shells are hard enough that you have to work to crack them and the yolks are a deep red orange. The larger eggs in the bowl are the turkey eggs, the large white egg at about one o'clock in the bowl is a commercial chicken egg and all the tiny eggs are my baladi chickens' work. My arugula and basil are adding the green touches.