I Trust 80 Million Egyptians!

Like everyone else in Egypt, I've been totally caught up in the amazing revolution in Egypt. I can only say that I have never been so impressed and proud in my life as I am right now at the patience, restraint and stubbornness of the Egyptian people. I've been out here in the countryside taking care of the farm, rather than in Tahrir....at the direct orders of my children in New York. So I've been doing research on the news from here and forwarding it to friends abroad to publish to make sure that the world knew about what was happening here.

In 17 days I've seen the protesters pushed to defend themselves when attacked by the Mubarak thugs, but they have not initiated violence and they've done a brilliant job of running the tent city at Tahrir. I have seen so much strength, ingenuity, and humour that I have been in awe. For people who think that they need guns to defend themselves, this is a real lesson. The Egyptian people accomplished a miracle with only their strength of purpose and hope.

And one of the most impressive things I've seen in the aftermath was the interview with Wael Ghonim and CNN. When asked if he wanted a place in the new government, he laughed and said absolutely not...he wants to go back to his job. Asked later if he was worried that future politicians might not be up to standards, he said that while he didn't entirely trust politicians he knew that he could surely trust 80 million Egyptians. No one will ever be able to boss them around again...they've learned their power!





copyright 2011 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Five Years Old Today

Today is my blog's 5th birthday. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't believe that I've been writing this thing for the past five years. That's longer than I've worked at any job other than being a mother. (By the way, don't expect any logic to the photos accompanying this post. They are totally random other than for the fact that I chose them today.) When I started the blog I was definitely inspired by the Baghdad Blogger. I read his work and could feel and sense the life in Baghdad during the days prior to the American invasion. After answering all sorts of questions from people who, in the wake of 9/11, couldn't fathom what a more or less normal Canadian mother type was doing in a "dangerous, anti-western, fundamentalist" country like Egypt, I rather hoped that I could bring readers a sense of life in Egypt.

In 2003 there seemed to be a sense that life in Egypt was very serious, rather dangerous, and a bit frightening. At that point I'd been living here for about fifteen years and one of the reasons that I loved living here was the general love of life and laughter that was so much a part of society and family here. Somehow, I guess that my message came across because after some time I seemed to have accumulated a number of readers many of whom have stuck with me over the years, and a surprising number of them have even ended up here at the farm for a cup of tea or a horseback ride. Just today, I had a group of women from Cairo come out on a Community Services Association trip and one of them told me that she'd been reading my blog for years.

So now as I embark on a second five years of blogging about everyday life in Egypt, I've had some time to think about what on earth possibly convince me to do this. I still think that just opening a window onto one of the most welcoming and warm cultures in this world is important. I really love sharing Egypt with people who haven't had the chance to experience Egypt, and I hope that some of them decide to come to see for themselves as a result of reading about this amazing place.

Then there is the feedback that I've gotten from Egyptians both living here and abroad...that has been inspiring. When I get an email from someone who tells me "Yes, this is my country. I recognise it. Thank you.", I feel truly honoured. As a relative newcomer to Egypt, having come here in mid-life, it's a wonderful feeling to hear that somehow I've been able to capture life here in my adopted land. I only hope that I can continue to do so.

I hope that the next five years in Egypt will be peaceful for most of us. This isn't a peaceful area of the world and we've had our share of problems here. Domestically, many of us are worried about what will come after Mubarak. Will his son succeed him? Will he do a good job? Will the military accept a non-military president here? How is Egypt going to handle the pretty crazy inflation rate that we are suffering from these days? I'm looking at how I can increase my staff's basic pay rate so that they can support their families, but at the same time I have to be able to afford my expenses. Inflation is a nasty, nasty business that is affecting all of us. I read my news reports and notice little things like the fact that we are now competing with two new breweries in Egypt for barley for the horses and forage is also becoming more expensive as farmers are competing with villas for land. Guess who is winning... I guess the only way to find out is to keep going. I'll be here if you will.


copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Coming Back Into Focus

Being short a camera has been a terrible strain. I'm used to a lovely little Panasonic Lumix that fits into a pocket and is so easy to shoot. Then last week an angel called Angela dropped into Egypt and dropped a camera into my life. She had a week off work and had always wanted to come to Egypt, so she and a photographer friend of hers came and spent a week at my guesthouse. She liked my photos and hearing about my dip in the canal, brought along an extra camera that she'd replaced with a newer model. It's larger and more complicated than the Lumix, but I figure that I can learn to use it. I'm back in business, and who knows? Maybe they will even be able to fix the Lumix.

Well, this last week has been busy with showing Scott and Angela around my part of Egypt. Naturally, they wanted to see the pyramids at Giza, so we rented some camels and went out just before sunset to catch the last light on them. We'd already spent most of the day in the desert chasing sun and shadows around Dahshur, Sakkara, and Abu Sir under a gradually darkening sky. We met our camel man in Nazlit Semman and headed out onto the Giza Plateau along with all the other visitors who have someone to pay off the tourist police who are supposed to be keeping us all out, but who are actually making a living wage on the bribes to let us all in. This is a fine old Egyptian tradition. As we reached the top of the hill, that evil winter Giza wind tore into us leaving Angela and I with our teeth chattering while Scott shot the photos that he wanted to get.

It's amazing what a passion will persuade people to do. I'd been asked to cover the endurance race being held at Sakkara Country Club under the auspices of the Pan Arab games. Teams from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE were to race 120 km in the desert in a series of five loops with vet checks at the club. Unfortunately, the start of the race was scheduled for 5:45 am, necessitating a 5 am wake up. Happily, there was excellent catering at the race and once the teams of riders got underway, we were able to find a good breakfast while waiting for them to finish the first loop. Endurance racing really is not a spectator sport. There isn't much to see of the racing part because the riders are very quickly usually stretched out over miles of trail, each essentially riding alone. Once they get back to the vet check area, the horse is checked to see that its pulse and respiration have dropped to normal, and then there is a half hour hold for the horse and rider to eat and drink something before setting out again. Exciting, right? I overheard one nicely dressed woman remarking to a friend that this was the first endurance race she'd ever seen and probably the last too. She'd never spent so much time in her life "watching horses get bathed." A major part of the preparation for the vet check is to cool the horse from its exertions in the desert to the point where its heart rate is low enough to pass muster.

At the end of the day, the UAE took team gold and the individual gold, silver and bronze medals...as expected. Qatar took the team silver and Syria and Egypt shared the bronze. Bed felt great after chasing from one end of the race area back to the press tent about a dozen times to update the progress of the race to a website for endurance riding. I was really proud of our Egyptian team for their performance and careful riding of their horses. They were riding home-bred and home-trained horses rather than the best that money can buy.

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving as well as the last day of Angela and Scott's visit. We played with the horses and Scott got some lovely photos of Shams playing with her herd...the dogs. She is now downing over a litre and a half of milk at a feeding and is eating crushed horse pellets and fresh berseem. She wanders around after the grooms, plays on the lawn with my driver, and curls up in the shade with her buddies the dogs. She doesn't seem to realise that she's a horse at all. After taking them for a quiet ride in the neighbourhood during which Scott only took 670 photos, we wandered over to some friends of mine who live nearby for turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie and all the rest of the traditional stuffing appropriate to Thanksgiving. Early this morning we got to the airport to get my visitors back to the US and Scott left me with about three thousand photos of the race and the parts of Cairo that they saw. It's going to take me ages to see them all!

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Listening To The Silence

My camera has been having some dust issues lately. What a surprise considering that it gets tossed into my bag anywhere I go whether on foot, horseback or in the car. I take it everywhere and there's dust everywhere in Egypt. After two years any digital camera would get a little sticky, so I took it into Panasonic in Nasr City, where, of course, the camera opened and closed perfectly. The guy at the service desk handed it back, saying that it was fine and was rather bemused when I suggested that it might need...GASP!...service. I walked out with a receipt for my beloved Lumix and a promise that it would cost between 50 and 500 LE and would be finished in ten days. Unfortunately but as usual, that was a month ago, and today when I called and totally lost it with the service department they told me that I would, inshallah, have it tomorrow. All of this is to explain the scarcity of visual aids. The pictures here are either older or were taken with my Nokia.

We are over halfway through Ramadan, well past the first part of the month when the general population of Cairo is going around the bend from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. After a week or so their bodies are used to the idea that they will get their fix after sunset, but the late nights and the sugar highs from Ramadan deserts ae beginning to take their toll.

Today I had to do something that I try not to do during Ramadan. I drove myself into Maadi to take care of some urgent errands. The traffic wasn't really as bad as I'd imagined it might be, but it was bad enough. Between the Monib Bridge and the Autostrad, the flow slowed to a trickle and as I crawled along I could see the cause. A large truck was blocking the left lane (not necessarily the fast lane in Egypt) and behind it I could see a small car was rather smooshed against the concrete guard rail. People were standing around discussing the situation and there seemed to be no causualties, which was a relief. Just ahead of the truck was another car that had somehow been involved in the mess as well.

I don't know if anyone collects the statistics, but based on reports by friends of mine who don't have the option of holing up on a farm and just going places on horseback on dirt tracks, I'd be willing to bet that the accident rate goes way up during Ramadan. The temperatures have been in the low to mid 30's C (low to mid 90's roughly by that other measure), so dehydration is a real issue. Blood sugar rates that are scraping along the asphalt during the day skyrocket after iftar...as do the speeds of many cars. It really is not much of a surprise when people tell me how just in our neighbourhood there have been two hit and runs and one major head on collision in just the last ten days. I don't like to drive during Ramadan. I'd rather stay home.

One of my informants about traffic conditions came out to ride with me this evening. She's military, an fighter jet mechanic, and does a lot of driving between the base and Maadi where she comes on her days off. She rides as much as possible while she's here. I guess it's a good antidote for all that mechanical stuff. I suggested that she come out and ride with me over the iftar period to hear the silence of the countryside, so she came out about half an hour before iftar. The guys got our horses ready while I finished a riding lesson with a couple of small girls and we set out for the trail while they set out for iftar.

Iftar, the breaking of the fast, takes place just after the call to prayer at dusk. Half an hour before the call, there were still a few farmers working in their fields and a few stragglers urging their livestock homeward, but most of the fields were empty. Wonderful smells of garlic, onions and tomato drifted from the houses we passed and children were rushing in from playing outdoors. You never realise how much ambient noise a place has until it goes away, and the quietest time in Egypt is during iftar. It's one of the few times when you can be out in the countryside and truly be alone as long as you are not near someone's home. We ambled along enjoying the birdsong and waiting for the moment when we would stop hearing the trucks on the Mariouteya Road nearby. This is one of the major routes south and the steady rumble of trucks, buses and cars on it becomes a kind of white noise that you don't really notice until it goes away. Eventually that time comes when even the slowpokes have either arrived home or given up and the white noise is gone.

The call to prayer echoed from the mosques of the area and gradually a deep silence fell over the fields and canals. We were the only people out on the trail and every family we passed invited them to join them for iftar. We thanked them and continued our ride. The sky darkened and the palms became black outlines against the horizon. Closer to the farm a few cars were beginning to move about as families left their homes to visit friends. We were passed by one large blue dump truck full of kids who shouted greetings. I guess if the family vehicle is a dump truck, that's what you use. We did, however, decide to prudently avoid the larger village on the main road by the country club and the smaller one just past the entrance to the farm because of another fine Ramadan tradition that really doesn't go that well with horses...cherry bombs and bottle rockets. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Eid...Interrupted by Technology

The chanting started at about 5 am. "God is great. God is great. God is great. There is no God but God. God is great. God is great. God is great. All thanks to God." I'd set the alarm for 5:30 so I just cuddled down into the covers and listened for a while. Today was the first day of Eid el Adha and I'd arranged with Ahmed, one of my grooms, to go to see the Eid prayer in the desert this morning. I'd gone out on horseback the first day of the Eid at the end of Ramadan, but this is almost January and we've been having a cold spell for the past week, so the Jeep was really in order. I pulled on jogging pants and a jacket, grabbed my camera and we headed out to see this. I've been hearing for years about how the people of the area gather for this important prayer in the desert and I wanted to experience it.

We drove down to the village of Abu Sir in darkness with the heater blasting away in an effort to defrost the jeep. It was 6 am as we slowly worked our way through the narrow alleyways but I was surprised to see market stalls open for business and housewives out sweeping the streets in front of their houses. We were heading for the desert near the modern village cemetery, but I do believe that there isn't a straight road in all of Abu Sir. Twisting and turning a decent size jeep through alleyways that were designed for donkeys can be rather daunting under the best of circumstances, and too early in the morning and freezing are not the best of circumstances.

We were early enough that most of the people hadn't arrived yet and neither had the sun. The antiquities' lights on the hill behind the spot chosen for the prayer were the only illumination. The place itself is extraordinary in that the modern cemetery abuts on the bluff into which pre-pharaonic tombs have been cut, so this morning's event was overseen by many generations of ancestors.

Men from the village spread woven mats on the sand as Ahmed and I sat watching and waiting for more people to arrive. I noticed that the mats were being spread with a gap between so that the men could walk in their shoes to find a spot to sit. Prayer rugs are never walked on with shoes. Gradually the rugs filled as the sky lightened. Men and boys streamed in from the village and from behind the tombs that line the desert. Sometimes women join in the prayer, but this morning they rather wisely stayed in the relative warmth of their homes.

Finally, as the sun crept over the Sakkara plateau, the sheikh spoke the Eid chant one more time and then roughly ten thousand men joined in prayer under the dawn sky. It truly was an awesome sight and one that filled me with a special peace. As the only woman in the area, I remained in the background as was appropriate so as not to be a distraction from prayer. Women always pray to the rear of the men or in another room, men being easily distracted from religious contemplation according to Muslim tradition.

This was certainly true for some of the younger set. A group of roughly ten year old boys kept turning back to look at my jeep during the prayer, and when it ended, they all appeared at my window to ask what I was doing and where I came from. I assured them that I had a farm down the road and was a neighbour who had heard that this event was a marvelous thing to see. They nodded sagely, agreeing with me but were still rather mystified. Seeing fathers leaving to take care of the next family chore on Eid el Adha, the slaughter of the sheep or goat, they scampered off.

Many people find this slaughtering practice to be hard to deal with, and I must admit that I do not slaughter personally. I don't eat lamb so I have no need for the meat and my staff all have their own animals, so I give them cash at the feast, something that they find a great deal more useful. A while back I participated in an online discussion of the pros and cons of various methods of slaughter with some American and European vets. The procedure for a halal slaughter is to use a very sharp knife to slice the jugular vein and carotid artery and then to let the animal bleed out. The vets assured us that the procedure involves a loss of blood that is so swift, there is little or no pain and the animal loses consciousness very, very quickly. I must admit that I found this reassuring.

With the prayer and the slaughter aspect of the Eid out of the way, the feast moved on to the enjoyment that everyone in Egypt looks forward to. Schools and businesses will be closed for at least three or four days, children and parents have holidays and everyone gets a rest. In Nazlit Semman some enterprising young fellows brought donkeys who would ordinarily be carrying cargoes of turnips or clover and began renting them out to the urban children for donkey rides, while other children played on the grass in the median of the main street. Parks, unfortunately, are in short supply in Cairo and medians make do on holidays and summer evenings.

I had some guests who wanted to go see the pyramids of Giza, so we headed to the Giza plateau. Tourism is alive and well in Egypt to judge from the crush of buses and minibuses lining up to enter. My friends decided to check out the interior of the medium pyramid, but having done way too many pyramid interiors in my mis-spent youth, I opted to sit in the sun and check out the United Nations at Giza. Everywhere I turned I heard another language: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Russian, English, and a number that I couldn't identify for the life of me. The truly fascinating thing is how the camel men and postcard sellers keep up with this. They switch languages with an alacrity that any UN translator would envy.

The temperatures in the shade were still a bit chilly so many of those who were waiting for their pyramid-exploring kin opted for the sunshine. As we walked around the plateau, we were accosted by the usual number of oddly dressed individuals selling scarabs, pyramids molded from resin, glass pyramids, tacky tshirts, and faux Bedouin headcloths at every turn, but my assurance that "we live here" usually brought a sincere apology from the sellers. It's nice to know that they understand how annoying they are.

As someone who was more or less immune from the circus, I could really relax and enjoy some of the more common ploys. The favourite, of course, is to offer a sitting camel as a spot for a photo opportunity and then once the victims are on board to tell the camel to rise. Once the riders are about eight feet in the air, they are in a much weaker bargaining position and are then fleeced to be allowed to get off. It's a massively aggravating situation while you are sitting on some growling, smelly uncontrollable beast and being led in the direction of someone's perfume shop despite all protests, but pretty funny to watch from the ground and it makes a good dinner story.

As much as a resident gets tired of the usual tourist scenes, the people watching at the Giza plateau is second to none. Children dragging parents around massive piles of rocks or falling asleep in backpacks, awestruck teenagers estimating how long it would take to climb a pyramid (in your dreams, kid), and older visitors smiling calmly at something that, thank heaven, is older than them...it's all part of the magic of Egypt.

The Eid fell on the last day of the year and New Years Eve was a quiet potluck dinner at a neighbour's place. The mix was the usual for us, Norwegian, American, Spanish, Egyptian, and Canadian, and a roaring fire was most welcome. New Years Day for me was busy with some expat families bringing children out to the farm to play with the animals and blow off steam...a good omen for the coming year, I hope.

I had every intention of posting this on the first day of the Eid but the gods of the internet were not kindly disposed and my connection vanished for a while. Hopefully, all is well now.