Friday, August 27, 2004
Technical difficulties are being overcome
Well, the tagboard was cute but it didn't fit the page, so until I sort this all out, I've removed it. Alex, if you check back, I am indeed Yasmine and Nadim's mom, so send me your email. It's great to be back in touch with old friends. I have added something so that you can send individual posts to friends, should you so desire. Wish I was a techno-whiz.
Late Summer Chill
I'm back in Sharm el Sheikh with a group of my friends for a four day chill by the Red Sea before the end of summer....but then, does summer really end by other people's standards in Egypt? I guess not. Our winter is other countries' summer to judge by England, Germany or Canada. We have the same kind of slowdown during the summer months that many of you have during the winter, but in our case the heat is the cause rather than the cold.
But to get back to the wonder of South Sinai, the wadi (a valley caused by winter floods) in the photo is typical of the small oases that are encountered where ever the water table is close enough to the surface for the palms to reach it. If Moses actually spent 40 years wandering Sinai, he wasn't wandering in a very large area, but it is some of the most daunting landscape I've ever seen. You find either barren rock or the odd oasis, and not much in between. The 5 to 6 hour drive down used to be a real trek with only a couple of gas stations that might or might not have gas available. Now there are hotels springing up all along the coast of the Gulf of Suez and the gas stations also have little mini marts that sell Red Bull, Dr. Pepper, and Tostitos. The price of progress.
The price has been much higher in Sharm el Sheikh, now known in our household as Las Vegas By The Sea. Once a sleepy group of camping huts and an odd hotel by Naama Bay, it has become the new Italian hotspot filled with shops, hotels, restaurants, clubs, and tourists. I brought my camera with me and will take some photos for the unbelievers. You will have trouble thinking that this is a destination in the Middle East.
We don't actually immerse ourselves in LVBTS much when we come here because I have the luxury of a house in an Italian vacation compound north of there. In some respects the invasion of civilisation has been a blessing for us since we no longer have to drive down here loaded with groceries. Now we have the fruit sellers in the Shades (aka old Sharm where all the local workers live and shop...Shades is for Discworld devotees), the foul and tameya shops, the plastic shoe sellers, and some big supermarkets where you can even buy Pringles. For the people who live and work here, it's a benefit being able to buy luxuries, visit doctors and have schools, definitely.
But the price in the area of the corals and the access to the sea has been enormous. The construction of the hotels and resorts has generated a lot of dust and sand that kills corals. The tourist aren't always careful in avoiding contact with corals, which kills them as well. The vast numbers of dive boats isn't exactly a blessing either but with all the tourists here, they are in use constantly. Where Sharm was once barren sand and rock with riotous colour and life, now recycled water has brought the rich green of the Delta to the gardens much to the delight of migrating bird life. This also has increased the humidity in the area, not to my delight. But you can't have everything.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Resting spots
Unfinished mosque on the Classique trail is typical village design, originally uploaded by Miloflamingo.
When I used to visit here with small children in the 80's, sometimes we would rest on the rugs in a quiet mosque so that they could take a break from the hustle of the city. This use of the building as a resting place is one of the kind aspects of the mosque. They function as community centers with classes to teach the farm children who may not be registered in school to read. This is the place to see your neighbours, visit, whatever.
The Classique trail, by the way, is one of our favourite riding trails near my house, named after an erstwhile restaurant called the Classique. The restaurant didn't do very good business, whether due to the cooking or the lack of parking on a one lane country road, I don't know. It's now basically closed having been busted by the local authorities a number of times for nefarious evening activities involving the fairer sex. And you probably thought that country dwellers were law abiding. Hah!
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Summer Fun and Broken Toilets
I went to Agami last weekend with some friends to spend the weekend reading in a garden and lying about in a small, but large enough, pool. Agami is an interesting phenomena, as is most of the north coast of Egypt. When the British were in Egypt, during the Khedival period, Alexandria was the summer retreat for Cairenes and all of the embassies transferred the major part of their staff there from June to September on a yearly basis. When we first moved to Egypt in 1988, we noticed that Alexandria was a lovely sleepy town all winter, but it turned into a circus in the summer. All of the empty apartments along the Corniche, the street that runs along the beach, were suddenly filled with families of 27 who owned about 17 boom boxes that were all turned on at once. We tried to be other places in the summer. Even Cairo was preferable.
Sometime during the late 70's the little beach village of Agami became a popular place to build summer cottages. When I first visited Egypt in about 1976, it was a charming place. Beach sand streets had scattered villas (mostly small...the 70's were still hard times here with the Yom Kippur War not a distant memory) and bedouin huts scattered among palms and Alexandria's famous fig trees. We went to the beach which was just a beach then with no public and private sections and lay about in the sand while wandering vendors sold strange crispy crackers and live sea urchins. I tried one but wasn't too impressed. There was even an itinerant palm reader who was remarkably inaccurate.
My hosts had bought a small house there in the early 80's, which my friend Jo described as being a source of contention in the family because she couldn't imagine it being any good kind of investment. After all, who was going to drive all the way down there? She's rather sheepish about that now because the answer was soon apparent...everyone! By the end of the 80's when we moved to Egypt, Agami was no longer a sleepy beach town during the summer, although it did a very good imitation in the winter. It seemed that half of Cairo had built or bought villas and apartments there and from June to October it was virtually impossible to move along the dirt roads that had replaced the beach sand. If you had the misfortune to rent or own a place near a restaurant or some other gathering place, you could be sure that you wouldn't get a single night's sleep. The noise was astonishing.
Jo's family was smart and gradually bought bits and pieces of land (land is divided into microscopic portions by the inheritance laws) until they had collected a very nice garden in a quieter part of Agami. When we went through the gate, it was as though we'd left the area until the moon and the volume of a couple of nearby stereos rose. With the Egyptian sunshine and the humidity of the Mediterranean coast, plants go wild and gardens are lusher than anything seen outside of Jurassic Park. It was a lazy weekend for a couple of mothers sharing a garden with a group of college age daughters.
Driving home to Cairo along the 250 km "Desert Road" with the mothers in one car and the daughters in the other, we were apalled at the drivers sharing the highway. Some of them would zip down the highway weaving in and out of the traffic like an experienced "Grand Theft Auto" player. We had to keep our eyes well peeled for trucks that had a habit of stopping on the way in the slow lane. Not on the shoulder, in the slow lane. Every one was relieved when we hit the outskirts of Giza. The drive down and/or back on a busy Thursday or Saturday, the days most people traveled down there, was definitely enough to make me re-think any thoughts I might have of having a summer place there. During the late 80's clever developers began construction on a number of north coast resort villages further west from Alexandria than Agami. We spent a little time there with friends but were never very comfortable.
Naturally, having taken time off to relax, I had to shift into high gear on meetings with some of the people running my late husband's companies. As much as I'd like to leave them, I'm still a bit involved with three of them. I fed the birds and dogs breakfast, made the evening canine meal, and scooted off to Heliopolis and then Maadi about 8:30 in the morning, leaving my daughter and her friends sleeping. Halfway through my first meeting I received a call from Pat, one of the visitors, that the toilet was flooding the bathroom with, thankfully, clean water. I told them not to worry and I would get some one over to see what the problem was. I put in a call to Haj Shaban, the man who had done the finishing of my house, who said that he'd have someone over there right away. Now I've waited for plumbers in a lot of places and about 4 hours was usually the best time I've ever seen. I checked on the kids' progress in their task of turning off the source of the water that was spouting out of the back of the toilet. There must be about 8 different taps that look as though they could turn off the water, but only one of them did, and none of us knew which one. Within fifteen minutes when I called back to find out if they'd drowned yet, I was told that the plumbers were at work. Not bad. And I get my bill when Haj Shaban gets around to it. He takes care of construction and maintenance for most of the houses around here and we all grab him once a month to get our bills.
So, once again, my Arabic-challenged guests have had to deal with a household repair situation without the benefit of a translator. Pat is planning to stay on here until December to learn Arabic and work with refugees, and I suspect that his success with the telephone repair and the toilet repair have given him confidence. I guess confidence is good no matter where you find it.
Sometime during the late 70's the little beach village of Agami became a popular place to build summer cottages. When I first visited Egypt in about 1976, it was a charming place. Beach sand streets had scattered villas (mostly small...the 70's were still hard times here with the Yom Kippur War not a distant memory) and bedouin huts scattered among palms and Alexandria's famous fig trees. We went to the beach which was just a beach then with no public and private sections and lay about in the sand while wandering vendors sold strange crispy crackers and live sea urchins. I tried one but wasn't too impressed. There was even an itinerant palm reader who was remarkably inaccurate.
My hosts had bought a small house there in the early 80's, which my friend Jo described as being a source of contention in the family because she couldn't imagine it being any good kind of investment. After all, who was going to drive all the way down there? She's rather sheepish about that now because the answer was soon apparent...everyone! By the end of the 80's when we moved to Egypt, Agami was no longer a sleepy beach town during the summer, although it did a very good imitation in the winter. It seemed that half of Cairo had built or bought villas and apartments there and from June to October it was virtually impossible to move along the dirt roads that had replaced the beach sand. If you had the misfortune to rent or own a place near a restaurant or some other gathering place, you could be sure that you wouldn't get a single night's sleep. The noise was astonishing.
Jo's family was smart and gradually bought bits and pieces of land (land is divided into microscopic portions by the inheritance laws) until they had collected a very nice garden in a quieter part of Agami. When we went through the gate, it was as though we'd left the area until the moon and the volume of a couple of nearby stereos rose. With the Egyptian sunshine and the humidity of the Mediterranean coast, plants go wild and gardens are lusher than anything seen outside of Jurassic Park. It was a lazy weekend for a couple of mothers sharing a garden with a group of college age daughters.
Driving home to Cairo along the 250 km "Desert Road" with the mothers in one car and the daughters in the other, we were apalled at the drivers sharing the highway. Some of them would zip down the highway weaving in and out of the traffic like an experienced "Grand Theft Auto" player. We had to keep our eyes well peeled for trucks that had a habit of stopping on the way in the slow lane. Not on the shoulder, in the slow lane. Every one was relieved when we hit the outskirts of Giza. The drive down and/or back on a busy Thursday or Saturday, the days most people traveled down there, was definitely enough to make me re-think any thoughts I might have of having a summer place there. During the late 80's clever developers began construction on a number of north coast resort villages further west from Alexandria than Agami. We spent a little time there with friends but were never very comfortable.
Naturally, having taken time off to relax, I had to shift into high gear on meetings with some of the people running my late husband's companies. As much as I'd like to leave them, I'm still a bit involved with three of them. I fed the birds and dogs breakfast, made the evening canine meal, and scooted off to Heliopolis and then Maadi about 8:30 in the morning, leaving my daughter and her friends sleeping. Halfway through my first meeting I received a call from Pat, one of the visitors, that the toilet was flooding the bathroom with, thankfully, clean water. I told them not to worry and I would get some one over to see what the problem was. I put in a call to Haj Shaban, the man who had done the finishing of my house, who said that he'd have someone over there right away. Now I've waited for plumbers in a lot of places and about 4 hours was usually the best time I've ever seen. I checked on the kids' progress in their task of turning off the source of the water that was spouting out of the back of the toilet. There must be about 8 different taps that look as though they could turn off the water, but only one of them did, and none of us knew which one. Within fifteen minutes when I called back to find out if they'd drowned yet, I was told that the plumbers were at work. Not bad. And I get my bill when Haj Shaban gets around to it. He takes care of construction and maintenance for most of the houses around here and we all grab him once a month to get our bills.
So, once again, my Arabic-challenged guests have had to deal with a household repair situation without the benefit of a translator. Pat is planning to stay on here until December to learn Arabic and work with refugees, and I suspect that his success with the telephone repair and the toilet repair have given him confidence. I guess confidence is good no matter where you find it.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Jazz Concert In An Ancient Setting
Fathy%20Salama%20%3A%20the%20off-beat%20from%20Cairo%20%21
With traditional Egyptian efficiency, my telephone line suddenly quit moments after one of my visitors logged off the computer after checking his email on our return from Sharm el Sheikh. After two days without the internet, we were all going nuts. I don't know how I managed for the months before I got my phone line. Finally, late yesterday afternoon while the only Arabic speakers in the household were both out, the repairmen arrived to repair the damage, whatever it was. Pat and Emily were in charge at the house so they dug out their trusty Arabic phrase books and managed to find the ladder for the workers. I don't know what the problem was, since they couldn't ask the men and wouldn't have understood the answer anyway. But the main thing is that we got it back quickly and with little pain.
We'd had a quiet four days by the Red Sea with the kids snorkeling and hanging out at the beach while I weeded my lawn and read under the palm tree. Sharm in August is best enjoyed with a minum of movement and a maximum of cold water. We'd driven back on Monday in order to be back in Cairo for the Tuesday night concert at the Citadel of Fathy Salama and Karima Nayat. Fathy was an old friend of my late husband who met him when the band was playing in Sharm, and when the Ministry of Culture announced that he'd be doing a concert at the Citadel as part of the music festival there, we made plans to go. Fathy Salama is an Egyptian jazz musician of considerable talent and lately he has an Algerian woman singer, Karima Nayat, working with him. We figured that a jazz concert on the grounds of a thousand year old castle under the stars would be a nice memory for Pat and Emily to take home with them and an unusual experience as well.
We were a considerable group that trudged through the grounds of the Citadel having paid our entrance fees of LE 2 per person (roughly 30 cents USD). There were two of my daughter's Egyptian hybrid friends from Maadi (one a student at the German University here and the other home from university in the Netherlands), a visiting friend from Jordan who also attends university in the Netherlands, my friend Janie from Abu Sir and her Jordanian colleague who works at Chicago House in Luxor all winter, and our Norwegian neighbour Pal with a new staff member of the Norwegian embassy, as well as our visiting Columbia University students.
The concert was held in a courtyard between the Suleiman Pasha mosque built in the 1500's and the Military Museum. There were a number of different musical events going on that night, and I suspect that the organisers weren't really expecting as large a crowd for the Fathy Salama concert as showed up because the seating wasn't nearly sufficient. But the weather was gorgeous, with cool breezes and soft air, and the crowd was cheerful and willing to stand in the aisles. The range of individuals was interesting with college students, a few foreigners, women in headscarves and without, and even children. Fathy has always been an innovator and this evening was no exception with him introducing Zaki, a Danish/Egyptian rapper who joined the group for the concert. A few years back I took my nephew to a Fathy Salama concert at the Cairo Opera House that featured the harpist from the Cairo symphony in her jazz debut...a terrific concert.
At a late dinner after the entertainment, my daughter discovered that her wallet was missing from her bag and a thorough search of the car failed to turn it up. We assumed, correctly as it turned out, that it had gone missing at the Citadel, but it was 1 a.m. by the time we discovered the loss and nothing could be done until the morning. She was shattered, partly at the thought of having lost her university ID, her Egyptian ID, and her driver's license, but more because she had a note from her father in the wallet.
The next morning I called my son to arrange for his driver to go to the Citadel to speak to the security to see if they'd found the wallet. I would have gone myself, but I had a 9 a.m. meeting in Maadi that wouldn't finish until noon. The driver called me from the Citadel to say that not only had he found my daughter's wallet but also her friend Pat's wallet, something that no one had yet missed, but that she would have to go to the Citadel to claim them. We got her to the Citadel to collect the wallets, with much rejoicing, which was the reason that Pat and Emily had to deal with our telephone repairmen on their own. Pat was delighted as well as amazed that the cleaning staff had actually passed the wallets on to the security men that night, not that there was much in the way of cash in them.
All in all a satisfying evening, even if we had to wait til the next day for the final chapter. And if you get a chance to hear Fathy Salama some time, do so. He's worth a listen.
With traditional Egyptian efficiency, my telephone line suddenly quit moments after one of my visitors logged off the computer after checking his email on our return from Sharm el Sheikh. After two days without the internet, we were all going nuts. I don't know how I managed for the months before I got my phone line. Finally, late yesterday afternoon while the only Arabic speakers in the household were both out, the repairmen arrived to repair the damage, whatever it was. Pat and Emily were in charge at the house so they dug out their trusty Arabic phrase books and managed to find the ladder for the workers. I don't know what the problem was, since they couldn't ask the men and wouldn't have understood the answer anyway. But the main thing is that we got it back quickly and with little pain.
We'd had a quiet four days by the Red Sea with the kids snorkeling and hanging out at the beach while I weeded my lawn and read under the palm tree. Sharm in August is best enjoyed with a minum of movement and a maximum of cold water. We'd driven back on Monday in order to be back in Cairo for the Tuesday night concert at the Citadel of Fathy Salama and Karima Nayat. Fathy was an old friend of my late husband who met him when the band was playing in Sharm, and when the Ministry of Culture announced that he'd be doing a concert at the Citadel as part of the music festival there, we made plans to go. Fathy Salama is an Egyptian jazz musician of considerable talent and lately he has an Algerian woman singer, Karima Nayat, working with him. We figured that a jazz concert on the grounds of a thousand year old castle under the stars would be a nice memory for Pat and Emily to take home with them and an unusual experience as well.
We were a considerable group that trudged through the grounds of the Citadel having paid our entrance fees of LE 2 per person (roughly 30 cents USD). There were two of my daughter's Egyptian hybrid friends from Maadi (one a student at the German University here and the other home from university in the Netherlands), a visiting friend from Jordan who also attends university in the Netherlands, my friend Janie from Abu Sir and her Jordanian colleague who works at Chicago House in Luxor all winter, and our Norwegian neighbour Pal with a new staff member of the Norwegian embassy, as well as our visiting Columbia University students.
The concert was held in a courtyard between the Suleiman Pasha mosque built in the 1500's and the Military Museum. There were a number of different musical events going on that night, and I suspect that the organisers weren't really expecting as large a crowd for the Fathy Salama concert as showed up because the seating wasn't nearly sufficient. But the weather was gorgeous, with cool breezes and soft air, and the crowd was cheerful and willing to stand in the aisles. The range of individuals was interesting with college students, a few foreigners, women in headscarves and without, and even children. Fathy has always been an innovator and this evening was no exception with him introducing Zaki, a Danish/Egyptian rapper who joined the group for the concert. A few years back I took my nephew to a Fathy Salama concert at the Cairo Opera House that featured the harpist from the Cairo symphony in her jazz debut...a terrific concert.
At a late dinner after the entertainment, my daughter discovered that her wallet was missing from her bag and a thorough search of the car failed to turn it up. We assumed, correctly as it turned out, that it had gone missing at the Citadel, but it was 1 a.m. by the time we discovered the loss and nothing could be done until the morning. She was shattered, partly at the thought of having lost her university ID, her Egyptian ID, and her driver's license, but more because she had a note from her father in the wallet.
The next morning I called my son to arrange for his driver to go to the Citadel to speak to the security to see if they'd found the wallet. I would have gone myself, but I had a 9 a.m. meeting in Maadi that wouldn't finish until noon. The driver called me from the Citadel to say that not only had he found my daughter's wallet but also her friend Pat's wallet, something that no one had yet missed, but that she would have to go to the Citadel to claim them. We got her to the Citadel to collect the wallets, with much rejoicing, which was the reason that Pat and Emily had to deal with our telephone repairmen on their own. Pat was delighted as well as amazed that the cleaning staff had actually passed the wallets on to the security men that night, not that there was much in the way of cash in them.
All in all a satisfying evening, even if we had to wait til the next day for the final chapter. And if you get a chance to hear Fathy Salama some time, do so. He's worth a listen.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Let's have the Arabs cheer on the Israeli team in the UEFA cup
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Sakhnin's success brings cheers and jeers
Yeah, that's a switch but I love the irony. Apparently an Arab team has won the right to represent Israel in the European Soccer competition this Thursday. So I'm contacting all my local friends who would love to see the Israeli Arabs representing Israel. As it is half the French team are Arabs. I do enjoy irony.
Friday, August 13, 2004
Living in the Zoo
When I rented my house in the country, I had them put in a 2 meter chain link fence with the base secured in brick. A lot of people made the assumption that I did so for security, and in a way they were correct. But it was for the security of my neighbours more than for me. You see, I have the dubious honor of caring for 18 dogs. Fourteen of them live at my house and four of them have jurisdiction over the horse paddocks. A neighbour has fewer dogs, but since his consist of a Great Dane, a Napolitan Mastiff, and a bunch of shepherd crosses, we joke that he has more by kilo, while I have more by foot.
It was never my intention to have 18 dogs, believe me. We started out with two baladi dogs, Stella and Milligan, sisters that we rescued from the stables at Smouha Club in Alexandria. Most stables here have attached baladi dogs because the dogs provide security and help to keep down the rats. As well, the baladi dogs are smart and tough, rarely needing any veterinary work, so they are extremely low maintenance.
For about five years, the household consisted of the two dogs and my son's cat who retired to his bedroom in her disgust, never to emerge again. One spring after we'd moved to Cairo, my daughter and I went to Greece for her spring break. My son was on a school trip to visit the US with some other students and my husband was, as usual, working. As we were driving through the mountains in the northern part of the Pelopennese near Patras, we spotted a small gold dog sitting by the side of the road in the snow. There was no one near by, no houses, nothing, so we stopped the car and opened the door. We figured that if she got in, she was meant to be ours. Molly (as we named her) took one look and hopped in. We went to the nearest town, found a hotel and then a vet and we asked around. Everyone told us that someone had abandoned her there, so we gave her her shots, bought a collar and a leash, and Molly spent a jolly week with us in village hotels dining on grilled octopus. The poor thing had been starving to death and it took some delicate feeding actually to get her system working again. We flew her home to Egypt at the end of the trip to the surprise of my husband, who was also a dog lover. Molly got along great with the other two and was absorbed into the family.
A few years later, my husband was having problems with rats in his grain discharge silos in Alexandria, so he asked me to do some research on rat control without poisons. We looked into re-introducing falcons to the area, cats, and rat-hunting dogs. The dogs, American Rat Terriers, finally won out, and we imported a pregnant female Terra and a young male Bluto from breeders in the US as well as two other females later. It took us a while to get the Egyptian workers to relax around the pack that we built up, but Bluto was the consummate rat killer and a sweet friendly guy as well. We soon had a pack of 6 at the discharge terminal and I'd prepared another 6 for the soy bean crushing plant that was under construction. Unfortunately, when my husband died, I ended up with that pack at home and after a couple of unneeded litters, the population had soared. I was lucky to find homes for many of the pups, but when I moved to Abu Sir, I still had 8 Terriers, Stella (whose sister Milligan died of cancer about 3 years ago), Koheila a rescued dalmation with one paralyzed front leg, Molly who had gone blind, and two baladi dogs (Ganja and Anzac) at the paddocks with the horses, Then my brother in law, who took over as manager of the silos and who never liked dogs anyway, transferred the dog handlers to other jobs and I got the 5 left in Alex. That's how to get 18 dogs.
During all of this I had also gradually begun collecting rescued parrots. I started with Ali, the African Grey male that my children bought me in Alexandria, and the next to arrive was Mona another African Grey, a female this time. Not long after I found a trio of female Cuban Amazons huddled in a dry dusty cage and I brought them home. Finally, a friend asked if I could take in Fritzi who had pulled every feather out of his body, so we moved him in next door to Ali and Mona. Mona subsequently decided that she liked Fritzi better than Ali, though I can't imagine why as he has a filthy temperament, and she sneaked out of her cage into his one day. When I moved, I was able to build the birds big flight cages, 3 meter cubes, covered with palm branches for shade, and relatively cool in the summer as they get a great breeze.
My neighbours are fascinated, especially the children. They live with chickens, ducks, geese, goats, sheep, cows, water buffalo, donkeys.... but that many dogs and a bunch of birds that talk and whistle are amazing to them. And try as I might, I have trouble telling the children that the reason I have a fence to keep my dogs in is to protect their chickens and so on. Mine are not country dogs and they would find chicken hunting very entertaining...and for me very expensive.
The other day a little boy of about 7 years stood near the fence corner barking at the dogs to see their reaction. Naturally the racket brought me out of the house, so I talked to him to explain that this wasnt' such a great idea. He looked at me with his big brown eyes and said nothing. I went back inside only to hear an even greater racket, so I went back out on the verandah from where I saw young Magdy Ibrahim climbing the fence to perch on top. At that point one of the adults came by and hauled him down. Poor kid got the scolding of his life from his mother, but if he'd fallen it could have been disastrous.
Still, every day the kids come by and sometimes just sit under a tree in the field next door to watch the parrots in their cages and the dogs chasing the hoopoes and crows out of the garden. Just like a trip to the zoo.
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