Ain Soukhna

Last weekend we traveled to Ain Soukhna, a resort on the Red Sea. We went with three other couples. Ain Soukhna is a golf resort, spa, as well as a beach resort. Seeing as we don't golf well enough to travel with golf clubs, we opted for the spa package. We spent hours in the salt-water hot-tub, the sauna, and at the beach. It was a very pleasant weekend.

One of the pools looking out at the golf course.

Crissie wading in the Red Sea. You could see the Sinai Peninsula just peeking out of the haze on the horizon. You also saw ships heading up to the Suez Canal, about 60 miles north.

Another pool at one of the hotels built to resemble an Italian Grotto, complete with wading area for small children and waterfalls.

Insets are a problem. Each evening the resort fumigated the area spraying insect repellent. Everyone ducked indoors for that. But during the day these interesting contraptions were all around the resort. The hanging ropes contain insect repellent that dangle in the breeze and spread the repellent.

We had a very pleasant and relaxing weekend. We enjoyed the sugar sand beach, which was more the color of ripe sweet potatoes--a reddish color, but no stones--just pure sand; very nice to walk on.

These resorts are very popular. Lots of Europeans out playing golf and enjoying the beautiful weather. Egypt seems to have found a tourist niche with these resorts on the Red Sea.

Dust to Dust

Boy do we have dust!

I used to think that I lived in a very dusty place. My little house in the north of Michigan, heated by wood, generated a lot of dust. But that is nothing compared to the dust and blowing sand that Eyptians live with here on the edge of the desert.

This picture is taken from one of the highest points in Cairo. Twenty-two million people live here but you can't see a thing for the sand in the air. This was a particularily windy day which kicked up lots of sand air, creating the haze.

Every morning the building caretakers are out washing down the tenants cars. They do this for a fee, of course, but also the consequences of not cleaning off the cars is a car so thoroughly dust covered that you could not see out the windshield.

This dusty car hasn't been washed in a few days.

You need to dust at home regularily because the fine sand and dust accumulate at an alarming rate. We have someone clean for us weekly, mostly to keep the dust down to a manageable level. When there is a dust storm the fine particles seep under the doors and windows settling everywhere. It is easier to sweep up the sand from the floor instead of going over it with a dustmop. Sweep first, damp-mop second.

Our dining room table after the patio door has been opened for a while.

We are told that when there is a particularily bad sand storm, the halls of school collect little piles of sand in the corners. We have yet to see it that bad. Spring seems to be the time for the worst storms so we shall see.

The Camel Market at Birquash

We went to the camel market in Birqash, a town about 20 miles NW of Cairo. It is a major camel market for the country. Camels come in from all over, are bought and sold, and then trucked all over the country.

Camels are an interesting animal. They have the most ungainly look. At the market all the camel were hobbled in some way, so they couldn't go very far, very fast. They have the longest, lucious, thick eyelashes, and the sweetest doe-eyes--the only sweet looking part of the animal. I took an up close picture of them. They also have the ugliest teeth you can possible imagine.

Camel eyelashes

Smiling camel? Look at those teeth.

Prospective buyers would come by a group of camels and start to look them over. They would pull down the camels lips and look at those ugly teeth to see how sound they were and if the gums were healthy. I have no idea what healthy camel gums look like, but their teeth are huge, mostly stained brown, and rather buck-tooth looking. The back ones are flat for grinding and the front ones are sharper for cutting up the grass they eat.

Youngster whose father was an owner with camels for sale.

Buyers would run their hands all over the animal, especially the hump. When camels are healthy and not malnourished the hump is firm and large, almost engorged. Then buyers would have the owners get the animals up and have them run around as best the hobbled beasties could. The owner had wranglers that kept the animals in check and didn't let them get mingle with other herds. If there was such mingling, the wranglers easily cut out the camels because they were all branded and painted with distinctive markings for the market.

There was much haggling over animals and arguments over prices. Mind you we only surmised all of this because we could not understand any of the conversations. However body language is fairly easy to read, and handshakes are unmistakeable. We knew when a deal was consumated.

Loading the camels into trucks was a hoot to watch. Camels can be notoriously uncooperative. We saw one small truck pull up to a loading area. The truck was just a bit short so the camels had to step down about two feet into the truck. For the most part most camels did not have a problem with this. They stepped down into the truck then settled themselves down. They sit down awkwardly, from my point of view, but once settled they are fine. The getting up and down is interesting to watch because it seems so awkward, but the camels seem to do it with ease. Well, this one large camel stepped down into the truck, and settled his front parts down, leaving his back parts up in the air on the loading dock. No amount of cajoling, on the part of the wranglers, could persuade that camel to move his back parts. He was stuck, or so it seemed. Finally the camel settled his back parts down on the loading dock and couldn't move. The wranglers folded up his legs and tried to push him into the truck. This was a big camel and was resisting the pushing. So finally the wranglers go a stout rope and put it around the camel's rump and pulled it into the truck. The next camel walked in just as nice as you please, settled himself down nicely and the wranglers finished their job ad were off. It was a strange sight to see the truck going out of the compound with the camels heads sticking up over the cab of the truck.

This is the camel that had a bit of trouble loading into the truck. Camels all loaded and ready for transport. The market was a facinating excursion. We were very glad we went. Never again will I ever see so many camels in one place at one time. The sounds and smells were ---undescribable. It reminded me of a n enormous corral full of sweaty horses. Camels make a braying sound, not unlike a donkey. They brayed and bawled when moved about, when getting up and down--they grunted then too. They brayed when they were made to do something they didn't want to do, like get into a truck. I am told they spit, but we didn't see any spitting camels. It was one of the most interesting days I have had in Egypt so far.

Traffic

Life in Cairo is challenging at times, especially at rush hour. I am not sure these photos do the chaotic traffic justice. Often the car in the far right lane wants to turn left across three or four lanes of traffic and just sticks his nose into the next lane until he has accomplished his goal.

Even within the chaos there does emerge an order--sort of. Cars do manage to negotiate intersectionseven though everyone is going every which way; pedestrians do manage to get across the street and everyone does, somehow, manage to make in home in time for dinner. This pedestrian is going to try to cross the street. He is waiting for a lull in traffic and will dash across to the other side. Look carefully and you can see three black and white taxis in this photo. Black and whites are all over Cairo. They are black cars with the side fenders painted white. They all have luggage racks. They are well used, often over 20 years old,and held together with bubble gum and bailing wire, as the saying goes. Yet they provide a needed and inexpensive service. We use them all the time to go everywhere around town.

No traffic light, just cars maneuvering in all directions--the most aggressive creating the lanes and everyone follows behind, until the next aggressive one changes the direction of the flow.

The sidewalks are hazzardous. Cars park wherever they can, often on the sidewalks, making them almost impassable. So we walk in the street and get tooted at.

See the car parked on the sidewalk? This is across the street from us.

The chair is holding a spot for someone who lives in the building. The other cars are parked in their usual spots--even the one on the sidewalk. You can see why one ends up walking in the street.

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There is a system of horn blowing here. If people are walking in the street you tap the horn to let them know not to wander out into traffic, because the cars do not stop for pedestrians. They slow down, but do not like to stop. I haven't seen anyone hit, but I have seen close calls. Often headlights are not used at night. If you are crossing the street, at night you need to look carefully because cars seem to come quickly at night, especially with no lights on. They see you. They flick their lights and give the little tap on the horn to warn you.

Then there is the horn honking when you are behind someone that is not going fast enough. The taxis honk a lot because they are always in a hurry and there are lots of them so there is lots of taxi honking. That honk is a little longer, and often accompanied by flicking the headlights.

There is the stuck-in-traffic honk. It is more of a laying on the horn for a second or two to let everyone else stuck in the same traffic know how upset you are about being stuck in this miserable traffic jam.

There are the short da-dit-da-dit honks to let traffic on either side of you know that you are going to fit in between the cars even though there is no lane there--but there is a smiggen of room--just enough for you to fit your vehicle in between the cars that are in the proper lanes. So now you have created a new lane and hordes fill in behind you. The three lane road has now become a four lane road, soon to be a six lane road.

There is the honk that is used when you are cruising through a red light. They are decorative here, but require a warning that you are ignoring them. So intersections become quite noisy, especially the ones that have those decorative traffic lights. Noone obeys a traffic light unless there is a traffic cop in the intersection -- noone wants to hit the traffic cop because he is aligned with the military and interaction with the military is to be avoided if at all possible. Intersections are a challenge. Traffic flowing nicely in one direction can get snarled up as an aggressive type sticks his nose out into the crossing traffic and forces one lane after another to stop so he can get across. Soon traffic is flowing in the new direction as other cars follow the aggressive one. This continues for a short while until another aggressive type forces traffic to flow in the original direction again. Intersections are fun to watch from a distance.

Then there are the honks that are used just to let you know that -I am next to you and not to try anything funny, like creating a new lane, because I am here and I won't let you do it.

Our bus honks a lot. It is mostly the -I am here honk--because he doesn't want anyone plowing into the side of his beautiful clean bus. We have had some close calls, but no scrapes yet. I think it is a matter of time, though, because the driving habits of the Egyptians are worse than the Italians or the Mexicans.

Italian drivers are angelic and well mannered compared to the Egyptians. Yet I see very few accidents. Those that do happen do not seem to be too serious--nobody gets going fast enough in Cairo to have too serious an accident. But when an accident does happen it snarls things up miserably. These roads are not well designed and traffic does not flow smoothly unless it is 4:00 am. So accidents foul things up because nobody pulls to the side--they just stop and everything comes to a standstill until a traffic cop comes along and gets things moving again. Traffic cops, unlike traffic lights, are obeyed.

Another traffic snafu is the double parking. Often in shopping districts you see double lines of cars parked and double parked. It is a joke really, because it is always the inside person that wants to leave first, so they get into their car and lay on the horn until someone comes out and moves the other car. Another of those unwritten rules. Everyone seems to know whose car needs moving and somehow it gets moved. I don't know how they figure it out when everyone is inside some store or other shopping just whose car needs moving, but someone comes running up and moves it. Then they disappear again.

The white car is double parked at the corner. You can see other cars in the foreground double parked as well. As you might expect, it ca cause a great deal of confusion. Yet everyone seems to take it in stride.

It is hard to tell from this photo, but the dark car that appears to be driving through the intersection is actually parked there. Cars on the other side of the street are double parked, reducing traffic flow to one lane.

Lots of chaos, but out of all that chaos comes some sort of order. Once you figure out what the rules are or, more often, are not, then you are fine. Lots--millions in fact--drive here, and manage to get around. Millions more use public transportation and yet more use transportation provided by their employer--like us. The school runs a whole fleet of busses to pick up kids all over Cairo and more busses to pick up only teachers. There are over 120 teachers at the school so it is a very nice service. I just walk a block and meet my bus.

We have found the traffic congestion interesting, to say the least. It is fun to just sit at one of the corner cafes and just watch the traffic at the corner negotiate their way around, and through the intersection.

Back in Cairo

I returned to Cairo on December 31, around 10:30 in the morning of New Year's Eve. This time husband Jack is along for the next few months. He was excited about arriving in Cairo and living and working in this busy city. Of course, after such a long trip, we were in no shape to go out. Rather, we slept until about 6:00 in the evening. We did go out for a walk and a bite to eat, but no partying.

We walked down to our local suug--sort of an covered market with a variety of little shops including a butcher, a baker, a green grocer, a small general grocery store for things like canned goods, toilet paper, etc., and a pharmacy, a little plumbing place and a little electrical place. Jack was facinated by the butcher and the bakery.

The local bakery working late into the evening. It is a gas fired oven.

They are baking a sort of pita bread that puffs up upon baking.

Outside the butcher shop at our local suug.

All the butchers posing for Jack as he took the picture.

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Finding your way around in Cairo is problematic for newcomers, especially if you do not speak or read Arabic, as you can see from the signpost. Most Cairenes use landmarks for directions, because so many streets have more than one name and the name changes mid-block at times. So using street names often does not work well. The city is filled with Midans--local round-a-bouts--and many many mosques, notable conspicious buildings, like hospitals, or post offices, parks, stores etc, so finding your way around by landmarks is not as difficult as it sounds. This sign is pointing to a pedestrian way that contained all the shops mentioned in the sign. (I think.)

We find the Arabic writing beautiful to look at and marvel at the folks that are bilingual. They must shift from reading Arabic right to left, to reading English, left to right. Often signs and billboards are in both languages but people make that shift easily, apparently.

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Tonight we went to the movies at City Stars, a huge shopping mall. We were in theater 13. I am not sure how many theaters there are all together. We saw Australia with Arabic subtitles. This was an interesting experience. It took us a minute to figure out that the wall of ticket booths was one booth for each movie. Some lines were much longer than others. You go to the ticket booth for the movie you want to see, pay your money and select a seat. This seat selection business takes a bit of time because you must discuss with your movie going friends where you want to sit, etc. Once that decision is made you buy your ticket and proceed to the correct theater where the usher shows you to your assigned seat. Midway through the movie there is an intermission--a smoking break--only there supposedly is no smoking in the area. Yet many smokers go out and have a quick cigarette while standing around the trash cannister with the no smoking sign above. Everyone goes back in for the rest of the movie. People use their cell phone screens for flashlights--clever. Now that we know you go to the ticket booth for YOUR movie we won't waste time waiting in the wrong line. The signs were all in Arabic, but luckily there was a picture from the movie to clue you as to which line was for which movie.

The City Stars Shopping Mall. This is very new and upscale.

An Excursion

Hello again,

Last weekend one of the teachers involved as volunteer with an organization called Resala, organized a trip to a small village on the delta.

Resala is a completely volunteer organization which renders aide and assistance to people who are in desperate need.

This was a small farming village. It appears, from all I could make out, that the farmers live in the town/village and go out to the fields which are quite close by. It was along one of the many t

ributaries in the Delta that flow into the main Nile.

Resala, the charity organization, visits a village twice. Once to assess the needs and the second time to actually do the work and distribute the food and clothing,

We collected the teachers going and proceeded to one of the Resala buildings in Cairo to check in and collect our guide for the day--Karem. In the Resala building the organization collects donations of any kind; furniture, clothes, appliances, heaters--you name it and they refurbish ,recycled and reuse. The Resala volunteers spend their time cleaning these things up, refurbishing them and re-distrubuting them to those who are in great need.

Our task on this day was to repair roofs and distribute food and clothing to needy families. The men would do the carrying, lifting and building and the women would distribute the food, etc.

So off we go to the village of Elmanshia, in the governante of Gharbia. (There are 27 governantes in Egypt.) It was well down the delta, more than an hour from Cairo.

The lushness of the delta was surprising to me. There was green eveywhere. You could see bananas growing, vegetables galore, sugar cane and everything else one could consume, growing on the delta. There were orchards full or oranges. I saw my first water buffalo working in a rice paddy---lots of rice paddys. Egypt, like Turkey, is a food producer and can feed its own population. The fruits and vegetables available for purchasein little stalls all over Cairo, attest to that. They also prduce some grapes and make some Egyptian wine. Now you may wonder about that, but it is produced for the foreigners and it isn't too bad, really. It is eminently drinkable, especially with food.

A tuk-tuk

Along the way we stopped for various train crossings which created traffic snarls, with the little Tuk-tuks. These are not allowed in Cairo. They are a three-wheeled motorcycle rickshaw affair. They operate like taxis. They are everywhere in the country. Can you imagine the traffic congestion is they were permitted in Cairo??!

Another train crossing. You can see lots of the tuk-tuks in the congestion. The red and black vehicule just in from of us is a tuk-tuk, and next to him and in front as well.

We arrived in the village in time for prayers. So off everyone went to pray and we non-muslims waited for their return. The children were facinated by us, and very curious. Their image of us comes from television and is often inacurate.

Facinated children--all trying to talk to us in English--Miss, Miss, what is your name." That was all they could say. But I answered them very slowly, telling them my name was Cristina. They know that name.This is one of the teachers from school, Debora, and some of the children that followed us all day.

Work began in earnest with the men carrying beam material and corregated roofing material out to trucks that then took it to the house being worked on. These roofs were not elegant affairs. They were simply beams set on the mud walls, with corregated roofing material nailed to it. There is little rain here, so it is more for the sun than anything.

One of the teachers, Ray, on the tote and carry detail.

Some of the men from our group as well as Resala, beginning repairs to the roof of one of the older buildings.

A bedroom under repair

The bedroom, now completely covered over. Notice the three beds in this room. It is the sleeping room for the family. There is a chest cooler (blue) in the foreground. I am not sure, but I think it was used as a refridgerator. Also note that this room, as did the rest of the house, has a dirt floor, with a rug near the bed.

This is the mayor of the village and a Resala worker. The Mayor is the older gentleman in grey. The Resala worker is a young volunteer active in the organization, from Cairo.

While the men constructed and repaired, The women went around the village with the mayor, who had a little list, and passed out bags of non-perishable food and bags of clothes. Here is one of our teachers with the mayor and a Resala worker checking the bags before giving them to the little man. Here is one of the teachers getting ready to give the bag of goodies to the little may with the mustache. You can see the mayor and some of the Resala workers giving the goodie bags to the old woman in the doorway.

The group of teachersalong with guideand interperter, far left in black t-shirt, who went on this incredible outing.

I saw parts of Egypt I never would have seen otherwise, experienced things I never would have otherwise and I learned a great deal.

This type of outing makes one realize how incredibly lucky we are. We had the opportunity to look through a window at another way of life, alien to ours. Yet these people were not sad. They were all happy to see us, and delighted with their gifts, but not one of them seemed saddened by their circumstances. This is their life, beginning and end of discussion. They are content. The children played in the streets and had a grand day following us around asking our names. We told them. We peeked into their homes and learned how they live. As in all villages, some do better than others, and it with the help of organizations like Resala, that a little relief comes into the lifes of the most needy. I enjoyed my day, and hope to do it again sometime.

The Eid Holiday and Feast

The Eid

Monday most of the Islamic world will celebrate The Eid. This is a feast that comes 70 days after Ramadan. It celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son out of loyality to his god. God intervened just in time and had Abraham slaughter a sheep instead. So, here in Cairo, for the last week sheep and cows have been brought in to various staging points around the city awaiting slaughter on Monday. The holiday is to be a reminder of each one's need to sacrifice in their lives and to share what they have.

Part of the ritual is to slaughter this animal and rub your hands in the blood then make handprints on things, like cars, and your apartment building etc. The animal is butchered and passed out to friends and family as well as given to the poor.

For many Westerners this sounds a bit barbaric, probably because the animals are so big, and the sheep have such a tender look to them. But there is high excitement here and everyone is looking forward to the Eid, including all the teachers and school children because it means an entire week off from school. I love school breaks, because I can travel. For this break I am off to Florence, Italy with two other teachers from the school. We return to school Sunday, December 14.