Elections: 3

Some more photos from Wabuur al Maya as voting continues into the afternoon. Due to a late and somewhat disorganised start, polling stations will now remain open until midnight.
It is a little busier outside than before as more people finish work and new voters continue to pour in from the roundabout and sidestreets.

Below: some of the many groups distributing leaflets in the street today. There is a brief but explosive argument at the end of the road (two friends discovering one another's voting intentions, according to Noor, a girl I speak to outside that turns out to be a neighbour) - but it is quickly resolved.

The second image shows the family of one of the candidates; Zeina (below below) and Noor live around the corner from me and have been up since 5 o'clock this morning. Both study at the American school and speak near-perfect English.



As previously mentioned, red or blue ink on the tip of a finger is used to mark out those who have already voted. By the looks of things it rubs off pretty easily, which rather defeats the purpose, but I manage to catch a few people as they come away from the polling station:

Above: the daughter of an elderly man I spoke to who used to work on ships in Dover, and who finally returned to Egypt earlier this year; he agreed there had never been an election like this in his lifetime.

Below: our doorman (whose ink had long since rubbed off except on the nail but wanted to copy the gesture anyway)

Below below: a top boss on a motorbike leaving the scene.

Above: the rather comical row of anxious husbands and family members waiting on the other side of the road while the women vote. The men's polling station, apparently, is a few streets away.

One more for now - this child more or less encapsulates the current mood in Wabuur al Maya...

Elections: 2

"This is the beginning of a new era in Egypt, democracy in action. Not in theory, but in action." - Amr Moussa, presidential hopeful, casting his vote two hours ago.

A routine-walk-for-phone-credit-turned-bizarre-polling-station-hopping-adventure. Some photos from the middle of today's elections in Alexandria below. Overall I was startled by the contrast in what we had imagined the atmosphere today would be like, and what it actually is - far from the bloodbath students and expats had been warned of, there is a general sense of excitement and joviality in the streets that no amount of rain or cynicism can dampen.

Above: the polling station in Wabuur al Maya, across the street from our flat. For the most part men and women vote separately. Volunteers for various parties mill about, handing out leaflets; the one with the most publicity (will find out exactly who it is later) is handing out blue and yellow hats for voters, and appears to have two representatives running for office, represented by pictures of an orange and a basketball.

Below: Wabuur al Maya, hung with fresh banners last night - most of the originals were torn down over the last week. Walls are lined with posters showing the various candidates, all men, of course; for the first time we have worked out the significance of the pictures beside each one, that range from the understandable (clasped hands, a crescent moon) to the more confusing (a dolphin, a razor blade, a DVD player); these must be for the illiterate sixty per cent of the population, who, unable to understand the names written on the polling cards, require some sort of symbol to know who they are voting for.

Below: Fou'ad street, busier than we have seen for a long time at this time of day. Schools across the country are closed and it seems for many Egyptians voting has become a family outing, with many people bringing even their youngest children along; toddlers hefted in women's arms brandish flyers and look confused.

Above: fingers stained black to denote who has and has not voted, a crude system but it does the job. Earlier this morning there was a huge problem with shortages of ink but judging by the numbers of people strolling home with index fingers slightly raised to keep off clothing and bags, this has now for the most part ceased to be an issue.
Below: a women's polling station in a school off Fou'ad street. Friends and husbands stand on the other side of the road, waiting - the queue is agonisingly slow, but definitely moving. Cries ring out and the general mood is upbeat and full of anticipation. A sudden downpour strikes and umbrellas bloom like flowers; after a few moments' deliberation the blue-hatted officials open the school gates to allow voters to rush inside. Clearly nothing is to get in the way of proceedings today.

Feeling brave today, I had kept the camera on show and continued to take photos for the whole journey (it is hardy enough, thank goodness, not to be damaged by the rain) and until now had received mostly positive attention, if any, as a result. Families shout "Suwariya!" - "Photographer!" in passing and a number of voters run over to pose for pictures. Here, for the first time, an angry-looking man approaches and twangs at the camera strap, shouting "Li? Li?" - "Why? Why?"; a group of women who have offered me shelter under their umbrella put their arms around me and explain patiently that, contrary to his belief, I am not here to wait and pounce on any fights that break out; grudgingly he goes away. I am reminded of the first week here and Riham's words; clearly there is still concern that the Western media wish to portray the worst of the proceedings, when in fact - bar one brief shouting match that may well have been good-natured - there has been not a scuffle or fist raised in sight all day.

Below: more Arabs voting. Makeshift polling stations have sprung up in more or less every school (the university's colleges are dotted all around the city) - as with a British election, polling will close at 9pm tonight and at the moment there is a brief lull as many people are waiting until work ends in the afternoon to cast their vote. Doubtless then it will take days, even weeks, to count.

Above: two boys roped in no doubt by their parents to help hand out flyers.

Below: some final images from the journey back home. I stop off briefly at the ACL institute where reports are more or less the same: the feeling is overwhelmingly positive, as much a national holiday and social event as a milestone in the history of Egypt. We have yet to see what the night brings, and of course the doubts - to say the least - regarding the point of holding these elections at all remain, but for the moment, at least, all is calm... and going precisely according to plan.

Elections: 1

Last night was the biggest and most terrifying storm we have experienced since being here; all four of us were woken at exactly 3am by the roar of thunderclouds directly above Wabuur al Maya that rattled windows and doors and kept us awake, shaken and freezing cold, for about an hour afterwards. WHAT DID I SAY.

So far this morning there appears to have been no trouble on the streets of Alexandria as people queue up at hurriedly-installed polling stations to cast their vote - probably because there is no fear that anything will actually work. Al Jazeera's correspondent carefully described the situation as "a rocky start" when in fact it has been so far what many had expected all along: a bit of a joke. Truckloads of ballot papers have yet to arrive, judges are running late or neglecting to appear at all, ink is in short supply and many of the lines have remained more or less immobile for hours.

But the situation is calm, for the time being. Below are a few images from our road in Wabuur al Maya, where a male polling station has been set up on the street beside the rubbish dump, and a female one up in the primary school. We were woken at 10am today by a vehicle outside equipped with booming speakers proclaiming something about teaching, and something about brotherhood, followed by several minutes of corny music. Surely if the average Egyptian has not decided who to vote for by now, such a spectacle is not going to sway them. But there you are.

More on today as things progress..

Gobbets from the revolution

I write this mid-afternoon on the 'Friday of the Last Chance', after a week we are all scarcely able to comprehend has unfolded before our eyes. Since last week's demonstrations against the apparently unchecked and growing political power of the military government, SCAF, an impossible set of events has erupted across Egypt, each day bringing fresh waves of conflict and uncertainty to a country already wearied by revolution. But as has now been proven, the conviction, strength and determination of hundreds of thousands of citizens knows no bounds in what is viewed by many as a necessary component of the country's political upheaval - as one tweeter with a dry sense of humour put it, following perhaps the pulling up of metaphorical floorboards or the mopping of something the cat left on the carpet, 'now you vacuum'.

The week began with a night of mild unease last friday - it had been assumed (perhaps naively)  that all the demonstrators would have left Tahrir square by nightfall but evidently some remained, and by the next morning, partially due to the arrival of a peaceful demonstration in memory of those who had died in February, fighting between the police and civilians had broken out. The next few days were rife with confusion and crowds gathered in Cairo and Alexandria daily to express their growing outrage; vast numbers of people had shown up purely to ensure those who needed to get out of the area for medical attention were able to do so, as to all intents and purposes Tahrir and a few districts in Alexandria have now turned into warzones. Unfortunately for around fourty people help did not reach them in time and in one particularly chilling interview on Saturday night, a girl described the bodies in the Cairo morgue killed unquestionably by real bullets.

SCAF has since apologised for the deaths but the question remains as to why officers were equipped with live ammunition in the first place - as if the devastating effects of the (mostly US-made) tear gas, beatings, injuries and frequent blindness caused by rubber bullets were not enough. According to Jack Shenker, writing for the Guardian, by monday many protesters had taken to writing their families' contact details on their arms in case they did not make it out alive... and the makeshift morque in Tahrir square had run out of coffins. There are also chilling reports of tear gas being deliberately fired into field hospitals, forcing volunteer doctors and the wounded to flee.

An Egyptian friend of ours, near his home on Saturday night, was caught up in the clashes in Alexandria and found himself hemmed in on all sides (and shot in the forehead, which left an attractive dent) - phoning at 2am he described the scene as "Horrible. Just horrible. There are doctors everywhere... they have bullets, and we have stones." One post circulating Twitter at this point pleaded with worldwide news agencies to remember that "Situation in #Alex is massacre. World attention needed!"; most of our information and footage of the city we were living in came from Al Hayat, an Egyptian channel, until about monday. A taxi ride passing Smouha on Sunday night reveals an almost unrecogniseable stretch of town, the air thick with the lingering tear gas that scorches the nose and the eerie orange streets empty save for groups of men running from the conflict, eyes streaming, faces grim. A number of streets where battle still rages are blocked off by rows of tense, black-suited riot police, and huge black vans carrying hundreds more speed past. It is all just a little too real.

Problems continued to escalate despite the voluntary resignation of Egypt's interim government. This failed to appease the demands of protesters by a long shot, as, according to a Twitter user and doubtless a large section of the population 'The entire Egypt cabinet have no power ... they have been and remain pawns in the SCAF chessboard'.

For the same reason the election due to take place on monday has now been thrown into severe doubt. SCAF have announced elections will indeed go ahead, in order to create some form of stability in the country and stand firm in the name of democracy; indeed a demonstration of around 15000 took place in Cairo today expressing support for the military government and its decision. But for the vast majority of those on the streets the idea of holding elections in such conditions is absurd and if things go according to plan monday will be nothing short of shambolic. In the last few days there has been a notable absence of representatives from a number of key political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/25/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-alienate-people
Another fascinating minor event from today's demonstrations was the appearance of two uniformed army officers in Tahrir, who joined the chants against field marshall Tantawi. There was also a brief visit from key presidential candidate and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed El Baradei, who was mobbed by supporters on entering and stayed for friday prayers, in what most protesters have assumed was a display of support.

The most recent development has come in the form of the newly-appointed prime minister, Kamal Al-Ganzouri, an economist who previously served as prime minister under Mubarak but has since distanced himself from the old regime in the media; the decision was met with contempt in Tahrir, where chants of "We don't want him" arose, and on the internet, where a spoof Twitter feed in his name has been set up that is to Arabic speakers apparently a 'comedy gold mine': https://twitter.com/#!/KamalElGanzouri
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011112510285039729.html

Here in Alexandria we have spent most of the week either indoors or in lessons, glued to the television as far as possible and feeling quite useless. Protests continue on a nightly basis in Sidi Gaber and Smouha but the whole city feels subdued; shops close early and even the fearsome traffic on the corniche has lessened. We are under strict warnings to remain inside on monday.

To produce a detailed account of everything that has taken place in the last week would take months on end - suffice to say the atmosphere remains tense at home, and explosive outside, and looks to remain so for quite some time or until the demands of the (still overwhelming) majority of the people are met. Will post things that I feel deserve attention here and there as far as time allows.
On that note, I'm sure we can expect British politicians to break their silence any day now...

Pathetic fallacy, 18/11/11

The demonstrations that took place in Cairo and Alexandria yesterday were among the biggest most potent since the January uprisings. Along with five days of rain has come a torrent of voices, unstoppable and impossible to ignore, and in the same manner capable of bringing the two largest cities in Egypt to an standstill for as long as it takes to make their presence truly felt - again. Many hope the 'Friday of One Demand' will be the last time such massive-scale protest is necessary, and that following the election, the initial purpose of the revolution will gradually be fulfilled without the need for further intervention. Many more, however, fear that the people of Egypt still face an uphill struggle in creating a system that runs in accordance with their wishes - that this is merely the drizzle preceding a storm.

For the majority of those protesting, yesterday's events have been a long time coming - for months there has existed a deep and slow-burning unease regarding the ever-tightening grip of the military on the country's affairs, and the possibility that it is moving by means of a series of carefully-worded constitutional changes towards a position of political permanence. Regent suggestions put forward by the military council appear to entrench the right of the military to give the final word on major policies even after the election, while effectively shielding the military from civilian oversight. These latest outrages come on top of the existing demand for an end to the controversial military trials for civilians, and even now, no date for the presidential polls has been set.

Unlike January's protests, much of this new activity has taken place due to calls from the Muslim Brotherhood (expected to perform well in the first set of elections, just nine days from now), as opposed to young people using social media to spread the word; however protestors in Cairo denied 'artificial' claims that it had become an 'Islamist/Salafi friday', evident in the large numbers of attendees from across the political spectrum, and indeed the country.

Despite the intentions and majority of the protest being overwhelmingly peaceful, not surprisingly clashes with police occurred throughout the day, alongside a number of arrests. According to Al Jazeera throughout this year's uprisings avid Egyptian football fans have been responsible for some of the most cutting chants and yesterday was no exception, with chants described by Wall Street Journal employee Tamer el-Ghobashy as 'obscene and hilarious'. Later in the afternoon a riot police van was attacked with rocks and sticks and then taken over entirely by protestors. Conflicts went on into the early hours of Saturday morning when, although a sit-in had never been intended, several hundred civilians refused to leave Tahrir.

In Alexandria violence had not been anticipated due to the highly organised nature of the protest; a march had been planned, as usual culminating in front of the military base. However chief concerns were actually founded not on the rage surrounding constitutional changes but on a small minority believed to be hijacking the protests to spread their political beliefs; at the Institute on Thursday we were told to carry a passport photocopy at all times over the next ten days as she had received reports that some individuals have been hiring some of Egypt's million street children as mercenaries, to question passersby on their voting intentions - and kill those whose answer was not deemed favourable. Whether this has any basis in truth is uncertain. However, despite events in Alexandria being overshadowed by those of Cairo on mainstream news, what is certain is that violence did occur and whole sections of the city (including al-Raml square) were pronounced 'no-go' zones by a friend of ours, who arrived at around 7pm having just driven through a crowd of opportunists attacking his car with bricks.

While those staying at ACL now face something of a challenge in getting out into the city for any reason over the next week, here, like it or not, we now find ourselves in the thick of election fever. Yesterday there was a palpable tension in the air, despite its being cooler and clearer than it had been in weeks due to the impossibility of driving, and the first beams of sunlight a few hours ago did little to disguise the overwhelming sense of sobriety, nervousness and grim determination that has for the most part now settled across the city. Whether or not the new 'supra-constitutional principles' are implemented remains to be seen, but this is merely another knot in an already tangled and incomprehensible thicket of concerns that the people of Egypt must fight their way through over the coming months (or even years), be it with the flick of pens on ballot papers, the blade of a machete or the sweep of a flag across the clouded sky. All remains to be seen.

For the most up-to-date information I recommend  http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Egypt

Hearts of stone

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/11/egypt-great-pyramid-closes-111111

Frankly the visual/audiatory pollution caused by a few hundred hippies on a mission to meditate could not have been much worse than that already created by unwashed men crying 'How many camels?!' as perma-tanned and cigarette-wielding masses shamble by, and the damage to the pyramids no worse than that already done by decades of being climbed, leant and graffitied on by the high-heeled denizens of the far more sinister cult of tourism. Suggest both arms and gates remain open on 12/12/12 for massive Sphinx love-in.

Aswan: Stalking Nubian children and festival

The Characters of Egypt festival is a 3-day 'cultural experience' organised by various Egyptian NGOs in conjunction with the Egyptian Tourist Authority. It aims to promote awareness of cultural distinctions and the variety of ethnic groups found in Egypt today, and this year included a special emphasis on improving the economic situation of the island inhabitants, and introduced a number of schemes promoting sustainable tourism. The festival is still relatively new; it has been held annually for the past four years, but has previously only ever taken place at another location in the south, near the Red Sea resort of Marsa Alam. This year for the first time the festival moved to Heisa Island, Aswan, a strange and surely deliberate decision given the political backdrop.

After the construction of the two Aswan dams in the 1970s, many Egyptian Nubians were forced to abandon their traditional homes to make room for Lake Nasser - and, according to a felucca boat captain we speak to in town, for government buildings on the numerous islands around Aswan. However since the fall of Mubarak many have begun to move back to the old villages in what he called an 'exodus of the Nubians'. Thus the atmosphere on the island on which we find ourselves is one of jubilance, optimism and visible, unshakeable pride.

The main festival area is a large, flat expanse of land in the north of the island, requiring a dusty trek to be reached from any direction and surrounded on two sides by steep slopes; a number of tents have been erected for the occasion but it is clear that the mosque has existed for quite some time, as have the numerous square, concrete houses that litter the surrounding landscape, most with stone front porches where the locals retreat for most of the daytime. On the first day we arrive the campsite stands almost empty. Then, along with several boatloads of men from Sinai, things begin to happen.

The first evening begins as if from nowhere; we are wandering back from the restaurant discussing how lovely and peaceful it is here when noise erupts from the smaller tent in the central zone. A sizeable group has gathered around a group of tiny girls with gold hoops in their ears who clearly live here and, despite being no more than about ten, can bellydance to a near-professional standard, to the ferocious beat of several drums and a twangy traditional instrument no amount of Googling can now unearth. Volunteers and parents join in and onlookers clap along following the example set by a man hefted onto his friend's shoulders, swaying to the music and dancing together in small, tight circles. The crowd grows and grows and then finally moves to the edge of the festival area where a band has been set up. Tonight, it is clear, is for the Nubians, and passes with one traditional dance after another - the majority of performers are men in white robes across all ages but the little girls frequently scamper into the circle and give them a run for their money. Around the edge the women offer encouragement in the form of cheers and claps, and we are dragged from one group to the next to introduce ourselves and speak with them to the best of our ability. The evening eventually dissolves into an open-mic event and a visitor from North Sinai takes over, chanting in Arabic between choruses roared by row upon row of men in checked scarves; the little we can understand is all about the beauty and majesty of Sinai and is apparently going down quite well. Everything is over by about ten o'clock but below are some photos from the evening's festivities:

As previously mentioned, many of the scheduled activities do not go ahead the following day, mostly because people are still arriving, and those already in attendance are scattered across the island and do now rise until quite late in the day - after last night's music ended most participants - or at least the male ones - gathered in the large bedouin-style tents to eat, smoke and talk with their countrymen until the early hours.

We venture out in the early afternoon as the friday prayer is ending and wander around the various stalls, including a French jewellery designer who runs an annual workshop with nine young people, and whose bizarre and abstract latest pieces (including brooches and earrings made from household items such as broken china, knives and forks) are on display here. Another tent (below) is full of festival merchandise and fairtrade, sustainable products made by the Nubian people on behalf of the contributing NGOs.

Drained by the sun, we collapse on mattresses inside one of the now-deserted tents for a moment's peace, which does not last. A gang of little boys that clearly live on the island come charging in with armfuls of abandoned leaflets and embark on some kind of impromptu origami workshop, making flowers, springs and then - surprise surprise - paper planes. When this began to flag attention turned to constructing a high-jump wall, gymnastics mat and fort out of mattresses.The following, because of the memories attached to them, are among my favourite images from Aswan; I'm only sorry I'm not a better photographer.

Later that afternoon we take a boat to the mainland for water, as for the purposes of the festival an obscure currency called 'dogos' has been set up in order to prevent locals overcharging for drinks, and render theft partially useless - but we have none. The boats are moored a short distance away from the main area and the restaurant, sharing their space in the shallows with a gang of young local guys who have helped set up the festival and are now shooting up and down in brightly-painted canoes. As the motorboat draws away from the shore they grab onto the back and form a chain, cutting through the water all across to the middle of the Nile.

The second night is even busier than the first, though feels somewhat more organised, perhaps due to the huge influx of fashionable Cairene backpackers over the last 24 hours. From a perch high up on one of the hillsides we watch yet more bellydancing (including the first male one any of us, including the two girls that have practised it for years, have ever seen), dancing on towering stilts, and dances involving the recurring appearance of some kind of ceremonial sword.

There is an undeniable sense of triumph in the air, of gleeful celebration that has little to do with the paid-for entertainment. We are by pure coincidence witnessing the rebuilding and strengthening of an ancient community and its cultural practices, all too often dismissed as isolated and behind-the-times when in fact it preserves only the values held dearest to the majority of the Egyptian population, with its emphasis on the family unit, on reliance on the land and oneness under God. As 'Zeinobia' has asserted on her blog The Egyptian Chronicles, 'if you are truly calling for a new Egypt built on justice then you must stand with the Egyptian Nubians'.