Here we are washing our feet in the otherwise pristine pastel bath in what has become a nightly tradition. Plush though the apartment may be, it is important to remember that it's only by Egyptian standards.
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Aqdaam qadhra
Here we are washing our feet in the otherwise pristine pastel bath in what has become a nightly tradition. Plush though the apartment may be, it is important to remember that it's only by Egyptian standards.
Friday, 16 September 2011
ACL and Arab Money
We've moved in! By the end of tonight, time and energy allowing, this flat ought to officially feel like home. A late-night cleaning session and first attempt at home cooking leaves us, at almost 9pm, simultaneously shattered and elated. Tomorrow is the first day we won't have to get up for anything so the hope is once again to rise at about 2, Arab-style.
Supplies of all forms have been found at the enormous Carrefour supermarket around fifteen minutes' drive away, by the shopping centre. We have already accepted the fact that is impossible to do such a shop again without at least a spare three hours, the patience of a saint and probably a map. The supermarket is effectively four normal Tescos (or what have you) crammed into one; while the market offers fresh food at a comparatively low price, it seems most locals come here to do their shopping for more or less everything, stretching from five-kilo sacks of rice (the lift groaned under our combined weight on the journey back up) to homeware and school supplies. I've no doubt that the entire home decor of many Arabs is dictated by what they can find in boxed sets at Carrefour. They even have shisha pipes, a snip at £7. We get chatting to some Egyptian men in the checkout queue who offer to step in when it looks like we don't have enough money; neon washing baskets, hazelnut KitKats and the closest thing to Tabasco really were necessities. Thankfully the shopping centre doesn't close until 12 (that includes the H&M, Starbucks etc!) so if you need a power nap midway on one of the faux-leather beanbags there is plenty of time to do so.
Below: our disarmingly healthy first shop
We also visited the ACL Institute today, where we will be studying for the next year. Magda, who runs the establishment alongside her large part-Italian family, is not as formidable as we had been led to believe but certainly a firm and businesslike figure, understandably proud of what has been achieved especially in the last year (the construction of all-new accomodation is almost complete, and an on-site mosque). It is no longer located in the centre of town but a little outside, past what can only be described as a desert wasteland mostly taken up by oil refineries on either side. Other new additions to the only 'modern' building in the area include comfy seating areas, tiled bathrooms and a pretty garden mostly characterised by a cluster of giant stone mushrooms. As it turns out it will just be the 23 Leeds students studying here this year, which is strangely comforting.
Below: we cross the new garden where barbecues will apparently be held later in the year, and the dining room (the rest of the photos ate themselves).
On to a few pictures of our flat itself. It's beautifully furnished, as with a number of the flats we looked at, with polished dark wood dining area and marble surfaces in a number of the other rooms. Chandeliers just on the right side of tacky illuminate Japanese wall hangings, ornate vases and yes, the occasional bit of gold leaf. There are even two apparently antique rocking chairs in front of the back window which will probably come in handy when we are reduced to pallid, gibbering wrecks by exam stress. At present most people are sprawled on the sofa watching a film on Dubai One.
The back window offers a strange and intriguing view - the rooftop of what the security guard outside can only tell us is an 'American house', apparently from a long, long time ago. It's home now only to a mother cat and four roly-poly kittens and carpets of tangled, climbing foliage.
Supplies of all forms have been found at the enormous Carrefour supermarket around fifteen minutes' drive away, by the shopping centre. We have already accepted the fact that is impossible to do such a shop again without at least a spare three hours, the patience of a saint and probably a map. The supermarket is effectively four normal Tescos (or what have you) crammed into one; while the market offers fresh food at a comparatively low price, it seems most locals come here to do their shopping for more or less everything, stretching from five-kilo sacks of rice (the lift groaned under our combined weight on the journey back up) to homeware and school supplies. I've no doubt that the entire home decor of many Arabs is dictated by what they can find in boxed sets at Carrefour. They even have shisha pipes, a snip at £7. We get chatting to some Egyptian men in the checkout queue who offer to step in when it looks like we don't have enough money; neon washing baskets, hazelnut KitKats and the closest thing to Tabasco really were necessities. Thankfully the shopping centre doesn't close until 12 (that includes the H&M, Starbucks etc!) so if you need a power nap midway on one of the faux-leather beanbags there is plenty of time to do so.
Below: our disarmingly healthy first shop
Below: we cross the new garden where barbecues will apparently be held later in the year, and the dining room (the rest of the photos ate themselves).
Above: the sitting/dining room
Below: the, er, second dining room. Home to a collection of upset-looking plants I have made it my mission to look after, and also, the fridge. Then the kitchen and its floral gas canisters.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Alexandria Library - photos
Please see 2 posts down for a proper description of the library - images below include a floor full of old printing machines, the work of 'resident artists' and our new favourite book.
4 days in pictures
The burial site of the last president, Sadat, across the road from where he was assassinated.
Some of the apartment blocks on the journey out from Cairo. Bottom image shows the creepier ones, also present in smaller numbers here in Alexandria.
Our first sight of the pyramids in the distance - gone in a flash before I could ask him to stop. Which was just as well us being on the motorway and all.
The view from our dodgy apartment's balcony at night; no, they're not on fire, Boris just having an off day.
Alexandria as seen from the top of Natasha's hotel, and our new favourite seaside cafe opposite the library.
The only evidence for eighteen hours of predictable chundarr. Deko passes out after a tissue-crunching marathon.
Musings from the Fleapit
...that's the flat, not Alexandria. Ouch.
10/09/2011 02:30am:
I am writing this from the temporary apartment in Alexandria, two obscenely dirty feet up on the sofa not because I'm a slob, but because there are cockroaches on the floor. We're currently getting through our first minor incidence of being 'cheated' by landlords; having been assured of a clean flat with air conditioning, the reality is somewhat different. It hardly seemed worth arguing over £20 but as we discovered this evening, that's the equivalent of a taxi fare, drinks and two-course fish dinner for five people. But then again, it's this knowledge that's keeping me from being at all disgruntled in the first place.
We left Cairo in the early afternoon today. I have discovered that Egyptian drivers have two things in common with Sri Lankans: firstly, they drive Tuktuks (mad, rattling three-wheelers prone to falling over if they turn too fast), and secondly, when they say a journey is two hours, they mean four and a half. Even if this were not the case it was good we left early, as according to Al Jazeera - if we're going to bake to death, apparently it's imperative that we get to do it with a functioning television - protestors have stormed the Israeli embassy this evening. Latest TV reports show images of papers flung from the embassy windows, and people on the streets below running both to and from clouds of smoke and tear gas.
It's not until you try to make your way out of Cairo you begin to realise just how vast the city is. Apparently the city is home to approximately eight to ten million people, mostly crammed as we now discovered between the 'city centre' and the pyramids. A landscape under construction looms ahead as we speed down the main road, cranes towering above apartment blocks that seem both innumerate and impossibly high with just the faintest but distinct ghosts of pyramids, a long way off. On the ground people dodge between traffic and cats limp across piles of rubbish that take up whole sections of pavement (apparently, one thing that has deteriorated since the fall of Mubarak is the city's cleanliness). Then for around fifteen minutes we drive through an area more reminiscent of Ancient Egyptian-style housing; tiny, ramshackle houses just one storey high where one might imagine it would be cooler to sleep on the roof than inside. Then the flats spring up again, even more densely than before, and slightly sinister: many have no windows on three sides, no balconies, just boxes stacked perfectly on top of one another, reaching higher and higher. There are no shops, at least none I can see. Nowhere to gather in public, no cars off the main road. Just boxes. Photos don't do it justice; they really are bizarre.
And then suddenly you're clear again, speeding along an endless desert road that with its shimmering mirages and battered Toyotas could be anywhere in the Middle East. I promptly and completely unwillingly fall asleep.
By the time we arrive in Alexandria the sun is going down. It's a beautiful sight which I will describe properly another time when Harry Potter 2 in Arabic is not playing tantalisingly in the background. Alexandria is a little cooler and feels far more chilled out than Cairo; we've already seen a number of women with their hair uncovered, and locals in the evening gather in the cafes and shisha bars along the seafront, out on dates, buying ice cream, plunging through traffic with terrifying nonchalance.
We meet up with Natasha and her parents and check out two apartments suggested to us in different, far quieter areas of town than where we're staying at the moment. Plastic furniture spray-painted gold and pastel-coloured dressing tables are a recurring theme but here and there some of the furnishings really are impressive, and a shock considering the price we'll be paying (between £100 and £200 a month) and after tonight we have a pretty good idea of what we will and will not settle for. Fairy lights have been discussed.
I can't wait in the coming weeks to write in more detail about everything we've seen this evening. Once again it has been a total sensory overload (a horribly overused phrase but there really is no other way of describing it) that would take days to fully communicate. For now maasalama.
10/09/2011 22:48pm:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE HAVE A FLATTTTTTTTTTTTT
13/09/2011 10:48pm:
Still no internet, dangit. Yes we're still in Chez Cockroach, until Wednesday evening.
The flat that is soon to become ours for the princely sum of £130 a month plus bills is in a lovely area of town, opposite a primary school and not far from Sharia Fou'ad, a busy main street. When pictures are to follow there seems little point in describing the place in detail but certainly our feelings about the place are cemented by the presence of a Japanese-style mother-of-pearl-decorated screen, a keyboard, HUGE and ornate dining table and, perhaps most importantly, a pastel-pink corner bath. We stand on one of the two balconies and jump up and down.
The flat is owned by a lady named Ibtihaan and her four daughters, two of which - Dina and Riham - we have become good friends with, who have never rented the place out before and are only moving to their second flat further out in Alexandria on the beach. During the six hours we spend discussing the practicalities and then waiting for the contract to be properly drawn up, and over 'American coffee', Riham chats about her studies (her art course has been for the most part put 'on ice' as all the ministers, including the one for education, are being replaced), her hair (in common with quite a few Alexandrian women she wears it loose and without a veil, and the city is generally perceived as slightly more liberal than Cairo) and the revolution - in what she describes as 'propaganda', she believes Western media portrayed the protests as far larger and more dangerous than they actually were. Indeed, she says, in Alexandria they were almost non-existent. Dina, who at 19 is one year younger than her sister, is about to go to spend a year studying in Istanbul; if she likes it she will try to switch to a degree in political science, her true ambition. Both girls are immeasurably kind and hospitable and gently mock the Western preconception that Egyptians are all thieves. By the time everything is all sorted, the deposit paid and the 'no boys' clause firmly understood, it's about 9pm and we go back to the flat for celebratory 30p-for-12 falafel.
This, it turns out, is a huge mistake. The day we should have spent celebrating the acquisition of somewhere to live is instead spent lying on our backs popping immodium and having heated religious debates in an attempt to keep the gnawing cramps, shudders of hot and cold and feverish dreams involving cannibalistic Woodcraft folk at bay. It is inevitable and probably mostly down to the heat, truth be told, so it's probably good it has happened now rather than once term has started. As it turns out it is nothing that three rounds of Immodium, a sachet of dehydration treatment, Vitamin C tablets, eighteen hours' sleep, Discworld and a KFC spicy wrap can't cure.
With Deko still feeling a little queasy and me fizzing with the boundless optimism of the newly-recovered we agree to meet Natasha's family to visit the library, to pick up Vicky - the last of the four! - at about midnight, and somewhere in between fit in a cinama trip with Riham.
The world-renowned library is vast, even bigger than I'd imagined, and with far more English books. Past the reception desk, which is surrounded by the work of 'resident artists' and offers bibliographies on a number of prominent literary figures from Homer to Harold Pinter. Then, down a few alarmingly slippery stairs, the books begin. One enormous room with ascending levels, alternately desks with internet access (which predictably most occupants were using to check their Facebooks) and shelves of books mostly in English, French and Arabic - the library houses approximately 8 or 9 million, and inexplicably closes at 4pm. In a culture where the majority of citizens don't stir until 2, this means we will have to go entirely against the grain in order to get our hands on just a few of the fascinating volumes we found during our brief tour inside. Aside from a number of useful textbooks for Arabic study (and Hieroglyphs!) Deko became absorbed in a history of Hasidic Judaism and me a short piece discussing the significance of laughter in religion, and the role of women in Ancient Greek worship (can you tell which shelf we were at?). At the very bottom of the cavernous room is a map of the world from around 1150AD, with north at the bottom, on which among the wiggly and confused shapes of continents London and Lincolnshire were, to my amazement, clearly marked. We resolved to come back armed with passport photocopies to sort out a membership as soon as humanly possible - which technically ought to be this morning, but as I write this we are happily sprawled in front of Al Jazeera with fig jam and look to stay that way for some time yet.
Next we visit a cafe on the seafront and have 'lunch' at 5pm, watching the sun go down over the water. In Alexandria despite the extensive menus in most of the beach cafes fresh lemon juice rather than orange is the most popular choice, as well as tall glasses of yoghurt with honey that is initially delicious but leaves a funny aftertaste a bit like a farm in your mouth. There appears to be no correct time for smoking shisha and the majority of locals in the cafes, women in particular, are not without a heavily-scented water pipe between them. Those wearing the full headscarf with just the eyes showing deftly lift the bottom of the material, take a puff, and then drop it again with gloved hands. The sea is wonderful in the early evening light, little waves crashing against the rocks with fish writhing in the shallows, and not a cloud in the sky. Further down boys yell and splash in the water. I remembered the 'comfortable silences' speech from Pulp Fiction. Then the phone rings.
Meeting up with Riham to go to the cinema is ridiculously complicated as neither Deko nor I have credit on our phones yet - and then when we do, a recorded voice lists a number of options in Arabic that we in our baffled state assume is a list of adverts, and etisalat (a main phone provider in Egypt alongside movinil) have cheated us out of our £1.50. Eventually she gets our numbers from Natasha and we arrange to meet by the library which, given its size, isn't much of a help. "THE BLUE LIGHTS!" we both scream at each other for fifteen minutes. Riham's boyfriend Hassam, who is genuine, well-spoken and once again one of the friendliest people I have ever met, pulls up in the car and we drive to a massive shopping centre named 'City Centre' (lie) surrounded by brightly-lit American and Tex-Mex restaurants, slightly outside of town and not far from the airport.
We have a highly Western evening listening to Jessie J in the car, watching Captain America 3D and discussing Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist in a diner. Hassam finds my use of 'tasharrafna', an incredibly formal and old-fashioned word for 'pleased to meet you' that we learned was still commonplace, hilarious and is affronted when we tell him that in our textbooks Maha ends up marrying her cousin. Again the topic of Egyptian stereotypes arises and again we express utter embarassment on the assumptions made by so many people from our own country. I remember when I first put Arabic down on the ucas form and a friend asked me point-blank why I was learning a 'terrorist language'.
Later we make our way to Al Nozha airport, little more than two rooms and a vending machine where arrivals and departures are merged and luggage is dumped unceremoniously on the floor for a full-scale fight to ensue, if it arrives at all. Vicky emerges suitably traumatised and is not particularly comforted when her biggest suitcase is tied into the open boot with string alone for the ride back. But we make it in one peace and drop, exhausted, into our gold-painted thrones. Two more days, we remind ourselves as a discarded date on the floor mistaken for a cockroach causes immediate hysteria. Two more days.
13/09/11 18:42pm:
Finally found the internet cafe next to our flat. 10p for one hour, can't complain.
Pictures to follow...
10/09/2011 02:30am:
I am writing this from the temporary apartment in Alexandria, two obscenely dirty feet up on the sofa not because I'm a slob, but because there are cockroaches on the floor. We're currently getting through our first minor incidence of being 'cheated' by landlords; having been assured of a clean flat with air conditioning, the reality is somewhat different. It hardly seemed worth arguing over £20 but as we discovered this evening, that's the equivalent of a taxi fare, drinks and two-course fish dinner for five people. But then again, it's this knowledge that's keeping me from being at all disgruntled in the first place.
We left Cairo in the early afternoon today. I have discovered that Egyptian drivers have two things in common with Sri Lankans: firstly, they drive Tuktuks (mad, rattling three-wheelers prone to falling over if they turn too fast), and secondly, when they say a journey is two hours, they mean four and a half. Even if this were not the case it was good we left early, as according to Al Jazeera - if we're going to bake to death, apparently it's imperative that we get to do it with a functioning television - protestors have stormed the Israeli embassy this evening. Latest TV reports show images of papers flung from the embassy windows, and people on the streets below running both to and from clouds of smoke and tear gas.
It's not until you try to make your way out of Cairo you begin to realise just how vast the city is. Apparently the city is home to approximately eight to ten million people, mostly crammed as we now discovered between the 'city centre' and the pyramids. A landscape under construction looms ahead as we speed down the main road, cranes towering above apartment blocks that seem both innumerate and impossibly high with just the faintest but distinct ghosts of pyramids, a long way off. On the ground people dodge between traffic and cats limp across piles of rubbish that take up whole sections of pavement (apparently, one thing that has deteriorated since the fall of Mubarak is the city's cleanliness). Then for around fifteen minutes we drive through an area more reminiscent of Ancient Egyptian-style housing; tiny, ramshackle houses just one storey high where one might imagine it would be cooler to sleep on the roof than inside. Then the flats spring up again, even more densely than before, and slightly sinister: many have no windows on three sides, no balconies, just boxes stacked perfectly on top of one another, reaching higher and higher. There are no shops, at least none I can see. Nowhere to gather in public, no cars off the main road. Just boxes. Photos don't do it justice; they really are bizarre.
And then suddenly you're clear again, speeding along an endless desert road that with its shimmering mirages and battered Toyotas could be anywhere in the Middle East. I promptly and completely unwillingly fall asleep.
By the time we arrive in Alexandria the sun is going down. It's a beautiful sight which I will describe properly another time when Harry Potter 2 in Arabic is not playing tantalisingly in the background. Alexandria is a little cooler and feels far more chilled out than Cairo; we've already seen a number of women with their hair uncovered, and locals in the evening gather in the cafes and shisha bars along the seafront, out on dates, buying ice cream, plunging through traffic with terrifying nonchalance.
We meet up with Natasha and her parents and check out two apartments suggested to us in different, far quieter areas of town than where we're staying at the moment. Plastic furniture spray-painted gold and pastel-coloured dressing tables are a recurring theme but here and there some of the furnishings really are impressive, and a shock considering the price we'll be paying (between £100 and £200 a month) and after tonight we have a pretty good idea of what we will and will not settle for. Fairy lights have been discussed.
I can't wait in the coming weeks to write in more detail about everything we've seen this evening. Once again it has been a total sensory overload (a horribly overused phrase but there really is no other way of describing it) that would take days to fully communicate. For now maasalama.
10/09/2011 22:48pm:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE HAVE A FLATTTTTTTTTTTTT
13/09/2011 10:48pm:
Still no internet, dangit. Yes we're still in Chez Cockroach, until Wednesday evening.
The flat that is soon to become ours for the princely sum of £130 a month plus bills is in a lovely area of town, opposite a primary school and not far from Sharia Fou'ad, a busy main street. When pictures are to follow there seems little point in describing the place in detail but certainly our feelings about the place are cemented by the presence of a Japanese-style mother-of-pearl-decorated screen, a keyboard, HUGE and ornate dining table and, perhaps most importantly, a pastel-pink corner bath. We stand on one of the two balconies and jump up and down.
The flat is owned by a lady named Ibtihaan and her four daughters, two of which - Dina and Riham - we have become good friends with, who have never rented the place out before and are only moving to their second flat further out in Alexandria on the beach. During the six hours we spend discussing the practicalities and then waiting for the contract to be properly drawn up, and over 'American coffee', Riham chats about her studies (her art course has been for the most part put 'on ice' as all the ministers, including the one for education, are being replaced), her hair (in common with quite a few Alexandrian women she wears it loose and without a veil, and the city is generally perceived as slightly more liberal than Cairo) and the revolution - in what she describes as 'propaganda', she believes Western media portrayed the protests as far larger and more dangerous than they actually were. Indeed, she says, in Alexandria they were almost non-existent. Dina, who at 19 is one year younger than her sister, is about to go to spend a year studying in Istanbul; if she likes it she will try to switch to a degree in political science, her true ambition. Both girls are immeasurably kind and hospitable and gently mock the Western preconception that Egyptians are all thieves. By the time everything is all sorted, the deposit paid and the 'no boys' clause firmly understood, it's about 9pm and we go back to the flat for celebratory 30p-for-12 falafel.
This, it turns out, is a huge mistake. The day we should have spent celebrating the acquisition of somewhere to live is instead spent lying on our backs popping immodium and having heated religious debates in an attempt to keep the gnawing cramps, shudders of hot and cold and feverish dreams involving cannibalistic Woodcraft folk at bay. It is inevitable and probably mostly down to the heat, truth be told, so it's probably good it has happened now rather than once term has started. As it turns out it is nothing that three rounds of Immodium, a sachet of dehydration treatment, Vitamin C tablets, eighteen hours' sleep, Discworld and a KFC spicy wrap can't cure.
With Deko still feeling a little queasy and me fizzing with the boundless optimism of the newly-recovered we agree to meet Natasha's family to visit the library, to pick up Vicky - the last of the four! - at about midnight, and somewhere in between fit in a cinama trip with Riham.
The world-renowned library is vast, even bigger than I'd imagined, and with far more English books. Past the reception desk, which is surrounded by the work of 'resident artists' and offers bibliographies on a number of prominent literary figures from Homer to Harold Pinter. Then, down a few alarmingly slippery stairs, the books begin. One enormous room with ascending levels, alternately desks with internet access (which predictably most occupants were using to check their Facebooks) and shelves of books mostly in English, French and Arabic - the library houses approximately 8 or 9 million, and inexplicably closes at 4pm. In a culture where the majority of citizens don't stir until 2, this means we will have to go entirely against the grain in order to get our hands on just a few of the fascinating volumes we found during our brief tour inside. Aside from a number of useful textbooks for Arabic study (and Hieroglyphs!) Deko became absorbed in a history of Hasidic Judaism and me a short piece discussing the significance of laughter in religion, and the role of women in Ancient Greek worship (can you tell which shelf we were at?). At the very bottom of the cavernous room is a map of the world from around 1150AD, with north at the bottom, on which among the wiggly and confused shapes of continents London and Lincolnshire were, to my amazement, clearly marked. We resolved to come back armed with passport photocopies to sort out a membership as soon as humanly possible - which technically ought to be this morning, but as I write this we are happily sprawled in front of Al Jazeera with fig jam and look to stay that way for some time yet.
Next we visit a cafe on the seafront and have 'lunch' at 5pm, watching the sun go down over the water. In Alexandria despite the extensive menus in most of the beach cafes fresh lemon juice rather than orange is the most popular choice, as well as tall glasses of yoghurt with honey that is initially delicious but leaves a funny aftertaste a bit like a farm in your mouth. There appears to be no correct time for smoking shisha and the majority of locals in the cafes, women in particular, are not without a heavily-scented water pipe between them. Those wearing the full headscarf with just the eyes showing deftly lift the bottom of the material, take a puff, and then drop it again with gloved hands. The sea is wonderful in the early evening light, little waves crashing against the rocks with fish writhing in the shallows, and not a cloud in the sky. Further down boys yell and splash in the water. I remembered the 'comfortable silences' speech from Pulp Fiction. Then the phone rings.
Meeting up with Riham to go to the cinema is ridiculously complicated as neither Deko nor I have credit on our phones yet - and then when we do, a recorded voice lists a number of options in Arabic that we in our baffled state assume is a list of adverts, and etisalat (a main phone provider in Egypt alongside movinil) have cheated us out of our £1.50. Eventually she gets our numbers from Natasha and we arrange to meet by the library which, given its size, isn't much of a help. "THE BLUE LIGHTS!" we both scream at each other for fifteen minutes. Riham's boyfriend Hassam, who is genuine, well-spoken and once again one of the friendliest people I have ever met, pulls up in the car and we drive to a massive shopping centre named 'City Centre' (lie) surrounded by brightly-lit American and Tex-Mex restaurants, slightly outside of town and not far from the airport.
We have a highly Western evening listening to Jessie J in the car, watching Captain America 3D and discussing Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist in a diner. Hassam finds my use of 'tasharrafna', an incredibly formal and old-fashioned word for 'pleased to meet you' that we learned was still commonplace, hilarious and is affronted when we tell him that in our textbooks Maha ends up marrying her cousin. Again the topic of Egyptian stereotypes arises and again we express utter embarassment on the assumptions made by so many people from our own country. I remember when I first put Arabic down on the ucas form and a friend asked me point-blank why I was learning a 'terrorist language'.
Later we make our way to Al Nozha airport, little more than two rooms and a vending machine where arrivals and departures are merged and luggage is dumped unceremoniously on the floor for a full-scale fight to ensue, if it arrives at all. Vicky emerges suitably traumatised and is not particularly comforted when her biggest suitcase is tied into the open boot with string alone for the ride back. But we make it in one peace and drop, exhausted, into our gold-painted thrones. Two more days, we remind ourselves as a discarded date on the floor mistaken for a cockroach causes immediate hysteria. Two more days.
13/09/11 18:42pm:
Finally found the internet cafe next to our flat. 10p for one hour, can't complain.
Pictures to follow...
Friday, 9 September 2011
Al Qahera
"How is the city, after Mubarak?" asks Deko's father in Arabic as we pull away from Cairo airport, beginning the slow rumble through a sea of people and baggage, under an orange sky.
The taxi driver shakes his head and says simply, "Thanks be to God."
We're spending two nights here in the capital before moving up to Alex; Deko's aunt and her six children, ages ranging from four to twenty-two, have an apartment on the outskirts of the city. As we draw into the city it becomes clear that Cairo is, on the whole, exactly as I imagined it; beautiful, semi-dilapidated blocks of flats with satellite dishes clustered like tiny, dark insects about the windows, some still featuring the original colonial decor and aside from the occasional Novotel all streaked, stained and the colour of sand. Without wishing to sound like a total moron I didn't realise just how many people live here. Polished minarets stand side-by-side with Coptic Christian churches under a perpetual haze of smoke and exhaust fumes.
The next morning, having gone to sleep at 5, woken up at 2pm Arab stylee, breakfasted on liver and Somali pancakes and established that the bed was in fact already broken (apparently, Pyramids aside, Egyptians are terrible at measurements), we drive into the centre of town to visit the Museum of Antiquities. A few hours in the museum is simply not enough; you could spend several days here just ogling scarabs. Items on display range from ornate beds to oil jars to chariots to towering noseless figures, and then of course the actual mummified remains of eight or nine Pharaohs and - somewhat creepily - their pets and holy animals. Nowhere in the world actually has the contents of the sarcophagi on display and the whole experience felt more than a little unnerving; a number of mummies still have their eyes and lips intact, doing nothing to reduce the overall impression that you are rudely watching several old men (and one woman) sleep. Having always found it difficult to understand why so much of the contents of the tombs was moved in the first place, the idea that you can buy a ticket to stare at the occupants themselves in their naked and unadorned state feels irreverent at best. That said, as Deko rightly pointed out, they had in the first place wanted to be immortalised. We agree that we'll have to come back in order to properly do the place justice.
Below: Deko, god of luggage.
Finally we spend around twenty minutes on a crammed, rickety boat that does a brief lap of a very small and busy section of the Nile, Arabic music blaring and neon lights streaking the water. I get fired up on the excitement of actually being here in Egypt and promptly nearly get run over. In Cairo at night, all you can hear is car horns. The smells, interestingly, change wherever you go; we both comment on the heavy, perfumed air just outside a fruit stall, then recoil in horror as the drains come rushing back.
All in all, Cairo is more or less exactly the sensory overload you will have come to expect from a brief scan of any guide book or indeed one of the many novels set in these raucous, bustling, sweat-drenched streets. Nonetheless I wish we'd had a bit longer here. We agree that now is probably the best time to be in Cairo - we've been lucky to have this brief glimpse into what is essentially the aftermath of a revolution, and the overall impression? The majority of citizens are very, very happy. Speaking of Mubarak and those who supported him, Deko's eldest cousin, who was here earlier this year and remembers the ongoing terror of the armed men out to rape and murder family members of those protesting, and comments darkly that there is a special kind of evil that, regardless of religion, seems to be more common among Egyptian people than anyone else in the Middle East; a tendency towards violence, and - particularly concerning for her family in the past few months - racism. She cannot elaborate further but only hopes that this perceived inherent ferociousness can be turned towards the 'right' kind of politics - and away from the personal.
As for us - we're leaving today for Alex, a few hours' drive away. I'm currently sat opposite Deko's aunt who ispeeling carrots in the front room because the kitchen is too hot. It being a Friday the sermon blasts from the radio and from the minarets outside; the television is off for the first time in three days. That's all for now because suddenly, in the presence of other people, I realise my own pressing need for a shower.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Packing, or the Importance of Being Vapid
So - it's finally come. The Big Pack. The Motherclutter. Through vision only slightly blurred by the occasional weeping session (and unless the sight of Colin Farrell's retractable face in Fright Night was more traumatic than I gave it credit for, I don't think I can blame these little outbursts on anything other than being a massive pansy), cardigans, flowery chinos and Marmite have been dutifully piled into a suitcase really better designed for a two-week beach crawl than a plunge into the dusty unknown. They have all been promptly sat on. And rolled up. And sat on again. There's no way around it, I simply can not fit the cat in there.
What am I going to miss the most? Bacon sandwiches. This in itself is pretty standard. But specifically - and importantly - M&S unsmoked streaky bacon, pressed between two slices of Hovis Best of Both slathered with Flora, sat at a kitchen table listening to the hum of the dishwasher and the morning rain. Surrounded by the comfortable middle-class clutter of weekend supplements and fridge magnets and safe in the knowledge that Wife Swap USA is a mere button's press away, just as it should be. In short I will miss the cosy, pointless existence carefully cultivated over the last few months which I have a nasty feeling is about to be snatched away in favour of more immediate concerns such as, say, not being trampled in a riot.
Speaking of which. The latest from Egypt, according to the Guardian website (what was I saying before?): Mubarak's trial resumed on monday, no longer covered on live television, and this time attempting to establish the measures actually approved by the president in dealing with for the earlier protests. The allegations that shoot-to-kill orders, amongst others, were issued have been denied by a senior police officer but this has done little to appease the families of more than 850 people who died in the clashes this year. Images from the courtroom in Cairo show Mubarak stretcher-bound, craning forward like a turtle, caged and contemptuous and reportedly picking his nose while outside crowds gathered, tear gas and water cannons eventually employed to keep pro- and anti- Mubarak protestors apart. Many no longer trust the courtroom proceedings. For many more the outcome will simply not be enough.
In the midst of 'last' goodbyes, frantic Google searches regarding the weather and luggage restrictions and excited cooing at Egyptian currency, there has been little time to dwell on what we'll actually find on arrival. Travel excitement comes in stages, and this is no exception - it's hard to concentrate on policial upheaval until you've worked out how much duty free you can heave up into the plane. Ongoing concerns regarding hair removal and whether we still have time to secure a flat with animal-print furniture*, while undoubtedly trivialities, play a crucial role in holding off most of the probable reality for the time being.
Below: a few friends' notes and cheerful annotations** in what will become a journal for this year.
Thirteen and a half hours until we fly, and counting.
*We found one such apartment, promptly snapped up either by wealthy Libyan emigrants or possibly American students under our noses - the Institute handled it pretty delicately. I'm not sure which I'd rather face. Either way, a benchmark has been set and I will flay my own camel if need be now, with a Body Shop nail file. BRING IT AWWWNNN.
**Only three of the Seven Plagues of Egypt were included because the image of my crops failing was just too traumatic
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