Safety in the City

Cairo has been in the international news a lot lately, so I just wanted to assure everyone that I am safe and sound.

The bombing last week was in the downtown area of Khan al-Khalili, a popular shopping area with tourist and locals. I wrote about this in the blog in November. This is not anywhere near where I live.

I appears the bombing may be related to the fighting in Gaza. Since the fighting in Gaza has started there have been demonstrations and strikes, including a large one in front of the American Embassy. But all of this activity has been limited to downtown Cairo and the border towns of Rafa. Despite the seriousness of all of this, for the most part peoples daily lives have not been interrupted.

I feel quite safe in Cairo. Personal crimes such as muggings, shootings or stabbing are VERY rare. I can walk around at any time day or night and there are always a lot of people in the streets. I have several friends around town where I am welcome to crash on a couch if need be, and a few cab drivers who will pick me up anywhere I need. And i am also smart enough to avoid trouble if it can be foreseen.

I assure you all I am being safe - as safe as anyone can be in a city of 18 million people.
Thank you all for your concern. And I'll keep you posted.

العربية - Arabic

So, I signed up for an Arabic language course. My goals in this endeavor were modest:

1. To have a human conversation with Hamdy, the school’s driver. He and I spend a lot of time together - stuck in traffic mostly - and it would be nice to be able to ask him about his family and if he enjoyed his weekend once in a while.

2. To make my life a little easier here by being able to communicate with people around town, shopkeepers, taxis etc.

I have no delusions to try to learn to read or write Arabic, at this point. You do realize it’s written in script backwards, right? And I have already mentioned the ubiquitous misspellings all over town. We’ll tackle that one another day.

Not surprisingly, I find Arabic a difficult language to learn, but I am enjoying the lessons.

My teacher says it’s a “rich, flowery and very specific language.” That’s a nice way of saying it’s complicated and there is TONS of vocabulary. For example, there is a different word for an aunt who is your mother’s sister versus your father’s sister, or married to your father’s brother. This is good, to be so specific but in my opinion a bit excessive for my communication needs at the moment.

One of my biggest challenges with Arabic is that there are male and female versions of EVERYTHING - nouns, pronouns and adjectives (I haven’t gotten to verbs yet but I’m sure there too). For example, both ente and enta mean you, but you use only one depending on if you are speaking to a male of female; and the articles “the” and “a” have male and female versions depending if the noun it preceeds is masculine or feminine – dee or da.

Ana mabsuuTa = I’m happy*
Enta mabsuuT = You’re happy (masculine)
Ente mabsuuTa = You’re happy (feminine)
Howwa mabsuuT = He’s happy
Heyya mabsuuTa = She’s happy
eHna mabsuuTeen = We’re all happy
Homma mabsuuTeen = They’re all happy

And just for fun, the above literally translates to “I happy; you happy; he happy” etc. It’s implied I “am”. But there’s not really a word for “to be” the way English uses it.

This whole masculine feminine practice is foreign to Englis-only speakers but common in many other languages. And I eventually mastered it in Spanish, los amingos. So I have faith I will get it here too. But at the moment it confounds me.

Anyway, back to my goals. Since I started the classes everyone at work now wants to help me learn Arabic. They insist I try to speak Arabic and correct my pronunciation – a lot. Even Hamdy has joined in the lessons. He’ll point out things we see on the street and teach me the Arabic words and I’ll teach him the English words. Sometimes if we have time – or not – he’ll take a different route just so we can see new scenery and learn new words. It’s fun!

One night on the way home from work an Egyptian co-worker was in the car with us. Hamdy and I were “chatting” away – in broken English and Arabic. The Egyptian looked from me to Hamdy and back again. And was shocked to hear that we understood one another. He said, “I have no idea what the two of you are talking about but you seem understand each other. I think you created your own language.”

Works for us!

I am happy to report that Hamdy has two children, they are doing fine and they enjoy their weekends. At least I that’s what I hear when he tells it.

PS – Oh yeah. I am studying colloquial Arabic so no one outside of Egypt will ever be able to understand me. And apparently no one outside of Hamdy’s car will either. :-)

Dahab a Diver's Dream

Dahab, located on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula, is known for its fabulous snorkeling and scuba diving sites. In fact the Red Sea has some of the best diving in the whole world. So I thought this would be the best place for me to finally learn to scuba dive.

Diving actually pretty incredible. Think Jacques Cousteau only better because you’re directing the action yourself. I have snorkeled in many places around the world and truly the Red Sea is the best I have ever seen. Then to dive in these waters – it’s like the difference between watching TV and an experiencing an OMNI 3-D theatre.

But diving is a lot more work then I ever imagined. There is so much equipment and a lot to learn. I did two dives a day for three days and homework and quizzes in between. I was utterly exhausted. For the dive you wear a wet suit (the water was a chilly 68), mask, fins, snorkel, BCD jacket, air tank and weights. Yes, as if the equipment wasn’t bulky and weigh enough already, they strap lead weights to your waist to keep you down. You put all of this on dry land (except flippers and mask) then lumber to the sea and try to get in without falling down. It’s even more difficult then it sounds. Each dive consisted of practicing skills and then a guided dive. Skills included things like: the instructor shutting off your air supply and practicing to not panic; taking off and putting on all the equipment under water and not floating away or loosing the equipment, and of course simply breathing underwater.

The breathing technique is a lot like meditation or yoga breathing. One, keep breathing no matter what happens or how scared you are. Two, breathe slow and steady. Three breathe in to float up, breathe out to float down – and try not to crash into the sea floor.

It was a lot of work but it was worth it. To look UP and see fish swimming above you is just amazing. And the coral it’s breathtaking. I don’t have a good underwater camera yet, so you’ll have to make due with some photos stolen from the web.

Although I do not yet feel like a skilled diver, I am PADI-certified to run amuck under the water, believe it or not. I will get better with time. And one thing that I hope passes quickly is the feeling I got every time I had to spit into my mask before each dive. I couldn’t help it but each time, the scene from JAWS when Richard Dreyfuss is about to get into the anti-shark tank and he says, “I haven’t got any spit” would pop into my head. I’d laugh at myself but still glance around for any fins.

Mount Sinai

Also known as Gebel Musa and Moses’ Mountain, Mt. Sinai juts out of the desert and towers 7,500 feet. It is revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews all of whom believe that God delivered his Ten Commandments to Moses at its summit.

It was an incredible hike and experience, made even more surreal by doing it all in the dark. You start climbing at about 3 am so that you can arrive at the summit for sunrise. The night we climbed the place was packed. You could see just how high you had to climb by following the line of flashlights up the mountain. The path is well marked but crowded, not only with people but with camels and camel drivers trying to sell you a ride up the mountain. It was so crowded and dark that at one point I genuinely feared walking face first into the back end of a camel.

I found it a difficult climb. Two-and-a-half hours pretty much straight up with jagged rocks under foot and a cliff straight down if you missed a step. I was insistent that I wanted to climb and not ride up the mountain. But at about half way up the camel drivers know you are tired and they really give the hard sell. “You are tired. It’s a long way to go.You want a ride. I give you a good price.” “La’a. Imshee. No! go away. I am strong I can make it – huff and puff some more.” “Where are you from?” La’a. Imshee. Don’t distract me from breathing I might fall down.”

My flashlight died about two-thirds the way up, just about the time the stairs start. The stairs are simply boulders twisting and turning to form a general path up the last part of the climb. Neighboring climbers shared their lights and resting climbers shined their lights on the path. But it was still quite dark and scary. Your mind plays tricks on you. You see people in the shadows of the boulders. Or what you think is a person turns out to be a rock formation and vice versa. You hear strange things in the darkness. Did someone just call my name? Where did that song come from? What was that? To your neighbor, did you hear that? What? I didn’t hear anything.

You can’t see it but you KNOW there is a sheer cliff off the side of the stairs. So you hug the rock wall on your other side. Then the path switches back and you need to make the leap to feel for the wall again. Your legs feel like wet spaghetti noodles. Each step up is a Herculean-effort. With wet noodles for legs you can’t keep your balance. You fall left and right and oh hell no don’t fall back.

At one point, I simply found the path by trying to keep up with a group of singing Russian women. I don’t know what they were singing but it sounded pretty. Then a group of Africans started coming down the mountain, also singing and offering words of encouragement, “You’re almost there. You can do it.” It was a joyous crowd.

At the top, the singing continued. And of course lots of praying. There is a small chapel and mosque up there. And it was cold; no, freezing! I know you won’t believe me given your winter. But it was like 30 degrees up there with howling wind. And who packs a winter coat to go to Egypt – NOT ME. It was cold. Cold enough that there is a thriving blanket rental business on the top.

Blanket Merchant

The sunrise was beautiful. And the climb and experience were completely worth it.

Vacation

I escaped the chaos that is Cairo for a few days during the Egyptian school's February vacation.
In this past week:
I've been to the top of the world and the bottom of the sea.

I stayed in a 5 star hotel and a no star hotel.

(I'm curious which one you think I enjoyed more. How well do you think you really now me?)

I had sand in my eyes and ants in my soup.

And joy in my heart.

I carried more than 50 pounds of scuba diving equipment on my back.

And was not burdened by any load.

I lounged for hours with fellow travelers from around the world in Bedouin-style restaurants.

Stray cats vied for a spot in my lap and a share of my meals.

I lost my dinner to the cats - only once.

And we all purred with contentment.

It was a good and much needed vacation.

In the coming days I'll add more details and pictures of the journey.

Cheers!

The Pyramids

I realized I have been remiss in sharing some important and fun facts about Cairo and Egypt. I will try to rectify that in this and upcoming posts.

The pyramids are the only surviving object of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The oldest and largest of the pyramids was built for the 4th dynasty pharaoh Cheops around 2650 BC. It is 480 feet tall and covers an area of 13.6 acres equivalent to 7 city blocks in NYC . It consists of 2,300,000 limestone blocks (quarried from my Mokataam Mountain) each about the size of a large fridge-freezer and weighing an average of 3 tons. Lined end to end these stones would pave a single-lane road from NY to San Fran.

Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids were not built by slaves - not in the way Americans would define slavery anyway. It was more like a public works project; like how the American highways were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, or more recently Americorp projects. (Aren’t you all glad we did that crazy volunteer stuff in the 1990s and not sooner.)

The pyramids of Giza are the most well known and best surviving pyramids. However, there are like 35 pyramids surviving still in Egypt. The Giza plateau includes 3 pyramids and the Sphinx. It also includes a Solar Boat museum, which is a really cool huge wooden ship that was discovered under the pyramids. And yes, the rumors are true. The pyramids are right in the middle of the city – well Giza, a suburb about a 20 min drive from downtown Cairo. On a clear day, you can see the pyramids from my mountain – not my window but not far.

The are tons of fun and funny facts about the pyramids. For example, the Great Pyramid is supposedly located at the exact center of the earth’s land mass. Each of the bases measures 9,131 inches long for a total perimeter of 36,524 inches. Although the number may seem insignificant, move the decimal point two places and you get 365.24 the exact length of the solar year. Also the average height of all land on earth above sea level is said to be 5,759, the Great Pyramid is precisely that high.

There are pyramidologists that say if you draw a line from the center of the pyramids through the east west axis you will apparently hit the exact spot where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and later where they crossed the Jordan and apparently the lione also passes directly through the town of Bethlehem.

I don’t know if any of these things are true or just mythology. I just know that I can sit and stare at the pyramids for hours. I know they don’t move. But the sun moves around them, and like a canyon or a mountain, I just watch the light change the view. It’s awesome. It’s stunning and break taking every single time.