stuck

It's the Christmas/ Eid holiday, I'm supposed to be in Dhaka celebrating with my family, but where am I? I'm still in Egypt. Masr just won't let me go. The post office, to be exact, wont let me go. I sent my passport back to Singapore to get a special visa for Bangladesh, my mother sends it back to Cairo, and whaddya know, it never arrives.

So I'm still in Egypt.

And try as I might to get out of this country, just for a little while, I really just need a tiny break, PLEASE — nope. No passport means no travel anywhere. No Jordan, Syria, nowhere. I can go to ...Alexandria. Where right now the winds will blow you straight into the Med.

So I'm still in bloody Egypt.

But on a less bitter note, it's actually been surprisingly lovely. Over the 10 days of vacation that everyone (all 8 of us foreigners left in this city) had, we fed, and fed and fed ourselves continuously. There wasn't a night where someone hasn't cooked dinner, there hasn't been a night where we havent strained our voices singing Christmas Carols. I now finally have acquainted myself with holiday weight gain. On Eid, my Christian friends came over, unplanned, and cooked us a five star Christmas meal. Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans — very white food. So on Eid, five days later, Salman (the only other desi around) and I took our revenge. We cooked desi food and forced everyone to painfully dance to bhangra music.

So I'm still in Egypt. Yay!

blood

All morning, I wondered what that strange moaning sound was. At first picked up by my subconscious, ignored by my conscious — but as it continued, at times more frequently, I realised it was the bleating, braying and moaning of animals tethered to every corner of my neighborhood. All waiting to be slaughtered.

They really weren't exaggerating. The streets really are flowing with blood. Every street corner. I walked to a friends house, passing by a big mother of a cow. I walked back home not more than 40 minutes later, and it was on the ground, skinned, gutted, head lying on the pavement, eyes shut, bloody slowly streaming downhill.

There is a bull tethered to a store window on 26th of July. A big fat bull, tall as a tall man. It stands there waiting, silently staring into the shop windows. Perhaps, he's trying not to think of what awaits him.

hmm

One day, you stand in your apartment lobby and accidentally catch your boweb (doorman) lifting his galabiyya above his knees — your boweb who seems to never wear anything but traditional egyptian thobes and galabiyyas, usually a turban on his head — and he has blue Nike (fake) tracksuit bottoms on underneath. You wonder if that's what Egypt is all about: a man who appears to be in a traditional galabiyya....with Nike tracksuit bottoms on underneath for comfort. Amused. Troubled.

thanksgiving

The first time I celebrated Thanksgiving — and it had to be in Egypt. And naturally our adopted country had a part to play — with over 20 friends, too many to sit around one dining table, my first thanksgiving meant not one, but TWO turkeys and tons of beautiful sides including gravy, stuffing and cheesy mashed potatoes. Sometimes, these Americans sure strike gold with their ideas.

PIE!!

Now you see it.....

Now you don't!

Chris misses home

I have a lot to be thankful for :)

arab-versary

It was only appropriate that I celebrate my Arab-versary in Egypt (yep - 1 whole year in Egypt)
watching an exclusive performance by Nancy Agram at Manial Palace.
The biggest (and ever-ubiquitous) female artist in the country, performing at one of the most picturesque properties — and all with yours truly standing next to the richest man in Egypt, Naguib Sawiris, owner of Orascom Telecoms, number one on the bt100, and according to Forbes, #62 on The World's Billionaires 2007.

Perfect, sa7?

How to Dance Egyptian-Sufi Style

No, no, no — you're doing it all wrong. That's Turkish Sufi stylee. Here's how we do it in good ole Masr.

Relax arms and let them follow the flow of your body. Swing ya pelvis to the right — Thrust. Swing ya pelvis to the left — Thrust. For extra attention, stand solitary on the mosque wall.

So I finally made it to a Mawlid in Egypt. The biggest all year, in fact, in Tanta, near the delta where the Nile branches off. Word of advice if you attempt the same thing, if you happen to be too lazy to get train tickets the night before and turn up at the station 10minutes before the train leaves the next morning, no fear, just hop on anyway and if you're lucky, a rare Egyptian gentleman will give up his seat for you when he notices that the 600 highly sexually-frustrated — highly spiritual too, of course, they're going to a religious festival, yani! — are starting to hone in on your sliver of standing space.

We'd been pre-warned. A million people descending on a tiny city like Tanta spells trouble for us foreign girls. If you go, make sure you sandwich yourself between bodyguard friends. In reality, it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, the only time I got molested was walking out of the big mosque. I love irony, I really do. I regret to say, additionally, this mosque — granted it was because of the crowds — was the FILTHIEST I have ever come across. When I put on my shoes before I was meant to because I didn't want to soil my socks, my friend told me off for disrespecting the mosque. I'm sorry, but I'm not the first person to be disrespecting the mosque, it's already fallen beyond respect.

Otherwise, it was an awesome evening. The hundreds of colourful tents, the sufi singers who sang like rockstars, the unimaginable amount of sugarcane! For the first time in over a decade, I got to chew on raw sugarcane bamboo. If I hadn't know this was a mawlid, I would've thought it was some sort of celebration of a sugarcane deity. Families were literally picking bamboo strewn about on the streets and taking them home to eat.

I asked this man if I could take a photo of him — he was just so rad
with his big green turban and big, colourful flower lollipop —
but he refused. So I sneaked one of him. Badass paparazzi-style.

Crates of shisha tobacco.

Shisha pipes for sale.

All day there were people streaming into town from all over Egypt,
sitting and waiting in cafes, sidewalks, the streets. This man was particularly
enthusiastic when I asked him if I could take a shot.

One of many tents.

What I dubbed the "Inside a Human body" tent.

song

I had a lousy night. Went to bed early because I was so exhausted, but got woken up an hour later because some dumbo decided to call me at the indecent hour of 12.30am (Alright, fine I'm the dork here but who cares). Ended up not being able to sleep until 4.45am, so I did some arabic, cooked some asparagus and gave Pookie some company. At around 4.30am, I finally started feeling tired so I turned off the lights and prepared my brain for sleep...But then the adhan for the morning prayer started, and so I stayed up until the 10 minute long cacophony of 15 different mosques within the vicinity finished calling the faithful to prayers.

Now, I love the call to prayer. Sung well, I think it can be incredibly moving and atmospheric. It's an art.

Unfortunately, my experience of muezzins in Egypt has been sour — most of them sound like they have frogs in their throats. At my downtown apartment, the mosque speakers were right next to my window — imagine the nightmare of being woken up by a really bad muezzin at 5am every morning, croaking out on extra loud speakers, pausing in between lines to violently cough out whatever bullshit has accumulated in his throat due to living in downtown Cairo.

So as usual, last night (or rather this morning), I prepared myself for the usual onslaught of ear ache. All of a sudden though, this beautiful voice rang out amidst the relative din — I'd never heard this guy before, but he was good. He sung the adhan in several different octaves, he stretched every note lovingly, he SANG like I've never heard a muezzin in Egypt sing before. I couldn't tell how far away his mosque was from my building, but the quality of his performance actually set his voice apart from the others.

I literally lay there in the dark, still as a mouse, with my eyes wide open for five minutes, stretching my ears as much as I could to listen to this guy. It was over before I knew it. Regretfully, I closed my eyes and fell asleep in peace.