You Can't Make Mistakes.

Reporting on the technological forefront of asses

I’ve talked about the donkeys and horses in the city before. I still can’t help smiling when I see a donkey: the are just so pathetically adorable. Unfortunately they are often mistreated and underfed here. Then again, so are a lot of people, and I have to prioritize my sympathy. We all do.

Regardless, Stacey and I saw a donkey on our street the other day. The ass in question was attached to the cart of our regular bikiyeh guy, pulling it through speeding rush hour traffic in the left lane. He apparently was not hoofing it fast enough, because the guy switched the reins to one hand and then, with full arc arm-swings and an open palm, he just started slapping the ass—the ass of the ass, that is—with gusto. The donkey sped up, though only a little. The guy stopped when he realized that we were staring at him, and the donkey slowed.

I dubbed this “the donkey accelerator.”

Warning: memoir material ahead

I had one of those creepy, sappy moments last night that I always wince at when I hear from someone else. However, it left me with a warm contentedness—something that usually only a Xanax and two whiskeys will do for me before I get on a flight—so I felt it was worth relating.

I was sitting on the Metro, returning from Heliopolis, staring out the window at the city rolling by and suddenly felt completely at home. This came as a shock to me because I’ve been here for a while and it doesn’t often take me very long to acclimate, but there it was.

I’m not talking about some weird sort of assimilation. I can’t really assimilate here. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know. It involves too much compromise. What I can do is live here, by my groceries at the local places, speak Arabic in an attempt to increase fluency, and learn from everything I see and hear.

I think I just finally, about two weeks before I am set to depart for the States for the summer, realized that I live here now. I think that it may have something to do as well with increasingly solid plans to return and live here for a few more years in the fall.

Back to the feeling, though. It wasn’t like anything suddenly made sense or that I understood something new. It was just the utter normalcy and mundanity of that situation: I was exhausted, and just brain-off gazing out the window at recognizable buildings in familiar parts of the city. I suppose that this is when I should know that I have finally arrived, right?

Just when your marriage, job, academic course, mode of artistic expression, home, etc. becomes a little bit boring, THAT is when you know that it is actually working. When the new-puppy feeling wears off, that is when you have what you really want. Unless, of course, you are the type who wants to always feel like you are experiencing something new and different.

I am not. I prefer the boring train-rides to the helter-skelter variety. They stay on the tracks and you know the stops.

YOU want mint.

I was walking today and saw a kid standing in the street shouting and waving something in one hand. As I approached, warily, I realized that he was yelling—indeed bellowing—the words: “Who wants mint? YOU want mint! Who wants mint? You WANT mint?” I went out on a limb and assumed that he must be waving mint in that hand.

He spotted me coming down the street and ran right up to me saying “Mister! You want mint?” He was little, his head was at about the level of my elbow. I told him that I didn’t really need any mint, but he was persistent. He shook the mint and then shoved the whole bunch right up under my nose, instructing me, “Smell it. The smell is very good. You want mint.”

I couldn’t resist. I asked him how much, doubled it, and crossed the street before he could try to give me change. Little things like that make my day. It’s not everyday that you can feel that good after having succumbed to a sales pitch.

Sold.

al-Khamasin! al-Khamasin!

As I mentioned yesterday, we had a sandstorm headed our way. I have been asking everyone I know who lives here what they are like and I finally got to see one for myself. This was of the mild variety, though.

The sky was a little hazy this morning, and then all of a sudden it started to turn yellow and then orange. I opened the the balcony doors to bring in the mint plants and was caught with a blast of hot (28°C) air which smelled like clay after it dries on your hands and you rub it off.

The sandstorms are called al-Khamasin, which means “the fifty.” The reason for this name—as it was explained to me recently—is that the sandstorms generally occur in the spring during a space of about 50 days, beginning in mid-March and extending into May.

I already noticed the yellow dust beginning to collect on the balcony railing, so I went back in and made sure that all of the windows and balcony doors were shut tight, just to be on the safe side. I don’t want sand clogging up the pores of my laptop after all.

It was relatively uneventful, for the most part, but really cool looking. The sky just got darker and more yellow as the day progressed and then in the evening it cleared up altogether.

This is not always the case, I have been told. al-Khamasin have been described to me variously as looking like: a giant wall of sand approaching the city or like a hurricane of sand in the streets. From my friend Simon, I received a description of a particularly violent storm which happened several years ago. He recalled that the winds were so high that debris was blowing around all over the place. One man on his street was killed when a satellite dish blew off of the roof of a nearby apartment block.

There are also often what people refer to as “Red Rains” after the storms. Apparently, if the temperature and dew-point are just right, it will begin raining just on the tail of the storm, but since the condensation nuclei for these rains are very orange sand, they leave behind red-streaked rivers of bloody-looking water all over the place. I can’t wait to see this.

It is odd experiencing meteorological conditions that are different from those you are accustomed to. I imagine that my experience of a sandstorm is not dissimilar from that of an Egyptian seeing snow for the first time—which still feels a bit magical to me the first time it happens each year.

All that fuss over nothing

Well, no strike actually happened. The Egyptian security forces prevented it from even beginning:

Egyptian security forces prevent planned textile strike
International Herald Tribune – Sunday 6 April 2008]

And so it goes.

The weird thing about all of this—or maybe not-so-weird—is that there was definitely a sense of foreboding in the air last night. The streets were deadly silent. I live on one of the busiest streets in my district—generally full of traffic, and relatively loud until late into the night—but last night, there were points when there wasn’t a car in sight in either direction for several minutes at a time. The air smelled very different as well: free of exhaust. The last time I smelled air like that was at the beginning of Ramadan last year when the entire city went quiet for a day or two.

The expats were all abuzz last night as well, making sure that they were registered with their respective embassies and preparing to hunker down in case of some sort of conflict, laying in food and supplies in case it became suddenly unsafe to go out.

In the end, nothing happened, which I suppose shouldn’t come as a surprise. Strikes are illegal in this country, so of course the government would step in to prevent one. This certainly would not serve as the catalyst to any sort of angry uprising. But, the important thing was that many people thought it might, which is why everyone stayed inside last night. I hadn’t realized until last night just how clued in everyone is to whatever the current climate happens to be.

Though it is still relatively quiet today on the streets—possibly because of the now-approaching sand-storm—I still feel like the air is tingling with some excitement. I wonder what will happen next.

There is a bit of excitement going on in Om al-Dunya right now

Lately, I’ve been hearing from my friends in the States and from some foreigners here that Egypt is big in the news these days. So, I decided to do a little digging, as we don’t really get a lot of local news here. As I searched online, there were loads of stories being published as I wrote. This news is pretty hot, apparently. There are things going on: right here, right now.

A warning to readers: You’ll have to do a bit of reading, as I am not going to give synopsis of these stories, only commentary and reflection. Keep in mind also that I am not an expert, I am simply scoping out what is in the news today, just like any other foreign lay-person might, whether living here or abroad.

In Egypt, Upper Crust Gets the Bread
[Washington Post - Saturday 5 April 2008, Page A01]

Egypt mulling ways to curb price hikes: minister
[Trading Markets (Xinhua via COMTEX) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 12:35 GMT]

It is a common thing to hear about the growing divide between the wealthy and the poor here. It is sort-of universally recognized here as a continuing trend for which there seems to be no salve. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

Child workers in Egypt a growing problem
Centre Daily Times (AP) – Friday 4 April 2008

Child labor, as we might conceive of it in the States, is readily extant here. One of the most common forms of it, at least to my eyes, is that of kids begging for food or money. Many times, if I am watching, I will see a “street kid” dispatched from a location where there is some older person—generally an older woman, in my experience—sitting. It is a pretty efficient system for getting money off of people, it would seem. I usually see it in places where there are loads of foreigners living or working. Is it child labor? I would say so. It is probably necessary, economically, for some families’ survival? Very likely.

Egypt: A call for a national strike
[Los Angeles Times - Saturday 5 April 2008, 16:21 GMT]

Egypt warns against general strike
[AFP - Saturday 5 April 2008, 13:45 GMT]

Egypt’s Interior Ministry warns against participating in a general strike
[pr-inside.com(AP) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 17:03 GMT]

I was recently told by some friends here that there will be no strike, as the government agreed to the demands of the textile workers mentioned in the above article. They were seeking an increase in their food allowance—which is calculated as part of their wages—to correspond with increasing food costs. I was told that this concession was enough to persuade the strikers not to protest, but apparently this is not the case. There is apparently a sit-in planned at the aforementioned textile plant.

Price increases which squeeze the already meager means of an increasingly marginalized poor working class do cause civil unrest, which could lead to these types of strikes becoming more frequent.

Egypt detains 28 Islamists ahead of council vote
[Reuters, South Africa - Saturday 5 April 2008, 12:23 GMT]

Egypt arrests 34 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of elections and general strike
[International Herald Tribune (AP) - Friday 4 April 2008]

And a follow-up:

Egypt arrests 10 more Muslim Brothers
[International Herald Tribune (AP) - Saturday 5 April 2008]

Always a thorn in the side for the Egyptian government, the Muslim Brotherhood is often on the receiving end of scrutiny, surveillance, and police round-ups—especially right before any type of elections or political action, i.e.: a strike. This is of course relatively transparent to the members of the group. Their website indicates that they endorse the upcoming strike, though they are not the sponsors.

Egypt outlaws protests in places of worship
[Reuters - Saturday 5 April 2008]

A law such as this could be seen as related to continued efforts to quell interest in the Muslim Brotherhood as well as further instrumentalization of religious rhetoric to mobilize people.

Egypt hunts for terrorists in Sinai
[Jerusalem Post (online) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 16:44 GMT | Updated 16:47 GMT]

On another front, Sinai—always a popular place for tourists—is apparently becoming the hottest new place to plan terrorist attacks. The Egyptian government is apparently cracking down on this type of activity in order to preserve the always important tourism industry in Egypt.

Egypt’s Indian Bet?
[Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt - Thursday 3 April 2008]

World-class reception in Egypt to mark the merge of AWB [Al-Watany Bank of Egypt] with NBK [National Bank of Kuwait] Group
[AME Info - Saturday 5 April 2008, 10:10 GMT]

Last but not least, there is a great deal of wheeling and dealing going on in Egypt these days. Huge foreign investment deals are being struck, which makes this a particularly inopportune time for civil unrest related to economic troubles. Such events probably don’t look very good to investors.

There is a great deal going on in Egypt this weekend. Surely, I am not the only person living here who has an interest in what is happening around me. Joel Beinin—Director of Middle East Studies at AUC—published the following article this afternoon, which nicely sums up the current situation:

Underbelly of Egypt’s Neo-Liberal Agenda
[Middle East Report Online - Saturday 5 April 2008]

Well, we’ll see what happens. I’ll be sure to let you know.

Where is Grace Kelly when you need her?

The buildings in this part of Cairo are very close together. This goes without saying, of course: it is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Usually I don’t even think about it. I just know that the building next door is right across the narrow alley—or air-shaft, as the case may be—but I don’t give it a second thought.

However, sometimes it can’t be helped.

Recently we were awakened to what seemed like a day-care/pre-school age group of children singing—under the direction of their teacher—at the top of their lungs. They were really belting it out.

After that, I started looking out into the back alley more often. It’s pretty nice, there is a garden down there, a million cats, sometimes a dog. Even birds on occasion.

Then I started noticing the people. There is the woman who cleans continuously. There is the couple who have really loud sex early in the morning. The people who are always doing laundry and hanging it downstairs. The couple who fights most of the time—and when they aren’t fighting with each other, the are fighting with their kids.

Those are just my favorites.

What I soon realized was that my neighbors are often watching me as well. For instance: I woke up the other morning, pretty early. Now, I usually sleep with the curtains open so that when the sun comes out, I have a better chance of waking up naturally, without an alarm.

Well this particular morning, I woke up—chipper and ready to go—got out of bed, and stretched my back and when I opened my eyes and looked out toward the window I realized that the cleaning-all-the-time woman was standing on her balcony was standing there watching me.

A newly awake, stark naked me.

Not really seeing another option, and really having exhausted my capacity to become embarrassed, I just waved. She was entirely unfazed by this, and simply waved back. Apparently I am not the first naked foreigner that she has seen in the window across the air-shaft.

So, maybe this is why she stands on the balcony in the morning.

A little disturbing, but understandable. However, I will be closing my curtains from now on.

What’s in your ears?

I have noticed recently, as I ride the Metro nearly every day now, that people in Cairo are walking around with earphones in, listening to their iPods. This was not the case for a long time, even recently. I would often get on the Metro and have people look at me like I had just landed because I had earphones in my ears.

I suppose that I should also qualify this by reporting that it is indeed remarkably dangerous to wear earphones while walking around this city. It probably increases my risk of being run over by a car considerably. However, I have noticed that those who are relaxed enough to not pay attention to their surroundings here seem to have a very high daily survival rate. So, maybe not.

But I digress…

What I have been interested in recently is what other people are listening to in their earphones. I love having a soundtrack for the city. It makes me feel like I am a character in a movie. Not an actor playing a character in a movie, or even myself in a movie, but as though I accidentally woke up in a film, and here I am. It’s pretty cool.

Today my soundtrack was Elliot Smith, Joni Mitchell, Mika, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and then Herbie Hancock.

I like to imagine that everyone around me who is walking in time with my music can hear it also: as though they are also characters in the movie. They are better actors than the actor that acts my part, but he tries, I suppose.

I feel like I finally understand people in large cities in the United States. Most are not from there, many have earphones in whenever they are walking around. It helps to makes me feel as though I fully belong in the environment which surrounds me. I wonder if that is what the Chicagoans and New Yorkers feel like as well?

Does anyone else have a personal soundtrack? What is the credits music for your film?

Donkey, that is

So, this afternoon I actually saw a traffic cop in Mohandessin giving parallel parking direction to a guy driving a cart with two donkeys.

And they were doing it!

He backed them right into the spot, stopped, and then unloaded the cart into a shop. This just goes to show you that you can teach an old dog—or donkey—new tricks.

It also reminded me of an interesting phenomenon that I witness regularly. I call it: “The Green Acres Syndrome.” In this city, I regularly see horses and donkeys engaged in regular automobile traffic. Not so much downtown, but in almost every other part of the city. The closer that I am to the outskirts and the Delta, even more. This morning, before leaving for tutoring, I saw three donkey carts with 10 meter lengths of rebar on them. This is apparently the most efficient way to transport building materials as well. This is a common sight.

The donkeys are asmaller adorable too. Poorly treated most of the time, but cute in a pitiful way. Big sad eyes, floppy ears, dogged determination.

Horses are also a regular occurrence in traffic. Rarely ever have I seen people riding horses in the city, but in the smaller towns and cities in the Delta it is pretty common. Usually in the city, they are pulling carts with vegetables: taking things to market.

The best, though, the night of Egypt’s big Africa Cup of Nations win, there were people riding camels, horses, donkeys—whatever they could find—up Gameat al-Dowal in celebration with all the buses, cars, trucks, motorbikes and roving bands of celebrating Egyptians. It was a crazy night, but then, it was a big celebration as well. No reason not to bring the camels out for a ride downtown.

What I want to know is when the last time there was a horse-cart with vegetables in New York City. I certainly don’t think that it was within my lifetime, but perhaps not that long ago at all. It would be pretty shocking to see one there now, yet here it is such a common occurrence that no one even bats an eye at it. I think it’s pretty cool, overall. It reminds me that there are animals, and farms, and farmers: and that they are not that far away. One of the reasons that I don’t see this phenomenon at home is that the farmer that grew most of my food, as well as the donkey that pulled it to market is some great number of thousands of miles away. I would have a hard time figuring out where most of my food has been.

Here, though, all I have to do is ask the guy on the cart where he is coming from today.

Drowning a bit, I should say

Yeah, so, in an effort to get my mind off things&mash;and also because I was coerced/strong-armed into it—I joined the BCA pool league on the BCA team. Representing for the Brits. Yeah. w00t!

Yep, I said w00t. Look it up.

So, in the league, I think that we are currently dead last in the entire league. Tonight we played the Americans from Maadi, who are very good. They beat the living $#!* out of us. I actually got skunked. I did not, however, have to run around the building three times naked: the locals don’t approve of this sort of behavior.

Thankfully though, I am not that competitive. I don’t really care if we win or not: I just enjoy playing. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most of the folks in the league. They are deadly serious. I think that maybe they have too little else to worry about.

There seems to be a disease amongst expats here that is, in many ways, communicable. They take the simplest things to be deadly serious, and allow things to make them miserable that should be rather inconsequential.

Whatever.

I am going to go home now and read myself to sleep on Interview with the Vampire. Makes for interesting dreams.