People are the mirrors in which we see ourselves

I know that this is a travel blog about Egypt, not a political blog about South Asia, but I just spent 30 minutes watching Fox News' (yeah, I know, I know - it's what was on in the kitchen when I came downstairs for breakfast) coverage of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and I have some things to say.

BBC News: Benazir Bhutto Killed in Attack

BBC News Special Section on Pakistan

New York Times: Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally

A lot of Fox's questions for their analysts (including Dennis Ross) had to do with what this meant in the greater scheme of the war on terror - to their credit, this wasn't their sole focus, and the correspondents did do an adequate job of keeping this coverage about Pakistan rather than making wild leaps in logic. I was confused at first by their discussion of whether the bombing and subsequent assassination had been carried out by groups or individuals linked to al-Qaeda or other international extremist organizations until I read the NYT piece posted above - I knew that Bhutto had been the target of an assassination attempt in October, but I didn't know that al-Qaeda or the Taliban were in any way suspected or involved. I found this article from the Telegraph (UK) about the October assassination attempt, but was unable to find any coverage of this on either BBC or NYT (I'm sure it's there, it's probably just buried under a lot of other news updates from the last few hours).

The Telegraph article states that a number of the U.S.-designated international terrorist organizations (specifically al-Qaeda and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban supporters) are known enemies of Bhutto, and that "the Pakistani Taliban has directly called for suicide bombers to attack Ms. Bhutto." The article goes on to suggest that she had gone back and forth with accusations of corruption and plots against her life with organizations and government officials supporting the aims of the Taliban et al., but I think this still leaves a lot of questions as to why Bhutto is specifically being targeted by any extremist group. President Musharraf has had his fair share of run-ins with those in Pakistan who are sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban...as well as those who are sympathetic to the basic notions of human rights, but I digress. (If anyone - Madison readers, I'm looking at you - could comment and shed some additional light on this matter, I would welcome it.)

Of course, there have also been the almost-immediate accusations that Bhutto's assassination was engineered by another group of her enemies - Musharraf and his supporters. With Parliamentary elections scheduled for early January, Musharraf's party has a lot to lose if PPP (Pakistan People's Party, Bhutto's party) supporters descend in full force to the polls. But while having her out of the way - theoretically - could help Musharraf to retain power, it could also backfire if the new leadership of her party manages to rally support around her death and convince its supporters to go to the polls in spite of the tragedy (the Fox coverage had some rumors of election boycotts by Bhutto supporters in light of the assassination). This is, of course, assuming that the January 8 election isn't postponed or rescheduled, an issue which the Pakistani government isn't commenting on yet, nor one which I feel qualified to speculate about.

Pakistan's state of emergency, which began in early November, was lifted less than two weeks ago; under this proclamation, the Pakistani constitution was suspended and numerous supreme court judges were arrested under a range of charges. Elections were first delayed indefinitely, then rescheduled for February and finally to the current January date. The state of emergency was implemented, according to the government, due to in increase in attacks by terrorist groups within the country and activities inhibiting the ability of the government to fight terrorism within its borders. If Bhutto's assassination was, in fact, at the hands of members of any number of extremist organizations - or if the blame can be fixed on such organizations - we've got a major problem on our hands.

Because let's not forget about what happened in another country, where a prominent government official was assassinated by a member of an extremist group and the events that have transpired since then. A twenty-six year state of emergency. A constitution that serves first and foremost to protect the interests of those who are in power, and can be stopped or changed as they see fit. An authoritarian government under which basic human rights are ignored and political rights are a sham. Where freedom of the press is non-existent, editors, writers and bloggers go to jail for criticizing the government, and they call off school to cover up a nation-wide news strike to protest these injustices. (Aha, the truth about my three-day weekend finally comes out.)

Are there differences between these two scenarios? Absolutely. Sadat's assassination was that of a sitting president, while Bhutto's is that of a political candidate and leader, now out of formal power for 10 years and an enemy of those in power to boot. While the speculations are flying, there have been no formal accusations or claims of responsibility for Bhutto's assassination by the Pakistani government or extremist groups operating within Pakistan or in the region. And as I said, nothing has yet been decided about the January elections, but to be blunt, if Musharraf is really worried about his party losing power to the PPP, this would be a way too convenient excuse to push back, if not cancel altogether, the elections, to reinstate the state of emergency, to start cracking down on anything resembling dissidence, and to establish formal channels for keeping your enemies - under whatever banner they march - out of power. Read the articles and make your own call, but to me, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch here to go from Musharraf to Mubarak.

Ma salamma, al-Qahira!

Celebrating my wonderful semester in Egypt with my Kanzy gals tonight. Lots of blogging and photos to come over my way-too-short winter break. Thanks for following my poorly updated account of Egypt this semester!

Oh, Egypt.

Yes, I'm still here and still fine.

But a little bit less happy having been without reliable internet for four days. :( Go figure that when I set aside time to blog, neither my computer nor the internet will be working properly.

Preview: Thanksgiving Break

Here's a preview of some of the pictures I took on my Thanksgiving Break trip to Upper Egypt. Full report to follow tomorrow; insha'allah a few longer entries that have been a while in the making will happen this weekend as well.

Left: Abu Simbel
Right: Philae Temple, Aswan



Left: Caprill and I at the Valley of the Kings
Right: Temple of Luxor at night.

Thanksgiving Break, Whoo!: Day 2

Woke up at a reasonable hour on Day 2 (i.e. not at 3 AM) for a huge breakfast and a tour of Karnak Temple. Which, to be honest, was not that much different from Luxor Temple - a pattern we would all detect over the remaining two days of our trip - but still pretty awesome. In addition to being famed for its size (Karnak is the second most-visited monument in Egypt, after the Pyramids at Giza), the temple is also notable for the length of time over which it was built. Beginning during the Middle Kingdom period, around the 16th century BC, work continued on the temple up until the Ptolmeic period, with much of the construction done under Ramses I, Seti I and Ramses II.

A row of sphinxes guards the entrance to the Temple; at one time, this extended all the way to the Nile, and was where the statues of the gods would be paraded between Luxor Temple and Karnak.

Hatshepsut has two obelisks within the temple, one which is standing and the other which has been knocked down - but interestingly enough, is still mostly intact.

Here's me in front of the sacred lake, which used to be filled naturally with water from the Nile. Now it's just a bunch of standing water, and mosquitoes, I would imagine. They don't call it West Nile for nothing.

We spent a lot of Day 2 on the boat, traveling from Luxor downriver to Aswan, and most people, myself included, elected to spend that time sunning ourselves on the top deck. I was alternating between napping on one of the chaises with some friends and reading Georgina Howell's biography of Gertrude Bell (good, but not as good as Janet Wallach's), when I was suddenly roused from my sleep by loud banging and yelling from over the side of the boat.

Naturally, my first thought was "Oh God, we are being taken over by Nile pirates." (Irrational much?) My first instincts proved wrong; we were not being captured by bloodthirsty river buccaneers, but approached by several dozen rowboats full of Egyptian men, selling everything from galabiyas (those long cotton garments you see Egyptian men wearing in some photos) to tacky t-shirts to women's scarves. Selling them to us. Four stories up. Over the side of the boat. Somehow, this did not seem to me to be a wise way to conduct business, but the feeding frenzy that ensued proved that I was of the minority opinion.

Amanda and I watched, amused, as one of our cohorts attempted to complete a transaction for a galabiya with one of the vendors. After haggling the gentleman down from LE50 to LE35, he stuffed the galabiya and a LE50 note back into the plastic bag, and threw it back down - the general idea being that you would receive your change and your purchase back. Except, when the guy pulled out the galabiya to get the money...no money. Furious, he began tearing through every other bag in his boat. No luck. He started yelling up to us, we started yelling back in a sad combination of English and Arabic, but to no avail. In the end, our man ended up with another shirt, LE15 short of where he thought he would be. I, however, was throughly entertained from the safety of my chair, away from the madness over the edge.

Thanksgiving Break, Whoo!: Day 1

My recent blogging frenzy is a direct result of deciding to stay up all night (well, sort of) prior to my 3 AM departure for Luxor on Tuesday morning. By the time we arrived at the airport in Luxor, I was seriously regretting this lapse in judgment, although the sweets Dan bought from el-Abd, an excellent bakery in Midan Taalat Harb, made the morning a little bit easier. Upon our arrival at the Sonesta Moon Goddess, we learned that our first day's schedule had been rearranged to allow us a few hours of sleep prior to our first excursion, an announcement which endeared our tour guide to us for life.

After four hours of blissful, healing rest, we enjoyed a huge buffet lunch (and some LE12 Coca-Colas) and set out on motor boats for the west bank to tour the Colossus of Memon, the Temple of Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, and the Temple of Luxor. I am still in awe that we managed to cram all of that into a single day, and without feeling like we had insufficient time at any of the monuments.

The Colossus of Memon consists of two seated statues of Amenhotep III, the last remains of his funerary temple. They are really tall, and not particularly well preserved. Needless to say, it was not that exciting.

Our second stop was the Temple of Hatshepsut, a funerary temple for the female pharaoh. Even at a distance, the temple is quite impressive - the lone man-made structure rising out of the desert cliffs - but the history and the power struggle underlying the temple, and Hatshepsut's reign itself, are even more amazing.

Hatshepsut dedicated the temple to Amun, the sun god, in an attempt to secure the legitimacy of her reign. Most temples of the New Kingdom period (all the monuments we saw on this tour were New Kingdom or Greco-Roman) contain a room known as a mummesi, or birth room, which depicts the pharaoh being born out of the union between the queen and the god Amun, thus suggesting that the pharaoh is of divine birth. Although Hatshepsut was not the first female to rule Egypt as pharaoh, political turmoil surrounding her reign most likely led her to feel that such an assertion of her divine right to power was necessary.

Hatshepsut's temple is only a short boat-and-bus ride away from the Valley of the Kings, through a winding road carved out of the surrounding mountains. After a brief orientation at the visitor's center, where we saw this sweet model of the valley's layout, we hopped the tourist tram to the entrance. Caprill and I sprung for the LE50 tickets to see Tutankhamun's tomb, in addition to our regular three-tomb ticket, and I'm definitely not sorry that I spent the extra money (even with the declining dollar).

We first ventured up to the tomb of Thutmosis III, Hatshepsut's step-son and successor. I say up, since after a brisk walk through the valley to get to the tomb, one must climb up the equivalent of two flights of rather rickety metal stairs to get to the entrance, and then descend the equivalent of three flights to get into the tomb itself. And let me tell you, it was totally worth it. The paintings in the tombs - all of them - are so much better preserved than I ever would have imagined possible, and Thutmosis III's is considered one of the best examples of funerary text art in existence. After that, Caprill and I hit Ramses I and Ramses III - where, LE18 later we had some photos inside the tomb (below) - and finally, Tutankhamun.

Our guide, Dr. Kareem, had warned that for LE50 we might be disappointed by Tut's tomb, but I thought that I'd be more likely disappointed later if I didn't go - or at the very least, I'd rather regret the money. I definitely didn't. Information about the reign of the Pharaoh and the layout and significance of the tomb is posted outside each entrance; at Tut's, they also had those classic black-and-whites from Carter and Carnovan's expedition. I breezed past these on the way in, but was surprised on the way out at how clearly I could tell exactly where all the stuff I'd seen at the Egyptian Museum so many weeks before had once been strewn.

We brought up the rear coming out of the Valley, and made our last stop of the evening at the Temple of Luxor. Luxor was one of a pair of temples - the other being Karnak - dedicated to the trio of Amun, Mut and Chons. During annual fertility festivals, statues of Amun and Mut would be brought downriver from Karnak for visitation. Carvings outside depict the various military victories of Ramses II and Amenhotep III, and inside show these pharaohs revering their gods.

Part II: Karnak and Adventures on the River Nile.

It's still 75, and I'm still cold.

The recent silence on the blogging front reflects the lull I've been in for a few weeks now here in Cairo. I haven't done any traveling since my recent trip to Mt. Sinai; however, on Tuesday morning I will depart for a three-day Nile cruise, stopping in Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel. Since we are an American institution, we take time off for Thanksgiving, and I think that a lot of my fellow students are as much in need of a break as I am. The infamous Cairene "Black Clould" obscured everything on the opposite side of the Nile this morning, and even the sunset looked a little smudged as we drove home at 5:30; my lungs will thank me for a few days away.

As things begin to wind down for the semester, I am repeatedly struck by how completely unprepared I am to return to the U.S. It's not that I'm not looking forward to seeing my family and friends again; rather, that I feel I have only just begun to find a comfortable pattern in Cairo, and to scratch the surface of what it is really like to live here. At long last, I have achieved victory over city transportation; having solved the mysteries of traffic patterns, cab fares and how to ride a crowded Metro train, nothing can stand in between me and my destination. My weekends as of late have been spent not on the road to exciting locales in the Middle East, but wandering my neighborhood with my friends, frequenting our favorite coffee shops and not considering a day spent simply walking and talking to be wasted.

In part, I think that some of my anxiety about coming home is due to the looming specter that is my college graduation, now less than six months away. I wish that I could say that my time in Egypt has made clear for me what I want to do with my life, but that's not the case; I have no more ideas, to be sure, but no more definite plans than I did six months ago. What I do know is this: whatever I do, I want to be doing it in Arabic. When I came here, I enjoyed the language - for both my triumphs and its continued challenges - but since September, I have grown to truly love the little nuances, the clever patterns, and even the occasionally baffling grammar that makes up the Arabic language. (Did you know, for example, that the verb "qalaba," meaning "to turn" comes from the same root, "q-l-b" as the word for "heart" ["qulb"], because the heart is something that may turn? I leave it to you to determine if that's a depressing or uplifting connection.) I actually like verb forms. I can hold my own against case endings. I can read a newspaper - not perfectly, but enough to keep up with what the Egyptian government wants me to think is going on. And Hans Wher and I? We're friends for life.

I had to write an essay for one of my classes this week about "My Experience in Egypt." I struggled with the assignment, largely because it was difficult for me to put into words (even in English) exactly what my experience here has entailed. When I say that everything here is great, or busy, or anything else, that's not exactly what I mean; it is all that, and it is more. Every day here is a joy and a challenge; time spent soaking up the sunshine outside Ewart Hall and struggling to recall my Media Arabic vocabulary, speaking in a combination of Arabic and Frantic Hand Gestures and speculating about what the future holds when the semester's over and half of us head back to the U.S. There are plans in motion - we're working on a trip to Istanbul in December, and I've already made plans to visit Stephanie and Molly in Pennsylvania in the spring - and until it's really over, and I'm standing back in O'Hare, I'm savoring every minute of being here...

Signs of Acclimation, Part 2

Today it was 75 degrees and partly sunny, and I was cold all day.

Always Thinking One Step Ahead

I spent this past weekend at Mt. Sinai with 10 friends, friends-of-friends, and friends-of-friends-of-friends (it was quite the group, let me tell you). It was a fantastic experience, and as God is my witness, one that I will never, ever feel the need to repeat. Let me put it this way, for future study abroad students or potential foreign tourists: if your idea of fun does not include a 3.5 mile uphill hike, followed by sleeping (and I use the term loosely) on top of a mountain, followed by waking to see the sunrise just before 6 AM, followed by a 3.5 mile climb downhill, then Mt. Sinai is not a good weekend activity for you.

The drive between Cairo and Mt. Sinai is supposed to take about 9 hours; we made the drive there in 7 and the drive home in about 6:30, thus proving that our bus driver graduated from the same school as myself and my father, wherein we are taught to regard speed limits as mere suggestions of how fast you might wish to go, but please, for goodness' sake, don't limit yourself. That would be the real crime. The bus was a bit cramped with 11 of us, but the price was right and the company entertaining. We ate an enormous lunch at a restaurant inside the preservation area before heading over to the trail entrance.

This was when our troubles began. There are two trails to the top of Mt. Sinai, the Camel Trail, which is a series of sloping switchbacks culminating in 750-odd stone stairs to the summit, or the Stairs of Repentance, which are 3500-odd steps that snake up the mountain to the summit. Arriving at the tourist police checkpoint just after 2 PM, we had hoped to get started right away, taking the Camel Trail up, but we ran into a problem: all tourists making the ascent, regardless of what time, are now required to have a registered guide with them. (Nevermind the fact that both trails are very straightforward, and since we would be overnight guests, all our climbing would be during daylight hours.) This isn't the first time we've squabbled with the police over having escorts on our various excursions (and wouldn't be the only time this trip, either), but in the end, they stuck us with Sulieman, nickname Alex, an 18-year-old kid who claimed to have climbed Mt. Sinai 1,003 times.

And I'm sure that his pace was perfectly appropriate for someone who climbed Mt. Sinai for a living, or even someone who has taken a lot more time to workout than I have. To say that the climb up was grueling is a gross understatement; by the halfway point, I felt like my lungs were going to collapse and my head was going to explode. To top it off, I've been recovering from a minor cold for a few days now, a recovery which is apparently going to be a bit prolonged now. It could have been a lot worse, though - Jessamyn, my friend and sometimes-roommate from my Eid vacation in Jordan got altitude sickness from the climb (about 7,500 feet), spent most of the night throwing up, and had an absolutely agonizing time on the descent and the subsequent bus ride home.

My frequent need to stop and rest on both the ascent and descent, however, gave me the chance to take some great photographs and to enjoy the scenery. The sky was absolutely amazing for the entire trip; only a few white wispy clouds during daylight, and clear skies providing a blanket of perfect stars at night. Granted, this probably kept it a little bit colder, but the view from the mountaintop far outstripped any I've ever seen in my life. I really loved seeing mountains again; after my Eid trip to Jordan, I've developed quite an affinity for deserts and mountains, and the Sinai geography is quite similar to that of the Jordanian mountains where I spent time in October.

We reached the top literally at sunset, snapped a few photos, and continued up a few dozen steps to the summit to rest, take in the view, and put on a few additional layers of clothing. Accomodation was Problem Number 2 of the trip: originally, several members of our group had expressed interest in staying on top of the mountain, while others, myself included, wished to stay a few hours at a local camp before making the ascent at about 2 AM. We had heard about a good place to stay from some friends who did Sinai before Eid; what we failed to register was that the camp was located in the town of St. Catherine, not within the preservation area itself. After fighting with the tourist police in broken Arabic over the guide issue, we decided not to push for the hotel, instead electing for everyone to stay on the mountain. We were able to rent blankets and thin mattresses at the top, and I ended up snuggling with three of my girlfriends under our collective four blankets for extra heat. My head was freezing all night - I wrapped my scarf hijab-style around my head and neck before going to bed, but the gauzy wrap did little against the cold. Aside from that, though the night could have been worse - I'd estimate that I probably slept a total of six hours between about 7 PM and 5 AM, when the early-morning tourists stared pouring in.

Caprill, Jessamyn and I all made the descent together the next morning - Jess and I were both slow-going because of health discomforts, and Caprill was good enough to mommy us all the way down, letting us rest frequently and making us drink plenty of water. We ultimately elected not to visit the monastery, after being informed by our friend Amanda that it was a) crowded, b) boring, and c) not possible/permissible to take photos inside. I did some shots outside instead, and we perused the vendors set up around the monastery. I bought myself a small blue stone vase (successfully haggled down to LE30) and some postcards; one of the guys on the trip managed to convince the vendor to sell him the Saudi-made kufeya off his back for LE65.

On our way out, we got into fistcuffs with the tourist police again, this time over their insistence that we take an armed security escort back to Cairo. We'd been told on Friday that we could sign a waiver and avoid the extra passenger, but come to find out today that this wasn't possible. After some grumbling from everyone, I pointed out the fact that this guy's trip to Cairo was his problem, not ours, and as long as we didn't have to pay for any of it, it didn't matter. Truly, I do not know what this guy's purpose was - well, no, I do, it's because we're Americans and Mubarak is, according to Jessamyn, "trying to cover his ass" - because we didn't get through security checkpoints any faster or more efficiently with him sitting in the front seat. We've almost been required to have escorts back on two other trips - Alexandria and Jordan - but both times the idea was dropped when they found out we were students rather than "real tourists." For me, it's a bit unnerving; I am well past the point where I consider the level of policing in this city to be anything that makes me safer, and certainly not any more comfortable with my surroundings. The security guy mostly kept to himself, talking to the driver occasionally, and I'm sure that driving back to the Sinai is going to be a great time for both of them...

Insha'allah I'll add some photos tomorrow - right now I'm off to eat a quick dinner with the roommate and then study for a grammar exam I have on Monday. Look forward to rocks and more posts this week!

Crying's not for me, no.

When I woke up this morning, it was raining. The shuttle was basically deserted - apparently, a lot of people just don't go to class on days that it rains - so the driver had one of the English-language radio stations on, and there were people calling in to report one and two hour delays between Heliopolis and downtown. A lot of the streets were flooding - they let me off the shuttle a block early because the normal drop point was under a few inches of water - and even though the streets were less crowded than usual, people were driving worse than usual.

I think it's like how people from Michigan make fun of everyone else when they get an inch of snow and cancel school and call in to work and drive like idiots; when it rains, everyone goes crazy.

Public Service Announcement

Hi everyone,

Sorry that the posting has been light lately - my classes kept me really busy last week, and I spent the recent Eid al-Fitr holiday in Jordan. The trip was absolutely amazing, so look for a series of posts on that over the next few days. Additionally, I have some highlights from last week that I wasn't able to post about then, so I'll be putting up a few backdated entries this week as well (insha'allah). Look for most of those to be appearing between the October 1 and October 11 entries.

I'll be uploading and organizing photos from Jordan later tonight; you can find the link to those in the left-hand navigation bar.

Love,
Liz

Jordan!: Days 4 and 5

I've always considered myself to be a city girl, in spite of my suburban upbringing. Throughout my childhood (and indeed, until about a month ago) the idea of sleeping outside of a semi-permanent structure, and moreover, not showering on a regular basis, held absolutely no appeal for me. I live in a world with electricity and indoor plumbing, why should I elect to go without those things when it's not absolutely necessary?

Forget that Liz. She is gone; wandered off a cliff or into the swirling red sands in Wadi Rum. Since my return from Jordan, I have wanted nothing more than to go back to the desert, to watch sunsets and sunrises over an endless horizon, to walk through the sand barefoot, to sleep under nothing but a blanket of stars. (Well, stars and a nice, thick sleeping bag. Maybe a couple of sweatshirts. And a scarf, and socks. Socks are a must if you are going to the desert.)

We arrived in Wadi Rum at dusk, threw our bags into the tents, and set out to explore the cliffs around the campsite. I led Caprill up to an overhang near our camp, which would later provide some excellent photo opportunities; unfortunately, within minutes my utter lack of night vision would become a serious problem, as we struggled to find the way back down to camp without walking off the edge of a cliff. Luckily some guys from the tour group who were departing camp that evening showed us the way back down, and we grabbed a few teas and found seats around the central fire ring.

Our fellow campers were part of an Arab tour group (our guide said they were probably from the Levant - Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or Palestine - but not which part specifically), and they were, for lack of a more suitable term, tearing it up. Colored lights were set up, Arabic music was blaring on the stereo (I recognized some Sa'ad al-Sougyer) and the men were out there shaking their hips like there was no tomorrow. Anyone who suggests that bellydancing is just for women, quite frankly, is a moron - it is absolutely hypnotizing to watch these men dance. For a few numbers, specifically "Hetagowaz," a number of the women joined in, but the men dominated the floor throughout the evening. Later, after that group departed for Amman, we switched over to some American club standards and danced for about an hour before setting out for a nighttime desert trek.

We were led maybe a quarter of a mile out into the red sand desert, just far enough to be outside the lights of our camp and the one around the mountain, but close enough that the odds of us getting lost were fairly low. And then, for an hour, we just laid in the sand, looking up at the most amazing stars I've ever seen in my life and watching them shoot across the sky. We returned to the campsite briefly to suit up in additional sweatshirts and socks, grabbed a few blankets, and went back out for another hour or hour and a half, swapping ghost stories and memories from time to time, but mostly just laying in the sand and soaking up the incredible view above.

After only a few short hours of sleep, Mark woke us up (by scratching on the wall of our tent and scaring the living daylights out of all of us) and we all piled into Jeeps for a sunrise tour of the desert. Our first stop was only about two miles from our campsite; we climbed a beautiful dune and with the mountain behind us and a plain below, watched one of the most amazing sunrises I've ever been lucky enough to see. After sunrise, we got back in the cars and drove across the plain to see an ancient map of the mountain chain. Carved into a huge rock that I can best describe as a dolman (you know, where you eat your Dole pineapple) is a scale map of the major mountains in Wadi Rum, encompassing their height and location, both in relation to one another and to a handful of small rivers and streams in the area. Abier told us that when the map was rediscovered by European archaeologists - having been known for years only through oral tradition - they used military helicopters to check the accuracy, and discovered that the ancient stone map was better than the ones they had developed!

Upon our return to camp, we enjoyed a huge breakfast of eggs, bread, foul and vegetables, then packed up our belongings and departed for the Dead Sea, our last stop before heading back to Cairo...

Jordan!: Day 3

On Saturday, we woke up at an ungodly hour in order to eat and depart for Petra, 3 hours outside Amman, by 7 AM. Most people spent the bus ride down sleeping; as on most of the trip, I found myself unable to do so, partially because of the discomfort of sleeping on a bus, but also because I didn't want to miss a minute of the amazing scenery. Jordan is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and the mountains south of Amman are particularly amazing; all red stone, dotted with mountain scrub and small towns every now and again, absolutely breathtaking.

We began our visit to Petra by passing through - what else? - the corridor of vendors who set up shop outside the visitor's center and ticket office. Nearly all were selling scarves, sunglasses, and of course, fedoras; Indiana Jones was referenced in nearly every sign, although one shop was, strangely, calling itself "Titanic Souvenirs" and advertised with a large placard painted with an ocean liner of some sort. After a quick bathroom stop (and hat stop, for some of our group), we started down the Siq, the mountain passage leading to the ruins themselves. Having shelled out for admission, the majority of our group opted for the included horseback ride, covering the sunniest portion of the trail fairly quickly. Yes, that's right - this makes two times that I've voluntarily gotten on a horse since coming to the Middle East, and let me tell you, having a horse that's actually willing to move of its own accord? Fantastic.

Our guide in Petra was awful; even when I kept up with him, I picked up neither interesting nor useful information about the site or its history. Maybe he would have been better at the ruins, instead of on the trail to the ruins? I don't know. In any case, I spent most of the walk (approximately one mile) chatting with my friends and fellow travelers and taking tons of photos of the scenery.

The arrival at the Treasury is an abrupt one; one minute you're walking along with only the layered red rock to distract your eye, and suddenly there it is, peeking through the narrow gorge, and two steps later you're there. It was...awesome. Really, the film doesn't do the structure justice; the most interesting parts are at the top, far from all of the Jones' action. Our guide did point out one aspect of the facade that was worthy of note; if you look along the edges of the carvings near the top, you see a series of spaced square holes. This is the remains of the scaffolding erected by Nabataeans to carve the topmost section of the Treasury. How amazing to think about something like this being done over two thousand years ago!

Caprill and I enjoyed tea and conversation with a Bedouin guide at a snack tent in the Treasury canyon, then moved on to explore the rest of the site. She wasn't feeling too well, so I left her sitting on a crop of rocks with water and our bags while I wandered a bit with my camera, snapping photos and attempting to scale some of the low cliffs with my non-existent upper body strength. After about an hour of exploring as far as the amphitheater, it became apparent that Caprill wasn't getting any better, and that being out in the sun probably wasn't helping. We started back to the bus with about 90 minutes to spare, and ended up in the parking lot smack on time - but of course, as Jordan still runs on Middle Eastern time, we beat our guide and chaperone back by nearly half an hour.

The next stop on our whirlwind tour was Aqaba, a resort town on the Red Sea. Stephanie and I left Caprill in our room to sleep off her nausea, and hit the town with Molly and Jessamyn for dinner, sweets, and mouz bilaban (blended bananas with milk and sugar) at some local establishments. I had stuffed grape leaves - one of my favorite dishes at Woody's Mediterranean Oasis in East Lansing - for the first time since my arrival in the region, and they were delicious, though nothing compared to the sweets and nuts we stocked up on during our walk back to the hotel.

After an amazing night of sleep, we took breakfast at our hotel followed by a glass-bottomed boat ride in the Red Sea. Some of our group members took advantage of this opportunity to swim and snorkel; lacking a bathing suit, I was not one of them, and wasn't sorry when the girls came out in their bikinis and all the Arab men on the boat aimed their cameras and cameraphones at them. (Gross.) After lunch at our choice of American medium-speed food establishments (I had Quizno's, and they gave us free Icees), we boarded the bus for the drive to Wadi Rum, and what would ultimately be my favorite part of the trip...

Jordan!: Days 1 & 2

So as many of you are aware, I traveled to Jordan over the Eid al-Fitr break. Although the entire weekend is colloquially referred to as Eid, or eegazat al-Eid, the term technically refers to the day when a specific phase of the crescent moon is spotted and religious authorities (in Egypt, al-Azhar) declare the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. For most Egyptian Muslims, however, Eid means a few extra days off of school or work, time to spend with family. And also to go shopping - the biggest retail days in Egypt are the days immediately before and after Eid, much like Black Friday in the United States.

Our adventure began on Thursday, October 11, which was coincidentally Stephanie's 22nd and Amanda's 21st birthday. Caprill, Stephanie, Jessamyn and I caught a cab to Zamalek around 6:15 and arrived just after 6:30 in front of the dorms. Outside, many of our fellow travelers and classmates embarking on their own weekend adventures congregated; the Red Sea was another popular destination, as many study abroad students have taken advantage of comparatively inexpensive diving courses in Cairo. Just after 7 PM, the shuttle to the airport arrived, and we discovered that Abierd, who works in the counseling department at AUC and was one of the organizers of the Alexandria trip, was coming with us.

We enjoyed coffee and Cinnabon in one of the airport lounges during the downtime between our arrival at the airport and departure for Jordan, and arrived in Amman just before midnight following a relatively uneventful flight. After receiving our visas and changing our money (ouch - JD1 = USD1.50 = LE8) we headed for the hotel and went to sleep almost immediately upon arrival.

After breakfast the next morning - cheese, eggs, tomatoes, foul, pretty standard fare around here - we boarded the bus for a quick turn around Amman. Jordan, along with the majority of the Muslim world, began Eid al-Fitr on Friday (10/12), but Egypt didn't start until the following day (we were all hoping for an extra day off when we returned, but no such luck!), so the streets and sidewalks of Amman were nearly deserted, and we had to drive for almost an hour before locating an open currency exchange store.

Afterwords, we drove to Ajlun Castle, a fortress built by the nephew of Salah al-Din (better known as Saladin in the English-speaking world) in a strategic and resource-rich location near present-day Amman. Our tour guide for the site left a lot to be desired - I think I learned more reading the Wikipedia entry on Ajlun than I did listening to him - but the castle itself was a blast and a half, with plenty of collapsed walls to climb and few notions about safety to impede our explorations. At one point, Jessamyn jumped about six feet into a pitch-black room; we were all set to follow before realizing that there was no way out except the way in. On a clear day, you can see all the way to the Golan Heights and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; unfortunately that day, as for most of our trip, the weather was moderately overcast.

On the way from Ajlun back to Amman and the ruins of Jerash, our bus broke down. Someone up front suggested that with 26 people, we could probably get out and push it a la Little Miss Sunshine; instead, our guide opted for having us walk the rest of the way to Jerash, maybe three-quarters of a mile, tops. We ate lunch at a restaurant near the ruins, an excellent meal of chicken, rice with lamb and pine nuts, salads, and fruit. Jessamyn met the proprietor, the man who intends to be her husband; I told her that between him and the teenaged boys at Ajlun, she'd probably be better off starting a fan website and having business cards printed up with the URL.

Jerash was fantastic, definitely one of my favorite stops of the weekend. Although most of the ruins are distinctly Roman, the city was first built by the Greeks, and so in some places you find the remains of Greek temples and architecture covered in the (relatively) more recent Roman construction. I think that I took some of my best photos of this entire study abroad at Jerash...too bad it's in Jordan, or I'd be sweeping the study abroad photo contest. Our evening in Amman was fairly low-key, dinner and a brief bus tour of the city, where we got to see the second-largest U.S. Embassy in the world (the largest, of course, is in Baghdad) which was guarded by (among other things) a tank topped by enough guns to take down all the armies of Mordor, for example, with plenty to spare.

The next morning, we got up at a ridiculous hour to drive to the site of all my childhood dreams: Petra. Stay tuned for Part 2...

Study Abroad Dictionary

Misr

1. N. Arabic name for Egypt (officially:Jumhuriyyat Misr al-Arabiyya).

2. N. Egyptian Arabic name for Cairo.

3. N. Something unpleasant that you can step in, usually found on neighborhood roads (e.g. puddles of dirty water, animal droppings). I was walking down the street, and I got misr all over my foot.

4. Exclamatory. Misr! My clean shirts fell off the clothesline into the dirt!

Egypt

1. Country located in northeast Africa.

2. V. To cram large numbers of people into a small space (e.g. an apartment or shuttle). Nobody gets left behind, we're going to Egypt it.

Yalla, yalla, al-Ahly!

I went to my first al-Ahly match last night, with four Americans and seven Egyptians, five of whom were named Mohammed. Al-Ahly is one of Cairo's two club soccer (football, whatever) teams (the other is Zamalek), but is overwhelmingly the more popular of the two. The name "Al-Ahly" means "the family" in Arabic; it shares this moniker with about seven other club teams throughout the Arab world.

We met on campus and milled around for a little while while eating dinner, and then two of the Egyptian guys managed to convince a mini-bus driver to drop us off at the stadium (in Nasr City) and to pick us up after the game ended, for a total of about LE8 round-trip (less than USD1.50). The tickets we got were only LE50, so overall this was an incredibly cheap outing.

When we got to the stadium, I was astonished by the number of armed guards in the area. Now, granted, my time in Cairo has made me very accustomed to heavy police presence - they are literally on every corner in the city, and always heavily armed. This was a new extreme, however; military police in full riot gear had the entrance surrounded in such a way that only one person could pass through at a time. The photo to the left, which I took, shows my friend Erik posing with the police, who were very good natured about the whole situation, but still slightly unnerving en masse.

I've never been to a professional soccer match before, but it was completely unlike any sporting event I've ever attended in the States. We got to the stadium fairly early - about 90 minutes before the game started - but the fans were already out in full force, dressed entirely in red and cheering loudly accompanied by drums, bells and whistles. We selected seats in what turned out to be a fairly calm area of the stadium, but as the seats filled, the enthusiasm built. I found myself up out of my seat for much of the hour leading up to the game, clapping and chanting along to cheers that I only half understood.

One of the Mohammeds who was sitting next to me was translating the cheers for me; most of them refer to individual players and their sporting attributes. Hadary, the al-Ahly goalkeeper, for example, was a big hero after al-Ahly's recent CAF Super Cup victory, and his cheer literally goes "Dance, Hadary, dance!" I was also fascinated by one cheer in which the crowd shouts a bunch of nonsense words, and then "Insha'allah, hanaksiba!" - God willing, we will win. It's one of the biggest contrasts I've noticed between Egypt and the United States; where at home, public prayers or even moments of silence are virtually unheard of in sporting, here it's perfectly normal to invoke the favor of God to get your team to the top.

During the actual match, the fans cheered, but weren't nearly as rowdy as Americans are - and I don't think that was for lack of alcohol, either. Amy explained to me that it's considered rude to put on too much of a cheering show during the actual game, since most of the fans come to actually watch the match. Al-Ahly ended up defeating Libya United 1-0, with the only goal of the game early in the first half. There were a few close calls during the second half (for both teams), which made it that much more exciting. In between the shots, I talked to the Egyptians, and actually was able to make myself understood in Arabic, which was exciting.

Cultural Differences Between Egypt and the United States Which I Fully Appreciate And Celebrate But Nevertheless Will Not Miss When I Leave: Part I

That guy who walks around my neighborhood every night between 1:10 AM and 1:30 AM banging a drum.

(Thus far, I have no explanation for this practice. Nafiza says that's too late for tarawih, and too early for fajir, the pre-dawn prayer. I'll keep working on that.)

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UPDATE: This is the indication that it's time to wake up and prepare for souhoor, a meal that is eaten around 3 AM during Ramadan. Which means that it will stop after Thursday. Al-hamd'allah!

Egypt, not Virginia!

I spent the weekend soaking up sun and fun on the Mediterranean in Alexandria - not, as Jeff and Catharine first thought, in Alexandria, Virginia.

Our departure from Cairo was scheduled for 7 PM on Thursday evening; for those of you not familiar with the way time works in Egypt, that means the buses showed up at 7:45 PM and we didn't leave town for another half hour. And the two-and-a-half hour ride we were promised? Try a trip lasting nearly five hours, including almost half an hour to get gas (apparently they were filling up with an eyedropper) and a ninety minute break at Lion Village, a rest stop straight out of the Twilight Zone.

Located on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, Lion Village is part petting zoo, part souvenir shop, part restaurant, and 100% weird. The complex is centered around a series of animal pens and cages, containing everything from chickens to camels, most of which, frankly, looked like they didn’t have much time left. There were at least two dozen ostriches spread out over a few fenced in yards; this article from the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt gives some clue as to what they were doing with so many ostriches. The décor didn’t exactly reassure the animal lovers among us, either; the beams supporting the roof were covered in furs and stuffed crocodiles and fish hung from the ceiling, along with massive bunches of garlic cloves (presumably to cover up the smell for guests in the adjacent restaurant). We lost our appetites pretty quickly, and resigned to waiting for the other bus to catch up and keeping watch for stray critters. (Photo courtesy of Ellen Green.)

We finally rolled into Alexandria (or Alex, since we can’t be bothered with those last three syllables) around 1:30 AM, and wisely elected to save exploring the city for the following morning. Driving in on the Corniche, Alex’s 20 km seafront road, was pretty amazing at night; like the rest of the Egyptian population, Alexandrians do not sleep, and the sidewalks and public beaches were still crammed with couples, families and friends even after midnight. Our hotel didn’t disappoint; my room had a gorgeous sea view and a nice breeze off the water, and there was a (very) small private beach across the Corniche for hotel guests.

Friday morning, I had breakfast and took a short walk down the beach with my roommate, Amanda. Alex’s seafront road, which is called the Corniche, runs about 20 km along the Mediterranean coast, and the city only extends about 5 km inland at its widest point. Our first stop of the morning was Kom es-Shoqafa (“Mound of Shards” in Arabic), the remains of a Roman-era catacomb complex. I had been expecting something more akin to my previous catacomb experience (dark, smelly, lots of bones); however, the Kom es-Shoqafa catacombs are entirely devoid of human remains. We spent a lot of time exploring the labyrinthine corridors of burial niches, carved entirely by hand and extending more than 30m underground. We also visited Pompey’s Pillar (which is actually a monument to the Roman emperor Diocletian), and the Roman amphitheater, although the heat sucked some of the fun out of those excursions.

We returned to the hotel early in the afternoon and went to lunch before hitting up the beach for a couple of hours before dinner. Having read that Alexandria is even more conservative than Cairo, I didn’t even bother bringing a bathing suit on the trip, instead choosing to lay out in shorts and my t-shirt. Unfortunately, due to the commercialization of Alex’s seafront, the beaches aren’t nearly as pristine as they look in photos; the sand was littered with pop tabs (Egypt still has the kind that you pull off and discard) and cigarette butts, and there were some plastic snack wrappers and a discarded cigarette box floating near the shore. Still, after a long hot day, it was nice to wade into the water and nap in a beach chair for a few hours in the late afternoon.

After a dinner of kufta and rice, we all piled back on the bus to go to the Green Plaza, an outdoor shopping-dining-entertainment complex on the edge of the city. I spent some time with friends at a café drinking mango juice and chatting, and Amanda’s impromptu dance routine to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” attracted the attention of a group of Egyptian girls having a private party at the restaurant, who immediately ran over and dragged her into their party. Later, we went and bought sweets and snacks for the trip home.

On Saturday we left early after breakfast for Fort Qaitbay, which stands on the site of the former Pharos Lighthouse (of Seven Ancient Wonders fame). After the lighthouse was destroyed in an earthquake in the 1300s AD, the site lay vacant for nearly a century, until Sultan Qa’it Bey began construction on the fort in 1477. The upper floors of the central keep offer amazing views of the sea and the surrounding city, as well as cool sea breezes.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was our next stop, and my favorite of the weekend. (Take from that what you will.) The library is only 5 years old, constructed on the site of the original Library of Alexandria, which was burned accidentally by Julius Caesar in 48 BC (not, as is often rumored, by conquerors from Arabia), and contains nearly 500,000 volumes – with room for over 7.5 million more. My first impression was that it was a fairly ugly structure, a granite-and-glass half cylinder rising out of the ground, but having seen the inside, I would perhaps more judiciously describe it as interesting. Like the original library, its façade is made of Aswan granite, and is carved with letters from hundreds of ancient and modern languages. On the seaward side is the Planetarium, and a beautiful reflecting pool stretching all the way to the Corniche.

After a stop at the Fish Market restaurant for lunch, we piled back on the bus to return to Cairo. I won’t go into detail about the ride home; suffice to say it was long and stuffy and slightly miserable in the back of the bus, and when I got back I was immediately hit in the face by Cairo’s delightful air. Overall, though, the trip was fantastic, and I definitely intend to return for a weekend to see some of the sites I missed, like the museums, churches and the (former) Hotel Cecil, where British Intelligence planned El-Alamien.

Palatial Living

Last week in my amiya class, I gave a presentation on my life at Fonduq Kanzy. After describing my room with its small bathroom and ugly furnishings, located far from campus and in an area with few shops, restaurants or things in general, the floor was opened for questions. The girl sitting next to me raised her hand and asked, "Why don't you move?"

This week, we've been lucky enough to have our refrigerator, air conditioning and toilet fixed (all in two days), though I have still not managed to find the right tone of pleading/persuasion/sheer annoyance to convince the housekeeping staff that after three weeks, our room (especially the bathroom) desperately needs to be cleaned. The shuttles seem to be running on time this week - maybe the 4,000 complaints I logged in the last two weeks had some effect after all. Even with the forty year old furniture and carpet, the cramped quarters, and the quasi-functional washing machine (to say nothing of the elevators), it could be a lot worse.

For example, I could have been forced to live, as was originally planned, in Marwa Palace Residence.

This article appeared in AUC's student newspaper The Caravan on September 13. The Facebook group it references, for those of you who are on Facebook, can be found here.