Midan Tahrir 2 days after it was forcefully evacuated.

Sorry bout the shotty video quality. i was trying to be incognito...

Cookies, maids and riot gear

Let me preface this entry by admitting that I just accidently drank a cup of coffee. Delicious, sweet, hot coffee. I woke up, stumbled into the kitchen, boiled some water and dumped some Sanka in there. It was like I was on autopilot. I feel terrible but honestly more than that, I feel amazing. I haven’t been this awake in 9 days!

I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies last week that just couldn’t be put to rest so I headed over to our crappy little grocery store. Not the big close one, no…the far away one where the numbers are in English. Big mistake. I couldn’t find brown sugar so I bought “molasses sugar”, there is no liquid vanilla extract just vanilla powder, I couldn’t find baking powder or baking soda so I gave “self raising flour” a whirl and there were no chocolate chips so I pounded the bar out of some chocolate bars.:

I also came home to find that our oven has no temperature settings, just a little flame on one end of the dial and a big flame on the other. FML.

I left the butter out on the counter while I did some laundry as to get it down to room temperature. Second mistake. Room temperature in Egypt is like 80. SO back in the fridge it went while I pounded the life out of my chocolate bars to make them into chocolate chunks. Which promptly went back in the fridge as to not turn them into chocolate goo. I turned on the oven to what I thought may be medium temperature (god knows what the highest and lowest are). In order to turn on our oven and stove we have to first turn on the gas line, then turn on the burner or oven and then light a match and hold it to the gas source. It’s an adventure. Then began the baking. Once all the ingredients were mixed I quickly realized I was going to have to alter some things. The molasses sugar is just not brown sugar at all the consistency was all wrong. So into a brownie pan it went. I slid it into the oven and crossed my fingers.

Epic failure. The molasses melted and caramelized and what I was left with was a slightly burned rock hard mass. Oh we ate it, don’t you worry, but it was not good. Ali and Janan have assured me that had I gone to the big grocery store close to us where I would be forced to actually use my Arabic number skills I would have found most if not all of the things I needed. Of course. Silly American girl.

Those of you who are on Facebook have I’m sure seen my posts about Iftar and sa7oor. Iftar is the meal that breaks the Ramadan fast when the sun goes down and sa7oor is the meal that is eaten super late at night so you can get a 2^nd stuffing in before morning. Especially important to those of us who do not set an alarm at 3:30 am for breakfast before the sun. I have been lucky enough to go to some amazing meals the last few weeks. Ideally you start with some juice then soup before digging in. There are plates and plates of food and then amazing desserts. Mostly some form of phyllo dough loaded with nuts and then soaked in honey. Mmm mmmm mmm. And as if that’s not enough it’s followed up a few hours later with more food! So by two a.m. you are stuffed and ready to sleep.

Last Saturday I went to Sarah’s friend Noura’s apartment to make Ramadan meals for about 150 needy families. Noura has been doing this every Saturday during Ramadan for as long as anyone can remember. It was a really cool experience and I’m sad to miss it this coming Saturday. Each bag contains noodles with sauce, kofta (amazing meat link things), salad, dessert and juice. The apt was a beehive of women all making and packing food into bags which the men then lugged down the stairs and delivered to the families. When there are no men around the women can take off their higaab (head coverings) so we would put all the bags that were ready to go out on the landing so that the men could come and take them without the women having to worry about being seen without them. Apparently one of the girls at the table I was at is a famous actress here in Egypt. I was impressed that she was there working away with us! Aside from the fact that it was close to torture to be around food for hours when you can’t eat any, it was probably one of my favorite experiences in Egypt thus far. I was definitely the only foreigner in the room but I never once felt that way. Plus it felt good to be doing something for others in the spirit of Ramadan as opposed to just binging and purging.

Last week I went and joined the Community Services Association here in Maadi where I live. The CSA was started to “serve Cairo’s expatriate community” and prides itself on being a place “for information and support, to learn and connect with your local community, to relax and meet friends.” Really I just went because they have a library, decent DVD rentals and a cheap gym. But I quickly realized I would be going in and out as quickly as possible. The place is run by and frequented mainly by the wives of western men who are here in the oil business. These women love the CSA because it allows them to live here and spend as little time as possible actually interacting with Egyptians or out in the real community. It just felt weird. There is a coffee shop, outdoor café, consignment shop and gift store. (None of which I intend to make use of.) When I signed up for the library membership I told the woman I would come back and join the gym in September as I was observing Ramadan… Holy judgey mcjudgerson! “Oh,” she said, with a disgusted look on her face. “Why?” Why? WHY?! Because I love in Egypt for Chrisake! But I went with “When in Rome…” She pretty much hustled me out after learning that. Without giving me a tour of the center I might add. Which I know she was supposed to do because it was on the damn checklist at the bottom of my membership application.

But it gets worse. I got home and opened the 10 page “Cairo Welcome Packet” to find that 3 of the 10 pages were devoted to “hiring the household staff”. Seriously? Apparently, according to CSA “Full and part time household help is available, inexpensive, and considered necessary to most foreigners. It may be that you don’t want any help at all but feel pressure to have a maid. While many expatriate families employ at least one person to help in the house, not all do. Some expatriates may find that they prefer to do their own housework. You can always look for help at a later date.” What? WHAT?! Who are these people! It’s called Dettol, Clorox and a sponge! They suggest you hire all or any combination of the following: cooks, driver, gardener, ironing man, watchman and rubbish collector. But it gets worse…here are some of the verbatim highlights (lowlights?) on how to go about acquiring, working with and managing household staff:

1. Make a checklist of duties. Include restrictions: will you allow breaks? (seriously?) Will you provide beverages? (it is 90 some odd degrees! what are you, a slave driver?!)

2. Some people insist that staff take a shower at the start of each day. Their uniform should be washed and left in your flat. (o.m.g.)

3. Avoid leaving anything valuable lying around such as money and small calculators. (small calculators? wha??!)

4. Use simple sentences and orders

5. Keep the hierarchical structure. It is important to be called but he first or family name and Mr., Mrs. or Miss.

…and for my favorite part….

6. Monthly salary guidelines in USD by Nationality of worker:

Egyptian: $80 - $90

Filipino: $450

Ethiopian: $250-$300

Sudanese (male): $70 - $80

And this folks is why though I said I would volunteer at the library; I will not. Who do these people think they are?! I am honestly embarrassed that this is how many Westerners approach living in such an amazing and culturally vibrant place.

Alright…. on to politics. Hopefully US media has had at least a little coverage of the Mubarak trial. It began with a bang last week. The night before the trial began the military forcefully removed all protesters from Midaan Tahrir and destroyed and removed all of the tents and other signs that a revolution happened here that had been there for months. According to SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces, the people running the country right now), 150 people were arrested and in a slightly positive sign they were let go a few days later without military trials. At this point we just have to take their word that the number really was 150 and that none are still in jail. This is one of the biggest demands of protestors; an end to military trials of civilians. Tahrir was completely emptied to the point that it was almost unrecognizable. There was no sign that a Revolution had been born and centered there. We drove by the next night to a very disturbing scene…what was once a square filled with citizens was now full of the military. They were standing in full riot gear around the entire square and there were tanks on the surrounding streets. There is a video at the bottom of this post of the scene when we drove through a few nights after that with about ¼ of the military presence that was initially there. Supposedly Tahrir was cleared in anticipation of increased violence due to the start of the trial. But the reality is that the military has been looking for a reason to get revolutionaries out of there since this whole thing began. I’m sure the guarantee of increased international media coverage in Cairo was a motivating force as well.

As for the trial I will do my best to explain a bit of what is happening. The people currently being tried are Hosni Mubarak along with his sons Gamal (who was “in line” to become president after Hosni) and Alaa as well as the former Interior Minister Habib el Adly and 6 of his aides. They are all on trial for ordering the police to shoot and kill protestors across Egypt in the early days of the Revolution. An Egyptian businessman Hussein Salam is also on trial for corruption for bribing the Mubarak’s to give him a monopoly over the sale of gas to Israel and selling Egyptian natural gas to Israel below market value. I honestly cannot tell you why he is being tried at the same time as the rest of these assholes. As of today close to 900 Egyptians have died as martyrs of said Revolution. If found guilty the death penalty is on the table. The first session was only a few hours long and afterwards it was decided that while they will still technically be tried together, the Mubaraks will be in court in different days than Salam and Al Adly and his aides. I have no clue how that is supposed to work.

Mubarak was wheeled into court on a stretcher. There have been rumors floating over the last few weeks that he was in a coma, which is clearly untrue. Many (myself included) believe he is on the stretcher to try and elicit sympathy from the court. Doubtful that will happen. I think I speak for many when I say that he should man up and face the hand he dealt himself. Al Jazeera interviewed Saddam Hussein’s lawyer who said pretty much the same thing.

If you were watching any of this trial as most Egyptians were, you could see that it was a bit of a mess. Waaaay too many people trying to be heard and a lot of chaos. Somewhere in the vicinity of 600 people: 30 lawyers (130 others were denied access to the courtroom), families of victims and journalists were packed in that room. Lawyers were demanding that every individual charge be listed out loud, others were listing names of others whom they felt should be tried as well. Multiple lawyers were asking for more time as they felt they had been given insufficient time to review all of the eyewitness accounts. el-Adly’s lawyer is demanding that leaders from the former regime (Omar Suleiman, former head of intelligence and Mohamed Tantawi, current head of SCAF and the former head of Egyptian state TV specifically) testify likely because he wants them to testify that Mubarak gave the orders to fire on protestors not el-Adly. This is a bit baffling as well since they are both good friends of Mubarak. All in all Mubarak’s defense has demanded that 1,631 witnesses be called to testify. One lawyer called for Mubarak to repay the state 1 billion Egyptian pounds for damages to infrastructure during the protests as well as money lost in tourism. At one point a lawyer even demanded a DNA test of Mubarak claiming that the man being tried was not even Hosni Mubarak, that he was a body double because Mubarak had actually died in 2004. So as you can see this is likely to be a loooooong and dramatic trial.

No one in Egypt under the age of 30 has ever seen any other president than Hosni Mubarak. So to know that this man is in prison and then in a cage and on trial on live TV is a shock. Ironically the very court he is being tried in used to be named after him and the prison he was in is before being hospitalized for stomach cancer is where he sent many of the people who were arrested for opposing him politically. Mubarak is also the first Arab leader to be brought to trial by his own people. Sadaam Hussein was tried by a special tribunal.

So for now we wait. el-Adly’s trial resumes on the 14^th and we will see what kinds of decisions the judge has come to concerning the many demands of the lawyers.

Phew. My fingers hurt.

Love from Cairo,

Martha

It's not always rainbows and butterflies...

The other day I had my first “I hate Egypt moment”. It didn’t last and don’t you worry…. I certainly do not hate Egypt; but for about an hour I did. In the process of condensing my life down into 2 suitcases and a carry on before I left Chicago I realized I was going to have to send some things here to Cairo. Totally necessary things like my Wii and my comforter. OK, maybe not soo necessary but things I definitely wanted. So my parents were nice enough to lug some crap to the post office and ship it halfway around the world. About a week ago we got a notice on our door from the post office. I obviously had no clue what it said and Sarah couldn’t figure it out either. But we assumed it said we had to go to the post office to get said boxes. So we hop in a cab on Thursday (keep in mind that the weekend here is Friday and Saturday) and ask around until we find the post office only to get there and find out it is closed. Argh. Sunday morning I make the trip back to the post office with Hashem (Hassan’s families driver) while Sarah goes to return her keys to her old landlord. Hashem speaks no English and I speak no Arabic. Furthermore, my phone is out of minutes. We get to what we thought was the post office and no…of course it’s not, it’s down the street. Once we get there I have to maneuver my way through a herd of men to find an open window. I give the guy the piece of paper and all I understand of what he says is “mish” which pretty much means “nope. not here.” Thankfully Hashem talks to the guy and figures out what is going on and in a sort of game of frustrating charades Hashem tells me I need to call a number that is on the paper. Which is fairly inconvenient, as I have no minutes on my phone. So I go into the little market next door and buy minutes. You buy these cards here that give you pre paid minutes, they look like this:

You type the “secret code” into your phone and Viola! You should have minutes. But lo and behold for some reason my phone isn’t recognizing the code. So still no minutes. At this point Hashem, bless his little sausage fingered heart, buys minutes for his phone. He calls the number andsays “OK” so like the blind leading the blind we head off. I have no freaking clue what is going on. I think I am going home and the boxes are being delivered but no. We stop in front of another post office and there are goats outside of this one. Goats. We go in and I am not exaggerating here, it was probably 150 degrees and smelled like dead people. And it was PACKED. See, it was the day before Ramadan so everyone was trying to get everything they needed done. This woman brings us back behind the glass, which was so clutch because I likely would have vomited had I had to stay out there. In fact I may vomit now just thinking about it. So she takes my paper and starts speaking to me in Arabic so fast that I can’t decipher anything and as she realizes I don’t understand she just keeps speaking louder and louder and louder. So I stare at her like a complete tard until she starts saying “passport”. Passport? Passport? Why would I need my passport? I don’t carry my passport around with me. So she shoves this paper in my face and says write your name and passport number. So I write my name and tell her I don’t know the number. Well really what I say is “La, mish passport.” And frankly, why does this woman need my passport number?! I know my parents haven’t written it on the boxes. And the worst part is…I can see one of them! I see one of my boxes in the corner! So this woman tells me I can’t get the boxes without the passport. But she is such a bitch about it! I mean, I can’t even understand what the woman is saying and I know that. At this point I have had it. I am sweating like a horse, my bottom lip is quivering, I have never been more frustrated about not being able to communicate in Arabic, and I just say (in English) “You have got to be f*&%$#@ kidding me.” I turn around to leave and I can’t open the door to her “office” so some guy has to let me out. I get into the car, put on my sunglasses and just start crying. Ha. And poor Hashem just keeps saying in English (wait! you can speak English?!) “Its OK, tomorrow.” I cry the whole way home all the up the stairs and cry myself to sleep. WTF?! So bad. But I went back yesterday and got the boxes. Had to pay almost $100 US for them but I got them.

We got back home so excited to play Jeopardy so I put the thing together, grab an adapter and plug it into the wall only to be met by a “POP!” and electrocute my hand. Looks like I needed a converter. Whoops. Luckily I hadn’t plugged the power cord into the actual Wii so we are all good there. But I’m pretty sure the power thing is shot and I blew the fuse for the TV and cable. It was brilliant. Upside is we now have about 30 TV channels we didn’t get before which are a mix of Arab and Italian porn. We also get Al Jazeera English, BBC World and a channel called “Strike Force” which is 2 Asian guys recapping intense video game battles with commentary and all. It’s pretty amazing. I just need to find a new power cord. Looks like I’m headed back to City Stars…

I also fell out of my shower yesterday. Its ok...you can laugh. See the showers here look like this for the most part:

Ours is super slippery and suddenly, out of nowhere, I was flying backwards out of the tub and landed ass first on the floor. What?! Didn’t hurt, didn’t pull off the shower curtain. So I lay there stunned for a second then hopped back in and finished my shower. It was nuts. I’m thinking we need to go buy a shower mat.

I am wondering if it is a coincidence that all of these mishaps coincided with the first day of Ramadan? Which was not as bad as I thought it would be by the way. Granted I spent most of the afternoon in a starving Ramadan coma nap. Sarah and I made pasta for dinner once the sun was down (about 7) then went out to Pub 55 for shisha (no drinks anywhere during Ramadan!) and finished the pasta when we got home. It is now 12:30 pm the next day and I could really go for a sandwich. But alas. I will not.

My cat is eating feathers so I guess it’s about time I go.

Love from Cairo,

Martha