Looking Back: Summer School September 9, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: cairo, post-trip, St. John American School
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As a lot of you know, Clark College paid for my trip to Egypt. But the money came with the stipulation that we perform some kind of volunteer work while in Egypt.
The school’s service learning coordinator, who joined us on the trip, got us a gig working with students at St. John American School, a little less than an hour outside of Cairo. After the tour ended and we arrived back in Cairo, we spent about four hours over the span of three days working with students, ranging from first through ninth grades.
Now, I should preface all this by saying that, going into the experience, I wasn’t that excited. It wasn’t anything against the kids, but by the time we got back to Cairo, we had been on a whirlwind trip of the country, waking up early, going to bed late and traveling every couple of days.
We had literally gone from Egypt’s northern border to near its southern border and back, stopping at a ton of temples and monuments in between. So when we got back to Cairo for the volunteer work, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was more interested in sleeping in and relaxing than chasing kids around school for four hours.
Oh, how I was wrong.
There were about 30 students, in all. It was a little chaotic, because putting that many young kids in one classroom after several weeks away from each other … yeah, that’s a recipe for the kids talking to each other non-stop throughout the whole three-day stretch. But that’s okay, it wasn’t that bad, especially since we broke up into smaller groups.
Another Clark student (Jeff) and I led a group of four students. From left to right, that would be Catherine, Rana, Mina and Nader. (That’s Jeff in the middle.) We dubbed ourselves the Superstars. There was another kid on the first day, but he was gone the next two days. Alas.
Throughout the three days, we played a lot of games (the kind we played at day camp as kids), played cards, chatted about each of our cultures and learned a lot about the school.
Some groups went outside and played basketball or soccer, but I stayed in with most of my group and played cards. I learned a few cool card games and had fun getting to know the other students who came in and played.
There were just so many memories …
One day in there, we wanted to teach the kids an American song, so the service learning coordinator chose “Country Roads” by John Denver. It was cool to sing with the kids and try to get them to sing along.
Of course, it was great to practice English with the students there and learn about life in Egypt. The kids who turned out for the three-day summer camp really had a lot to be proud of; they spoke English really well and definitely held their own in conversation – even the young pups.
Each day, they served us lunch. I don’t remember much of it, but I remember eating some delicious koshary and stuffing myself on falafel. I’m telling you, I miss the food like crazy over there.
I think it was the second day … the lunch time was just about ending, and a group of kids was dancing around. They said something in Arabic, and two of the students ran out of the room like they’d stolen something. They came back with a pair of wooden sticks a few minutes later. Another student hummed a song (I would recognize it if I heard it, but I couldn’t tell you the name), and the two students with sticks put on a mock sword fight, very very slowly.
Then the song ended, and the kid humming shifted into a much faster-paced song, and the two kids broke out of the sword fight and began dancing around. It was really energetic … the kind of thing where you’re in the middle of it, and you think, “Wow, if I was home right now, I’d be either asleep or at work. Instead, I’m watching these Egyptian students dance around and have a great time.” The joy was infectious.
At one point, we played Egyptian Spin the Bottle, which was a bit different than its American counterpart. In the Egyptian version, you spin the bottle and ask a question of whoever it lands on. Some questions asked if the other person had a boyfriend or girlfriend, but one of the students asked me what my favorite part of the trip was.
And I said it was working with the students at the school. Maybe it’s one of those “You had to be there” kind of things, but talking with those kids about their lives, talking about ours, playing with them and laughing with them … those are the things I’ll remember my whole life. Just getting to know other people, learn their stories and hear that they’re about … that’s what life is about.
If I had slept in at the hotel and not done any of the volunteer work, I would have missed out on three of the best days of the trip.
At the end of the three days, there were hugs to be had and E-mail addresses to be exchanged. In all, I became Facebook friends with 19 students and one teacher at the school. I still chat with them and miss them a lot.
Looking Back: Random Memories August 16, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: cairo, felucca, nile river, post-trip, train
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The temperature hit something like 105 degrees today, which made me extremely thankful that my new car has air conditioning. Not sure what I would have done if I was driving my old car around after work tonight.
Anyway, the heat got me thinking back to Egypt. A few random memories tonight.
-We spent two nights on a felucca – an Egyptian sailboat with enough room for about 10 people to sleep – on the Nile River. (I’ll blog about this in-depth later on.) On the second night, the boat’s crew took the cover off the boat so we could stargaze, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything like it. There were no homes, cars or Wal-Marts to light up the night sky. There were stars as far as the eye could see in every which direction.
I made out one of the dippers for the first time in my life. I saw a shooting star for maybe the second time in my life. That’s the kind of thing I’m never going to forget. Nor am I likely to see anything that clearly in Vancouver or Portland. I was in total awe of how clear, close, clustered, bright and beautiful the stars were. There were no trees to obscure the view (which happens when camping). Just stars, everywhere you looked.
-We spent another pair of nights on a night train. It wasn’t anything like “The Darjeeling Limited,” much to my surprise! The cabin was very nice, with two seats (which folded down into bunk beds), a sink and a coat rack. My only complaint was the bed! If I straightened my body out, my head touched one wall, and my feet touched the other. So that wasn’t really comfortable. Then, there were bumps in the night, waking me up and nearly throwing me off the bed.
Other than the bed, the train ride was seriously cool. It was definitely different than anything I’ve ever done before. But you could say that about a lot of things on the trip.
-I really miss walking around Cairo. It would be 9:30 or 10 p.m., and we’d be done with dinner, on the way back to our hotel. We would walk along 26th of July St., which is apparently one of Cairo’s biggest and busiest streets. And there would be stores along each side of the street, selling clothes, toys and all kinds of stuff.
Then there were street vendors, selling books, magazines, DVDs, cassettes and more. And in the middle of it, you’re surrounded by families and couples walking every which way. And of course, cars and cabs are competing for the same lanes in the street.
But you know what I loved about it? No one was rushing to get you out of the way. No one pushed us or made us feel unwelcome as we just kind of gawked at the scene. Merchants would even randomly say, “Welcome to Egypt!” as we walked along.
Just being in that mob, surrounded by all that energy, was amazing. In Vancouver, there’s never anything like that. Go to Vancouver’s busiest street, and it’s packed with cars, but there are no people walking along the sidewalks. If you’d like, you could pretty much have the sidewalk all to yourself. Convenient, sure. But where’s the fun in that?
Looking Back: The Heat August 5, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, aswan, cairo, heat, luxor, post-trip
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(I really need to get to bed, but considering that the weather is going to hit the upper 90s this week, I felt like this was an especially timely post.)
(Also, sorry for the lack of photos. This post came about on a whim, and I didn’t really feel like sifting through 980 photos for … umm … photos of heat. Maybe I’ll upload some another day.)
I can’t wait for the 90+ degree temperatures that are set to hit us tomorrow and continue through most of the week. That way, I can totally play the “snobbish world traveler” card when people go to complain about the heat. I mean, if anyone has first-hand experience with excruciating temperatures this summer, it’s me, right?
I can see it now …
“Oh man, this weather is SO hot today!”
To which I will respond, “Yeah, it’s warm, I guess. But Egypt was way hotter.”
I mean, come on … how does that really add anything to any conversation? It doesn’t. No one really gives a shit if Egypt is hotter than Vancouver – that’s to be expected! But I don’t get many chances to casually drop Egypt into conversation. (“Oh no! The printer is out of paper ….. by the way, did you know the Egyptians used papyrus for paper? And the papyrus plant grew in the Nile River, where I spent two days on a boat?”) So – totally jokingly, mind you – I’m looking forward to milking this.
Truth is, when I got back from Egypt, temperatures were in the mid 70s back home, and I hated it. I went to work the day after coming back, and I nearly froze in my office. I would have brought a jacket if I’d remembered to. Even outside, the temperatures felt cool.
I don’t want to say I got used to the heat, but I learned to tolerate it. I learned to roll with it when, two minutes after heading outside, I started sweating. That made the cold showers back at the hotel that much better. And there aren’t many better feelings than standing under a running showerhead after spending most of the day outside, in 90 degree heat, and suffering the consequences accordingly.
Heat was a weird thing in Egypt, too. A few random observations.
1. I remember the flight into Cairo. There was a monitor attached to the seat in front of me, displaying our flight path, the outside temperature and other information. I remember thinking I was in for a surprise when the “outside temperature” reading didn’t drop below 78 degrees for the final five minutes of the flight. At 2 a.m.
Stepping off the plane and onto the ladder was intense – the heat and humidity just attacked me. It was tough to take a deep breath, and almost instantly, my skin felt clammy. My first reaction was, “Oh shit. No way I make it three weeks in this. Not going to happen. What have I done? How did Indiana Jones survive with his khakis and jacket? Can I go home? This is insane. Why did I agree to this?” (There were a few unprintable thoughts mixed in, but you get the gist.)
I mean, when it’s 80 degrees … at 2 a.m. … that’s hot. And you know it’s only going to get worse from there.
2. In Cairo, I finally understood “dry heat.” In the Pacific Northwest, when it gets hot, there’s always a touch of humidity. Not in Cairo. There’s more than a touch of smog that keeps the heat kind of trapped in the city … but there’s no humidity. Growing up, I never bought the idea of “dry heat” somehow being better or worse than … not-dry heat. I was like, “I don’t care if it’s dry heat or humid heat – 100 degrees is 100 f’n degrees!” Now I get it.
3. It was interesting to see how things changed as we moved around the country. In Alexandria, it was really humid, thanks to the Mediterranean Sea. And, since it was also warm, the combination made for a mildly miserable walking-around experience. But as soon as you got to the waterfront, a constant breeze cooled things off considerably.
Then you got to the southern end of the country, down in Aswan. There, it was hotter and dryer than Cairo. Makes sense, I guess. But without the smog trapping the heat, it felt a bit more tolerable than Cairo.
4. But the worst heat was in Luxor, which is in central Egypt. Luxor itself wasn’t bad, but the Valley of the Kings – a shadeless valley where something like five dozen pharaohs were buried – the thermometer hit 108 degrees by 10:30 a.m. I still can’t imagine that, and I lived it. I mean, there was no escaping the heat there. Gulping water didn’t do the trick. Nor did a wide-brimmed hat, white T-shirt, sun block and shorts. None of it mattered. The sun was relentless.
5. Air conditioning. It was in all of our hotels, and the only time it was turned off was when the maids turned it off. It was also in all of our buses. I developed a new appreciation for A/C. I just might get an air conditioner tattooed over my heart one of these days.
6. But the truth is, I would rather go to Egypt in July, instead of February or March, 100 times out of 100. Okay, so Egypt’s March temperatures are like Vancouver’s June temperatures (65-70 degrees or so). But you go to Egypt for the heat. That’s part of the experience. You’re in the desert, baking like a potato. That’s the Egyptian Experience right there. So that’s why I never complained about the heat while there. It was like … that was what I wanted to experience. And I did!
It’s like, if you want to get the Vancouver experience, you don’t come in July, when it’s 80-90 degrees. You come in March, when you have pretty even odds of sunny and warm weather, sunny and cold weather, overcast, rainy weather, showers and whatever else Mother Nature has in store. That unpredictable weather? That’s the Vancouver Experience. Part of it, anyway. But you get what I’m saying.
So bring on the 90 degree temperatures! I just hope my co-workers, family and friends don’t shove a sock in my mouth after I drop gems like, “Make sure you’re drinking enough water in that heat! We had to drink 3 liters of water each day in Egypt! Have I mentioned that it’s hot over there?”
Looking Back: Cairo Traffic July 30, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: cairo, post-trip, traffic
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What is this? No horn-playing in Cairo streets? Not that you could hear yourself play, anyway.
Let me just say this. I really like Cairo. I think there’s an energy about the city that’s a lot of fun. I love walking along the street while cars whiz by. I love random people screaming out, “Welcome to Cairo!” I love the closeness of everything. And, in the future, I might blog at length about all that.
But after what I’m about to write, you might think I detest the city. You’ve been warned …
In our introductory meeting, our tour guide told us that he grew up close to our hotel — about 45 minutes walking distance … or 1.5 hours driving. No joke.
Would YOU want to drive through that?
Traffic in Cairo is a problem. A big problem. A few years ago, our guide told us that the government made it much easier to make payments on cars. All of a sudden, people who previously couldn’t afford cars … well, they took to the streets en masse. Considering that Cairo’s population is 18 million strong, that’s a lot of cars.
And traffic, as you can imagine, is on the wrong side of chaotic. A few notes.
• For the most part, there are no lane dividers. And whatever dividers there are serve as mere suggestions. Cars routinely straddle two lanes, only taking up one lane when someone honks.
And honk they do. You know how, in the states, we honk as a last resort? You’ll almost never go two seconds in Cairo without hearing a honking horn. It’s constant.
• Get out of the way of an ambulance? It’s a nice thought, but don’t bet on it.
• Signals and even headlights? Those are pretty much optional. You haven’t lived until you’re riding shotgun with no headlights through downtown Cairo with a cabbie on his cell phone. After dark.
• Tailgating is the rule, not the exception. I can’t count how many times I said a silent prayer just as the cabbie braked in time to avoid a collision that would send me through the windshield and into the car in front of us. (Most seat belts didn’t work, so this scenario never seemed implausible.)
• If there’s an opening small enough to putt a golf ball through, you better believe a cabbie will gun for it. And he’ll probably succeed.
• Every single car has dents, scratches, dings, scuffs, broken bumpers … you name it. Even the nicer BMWs and Mercades.
• Traffic is so packed throughout much of Cairo, speed limits seem like “ideal world” suggestions. Traffic is rarely light enough to get through the streets without stopping and starting several times.
• The sidewalks in Cairo are very crowded. Because their shops are small and without air conditioning, many shopkeepers pull up a chair on the sidewalk and chill in the shade. So the sidewalks can be quite cumbersome.So mostly, as demonstrated in the above photo, you walk in the street. You stay close to the parked cars (and sometimes, there are two lanes of parked cars), and if you veer too far into the street, a car will honk its horn at you as it passes.
• Traffic signals? What are traffic signals? Cars don’t pay attention to them; neither do pedestrians. I asked our guide how to make sense of lights and signals. He said, “Do me a favor. If you can cross, cross.”
Many times, this means walking out while cars are still whizzing by. Sometimes you walk out far enough to let a car go behind you, and you stop to let another car go in front of you.Yes, standing in the middle of the street as cars fly by at speeds of up to 40 mph is a sensible solution. Sometimes, on busy streets, it’s the only solution to get from one side to the other.
• One final story about Cairo traffic. Coming back from the mall on one of our final nights, a cabbie cut off a bus to pass another bus in our lane. I looked back at the crew in the back seat, and figuring the cabbie knew no English (most of them didn’t), I said, “I hate you guys so much” for making me sit up front. I mean, I didn’t want a front row seat for the carnage and chaos of Cairo traffic.
But the cabbie laughed and said, “You need this?,” pointing to his seat belt. “It actually works?” I asked. “It never works!” He laughed as I put it on. He waved his hand and arm back and forth above the steering wheel, saying, “Cairo traffic is like a cobra.” The point was, you have to slither back and forth, in and out of traffic, just to get through. What a pleasant thought!
