Browsing tag:
Egypt
Today, January 25th, is Police Day in Egypt. The Internet is running slow. The streets are eerily quiet. And we’re staying in to avoid any accidental brush with demonstrations. But across the city, I see laundry hanging out to dry which reminds me that this city I’ve seen so many times in the news is a place inhabited by real people and not just sensationalized caricatures. Egyptians do ...
Lydi and I have been spending a lot of time each week with Egyptian women and girls and most of that time we’ve been stuttering through clumsy sentences and mispronounced words. Meanwhile, John waves every morning to the Saudi guards outside the embassy and they smile at him and wave back enthusiastically from behind their metal barricades. I don’t wave at the guards on purpose because they’re Saudis and ...
This trip has been hard. All of us agree. It’s nothing specific but everything in general. Lydi and I have classes three days of the week. Last week she made friends with some girls at the park, which means that this coming week will be busier yet. And tomorrow we’re going into the Western Desert on a trip that’s probably going to be visually stimulating but otherwise fairly low-key. But subconsciously, I’m ...
One day in Egypt, Lydian and I went out to find bottled water in Nazlet al Samaam. After we got a big box of bottles, we walked back to the opaque metal gate of our apartment complex, but the gate was locked. We walked around to a different gate and yelled over the stone wall to see if someone could hear us. Suddenly, the big metal gate opened up. Whew! What a relief! A girl living inside our apartment ...
Today we visited the Egyptian Museum. I better understand now the people’s sentiments about the displays. It’s true that very few of the items in the huge warehouse-of-a-building are marked, but for me, that didn’t diminish the coolness factor of the place. In fact, the lack of descriptions left more to the imagination as we slowly walked through the huge collection of Egyptian “stuff”.
I ...
I ...
Today is Friday, a holy day in Cairo. It's Worship Time and loud and horribly distorted Arabic sermons are ringing out across the city. I’ve situated the table on our balcony to face the pyramids. There is nothing but sand between me and them and though I’ve seen the pyramids from all directions and stared at them for hours already, I’m still not tired of looking at them.
We arrived later ...
We arrived later ...
If hadn’t spent the last week in Canada, making our way to Alaska, John and I would have already purchased tickets for our big Egypt trip. I saw the headline in The Globe and Mail in Whitehorse early yesterday morning: “Egypt cheers as Morsi ousted.” John and I were concerned two weeks ago when Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) became newsworthy in nearby Saudi Arabia. Though we’ve joked about getting ...