I did decide to go. It was actually pretty fun...a lot better than last time. I spent most of Thursday regretting my decision to go but I was over that by nighttime when I went out with my parents to buy some fans. On the way we saw, among other things, sneakers marked with the Mcdonalds 'M' for a brand, a car full of guys: 6 inside and 4 on top, a little girls' toy on which was written 'for playing pleasure with you' and the Egypt McDonalds' slogan 'Everything but the Combo'. I've been confused by that slogan since I came to Egypt but finally I realized that it is a translation from the similar phrase 'koloh ila el combo' in Arabic. It makes sense in Arabic, meaning roughly 'Take Everything but the Combo'. In English, not so much.
Saturday was good, just a beach day. You'd be amazed at how many people wearing a niqab (full body covering) are in the water in 3agamy. Other people just wear training suits or their normal clothing. Some wear long underpants under their swimming suits. My mom loves that about the beaches. You don't have to care about what you look like at all; you can just enjoy the swimming. Of course, a few days later when we saw a couple girls in bikinis on the beach it became very clear that, even in 3agamy, appearance matters, just in a different way than on the beaches in the United States. The lifeguard on Saturday was going a little crazy with the whistle. According to him the only safe area to swim was the approximately 25 foot by 25 foot square directly in front of him. Seeing as this was Hanovil beach in July that equaled a lot of people in a very small area and, when you mixed that with the waves, that equaled a lot of elbows in eyes. It was all worth it for the waves though. I love wavy water.
Sunday was great. We drove a couple dozen kilometers over to Alexandria, the first time I've been there since I was in diapers. We met up with my parents' tour guide friend Romany at the library of Alexandria. I was amazed at the functionality of design of the library. Among other things, the windows are made in such a way as to let natural light in without letting in direct sun rays, the echo-absorbing slits in the walls double as tributes to the old library of Alexandria and the large library has a capacity of 10 million books as our tour guide Randa told us. For all that functionality, the library really isn't being put to good use. On the lowest floor there is a giant printing press, the fastest in the world or something like that of which there are only three copies. My dad asked what the printing press is being used for. Randa gave us a variety of answers, none of them really belonging to the question indicating that the press really isn't used at all. The 10 million book capacity I mentioned? Only six percent of it is being used. Should you like to read one of those 600,000 books though, you'd have to pay the 2-20 gineh (depending on who you are) entrance fee to the library every time you want to read a couple pages, as none of the library's books are available for check out. The library also has about 150 computers equipped with remarkably high speed internet access. We were there at a prime time (around 3 in the afternoon) yet only about 20 of the computers appeared to be in use, maybe since most Alexandria residents aren't willing to pay the 2 pound fee every time they want to go to the library. There are some things they are doing right though. The volumes of historical/archaeological/artistic works that the library has archived and digitized are available online to the general public. Although that seems obvious, a very similar database of information collected as a part of the Egyptian government's Cultnet project is only available at a center in the Smart Village in the outskirts of Cairo. Cultnet has collected great information so it's sad to see that it isn't available to the majority of people. I was glad to see that isn't the case with the Library of Alexandria's databases. Overall, I was glad I went (and not just because of the free internet access). After the library Romany's wife and children met up with up with us at the fish restaurant Rakoda. I really liked it which is a lot coming from a fish-hater like me. If you're ever in Alexandria I'd recommend it; It's on the Corniche on the right, a little bit after the library.
I wasted most of Sunday morning sleeping. In the evening we went to go visit my mom's aunt and cousins who were also vacationing in the area. Somehow conversation turned to doctors during childbirth. My mom's cousin's husband Naser, a gynecologist himself, started talking about how - when it comes to serious things in medicine, especially women's medicine - only male doctors could fix things. All of the other women in the room didn't seem to find that statement offensive, even his wife (my mom's cousin), also a gynecologist. My mom and I shared a short little glance and decided to take this one up. I started by asking him if he was sure that there wasn't a single female doctor who was good with women's issues. He said yes, they just aren't as level-headed...My mom's other cousin (not his wife) piped up that in America they aren't supposed to say things like that, so Naser said, "oh..then what are you supposed to say?". My mom's (male) cousin piped up, "What. Do you think men and women are the same or what?". My mom told Naser it might be more accepted to say something more like, 'over the course of my career the best gynecological surgeons I've encountered have been male.' Naser replied, 'yes, but, it's across the board, not just me.' I already could hardly contain my laughter but then he continued, ''but I'm not saying women are worse. They are the best cooks!''. At that point I lost it. I burst out into long and loud laughter. In my defense, I really thought he was joking. He wasn't...that led to a nice awkward silence. I had much more I would have liked to say on the subject, but y mom swiftly changed the course of conversation from there. We later landed on women who wear the niqab, another hilarious conversation. My mom's cousins live in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, more conservative countries than Egypt. They were talking about their difficulties with telling their friends who wear the niqab apart. They just had so many funny stories about getting confused/tricking their friends because of a niqab. It was just so, so funny to hear them tell their stories. The question I've had for a long time came up: how do little kids tell which one is their mom? I really want to know the answer to that. If you know, please share.
Today (technically yesterday I suppose) we got up, ate, cleaned the apartment, packed and came back to Cairo. We then unpacked and promptly packed again, this time for Fargo. I feel so strange when I think about Fargo. Cairo feels like home now and so it will be strange to go back to my house in Fargo. I was registering for a tennis tournament today and I realized I forgot my USTA (United States Tennis Association) number, something I've had memorized since I became a USTA member in 2000. Later, I was e-mailing someone at home my cell-phone number and then realized that I'd forgotten it. I honestly don't know how that happened. I'd remembered up until a couple weeks ago but today I had to email another friend to find out what it was.
Just a few more visit-packed days and I'll be on an airplane.
Posted by ayah at 6:52 PM
1 comments:
B a s m a said...
i wish i could have been there to laugh in that idiot gyno's face, that story reminds me of the guy we saw in the documentary on the first woman marriage counselor in egypt, remember that guy?
haha thanks for your comment i'm not perishing yet though.
see you soon!
July 15, 2008 10:18 AM
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