I just saw a really green orange in my refrigerator. I was wondering if it was a different species of orange or if it was just really really unripe. Then I realized it was a lime.
Posted by ayah at 6:57 PM
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
what do people do in the summer? (originally published July 23, 2008)
My life's boring now. I really don't have anything substantial or interesting to write about anymore. It's been years since I've been at home in the summer without regular scheduled things to do for more than a week. People keep asking me what I'm going to do during the rest of the summer but I haven't the slightest clue.
The boredom still hasn't sunk in because I was busy for the last couple days. I spent basically the entirety of Monday and Tuesday shopping with the trio. It was fun but I've definitely had my fill of that for another six months. I also went to a couple movies and ate at a few restaurants with them. We went to Made of Honor at Safari first. It's your typical predictable chick flick. My friend Haya and I predicted the entire movie down to the little details before it even started. It was cute though. On Monday we ate at the North American Steak Buffet for dinner, per Omar's request. It's what you could expect of a restaurant with such a name: Lots of food. Lots of fat. Lots of people. I'm not sure what it is but that restaurant has always been ridiculously popular among the Egyptians in Fargo so my family used to go a lot, usually with other Egyptian families. After a point, though, we realized that - even if it does cost only 10 dollars for all of the potatoes, fried chicken, biscuits, steak, pie, etc. that you can eat - it's not worth it if the food isn't good. We can just pay the same amount to eat a reasonable portion of well prepared food at a different restaurant. Anyway, also on Monday we went to Dark Knight. I hadn't really wanted to go because I was very tired: I had woken up at 4 on Monday and we went to the 9:40 showing after a solid day of non-stop shopping. Nevertheless, after all I'd heard about the movie, I was excited. As soon as we got into the theatre though sleepiness set in. As hard as I tried to fight it I fell asleep for about the first hour of the movie. I didn't think the movie was all that great but, y'know, maybe I would have appreciated the plot more if I'd seen the first half...I have to say, though (and not just because he's dead), that Heath Ledger was very convincing as the Joker. The ending was also good..not as predictable as many superhero movie endings. On Tuesday we ate at Ruby Tuesday. That is one under-appreciated restaurant. If you aren't familiar, it's sort of like Friday's but it has an all-you-can eat salad buffet that you can get for 7.99 by itself or 2.99 as an add-on to your entree. It's genius: the perfect set-up for me. Their pricing makes me laugh though. They have some items on the menu that automatically come with the salad bar. Some such items: the 2 mini burgers and fries for 8.99 and the soup for 8.49. Basically it's like getting two little burgers and fries for a dollar or a bowl of soup for 5o cents. I'd been planning on getting just the salad bar but, realizing this, I ordered the mini turkey burgers and salad. I ate my salad from the salad bar and took the burgers and fries home for my brother. It was perfect!
The trio left this morning and only now do I feel like I'm really home. Now I'm starting to go back to my real life. I finally had time to organize my room and run errands I need to do. Today I went and toured Park Region, the hall I'll be working in next semester. The rooms are so much more spacious than the ones in Hoyum (where I was last year). I'm pretty excited. I got some things I need for my dorm room. I went to the library. Now there is one thing I've really missed. The AUC library is okay but nothing compared to my good old friendly Fargo Public Library. :) I got a couple dozen books, some movies and some CDs to keep my self busy for the next couple of days. If anyone reads this and has some book, movie or music suggestions, please let me know. I went to yet another movie: Baby Mama. I'm not sure if I mentioned before but here in Fargo we have a discount theatre with $1.50 movies, another thing I missed while in Egypt. Baby Mama was good but not as good as I expected. I thought it would be wittier. I stopped by the club where I play tennis to reactivate my membership. Now I'll finally be able to start playing. I have the ball machine reserved for tomorrow morning! I should go inflate the tires on my bike - another thing I've missed!
Posted by ayah at 10:03 PM
The boredom still hasn't sunk in because I was busy for the last couple days. I spent basically the entirety of Monday and Tuesday shopping with the trio. It was fun but I've definitely had my fill of that for another six months. I also went to a couple movies and ate at a few restaurants with them. We went to Made of Honor at Safari first. It's your typical predictable chick flick. My friend Haya and I predicted the entire movie down to the little details before it even started. It was cute though. On Monday we ate at the North American Steak Buffet for dinner, per Omar's request. It's what you could expect of a restaurant with such a name: Lots of food. Lots of fat. Lots of people. I'm not sure what it is but that restaurant has always been ridiculously popular among the Egyptians in Fargo so my family used to go a lot, usually with other Egyptian families. After a point, though, we realized that - even if it does cost only 10 dollars for all of the potatoes, fried chicken, biscuits, steak, pie, etc. that you can eat - it's not worth it if the food isn't good. We can just pay the same amount to eat a reasonable portion of well prepared food at a different restaurant. Anyway, also on Monday we went to Dark Knight. I hadn't really wanted to go because I was very tired: I had woken up at 4 on Monday and we went to the 9:40 showing after a solid day of non-stop shopping. Nevertheless, after all I'd heard about the movie, I was excited. As soon as we got into the theatre though sleepiness set in. As hard as I tried to fight it I fell asleep for about the first hour of the movie. I didn't think the movie was all that great but, y'know, maybe I would have appreciated the plot more if I'd seen the first half...I have to say, though (and not just because he's dead), that Heath Ledger was very convincing as the Joker. The ending was also good..not as predictable as many superhero movie endings. On Tuesday we ate at Ruby Tuesday. That is one under-appreciated restaurant. If you aren't familiar, it's sort of like Friday's but it has an all-you-can eat salad buffet that you can get for 7.99 by itself or 2.99 as an add-on to your entree. It's genius: the perfect set-up for me. Their pricing makes me laugh though. They have some items on the menu that automatically come with the salad bar. Some such items: the 2 mini burgers and fries for 8.99 and the soup for 8.49. Basically it's like getting two little burgers and fries for a dollar or a bowl of soup for 5o cents. I'd been planning on getting just the salad bar but, realizing this, I ordered the mini turkey burgers and salad. I ate my salad from the salad bar and took the burgers and fries home for my brother. It was perfect!
The trio left this morning and only now do I feel like I'm really home. Now I'm starting to go back to my real life. I finally had time to organize my room and run errands I need to do. Today I went and toured Park Region, the hall I'll be working in next semester. The rooms are so much more spacious than the ones in Hoyum (where I was last year). I'm pretty excited. I got some things I need for my dorm room. I went to the library. Now there is one thing I've really missed. The AUC library is okay but nothing compared to my good old friendly Fargo Public Library. :) I got a couple dozen books, some movies and some CDs to keep my self busy for the next couple of days. If anyone reads this and has some book, movie or music suggestions, please let me know. I went to yet another movie: Baby Mama. I'm not sure if I mentioned before but here in Fargo we have a discount theatre with $1.50 movies, another thing I missed while in Egypt. Baby Mama was good but not as good as I expected. I thought it would be wittier. I stopped by the club where I play tennis to reactivate my membership. Now I'll finally be able to start playing. I have the ball machine reserved for tomorrow morning! I should go inflate the tires on my bike - another thing I've missed!
Posted by ayah at 10:03 PM
'Home' (originally published July 20, 2008)
It's cold. It's empty. It's quiet. It's clean. It's Fargo. and Fargo is home. Since I got here I keep repeating in my head, "I live here. This is home." in the hope that it will start to sink in. I still feel like I'm just visiting this seriously population-lacking city and that in a few days I'll be going back. I can't bring myself to change my time on the computer to Fargo time. I'll have to do that soon. It's only been about 12 hours though. The trio (Mohamad, Wafa and Omar) came a few hours ago; their train was late. Their sleeping schedules and mine are going to be complete opposites now. It's 8 am and I just woke up after three hours of sleep; they went to sleep at 5 too but they'll probably wake up around 1 or 2 or later. That means I'll be tired at around 6 or 7 pm and they'll be tired around 3 or 4 am. Beautiful.
The flights were good. We were cutting it last minute the whole time. My uncle who drove us to the airport was really tired and kept falling back asleep so, since I had to take all 8 of our 50 pound suitcases down three flights of stairs by myself, we left about 40 minutes later than planned. Check-in was smooth and since my grandma had ordered a wheelchair to take her to the gate in the Cairo airport, we had no problem with time. The guy who was pushing the wheelchair has the right to skip all the lines (passport control, security, boarding). Once we got to the gate, we, along with the rest of the 'passengers with disabilities' and their families boarded first. I was really impressed actually at how it works. They have a truck with a platform thing that goes up like an elevator so that the passengers don't have to get out of their wheelchairs. That truck then takes the passengers and their families directly to the plane and elevates to the level of the door so that, unlike the other passengers in Cairo, they don't have to climb a flight of stairs to get into the plane. Because they are the first to board, all the flight attendants are free to help them find their seats and put away their luggage. I was impressed.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, an electric cart picked my grandmother and the other passengers requiring wheelchairs up from the gate and brought them to the waiting area where they were to be picked up an hour before boarding time for their next flight. The woman driving the cart checked all of the passengers in and gave them back their boarding passes. We had a six-hour layover so we spent a lot of time wandering and sleeping. Our flight was scheduled at 1:15. At about 12:15 and again at 12:20 a man came around asking for passenger Morgan to San Francisco. He looked at my grandmother expecting her to be passenger Morgan but she was passenger Ouda to Minneapolis. By about 12:25 we were starting to wonder what was going on; we would be late to our plane if we waited much longer. My grandma took out her boarding pass to check her time and realized that she did indeed have passenger Morgan's boarding pass to San Francisco, leaving at 1:25. She went immediately to the desk and there they realized that passenger Morgan and my grandmother's boarding passes had been switched when the driver of the electric cart took them to check-in for them. Passenger Morgan was not around so it took them about 15 minutes to straighten some things out and print my grandma's new boarding pass. Again, since we were with a wheelchair pushing person, we were fine despite being tight for time since we skipped all lines. When they were scanning the ticket for us to board, my grandma's ticket beeped, telling the guy 'already checked-in'. I quickly explained to the guy what had happened over at the waiting area for people with wheelchairs. They all immediately looked alarmed but let us board right away. As we were walking in the tube, one of the ticket agents from outside was helping an elderly passenger walk, explaining to her that she had been taken to the wrong plane. The elderly passenger, clearly passenger Morgan, had been one of the women on the electric cart with my grandma early. Beyond a careless mistake, does this seem alarming to you?? Passenger Morgan boarded a plane from Amsterdam to Minneapolis in the name of Rawia Ouda. Through all the security checks and questioning in the airport before boarding a plane to the US how could they have possibly not noticed the name on her boarding pass didn't match the name on her passport??? Also, what would have happened if we'd all fallen asleep (which actually almost happened). Passenger Morgan, intending to go to San Francisco, would have ridden the plane to Minneapolis. Wow.
On the plane I watched a Bollywood film called 'You, Me and Us'. It took me until the last 2o minutes of the movie to realize that it was the Bollywood version of The Notebook. It is almost an identical story with a nominally happier ending. Good mood lifter.
We had slightly less than two hours scheduled between landing time from Amsterdam and departure time to Fargo in Minneapolis. I'm not sure who scheduled it like that but never again. Two hours really isn't enough time to get through passport control, get our 8 bags from the baggage wheel, put them on the conveyor for customs, get them from the conveyor for customs, put them back on the conveyor to go to our plane, check-in to our flight, and still be at the gate 30 minutes before departure time. We wouldn't have made it without the help of my grandma's wheelchair pusher who allowed us to skip all of the quite long lines, a very helpful baggage worker who acted as porter for us, taking care of our bags through all the conveyor belts and several of Minneapolis' electric cart drivers. Despite all of their help we were still the last ones to board the plane but the important thing was that we made it.
In Fargo, quite miraculously, all of but one of our bags arrived. That last one arrived to us in our house about 3 hours later. On the drive home I was stunned by the lack of people. I feel like I'm in a dead-town despite the fact that I'm in the largest 'city' in North Dakota. We got home at 7 pm; the trio was scheduled to arrive at the Fargo train station at 3 am. My dad made us a great dinner and then we unpacked and organized as best we could. I did my best to set out beds for everyone. We're currently using all of the sheets in our house except for the extra-long ones for my dorm. I guess that means we're at our full capacity. :)
I'm still in utter disbelief at how horribly the guy cut my hair. I liked my hair long; I just wanted to trim it a bit and give it shape so it didn't get too long in the coming months. I explained that to him but, nevertheless, he chopped my hair off. Taking away the length and any shape that it did have. My mom helped me relax (chemically straighten) my hair yesterday. It's less frizzy but I'm still not exactly pleased with it.
The trio's train arrived late and they came to our house around 4:30 am. They were all beat from a month of ridiculously hard work and lack of sleep. We chatted for a little bit and went in to sleep around 5:30. It took me a really long hard to sleep. I could hear every tick and tock of my clock, every peep of a bird from outside the room. It was eery. The quiet hum of my computer on my desk seemed like the roar of a supersonic jet to me and I had to get up and turn the computer off before I managed to fall asleep. I guess it will be good once I'm moved into the dorms. We all know it's never silent in a college dorm. :D
Kimo has forgotten so many things about home. I stopped at a water fountain to take a drink at the Amsterdam airport. "What are you doing with that faucet, Ayah," he asked. "I'm drinking water," I said. "What," he asked, "you're licking water?? Hehe..that's funny. Can I try the faucet water?" When my mom came he excitedly told her about he faucet and how she could try the faucet water if she wanted. When we went out to the parking lot in Fargo, Kimo couldn't pick out our car and even when my dad pointed at our van he asked incredulously, "that big van is ours??' He was confused when my dad started buckling his seatbelt for him, "Hehe..what's that for, daddy?" He was endlessly amused by the fact that the freezer has a button for ice. He was falling asleep in the car but as soon as we got home he spent hours playing with his toys. He remembered none of them so it was liking having a house full of new toys.
I've forgotten my fair share of things too. I tried to check my cell phone messages but failed, having forgotten my voicemail password. It took me a while to see my new text messages too because I've completely forgotten how the menus on Samsung phones work. I've forgotten where a lot of the light switches are and, of course, I can't find anything. Anytime I want something I have to tear apart my room to figure out where I put it.
Some differences between Fargo, ND and Cairo, Egypt:
-the refrigerator in Fargo makes things cold
-it is possible to spot more than one person an hour in Cairo
-it's logical to wear a sweatshirt in Fargo in July
-free water in Fargo!
-although Fargo has central AC in most places it's 100 times less needed than in Cairo
-driving in Fargo involves rules-
in Fargo I can leave my house whenever I want. Want to go grocery shopping at 2 in the morning? Go for it!
More to come.Well, I'm out to buy some things for breakfast; we'll see if I remember how to drive stick.
Posted by ayah at 8:19 AM 0 comments
The flights were good. We were cutting it last minute the whole time. My uncle who drove us to the airport was really tired and kept falling back asleep so, since I had to take all 8 of our 50 pound suitcases down three flights of stairs by myself, we left about 40 minutes later than planned. Check-in was smooth and since my grandma had ordered a wheelchair to take her to the gate in the Cairo airport, we had no problem with time. The guy who was pushing the wheelchair has the right to skip all the lines (passport control, security, boarding). Once we got to the gate, we, along with the rest of the 'passengers with disabilities' and their families boarded first. I was really impressed actually at how it works. They have a truck with a platform thing that goes up like an elevator so that the passengers don't have to get out of their wheelchairs. That truck then takes the passengers and their families directly to the plane and elevates to the level of the door so that, unlike the other passengers in Cairo, they don't have to climb a flight of stairs to get into the plane. Because they are the first to board, all the flight attendants are free to help them find their seats and put away their luggage. I was impressed.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, an electric cart picked my grandmother and the other passengers requiring wheelchairs up from the gate and brought them to the waiting area where they were to be picked up an hour before boarding time for their next flight. The woman driving the cart checked all of the passengers in and gave them back their boarding passes. We had a six-hour layover so we spent a lot of time wandering and sleeping. Our flight was scheduled at 1:15. At about 12:15 and again at 12:20 a man came around asking for passenger Morgan to San Francisco. He looked at my grandmother expecting her to be passenger Morgan but she was passenger Ouda to Minneapolis. By about 12:25 we were starting to wonder what was going on; we would be late to our plane if we waited much longer. My grandma took out her boarding pass to check her time and realized that she did indeed have passenger Morgan's boarding pass to San Francisco, leaving at 1:25. She went immediately to the desk and there they realized that passenger Morgan and my grandmother's boarding passes had been switched when the driver of the electric cart took them to check-in for them. Passenger Morgan was not around so it took them about 15 minutes to straighten some things out and print my grandma's new boarding pass. Again, since we were with a wheelchair pushing person, we were fine despite being tight for time since we skipped all lines. When they were scanning the ticket for us to board, my grandma's ticket beeped, telling the guy 'already checked-in'. I quickly explained to the guy what had happened over at the waiting area for people with wheelchairs. They all immediately looked alarmed but let us board right away. As we were walking in the tube, one of the ticket agents from outside was helping an elderly passenger walk, explaining to her that she had been taken to the wrong plane. The elderly passenger, clearly passenger Morgan, had been one of the women on the electric cart with my grandma early. Beyond a careless mistake, does this seem alarming to you?? Passenger Morgan boarded a plane from Amsterdam to Minneapolis in the name of Rawia Ouda. Through all the security checks and questioning in the airport before boarding a plane to the US how could they have possibly not noticed the name on her boarding pass didn't match the name on her passport??? Also, what would have happened if we'd all fallen asleep (which actually almost happened). Passenger Morgan, intending to go to San Francisco, would have ridden the plane to Minneapolis. Wow.
On the plane I watched a Bollywood film called 'You, Me and Us'. It took me until the last 2o minutes of the movie to realize that it was the Bollywood version of The Notebook. It is almost an identical story with a nominally happier ending. Good mood lifter.
We had slightly less than two hours scheduled between landing time from Amsterdam and departure time to Fargo in Minneapolis. I'm not sure who scheduled it like that but never again. Two hours really isn't enough time to get through passport control, get our 8 bags from the baggage wheel, put them on the conveyor for customs, get them from the conveyor for customs, put them back on the conveyor to go to our plane, check-in to our flight, and still be at the gate 30 minutes before departure time. We wouldn't have made it without the help of my grandma's wheelchair pusher who allowed us to skip all of the quite long lines, a very helpful baggage worker who acted as porter for us, taking care of our bags through all the conveyor belts and several of Minneapolis' electric cart drivers. Despite all of their help we were still the last ones to board the plane but the important thing was that we made it.
In Fargo, quite miraculously, all of but one of our bags arrived. That last one arrived to us in our house about 3 hours later. On the drive home I was stunned by the lack of people. I feel like I'm in a dead-town despite the fact that I'm in the largest 'city' in North Dakota. We got home at 7 pm; the trio was scheduled to arrive at the Fargo train station at 3 am. My dad made us a great dinner and then we unpacked and organized as best we could. I did my best to set out beds for everyone. We're currently using all of the sheets in our house except for the extra-long ones for my dorm. I guess that means we're at our full capacity. :)
I'm still in utter disbelief at how horribly the guy cut my hair. I liked my hair long; I just wanted to trim it a bit and give it shape so it didn't get too long in the coming months. I explained that to him but, nevertheless, he chopped my hair off. Taking away the length and any shape that it did have. My mom helped me relax (chemically straighten) my hair yesterday. It's less frizzy but I'm still not exactly pleased with it.
The trio's train arrived late and they came to our house around 4:30 am. They were all beat from a month of ridiculously hard work and lack of sleep. We chatted for a little bit and went in to sleep around 5:30. It took me a really long hard to sleep. I could hear every tick and tock of my clock, every peep of a bird from outside the room. It was eery. The quiet hum of my computer on my desk seemed like the roar of a supersonic jet to me and I had to get up and turn the computer off before I managed to fall asleep. I guess it will be good once I'm moved into the dorms. We all know it's never silent in a college dorm. :D
Kimo has forgotten so many things about home. I stopped at a water fountain to take a drink at the Amsterdam airport. "What are you doing with that faucet, Ayah," he asked. "I'm drinking water," I said. "What," he asked, "you're licking water?? Hehe..that's funny. Can I try the faucet water?" When my mom came he excitedly told her about he faucet and how she could try the faucet water if she wanted. When we went out to the parking lot in Fargo, Kimo couldn't pick out our car and even when my dad pointed at our van he asked incredulously, "that big van is ours??' He was confused when my dad started buckling his seatbelt for him, "Hehe..what's that for, daddy?" He was endlessly amused by the fact that the freezer has a button for ice. He was falling asleep in the car but as soon as we got home he spent hours playing with his toys. He remembered none of them so it was liking having a house full of new toys.
I've forgotten my fair share of things too. I tried to check my cell phone messages but failed, having forgotten my voicemail password. It took me a while to see my new text messages too because I've completely forgotten how the menus on Samsung phones work. I've forgotten where a lot of the light switches are and, of course, I can't find anything. Anytime I want something I have to tear apart my room to figure out where I put it.
Some differences between Fargo, ND and Cairo, Egypt:
-the refrigerator in Fargo makes things cold
-it is possible to spot more than one person an hour in Cairo
-it's logical to wear a sweatshirt in Fargo in July
-free water in Fargo!
-although Fargo has central AC in most places it's 100 times less needed than in Cairo
-driving in Fargo involves rules-
in Fargo I can leave my house whenever I want. Want to go grocery shopping at 2 in the morning? Go for it!
More to come.Well, I'm out to buy some things for breakfast; we'll see if I remember how to drive stick.
Posted by ayah at 8:19 AM 0 comments
yet another boring, pointless post about my day (originally published July 18, 2008)
which was, as expected sad, productive though I suppose.
I saw some people, called some people, said bye to them all. I didn't get to see the one person I most wanted to see, but hey! Everything for a reason, right? She hates goodbyes anyway.
I got my hair cut. I told the guy I didn't want it too short so he chopped off the front and left the back long. Genius. Whatever..it'll grow. There was a woman at the salon while I was there who kept inserting English into her sentences as if that made her more significant or something. To the guy doing her hair: "Momtaz. Gameel. Bgad nice work." To her daughter, "Mariam, askoty ba2a shwaya. NOW!"
Right now I was thinking of writing the line "I can't breathe." but decided against it. I clearly can breathe I just can't think. Anywho, I was signing in to Skype at the time and right as the line came into my head Skype told me to "Take a deep breath." Ha! Which reminds me: when we were in the library of Alexandria, I saw this guy who I was pretty sure was the not-at-all helpful tourguide we had in Port Said. When I turned for a second look it was actually a Brazilian tourist. 15 minutes later in the basement of the library I actually did see the not-at-all helpful tourguide from Port Said leading around a couple of Spanish tourists. Later in the day, I noticed a Little Caesar's sign. For some reason I was interested and so I turned to look and it turned out that it was actually just a sign for a grocery store. About one minute later, we passed a real Little Caesar's. Ah coincidences...
4 hours until my plane. 25 hours until I'm Fargo home. Wow. Cue waterworks.
Posted by ayah at 3:57 PM 0 comments
I saw some people, called some people, said bye to them all. I didn't get to see the one person I most wanted to see, but hey! Everything for a reason, right? She hates goodbyes anyway.
I got my hair cut. I told the guy I didn't want it too short so he chopped off the front and left the back long. Genius. Whatever..it'll grow. There was a woman at the salon while I was there who kept inserting English into her sentences as if that made her more significant or something. To the guy doing her hair: "Momtaz. Gameel. Bgad nice work." To her daughter, "Mariam, askoty ba2a shwaya. NOW!"
Right now I was thinking of writing the line "I can't breathe." but decided against it. I clearly can breathe I just can't think. Anywho, I was signing in to Skype at the time and right as the line came into my head Skype told me to "Take a deep breath." Ha! Which reminds me: when we were in the library of Alexandria, I saw this guy who I was pretty sure was the not-at-all helpful tourguide we had in Port Said. When I turned for a second look it was actually a Brazilian tourist. 15 minutes later in the basement of the library I actually did see the not-at-all helpful tourguide from Port Said leading around a couple of Spanish tourists. Later in the day, I noticed a Little Caesar's sign. For some reason I was interested and so I turned to look and it turned out that it was actually just a sign for a grocery store. About one minute later, we passed a real Little Caesar's. Ah coincidences...
4 hours until my plane. 25 hours until I'm Fargo home. Wow. Cue waterworks.
Posted by ayah at 3:57 PM 0 comments
and...the battery ran out. (originally posted July 17, 2008)
I've spent about 12 of the last 80 hours sleeping and haven't slept in the last 36 hours. I definitely feel drained. I didn't go to my last commitment of the day though so I'll be able to sleep right now! (for the last time this year in Egypt??)
The rest of my day was pretty fun. I actually fell asleep for about half an hour after I finished that last post and when I woke up I found that I had some missed calls from Laura. I met up with her and her classmate George and we got some dinner at Koshari el Tahrir. Delicious as always. Afterward I sat with Laura for awhile before going back home to see some aunts and friends at my house and then going back to Garden City for a couple of hours.
My mom had sent me out earlier to buy some cream so that she could make icecream from the fresh mangoes from the tree in the garden. I was a little dubious as to how that would turn out but I just tried it now and it's delicious, really one of the best mango icecreams I've ever had.
I can't believe that at this time tomorrow, I'll be getting myself mentally ready to go the airport. I will have said goodbye/be saying goodbye to my favorite people in Egypt and putting my last electronic items into suitcases. It's real. I'm actually leaving. Tomorrow.
Posted by ayah at 12:21 PM
The rest of my day was pretty fun. I actually fell asleep for about half an hour after I finished that last post and when I woke up I found that I had some missed calls from Laura. I met up with her and her classmate George and we got some dinner at Koshari el Tahrir. Delicious as always. Afterward I sat with Laura for awhile before going back home to see some aunts and friends at my house and then going back to Garden City for a couple of hours.
My mom had sent me out earlier to buy some cream so that she could make icecream from the fresh mangoes from the tree in the garden. I was a little dubious as to how that would turn out but I just tried it now and it's delicious, really one of the best mango icecreams I've ever had.
I can't believe that at this time tomorrow, I'll be getting myself mentally ready to go the airport. I will have said goodbye/be saying goodbye to my favorite people in Egypt and putting my last electronic items into suitcases. It's real. I'm actually leaving. Tomorrow.
Posted by ayah at 12:21 PM
I Feel Like the Energizer Bunny. (originally published July 17, 2008)
but...I'm not. For the past few days I've been acting as if I were the Energizer bunny, but - quite unfortunately - my battery does not 'keep going and going'. In fact, I think I'm down to about the last 2% of charge which I have to stretch over about the next 12 hours. It's all worth it though because I've been having a great time and in a few days I'll be home with all the time in the world to attend unimportant little things like sleeping and eating.
Yesterday I started my morning with tennis. I didn't manage to wake up at 6:30 as I'd planned to eat breakfast beforehand, so I opted instead to simply inhale a forkful of tuna on my way out the door. I think that actually might have worked a little bit. My muscles seemed to work much more properly than the day before. As I mentioned earlier, I was playing my favorite ballboy Mohy. I also played the head coach Gamal, who - as always (but usually because of reasons other than his skill as a tennis player) - beat me. I beat Mohy pretty badly, much to his dismay. He played well but I think he was a little nervous because it's been so long since we've played and it was close the last time. I was actually pretty surprised I won at all. He's really getting better quickly. A little note on how the tennis coaching/ballboying system works at Nady Bank el Ahly where I play. There are 8 ballboys - Mohy, Ahmed, Karim, Abaza, Islam, Hamada and two others who I never learned the names of - who I see when I go in the mornings to play. No matter when I go really, they're there, indicating to me that they don't go to school. Instead they come everyday and run around after tennis balls for 1 to 2 pound tips per hour of work. For them, though, it's really quite an investment in their future. I realized with time that, when there are no customers, the ballboys all play against each other as much as possible and they develop quickly as tennis players from all the on-court hours. When I first came, Mohy was strictly a ballboy. Occasionally he'd hit with a customer while one of the coaches (Sayed or Gamal) was changing. Yesterday when I went, the reason that I had to play Coach Gamal before Mohy was that Mohy was giving his own 'lesson'. He must be around 18 or 19 so now, having been a ballboy for who knows how long, he's becoming a coach. I expect that both Sayed and Gamal ascended to coach-hood in the same way. A 'lesson' with one of them involves nothing more than playing a match with him. If you hit the ball out/in the net they say 'NOOO!!' and if you hit a good shot they say 'yes. do that again.' Quite clearly, I don't exactly go the club for the great advice that I get from the coaches. They're decent tennis players and I usually have pretty close tennis matches with them but they just have never learned why certain shots work or certain shots don't so it's near impossible for them to notice little mistakes in form in other people and tell them how to correct them. Mohy and Ahmed (the second oldest ballboy) are always playing when I show up unannounced. I was here on Karim's first day. They had him be a ballboy for me back on that March day. He was chubby, extremely nervous, wearing sneakers a few sizes too big and very confused about the rules of the tennis game and when would be a good time to pick up the ball and give it to the server (let alone who was the server). When I saw him yesterday he had been trained just like the others. He could keep track of the score he always threw the ball perfectly, he'd lost a lot of weight and he'd gone back to playing barefoot since they were too big.
After a quick shower I was more than ready to take a nice nap. Just as I settled down to do so, my uncle Amr, aunt Samaha and cousin Jena arrived. I sat with them for a little while and then went to go see the movie Hassan w Mor2os with my mother. The film was good but it had a little more violence than what I would have been necessary. It's a movie with a great story and if had a little more direction with the scenes it could be really good. From there I went on to Dokki in an attempt to sea AlaaCandace,DC and Dina and 3am Mohamed. I was a bit later than I expected to go so the only ones there I knew were Alaa and Amed. Both of them are really nice but saying hi them but, they had work to get to, so I didn't stay long. I moved on to Garden City where I met [uo with Basma, Abir and Noha. We went to Costa for dinner and coffee and then walked around for a while. Noha got tired so Basma and I took her and Abir home and went to go get icecream for el abd. We almost arrived there before we realized that we didn't actually want icecream so we turned around. I spent the night at Basma's house which involved absolutely no sleeping. We stayed up until 7 this morning talking. At 7, I rushed back to Mohandessein to play tennis one last time and Basma finally went to sleep. The tennis was fun. I gave the boys some old rackets and tennis shoes we had in the apartment and they were really happy with them. I finally beat Coach Gamal, a very hard feat because of his strong tendency toward changing the score in his favor when he is losing. I am not so sure that my ability to beat him now stems from my personal improvement or a lessening of the cheating from his side. Basma and I were going to catch the 11 o'clock bus from AUC's current campus to AUC's new campus to check it out so I showered quickly and left my house around 10. When I called Basma's house it turned out she's still sleeping, quite logical I suppose so I just came and sat here on the AUC campus using the internet. I'm planning on meeting Laura around 1 anyway since we haven't seen each other in a while.
At the beginning of the semester, if I wanted to go to Tahrir Square, I'd go to the busstop by my house, sit on bus 102 and pay 50 piastres to be dropped off right in the square. Sinc ethe gas prices rose though they have changed the starting point of bus 102 to a little before the busstop by my house. Now the buses cost 1 pound and come to our busstop already bursting full. Today was particularly bad...wow...we were quite literally stuffed in like pickles. That along with the 26 hours without sleep I've spent so far led to one very hard to handle bus ride. I just about collapsed when I arrived at AUC. I've fallen into a momentary doze three times while writing this post.
Like I said though, it's all worth it. Mentally I'm not tired at all. I'm still as ready as ever to see all of my friends here and so I'll put off the sleep to a time when there aren't so many great things to do while awake.
Posted by ayah at 3:24 AM
Yesterday I started my morning with tennis. I didn't manage to wake up at 6:30 as I'd planned to eat breakfast beforehand, so I opted instead to simply inhale a forkful of tuna on my way out the door. I think that actually might have worked a little bit. My muscles seemed to work much more properly than the day before. As I mentioned earlier, I was playing my favorite ballboy Mohy. I also played the head coach Gamal, who - as always (but usually because of reasons other than his skill as a tennis player) - beat me. I beat Mohy pretty badly, much to his dismay. He played well but I think he was a little nervous because it's been so long since we've played and it was close the last time. I was actually pretty surprised I won at all. He's really getting better quickly. A little note on how the tennis coaching/ballboying system works at Nady Bank el Ahly where I play. There are 8 ballboys - Mohy, Ahmed, Karim, Abaza, Islam, Hamada and two others who I never learned the names of - who I see when I go in the mornings to play. No matter when I go really, they're there, indicating to me that they don't go to school. Instead they come everyday and run around after tennis balls for 1 to 2 pound tips per hour of work. For them, though, it's really quite an investment in their future. I realized with time that, when there are no customers, the ballboys all play against each other as much as possible and they develop quickly as tennis players from all the on-court hours. When I first came, Mohy was strictly a ballboy. Occasionally he'd hit with a customer while one of the coaches (Sayed or Gamal) was changing. Yesterday when I went, the reason that I had to play Coach Gamal before Mohy was that Mohy was giving his own 'lesson'. He must be around 18 or 19 so now, having been a ballboy for who knows how long, he's becoming a coach. I expect that both Sayed and Gamal ascended to coach-hood in the same way. A 'lesson' with one of them involves nothing more than playing a match with him. If you hit the ball out/in the net they say 'NOOO!!' and if you hit a good shot they say 'yes. do that again.' Quite clearly, I don't exactly go the club for the great advice that I get from the coaches. They're decent tennis players and I usually have pretty close tennis matches with them but they just have never learned why certain shots work or certain shots don't so it's near impossible for them to notice little mistakes in form in other people and tell them how to correct them. Mohy and Ahmed (the second oldest ballboy) are always playing when I show up unannounced. I was here on Karim's first day. They had him be a ballboy for me back on that March day. He was chubby, extremely nervous, wearing sneakers a few sizes too big and very confused about the rules of the tennis game and when would be a good time to pick up the ball and give it to the server (let alone who was the server). When I saw him yesterday he had been trained just like the others. He could keep track of the score he always threw the ball perfectly, he'd lost a lot of weight and he'd gone back to playing barefoot since they were too big.
After a quick shower I was more than ready to take a nice nap. Just as I settled down to do so, my uncle Amr, aunt Samaha and cousin Jena arrived. I sat with them for a little while and then went to go see the movie Hassan w Mor2os with my mother. The film was good but it had a little more violence than what I would have been necessary. It's a movie with a great story and if had a little more direction with the scenes it could be really good. From there I went on to Dokki in an attempt to sea AlaaCandace,DC and Dina and 3am Mohamed. I was a bit later than I expected to go so the only ones there I knew were Alaa and Amed. Both of them are really nice but saying hi them but, they had work to get to, so I didn't stay long. I moved on to Garden City where I met [uo with Basma, Abir and Noha. We went to Costa for dinner and coffee and then walked around for a while. Noha got tired so Basma and I took her and Abir home and went to go get icecream for el abd. We almost arrived there before we realized that we didn't actually want icecream so we turned around. I spent the night at Basma's house which involved absolutely no sleeping. We stayed up until 7 this morning talking. At 7, I rushed back to Mohandessein to play tennis one last time and Basma finally went to sleep. The tennis was fun. I gave the boys some old rackets and tennis shoes we had in the apartment and they were really happy with them. I finally beat Coach Gamal, a very hard feat because of his strong tendency toward changing the score in his favor when he is losing. I am not so sure that my ability to beat him now stems from my personal improvement or a lessening of the cheating from his side. Basma and I were going to catch the 11 o'clock bus from AUC's current campus to AUC's new campus to check it out so I showered quickly and left my house around 10. When I called Basma's house it turned out she's still sleeping, quite logical I suppose so I just came and sat here on the AUC campus using the internet. I'm planning on meeting Laura around 1 anyway since we haven't seen each other in a while.
At the beginning of the semester, if I wanted to go to Tahrir Square, I'd go to the busstop by my house, sit on bus 102 and pay 50 piastres to be dropped off right in the square. Sinc ethe gas prices rose though they have changed the starting point of bus 102 to a little before the busstop by my house. Now the buses cost 1 pound and come to our busstop already bursting full. Today was particularly bad...wow...we were quite literally stuffed in like pickles. That along with the 26 hours without sleep I've spent so far led to one very hard to handle bus ride. I just about collapsed when I arrived at AUC. I've fallen into a momentary doze three times while writing this post.
Like I said though, it's all worth it. Mentally I'm not tired at all. I'm still as ready as ever to see all of my friends here and so I'll put off the sleep to a time when there aren't so many great things to do while awake.
Posted by ayah at 3:24 AM
visits galore (originally published July 15, 2008)
Today was jam-packed. I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open yet I'm writing this post anyway...don't bother trying to understand my logic.
Yesterday night I started looking at class options for next semester. I already signed up for courses a few months ago but, I no longer want to take Neuroscience, so I was looking at what alternatives were open. That led me to look at the requirements for all the majors I possibly could be interested in. After looking at the requirements for about 15 majors, I'm still thinking Global Studies, Global Systems and Issues track is for me. I'm not sure still about double majoring or minoring in Spanish, Political Science, Economics, Sociology or something else. Anyway, I got nowhere near close to making all the decisions I still want to make but decided to go to bed at around 4. I somehow still woke up on my own at 8:30 this morning.
I don't know what possessed me to do so but I decided when I woke up then after 4 and a half hours of sleep to go play tennis, something I haven't done in over a month because of our almost non-stop travels. Again, I don't know what I was thinking but I rolled out of bed, got dressed and left...no breakfast...no water...I didn't even wash my face. 15 minutes of playing and I was so nauseated I could hardly stand up. I told my opponent I was going to have to quit before I fainted. I sat down for a while and drank the soda the coach guy got me (he always insists on getting me soda while playing tennis...I don't get it). After about another twenty minutes I was fun and finished playing. I was much more tired than usual on my walk home though. I guess that's what I get for abandoning the game for so long. It's hard for me to get motivated to go play here though. Tennis in Egypt and particularly in the club I play at is a very male-dominated sport. In all the times I've gone (during the school year I went three times a week) I've never seen another female on or anywhere near the court. None of the people I play ever hit with other girls and so they seem to take any point I win personally. I watch the other guys play with each other and they play differently. They get more into the game and get this competitive spirit. With me it's not the same. I always feel like I'm disturbing some kind of rhythm when I go. I guess going to play isn't as appealing an option for me here since, not only do I have to play, but I also have to work to understand the culture around tennis here in Egypt. One of the hardest things to adjust to was the ball boys. I never know whether or not I should pick the ball up if it's closer to me than him or let him sprint around all over the place. Ah, whatever...a couple more days and I'll be back to the nice, easy to understand tennis world of Fargo, ND. ha.
So, I got back from tennis around 11, showered and went back out. Our original plan was to to stop by AUC to pick some things up, go to a movie and then go on a visiting binge. As it happened, Kareem fell asleep on the way to AUC so, I waited for two hours in the car with him while my parents finished what they had to do at AUC. They had taken longer than expected so there was no longer time for the movie. We went straight to Heliopolis to say goodbye to my paternal grandparents. My grandfather is pretty sick right now so it was kind of sad. After about an hour at the grandparents we drove over to Medinat Nasr to say goodbye to my parents' best friends. That was also sad because, since they're moving to Georgia and we're going back to Fargo, we don't know when we'll get to see them again. From there we went to Ein Shams to say hello to my first host family (which I stayed with for five weeks) from last summer. When I came last summer, their oldest son Ahmed had just returned from a year in the United States. He was having a really hard time adjusting to being back in Egypt so the whole family was tense. When I saw them today they all seemed to be in much better spirits, talking and laughing together, which was nice to see. The thing is, when I try to remember what it was like, how I felt last summer, I can't. at all. I don't remember how I interacted with the family at all. They kept saying things about how I acted or what I did and nothing seemed familiar. I wonder if maybe part of the reason I had a hard time adjusting with them was my own attitude. I'm not sure because I honestly don't remember it but the family wasn't at all how I remembered it. They were nice and talkative and stuff. I don't know. From their house we continued on to Zamalek to see my second host family who I stayed with during my last week in Egypt last summer. I really enjoyed my time there. When I came last summer, their younger daughter Kout was just leaving for the US and their older daughter Dina was in Turkey so I didn't really get to know either of them. This time both of them were there as well as Tant Nashwa and Julia, a girl they are hosting this year. I love Tant Nashwa so much and Dina and Kout were both so nice and friendly. I really enjoyed talking with them. The visits to both my host families were great; I truly feel ashamed that I didn't call them earlier in my stay.
I just came home now and I am, once more, about ready to faint. I don't know why I took the time to write this really. I agreed with one of the ballboys Mohy to play tomorrow at eight and this time I want to eat breakfast before I go so I need to wake up in another six hours. Yikes! I would just cancel but Mohy is my favorite ballboy and, I saw him hitting with Ahmed - another ballboy, and he's gotten really good. Besides, this may be my last chance to play him. Posted by ayah at 3:30 PM
Yesterday night I started looking at class options for next semester. I already signed up for courses a few months ago but, I no longer want to take Neuroscience, so I was looking at what alternatives were open. That led me to look at the requirements for all the majors I possibly could be interested in. After looking at the requirements for about 15 majors, I'm still thinking Global Studies, Global Systems and Issues track is for me. I'm not sure still about double majoring or minoring in Spanish, Political Science, Economics, Sociology or something else. Anyway, I got nowhere near close to making all the decisions I still want to make but decided to go to bed at around 4. I somehow still woke up on my own at 8:30 this morning.
I don't know what possessed me to do so but I decided when I woke up then after 4 and a half hours of sleep to go play tennis, something I haven't done in over a month because of our almost non-stop travels. Again, I don't know what I was thinking but I rolled out of bed, got dressed and left...no breakfast...no water...I didn't even wash my face. 15 minutes of playing and I was so nauseated I could hardly stand up. I told my opponent I was going to have to quit before I fainted. I sat down for a while and drank the soda the coach guy got me (he always insists on getting me soda while playing tennis...I don't get it). After about another twenty minutes I was fun and finished playing. I was much more tired than usual on my walk home though. I guess that's what I get for abandoning the game for so long. It's hard for me to get motivated to go play here though. Tennis in Egypt and particularly in the club I play at is a very male-dominated sport. In all the times I've gone (during the school year I went three times a week) I've never seen another female on or anywhere near the court. None of the people I play ever hit with other girls and so they seem to take any point I win personally. I watch the other guys play with each other and they play differently. They get more into the game and get this competitive spirit. With me it's not the same. I always feel like I'm disturbing some kind of rhythm when I go. I guess going to play isn't as appealing an option for me here since, not only do I have to play, but I also have to work to understand the culture around tennis here in Egypt. One of the hardest things to adjust to was the ball boys. I never know whether or not I should pick the ball up if it's closer to me than him or let him sprint around all over the place. Ah, whatever...a couple more days and I'll be back to the nice, easy to understand tennis world of Fargo, ND. ha.
So, I got back from tennis around 11, showered and went back out. Our original plan was to to stop by AUC to pick some things up, go to a movie and then go on a visiting binge. As it happened, Kareem fell asleep on the way to AUC so, I waited for two hours in the car with him while my parents finished what they had to do at AUC. They had taken longer than expected so there was no longer time for the movie. We went straight to Heliopolis to say goodbye to my paternal grandparents. My grandfather is pretty sick right now so it was kind of sad. After about an hour at the grandparents we drove over to Medinat Nasr to say goodbye to my parents' best friends. That was also sad because, since they're moving to Georgia and we're going back to Fargo, we don't know when we'll get to see them again. From there we went to Ein Shams to say hello to my first host family (which I stayed with for five weeks) from last summer. When I came last summer, their oldest son Ahmed had just returned from a year in the United States. He was having a really hard time adjusting to being back in Egypt so the whole family was tense. When I saw them today they all seemed to be in much better spirits, talking and laughing together, which was nice to see. The thing is, when I try to remember what it was like, how I felt last summer, I can't. at all. I don't remember how I interacted with the family at all. They kept saying things about how I acted or what I did and nothing seemed familiar. I wonder if maybe part of the reason I had a hard time adjusting with them was my own attitude. I'm not sure because I honestly don't remember it but the family wasn't at all how I remembered it. They were nice and talkative and stuff. I don't know. From their house we continued on to Zamalek to see my second host family who I stayed with during my last week in Egypt last summer. I really enjoyed my time there. When I came last summer, their younger daughter Kout was just leaving for the US and their older daughter Dina was in Turkey so I didn't really get to know either of them. This time both of them were there as well as Tant Nashwa and Julia, a girl they are hosting this year. I love Tant Nashwa so much and Dina and Kout were both so nice and friendly. I really enjoyed talking with them. The visits to both my host families were great; I truly feel ashamed that I didn't call them earlier in my stay.
I just came home now and I am, once more, about ready to faint. I don't know why I took the time to write this really. I agreed with one of the ballboys Mohy to play tomorrow at eight and this time I want to eat breakfast before I go so I need to wake up in another six hours. Yikes! I would just cancel but Mohy is my favorite ballboy and, I saw him hitting with Ahmed - another ballboy, and he's gotten really good. Besides, this may be my last chance to play him. Posted by ayah at 3:30 PM
So I went (originally published July 14, 2008)
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
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
good old family (originally published July 9, 2008)
Yesterday was cool. I picked up my Egyptian national ID card with surprisingly little trouble. Other than that I look like a 7-year old after drinking caffeine for the first time, the picture's not bad. I went to cut my hair but then chickened out on the cutting part and just got it straightened and then headed to Basma and Abir's. We walked around Zamalek. It was fun. We talked a lot about basketball shorts.
I'm not at all sure why but I stayed up yesterday until 6:45 this morning, a few minutes after my mom woke up. Sleeping in is really not something people do in my house so my waking up at 11:00, the latest I've gotten up in years, sort of messed up the rhythm of the house. Needless to say I was tired. About 10 minutes after I woke up my uncle Amr, his wife Samaha nd my cousin Jena came over followed shortly by my mom's cousin Tant Hanan. I didn't really sit with them; I fed Koko instead. When Tant Hanan left we went over to my other grandparents' house in Masr el Gadida to say hi and pick up my dad. The first thing that my grandma said to me was 'enty zedty hna fe masr msh kda?' (you've gained weight here in Egypt, haven't you?') Things like that don't normally bother me; I can't even count how many times I've been told I'm fat while I've been here. This time I was kind of irked though. I haven't gained weight in Egypt; I've actually worked really hard to lose a lot of it. I didn't know what to say so I just kinda looked at my mom to save me but she didn't hear so she asked my grandma to repeat. This time my grandma said, "I'm just saying Ayah's gained weight here hasn't she? You and Ahmed (my dad) have lost weight, but she..." I don't know why but hearing it again really hurt me. My mom noticed my downcast face and covered for me but my grandma still made a big deal of how she'd made me sad and stuff. Immediately afterward she served us lunch as she always does when we visit her and, as always, she insisted vehemently that we eat portions of food better suited for a hyena than a human. Normally, I give in and try to agree to eat some of the things she offers me but this time I felt no obligation to do so. I ate a spoonful of the spinach and two fries and refused to eat anything else. I told her I wasn't hungry since I'd eaten breakfast late, which was actually true. I mean, if she's going to call me fat she can't expect me to stuff my face.
My mom's aunt tant Moshira and cousins Ranya, Dina and Ahmed were supposed to come over with their children at around 6 so we rushed home, arriving at around 7. They weren't there and didn't come until around 8:30. I was supposed to meet Basma and Abir at their house to go to this concert/stand-up event thing at the cultural wheel at 9:00 but, since I had to say hi to my family before leaving I called them to tell them to meet me at the culture wheel instead. Noha answered and told me they weren't there and when I called back at 9 nobody answered so I figured they'd forgotten/decided not to go. As it turns out, Noha lied. They were home but she's just mad at them/me for not letting her come with us yesterday when we went out. Thanks for that, Noha. It was alright though. I had a good time with my family; the ones who came are my favorite branch of it. It was crazy to see how much my cousins (second cousins?) have grown. We had a little circus going on in our house for a while. Kimo had a blast showing all the little kids (all 9 of them) his toys.
My family is going to Alex tomorrow and, as of yet, I still haven't decided if I'll go too. If I stay, my uncle and his wife will stay with me...I don't want to go but I'm not sure yet...oo decisions. :P
Sorry this was kind of whiny...not the best of days.
Posted by ayah at 2:42 PM
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