Kleenex: The Final Frontier

Semi important detail from my experience here in Egypt:

My name, Matt, in Arabic means "He died." Not only does that start most conversations off with either 1. confusion 2. confusion and sadness, it 3. gets really old after a while explaining my name to people. There is another Matt (Sir Matt Groh), as well, with me in Egypt. He too was confronted with the naming predicament. Thus, we went a-looking for new names together.

Thankfully, Sesame Street provided the solution. Burt and Ernie in Egypt are Shadi and Hadi.
Thus, for the past three months my name has been Shadi (not shady as in under a tree shady or could be in the mob shady) and Matt G. has been Hadi. It's been strange. Hearing my real name is now a shock.

Shadi has a much better meaning in Arabic. It means song bird. Sweet, huh? Light and fluffy, just like me. The connection to Sesame Street also goes over really well with Egyptians. They get a kick out of it. Hadi, on the other hand, means quiet. For those of you who know Matt, I hope you feel the irony (and the love).

Sadly, however, because Matt G. and I are of similar build, we are often confused. On any day I can be Hadi or Shadi.

New place, new name, does that make me a spy?

I don't want to be a pie

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanksgiving in Egypt is not the same as at home but we managed to do well for ourselves. Wednesday night, we, the students, fixed a feast (it was a lot of food) for ourselves, our Egyptian dorm mates and other people associated with the program.

The meal went great but the preparation was almost more fun. I, along with my friends Joe and Ali, spent the better part of two days preparing 15 kilos of mashed potatoes for the dinner. It was an operation. And I am convinced that water boils slower in Egypt. Can someone do science to back me up on this one? My friends Byron and Phil were responsible for the turkey and did a fine job. Turkeys in Egypt are not nicely packaged and prepared for you as they are in the states. They saw the turkey preparation process through from the beginning, choosing your live turkey from the pen, to the end, in all senses of the word. It apparently was quite an experience.

Thursday we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the American consulate in Alexandria. The students from the Big Brother/Big Sister program were invited as well. It was fun sharing Thanksgiving with them. After the guests left, we had a chance to sit down (for the first time. both dinners were super crowded) and simply talk with each other (yes, in English). That was so fine.

That is Thanksgiving for me, sitting down and enjoying the company of friends and family. The food is great but not what is most important. I will always though, take an abundance of both.

Good friends, good food, good God

Galatctic Teeter Totter

A friend once told me that a good way to remember how to distinguish "dessert" as in sweets and "desert" as in giant sandbox is that dessert has two "s" because you want more of it. After my experiences in the desert, I think that statement should apply to both desserts and deserts. If the desert was not totally uninhabitable, I would live there in a heart beat.

This past weekend I traveled with three friends to the Bahariya Oasis and the surrounding deserts. We visited the Black and White Deserts. They are unlike any place I have ever seen before.

Rather than your standard rolling sand dunes, which do not get me wrong, are pretty awesome, the Black and White Deserts were full of ancient rock formations. These formations made the desert seem like a huge sprawling monument rather than the usual empty quarter. Both are shocking and both make one feel pretty small and insignificant.


Our travel to Bahariya from Alexandria could easily be the plot for a movie. There seemed to be a comical amount of steps: We took the train to Cairo immediately after our last lecture Thursday. Once in Cairo, we took the subway to the last station at end of the line. From that station, we walked to a micro bus station under a nearby bridge and met our driver who would take us to Bahariya. It is approximately four hours from Cairo to Bahariya. We spent all day Friday, Friday night, and Saturday morning in the desert and then did the entire trip in reverse. We managed to dash through Cairo on the return trip, riding the subway, buying food, buying train tickets, and making the train in under an hour. We were really impressed with ourselves. Cairo traffic usually puts an end to most efforts for speed and efficiency. It was a lot of travel for a short time in the deserts but so worth it.


We jumped off of sand dunes into the softest sand on the planet. (I make that conclusion, of course, drawing from my extensive background in world sand.) I had sand all over my entire body but that was a small price to pay for FLIGHT.

The night was chilly but we had a fire, good food, and warm tea. The stars were incredible. I think we saw every single one. There was hardly room for another star the sky was so bright.

Galakies, European showers, and عجيب

One Love

I meant to include this story in the previous post but forgot so here it comes.

While in Aswan we visited Elephantine Island, an island in the Nile to the west of the city. The island is a total deviation from the groomed tourist appearance of Aswan. (I use the word groomed lightly.) Elephantine Island is home to some of those who lived to the area before the city became a tourist center.

In our wanderings and getting lost we met some restaurant owners. Setting foreigners back on the right path regularly requires coming in a said restaurant, sitting, and talking so when they invited us in, we accepted. They took us up to the upstairs patio. It was there we met Godzilla.


Godzilla is one ornery crocodile (or alligator? Ah! I forgot). Our friend above in yellow boldly poked him with a stick as me and my friends tried to remain calm and casual. I, personally, was looking for where I was going to hide when the crocodile burst free of his glass prison and went on a rampage. Thankfully though the encounter ended without incident.

That, however, is not the story I wanted to share with you.

Bob Marley has a following in southern Egypt. One of the restaurant workers stopped us on our way out and asked us, "What does tears mean?" We explained the meaning and a smile spread across his face. One of his favorite songs is "No Woman, No Cry" and he did not understand the words. Oh the joy of understanding.

Oh cultural collisions. Especially ones that involve Bob Marley.

I say little darling, don't shed no tears, no woman no cry

He must be Polish

Almost as if our program wanted to treat us for Obama's victory, we took a trip to Upper Egypt and visited the cities of Aswan and Luxor. (Disclaimer: This entry is kind of long. But worth it?)

But wait Matt, Upper Egypt you say? Isn't Alexandria in Upper Egypt? Technically, sort of. Egypt orients itself geographically upside down. Lower Egypt is northern Egypt and Upper Egypt is southern Egypt. Unlike some Egyptian oddities, there is actually a reason for this one. Egypt, I believe, orients its labels by the Nile, rather than the cardinal directions. Therefore, Lower Egypt is the delta region where the river meets the sea and Upper Egypt is upstream.

Aswan and Luxor are home to some of the oldest and most amazing temples and ruins on earth. In Aswan, we visited Abu Simbel, a temple located 40 km north of the Sudanese border.


Pretty sweet, huh?

Abu Simbel was built in honor of Pharaoh Ramses II. Taking the four humongous statues as a subtle hint, Ramses II considered himself the hottest thing since agriculture. (Sliced bread was still yet to come.)

Abu Simbel is part of a greater tragic story. In 1960, Egypt began construction of the High Dam at Aswan, designed to tame the Nile waters and grant Egypt control over the yearly floods that could potentially disrupt crop yields. The damming of the Nile (pun intended?) created Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake and also threatened to destroy countless Nubian settlements and ancient Egyptian monuments. The Egyptian government essentially evicted the Nubian people from their historic land while the international community scrambled to catalog or salvage the priceless ruins that lay in the basin to be consumed by the lake.

Abu Simbel was one of these monuments. To save the temple, engineers tediously dismantled the temple and moved it 60 meters out of the way of Lake Nasser. The operation took several years. For those temples that were dismantled and moved there are numerous known and countless unknown monuments now lost under Lake Nasser. Big stupid lake.

I have been making a conscious effort to keep these entries short because I know too much rambling becomes hard to read. I feel, however, that there's something I must say.

I do not like the Aswan dam. Not one bit. It may have granted Egypt control over the Nile but this control came at the cost of a certain slow death for Egypt. If a certain quick death was the alternative, I suppose this outcome would not be so bad. I'm not sure that was the case, however.

Egypt, historically and still to this day, depends completely on the Nile. Its waters give life to the agricultural delta regions that feed the country. The Aswan dam now effectively stops the river silt that replenished the fields from reaching those regions. This has lead to an increased reliance on chemical fertilizers that have contaminated adjacent water supplies and leeched life from the soil. The acclaimed benefits brought by the dam such as no wild, destructive floods and longer growing periods due to increased water availability have come at too steep a cost. Egypt is in real trouble if it kills the Nile.

Thank you for understanding. I feel much better now. Well, sort of.

The highlight of the trip to Upper Egypt was the four day falucca trip down (heading north) the Nile from Aswan toward Luxor. What is a falucca you ask? Let me show you:

That beauty you're looking at had many names: The Ferrari boat, Rolling Stone, and Princess Sara.

On the falucca we got to relax, nap, read, eat, play music, and make music. (We did many things but those are what first came to mind.) We also learned some falucca language. For those nautically savvy readers, I regretfully do not mean the names of the different parts of the boat. Falucca sailors develop their own language for the more colorful parts of life such as drugs, beer, and women. Consider it cultural immersion. Be proud, Dad.

Only part of the group rode the falucca. The others took a luxurious Nile cruise complete with buffets at every meal, a pool, dance floor, sheets, and running water. Not like I'm jealous or anything. Seriously though, the falucca was unforgettable.


For those concerned, I only sort of got in the Nile. The Nile is notorious for bilharzia, a disease caused by parasitic worms that live in the water and affect a ridiculous percentage of the Egyptian population (something like 40? More? I'm kind of guessing. I know it's a lot though)

Once in Luxor, we visited the must see sites and temples around the city: The Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Der al-Medina, Der al-Bahari, and Medinat Habu. Splendid they all were. I'm sure we missed somethings too. Luxor is just saturated with history. They'll let anyone in though.


To bring a little life back to the temples that are rather lifeless, we did yoga and played sardines during our visit to the Luxor temple. It was so much fun.

We also visited Banana Island, a protectorate of the Banana Republic (I kid.) Banana Island is known for, surprise, its bananas. The bananas were plentiful but just okay. My inquires into Pancake Peninsula and Chocolate Cake Atoll were met only with curious looks. Rats. On the bright side, my friends can do some super fruit impressions.


Egyptian studentry, counting in Farsi, and real living

Graceland

Yesterday my friend Ali invited some of us to his home in the Nile delta province of Kofer al-Sheik. It is about an hour's drive to the east of Alexandria. We spent the day on a falucca (small to kind of medium size sail boat) on the river. Since it was Friday, the Islamic holy day, there were not many other boats on the water. It was peaceful.

This is a picture on our way to the river.


Funny Happening Corner: (by the way, I wish I established this corner earlier) This story requires us to take a trip in the Not-Too-Way-Back Machine to the last time you were near a boat and a dock. As you may know, boats, when they are untethered from the dock, move with the motion of the water. You have to take care when stepping into the boat to not delay too long as your momentum and weight force the boat away from the dock. If you wait too long, you find yourself in a precarious human leg bridge situation that is sure to end comically. Well:

My friend Mohammad tried to board the falucca from a smaller dingy. The tides were against him, rocking the dingy away from the falucca. To his credit, he remained committed to trying to board the falucca. He managed to grab the falucca with his hands as his feet and the dingy bugged out, drifting away from the falucca. His reaction was hilarious as his body slowly stretched out between the two boats. "Guys. Yo guys...Guys! Help me!!"

The boats drifted apart until his stomach sank into the water, his hands and toes still anchored on their respective boats. We were able to pull the boats back together and avert any further submersion.

We all need moments that make us feel that life could be a cartoon. That was one of them for me.

For Halloween, my friends and I ate candy on the beach. In true American style, we overindulged and all regretted it the next day (but Reeses are soooo good). I can say as well that climbing Sugar Mountain was much more fun than coming back down.

Chipsys, beginner's blues, and sea cows