A weekend on the coast

This happened awhile ago but I thought it was worth writing about so

here it is.....a two month overdue post about our trip to Alexandria.

In an effort to escape the heat and the intensity of Cairo and to take advantage of the a few days off before school starts (a vacation that occurs at the end of Ramadan) we head to the coast of the Mediterranean. Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, is the second largest city in Egypt and historically was super important. It was the capital for nearly a thousand years and home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It does still have the catacombs, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Anyway enough of that...

We took the metro to the train station. Fasting was about to end for the day and as the time approached we saw people running around handing dates out to everyone so that everyone would have something to eat. I remember thinking that it was so beautiful and so rare to see everyone come together like that. On the train, Billy, my Arabic speaking American teacher friend befriends this man (who speaks no English). Billy spent the three hour train ride in a very intense discussion about Islam while having smoke blown in his face. Little did we know, this conversation would later save our whole trip.

So turns out this man, Ali is friends with a taxi driver who is coming to pick him up from the train station. He offers to drive us to a hotel and so we agree. We arrive and go to check in and....well I am not proud of this next part but in my defense let me make a few statements: we have been living in Egypt long enough now that we don't really feel like tourists and apparently this means that we don't think about requiring a passport and also normally when you travel

you don't have a home so you have everything with you - so you don't think about the fact that you are asked for your passport when you check into a hotel. Plus, we were really only leaving the city....I think about needing a pas

sport to leave the country. Yes, ok so we did not bring our passports. All three of us. Yes it is true. I would not tell this story out of sheer embarrassment but unfortunately it is necessary for the rest of the story. Anyway so our first thought is "ok we will go back to the train station and take the next train back to Cairo" BUT of course we just got off the last train of the evening so this isn't possible. We then think "ok well we will wonder around the city all night or sleep on the beach and take the next train back in the morning". Of course we are not thrilled with this option but we try to be as optimistic as possible. Our buddy Ali and his cab driver friend Ayman are still with us at this point and they suggest that we hire Ayman to drive us around and then we can see some of the sights (albeit in the dark), have somewhere to leave our bags,

and somewhere to nap if we want. So we agree to this - sounds better than the alternative. Then Ali starts making calls and buzzing around in Arabic and then announces that he has found us a friend of his who rents out his apartment and we can rent it for the weekend. Hmmmm sounded suspicious BUT keep in mind that we were pretty desperate at this point and we justified it by saying that it isn't like he offered this sketchy deal right from the beginning - he would have been perfectly happy to leave us at the hotel (if w

e hadn't been so dumb!) Anyway so as we drive there we decide that if their plan isn't to kidnap and rob us and if this is all a legitimate attempt to help we will stay no matter what...it could be an empty filthy room with just a floor and I would sleep there.

So we get there and we nervously climb the stairs and open the door a

nd immediately are hit with this beautiful ocean breeze - oh wait, it is coming from the most amazing sea view you can imagine.

We step out onto the balcony (see picture taken from this balcony above) and I decide right then that I could live there forever - even if their master plan has something to do with kidnapping the foreigners. We can only imagine what they are planning to charge us for this beautiful, furnished, full kitchen, two bathroom loveliness. We all sit down and everyone lights cigarettes and they ask us how we like it - we express our delight at the place in broken Arabic. Then they get serious and the bartering begin. Ali, it turns out is a master negotiater. It was an intense round of negotiations and on more than one occasion I thought Ali was going to get up and hit someone or throw something and then he would be laughing and poking the guy in the stomach in this sweet playful manner, like you would do a toddler. And the man would giggle. Very odd. Anyway, I am lost and just sit there like a fool totally enthralled by this interaction. Then Ali turns to us and t

ells us a price (I can't remember what it was now but something in the vicinity of the equivalent of like 25 dollars each). What?! Yes please, and by the way, can I stay forever?! We don't have passports so Ali puts up his I.D for us (keep in mind that this man just met us) and the place is ours! It h

as now been hours since Ali should have been home and he travels for work and had not seen his family in 15 days - and yet, here he is bartering for these strangers he met on a train. We didn't ask for any of this kindness! It was remarkable!We try to offer to buy him dinner or to do something for him but he insists that he does not want that

- instead, he says, when we go home to our countries and people ask what the people are like, he wants us to tell people that Muslims are kind and that they are not terrorists, as some people in the West think. I was deeply touched by his kindness and saddened that this was was his one wish- not to be misunderstood by my part of the world. We saw him several times w

hile we were in Alexandria - we would meet at night and drink tea on the beach (see below). It was lovely.

We went with him to his home and met his daughters - a lovely lovely experience. I could not have been happier that the three of happen to be idiots who left their passports at home. We hired Ayman to be our driver for a few days- in part to repay the kindness both men showed us

that night and also because he was a great guy and we enjoyed his company.

My travel companions: Billy and Ryan (the other Western teachers at my school)

and our new friend, Ayman.

The trip was nice - we saw some sights: the catacombs where a guide explained all about the

process of transporting the mummies through the tombs and the makings and statues and what they meant, a fort made partially from the remains of the lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) that was destroyed, where we stood and watched the waves crashing on the shore and marveled at the beautiful view of the city, ruins of the ancient city which has largely been destroyed because it was a constant war site for so many years...anyway a lovely visit. For me it is nice to be out with the two male American teachers that I work with. Being with a man changes everything in this part of the world. While the harassment does not stop, it frees me up to experience the people in a way that I can't alone. We stopped and had tea with a man who was sitting out on the street in front of his seafood shop which looked to me like he and his employees were the sole customers, with a mountain of fish and fishbones (and no plates) piled on top of newspaper on a fold up table. I would never be able to do something like this alone - I can see how different of an experience it is to be a man in this country. Anyway, it was a great little getaway that left us refreshed and ready to meet the little ones.

Greetings From Egypt's Worst Belly Dancer

Close your eyes and imagine a bachelorette party. Got it? Okay now close your eyes and imagine a bachelorette party for an Egyptian Muslim woman. What comes to mind? Yeah, I didn't know what to expect either.

In true Egyptian fashion I was told Wednesday that I would be picked up Thursday for a bachelorette party..this was all I knew. What does one wear to a bachelorette party in Egypt you might ask?! Yeah I wondered too...anyway the ladies picked me up and they were all dressed in their usual clothes: conservative, veiled. I was dressed appropriately so that was fine. Anyway after a lot of dancing to Egyptian music in the car, we arrive. We walked up to the villa, which is covered in strings of lights and notice that there are lots of men around. "Ok, I think..maybe I had the wrong idea" so we are told to go up to the roof and as soon as we step out it is like I have stepped into a North American club (except that it is all women - and there were a few older women in traditional dress): I look out at a sea of short, low-cut dresses and long hair.... I look over at the women I came with and I feel like I have been transported into a movie about high school, where the young girls get to school and take off the top layer to reveal the much more revealing outfit that they weren't allowed to wear in front of their parents. Now the clothes themselves, of course are not shocking to me (although I am one of the more conservatively dressed at this point...interesting reversal) it is just that I see these women every day and I have never seen their hair or their wrists, and who are just as conservative in attitude and mannerisms as they are in dress. It really was something. Some of them take me a moment to recognize. I quickly realize that the men are just downstairs greeting and guarding while the women do their thing. There were tarps put up all around the area so you could not see anything from the street or neighbouring villas.

There is a lot of loud Egyptian music and lots of belly dancing. I am, as the title suggests, the worst belly dancer imaginable - even with the lessons that took place at this party. At one point the lady of the evening leaves and then returns, having traded in her hot pink cocktail dress for a little black number adorned with the belly dancer accessories (you know the jangling belt thing and such) and she goes to the middle of the dance floor and dances while we make a dancing circle around her and cheer her on with our clapping. This happened several times, she would disappear and come back in a new outfit belly dancing outfit (including a sparkly-purple-bikini-top-with-skirt-with-a-slit-all-the-way-up number) which was sometimes accompanied by matching props (such as a gold cane). It was quite the experience. I wish I could show you all pictures but, of course I can't. It was amazing to see a totally different side of these women. I would not have felt comfortable wearing the outfits or doing the dance moves that they were up to - me...from the West. I kept thinking "Is this really happening? Am I the shy, conservative, modest one?" - quite the unexpected role reversal. I don't even know if I can fully express this - I think you may need to be here every day to really be as blown away by it all as I was. It gave me a better understanding of what they must be like at home. Not to say that it is all belly dancing and revealing outfits but just that while the religion requires that they dress conservatively in front of men, they are just like the rest of us in the privacy of their home. There was also a woman who did henna for the bride to be - not all over the hands like in the Indian tradition but smaller ones in various places on her body - and for all of us. Once the dancing was over (around 11) they brought out tons of food and a cake that would have made me blush a little even at home, let alone here. It was a quite an experience...one that a visitor to Egypt would never get to see. As with so many things here, it left me incredibly grateful for this amazing opportunity.

I Have Found my Fruit Man....

I love everything about the fruit stands in third world countries. I love buying fruit from them. I love watching people and their interactions with each other while they buy and sell fruit. I love just seeing the stands - there is something so lovely about it that I can't quite explain. I especially like the sellers that sell from baskets attached to bicycles or better yet, donkeys. I even like seeing the stacks of empty wicker crates after they unload the fruit. Really. I love everything about them. I realize this more than ever when I look through pictures that I have taken (both here in Egypt and in other countries) and realize that there are more pictures of fruit stands than of anything else (with the exception of little Jemma) So what is it? Is it some romanticized vision of a simple life walking along with your donkey friend selling mangos? ( I recognize that this is not accurate or fair at all and odd in fact for I don't have the same silly perception of the lives of people selling ANYTHING other than fruit) Is it the way they use an old fashioned balance with weights and if how much you have taken weighs too much or too little they either add another of whatever item you are buying or take some out...without a thought? Is it the randomness of it when they turn to you and give you an amount that you owe (which of course is nowhere near the real price)? Is it nothing more than the bright colours and the way they are stacked next to each other?

Anyway, when I first arrived I was visiting different fruit stands. There was the one where the seller always asked me to be his fourth wife and the one where the man always made his son talk to me (I assume because he wanted his son to learn English) - our conversations consist

ed of "My name is Melissa", "My name is Mohamed", which we would repeat a few times (it should be known that I loved this fruit seller but he was never there when I tried to go back and some creepy man was at his stand instead). There are also many who insist on talking to me in full Arabic sentence despite my very clear lack of understanding. Sometimes they would repeat it a few times, sometimes slower, sometimes louder - as if this

would help. So it was hard to narrow it down to one but I have done it... I now have my Egyptian fruit man and life is grand. We are always happy to see each other... I try my hand at Arabic conversation and I think he thinks I understand more of what he says than I do (which is next to none) and as I leave he always gives me a present - typically a peach or some mint. But it isn't the free mint... I think that having someone who knows you are and expects you every few days goes a long way to making a place feel like home. See you tomorrow fruit man!

This post is dedicated to my darling brother - the original fruit master.