Protests

As you may have heard several thousand Egyptians protested today and yesterday and throughout the night in between. Their demands are for better economic conditions, an end to rampant corruption, free/fair elections, and a term limit on the presidency (effectively not allowing Mubarak to run again). I have a few pictures and I'm getting more from my roomate. I'll show you what I have when I get back I think. They look alot like any other pictures you'd be able to find in the media. In my neighborhood its been business as usual although Tahrir Square (mentioned in an earlier post) is about 2 miles away. That's were alot of the protesters gathered and where a large crackdown was. To be clear these protests are going on throughout all of Egypt, I only know much about the Cairo activity. If I remember correctly it was in Suez or Alexandria where there were a few deaths. Some may have died here too, but no first ammendment rights make it tough to know anything. We're expecting a lull in the protests until after Friday noon prayer. Twitter and almost all local media outlets were shut down yesterday and today Facebook was blocked. This is because Twitter and Facebook were used extensively to organize the protests.

So far we're all very much safe.

Weekend

Bad news, I don't have any pictures worth uploading for this update. If you have requests for pictures I'll do my best to get them. The last two days and today I've been enjoying my weekend but tomorrow classes start back up for me again. Friday, especially before noon, the normally crowded streets of Cairo are mostly peaceful. I like going to get supplies for the up coming week during this unusual lull. The weather here is really nice, staying in the high 50s to low 70s. I'm sure in a few months it will be a little too hot but seeing the temperatures in Wisconsin right now I'm happy to sweat a little bit.

Its a great time for me to be in the middle east. I don't think I could have picked a better time. To my west Tunisia is in the middle of a revolution, in the south Sudan is likely splitting into two seprate states, and nearby Lebanon's government is undergoing some changes to say the least. Tuesday is a brand new Egyptian holiday called police day. Protests are planned so we Americans will have to stay inside until its clear exactly what's going on. 4 or 5 days ago an Egyptian tried to light himself on fire in protest like the Tunisian that sparked the revolution. Its crazy to think that I'm only a few miles from where that happened. On police day I'll give my next update. In the meantime enjoy the Packer game. If they go to the superbowl I'm watching it even though it will start at about 2AM here.

The Pyramids

I didn't come to Middle East to see the ancient Egyptian ruins so to see these world reknown monuments of an ancient civilization is just icing on the cake for me. We took a bus right up to the biggest pyramid and one of our professors, Dr. Ramadan Hussein, met us there to tell us about everything. Dr. Ramadan is the Director of the National Project for Documentation of the Antiquities of Egypt at the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities and he had alot of excellent information for us. He also seemed carry alot of clout. He led our group of 20 up to the front of the line to go in the pyramid and none of us had to pay. He just showed the guard his ID. A similar scene played out when we went to see the sphinx. To get to the sphinx from the pyramids we got to take camels. It was about a 30 minute ride, but I enjoyed every second. Camels are about twice as tall as a horse and can move just as quickly if less gracefully. Throughout the day I took about 30 pictures so these are the ones I thought were most worth uploading.



This handsome young man was kind enough to pose for me from the camel departure area.



Where all those people are lined up is where we got to go in. Unfortunately cameras weren't allowed inside but I felt like Indiana Jones. Pictures can't do justice to the immensity of these structures that have stood for longer than I can conceptualize.

Here we all are riding our camels. As you can see from the background Egypt has alot of sand. Some would say too much sand. I wasn't able to get a picture of myself on a camel but I know others took pictures of me so I will be able to prove to you at some point that I was indeed riding a camel.

As we headed to the bus to leave I got this picture.

That's it for now. I started classes already today and have another class later this evening. I'm not sure how often I'll collect enough interesting things to post but I'll do my best. I'll leave you with a list of random interesting things I've seen so far.

-A goat was slaughtered on the sidewalk
-A bunch of school children sprayed each other with shaving cream (I think) during reccess
-An ambulance stopped in the middle of the street, siren blaring, and an EMT stuck his head out and yelled "Fein sharia il-dokki?" (Where is dokki street?)
-A police man took away a German-speaking tourists camera after he took a picture of a post office
-Workers dismantling a billboard, dropping huge pieces onto the busy street below where other workers were frantically trying to direct Cairo traffic around the pieces.

Exploring My New Home

I had today off so I have time to add a sizable entry and catch you guys up a bit.
First some basics about Cairo to keep in mind when you look at my pictures and read my stories in the future. Egypt is a police state and heavily armed "police men" are everywhere and I mean everywhere. As an American that means I am probably much safer wandering Cairo than any city in America (except for the traffic). To take pictures of the police is strictly prohibited as is taking pictures of the inside of most government buildings so don't expect to see them in the pictures here. Egypt is also overwhelmingly muslim with the expection of the coptic christian minority who often accuse Egypt of persecution. I met an Egyptian whose friend's parents were killed in the recent Alexandria bombing. He went on to tell me that what most news media outside of Egypt didn't cover was the response from the islamic community. Human walls of muslims surrounded churches in solidarity during coptic christmas. It is a very interesting time to be in Egypt and I'm glad I'm here. If you want to hear about Egypt's human right's violations, election fraud, or anything else I would love to discuss it when I get home but for now we will leave the topic alone.

More to me specifically, yesterday we were given a list locations to go to and complete tasks. Usually just taking a picture of the location was sufficient. We divided into teams of 3 and left. It was entertaining if stressful to try to explain to taxi drivers where we wanted to go but I already know more arabic to use next time. Here are a few of the pictures I took. I have to admit most aren't very good when it comes to angle, lighting, framing, ect. but we were in a hurry and I don't have much experience with photography. Next entry will show my first trip to the pyramids, inshah'allah (God willing).

The University of Cairo from which many important leaders graduated including Yassir Arafat. Saddam Hussein dropped out. 



Two of my peers posing with a helpful Egyptian that gave us directions in Tahrir Square.

 Ok, so the uploading time has been exceptionally long so I'm going to cheat and just copy and paste the last one from a google image search. My picture looks almost exactly the same anyway.

This is non-descript building is the Arab League world headquarters and next door is a giant Soviet Union style building that serves as the main administration building for all of Egypt. Across the square is a mosque that is used for nearly all of Egypt's official functions requiring a mosque (e.g. funerals). It is a very important square in Egypt.

Welcome to Cairo


Today I had a substantial amount of free time when I wasn't already exhausted so I got a chance to put some pictures up for you guys. The snail paced internet makes it take a very long time to add just a single picture so after about an hour I added these. Enjoy.


Picture from my apartment as the sun is setting. You can make out the pyramids in the background.


 

I assure you that says "Domino's"



My lunch is shorbah and 7up. Shorbah is kind of like a gyro and just as tasty.

  



The gateway to one of the Amideast buildings. Next door is the Mozambique Embassy.



A better picture of the Nile from my apartment.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kxu05lgISI
This is exactly what the streets of Cairo are like on average. Sometimes they are worse. There are no real traffic laws that are enforced. Horn honking generally doens't mean they are angry or upset, rather, it means "Hey I'm here just so you know."

For those of you that enjoy the Onion newspaper, here in Egypt we like to read http://elkoshary.com/ Koshary is an inexpensive pasta, bean, and rice meal that is very delicious.

Day 4

I met some Egyptian students today and 5 of us (2 Egyptian 3 American) split off to the main group to start exploring Cairo. After fighting traffic we ended up in the Ramses district. It was more western and had alot of stores. There was even a huge mall we could look around in. Everything has a distinctly different feel to it than in America, even the mall. Maybe its the arabic spoken and written everywhere but people also act differently. I was definately expecting this but once its all around you it can be surreal and is difficult to put in words. I think pictures will be my best chance at sharing my experiences so I will try to remember to take pictures in the future.

Pictures from my apartment. On a clear day the view is really cool but these will have to do for now.

I leave the 7th. Maybe I'll have more to say then.