Interesting times

Political posters everywhere

The Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times,” is in force here. The elections are supposed to begin Monday, the 28^th, and when I went to U.S. Embassy on the 18th to get some legal papers notarized, the city was papered with political posters; there is a permanent protest in front of the Embassy against the imprisonment of the blind sheikh in the U.S., and soldiers and police with automatic weapons were everywhere. As I stood in line to get through Embassy security, it was the first time since arriving here I have felt both Other (which I feel all the time) and at risk. So many weapons frightened me, as did the sense that “something” might happen. The events of the past couple days in Tahrir that turned violent have everyone on edge. However, we are fine. Ma’adi is 12 kilometers and a world away from downtown, and the AUC campus in New Cairo even farther. Its downtown campus has suffered some violence and looting and is closed for the time being, however, and one student was arrested yesterday and is detained. My students are really upset, anxious about the elections, yet hopeful. I remind them that no matter the outcome, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain!

Tahrir news photo from AP, Nov. 20

November brings change to Cairo. The days are shorter (sunset at 5PM, heralded by one of the five daily calls to prayer), the weather cooler (jackets and long sleeves, even scarves), and we now sleep huddled under blankets (since we haven't learned how to turn on the heat in our flat). One of the least pleasant phenomena is when rice farmers in the Nile delta finish their harvest and burn leftover rice straw. The result is 80,000 tons of CO2 released into the air, as a smoky black pall sets in over the city, blown here by the prevailing north-to-south winds. I awake with my sinuses clogged and eyes watering, and though the sun is out, the sky is covered by smog. Evidently, during Mubarak's time, Egypt worked on ways to use the rice straw, to create building materials, paper pulp, or active carbon for filters, but farmers are set in their ways, and continue to burn. Ironically, the rice straw could earn them money, around $50 a ton, but for the present, it goes up in smoke and those who live downwind get to breathe it for a few weeks.

Rice straw smog over Cairo

 As we walked around Friday doing errands before shops close up for midday prayers, Harris noted that in Cairo, taxis hail you rather than you hail taxis. Not a one passes without a honk on the horn, seeing if we’d rather ride.

An invitation to a musical evening at a local club, the Ma’adi House, allowed us truly guilty pleasures: wine and swine. Ma’adi House is provisioned by the U.S. commissary, its members all U.S. citizens, and thus their menu includes pork—the first we’ve had since August! We gobbled down ribs and chops like the condemned. Thank you, Eden and Nate, for the invitation.

This week has brought collegial socializing with it. Dinner with Sarah and Mark Mineart, colleagues from the theater department, at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, China Winds, renewed the question of how Cairo, Egypt, has the best Chinese restaurant outside of Hong Kong? It’s a mystery but in the meantime, we intend on eating everything on the menu except the camel’s trotters in special sauce. Nothing’s that special. Dinner at home with another pair of colleagues capped our weekend (which ends Saturday night, not Sunday).

After lots of juggling, we have settled on a trip for Christmas. Tarek Swelim, a Harvard art history Ph.D., will guide us on a trip on a sailing boat from Luxor to Aswan, a special Nile vessel type called a dahabeya There will be 9 on the trip plus Tarek—us, our son Andrew from Los Angeles, my brother Bruce and his kids Katie, Ryan, and Daniel from Virginia, and Sarah and Mark—and between the sights of the Valley of the Kings and Temple of Philae, we will relax on the Nile on our private boat. Normally, this kind of trip would never be available to us, but the upside of the downturn in tourism here means that folks like Tarek and private boats are available to the likes of us. No more diving this year, since the waters of the Red Sea are just too cold. 

In the meantime, we are fine, ISA, and though things are tense, it's okay.

Our dahabeya for Christmas