Back to Calamity Ville

We spent most of August in England’s ‘green and pleasant land’, away from the stint of riots which had more to do with, in my humble opinion, opportunist fair-weathered vandalism and thievery than any level of social protest.  Our time was spent with long missed friends in either rolling countryside, dramatic North Wales or in lush opulent National Trust houses and gardens;  a world away indeed from Cairo, now our home. When it came time to return, I was loathe to pack like some resistant child having to return to school after a long summer holiday having done as one pleased. I also dreaded what I might find at Crane Canaveral. As we were returning over the last days of Ramadan, the holy month of prayer and fasting, I doubted much progress had been made to the crater outside the apartment.

We landed back in Cairo just before midnight. The airport was busy, with the usual round of queuing and waiting. We were lucky being met by a ‘meet and greet’ person arranged through work. It was a painless process and we were reminded how things can be efficiently done in Egypt. Leaving the airport, we went for our duty free and were greeted by a cheerful and witty check out guy who still held his sense of humour on such a busy evening. Husband reminded me how wonderful Egyptians can be when you least expected them to be!

Back at the apartment, I was relieved to find everything in place. However, there seemed to be no toilet paper (!) and there was a leak in the small toilet. Plumbing calamity already! As for the toilet paper, I had left more than two rolls before we left! Our cleaner clearly had a fetish for pink toilet paper and had purloined them! As for the ‘leak’, I decided to call the plumbing experts TG Services the morning after.

After my last fiasco with TG, I decided to call chief honcho Galal himself. He had given me his number and this time I was not going to be messed about with shoddy service on any level. Not surprisingly perhaps, he remembered our last conversation. Considering I must come across as a seriously assertive and unhappy European customer, I’m not altogether surprised. He assured me he would come himself to look at the problem. It took him some time to make it ‘back to the office’ to make the appointment, but indeed he came himself. He was clearly not going to do any dirty work as he was smartly dressed, blinged and waving a mobile phone. He had two minions in tow. One who was dressed in the red TG Uniform with their red bashed-in tool case and the other guy who seemed to do much of nothing other than waving his arms about! I showed him the problem and left him to it. He identified parts which needed to be changed and left with instructions for the uniformed minion. The minion would call him when the job was done and he would speak to me personally to make sure I was happy. Sounded fine by me.  Indeed, all were carried out to Mr Galal’s standards and my faith in customer service restored. It certainly is worth keeping such boys on side!

As for Crane Canaveral, it seemed more like Crater Canaveral! There was only a small dilapidated crane at the brother crater on the other side of the railway track and it looked like not much had been done to our crater. I dreaded the end of Ramadan. Indeed, work soon resumed with several cranes and wire cutters, wood and cement Lorries. There was serious engineering stuff going on inside the crater now which would take months and moths if not years of work! Staying at the apartment had to be reviewed. That review came to ‘we need to get out of here’ after being woken two week-end mornings on the trot by pneumatic drills in stereo and a humming mini generator. I started to dread coming home and that is when one knows, it’s time to look elsewhere! So, that is what we have been doing last few weeks. We are using two recommended agents who have showed us some interesting property, most of which seem entirely overpriced given the lack of ex-pats in Maadi now. Maybe these landlords have yet to realise what is seriously happening to the market. We have found an apartment we love on many levels, and although we are prepared to pay more than most colleagues, we are not prepared to be ripped off; American style kitchen or no American style kitchen! We are now at the point of waiting for responses and the negotiating. We may end up staying at current apartment longer than desired but we are not going to put ourselves in penury paying extortionate rental prices. Digging our heels in what we are doing! I’m a firm believer in ‘what is meant for us will not pass us by’.

This week-end is the long 6^th October week-end. It is to commemorate one of the Arab –Israeli wars in which I believe Egypt nearly won. My history is hazy on this, but I don’t get the impression it was an all out victory. Many Maadiites and certainly ex-pats have left town for the coast, so it’s a much quieter place and as a result, shopping and walking down Road 9 has been a relatively pleasant experience.  The cheery fruit and veg merchant in his grey galabiyya and white turban greeted me with ‘¡Hola! ¿Que tal?’ He knows I speak English and we’ve even had a chat in French, so why he chooses to always greet me in Spanish is baffling but charming. We also bought a new cordless phone as Captain’s Osama’s model seems to be in serious senility mode. The shop assistant at Radio Shack, a slim young chirpy man with excellent English pointed us in the direction of a reliable model which he then demonstrated with a friend from another shop. I thought to myself, only in Cairo will such levels of friendly service feel so normal and joyful. The apparatus has a two year warranty, so, if it proves customarily unreliable as things can be here, back to cheery man I go, maybe entering without a smile this time!

Come to think of it, buying electrical equipment here can be traumatic. This happened with a vacuum cleaner I had to replace as husband’s vintage model finally gave out. Two good friends took me to Carrefour and the peculiar job creating bureaucratic procedure aged all of us. Carrefour in Cairo is clearly an international brand with local standards, much like HSBC bank! The process involved choosing a machine, telling one man about it; man telling another man about it who then goes off and comes back with an invoice. Then one queues ad nauseum with the invoice in a ‘jump the queue’ system to pay for it only to then return the invoice to another who then fetches the machine packed up. Next, one must get it stamped at the far end of the store, the journey to which feels like having to cross the Sinai desert with Moses. Finally, one’s warranty is signed after another queue and one can finally take it home. The whole process took nearly two hours from start to finish. As we drove away, my two pals commented how Egypt could reform to Western European standards if buying a vacuum cleaner proved such an ordeal. As ordeals, go, the automatic chord thing was faulty when I got it home, so I had to repeat the procedure - back to front!! This time, wonderful Sandy jumped the queue but we still had to wait too long to get it exchanged crossing the length of the store in yet another biblical manner. I can only pray the machine will now be fine for at least a year. I do not have the strength to do it all again anytime soon!

Cairo is an exhausting place to live. Nothing really works out as you think it will. Every small chore takes twice as long if not longer than anticipated. Arranging to have anything done brings on ulcer level amounts of stress.

Mrs Captain O and I have now made vocal acquaintance, maybe too many times for her liking. Captain O is out of the country a lot more no longer flying for Egyptair. She is beginning to understand how often things go wrong at the apartment and how much her input is necessary in her absence. The satellite TV went on the blink shortly after we came back. We suspected maybe parts had been stolen like last time. We depend on Al Jazeerah for our news and reported the problem to Mrs Captain as Captain O was in Lahore or somewhere equally exotic. After various phone calls in English (she is a natural French speaker), a trio of men turned up two hours later than expected and then spending two more hours retuning. These were guys she got the Bawab ’I have no sense of time’ to arrange as she has no numbers to call and no doubt her housekeeper deals with such issues. She is a woman who is not used to dealing with ‘domestic issues’ as there is no doubt domestic minions to do so. We then had the lighting issue. There are too many light circuits in this apartment, and most of the transformers cannot cope with Captain O’s lighting fetish! When the main light system in the kitchen blew, Mrs Captain returned to her native French language, sounding more and more stressed as the electricians who were meant to come never showed up. In the end, she did not return my calls or texts. Clearly my world had shattered her demeanour to the point of not being able to cope. I resorted to TG and it was they who explained what a rubbish lighting system had been put in place! At regular intervals we can expect transformer to blow as they get overcharged...so blow they must!

We have always like Captain O. He is a charming landlord and very willing to help. Just before the summer he came to collect rent with his four children all of whom had once lived here. They walked in after him like Captain Von Trapp’s brood and were impeccably behaved. I almost expected Maria with a guitar dressed in ole drapes! He has put up the rent for this year as is his right but he has not made us sign a year’s contract. Instead, we have a rolling month on month agreement with a month’s notice to move out. He will not be surprised we do want to move out but may find it almost impossible to re-rent to European or American ex-pats with Crater Canaveral right outside! The road has also accumulated more and more amounts of rubbish since we’ve been back. The rubbish dump at the end of the road is taking longer to be cleared and never seems to be clear now. There are also two more ‘dumping’ points at road corners which were never there before. I have no idea where the ‘Clean Egypt’ fervour has gone. It seems to have flown away in the wind like the many used carrier bags.

The traffic levels also seem to have escalated. It is grid lock at times, once taking nearly an hour to get back home when usually it used to be 25 mins max. My ole boy driver Salah sometimes takes me on what I call the Prison Road hugging the back streets and passing shanty hamlets. It’s dirt track all the way and it is fascinating to see life behind the well used highways as the poorer quarters of Maadi awake and go about their business buying flat bread or selling wares on donkeys. It’s almost poetic if I wasn’t so stressed about getting to work in one piece!

I have also discovered from a good friend and colleague at work that dossiers were kept on ex-pats working here. Our rubbish used to be rifled through and we were always subtly watched. She told me of instances when associates were bundled away out of the country for their own safety from known drug dealers or literally fetched to leave the country by the Secret Police after undesired homosexual associations! I asked if such things still happened. She said not recently that she’d heard of, but who knows in these ‘interesting times’ that we live in.

Cairo is in ‘interesting times’. The educated middle classes don’t think much needed change will really take place for another four years. They don’t know   who to vote for in the elections to come and they fear the religious parties will take power, if only initially. We had a wonderful Lebanese meal with a group of such bright young things and whilst we enjoyed our cold and hot mezzes on a balmy balcony in Heliopolis, they were unsure how their country would come out of the Arab Spring. We walked around the area after dinner and admired the almost Far Eastern colonial feel of the quarter. It is a much more affluent area than Maadi with wide boulevards and white hybrid styled architecture. I liked it very much and would happily return to take photos and enjoy lunch there.  Something to aim for on my dark days when I am no Cairophile!

I have also become aware of the asylum seekers in Cairo and their rather creative method of getting asylum status! One maid of a good friend, an Islamic girl from Ethiopia, claimed herself to be a Christian and persecuted Eritrean who had had to escape to Libya for her own safety. There she embroidered a story of abuse and colourful encounters to beef up her case. My ever helpful friend found holes in her story and together they composed a more plausible piece of fiction for the authorities! The process took many months, including back handers for the translators who translated these fictitious tales of woe. I told my dear friend she had a future in such enterprises given her proclivity to spot spurious stories!! Needless to say her maid won the case and subsequently did a runner from her employ. Odd type of gratitude indeed! I wonder where said maid will end up. More likely than not, frying pan into the fire....

The days are still hot here but the evenings are becoming more breezy and balmy. It is the sort of weather to have a chilled G&T on a balcony and look up at the new moon. Maybe next time I write I shall be doing just that... Inshallah...

Al Andalus

I first encountered the wonders of Al Andalus on holiday brochures at the age of twelve or thirteen. I distinctly remember a forest of red and white arches in a place called Cordoba. There were the lace-like intricate carvings of another wonder to me, the Alhambra. I knew that one day, I would find out where these arresting buildings were and see them with my own eyes.  About twelve years ago, I managed to spend brief spells in Seville, with a flying visit to Cordoba. On another occasion I took on a day trip to the Alhambra and one of the most stunning Pueblos Blancos of the areas, Ronda. Moorish Andalucía had got under my skin, and I felt sure I would return to many, if not all, of these places. This summer allowed me to do just that and experience another city, Cádiz.

Cádiz was where I had chosen to do a two week intensive Spanish course for personal and professional reasons. I knew the city was not big and I wanted to be somewhere manageable and relatively attractive with the opportunity to see the sea. Neither a swimmer nor a sunbather, having to be by a beach has never bothered me but I have always enjoyed seeing the sea. I also remembered descriptions of Cádiz from Byron’s Don Juan...a lively place with plenty of hot scandal and romantic intrigue! Well, modern day Cádiz is ostensibly an elegant place and I can imagine that when Cristobel Colon set sail to the New World, the port  subsequently gained in importance and wealth. In the wide main squares, there are plaques commemorating Christian Spain’s links with Latin America. Many of the old town’s streets are narrow and cobbled with historical ‘high rises’ with what looks like personal towers.  We learned one afternoon from Eduardo, a retired English teacher from Seville, that these towers were for merchants looking out for the ships coming into harbour. Once they saw a ship coming into port, they would hasten to their place of business to build on their wealth. He was a wonderful ole gentleman who spoke good English and French. I talked to him in French and then he turned to husband and spoke in English. Had we had more time, we would have taken him for a coffee and heard more! It’s extraordinary, how peering into a derelict merchant’s home can lead to such a wealth of knowledge and the acquaintance of a wonderful character.

The apartment we had been allocated was near the theatre, easily accessible to town and ten minutes walk from the school. Indeed, the logistics of this stay would be manageable indeed.

The flat was to be shared with four others and was on the second floor of a 19^th century town house. It was spacious but the air circulation in the two bedrooms off the corridors was alarmingly nonexistent! On our first night, we fought against feeling suffocated and barely spelt a wink. I then located a small electric fan in the living room which I purloined for the bedroom and it never left! We were sure we had the hottest room in town!

Speculating who the housemates might be is always an apprehensive affair! I knew before we arrived, there would be an Irish girl, a Malaysian and a Turkish girl. On the night we arrived we met Su Ann, the Malaysian girl. She was tiny alert and cheerful. Kim, tall, svelte and long haired then came out of her room in shorts and night attire to introduce herself. I felt immediately at ease with them both. Husband had nearly killed himself bringing the suitcases up two flights of narrow marbled steps and was in a sweaty condition when he made his salutations!

That night, we dined at the theatre square. It was a Sunday evening and full of families at 11 pm. We had a selection of tapas and enjoyed the local wine. As we looked around, we noticed an alarming amount of overweight folk. We had never noticed this in Andalucía before. We joked this year World’s Fattest Man’s completion must be held in Cádiz.  As at the week went on, we noticed there was actually an obesity problem in Cádiz. The tapas of the area are mainly fried (and insanely delicious!) and since the collapse of the shipping industry and the growth in unemployment, weight had gone up, even amongst children, whilst incomes had not. However, there was EU funding for projects and the city still felt well kept.

As for the course itself at Central Melkart, well, it got off to a good start. I was the first to arrive into the room and was followed by a willowy looking blonde who to me looked alarmingly like Gwyneth Paltrow. She turned out to be Eva, a young medic from Bern in Switzerland. She was a bright cookie, with a cool ironic sense of humour. We ended up being together in the ‘intensive’ after group sessions, which was not intensive at all! If anything, I found it so dull and poorly executed that I paid for one to one sessions myself in the second week! However, our morning group classes with Borja were great fun...

In the first week, on the first day, there was Oliver from Germany. A wonderful mild mannered family man who was utterly new to Spanish but kept up with his whizzy iPad! Then there was Erin, a tall dark and handsome German from Bavaria who had great taste in classy shirts and an impressive accent to match. He had an iPhone to help with quick vocab searches! I felt myself to be an anachronism with my verb book and my dictionary. However, by the second week, everyone was reaching for my reference books! The youngest member of the group was a charming young 15 year old French boy called Joseph. By the second week, we were affectionately calling him Joselito! He was indeed dear; an artistic soul living with a Spanish family for four weeks. On the last day, I discovered he spoke quite good English and had as much a passion for the local architecture as I did. We all agreed he had a promising future and I told him to go and win the Sterling Prize for Architecture one day! There were two more members of the group who were pals by the time I arrived in the class. Zbyšek, a handsome and welcoming Czech from Prague who had a useful lap top with him. I could tell from the banter with our young teacher Borja that he had given himself a reputation as the course’s big drinker and lothario. He was no doubt a big drinker and looking as he did, why not make the most of his young handsome years! We became good friends as I often kept him on task in class and joked about his ‘night before’ escapades.  As it turned out, he was an intelligent young man who wanted to get into business and start making some money! He did not have a water tight plan for anything, but he showed passion in his ambition. Zbyšek did a four day week as he found coming to class on a Friday after the fiesta of Thursday impossible. I enjoyed our chats and I was touched by him sharing his confidences regarding his latest love. He was indeed a gentle giant who I am sure one day will be an astute and successful business man! As for his pal Dax, well, Dax became the comic element of the class, nay whole school! He was a small Dutchman (very unusual in itself), with wide blue Gollum like eyes and an almost permanent stunned grin. He was allegedly a lighting designer for film, but I’m not entirely sure what type of film. He had done a two week one to one beginner’s course, but his progress had been such that he moved back to the one to one beginner’s course for the next three weeks. Constantly repeating questions in his first lesson with me indicated he was actually struggling with the concept of question and answer!  I knew I puzzled him as I said I lived in Egypt but was not Egyptian. His greatest line to me was, ‘Sometimes, Spanish to me is like Chinese!’ I guess in the world of Dax, it would be. I was almost tempted to get husband to regale him in Chinese and then say he was speaking Spanish. Alas the opportunity never arose.

In the second week of the course, we had the pleasure of Stella and Elizabeth joining the group. Stella was a lovely German student whose world was usually 5 mins behind everyone else’s. She took the teasing for that very well. Elizabeth was a cheerful and lively New Yorker who was having a sabbatical from working life to live a little. As a group we worked well. Borja, our teacher, being 28, felt happy to join us socially and taught us with planning and integrity. I liked him very much. He was small and wiry, brown as a nut with a mercurial manner and a gravitas which earned him much deserved respect. I became friends with his delightful and beautiful French girl-friend. It was such a pleasure to chat without thinking how to phrase what I wanted to say!

The second week also saw the moving out of Su Ann and the moving in of the impossibly attractive Austrian Marilis. She was an accomplished Salsa Chica, a singer and musical theatre performer. It was her first time away from home on her own and she came laden with Austrian herbs and a cupboard full of medication. She had clearly been told, Andalucía, being so close to North Africa was dodgy territory! Dodgy actually became the ‘mot de rigueur’ thanks to Su Ann! She claimed she had found ‘dodgy bars ‘and no doubt dodgy owners! Somehow, with the Far Eastern sense for a bargain, she had found the cheapest supermarkets and the cheapest bottles of Sangria. She pretty much continued to semi live at the apartment seeing Kim and Marilis often for evenings out.

Husband and I enjoyed quieter evenings, especially heading out with Eva and Nathan. They made a beautiful couple. He was also a medic and Swiss and they had driven down from Bern together. I commented on our first evening out at the end of the first week how much I liked his printed shirt and from then on...I just wanted to style him! Nathan was a dream to style; tall, slender and a man who knew how to move with grace and ease. He also had beautiful facial features which were clearly an asset. We joked about various wardrobes which would suit him and every time I saw him he was perfectly turned out. He clearly did not need a stylist! Eva too was coolly elegant herself and very self deprecating in manner. They were our kind of couple to befriend and I felt Eva to be a real kindred spirit.

One balmy evening, we all headed to a Flamenco soiree. Husband, myself and our three honorary ‘daughters’, SuAnn, Kim and Marilis were joined by Eva and Nathan. We expected an evening of music, song and dance and ended up sitting through interminable Flamenco singing!  We had to wait nearly two hours for the dancing which was fabulous and performed by an exceptionally talented male dancer. He had the posture of a young colt and moved with deftness and precision. The second half returned to more wailing. By the time a Meat Loaf looking man with an 80’s perm took to the stage, we decided to leave, gladly! We worked out that maybe Cádiz was known for is its Flamenco singers in the way Seville is known for Dance.  

The second week finished too swiftly. We said our sad farewells to our daughters and newly made friends. We felt we had made friends with Cádiz too. It was a picturesque historical port with much charm and warmth; a place which one day would call us back.

The journey to Cordoba on the train took nearly three hours. We passed many small towns which indeed looked impoverished. The landscape looked parched and not entirely inviting. Andalucía is not heavily populated and is indeed in need of some love and care economically...

Cordoba, the ole Moorish capital, exuded an air of affluence. We hopped into a taxi and were taken to the hotel which ended up being opposite one of the magnificent golden doors of the Mezquita. It was an ideal location and we basked in the cool air condition of the room...I had been to Cordoba on a day trip a decade ago and remembered much of the old quarter. The gardens of the Mezquita were full of orange trees although during the Moorish reign, there had been shady palm trees in the courtyard. The former Jewish quarter with its narrow streets and whitewashed buildings looked as enchanting as ever. I particularly loved the exquisitely kept patios which entered the annual competition in May. These were indeed inviting places, almost like secret gardens beckoning to be discovered. But the jewel in Cordoba’s crown is the Mezquita; a church in the Visigoth period, then a mosque in the 700 year reign of the Moors. No amount of consumed images of the interior will prepare you for the mesmerising forest of arches. My love of Islamic architecture started here, within these infinite forests of red and white arches. I could imagine it in its heyday, with the light flooding in from the outside, the clammer of the merchants of the Judería in stark contrast to the subdued chanting prayers of the Faithfuls. The Byzantine influenced decoration of the Mihrab, with its glistening mosaic work, will keep you spellbound for what feels like an eternity. It is a work of art which almost brings you to your knees in its magnificence and beauty. Even the Christian section of the Church, as intrusive as it seems in the setting, is grand and imposingly impressive but lacks the harmony and the sublime quality of the Mosque sections. To see this complex from the high walls of the Alcázar was indeed a memorable sight.  

The ole palace of the Alcázar was in itself a wonderful place of lush gardens and fountains. The harmony of floral design and the tranquil effect of the water, will stay with you a lifetime. At certain points, the scent of thick jasmine bushes makes you want to never leave the place. Imagine on top of this, one balmy evening, a girl playing the violin at the entrance of the Roman Bridge...the sound of music being carried to the doorsteps of the Mezquita. It is hard to leave such a place of magical charm...  but leave it we did to marvel at the most beautiful palace complex in Andalucía...The Alhambra.

Our hotel in Granada was a chic affair at the base of the Albacín, the ole Arab quarter of the city. I had never been to the Arab quarter and could not wait to explore it. That first evening there, we ventured to the Mirabel, a look out platform which would give views at sunset over to the Alhambra.  As we strolled up the serpentine network of cobbled streets, we were over taken by more zealous types with serious cameras. We knew we were going in the right direction! Once there, there was indeed a throng waiting for the sun to set. When the disc started to make its descent, the palace on the hill was bathed in perfect golden light. The stones seem to shimmer and it was almost impossible to take your eyes off the spot. I took photos like everyone else there...but nothing I saw in the viewfinder compared to what my eyes witnessed. It was not surprising that Ferdinand and Isabella after the Reconquest of Spain chose to reside there, in beauty and in splendour.

On our second night, we went to the Sacromonte area of the city with its cave houses. The gypsies still reside there and perform their own brand of Flamenco called Zambra. The performance takes place in what looks like a cave salon. The audience sit in a circle around the wall of the cave like parlour and the dancing takes place at intimate quarters in the centre of the room. There were copper pots hanging on the walls and even a bed at one end! The pace was fast and the dancing wonderful. The Mamma of the outfit even did her turn but the show stopping dances were performed by three members of what looked like her family. The turns of the male dancer at the end of the show were heart stopping. We also noticed at the performance, two rather odd looking ladies. Well, one looked odd. She had clearly had ‘work done’ on her face, but it had clearly gone wrong. Her lips looked too big for her and the rest of the face did not move. We called them the Two Sisters, Dos Hermanos, thinking maybe unkindly of the Ugly Sisters of Panto fame! We left the venue that evening, giggling and merrily clapping. Olé!

The town of Granada is perhaps the most elegant of the Andalucian cities in its neatness. There is the Arab quarter and the more modern 19 century quarter. The cathedral is an imposing building in the centre of the city and has a square in front of it. It is almost impossible to work out the dimensions of it from the outside. The cafes and restaurants are all chic with swift service. Whatever the charms of the more modern section, the draw to Granada is the Alhambra, the last principality of the Moors.

We spent nearly the whole day in the Palace Complex. It is not a visit to be rushed. We started at the Generalife, the gardens of the summer palace. The arrangements of the courtyard gardens, the water features and fountains are all splendid beyond words. The watery staircase, the Escalera de Agua is one of the most sensuous water arrangements I have ever seen. You can run your hands along the water tables as you climb up and down the steps. Imagine coming to visit the Caliph, reviving your hands and being after a long ride to the palace...it was a place to linger....

The palace itself is so harmoniously perfect in symmetry it delights the mind and the eye. There were no extravagant materials used, so all is in brick, wood and plaster. But oh how they used the wood and the plaster. The carvings are beyond what the eyes can cope with. They have an effect of raising you to heaven and keeping you there. For many moments, I stood almost in a state of suspension. From the balcony leading to Washington Irving’s room where he stayed whilst he was writing ‘Tales from the Alhambra’, you can see all of the Albacín quarter, a cascading trickle of white abodes, neatly packed together like subjects waiting for a royal audience. Once again, I stood on that balcony, only beginning to understand the spell Irving must have fallen under himself. By the time we strolled out of the complex (oh, having spotted our ‘Ugly Sisters’ in the room Dos Hermanos!), we had become subjects to the magic of the Alhambra. That night, we dined at the restaurant overlooking the palace. The meal was fine, and the views unforgettable.

A decade on, Andalucía had lost none of its charm or magic. If anything, for me, it had matured like fine wine; memories of which could always be uncorked at leisure and at will.

Kingdom of Love and Hate

Cairo, I have come to discover, is not a city for measured responses. This is a place which incites utter joy and beauty AND utter rage, usually at the same time!!! Regarding the latter, let me update you on Crane Canaveral!

Since October last year when a huge hole the size of a large bomb blast appeared just to the left of our apartment’s front door,  I have been living next to a building site. At first, apart from having the road cut off, it did not bother us one bit. They dug the hole, built a wooden frame inside it, took it apart, covered it and installed a watch man over it. He started to build a shack, which soon became a shed lined with duvets. He made friends and his pals came to smoke shishas with him and altogether, they made tea on his little stove. It all looked quite poetic; almost like a dying tribe of Maadi Bedouins having moved in! The New Year soon brought with it the Revolution, but the watchman and his pals stayed on. To look at the trio, it was hard to believe the country was in any state of turmoil or uncertainty or indeed in a state of revolution! However, once we came back after the evacuation, the serious orange metal army had arrived!! The loyal band of brothers remained amongst the satanic cranes, dwarfed but nevertheless not insignificant. Unfortunately, as the bad boy machinery started their thunderous assault, the shed disappeared as did the guardians of the crater. For nearly four weeks, from sunlight until late into the night, six days a week, the loud drumming drone of the generator signalled digging. We discovered it was to be some well project, but no one really knew what it was about or more importantly for us, when it was about to end. We suffered the days of noise discomfort chanting the maxim in our heads, ‘it will be over’....Sure enough, the huge digger came to a halt one day and the hole got covered over. We almost sighed with relief. But, the orange army of equipment did not move. Suddenly one day, on the other side of the railway tracks, opposite our crater, another was being dug! Was the process going to be repeated?! Indeed it was! On our side, jackhammers removed the compacted earth and dug up the concrete, powered by mini generators. Wire frames were put in place and then filled with concrete again. Whilst the noisy digging supported by the noisier generator has been in full swing on the far side opposite our road, another crane has been digging up the earth exposing water! This has now being going on for over three weeks. At times, there is a false sensation that the noise levels have gone down. This is only the ears growing numb to it all! Added to this, the noisy freight train passes at certain intervals, honking at full hilt. I am beginning to think most Egyptian workmen are deaf. They wear no protective head gear and work entire days with his noise right next to their ears! As Sandy was telling me, there is rarely the same gang of workers. They get rounded up in the mornings, get given their tools on site, work and leave. It’s not like there is a foreman we can approach each day to ask questions! Our tolerance levels have worn thin and we did start to look at places elsewhere. We love the apartment itself, our neighbours are wonderful and ideally we don’t want to move. When Landlord Captain O came to collect two months’ rent a few days ago, the generator was still on and we explained our displeasure at the whole process. He sympathised but felt he could no more give us an answer than anyone else. We then had to mention to him the very strong possibility that if on our return, the whole thing was still going on, we would need to ship out! He looked quite alarmed at this. He did not entertain a conversation about it and promised us double glazed windows on the spot! He mentioned nothing about increasing rent and left promising he would try and find out as much as he can about the project! Half an hour later, he calls husband. Apparently, the generator and the orange army were due to be removed in two weeks time and the road on our side returned to normal!!!??? The road building which is also going on was due to finish by the end of August.  Where he got any of this information is beyond us!  Maybe he cornered the Lord Lucan Bowab after he saw us?? Husband and I looked at each other bemused. We were not convinced! We have only three more weeks here before we leave for the summer so we shall suffer what we must until that point. If on our return, the fiasco continues, we are away...within the month if at all possible!!! The muezzin at the mosque is one thing, the freight train is another but all combined with the infernal generator sound is sheer purgatory! This aspect of Cairo living, I hate, hate, hate!

TG Services, the local heroes I had come to depend upon have now been seriously demoted in my estimations! For a while now, the shower pressure and temperature have been playing up to infuriating degrees! Within a week, I had what husband called Legions of Genius plumbers coming to look at the problem. Their verdict, we needed a special pump for the apartment. The cost of this was to be a princely sum of 5500 LE (approx £550!) Landlord Captain Osama, understandably, was not so sure! He wanted a second opinion, so arranged for the Bowab to send another plumber to check the water pressure. Sure enough, there was no problem. However, the non English speaking plumber took some time to work out the problem I had been describing for weeks. My patience waned to dangerous degrees and my frustration must have come across! I told Captain O, ‘I am now seriously upset because no one seems to be listening to what I am saying!’ Almost with alarming alacrity, Captain O spoke to the plumber and within five minutes, my words were being echoed regarding the problem! In the end, it was a matter of changing the pipe size going from the boiler to the hot tap! It all took two hours, but at least the shower temperature and pressure have some consistency and can be adjusted! I have yet to telephone TG services to say I will not be paying you for such bad advice! That conversation, I am looking forward to....

When all is said and done, the Egyptians on the whole have endeared themselves to us as individuals.  My driver Salah is so dear to me now. I look forward to seeing him drive up the road everyday and hear his throaty cheery ‘good morning miss’. He is always respectful and apologises even if he is a few minutes late! I have discovered he speaks more English than I thought. We do not have conversations, but it makes it easy for me to communicate with him. I have also finally met Muhammed Ali, who has been organising my drivers since last September. He turned up at my door last week as husband needed a courier for some documents. He is a dark stocky man, again very respectful in manner with grey eyes. I was actually delighted to meet him at last. Until then he had felt like some anonymous benefactor!

I was also fortunate enough to be invited to a brunch with a bunch of Egyptian ladies from school. Wonderful Sandy hosted at her beautiful home in Kattamaya Heights and I had the loveliest of afternoons in their company .They all work at the school, so their level of English is impeccable. They were amazingly considerate in speaking English for the most part and I enjoyed hearing about their days and families.  All were keen shoppers and looked fantastically well turned out. Two removed their head scarves and I was privileged enough to see them with their manes down! They all felt uncertain about what the new Egypt would bring, and in some cases were not optimistic. However, with citizens like them, Egypt in the end will not go far wrong. We feasted in Mediterranean style outdoors, copious amounts of food spread on a long table under a leafy trellis. I tasted ‘foul’ for the first time. It’s like Mexican refried beans, but tastes better. I learned to make cat’s ears with the flat bread to scoop up the ‘foul’. I also loved the large falafel dish I think called Tamaaya. However, my favourite has to be Fettir. Layers and layers of golden filo pastry cooked in the shape of a tart, to be eaten with dripping honey or molasses! That afternoon, sitting in the sun in the ample garden looking out over the golf course, I felt pleased to be in Egypt....

We have also enjoyed forays into Zamalek for meals and thoroughly enjoyed our walk around Garden City, all thanks to Sandy. Garden City certainly bears witness to former grandeur. Most of the majestic formal villas are incredibly well preserved albeit in need to some love and attention. With the climate being so dry, the wooden shutters have survived as has ornate ironwork. The Art Deco style is very much in evidence, with its easily recognizable sleekness. The Art Noveau-esque structures still bear their ornate carvings and fabulous detail. Cairo was certainly the Paris of North Africa going by this evidence and given the chance, being in this city from anywhere in the 1920’s to early 1950’s is somewhere I would have loved to have been. The Cairo of Olivia Manning and her wonderful tome ‘Fortunes of War’.

We have also enjoyed evenings with Sandy and her pals. Dodo (pronounced Doo-doo), Tata, Loulou, Ali to name but a few! They are all highly educated and Dodo and Tata very politically aware. They are revolutionaries if truth be told. They are determined someone good must come out of the recent turmoil, but are circumspect about prospects. 70% of the population are illiterate and can only think very short term. The parliamentary elections are in September and Presidential elections in November. By the end of 2011, what will the political landscape be in Egypt? We as those who cannot vote, can only wait and see. In the meantime, Dodo is attempting to make Cider having fallen in love with the drink on a recent business visit to the UK! He had just returned and when asked if he had discovered any fine ales, cited “Strongbow”. He was most surprised to be informed that this “ale” was, in fact, made from apples. Having been further advised that cider is technically not too difficult to produce and that the ingredients to that end are readily available in Egypt, some further Internet research on the specifics of cider production has convinced him to try a bit of home brew. Following the recent purchase of requisite materials, we wait with bated breath to see if he will survive his experiment.

More than anything, the trees in Maadi enchant me the most. The spring blooms were stunning then about a month ago, the Flame Trees started blooming. They are amazing trees. The leaves are fern-like and delicate, almost lime green in colour. The flowers are heavy and voluptuous, and hang like burnt orange overgrown grapes. They make me smile and are my daily dose of Divinity amidst the heat, dust and noise of the cityscape. Frederick Leighton’s painting ‘Flaming June’, with its languid air very much evokes the feeling of June of Cairo...minus the torturous din of Crane Canaveral!

I am indeed in the Kingdom of Love and Hate....

From Athens to Atlantis

Athens, ancient city... seat of the great idea of Democracy... land of Pericles and his great Parthenon on the Acropolis....

 The area was better than I imagined it. Swelegant would be the word. It’s clear much has been invested into this site and it is impressive. We arrived Easter week-end, so entry was free. Due to a bad club sandwich in a gorgeous terrace restaurant which looked out onto the Acropolis, husband spent the entire Athens week-end in bed. I was, however, perfectly fine and explored it all....solo. Walking around the Plaka area is a joy. Lined with tavernas, gift shops and asundry trade, it is a veritable labyrinth of delight. The shopkeepers are multilingual, welcoming and warm. There is nothing jaded about their approach. With their country’s economy in such dire straits, maybe a real effort is being made. Whatever the reason, I felt quite safe and happy walking around on my own, looking and shopping, especially in the evening.  Lamb was being roasted on spits on Easter Saturday in readiness for the Easter Sunday feast. There was a real sense of occasion and celebration in the air. Late on Saturday night, I ventured out, being told, there would be the Greek Orthodox midnight mass going on in all churches. After having a simple alfresco dinner, I ventured into a church. There was a small crowd, which soon grew. Everyone came in with tall slim candles which could be purchased from Bangladeshi street sellers all over the area. Leading up to midnight, there was a lot of preamble getting dressed by the priests, readings from a side lectern by a lay person, chanting....all fascinating to watch. Some people were dressed up, some were not. It was a chilly evening and older people had winter coats on. Come to think of it, most people had coats on as I shivered in a denim jacket! Suddenly, a priest in red robes lit candles on what looked like a three pronged trident.  The single flame for the others originates from the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem where it’s collected by the Orthodox Christians in quite a fanfare of ceremony. I had seen the scenes on television earlier and was rather taken with this ancient ritual. There was much shuffling around by the congregation when the priest came to the head of the aisle. Suddenly, the people swarmed to light their own candles from these flames. There was then a procession by the priests, followed by some of the congregation out onto the courtyard of the church. The huge doors of the church were then closed behind them. A young couple seated next to me asked me something. I told the man I spoke no Greek. He told me no problem and gave me his candle. I thought to myself what a lovely gesture.  We could hear readings happening outside before what sounded like fireworks started going off. Every one inside hugged and kissed each other. The young couple shook my hands and wished me Happy Easter. Moments later, there was a raised voice from outside, a reply from the lay reader and then theatrically, the huge wooden church doors were flung open with an accompanying rush of air and the priests re-entered! I had never seen anything like it in the Catholic Church! The lay reader beetled up the aisle, swinging the chandeliers with a hooked rod as the priests made their way back to the altar. It all looked quite spectacular, even in a small church. Shortly after, most people started leaving. Outside, folk seem to be sitting down for their midnight Easter feast at beautifully laid out tavernas all over Plaka. As I walked back, nursing the flame of my candle, meeting others doing the same, it was easy to feel a new beginning had truly started.

The Acropolis

I have always believed no amount of prior knowledge of a place can prepare you for the visual spectacle of the experience. The Acropolis is such a place. It’s astonishing any of it has survived given its long history of being violated in one way or another. Conquering nations have not respected it, changes in belief systems have not preserved it, Elgin removed the best parts and yet, it has survived to enthral still. At spring time with abundant orange blooms perfuming the air and bright spring flowers lining its paths, a visit to the Parthenon on the Acropolis is something to experience. It’s humbling to know, at its height of beauty and wholeness, Plato, Aristotle and Socrates amongst many others led lives and wrote in its shadow. I’m not sure I would have loved the gaudily painted original and certainly as a woman in Classical Athens, I might even have hated it as a symbol of an unjust patriarchal system. Ideals of democracy were not extended to the female of the species! However, as a 21 century woman, I did admire its grandeur as to me it seemed to me like a fine ole dame who had seen life in all its ecstasy and agony! The new Acropolis Museum is an architectural wonder. Natural light floods the structure as it’s designed to be walked around 360 degrees. Huge glass windows reflect the Acropolis. The artefacts inside each tell a story of being made and destroyed. I especially enjoyed the cafe with its huge terrace. Wonderful place to reflect and enjoy a hot sweet drink!

We left Athens with husband recovered and thoughts of living and working there tempting us! I particularly loved the cockerel-like strutting Presidential Guards with their pompom shoes. Those handsome, nubile young men were utterly mesmerising and amusing! I did giggle with delight watching them! But most of all, it was the scent of orange blossom all over the old city which I will always associate with my first visit to Athens.

Next..Santorini...Ancient Thera....

For those of you who may not be yet aware, I’m an ancient history addict! There, I have finally and proudly admitted it. There is a Classics bodlet in me desperate to get out! I wish I could say I had any knowledge of any Greek or Latin, but I do not. I have a passable knowledge of Greek mythology and Greek tragedy from my Drama Studies, but really nothing more than a passion and a fascination for ancient civilisations. They were after all ‘us’ ..’then’.  Bethany Hughes has been a great influence in helping me nurse my penchant for such  bygones places and people. If I’m honest, I want her life and knowledge without the children or even husband! I’ve never had a desire for the former and I already have the latter...So, coming to Santorini, the most southerly of the Cycladic Islands, has been a long harboured wish. Archaeology and geology has established that ancient Thera, part of the great Bronze Age Minoan Civilisation suffered a cataclysmic volcanic eruption, most of it to be swallowed by the sea. They were a prosperous sea faring island, a central trading point between  Asia Minor, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. The frescoes discovered at Akrotiri there have been astonishing in content and style; fluid and naturalistic compared to the formulaic necropolis painting of the Egyptians....

Imerovigli, not far from Fira, the main town on the island was where we had booked our hotel. We got it last minute so knew very little about it. Arriving at the island, only about half an hour plane ride from Athens, we shared a taxi with a couple from an unknown European country as we could not decipher their accents. It seems to be the practise from the airport, that unless you had booked a transfer, you would just share with someone else who was going your way! We got dropped off at the top of a set of steep steps. I made my way down to reception and was nearly blinded by the light bouncing off the white walls. We had lucked out as the phrase goes! The hotel was a set of white washed rooms, many built into the rocks so were like caves. The views were breathtaking looking out over the deep blue sea of the Caldera. This fact amazed me. I was looking out at the sea filled crater of the Volcano which had destroyed Thera. Our room was a few floors below the reception and we indeed had a cave apartment. Our terrace had stunning views and breakfast would be brought to the room no earlier than 8.30am! Perfect! So began my love affair with this island....daily we walked into Fira during the day along the coastal road. The volcanic rocks were abundant and many walls were made up of these black porous stones. The island was also abundant with spring flowers. However, there were few trees and they were squat. Clearly, things got windy here! Most the town, nay most of the island, is deserted between October and April. I could imagine it being quite blustery. Santorini  is known for its wine, sundried tomatoes and fava beans but I got the impression most the food during the tourist season got brought in. The north of the island is quite flat and so cultivation takes place there and that is where the beaches are found. It’s not an island for beach life which suited me fine! It was too cold to venture to the ‘black beach’ with its black volcanic sand and there is also the ‘red beach’ due to the minerals in the earth. I enjoyed wondering around the narrow cobbled streets, often mistaken in shops as being Greek! I took numerous photos as the Cycladic architecture of white buildings and cobalt blue domes just enchanted me. Santorini is the most photogenic place I have ever been to. There seemed to be no bad view down to the Caldera!

One day we took a taxi to Oia. It is the second town on the island and clings to the rocks in the same way as Fira.  It did however have a more refined air and there were certainly more arts and crafts shops than tourist tat! Again, every nook and cranny had copious charm and appeal. We lingered in a cafe, me diving into huge bowl of thick creamy Greek yoghurt topped with golden honey. It was served in a large glass bowl and looked like Ambrosia for the gods...

On our last day, we took a catamaran sailing trip from the north side to the two islands in the centre of the crater. A couple from the same hotel came with us and there were to be only two couples. We were told there would maybe be five. Clearly, we were early enough in the season not to have a crowd. I’m not a natural sailor so the less suited me fine!

Patty and Phillip were a lovely grown up pair. They were currently living in Warsaw. She an American and he a New Zealander.  They were like minded well travelled folk and easy going. They were fascinated we had lived through the Egyptian revolution and we were happy to share our experiences. It was interesting to hear of the Islamophobia of her relatives in the US during those days, especially images of the faithful praying in Tahrir Square.

For the most part the sailing was enjoyable. Captain Ted, a cross between the Sopranos and Pirates of the Caribbean was very entertaining. A burly bearded fellow, he was brought up in New Jersey of Greek parentage and was now on the island with an Australian wife, also of Greek parentage. He ran two catamarans and owned a sushi restaurant in Fira. He had two able seamen to assist him; Chris, a gorgeous fair haired, willowy Australian with jade green eyes and another young man whose name escapes me! That one did the rigging and the cooking! It was quite an experience to see the sails going up and feeling the lunges in the water! Poseidon certainly had a bout of indigestion that morning!  Fortunately, we moored in mill pond like conditions, and enjoyed a feast of barbecued huge prawns, Mediterranean pasta and Greek salad with as much wine as we wanted! We could have taken a dip in the hot spring, but all of us declined given the chilly conditions! Also none of us had taken our costumes with us! Even if I had done, I would have had to frolic with the life jacket as I’m a natural sinker!

On the morning of departure, I went out onto our terrace to take in the view. It was magical. The sun had just risen and the sky was bathed in rose light. The sea shimmered sliver and the air smelt fresh and clear. I could not remember the last time I had smelt such clear air. The sky was strewn with light clouds which I knew would evaporate as the day grew. I felt almost heartbroken to leave... I looked across at Oia, its small white buildings covering the rocks like delicate lace. On the other side of my vision, Fira was still snoozing. There were no cruise liners in the Caldera that morning; these huge ships which come in laden with tourists who rush to Fira for a couple of hours and then scurry away again. I looked over to the two small islands in the centre of the Caldera, one with a dormant volcano. Over three thousand years ago, someone may well have stood on the same spot, being enchanted by a similar view, blissfully ignorant that all too soon their Thera would become a place of Legend....

.

Goodbye Mr Brand

Fame/Infamy preceded him even before I met him. Like all ‘great’ characters, his reputation went before him....

On our first visit to Cairo, a year ago, a long standing pal of his took us to his apartment to give us an idea of the type of accommodation which may be available to us once we moved here. I was struck by the bawab to the building, an ole gnarled boy with a white turban and dusty blue galabiyya. He greeted us with an informal wave brushing the pavement outside the apartment. We entered the darkly lit hall way and went up the lift with three sides exposed to the walls. His apartment on entering was light and spacious and seated at the huge poker table was his mother. She was dressed in sparkling turquoise, and waved what looked like a gin and tonic at us. She was a Dundonian and started chatting to husband who was still working in Dundee at that time. He struggled less with her strong accent than me and soon they were at ease and chatting. I noticed the musical posters along the corridors and the fabulous huge hammock! I did think, ‘Who lives in a house like this?’  Indeed who did live in a house like this? This person clearly had a passion for poker and we were told he was in Vegas as we spoke. His mother said how music was also a passion and he had never had any formal piano training. He played by ear so she explained. Husband said it would be good to meet him. I knew this was not a polite platitude as he respected musicians. From the posters, it was clear he had an eclectic taste in music. From all this, I imagined Gary to be a loud flamboyant character, a showman maybe? Four months later when I met him in person, he came across as anything but. If anything, he was unassuming and rather quiet by nature. His speciality was now ICT and I told him since that was not my forte, I may end up bugging him more than he would maybe anticipate. His reply was a quiet, ‘No problem’. His accent was Scottish, but softer than what I had been used to in Dundee. Years abroad had diluted it and maybe mellowed it too. My own husband’s Scottish accent was more generic than regional Scot from years spent being away.

One day, instructing our dear pupil on how to set their locker security combinations, he said ‘you could use your birthday’. He then selected numbers which seemed to me too uncanny to be purely coincidental! The combination he picked was my birthday. I said nothing at the time. Weeks later, talking about contributing to a birthday fund, I was asked my birthday. Gary was present. After I had passed on my birthday, he looked up and said, ‘that’s mine!’ What year? I shared the year. His response, ‘me too’! ‘What time?’ was his next question. With that short exchange we discovered I was six hours older than him. Of all the schools in the entire world, I walked into one to find a ‘twin’. I delighted in this fact as this had never happened to me before. True to his word, whenever I bothered him about ICT issues, he always had time to help or knew who I should ask. His instructions were, ‘Say Gary said....’ Indeed, that seemed to get things done!

As well as knowing me at school, he was also a wonderful friend to my husband. He introduced him to the Cairo Choral Society and they enjoyed their pub sessions. Husband I know enjoyed his company immensely and I recall Gary saying how he was looking forward to coming over for a Burmese curry night.  That was only a few weeks ago. Then suddenly, one Monday morning, he did not show up at school. The subsequent discovery and realisation of his death has left the school in a sombre mood, the likes of which I have not experienced in any school.  

The evening of his memorial, I began to truly realise the magnitude of the man who lived in that apartment. He was indeed a showman but without any sense of arrogant showiness. He was gifted and talented and like all truly gifted and talented folk, he was quiet about it.  There was never anything annoyingly bombastic about him. His musical gifts were evident to all, young and old, to friends, colleagues, associates and strangers.

Gary Brand bestrode his world a benign Colossus. With his ubiquitous dark shades over his shorn hair he possessed an easy manner putting all at ease. A bon viveur and Epicurean, he had a touch of earthy discernment without ever being a snob. For me, a quality of his I admired above all else, was his magnanimity of spirit. And it is this greatest of human qualities, in my opinion, which now shall make Gary Brand immortal to so many.

Born on the same day, in the same year, Good Bye Mr Brand.

'Walk Like an Egyptian'

Nader greeted us with his customary warm smile as we arrived back in Cairo after the ‘revolution’. Our suitcases felt heavy but we felt a lightness of being returning to an Egypt which was not the country it had been two weeks ago when we had departed, almost as evacuees. The events had been momentous and we had followed each day back in England, at times with bated breath, at times with the greatest of frustrations empathising with the crowds at Tahrir Square.

Thursday evening, 10 Feb 2011, Hosni Mubarak made a lengthy and rambling speech but at the end of it, he refused to stand down, warbling sentimental drivel over being a paternal figure who needed to be at times harsh with his children. It was predictable deluded tosh. What astonished me was how the crowds did not bay for his blood and storm the Presidential Palace. They were angry after such a build up that the ‘moment’ had come, but showed more restraint and graciousness than I would have done. The following day, Friday 11 Feb, almost ignominiously, he was gone! His Vice President, Omar Suleiman, made the smallest of statements and the biggest of changes of the last 30 years came into being. The Army made a few communiqués and suddenly it was all over. Egypt had crossed that ‘event horizon’ of change and the ‘arrow of time’ would now take it forward decisively. I watched the Al Jazeera pictures and felt the jubilation of the people, their sense of relief, victory and euphoria. It was historic, momentous and came in a manner so unexpected. When the mighty fall they fall hard and fast it seemed! It was difficult not to constantly smile. The protesters had earned their moment and they had achieved it without violence. They could truly be proud of themselves on that day, at that moment. That evening, an eminent UK reporter made a comment that if he was a leader of Libya, Yemen or Algeria, he would not be sleeping soundly in his bed. His portentous words have since been fulfilled. Nearly every country in the Middle East is on shifting sands, some more violently than others.  The events in Libya have been the most disturbing with those in Bahrain most surprising. All countries have had protests, some for regime change, others like Syria for reforms.  Our main intention of moving to this ‘neck of the woods’ was to travel to countries like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon... Now, that has become unwise. Security and safety have become precarious as protests become unpredictable. In many ways it’s heartening that countries which have been fearful towards unfair rule have been inspired and mobilised by the success in Egypt and yet, with no obvious opposition leaders, these popular uprisings are fragile and potentially dangerous machines.  

Nader loaded our cases into the same car with the shattered windscreen that had transported us to the airport two weeks earlier. He had the same young driver with him. He told us how Egypt is now ‘better’; how people are happier and really want to build a better country. He had been to the Square many times and it was good. He mentioned how people from his neighbourhood were taking brushes and brooms to clean the square and their own streets daily. We had heard from the Barries how the streets seemed cleaner in Maadi.  On our way back, we saw fewer tanks and as we drove into our quarter, there was clearly less traffic. We did not see a single ex-pat on the roads.

Our apartment was as we left it. I turned on the taps to check water and switched on the lights. Revolution or no revolution, my paranoia about such things would not melt away that quickly! It was already dark and we settled to bed rather excited about exploring our area the following day.

We awoke drowsily, and were surprised at not having heard the Muezzin at the mosque opposite for dawn prayers. There seemed to be less hooting of car horns. We looked out of the window and whilst we appreciated the ‘quiet’ of the Friday morning, we were aghast at the sight that greeted us. The six huge vertical orange cylinders were now joined by two enormous cranes and various filthy gaudy apparatus which took up nearly half the road where my taxi parked in the mornings to pick me up! The watchmen’s shack was still there, looking incongruous and dwarfed amongst those mustard coloured industrial monsters!  I said to myself, ‘Welcome back to Egypt, Madame!’ Where else would I find a major piece of...what were they doing?...outside residential apartments? I later discovered from my South African neighbour who had been looking after our apartment that Crane Canaveral arrived the day after Hosni took an extended week-end to Sharm! She said they started work about 8 am and stopped at dark hour. I asked if the noise was bad. I could tell by her nodding head and pursed lips...indeed it was! I braced myself for what the week would bring. Well, sure enough, dear Linda was not exaggerating. Saturday morning, the generator came on before 8 a.m. and created a din that lasted the entire day. In the last  weeks, our windows have got dustier to the point that the ugly view is now veiled in what looks like brown fog! Hassan my taxi man parked next to the cranes in the first week- much to my horror- but once work started at 7.30am, I asked the taxi chief, Muhammed Ali, to send my driver to the front door of the apartment so that I did not have to walk across the moonscape of mud, sand and slow drying concrete. The daily noise in the living room has felt like Blake’s satanic mills are on overdrive! Very early on, they put floodlights on the orange booster rockets and work continued on some nights till midnight. I have felt like I had tinnitus daily. And all for what? Linda tried to find out in vain, but Captain O rang the Lord Lucan bawwab and apparently it’s a well to pump water to New Cairo! Why they had to dig outside our apartment is beyond me! The joy now is that it seems to be over and the generator has not been on for nearly two weeks. The daddy crane is still there, but the other two have disappeared.  The convoy of cement mixers also seems to have departed. However, there is no sign that the ‘square’ i.e. quasi roundabout will be resurfaced or tidied up! Parallel to the site on the other side of the railway track where a new road ramp is being built, another crater is being dug! Clearly the same process will take place there at some point. It took four months for serious work to take place outside here....how long till the din of the generator purrs once again?! Houston, we have a problem!

Elsewhere in Maadi, the first week was hauntingly quiet. Fewer cars, less noise and barely any ex-pats. Shopping at the local supermarket felt almost enjoyable!  The traffic to work was like Friday traffic for nearly two weeks....but , in the last weeks, as more ex-pats have trickled back, the traffic has returned to sardine levels and the hooting  back to ‘ trigger happy’ momentum! Another factor I think is there is still a curfew from midnight till 6am-what I call the Cinderella curfew! There are certainly more micro buses about as nothing can get going til much later in the morning than normal. My trusted driver Hassan - who could make his taxi squeeze into and around impossible spaces like a determined woman trying to shoehorn herself into a dress two sizes too small -has been replaced by an ole boy on most days. He talks to himself regularly and mutters at ‘irresponsible drivers’ under his breath; but is quite calm and most importantly punctual! He usually greets me in English and says goodbye in French! I don’t complain. I’m glad he does his job!

Maadi is also visibly a cleaner place. Well, when I say cleaner, I mean relatively speaking! The piles of rubbish don’t seem to hang around for as long and for the first two weeks, there were street gangs of youths with masks, bin liners, brooms and brushes cheerily cleaning up the streets. We welcomed this sense of new found civic pride as it was patently absent before.  Clearly, youth leaders had decided to seize the moment and galvanise the spirit of ‘a clean slate’ and start something which has immediate and desired results. It was heart warming to see these teenagers enthusiastically cleaning, painting pavement edges and colourful murals. On my way to school, it’s rather wonderful to see the fruits of their labour and the English used is correctly spelt and shows admirable solidarity. However, my street does not seem to have benefitted much from this ‘clean me’ image! I have only seen one family of mainly girls collecting rubbish around the apartment and I have not seen them for several weeks now! Uniformity of approach and true organisation clearly has some way to go.

Road 9, our main drag, somehow managed to stay utterly filthy. On the first walk back, I was reminded why I called this my ‘step-aerobics’ street! The pavements, where there are any, are of gross uneven height and at odd points, for no reason, they seemed to have been dug up! There were more donkey carts of fruit sellers than usual and litter was strewn asunder. It is a road where walking looking ahead is impossible as it would mean falling on your face and ending up with a bloody nose! I try to avoid the street as much as possible and have taken to shopping across the railway tracks at a mini supermarket I find far better organised!

Today, we went for a long stroll along the side streets of Maadi. Spring is in full bloom! The colours range from delicate lavender to sharp bright pink bougainvilleas.  The temperature is warm but not hot and there is always a slight breeze. Most of the police are back on the streets after a period of uncertain times for them. The Ministry of the Interior has been dissolved and some sense of integrity has been restored to the security force. The Military are still in charge but there are regular protests as the populace remain vigilant that the changes they want implemented are exercised. The Referendum for the Constitution took place two weeks ago, peacefully as far as I can make out. The Egyptian staff at school talked about it excitedly as I commented they are the first generation to do this. There is no blueprint for the perfect democracy. History has proven that. The idea of democracy must fit the times and be moulded to the needs and the DNA of the culture adopting it. The course I doubt will be smooth, but so far, the Egyptians are doing it the best in the region it seems.

 To Walk Like an Egyptian now carries a whole new meaning....

Nile Revolt

‘Let’s start at the very beginning...it’s a very good place to start...When you sing, you begin with ‘doh, re, mi’...When you start a revolution you begin with ‘fb..tweet’...

I’m certainly no Maria Von Trapp but there was a definite rhythm to this astonishing revolution on the Nile.

The first demonstrations were on Tuesday 25 Jan. I was at work although it was a Public Holiday for the Police! On the Monday, Sandy, wonderful Learning Assistant for one of my students told me her fb pals had alerted her there would be major demonstrations in downtown Cairo. I sarcastically said, ‘Egyptians are going to ‘organise’ themselves? Do they know what it means?’ Although Egyptian herself, we shared the joke. Returning home, husband who did have a holiday that day said the demonstrations at Tahrir Square were major. We switched on the Aljazeera English channel and watched the report. I loved the comment from the gamine reporter who described Egyptians as being ‘generally an apathetic populace’ but what they decided to do was deeply organised and striking. There was no indication there would be anything else to follow. On Wednesday it was noted, there were still protesters on the Square which is actually quite an ugly roundabout near the garishly pink and thus iconic Egyptian Museum.  On my drive to school, Hassan my driver who has always made it clear with the comment, ‘Egypt very bad’ showed me the front pages of his newspaper. There were photos from Tahrir Square the night before and Hassan’s comment was, ‘Mubarak is finished’.... Thursday, some of the protesters were still there although numbers were sparse. As we left school on Thursday, Sandy warned me not to go out of Maadi on Friday after Friday prayers. Word was out it was to be the ‘Day of Wrath’.

Friday 28 Jan 2011

That morning, after a lazy lie in, husband went to his lap top to check some downloads had been completed. He rushed into the bedroom and said, ‘The Internet is down. They’ve cut the Internet’. There were rumours the Internet would be cut and mobile networks shut down. Sure enough, I reached for my mobile and tried a call. Call would not go through! We looked at each other slightly bemused. Immediately, we switched on Aljazeera. All cameras were poised on Tahrir Square which was empty. The security services, it was reported, would not be tolerant that day. We waited for the Imam to finish his sermon, which we could hear from the mosque opposite our flat. Within minutes, on our TV screens, we saw the worshippers empty from the mosques around the Square. We rushed to our window to see those in our neighbourhood. There were no flags, no shouting, nothing. Glancing back at the screen, it was a very different picture in downtown Cairo. In no time it seemed, tear gas was used and from then on, events escalated. For the next two or three hours, we watched avidly trying to take in all we saw. The scenes were astonishing, more so as the brutality of the Security Services became apparent. Outside in Maadi, it was oddly quiet. There were some construction workers on the new flyover; the ole boys at the filled in sand pit crater carried on seemingly oblivious to all that was taking place in their capital an hour’s drive away.  We heard that Aljazeera Arabic was no longer accessible to the Egyptians. We had planned a walk through to Digla, and we decided to go. Walking out to the main street, we noticed nothing unusual. However, once at the railway crossing, we both felt our nostrils and throats burning. Husband commented it was tear gas in the air. Somewhere fairly close by, it must have been used. We walked along the affluent street along the CAC (Cairo American College) and saw nothing out of the ordinary. We went into several small stores and noticed the shop keepers glued to their TV screens. They were accessing what was happening in the Square from somewhere! As always, they were gracious to us. Before heading to our local supermarket, we stopped to have coffee. The place was nearly empty. A group of young folk were again glued to the TV. The two young men seated at another table were waiters. We were the only other customers. We ordered coffee and peckish, I had fabulous pancakes with banana, honey and cinnamon. Walking out, one of the waiters asked husband where we lived. He replied in Maadi. He then said something like, ‘No walking anywhere tonight. In all Egypt’. We smiled and walked out thinking ‘What is he on about?’ Moments later, it was now dusk, an American couple asked if we knew there was a curfew. We replied to the contrary. They told us it was from 6 pm and they were heading back to their apartment. We had about 20 mins to head back to ours. We abandoned our food shopping plan and headed straight back. Everyone seemed to be walking with more urgency and the security guards at the wealthier buildings seemed more alert, not their usual docile leaning selves. As we entered our street, our laundrette boss was heading away. He told us no walking now. His friend clarified it was until 7 am. We got back to the apartment and rang my mother to reassure her we were OK but the curfew was now on. That evening, we barely took our eyes off the screen. We realised what brave people the Egyptians were fast becoming. They were overcoming the thuggish security forces, protecting the Cairo Museum after some initial damage and seemed now determined with an astonishing momentum to fight for a better country for themselves. It was difficult not to feel pride for them amidst the gun fire which we heard occasionally from our apartment. Our esteemed landlord Captain O phoned us to check all was well. He hoped the protest would lead to a better Egypt. We agreed. That night, we went to bed knowing we were in a different county to the Egypt we had woken up to.

Saturday 29 Jan

We left the house relatively early to walk down famed Road 9. Nothing seemed to be too much out of the ordinary. As we walked past Cafe Greco, I heard my name called out. It was one of my colleagues. It was so good to see them. We shared land line numbers and our previous evening’s experience. They seemed to have had a worse deal with much more gun fire being heard. Sensibly, they were joining forces and not staying in apartments alone. Reassured that we would now all keep in touch more, we walked to get food fearing panic buying. Fortunately, the supermarket was not busy and we got what we would normally buy for the week, including vegetables from our very cheery multilingual green grocer in his sand coloured galabiyya. He was all smiles and full of cheer. Clearly, a burgeoning revolution was not bothering him. However, husband overheard from an American that all the ATM’s were out of service. That was worrying. We had enough cash for maybe four five days at most. On the taxi ride back, we noticed less traffic, but Maadi seemed to be attempting to carry on as normal.

Once home, we rang the Barries to check they were OK as they were on the other side of town. They seemed to be. The Sudanese residence had emptied and they had heard much more gunfire, but they were fine. Shortly afterwards, another member of staff called to say that school would be shut for two days. It was no surprise. Switching on our news again, it was clear the Police and Security Services had cleared off (where?). The Army had moved in and was seen as joining the demonstrators.  We regularly looked out of our window to see if we could spy tanks or such like, but nothing could be seen. Early evening, we were leaning out of the window, just watching the random action in our street, when we noticed two young men greet each other with kisses on the cheek as is the custom. Then alarmingly, we noticed one was holding a huge baseball bat. His friend picked his up from behind a car. Shortly afterwards, we saw another boy with a crow bar. Husband felt very unsettled at this point. I felt less so. They were clearly local. Casually well dressed and groomed. They seemed in good spirits. Moments later, we saw a woman talking to them and one was taking her shopping into an adjoining building. Our esteemed landlord Captain O called again as husband got increasingly jittery. He told us the boys were likely to be protecting the street and the building that evening as the Police were no longer responsible for security now. This did not comfort either of us. As dusk was beginning to set, I noticed the teenage boys making petrol bombs. This was particularly unsettling. Where were they going to throw these? Our street was cut off with the sand covered crater at one end and there were parked cars all along the road. Not the smartest thing. Fortunately, they removed them from the middle of the road and sat them in a mini sand pit opposite the apartments.   On the news, rumours of looting and prison breakouts started to be circulated. Night fell, and we noticed more activity on street level. It seemed all able bodied men were out there, of all ages. Many carried a weapon of some description. There were also guns to be seen. Shot guns and at one point to my amazement and amusement, an old man came  walking briskly down the street, in a dressing gown, wielding a shot gun!!! This was clearly going to be a long night. Husband at this stage, had gone downstairs to try and find out what was going on. He came back with a realisation that a street squad was being formed.  There were the Korean boys from the building out there, one a young teenager and the other maybe 10/11 years old. They were there with ‘weapons’. The older one showed off some Kendo moves and, in spite of being rather chubby, looked quite adept.  Husband wondered what he could arm himself with. I suggested my hiking stick which would be far better I decided than a broom handle! Whilst he intermittently joined the Squad, I invited my South African neighbour down for a chat. We talked about the surreal day and shared a strong G&T. We laughed over various observations, concluding it would have to be a kamikaze prisoner who would dare come near our street. From her apartment above, she had observed a fire at the distant prison and said, we may well see some inmates from there. After she left to get her home ready for some pals coming to stay for company, I went to bed, fully dressed, with my shoes ready at the foot of the bed. Husband had said be ready to leave in case the building caught on fire! I woke up to noise a few hours later and looking out of the window, I noticed a group of the older men, sitting around on dining chairs, watching TV and drinking tea. Clearly, they were settling in. I returned to my slumber. Hours later, I was startled awake by what sounded fireworks! I looked out of the window and saw the men on the street running from end of the road to the other looking way above our building. They looked alarmed. I went to the small bedroom window which overlooked the flyover. I heard crackling shots and at regular intervals in the sky, I saw red flares. These apparently were tracer bullets. This carried on for a few minutes. When this stopped, I went back to bed.  I no longer recall what time husband came to bed. It transpired it was about 4 am. It had been an eventful night, mostly filled with gunfire. It remained unclear at the time whether it was ‘friendly’ fire or not. This had added to the tension on the street that night, although it later transpired that it was mainly the Army making its presence felt rather than real gun battles taking place. There was even a chase with a couple of escaped prisoners. They were rounded up and handed over to the Army, probably wishing they had stayed in prison rather than end up being pursued by dozens of excitable machete and baseball bat wielding young men! Husband was exhausted on his return but felt a great camaraderie amongst the group. They welcomed him joining in and as quite a few spoke English, he discovered their views and opinions on the events sweeping their country. Many were liberal and moderate and although they sympathised with the protests accepted Mubarak need not go and a peaceful transition could be brokered with the newly appointed Vice President. These were educated and affluent people who did not want to live in a Praetorian State, but wanted better for all in their country. How any of it could be achieved remained to be seen.

Sunday 30 January

8 am - I got a call from the colleague who asked how we were and if we had any plans to leave. I replied feeling a bit groggy that we had none. Neither had he at that point and we left it at that.  An hour or so later, there was another call from another colleague. She posed the same question as the school would be shut ‘indefinitely’. This worried me.  She was making enquiries with friends and family to get a ticket out. We could do the same. I was thinking, maybe we should at least ask around.

 Later that morning, we set off for a walk to Road 9, bearing in mind the new curfew was at 2 pm. There were certainly less folk about, but the fruit and vegetables stores were open. Other shops were shut. Costa looked initially like it had been vandalised, but, but the black big bags taped to the windows were only to prevent those looking in. Bread and milk were out at our supermarket, and the ex pats seemed to be buying up any booze at another small supermarket! We called into my Head’s house to catch him on the phone. A few colleagues were there and we exchanged our experiences. Quite a few staff had booked to leave but we had no plans to at that stage. We did not fear for our safety and decided to take one day at a time. 

As curfew hour approached, the Street Squad were back. Not as great in numbers, but still there. Husband joined them later in the evening. I went to see my South African neighbour again. She was now hostess to two pals, who had felt genuinely terrified the night before. They did not have the benefit of a street squad living overlooking a square and with a flat on the first floor, all noise seemed to be threatening. They were unsure of leaving or staying. As a gay couple, with one being Egyptian, it was going to be difficult for the non expat to leave. We enjoyed a good chat, considered possibilities, played with options and I sank two glasses of South African wine!  That night I slept better. Husband was again out on the street with the Boys whom he now felt had become friends. It was fairly cold outside, so the assembled company had built a fire at the end of the road and were seated on concrete blocks having a very sociable time. There was one guy he particularly enjoyed talking to; Abdul, from the plush villa compound at the end of the street, a talented and multilingual American-Egyptian hospitality consultant whose livelihood was now threatened and who carried an alarmingly lethal Magnum pistol under his shirt just in case of trouble.  By all accounts, I said he should be the new foreign policy minister. Two of the younger men, Omar and Mohammed, were the sons of a doctor who lives with his family in our block and who is also an MP in Mubarak’s NDP party. Although they sympathised with the protesters they certainly believed that Mubarak should hang on to prevent instability. They enjoyed chiding Abdul for his American connections but it was all very good natured.  There was also a lot of banter about the general Egyptian paranoia towards Israel. Although it must be said that none of those present had any affection for Israel, they did not like the rumours being spread by the regime that Israeli spies were on the loose everywhere stirring things up.

Husband also commented how generous and kind the younger men were with each other and how warmly they looked after the kids on the streets. They were slightly concerned about the Korean boys remaining on the street after dark after as they rightly thought that it was not a situation for kids. However, the Korean father seemed to think that his kids being on the street at night with bullets flying around was nothing to be concerned about, so the kids stayed out until the small hours when they got too tired.  This was clearly not an ASBO society. We tried to work out if it was just the absence of alcohol, but it was deeper rooted than that. They were good Muslims who did not understand the concept of being anti social or disrespectful without good cause. Our admiration for those who were looking after us grew daily.

Monday 31 January

Husband got a call from his school his salary would be paid in cash that day. That would see us through for a good while should we stay. I went to the Head’s house to help ring parents and tell them the school would be shut until further notice. All were pleased to be informed but it was clearly many were planning to leave. I discovered a few more colleagues had planned to go, but we remained undecided. We had enough food for now, enough money and did not feel in danger.  We would see. Cafe Greco was busy and even buzzing as I went for chai with the Barries. They at this point had no plans to leave. If they did, it would be to the south of the country. We could join them if we wanted. I thanked them for the offer.

There were no major developments on the news that evening apart from a call for a Million Man March to gather in Tahrir Square the following day. The plan it seemed was to March to the Presidential Palace. This perhaps would be the deciding event.

That afternoon, I received a call which really unsettled me. We were told by a colleague who had it on good authority that our water supplies could be cut off that night and he anticipated electricity may follow. That was my tipping point. I loathed the thought of no water and no power! Husband was not initially keen to leave. He had all sorts of reservations. He was exhausted with the late nights. He did not want to leave the apartment, had no idea when we might be able to come back. I reassured him that we were in a block where many now knew us. We had always had good neighbours. They would look after our place. In any other circumstances, we’d not think twice about leaving the place for three four weeks at a time and in the summer up to 7 weeks! I was not prepared to go through the stress of trying to cope with no water and electricity! It was decided. I called Murielle and started setting up the exodus. She was astonishing in thoroughness. Flights were booked for Wednesday over a few phone calls. That evening, airport hotel was also booked. Husband would come with me and maybe come back earlier if his school reopened properly. Mine was sure to be shut for two weeks. I rang the Head to tell him our plans. He was entirely sympathetic. He had said he would pick up faxes with flight confirmations as the airport was apparently not allowing entries to travellers without flight details. I asked him to pick up ours. Clearly too many were hanging around waiting for standbys. We would collect the fax from him the following day. After all the conversations, I felt better. There was certainly a sense of panic trying to get on flights around the curfew, but I felt it had been done all thanks to a true friend who went out of her way to get things sorted for me during her work day.

 That evening husband returned to the street Squad, but it was much quieter. Still no police on the streets, but all seemed calm. It was particularly cold and windy that night and this doubtless helped to keep things quiet.

Tuesday 1 Feb

The Million Man March was meant to be taking place but as we switched on the TV at about 10am, it seemed people were still gathering. There was certainly expectation in the air. What would the Army do? They had not acted against the protesters but at the same time, they had continued to protect the hated President. This was serious sitting on the fence. The outcome of this revolution would hinge on the role they decided to take. We wondered if there would be a military coup. Would they volunteer to lead the country through the transition? They were certainly loved and respected by the populace. What was happening behind the scenes with them?

We took another walk down Road 9, collected our faxes from the head and went back via the supermarket. They were getting a delivery of groceries. Our vegetable man seemed fully stocked. Since their supplies came in locally, and roads were not shut, supplies were getting through. It seemed serious food shortages would not be an issue.

The Internet was still out for the fifth day and texts could not be sent. I regularly turned on the taps but water supply seemed to still be on. We had bottles filled in readiness and buckets and large saucepans. I started to pack and looked forward to seeing my mum whom I had not seen for nearly six months. Maybe we might be able to catch up with some friends too. It would be short notice, but we’d see. I decided to take gifts I had been collecting from them in any case.

The numbers in Tahrir swelled. They trickled in throughout the day, peacefully and almost joyously. There was now in excess of one million. The call had been made and heard. At one point, I saw them all praying, bowing in unison as they had done at prayer times over the past four days. There was a fear in the West that it was an Islamic Revolution. My husband and I agreed, in a lot of ways it was, but not in the way the West perceived Islam as a violent and terrifying faith. The Sea of Faithfuls was Islam at its best. This was a generous, giving unifying mass, with respect for each other and a shared vision of a land free from tyranny and fear. We could not imagine a gathering of such magnitude anywhere in the world without it descending into chaos and violent chaos at that. But this revolution, although the majority were Islamic, was not simply about one group of people. It encompassed the Coptic Christians, and that day, Egyptians of all ages, creeds, backgrounds and circumstances coming together with one voice. It was a privilege to be even watching it and more so, to bear witness in their country. Never again in my life will I see anything as humbling again.

That evening they marched nowhere. It seemed Marching to Liberation Square was enough to show their zeal. That night they did their Nation proud and earned their place in the history of civilisation.

Wed 2 February

Nader, our wonderful airport driver arrived nearly an hour early. We were baffled why this happened. I almost feared he knew something about the road conditions we didn’t! He always arrived early, but by an hour?! We hurriedly finished our packing and took spare food to Linda, our favourite South African who had offered to look after the apartment for us.

The road out of Maadi seemed oddly ‘normal’. Nader came in a different car as his had been well and truly bashed in! His driver got us safely to the airport passing many tanks which seemed happily idle. Let’s face it, the country was not at war!

Once at the airport, I became nervous. It looked busier than normal with too many people hanging around. We had taken snacks and water in case there were queues and we knew until we got to departures, there was nowhere to buy food, which would very likely be sold out! We showed our booking print outs as we went into the building. They were checked. They were checked again as our baggage went through security. There then seemed to be some confusion about checking in. Husband found out we had to check in with BMI even though the flight code was for Egyptair. The man at the desk checked us in straight away even though we were four hours early. I asked him if there was an earlier flight. He replied, ‘Your flight is the only one. It’s leaving at 2pm as there is a curfew and there won’t be any staff later!!!’ It seemed like Providence that Nader had come early. The flight was nearly full! We could not believe it. An earlier flight? Unheard of! There were perks to a revolution.  We went through to departures and were airborne by 2.20pm. Within two hours of arriving, we were leaving Egypt.

 As I watched the desert landscape beneath us, stretching way into the horizon, I thought of the words, ‘the darkest hour comes before dawn’. I felt an immense sadness leaving. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to be with the Egyptians when that dawn of Freedom as they wished it came for them....Inshallah.