News

I found out that I got the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship and will spend a week in Washington, D.C., for the late-July orientation, followed by two months at a newspaper in Germany. I will work at the Suddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. I am really excited about this great opportunity.

I admit I am also happy I won't be melting in the Cairo heat in August and September.

Bazaar snapshots

I decided to go exploring downtown and found an unmarked doorway to this giant bazaar hidden away between storefronts. I had stopped to look at something else and a man sitting in the doorway ushered me inside.

This bazaar is dark, dirty and old, and takes up a whole city block.


Every good bazaar needs a spice shop. I think these guys were selling legumes and, well, a little of everything else.


Mohammed irons shirts at a laundry booth.


Blue and red lentils, or "aads" as the Egyptians call them.


I bought broccoli at this vegetable stand.


Bananas and other produce are locked away in a storage closet.


I did not buy fish from this man.


How about a nice tasty little bunny for dinner?


The red lights used by butchers for the meat cases gave me an eerie feeling as I walked through the building.


Random meat hooks.

Camel spit

For some camels, an outdoor market in Birqesh is the end of the road.

Camel traders come to this small town near Cairo from as far away as Somalia and Sudan, selling their stock along the way.

Camels are beasts of burden throughout North Africa and the Middle East. They are still used to transport people and goods across long distances, for farm work, for racing and of course for the entertainment of tourists. They are also raised for their milk, meat, hide and wool.


The souk gamel ("camel market") is most active on Friday morning. The buying and selling of camels starts at dawn. Above, negotiations start for one of the few riding camels available.


Some of the camels are Egyptian, others have crossed one or more borders to arrive in Birqesh (pronounced Bir'esh). After thousands of miles of trekking, followed by an exhaustive ride crammed into the back of a pickup truck, some camels reach Birqesh in poor shape. Therefore, the only use left for many of these animals is meat.


When looking at pictures of camels, I've always thought their mouths turned up a little at the corner, as if they were smiling.

I don't think they're smiling anymore.

These animals survived an arduous journey only to be hobbled (note how the left foreleg in above photo is tied), beaten and sold to the butcher.


Not that I am a member of PETA or anything, but hey. I recognize a hard life when I see one. Plus, camels are kinda cute. They've got personality. I think people can feel close to them, the way people often feel close to horses or other domesticated animals.


On the other hand, camels' size can make them difficult to control, despite the fact that they are herd animals. The environment of the market doesn't help, where they are frequently prodded, yanked around by a rope, and hit with a large cane. Sometimes they get a little freaked out.

Sometimes they run.

You haven't felt fear until you've see one of these beasts charging at you. Unfortunately, that's when I go hide behind the man with the big stick.


Old camels get all wrinkled, just like humans. This old boy was so tired he couldn't lift his head.


A group of camels was subdued with a breakfast of straw before being transported for slaughter.


From the market, the herders load the camels in trucks and drive them to wherever they're going, to be slaughtered or to work.


Humans are the other interesting characters at the market.

Lengthy discussions, fighting and impassioned pleas for mercy can all be included in negotiating the price. With a dramatic flair, traders impress upon each other how much their livelihood depends on getting a good price. It's part truth, part theater and really interesting to watch.

Above, a group of men haggle over the price of a group of Sudanese camels.


An 11-year-old hired hand.


Camel traders browse a courtyard full of animals.


Traders relax in the mid-morning shade of an outbuilding at the camel market.

Miss Morocco and Me

Sorry to start off with yet another driving photo, but I wanted to share the Cairo sunrise.

My assignment this time: shooting a car advertisement. (How fitting.) Or rather, shooting the shooting of a car advertisement.

And let me just say this--there are drivers and then there are drivers.

The driver of this vehicle happened to be Miss Morocco. I didn't know when I agreed to shoot the assignment that my transportation would be with the star of the car commercial. I was supposed to meet my "ride" at a restaurant in Zamalek at 5 a.m. for the hour-long drive to Rihab. Unfortunately for me, I slept in and was awoken by the sound of my phone at 5:30 a.m. Fortunately for me, Miss Morocco also slept in--she was even later than I was--AND she lives in my building.

Small world I guess.

Instead of allowing her driver to drive, Miss Morocco herself took the wheel and I am glad to have survived the trip. She was more than a little stressed out at being over an hour late and I have to say I have never seen anyone drive like that. Nobody seemed to know where to go, least of all me, but we were going there like something was chasing us.


When we arrived a little after 7 a.m., filming of a segment with famous squash players had already begun. The director of photography was handling all of the lighting, so I didn't have to worry about that, I just had to shoot stills of the ad. (None of which will be shown on this blog.) The squash players were both really nice, even though I admitted to them I didn't know the first thing about squash. (It looks a little like racquetball.)


The crew included what seemed like a hundred gofer-like guys to take care of every little detail, including keeping all surfaces spotless.


Left to right, the assistant director of photography, assistant director, director of photography and director scope the outdoor location for the best angles.


I need to get myself one of those giant reflectors. They're pretty sweet for all of your mid-day lighting needs.


Alas Miss Morocco was unable to drive a stick. Everyone was trying to give her instructions and grumbling. I felt bad for her. You know how it is when a whole group of people is depending on you and expects you to perform a task you've never done before on the spot?

It all worked out in the end. She was a trooper. I guess that's why she's Miss Morocco.


By mid-afternoon, I wanted to hug the guy holding the umbrella so that I could stand in the shade. Everything was reflecting or creating heat--the lights, the pavement, the reflectors, the sun...


Miss Morocco reacts to having to do a particular take for about the 50th time.


I wonder how many cameras have been lost during the driving in the car segment.


As people in Egypt would say, "Khallas!" Finished! (Or, I've had enough, depending on the context.)

I still had to survive the trip back in Miss Morocco's car.

Shooting with Saleh

Every task in Egypt is complicated. Working as a photojournalist is no exception.

Back home, I thought nothing of going into all kinds of situations by myself, armed with only my camera. Getting around was easier (street names were the norm), I spoke fluent English and I hardly ever had to get permission from the secret police.

Foreign journalists here (and in many other countries) often employ drivers, translators and people called fixers to help them do their work.

A fixer-type person is valuable for all sorts of reasons: they know their way around, can speak both languages, they know how things get done in the local culture and they understand something about journalism. Hopefully.

And sometimes it's better not to be doing this work alone. (Although at times, being alone is necessary.)

Don't forget that I am a woman trying to work in a man's world. Lord knows I can't.

A fixer is great if you work for, say, the New York Times Magazine and can afford one. I probably could also afford one right now, but I wanted to see how much I could accomplish on my own. (See the blog post before this one.)

I wanted to go check out some bakeries and Egypt's bread lines and decided to just hail a regular old black and white cab.

That's how I met Saleh.

Saleh pulled up and I told him I wanted to go to Shubra, one of Cairo's low-income areas. With a big grin he said, "You? Shubra? Really? Okay!" By the way, he didn't speak English. (Just fyi.)

When I got in the cab I explained to him that actually I was a journalist and that I wanted to go to a couple public bakeries where they make the "aesh mudaEm"--subsidized bread--and it didn't matter if the bakery was in Shubra, Sayyida Zeinab or Imbaba.

It turns out, Saleh is from Imbaba. So off to Imbaba we went.


There's Saleh in the first bakery. When we pulled up, he started talking to the manager, already facilitating my access inside the bakery. I thought, hmmm, maybe I have found a fixer.

The manager decided he needed to call his boss and ask if I could take pictures, and while he was on the phone, a small group of people gathered around. Suddenly Saleh made a motion that was like, "We're outta here!" and started to lead me back to the cab. When we were in the cab he told me a guy in the crowd was a plainclothes policeman.

Yep. The secret police and I meet again.

Policemen are everywhere in Egypt. It is a police state, and although taking pictures at a bakery seems innocent enough, people have been killing each other in bread lines in recent months. Bread is actually a touchy subject.

So we were ready to leave. However, before we took off, the guy on the phone got permission from the owner for me to take pictures, and the policeman apparently decided I wasn't a huge threat.

I looked at Saleh to see if he really thought it was alright. (I don't know why, but I trusted him already.) He nodded and we got back out of the cab.


That is the policeman who pretty much looked over my shoulder the whole time. I just smiled like crazy and said things like, "Wow, so much bread!"

We spent about two minutes in that bakery--not the amount of time I am used to. Ah, the luxury of 20 minutes...oh well.

We hit two more bakeries, friends of Saleh's, and then he said, "You hungry? I need some fuul!"


We ended up at his friend's fuul joint, where we had a breakfast of the famous bean porridge, falafel, greens, homemade potato chips, baladi bread and hot pickled vegetables. I was totally having fun. Saleh told me about his family--he is married and expecting twins in July. He also has a daughter.

He was so helpful to me that I arranged to go with him to the bakeries again on Friday.


I don't know, it may have been the hash cigarette this kid was holding in front of my lens, but people were way more tense on Friday. At the bakery pictured above, a couple of young men started to get really upset that I was there with my big ole camera.

This is when Saleh became something of a bodyguard. He was there the whole time, watching my back, trying to ease people's fears and ready to get in their face when they got too aggressive. I actually really wish I had a picture of him pacifying the crowd, but I don't.

I was extremely grateful he was there with me.

At one point I was inside the bakery and Saleh was on the outside. He started pounding on the door and when they finally opened it, he looked relieved. "Time to go," he said.

And then, Saleh invited me to meet his family.


He dropped me off on the street where he grew up, at the building where his whole family lives and where he now lives with his pregnant wife. Saleh had to go work a little more, so one of his sisters greeted me at the doorway and led me by the hand upstairs.


It's such a gift to be invited into someone's home. I got to meet his parents, sisters, nieces and nephews, daughter and wife. They were all very nice, very welcoming and eager to talk to me. Not everyone was keen on having their picture taken.

The family was in Saleh's parents' small three-bedroom apartment. Saleh and his wife live in an apartment upstairs, and the grandmother lives on the first floor.

One of the great things about Egypt is that the families are really close. They take care of each other and look out for each other. I'm pretty sure that Saleh and maybe his younger brother are the only ones working in a multi-generational family of maybe 17 or 18. Three of the women were pregnant.


The women were preparing dinner for everyone in the tiny kitchen. They made maashy, stuffed steamed cabbage leaves, and mulikhyya, a kind of green stewed vegetable.

Saleh got back home and I noticed a slight awkwardness. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was this weird sort of dance where Saleh was trying to talk to me but trying not to pay attention to me at the same time. I realized it was maybe a little unusual for him to just invite some woman who was in his cab to his parents' house.

I just blew it off like I didn't notice and continued to hang out with the women.


Dinner was served and although I wanted to sit with the women in the living room, Saleh's father, pictured above left, insisted that I eat with the men. I was the honored guest. Saleh's father kept trying to make me eat more maashy to "make you strong."

After sitting around and talking for another couple of hours, I said my goodbyes and Saleh walked me to a main street to catch a cab. He doesn't own the taxi, he just drives it in the morning, and another guy drives it at night. The night guy drove up, I paid Saleh for the work earlier in the day and I was off.

This story ends tragically when Saleh called me to make sure I made it home alright, then proceeded to tell me he loved me. A couple of times.

Why can't I have an Egyptian male friend? Why? Saleh is a genuinely nice, intelligent, caring person with a great sense of humor, not to mention what a great help he was when I was shooting.

The evening was complicated (again) by the fact that I left my wallet in Saleh's taxi. So after the "I love you" portion of the evening, I actually had to call him again to arrange to get my wallet back. More "love" ensued, despite my protests, and I had a male friend who speaks fluent Arabic call Saleh back and arrange the delivery of the wallet.

I have been advised by journalist friends not to continue to employ Saleh and not to answer the phone if he calls. They think it'll just encourage him. I really want to believe that they're wrong about him. At least part of this situation was caused by the language barrier and economic and cultural differences.

I still think Saleh is a good person.

He called twice today. I didn't answer. I am totally bummed out.

A staple for the masses

Egyptians have a complex history with bread.

The Egyptian government has subsidized bread for decades, and the 40% of people here who are living in poverty depend on it to feed their families. A round of subsidized bread sells for 5 piasters, or about a penny, and it is so essential people call it "aesh" which literally means "life" in Arabic.

Earlier this year, rising inflation and low wages, combined with a corrupt system, caused bread shortages throughout Egypt. Bread lines grew, and several people died from fights that broke out at public bakeries.

The Egyptian economy is growing, everything is getting more expensive and the poor are less able to buy the necessities of life. The bread crisis is only one sign of discontent among the populace here. A strike by textile workers last month led to clashes with police in the city of Mahalla al-Kubra, resulting in 3 deaths and hundreds of arrests.


In response to the bread shortages, the Egyptian government increased production. The bread lines have gotten shorter and people are calmer. It is a tense calm, however.


I went to Imbaba, one of Cairo's poorer districts, to photograph some of the public bakeries. I was fortunate that my taxi driver Saleh happened to be from Imbaba--he helped me get access and really seemed to look out for me.


It was a Wednesday morning and everything seemed pretty calm, a situation quite different from a month ago. Saleh, the driver, told me that the bakeries are much busier after prayers on Friday, so I decided to arrange to go back to Imbaba with him on Friday just to check it out.


Friday was busier and people were definitely more tense--and they seemed nervous that I was there. They were asking a lot of questions and some were getting agitated. I'm not sure if they were worried about problems with the police or if they were just suspicious of me.


Perhaps the bread shortage has subsided, but people's desperation is still evident.


That's the universal sign for "no photos" in case you did not know.

Adopted by pre-teens

People are curious about me pretty much where ever I go. It's a strange feeling. I'm not used to the attention, and when I am working, there's no such thing as fading into the background.

Sometimes though, I am thankful for being different. And I am thankful that I am a woman. These two qualities make it possible for me to see a whole different side of life than men get to see.

For instance, a couple weeks ago I was at Al Azhar Park, where I was approached by a small group of 12-year-old girls who wanted to know everything about me. I saw a chance to practice Arabic, plus I am always curious about what life is like for women and girls here.

Al Azhar Park is in the middle of Old Cairo. It's a huge green space on a hilltop full of flowers, trees, fountains, walking paths and young couples sitting on benches. It's peaceful. When the call to prayer starts, the voices surround the park in the most beautiful melody. I've taken to hanging out there when I need to get away from the chaos of Cairo.

My new 12-year-old friends learned the basics of who I was and what I was doing in Egypt all by myself. ("You're here alone? Where is your family? Where are your friends?") The girls were on a school trip from Helwan (Arabic for "beautiful") at Cairo's southern-most fringes. After these formalities, they grabbed my hands and whisked me away to the top of the hill to play...


...spin the bottle! Only it was the sweet Egyptian Muslim version: no boys, and the person who spins gets to ask the person the bottle points to a question like, "Who is your best friend in the whole world?" or "What do you wish for?" When the bottle was pointed at me, they asked me if I have a boyfriend and then proceeded to ask a million questions about my love life. (From left to right in the photo: Nesma, Minna, Mai, Mai and Nurmeen.)


My new friends made me feel really welcome--they tried to include me in their games, introduced me to their other friends and even carried my camera bag for me. It was very sweet.

They also frequently asked me if I was too tired to hang out with them. I've been told that I look young, but maybe these girls weren't fooled.


Yep. I'm glad to be a girl.

Sudanese house party

I live with two other short American women.

That's my 5-foot-tall roommate Abigail among the ranks of Sudanese teachers she works with at St. Andrew's Refugee Services. Abigail heads the adult education program at St. Andrew's school, and she hosted a going away dinner for one of the teachers, Elwathig, seated on far right, who moved to Dubai in search of employment.

A word about Cairo's Sudanese refugee community: it's huge. Egypt shares a border with Sudan and although no one really knows how many refugees live here, estimates range in the hundreds of thousands. Egypt also hosts Ethiopian, Eritrean, Somali, Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, among other nationalities.

Many refugees are stuck in limbo here, unable to return to their homeland, unable to be resettled by UNHCR (the United Nations High Commission on Refugees) in Europe or the United States, and also unable, in a country where 40% of the citizenry lives on less than $2 per day, to build much of a new life. Now that I am seeing the refugee resettlement process from Egypt, it seems like the refugees I met back in the United States were the lucky ones. America's "teeming masses" flee first to refugee camps, and then to places like Egypt, Syria and Pakistan, where there's not much of a safety net for vulnerable people.

I hope to work on stories about refugees while I am here.

Back to good-hearted Abigail and her Sudanese friends:


We were treated to a mountain of spaghetti...


...original poetry recited by Albino...


...and of course tea. (No gathering in Egypt seems complete without it.)

Sheesha gone bad

Alright fine. I'm telling the sheesha story.

God.

When my friends Erin and Jim visited Cairo, we went out to an Egyptian restaurant with some photographers, and of course we had to smoke sheesha after the meal. I don't know how it started, but suddenly everyone was taking pictures of each other trying to blow smoke rings and look cool with the pipes. It was quite amusing.


That's Shawn, Scott and Max--photo courtesy of my roommate Susan.

For those of you who have never smoked sheesha, if you're not paying attention, the smoke can actually make you feel light-headed and dizzy. And if you ignore these effects and keep smoking, because, for instance, you are busy being entertained by photographers being complete dorks, sheesha can actually make you feel pretty sick.


Shortly after I took this photograph of Scott and Max, I started to feel dizzy and faint. I broke out in a cold sweat. I prayed the feeling would pass. It didn't. Apparently I was turning green, because Erin who was sitting next to me said, "C'mon, I'll help you to the bathroom."

I knew I wouldn't make it to the bathroom, so I put my head between my knees, to the great shock of the entire restaurant (I'm told anyway). I was pretty sure I was going to die.

I didn't die. Nor did I throw up or pass out. Erin, who is a nurse when she's not traveling the world, kept checking my pulse and pressing a cold cloth to my forehead. It took me awhile to be able to sit up and walk, and I wasn't the same for the rest of the night.

So let that be a lesson to you. As Scott likes to remind me pretty much any time I see him: Know your sheesha limit.

Shaqqati gedidati (my new apartment)

Here are some long overdue photos from my new apartment, for those who care (Mom). In early March I moved from Medinat Nasr a suburb east of the center to Zamalek just west of downtown and much closer to Kalimat where I was taking Arabic classes.

The move has been both good and bad, good for my mental state but bad for Arabic practice, even though I was close enough to walk to class, if I wanted to dodge traffic and breathe the lovely Cairo pollution for that long. Zamalek contains many foreign embassies and therefore, many foreigners. Which means it's not a very Egyptian neighborhood and people are less likely to speak Arabic. It all just means that I have to make an effort to get out of the 'hood and use my Arabic everyday. I'll be sure to post photos from Zamalek itself later on.


Living/dining area. The couch is more comfortable than it looks--I've napped on it before.


The view from the balcony affords mostly cars, but also a few trees.

One of the nice things about Zamalek, and about my apartment especially, is the quiet--a quality in short supply in this gigantic city. Check out today's New York Times humorous but true story, "A City Where You Can't Hear Yourself Scream" about noise in Cairo. So true!

I am thankful to live on what has to be one of the quietest streets in Cairo. It's residential, narrow and leads almost directly into the Nile.

My brain hurts

That's my friend Vivien (he's French) on the last day of fusha (classical) Arabic last month. After two months of intensive Arabic classes, I decided that I would stop taking Arabic for a bit and concentrate on work. I needed a more flexible schedule. I can already feel some of what I learned slipping away, so I hope to continue progressing with help from a tutor.


Vivien gets a little help from Sami, our teacher.


Numbers in Arabic are more complicated than I ever imagined.


"You people will just never get it," laughs Sami shortly before dismissing us. No, that's not really what he said. He was actually one of my favorite teachers. Very nice and one of the most patient people I have ever met.

I really miss class. Inshallah one day I'll be back.

Dahabibis

There's nothing like sitting on cushions in the middle of the desert, drinking tea with the Bedouin...right next to a popular diving spot on the Red Sea.

I needed to get out of the crazy city of Cairo for a few days, to a quieter place with fresh air. So I didn't complain when my good friends Jim and Erin Hagengruber (my first Cairo visitors) arrived and swept me away to the Red Sea Coast with them.

We took an eight-hour bus ride to Dahab, through numerous police checkpoints (Dahab was bombed just a couple of years ago) and found ourselves in the midst of the tourist hustle as soon as we got off the bus. But, the sunshine and smell of the ocean cheered me up.


A Dahab taxi took us to the coast where we searched for a cheap place to stay. Dahab is a hustle. Every hotel has a free "welcome drink". Every restaurant has a guy out front to lure in the tourists with a great dinner special. However, it is much more relaxed than Cairo.


The Sinai Bedouin tribes have roamed the peninsula for generations, raising camels and goats. In the past few decades, many have settled and found work in construction or tourism. These kids were selling camel rides to tourists.


Me being a dork (part 1) shortly before I took a short scuba dive with my instructor Ahmed. A mere 20 minutes later, Ahmed had to coax me to leave the safety of the shallows for the nearby reef. Underwater drama ensued. (Photo by Jim "Jimmy" Hagengruber)


Me being a dork (part 2) with dive master Ahmed, right after my 30-minute dive at around 10.5 meters. It was amazing! It was kinda like a tandem sky dive only underwater. Ahmed was hanging on to me the whole time adjusting my buoyancy and oxygen. I basically just got to enjoy the ride. The Red Sea reefs are teeming with multi-colored fish, coral and jellyfish (ouch).


The ever-present sheesha pipe: smoke it next to the ocean to reap heightened positive effects.


Jim and Erin at sunset.

Birthday of the Prophet

If I was a Muslim, maybe I'd be a Sufi.

Sufis sing and dance, unlike some more conservative sects of Islam. They also celebrate the Prophet's birthday with a moulid, or festival, and stage a massive procession to Sayyidna al-Hussein Mosque in Islamic Cairo, one of the most sacred religious sites in Egypt.

The moulid An-Nabi Mohammed, as it is called, draws thousands of people to the parade and the spiritual parties that last late into the night.

This was the best shooting experience I've had since I arrived in Egypt. I didn't bring my long lens, but it would have come in handy. Oh well. I did wear a head scarf to be on the safe side, but I didn't have any problems with wandering hands or harassment, despite the extremely crowded streets. People were really friendly and in that festive mood.




Most of the people marching were men, while the women lined the streets to watch the procession, sometimes breaking into song or chanting.




I'm a sucker for a cute kid saying "Sura, sura!" ("Picture, picture!")

Maktaba Alexandria

Sorry I haven't posted all week. Things have been busy.

On the day trip to Alexandria last weekend, I visited the new library, which is gigantic. It's supposed to be a resurrection of sorts for Alexandria's ancient library which was torched in the 3rd century.

Check the Bibliotheca Alexandria website here.

Hitting the rails

A friend and I took the train to Alexandria Friday morning. I love the relaxed atmosphere, extra space and scenery that comes with train travel, plus I was excited to get out of Cairo. Since the trip was supposed to take only two and a half hours, we decided to make it a day trip.

The trip actually took four hours. Maelisch. (Nevermind!)





My brave travel companion Grace.

City Oasis

Cairo is without doubt the noisiest place I have ever lived. It has been described to me several times as the New York City of the Middle East, a comparison that seems to fit because of the noise, traffic, grime and chaos.

The relative peace on the Nile is surprising and welcome.

On Tuesday, a new photojournalist friend arranged a Nile felucca ride, my first since moving to Cairo. A felucca is an Egyptian sailboat, and you pay by the hour to sail around on the river. It is affordable and definitely one of life's little pleasures.

There was plenty of wind to fill the sails, and we spent an hour and a half touring around.

Yes that is the Four Seasons Hotel in the background. The feluccas are understandably popular with tourists.

Roadkill

I had to learn the Egyptian way to cross the street, an art which requires timing, concentration, depth perception and guts.

Crossing the street seems like a pretty basic thing, but in Cairo, a city of 20-25 million people, where cars, buses, trucks, donkey carts and motorcycles all traveling as fast as they can pack the roads, it's a whole new experience. Stoplights, crosswalks and blinkers are optional (and often ignored), as are the lane markings on the road. Cars sometimes go the wrong way down the street. Drivers may slow down for people on foot or swerve within inches. They rarely seem to stop.

Like driving in Egypt, crossing the street takes a little aggression. Egyptian pedestrians generally just step into traffic and start walking across, stopping between "lanes" when cars are coming too quickly. Hopping, running, walking, weaving and holding a hand up to slow cars may all be involved. It's actually easier to cross when traffic is really heavy and cars are moving slowly. I have the most trouble when traffic is only moderate, because people drive too fast.

Tourists just confuse Egyptian motorists. They get confused if you don't just GO already, like all the other pedestrians. I am actually much better at it now, but I have spent many an afternoon working up the nerve to cross a busy street, only to have every taxi slow down in front of me to see if I need a ride. So I finally GO already but I chicken out halfway through and just run across, saying, "Please don't hit me, please don't hit me."

Of course drivers don't intend to hit anyone with their cars, traffic just moves quickly here, and if you drive too slow, someone will surely pull around you, pull out in front of you or use some other aggressive tactic.

Luckily crossing the street Egyptian-style does get easier.

Fruit=happiness

One of my favorite things about Cairo is the fresh fruit that you can buy from street vendors throughout the city. The fruit is delicious, nutritious and gives me an opportunity to practice a little Arabic. Mohammed, pictured above, was very nice (a.k.a., didn't hit on me) and he seemed to take pride in arranging the fruit into appealing pyramids at his downtown Cairo stand.


Most of the fruit is produced in Egypt, but some stands also sell Washington apples. (???)


Once you eat an Egyptian orange, you'll never look at an orange in a Montana grocery store the same.

What could possibly be wrong with a place where you can find beautiful, ripe, cheap strawberries in March?

Boundaries, anyone?

You want to know how I have really been feeling? You want to know why this "photographic journal" has not seen any new photographs in several days?

My biggest challenge so far, besides learning Arabic, has been learning to interact with Egyptian men. Most taxis are driven by men, most waiters are men, most grocers and business owners seem to be men, so I have to deal with men everyday. Just in my experience.

In general, as well as in my work as a photojournalist, I am an open, friendly person--not just when I talk, but also in my body language, face and eyes. I smile a lot. I have a firm handshake and make direct eye contact with people. When I am trying to make someone on the other side of the lens feel comfortable being photographed, I use nonverbal cues to try to show that I care about the person, that I am listening and trying my best to understand.

This is not only key to my work, but it's also who I am.

Now that I am in a place where my grasp of the language is minimal at best, I have to rely even more on non-verbal communication. And, really, I am just being me. In addition to this, I am alone much of the time and therefore a pretty easy target. This has caused me a lot of problems. My guard is firmly in place all the time when I am alone--to the point where I am civil, but just barely. Any time I let my guard down even just a little, even if I am just trying to practice my Arabic, something happens.

So let me just try to describe what this is like. When I am with any other person--male, female, Egyptian, American, a mixed group, it doesn't matter--everything is fine. Or relatively so. However, when I do anything by myself, walking down the street, taking a cab, ordering food, or even, God forbid, taking photographs, I can almost assume that a man will make a pass at me, say something vulgar, ask for my telephone number, ask to be my "friend", or propose marriage.

I am not even kidding.

So far, I have tried numerous tactics to try to avoid encouraging this behavior. My taxi ride to class can take anywhere from 30-90 minutes. After a couple of uncomfortable morning cab rides, I started asking the doorman at my apartment to call me a cab. The message I hoped to get across is that I am not here all alone--I know people who know how you, Mr. Taxi, are supposed to behave. So don't try anything! This has been really helpful I think.

I also started wearing a (fake) wedding ring. If strange men ask (and they almost always do), I tell them I am married, and that my husband is here in Cairo with me. I have even invented a job for him, a life, whether we will have children and so on. It really sucks. I hate lying to people.

I try not to talk to taxi drivers AT ALL. Anytime I have tried, even a little, to practice my Arabic on the long cab ride, no matter how innocently the conversation starts, it always goes bad by the end. Sometimes I still think, this person could be alright to talk to. No. It never goes well. Yesterday the taxi driver wanted me to divorce my fake husband so that the driver's father could sit down with my father and work out the details of our marriage. No joke.

If the waiters at a particular coffee shop get too friendly, I change coffee shops. (I am currently relying on internet cafes for wireless access--and my daily caffeine high.)

From now on, I also will try not to visit any tourist sites alone (unless I must while working on a story). Men in the Khan el-Khalili market, Cairo's most famous bazaar, have said some of the most outrageous things to me. Completely unbidden, I am not even looking in the shops, just walking eyes straight ahead and a male vendor says something really offensive about my body.

It's really starting to piss me off and someday soon I am going to let loose with a loud slew of Arabic curses. Don't mess with me, people. I am developing a more aggressive attitude toward men, definitely for the better.

I want to say that I certainly have not had trouble with all Egyptian men and some have shown genuine kindness and respect. I don't think the average Egyptian accepts this type of behavior.
Also, I am a source of curiosity and most people assume that I have money. Culturally, men and women interact less, but the only perception that some Egyptians have of Westerners is from television and movies. Cairo has the mega-city element of anonymity, which allows some people to step out of traditional cultural boundaries. These are all factors.

And oh by the way, I don't fit in with Egyptian women either, although many women have shown me kindness. I think eventually I will have some female Egyptian friends, but not yet.

It all makes life rather lonely. It could make working here damn near impossible. And it's at least part of the reason I am moving to Zamalek, a relatively expensive area where a ton of foreigners live.

It's going to be alright. Right? Sorry for the rant. It's all good. (I am going to my happy place now...)

I want to add that I am doing really, really well. :)

Desert flower

Today I went for a horseback ride around the Giza pyramids with a couple of friends. The horse pictured above is named Warda, which means "flower" in Arabic.

We rode from the stables to a hill in the desert where we stopped for shai (tea) and pictures. The day was overcast, cool and windy, but the ride back still felt exhilarating.

Some observations:
1. Even though we only saw the pyramids from a distance, I found them intriguing and mysterious. And huge.
2. The horses weren't in great health, but they ran like crazy.
3. My butt hurts.

Be my valentine

Everyone needs an outlet for love.

In Egypt, young people live with their parents until they get married. Romantic love is a really touchy subject, with the greatest implications of morality and honor. Sex out of wedlock for both men and women is taboo, and if women in particular are not virgins on their wedding night, it will generally spell major trouble for her and her family. Publicly displaying affection, like embracing or kissing, even between married couples, is looked down upon. Flirtation can constitute a warm smile (which has gotten me into trouble a few times--but that's for another post).

So it surprised me that Egypt, as it turns out, is over-the-top crazy about Valentine's Day. Today is February 23 and shops are still filled with every kind of Valentine's Day gift, from the giant cheesy teddy bears to expensive jewelry. Everything is still decorated to the extreme with red, white and pink.


This saleswoman actually told me there are two Valentine's Days in Egypt--the other one is on Nov. 4.


Valentine's Day teddy bears.



It's just one of those little things about this place that reminds me we are all human.

Apartment success

Just wanted to let everybody know I've found a new apartment. It's shared with two other professional American women, on a quiet street (amazingly such a thing does exist in Cairo), close to the center, with a big bedroom and a half bath to myself. It should cost me around 4 L.E. (75 cents) for the 5-minute cab ride to class, instead of 20 L.E. ($3.65) for a 30-60-minute cab ride. And the rent isn't too expensive.

Kwayyis, il-hamdulillah! (Good, thank God!)

I probably won't be moving until March 4th, when the room will be open.

Sorry no pictures now. Tomorrow. Insh'allah. (God-willing.)