This is a purely comedic video I made while in Cairo showing the lighter side of Cairo traffic. For all intensive purposes it's really stupid, but nonetheless does include a fairly accurate depiction of what Cairo is like at night.

I should also say that this was taken during Ramadan and was one of my most memorable evenings in Cairo.

I wrote this before I left Cairo, but didn’t post it until now. Something about it just doesn’t seem right, but I figure if I don’t post it now, it will never happen. Here it is, an overly poetic attempt.

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December 21, 2007
Since I arrived I have been trying to somehow capture the essence of the city so that those reading my posts, viewing my photos or watching my videos could somehow get a feel for what it is like here. Nonetheless, I feel this is simply not possible.

One of my best stories from a trip to India a few years ago was the site of 3 men and a goat riding in an autorickshaw (a 3 wheeled 2 cycle taxi) on the streets of Bangalore. This week I saw something equally amusing, two boys stuffing five live sheep into a four-door sedan.

Normally I might pass by something like this as a fact of life. After all, if you need to transport sheep, and all you have is a car, than what is funny about it? However, in light of the sheep putting up a bit of resistance and the local men finding it equally amusing, I figure I can find some humor in the situation.

We have entered the last two weeks of our stay here in Cairo, which means all the things I have been putting off either need to happen or be forgotten. Over the past few months I have gone back and forth over whether I should buy a tent. Fact is, having a hand made Egyptian tent is completely sweet! However, I have been a bit concerned about how to get it home. I finally decided to stop being wishy washy and just get the darn thing and take it home on the plane. Rather trivial actually.

We purchased the tent in an area of Islamic Cairo aptly named the "tentmakers street"(Sharia Khayyamiya). They have been making tents here for hundreds of years and the shop itself sits in the oldest covered market (souk) in Egypt. After some bargaining and looking around we finally made a deal with the seller and agreed to pick up the tent in 2 to 3 days, giving them time to make it.

When faced with the minor inconveniences that are a matter of daily life in Cairo it's nice to see the humorous side of things.

Recently we have experienced a few instances of the water suddenly being cut off. The first incident occured during my mother's visit just after we spent the morning touring the pyramids around 1pm (i.e., we were disgusting after walking in the desert surrounded by camels). When we discovered it was off we asked our bowab (doorman) who said it would be back in an hour so we went ahead with our trip to Coptic Cairo assuming it would be working when we returned. When we arrived around 6pm the water was still not working and the bowab again told us an hour. After another hour with no water we called our landlord who explained that there was an outage affecting a large portion of Cairo and he estimated it may take anywhere from a few hours to a day to fix. He also assured us that the bowab had no way of knowing how long it would take and his estimates were invalid. We were a little perplexed how the landlord got this information from the water department so late in the evening, but we took it at face value and prayed for the best.

At 4:30 Thursday morning I awoke to the sound of drums and songs drifting over the rooftops outside the open door of my bedroom veranda. I have not yet asked any locals what was happening, but I must assume that people were celebrating the beginning of the first day of fasting, which begins at sunrise each day. It is customary in many Muslim countries for people to wake up early in the morning to eat and drink before sunrise then go back to sleep for a few hours so that they can make it through the rest of the hot day before breaking fast in the evening.

The Islamic Holy month of Ramadan is just about to start and here in Cairo it is a very major event. Ramadan is the time of the year when Muslims deny themselves food, drink and sexual contact during daylight hours. It is also a time when people reflect on life and otherwise give thanks to god. This article isn't meant to explain what Ramadan is, but wikipedia has a decent page on it if you want to learn more. Unlike Christmas, the holy month of Ramadan doesn't always begin at the same time. Due to the Islamic Calendar, which is Lunar, the month of Ramadan is a few weeks earlier each year. The first day of Ramadan is signaled by the first sighting of the crescent moon and usually it is not clear exactly when the month will begin until a day before, or even the day it starts.

Since arriving to Cairo in April I have already completed 2 semesters of Arabic at 2 different schools. The first was at a small Arabic school in Doqqi called Drayah where I studied Egyptian Arabic, after that I enrolled in the Intensive Summer Program in Arabic at the American University in Cairo where I studied both Egyptian Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). As of yesterday I am now studying MSA again at yet another school in Mohandiseen called Kalimat.

So far things are going well. The course seems about perfectly suited to my level and there are only 4 other students in my class. The facilities are also nice, modern and clean. Classes are held 4 times a week for 3 hours a day and go for 4 weeks. Studying Arabic takes time, and I will miss some of the free time I have had the last 3 weeks, but I am also excited to continue learning this language and so far I think this school is a good choice.

Funny thing about living abroad, after awhile you start to think a lot about things that really don't matter much to anyone else. Take for example this fascinating tidbit of information I gained while shopping for peanut butter the other day. In my local store, which happens to sell a decent variety of western foods and American brands, I was checking prices on peanut butter. Here in Egypt peanut butter is available, but it doesn't have the cultural importance that it carries back home in the states. I found that there were 4 brands available: local brand A, which looked a bit sketchy; local brand B, which looked like an option; JIF (yay!); and Skippy (yay! again). Of these 4 brands A was the cheapest at around 18 Egyptian Pounds (L.E.), B was more expensive at 24L.E. and Skippy was only a little more at 26L.E., but JIF was a whopping 36L.E. Puzzled... prior to coming to Egypt I never had the impression that JIF was a superior peanut butter.

Trains rule just about everywhere and Egypt is no exception. If you can muster up $60 to take the 13 hour sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan I highly recommend it. The sleeper cars consist of 2 person sleepers. Each sleeper has a 3 person seat which converts into 2 bunk beds. It also contains a small sink so that you don't need to use the shared bathroom for those little nighty night things, like flossing and washing your face. They provide both dinner and breakfast with the fare, but drinks cost extra as is customary in Egypt. The food was edible and what you might expect for train food. I should say that it was better than some airline food I have had (read China Airlines). Me and the people I was traveling with really enjoyed this trip. The train was very smooth and quiet and we all had one of the best night sleeps in months.