first pix

ok, for those of you who are visual learners, here are my first images from Cairo. they're all inside my apartment, as i haven't ventured out with my camera as of yet. still, here's where i'm living...

here's my street - Sharia Dokki. this is a view from our living room window. crossing this street is the sort of experience that can make a person reflect on her mortality. who knew getting groceries could turn into a life or death scenario?

my room. somehow i ended up with two beds, though i wouldn't recommend trying to sleep on the one on the far wall. the fan is an absolute necessity, as i don't have any air conditioning in my room. and though it's the end of summer, it's still pretty freaking hot here. i've been leaving my windows open at night to let in the cooler air, the tradeoff of which is the fact that it also lets in the sounds of this all-night city. glad i invested in some earplugs...


as in Belize, clothes here are dried on the line. don't have a drying rack yet, so i'm resorting to using hangers. these are the french doors in my room. i've got a little balcony that looks out over the alley in the back of the building. it's a great place for catching the evening breeze and for indulging in a bit of voyeurism. there's a group of three or so men who set out a small carpet on the ground every evening to have their dinner. they bring out cushions and blankets and a tv on a chair, and hang out until the wee hours in what's more or less the alley between two buildings.


here's the view from the dining room. pretty much all the buildings in Cairo sport this same shade of brown. they're mostly concrete (Egypt is a big exporter of the stuff), and there's really no way to avoid the dirt and sand that blows in from the surrounding desert. it coats every conceivable surface. but the breeze is essential for those of us without AC, and it blows constantly through all our amazingly wide windows. i'm definitely not hurting for natural light in this place.


and here's my favorite one so far. Mohamed bought me this fanoos on one of my first nights in town. these are traditional Ramadan lanterns, and you find them strung in front of shops and restaurants all around the city. they add a beautifully festive ambience to the nighttime streets.

a new life begins

well, it's been nearly two weeks since i touched down in Cairo, and tonight i find myself sitting in a cafe not far from my new apartment. i'll be living in Dokki, a neighborhood smack in the middle of this city of 20 or so million, in a fourth floor apartment in a huge building on a major city thoroughfare. it's a far cry from my little house on a quiet street in Cayo. the traffic on my street - both human and vehicular - is astounding. Cairo is teeming. and this city truly never sleeps. i don't know if it's a strategy for living in extreme heat, but everything here starts later than i'm accustomed to. a friend of mine was invited to dinner the other night at midnight. i've routinely seen entire families complete with small children having a nice stroll past brightly lit shops at 2 and 3 in the morning. and the sounds of traffic and street conversations never end. and from what i understand, i've only seen the tip of the iceberg. i arrived a day after the start of Ramadan, during which life in Cairo tends to slow down (comparatively speaking, of course). the notoriously clogged streets are nearly empty for the couple hours surrounding iftar. everyone rushes home to eat with their families after a day of abstaining from all food, drink and nicotine. Ramadan is a celebratory time, but people can also get a bit testy. whether your pleasure be food, caffeine or nicotine, going without can definitely affect one's mood. but driving around the streets you also find great generosity. men with trays of drinks and boxes of sweets stand in the middle of the street just before sunset, bestowing their gifts on passing drivers. and in what i understand to be a particularly Egyptian tradition, large banquet tables are set up throughout the city where the poor gather to eat a free iftar meal. you'll find these feasts set up wherever room can be found - in alleys and under bridges. space is limited, so people start gathering a couple hours before sunset. and everywhere you find store fronts hung with colorful lanterns called fanooses.

it's been an education already, and i've only just begun. i've gotten a taste of mind boggling Egyptian bureaucracy while trying to negotiate my way through the mine field of school orientation. it doesn't help that it's Ramadan, and all offices close at 2 for the duration of the month. i've stumbled through five four-hour days of Survival Arabic class. the words are floating around there somewhere, i'm just not sure i've got the correct translations attached to them. i've found an apartment and made a few friends and even taken a day trip to Alexandria. i've learned to recognize a few landmarks, though the scope of this city is absolutely overwhelming. tomorrow is a day off, and i have no more ambitious plan than to unpack and wander the streets of my new neighborhood. then monday i start school in earnest with Intro to Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. only in Egypt would my classes run from 8-10:30 at night. where exactly have i landed? can't wait to find out...

touchdown!

well, after a journey of somewhere around 24 hours, i touched down in cairo. it was long, but it went off without incident. i think my bags may have been THE last to come off the airplane, but other than that no issues whatsoever. and when i walked out of customs, there was Mohamed with my name on a sign. ha! he's been chauffering me around town for the past 24 hours, buying me groceries, lending me a cell phone, teaching me bits and pieces of arabic, and testing me on cairene geography. i've already had a homemade iftar feast (the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast). so i've been well taken care of. and too well fed. Mohamed's brother Ahmed said, "you'll notice that we'll try to feed you to death." here's to not gaining 100 pounds over the next two years...

on my way...

welcome to JFK international airport! my home for eight long layover hours. traveling "cheap" sure does have its disadvantages. including not only this absurdly long layover and the fact that i had to get up before the crack of dawn this morning, but also my journey from syracuse to JFK by way of... washington DC! yes, syracuse and NYC are actually in the same state. and our nation's capital is not exactly on the way between them. oh well...

anyway, i'm officially on my way to cairo. there are butterflies waging war in my stomach, and i'm at that inevitable point at the start of every journey when i begin to wonder why i do these things to myself. what's wrong with a life lived in the comfy environs of the places i already know? but it seems that is not to be the way of things. and so i find myself sitting between the duty free shop and the "famously fresh baguettes" at Upper Crust, waiting for the ticket counter to open, so i can wait in the boarding area, so i can wait on an 11 hour flight.

hopefully Mohamed will be there to meet me on the other end of this interminable journey. i don't know him, but he's the friend of a friend of my mom's from grammar school way back in 50's cairo. supposedly he'll be wearing a grey checked (or was it striped?) jacket, armed with a picture of me and a sign sporting my name. i'm having visions of myself calling out to the assorted folks at the cairo airport, "Mohamed? are any of you Mohamed?" that would be, in a word, amazing.

hopefully, though, it won't come to that hilarity, and i'll end this day without incident at Dahab Hostel in downtown cairo. then it's a week to wander the city looking for an apartment, grad student orientation, advising and registration (oh yeah, i'm doing all of this for school, right?), five days of Survival Arabic, and then CLASSES! i speak zero arabic, am moving to a city of somewhere around 16 million people, and haven't taken a class in 11 years. oh, and did i mention it's the start of Ramadan, a month of fasting and celebrations and from what i understand, a certain amount of fasting-related irritability... no worries! like i said, how to i get myself into these situations???

despite the panic that threatens to overwhelm me every few minutes, i'm incredibly excited. i've come armed with a list of people to call once i get there. seems all you have to do is ask around (or more accurately, get your parents to ask around), and the cairo connections just come flooding in! here's hoping these folks- friends of parental friends, friends of friends of parental friends, you get the idea - can help me find my way around the chaos of the most populous city in both africa and the middle east. my home for the next two years, inshallah...

adios Belize

well, i'm writing these words at my mom's desk in syracuse. my 2-year belizean adventure has come to an end, and i'm having a hard time envisioning when i might be able to get back for a visit. i had strawberries on my cereal this morning, and the internet connection on mom's computer is blissfully speedy. on the other hand, the sky outside my window is overcast, and i'm wearing socks and a fleece. i find myself missing the noise outside my open window - the incessant background noise that for the longest time felt so overwhelming and intrusive. to call me conflicted would be an understatement. i find myself unsure how to bring closure to this adventure as i feverishly prepare for the next. but i thought i'd begin with a list i started in my journal nearly a year ago. here goes...

Things I love about Belize:

fresh pineapple year round; bus conductors that help small children on and off the bus; the 360 degree view from the top of Xunantunich; mangoes direct from the tree; strangers offering to let small kids sit on their laps on the bus; the Hummingbird Highway between Belmopan and Dangriga (easily one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world); the fact that when someone’s name is mentioned on the radio, everyone in the room will know who they are, and several of them are probably related to them; that it’s OK for women to breastfeed in public; houses on stilts, painted in brilliant Caribbean colors; the mestizo man's love of Spanish ballad singalongs; that the bus to Dangriga and the bus to PG will stop on the road to swap passengers who otherwise would have to wait an hour for the next bus; terraced almond trees and the mighty (& useful) cohune; that I could step out my door and within a half hour be in Guatemala or on top of a Mayan pyramid; ocelots; Mestizos dancing Punta and Kriols singing along in Spanish; spinach that tastes like it actually came from the dirt; the prehistoric sound of howler monkeys getting territorial in the treetops; seven major languages in a country of fewer than 300,000 inhabitants; that people still speak ancient Mayan languages; plantain and cassava chips, johnny cakes and powder bun; that people say hello to each other when they pass on the street; the view of San Vicente from Josh’s verandah; George and his wonderful family and their delectable south indian food; a million variations on the theme of the fried corn snack (salbutes, garnaches, tostadas, tacos, pupusas, panades…); private dolphin shows just off the Placencia shore; Gustavo, Vi, Alma, Abby, Pedro, Pablo, Diana, Jorge, Brenda, Karina, Vanessa, etc...



gracias a Belice.

Cockscomb Basin

the long Easter weekend saw me back in Belize, at Cockscomb Basin National Park in the Stann Creek district. it's a 400 square km reserve, established in 1990 as the world's first jaguar sanctuary. word on the street is that you really can encounter a jaguar in the wild, but sightings are pretty rare, and i didn't have any expectations that i'd be that lucky.

a cribbed quote from Wikipedia: "Habitation by the ancient Mayas occurred in the Cockscomb Basin as early as 10,000 BC, but the first modern recorded history exploration of the basin did not occur until 1988." it's a haven for birdwatchers, and has enough hiking trails to keep a person busy for days. we miraculously caught a ride in from the highway. it's a 6 mile hike in, and was just approaching dark when Rebecca, Matt and i got off the bus from Belmopan. our savior, Gregorio, lives in the nearby village of Maya Centre, which was founded by Maya families displaced when the reserve was created in the 1990's. he took his time and kept his lights off, just in case there were any nocturnal felines lurking around the road. alas...

we took our time ambling through the woods, stopping at waterfalls, swimming in pools, and sweating our asses off. we even managed a lazy tubing adventure down the river, which was low enough that we had to get out and use our feet once or twice. Rebecca still managed to get freaked out by the prospect of floating into the bank, and made Matt her navigator.

shoot, they've even got a plane wreck! this is where the pesky little black flies made a mess of my legs. Belizeans are smart, they don't wear shorts in these situations. when will we gringos learn?

and then there was the hike from hell. already tired from the heat and a couple days of hiking, Rebecca and i decided to make an attempt at what's billed as the second toughest hike in the park (after Victoria Peak, which requires at least 3 days, a licensed guide and involves scaling a sheer rock face using a rope). we were looking for a view of some undisturbed jungle-covered mountains. to skip to the end, we got our view. but it involved some less than stellar signage which caused us to go a good two hours out of our way, and to question whether we might not get a good look at a jaguar while spending the night in the bush. in the end, we hiked for 9 1/2 hours and went somewhere around 25 km. still, it was a pretty kickass view...

random note: our neighbors back at the camp near the visitor's center were a group of birdwatchers from the States, led by Libby, a biology professor who brings a group out each year. when she heard of our need to get back to civilization on Easter Monday, without a vehicle, she offered us $50 to pay for a ride with a local villager. she said she appreciated the good work we were doing with the Peace Corps, and that she hoped we'd inspired her granddaughter to maybe join up once she finishes college. her son also runs an organization in Israel that uses environmental conservation issues to try to bridge the gap between Arabs and Israelis. when he heard i would be in Cairo in the fall for grad school, he gave me his email address and told me to contact him when i was in the area. he said, get yourself to the border and i'll have someone come pick you up... Israel here i come!

the bus back north

Antigua... no, the OTHER one

i realize it's been months that i've been blog-delinquent. my apologies. here are some highlights from my life of late...



i recently took a trip to Antigua. not the Caribbean island, but the Spanish colonial town and former capital of Guatemala. founded in the 1540's, it served at the military capital of Spain's colony of Guatemala, which included almost all of present-day Central America.

it is famous for its Spanish-influenced baroque architecture, and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Antigua lies in a valley, surrounded by three volcanoes. it has suffered a series of devastating earthquakes that have leveled the town numerous times. its streets are lined with ruins of colonial buildings that have been left standing. the town's cathedral boasts an impressive facade facing the east end of the town's main plaza, behind which lay the remains of what was once an impressive structure.

the region is populated largely by Maya Indians. many of them dress in traditional clothing, and colorful Maya textiles are to be found for sale around every corner. bargaining is definitely expected, and i found that i didn't have to work too hard to do so. i'd be offered an initial, highly inflated, price, before being asked, "what would you like to pay for it?" a perfect situation for those of us who hate to haggle...

Antigua is also well known for its elaborate religious celebrations, starting at the beginning of Lent, and culminating in a grand Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebration. Janine and i decided we didn't want to deal with the immense crowds (and inflated prices) of Semana Santa, so we went a couple weeks beforehand. but we were still treated to a weekend procession that began outside of town at 6am, wound through town, past the cathedral and back to the starting point.

it was a full day event, and the whole town was thronged with visitors and processors dressed in long purple robes. young children dressed in black and white (the girls wearing lace mantillas) led the procession, swinging censers of smoking incense. they were also employed to shoulder platforms carrying life-size statues of religious figures (the smaller ones, at least). the whole proceeding was accompanied by live brass bands playing solemn processional music. Janine said it sounded like the Grim Reaper's theme song.

another famous aspect of the Semana Santa celebrations is the colorful street carpets. i saw two different varieties, one made from dried flowers arranged on a base of fresh pine needles, and the other an elaborate geometric pattern made of brightly colored sawdust. they're reminiscent of buddhist sand paintings - just as time consuming to create and just as temporary. and they line the cobblestone streets along the procession route.

aside from the shopping and the processing, Antigua is a haven for good food and drinks. the place is bursting at the seams with charming restaurants, bars and cafes, and come evening the whole town is moodlit. i've never seen so many candles! these two little girls are getting started early at Cafe No Se, just across the street from our hostel...