Blogs from Middle Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 2

The Search for an Apartment Apartment-hunting here is something of an art. It takes talent. It takes intuition and charm. It takes a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that I resoundingly don’t have. Three friends I’ve met at orientation and my hostel have decided to try and find a place together, which has been frustrating and unfruitful and has used up more of my brain cells than I care to imagine. You have a few options on how to find an apartment, all of which we have tried: you can go to a broker, hope that what they show you isn’t overpriced or secretly full of ants (actually, the bug-in-apartment issue here is practically nonexistent compared with places like New York) and hope that the finders fee they charge you isn’t too exorbitant. Technically, you shouldn’t even pay the ... read more

26th OCT/2008 Fly to Cairo via istanbul Breakfast, check out from hotel and transfer to Izmir airportat 6 a.m 09:00 am flight to istanbul. 10:30 am arrival istanbul and wait for connection flight. 14:25 pm Afternoon flight to Cairo MS 738 16:30 Arrival to Cairo International Airport onboard Egypt Air flight #MS738 from Istanbul. Were Met and assisted through customs and transferred to Giza Pyramid view hotel for check-in. Reached hotel at 7 p.m due to traffic jam. At 9 p.m left to see the sound and light show at the pyramids. Show ended at 11 p.m Back at 12 Overnight in Giza EGYPT Situated at the northeastern corner of Africa, Egypt is bordered on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, in the east by Israel and the Red Sea, in the South by Sudan, and ... read more

Contrary to what you might think, life in Egypt, like life in many places, is not all that exciting. Day in and day out, life is often just the same routine over and over. We were reminded of this on Wednesday night when we spent our last night in Amshoul with the Habib family on the roof. As we talked to Hala, Nagat and Osama, (Kadry’s twin sisters and his twin brother) we got a new sense that life in a village in Upper Egypt is the same day after day after day. It’s what makes young men willing to take jobs in far away cities and it’s what makes young woman eager to marry to be exposed to something new. When something or someone new comes to alter this routine it can make a world ... read more

It will come as no surprise to any of you that every day in Egypt is a good day for me - usually a great day. Yesterday was no exception. What made yesterday a great day was not a special excursion in the morning or lunch with the bishop. What made yesterday a great day was the ordinariness of the day. In the afternoon Kadry’s mom and sisters taught me how to make tagglia - and amazing tomato and onion sauce that we’ve had with fish and last night had with dove - and how to make Egyptian rice. I now know that secret to Om Emad’s cooking is a liberal use of butter. I had suspected this all along, but now I’ve seen the evidence! The other highlight was an early birthday party that Kadry’s ... read more

For the last month, as well as all of my time in Egypt last year, I enjoyed living in Maadi. It’s a beautiful part of Cairo that is very westernized. I have always known that the way we live in Maadi is not how most Egyptians live, and while I have seen glimpses of real Egyptian life, it is not until now that I have actually experienced it first hand. The village of Amshool is “real” Egypt, which is to say, “rural” Egypt. The roads are dirt paths that wind between houses. They are wide enough for walkers and bicycles and the occasional wide donkey load, but rarely wide enough for cars. Everywhere we go we encounter donkeys, goats, sheep, roosters and the occasional water buffalo. Our walk around the village last evening, first to church ... read more