The 2nd A9ed

***WARNING*** this is kind of long and really pretty gross.

In late October I posted about the A9ed that was immediately following Ramadan. Roughly 2 months later the people here are celebrating the 2nd A9ed. This time, they take 3 days to celebrate when Abraham took Ishmael up the mountain to sacrifice him and at the last minute God provided a sheep instead. Yep...I said Ishmael. They don't believe that it was Isaac but Ishmael who went up the mountain. Anyways, so during this a9ed, anyone who is financially able is obligated to sacrifice a sheep to Allah for their family. It's a pretty strange thing to witness really.

Last night we went downstairs to visit my landlord since we just got back from Turkey and they invited us to come down and celebrate the A9ed with their family.

We went down this morning at about 9 am and they were all dressed up in their new clothes to celebrate. We had to wait a little while for the guy to come who would actually kill the sheep. When it comes to slaughtering sheep you can either call someone to come to your house or you can just hire one of the guys who walk around carrying an axe and some knives. They have a special guy that they use...it cost $10. Once he arrived we got right to it.

Oh yeah, throughout the whole thing I was holding my favorite 2-yr old so I'll include some of her comments as we go along.

Here's the before shot. The sheep has to be laying in a certain position and be cut in a certain area according to their religion. Here they guys are discussing how exactly they were going to get the sheep into that position.

'the sheep says baaaa, hear it?!?'

And the after shot....just in the middle of the street!

'What happened? Is the sheep OK? He's not OK?'

Then they hung him from the electric pole with some plastic cord and got at the skinning. At one point the plastic cord broke so they got a telephone cord and used that until it broke. Then they found some Internet wire and that held out until the end.

'What happened to his hiney? He got hurt?'

Here's the 'butcher' finishing off the head. He took that home as a souvenir...what that really means is that we didn't have to worry about eating the brain!

And we can't waste any parts....everything gets eaten eventually. Although, PTL, they didn't make us eat anything weird, just regular meat and some ribs.

This is what was left of our sheep. They just left it in the street.

And then here's my landlord's son and our dukan guy carrying the skins down the street to the mosque. Another rule about the sacrifice, you can't sell the skin but have to give it to the mosque. Keep in mind that this wasn't just our landlord's family doing this today, it was everyone in the neighborhood who could afford it...let's just say the street is a mess.



And here's me with my landlord's daughter and my favorite 2-yr old in the middle of my street, notice the sheep to the left.

Good thing that my dad raised me scaling fish and skinning animals, otherwise I probably would have been totally grossed out by all this and would have terribly offended my landlord when I couldn't watch. Hope this wasn't too gross for anyone. Let's just say be glad that you weren't here for the live show!

Istanbul

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I was very blessed to have spent my Christmas in Istanbul, Turkey with some very good friends. It is such a beautiful city and I enjoyed my time there so much. While I wish that I had been able to spend the holidays with my own family, my friends have become like family and we had a great Christmas together. I've never actualy seen a white Christmas although it did snow the day after Christmas...close enough for me!

The water behind me is the Bosphorous Strait. The city is split, half of it is in Asia and half in Europe. I am standing on the Asian side overlooking the European side.

This is a view of the city and the Sea of Marmara.

Here we are in the largest covered market in the world. We spent quite a bit of time in the market, 2 hours in this ceramics store alone. We drank apple tea and visited with the shop owner, bargained for about 45 minutes and ended up with most of what we wanted for a reasonable price.

This is one of the most famous mosques in the world, the Blue Mosque. It is the only one in the world that has 6 minarets, most have 4 or less.

Most of the time we were there the weather was cold and rainy but on Christmas day it cleared up for a few hours, just in time for a beautiful sunset.

And here's my favorite 2-yr old in the the entire world. Turkey has the most beautiful hand-woven rugs and we spent several hours one afternoon in this rug shop. He showed us some amazing carpets but they were all well over $750, even that brightly colored pillowcase next to her was $250...so I settled for a few smaller things.

Finished!!!

I went to pick up my visa today and they were finished with it, meaning that I now have official permission to leave the country!! PTL! I will pick up my tickets tomorrow and catch a flight out of here before 6am on Wednesday morning. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Visa - Day 2

I went back to the visa office, after 2pm like they told me. I pushed my way to the front of the window and gave the guy my receipt. There were passports all over that office, the guy barely looked around, didn't even look on the inside of any of the passports to see a name, even if they were US and then handed me back my receipt and said that it would surely be ready tomorrow. Instead of going home I decided to go back and visit my old man friend in the student office. He listened to my situation and then called over another officer and told him to go and find it. 5 minutes later, after the officer put his shoes on, he left to look for it. 5 minutes after that he came back in and talked to the old man, who translated and told me that it was still in 'the room' and they were putting the sticker in it this afternoon. I wanted to ask them a few questions, like; 'They do have stickers, right? They haven't run out? And they also know where my passport is, they haven't lost it? And all they have to do is put the sticker in? The office isn't closing early today is it? The guy who puts the stickers in isn't going to go home sick, is he?'. I didn't know all the words and I sure am not a fast enough thinker to do the quick translation in my head and get it right, so I left and I'll go back tomorrow. Insha'allah, my passport will be ready tomorrow morning and I will have permission to leave the country. We'll see. Like I've said before, I can't get my hopes up until the plane is off the ground.

Visas...ugh

Today I went to the Ministry of Interior and Foreign Affairs to get permission to leave the country. I've heard that it's this complicated process that takes forever and you have to deal with all these govt workers who are unhappy and want money. That was not my experience, well it was a stupid and complicated process, but people were very friendly. Oh yeah, this is a really long blog, but I want you to fully appreciate the beauracracy that I live with.

They open at 8:30 so I arrived at 8:45. There weren't many people around and I was beginning to think that maybe they are closed on Saturdays but I went in anyways and there were a few officers around. The first step was a breeze, just give them 12 copies of everything, plus pictures of me (?) and they signed off. Of course, that was after a brief skirmish between two of the officers because I had filled out the English blanks on the form but he wanted the Arabic done too, they got it figured out. Then I was on a mission to find the old man at the desk outside who sells the stamps. I went outside and at 9 am I found the desk but there was no old man...so that's why there weren't many people around, they weren't closed, it's just that no one shows up for work on time!

I knew for sure 100% that I had to see this old man or I couldn't go to the next step, so I just stood around waiting. After about 30 minutes I started to doubt myself, the old man still hadn't shown and I didn't see anyone else standing around waiting. But about 9:45 the old man finally showed up carrying his stamps. All the sudden there were tons of people around, apparently they had all been waiting...and they sent me to the front of the 'line' b/c they all knew that I had been waiting since before they arrived. I don't know where these people were or how they knew I'd been there (well, I guess being the only white person does make you sort of stand out, but still!). So I got my stamps, stapled my picture and made friends with a guy who runs papers for an NGO. (important later) Interesting, I got 2 stamps and they each say '100SD' on them, but I paid 300SD. I'm no math whiz, well I am an accountant, but that doesn't quite add up. However, when you're trying to leave the country it's just not worth it to argue with the old man over 50 cents.

The next step was to go to another window and get another stamp. When I finally got up there it was a guy I'd already talked to...I noticed him first thing this morning when he pulled a stamp out of his pocket and stamped my form. Turns out he just didn't want to be at his window so he was hanging out in someone else's office with his stamp. He knew that I'd have to come to his window eventually so he gave me my stamp out of order. Then the first officer guy I talked to this morning saw me and couldn't believe that I was still there, he personally escorted me to the next step.

The payment window...an actual window with the screen peeled back, was jam packed with men (around 25). There's no such thing as lines here, you just shove your way to the front, which can pose a problem for the only girl in a group of men in a society where women and men do NOT touch, not even incidentally. However, my 'friend' from the old man desk spotted me and brought me right up to where he had pushed to. He didn't even let anyone 'cut' in front of me. I was standing next to a Chinese guy and we joked about the problems that people face when there are no lines, the fact that breakfast time was coming up and it would be just our luck if they closed the window as we got there, etc... Finally me, the Chinese guy and our 'friend' got up to the front. The Chinese guy went first, it cost him 15,000SD. I went next, my 'friend' insisted that it would cost me 15,000 but, shockingly, it cost 25,000 (which I already knew). He was surprised and started to argue with the lady at the window but I just told him it was ok, that it's b/c I'm American and he let it go. (guess he just thought I was white and hadn't realized my nationality up to that point). So the lady behind the window writes my receipts (2?) and gives me my passport and paperwork back BUT she passes the receipts over to the lady sitting next to her. Then, I go to the window 1 ft away and the lady hands me my receipts. I'd love to be that lady and not do anything but hand out receipts, she doesn't even write them herself, just hands them through the window!

Then I had to go and turn in my receipts and paperwork, back inside where I'd already been twice. This time the line went quick. I had made friends with 2 teenagers from Jordan in front of me at the payment line and they were also in front of me in this line. When they turned theirs in the officer told them to come back after 1 week. I kind of started to panic, my tickets are for Wednesday, I can't come back in 1 week!! But then the guy processed mine, the exact same thing the Jordanians were getting, but he gave me my receipt and told me to come back tomorrow after 2....don't know why but maybe this is the one and only advantage to being an American here?

All this time I've been told how hard it is to get these visas, that it's not even worth the time to do it myself. However, in 3 hours I made it through the entire process (although ridiculous and needlessly more complicated than it should be, the old man at the desk outside, seriously???) and I have a promise of a visa after 2 tomorrow. I won't believe it until I see it. I'll go back tomorrow, probably even before 2, and push my way up to the window and give the guy my receipt in hopes that I will actually be able to leave for Christmas!

We joke here that you can't let yourself get excited about leaving the country until your plane is off the ground. Even if you've gone through all the airport security, you can still be waiting in the 'terminal' for 13 hours before they tell you that your plane just isn't coming (seriously happened to some friends, it just didn't come). So even though I might have a visa and I might have tickets I won't actually believe that I get to leave until my plane is off the ground.

The States Game

For those of you who watched (or watch) Friends, remember the 50 states game? It's the one where you try to list all 50 states from memory without looking at a map. If you've never tried this, I strongly encourage you to do so. I can never get all 50, as a matter of fact, I've only met one person who can actually get all 50. We use this game when we really just need to take our minds off of current circumstances...it works wonders!

Recently I ran across this website and it's like a world version of the 50 states game. Warning: It can be pretty addictive!
http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/worldmap/worldmap.html

Thanksgiving for Christmas!

At Thanksgiving we didn't have turkey. As a matter of fact, I've never seen any kind of turkey for sale here, be it sliced or whole. But today, in a random grocery store on a random corner of a random street, we found turkey. After dinner we wanted some ice cream and just stepped into the nearest store. In the back corner in a small freezer were 5 butterball turkeys. We were amazed and, just out of curiosity, asked the shopkeeper how much it would be. I've never actually bought a turkey before so I don't know how much one should cost in the states, however I have a feeling this one was just a little more expensive than normal. The shopkeeper told us it would be (equivalent) $15/lb meaning that the smallest turkey they had would be $150. Seriously, it was very tempting. It would feed quite a few people and if we all split it, it would definitely be worth it. But I couldn't cook one even if I wanted to. My oven is so little even a chicken is pushing it! So we left our dreams in the small freezer at the obscure grocery store and went home. But not without plain M&Ms. That's right, after 9 months of sporadic peanut M&Ms...we now have plain.

Bureaucracy...Frustration

I live in a ridiculous place where, on the surface, there appears to be no rules and yet when you dig a little deeper you see that your life is completely controlled by them.

The story...my friend's parents are/were coming here to see us for Christmas. After weeks of work trying to get their visa (they don't really like to give American visas around here), they finally got word that they had received an approval number. However, conveniently, her mom's paper got 'lost' and no, they couldn't just print out another paper with the same number, they had to start all over again for her. So at the last minute they finally get it all worked out and then my friend had to take the papers to our airport to make sure that the airport in Turkey knew that they had the proper paperwork. (again, they like to make life pretty much as needlessly complicated as they can). My friend gets to the airport with all of the required paperwork and the man says 'sorry, we're not letting Americans in today'. Although I didn't get a play-by-play on the conversation, let's just imagine how it probably went.

'We have all of the paperwork from downtown, they have approval numbers...'
'Good...but we're not letting them in'
'Even though we have the approval from downtown? I have the paper right here'
'nuh-huh'
'so, you're just not letting Americans in today?'
'Nope'
'But their plane actually comes in tomorrow. Will you let Americans in tomorrow?'
'We would have to process the papers today and we're not processing American papers today'
'Will you be letting them in tomorrow?'
'Insha'allah (if it's God's will)'
'How can it be insha'allah? Either you process the papers today or you don't?'
'Insha'allah'
'But they have to get on the airplane today and so we need to know if you will let them in'
'Malesh' (the all encompassing Arabic word for too bad for you, not my problem, etc)

Their parents were supposed to arrive tonight but they couldn't get on the plane because the guy at the airport decided that he just wasn't going to do that, even though the official offices downtown have issued them permission to come in. You would think that the high up, in charge guy gets the final say on who comes and goes...turns out it's the little guy who sits behind the desk, he has a surprising amount of power. Lift us up!

Treasures

Last night we heard from a friend that he had seen some Dr Pepper at the grocery store, they were unloading it as he was leaving. So this morning we got up and went treasure hunting. We arrived at the store and the clerk immediately knew what we were looking for, seeing as how we (or at least I) sure looked like we'd just rolled out of bed for something special. We bought quite a few DPs and they also had some A&W root beer, so I got some of those for my roommate. Because they are imported they were a little pricey, but I didn't care...we'll ration them, they should last until the end of the year plus maybe they'll make good Christmas presents!

Yes I am wearing jeans and my rear is not covered. Yes, I am wearing a fleece...it was 59 degrees last night...freezing! And yes, behind me is a lot of non-alcoholic beer. It's surprisingly popular (and gross) around here.

We also heard that, at a different grocery store, they had Doritos. There is a factory up in Egypt that makes different kinds of chips. About 3 months ago these puffy cheetos started showing up all over the place and at a halfway decent price. Now these doritos have popped up but they're so new and stores are running out quickly b/c all the foreigners are buying them up. So we went to the latest store that got a shipment and bought 'some'. (yes, I even have a rough idea of when stores get shipments, there's only about 4 decent ones!) So this morning I spent as much on Dr Pepper and Doritos as I would normally spend on a month of groceries. Some of that was for my roommate, but still. I just rationalize it by thinking that I don't ever buy anything b/c there's usually nothing to buy, so just this once it's OK.

Ya'll probably think that I'm crazy, going around and buying basket loads of junk food no matter how much it costs and really only because it is available, but that's how things work around here. The selection is severely limited and if you find something good then it definitely won't be around for long so you buy it when you see it and stock up. Last week a friend called from the grocery store to say that they had brownie mixes. The next day I went and there were no brownie mixes. The brownies have come through 2 or 3 times since I've been here but I've heard that they get a DP shipment once a year...you just gotta take advantage of things while you can.

On a totally separate note, I've explained to some of you about Friday prayers and the phenomena that occurs after them. Fridays here are like our Sundays in the States and most men goes to the mosque for prayers and a sermon (which is also broadcast over a loudspeaker so you don't even have to go to get the benefit, although it's not actually called a sermon, that's just what I like to call it). I usually don't understand the entire thing b/c it's in Arabic, but I can pick up on quite a few words like America, government, UN, Palestine, etc...every week they get pretty worked up over one of these topics. When the sermon gets out you have a flood of angry Arab men dressed in white jalabiyyas coming towards you and you know they've just been talking about you...hopefully they're not looking for some innocent white girl on whom to take out their anger. I generally try to avoid being in the middle of this, although I have been known to watch from my balcony just because it's so weird. Today my friend was dropping me off after our shopping excursion and I just happened to have my camera. So this picture was taken discreetly through the back window of her car while we were sitting in front of my house. Sorry it's blurry and has lines but I hope it gives you just a little bit more of a glimpse into my life here.

Pyramids

Unlike the first, our most recent expedition to see pyramids was successful. After we saw them we ate lunch at Pizza Hut across the street...it was weird just sitting and enjoying regular pizza while observing one of the wonders of the world.


When I was little, probably 7 or 8, I really wanted to be an archaeologist and explore pyramids so my Grandma took me to a Pharoah exhibit at the museum and I'll never forget how cool it was. While we were at the real pyramids we went inside one and it turned out to be much less exciting than we had anticipated...I must say that I'm extremely thankful I didn't actually choose archaeology as my profession, although I'm very grateful for my family always supporting me no matter what kind of crazy thing I wanted to be when I grew up.

Here I am standing on a pyramid. They don't let you climb just as high as you want, however they will let you stand on it.

The infamous 'they' who won't let you climb...I like to call them the pyramid police. They all ride camels, although I'm not sure if that's for practical reasons or for the tourists. Oh yeah, notice the city behind him? That's actually Cairo. I always pictured the pyramids being in the middle of the desert. Turns out, they're remarkably close to the city...my friends can see them from their balcony.
There's not much else you can say about the pyramids except they're big.

Was that Disrimination?

Warning: this post is a little more serious than most.

In my travels and especially in my daily life I am the constant recipient of racially discriminatory actions and comments. After a while it gets old and I've learned to ignore it for the most part, but still, no one can ever tell me that I don't know what it's like to be discriminated against.

For instance, at the airport leaving the Sandbox, the security guy at the metal detector said (in Arabic) 'these girls are white, search them.' It wasn't just a pat down either, it was a detailed, other people's hands in my pockets, kind of search that wasn't really all that pleasant. All I could think was 'seriously? because I'm the ONLY suspicious looking person in this line!'

We also had some problems when we tried to get into Egypt. All foreigners have to buy these stamp things to get through passport control. Problem was, there was no one selling them! And the guy in the passport control booth told us 'once I finish with my line I will call the man who sells the stamps'. 15 minutes later, long after the line was finished and my bags had gone around the baggage carousel 7 times, the stamp guy finally shows up. We felt warmly welcomed.

Then when I arrived back in the Sandbox the customs guy seemed really friendly, flipping through other people's passports to check their visas and chatting with them. I handed him my passport, he took one look at the cover and his demeanor totally changed. Instead of being real friendly he turns and says (in Arabic) 'What do you have in your bag? You're trying to sneak bad things into the country?' and so in Arabic I replied that I had only clothes and souvenirs from my holiday. PTL he was so surprised that I spoke Arabic that his demeanor changed back into that friendly guy...he didn't even go through my bag, just let me go through. But still, just having an American passport meant that he was going to give me trouble.

And then there's the fact that as I walk down the street I am constantly reminded that I am a foreigner. Specifically by the constant yelling of the word 'khawaja' which is pretty much a derogatory term in reference to a white person. So it usually works like this...I walk down the street and people, either sitting on the sidewalk or driving down the road or walking by or little kids...basically everyone, feels compelled to say 'khawaja' when they see me, as if I didn't already know that I was different. I need to remember to ask my language helper how to say 'thanks for the reminder'! For now I either ignore them or if there's an opporunity I'll just look at them and in Arabic kindly remind them that they are 'sandboxians'. (When I would really like to say something to the effect of 'congrats, you're pretty clever' or 'your mom')

And this is all because I'm white and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am a single woman living in a society where women and dogs are pretty much looked upon as equals...I try not to let it get to me but somedays you just can't ignore it.

Part 5 - Cairo

Robin & I took the train from Alex to Cairo, about a 3 hour ride for $8. We have some very good friends who are living there and we got to spend lots of time with them. It was worth the whole trip just to get to catch up with them. We did a lot of shopping and enjoyed playing up the role of tourists, plus we did quite a bit of relaxing.

Here's the Nile River. Over here (and in most countries) it's actually illegal to stop on bridges. There are actually soldiers posted on each side of the bridge, I'm not sure what exactly their jobs are but up to this point I guess I had just assumed that they kept people from stopping on the bridge. Well, our driver just stopped on the side of the road and told us to get out so we did. It was freezing and the wind was blowing like crazy, but he took the next 15 minutes to tell us the story of Moses and to point out the very reeds where he was found in the basket. Notice the reeds just there to the right of the river in the picture? That's where they found him. Who would've thought! Kudos to the princess who thought to put a sign up when she found a baby who she didn't know was going to grow up to be a key player in the history of the world so that thousands of years later we would know the precise location where he was found. That's a little sarcastic, but the guys explanation was 'the princess had gardens all along the river but this was where one of the bigger gardens was so she had to find him right there'. Huh. Well if nothing else it was pretty cool to break the law and take river pictures off of the bridge, although, and I think I've said this before about other things but, now that I live on that very same river it just isn't quite as cool as it was before, it kind of loses it's novelty when you can go have a picnic next to it anytime you want.

We also took a falouka ride on the river. A falouka is basically just a small, rickety old sailboat and they're really common in Cairo. We went at sunset and it was so beautiful and incredibly peaceful...amazing that in the middle of one of the biggest, most crowded and craziest cities in the world you can find such silence.

This is my good friend and I while we were on the river. We go way back...all the way to conference over a year ago when we were roomies (and before you judge her for the huge earring in her nose, she had just gotten it pierced 3 days before!). And then in the second picture is another great friend from RVA. A year ago, who would have thought that we would end up in the same part of the world having very similar experiences.

Also, on our falouka ride the very exact spot where Joesph, Mary & Jesus crossed the river was pointed out to us. My first reaction was '...Does it say that they crossed the river? I mean, I guess, since they were in Egypt for a while and it is a big river, it could be logical that, at some point, they crossed it'. My next question was 'So was this when they were coming to Egypt or leaving?', along with 'at the time they were on the run they weren't exactly well-known, so who was the brilliant person that marked the exact spot so that thousands of years later we could commemorate that event?' I guess that's being a little critical and sarcastic but that was really what I thought.

And then, of course, a beautiful Nile sunset picture. Have you noticed that sunsets are my absolute favorite thing?