Street Children in Nairobi

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The next morning we went out to explore on foot and spent the entire morning dodging begging children. I am an older grandma figure so I get “mama, buy me some shoes-I have no shoes please. One piece of bread for me.” We are the new tourists in town so we are really targeted. The other tourists and expats have learned to walk the streets with stone faces already. I have learned to carry food in my backpack…we are told not to give money because many of them use it to sniff petroleum glue.

There is a local project to train kids to be street entertainers so thy can earn their money instead of begging. But as Bob says, they are still homeless. I asked a taxi driver why they were on the street and he said that some have deceased parents and others have good parents but the kids are just runaways. I said, yes, we have those in the United States too!

Nairobi…First Impressions

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On April 30, 2002, the plane from Cairo landed in Nairobi Kenya to music from “Out of Africa” (groan) and a horrific monsoon-season rainstorm. A taxi ride to the downtown area that should have taken 20 minutes took three hours.

The Parkside Hotel where we are staying, across town from the Hilton and Stanley Hotels, is decent and many of the non-governmental organization expats stay here. For a city with a population of two and a half million people the downtown area is surprisingly small and you can walk across it in about 15 minutes.

First Impressions
You immediately see signs of the ousted English: driving is on the left side of the road, many of the taxis are English (they look like black 1940 limousines)they serve English breakfast including pork and beans without the pork. Besides Swahili and the tribal dialects, English is spoken as the common language.

The feel of the people and sound of their voices is soft and resonant-not strident as in Egypt. The smiles on these faces are wonderful. We are very happy to be here.

We don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable yet. We are called Mama and Papa…disconcerting reminders of course that we are not 20 something backpackers.

The women all have straightened hair unless they have cornrows or short cropped hair. The men all have very short cropped hair. One seller, comparing his lack of hair with Bob’s referred to both of them as having “mosquito highways” the literal translation for a bald head in Swahili!

Edfu

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Israelis Bombed 9/11?
While waiting for the others to come out of the temple at Edfu, and when it became apparent that Bob wasn’t going to buy anything, Bob was invited into a seller’s shop for tea. The seller, who seemed more educated than usual here, wanted to talk about things…did Americans think, he asked, if the massacre of 59 tourists at Luxor was masterminded by the Israelis? No, Bob said, no one in America that he knew thought that. “We think it was the Israelis,” he responded confidently.

The same rumor was going around the Arabic world after 9/11 that the Israelis had done it. Seems to be incomprehensible to some middle eastern people we have met that Osama or any Muslim could be responsible for such mass killing.

Search For Truth In Egypt

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Cafes and Food
You can have what Bob calls “mystery meat,” which in Egypt is called kebab-lamb or chicken sliced from a vertical spit-very good in pita bread. Kofta is ground meat peppered with spices, skewered and grilled. You can find delicious spit roasted chicken. Tagen is a stew cooked in a deep clay pot with onions, tomatoes and rice or cracked wheat. Stuffed cabbage leaves are called mahshi karumb. Fried fish is great. Kushari is tiny noodles, tomato juice, lemon and onions looking somewhat like a soup.

We were welcomed into one empty cafe and graciously given the best seat upstairs near a window where we could look out on the street while eating kushari, a “traditional Egyptian dish” as the proprietor called it. He gives us an idea that if we could get away from the sellers that the Egyptian people would be wonderfully hospitable and gracious. We were touched.

In certain cafes men sit, play backgammon and smoke sheesha pipes.

Luxor
No knobs on anything in the hotel. Had to lift the toilet lid to figure out how to flush and while leaning over the toilet tank the fan blades from the fan above fell off and konked me on the head before bounding into the tub. Lonely Planet uses Budget, Mid Range and Top End for classifying hotels and this was a MidRange which I think is a pretty good gauge of the local economy. Takes money they don’t have to clean and repair.

Ongoing Search for Truth
When I was in college, ironically, a book by the great theologian Martin Buber called “I and Thou” gave me my first understanding about bridging the gap between the “I” and the different “thou.”

More recently cross cultural writers have been writing about the concept of “the stranger” describing our fear of the “different” as a genetically built-in survival response mechanism that is a healthy one when used to keep ourselves safe, but if we are not aware of our subtle responses on this level and let it operate when it is inappropriate then we can be very damaging to each other. Ahdaf Soueif writes in English and the theme of her autobiographical novel “In The Eye Of The Sun” is the notion of foreignness. Her latest novel “The Map of Love” was shortlisted for UK’s Booker prize.

Thinking about all this reminds me of an experience I had years ago when managing a student foreign exchange program. I gave a party for all the exchange students in my home and wanted to include some older students to provide perspective so I went to a local private University and was referred to three foreign students who happened to be from Saudi Arabia. While inter-viewing them I was told by one that our culture and our values were “ugly” to the Muslim “as if you took a lid off a garbage can and looked in!” The way he said it made me shiver. I didn’t invite two of them to the party even after they complained that American were not friendly and that as students here for the last two years they had never been invited into anyone’s home. If not to the party, I should have invited them to my home. The third did come to the party, cooked a fantastic chicken dinner for the students and is my friend in Salem still.

A Felluca Ride Up The Nile

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In Aswan, a felluca, an ancient sailboat of the Nile, is a common means of transport up and down the Nile River. It has a broad canvas sail and the boat itself has a shallow deck upon which are thick cotton covered pads to sit on and watch the dark waters of the Nile slide by in the hot dry desert wind during the day and to sleep on at night. Two gracious Nubian men in flowing jalabayas sailed the boat-one at each end-and cooked for us in a tiny area on a small propane stove.

The first afternoon, the wind became too strong and tangled the sails. Was amazing to see one small, lithe Nubian scoot up the mast to untangle the sail.

Before leaving Aswan, we sailed to nearby Kitchener Island where about 12 Nubian young girls-secondary school students studying to be teachers- surrounded us laughing and talking and asking questions-practicing their English. I love your sweet soft faces I said…oh thank you very much they said laughing. Then “I love you,” one said, probably coming from a lack of vocabulary to be able to say anything else.

A couple years ago I saw a contemporary rendition of the opera “Aida” in which a Nubian princess was captured by the Egyptian army. The music was composed by Elton John and the historical revision sympathetically illustrated the plight of the Nubians. After their lands were submerged under water when the High Dam was built, most Nubians today occupy the lowest paying jobs.

We sailed the Nile with six other people for an incredibly beautiful and langorous two day trip to Edfu. We were joined by a young couple from Milan Italy, another young couple from Paris and two friends-one from the Czeck Republic and the other from Slovakia. The two from Czech and Slovakia had just spent a year and a half in Israel as nannies and were relieved to be out of the country…not because of the danger from the Palestinians but because they didn’t care for the Israelis.

English has truly become the international language. Everyone on the felluca was fluent-the French girl saying that her generation was quite happy with English but that her parents and older sister still resented it.

The first evening over dinner we traded information and honest understandings about the foreign policies of our respective countries. The French girl described her insights into the story of “Chocolat” and the French guy talked about the 35 hour work week and how it has not created more jobs-just means that more work is now done in less time.

The Italian and French couples had a lot in common and were planning to meet again the night we got off the felluca-and I imagine they will remain friends-a wonderful thing that could not have happened a generation ago-the upside of globalism and a common language.

Cultivating Hate In Children

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On the same day that Arafat finally condemned the terrorism against Israel, his wife, who lives in Paris, granted an interview with an Arabic-language magazine, Al Majalla, wherein she endorsed suicide attacks as legitimate resistance against Israeli occupation.

My eye caught the following feature article that Mary Kelly, former editor of Egypt Today magazine and who lived in Cairo for 8 years, reported to the Herald Tribune: “…children, still in their school uniforms, were seen laughing and changing as they half-marched, half skipped along the sunny road in Cairo, toting knapsacks and book bags.”

The account continued: “One might have thought it was an ater-school field trip if it were not for the boys in the center displaying a Palestinian flag…In the evenings, Egyptian family members swapped stories of their children participating in such demonstrations. Over dinner at home with one family in a working-class neighborhood of Cairo, Fatma, 10, told me how an older boy at school rallied her classmates on the playground during recess. Their rhyme was addressed to Ala Mubarak, son of President Hosni Mubarak, “We sang ‘Ala, Ala, tell your father the Americans will not help you!”

Unicef has called for an end to the Israeli-palestinian violence for the sake of the children…against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in the Arab world, children are getting powerful messages about who their enemies are. In Egypt, TV is showing virtually nonstop news coverage of the crisis and nationalistic, pro-Palestinian programming. Old footage of Palestinian children being shot and throwing stones at Israeli soldiers roll in slow motion with melodramatic music playing in the background (we saw it on the TV in the hotel)…A political solution…won’t erase these mental images…and America gave the green light, the adults say over and over again.

A UNICEF rep in the West Bank said on CNN that ‘it will be a question of one, two, even three generations.'”

US News From Egypt

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News in the International Press
Subjects we have been reading about lately have often covered the European Union, deregulation of the labor market, global economic trends, immigration problems, agricultural pollicy and the issues stemming from the World Trade Organization agreements, market liberalization, the by products of globalization, economic indices and their interpretations, the subtle balances between countries which are being upset by the Mideast dispute, the International Court and the French elections.

Many articles are critical of the States. A piece entitled “The Sole Superpower” stated “Today, there is only one superpower. It may listen to the opinions of its allies but it’s views and decisions are rarely influenced by them…The sole super-power certainly has responsibilities. As for the Europeans, it seems that they will continue, helplessly to bite their lips.”

An op-ed piece questioned the “Bush administration who has appointed a record number of corporate executives to high-level positions, who often regulate or do business with their former employers. Further, that may of the business execs first entered the private sector after previous careers in the Reagan and Bush administrations….Dick Cheney being the quintessential example of what is called crony capitalists or men who live by their connections.” Isn’t this what caused the Asian financial crisis…and why Japan is trying not to fall apart…and we are suprised by ENRON?

Another Washington Post article described the battle between the State Department and the Pentagon regarding how to proceed with the Mid-East dispute and war with Iraq.

A Coptic Christian Guide

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In Luxor we did have a tour guide and it made all the difference. We were able to enjoy the sights without being constantly by the touts. A Coptic Christian, he explained that to be a registered tour guide you need four years at Cairo University and that he had two more years in history and languages.

I asked him what the difference was between the Coptic Christians and the Eastern Orthodox. He said the split came because of a differing understanding of the nature of Jesus. One believes that Jesus is both God and man and the other believes Jesus is just God. The way his Pope describes it, he says, is that the sun shines and you can see the light and feel the heat-two different aspects-but it is just one sun.

Driving & Cueing in Egypt

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Drivers have immense patience with each other-each car gives way to the others like a million fish in a school swimming this way and that…narrowly missing one another but gracefully swerving away in time…implicit cooperation you would never see in the States.

No one would steal anything from you, the tour operator says, except for the occasional pickpocket. I suspect he is right-we never worried a bit about our things.

Told a tout, when he asked why we went to Islamic Quarter instead of Cairo Museum, that we wanted to experience live people-not dead ones…way of saying we wanted to get a feel for contemporary Egypt. We sorta did…

Tucked away amid the modern urban area of Cairo lies one of the world’s oldest Islamic cities, with its famous mosques, madrasas, hammams and fountains. Founded in the 10th century, it became the new centre of the Islamic world, reaching its golden age in the 14th century. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The style of cueing in line is very different than in the US where we frown on people crowding in or even acting like they want to be first in line as being a very selfish thing. The jostling is incredible so we just usually sit and wait until everyone gets off the plane or bus or train and then we get up and go.

Diplomacy Egyptian Style

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As westerners we are not used to the constant demands for “baksheesh” (tipping) that make you want to blow your stack…and then they want you to be happy about it! Salaries and wages are so low that baksheesh becomes an essential means of supplementing incomes-so for a cleaner in a one or two-star hotel who might earn only about $35 a month tipping becomes the mainstay of the income.

Minimal Diplomacy
Waiter on the train as we were returning to Cairo, asks Bob “Are you happy?” “That much,” says Bob with a show of hands about two feet apart…There just is minimal diplomacy as we know it unless you are insulated in a four or five star hotel. But the older eccentric Brit eating with us in our hotel restaurant has been coming here every year for six years…and was here during the massacre in Luxor. You just have to realize they are trying to survive, he says, and that the people are living in a benign dictatorship that colors the cultural fabric.

At the airport, as we were walking up to the doors we thought we were home free. But as soon as the door opened there were two uniformed and armed police facing us. One yelled “what are you doing here!” With our bags it was obvious that we were tourists so the question was confusing. At that point, Bob retorted angrily that we were just trying to get into the airport! They let us go.

Cultural Attitudes and Mores
Is your husband looking for new wife, says the tour operator…want to trade your wife for a camel he says then to the young Irish guy visiting with his shy new Japanese wife on their honeymoon…your husband is a lucky man…if he finds new woman you just kill him and put him in the Nile.

In the souk (market) I said “see you later Alligator,” to a seller. “Here it’s not ‘After While Crocodile,’he replied. “it’s ‘In the Nile Crocodile’.” We laughed! Water is sprinkled on the streets to keep the dust down…making mud…as I walked down the street.

What are you looking for…nothing, I don’t need anything…I am just looking to appreciate…if I buy that it will just sit in my house…are you Egyptian he asked. No, I said, American…he said you think just like an Egyptian…what do you need. Nothing, I have husband and children and a house…what are you looking for…nothing…I have nothing, he said, what color do you want? Blue I said…how big do you need it…infinite size, I said not realizing what kind of game I was playing with him. Then…I have something you have never seen, he said…come look…

Young man wants to buy my shoes…with those shoes I could get dressed up and go to the disco and find a woman…!

After the souk, dodging 6 lanes of honking cars not traveling in any one lane, we cross the street for orange juice while a truck full of soldiers passed by waving and blowing kisses…also men sitting idle…not seeming to mind I was with a man…your husband is a very lucky man…to Bob again are you looking for new wife?

Later in Aswan I heard from a vendor…would you like a banana…just 30 minutes….

On the train on the way back to Cairo from Luxor…here is a flower (looked like a dandelion but smelled like a gardenia) realizing the server had to have gotten off the train at the last stop to get it…can be very charming but no clue about western sensibilities or boundaries…and I suspect they don’t care to know.

I read that even Egyptian women, who would not otherwise, wear the higab (Islamic scarf) outside the home to protect themselves from the same harassment. It is not really intimidating but just a nuisance, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, Lonely Planet says. You can swat it away and keep it at a distance, but it’s always out there trying to get in your ear. The problem is, according to one Egyptian man, that for every 10 women approached, one will say yes. The Dutch woman on the train behind me said that her brother who travels a lot, has come across a lot of Egyptian men who hook up with Western women.