On the way to work today

First I saw the mud piles, freshly dug out of the canals following the rains. I saw the crowds of tired people waiting for buses and matatus to take them to work. A man, wrapped in old plastic tarps, was sleeping in the nearby yard. Tall grey buildings competed with violet flowered trees for positioning in the skyline. A whirl of colors from the bus window. Watched the quiet empty market stalls start to reawaken as the first vendors arrived and uncovered their wares. An old woman sat on the curb with piles of egg crates and fruit around her to sell. A nearby woman was taking the first sip of steaming tea. . .

My break up letter to Cairo

Dear Cairo,

I’m terribly sorry I had to do this through a letter. This is not easy for me at all, honestly. As much as at times you drive me absolutely crazy, I’ve really come to love you. We’ve come a long way during these past ten months and I will always cherish the memories. You had me intrigued from the very first moment. I remember I couldn’t even breathe. It was like my whole respiratory system had caved in, or filled with fumes. I felt nervous and flustered all the time and was constantly hot and sweaty. I didn’t know how to dress around you. I didn’t even know how to communicate with you. I felt like a child, pointing and nodding and stumbling along the way. The way you are built is so complicated – so chaotic. I just couldn’t figure you out for the longest time. Maybe I still haven’t. But I do know you now in a way I couldn’t have before.

Your spirit and energy were contagious. I had always been a quiet person but you were so loud. Always. It was like you could not be quiet, even for a second. Much of your noise, and the kind of attention you paid me drove me crazy. I even caught myself yelling out on the streets. But some of your noises I’ll miss. Your honking and clanging and yelling and clapping melodies became like a lullaby to me.

You should know that I am forever changed by you. I no longer wait in lines at metro ticket counters, for one thing. I no longer wait for lights to cross the street. I no longer turn immediately away from perplexed stares. I may no longer have prints on my finger tips from constantly taking tea out of glasses.  But I never stopped trying – I always reached for that steaming glass, over and over again. Now that my fingertips are totally numbed and I can breathe a little out of one nostril, part of me wants to keep this going. But when we began this relationship we both knew it would have to come to an end. As much as I hate to leave you Cairo, know you’ll be in my heart forever.

With love,
Bri

Rights Revealed

The fiancé of Dina’s brother walked into the living room, cascading in layers of cloth. Her niqab was folded back over her head, like a bridal veil, revealing her fresh face, clear and free of any makeup or coloring of any kind. She took my hand in her gloved one and gave it a loose squeeze. Once seated, the fiancé, Dina and Dina’s mother began a rapid conversation in Arabic, of which I only grasped onto the word, “niqab.” Dina brought me in by asking if I knew of the problems in Egypt regarding the full face veil. Just yesterday I had watched various news programs about France’s attempts to ban the niqab from public spaces and I nodded that I was at least familiar with the international debate. “Well, you study human rights, so you know all about this. It really is a violation of rights. It is so difficult for her,” Dina went on. The mood was sympathetic in the room, the ladies nodding at the fiancé with concern.

I flashed back to my own slightly frightened reaction to seeing fully veiled women on the metro and wondering how they see and how they eat in public. Pacing around the Giza station earlier that evening as I waited for Dina to meet me, I had seen a fully veiled woman, all cloaked in black with eyeglasses placed over the veil. She waved her little son back over to her and he came running and grabbed onto her skirt. I remembered at first wondering how he would know who to grab onto. I remembered hearing the stories of Azhar and how she had triumphantly declared the niqab the “mask of zorro,” defying any one in support of it. Admittedly, I still don’t understand the niqab, and I am still sort of frightened by it. I still want so badly for the women to take it off and let their faces feel air, to see their eyes and the expression on their faces, to let them be seen and known.

But I realized sitting in Dina’s living room next to her mother, across from her and the fiancé, that banning the niqab in celebration of human rights, was not necessarily going to be a freeing experience for women. Human rights, though at the root are solid and universal, are complex and colored. A movement in the name of human rights, might be viewed as a violation by the very person affected by it. I suppose I have theoretically known this before, but it was truly revealed to me that evening in the living room.

Every morning the black sun rise

“Every morning the black sun rise. Every morning the black sun rise” (The Congos). This song played in my head as we reached the top of Mount Sinai just before dawn. The movement of hiking up had kept me warm in the dark night. The flashlight I carried shone the faintest dot of light so I kept fairly close people in front of me to see the rugged and rocky path. The hike was invigorating and energizing. Each time our Bedouin guide would call us in for a break at one of the camps, I felt a little disappointed to have to stop. I was though constantly amused by the routine of it. The guide would go charging up the mountain like a billy goat on some unseen or nonexistent path and after about 20 minutes we would hear his voice yelling out our group name, “ALASKA!” Then he would wait for all of us to pass him and after about 20 minutes again, he’d be in front of us again yelling “ALASKA!”

The top of the mountain was so cold, so cold, so cold that it was difficult to entertain any thought but that of the temperature. We rented an old dirty camel blanket for 20LE anxiously and wrapped it around the three of us. Our heads curled into our necks and bodies folded tightly, we closed our eyes and concentrated on staying warm. After a time of dozing in and out of awakeness (I wouldn’t call this sleep, exactly), I felt a little light through my eyelids and opened them just in time for the first line of orange glow along the horizon. The glorious beauty of it all motivated us to stand, though it took some effort to move to the farther edge of the mountain to watch the brilliant sun rise. And rise it did, creating a magnificent layering of colors, at first crisp and new and bright in skinny lines along the edge of the world, hazing into the black sky. Then progressively thicker rows of pastel hues until the colors faded into the light blue sky and the sun shone strongly and fully above us. All that could be seen from all directions were the orangey-red tops of Sinai mountains.

After some minutes the sun had risen and a new day had begun. There was nothing to do in that moment but breathe, thank God and begin the trek back down the mountain.

Welcome to Egypt

I know why the roar of the city sounds like the ocean in the early morning. Because all the loud car horns have not yet woken from their slumber, or have taken a moment of pause before starting again the day. Horn honking is the communication and punctuation of the street. It means: get out of my way, hurry up, go forward, move to the side, hey whats up, want a taxi?, and other less polite expressions. Its also used to announce going forward and stopping, ending or beginning a new maneuver. The horn honking is really a courtesy for pedestrians, especially because it often indicates, ‘I’m mobbing down this tiny alley way you are walking down and will run you down if you don’t turn your body sideways against the car next to you.’

For the most part, I’ve gotten used to the honking and don’t think twice to respond appropriately by dipping in between parked cars or shaking my head at the approaching taxi. But today, I wished Cairo had passed legislation like New York banning excessive use of car horns. Sometimes you just want to walk down the street, dodging puddles and dripping air conditioning ‘rain,’ stepping over piles of trash including shards of glass, avoiding tripping over skinny stray cats and narrowly missing body checking old ladies, in peace and quiet. On days like these I take myself to the cheesy Western style coffee shops where you are spoken to in English and where the AC blasts a winter temperature requiring a light sweater. Even though an iced latte means iced tea or iced smoothie here, it gives me a chance to be slightly anonymous, alone and away from the craziness that is Cairo.

I arrived the night of August 27, an epic evening astronomically, the night of the two moons. And while the two moons story turned out to be an internet forwarded hoax, I still felt there was a certain mystique about my evening of arrival. It began will the expected confusion. After packing, unpacking, repacking and redistributing in order to meet the very stringent EgyptAir luggage requirements, I boarded a plane occupied by a total of maybe 14 passengers. Surely my extra duffle bag of sweaters and books now on its way back to France wouldn’t have weighed the plane down from take-off.

Three hours later, my head filled with Pharoanic facts courtesy of EgyptAir magazine, I found myself filing down the terminal and navigating the halls of the Cairo airport as if in a hazy dream. Recalling Jayne’s detailed instructions on how to find the unmarked booth for visas, I began scanning all booths and tables and at one point lined up expectantly near a counter where travelers were apparently filling out their H1N1 clearance forms.

Thirty minutes later, my shiny visa stamp in passport and my tremendous luggage strapped to my body, I emerged into the packed glass flight arrivals lobby where I was to meet an AUC representative for a ride to my new apartment. I edged slowly through the pathways of people, carefully reading every sign in the crowd. None had my name on them. Following several tours through the crowds, I came to the slightly sad conclusion that there was no sign with my name, as promised. It was on my last tour of the room, after making a tentative and overpriced agreement with a taxi driver, that I found Ahmed from AUC. He was sitting on a chair chatting with a group of other young men and he had a little piece of paper with some version of my name scribbled across it in faint pen. He halfway flashed it towards me as I walked by. “Yes! Yes!” was my instinctual reaction. I couldn’t even come up with the word for yes or “that’s me” in Arabic at that moment. I was so thrilled to see him. I almost hugged him, but that would have been completely haram.

The next challenge was mentally braving the Cairo traffic experience for the first time. Whereas now I don’t blink an eye as the taxis fly me through and across multiple lanes of traffic, squeeze narrowly and at top speed between marked lanes of cars and slam through intersections without pause, that first night I filled my lungs and almost literally held my breath the entire ride. And sure enough, we arrived safely in Dokki, where I stumbled out of the car and scurried along behind the team of men that appeared out of nowhere to carry my luggage into my new home.

Yes, I am American and other fun facts

Two and a half weeks in France and I have already learned a great deal.

1. I am American

Not that this hasn’t ever crossed my mind, but I’ve been reminded of this fact, more than ever before.  My first week here I found myself in the role of the awkward American, who speaks some French but not enough to slip by unnoticed. In fact, I’ve only recently graduated from some American accent jokes and imitations. This experience was rather like an initiation of some sort; listening to the imitations and trying not to return the favor with a rendition of the thick French accent that coated any English words spoken. Instead, I found myself responding, ‘yes I am American, c’est vrai’. Shortly thereafter, on the way into the grand casino at Aix les Bains I found myself uttering this thought again. I had just finished a successful lesson on the art of swearing in French and began proudly demonstrating my  new skills in case I should lose at the slot machines. My vocal volume must have escalated, because as we passed the flamingo pink back lit fountain at the entrance, I was quickly hushed by my friend and teacher of my new vocabulary. “Don’t speak Brianna, don’t speak,” he said in a very flustered and embarrassed manner. I was suddenly the loud American.

2. Mountains are almost always bigger, taller and higher than you think and it will almost certainly take you double or triple the time you had imagined to hike up.

Mighty Mt Sur Lyand proved this to me last weekend as my enthusiastic roommates and I began what we projected to be a 2-3 hour stroll up Mt Colombier. Five and a half tiring hours later, we found ourselves at the top of an entirely different mountain, parched and aching. We’d run out of water about halfway up and had taken to snacking on wild strawberries along the path (which may or may not have been peed on by foxes and other animals). The views were fantastic though. We gazed out in awe at Mount Blanc in front of us, satisfied with our accomplishment. Then, just like the vision of an oasis in the desert, my roommate noticed a sign for a restaurant ahead. It turned out to be a cross country ski lodge open year round. I enjoyed the best pear juice of my life (I’m not really sure I’ve ever actually had pear juice before, but in any case this was the best). Then there was nothing to do but begin the journey back down. I should mention the wind kicks up a pretty decent icy blast up at that altitude, which brings me to lesson/fact number 3…

3. Dad was correct when he told me to always bring a sweatshirt when hiking in the mountains, even on a sunny day

Despite the panoramic views and delicious pear juice, there’s only so much time you can spend sitting in biting cold wind in shorts and tank tops. The way back down is usually much faster any way and easy going, but we managed to find the longest way  possible, popping down finally into the next door town and following the river back to Seyssel. At one point on our way we saw our boss driving  past. She waved and pulled over to say hello and we came running at her across a field of hay (surprisingly sharp when recently chopped), in hopes that she might give us a lift. After exchanging greetings though, she went on her way in the opposite direction and we continued on our way along the road, hugging the nonexistent shoulder and jumping into the grassy banks alongside at the sound of a car approaching.

4. No matter how exhausting your day has been, a delicious four course French meal will always revive you

Upon our eventual return to our flat, we had exactly 20 minutes to shower and get ready for our French dinner at “the best restaurant in Seyssel”. The most time consuming and important part of this process was deciding what shoes to wear to best ease the pain of our blisters, while still matching the scene of the restaurant. Once seated at the table after having tucked our tired and shaking legs under it, the four of us sat and starred blankly at one another, lacking the energy and/or ability to muster the words in English, let alone French. With each sip of our aperitif, we slowly started coming back to life and by the time we’d finished our respective entrees, we were fully back in action. I still find myself imagining the taste of my faux fillet covered in grilled buttery polenta and the rich saucy mushrooms, the cooked tomatoes lathered in provencal sauce, and the taste of the powerful, yet unassuming complimentary wine. At the sight of the dessert cart rolling our way, I think we all felt like we could climb another mountain if it meant we could continue to eat like this. You could pick whatever you wanted and there were so many choices, I made a careful mental note for what to try on my next visit.

Bees in the Bains

USA take note. France has got a lot of things right, in addition to the 35 hour work week, the 5 weeks paid vacation, and decent healthcare. They know how to conserve and how to recycle and, most importantly, how to encourage people to actually do it.

Recycling bins in Seyssel are huge green contraptions reminiscent of a “spaceship meets mailbox”.  Three separate contraptions are clearly designated by signs and photos as to which items are recycled in them. A metal flap doorway requires careful consideration as you insert each of your items individually, feeling your contribution to the future of the planet as you go. In contrast, the trash bins look like the cast off children of these spaceship mailboxes. They are little and kept across the alley from the superior recycling contraptions. I also must add that there aren’t individual bins for every household covering alleys and sidewalks. This cuts down on use of materials for constructing these spaceship mailboxes and also keeps them from taking over the neighborhood (while also encouraging less waste). There are bins for every couple of blocks, so you also get some fresh air and exercise when you recycle. The system logistically requires that you attempt to reuse and when you do throw things out, that you primarily recycle. It is brilliant.

Another favorite planet saving endeavor here in France occurs in shopping. No bags, plastic or otherwise are provided for your items. Inconvient? Not at all. You are welcome to purchase a reusable bag from the store to carry your purchases conveniently. Or, you can conveniently bring your own bags, boxes, or baskets from home to carry things home in. It doesn’t take more than a couple of trips to the store (and a kitchen overflowing with Carrefour shopping bags) to get into the habit of bringing a bag or two with you on any expeditions.

There isn’t all that much driving around here, but the cars that are used (besides the tractors in the vineyards, and thank God for them) are small and unassuming, a far cry from the American style purposeless gas guzzling machines.

Finally, the showers here help to conserve water. Who wants to stand for long in an empty cold tub without hot water streaming over you like a natural waterfall? When your shower source does not hang on the wall, this is the situation you face and it sure is difficult to try to hold the shower nozzle with one hand and wash your hair and body with the other simultaneously. Thus, you use the water for a minute or two and turn it off each time you reach for your soapy products or razor. I’ve never taken quicker showers and/or conserved so much water.

My only one complaint for the shower situation was the bees in the bains. The other day, I reached for my towell after stepping out of the bath, wrapped it tightly around myself and felt the instant sting of a bee on my back. It had been hiding in my towell and waiting for this perfect opportunity. I suppose that is what you get when you live in the countryside and keep all your windows and skylights open all the time. Fair enough. Fair enough…

Bienvenue à Seyssel

Life is sweet when you are living the french stereotype. This occurred to me yesterday as I spread melty camenbert over a torn piece of fresh baguette between sips of locally renowned wine. The sunlight poured in through the skylight above the cuisine while I reflected on this phenomenon with my fellow interns/travelers. It had been a long and tiring day; a morning of fresh croissants AND pain au chocolat accompanied by cafe au lait, followed by a leisurely walk to the farmer’s market for fresh produce and a short hike to the Carrefour for new house slippers. The afternoon was spent hiking up the nearby mountains for breathtaking views of the mountain ranges and the valley below. Along the way we passed our dream country homes covered in vines with cherry trees and backyard vineyards. Almost every home had an outdoor table ready for the next family meal. On the way back down the mountain we stopped in at Maison Gallice for a sampling of their vineyard wines. This region is known for various vins blancs and sparking wines, so we tried them all, just to make sure. With 2-3 bottles each in hand, we proceeded back to our quaint tile floored flat where we prepared a meal of fresh spinach, onions and garlic paired with wine, cheese and bread. As if that wasn’t enough, we took ice cream out to the porch and looked out over town, listening to birds chirp and later attended an outdoor concert at a nearby town. I don’t mind if I do live this stereotype for awhile…