Driving in Egypt

Note:  This post was written in August of 2012, but I refrained from posting it to spare our family and friends a year's worth of worry about our safety.  Now that we are home we can tell the story.



Last weekend we were invited to go with one of my husband's co-workers, 'Dave', on a trip to the Siwa oasis.  This oasis is about an eight hour drive from Cairo.  Dave has lived here in Egypt for three years and lived in Iraq for three years before that.  He knows the Middle East and Arabic very well so he knew what would be needed for such a long trip.  We had a very nice van, an excellent driver (the best the tour company had), and a security guard to go with us on this trip.  We had to get special permission from the Embassy security office to go so far out of the city, but they were satisfied with the arrangements Dave had made.  As it turned out, it was fortuitous that Dave had worked so hard to make these exact plans.

We left on Thursday afternoon from the Embassy in Cairo.  It took us a good two hours to get out of the city because Friday was the start of a big Muslim holiday- Eid al Fitr.  This is the celebration of the end of Ramadan and many Egyptians were either returning home from spending Ramadan with family, or going on holiday for the weekend.  The traffic was bad even by Cairo standards.

The city streets turned into a major six-lane highway just at the edge of Cairo.  The traffic speed picked up even though the road was still very crowded.  Our driver was being conservative by staying in the right-hand part of the road (lanes, even though clearly marked, are taken merely as suggestions by all Egyptian drivers).  I was reading a book and happened to glance up at one point.  I think I must have immediately closed my eyes, because all that I saw was a large tractor trailer on the left side of the van and a group of men around a broken-down car on the right side, standing in the road.  Our driver started honking furiously as the tractor trailer moved more to the right, squeezing our van towards the men.  I heard a dull thump and our van pulled to a stop.

The driver said something quickly to the guard and bailed out of the van.  The guard immediately pulled a weapon out from under the seat, bailed out the other side of the van and locked all the doors.   All too soon we knew what happened.  The screams we heard outside confirmed that our van had hit one of the men.  Once we were able to speak again, the two guys said that they had actually seen the man being thrown along the side of the van as we passed.  We found out later that the headlight on that side and the wing mirror were both destroyed.  There was a line of spittle along the side window, left by the man's face as it slid across.

Both the driver and the guard were on their cell phones within seconds, and Dave was not far behind in calling the Embassy security.  The biggest concern of everyone in our party was that three Americans had been involved in a potentially fatal traffic accident.  Within the city limits it is highly likely in these situations that a flash mob will form and all those seen at fault will be assaulted.  We were extremely lucky to be both outside the city limits and to have a security guard with a weapon.  Both those things kept the situation from escalating.  The embassy security office called every few minutes while we were waiting on the side of the road to make sure that things were remaining calm. 

Our driver had a medical kit and did his best to stabilize the injured man while an ambulance arrived.  Our guard stayed next to our door with his gun out the whole time.  All the window screens were closed in the van.  I thought at the time this was to keep us from seeing what was going on, but I was informed later that this was so that no one could see that it was Americans sitting in the van.

After the ambulance left, the driver and guard called the tour company and had a long discussion with them.  The embassy security called one last time and was satisfied that we were safe.  We were given permission to continue with our trip.  As we pulled back into traffic the driver asked if we were ok and we assured him that we were.  His closing remark to this adventure was, 'I'm am sorry it happened, but this is normal in Egypt.'

From what we can tell, there is no such thing as insurance here- medical or driver's- and very few, if any, lawsuits.  At no time were any police to be found anywhere nearby.  We think that the driver got the injured man's information and that the tour company may pay something towards his medical costs, but we will never know how the story ended for him.  We are hoping he survived and will be well.

As scary as this event was, we are also reassured about our safety here.  When everyone's energy should have been focused on the injured man, nearly everyone involved was working to ensure our own safety instead.   Although no Egyptian police showed up, if we had needed them, we would have had American embassy security on the scene within minutes.  Since these types of accidents seem to be a regular occurrence, we are extremely fortunate to have had a driver and guard who knew what to do, reacted calmly and rationally, and kept the situation from getting out of hand.  And as we will now never stand around in a major highway (on the very off chance we might one day have!), we are not afraid for our own safety on the roads.

Update:  Our friend who traveled with us ended up with the same driver again about a week later.  The driver said that he went to visit the injured man in the hospital and the worst thing that happened to him was that he had a concussion and a broken leg.  We were so happy to know that he was alive and will recover completely!

Evacuation Stories

On June 29th Washington D.C. called an optional evacuation for the State Department employees and their families in Cairo.  At that point there was a general feeling that the evacuation was more of a political maneuver than a serious security concern.  The Benghazi situation was still fresh on everyone's mind.  Nevertheless, most people decided they should get out while they had the opportunity, just in case.  Since my husband and I were only three weeks from leaving Cairo permanently we decided we should just wait it out.  Trying to move back to the U.S. while being evacuated would be very complicated!

As you no doubt know, things got rather messy in Cairo in the following days.  After having kept all of us indoors for 10 days (except for essential employees who needed to get to work), the State Department decided to go ahead and evacuate the rest of us.  The decision was made on July 3rd and we were told we would fly out on either the 4th or 5th, as soon as they could get us on a flight.

My husband's boss worked hard to get all of the spouses of his employees on the same flight.  This delayed our evacuation a few hours so I got just about 36 hours to pack and try to organize our things for being moved in a few weeks.  While at the time I thought I was being efficient and clear-minded, when I got to the States I was quite amused by some of the things that ended up in my suitcase.    I had to do some clothes shopping almost right away.   My husband was required to stay behind, so he had the unfortunate job of finishing up everything I couldn't get to— as well as continuing to work under very difficult circumstances.

On the day of our departure we were picked up in the embassy's armored vehicles and driven to the airport.  In our group there were three spouses, a family with a four year old and a dog, and a college student who had been visiting his mother for the summer.  While the roads seemed generally calm, we did have to stop at one military checkpoint near the airport.  My Arabic wasn't up to the conversation our driver had with the soldiers (other than him telling the soldier we were all Americans), but one of the other Americans suggested that they may have been looking for Muslim Brotherhood members fleeing the country rather than trying to cause us any trouble.  Whatever was said, we were soon allowed to go through and proceed to the airport.  Once we were safely there, the flight home was uneventful.

Not everyone's evacuation went as smoothly as ours did.  One of our friends was visiting family in England at the time and was expecting to be back in Cairo after a couple of weeks.  Her husband was on a temporary assignment in yet another country.  Neither of them are allowed to go back to Cairo to get things they didn't have with them, they have to go directly to Washington D.C. as soon as their trips are finished.  Another of our friends left their dog and two cats in their apartment and made arrangements for a pet sitter to stop by twice a day.  An evacuation must last at least 30 days by law and initially no one thought it would go any longer.  Now it's looking like it will last several months and the poor animals are stuck in Cairo.

One rather ironic twist in the evacuation involves an American woman who married an Egyptian security guard at her building.  When the evacuation came, she was considered an essential employee so she had to stay.  The evacuation order applied to all other Americans and their families, however.  So now the Egyptian husband is in Washington, D.C. and the American wife is stuck in Egypt!  

Apparently there were several employees and family members attached to the embassy who flatly refused to be evacuated.  As a mandatory evacuation is a direct order, these people are in serious trouble.  Their diplomatic status is in danger of being revoked and they would be in Egypt illegally.  The employees' jobs are in serious jeopardy.  It seems unlikely that the Egyptian government would pursue these (potentially) illegal residents as they have much more serious problems to deal with, but they would be well within their rights to do so.

Most of the Cairo embassy community is now in D.C. waiting out the evacuation.  Parents have been told to go ahead and enroll their children in school and everyone else is being encouraged to settle in for several months.  In spite of it being Ramadan, things don't appear to be calming down quickly in Egypt. Most people are optimistic, however, that the vast majority of Egyptians who are politically moderate will eventually prevail.  As our assignment will officially be over this coming week, my husband and I now have the pleasure of re-acquainting ourselves with all of the family, friends, and food that we sorely missed in the past year!

A Coup?

Egypt's president Muhammad Morsi refused to comply to the demands imposed on him by the Tamurad (rebel) protest movement and the Egyptian army.  At about 6:30pm this evening the military deployed into the streets of Cairo and throughout the rest of Egypt.  It isn't clear at the moment whether this counts as a coup, but what is clear is that Morsi has lost everything except the name of president.  He has been banned from traveling outside of the country and his cabinet and staff have left their positions.  Here are some pictures of the massive protests the past few nights and the military deploying into Cairo (all downloaded from Twitter, we still aren't allowed to go out):

And here are some celebratory pictures.  The Egyptians (most of them) seem to be ecstatic and have been driving around honking and celebrating for several hours now.

June 30th Part 3: Day of Reckoning

Maybe the title is a bit melodramatic, we'll see!  Although there are only a few reports of minor violence so far, our security services have told us that there are over 100,000 people in each of two major protest locations and many, many more marching in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria.  Even our quiet neighborhood of Maadi has had protestors, although they were mainly families with small children.  Below is a picture taken from one of our balconies:

Everyone in this group seemed very calm and under control.  There was one policeman trying to keep people from getting too close to our wall.  He had no problems with anyone and the few people who noticed us watching just smiled and waved.  If I hadn't known any better I would have thought it was just a happy, patriotic parade.

We don't know what will happen tonight, but we will keep everyone updated as we get new information.

Evening of the 30th:  Overnight the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo was ransacked and burned.  There are reports of between four and eight people killed in various locations around Egypt.  While any death is something to be regretted, given the millions of people out on the streets it could have been much, much worse.  The ant-Morsi protesters are camping out in Tahrir Square and  at the presidential palace.  They have said that Morsi has until 5:00pm on Tuesday to leave office before they start causing 'severe civil disobedience'. 

June 30th Part 2

The situation in Egypt is getting increasingly tense.  Today (Friday) is the Muslim holy day.  It is typical for there to be protests on Fridays as people go to the mosques in the morning, listen to whatever the imam has to say, and then go out to protest in support of what the imam said.  Since there are already big demonstrations planned for Sunday and people are getting all worked up over that, today saw very large protest turnouts as well.  In preparation there have been tanks put out in the streets at all the entrances to our neighborhood:

While I am sure that part of the reason the tanks are put there is to make us more safe, in a way it makes me feel less safe.  Do they really think heavy weapons such as these will be needed?!

This afternoon the Embassy decided to offer optional evacuation to the families.  The few families that are left in Cairo (most go home for the summer) seem to be eager to leave given the option.  We don't know exactly why this decision was made, but it does seem to indicate that there is enough anti-American sentiment floating around to make it unsafe for us.  My husband and I won't leave until the evacuation is mandatory, should it reach that point, because we are scheduled to be leaving so soon anyway.  We certainly hope it won't get to that point— for our sake as well as the Egyptians!

June 30th

As nothing much has happened yet, the events of the past few weeks have probably not made it on to the American news.  However, there is a serious situation brewing here in Egypt.

It began as a generalized discontent with the president, Muhammad Morsi.  He was elected last year in a surprisingly clean election, but there is widespread discontent with his administration.  The largest factor in his successful campaign was not his qualification for the job or even his popularity, but the fact that he belonged to a political party that was already organized.  After the Revolution in 2011 a huge number of political parties began to form, but there was not time before the first elections for them to really establish a platform and a following.  The unsurprising result was that the one party with organization, leaders, and dedicated followers was the most successful. 

From what I can gather, the biggest problem with Morsi is that he is weak.  He appears to lack the will to follow through on much needed reforms and is generally considered to be a puppet of the very strong Muslim Brotherhood organization.  This somewhat fundamentalist group has a long-term goal of uniting all Arab nations under one government which follows Islamic law.  Morsi has also been accused, rightly or wrongly, of blindly following the United States' wishes at the expense of Egypt's interests. 

Whatever one's opinion of Morsi is, there is no question that he has mishandled several very important issues.  His bumbling has lead to the dissolution of the lower house of parliament, the invalidation of the new Constitution, and the discrediting of the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council.  The Shura Council has been declared unconstitutional but it is being allowed to stand until a new constitution is formed.  The military has also refused to follow Morsi's orders on a number of important occasions. 

As these problems began accumulating, a group began circulating a petition calling for early elections to oust President Morsi.  The petition has been around for several weeks now and has gained 15 million signatures, a very significant number in a country of only 85 million.  On June 30th protestors plan to march to the Presidential Palace in Cairo to present their complaint.  While this is problematic enough, it is further complicated by groups intending to counter-protest in support of Morsi on the same day.  As has happened in the past, there is a high likelihood of violence between these groups.  Given the large number of people involved and the near-complete incompetence of the police, it could get very nasty.  The military is worried enough (or opportune enough) to announce that they are prepared to take over should there be evidence of violent action towards the demonstrators.  This seems more likely than usual as the anti-Morsi protestors have stated that they will cause as much trouble as they can to get their point across.

In typical Egyptian fashion, there is very little discussion of what will happen long-term should the protestors be successful in ousting Morsi.  It is likely that elections would be held at some point, but the interim could be very unsettled.  More than one older Egyptian has stated frankly that they would prefer to have another dictator rather than another president.  There is a large portion of the population that feels Egypt is just not ready for freedom and democracy.

We have been advised to stay in all next weekend and keep a close eye on the news.  This could turn out to be much ado about not much or it could get quite dangerous.   Fortunately, even during the worst parts of the Revolution two years ago the craziness didn't come near our neighborhood.  There is no reason to expect we will be in immediate danger, but we will certainly be playing it safe!

Translation and Transliteration Problems

Arabic is classified as one of two of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, the other being Mandarin Chinese.  The same is true for Arabic speakers learning English.  It is quite admirable that so many Egyptians have learned at least some English.  Please don't misinterpret this post as somehow making fun of the efforts of all those who are making our lives easier.  We are truly grateful for these people.  Nevertheless, it can be amusing when the translations don't work out quite right!

Most things on the menu looked fine, but I might only order #84 for a bridal shower...

Sounds vaguely cannibalistic, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable sending a child there!

Seems pretty bossy...

At first we thought they might be selling lighters, but we realized after thinking about it that they were renting 'bikes'. 

The words 'lamp' and 'light bulb' are identical in Egyptian Arabic.  While it seems this would be somewhat confusing for them, it definitely leads to translation problems for us.

Ignore this one if you aren't a grammar nerd.  Egyptian Arabic is a 'slang' version of Arabic.  As such, they use a lot of short cuts.  The most common one is to use participles instead of regularly conjugated verbs.  When translating word-for-word the result is... less than ideal.  


We also find amusement in the fact that Arabic does not have the sound for the English letter 'p'.  Usually English-speaking Egyptians substitute the letter 'b'.  The results can be quite confusing as happened yesterday when a guy talking to my husband referred to his 'iBad'.  We are also often thrown off by phrases such as ' beberoni bizza' and being asked if we want to 'bay now'.   Here is an excellent example of this problem being over-corrected:

Whale Bones in the Desert

On Christmas Eve we were invited to go with some friends out to the desert.  We went to an area about an hour outside of Cairo where you can see ancient whale bones.  The Sahara at one point was covered in sea water and there are many different fossils left scattered all over the desert.

On the way we stopped to see Egypt's only waterfall:

The picture doesn't allow you to put it into perspective, but it was only about 12 feet tall— a cute, little waterfall.  Still, it's not something you normally see in the middle of a desert!

I must say I was initially a bit underwhelmed when we got to the whale bones.  They were not the huge blue whale ribs that I expected to see popping out of the sand.  Being ancient whales, they were much smaller, about 6-10 feet long total.

There were also some turtle fossils:

It was nice to see a site in Egypt where ancient treasures are being cared for and preserved.  A sharp contrast to another fossil site we visited in Siwa where we were allowed to simply pick up and walk away with equally ancient shells!

A Break From Egypt

In need of a break from both work and the restrictions of Egypt, we went to France for 10 days at the end of April.  Although it was much cooler than we are used to and it rained a lot we still enjoyed ourselves very much.  The air was clean, the rivers were perfectly clear, the food was amazing (of course!), and people were very friendly.

We flew into Paris, but as we had both been there several times before we decided to spend most of our time elsewhere.  Our first stop was in the Loire Valley, about an hour outside of Tours.  We stayed at a small renovated chateau owned by a very nice British-French family.

In the five years they have owned the property they have completely renovated the main floors, established a flock of sheep, a goat, a donkey, five chickens, and four of their own children.  They also have one field planted, a kitchen garden, a small orchard, and a swimming pool.  In addition they have a full-time chef who prepares breakfast and dinner for the guests every day.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful place to be! 

The Loire Valley is known for its large amount of chateaus.  Being relatively close to Paris, French noblemen and royalty built palaces for themselves out in the countryside for hunting and summer homes.  The one we stayed at was relatively small, but we visited another that is the most elaborate of them all, Chenonceau. 

The chateau was originally build in the 11th century and, as you can see, was built over a small river. 

Even though it was still very early spring in France, the gardens were absolutely beautiful.  

Knowing that it can be rather cool in France still at the end of April, we chose to spend the majority of our time in Provence where it is always warm and sunny.  We stayed in Avignon and planned several day trips to see the surrounding countryside, Provencal villages, and the local Roman ruins.  What we didn't plan on was climate change.  Instead of the warm and sunny Provence that had been advertised we experienced temperatures from the upper 30s to a high in the mid-50s.  In addition there was more rain than the locals had seen in 20 years!  Our lovely tour guide, Michelle, felt so sorry for me and my Egyptian wardrobe that she loaned me her down jacket for two days.  Nevertheless, we very much enjoyed Provence.

Avignon is famous for two things- its bridge and its brief stint as the home of the Roman Catholic pope.  The bridge has been mostly destroyed by floods, but there is one section still standing.

The Pope's Palace is very large and includes the Avignon Cathedral on its grounds.  Only the cathedral is still in use, as the pope has long since moved back to the Vatican.

We were lucky to have Michelle as a tour guide for two full days.  On the first day she took us around to some of the more famous villages in Provence.  We got to see a market in Carpentras (I bought some shoes, John got olives) and a town called Roussillon, which means Red Village.  There is a red tint to the earth in the area which the locals use to paint all their buildings.

Also in this village was a grape vine that was 167 years old!  You can see it growing over the doorway in the picture below:

One of the other memorable towns was Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, located in the Vaucluse Mountains of Provence.  Just outside the town is a spring that looks perfectly calm:

However, the amount of water coming out of the spring is so large that it spills over into a very vigorously flowing river:

Apparently people have tried to figure out how deep this spring is, due to the large amount of water coming out of it, but they have been unable to find the bottom of it, even with sonar.

Our second day out with Michelle we went to see the Pont du Gard.  This is part of a 130km long aqueduct built by the Romans.  Most of the aqueduct is underground, and large parts of it are no longer intact.  The Pont du Gard, however, has been very well preserved.  It was raining quite steadily during our visit, but we did get a few pictures:

The part of the bridge that people can walk across is actually a second bridge that was built in the mid-1800s.  It exactly parallels the old bridge so it doesn't distort the view from a distance, but it does protect the old stones from more wear and tear.

After seeing this bridge the rain picked up and we couldn't get any more pictures.  We spent the rest of our time practicing French (my husband is getting really good!) and relaxing.  It was very nice to spend some time in the developed world, and a bit of a challenge to come back to the craziness of Egypt.  But we have less than three months left!

Loans

Qur'anic law does not allow followers of Islam to either earn interest or pay interest.  This presents some real challenges to people in the Middle East as they continue to participate more and more with the rest of the world economically.  Stock exchanges and people who invest in stock have to be very careful that they are neither earning interest nor gambling (another forbidden activity).  On a personal level, individuals cannot earn interest on their bank accounts and they cannot take out interest-earning loans.  They also cannot carry a balance on a credit card which would require them to pay interest.

My Arabic teacher described for us an ingenious system that has developed to work around these requirements and still obtain large lump sums for various necessities.  In her case, she needed money to pay her children's tuition.  At many places of work, and in nearly every neighborhood, people band together to form 'associations'.  They agree on a person to act as mediator and make monthly payments for a specified term.  Each month, every member of the association pays their agreed upon sum to the mediator.  The mediator then selects one member to receive all of the money for that month.  Members can request their payment for specific months, or they can just wait their turn for their payment.  In my teacher's case, she joined an association a month before school started and requested her payment for the first month of school.  The tuition being paid, she then continues to make her monthly payment for the term of the association so that all the other members can receive their lump sum in turn.  This device accomplishes the two goals of receiving a lump sum of money when needed and not having to pay interest to obtain it.

The other students and I admired the cleverness of this system, but we also wondered what the problem was with interest.  Apparently the prophet Muhammad has stated that paying interest is a worse sin than murder, stealing, and adultery.  Our teacher explained that while these other sins harm the doer of the act and the one it is being done to, paying interest is a sin that affects the whole community.  While I personally think that all of these things harm the whole community in some way, there is no doubt that many of our current world-wide economic woes can be attributed at least in part to the pervasive harm of usury.

I find myself often frustrated with the way of thinking here in Egypt that finds the reasons for doing everything from the Qur'an and the life of the prophet Muhammad.  There is very little evidence of critical thinking skills in most people's lives- they do the things they do because that is what their religion teaches, from how to conduct a government down to what oil is the best remedy for skin afflictions.  But in this instance of dealing with usury, I admire the way people have adapted.  It would be unreasonable for us in the West to forgo all interest payments completely, but it probably would not hurt for us to reflect on the harm that has come from our current system!

Spring in Cairo

I have no idea what most of these flowers are, but I have been enjoying them blooming the past few weeks.  They make grey and dusty Cairo seem much more friendly.  These flowers are inside and just outside of our building:

These are trees blooming around Maadi.  The first tree smells really nice— a good antidote to traffic exhaust fumes!

A close-up of the tree above.  The flowers are bigger than my hands!

These last two are poinsettia bushes(!) and bougainvillea growing up into a tree.

Learning Arabic II

My Arabic lessons have continued steadily since they began in September.  I am making some progress, but it is slow.  I was proudest of one of my recent homework assignments, which was to write out the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  This was excellent writing, vocabulary, and grammar practice, and a whole lot of fun.

The assignment I had to turn in today was a set of sentences using the complicated numbering system in Arabic: number one has a masculine and a feminine form, number two gets shortened, changed to masculine or feminine, and attached to the end of the noun it modifies, numbers three through ten have shortened forms that follow a plural noun, and numbers 11-100 use their long forms after a singular noun. 

As I exited the staircase on my way to class I encountered my good friends and informal Arabic teachers— Ibrahim the janitor, Hashem the security guard, and Ahmad the maintenance worker.  Ibrahim and Hashem are my most persistent instructors, and it was Ibrahim that came up with a creative way to help me remember the days of the week.  He assigned a day to the men that regularly work here.  He himself is Goma (Friday) and Hashem is Khamis (Thursday).  Ahmad has become Ilsubt (Saturday).  The rest of the days are randomly assigned to whoever is standing around at the time.  Even though I have moved beyond these vocabulary words, Ibrahim finds this a hilarious joke that he repeats nearly every time he sees me. 

So this morning when I ran into these men and they saw me with a notebook they got all excited.  When they found out I was going to an Arabic class, I offered to show them my homework and they seemed thrilled.  Hashem is the most literate of the three and he took charge.  After reading the first sentence he asked me for a pencil.  He and Ahmad carefully went through each sentence, correcting the spelling (the grammar, surprisingly, didn't need correction).  When they reached sentence number six and found no errors I was congratulated enthusiastically.  By the time they finished all the sentences I was late for class, but I had (almost) perfect homework.  It didn't occur to me until later that Ibrahim had quietly disappeared when the homework came out.  In spite of his enthusiastic teaching, I have been suspecting that he is functionally illiterate.  A large portion of Egyptians are, and that contributes to many of their economic and social problems.

Needless to say, I had some explaining to do when I handed in my homework.  Fortunately, my teacher is very laid back and was entertained by the story.  It turns out that Ahmad and Hashem were assuming that I was writing in Modern Standard Arabic so several of their corrections weren't quite right for my assignment in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic.  Nevertheless, I sincerely appreciated the time these men take to encourage me and help me out.  Language lessons are not at all part of their jobs, but they, like many Egyptians I have met, seem to make it their personal mission to help all foreigners learn their language.  As Arabic is as hard for English speakers as Mandarin Chinese, we can certainly use all the help we can get!

Not for the Faint of Heart

Between food poisoning and traveling it had been a couple of weeks since I had done a really thorough house cleaning.  This afternoon I started to rectify the situation.  When we dust, not only do we have to dust the normal things, we also have to dust several of the doorways.  In three of our rooms the air is being continuously sucked out of the house— the two rooms that house our HVAC units, and one of the bathrooms.  The doors to those rooms stay closed most of the time, so dust and dirt collect in the doorway.  This is what it looks like after a couple of weeks:

Fortunately, it wipes away fairly easily:

But I'm left with super gross dust bunnies:

Since the doorways were particularly bad, I decided to check our air filters.   The washable filter came out first and it was almost completely black:

A good vacuuming mostly took care of the problem:

The HEPA filter, however, was in much worse shape.  We are waiting for a new one to come in the mail, so I tried to vacuum out this one to nurse it along.  Here it is with one corner vacuumed:

Even though the cleaning was only somewhat successful, the air in the room is noticeably better now.

Cairo consistently lands on Top 10 lists for air pollution, but it has never been at the top of the list.  I cannot even imagine what this chore would be like in Beijing!

Sharm El Sheikh

Last weekend we took a trip to the Sinai Peninsula.  Unfortunately, most of the peninsula is off limits due to the lack of security.  The one town open to us (as we can fly directly to it from Cairo) is Sharm El Sheikh, a very popular Red Sea resort location.  It was too cold to see some of the amazing coral reefs all around the peninsula, but we hope to return in a couple of months to go snorkeling. 

We stayed at the Four Seasons resort, which is very elegant.

My favorite part was all of the green spaces.  I can't imagine how much water it takes to keep it green, but I thoroughly enjoyed it for the few days we were there!

The water was very clear, we could see some of the coral reef and the fish just by sitting on the jetty and looking down.

About a mile off of the beach was Tiran Island.  This is considered by some to be the place where the Red Sea parted, allowing the Israelites, under the leadership of Moses, to escape Egypt.  Mt. Sinai is also close to Sharm El Sheikh, as well as St. Catherine's Monastary, where it is claimed the Burning Bush was located. 

Being far from any city, the air was super clean and clear.  We were lucky enough to be there during a full moon, something that is impossible to see in Cairo in any of its phases!