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!