Shakira in Egypt!

At present it feels like I am travelling constantly and the few days I am back in Casa are spent on the terrace with the cats, sunshine, wonderful housemates and as much relaxation as possible before boarding the next plane.

Last week I returned from 17 days in the field; Egypt and then Lebanon. However, for once the mission started with a three day holiday in Giza, Egypt. It was my housemate, Emily’s, birthday and we though there would be no better way to celebrate this than to ride camels around pyramids…… This was almost true.

Emily arrived late on Thursday evening and I was arriving at 5.30am the next morning. As I board the plane she messaged me to say that we had not in fact been given the deluxe room with the pyramid view. As I settled into the flight with my miniature bottle of wine I pondered how to solve this first world problem on my arrival in Egypt.

My flight landed one hour early which in this region is very perplexing. Immigration did not ask me one question, also very perplexing and my luggage was on the carousel as I arrived. It was an Egyptian miracle. I negotiated my taxi fare and Ahmed sped through Cairo with the obligatory loud Arabic music playing. After some wrong turns and slightly insane driving we turned a corner and there were the pyramids! And there was my hotel!

On arrival at reception I greeted Mahmood the receptionist in Arabic which brought much merriment to the occasion. I tried ‘Plan A’ to get our rooms changed for a pyramid view as booked. Explaining with as much drama as possible that Miss Emily’s lifelong dream has been to wake up in beautiful Egypt on her birthday to drink Egyptian coffee and see the sun rise over the pyramids. If we could not change rooms I would be personally responsible for ruining her birthday. Mahmood understood my plight and was so pleased we thought his country was beautiful that we got a room upgrade and the much anticipated view! For the rest of the trip Miss Emily was greeted with birthday salutations.

After some rest and some sunbathing with a view we decided to brave the outside world. The hotel staff were most concerned that we would not take a chauffeur but instead venture onto the street to find a taxi. We met Moses a taxi driver who spoke good English and was to become our tour guide over the next few days. Off we set to the Egyptian Bazaar in Cairo.

We arrive at a bustling square with a huge mosque in one corner and grubby cafes as far as the eye could see. We decided to grab a quick Diet Coke to catch or breath after the drive and to work out how to tackle the bazaar. We were instantly surrounded by people trying to sell us all sorts of random things. I kept being called Shakira and Emily got a variety of names from Sophia Lauren to Madonna. We abandon our drinks and set off through the bustling market.

The first thing which became very apparent is that we were very clearly the only non-Egyptians around. Later we were to learn that since the Arab Springs, the military rule and various terrorist incident tourism in Egypt has died leaving a desperation as this was the biggest economy. It also meant that we were somewhat ‘exotic’ and caused some excitement.

As we walked around people stopped, stared, pointed, took photos and shouted random things at us. Shakira was to become the norm for me, I presume the only blond person they knew but the best question was where Emily was from in Japan……

We turn into a quieter side street and find a cute small shop where we negotiated for some Egyptian tables and lamps. Before you knew it we were drinking tea with the owner and his brother and being invited to their house in the mountains. Shakira and Japanese Madonna politely refused that invitation. With our new purchases we headed back up to the main square where Moses was supposed to be collecting us. Within minutes we had a crowd of thirty plus people around us, men, women and children taking our photos. A police man came to break up the scene and made us stand up on the pavement which just gave our paparazzi a greater opportunity to take more pictures. Moses finally arrived and we rushed to safety and set off for dinner on the Nile.

The next day we were true tourists. An American and a Brit off to see the pyramids up close! It was 30+ degrees and very dry. Moses takes us to his friend to start negotiations. Apparently it was inconceivable that we could just walk around the pyramids so after some tea and hummus, we agree a price and I was put on a camel. Once the old boy stood up I was terrified. They are taller than you would think, terribly uncomfortable and I just had a small wooden handle to try and grip too with my sweaty paws. The whole experience lasted less than a minute before I was off and we were in a horse and cart.

It soon became apparent that our tour guide did not know so much about the great pyramids as he explained that Allah had built them. I am pretty sure there is confirmation that humans built the pyramids rather than God himself. It also became apparent that we were more interesting than the pyramids as more people stopped to take our photos. We eventually let the horse off and walked as watching the poor beast try and drag us around in the heat was too horrendous and in fact walking around was far more pleasant. After all of the crazy we returned to our hotel pool from which you could still see the mighty pyramids and relax.

On our final day of holiday we had reserved the Cairo Museum, something we were both very excited about, until we arrived. Only then did we discover that during the Arab Spring in 2011 the Museum had been looted and nearly everything had been taken. After wandering for an hour, being followed by people taking our photos, we finally saw the Tutan Khamon exhibition which was the only thing which had survived the Arab Springs. It was worth the boredom of the rest of the museum.

Sadly Japanese Em’s then left me and work began. A male colleague was to be with me at all times to make sure I was OK. This is great in theory but he also kept taking photos of me which was all getting rather too much. We traveled up to the town of Tanta to see some of our projects there and then onto Alexandria to sleep before seeing our projects there the following day.

Alexandria does have some beautiful parts to it and watching the sunset over the ocean was rather special. My hotel room however was not. I enter the room, put my bag down and something catches my eye: there is a cockroach on my pillow. I pull back the bed covers and 4 or 5 of them are in the bed and scatter. I grab my bags and head to reception to demand my money back so that I can change hotels. Finally after some negotiations with my Egyptian colleagues and the hotel I was resettled in a new cockroach free hotel.

This all felt very first world issues when the next day we met ladies from our family strengthening program in Alexandria. We run these programs all around the world, teaching women skills and helping them to set up a business so that they can keep their families together.

We met around ten ladies who we have been supporting. All of them have either been widowed or the husbands have left them. It is better to be widowed than left as if you are a widow there is some financial support and no shame. If you husband leaves you, as a woman, you bring shame on yourself and your family and there is no financial support at all. Most of these women have had arranged marriages, their families excepting a dowry for them to be a bride with often no choice on the women’s side. It seems heart breaking to then understand they are unsupported and often ridiculed if their husband chooses to leave them.

One of these women, Fatima, was wearing a full burka. All I could see were her eyes. She explained that her husband took a second wife; this is perfectly legal in Egypt. He then two years later walked out on them both and disappeared. This meant that the first wife had to live with the shame of her husband taking a second wife but also the shame that he left as well as the need to support his children whom she bore and the children of the second wife. Her eyes were filled with tears as she tells this part of her story.

When she joined our program she got psycho social support and after sometime we helped her set up a business. Her enterprise was completely her idea. There is no such thing as ready meals in Egypt however more and more women are working and are still expected to provide a home cooked meal for their husbands. Fatima makes and freezes these meals so that the Egyptian working woman can still give the image of being a perfect wife. As Fatima’s business expanded she also came up with new ideas. Garlic is grown in January and February in Egypt. She buys in bulk and peals and chops millions of garlic cloves and freezes them ready to sell all year round. Now she has enough money to pay her rent and pay for her children’s schooling, reinvesting the rest back into her business. She said that the best part of it all is that she no longer feels useless, a feeling she had had all of her life until now.

Sometimes it is a good reminder in life that a strong independent woman needs to be encouraged to believe in herself and that a book should not be judged by its cover. She chooses to wear the burka because that is what she believes her religion says she should and she loves her god. Not because she is a weak woman forced too.

Egypt was a crazy experience. A country where something which could take 1 hour takes 4, just because it can; A place where men are most definitely more important than women; where the average meal served to me had more meat on the plate than even the average American does not consume in a week; where cockroaches in your bed are apparently normal……. I left my Shakira persona in Egypt!