Tom in Egypt // توم في مصر

Just for those of you who wonder what it is I do in my spare time, here's a nicely written explanation of Meedan by my colleague Mohammad Kayali for the Meedan Blog, translated by yours truly (see, I can still do Arabic!)

Is Meedan a news site? Tech related? Or a social network?

I am still here, in case anyone was worrying. Work is going well, and as ever there's plenty to do - updates for the by now mercilessly neglected Tom in Egypt have thus fallen off the wagon.

A few things to check out:

The Arab-West Report website is slowly but surely making progress - check out the couple of YouTube videos we have posted along with TopNews items, courtesy of new intern Bill Gallo.

For Meedan, I've used translated content from our site to write up a couple of media round ups for the Economist: An "idiotic jihad" (on the attempted Times Square bomb) and Reactions to the raid (on the flotilla killings)

Hopefully these will be a regular feature over at the Economist; they're great fun to write and the translators at Meedan have put in a sterling effort to help me produce them.

Currently missing UK coverage of the World Cup, and UK media savagery of horrendous goalkeeping errors. Bring back David Seaman!

Exciting news today - Meedan has taken off its beta wheels and launched an awesome new site. It really is beautiful, you simply have to check it out:

For anyone with an interest in Arabic, the Middle East, or even just current affairs, I'd thoroughly encourage you to sign up. Meedan is, and is going to become, a really great place to discuss fascinating subjects and share news stories with people who maybe don't speak our language.

For those amongst for whom Arabic is something of a passion, Meedan is an excellent place to practice and improve translation skills both ways, and at the same time be contributing to something really meaningful. Too many times in my degree I was translating tired old material just for the sake of practice. At Meedan, you can practice (aided by the Meedan pro-team) while genuinely helping bridge a language gap that has for too long separated the English and Arabic speaking worlds.

Rather than rant any more - and I could - I'll leave you with this awesome video produced by Maya Zankoul and Mohammad Saleh Kayali which explains the basic idea behind Meedan (I've selected the Arabic version here. Check out MeedanTube for an array of videos and tutorials about the site) Enjoy!



Thanks to all at Meedan for the awesome efforts put into making this happen, I'm very proud to be a part of the team.

With February rushing headlong into March, it's about time to return to Tom in Egypt once again.

I've been back for close to six weeks now, and it's been a happily busy and chaotic spell in a colder-than-usual Cairo. As soon as I arrived back from Luxor and managed to squeeze the money I was owed out of the various delightful publishing houses I used to work for, I began work in earnest at the Center for Intercultural Dialogue. Now, I'm only just managing to navigate the web of NGOs, non-profit civil businesses and foundations that make up my current emplyers, but all that needs to be known is that I am a Senior Editor (of sorts) of the Arab-West Report. This involves editing and compiling the reports and translations that make up our weekly online publication, writing weekly editorials for the edition, working with interns and trainees on academic writing skills and projects, and testing the new online system that will hopefully, hopefully take off this week. Hopefully. Anyway, it's been a great experience, I've certainly learned a lot and am looking forward to making some serious progress on the new system and on clearing the editing/translation backlog I inherited on arrival. Some of the most interesting experience has come from the annual reporting I've been asked to do - it's great to get an insider's view on how the NGO/non-profit world functions (although drafting narrative reports is less fun).

Over at Meedan I've been plugging away seeding content on a whole range of topics, and occasionally building events and writing Meedan blog posts for our friends over at the Huffington Post. Here's some of my work thus far:

Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa calls time on Qur'an-based ringtones in new fatwa

Face Veil Debate Resurfaces in Egypt as Court Upholds University Exam Niqab Ban

Switzerland's minaret ban receives tough reception in the Middle East

More to come soon on this, it's quite a lot of fun rounding up Meedan events for a different audience over at HuffPo.

This week and last week have also been somewhat full as a double whammy of guests rolled into town. First up, on the starting leg of what is a somewhat decadent world tour, was Mr Adam Geleff Esq.- a former co-resident of Mighty 59 Brighton Grove and economist extraordinare. We made a whistle-stop tour of all Cairo's finest sights (with the much-needed help of my capable and glamorous assistant) in four mad days, culminating in a cultured evening of taking in some of downtown's classiest nightspots.

Adam was closely followed by my darling sister Lucy, and her "BFF" (I don't know if I'm using the term in an appropriate context or if it's even true) Sophie. They have the benefit of eight days as opposed to Adam's four, and are taking advantage of the break from college to lounge around whilst gracing such tourist hotspots as the Egyptian museum and Khan al-Khalili with their elegant presence. They may be more interested in Cilantro than the Citadel, but I think they're having a good time.

I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to say Eid Mubarak to Tom in Egypt readers! Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan and today is the first, and biggest day of Eid al-Fitr celebrations. I won't go into the religious traditions of the celebration, Wikipedia has a thorough entry on the feast that's worth a read if you're interested, but it suffices to say that it's a very big deal here in Egypt. I also found a beautiful series of photos on HuffPo showing how Eid is celebrated around the world

Sadly, recent Eids have seen some pretty nasty incidents involving serious sexual harassment in downtown so we're hoping to avoid a repeat (as is the government by the looks of things). Andrea and I are getting into the spirit of things and are organising a small dinner for a few friends, hoping that we have enough cutlery and crockery to go round! Our good friend Clare arrived last night, just in time for the party, and is going to stay with us for a while, which is very exciting as I haven't seen her since I left Manchester just over 3 and a half months ago.

Everything else is going well, I have a few days off from teaching so will hopefully get a few more pieces written for Bikya (follow here on Twitter) in the break. Ramadan has been nice, but it will be nice to be able to hang out in a few downtown 'ahwas  and speak a bit more Arabic. This is something I really want to knuckle down on over the next few months, as I've gotten a little lazy. Last week I noticed that, because I was writing and working in the days for Meedan, I wasn't really speaking much Arabic at all apart from exchanging a few greetings with people at the ETC - this can't be allowed to continue! In spite of this, I'm reading a lot of blogs and news pieces, and (as you may see via my GoodReads status) I'm also getting stuck into a great pair of novels - Bahaa Tahir's Wahat al-Gharoob (recently translated by the man who lives down the street Mr. Humphrey Davies) and one of my favourite books when I read it in English, Mourid al-Bargouthi's Ra'aytu Ramallah (I saw Ramallah). Either way, talking more is something I'm resloved to working on, hopefully whilst drinking tea and learning to play backgammon in a local coffee shop.

A few weeks have gone by since my last proper (or improper?) entry, so I'm sure I have lots to tell you. Where were we? Ah yes, on the train from Alex to Cairo. The week following my return to Cairo was filled with copy editing all over the city and interspersed with Meedan shifts and the start of some exciting online community development work there. It also saw the start of Ramadan, which is a wonderfully special time of year here in Egypt. Yes, it means that it can be difficult to get a bite to eat during the day, yes it means that people are sometimes grumpy at around 5.30, yes it means traffic can be chaos just before Iftar (the breaking of the fast) and yes, it means it's tricky to get a beer. I love the party atmosphere every night though. Streets downtown are full of people until the early hours shopping, buying clothes, sitting in cafés and generally embracing the holiday spirit.Great fun, and we still have a three day long Eid to look forward to!

Aside from enjoying Ramadan, I have started teaching at the ETC again - 12 hours, two levels, plenty of challenges -and made an unexpected trip to Alexandria to sort out my visa and pay a visit to a certain Mr. Nevadomski. Because I have received two residency visas from Alex (I studied abroad there 07-08), that is where my files are. As such, immigration officials in Cairo would/could not process my late application for a visa extension, and I had to make a Joseph style return to the city where I was registered. Only without the donkey. After some tedious waiting, and after a fine for overstaying my tourist visa, I was finally given the extension I had requested, but am now faced with having to go back to Alexandria to try and collect the multiple entry stamps I need to prevent my visa from becoming void if I leave the country. All quite complicated and not a lot of fun!

As the more regular readers amongst you may have noticed, I have started writing more regularly for an Egypt-based site, Bikya Masr, where I hope to continue writing in the long gaps between Meedan shifts and teaching. As we're talking about the blog, there is some housekeeping and introductions to be done - I've added various applets down the side from some clever sites that I'd recommend to anyone and everyone:

• My beautiful Meedan blog badge, showing the most recent event, my most recent translation and my most recent comment - all in beautiful Arabic as well as English.
• My Diigo roll of links I'm tagging as I find them, complete with comments. Usually, but not always, interesting stuff I read about the Middle East.
• My Good Read widget - a good-looking and well-resourced online library of sorts, allowing you to track what you've read, what you thought about the books and see what friends are reading. Be warned, this is completely addictive and you will quickly be trying to remember every book you've ever read.

I've also temporarily retired Jumbled Notes, as it really isn't seeing enough action, and have replaced its tag on Tom in Egypt with an "About" section offering a brief 3rd person introduction to yours truly. Soon to appear is a blog-roll of other blogs I regularly read and may be of interest.

What else, what more? The new apartment is working wonderfully (one AC broke as I was writing this entry); Andrea is doing well and has started back at CASA, where she will be reading an Arabic novel a week. An important, and enjoyable, part of the summer has been getting to know some of her coursemates better and I'm looking forward to spending the next 9 months or so experiencing Cairo and Egypt with them. Also importantly, in addition to the aforementioned Mr. Nevadomski, it's been great to find out that more of mine and Andrea's friends will be returning to Egypt; Clare and Naya.

All in all, we're both excited to be here, although we now have to start plotting next year - more on this in the not too distant future.

I hope you're all well, please keep in touch - I have thus far been disappointed with the quantity of comments, dear reader - and please continue to read Tom in Egypt!

Salam, love, peace.

For the first time since arriving in Egypt, I now have reliable access to wireless in my place of residence. Gone are the days of sharing a cable so worn that it has to be combined with a screwdriver to connect to my laptop. Andrea and I have, after much to-ing and fro-ing over the decision, moved to a new apartment. Charming as the old place was, the noise from the "samkaree" on the street below as he vainly pounded at already-battered old cars was starting to send us both slightly crazy, and after a minor brawl on the street outside we decided it was time to go. Thankfully the landlord, a true gentleman, was happy to return our deposit to us, allowing us to look for another place. A couple of days and a quick flat search later we moved into the new place, which is considerably larger, with WiFi and a washing machine for the same price. All in all a good deal I'm sure you'll agree. The flat itself is looking good, decorated with Egyptian movie posters (some classy, some not-so) I'm rushing a little at the moment so no pics as yet, but soon I promise.

Mum’s turned the screws again re: the lack of blog entries, so here we go.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here in Cairo, which after the lazy first few weeks I spent here makes a nice change! I’ve been flitting around Cairo looking for more work and good experience with some success – I’m now copy editing for two publishers and a total of 6 magazines (after a recount) – as well as working plenty for Meedan in the absence of some of the regular team members and preparing my ever more lively Level 4 class for their final exam on Wednesday. I’ve enjoyed teaching more than I thought I would, I’m excited to have a new class at the ETC in September and in the meantime I’m going to be teaching a conversation class at the Coptic Cathedral here – somewhere I’ve never visited – for August .

Hopefully the break from the ETC will allow us to do some travelling this month, as Andrea has her summer vacation, and we have various plans of places and people to visit. I’m still hoping we can battle the heat and go to Siwa for the start of Ramadan, and it’d also be great to spend a more extended period back in Alex. Failing either of those, or perhaps in addition to, I’m always keen to get back to Dahab and at some point – though probably not this break – I need to go south to Aswan and Luxor. Something for the Autumn methinks.

For those of you interested and previously unaware, I have now officially graduated with a 1^st in Middle Eastern and Modern European Languages (all of them..), congratulations to all my classmates, it made me extremely happy to see everyone in the graduation photos.

I promise that my next update will be less of a, well, update as to what I’m doing and will contain more interesting thoughts as to life in Egypt and my experience here: it’s tough to get all of that in whilst satisfying my mother’s thirst for news!

I do hope everyone’s well, particular thoughts go out to Submerge this week and my darling sister in Croatia. Don’t forget – you can always email me here and my Skype, for those of you with the technology is tom.trewinnard

Salam.

It's been an exciting, busy, tiring, stressful, fun, chaotic, excellent first month back here in Egypt. Four weeks have flown by and I feel like I've been here forever, and as a result of my ever increasingly busy schedule I've not posted an update for a little while. After spending a little while sitting on my hands, cleaning the flat and generally not doing very much - much needed after a busy last few weeks at uni, no regrets - I decided to be a little more pro-active with my job search and started ringing people, firing off more emails, and turning up unannounced at offices. Happily the first office I tried was that of the Episcopal Training Centre, a language centre run by the Diocese of Egypt. After explaining what I was looking for and what I was willing to do, I was hired as an English teacher by the director and have now been an English teacher for almost two weeks. As I'm new and my experience is limited, I only teach one class (6 hours a week) with a view to taking on more in September, but I've really enjoyed the first couple of lessons and the staff and students at the centre are extremely welcoming and accommodating.