For those of you who haven't already checked out my blog roll, have a look at these new additions:
Qifa Nabki
Emad Maher's Photoblog
Hummus Nation - A humourous take on Lebanese affairs
Al-Masri Al-Yum - From the creators of Boursa Exchange, a Cairo food blog with a genius title
I'm particularly impressed by Emad Maher's photos of Alexandria - they really capture the city in a way I've never seen another photo manage. Full credit to Emad, I hope on one trip to the Capital of Memory I can meet the man himself and perhaps purchase some prints
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.
Statistics statistics statistics. Here are a few for you, about the situation of women in Egypt (from Human Rights Watch):
In 2000, the last year for which statistics are available, an estimated 56 percent of adult Egyptian women were illiterate as compared to 33 percent of adult men.1 Women’s health and lives continue to be jeopardized in Egypt by harmful customary practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), which is practiced on an estimated 97 percent of ever-married women in Egypt.2 Women constitute only 21 percent of the labor force.3 On average, women are paid only 76 percent of men’s wages in the private sector and 86 percent in the public sector.4 An estimated 19 percent of women are unemployed compared to 5 percent of men.5 The share of women members in the Egyptian parliament does not exceed 3 percent in the lower house and 6 percent in the upper house.6 Rural women in Egypt are even worse off than their urban counterparts. In rural areas, although 20 percent of agricultural workers are women, they own only 6 percent of the land. They are also often prevented from exerting meaningful control over the little land they own since they are routinely coerced into surrendering control of land to their husbands or male relatives
Statistics have some interesting characteristics: they’re eye catching, carry a certain strange sense of authority and can be used for both good and evil. In the case of women in Egypt, statistics also have another property: they allow a casual observer to glimpse the scale of a problem without ever having to consider any cause, development, continuation or possible solution. This is because statistics and figures are inherently dehumanising. They turn a collection of vast and varied narratives into one perhaps shocking, but easy-to-digest percentage. They allow us to keep our distance.
In the relatively short time I have been living in Egypt, I have met many women, but I’ve never met a single statistic. I’ve met women who are happy, women who are sad. Women who are angry, and women who are determined. I’ve met women who are kind, and women who are cruel. Women of great intelligence, and women of great ignorance. Helpful women, horrible women, hospitable women, hysterical women and honest women. Women who are funny, dry and sarcastic. Women with many children, women with non. Women of many religions and women of no religion. Women who long to leave Egypt, and women desperate to stay. Women who are proud of their country, and women who are ashamed. And more.
The beauty of Kolena Laila is that it allows a whole host relative outsiders, like you and me, to hear some of the incredibly diverse range of voices, stories and songs that are “Egyptian women”. I’m not asking you to ignore the statistics, far from it. Take note of the tragedy they portray, but I’m begging you not to allow them to satiate your interest. Browse Kolena Laila and read the overwhelmingly human stories that lie behind them. Don’t keep your distance.
Merry Christmas one and all! I'm writing from Manchester Airport (where there is, predictably, no free wireless) on my way home to Egypt. Delayed again. It's been a fabulous week-and-a-half of fantastic food, good wine (finally) and – most importantly - thoroughly excellent company.
My first couple of days involved trying to catch up with some old friends, who were on fine form as always. I also managed to visit my darling brother, who is working a proper job for a year before he goes to London next year. He has a desk on the top floor of a double-decker bus with TWO screens. I'm going to link my new 12” netbook to the 15” CRT in my new office just so I can compete.....
The netbook, a Samsung NC20, is running like a dream by the way, a real breath of fresh air after the battle-weary Fujitsu-Siemens that got so hot I would have to manually fan in order to use Skype (a sight so absurd as to be almost unsavoury for any with whom I was in video communication.)
The main highlight, aside from seeing my dearest family and friends, was the abundance of snow that made Saddleworth a very speical place to be at Christmas, and that also meant my mum didn't want to drive anywhere, thus leaving me free to run wild in her car. Well, as wild as you can run in a Mitsubishi Colt. On Wednesday, after fearing Mona stuck somewhere in the Channel tunnel, I finally picked her up from Piccadilly so she could see Christmas “ha2ee2ee” - (“real Christmas”, whatever that is). Mona, for those of you who haven't had the good fortune to meet her, is Andrea's host sister and best friend from Alexandria. She's something of a legend after the way she looked after Andrea in the hospital and was generally a star, and it was a real privilege to have her visit the family for Christmas and for me to get to know her a little better.
In recent years, our Christmases have acquired a fairly consistent international flavour, with guests now from Cameroon, Brunei, Egypt and the US, and with one Christmas being spent overlooking the Pyramids in Giza. For Mona's visit, we slightly cut down on the pig products (last year's main meal unwittingly starred 5 different kinds of pork) bought in some halal lamb and chicken, and some Schloer – a syrupy sweet non-alcoholic wine replacement. I showed her Manchester, took her shopping in Primark on Christmas Eve – her choice – and hit the Boxing Day sales with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Mona was an all-round great sport, even at one point impressively managing to persuade my dad to pull out his melodion for a tune and, even more commendably, getting my 84-year-old grandpa to pull out his handkerchiefs and give a brief masterclass in morris dancing. As I mentioned, it was a privilege, and Andrea and I both miss Mona whilst she is out of Egypt studying in the UK.
I'm sad to be leaving, it's been great to spend some time with my family and another week would have been nice, but you can't have everything. Next I'm meeting Michael in Cairo and then heading south for my first trip to Luxor for new year, and I'm reminded of how lucky I am to live where I do and travel as I do. The new job starts on January 4th, and I know I've already got a lot of editing to do along with meeting and getting to know the trainees I will be supervising. I'm looking forward to the challenge, and it will be good for me to have lots of work to do to occupy me until Andrea comes back to Egypt on the 25th.
Merry Christmas everyone! See you next year!
Txxx
A few photos (on the camera phone) of snow falling in our garden, Saddleworth. Pretty eh?
For those of you who are technologically astute, and have no qualms with following me on that most often pilloried of fiends Twitter, you will have noticed that but days before my homecoming I "tweeted": Home in 4 days, I dearly hope Blighty is suitably festive. (For my American audience, "Blighty" is how us Brits tenderly refer to Britain when given occasion.)
Well, it appears that someone, somewhere is listening. Festivity, or festive-ness - I can't decide which - is something no doubt unique to each and everyone. The Christmas I spent in Egypt with my family was wonderful, Chistmas lunch overlooking the pyramids and all, but festivity was in short supply. For about 2 months I've been happily listening to Andrea excitedly talk about her Tucson Christmas that is very clearly her ideal of festive-ness (which I hope to experience at the earliest opportunity :) For me, however, festivity-ness currently exists right now in Scouthead. The house has been tastefully decorated, there are hot mince pies in abundance, the living room smells deliciously of Christmas tree and, best of all, the trees and fields outside my bedroom window have been sprinkled with a generous dusting of snow.
For about as long as I can remember, classical music and carols have also been a part of my Christmas experience. Not necessarily performing, although there's been plenty of that over the years, but even just having a service of nine lessons and carols gently playing in the background. Classical music is something which, to me, seems strangely out of place in Cairo. Listening to Elgar's Cello Concerto seems almost bizarre as I'm wandering the streets of Downtown, and Cairo's metro is no place for Allegri's Miserere. I have, at times, managed to shut myself in the apartment and get through both discs of the Messiah, but still something feels wrong. Even in Alexandria I could listen to classical music (perhaps another escape provided by the vast blue-green of the Mediterranean) but Cairo seems almost antithetical to that very Western of traditions. One of the things I have missed most over the last six months has been long drives through England to the tune of Elgar and Vaughan Williams.
Last night, as I returned from visiting some friends in town, I experienced a beautifully festive, English moment as I was briefly caught in flurry of snowflakes whilst driving over the hill into Saddleworth, listening to my favourite of Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols". It was perfect.
To think it's been six months and five days since I arrived again. It hardly seems possible. Lots has happened, plenty been learned, and - I feel - a fair amount achieved. As my writing has dried up of late, I'm sure I have plenty to fill you in on. Alas, now is not the time. It's almost 3am, and Cairo airport is pleasingly quiet.
Perhaps all the flying I've been doing in the last 2 years has left me jaded, but the prospect of 10 hours in airports or on planes overnight has really lost the appeal it once held in my childhood. I used to love those all-night flights to Florida, when I could pick a film and beat a curly haired, bespectacled Dominic at Top Trumps. Now it's genuinely hampering my ability to be excited to be going home. I'm sure that will change when I finally board my plane in Amsterdam, in about 6 hours time.
Well, good night and farewell Egypt! More from the UK as it happens.tx
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