WestMeetsEast

Justice -- kinda

2008-10-24T10:48:00.000-04:00

I know it's been like 1,000 years since I blogged here. But I just had to post this New York Times story....

In Cairo, a Groping Case Ends in a Prison Sentence

By Sharon Otterman

Noha al-Ostaz, a 27-year-old Egyptian filmmaker, was standing on the side of a busy, traffic-choked Cairo street last June when a van driver reached out of his window and groped her. Then, pulling at her body, he looked into her face and laughed. Ms. Ostaz had seen women harassed on the crowded streets of the city before, and had seen them do nothing about it. Something inside her clicked.

“I just felt, I’m never going to let this happen again,” she said in an interview on Wednesday.

So Ms. Ostaz shouted and demanded that the driver get out of the van. He refused, so she jumped on the hood, vowing she would rather be hit by the vehicle than get off and let the man drive away. A crowd formed. Finally, the driver got out of the van. Ms. Ostaz, with the help of a female friend and one or two other bystanders, then physically dragged the man to a police station about four blocks away.

On Tuesday, an Egyptian judge sentenced the van driver — Sherif Jebriel, 30 — to three years imprisonment with hard labor, a remarkably lengthy jail sentence by Western standards for such an offense. He was also ordered to pay 5,001 Egyptian pounds ($895) in damages to Ms. Ostaz. Women’s rights activists in Cairo hailed the verdict and sentence, saying that to their knowledge it was the first time an Egyptian court had ordered a groper to prison.

The case comes at a time when verbal and physical harassment of women is starting to be acknowledged as a “real phenomenon in Egypt,” Ms. Ostaz said. Women’s rights activists said they hoped the severe sentence would frighten men into stopping committing assaults that for years have gone unpunished by the authorities and many women have become resigned to as something they just have to deal with on Cairo’s streets.

Earlier in October, eight men were arrested in Cairo on charges that they took part in a group sexual attack on women pedestrians during the Eid holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was reminiscent of an incident in 2006, when dozens of women reported being violently groped in downtown Cairo by a mob of men.

If any of you have read my old posts about Cairo, you will know that this case is very similar to what happened to me in Cairo.

I too 'lost it' one day after being followed by a guy in his car who was taking pictures of me and masturbating. I jumped on the hood of his car and screamed at the top of my lungs. I too went to the police station only to be laughed away.

It makes me happy and sad all at once to read that the harassment in Cairo has only gotten worse — but that finally it is being taken seriously. I do truly believe it is solely in the hands of the Egyptian women to demand that changes are made.

I know far too many strong Egyptian women. I know they can do it. I hope this example serves as a starting point.

Longing for nothing

2007-01-31T09:55:00.000-04:00

It’s official. I found something to miss about Dubai. In a twisted bit of logic, I miss the tedium.

In Dubai, there was never a sense of missing out on anything. There were no good concerts, plays or shows of any kind, no kitchy coffeehouse hangouts, no welcoming and overstocked bookstores, no cool shopping corridors. The bar/club scene was obnoxious to the point of loathsome. Sports were the best outlet, but that’s about it. So, in lieu of all these things, you could go straight home from work and relax, secure in the knowledge that there was nothing better to do.

Here, however, there is loads to do -- lectures, independent film screenings, cycling clubs, foreign films, museums, historic sites, paddling groups, dogwalking clubs, protests to join, and on and on. If that weren’t enough, the vast majority of groups, clubs, events, museums, etc -- are practically free.

Yet and still, I go straight home after work every day, with a little nagging voice in my head reminding me of all the cool things I’m not doing.

Back to the USA

2007-01-16T17:51:00.000-04:00

They say some of life’s most traumatic changes include starting or losing a job, moving house and having a baby. Well, in the past four months I decided to do all three at the same time. Thus my slackness in keeping up with this blog.

The biggest news — besides the birth of my son Jibran on Sept. 20 — is that I have left the Middle East. You may have noticed how my last few blog entries were becoming increasingly bitter. Well, needless to say, my husband and I grew decidedly disenchanted with Dubai in particular, and by November, we practically left town in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t just the fact that my landlord was revving up to raise my rent by 54.8% the day after the cap was set to expire (for a total of a 101% increase from the day I moved in two years ago). It wasn’t only that my health insurance policy didn’t cover one single aspect of my pregnancy. It wasn’t solely because my husband lost his job largely due to greedy clients who didn’t want to part with their previously promised money. It wasn’t mainly because I was tired of risking my family’s lives by driving a short distance anywhere on Dubai’s death roads.

It was something else. Something deeper, more sinister. It was an ever-present, nagging feeling of being used. There’s just so many people out to make a quick buck in the city that it’s hard to know who to trust. And after a while that feeling pervades all your interactions, thus making life a little less pleasant each day.

The truth is Dubai is a city that has no organic personality, no moral fiber, despite its Muslim heritage. It’s a city built to appease one sheikh.

Then there’s Jibran. All of a sudden my needs and desires faded into the background, and providing a safe home where family and friends want to help you, where systems are in place to help out, and where our voices matter (even in a tiny way) became paramount to anything Dubai had to offer.

And to say that having a child changes your life is not just a cliche, it’s also an understatement. My little guy put things into perspective, big time. Things I had grown accustomed to were suddenly not good enough for him. It’s OK to cheat yourself; it’s not OK to cheat your child. So, it’s back to America for us. And right into the belly of the beast: Washington DC.

As you all know I can be a pretty harsh critic of my country and its government, so needless to say I am sure living in DC will pose its own challenges. But at least here I can vent my frustration outloud and with no fear. Here I can vote not only during elections, but with my dollars. And green. Beautiful lush greenery abounds.

If any of you have suggestions on what I should do with this blog, let me know. At this point I am so busy with my new job and baby, that I most likely will take it offline (once I learn how to do that).

For all our friends who are still in Dubai, sticking it out, I wish you luck and patience. If you come through DC, look us up.

The concept of community - June 12, 2006

2006-06-12T08:16:00.000-04:00

It’s true what they say about living abroad – that you often end up learning more about your own culture than your adopted country's. Either that, or as Americans we are just self-absorbed. In any case, this week, as we found out we are having a boy, my husband and I have been reflecting on Americanisms, good and bad, and whether by default our child will inherit them, being more than 7,000 miles away. In other words, which traits are personal, which are cultural and as parents, which ones do we inevitably pass along?

One of the sad conclusions I have come to about the UAE is that it will never feel like home. Not even temporarily. The fact of the matter is, foreigners are not encouraged to make Dubai home. The benevolent dictatorship is simply set up to extract what it can from us and then send us back home. I met a very interesting Indian woman who heads up a media agency here who says she feels as much a stranger as she did the day she landed in Dubai 25 years ago.

The reasons are these: When you pay no taxes, you have no say-so. When you cannot elect someone to represent your concerns, you have no stake. When roads and parks and hospitals are built, you happily accept what has been provided. You do not question. You are not ungrateful. You make concessions because you have no right not to.

What manifests from this is a society that doesn’t care, a culture with no sense of community, no collective. No one gathers to voice concerns because who would listen? In a country where 85 percent of the people are not citizens, we are simply guests. And what guest doesn’t steal a towel or a jar of shampoo on his way out?

One of the best assets of the Arab world has always been its low-crime communities. Random acts of violence against strangers – in general – don’t happen here like they do in the US. There is violence of course, but it’s typically crimes of passion as they say, revenge against someone who’s wronged you.

But when you purposely create a city full of transients who are reminded of their low worth virtually every day – by obscene rental increases; by acts of racism perpetrated by nightclubs, restaurants and co-workers; by abusive bosses who keep passports and sack and deport people on a whim; by restricting access to the Internet and censoring films – there are other crimes that come into play.

These kinds of crimes are subtle and ultimately demoralizing. They take form in acts of daily road rage; hit-and-run accidents; companies withholding salaries; smoking next to gasoline pumps; allowing children to swim in pools with no lifeguards (and drowning); lax safety standards that lead to senseless deaths like the girl thrown from a three-wheeler while impotent security guards stood by or the boy dropped from the sky out of the shoddy hang glider; laborer suicides; taxi drivers blowing themselves up because their employers won’t let them visit home; expat women gang raped by privileged citizens who are let go scot-free by their own courts….These are just examples I have personally witnessed in the last two years.

They may seem tame in comparison with the level of crime in the US – but the difference here is that there is no recourse. These crimes go unpunished because of the reasons stated above. We are not citizens, and therefore ultimately and utterly helpless to affect change.

This, in the end, is the real reason why democracies should be created and promoted. Without democracies, when average people have no stake in their communities, no judicial system to fall back on, there is little incentive to be decent.

Back to what I have learned about Americans. It’s simple; it’s even silly. But it’s true: We are optimists. Even my husband and I – cynical journalists to the core – are optimists deep down. Our culture teaches its citizens not only that they can do better, but that they should do better. Thus we have a country – in a very flawed way perhaps – that is a true work in progress. But the sentiment, the underlying goal, is one of decency. Whether we get there in my son’s lifetime remains to be seen. We can only hope that decency, at least, is one trait he'll pick up along the way.

What (Arab) women want - May 06

2006-05-21T05:59:00.000-04:00

Ever since I moved to the Middle East, Arab women have fascinated and perplexed me. As Westerners, all we seem to focus on is the hijab, niqab, shayla, abeya and burqa – all names for various ways of covering up, or being ‘modest,’ as the Quran requires. These varying forms of cover have only served as a red herring, in my opinion. It’s like worrying about a paper cut on your finger when you’re paralyzed from the waist down.

Many of my male colleagues are also fascinated by the abeya-clad local women – but for very different reasons. They say the sight of large, dark, kohl-lined eyes peering out from behind a black veil is a thousand times more seductive than Jessica Simpson’s tanned bosom clamoring for freedom from a too-tight top.

I’ve always liked to think that these women secretly harbor the same spark and vitality of independent thought that Western women have. That once they get their act together, they will unleash themselves in a fury of civil disobedience and overturn the cowardly patriarchal society that tells them they are like children who need protecting from the world, that they are to blame for men’s sexual weaknesses, that they are too fragile to travel alone, that they are not worthy of keeping their children after a divorce. I’ve read the works of Muslim feminists like Asra Nomani, Leila Ahmed and Azar Nafisi. I took comfort in believing Arab women are just biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment.

Unfortunately, my views on Arab women took a turn for the worse last week after attending a seminar called “What drives Arab women?” As you can imagine I was extremely curious and excited about the seminar which unveiled a recent survey of women in Saudi Arabia, and my host country, the UAE.

The survey drew up five categories of types of women from these two countries. Of the five types of women, only one type sees herself as equal to a man. Three of the types are happily subservient and feel – either out of love or duty – that their only role in life is to keep the family happy. It was the last type that struck me as the saddest, however.

This type suffers from extreme internal conflict. She sees the independence and freedom that expat Western women enjoy – and it makes her jealous, insecure, and spiteful even. In her frustration she wants to feel that her life is superior to those women, so she spends lavishly and shows off mightily. She drives a Mercedes (in the UAE at least where women are allowed to drive), puts diamonds on her fingers, her purse and even her cell phone. She brags openly about her riches. At home, her frustration and inability to stand up to her husband manifests into masterful manipulation. In lieu of being equal in her husband’s eyes, she “beats” him by conning him into spending more money on her. Thus, she feels some modicum of power and control. Her biggest fear in life is feeling invisible.

The Arab women in the audience were unfazed, unsurprised, and unmoved by the results of the survey. What happened to that spark?

It’s only fair to point out that of the local women I have come into contact with, most are representative of the first category – which makes sense as it is only the first category of women who hold jobs. Obviously, these women are educated and feel they can and do contribute to society in more than just one way. But can this minority group pull up the rest? If Arab women want their societies to change, I fully believe it up to them. Just like it was for the women in my country whose fight culminated in two landmark events the year I was born – the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment and Title 9, both of which helped push women’s rights in the US. If Arab women continue to allow themselves to be treated like children, like second-class citizens, perhaps it is meant to be.

Thailand-Vietnam 06

2006-03-20T06:15:00.000-04:00

I’ve always considered myself to be an intrepid traveler—and certainly not a tourist. I’ve never been afraid to try anything – from extra spicy food to sleeping outdoors in the desert to whitewater rafting. For the first time in my life, on a recent trip to Thailand and Vietnam, I thought about things like safety, water quality and bird flu. This might have been because one of my travelling companions happened to be a PHD epidemiologist who carried hand disinfectant, malaria pills and a first-aid kit on her person.

But the real reason I practiced caution on this particular trip was because I am carrying my first child. (Don’t worry, this won’t become a baby blog.) So suddenly jumping into a swimming hole at the bottom of the waterfall just didn’t seem like a good idea, nor did hiking a mile up a wet, muck-covered mountain or partaking in too many Vietnamese delicacies.

Despite this new odd sensation of thinking about the health of someone else over my own desires, the trip was great. We rode elephants in Chaing Mai; we meandered down a river on a bamboo raft in Doi Inthanon National Park; and we kayaked in Halong Bay.

My original idea for taking this trip had a lot to do with wanting to help my mother in her time of grieving, given that her husband passed a year ago. I was hoping to show her an entirely new part of the world with unique spirituality and stunning nature. What ended up happening is that I learned from her. I learned the true meaning of strength and bravery.

Growing up I had watched my mom play sports, be active at her church and in her neighborhood and lean on a huge circle of friends. I pretty much expected her to be that way forever.

It wasn’t until this trip I realized that she’s in her 60s. But don’t tell her that because otherwise no one would know. I watched her weave her way down a treacherous path alone to the bottom of a waterfall, only to be followed by a Russian man her same age who turned back halfway, unable to make it. I watched her jump – with all her clothes on – into a murky swimming hole at the bottom of another waterfall with a 30-year-old Israeli woman. After seeing the two of them swimming around, a 30-ish Irish guy jumped in, only to slip and hit his head on a rock. She was my kayak partner in Halong Bay, where for two hours we rowed nonstop against three other groups – all men and women in their 30s – and we came out way ahead of the rest. I watched her laughing on the back of an elephant while others – young and old – wet their pants with fear every time their elephants veered off course.

And even though we didn’t learn very much about Buddhism apart from architectural lessons gleaned from tons of temple-hopping, we spent one emotional afternoon paying tribute to Raleigh at a temple called Tran Quoc. It just happened to be a very special day for Buddhists when they honor those who’ve passed.

All my adult life, I have been terrified to have a child, and observing my mom in this way was more than reassuring. I discovered an amazing source of inner and outer strength, fearlessness and curiousity, right there in my own genes.

Photos here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/edrachman7/album?.dir=a02b&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/edrachman7/my_photos

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Jan 9, 2006

2006-01-09T03:27:00.000-04:00

Like any other word, respect means different things to different people. One of the things my husband and I did during our trip home, (see entry on Trippy California), was to box up our household stuff and put it on a ship headed for Dubai. The cargo finally arrived this week and we made plans to hire a truck and some laborers to help us transport the massive box from the port to our flat. Seemed like a simple proposition.

So, because all the paperwork was in my name, I was the only person allowed to collect the necessary documents, stamps, authorizations, passes, codes, permissions, inspections, greetings and salutations. We started at 8.45 am. Things were going smoothly at the first port, where the Delivery Order was to be obtained. Snag No. 1 occurred when the shipping company told me they only accepted cash. No problem, that was one snag I had predicted…run to the car, get $176 from hubby. Back at office, I pay up and receive a handful of papers. “Now do I get my box?” No, no, they say, go downstairs to Customs for your stamp.

Now, all hell breaks loose. Downstairs is one huge room with lots of counters with numbers overhead. (Think DMV with chaotic, disorganized cues.) Anyway, I am the only female and only white customer in the entire place. Immediately someone comes up to me, “Madam, let me help you.” This guy takes my paperwork and my passport and we go to one of these offices where, for a fee, they type your paperwork in Arabic. In this little office, after lots of chatter in Erdu and Arabic, an argument ensues about whether customs agents will inspect my box since the Dubai ruler died recently and the emirate is officially in mourning. Additionally the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha is about to begin and all government bodies will shut. Things don’t look good.

So here’s me, standing there, not understanding the myriad of languages being used, with all sorts of men helpers. Respectful or disrespectful? As a Westerner, or even more to the point, as a thirtysomething American woman born of a family of educated career-driven women, Type A, rugby and soccer player, let’s just say I was not feeling respected.

At this point, anxious hubby calls from the car and asks why it’s taking so long…While chasing one of my 'helpers' who has now run off with my passport to find someone else, I tell hubby to park, things don’t look good and I will call back.

About 10 minutes later, I realize what is going on and I am working to rectify the situation. These ‘helpers’ are simply freelance customs agents who look for the most helpless-looking people and ‘help’ them through the process, for about $40, while you relax and wait.

Hubby calls again, I relay the message and he decides I need rescuing. He comes in and very manly-like gets me out of the clutches of the helper men and I get back in the proper place for the stamp I need. Respectful or disrespectful?

I am allowed to jump the cue, get a stamp, jump another cue, get a signature, jump another cue, get one more stamp, pay $23 and now, now we are ready to go to Port No. 2 to retrieve the cargo. Why was I able to jump the cue? Because I am a woman, of course. Respectful or disrespectful?

We meet up with our hired truck and mover guys and drive to the second port, which happens to be one of the largest and most successful ports in the world, ranked in the Top 10. After being given wrong directions about three times, we get to the proper gate where only myself and one driver are allowed entrance, for about $9.50 each. We find the warehouse, sign 100 more papers, and get the cargo on the back of the truck. Just when we think we are home-free, they tell us we have to go to customs and get a pass to exit the port.

After some difficulty in finding the customs/inspection house, we stumble upon it and once inside, I am allowed quickly ahead of all brown-skinned males, pay $8, get more paperwork, and leave. All in 5 minutes.

The truck driver, Nawaz’s face was one of utter astonishment. He tells me no one has ever gotten in and out of customs so quickly. I laugh and say, ‘Well, that’s because I am a woman.’ It’s now 2 pm.

Hubby and the other hired laborers had already headed back home to meet us. Nawaz then proceeded to talk his head off during the 45-minute ride home. He explains to me, in a very sweet way, that in his country I wouldn’t be so disrespected. In his country I would be treated like a queen. In his country, I would be in charge of the home only and every desire I had would be catered to by my husband. Because, in Pakistan, “women are respected more than in the Middle East even.”

Wow, I say, so what if I wanted to work outside the home? No, no, he laughs, not a chance. What if I wanted to have male friends? No, no, not a chance, he tells me, in fact, “your brother would be required to kill any male who tried to talk to you if you were unmarried.” Because, he says, Muslim women are respected that much.

(And no, I did not ask him about the honor killings, raping and stoning of women that happen on a regular basis in his country.)

So, while my husband’s culture requires him to respect my right to deal with the hassles of customs on my own if I so choose, these sweet laborers were feeling sorry for me for being disrespected by being allowed to deal with customs at all… For being in the front seat of the truck, for being in the presence of so many uncouth men at the docks, for moving half the boxes myself, for holding a job, for being out of the house at all. All in the name of respect.

Conspiracy theorist - Jan 8, 2006

2006-01-08T08:37:00.000-04:00

I always thought the Arabs who believe in so-called Jewish Conspiracy Theories were a little nuts, or to put it in a nicer way, gullible. And they are, by and large. But, I was genuinely surprised last month by some remarks made by a couple of Americans I interviewed during a local film festival. And it got me wondering about these theories.

Two very well-known, and dare I say powerful, Hollywood players were in town to promote their new film. Both Jewish, they were openly worried about their safety in Dubai. They only decided to come, one of them told me, after the production company paid for an entourage of US Secret Service Agents to accompany them. One of them told me: “You live in a very dangerous place. Any nutjob could come and blow himself up.” And he followed that up by this revelation: “Imagine, last night during the opening show, I was sitting next to one of these guys who was wearing that costume that was the whole reason I was afraid to come, and he’s laughing his ass off at the movie. That was great.” It took every bit of composure I had not to laugh or cry. (The best punchline to this particular anecdote, is that not only would no one know or care that these guys are Jewish, but as it turns out, no one outside the US has even heard of them or their films.)

I had earlier interviewed an LA-based PR exec who’s responsibility it was to convince Hollywood stars to fly first-class for free to Dubai, stay in one of the lushest resorts I’ve ever seen, for free, and, in some cases, even earn some cash, for doing nothing more than strutting around getting their asses licked. He confided to me that it was next to impossible. He said the women were either afraid they’d have to cover themselves or that they’d be somehow mistreated, and the men were scared of kidnappings or beheadings or whatever.

Here’s where the conspiracy theory comes in. Many people to whom I have relayed these stories believe that the safety issue is a red herring. They say perhaps it has more to do with simple economics. If you are an actor who still needs work, and the majority of people who do the hiring are Jewish, are you going to connect yourself to a Muslim country? Are you going to taint your name with The Enemy? Look at the backlash that people like The Dixie Chicks, Sheryl Crow and Johnny Depp received when they dared to speak their minds against the war in Iraq. It can happen.

I am choosing to believe this theory …because it is much easier to swallow than the utter ignorance of being afraid to visit a place like Dubai. Because everyone knows, after doing maybe 5 minutes of Googling, that not only has Dubai never been affected by a terrorist threat in any way, shape or form, but the violent crime rate is lower than any and every US city.

Or maybe it’s me who’s gullible.

Trippy California-Nov. 27, 2005

2005-11-27T04:17:00.000-04:00

Just returned from a whirlwind two weeks in California. The trip was particularly good to remind me of American things, good and bad.

There is nothing more American than the road trip. Even though ours was only LA-Fresno-San Fran, it was still invigorating. The varying smells – from LA’s exhaust and expensive perfume to Fresno’s agri-crap pungency to San Fran’s homeless urine and eucalyptus – transported me back to a familiar place.

Potholes! Either I’d forgotten how ill-maintained US roads are or Arnie somehow forgot to include the department of transportation on his list of offices to reform. But, regardless of the state of the roads, I would still prefer to drive alongside the likes of Californians who cruise along, for the most part, obeying all traffic laws – so unlike the horrific skills on display on the UAE’s pothole-free roads. I will say it here and now: The most dangerous aspect of life in the Middle East is the abhorrent driving. Even maneuvering a U-Haul truck some 300 miles was less panic-attack-inducing than my daily commute in Dubai.

Even in Los Angeles, which gets tagged as a car city, we reveled in pedestrian antics. Our hotel, the glamorous Motel 6 on Sunset Boulevard, offered the perfect location for exploring the streets of Hollywood on foot. After the it’s-for-your-own-good "cultural protection" offered by life in the Middle East, where one is not exposed to such things as ads for strips clubs or dirty T-shirt shops, (and much, much more that’s better off not mentioned), our newly virgin eyes were assaulted with all on offer. In one night we passed street performers, comedy clubs, live music venues, all packed with Hollywood wanna-bes who, on a bad night, are more talented than that riff-raff Dubai manages to book. In non-chain coffee shops we saw actors alongside crazy people alternately mouthing lines from their TV shows or just mumbling to themselves. It was hard to tell one from the other in the case of this guy: (http://edition.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/9909/01/tuesday.tv/mike.omalley.jpg), whom we observed practicing for “Yes, Dear.” At least he appeared to have a purpose; it was less clear with Shirley MacLaine (no photo necessary), whom we spotted later on Rodeo Drive in a purple track suit wandering aimlessly outside Armani, looking dazed and confused.

My mom, who joined us in our La-La Land adventure, thought it would be fun to drive around the Hollywood Hills and check out the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Upon whipping through the pristine roads, we spied a long black limo with the license plate “Hefner 1.” Knowing that the infamous Hugh Hefner does indeed live in LA, I yelled “That’s gotta be Hugh Hefner!” My mom then proceeds to follow the limo and only stops short of chasing it through the mansion gates it entered. Face flush, and foot still tapping the pedal, she turns to me and asks, “So, who’s Hugh Hefner?” Needless to say she was less than thrilled when I revealed that he’s probably the world’s most prolific pornographer.

OK, that was my bit of name-dropping, required after any visit to LA. Speaking of name-dropping, a pal of mine, a ‘struggling actor’ himself, made the day of one other ‘struggling actor’ from Germany. Earlier in the day he had bummed a cigarette from some film festival-goers. While exchanging pleasantries with the group, he overheard them gabbing about the arrival of a little-known German actor. While eating dinner later that day at the shi-shi Baha Fresh, we spotted the German in line with the rest of us punters getting a burrito. My pal walked up to him and said “Klaus?” “Klaus Bergen?” “Is that you?” The tall German’s eyes glowed and said, “Yes. It is. You know me?” To which my friend gushed in top boot-licking form about how much he loved the actor’s work, etc., etc. Klaus was blushing and smiling – until, confused, he asked my friend “Are you German?” “No, no, American,” says my friend. Only then did it occur to him to that all Klaus’s “werk” was in German. We skulked away.

Nearly as funny were the numerous Scientologists lined up and down along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards looking like Mormons offering IQ and personality tests. (Huh? Is this how Tom Cruise got roped in?) At one corner I nearly did a double-take when I spotted a “museum” dedicated to “revealing the scum that are psychiatrists.” There were suspicious characters behind the building unloading truckloads of who knows what? The all donned T-shirts with anti-psychiatry slogans. Across the street? You guessed it, the world HQ for the Church of Scientology.

On to the less-titillating, but much more beautiful San Francisco. This amazing city has more culture in one block than all of Dubai. Sad, but true. In one block of Polk Street, my old stomping ground, I passed the following shops: A clothing donation store where proceeds go to an AIDS foundation; three packed book stores with new and used titles, one shop was dedicated to New Age books; a Jewish deli; a Palestinian grocery; a vintage clothing store; a lingerie store; and a “smoking accessory” outlet.

I was quickly reminded of the city’s never-ending poverty problems when I was asked for spare change a dozen times. Instead of being annoyed like I used to be when I lived there, this time I actually doled out some money. One guy protested though when I accidentally gave him a dirham, which I mistook for a quarter. When I tried to exchange it, he was quite insulted. So I let him have it.

I spent most of my time with my treasured friends, soaking in as much of their lives as I could. With perfect weather, sunny and cool, we walked along the beach, and met some 30 dogs. (Yes, in the US they actually allow the mutts on the beach. The tradeoff I suppose is the less-than-white sands seen in these parts. Personally, I’d choose the dogs and dirty sand any time.) We explored SF’s famed gay neighborhood, the Castro, and we were treated to amazing food in amazing restaurants.

After the Air France flight, and then some 23 hours and one layover later, I emerged from Dubai International Airport around 11 pm, jumped in a cab and then got caught in a traffic jam.

Nostalgia, expat-style-Oct. 27, 2005

2005-10-27T10:39:00.000-04:00

Nostalgia’s a tricky thing. Everyone longs for their younger years or old flames or their non-freckled, non-wrinkled, or otherwise tainted-with-age skin. But an expat has a particular kind of nostalgia. It’s kind of a warped, edging on delusional, nostalgia. It very often reverses memories and you may find yourself reminiscing about rednecks in bar fights or grumpy gas station cashiers.

When you leave your “home country” behind you conjure up lots of good reasons to be gladly rid of it. Such as, say, dumb-ass presidents for example, or bad economies or dismal weather. Whatever the case may be, in addition to “looking forward to a new adventure in a new land,” it helps to add on a list of ills against your own.

And being an expat in the land of expats (the Gulf), comparing cultures and countries is an everyday sport. Often the comparisons and ribbing get so heated that you sometimes hear yourself defending the very things you once shunned.

It’s interesting to hear about what other expats are missing about their home countries. More than one Canadian I know is currently wistful about changing seasons. Lots of photos of brilliant autumn leaves are cropping up on blogs and in magazines here.

And less poetic perhaps, but no less powerful – winter clothes. Many expats here have become particularly melancholy over the memory of snuggly sweaters and mittens worn while watching a football match. Or the quintessentially cool black leather jacket, worn anywhere and everywhere. And boots. Boots, with wool skirts or trousers or denim. So sexy and yet so practical.

Last night at the mall I watched my friend go gooey-eyed in Kenneth Cole at his reflection in a pea coat. And in a cardigan. And in a leather bomber.

Oddly, Dubai’s myriad mega-malls are filled to the brim with such winter collections when the temperature is still in the 90sF. This is most likely because the shops are global brands (Zara, Marks & Spencer, Saks, and the like) and the stock is the exact same as the stores in Munich, Amsterdam and New York – where it’s (sigh) chilly. And for the expat community – many of whom come from places where its 30 to 40 degrees cooler than here – it’s torture.

So what is an expat to do? Well, Dubai has answered the call of expats in need of a winter wonderland. Ski Dubai opens for business next week. It's located conveniently at the mall, where you can buy a jacket, gloves and hat, and use them right there on the man-made slopes. Not only are there five slopes, but Ski Dubai has chalet-style cafes and restaurants where hot-chocolate sippers can rub their arms where goosebumps (remember!) have appeared. There’s pine trees, their branches cleverly weighted down with snow. Oh, and an ice-skating rink where if you close your eyes for millisecond you can pretend you’re at Rockefeller Center during the holidays. But don’t shut them for too long. Chances are you’ll get knocked over by an expat from Kuwait who just put on skates for the first time in his life.

This too, one day, we’ll be nostalgic for.

Dubai-MMD-Sept 21, 2005

2005-09-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

I heard a great phrase last weekend when I ‘brunched’ with a group of British ex-pat ladies. They were describing a woman they knew who had upended her life and moved to Dubai to be with an Arab she’d met in London. They referred to her boyfriend as an MMD, a term I had never heard.

Life for their friend seemed good at first, all was handed to her a silver platter, a car, villa, clothes, etc. Little by little, however, this boyfriend began to take control of her life. Giving her ‘advice’ and ‘suggestions’ about what to wear, where to go, whom to see. While her friends could easily see what was happening and tried to warn her, she insisted that ‘My Mohammed’s Different.’ (MMD). She was addicted to the lifestyle.

The story reminded me of a woman I met in Cairo. A New Yorker through and through. She even talked like Rosie O’Donnell. She had met her husband while he was living in Manhattan trying to make it as a filmmaker. After 9/11 he proposed to her and then suggested they try to make a go of it in Cairo, his home. Like many Americans, she had never left the country but was up for the adventure. Her husband was ‘so liberal’ that he didn’t mind that she was a Catholic. He was ‘so liberal’ that he had longish hair and Buddy Holly specs. She could have never predicted how he would change.

They moved to Cairo, into the apartment next door to his parents. This is standard practice for Arabs. The family unit is important and most families will live, if not in the same house, then close by. Pretty soon my friend was confronted with the uncomfortable situation of being expected to befriend her husband’s mother – who spoke no English and had a habit of coming by at all hours to sit, be served tea and silently smile at my friend.

When my friend decided one day to tell the mother-in-law that she was busy cleaning and could not invite her in, she got the verbal wrath from her husband later that night. No matter the situation, he would ‘side’ with his mother over his wife. He was no longer the man she had married.

I assumed this was largely an Egyptian thing – these Egyptian boys are so grateful and respectful of their mommies that no wife will take priority. But it seems that here, in the oil-rich Gulf, there’s large numbers of single European women who actually target Arabs, in the hopes that one day they will become some sort of sheikha, albeit with no power over their own lives. And while I am sure the Gulfie boys don’t mind the attention, I have to believe they have some skepticism about potential gold (oil) diggers.

These expats, in the eternal search for an MMD of their own, sure don't make the rest of us look very good.

Dubai-Ladies of the Night-Aug. 20, 2005

2005-08-20T08:54:00.000-04:00

I had an ‘Egypt moment’ this past weekend.

I thought the days of being harassed for being a Western (and therefore slutty) woman were gone. The neighborhood where I live in Dubai is notorious for prostitutes. Prostitution in a Muslim country you ask? It is actually a thriving industry here. Dubai is constantly being compared to Las Vegas, and in the case of ‘ladies of the night’ it is quite an apropos comparison. Arabs from around the region flock to Dubai to take advantage of the lax implementation of the laws against prostitution. One Emirati friend of mine says it’s because the Dubai police have much more important things to worry about – like keeping terrorists at bay (fair enough!).

None of this really has had much of an effect on me, but more often than not when I walk from my flat to the store, some three blocks away, it is assumed that I am a whore, much like the rest of the whores who do actually live in my building. Up until this weekend this hasn’t bothered me too much. Egypt inured me of such things, and frankly, as long as no one was physically touching me as they do in Cairo, who cares? I politely tell them ‘No, actually I am not a hooker, but there are plenty on the next block.’

But for some reason (tired, bad mood) Thursday night as I ran into my local grocery store to use the ATM, it took me by surprise. Some guy propositioned me and it happened so fast that I thought he was asking for directions. When I stopped and said ‘pardon?’ and he motioned for me to get into his car, I lost it. I screamed very loudly, ‘why the f*ck do you think I am a whore just because I live here! What the hell is wrong with you?’ etc. The perp, or wannabe John, ran to his car like a scared kitten. About 10 minutes later, I laughed about it.

But sexual frustration/aggression is a real problem in Dubai where you have a number of colliding situations. First, a Muslim population where the two sexes are not supposed to mix, etc. Second, a large impoverished male population living as builders away from their wives/girlfriends. Third, impoverished SE Asian women geographically close by.

A Newsweek reporter was recently in town looking into the topic of human slavery. At first I really thought it would be a stretch to find anything like that in Dubai. But upon further research, we discovered some forms of ‘slavery lite.’ Just like the situations the construction workers find themselves in – that is getting paid to build Dubai’s towers but owing a great deal of that money to their employers to cover the fees that brought them here – many of Dubai’s prostitutes are in the same boat. Some of them are even victims of scams. Back in the Ukraine or China or the Philipines they are approached by ‘agents’ who tell them they can make gobs of money being maids in Dubai. The agent’s fee is (relatively) enormous and they hand over their passports to these agents who then keep those passports until that money is paid back.

And of course, once they arrive in Dubai, somehow ‘maid’ work becomes ‘whore’ work. Then after they earn their freedom, which can take up to a year, many of them typically keep their new lifestyle, having become addicted to the high incomes. The ones we interviewed said they were supporting the children they left behind. Some of them hit the jackpot and marry Western expats – typically old Brits who are just lonely or appreciate the passivity and ‘devotion’ of an Asian ex-hooker.

I don’t think the situation will change much as Dubai continues its rapid ‘ascent’ into unadulterated capitalistic paradise. But it will be interesting to see who else takes notes and decides to teach the country a lesson, a la Al Qaeda style.

Dublin&London-July 14, 2005

2005-07-14T04:12:00.000-04:00

You know you’ve been in the desert too long when 63 F seems downright arctic. It took me almost an entire week of being in Ireland to adjust to the temps – and, yes, now I am re-adjusting to the 108 F humid air of Dubai and longing for that chilly breeze.

I met my mom, brother, aunt and cousin in Dublin for a week-long jaunt across the lower half of the Republic of Ireland. You can see pictures and the map of the trip here: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2123902070&code=17182494&.

It was interesting to find that there were lots of Americans in Ireland doing basically the same thing we were – tracing their ancestry – to various degrees. I guess many Americans long for that sense of belonging to a particular heritage or group. And the country’s tourism industry plays to this desire with its museums and shops that sell myriad your-Irish-surname-and-history trinkets.

Unfortunately, it turns out my maternal ancestors are associated with two things: alcohol and treachery. The Flahertys (in Gaelic it’s Flaithbhertaig or some such) were well-known savages who basically beat the crap out their neighbors and stole their cattle. Ireland at the time (11th and 12th centuries) was a wretched place apparently. The lifespan of these people was something like 34 years. One Galway community even inscribed into its city wall a prayer to God to protect them from the “ferocious Flahertys.”

We knew some of this history before going to Ireland, but what none of us knew was that another Flaherty, Paddy, was responsible for one of the world’s best-known Irish whiskeys, Jameson Whiskey. It was originally called Paddy O’Flaherty’s, then changed to Paddy’s, then Powers, and finally Jameson, after numerous years and changes in ownership. We literally stumbled upon this information when my brother Brian, who has a hankering for the bitter stuff, suggested we take a tour of the Jameson distillery. How appropriate it was when Brian volunteered to do a taste test comparing whiskeys from Scotland, the US and Ireland.

The rolling green hills, cliffs, cottages, fairytale woods and stone walls of Ireland are almost exactly like I imagined, but of course all the more amazing to see in person.

Things I did not expect were roads so narrow you are certain to hit either bushes or branches, and hopefully not walls; bad customer service (we Americans love to complain, huh?); crappy food; and high prices.

I drank more beer in one week than I have in the last six months (feels like a requirement); I ate more potatoes than I have in the last six months (no low-carb diet fads here!); and I experienced the panic of driving on the opposite side of the road.

And while the service was pretty crap, the people are very friendly. Almost all of our tour guides seemed to have taken acting lessons at some point. They were funny, knowledgeable and not ashamed to play the part of the happy-go-lucky Irishman.

Ireland otherwise seems buzzing with business and tourism. Its economy is one of the best in the EU, only now it is in danger of becoming almost as expensive as Britain. Speaking of Britain, the last leg of my trip included three days in London and the English countryside. Unfortunately I arrived the day after the bombs and, of course, my hotel happened to be located next to one of the bombed stations.

Londoners were unfazed however, and the pubs were as packed as ever that evening. I museum-hopped the next day and went to Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon. Three days is about all I could afford in the world’s biggest rip-off city. I spent the majority of those days in some form of public transit asking myself, ‘Why, why is this place so bloody expensive?’

Cairo-Goodbye-June 2004

2005-06-26T07:36:00.000-04:00

I saw a great bumper sticker as I walked to work during my last week in Cairo. It read: "Don’t Hold Opinions About Things You Don’t Understand." So I decided that I have no opinion about this country.

During the same walk I saw and experienced two things that have dogged me since Day One. I saw a smashed, dead cat covered with flies and maggots by the side of the road, and I was harassed by a group of men in the back of a truck. Oh, and I was ‘welcomed’ by an Egyptian. All of which serves as a reminder of how little an impact I — all of us — truly has in a culture so enigmatically entrenched in its ways. As many foreigners who have come and gone for centuries, Egypt is still the same. It is probably the same as it was thousands of years ago, plus or minus a little pollution.

As much as we — particularly foreigners — like to think we have made some sort of dent or change, Egypt is a constant reminder of our own futility and mortality.

And then it struck me: This is what it feels like to be an Egyptian. This is what it feels like to be a mere number in a swelling, sweltering population. This is what it feels like to have no voice. This is what it feels like when the president is the same person in power as when you were born. This is what it feels like to have no choice. This is what it feels like to know that no one gives a damn if you live or die. ...And this is what it feels like to not care.

This is what I learned about Egypt. And as long as I live, I will not understand it.

Dubai-Bling-Jan. 2, 2005

2005-06-26T07:27:00.000-04:00

I’ve been here for nearly five months now and already feel very settled. The shiny bling bling of Dubai has faded and left in its place a pretty decent place. It could be the cooler weather talking (it’s as low as 68 degrees sometimes!), but I am enjoying it. Dubai has proven to be a sporty city, something I was not expecting. Rugby is quickly becoming my new favorite sport. My teammates are all from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. They are amazing athletes and a lot of fun. My team, the Dubai Dragons, came in first place among the Gulf region teams in a big tournament last month. I am still playing soccer, but the level of competition here is pretty low. There are 18 teams in the local women’s league, which itself is only a couple years old. The majority of the women are Irish. Each team has at least one Arab however, which is very encouraging.

The contradictions in Dubai are still vast, however. It boasts “Dubai Internet City” and “Dubai Media City” yet very few people have internet access in their homes. It has a massive number of English-language magazines, yet none of them are political or cultural in nature. A couple of months ago when a wall collapsed on top of construction workers, the police arrested our company photographer for taking pictures of the accident. My magazine is forbidden to refer to Israel as a ‘nation.’ Oh, and the one telecom company doesn’t put calls through to Israel.

In some ways the censorship is worse than it was in Cairo. The government blocks all websites having anything to do with sex, even innocuous dating websites, yet the streets in my neighborhood are crawling with Eastern European prostitutes being cruised by Arabs. I was searching once for “trailer trash” on Google Images because a British guy wanted to know what that term meant. Each time I tried to open a website, the message “This website contains images or words that do not meet the religious or moral values of the United Arab Emirates” blocked access.

Many of the stereotypes that Egyptians have of the Gulf Arabs have rung true. But I think it has more to do with the nature of “new money” than anything else though. Name brands are more important than style. This is true in all cases — clothing, cars, sunglasses, cigarettes, purses, shoes, and wallets. The amount of money spent on these items is simply amazing. And it’s really all thanks to Americans. The rise in the price of oil (and yes, the US is still the biggest consumer of oil, with China coming fast in second) has created an enormous economic boom. Not that I am complaining — this boom is the reason I am here. It translates into jobs, ones that don’t exist in the US.

The Gulf Arabs are a smart group. They realized a long time ago what they needed to modernize. They want what Americans have — big houses, big cars, a good education and safe place for their kids — but they don’t want the urban problems like crime, immorality, garbage and drugs.

So, because they do not have democracies here, their leaders can decide what to keep out. Therefore, the laws are very strict. In addition to any type of sex scene (even kissing) being cut out of all TV shows and movies, anyone who has AIDS is not allowed to live in the country (yes they test you); driving drunk will land you in jail for six months; gatherings of more than 15 or so people in an apartment will land the owner in jail; alcohol is not permitted in anyone’s home without a license; rude gestures to drivers will land you in jail; hanging your clothes outside your balcony is illegal; washing your car on the street is illegal; newspaper stands are illegal (they look too trashy); and in some areas, shorts are illegal.

So what you end up with is very safe, clean neighborhoods and no such thing as ‘road rage.’

The other smart thing the Arabs did was to import brains. Most of the Gulf states have made it very easy for Westerners to come and open businesses and ‘live the dream’ — cheap luxury cars, beach views, and non-stop entertainment. All for the very little cost of basic human rights. I recently read an article that stated it this way — “In Dubai, foreigners have one right: The right to make money.”

There are a couple of effects of this mandate. One, the type of Westerner that this attracts represents some of the worst the West creates: materialistic, near-alcoholic, workaholic, shopaholic, racist and shallow. They are mostly British, white South African, Australian or New Zealanders. Two, the other type of foreigner the Gulf attracts are those from countries where the economies are so bad they have no choice but to immigrate. And the abuse these people experience is some of the worst I’ve seen. They are mostly sub-Continentals (Indians, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis); Eastern European (Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Ukrainians); and Asians (Filipinos, Chinese, Korean). The Eastern Europeans are either waitresses or prostitutes. The sub-Continentals are construction workers. The Asians work in the service industry or as prostitutes. And despite the government’s many laws that exist to protect foreign workers, the truth is that these people make slave wages and are treated as such. The construction workers are usually put up in labor camps many miles outside the city and are bussed in each day for more than two hours in some cases. There is no such thing as a 9-to-5-work day for the construction workers. They work seven days a week and they work through the night to build Dubai’s rapidly expanding skyline. Dubai has one of the fastest-growing populations anywhere (7% last year) and to keep up with the demand for housing, there are hundreds of housing and road projects going on at once.

I have seen photos of these labor camps from local journalists who have them but are not allowed to publish them. They truly resemble refugee camps or shantytowns. And the construction doesn’t slow in the summer when temperatures reach 120 F for weeks on end. I read a story some weeks ago about one Indian construction worker who hung himself after not receiving his salary for six months and being told it was rude to ask for it. Yes these workers make more money here than they would at home, but barely.

Another effect of such a young, new money culture is a dearth of arts or cultural creativity. There are two Virgin bookstores and a bookstore chain called MacGrudy’s, but it offers about a quarter of what you could find at a Waldenbooks, which itself is not a good chain. There are zero independent film theaters. There are no off-the-beaten-path art galleries. There are no local alternative musicians. There are two Western radio stations, but they only play Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears.

Having said all this, I do believe Dubai is heading in the right direction. The more the spotlight is placed on this emirate, the more improvements it will have to make. The more businesses that come here, the more the laws will have to be followed. And eventually, the cultural aspect will come. And censorship will have to be eased, etc. That’s just how cities grow.

I can’t end this diary entry without expressing my sadness about the state of affairs in my country. When the historic US presidential vote was announced I was at a party with a group of Britons. The comments were brutal and devastating, including this one: “If the American people were once excused for the bad actions of their government, this vote says that they approve of those actions. They have just lost any shred of sympathy they had. They deserve whatever they get now.”

I am asked over and over to explain the actions of fellow Americans. I have simply succumbed to shaking my head and letting people vent their anger. Recently, a South African friend asked a New Zealander and a Briton to stop bashing America in front of me.

It was one thing to hear anger against Americans expressed by Arabs and Muslims in Cairo, but trust me, the hatred by Europeans and other Westerners is far more bitter and unrelenting than anything I’ve heard from an Arab’s mouth.

Anyway, you all knew that.

Dubai-New home-Aug. 28, 2004

2005-06-26T07:25:00.000-04:00

“It was a fear of emptiness, fear of the desert. You did not want to cross the desert. All your life, the life of all Americans, is an effort to avoid emptiness. In your country, people work a lot, keep themselves busy, divorce a lot — all to avoid the fear, to forget that we’re born to be alone, that we travel alone, that we die alone. The desert is severe, extreme, ultimate. In the desert we cannot keep from seeing who we are. The desert brings us to our deep selfness.” — anonymous Bedouin, from “The Road to Damascus”

Severe and extreme — two words that rang in my ears as I entered the ultra modern Dubai International Airport after 19 hours of traveling. The third word — alone — came later when I settled in at my hotel apartment of Al Mas in the heart of this city of 1.5 million. Cairo never seemed this big.

The idea of the desert as the final, ultimate challenge is a powerful one. Something so seemingly soft from the air and yet harsh and dangerous up close. To conquer it must feel like beating death.

In Dubai, the desert closes you in at every turn. The Arabs, perhaps fearful themselves, have built every possible distraction to forget where they are.

The little I have seen of the city so far has met my expectations more or less. While Dubai doesn’t resemble any American city I know of, it has managed to out-America us in many ways. The automobile reigns supreme in this dustbowl. The thriving, smelly throngs of people in Cairo are nowhere to be found here.

Shopping centers as Mecca. In some ways it seems like the city grew up around the malls, as opposed to the other way around. Grocery stores on par or better than Publix or Kroger, SUVs and pools, and Chili’s, the Arab choice of favorite American fare.

In other ways it feels very foreign. The diversity is thick. In one day I met an Indian, a South African, a New Zealander, some Brits, an Aussie, a Jordanian and an Irish gal.

The call to prayer in the airport was a familiar and warm sound, reminding me of some of Islam’s comforts.

The mix in clothing styles is refreshing too, from traditional Gulf dishdashas and Eurotrash low-slung trousers to colorful Indian saris.

It’s also clear that the only fighting I will be forced to do in Dubai will be over sales racks. I have already trekked to a grocery store wearing shorts and a tank top. A colleague assured me that the locals have legions of Eastern European prostitutes at their beck and call to sate their needs, so run-of-the-mill Westerners like us are not bothered.

Wish me luck as I begin work this week — and start planning my first desert camping trip. I can’t wait to get out there and touch it.

Beirut-Beauty-June 11, 2004

2005-06-26T07:23:00.000-04:00

How do I keep it all? I wondered while listening to the lulling call to prayer and watching the Mediterranean’s soft blue waves framed by a 7000-year-old Roman colonnade, all through a crack in the stone wall of a Crusader Castle at Byblos.

Our final travel destination before leaving this part of the world was Lebanon. We started in super-chic Beirut where the cars are Beemers and Porches and ended in Tripoli where the streets bubble with grime and human smells.

Beautiful, scarred Beirut couldn’t be more different from Cairo — from the openly liberal attitudes of its citizens to the smell of sea air and the plethora of international restaurants and designer shops.

Sadly, this beautiful city, which very much resembles San Francisco, is overly reliant on tourism and its port for revenue. Nothing much is actually manufactured or produced in the country and the years of civil war surely tainted its reputation as a place to invest. Only 4 million live here; some 12 million live outside the country. It is one of the largest displaced populations in the world. (For a great summary of the Lebanese Civil War, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)

The city’s history is palpable and still raw. Modern, bright buildings are like preening birds with puffed chests next to bombed-out and bullet-ridden skeletons of the city’s old skyline.

The population is extremely literate, another opposite of Egypt. Bookstores with titles in French, English and Arabic pepper the main roads and alleys. I’d forgotten how easy it is to lose time engrossed in browsing bookshelves.

After two days in Beirut, we took a $1 bus ride to Tripoli, the much more conservative second city in the north. From there we took a bus ride up the snow-capped mountains to Bcharré and the land of the famed Lebanese Cedars. We visited the home of the poet, author and artist Khalil Gibran, whose thoughts on marriage Davin and I quoted in our wedding ceremony in 2001. The sleepy mountain town could have been in the middle of Switzerland or Southern Italy — up until the point where we were accosted by a persistent waiter who pestered us for advice on how to get a chef’s job in the US.

Once again, upon entering Lebanon, the psychological burdens of the past two years quickly washed away with the overwhelming beauty of the ocean/mountain scape of a tiny country that happens to suffer only because it is surrounded by evil regimes.

After touching down in Cairo, I was overcome with a mixture of sadness and gratefulness. Sadness that this intense two-year education is coming to an end — and knowing I have merely scratched the surface. And gratefulness that I was tested in a way I never would have been in my home country. Eighteen days from now I will be re-immersed in US culture, for better and for worse. Back to the land of Big Macs, reality TV and rigidity. Processing all I’ve learned, the places I’ve seen and the people I’ve met will weigh heavy over these next weeks.

How do I keep it all?

Where do I put it?

Mt. Sinai-April 3, 2004

2005-06-26T07:22:00.000-04:00

I accomplished one of the last things I wanted to do before leaving this country: A night hike up Mt. Sinai, the site of the Biblical story of Moses and the Ten Commandments, one of early Christianity’s monasteries, as well as the burning bush.

Not an overly difficult climb, Gebel Mousa (its Arabic name) does pose its challenges. There’s ample opportunity for a twisted ankle or busted knee, for example. One of the more popular things to do when you climb this famed rock-covered mountain is to start around 2 or 3 a.m. and reach the top in time to watch the sun rise. A romantic idea for sure — except when you forget to bring a flashlight. Needless to say, our climb was peppered with more than a few clipped curse words, numerous near-misses, and only one true spill. (Davin’s knee healed just fine, thanks.)

The best parts of the hike, unusually, did not involve the peak, which ended up being cluttered with noisy foreigners, supplicating nuns, camel touts and blanket-rental boys.

The best parts took place on the way up and the way down:

• Stopping a little more than halfway up and looking into the utter blackness and seeing nothing but bouncing beams of flashlights, modern-day pilgrims seeking a spiritual experience.

• The black-caped Spaniard who (magically it seemed) kept whizzing past me and then somehow would end behind me again, yelling “Hola!” His face was completely obscured by his long black cape and the dark night, of course.

• The overpriced Nescafe sipped at Chez Soliman’s next to the line of four resting camels while the sun slowly warmed us after teasing for an hour in the morning’s whipping winds.

• The singing, mustachioed Italian nun who must have been about 80 years old and insisted on wishing every new hiker a ‘good morning’ while they huffed and puffed toward the top.

• An image of Davin 20 feet in front of me, silhouetted between two rock walls, in the glowing blue light of 4 am, and disappearing into a turn.

We descended the mountain under a clear blue sky and spent the rest of the morning in a Bedouin camp, alternately drinking chai and napping, happy that the sleepy town of St. Katherine’s, reminiscent of a middle-of-nowhere New Mexican town, was so unapologetically dull.

***

Two other interesting incidents took place during our short stay. While waiting for Davin at a shop, I was invited by an older local man to play a game of dominoes. Halfway through the game, he asked me very nicely if I were Israeli. When I told him no, I was American, he heartily shook my hand. It was perhaps the first genuine gesture of welcome I have felt from an Egyptian.

The other episode was something Westerners may not be able to fully appreciate. Since Davin and I have lived here, we have both quit smoking, casually, seriously, in all occasions. It’s actually easy to do here because of the oppressive air and the gobs of chain-smokers all around. (The Egyptian government actually supports the habit by subsidizing tobacco; local cigarettes are about 25 cents a pack).

Cigarette smoke indoors is just something you get used to in the Middle East (Turkey is just as bad), as much as you may hate it. So, while on the six-hour bus ride back to civilization, there was a handful of Egyptian soldiers smoking in the back of the bus. When we stopped the get gas, the driver, a large, red-faced older man, stomped toward our end of the bus and released a tirade:

“There is so smoking on this bus!” he bellowed. “You are not fit to be soldiers! Shame be upon you! What would your mother do if she knew? You are not fit to represent this country!” And on…it lasted for nearly five minutes. It was loud, brash and melodramatic. And wonderfully satisfying to those of us who have sat there, uncomfortable, miserable, and quiet because it’s not our culture. Who are we to criticize?

The idea of shame and public humiliation seems like a harsh method of dealing with rowdies, but it works here. I have even resorted to it myself at work. We have a photographer, for example, who never identifies people in photos when there are more than two of them. I asked him very nicely every single month this problem occurred. I explained in great detail why it was a problem. I suggested simple ways of solving the problem. After Month Four of the same problem, I lost it. I yelled at him in front of the entire office:

“Wessam, do you hate me? Why do you treat me this way? You must hate me so much to continue to not do what I ask! Don’t you take any pride in your work? Don’t you care about these people? Don’t you care that they get angry if we get their names wrong? Do you care at all about what I ask of you?”

It worked. The next photo he brought me not only identified the people in the right order, he even got their business cards. He brought all this to my desk and said, “See, what I did for you?”

Davin wonders if the idea of shame would work in diplomacy. Imagine Ariel Sharon cowing to Yasser Arafat’s “What would your mother think if she saw you tearing down our homes?” Somehow, I think Sharon lost his sense of shame years ago.

***

I can’t say that I had a spiritual experience during our visit to the holy site, at least not in the classic religious sense, but I did have a curious dream in the wee hours before we started our climb. I dreamt of my friends and family.

You were all there, in the desert. It was misty and dark and I couldn’t see anyone or anything and suddenly, one by one, you all came out. It was as if I was expecting you all. Christy was there (with dreadlocks!); Jenny had a baby in her arms; Brian was carrying a ball; Erin, you were there. I waited until you were all there and then we all left to climb the mountain together.

Thailand-The Beach-March 13, 2004

2005-06-26T07:20:00.000-04:00

I have been waiting to write because I wanted something to say something else other than nasty things about Cairo. And now I have something to talk about. Namely, my recent trip to Thailand.

I met my friend Tara in Bangkok where we had two days to see the sights. Not enough time for sure, but we still managed to see some beautiful Buddhist temples, eat some incredible Thai food, shop and witness up close the sad sex industry that seems to work for and against the country.

As taxis are fast, clean, air-conditioned and metered (the complete opposite of Cairo cabs), getting around the city is quite easy. In addition to cabs, the above-ground Sky Train system is also clean, accessible and very modern. Each station is like a mini-mall with music stores, 7-11s (which are literally on every corner) and juice stands. Thailand has the most amazing juice drinks. You can get Thai tea (iced tea with condensed milk and orange), iced coffee and (the best) cold melon green tea with milk.

The shopping is pretty spectacular, or maybe it just felt that way coming from Cairo where you can’t get anything. Remember all those T-shirts you had as a kid in the 80s (soccer shirts, YMCA camp shirts, etc.) that you probably gave away to the Salvation Army? Well, they all ended up in Thailand’s flea markets where you can buy shirts that say “Camp Rocky Mount” with “Megan” on the back. Remember Vans and blue and red Dr. Marten’s, Izod’s, Panama Jack and Dickies? Yep, they all landed in Thailand at rock-bottom prices. The other specialty which I didn’t have time to take advantage of — but I recommend others do — is the country’s ubiquitous tailors. Apparently you can show a tailor your favorite Ann Taylor or Hugo Boss suit and they will duplicate it with material of your choice for around $25.

The infamous sex tourism industry in Bangkok is alive a kicking although the city seems to have cracked down on other forms of sin. For example, there’s a big anti-smoking campaign going on. There is no smoking allowed anywhere there is air-conditioning and showing smoking on TV is not allowed. They blur out cigarettes in movies (although you can see the smoke).

There are a number of streets that are basically brothel after brothel, or strip clubs and massage parlors. Here you will find Thai girls that all look no older than 20 with numbers tagged onto the little clothing they do wear. Apparently they don’t allow customers to point out the girls they want to hire. It’s more polite to use numbers. It was pretty sick. All the customers, to a man, are around 50 and very, very white. We even saw a couple of father and son teams visiting one club after another. Since tourism is the country’s No. 1 industry, it’s not exactly in the government’s best interest to do away with it. They do have some rules. For example, no one under 18 is allowed in the clubs. Also, the prostitutes are not allowed to solicit business outside the clubs. One unfortunate consequence of this rule is that young homeless girls (age 10 or so) appear to be making money by flirting with white men on the prowl outside the clubs and luring them into specific clubs. We watched one such 10-year-old (wearing an oversized Osama bin Laden T-shirt) punching the arms of an army-looking guy and then pulling him by the arm toward one club.

Another interesting observation we made in Bangkok was the inordinately high number of gay men. First of all, Thai men are super beautiful and quite feminine looking, so it is no surprise that many of them look excellent in drag. But in addition to the numerous Thai men in makeup, there were plenty of Western gay couples present. I imagine the country has acquired a reputation for being gay-friendly, so it gets a large number of gay tourists. (All of this could also be a consequence of my living in a country where homosexuality is illegal, so perhaps I am making more of it than was there.)

After taking a short flight out of Bangkok to the one of the world’s most famous island clusters, the real fun began. We stayed for next four days on the island of Ko Phi Phi Don. We got a beach bungalow (with hot water and a flushing toilet) for $30 a night. The next days were filled with extreme sun, hiking, massages by the beach, amazing snorkeling, boat rides, superb food, fire shows, drinks by candlelight, fruit shakes, and more shopping.

The pictures speak for themselves. We visited the beach where Leonardo diCaprio’s “The Beach” was filmed. It is as stunning as it looks in the movie. The clear water offers the best snorkeling I have ever experienced.

By far one of the best reasons for going to Thailand is the food. At the islands restaurants catch fish that day and display it so you can choose the freshest filets. The typical Thai way of preparing the fish is grilled with whole garlic cloves, tomatoes, potatoes and pineapple. You can get lobster, shrimp, crab, mussels, scallops and squid year-round.

And the myriad of Thai curries are too tasty for words. One of the basic ingredients in just about all Thai dishes is chili pepper which means the food is super spicy.

The people are quite lovely. They are much more laid back than the Japanese or Taiwanese, but still relatively conservative (besides the sex workers of course!). We never saw one Thai in shorts. We had dinner one night with two young men who are friends of Tara’s brother. These boys were so polite and gracious. They pulled out our chairs for us, paid for the dinner, held doors open, you name it.

We also met fellow travelers, many from Canada. We never met or saw any Americans, but tons of Europeans of course. We determined the best way to decipher whether someone was well traveled or not was to ask them if they thought Bangkok was dirty or clean. The Canadians thought Bangkok was dirty; the Europeans thought it was clean.

All in all, nine days were not enough. Next time I go I will attempt to add Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Cairo-Rania's wedding-Oct. 4, 2003

2005-06-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the big day. My favorite Egyptian co-worker, Rania, whom I have written about before, will be married by this time Sunday.

She rejected three previous fiancés after a few months because she did not love any of them. She does not love this one either. But she is 31 and it is time. She cannot disappoint her parents again. They did after all, find someone who “looks good on paper.”

On Thursday she went to get her hair done and she freaked out. She cried and pleaded with her mom that she is not ready and that this marriage will be a mistake. Her mom and her friends calmed her down and told her it’s OK, all women freak out before their weddings and that it is normal to think that you are making a mistake. But you get over it. You accept your fate.

Of course none of us have met her fiancé. Her closest friends have met him once and they say is that he is a catch because he will allow her to keep his job. I have my doubts.

Thursday night I was invited to her henna party. A henna party is the Western equivalent of a bachelorette party — minus the booze and naked boys. An African woman is hired to paint henna designs on the women.

I was the only foreign woman there and of course I showed up too early (I arrived on time; I should have known better). You could hear the Arabic music from the streets, pouring out from Rania’s upper-middle-class family flat.

The room was filled with female family members from newborns to grandmas. The moms and older women lined the walls and watched the younger girls dance. And dance they did, from about 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. They bumped, grinded, twisted, twirled, dipped and spun with wild abandon. Did I mention there was no alcohol?

They grabbed the bride-to-be. They threw her in the air. They spun her around. She was giddy with excitement.

If you were an outsider looking in with your Western eyes, you would have thought this was a lesbian party.

Imagine: Covered, veiled, draped women walk in, deposit their babies into the arms of the Saidi-born help, run to the closest bathroom and emerge sparkling, hair down and luscious, midriff bare, shoulders glittering.

And the dancing. Hips swaying, pelvic grinding. Hands touching, grabbing, reaching for each other.

The whole scene was extremely exotic to my eyes. But for these women who left as they came — covered, modest — it was a normal rite of passage.

And it occurred to me that maybe this is how they deal with the fact that they are entering a life-long union with a stranger, one to whom they will feel grateful if he shows leniency.

The henna party is a release like no other. Here they can display their sexual sides that they cannot show while married. A married lady is too respectful to dance this way for her husband. Who else can she be sexy for? Her friends, her sisters, her mom. The safest, most free place.

And Rania was radiant. She wore a sexy red dress and high heels. With her shiny, long black hair, she looked like Snow White. She said to me she has simply decided in her mind to stop fighting it and accept it, like so many before her.

Her friends made bets on how soon she would give birth, as they laughed about how they each got pregnant within months of the wedding night. Her boss is secretly looking for her replacement, despite her promises that she will keep working.

I am considering not attending this wedding out of moral objection. Not that it would matter.

I just don’t want to see her face smiling out of duty, not of happiness, and pretend it’s OK.

Istanbul-Paradise-Sept. 3, 2003

2005-06-26T07:17:00.000-04:00

Don’t let the $100 visa fee scare you. While it’s true that the Turkish government raised the price of entry for Americans to $100 from $45 (which was already listed as one of the most expensive visas in the world) after Bush’s Iraq folly, we are hoping it won’t last. Brits and other Westerners pay less than $20. The US has retaliated, by the way, and is charging Turks the same.

People say when you live somewhere long enough you get used to its oddities and eventually they seem normal. This must be doubly true for those of us living in Third World countries. When we left the dirty, hot streets of Cairo on Aug. 29 for Turkey on our first vacation outside Egypt since we moved here, we were like kids in a candy store.

My reaction to Istanbul seems pretty funny to my husband. He thinks I have forgotten what it is like to live in a Western-style world. The people, the openness, the beauty, the cleanliness…the modernity. It is something to behold. This city of some 15 million or so has it all. It has an amazing (and long) history of ups and downs, mainly ups. The former palaces and mansions are certainly a testimony to the once all-powerful Ottoman empire.

Today’s Istanbul is thriving and complete with arts, culture, nightlife, academe, history, beautiful people, nice weather, good food, excellent urban transportation system… I could go on.

Picture San Francisco with its bridges, water and hills. Now subtract the high cost of living (a very good meal here runs about $10-$15; hotel rooms are no more than $20 a night), add cobblestone streets, a skyline dotted with some of the world’s largest and most majestic mosques, about 14 million people, and a heavy dose of Mediterranean-style joie de vive. That’s Istanbul.

I remember when I first moved to San Francisco and my new boss at the time was trying to justify the high cost of living there by saying that it was the cost of paradise, and it was a good way of keeping out the riffraff.

Wrong. Paradise is here. And the homeless problem is nil compared to SF.

And the most refreshing part … no harassment of women, foreign or local. There is some benign flirting, but nothing worse than you get in Italy. It’s hard to describe the feeling of letting go. Letting go of the tight knot in my stomach that twists when I am out alone in Cairo. Here I can walk with my head up, look people in the eye, and not worry if I might be asking for trouble.

We are perplexed that we didn’t know Istanbul was like this. Why isn’t Istanbul as much or more of a tourist destination than Paris or London? In my opinion, it has much more to offer than both of those cities.

One of the main reasons why Istanbul is the great city it is today is because of Attaturk. He is essentially the county’s modern founding father. Starting in 1919, he made bold decisions that influenced the way the entire country developed — in such a different way than other Muslim countries.

He established the government as secular republic, changed the alphabet to Latin, and set up a modern democracy. As a result, the country is modern yet retains good Muslim values. Women here are as free as they are in Western society. There are veiled women of course, but there is no backlash against those women who choose not to veil. There is no disdain of women who choose to wear what they want and work where they want.

Turkey still has some issues such as liberalization of some of its state-run companies, and the EU sites human rights abuses as well. But to be sure, Turkey is decades and decades more advanced than Egypt.

The best way to describe the attitude in Turkey is the way it was described to us by one of the many extremely friendly people we met: Freedom. Turks love their freedom and each person is responsible for him or herself. Hamed, who runs a moped rental shop told us this anecdote: For Arabs leading camel caravans, there is always a donkey that the caravan must follow. But Turks, he said, don’t need to follow a donkey. They go their own way. (It’s funnier if you live in Cairo where donkeys are a part of everyday life.)

The only reason we can surmise that Istanbul seems to be a hidden gem is that American fear of the unknown. I no longer buy the money or time argument. Americans have created that as a an excuse. If more Americans traveled to more far-off destinations, airline prices would dip. Look at how cheap it is to fly to London and Paris these days from the states. Once you are here, the prices are much lower than any US destination. And if Americans in general appreciated travel more than work, we wouldn’t be a culture that gives people a meager two weeks of vacation.

As we walked through the city streets of Istanbul and then headed for the countryside of Central Anatolia and the sandcastle-like cave laden valley of Cappadocia, we kept asking ourselves, what’s the catch?

The truth is, we never found one. You should all check it out for yourselves.

Back on the Cairo home front, there’s two interesting stories of late. First, our favorite grocery delivery boy, who’s about 23, has decided to venture out on his own. He is renting a spot right across the street from the vegetable stand where he now works to create a veggie stand of his own. He told us about the backroom dealings that went on when he announced the news to his boss. Mohamed, his boss, terrified of losing customers to Hany, offered the younger man 100,000 Egyptian pounds, about $16,000. Hany proudly told us “I turned around and offered him 200,000 to buy him out.” When we asked Hany how will he distinguish his vegetable stand from his old boss’s stand, he said: “Simple — by the name. I will call it … Pinky Ghost. You should see the logo I created on the computer for it!”

The second story is yet another cabbie story, but it’s a good one. Unlike the French, Egyptians love it when you attempt to speak their language. Even a simple “shukran,” or thank you, will get you a: “Bititkalim Arabic Kwais,” You speak good Arabic. So last week as Davin hailed a cabbie in front of a fancy hotel, he was quoted an insane amount of money for a short ride. So Davin starts yelling at the cabbie in Arabic: “What’s wrong with you? Do you think I am a tourist? Why are you trying to rip me off? Blah, blah, blah.” The cabbie yells right back in Arabic: “You are an idiot. You are a donkey, etc..” So they are literally both yelling at each in Arabic. The cabbie finally drives off in anger, but not before telling Davin: “Bititkalim Arabic Kwais.” You speak good Arabic!

Aswan-Year one-June 10, 2003

2005-06-26T07:15:00.000-04:00

Today I have been in Cairo for almost one full year. And I am spending my first week of vacation at the exact same place I was 13 months ago ... on the Nile. It’s both sad that I have returned here instead of somewhere more exotic and nice in a welcoming, introspective sort of way. In other words, a good place to reflect upon the last year and prepare for my last year in Egypt.

As for being on the Nile, its beauty is never a disappointment. In fact, I think it’s even more beautiful to me now that I know more about her and her tenacity. Like mountains or any other of nature’s wonders, rivers like the Nile are so much more impressive in their ability to give life and withstand harm and abuse than buildings or other man-made monuments. The sound of water (so gentle and yet dangerous), the lushness of the palm trees, the women washing clothes on the shore, the air, with its 110-degree temps, hugs your body in oven-like breezes. And somehow I am so happy and so comfortable.

My first visit was filled with visions of tourist police, the inside of pharamacies (we got badly sick last time), fear, trepidation, wonderment, anxiety, expectation…none of which allow for much relaxation.

We are here with both sets of parents, showing them the nature’s side of this country. They seem to be enjoying themselves — minus a little (expected) sickness. They have found themselves to be minorities here as Americans. A sign of more bad times ahead for the tourism industry. We hope they will spread the word to their friends about the affordability and safety of Egypt.

This coming month, July, will be my first month as editor of the magazine where I started as an assistant last July. I am excited and conflicted. Working in Cairo has proven to be much more difficult and with so little payoff at the moment. Ideas like teamwork, constructive criticism, efficiency just don’t mesh here. What ends up happening with many foreigners working in Egypt is that the work ethic of Westerners is taken advantage of. So to make up for the fact that the journalists I work with don’t have the same great training as they do back home, I am required to do a lot of the work the reporters should have done in the first place — therefore making my job all the more difficult. Not to mention the fact that little things — such as getting paid on time and having access to the best equipment — is a long, lost luxury. Once you become accustomed to such things as not having enough petty cash to order toilet paper for the office, you have let it in. Those who never let it in — for better or for worse I am not sure — leave.

Speaking of leaving, we have said goodbye in the past month to many good friends we made here. An expat community is such a transient mixed bag of people and summer is a time to say goodbye to many of them and prepare for the next wave. Like an adult summer camp. Many of the reasons for leaving are consequential — teachers don’t work summers; university students don’t attend classes; oil companies give their foreign employees the entire summer to visit their respective homes.

Other reasons aren’t so tidy. We know one woman who is actually so completely frustrated with the culture that she headed to Virginia for the next nine months to learn Arabic (in the middle of her two-year degree program where she is required to take a test in Arabic.) A journalist friend left because he can’t get the American media interested in any of his articles on Egypt. A group of about eight local journalists have left to start an English-language newspaper in Baghdad. Two teachers left mid school year because they could no longer stand the Egyptian classrooms where they were being verbally and physically abused (one was called “Mrs. Sharon” when the kids were angry at her; another got a pencil in the thigh). Another journalist friend is leaving partially because of an overall malaise she blames on Cairo.

This “malaise” seems to crop up in relation to Islam. We met teachers in Alexandria who blame the religion on the lack of a lust for life, or a listlessness not necessairly seen in other developing countries (Mexico was mentioned as a developing country where one religion dominates yet the people are famous for their ebullience.) Karen Blixen, in her diairies of which “Out of Africa” was based, writes about Muslims:

“From what I have observed there is on the whole something remarkably dry about the Mohammedans I know despite their passionate nature; but I don’t know whether this is due to their religion or the race, or perhaps due to the fact that they never drink wine. I wonder whether a nation which is never intoxicated comes to be lacking in the lyrical element in their emotions, and also for instance that corresponding in their sense of humor to what we call conviviality?”

A little too simple perhaps to blame it all on teetotalism, but she also wrote:
“I think that Mohammedanism makes the people who embrace it or have been brought up to it clean and proud and gives them a kind of heroic or stoic view of life, but also that it makes them, to us, quite intolerably doctrinaire and intolerant. As a whole, in my view, it is a dry religion or philosophy of life, and its dangers lie in either becoming purely external and consisting of an endless number of formal rules and ceremonial, or else in leading to fanaticism.”

This was written in 1914 or so and is still remarkably spot-on.

Another reason I haven’t written a diary entry in so long (besides work encompassing far too much of my time), is that this malaise has gotten to me some too. I’m not ready to blame this culture or its religion, though. In my case, it could be the company I work for. But there are bad, bad days for sure when I close my eyes and think of San Francisco and even Atlanta and remember simpler times. Like the day I was grabbed three times all before 11 a.m. Like the day I was told my phone etiquette was “too American and offensive.”

We were also recently treated to some amazing experiences thanks to our last visitors prior to our folks. These good friends from California treated us like royalty for a week since for them things in Egypt were ridiculously cheap. From fine food and wine to a hot-air balloon ride over the ruins in Luxor, we were literally wined and dined.

It was perhaps one of the most luxurious weeks I have experienced in my life. And it’s amazing the conflicting feelings a week of luxury can conjure in a person. On one hand, I feel any expression of gratitude for my visitors’ generosity won’t ever be enough. On the other hand, I learned a valuable lesson — and I think my friends did, too.

In America, money solves lots of problems. From the government down, Americans believe throwing money at a problem will fix it. And why not? Money can put more computers in schools. Money can put more policemen on the streets. Money can buy food to feed the hungry. But even in America, the human urge to cheat the system, to get more than your share, is more than prevalent.

Our friends were discouraged in Egypt when, attempting to put smiles on rural Egyptian children’s faces, by giving them money they watched the kids steal from each other and tell lies. Their display of generosity turned into a feeding frenzy and ended in a swarm of children grabbing and begging and following us.

Money is all so relative. It most certainly comes with strings. I have yet to add to my life the massive responsibilities of children, a house, college fund for the kids, etc., so perhaps I am speaking out of extreme inexperience and naivete. But I learned last month that I am free. I have no debt. I have no financial responsibilities. I can move where I want, I can adjust, I am flexible. Financial freedom. I have always thought that financial freedom meant having enough money to alleviate — if not obviate — financial worries. But it’s much more complicated than that and I think my friends leaned the same thing.

As for when we will leave? Another thing Egypt has taught me is that some planning is pointless. Things do sometimes happen for a reason and by some other hand, someone else’s plan, perhaps. We will start answering these questions ourselves in six months or so and ponder the next adventure.

Cairo-Iraq war-March 22, 2003

2005-06-26T07:05:00.000-04:00

On my TV on this third day of war around 2 p.m.:
• Fox News: Reports that Saddam Hussein’s body may have been taken out of a bunker on a stretcher. Reports that Iraqis are kissing the hands of their “liberators.”
• BBC: An in-depth analysis of statements made by Donald Rumsfeld that have been proven to be inaccurate and the erosion of Western credibility. This debate is interspersed with photos of the bombing from Friday night in Baghdad, surrendering soldiers and injured women and children in a Baghdad hospital. Reports that the coalition forces are targeting Iraq’s major forms of communication.
• Dubai’s Channel 33 (major Arab channel): “Animal Miracles With Alan Thicke.”
• Middle East Broadcasting, Channel 2 (also out of Dubai; a news channel): “Saved By the Bell 2” and a commercial for “Beavis and Butthead do America” — to be shown next week.
• Iraq TV (state-run, only channel in the country): Covered-Iraqi women dancing, smiling, chanting, waving guns, knives, soup ladles and even a cheese grater. After this “show,” Iraqi TV showed scenes of my city, Cairo, yesterday. The most extensive footage I have yet seen of hundreds of men (not a woman in sight) flooding the streets near Al-Azhar University and mosque and being beaten and bloodied by the Cairo police. I watched as the injured were being dragged from the scene — both bodies of protestors and of police.

The protests in Cairo yesterday were intense for sure. We knew it was likely to happen. The warning signs were everywhere. Thursday I had to take a taxi from my office to downtown. I must have passed some 400 riot police waiting to “quell” any protestors. Earlier in the week, I experienced the first harsh words directed at me. I was a couple of blocks from my apartment when someone said “Hey you American…you better be careful.” A pretty benign statement really. Fridays are prayer days and from what we heard from Egyptians, the sermons would be about war and American aggression. Davin’s appointment to get his computer repaired on Saturday — by one of the few locals in the country who work on Sonys — was cancelled because we are American. The guy said he wanted to make a stand and refused any business from Americans, Canadians and Englishmen. (Even the Canadians aren’t off the hook).

It’s hard to comprehend the protests, honestly. Why aren’t they protesting here, in my very American neighborhood? Why aren’t they looting the American- and British-owned shops and businesses? As it is, it is Egyptian vs. Egyptian. The common man vs. the government. The only comparison I can think of is the LA riots and how the anger there resulted in internal damage. It was supposed to represent anger vs. the white man and the establishment, yet the protestors looted and destroyed their own neighborhood. Why does this seem happen with the frustrated and disenfranchised? Is it ignorance? Or is it misplaced anger? Is it possible that the Egyptian protestors, like the LA rioters, are truly angry with themselves, at their leaders, at their own inability to change their station in life? Do they feel angry with each other for taking it? For not trying to change things?

Perhaps the most frustrating part for us, being here, in the middle of a city violently opposed to what is going on, is the lack of good, reliable information. As you can see from above in my intro, the lack of news from the Egyptian community is appalling. If this were an American city, news crews would be crawling all over the place, offering minute-by-minute updates on which streets were blocked and which neighborhoods are safe and which are not. The Egyptian government — at least on the English-language channels — is pretty much ignoring the war and the internal situation. I realize the government wants to retain control of the city and will crush any riots, and maybe they think that rumors — as opposed to real news — helps their situation. Rumors, always more dramatic than actual events, inevitably grow and mushroom. Maybe it’s by design then. The government realizes the effect the escalated rumors of protestors being beaten and subdued will have on the population so why would they bother elucidating the truth?

March 28

I wrote the entry above last weekend but I never sent it because I was waiting. Waiting for the war to be over by now. Waiting for some major development to change things for the better. Waiting to be able to defend my what country is doing.

I am still waiting. And things have only gotten worse. The casualties are growing. Incidents of “friendly fire.” The murdering of civilians. The capture of American soldiers. The injuring of thousand on both sides. The damage of misinformation. The irresponsibility of the media on both sides. Rising oil prices. The war’s enormous economic price tag. And so on.

My grandmother sent me an email inquiring about my thoughts on the war and asking me to send an objective diary about it. I can’t. I wish I could. But as I said to her, no one can be objective in a war.

Here’s how I responded to her request: “Surely you must understand that no one can be objective in the face of war. No one wants war. And here, in the Middle East, I can see the boiling undercurrent of future problems stemming from this US-led attack. No country wants to be told what to do. Period. No country wants the “benevolent” aid that comes at a high price from the US. We are surely ignorant to think that the Iraqis have forgotten how we broke promise after promise in 1991. Do you really think the Iraqis see the US as “liberators?” The Iraqis are not stupid people. Of course they hate Saddam and with good reason, but having the US bomb their cities, kill their people and then control their government? All under the guise that we are just doing them a favor and that it has nothing to do with oil? No one in the Middle East is that naive. And no matter how much TV airs photos of US soldiers bringing in food and medicine, etc., no one in this part of the world will ever believe that the US is not a self-serving country with illusions of grandeur and imposing its will by force.... I wish it were different, but trust me, it’s not. These people will only hate the US even more after the end of this war.”

Like the rest of the world, we are just waiting to see what happens. And we are very afraid of what’s next. So to answer the one question I seem to get constantly from Americans: Yes, starting on March 20, 2003, I started to feel uncomfortable in the Middle East, the day the US declared itself God.

******

The following is completely off topic, but nonetheless an interesting tale, and will maybe make up for the depressing nature of my war entry. When I started my job at Business Today magazine, our office had a sweet, older receptionist named Madame Selwa. Madame Selwa was a complete sweetheart, always ready with a smile — but was completely incompetent. At least once a week, she would mess something up, lose something or be caught leaving two hours early or whatever. These episodes lead to more lost productivity as inevitably, tearful crying/shouting sessions followed whatever scolding she received.

She was finally let go, but not without drama. There was lots of yelling and crying as she was escorted out of the building. Since that day, we have had no less than four secretaries in and out of our doors. Each of them — young, some covered, some not — quit for similar reasons. One said her parents would no longer let her work so far from home (about 35 minutes from home); one said her family didn’t like her working so late (until 4:30 p.m.); the other two said they got better jobs that were closer to home. These girls were all “good Muslim girls” — conservative and presentable. One of my American colleagues jokingly said, “It must the curse of Madame Selwa.” The Egyptians in the room all looked at each other with big nervous eyes and one of them said, “Um, Madame Selwa did put a curse on the company.”

Our fifth receptionist started last week. Her name is Jasminta. She is the first Egyptian punk rocker I have ever seen. She has a nose ring, multi-colored braids in her hair and that bored look of teens and punks the world over. I guess management decided to fight eccentricity by more eccentricity.

Cairo-Dodging blood-Feb. 12, 2003

2005-06-26T06:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday on the way to the gym, I dodged pools of blood. Sprawling pools creeping their way from driveways out into the streets. Here and there, a lamb skin. It was the first day of Eid Al Adha. The day before I spoke to three lambs awaiting their destiny. I told them not to be afraid, enjoy the immediate sunshine and that things are the way they are meant to be. Then today I saw the site of their demise. I wasn’t there for the actual slaughter but I stood there, staring at their bloodied coats, imagining how it all went down.

The ritual of the lamb sacrifice has survived for 14 centuries. My unease is moot, irrelevant. The story behind the sacrifice is one of the most famous stories from Biblical times, the story of Abraham and his son Issac. The moral of the story, or at least the moral that has survived so keenly in Islam, is obedience. Because Abraham was willing to kill his son, his loyalty to God was rewarded when his son was saved and God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead.

The morning of the sacrifices, which take place all over the city regardless of socio-economic classes, Muslims wake early and walk to the mosque chanting “We hear you calling; we are coming.” Over and over. Then they pray for a couple of hours and return home for the sacrifices. Most of the meat is given away to poor families.

According to some of my Egyptian friends, the symbolism of the slaughter is pure, unadulterated, unquestioned obedience. None of them particularly like it. They all expressed the same distaste for the idea of slitting the throats of the lambs, and sometimes calves.

By no means I am a vegetarian. I eat red meat about twice a year, but I eat plenty of chicken and fish. I, like any American, have deluded myself into thinking these animals suffer less in a processing factory. Here, where life is in your face, we have cut down on our meat consumption even more.

Part of me admires a tradition that has survived so many centuries. How many American “traditions” even exist? What is uniquely American? Not much except the diversity of our traditions and our differences. Maybe that’s exactly what being American is all about. Being different. Totally different from the rest of the world. Going our own way, global opinion be damned.

Egypt certainly is homogenous. It’s one of the reasons for Egyptians’ fascination with foreigners — we simply look, talk, even walk different. And different from each other even. But there is a certain security in sameness. When I walk the streets of Cairo, I know I am safe. I know that I can generalize about these people enough to say that in general, this city is the safest city I have ever been in. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptian men will almost always back off when talked back to by a foreign woman like me. I can generalize enough to say that Egyptians have an unspoken caring nature and go out of their way to help people.

The downside to all this sameness is that it seeps into areas where free thinking has served Western nations well. Think technology, science, medicine and philosophy. The lack of innovation in this part of the world is dismaying at best.

So why question the slaughter? You can’t. It simply is and always will be part of the religion, part of the culture. A culture of immutability, stagnancy.

How many people do you know who hate their job or their boss or their company, but enjoy the company of their co-workers? And more often than not, they stay longer at a job they hate simply because they like their co-workers? Imagine a country like that. Where everyone understandably hates their government — leaders whose every word is a lie. (A government that regularly lies about the temperature outside because it can.) So in this atmosphere, what do you do? You turn to your neighbor. You are all in this together. You take care of each other, despite it all. Loyalty to each other and what makes them the same – Allah. Where else to turn for guidance when you can’t turn to your leaders? You don’t have role models such as successful athletes, poet laureates, scientists looking for medical cures, university professors. Who do you have? You have Allah. God, who undoubtedly provides the answers to all questions.

Many of us Westerners look at Muslim women and wonder why they don’t stand up and change things. How? Why? When everything they are taught, everything in their lives informs them that things cannot, are not supposed to, change. And what kind of example do we set? In their eyes, Western women are more degraded and disrespected than any other class of people. The media. The media shows Western women in skimpy outfits, women whose good looks are their meal ticket. Even TV shows with smart women … they are still attractive, skinny and sexy. Think “Law and Order,” “ER.” What kind of role model is this? That in America, women are judged solely by their looks. Is this the kind of freedom they want? Of course not. And unfortunately, inevitably, TV is their teacher. The good female role models American women do have are not featured on shows like “Bachelorette” or “Baywatch.”

One of the best cultural critiques I read before moving here was Thomas Friedman’s “The Lexus and The Olive Tree.” I’m sure many of you have read it. I thought some of his examples of globalization were spot-on. And I have witnessed them firsthand, the mobile phone user sitting in traffic next to the farmer riding a donkey. However, after having lived here for seven months now, even I can see how oversimplified Friedman’s book is. Yes, globalization is inevitable. It is wholly unavoidable; it’s not an issue of pro or con. It is simply the ever-moving train of change. However, globalization hasn’t brought diverse cultures any closer to understanding each other. What was the number-one question on the lips of every American after September 11? It was why..Why us? What did we do? Why do they hate us? Only now have I learned what a stupid and irrelevant question that is.

And frankly, the more attention that the West has focused on the Middle East, the more confused average Americans have become. We were watching Fox News the other day (God help us) and Cavuto said something to the effect of ‘We will stop helping you if you don’t support us.’ He was referring to other nations’ rejections of war against Iraq. His dumbed-down message was basically that America pays for everyone else and if other countries don’t fall in line, the money will be taken away. In other words, he was scolding the world for biting the hand that feeds. Is this the America we want to show the rest of the world? Are we that arrogant to think that the rest of the world wouldn’t survive without us? That people (nations) shouldn’t speak up if they expect to remained favored by the good ole’ USA? What happened to the value of Free Speech? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about? Or does that not apply when people are speaking against the US? You’d expect this message from politicians, but from the “free press?” Isn’t that what the media is about? Speaking up and speaking out?

This sham of a “news organization,” Fox News thinks it’s cute for its talk-show hosts to joke about how to pronounce Iran. The same week of Cavuto’s comments, some bubbly blonde Fox reporter giggled about how she can’t remember how to pronounce Iran. Tee hee. Aren’t Americans smart? Shouldn’t a society that slaughters lambs in the name of obedience learn from us? Or as Cavuto thinks, shouldn’t the rest of the world be obedient and fall in line with the US?

Cairo-Visitors-Jan. 17, 2003

2005-06-26T06:49:00.000-04:00

We’ve had two visitors since I last posted. And the two experiences couldn’t have been more different. One visitor is well-traveled and fairly adventurous; the other had never left North America until this trip. It was interesting for us to see our chosen city through the eyes of these very different people, particularly since our culture shock has more or less worn off.

Our first guest has even got the bug, as they say here, and is considering moving here in about six months or so. She is Jewish and believes in order to be a better Jew she should learn about Islam from within. She fell in love with the people here who befriended her immediately. She also is simply in search of a truly foreign experience.

The second guest, well, let’s just say he will think twice about making a trip to the Third World again. I spent some time analyzing why some people take to Cairo right away and why some people are initially repelled by it and I think I have come up with some conclusions.

One thing our second guest kept repeating and would not accept is the fact that Cairennes do not use the lines on the streets when driving. He also very accurately observed that the lack of driving within the lines was somewhat of a metaphor for the whole society — meaning nothing here is done in a straight line, nothing is efficient and nothing seems very logical. And although this is all very true, I think it says more about American society than it does about this society. American society is so rigid and caught up in its rules and regulations that Americans begin to assume that the way it is done in America is the logical way, is the straight and most efficient way. But who ever said driving from point A to point B is the most interesting way? Getting lost or meandering is the sweetness of life. Think how much more you learn about yourself when you are lost or powerless. Americans think only about the most efficient way, the fastest route with the least distractions.

And the sheer fact is that America is in the minority in this instance. Go to Mexico City, Rome, Moscow, Shanghai…there are no lines in those places either, no American sense of logic in the way the government is run or the way society functions.

Another reason why our guest had such a hard time functioning is another result of Americanization, or maybe suburbanization. He said that he couldn’t imagine driving here because when he drives at home he uses the time to relax and tune out. But here the notion of tuning out or getting lost in your own thoughts is a complete impossibility unless you are traveling outside of Cairo. You must be engaged in what is around you at all times in this city. Be aware. Be alert. Your life depends on it. And if you are the kind of person who cannot engage in the world around you and prefer to live in a world of your own making, this society will eat you up.

It’s partly just the age-old difference of city vs. small town. There are people for whom chaos is an inspiration. And there are people for whom chaos repels. And on the other hand, there are people who live in rural areas who find peace with the simple life while city people who visit rural areas have a hard time finding creative and thoughtful ways of entertaining themselves.

I think our second guest did manage to find something redeeming about the city after his 10 days: the people. In a city with 20 million of them, you cannot avoid them; you cannot dismiss them and once you allow them in, you will not regret it. Our guest learned this with the help of two young local boys. After one afternoon with them, all the things he had hated about this place seemed to dissipate and he announced that he might even miss it.

Speaking of locals, Davin and I recently had an amusing experience with one. We have made friends with Egyptians fairly unabashedly, against the advice of some of our Western brethren who prefer the company of their own. One such acquaintance, an 18-year-old grocery boy named Yahia, took our friendliness a little more to heart than we had wanted. We met him some months ago at a grocery store that we frequent. He talked a lot with Davin in Arabic and the result was that after asking Davin for our phone number, Davin gave it to him not really expecting to hear from him. Some weeks later, I was at home sick and had ordered groceries to be delivered (it costs 20 cents for delivery!). The phone rang about 10 minutes before the delivery boy was scheduled to show up. The caller was young, male and spoke only a tiny bit of English. I didn’t know who it was and, assuming it was the grocery boy, I said “are you from the store”? He said “yes, yes, from the store.” Then he asked what I was doing now, which I heard as “where are you now,” which I interpreted to mean he had gotten lost. So I gave him our address in Arabic to which he asked “Now?” and I said in Arabic, “Taban, delwattie.” “Of course, now.”

Some five or ten minutes later, the doorbell rings and I open the door and in walks Yahia who I don’t recognize as Yahia and assume is the right grocery boy. But he has no groceries. So there we are in the corridor of my apartment without my husband home (hugely taboo in this culture) staring at each other trying to communicate. I am starting to freak out because I have no idea who he is or what he wants. He mentions Davin’s name, and the Egyptian Museum. After about five minutes, I just say to him in Arabic “call Davin later but please leave now.”

Turns out he had recently run into Davin and told him he wanted to take us to the Egyptian Museum. So when he called here he meant to invite us to the museum, but in my confusion over who he was, I basically said … “Here is my address, come over now.”

Within the next week, he was calling here constantly and late at night — even after Davin said to him “don’t ever come to my house again unless I am home.” So Davin finally decides to visit Yahia at work and politely let him know that we appreciate his friendliness but that we will call him when we are free to visit the museum.

So Davin goes to the grocery store but Yahia isn’t there. He approaches the orange juice guy and asks about Yahia and says he will tell Yahia’s boss if he doesn’t stop calling us. Davin says “In our country, it is customary to call someone’s home only after many months of knowing them.” The orange juice guy says “yes, yes, it is the same in our country. You call someone only after knowing them well….Oh and if you have any more trouble or need anything, here is my number.”

Davin had another interesting run-in (no pun intended) with a local a couple of weeks ago. He was jogging down a one-way street and thus he didn’t look both ways when he crossed the street. Boom! He got hit from behind by an old guy in run-down Fiat. He went up on the hood of the car and then slid off. Luckily, he didn’t break anything. While he was on the ground, very shocked and in pain, the driver rushed to his side and began furiously kissing Davin’s cheeks. Davin yells at him to stop kissing him and then in Arabic yells, “You look. You must look. You drive bad!” — which were not the words he really wanted to use. His scrapes and bruises have gone and he has finally learned much stronger language to use in case something like this happens again.