Farewell IH Cairo ILI

This week I am leaving IH Cairo ILI and someone else will be stepping into my shoes as the Marketing Executive.

This blog will stay fully active but I will no longer have control over it or be publishing posts, you can find all my Egypt ramblings on wordpress. The address is http://egyptexplorations.wordpress.com/

It’s been a pleasure and a privilege being at the ILI. I have met some great people and had a fantastic experience. However it is about time that I left the security blanket of IH Cairo behind and branched out to explore new areas and opportunities in Egypt.

So I bid farewell at the end of the week but I will be watching the new Marketing Exec’s progress with interest from afar.

Animal Care Egypt

I have long been waiting for an opportune moment to post a blog about the animals here in Egypt. I have had the material all written and waiting to be used for a long time now as I noticed the difference in attitude between here and the UK toward animals pretty much straight away. However, I previously held back from posting about this sensitive subject as it has the potential to be both upsetting and could also seriously tarnish your view of Egypt.

Happily I have recently found a positive context to set my writing in and also to provide an antidote to an otherwise pretty dismal case. With this in mind I am now more inclined to write a little piece about my observations of the treatment of animals by the majority of people here.

I know I am not the first, and I won’t be the last, ex-pat to feel utterly helpless and very sad when moving around Cairo and seeing the animals being so openly treated badly. Basically, the concept of animal welfare in this country is, quite simply, non- existent. It is worth being prepared for it, if this is your first time in a big, rapidly developing metropol like Cairo. You will encounter donkeys that have been left to stand all day in the heat and the trash just so that they can prop up a market seller’s trailer. In the backstreets chickens, rabbits and ducks are kept in tiny cages stacked on top of one to be sold as food and all over Cairo during Eid and sheep and cows are held in pens at the side of busy, dusty roads before they are taken to be killed for the feast.

This is heartbreaking to witness and however long I live in this country for, and whatever else I am able to adapt to, this particular feeling will never, ever change. However. I must stress. A vast majority of the time what you will see is not cruelty for cruelty’s sake. The behavior is generally derived from lack of education and poverty. Tradesmen who use animals to earn a living simply have no concept of the fact that they suffer, just like humans, with bad treatment. And, as Rami rightly informed me, when people have not even got enough money to feed themselves, they are not going to care too much for the animals that they eat or utilise.

So this is the tragedy told. However, the positive side to the story is that there are people and places who are helping the situation. One such organisation is Luxor – based charity Animal Care Egypt (ACE), which I will proceed to write a little bit about.

What is ACE?

Two animal lovers from the UK finally decided to take action after a visit to Egypt left them wanting to help. In 2000 they brought a small piece of land in Luxor with the aim to help care for the sick and tired working animals by providing a place to wash and water them. 12 years on and the charity Animal Care Egypt has been fully established and runs the only Veterinary clinic in Luxor. In addition, ACE gives educational talks children all over Egypt, from the city to the suburbs, to help prevent the mistreatment of animals being carried into the next generation. ACE provides a free service; relying on the support of volunteer vets from the UK and on donations.

This fantastic establishment caught the attention of my colleagues and me, when a devoted supporter of the place took an interest in our photo competition (see previous blog). Photography enthusiast Helen Bailey introduced us to her stunning portfolio of photographs from Luxor and the surrounds, including photos from ACE.

Because the cause she supports is so worthwhile, and her photographs are of a professional standard, we decided here at IH Cairo ILI that it provided the perfect opportunity to draw attention to a very good cause. Helen’s photographs will be installed alongside the ILI photography competition finalists’ pictures in order to raise awareness and donations for ACE.

I hope that this is the beginning of fruitful relationship between the IH Cairo ILI and ACE; we may even try and send some student to visit the place as the charity takes volunteers willing to help look after the animals, even if they are not trained vets.

 The photography exhibition will be on display week commencing April 22^nd and you can keep checking Facebook for regular updates. For more information on this incredible place visit www.ace-egypt.org.uk or email founder Kim on Kimace56@hotmail.com.

photo © H.Bailey- Aurelie Landrieu and Jules the Donkey

"Wallets with Legs"

I have been promising to share a few tips and observations for how to cope with the persistence of Egyptian tradesman when it comes to money.

As a friend of mine recently coined the phrase “they think we are wallets on legs”. This phrase stuck with me. I mean it aptly sums up the tourist industry across the world to be honest. However, in a place such as Egypt it is very apparent because those who ask for money are so very unafraid of doing so, and are extremely persistent about asking you for more - to an extent where it simply becomes unbearably uncomfortable and quite frankly, irritating most of the time.

Up until my friend’s visit to Cairo last week I had been relatively well protected from the full force of the hassling by my boyfriend, Rami. I won’t say they left us alone completely as this isn’t true, but his status as an Egyptian man and his ability to answer back to the traders gives him a fighting chance at avoiding of the worst of it.

I, on the other hand, without Rami, simply join the flock of hapless victims in a tirade of sellers touting their goods relentlessly at every tourist point and beyond. To survive the sea of tradesman without going under takes wit and determination, but it can be done.

The rule to me seems simple. Business is business. If you don’t want their product, just say no. Forget about awkwardness or buying something just to stop them asking, it’s your cash and if you don’t want to part with it keep stubborn. I am well aware that this is incredibly hard for many foreigners to get the hang of. The reason I know is because I have only toughened up since living here! 6 months ago I would have folded under the pressure and if I had gone to the pyramids alone I would have definitely ended up on the back of a camel, sporting a ridiculous gimmick Pharaoh headdress and clutching a hugely over-price guide book, probably written in Russian! I am usually a complete pushover, but here I have hardened!

So the first method of defense is to just say no. Some words you can use for this are ‘La’ which mean No and ‘Shuckran’ which means ‘thank you’ or ‘mish aiza’ which means ‘I don’t want it’. These with a disinterested wave of the hand are a start but are clearly not going to throw them off straight away.

Another tip is to simply ignore the sellers completely. This is hard as a lot of the time these people will simply not stop following you until you talk to them. This is most evident at the places that rely almost totally on tourism such as the Giza Pyramids and Khan El Khalili Bazaar. Unfortunately as soon as you stop to talk to them they become like barbs and will not leave. So I urge you come hell or high water to simply remain aloof. Continue conversation with your friends, change your direction and walk away, or stare straight ahead and resist the will, at all costs, to turn around. They do, eventually, get bored… most of the time.

One more thing to remember is that nothing comes for free. What I mean by this is that you should be aware of tourist traps at all times! If a shop keeper offers you or your child a free gift before you have even brought anything, chances are he will then use your captive attention to guilt-trip you into buying a load more stuff that you didn’t want and will never use. If you are invited for a ride on a camel, bear in mind that the man leading the camel actually has a physical method of trapping you on top of the animal until you pay extra to be let down.

When my friend and I were at the Pharonic Village, we were lead straight into a shopping area by the tour guide and into a shop where it was suggested to us that the next part of our ‘Pharonic Village Experience’ would be to get dressed up in silly costumes and have our photo taken; all with ‘no obligation’ to buy… of course. It was clear that out of our little party of four, not a single one of us was the least bit impressed by this suggestion. Luckily two of us were residents of Cairo and so we were able to tactfully get out this part of the trip. Again, if you don’t want it, say so!

My favourite moment of all during my time with my friend was at the end of the week when I had grown more confident in my ability to handle the hassle. We were sat down to dinner in Khan El Khaili and a small boy came up to us with a bundle of scarves – they start young in this country. Well, it is naïve think that there is any etiquette telling people to leave you alone when you are eating and by this time I had endured the pyramids and the bazaar on top of whole week of touring Cairo so I was at the end of my tether. We waved the boy away once and then, of course, he returned. I saw that he was a cheeky boy so I figured I would try and give him a taste of his own medicine and picking up Rami’s scarf I held it up to him saying ‘maya guinea’  which means ‘do you want this for one hundred pounds?’. Every time he tried to barter with his scarves, I tried to sell him ours - being just as persistent and I have to say, dropping my price impressively low! To my delight, my crazy plan worked and the child began to realise he was fighting a loosing battle and left us alone. I saw him around the bazaar a couple of times after that and it is safe to say that he did not try to sell me something for the rest of the night. Neither, I may add, did he purchase the scarf! This tip is one I will not recommend officially, however if you are feeling brave enough and you pick the right people it is fun to have a go!

If all else fails then getting angry sometimes helps. On the odd occasion both with my friend and even just alone in Cairo, I have felt the need to simply be rude. I wouldn’t recommend this either, as it is not looked kindly on all the time. But sometimes it really does get too much. The Giza Pyramids really are the worst. A couple of times up there I was genuinely frustrated and sometimes bordering on scared. One such incident was on the way up to the pyramids in the taxi when a man claiming to be tour police actually opened the door to the cab and got in the car with us! He was claiming that we were going the wrong way to the pyramids and that he “would take us.”  Forgive me for sounding paranoid, but I don’t trust any man that simply climbs in the car with two females without invitation- especially when I know exactly where the pyramids are, and that we were going in the right direction! I flipped and got the taxi driver to pull over. As I didn’t have enough Arabic to handle the situation in the man’s tongue, I simply relied on the tone of my voice and said, in English “I have lived in Cairo for 6 months and I have been to the pyramids three times. I know where they are, I do not need your help and I do not want you in my taxi, Get out. NOW!” If his English wasn’t up to speed then he certainly understood my tone of voice and exited the car pretty soon after that. Another example was when we were joined at the Sphinx by a young guy who was claiming to be a trainee tour guide. He seemed OK so I thought I’d let him take us round. However, when he started to harass my friend by not letting her leave the Sphinx until she had had her photo taken, despite her obviously feeling very uneasy and showing it, I got mad again. I swore, threw 2.50 EGY at him and left. The man tailed me for a while hurling abuse at me but he soon left us alone; it isn’t nice and I don’t like doing it,  but sometimes enough is enough.

If you are not accustomed to Cairo and especially if you are female, touring round can leave you feeling harassed, exhausted and paranoid. It really shouldn’t be this way and I wish that Egyptians would learn that they are more likely to get customers if they leave tourists alone; but they haven’t learnt yet, and chances are it will continue to be the tourists who have to fight and adapt.

You can avoid a lot of this with orgnanised tours like the ones arranged by IH Cairo ILI. I never before particularly liked or appreciated the idea of a full package tour which includes tickets, tour guides and buses. However, the less adventurous travelers will certainly benefit from a much higher level of protection in this country than those who try and do it alone. It also allows you the chance to learn something, as tour guides on the sites are less than adequate most of the time, barely even able to speak English sometimes! Organised tours, as long as you are with a legitimate company, are the best way to avoid hassle- although you may want to weigh the cost of being conned out of money against the added costs that tours like this incur. At IH Cairo ILI we have a good relationship with a reputable company so students can get out and about without needing to worry.

Living in Cairo I am constantly being surprised by how clever the tradesman can be. Just when I think I have seen it all, I am blown away by new levels of persistence and cunning. From taxi drivers spinning a yarn to make you feel sorry for them, to market sellers spending not less than a whole hour haggling with a foreigner over the price of two pashminas, it never ends. Because of this, despite all of the above hints, sometimes even I admit that you just have to give in and accept that if you book to come to a country like Egypt, you will get the whole Egypt experience, hassle and all. It is unjust, it shouldn’t happen, but even Rami, a born and bred Egyptian male, sometimes gives in just for the sake of a few minutes peace.

I think the thing to remember, for Westerners, is that the £5 or $5 that you may have spent on one sandwich back home translates to 25 or 50LE here and, at the moment at least, it may be some of the only income that many people get in their entire working day. So it’s subjective, but sometimes, if it is well earned, I feel it is ok to part with a bit of cash. For example, when going around the Pharonic Village, the tour guides were not expecting a tip. But they did their job well and I felt they earned a few extra pounds, so I tipped each one accordingly. In the street I will buy tissues from the tissue sellers because they are providing a product that I need. At Khan, if someone entertains me and sells their product well, I don’t see a problem in buying from them. I even paid a taxi driver far too much for a taxi leaving the pyramids because I was tired, my friend was tired, and we were just happy to have someone to help us escape!

BCA Mohandeseen Review

I would like to add a quick word in my blog about the BCA Mohandeseen. I finally got the chance to go and check out the new loction, which is now just few minutes away on the same road as IH Cairo ILI, because I was invited to go and see an Irish band in honour of St Patrick’s Day (Patron Saint of Ireland). To get to the place you turn right past the petrol station on Ahmed Orabi street (heading towards Sudan Street from Sphinx Square). The building is on the second block right opposite a fruit seller and a lot of trees. You really wouldn't notice this building unless you were looking for it as there are no signs outside to speak of. It is  a white building, set back behind a gate. There are security on the door and asking them is the best way to make sure you have the right place!

Just to clarify: The BCA Mohandeseen is now in Ahmed Orabi and not near the Dokki Shooting Club. The website and the Facebook page have different and contradicting information on them. The BCA venue at the top of Mohandeseen closed before Christmas 2011 to relocate to the bottom of Gamet El Dowal, by Sphinx Square. For people new to Cairo I am pretty sure that, like us before Christmas, if they didn't know better and tried to check the website for information then they would never find it.

The BCA is the place to go for a taste of Britain and it is perfectly adequate for the purpose, although like I said to Rami, if you are not native then Britian's standards of pub and bar should not be determined by just this one experience.

I did not get to see the previous venue at the top of Mohandeseen but I was told the new one is not as nice. It is a little dark and small and it doesn't appear to have much potential for out door seating in the summer although I cannot confirm this as it may have  garden. However on this particular night the music was fab and it was full of foreigners, primarily Brits, to make me feel a bit like I was back in a multicultural pub in London on a Thursday night.

We once again sampled the cuisine. It was a dish of Irish stew made especially for the evening. I feel it was a little overpriced for what it was -50LE each and it was certainly not the best stew I have ever had. In fact it didn't really resemble stew at all, more meaty soup. There were no hearty chucks of meat and vegetables and the soup wasn't well seasoned or warming like a stew should be. After the mashed potato experience of the BCA Maadi I have come to the conclusion that if the BCA are going to offer traditional British food they must employ a British chef, or at least a chef who has sampled authentic UK dishes and knows what they should look and taste like! 

However, it was nice to relax with an alcoholic drink for a change, talk to nice people, and listen to good music played by very talented musicians. The alcohol selection was not great - they didn’t even have Guinness (a traditional Irish drink) but at least we could go and have a beer out, and pay the prices that were advertised with no added taxes!

Personal opinions of the BCA will differ greatly I am sure, and it entirely depends on who you are talking to. There are people who simply do not feel the need or desire to intergrate into the life of the country they are living in, who I imagine will feel like the BCA is a safe haven for them to go every week to socialise. Of course this is its primary purpose and I think it suits the job very well for those who need it.

Personally I would say a venue like this is great for a specific event (such as a band night or a party) and it is reassuring to know it exists so close to work, so if I ever feel very homesick I can go and get a taste of the UK. However I don’t think I will be a regular visitor at this one as I am quite enjoying my cafe and shisha Egyptian nights at the moment; sampling the vast selection of fantastic ahwa's (coffee shops) around Cairo on a weekend. I believe I will leave regular pub nights for when I am back in the country that does them best!

A Tribute to a Coptic Orthodox Leader Pope Shenouda III (1923 - 2012)

This week I was going to disclose my survival tips for coping with the unfortunate reality of scams here in Egypt. However, something a little more somber has come up which I feel should be mentioned.

Yesterday the news reported the death of Pope Shenouda lll, aged 88; much beloved and highly respected leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church. He had been suffering long term health problems.

Instated into Papacy in 1971 Pope Shenouda III was the 117^th Pope of Alexandria. He guided the minority religious group in Egypt through 40 years of the church’s development, overseeing huge growth of the denomination across the world in the USA, South America and Europe. Over the years he has been a stalwart for peace between religious groups and was seen by Copts as a man who protected their religion from persecution.

Shenouda’s body currently sits in State at Cairo's Abbasiya Church, where thousands of mourners are passing through to pay their last respects. He will stay like this until Tuesday where he will be buried, according to his will, at Wadi el Natrun Monestry.

 A new Pope will be chosen through a voting system by board members of the church's city councils. The council’s vote on three preferred candidates and the final choice is made when a name is picked out of a box by a young child.

This blog is not a platform for me to comment on the political and social repercussions of this sad event. However it is safe to say that Shenouda’s death at such a time of political uncertainty has certainly come as a great blow to the Copts of Egypt. After the period of grieving I am sure that most Copts will be waiting in anticipation to see who will fill the shoes of an iconic man who is universally deemed to be irreplaceable . The leader will have to be a man astute enough to lead their group into what could be a very 'new Egypt’ after the elections and calm enough to rest his congregation’s minds about the future of their church. It is no mean task but I am sure it will be achieved.

I should just take a moment now to clarify that although religious clashes do take place, for the most part Muslims and Christians in Egypt live, work and socialise together in harmony irrespective of their beliefs. I do not see a continual war here between the two groups; in fact almost all of Rami’s closest friends are Muslims despite him being Orthodox. Today at work there were condolences passed around between Christian and Muslim staff, and everyone is saddened by the death of a good man.

Rest In Peace Pope Shenouda III 

Pope Shenouda (1923 - 2012)

Doing the tourist route of Cairo

Due to a week’s holiday followed by a day’s sickness and then a severe case of writer’s block, I confess to missing my blog entry last week! Apologies to all if you were waiting!

I find that being ill in Cairo is one of the most arduous things that can happen.  If it wasn’t already a drag to be laid up in bed with whatever horrid ailment you have, you then take into account that you are in a foreign county and everything is different and, for me at least, everything seems much harder to cope with. It feels like all symptoms are heightened when living in such a mad environment. An illness that may not have seemed too bad back in my quiet little life in England totally floors me in Cairo. A headache feels like a migraine, a tummy ache feels like appendicitis. My conclusion is that this is probably partly psychological but partly due to the environment. The traffic, the noise and the general onslaught of activity that greets me as soon as I am out of the door is often simply overwhelming when I am also feeling under the weather. Generally living here is exhausting on a good day; there are constant battles with dust thrown in your face by traffic, roads that are deathtraps, hot, stuffy weather in the summer and to top it off, as a woman, constant unwanted male attention to fend off.

Although I am not really painting a great picture of Cairo, all the above becomes  the norm of daily routine and so, to be honest, after a length of time is just something one gets used to. However, take this routine and then add to it a sore tummy or a runny nose and it is easy to see how one can be excused for needing a sick day every now and then!

Reaching a doctor here is in some way much easier than it is back home in England and in some ways trickier. I will explain.

In England a person can go to their General Practitioner or family doctor for almost anything, from general illness to a worry of something more serious. Their GP can then refer them to a specialist or prescribe drugs as need be, so one is never at a loss as to where to go for medical advice. Here in Egypt I have not as yet found an equivalent to the English GP. From my experience a diagnosis involves the patient having to pay a specific specialist in a private clinic or hospital. I have been informed by my Egyptian colleague that there are public hospitals that you can go to but of these we will not vouch for the quality and I do not know much about the systems involved. With private hospital it's as such: if your hair is falling out then you go to a hair specialist or if you have a headache you go to a head specialist and so on and so forth.

In theory this seems fine, but I do not really know where you go if you just want some peace of mind on a general non-specific illness. This spider web of different doctor networks can be rather hard for a foreigner to navigate; I mean, most ailments may seem fairly self-explanatory, but a headache could actually be because of a tooth problem and back ache could actually be something  psychological… you see the dilemma with self diagnosis! However, when you have found the right specialist I am informed that most doctors in Egypt, unless you are unlucky, are very competent. Certainly I would argue that because paying for healthcare seems to be standard rule and not choice, doctors have a vested interest in a good success rate and hence a good reputation. 

As for appointment times and the length you have to sit and wait for a doctor I can’t comment as they seem to be different with every single practice. Again, I would say that there is actually a better system in place in most of the clinics here because most practices are open in the evening after working hours. In England you either have to make sure you are sick on a day when there are enough appointments free for you to guarantee one, or you have to book annual leave from work and then sit in the doctors waiting room for hours while old people with all the time in the world take up your valuable holiday talking to the doctor about their ingrowing toe nails. Neither are particularly efficient or effective methods!

All medical training in Egypt is done in English, so there is no worry about not being understood once you reach your chosen doctor. However, the sheer scale of Cairo can make the prospect of trying to find the right place and person a touch difficult. Here at IH Cairo ILI we try very hard to help students as much as possible, but I do feel very grateful, on the occasions where I have needed a doctor, to have had my boyfriend around to help me find my way through the labyrinth of different names and specialists.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, for a lot of minor medical problems I have found very competent, professional and highly trained pharmacists in abundance in the city. A pharmacy can be recognised by the universally recognisable sign of a sign of a snake wrapped around a wine glass. I have dragged myself to these mystical apothecaries on many occasions with bad colds, chesty coughs, inflated eyelids, inflamed mosquito bites and more, and I can safely say that every pharmacy I have been to has prescribed exactly what I am looking for and at a reasonable price.

I continue to tell myself at least I was not ill the week before, when my friend was here staying. I have enough material from her visit to cover at least two blogs as we did some hardcore tourism whilst she was here, filling the short 6 days of her stay to the full trying to cover as much of Cairo as possible. So I will write about a few of the experiences we had in this blog and then save some for later.

Our first pleasant surprise on our little tour of Cairo was The Pharonic Village in Giza (Kourea Pharony in Arabic). In good traffic (we went on a Friday so there was nothing on the road) it is just 15 minutes away from IH Cairo ILI and only cost us 11LE to get there. Obviously this will change depending on the time and day you go. The actual entry fee is pretty expensive. You can buy different packages depending on how long you want to stay there but on average it is nearly triple that of the pyramids at around 170LE! When I questioned this them Ticketer explained it was because they were privately funded so took no money from the government to run. I guess I can believe this, in fairness. They employ a lot of actors who are probably being paid a very low wage.

The whole resort is set in the middle of an Island in the Nile, shielded from the public by masses of Papyrus. It is, in essence, a Disneyfied Ancient Egypt.

The first thing you do is a platform boat trip around the island, learning about all different elements of Ancient Egyptian life from little sideshows with live actors. It is fun and informative and something I think that children will enjoy tremendously. After this you are greeted by tour guide number one who takes you around a mock Temple, a Rich man’s house, a poor man’s house and various other exhibits, all brought to life by actors. He then takes you to a recreation of Tuttenkamun’s tomb and then onto a photo booth and a shop to try and squeeze a bit more money out of you!  Next, if you have paid for the museum package you are then handed over to two more tour guides who walk you round a couple of museums where you learn how mummies are made and what the main pyramids are. They are fairly interesting and I actually quite enjoyed having the tour guide with me. I never really digest any information in museums unless it is brought to life- my mind always drifts to what I am about to eat for lunch… so to be told it does somewhat let it stick in my head a bit more.

After this there is a short wait and then you have an hour long boat ride on the Nile. It was pleasant enough, although I prefer the sail boat that I go on with Rami, it is a lot more environmentally friendly and a lot more relaxing! You do pass an awful lot of run down and impoverished residences on the boat trip –it is a somewhat awkward insight into ‘how the other half live’ , but the inhabitants we saw seemed fairly used to it, and some even waved at us, fortunately.

In conclusion, I took my friend there for a bit of fun and to give her a brief overview of Egypt’s history before we went to all the real ancient sites as well as satisfy my own curiosity about the place. Keeping in mind that a large proportion of Egypt’s main tourist attractions are appallingly badly equipped in terms of tangible information to help visitors learn (by way of guide books or on site learning aids), this place provides bitesize  and fun facts, mainly for young people with an enquiring mind. It is overpriced in many ways, but (in my opinion at least) it is not the complete disappointment that some people may try  to sell you on Tripadvisor. http://www.pharaonicvillage.com/tour.html

Reviews on trip advisor ranged from 5 stars and loving it to 1 star and saying it is all just an elaborate way of taking your money. Well, probably, but it is all subjective and I have developed my own rules about how I tip and how I also manage the incessant pestering for cash. I plan to cover this next week.

The same day we also decided to pop up Cairo Tower in Zamalek. This is a nice little diversion for an hour or so. Unfortunately for those who wish to, there are no stairs for visitors to use except in emergencies so you can’t climb up or down (we wanted to walk down). The whole experience is an elevator up and then as long as you wish to spend up at the top. My advice is don’t go up on in bad weather! It is freezing cold and the view is not good when there is fog across the city. On a clear sunny day you can see the whole of Cairo up to and beyond all the pyramids in Giza and Saqquara. Whilst up there this time we saw and heard one of the regular Friday protest marches from Tharir Square, which was quite exciting to witness.

There are various restaurants in the tower that you can take a break in and draw out your time in Cairo a bit longer. The best one is a fantastic rotating restaurant, giving you a 360 degree view of the city whilst you sit and eat. The minimum charge per head is 150LE so not too bad for a lot of tourists considering the setting.

All in all day one with my friend was pretty successful and set us up for a great few days of sightseeing after that, which I will write a bit more about in my next installment.







The cup and snake Pharmacy sign





The entrance to the mock tomb at the Pharonic Village



What's hiding under the Bridge...?

I am pleased to say that, last weekend, I finally managed to get to one of the places that has been on my to-do list since my first month here - El Sawy Culture Wheel in Zamalek.  This famous venue is just a very short walk, and an even briefer taxi ride, away from my home,  making it a great place to go for an evening of entertainment.

I initially heard about this place through a former IH Cairo ILI co-student, who had had a hugely entertaining afternoon at the centre, watching a lecture about the future of renewable kinesthetic energy generated by wind turbines in Egypt! I am pretty sure that she didn’t understand a single word, but the pictures were probably nice! I still do not know exactly why the prospect of watching an Egyptian conference on sustainable energy tempted me to investigate El Sawy further but needless to say when I realised my proximity to the place after my move I was extremely keen to check it out further as soon as possible.

The centre is located right by the Nile in Zamalek and it is certainly one of the quirkiest structures I have ever seen, with clever utilisation of the little space offered to it. The bulk of the centre is actually situated underneath the 25th July Bridge- with the underbelly of the bridge itself having been transformed into one of the multiple staging areas. Lighting scaffold hangs from the huge concrete edifice and the crowds gather in front of a stage that is set back into the depths of the concave arch of the flyway. It really does make an inspiring setting for cultural activity!

At first glance it is hard to believe that residents of a non-stop city such as Cairo would have time to take in any sort of cultural offering. But this is certainly not the case where the Culture Wheel is concerned. On a regular basis hoards of people flock to the arts venue to take in comedy, music, seminars, classes, workshops and more and the creativity of Cairo citizens is finally given the breathing space it needs in what can be a pretty claustraphobic city.

I have walked past the venue on many occasions to see it buzzing with patrons making full use of the space, from chilling out in the café, or taking part in a martial arts class, to queuing up ready for a live performance. Most of the time the majority of visitors seem to be Egyptians, but foreigners are more than welcome and publicity material is printed in English and Arabic.  These leaflets can be found in cafes across the city, as well as in art galleries and bookshops.

So, back to my own visit to El Sawy!  I went to a gig by popular band Cairokee as my first venture.  Producing an eclectic mix of Arabic folk and modern Indi Rock , Cairokee attracts Egyptian youth en-masse wherever they go. Just like my Australian classmate and her wind turbine lecture, I confess I barely understood a single word but the music was great and by the appearance of the fans the lyrics were certainly very rousing as they were singing along with fervor. My housemate and I managed to bag ourselves a great space, perched on a raised wall looking over the crowd below, so we saw it all perfectly and remained comfortable in the process! Luckily the evening was not too chilly, and the heat from the crowd (and probably the traffic above us!) also kept us warm; definitely a concern of mine when attending an outside concert anywhere in the world, even Cairo at the moment!

The highlight of the night was probably the Egyptian rapper who made a guest appearance. I believe he is a famous singer judging by the reaction of the crowds, but for the life of me I could not tell you who it was! I find rap a strange music form anyway, and one that is particularly difficult to follow even when sung in English; Arabic rap therefore was most certainly a rhythmical treat for my ears! However, how many people can say they have sat under a bridge next to the Nile and watched a live Egyptian rap artist sample an Arabic Indie song? Not many I guess.

An annual membership to this great venue can be brought for around 70LE, meaning that you have unlimited access and can spend summer evenings relaxing right by the Nile in the café, and the membership also allows you to participate in the classes that are being run (yoga, martial arts etc) for a lot cheaper. I will certainly be keeping an eye on forthcoming events. Maybe I will see some theatre next time as it has been far, far too long since I have stimulated my creative side!

For an English website check http://www.culturewheel.com/eng 

Cairokee at El Sawy