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Went on a boat ride on the Nile recently with some hasher friends, in a sailboat called a felluca. They're one of the signatures of the Egyptian Nile in my mind, and some of the only boats that cruise around the city sections of the river. Not many drawbridges that I know of around downtown at least, so there are few big ships that use the river as a thoroughfare.
Heck of a good time to meet up with friendly faces to down some beers and snacks on a silent boat, lazily cruising up and down the river away from the incessantly honking cars and yelling pedestrians. I actually did this 1-2 months ago when the weather was cooler, so it was pleasant to spend a Saturday afternoon in the shade of the boat with the (generally non-sewage-y) constant breeze. It was nice to just close my eyes and face into the wind, kinda like the content dogs with their heads poking out car windows on the road, with minimal cranial processes getting in the way of a good time. The beer, kebab-flavored chips, and caviar (!) certainly didn't hurt either.
I've been under the impression that swimming in the Nile was a generally ill-advised activity, but saw many a child and even a few water-skiers cooling off the in the water, and had some discussions with my fellow hashers about how the little water-nasties only tend to be found in stagnant water. Still, I didn't feel any urges to strip down and dive into the Nile.
A few beers later, I realized one of the limiting factors for felluca-enjoyment time; there are no restrooms of any sort on the boat. It's really just a basic single-deck sailboat, generally not designed for multiple-hour trips by beer-swilling foreigners. Hmm.
A few beers later, I realized that we were surrounded by water, the boat was full of hashers that I knew (well enough at this point), and that everyone else in Egypt was at least a few hundred meters away.
A few minutes later, I realized that the breeze I was enjoying before can also have other effects. Oops.
Hooey, on a roll tonight, one last post before I pass out again into my dehydrated, stomach-percolating stupor. Just some pictures of things that say "Cairo" to me at this point in my travels.
A spoon at El Fishawy coffeehouse, possible the most famous ahwa in Islamic Cairo, located in the middle of Khan al-Khalili, a market/souq/bazaar. Note how spoon is actually made from what appears to be tin from a scrapped oven (you can see the word "Oven" on the handle).
Cats. This one looks both silly and regal, which for me is typical of street cats around Cairo. Not too many dogs as I think many of them have been culled and Egyptians tend not to be dog fans.
Coptic priest who I sniped walking by poster of......hisself or a fellow bearded priest? Although a minority in Egypt, Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) Christians still have a nice community south of downtown a bit.
The Citadel, viewed from Al-Azhar Park. Citadel, awesome learning/ruling center of olden times. Al-Azhar Park, awesome greenery and parky goodness literally built on top of a huge pile of garbage....reminds me of that park in Mumbai that was built to keep vultures from dropping remains of dead Zoroastrians into the water supply as they carried remains away from the Tower of Silence. Read about Zoroastrian last-rites for some pretty cool information.
Angry freakin camels. I'm pretty sure that every monster/alien noise from the original Star Wars trilogy was sourced from angry camel sounds, from Chewbacca's complaining-about-everything noises to all the monsters used as steeds. Camels can be pretty cute when they're just hanging out, but irritated camels are some hideous beasts.
Don making out with the Sphinx, with special thanks to the little kids trying to get tourists to take these horrible, disrespectful photos.
And finally, friendly people confused by my friendship with a neon-green inanimate candy dispenser.
Some words in Arabic, like any language really, are phonetically similar to English words. Occasionally, this occurs with amusing results.
In the great video game of living in Cairo, one of my favorite mini-missions is collecting small bills. Apparently Egypt has a shortage of small bills, so people in the know tend to hoard 25 pt (100 pt = 1 LE), 50 pt, 1 LE, and 5 LE notes. These bills are essential for tipping bathroom attendants, paying bus and taxi fare, and pretty much everything else associated with daily living. Especially for taxi drivers, it's nice to have exact change so you don't give the driver the option of claiming to have no change, or invite additional haggling. Just pay the man through the front passenger window and walk away.
My obsessive nature and overwhelming cheapness makes this a hell of a fun mini-game. Every chance I get, I'll try and extract change from a point-of-sale. It's gotten to the point that I actually divide up my money into 3 pockets: 1 for big bills (20 LE and up), one for smaller bills (5-10 LE) and one for small change (1 LE and less). That way, I can just whip out everything in my pocket, starting with the biggest bills, and claim not to have any small change.
One time while buying a large bottle of water (2 LE), I tried to pay with a 20 LE note. Cashier looks at the bill, then at me, and says "fakka". I blink, and blink again. Did he just curse at me? He didn't seem angry at all, or even slightly irritated. He repeated it again - "fakka?" I blinked some more, and then he sighed and just gave me 18 LE in change. As I was walking away, I figured out that "fakka" probably meant "change" or "what the hell" or something along those lines, an assumption later verified by some friends. It means "to break up or disassemble", such as breaking up a large bill into smaller bills - so "do you have anything smaller", pretty much.
New mini game, at least for now - smiling and saying "fakka" at every point of sale when I try to pay for something with a bill that is at least 10 times larger than the actual cost of the item. The 11-year-old in me giggles every time, hehe. Then I walk away with my precious, precious change.
Been over two months so far of risky street-food sampling, eating all manner of friend/grilled organ-y goodness, and overall flaunting of my immune system and manly stomach acids. And no sickness! Everyone seems mildly surprised when they find I haven't gotten sick yet so far given the length of time here, and my eating habits.
Well, surprise surprise, my culinary hubris has caught up to me. I knew this was gonna happen.....in fact, I kinda expected something to happen from this particular meal.
There's this little sandwich stand near the hostel where I used to stay. There's a guy there who serves little sandwiches filled with either sausage (sogo') or liver (kebde), and I cleverly named him "the kebde guy". There's always a crowd of guys around his stand sampling his wares, and the smells that come from his cart are generally downright divine. Multiple people in Cairo have even referenced this very kebde guy as a source of very, very tasty treats.
They've also uniformly cautioned me that the food there, although delicious, is also highly "suspect" and that if I were ever to try it, to work out my immune system at other local places first, and even then, give myself at least two days after the meal to fully enjoy the "experience".
They were pretty much right on all counts. Twitchy has fallen, hard. Started feeling ill at work this morning (meal was last night around midnight), and slunk outta the office around 3pm when I really thought I was going to legitimately pass out (and then do unspeakable things while passed out). I feel like Icarus' lesser-known little brother Dwayne, who, after watching his big brother's escapades, went out and did the same freakin thing.
Luckily, like in many developing/non-western countries, pharmacies dole out every medicine possible with zippy prescription. All you have to do is describe the symptoms to the pharmacist (who generally speaks a workable degree of English) and you're set. In my case, this involved pointing at my stomach and colon, emphatically huffing "moshkela" (problem), and then using my hands to make spraying motions from my orifii. In addition, drugs in Egypt are subsidized by the government, so they're super cheap too. After getting advice from coworkers and browsing a few pharmacies, I have this little cocktail of various "intestinal antiseptics," "anti-intestinal amoebiasis," and "anti-protozoal" medications of almost-recognizable chemical compounds, including some promising quinones and nifuroxazides. Cost me about $3 USD.
I'm fine by most accounts, so no need to worry about me posting even less often than usual. In fact, after a few hours of shivering and sweating in bed, posting this is about as active as I'm going to get. So you have Egyptian parasites to thank for this recent update!
And to flush out all the mental images you may have right now of tapeworm thrash-metal bands and amoeboid mosh-pits, here are some super tender kittens that live in a nearby alley.
Heck of a good time to meet up with friendly faces to down some beers and snacks on a silent boat, lazily cruising up and down the river away from the incessantly honking cars and yelling pedestrians. I actually did this 1-2 months ago when the weather was cooler, so it was pleasant to spend a Saturday afternoon in the shade of the boat with the (generally non-sewage-y) constant breeze. It was nice to just close my eyes and face into the wind, kinda like the content dogs with their heads poking out car windows on the road, with minimal cranial processes getting in the way of a good time. The beer, kebab-flavored chips, and caviar (!) certainly didn't hurt either.
A few beers later, I realized one of the limiting factors for felluca-enjoyment time; there are no restrooms of any sort on the boat. It's really just a basic single-deck sailboat, generally not designed for multiple-hour trips by beer-swilling foreigners. Hmm.
