One place or another ?

Everywhere I look around in Cairo I see Mexico, there are so many striking similarities it is a little unnerving. The people look almost identical, the same olive to dark skin tone, short and squat, many well on their way to obesity.Lots of boys are in their muscle tops, and the girls seem to be having a competition to see who can get away with the tightest pants almost revelling in the muffin tops they have going.
Like Mexico almost all of the food is fried, and really a falafel is a rolled up taco. And naturally every meal has to be washed down with a soft drink to make sure that Type 2 diabetes really gets going !!! They even cook their meat the same way here - the large, round and shallow frying tops with an indentation in the middle to make sure no fat is lost - meat and fat bubbling away.

The skyline of down town Cairo, actually all of Cairo, is filled with a forest of bland concrete towers, and it looks like nothing has been built or maintained since 1968, despite the historic age of the city - everything is made of cement. (Except of course in the new, ritzy neighbourhoods where they use glass) From ground level you can see determine the age of the buildings, despite the thick covering of black soot, by how much the cement has crumbled.

Like Mexico, the city is over run by chaotic traffic, and it appears at first glance there are no road rules at all - other than the pedestrian as the smallest object must give way to everything, but somehow the traffic manages to sort itself out. The age of most cars and the thermal inversion means that everything, including your feet, ends up being covered in black soot and the air is filled with smog 24 hours a day - it makes for impressive sunsets but terrible respiratory health.

Both societies have the veneer of being deeply religious - churches and mosques everywhere, but people are more than willing to break all the rules, (have a mistress or two, have a few beers at a bar, run a drug cartel, pinch foreign women on the bum, blow up infidels) and still go to the church or mosque once a week in a public show of faith.
Both also have a certain affection for the kitsch, fluorescent colours, 1960's style polyester suits, moustaches, way to much make up, shiny black SUVs in urban areas - the list goes on and on

Signs of Egypt

Egyptians love writing signs in English, from street names to restaurants to driving directions, everything gets a go in English, sometimes with very entertaining results.
Can't really argue with The Safety First !!

President Cool

Can you get any cooler than this ?
President Mubarak, some very big shades, and some building or other with its pet in the background.
Perhaps when he retires he could start up a Presidential Makeover show.

Alexandria photo highlights

I arrived back in Africa from Yemen in Alexandria, an incredibly historic city, perched on the edge of Africa in a beautiful setting looking out over the Mediterranean. A couple of years ago they rebuilt the famous library - which once held a copy of all books known to be in print. Now the building is more impressive than the collection !!!

Welcome to Egypt

After a five hour wait in the rather otherworldly airport in United Arab Emirate of Sharjah, I finally got on the plane bound for Alexandria in Egypt. The three hour flight was relatively uneventful, which in this region basically means no bombs went off, but the excitement started before we touched terra firma.
As we descended in to Alexandria, the "Fasten Seatbelts" light having been switched on ten minutes earlier, the plane did a few tight circles around the city and out over the Mediterranean sea, and about halfway through the second loop, almost close enough to the ground to reach out the window and touch the tops of the trees one passenger decided that he need to go to the toilet, so he stood up and started walking down the aisle. He almost made it to the toilet before the hostesses, who were strapped in to their seats noticed that he was wandering about and immediately started yelling at him, in person and over the loud hailer, to immediately return to his seat - you didn't have to speak Arabic to understand what they were saying.
Not long after we touched down, and about five seconds after we rolling on the plane's wheels rather then flying, still moving at quite a speed, three or four passengers stood up and started getting their luggage out of the overhead lockers, as if we were sitting still on the tarmac waiting to taxi on to the runway for take-off, when in fact we were hurtling along at high speed straining to slow down in time to not run off the end of the runway. The hostess again yelled them down, and eventually after a bit of back and forth everyone sat down. However this champing at the bit to get the jump over everyone else and be the first off the plane, caused a repeat of these events twice more before we actually came to a stop - by which time the hostess had pretty much given up their efforts, people were wandering about and even the Egyptian guy sitting next to me was shaking his head in dismay at the rather risky behaviour of our fellow passengers.
The complete stupidity of standing up on a fast moving plane was only underscored by the events that followed next - not only did all of the passengers have to wait for the transfer buses to fill up before anybody made it any where near the terminal, once inside it took at least an hour to make it through immigration. The arrivals hall was a linoleum floored, fluorescent lit room not much bigger than a class room, into which three aeroplanes worth of people crammed into, in what suspiciously looked like queues but functioned more like an NGO donating food to the starving operation. Whilst the majority of people accepted their status as equals and waited in lines, quite a number of people simply wandered past the queues along the side, thinking no doubt they were more important than anyone else, and then tried to insinuate their way in front by either catching the eye of some one they knew amongst the myriad of uniformed people who had something to do with immigration, surreptitiously drifting in to the front of the queue, or simply waving their passport around and asserting their importance. As I watched people for twenty minutes or show I saw the complete lack of any sense of order in the waiting, people would wander out of the queue, end up in arguments when they tried to sneak in closer to the front, be sent in to exile at the side for a while then rejoin at the back of the line. Despite the raised voices, lack of clean air, the early hours and lack of sleep, everyone seemed to be in relatively polite and good humoured. I got the feeling that this sort of queuing, chaos and inefficiency was common rather than exceptional.
Meanwhile the three narrow wooden booths which actually housed the immigration officials were completely surrounded in what can only be described as a shamozel. For some reason the process required that you hand your passport to the guy through the front window, then walk past the booth and wait around until your name was called out whereupon you fought through the waiting throng, collected your passport, had it checked by the guard on the door, and then got to collect your luggage. All this occurred in a classroom sized room, now filled with cigarette smoke and most men had lit up a fag and felt free to blow smoke in anyone's face.
I had managed to avoid the queue because as I walked in the door I was accosted by the waiting health officials who asked me whether I had any flu like symptoms, then took down my name and hotel details just in case. I had then waited for the Bank de Eigypt counter to open to purchase my visa for twenty minutes or so, but to no avail. I then had to push my way through the queue, just to get around the back of immigration officials, surrender my passport to the door man, walk across the luggage hall to the bank/exchange counter on the other side, purchase my visa sticker (which uniquely in my experience they let me stick in to my passport myself) return through the door, collecting my passport on the way, push my way through the throng to the back to start waiting again.
Somehow I managed to finally make it to the front of queue before everybody made it through, although there was probably only a quarter of the people left from the peak surge. Reassuringly I noticed that there were still quite a few people from my flight waiting. When I made it to the window the guy behind me actually waved me ahead of him, and I handed over my passport without a hassle and went to wait with the others.
And as a reminder that even waiting in a stuffy queue for an hour and a half at 2.30 in the morning can have a happy ending, I had the pleasure of meeting, Michele, a great Italian bloke who was at the beginning of his adventure, riding his bicycle across the middle east. Misery certainly does breed company, and the arrivals hall was a great introduction to the pleasures of Egypt.

Flight with a view

When you wander about in Africa people are always surprised that I take
the bus rather than simply jumping in an aeroplane and jetting from one
place to the next. Usually I explain my avoidance of flights by saying
that I came to see different things and from the height of an aeroplane
everything looks the same. Today I was proved wrong.
Flying over the middle of the Arabian peninsula - from Sanaa in Yemen to
Sharjar in the UAE in the middle of the day gave me spectacular views of
the Empty Quarter, the huge sandy desert in the middle of the Arabian
Peninsula. (Think Lawrence of Arabia, in the scene where they set out
for Aqaba)
The view out the tiny window gave a great perspective of the emptiness
stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Line after
line of golden sand, stretching to the horizon in all directions,
curving this way and that, but aligned in neat rows. It was almost
impossible to draw the eye away, as they instinctively followed the
lines this way and that, perhaps looking for an escape from the
nothingness. Nothing interrupted this beautiful natural sculpture, no
blemishes of vegetation or water, and no visible human impact.
As we rose higher the air was filled with sand whipped up by the
sculpting winds, the air turned yellow, and the desert disappeared like
a mirage.

Shibam Kids

In a small town called Shibam, not far out of Sanaa, I was adopted by some local kids who decided that I needed a guide to walk up the hill to see the nearby caves. After some jockeying between the kids my two guides ended up being a brother and sister, Abdul-Wahab and Rhemay, both under 10. We wandered up the hill and checked out a few of the caves, took a few of the obligatory photos, then sat around and had a chat. Abdul had recently met some tourists, and so he was curious about life outside of Yemen - or more accurately outside his village.
He asked me if it was true that in my country a man could live with any woman. I didn't quite catch the meaning, but he explained that he had met some Korean tourists and that there was a man and a woman who weren't married but had told him they lived together. He was shocked by the idea - and this from a twelve year old. He also asked me why I didn't have any children, at 32 I was already old !!! I asked Rhemay what class she was in at school and she told me that she was in grade four and when she grew up she wanted to be a doctor or an engineer. Her brother testified that Rhemay was the smartest in her class, and beamed with pride.
There seemed to me to be a gap between the expectations or dreams of this little girl, and the repressive nature of life as a women in Yemen - the requirement that you always remain completely covered in public, that you never speak to a male you aren't related to, that you marry early and that your main job is to make children and home. I am sure that the dreams of achieving are often trampled by the strictures of the patriarchy.
When we arrived back at their modest house their was no way they would let us go without first serving us tea and cakes, then juice and fruit, and then insisting that we stay for lunch. Despite how strange they might think I am, hospitality always comes first.

Faces of Yemen

Left: These kids, like almost everyone in Yemen asked me to take their photo, and then tried to tidy themselves up for the photo










Left: Mix of traditional (see the knife on the belt) and trackies
Right: When I grow up I want to be an engineer or a doctor

Two ways to hell

You can't really avoid religion in Yemen, there are mosques everywhere, almost all women wear the full burkha and hijab - leaving only their eyes visible, and when everyone disappears to pray - kids look at me and ask why I am not joining them. And whilst everyone takes it all very seriously, I find it a little hard to resist - two items for your entertainment:

The nearest mosque to my hotel blares out the usual call to prayer five times a day - starting at 4.30am. Those ... ignoramuses whinge that it wakes them in the morning and why can't they keep their prayers private, meanwhile the Loiterer sleeps through the early calls, struggles to make them out over the general din on the streets, and relishes the diminished crowds meaning less waiting time at restaurants and shops. However every time I hear the call from my hotel I can't stop laughing as the iman's voice is breaking, he sounds like a teenager with all the hormones firing. The pitch waivers up and down without rhyme or reason, any note he tries to hold starts with some base in it and usually trails off in a high pitched squeal - and all of it amplified by dodgy amps and tinny speakers. At first I thought he was just having a bad day, but it has been going on all week, fives times a day. I wonder what Allah thinks as She hears her name exalted by a pimply teenager.

The second is this mosque that is just outside old Sanaa. The photo doesn't show too well but yes it is baby pink and white - possibly the world's first (and only) gay friendly mosque.

Power up

Okay so now everyone in Africa has mobile phones but unfortunately universal supply of electricity is still a pipe (or should that be cable) dream.

So what do enterprising shop owners do - offer to charge peoples' phones. And if you are going to do one, why not do 15. One can just imagine Prince Phillip walking past commenting on the "darky wiring job" or Poppa Smurf having a heart attack at the risk this poses to world peace.

This photo comes from a small town on the Uganda Rwanda border.

Internet filter ?

Sitting in an internet cafe in Yemen, waiting for a page to load, I take a peek at the computer next to me, and the young guy is watching rocket launchers going off, someone throwing grenades, and some dodgy looking training exercises involving various types of weaponry and men in beards. All appear to be quality fundamentalist productions, bad light, shaky camera work and some guy wailing in the background.

I am both alert and alarmed.

Arab street kids

Sitting outside eating dinner in the street in a little back alley on the edge of old Sanaa town, I was reminded clearly that I had slipped from Africa in to Arabia by the street kids. Arabic street kids have a certain look, they are more jaded than other street kids, they look older, more like little people than kids. They have the suit coats and the mannerisms of adults, and seem to carry themselves that way as well. The way they are treated by adults is a little different to, in Africa adults would shoo away kids, but here they get whacked with the broom, back handers to the head, and have their hijabs pulled whilst getting a boot up the arse.

Naturally being the little man that her slight older an about half an inch slightly taller brother stands up and starts swinging haymakers at the six foot hero who is pulling his sister's hair. Eventually the hero realises how pathetic he looks and backs away to the shop and the kids scamper off to no doubt do battle again.

Sanaa - now you see, and you don't (May 6, 2009)

Sanaa, the capital of Yemen is marked by two things, one by it conspicuousness and the other by the exact opposite.

Sanaa claims to be the oldest continuously lived in city in the world (from around 600BC) but a few other cities in the Middle East make similar claims. What sets it apart though is that the down town area is contains almost exclusively Yemeni skyscrapers - built from traditional materials - mud, wood and straw - some of them stand 11 stories high and over 400 years old. There are so many that UNESCO declared the whole city a World Heritage Site. The architecture is unique and very impressive - tall, narrow buildings with mud brown walls and large decorative white plaster windows. The roads are very narrow which keeps traffic to a minimum, but doesn't stop drivers from driving like they are participating in a rally competition. The alleyways meander around the buildings, most ground floors are windowless, traditionally being the place where animals were kept at night, or shop fronts grouped together in areas depending on what they are selling but always with goods overflowing on to the street.

What you don't see in Sanaa, and for that matter, Yemen altogether, is women. There are a few here and there, but I went two weeks in Yemen without seeing a woman's face, which doesn't sound that strange, but imagine not seeing half the faces of people walking around you for a while - bizarre. Every woman I saw was completely covered in the big, black bag and with a veil as well - showing the eyes when they were feeling provocative, but often with another piece of material covering the eyes. Even women who work in the fields are completely covered, with only their eyes showing. I never saw a man and a woman touching, not even holding hands the whole time I was there.
Interestingly everyone in Yemen has satellite TV and they have access to programs from across the Arab speaking world - including from Egypt, where a majority of women don't even wear a veil, and from Lebanon - where woman weir the veil, but as a cloth to cover their entire bodies. But in the flesh, most men won't even see their wives face until they are married. A couple of young local guys I met explained to me that their parents were pressuring them to get married, and the process is as follows - mother and sisters find what they think is a suitable candidate, arrangements made to go to home of girl with mother,sister and father, in the presence of her father, and ask her questions - she is likely to remain veiled. Man then gets to say yes or no, enlightened men will inquire whether the woman agree to the marriage - most don't ask. Wedding date is arranged, and man has to get the dowry together - wedding is held early in the morning, and then all the men go to one tent to celebrate and all the women go to another. When I suggested it was a little sad that people didn't get to celebrate together, my new friends were perplexed - but why ? they asked. In a day and age when people have access to almost everything on the internet - access to the net is cheap and fast in Yemen, one gets the feeling that there must be a huge mass of very frustrated - both sexually and politically, young men and women, but I saw no sign of it. In fact there is the opposite - people are curious and surprised by the ways of others - a 12 year old boy I met asked if it was true that any man and women could go together in my country because he met a Korean couple who weren't married but lived together, so he presumed anyone could go with anyone else. Hard to tell what is more strange, what goes on in Yemen, or when the Yemenis think goes on elsewhere.

Africa is just not dangerous enough - off to Yemen

After eight months in Africa, no wars, no civilian unrest (well a little in Kenya), no rebellions (maybe close in Eritrea) and no diseases, (and one incredibly frustrating, expensive and ultimately failed attempt to get a visa) I am leaving Africa for some where with more action - Yemen. Have a look at this list of recent excitement in Yemen (that I poached off the internet):

• On 15 March 2009 a group of South Korean nationals were attacked whilst visiting a popular tourist site in Shibam, Hadramaut Governorate. Four South Koreans are known to have died with reports of the death of at least one other, whose nationality is unclear at this time. At least four others were injured.

• On 17 September 2008, at least 17 people were killed in an attack on the US Embassy in Sana'a, including six terrorists.
  

• On 30 April 2008, there was a mortar attack against the Italian Embassy in Sana'a.

• On 10 April 2008 an improvised explosive device exploded at an oil company headquarters in Sana'a, and a second device was disarmed.

• On 6 April 2008 there was a mortar attack against a residential compound in Sana'a.
• On 18 March 2008 there was a grenade attack against the US Embassy in Sana'a.
• On 18 January 2008, two Belgian and two Yemeni nationals were shot dead, with four other Belgians seriously injured, in an incident in the Governorate of Hadramaut.
• On 9 July 2007, an explosive device was found in Aden but was not detonated.
• On 2 July 2007, eight Spanish and two Yemeni nationals were killed,and a number of others injured, in a suicide bomb attack in Ma’rib,100 km east of Sana'a.
• The latest incident happened on 18 January 2009 where a German national and his two Yemeni colleagues were kidnapped in Shabwa Governorate. The hostages were released unharmed. On 2 January 2009 three South African nationals, including two children, were kidnapped on the Aden/Abyan road in the south of Yemen. They were released unharmed. On 14 December 2008 three German nationals were kidnapped in Bait Bous, on the outskirts of Sana'a. The hostages were also released unharmed. At the end of September 2008 a family of five Americans were kidnapped in the Governorate of Dhamar. Earlier that month, two Colombian oil engineers were kidnapped in the Governorate of Shabwa.All hostages were released unharmed. You should be aware that the long-standing policy of the British Government is not to make substantive concessions to hostage takers. The British Government considers that paying ransoms and releasing prisoners increases the risk of further hostage taking.

Breaking all the rules - inadvertently

In my brief time in Eritrea it seems I have inadvertently managed to set a record in the number of rules I have broken in a short space of time. All of the following are in some way prohibited by the mass of laws, rules and regulations which seems to ensnare most people in Eritrea which ever way they turn -

1. I crossed the border in to Eritrea from Sudan, supposedly the border is closed but there were plenty of locals passing through.
2. I was allowed in to Eritrea despite having a Ethiopian visa and entry and exit stamps in my passport. (The two countries were at war for thirty years, and then some more)
   
3. I never received a currency declaration form through which the government attempts to strictly regulate the exchange of foreign currency to its fixed rate of exchange.
4. I stayed the night in the border town of Tesseney, where foreigners are supposedly not allowed to go and are never given travel permits
5. I travelled in Eritrea without a travel permit - I made it from Tesseney to Barentu (another town that is out of bounds for foreigners) before the military police realised I didn't have a permit and took me off the bus. I was then escorted in to town to the Security Police and issued a piece of paper which authorised my travel to Asmara.

Massawa is sleeping

I finally had enough of waiting in Asmara and decided to head down to the coast at Massawa.

On the bus on the way down we stop halfway and some Cubanas join us on the bus - standing for the second half of the journey. I overhear them speaking in Spanish and so I start up a conversation. They are here for their compulsory service - you have to go and work overseas before you can practice as a doctor in Cuba. They are not the thinnest woman in the world and are suffering from the heat, one of them says to me "I leave in September and I will be happy if I never think of Africa again". (I suddenly think of a global pecking order - Cuba is poor but Eritrea is even lower on the list) Somehow despite their measly salaries and the complete lack of food they have somehow managed to maintain their voluptuous figures which fill out the tight trackies and jeans they have on in true Latina style.

I arrive in the mainland part of Massawa and then take a mini-van across the causeways, past the tank monument, to Massawa proper. It is hard to believe that during the 1930's the Italians turned the port in to the busiest in East Africa, building on a rich and mixed architectural heritage from the various peoples who have lived and traded here, including Egyptian, Turkish, Arabs and Portuguese. Sadly during Eritrea's fight for independence the Ethiopians bombed Massawa to bits (as revenge for the rebels seizing control of the town from the Ethiopians) and this is what you see today. Many buildings lie in ruins - huge holes in their roofs, bulging walls sometimes more horizontal then vertical and piles of concrete rubble strewn all about. During the short period of peace after independence some big shiny hotels were built on the shore but they are now all closed as the restarting of hostilities has almost killed all tourism in Eritrea.

I wandered about in the ruins and managed to find a hotel that had a room - the building was a huge three storey 1930's construction, which at its peak must have had thirty or forty rooms - it now had three. All the rest were boarded up, the roof have caved in across a couple, a stairway had fallen down, and everything is covered in a think layer of dust. The owner has managed to salvage a few rooms with the creative use of plywood, but even these are barely habitable. The other three hotels I have seen are all exactly the same, once grand but now falling down, a few others are completely closed.

I finally manage to get in the water and go for a swim. The water is incredibly refreshing, as it washes away the sweat that 40 degree plus temperatures have generated. There is no beach, and their is no one swimming. The water is clear but stays shallow for as far as I can swim out. It starts to get late and the hills in the background start glowing a soft red, hence the Red Sea.

On my way back from the swim I am walking along the street and a car slows and the window slowly slides down and I fill a rush of cold, air-conditioned air.
The driver asks me if I want a ride and I explain I am just walking around. He is surprised that I am a tourist in Eritrea, and clearly wants to talk. I tell him,
"It is very quiet here, Massawa is sleeping"
"It is because of the war", he replies
"The war is finished", I say
"No, no. War with fighting is good, it finishes. War with words is bad, it never finishes", he corrects me.
I ask him where can I find something to eat and he tells me where the best (only ?) fish in town is served before biding me farewell and driving off.

When I return to my hotel I find that it is full with guests, about 10 or 15 high school students from Dekemhare have showed up for the long weekend. They are finishing school in the next week and preparing themselves for what most call hell by drinking as much as they can over the weekend. All students who want to study after high school in Eritrea are sent away to a huge camp in the desert where they all live together for a year being brainwashed. It is hot, conditions are harsh and by all reports it is very hellish. Those who don't want to or can't study are sent to an even worse place for their education. The look in the eyes of these young people, a mixture of fear, dread, frustration and dire need to squeeze some small enjoyment out of life was very disturbing. They stay up all night drinking, listening to loud music and dancing - I can't begrudge their last chance at a little enjoyment. They are still going at six am when I get up to go for a swim. Again, I swim alone.

I spend two more days in Massawa and don't see another tourist. A few other students are in town but for a long weekend it is very very quiet. I wonder what it is like during the week. My dream of taking a boat across to Yemen is completely dashed, I can't imagine the last time a boat sailed out of this harbour.

I head back to the mainland to the bus station which is easy to find because next to it sits a huge Andronov cargo plane. I imagine that the Ethiopians left town so quickly that they didn't have a chance to get this behemoth off the ground. It has been turned it to a restaurant, but in a country with very little food there was no sign of even a menu let alone a meal. I get on the bus to leave Massawa feeling like I am leaving the twilight zone.