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26 April 2015
48 Hours from 3,5 Months in Amman
I am on a residency in Amman for three and a half months whilst Ronnie plays hard in Cairo. The residency is called Spring Sessions and brings together a group of artists, designers and architects mainly from Jordan and some from Palestine, Iraq and one from Greece. Everyone is working on his or her project and sharing ideas on work in progress. There is also a series of workshops led by international artists on various themes, including urbanization, public space, migration and collective memory. I have been incredibly busy with lots of research and some first art works, therefore the text below doesn’t represent my time in Amman. However, Ronnie thinks it’s says so much about art group dynamics, life logistics and meeting strangers. I wrote the text for our last workshop where we spent 48 hours together walking through the city from one person’s home to another and some additional happy_memory_places to tell stories about ourselves and get to know the city in a different way. Looking back, I absolutely loved it! However, before we started I was worried about talking, eating, sleeping, being together in a group of 15 for such a long time without any opportunity to withdraw. But life always turns out unexpected… |
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My body rejects the idea of a forty-eight hour get-together and pushes me into a violent migraine. It ends just in time with 8 hours to go before we all meet. With one hour to go, I receive an urgent mail with questions to answer by the next day. It takes me seven hours and I miss the first night walk through Amman sitting in the Studio staring into the dark. I write about art and mushrooms; how they spread underground whereby most of the growth is invisible but every so often a fruiting body grows above ground. Only then we become aware of the actual mushroom and its hidden structure. With this awareness I see everyday life with different eyes. After seven and a half hours, I hear noises from the corridor. Six people return to declare The Coalition of the Tired Feet, leaving seven people behind at N.’s house. My feet are fine but my bum hurts, so I join - for better or worse - the discussion on living life in eight-hour shifts. Together we lie on our backs with feet up in the air and dance choreographed moves for eight minutes in a group of seven. An upside-down photograph and a written manifesto act as proof of our giggling banter and nightly prank. Eventually one by one falls into the night and I find myself alone. I crawl into my sleeping bag and listen to the morning prayers. An hour later, I still shuffle in my bag, attempting to place my nose and ears into a spot where I can neither smell the turpentine from the print workshop nor hear the obnoxious rooster declaring prime time. |
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I wake up early, cursing my forgetfulness. My phone and keys are at home. My tired body aches. After breakfast I curl up on the sofa in the sun waiting for everyone to arrive. I wake up disoriented and begin to realise that waiting any longer might result in forty-eight hours on my own – a rather attractive thought to my tired mind. Some people spend time with others and feel energized, for me it’s the opposite. Being in company for too long fills me with too much information. My mind can’t process quickly enough and my batteries run low. Only twenty-nine hours to go. Where is everyone? How can I find a group on the move? How do I get hold of my phone and keys? I walk home, up several steep stairs to Jabal Amman where I stand in front of the closed door. E. is not at home. Ice cream fills up the next half hour. I sit on a bench overlooking Amman imagining the group on different hills. Licking the sweet cold cream it suddenly seems easy: I just need to borrow someone’s phone, get on the internet, find E’s phone number, borrow another phone, ring her and arrange to meet. Less than half an hour later E. drops by in a taxi with my phone and keys. Meanwhile I start talking to the Turkish woman who lent me her phone. We talk about Gezi Park and Tahrir Square, about female dress codes in Izmir and Amman and the (dis)advantages of being mistaken for a Jordanian woman. She thinks I’m lucky by sticking out. I don’t agree. The conversation moves onto Jordanian food. I feel like I can talk to this woman for a lot longer. I ring A. for the latest group location. Du kannst nicht zur gleichen Zeit auf zwei Hochzeiten tanzen comes to my mind as I hop into a taxi. The taxi driver is a Bedouin and I ask him about Jordanian mushrooms. His face lights up and he tells me about his favourite dish; ‘Kima we lahme’, cooked by his mother. I call N. and pass the phone to my driver for the latest location update in Arabic and finally meet the group at ‘The Cake Shop’. From here, we walk together. Twenty-seven hours to go... |
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9 January 2015
The sea, the sea and everything in between
The New Year 2015 started quietly for us and we left Cairo for the remote seascape of the Sinai Peninsula. Our last blog entry was the October 2014 at the El Eid holidays where we traveled to Sharm El Sheikh to a large resort/prison camp.
At that time we went there with the exciting news that Yvonne was pregnant which obviously dominated our last few months of 2014. The tragic ending after six months in December just before Christmas have been the worst time in our lives. So with a sense of incongruity to this other Sinai trip overshadowed by the recent traumatic events we went back to the sea. This symmetry of holidays shows the two sides of life and how tragedy is just a blink away from happiness. |
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We traveled to a small port village called Nuweiba that has a number of hotels and basic guesthouses. The sea and weather were rough which meant swimming was closer to a Northern European experience than the usual tranquil warm waters of the Egyptian Red Sea. The whole experience was reminiscent but colder than Las Canaries at this time of the year. On arrival I borrowed a wet suite from Maged the owner of the eco-lodge Habiba. From the start I knew something was wrong as the fit was a little too snug however I managed to squeeze in. But the discomfort was amplified as I put it on back to front without realizing it. The second day I went for a longer swim and after squeezing into the ill-fitting suite again, with blood cutting off to parts of the body, and again back to front. It felt extraordinarily uncomfortable and movement was restricted where I could hardly move my arms. Pain shot around my right arm in particular. When I removed it I noticed burn marks on my arm and shoulder and could feel the pain even when circling the coral reef in the water. The burns were so bad it cut short my use of the suite again and even swimming itself, I looked like I had been branded by a weird shaped hot iron. |
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Luckily help was at hand, in other ways too, with a brilliant yoga teacher, Susan, living alongside the beach with her husband Kareem. We did daily yoga class and even moved to a guesthouse next door to her to be closer the action. The area is controlled by three local Bedouin tribes who scour the beaches looking for seafood and to sell their handmade products to any tourists. Sadly for them there are almost none due to travel warnings about Sinai. Abandoned hotels, straw beach huts and independent guesthouses blot the coast. There were 3 or 4 open out of 30 or so encircling the local village which gave the place an eerie feel. We were surprised to learn that Israeli tourists used to come in big volumes up until 2004. Furthermore the Israelis only returned the Sinai territory to Egypt in 1982 and even ran a Kibbutz farm plus other horticultural developmental projects in the area into the late 1980s. |
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The locals seem to have flexibility in accepting outsiders, not something I have seen before in many parts of Egypt and in nearby Dahab it’s like a Moroccan 1970s hippy throwback. The small commercial town is saturated with backpackers, scuba divers of various types and ex-pats who are hiding out from the European winter by hanging out in the small town. The seascape is complimented by beautiful desolate mountains where still some tribal families live in traditional nomadic ways. These wild spaces have little vegetation or food and we were shown how flatbread is made inside a wood fire. The delicious bread is baked quickly and the wood charcoal scraped off before eating. It gives the bread a crispy smoky crust that was delicious in the cold mountaintops with a cup of tea. Another extreme of the weather are sandstorms, blown from the mountains that can freeze you quickly or blind your vision. On the clear days we could see the parallel mountain range of Saudi Arabia, which is only 17KM away across the short stretch of the Red Sea. The cultural influence is evident in the local indigenous Bedouins whose accent was hard for us to understand and ours for them. In this windswept place the locals are great improvisers. I talked with a man and his son most mornings when they were fishing on the coast with an impressive array of fish and octopus caught. One day they were killing time and played chess on the beach, without a conventional board. But they had made a chess set from different bottle tops and standing stones with the squares of the board scooped out of the sand. Was hard to follow but they seemed to know what was happening. |
Sinia is a wild, barren windswept place that is the perfect antidote to Cairo’s crowded noisy streets and much else.
Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.
(C.S. Lewis)
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7 October 2014
Domino time in slowmo
The annual Eid kibeer holiday is one of the biggest in the Muslim calendar and we get at least a week off thanks to it. We booked a last minute beach holiday in Sharm el Sheikh. Given the reputation of Sharm charm we decided to book one of the more up market places with direct access to a coral bay. The resort is 20 minutes from the airport with a number of hotels sharing the bay and facilities. As we were top dollar clientele we were allowed access to all parts of the complex and were spared the branding of wearing colored wristbands to denote our status. Also we had prime beach space, one very good restaurant (and choice of 9 other inferior ones) and were hassle free. However the space was controlled - even into the water where areas were demarked to restrict access.
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This benevolent comfy prison camp was further policed in the next dimension of time. As bad as it was figuring out when the varied bars, beach bars, buffet restaurants, ala carte restaurants opened and closed we were told that there was 'domina time' which is 1 hour ahead of the Egyptian time zone and imposed by the hotel organisation. There was little logic behind it and meant that everything opened early and closed relatively early. So sunset on the beach, one of the nicest times to be there, is outside of beach access time! That’s right, even the swimming times on the beach were controlled and you were not allowed in the water after 5pm!
The law of Domina rules sea and land. The only excuse was preventing the hordes of Russian mobsters from totally destroying the fragile coral life but they do a good job in daylight hours and think nothing of taking a break by standing on the coral in their flippers. The fish are a wonder and lets hope it survives for the next generation, but maybe not. The fish seemed pissed off, Ronnie got bitten by one in an unprovoked attack. Apart from these sea perils and endless observation in hierarchical control of time and space it was a very enjoyable place. The marine life in the red sea is a wonder and tops anything we have seen before in the Mediterranean or Atlantic. Cairo_Egypt dissolves into a bubble of Russian and Italianness. It was hard to find anything familiar to life in Cairo and all the staff could speak a range of languages. Topless sunbathing and flowing booze were the order of the day and uncommonly the work force had been given a hands off the tourists mandate. Few of the customary chats and tipping situations occurred. Even our Arabic engagements didn’t arouse such hoohaa and we just hope the working conditions are better than in most hotels in Egypt were staff depend on some extra income to supplement their miserable pay and long hours. We certainly paid out in the final bill, which was not any cheaper than a similar place anywhere in the world. Everyday was the same and ironically Yvonne brought ‘Remainder’ by Tom McCarthy as holiday reading. The clockwork re-enactment of food, room cleaning and uncanny routine of tourist existence resembles the absurd existence that the main character of the book creates for him after being paid a whopping 8,5 million pounds redemption money for being an accident victim. Reading this bizarre story unfolding the re-enactment of everyday memories of the main character to minute detail with hundreds of participants and thousands of props made us look at the daily Domina performance with different eyes, everyone behaved within their given roles acting out repeated action: Italian beach boys and the lady breaking the top less ban sitting in the same parts of the beach, the Egyptian family entertaining their children with the same treatment at the same time, a la carte menus never change, the top dog waiter never failed to tell another dragged out story and we slotted onto the same breakfast and dinner table only to imagine the whole performance slow down to half speed in the attempt to find the moment one feels the least unreal. |
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23 June 2014
Ronnie in Rio, world cup 2014 First Day First night in the Doña Rita’s house in Rio de Janerio. Crazy parties are around noisy neighbors, big hole in my window. Doña Rita is a short middle-aged woman, friendly and expressive and seems to like me, I think. She asked me was I a Catholic? Went to the local bar with Ellen, who runs the art space here who seems really committed and sort of a radical political thinker. In the hamburger bar I dropped £10 on the floor and the woman came out after me and gave it to me. People are very loud and garish with lots of skin showing and it's not even that warm. I have a bit of a headache and the flight was really stressful with lots of football supporters. Watched three films on the flight with HER very interesting (Phoenix not Fassbinder). In the favela everyone lives on top of everyone and noise and sound of people are all around you. Now listening to some wild creature sounding local character. Sounds like he's almost in a trance or something. Terrifying but with musical accompaniment. * * * Last Day Andre leaves after a while. Doña Rita calls in with a corn on the cob. A bit tasteless and she says it needs salt. We chat, next minute 8 kids, 15 years old spring out. They stride up the street with pistols out, pointing them as if in military operation. They look like they know what they are doing. Suddenly I see the value of a metal door on my house. But we kind of laugh at them as they seem so young in their colorful short pants. But neighbors exchange words nervously when they have gone. Doña Rita and me joke and eat corn, ha ha pistolas. I gesture to her if I can have one then she comes again with a nice tarta, chicken ummhh I say. I look at it and thank her while refusing a large bottle of Brazilian soda. Next minute the same gang return expanded with at least one dude with a balaclava! I look on but they seem more aggressive and agitated. They try stop a car, to hijack it. I walk towards them as it's happening outside my door. Then stop and realise fuck I've got a nice array of stuff and I don't exactly blend in. Quickly I move back, watching Doña Rita looking at them. Thinking what can she do? I close the metal door and listen to the mayhem and hope my pick up driver can get here to bring me to the airport. After 20 mins it calms down and I hear the driver didn't give them his car. Everyday violence in the favela. Later I say good-bye to Doña Rita, we make a photo together and feel relief when the driver turns the key and we exit. We drive through crowds of Friday night shoppers at the market, commuters returning home and the gangsters seep back into the shadows. David the driver tells me the cable car is closed cause gunshots were fired at it. The hard thing to grasp is what the ordinary locals think of the gangs and how they heat up the favela at regular intervals. Arrived in a sort of curfew and leave in one, a month in Complexo do Alemano. Sitting in the duty free zone of the airport I wonder what experiences my fellow travelers had on Rio de Janerio. |
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3 June 2014
Rerun Elections again. New president has been announced with a landslide victory as crowds flock to Tahrir Sq and other public spaces, but why? Apart from the obvious support for El-Sisi what sits behind this is the need for hope. As I walked through the square the positive feeling of celebration was tangible but fragile. As the speakers belted out two repeating looped songs there is a sense that despite the optimistic nature of the public and media mood, there is not much of a case for enthusiasm. The two songs looping weren’t persuasive or convincing that beyond a surface shine there is much substance. But the people expressed themselves in many ways, like in the fervor for street politics of old, and one charming poster held by a silent still, bearded figure reminded Sisi to not forget the poor. Surrounded by 1000s of working class people singing and smiling it is hard to spoil the fun; light a firework, wave a flag, dance and make a banner. Street hawkers sold every possible Sisi memorabilia and tried to make some fast cash. |
30 May 2014
The last few days in Cairo have seen the summer heat wretch up in more ways than just the weather temperature. The summer creates a haze, particularly tough on the white skinned, as each morning begins with a searing sun that as the day stretches gives way to a wild warm desert breeze that engulfs the city, awarding some relief.
And then the elections. Weeks of local media hype and propaganda intensified with TV appearances by Sisi in controlled settings. These stage-managed affairs to media darlings allowed Sisi to pontificate in his slow labored speaking manner. As noted on social media outlets he made a number of gaffs despite the favorable playing field and he was never probed on any issue. At one point he rebuffed a journalist for asking what his policies would be if he were elected president. He replied ‘don't ask me about policy, if I had known I was expected to answer those questions I would never have stood down from the army’. In addition Sisi a ‘fan base’ has created a number of songs espousing his messianic virtues or Egypt’s pending regeneration. One song Kheir Bousret (good omen), allegedly made to encourage voter participation, was envisaged by a private TV station CBC and employed a popular singer known for his pro-military stance. Of course this song became pervasive with an obvious intention to support Sisi, as voting in the election was effectively a vote for him. In the words of an Irish politican 'A vote for me is a job for you'. Kheir Bousret song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUBvVTNRp4Q A good article on the song: http://www.madamasr.com/content/songs-voting |
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Remarkably despite the phony Sisi-mania and media frenzy the voter apathy signals a rejection of the fabricated and inherently undemocratic nature of the presidential election. Sisi’s pyric victory undermines his popular mandate from last year and forebodes a troubled future. More bizarre events unfolded as the voter ‘election frenzy’ forced the powers to announce a sudden national holiday at 10pm the night and then extend voting by another day, a total of three days. However this resulted in a calm, holiday atmosphere over the city with a few car horns and flag waving, fireworks but then it’s not such unusual activities here for street weddings or parties regardless of election celebrations. I passed by Tahrir Sq one evening and I was surprised by the lack of any gathering apart form a small collection of 20 or so. But then most of them we actually trying to sell flags and paint faces of passersby and traffic. The largest crowd I saw over the election period were a few hundred anti-military protesters who chanted the previously common refrain ‘العسكر" "يسقط يسقط حكم العسكر" (Down with the military dogs). These protesters took a considerable risk and were the first anti-military protesters, apart form the Brotherhood affiliates, since January. Good Election Article by Mohamed Sandmonkey Salam: http://www.al-monitor.com Weirdly a couple of people asked us if we had voted? Either they think foreigners vote, or didn’t think their comment through or it is a joke or even the most unlikely option that we have acclimatized to the point where we are mistaken as locals! And life revolves a lot around heat, and its avoidance. We hit the 45celsus mark, which forced us to rely on air conditioning, ten showers a day, ice cubes. Another friend in these times is the fan (MarwaHa) which almost killed me the other night. Never pull a fan out of the socket when it is still on, just after a shower without shoes on. I got the full 220V and felt the ends of fingers burn. Next day a friend told of the numerous domestic electrocution stories in Cairo and how their brother was killed whilst having a shower by a dodgy water heater a few years ago. Tahrir Sq has been cleaned up and rumors rebound that the symbolic graffiti will be whitewashed. Much of the offensive tagging has been painted over and any Sisi poster daubed with red paint is quickly removed. Standing in Tahrir on the last night of voting I noticed how all the huge lightbox advertisements had been switched off, except for one. It does seem like that there will a new phase and Sisi will herald the end and final closure on whatever 2011 meant here. Things do change, and very quickly, but the lackluster response of the public signifies a collective sign and acceptance of the evitable. But as the cliché goes life goes on. We went to our first rock concert in Cairo at a new venue downtown. This place could be anywhere in Berlin and is almost a culture shock, in particular when 20 meters away in Tahrir Sq as Egyptians have gathered to wave flags, explode fireworks and chant nationalist songs on a Thursday night. Wandering through this difference after the concert you become aware that the disparity is not just cultural but financial as the entrance fee alone to the music venue is above the budget of a whole working class families nighttime spending. And in this lies the paradox of Egypt, coexisting but never sharing, despite nationalistic anthems and ham-fisted propaganda. |
20 May 2014
What are words?
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Today's blog entry is a text by Sara Elkamel. I met Sara on a month long Creative Writing course organised by Cairo-based writer and poet Linda Cleary. Over the course of 4 weeks Linda had us play with words and this text came out of one of the non-fiction home works. The assignment was to write a review however Sara, who is a journalist and writes reviews frequently, was assigned the task of a ‘non-review’. Her text captures some intrinsic dimension to life in Cairo and we thought it would be a real insight into a young Egyptian perspective. Thanks to Sara for being so generous and hope you enjoy it. |
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What is art? What is writing? What are words? Why must we speak them, write them, cite them, change them, and recreate them? Does it even matter? Do I? The never-ending stream of questions about the purpose of written and spoken word were momentarily silenced Saturday night (in my head at least). On the Falaki stage in downtown Cairo, spoken word artists from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Congo and Senegal came together to create a performance that wove poetry, music, and visuals together. A thoroughly subversive affair, the performance emerged like a miniature, very eloquent protest, its chants carrying the woes and dreams of an oppressed global youth. I am grateful for not having to review this show, though, as much as I enjoyed it. Linda Cleary, who one of my friends calls Linda Clearly (a useless albeit hilarious anecdote) told me not to write a review, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I will not say that on stage the artists, Didier Awadi from Senegal, Mazen El Sayed from Lebanon, Aly Talibab from Egypt, Ghazi Frini from Tunisia, Tarek Abu Kwaik from Jordan, and Tibass Kazematik DR from Congo looked like one family on stage, telling their stories with nerve-pinching ardor. I will not say that the blood red chairs at the Falaki theatre were fully occupied with an audience that clapped along excitedly throughout the show. Or that the lyrics of the songs and poems that left the artists’ lips were so heavily charged with defiance you could almost smell the tear gas leftover from the nearby Tahrir Square. I will stop here, and I will say this. I don’t really care what you believe in as long as you believe in something. You’ve made us doubt it all. The deserters and the sellouts are no better than the oppressors. A generation that wants to be free not to be freed. I don’t want to see your swiggly red lines or the curly green lines. I write what I right I don’t care if it’s right. And fuck it, our pain makes wonderful art. And fuck it, there is so much life inside me I am about to run out of it. And fuck it, life without you. What do you know. You live a revolution for three years and only understand what it means on a Saturday night at the theatre. And you listen to Coldplay one second and the hearts of a million men bleeding on stage the next. I don’t care what you think of me. I am lying. And fuck the men who speak in the name of God. Because when they stop believing in men, they stop believing in God. They were punished for running so they cut their own feet off. Question. Faith is not the absence of doubt it is the persistence of belief through doubt. Do not be so afraid of asking questions you may never know the answers to. Breathe now. If you do not want to listen to my heart I really don’t want you to listen to my words. Fuck it we’ve lost so much. Fuck it we’ve so much to gain. It keeps coming back to you. Don’t you hate it when you start to write and realise your words have run out. Sara Elkamel 
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25 April 2014
Chalk White and Volcano Black
Jono, our dear Bristolian friend, paid us a visit in Egypt in the wind down, post excitement of the Utopia Talk Show event he organized in Istanbul. I was there while Yvonne slaved over a residency application. The couple of days in Istanbul were a reminder of the stark difference between Egypt and Turkey. First morning I found a trendy café with bacon and eggs for breakfast and every second woman seemed to have all the coolest accessories, including a tiny mutt in a bag, usually whining in my breakfast direction. The White Desert is about 4-6 hours from Cairo and we set off into this outer world. It’s hard to convey the experience of being there, either in words or images. This impossible lunar landscape is mostly white chalk and incongruously was once to bottom of an ocean. Embedded within rocks are tiny fossils of sea creatures and Jono was particularly adept at spotting them. Needless to say we gathered many weird stones: crystals, solidified lava with high iron density, chalk and seashells. We filled socks and bags with these ancient stones and only as we were leaving did we realize it might not be allowed. Despite the stunning beauty of the area there is no official control and our driver was a local nomad who knew the area incredibly well and encouraged us enjoy our stone collections. |
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The affect of sitting around the campfire as the temperature plummets tends towards metaphysical conversation on the nature of happiness, as time seems to expand before you in an endless night of a blanket of stars. We brought a torch from Cairo that had a red laser proving a boon as Jono perfected his long exposure photography and drewing with the light beams. This distortion of time instills a deep sleep outdoors under the stars as you stare into an endless night sky. We found ourselves making an impromptu birthday party for Jono without any booze and sang him a couple of Cutlers.
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All good until the predictable return to Cairo. Our drive changed to a grumpy old patriarch who brought along his daughter in law with her new born baby and wife. So all 7 of us squashed into some Chinese car into the weekend traffic jam of Cairo. Things got weirder the next day when Jono did his pre planned lecture at my university the AUC in the art department. Halfway through, a middle aged man in a ill fitting suite arrived, took a photo of Jono and left without a word to anyone. The mystery continued as nobody could identify this stranger. We started to worry and thought it maybe connected to Jonos nice stone collection. The airport check in was a worry, as the weight and scale of some of the stones Jono had in his bag would certainly affect the sensorial qualities of the garden in Bristol. Luckily he was able to leave without further investigation and we breathed a sign of relief. |
6 March 2014
Our last Ethiopian coffee bean: Harar.
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5 March 2014
Uncut
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She is caught guilty at the Diwan bookstore in Cairo, in broad daylight on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Unhinged by the situation she unreels step by step what happened: She untakes the unfitting book of the shelf and unfeels the weight of 100 contemporary artists: 2 volumes and several kilogram of colourful images unsprawling across white pages, unshouting for attention and potential buyers. After a few minutes, she is just about to unreturn the book to the shelf, when she unnotices a black silence between the noisy colourful pages. Confused by the undeniable dark hole she uncontrolls her urge for unlooking further. Her arms unaching, her back unhurting, she is kneeling down on the wooden floor with unalluring shapes of shiny obscurants; unsquared, unrectangular combinations of gaping holes in different sizes. She unslides her fingers across the pages, unfeels the smooth surface and unreads the small typed caption next to the slightly raised edge: “Afro Goddess Looking Forward”. Suddenly meaning unbounces through her mind and the deep blackness unmerges into different colourful shapes of bronze and brown unfeathered pillows in front of wooden shades. Unbuttoned ideas unlure from behind heavy curtains and unstumble onto her imaginary retina. “Black Narcissus” she unwhispers to herself: unhold your imagination, unthink what you are thinking! And then unsearching another obscurity: “The Return of Bruce Nauman’s Bouncing Balls”. Unnerving images unpush and unstruggle in an attempt to be seen. By whom? What for? Undiminished, uncut, uncensored imagery is slipping through black shadows and silence shouts through the city. 
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20 January 2014
Ethiopia: Art means Souvenir in Amharic
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Our 10-day visit to Addis Ababa was rather low key due to rebounding ill health. The day we left, Yvonne was stricken with a nasty flu which succumbed all those who crossed its path. The flu like prism shrouded our visit and made the first few days in Addis pretty intense. We arrived early in the morning after a gruelling overcrowded flight from Cairo (Ethiopian Air have the smallest planes I’ve seen) and slept until the evening. The poverty and low quality housing were shocking at first and took sometime to digest. The highlight of the first days was a visit the Red Terror Museum that documents the history of a military/communist regime that ousted the monarch Haile Selassie in the 1970s. The DERG government ruled the country until the 1990s and the small museum has many imaginative ways to communicate this tragic history. However the most effective tool is the guide, Menberu Bekele, who was a left wing student activist imprisoned for 8 years. His vivid accounts are chilling and bring to life the artifacts on display in a disturbing way. |
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THE DAILY MONITOR: THE PAPER THAT ENLIGHTENS
After a couple of days we retreated to a very beautiful spot, Babogaya Lake, just a couple of hours drive south from the capital. We found a place with wooden tree houses for rent overhanging the lake that were the most direct way to experience the nature. Sleeping on top of a flock of white egrets, who make the most alarming harsh sounds WAAACK, was actually wonderful. The lake is a dormant volcano and over 800 m deep with a slight sulphur like aroma. Giant turtles wonder about unaffected by the guests and it was the perfect place to recover. We read (Yvonne=Donna Tartt/ Ronnie=Paul Auster) and snoozed most of the time. It was a real pleasure to have the time and space to read without interruption and actually finish a book in a couple of days. Evening meals of Tilapia fish from the lake was delicious and really well cooked by the staff. Most of the guests were Belgian but we did run into an Irish family living in Addis. They had adopted 3 Ethiopian children a few years back who had grown up in Ireland and taken on the accent and expressions in mischievous way. THE CAPITIAL: THE PAPER THAT SUPPORTS FREE ENTERPISE We got to know the workers well over our elongated stay and they work 7 days per week around 12 hours a day. Their salary of 1000 Birr ($60) is an average low pay in Ethiopia. One of them Tesfu was astounded when I showed him my fake Samsung phone bought in Cairo for $25. In fact, he persuaded me to swap phones with him and now I have an Ethiopian customized phone. The building boom and Chinese investment is pervasive in Addis with rapid growth for some. Although foreigners (Faranji) are welcomed and people very welcoming there is a palatable resentment with homeless beggars everywhere. Some of the most tragic are the ill and young children who roam in gangs looking for opportunities. This is set against advertisements that abound for new property and a basic apartment can be bought for $3000 while many can only afford a shantytown home of corrugated iron. 
Our last days were spent back in Addis in better health. The city was preparing for the annual Eucharistic Processions. We caught the first day of the celebrations and the atmosphere of the city suddenly transformed as all traffic left the streets to be replaced by rallies of singing groups. The dust and grime was temporally suspended and people came out dressed in white robes to sing and dance on the streets. At one point we crossed a footbridge that allowed an elevated perspective. A group of young street rascals sidled up to us but rather that examine our pockets they stared with calm expressions, and seemed uninterested in us for once. Later we discovered the most delicious juice drink I have ever had, avocado, served in big glasses with syrup and fresh limes. |
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Although we had many invitations from contacts there we were unable to meet many of them because we were in bed early most nights, coughing and spluttering (pretty anti-social). We did manage to meet with Henok, a local artist who is involved in the Nesta Arts group. We visited their organization of outdoor studios in a beautiful park in Addis and met his colleagues Daniel and Tesfahun. They are a really impressive collective who make work in public space and are also working with artist Olafur Eliasson amongst other international connections. After a long morning discussing their projects we retreated for some shade to a local home brew bar, a sort of Shea been, called a Tallaght Biet. We had some beers there sitting on a wooden bench, watching the family prepare the maize in the garden. It had a timelessness, no doubt helped by the affect of the home brew, and it was hard to imagine we were in the middle of this huge African city. |
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4 January 2014
Dander into the new year
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Arabic classes resumed and we have a new teacher, Kareem. He is very polite and rather disappointed by our unrefined accents and pronunciation. He is constantly correcting us and it's a bit like being trapped in Pygmalion with these endless repeats of sounds and words that all resonate the same to my ears. Arabic is a difficult language but we have made progress over the last year and a sonic world has opened up. I find myself eavesdropping and catching exchanges walking down the streets. Another plus is watching old Egyptian films where the pace and slang are moderate but they also have a type of neo-realist cinema where the visuals provide much narrative, very handy indeed. |
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The general himself, Al Sisi, is everywhere, looking down on us from posters, or street banners, on TV news or what appear to be adverts for the army but most bizarrely as a doll. I found this incongruous sight on a dander through an old area of Downtown Cairo early on Friday morning. It was a bizarre day and began with being trapped inside Tahrir Square. The army had sealed the streets with checkpoints but I managed to enter with a group of Christians who were headed to church on the edge of the square. I presume I was confused as part of this posse and only later after having a weird solitary stroll around the new monument did I realize I was sealed in by barbed wire and tanks. I had arranged to meet a friend at a café and when they arrived they were unable to get inside the cordons and we talked to each other from either side of the barbed wired, gazed at suspiciously by the soldiers. However I managed to leave through a dark alley that I remembered leads into a mosque door and passing through another door to the street. I did run into a young soldier and in my pigeon Arabic asked if I could exit here. He said no but I just kept walking and he even came over to help me hop over the barbed wire, placing his shiny boots on the wire for me. Hard to imagine getting away with defying a soldiers authority but I was lucky he was alone. Later that day I heard the news of 14 deaths across Egypt in riots. |
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Christmas was spent in a luxurious prison camp, also known as a hotel, on the Red Sea was a bubble of mostly Germanic celebrations and the endless drivel of piped music Christmas songs, flickering lights and fake snow all under the warm sunlight. The result was a feeling of being locked inside a giant Ikea-like store. Sanity is in short supply and can only be maintained by periods of snorkeling. Which left us thinking of the staff and when we spoke with them in Arabic they told us of their working conditions and lives. It's a real eye opener to how the majority of people live in Egypt, in low paid jobs with long 12-hour shifts and few prospects. And then there is the mental strain of the awful music, seasonal disturbance (Christmas means little to most Egyptians, we saw few signs of it in Cairo) and the Groundhog Day existential experience of being in this endless loop feedback of everyday similarity. |
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New Year in Cairo, in a darken atmosphere due to an electricity cut as we were making NY dinner! So our candlelight feast came from a candlelight kitchen and was actually funny trying to see what you are doing under such low light conditions, is that a pea or a pomegranate? Luckily power resumed in time for a suitable epic film night and we almost forgot the midnight chimes. |
New Year 2014
29 December 2013
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Egypt Photo Marathon 2013 exhibition at Darb 17/18 in Cairo, selected images by different photographers.
www.egyptphotomarathon.com
www.egyptphotomarathon.com
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You don't take a photograph, you make it (Ansel Adams) I took my wee camera everywhere when we started this blog roughly a year ago. I am not a photographer and with Ronnie on my side, I often find myself in front of a camera rather than behind it. But here in Cairo my schnippschnapp camera feels less intrusive in this photo-wary society.
I am often told off for photographing. I should ask, I tell myself but whenever I do, I am rarely allowed to proceed. Feeling guilty, I sometimes sneak a picture: either quick-quick, other times quietly almost slow motion hoping not to be discovered. I feel guilty nevertheless. These days I often see photographs without taking them. I look to remember. In one of my untaken photographs, a young man is standing behind a huge pile of colourful underwear and shouts at the top of his voice. He quickly rips apart one plastic bag after another and throws the panties through the air onto the red pink purple stack in front off him. Praising his goods, he is well aware of the spectacle. I had my camera with me but… In the last few months a different kind of threat has been added to the moral dilemma. Foreigners are hastily accused of “being spies” and taking out a camera in the wrong situation can get you very quickly into serious trouble. A Danish friend of mine could confirm this sentiment when she was pulled off the women’s metro carriage by a mob of angry women for filming a short video clip driving through Downtown’s closed off Sadat station (due to security concerns). This seems rather paradoxical to the usually friendly atmosphere in the women's section where I have been offered seats and smiles many times and my picture was taken just a few days before hers. She spent some nerve-wrecking hours in the local police station before getting released due to the support from her employer, the American University in Cairo. Without the institutional support, who knows what might have happened? After the incident, AUC staff and students (who are Egyptian in majority) were officially discouraged from taking pictures on the streets for their own safety. |
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This happened just one day before the EGYPT PHOTO MARATHON 2013. When I signed up some weeks before, I was a little worried but also excited by the idea. Inspired by the international concept, the marathon runs for the 3rd year in 7 Egyptian cities: Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoura, Minya, Assiut, Hurghada and Sohag. Each participant is given a set of fixed themes over a period of 10 hours, beginning early in the morning. By the end of the day everyone hands over a memory card with 10 images on it, taken in the exact order of the themes - no photoshop, no editing. The news of my friend’s arrest kept me awake the night before the marathon. In the morning I felt like hiding, I simply couldn’t face the streets. I collected the first four themes at 9am and we were all given yellow arm bands to be visually identifiable as well as a phone number in case of trouble. I slowly walked a few streets with my camera buried deep inside my bag. The theme of the first photograph turned into a repeating tune within my head THE PEOPLE WANT. Unable to photograph what the people want, I thought about the next one, THE ROAD or WHERE IS THE SQUARE. At lunchtime, I returned to receive the next three subjects without a single image on my camera. I spoke to a few people outside the venue and heard different stories of participants that kept photographing despite being questioned and stopped. Some had been threatened, others were arrested and released only after erasing their images. Brave young Egyptian women and men who don't take no for an answer. “Den laengeren Atem haben” (literally: to have the longer breath i.e. to have more staying power) I thought on my way home and kicked myself to finally begin photographing. If not on the streets then at least at home - I couldn’t give up without at least trying! One by one I thought about, experimented, drew, cut papers, ran to the market to get some props, tested, failed, tried out, blow dried ink and photographed: |
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1. THE PEOPLE WANT
2. THE ROAD 3. BARRIERS AND DIVISIONS 4. WHERE IS THE SQUARE? 5. WHATS BECOME OF MEDIA? 6. I WANT A SOLUTION 7. TO EMIGRATE OR NOT? 8. WHATS NEXT? 9. ROLE MODEL 10. ON MY MIND |
الشعب يريد
الطريق الحواجز و الانفصال فين الميدان؟ اريد حلا الهجرة ام لا؟ ما بعد؟ الاخلاق و القدوة علي بالي |
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A few weeks later I unexpectedly receive an e-mail that said that my photographs will be included in the exhibition of the Egypt Photo Marathon 2013 and congratulated me for being awarded a special mention as ‘best series’. Mish ma3ool! I couldn’t believe it. We went to the opening in Darb 17/18 and I felt strangely delighted and slightly out of place. The 10 images I entered into the competition are oddly different but somehow compliment the other selected photographs. Upstairs a huge array of images unfolded: an archive of 1210 photographs taken on one day all over Egypt with reoccurring ideas and complex contradictions. I was thinking of an archive of longings and how each one of us is part of it. Enthusiastically I skip a beat and make another photograph. |
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Monday 2nd December 2013
Monday 9th December 2013
26 November 2013
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Life without a Safety Net
Life in Egypt for us is a weird mix of diverse tightrope experiences and stepping out of Cairo to Sinai was another dimension to this textured place. We went to place south of Suez on mostly good roads with nothing more dramatic than a puncture to report. We arrived on a beautiful cove to hotel called Moon Beach, an unusual hexagonal building from the 1970s. There were few others there, which added to the relaxing escapism of the sunset and moonrise choreography each evening. The weekend was perfect and we returned to Cairo refreshed in good spirits. Although on our return we hit the worst traffic jam I’ve ever seen and were literally crawling towards a bottleneck tunnel with a wide arrange of vehicles for 2 hours. We got to see the famous Egyptian patience in action as lorry drivers got out and made tea, passing cups to anyone who wanted some brew. We escaped the worst of the traffic due to some great maneuvering by our driver Sabhir but ended up driving at high speed overtaking in between two or three lorries at a time, without lights on dodgy tyres and bad roads. Yvonne was fast asleep in the backseat and luckily for her missed the dodgy races. Four days later 11 soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in Sinai near the Gaza border. Our recent purchase of a TV has opened our eyes to regular Egyptian style TV stuff with a large diet of talk shows and soap operas (mousalsal). News programs also dominant the local channel Cairo Centre which had a crazy program a few night s back. The news program intercut archive images of Hitler with Morsi. The edits were pretty good and matched body language and gesture but unfortunately we couldn’t decipher the voiceover, but pictures are persuasive. |
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The end of the curfew has sprung the noise level up and I realized how attached I was to the relative sereneness of the city under lock down. Of course shops and cafes are happier as are courting couples that were hit badly by the 7pm shutdown on Fridays. Morsi’s trail is fueling the rumor mill and a huge amount of stashed oil was discovered near the Gaza border, 334,000 liters. The story goes that he was giving it to Hamas and the border’s secret tunnels have been sealed since his removal. This only makes life even harder in Gaza and one bizarre story has come to light. Apparently the Gazaians were developing a taste for delivery food and KFC were doing a roaring trade! The popular line is that the US were in cohorts with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood because they don't want Egypt to develop. However unlikely this sounds many believe it and blames the MBs on every ill to beset the country. On the other side of the equation El Generismo Al Sisi (the Lion) has many who adore his strongman persona. One shop Downtown is doing a good trade in Sisi shaped chocolates and stallholders sell posters for 1.5 pence that prevail around the city. |
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In the run up to the 2nd anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud massacre in 2011 when 50 people were killed by the military, the interim government decided to erect a yellow stone monument dedicated to those who died. I passed by early in the morning last week and was confused by the construction with many others head-scratching. The minister came, speeches made, cameras clicked, the army encircled Tahrir sq and the sculpture was baptized. In the evening another ceremony took place as the street activists gathered and deified the soldiers in tanks and duly dismantled it to the concrete core. Next morning I passed and there was the vandalized concrete lump, looking forlorn. As I crossed the square I then saw another weird sight. The aforementioned Mohamed Mahmoud has a long parameter wall of the American University in Cairo that has been adored with huge and complex street art works since the revolution. The images change intermittently and Morsi regime tried but failed to repress it as a visual manifestation of resistance. Bizarrely now it is covered by a camouflage paint in vibrant color, like florescent orange. This abstract intervention in the street is visually striking but confusion surrounds the authorship of this most radical intervention. I read in the Egyptian Gazette that the ‘revolutionaries’ painted it but it seems a stretch of resources for even them. This then leaves the army, but their choice of colors does not fit their usual approach and frankly they lack the imagination. Whoever is responsible it is shift in the visual texture of Cairo and a welcome visual disruption. And my exit from Cairo airport was smooth and uneventful until the police security check right on the flight gate. As I passed my bag through (still with the laptop inside as they rarely bother) the copper at the other end said ‘is it yours?” pointing at the bag. He pointed at the X-ray and said money. I had a small bag with about £5 in both euro and sterling change. I looked at him confused. Then his partner came and said in English ‘Not allowed, open’. I am familiar with the cops at the airport shaking you down as you enter looking for tourists who give them some Egyptian dosh. I opened the plastic bag of coins and said “My money” they shook heads, no, no. I protested, repeating it’s my money. Then the fat cop said in bad English “some thing for us, just one?” So in shock, as the plane was waiting on me I gave each of them 50c euro unsure why but quite disgusted. The one with English took the coins and reading my face asked “Ok, ok, ok?” I waddled off to my plane and realized what a bunch of tosser the cops are and why people hate them so much, shurkat. |
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5 October 2013
Tele for Everyone |
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We have not owned a television for years. Indifferent zapping schnipp schnapp, too much noise, too many ads, no no no thanks. But now everything is different and tele acts as a learning tool we are told by our new Arabic teacher. Sahar insists on the purchase however is visibly disappointed by our choice of no-brand and small screen. What, only 29”? Nevermind, it will do the trick! Our Bowab (doorman) congratulates us on the occasion of bringing home the flat flicker box and soon after we stare excited and hopeful into the blue silence. After testing several different cables dangling from the roof into our sitting room window, we consult our Bowab and decide to postpone the problem.
The next day he greets us with a smile on the door, it’s time to pay his monthly fee, we exchange money and ask him where to buy stamps. He says no worries, I’ll get some for you and keeps the change, enough to buy a lifetime worth of stamps. We decide to postpone the problem and hurry to our Arabic class, today in the form of a ‘fieldtrip’ in our local neighbourhood, not as usual at the Tahrir campus . It turns out our teacher Sahar lives 2 minutes away from us (and has lived in the same house all her life) and we share most of our local shops, services and deliveries and we agree on preferred sellers at the Saad Zaghool market. She introduces us name by name, praises people and goods… balady (country) eggs, fresh creamy milk, butter balls, bran bread, gambary (big schrimp), grilled fish, mango, fresh figs, dates in 4 different colours and a selection of strangely shaped vegetables we couldn’t find an English translation. Sahar set us tasks of buying here and there, requesting thinly sliced cheese, light coloured coffee beans and impatiently giving out at sellers that wanted to trial their snippets of English - lazim netkallim Arabi bass! |
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Switching smells, a few streets further we see and hear sheep, a lot of sheep on the side of the road behind a makeshift barrier. It’s not long until Eid, a holiday where everyone buys or receives meat, rich give to the poor, people feast and celebrate. It’s dark by now and the evening buzz is kicking in, beep beep, cars are pushing inches by us, kids curiously tiptoeing palaver “what’s your name?” and the worn out “welcome” calls. We walk and talk, Sahar giving out to anyone approaching us in English until we hear intense mooing and suddenly a couple of high-pitched bleats followed by hollow moans: cows and camels on the roadside of a small street in the middle of Cairo. It is definitely a memorable photo but oh! no camera at hand: colourful lightbulbs draped along makeshift barriers, animals and straw next to an outdoor kebab place which has ‘Planet of the Apes’ on a suspended flat screen tele, near enough for the camels and cows to watch! Happy Eid!
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Sahar invites us for sweet pudding at a street corner and afterwards it’s exhausted home time: our heads spin & her legs whine; two and a half hours of talking & walking has finished us off! When we get home, our Bowab greets us at the door with a big smile and a black plastic bag in his hands. He pulls out two rabbit ears and proudly hand them to us: For your tele! Schukran, larking leh 2, why? He looks at us perplexed: But you ask me for 2 and here is your change! Ahh thank you, well in that case, would you like one for your own tele? Aiwa aiwa schukran! Upstairs we grasp the full extend of our misunderstanding: no stamps instead indoor antenna, unfortunately it doesn’t work but strangely the roof cable suddenly transmits channels although only in black and white. Ah well, we decide to postpone the problem.
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New Words Curfew حظر التجول Human being إنسان History of art تاريخ الفن Wrong عيب Long way طريق طويل |
1 October 2013
27 September 2013
We are back in Cairo 3 weeks now and consumed again by its noise, pollution and energy, of course except for the electricity, which is cut at regular intervals.
A few days after our return a French man walked awkwardly on the broken pavements on the streets behind our flat. The area, Garden City is home to many embassies and has a decayed grand splendor. He walked with a cane and a younger man friend; the French man had lived in Cairo for 10 years. They unluckily walked into an army checkpoint and were asked for ID (Egyptians carry identity cards). His young friend called his housemates who were able to bring his passport. Eric Lang’s passport was out of date without a residency permit. He was arrested and taken to the cop shop nearby. He died there after a severe beating, or perhaps a series of them a few days later. He was arrested in the daytime, not during curfew hours as reported in the Egyptian media. I was told this story by a flat mate of the friend with Eric when he was arrested. Apparently he was an irritable argumentative character, alcoholic and in poor health. All these are not excuses in any sense just perhaps insights for what actually happened. Six inmates have been blamed for his murder and charged however they are most likely scapegoats. Apparently under Mubarak getting arrested and a beating was an alternative to normal judicial process and Eric was to be punished in this fashion. |
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Two days ago at 8.45am in the morning I was hurrying to work. I rushed through a barbed wire cordon where every morning the same woman sits begging and I usually give her a pound. Today as I was rushing I pushed my way through, ignoring the woman and the other bystanders. Then I heard ‘Shanta’ (bag)! shouted and as I was carrying a rucksack I looked back. I saw a group of police conscripts pointing in my direction. I stopped as a plain-clothes copper shuffled towards me. ‘Shanta’ he shouted, I asked him ‘Ley (why)?’ irritated by my delay. He ignored me and felt the bottom of bag. He opened it and found a camera amongst books and daily stuff. I could see the thought cross his face, spy? I said nothing (good advice) and then he smiled and tried to shake my hand awkwardly as I walked off. The experience was a reminder that if you don’t have a legit permit to be here you can end up in big trouble as the people making these decisions are of dubious character and now even more empowered than ever. He never showed me ID or even really looked like a cop, so he could have been a citizen vigilante or concerned citizen or opportunist looking to make an arrest. Stories abound of taxis driving to police stations to deliver spies or café waiters holding ‘suspicious’ people. |
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Last week I had to give a blood sample to the authorities for my work permit. This annual procedure was done in the past pretty well however this time I ended up with a bruised and sore arm for days. Eventually I went to the university clinic and asked to be seen. The lady doctor was unruffled by my injury and gave me prescription for anti-inflammatory gels. As I was leaving she looked at me and said ‘of course as my father always said: the good always suffer’ and chuckled. I was reminded of Ireland and the religiously inflected expressions that make up or excuse inefficiency, as some predestined thing. There is an expression here ‘Yom asal, yom basal’ which means honey days and onion days. Let’s hope for some honey days.
Since we returned we have heard of many incidents, state power exerted and wide spread popular support. I have heard of General Sisi shaped sweets and last week all the papers ran photos of him at the funerals of soldiers killed in Kerdasa. According to the reports the general is resisting calls for him to run in the next presidential elections.
Life under curfew is odd and although it’s been moved to midnight during the week, Fridays still have 7pm shutdown. It is pretty much upheld although kids do play football in their streets. We had a nerve-racking taxi drive from friends house when we caught a cab 30 mins before curfew, about 40 mins away form our flat. The driver ended up speeding madly, along with everyone else, in what looked like an episode of the wacky races as all vehicles jostled for advantage. The taxi-man even apologized, unimaginable before in Cairo, but he also needed to get home after dropping us off. The overall affect of the curfew is that people seem to go out less and stay off the streets, as even the bustle of downtown is now more subdued.
A literal eerie silence.
30 August 2013
In a Deep Crisis over the Deep State or Pull the Strings, again.
Egypt exploded across the world news and one atrocity followed another. The turmoil interrupted the on-going calm we had in delightful Berlin. It became hard to focus on anything as we plunged into the terrible news, following blogs, contacting friends watching news reports and at times watching some gruesome videos. Then a sense of shock and disbelief. We would imagine how the local juice shop on our Kasr el Aini street is managing or our doorman, and thinking of other local characters in Cairo and how they survive. As we got sucked into the debates online and most disturbing features were the borderline fascist views that previously reasonable people held. I actually was angry and had to retreat to the park to cool down at times and then return for another round. In the midst of this some brilliant essays were written by people there on the ground that were exceptional in their insight and approach to the violence. Viewing from the outside something has been lost in Egypt and I fear it will take a long time for it to recover from the trauma. However, it doesn’t feel like it's not out of the woods yet and I sense there will be more violence and the ruling class maintain and secure their stranglehold on the country. Some of journalism has been commendable from people on the ground with accounts of things happening, almost in real time. The news from friends there is pretty awful with a curfew in full swing and street militias taking over areas. I read a report about our neighbourhood with 14 and 15 year olds standing over burning barricades armed with sticks and knives ‘protecting the area’. However, also have heard of ‘Curfew parties’ which sound like fun and that also kids are out playing football on the widest of streets un-interfered by the usual Cairo traffic. |
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As the rhetoric became increasingly xenophobic I remembered different wars and conflicts I had encountered over the years. I have vivid memories of travelling on local buses during the Bosnian War in the 1993. I was photo student and naively decided to head over and see what was really happening. Thankfully most of my efforts were unsuccessful to reach the warzones and without proper press credentials I spent most of my time in Croatia, skirting the borders. I remember endless bus journeys by bus and encountering soldiers returning to or leaving the frontline. One incident sticks out where the bus was completely empty except for a middle aged couple, and me in full military regalia, carrying their rifles, heading to Vukovar. The bus resounded with some patriotic songs and the driver and couple sang their hearts out the cheesy soundtrack to the war. |
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As part of my online Egypt ranting I was emailed by RTE and asked to do an interview. I ended up getting a phone call the next day saying would I go on air at lunchtime. Next day the phone rang and I was told to hold the line, I would be on in a 3 minutes. I sat and waited not making a sound and listening to gurgling radio sound. Then I heard a rather familiar theme tune, and suddenly I was on a program called Liveline! If you are Irish you will recognize it immediately and the voice of the presenter, Joe Duffy. My mind did summersaults as I wondered if I should feign technical difficulties and turn the phone off. Liveline is an awful drudge of a program that has for my whole life caused an involuntary hand movement towards the radio to tune it off or retune to absolutely anything. It is a phone moan populated by those with little to think about with a Svengali like ringmaster who feigns empathy for a very large salary. It’s the equivalent of a visit to IKEA and you can almost feel your brain melt and drip out of your ear. It follows the main afternoon news program which I presumed I was invited onto, but instead was asked to respond to some ex-pat Irish fascist who had apparently phoned in the day before to say everyone hates the Muslim Brotherhood and they need to be dealt with! I learned this through the interview, live on the radio and did my best to put forward some sort of viewpoint on the current situation, but the medium is the message. I had another rant the day after at an art opening in Berlin. I was introduced to an artist I have admired for years, Joachim Schmidt who does interesting things with found photographs. But of course someone mentioned Egypt and I went off on one. 20 minutes later with everyone looking at their shoes, they made their apologies and mumbled a hasty retreat. |
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So Cairo beckons as we experience the last days of Berlin. It is a very attractive city and enjoying the open space and fresh air, as you cycle from café to bar to beautiful lake is something pretty special. Being here on that basis is the perfect way to interact and engage with the city but I have met Berliners who are having a harder time. The gentrification process on the most of the central areas is invasive and those without large wallets are increasingly pushed further out of the city. This horizon creates a kind of chilled out sameness and erases the social diversity, once a strong feature of the city. A friend of ours, Maurus has a gallery in one such area, near where we are staying in Prenzlauer Berg. He is under threat to be evicted for a number of years and is resisting in a number of ways. One creative response has been to organize a series of exhibitions and events exploring the issue titled Zuhause. It translates as At House and even Johnny Cash has provided the soundtrack with a concept album he recorded totally in German. One of the best is called Zuhause. Maurus’s response encapsulates all that is good about Berlin and emphasizes the blanket urbanization everywhere; this process removes all the elements that make a place distinct, like Maurus’s gallery. Berlin’s hipness looks all too cool and apparently different, but what you begin to refocus on after a while is how similar it actually is and that commerce is the main objective guiding your experience. |
30 July 2013
Cairo in Berlin
We have hit the ‘Bergfest’ (half-way) of our summer break and have had a brilliant 4 weeks in Berlin, with 4 more to go. Spent this time in an unusual destination of the city, called Karlshorst. It’s further east of the trendy areas and it was an adventure in a more sedate less pretentious side of Berlin. No cool cafes, hipsters and few tourists if any at all. Many of the original DDR residents are still here and in former times it hosted a large Soviet military presence as the Russian-German Museum, (the only cultural institution in the area) pays respect to. However the main attraction for us was the fresh air, abundance of parks and green cycle ways, lakes and beautiful weather. We even had a natural swimming lake 10 minutes away by bike that had a bar supplying great German beer. In addition to the unorthodox location our accommodation was pretty rare as we stayed in an empty Kindergarten. Suddenly transported into the world of very young children in this imaginative space was actually very comfortable. Lots of room and space, garden fitted out for daily breakfasts and we found ourselves sleeping in what was essentially a large cot. The fresh air, exercise and calm atmosphere meant we slept like…
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Coming home one night I tried to take a shortcut from a central district on the other side of the river Spree and found myself in a nighttime unfamiliar world. Ended up sobering up by cycling for 1.5 hours and finally found my way back to the land of large snails. The kindergarten has three giant African snails we’ve been trusted to care for and Yvonne got into a tizzy when she could only find two specimens of these creatures on our last night. After searching around the Kindergarten, the only conclusion was that their cannibalistic instincts took hold. We tried to think how we could explain this to the disappointed children when they came back from the holidays. But strangely the two became three by daylight, snails are pretty weird creatures, adaptable to say the least. Of the lakes visited one stands out and is probably one of the most beautiful if not serene places I have visited. The Liebnitzsee is surrounded by thick forest with a few small openings to let people access the sea-like lake. The water has a brilliant transparent green hue, almost hallucinate, and white sandy floor with wildlife landing and taking off. There is a small island in the middle and those brave souls, unlike me, can swim out to and delight in private pleasures there. Maybe it was the evening light, swimming close to birds, tree shoreline, trippy water, or tight swimming shorts but something primeval was triggered into a deeply formative experience. |
Last night we moved to a more central location of Berlin, to a large artist's flat, with a painting studio plus other delights. The world of distraction and temptation is around us and there are some many excellent places to visit on every block. Last night we found a small Palestinian café run by a friendly immigrant family. After a couple of beers I ended up speaking Arabic/Deutsch with Hannibal the owner. He doesn’t speak much English and the weirdest hybrid sentences came out as we watched the endless trail of Mauer Park hipsters trail home after a weekend of hedonism on a hot sultry night. Our first night was memorable for us because of the range of acoustics reverberating around the internal courtyard. On our 3rd floor we can hear a mix of nocturnal bedroom adventures, pleasure played through a summer storm of thunder and lighting. |
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The events on Egypt have shaken us and horrified us. Life and political equilibrium were always unpredictable with times of violent confrontation close at hand. But now the society seems extremely volatile with some terrible forces unleashed. Of course there are reasons and it’s not happening in a vacuum, many foresaw such a turn of events. However, a cold still shock has come over us when Egypt crashes into the calm, tolerance of Berlin via media spaces. We found ourselves sucked into the drama of Morsi’s uprooting then the escalating violence. For once it is actually worse than what it appears on the media and friends there are suffering terribly. It’s a strange, frustrating experience to observe our adopted home slip into the abyss, unlike an unfamiliar distant place, we are emotional witnesses bound up in the tragedy.
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6 June 2013
We just finished our course in Arabic. It has been a remarkable experience, a language with sounds that stretch the tongue and mouth into dexterous positions, previously unknown to Irish or German mouths.
Despite this and in fact in a lot of ways because of it, the enigma of the world we are surrounded by begins to soften and become more intelligible. Street signs are decoded somewhat and the sonic environment becomes audible and sensible. Of course, buying a sandwich can still end up with a quick visit to the zoo or ride on a boat at night with a full orchestra and bellydancers. Our final night in Cairo was rounded off by a solo disco, well three of us on a huge boat, up and down the Nile with the city lights and other colorful party boats floating by. We said goodbye to some friends we will miss…next stop is Bristol home and then Berlin. Goodbye Cairo, see you again, insha'allah! |
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يوم عسل و يوم بصل
2 June 2013
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Guess what its hot…
The heat has cranked up to 45 Celsius and over the last two weeks it has been touching 40 regularly daytime and rarely ducking below 25 C. I have never really experienced this type heat and a strange lethargy takes over. There are a number of ways it affects you. Nocturnal life becomes magical as a comparatively cool breeze circulates, the city bursts into life as shisha cafes emerge on paths everywhere and cars roam around for no particular reason except the movement of air. Business gets done, shops and markets stay open into the wee hours and you can go shopping at midnight. Activity everywhere increases bad brain thoughts as you start to wake from a heat-induced slumber. The few daylight hours experienced are excessive and when we walk to our Arabic class the streets emit waves of heat as if some giant microwave oven has toasted everything. The absolute midday must be torturous and breakfast happens at lunch and it usually followed by a nap. Trying to do anything can cause problems; things melt, like your brain and putting a coherent thought together can seem like a dreamy lifetime. Air conditioning blasts temporary relief and some cafes take on new attractiveness after hours of sweaty hyper heat. The brain is not the only causality; the body starts to struggle to cope. Clothes become futile, surfaces sticky and sweaty, balls swell enormously as if some additional attachment to the body. Heat is inescapable but not an unattractive space to occupy. Showers take on a new role of temporary relief, even if the water is tepid and you loose count of how many showers you have had. Movement is slowed down like some video editing timeline, everything moves slower on the street and inside the sanctuary of the flat. Insect populations grow, ants are activated, rubbish smells stronger leaving a stinky odour. Petrol stinks more too, drinks warm quicker and gin tonic tastes too good. And if there were dogs on the street their tongues would hang out, panting. Overhanging fat sweats by itself not requiring movement. Your best friend is the air fan, blowing left and right like a nodding Buddha. Why does hot air moving cool you, you wonder? The fridge takes on a new role and you fantasize about climbing inside it, or sticking parts of your body inside; what it would feel like. |
18 May 2013
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A night in Cairo
Hot breeze carries smells, food and rubbish, we walk down the middle of the street cause there’s no cars. Get a taxi, young guy, no English - good sign, I think. We want to go to the Four Seasons Hotel, a posh place along the corniche for DC and Radhia’s wedding party. Squashed in the speedy white taxi, like from an Almodovar film from the 80s, we drive to the bridge, police vans everywhere and stones flying around. Friday protests, men wave us away and we turn around, tyres screech. Oh guess we will take another route. Radio plays, taxi says ‘You like Egypt’. He turns the meter off. I ask ‘No Meter why?’ He ‘Its not important, ok’ and smiles in friendly way. ‘How much to the hotel?’ He pushes his luck with ‘50’. ‘Stop here, now’. He keeps driving. ‘Stop now’ I open the door, we are speeding past the zoo, ground blurs under me. He pulls over, we get out. He shouts from inside ‘I want ten’. Blank stares, looking into the traffic for another cab. He gets out like a hardman and shouts ‘I want 10, I don’t live on air! Oh yea. I give him change from my back pocket, enough to cover what we drove by meter, not enough for him to stop complaining. Car screeches away, rev up into the night. An old taxi stops, Koranic versus playing, black and white cab, no meters, Yvonne says no, not this one. Ok, this one, we arrange 10 and 3 minutes later we have our banger door opened by a doorman wearing gloves. ‘Good evening sir’ Posh and pastiche. Weddings. |
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The lucky couple look like bad actors, stopping and posing for endless photos and videos. Four official photographers, one video guy and everyones’ mobile phone. All night their every move is captured, in different resolutions. We all wait. Food is ready, drinks are alcohol free, juice and pop in bucket loads. I order a beer, it is ceremoniously poured from an ordinary can. The waiter asks ‘Foam sir?’ I can’t understand him, a guest translates. Music is classical, played by a quartet. A noisy DJ takes over, we dance to Egyptian pop, bad rock and Internet jingles. Food comes at midnight. More beer then the bill for the beer, ouch. We leave, Sharon wants to change clothes before another party, her dress breaks codes. She mixes vodka at her place. Ahmed tells us he is going to work for CNN and we salute.
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Morning prayers blare out at 3:25am, we abandon the houseboat party idea in Kit Kat, wherever that is.
Texts keep coming, we don’t move, listening to music, Woody Allen comes to mind, bourgeoisie and middle-aged. Time to leave, we close the round wooden lift door, odd shape, Holly Boulevard like. Ground floor, walk out into the dawn. Western looking man with long white beard passes and stares at us, knowingly. We follow him to the mosque, lights on make it screen like. We walk up to the door and gawk in. He bends down, a few men are warming up, the cover of the darkness means we are unseen. Taxi stops, driver wears a skull coloured cap, says nothing. We cross the bridge, giant lions stare out, rioters gone home. Radio, more Koranic verse, I’m getting a headache, bed, Yvonne smiles. |
28 April 2013
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Dog Dollar Rules Beirut
‘P-A-R-K, come on, you were doing sooo well’. A fuzzy B&W TV image shows a sporty young American man talking to a dog at a table. The mutt runs through his gamut of emotional responses, then changes the sequence and tries again. Still his master persists, ‘P-A-R-K’.
This is a William Wegman early video work we saw in Beirut.
An imported show from the Pompidou, complete with retro furniture. I found myself drawn to the chairs as much as the fuzzy images and poor sound of early video. In fact Martha Rosler’s ‘Semiotics of the Kitchen’ was so degraded it was starting to become a Len Lye abstract animation, scraps of film etched or painted onto. This grand exhibition, nearly all American and from the 1970s, is an impressive collection of video art from a sort of heyday of conceptual art. It reflects an invented history and the cosmopolitan nature of Beirut with its connections to Western art institutions. However, there was a sequential thought about the nature of visibility and the perhaps inflated significance of this period of video art. As I watched it I began to wonder how truly important it really is/was and whether it needs to packaged and distributed endlessly across the globe. This branding of culture feels in contrast to the homemade DIY aesthetic and approach that these video artists took. Moreover the work has been exhibited regularly since its emergence and do audiences still need to see this work or is it a fatigue or drain of ideas of what to show?
‘P-A-R-K, come on, you were doing sooo well’. A fuzzy B&W TV image shows a sporty young American man talking to a dog at a table. The mutt runs through his gamut of emotional responses, then changes the sequence and tries again. Still his master persists, ‘P-A-R-K’.
This is a William Wegman early video work we saw in Beirut.
An imported show from the Pompidou, complete with retro furniture. I found myself drawn to the chairs as much as the fuzzy images and poor sound of early video. In fact Martha Rosler’s ‘Semiotics of the Kitchen’ was so degraded it was starting to become a Len Lye abstract animation, scraps of film etched or painted onto. This grand exhibition, nearly all American and from the 1970s, is an impressive collection of video art from a sort of heyday of conceptual art. It reflects an invented history and the cosmopolitan nature of Beirut with its connections to Western art institutions. However, there was a sequential thought about the nature of visibility and the perhaps inflated significance of this period of video art. As I watched it I began to wonder how truly important it really is/was and whether it needs to packaged and distributed endlessly across the globe. This branding of culture feels in contrast to the homemade DIY aesthetic and approach that these video artists took. Moreover the work has been exhibited regularly since its emergence and do audiences still need to see this work or is it a fatigue or drain of ideas of what to show?
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We have just come back from Beirut. There are few reminders of the political past visible and the old downtown area has been rebuilt to resemble a large outdoor shopping mall. In fact Beirut has the feel of a city reconstructing itself in urbanized concrete and steel future with high street brands replacing bullet holes. And like the head architect of this shiny future the previous president Hariri, was asscinated in 2005, benefitted from the building boom and despite the veneer of consumerist stability it remains a troubled country. In fact what is amazing is the apparent tolerance of difference and the atmosphere on the streets is very relaxed in comparison to the volatile edgy energy of Cairo. As a country made up of both Muslim doctrines (Shia and Sunni) and Christians it has a unique blend of beliefs that seems to be fused into the most liberal state in the region. There is a vibrant nightlife and women seem to be as free as anywhere in the world which came as a breath of fresh air after a particularly testing time on Cairo over the last few months. |
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Beirut takes dollars and you can spend dollars there like nowhere else. Every shop, café and hawker will give you prices in Lebanese money and dollars and you can even get change in dollars. It’s a two-currency economy and the prices rival London or Paris. And there are many delights to loosen even the tightest wallets and we ate the best sushi ever. Of course outside of this comfortable bubble there is another Lebanon where people struggle to survive and live traditional lives but these contrasts are not as antagonistic as Cairo where economic divides collide at regular intervals. It was interesting to hear another version of spoken Arabic as we struggled to make basic communication work for our Egyptian accents. Also we heard about the differences between nations in the Arab world and how Syrians have a reputation for meanness. And Egyptians have a reputation for being lazy and emotional. As we drove out to the airport our taxi driver laughed about Cairo, looking at ordered streets with little trash or graffiti there was a feeling of order and stability. The drivers’ arm casually leaning out of the window as the cool mountain air of the evening blew in around us. Then I noticed his elbows, and two distinct scars of bullets, south Lebanon, yes, Israeli invasion. |
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10 April 2013
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We are nearly out of toilet paper, fig jam is all gone, only a tiny piece of butter left, no more spuds, muesli, multi cleaner, red yelly-for-art, nothing for on-bread and what will I cook tonight I am thinking to myself as I am compiling a shopping list. Wednesday afternoon, the streets are busy with people and as I step out onto the road I see a large noisy gathering in front of the post office. Today, it’s not a strike, no protest, no teargas, just an ordinary argument between a couple of people erupting into a physical push-shove-punch fight with several others trying to intervene and plenty of bystanders watching. I look at the unnerving scene and consider taking a photograph – no, better not, I don’t wanna get caught up in the mess of the situation!
I hurry along and a couple of streets further I notice the peaceful scene of two young mothers with their daughters sitting in the afternoon sunshine
on a bench next to the entrance. That’s a much better photograph, I think to myself and strike up a conversation in patchy Arabic although lots of friendly gestures, finally asking to take a picture… la la la la la, picture no! Hmmm, I try again, more smiles more pleading more explaining about photographs
of groups of women, not just in Masr also in other countries, one woman agrees, the other doesn’t, where am I from, then one womans’ husband comes along and I’ll explain again… la la la again, “sorry or no sorry” she says finally, I say “ma’salama” and think how some pictures remain as visual
memories only.
***
I hurry along and a couple of streets further I notice the peaceful scene of two young mothers with their daughters sitting in the afternoon sunshine
on a bench next to the entrance. That’s a much better photograph, I think to myself and strike up a conversation in patchy Arabic although lots of friendly gestures, finally asking to take a picture… la la la la la, picture no! Hmmm, I try again, more smiles more pleading more explaining about photographs
of groups of women, not just in Masr also in other countries, one woman agrees, the other doesn’t, where am I from, then one womans’ husband comes along and I’ll explain again… la la la again, “sorry or no sorry” she says finally, I say “ma’salama” and think how some pictures remain as visual
memories only.
***
Supermarket shopping done, I sit outside the fish shop waiting for the kilogram of Makreel to be grilled when I notice a group of boys laughing, joking and teasing each other with wobbly water filled plastic bags. I can’t resist a photograph, I got to try again, I pull out my camera, leave my shopping bags and enter into the banter…Are these for throwing? No! Yes! la la sah sah yes of course, they cheekily laugh into the camera. When I sit back down at the fish shop I get a tentative smile of the woman in green waiting for her fish to be grilled. Inside I’m beaming until a minute later, a very angry wet man drags one of the boys by the scruff of his neck. They boy whom I recognise from the photo cries out loud, gesturing his innocence whilst the man visibly angry uses some force…oh no, schnell, what do I do, what have I done, where is my camera, kick scream shout, other men and boys hurry along, I take another picture, this time on the sly, the boy is saved from the angry wet man and my makreel is done.
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Another plastic bag later I pull out my camera again. I marvel at the display of the market stalls displaying all different types of goods in between the parked cars and more often than not making best use them for display purposes. Genius, very nice, but oh no, here we go… I get told off by one of the stall holder for taking a picture, this time I didn’t ask and I can hear him loudly complaining: enti mish helwa, you are not sweet! I stash away my camera, buy a kilo of tomatoes, a kilo of small cucumbers, one and a half kilo of spuds and carry my array of plastic bags towards home. Hold on, I look astonished at the last stall of the street market and smile - the stall holder grins back at me, sips at his tea, jokes with the guy on the blue scooter and encourages me loudly: picture, picture, take a picture!
look in
look out
28 March 2013
Dear N and J,
Thank you for more explanations, suggestions and a truly thought-provoking fb conversation. It’s ironic that it happens via this platform but not in person and in a larger group.
I went to a workshop yesterday in Ain Shams uni on presentations on "Gender and Revolution" - it was insightful in so many ways and it also showed me how little I know on female empowerment in this country. It was odd to experience how a nearly exclusively female audience after talking for a full day about gender specific themes publicly announced "This is not a feminist discourse.... I am not a feminist.... I criticise feminism". I couldn't believe my eyes and ears for the amount of times these 'disclaimers' accompanied presentations and discussion. It made me wonder if the word/definition "feminism" is a Western import, that woman here do not want to adopt even though the aims of female empowerment and equality seem to unite these women with feminists everywhere.
To be honest, I am astonished and it showed me -once again- how little I know of the underlying dynamics here, including language codes. This was of course a specifically academic setting and I am curious to speak to other women and organisations. I looked through both your fb organisations links and seen mainly sites I follow myself (The uprising of women in the Arab world/Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Muslim Feminists) but also found some other fb site of organisations (Tahrir Bodyguard and HarassMap), so thank you very much!
Yes, I would love you to forward invitations for another discussion evening and would very much appreciate your help and input. I am not entirely sure how to WORD the discussion (after my lesson in Ain Shams uni) and also I wonder if it would be better to approach an arts organisation to host it? The Girl Gang concept arises out of an art context and needs to be understood as art & social practice - I fear this is another hot potato thrown into the already heated discussion on feminism, whoops I mean female empowerment... Lets see if I can find people to attend. The most radical speaker (still disclaiming her non-feminist status) at the workshop yesterday was punished by being ignored when it came to question time.
Thank you both for your encouraging words and yes, I am aware that engaged women fighting for their equal rights within this society are extremely busy and there are so many projects, groups and movements that need energy and time. Personally I think viewing Girl Gang Cairo through the mechanism of art rather than a purely feminist discussion has the capacity to push the boundaries of our perception, experiences and thoughts!
*yvonne
Dear N and J,
Thank you for more explanations, suggestions and a truly thought-provoking fb conversation. It’s ironic that it happens via this platform but not in person and in a larger group.
I went to a workshop yesterday in Ain Shams uni on presentations on "Gender and Revolution" - it was insightful in so many ways and it also showed me how little I know on female empowerment in this country. It was odd to experience how a nearly exclusively female audience after talking for a full day about gender specific themes publicly announced "This is not a feminist discourse.... I am not a feminist.... I criticise feminism". I couldn't believe my eyes and ears for the amount of times these 'disclaimers' accompanied presentations and discussion. It made me wonder if the word/definition "feminism" is a Western import, that woman here do not want to adopt even though the aims of female empowerment and equality seem to unite these women with feminists everywhere.
To be honest, I am astonished and it showed me -once again- how little I know of the underlying dynamics here, including language codes. This was of course a specifically academic setting and I am curious to speak to other women and organisations. I looked through both your fb organisations links and seen mainly sites I follow myself (The uprising of women in the Arab world/Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Muslim Feminists) but also found some other fb site of organisations (Tahrir Bodyguard and HarassMap), so thank you very much!
Yes, I would love you to forward invitations for another discussion evening and would very much appreciate your help and input. I am not entirely sure how to WORD the discussion (after my lesson in Ain Shams uni) and also I wonder if it would be better to approach an arts organisation to host it? The Girl Gang concept arises out of an art context and needs to be understood as art & social practice - I fear this is another hot potato thrown into the already heated discussion on feminism, whoops I mean female empowerment... Lets see if I can find people to attend. The most radical speaker (still disclaiming her non-feminist status) at the workshop yesterday was punished by being ignored when it came to question time.
Thank you both for your encouraging words and yes, I am aware that engaged women fighting for their equal rights within this society are extremely busy and there are so many projects, groups and movements that need energy and time. Personally I think viewing Girl Gang Cairo through the mechanism of art rather than a purely feminist discussion has the capacity to push the boundaries of our perception, experiences and thoughts!
*yvonne
8 March 2013
The lights go out. Then I realize it’s another electricity cut, roughly every week or so. Depends if you’re at home or not. Tonight just our side of the street. I gaze across at neighbours, the kiosk and that bleeding goat tided up. ‘Reasons to be cheerful, Cairo’ is a slightly caustic title. The concrete wall blocking our street outside has changed the street into a pedestrian and for the last week a goat pen. The corner shop has become a way to shortcut the wall, as one door is on one side of the wall and with a second door leading to a short stretch of land in between a second wall outside the parliament.
Tahrir Square has become cut off for months and protests have spread to the new centers of power, the Presidential Palace and the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. Our neighbourhood has been transformed into a maze of walls, dividing up the city and the atmosphere is reminiscing of Berlin and other walled cities. We find new shortcuts, holes in walls are made. Only a few random tents are left in Tahrir Square as the homeless and desperate hang around. It was a weird weekend and Cairo was empty as trouble was expected. It didn’t disappoint, 3 people killed on the Cornice, an 8-year old boy, next to 5 star hotels, businessmen gazing down on teenage rioters.
Walking home with Yvonne after a night out in Downtown. Nobody seemed to notice us. The warm glow of gin fuelled up as I walked. I saw a burnt out van beside the mosque, looks like a photo, big mistake. I took out my phone and snapped, autofocus having trouble in the low light. Behind me an imitation Chinese motorbike approaches. Three guys call out, usual banter I think. We walk towards the hole in the wall beside the deserted mansion on our shortcut home.
The hole is half blocked, Yvonne tips around the tree and debris looking for a way through. I watch from behind chuckling to myself, it’s an adventure.
Two guys hop off the motorbike and get close to us. I turn and stare back. He mutters ‘Mobile’. What is he saying, I think? His English is not good. I say ‘la, la’. The other one guy moves left, like animals hunting. Yvonne backs up towards the wall, I look at her. ‘Mobile’ he says as I look down, I see a long silver object, our eyes meet. Gin swells up, I want to kick his head in. ‘Fuck you’ I say and square up to him. I’m going to nut his nose so hard blood will sprawl across my jacket in a flash. I stare at him, he doesn’t move, he is scared I think. For some reason I am not scared but I’m not thinking straight. He flashes it again, light runs along its edge. I stare back; it’s not going to plan. I hear Yvonne shout and I look to my right, she has stepped closer to me and the other guy grins, his moustache covering rotten teeth. It’s instinct, not sure where it came from. I grab Yvonne by the scruff of her jacket, she feels stiff. I bundle her through the hole in the wall. It’s a blink of a second, I follow. I am through but arms grab my jacket, where’s the knife, I think. One arm left behind in the terrible place. I pull hard, and then harder, legs pressed. Yvonne shouts but I don’t understand. ‘Fuck you’ I shout. I want to fight them, but I don’t want Yvonne to get hurt. I pull my arm clear and we walk away with a shredded jacket. The American Embassy is in front of us; army and cops sit around asleep. I look back and he is standing there with his gelled back hair, bad teeth and bright, tight cheap clothes. Yvonne whispers to me ‘He grabbed my tits and it hurt’. I stop walking. Fuckers, fucking fucked up bastards.
The electricity comes back on, the kiosk plunges into darkness now and the goat neighs. Life back to normal.
Tahrir Square has become cut off for months and protests have spread to the new centers of power, the Presidential Palace and the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. Our neighbourhood has been transformed into a maze of walls, dividing up the city and the atmosphere is reminiscing of Berlin and other walled cities. We find new shortcuts, holes in walls are made. Only a few random tents are left in Tahrir Square as the homeless and desperate hang around. It was a weird weekend and Cairo was empty as trouble was expected. It didn’t disappoint, 3 people killed on the Cornice, an 8-year old boy, next to 5 star hotels, businessmen gazing down on teenage rioters.
Walking home with Yvonne after a night out in Downtown. Nobody seemed to notice us. The warm glow of gin fuelled up as I walked. I saw a burnt out van beside the mosque, looks like a photo, big mistake. I took out my phone and snapped, autofocus having trouble in the low light. Behind me an imitation Chinese motorbike approaches. Three guys call out, usual banter I think. We walk towards the hole in the wall beside the deserted mansion on our shortcut home.
The hole is half blocked, Yvonne tips around the tree and debris looking for a way through. I watch from behind chuckling to myself, it’s an adventure.
Two guys hop off the motorbike and get close to us. I turn and stare back. He mutters ‘Mobile’. What is he saying, I think? His English is not good. I say ‘la, la’. The other one guy moves left, like animals hunting. Yvonne backs up towards the wall, I look at her. ‘Mobile’ he says as I look down, I see a long silver object, our eyes meet. Gin swells up, I want to kick his head in. ‘Fuck you’ I say and square up to him. I’m going to nut his nose so hard blood will sprawl across my jacket in a flash. I stare at him, he doesn’t move, he is scared I think. For some reason I am not scared but I’m not thinking straight. He flashes it again, light runs along its edge. I stare back; it’s not going to plan. I hear Yvonne shout and I look to my right, she has stepped closer to me and the other guy grins, his moustache covering rotten teeth. It’s instinct, not sure where it came from. I grab Yvonne by the scruff of her jacket, she feels stiff. I bundle her through the hole in the wall. It’s a blink of a second, I follow. I am through but arms grab my jacket, where’s the knife, I think. One arm left behind in the terrible place. I pull hard, and then harder, legs pressed. Yvonne shouts but I don’t understand. ‘Fuck you’ I shout. I want to fight them, but I don’t want Yvonne to get hurt. I pull my arm clear and we walk away with a shredded jacket. The American Embassy is in front of us; army and cops sit around asleep. I look back and he is standing there with his gelled back hair, bad teeth and bright, tight cheap clothes. Yvonne whispers to me ‘He grabbed my tits and it hurt’. I stop walking. Fuckers, fucking fucked up bastards.
The electricity comes back on, the kiosk plunges into darkness now and the goat neighs. Life back to normal.
...to be honest
what shocks me most
is not that IT happened but how I reacted.
how fear took over me
how my cocky arrogance could not save me
how i simply didnt know how to react
how i froze instead of fighting
---
this r e a l l y shocks me most
I think of myself as a strong brave woman
but in that moment
fear took over
and I am embarrassed
and frustrated
and angry
.
.
.
tomorrow evening I am starting self defence training
and I am rethinking personal freedom
female freedom
the freedom of sexual expression
and personal expression
i never realised how precious this is
and how important it is to keep voicing it.
2 March 2013
Cold sores and breakfast TV. Not a good combination. Today I appeared on live TV for the first time on the Nile TV International channel. This is the state run station that I have stood outside at protests and is guarded by the army and surrounded by barbed wire. The inside is pretty depressing rundown 1970s architecture, low ceiling and patched together lifts, broken down furniture. Like a lot of Egyptian state run institutions nut I was surprised to discover there was no make up and the 'green room' was not glamours. I got a nasty cold sore which always makes you feel self conscious and TV studio lights are pretty intense.
On top of this I had no discussion prior of what I was supposed to be doing and when I arrived I met one of the presenters who asked if I can read what people are like form their photos. I said of course and I do some tarot reading too. I then gave them a random range of photos that they didn't see until we were live on air. They actually managed very well and managed to ask me some good questions considering the general level of breakfast TV. It was really relaxed atmosphere with people all around the studio looking over and you can easily forget it is TV and there maybe people watching. I cringed when I looked back at the interview and I thought they would put a short clip up, not the whole thing. But it was another experience in Egypt and I wonder if they will have me back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz6xgvL8EBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3iWzIMMOw&feature=youtu.be&a
23 Feb 2013
On my way to work last week, standing on the metro platform, the sirens ring, lights flash. The train approaches and I stare as the doors open, hordes flood out, and a few brave or desperate souls fight in the scrum. In the Cairo metro nobody waits. But I decided to wait for the next train, another 5 mins and usually more space. As the train took off, and they are very fast, I gazed as the crushed carriages blurred past me. There is a hypnotic quality then suddenly I glimpsed a bizarre image that interrupted to scene. There was a young guy standing in between the moving carriages as the train hurtled past.
17 Feb 2013
Some of Buddy Holly
the working folly
Good Golly Miss Molly
and boats Hammersmith Palais,
the Bolshoi Ballet
Jump back in the alley,
add nanny goats
Eighteen-wheeler Scammels,
Domineker camels
All other mammals plus equal votes
Seeing Piccadilly,
Fanny Smith and Willy
Being rather silly and porridge oats
A bit of grin and bear it,
a bit of come and share it
You're welcome,
we can spare it,
yellow socks
Too short to be haughty,
too nutty to be naughty
Going on forty,
no electric shocks
The juice of the carrot,
the smile of a parrot
A little drop of claret –
anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty,
the days when I ain't spotty,
Sitting on the potty
Reasons to be Cheerful
the working folly
Good Golly Miss Molly
and boats Hammersmith Palais,
the Bolshoi Ballet
Jump back in the alley,
add nanny goats
Eighteen-wheeler Scammels,
Domineker camels
All other mammals plus equal votes
Seeing Piccadilly,
Fanny Smith and Willy
Being rather silly and porridge oats
A bit of grin and bear it,
a bit of come and share it
You're welcome,
we can spare it,
yellow socks
Too short to be haughty,
too nutty to be naughty
Going on forty,
no electric shocks
The juice of the carrot,
the smile of a parrot
A little drop of claret –
anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty,
the days when I ain't spotty,
Sitting on the potty
Reasons to be Cheerful
