Mullahs in their Minarets

When I was a young boy growing up on the farm in Ontario...... the Michigan Central Railway ran along the base of the highland where 20 thousand years ago a glacier bulldozed a big deposit of dirt before it went back home to the North Pole. Our farm sits on the top of the mound and the railway ran below.
From Hamilton all the way to Detroit. Many trains ran along that track for  years a very few carrying passengers mostly freight trains hauling steel from the Stelco plants in Hamilton to the Motor City ..and chugging back with the finished product....brand new cars for us to buy.
The  trains were so regular that no one on our  road needed to wear  a watch. For instance at 11:20 everyday a passengeer train would roll through ...on it's way south....my dad would say "there's 50" ....the number of the train...... you could even hear the whistle in our back field as it blew it's warning for the crossing on 59 highway ....you knew you had another forty minutes of tractor work before you could head up for lunch.
There was another train at 4:30 in the afternoon....time to milk the cows...one at 10 in the evening...time to check the herd for the night and one at 4 in the morning....another hour to sleep before the day began.
It's kind of like that here in Cairo.
Now in place of trains......it's the Mullahs in their Minarets.  There is a mosque half a block  away from the apartment...you can see it easily from the window on the fourth floor....so the noise travels unchecked by trees or other buildings strait to us. The first time I heard it was the day after I arrived ...I was in the bathroom and I thought Kim was listening to something very loudly on the internet...when I came out she wasn't at the desk...I quickly figured out what was going on and she said "get used to it.... it happens several times a day". It's funny how quickly you do get used to things....in the early days I would look out the window when the call came and watch hundreds of men converge on  the church from all directions...I have no idea where they all come from....sometimes there are so many there's an overflow and they end up dragging their prayers mats to the dusty little park beside the mosque and line up there...... heads on the ground pointing to Mecca....
If a guy can't make in because he's looking after his store...then out comes the prayer mat onto the sidewalk and down he goes head on the ground...butt up in the air...like I say...this happens every day several times...once at 4:30 in the morning...oh yes EVERY morning the dulcet tones of the Mullah in his Minaret bringing you out of a nice deep sleep...another at 11:45....time for lunch...... once again at 4:30 and then again at 10 PM. There seems to be no end to the praying. Walking the streets you see many men with dark spots high in the middle of their foreheads....they're callouses from pressing their heads into the carpet in the Mosque....the larger and deeper the callous...obviously the more devout the man...and I say man ....because there are NO women taking part in this ritual...they pray I assume...but I don't know where.
On Friday....their Sunday...there is an hour long sermon from the Mullah in his Minaret....I have to admit that can be a little much...because he can really get himself worked up into a religious verbal frenzy!
In conclusion...I don't really pay attention anymore...but some of the dirges do have a bit of a tune that you can recognize when you hear them often enough...... and some have a riff that's actually quite catchy.
But I don't think we're going to hear the Mullah in his Minaret on the hit parade anytime soon....
Later...insallah....b

"Tanks" for the Memories

Hey long time no talk....a few things have been happening. We're right in the middle of a referendum on a new constitution....the first vote was last Saturday.....there were 24 hour line ups at the polling booths.... one was just down the street of Kim's apartment so road nine into Maadi was a bigger mess than usual if you can imagine that.
The new President (Dictator) Muhammad Morsi wants to know if people will except his new constitution which is Muslim religious conservative and would more closely follow Sharia law....the progressive Egyptians see this as throw back to bad old times even before Sadat and Mubarak...they mostly live in the cities....the more consertvative Egyptians much like home in Canada live in the rural areas....this first roaund of voting was in the cities...the next round goes in the rural areas. The locals I've talk with say the vote was very close here...so things don't look good if you don't want a more Muslim government.
Anyway....a few of us decided to rent a falucca for a nice little sail on the Nile....this was on Saturday as well....it's good deal....you get this big old beat up dow with lantene sails...it's about 24 feet long and eight feet wide...with a table and cushioned bench seats around it...you get a bunch of snacks and wine and beer and you float around on the Nile for about 10 bucks an hour.
You have to tip the driver a little something...but these guys are right out of the Arabian nights....turbanned long flowing jelibyn and a rotten old Egyptian tobacco cigarettre hanging out of his mouth...he knows his stuff...but all you kind of do is tack back and forth...there was a good wind...but it was cool.
We drove over in a taxi...a long ways (90 cents Canadian) and we get out at the big intersection where the falucca harbour is...and as I got out of the cab I turned around and was staring down the barrel of a big T-34 tank...beside it was a maching gun carrying armoured vehicle with a soldier sitting behind the gun....Kim was still in the car when I said "oh shit" she "what" then she got out and looked and so "oh shit". I looked around..... things seemed normal and everybody was going about their business...so we walked across the busy intersection...and I pulled out my cell phone to take a picture and the young soldier on top of the tank shook his finger and said no....so I took one anyway and disappeared into the crowd. When we got to the boat everyone was talking about the election and the tanks....there were a few old Egyptian hands there ...teachers who had experienced last year's revolution and they said everything was alright...
So after the boat ride we crossed the road again in from of the tank and the armoured car....and the last thing I'll always remember seeing is two tank men playing cards on top of the tank...and the machine gunnner....soundly asleep behind his weapon....only in Egypt....ali akbar!

"Gringo Traps" Et Al

Some of you have heard me in the past refer to the "Gringo Traps" in Mexico.
To elaborate.... we start with a little history of the word "Gringo"...there are many explanations about how this description of caucasians in Mexico came about...but this is the one I like the best.
Back in the 1890's many cowboys would make their way across the border into Mexico looking for work or a good time. A popular song of the time was "Green Grow the Violets" and many of these cowboys would sing the song around the campfire or in a cantina relaxing with a Senorita and cerveca. The Mexican people got so used to hearing the cowboys sing the song...they started referring to them as...."green-grows" as in Green Grow the Violets....and as the years went by "green-grow" was shortened to just "Gringo". So now all white visitors to Mexico are referred to as "Gringos" especially amongst the Gringos.

Now the "Gringo Trap" is essentially one of the many of the little and large things that Gringos can run into resulting in very likely injury and most assuredly pain!

Now the biggest Gringo Trap in Mexico is more often than not the Gringo him or herself! They are quite often dull witted to begin with and when an unfortunate incident occurs they are quite often under the influence of either or booze and drugs. So this makes it much easier to say fall ....down on the uneven side walk..... trip over a piece of re-bar that just happens to be sticking up....run into a street sign that the Mexicans cleverly install at Gringo head level. There also knee high walls...steps that end suddenly for absolutely no reason and loads of broken glass to step on.

Okay....that's Mexico....here in Cairo...and all of Egypt actually....the situation is a hundred times worse..... if it can be imagined..

I almost never put my foot down until I look first to see what's there...loose bricks on the side walk are the worst or  side walks that  disappear into a pile of sand and broken debris. I was talking to one of the teachers at the Cairo American College and she was right at that time recovering from a broken bone in her foot...I asked her what happened and she said I took my eye off the sidewalk for one second and kicked a hunk of cement....the injury wasn't really serious luckily for her. Perhaps the biggest potential for injury is the traffic...because the sidewalks are so bad....depending what road you're on you're forced off the sidewalk onto the street which are very narrow and clogged with parked cars that means you have to walk between the parked cars and

the chaotic traffic....your head has to be on a swivel turning three hundred and sixty degrees watching where trouble might come from...

It reminds me of bringing the sail boat into harbour in Dover on week-end when all of the drunken power boaters are coming home from Pottohawk...you just never know what might happen.

And the traffic circles....I have to laugh when I think about the issue new traffic circles are causing back home....at the TV station we did reports with no end about how to deal with these bloody new fangled roundabouts...they've been here for a hundred years...and the Egyptians have only one way to deal with them..... attack! There's one intersection that you have to navigate when walking or taking a cab to the school...or the drinking club...it's called "Victoria Medan" I call it ``Victoria Mayhem``....the only way to get into it seems.... is to just drive right in cutting everyone else off...and when you're in ....employ the same method to get out...it's unbelievable that there isn't a crash every second....you have to do the same thing when you walk through it....just step in and hold your breath hoping people will stop....it comes down to a test of wills...you kind of have to lock eyes with a driver and the make a tacit agreement that'll he'll stop...slow down or veer around you....it is VERY nerve wracking..

All the while you  hear ...car horns...car horns.... car horns...like 24 hours a day...here`s why. Egyptians always seem to be in a hurry and can not tolerate for ONE SECOND anyone stopping in front of them or cutting them off....the automatic reaction to this is hand on horn and press long and loud!

Also....the regular intersections  have no stop signs...what drivers do is beep their horn before they enter ...hoping that will signal  other drivers of their intention...it seems to work...but Jesus is it dangerous...especially for motorcylists who I must say  live a charmed life around here...

Gringo traps....watch out for the donkey shit....the dead cats...and rotting fruit and vegetables....this latest issue with garbage in the streets I think is an out come of the revolution..the old government at least made a half hearted effort to get the garbage out of the city...the new religious regime obviously dosen't adhere to the tenant that ``cleanliness is next to Godliness``...I leave you now with the dulcet tones of the Mullah in the Mosque half a block away from the apartment urging the faithful to prayer through the big loud speaker located in the very top of the minaret...he`s been going for an hour now ...oh to be a `Gringo`` in Cairo....