On a serious note

I volunteered with Rotaract Cosmopolitan again last  week. We arranged an outing for children from a street children shelter at a McDonalds, where we had rented a whole floor. Some entertainment was put on for the children and we danced and played with them, and they seemed to have a really good time. Nosheen and Hamida also came along to volunteer, and I think we all enjoyed spending time with the children, although I had seriously underestimated how tiring it is jumping up and down for a couple of hours. I don't know where kids get their energy from.

View from the McDonalds

Us with all the kids

Nosheen and her new best friend

Sunday there was a women's conference on at the library, which we decided to go to. Before the conference we went on a quick guided tour of the library. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was, as I think at least all Norwegians know, designed by the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta, and opened in 2002. It has the world's biggest reading area, and is generally quite impressive. The atmosphere is very peaceful, so I definitely want to come here more often. On our tour we learnt many interesting facts about the library - it seems as though every little detail in the library has either a practical or a symbolic function.

The outside of the library is decorated with letters from different scripts

The windows in the reading area are designed to let in daylight, at the same time as keeping out rays which can damage the books

The walls are dotted with small holes in order to absorb any noise

View towards the library's planetarium

The conference was about violence against women and was held in Arabic. I can't say that I managed to understand that much of what the speaker's were actually trying to convey, but at least it was really good listening practice. However, I'm looking forward to the day when I can go to a conference in Arabic and actually understand most of what is said. It was interesting seeing the mix of people who attended - both men and women, the latter ranging from fully veiled to quite skimpily clad. It really showed that these are issues which concern us all.

View from the conference hall of the library

So far my blog has more than anything else just been describing my adventures, and painted quite a rosy picture of life here, I guess. I therefore thought it might be time to write about some more serious issues.

It is widely known that Egypt is not the easiest place to live for women. I think before I moved here I expected the harassment to be even worse, but I guess I hadn't foreseen just how fed up persistent comments would make me. From time to time you will, as a woman, get really nasty comments - sometimes I'm happy I can't always understand exactly what people are saying -, but most of the comments you get are seemingly harmless, as when people say "beautiful" when you walk by. In the beginning, I hardly offered this a thought. However, the fact that every time you walk out your front door people feel the need to comment on your looks, does get tiring after a while. It's just not nice feeling like a walking body instead of a person. If you look too happy or nice, you are likely to get bothered a lot more, so whenever I'm outside I take care to put on my stern face. Suppressing my natural facial expressions actually drains me of a lot of energy. And when I try my best to look grumpy, chances are I end up feeling grumpy as well. One of the things I'm looking forward to the most with going home is not having to control my facial expressions when outside anymore.

My personal favourite of the men here is of course our landlord - a loooovely Salafi chap who expressed a serious wish to marry all of us, and who got quite annoyed when he realised Rachel is engaged. Somehow, I'm quite happy we're only dealing with his wife now.

Also as a foreigner you receive a lot of weird treatment here. Most of the time we seem to be met with curiosity rather than hostility, but when people hang out of the bus for 5 minutes yelling "Aganib! Aganib!" ("Foreigners! Foreigners!") as we walk by, political correctness seems like heaven. Also the incessant "Welcome in Egypt!" starts getting a bit old after 3 months in the country.

Of course, after we came here we have met many nice and truly welcoming people, of both sexes, as I'm sure anyone who has read my blog will know. Especially my language partner Tigu has become a very good friend. So I do not in any way want to give the impression that all Egyptians behave in the way described above, but unfortunately these things are facts of life here.

I've hardly ever felt threatened after I came here, but even so, this is a country where it is necessary to take a lot of precautions. Luckily Harriet, Cat and Flynne from my class, together with Flynne's boyfriend Ant, live right by us, and Ant walks us home pretty much whenever we've been out after dark. The boys from our class have also been nice in walking us home several times, especially Elliot has been very attentive. But I guess as Ant is the guy who lives closest to us, it normally ends up being his responsibility. Living with three girls as well, this responsibility has become so embedded in his mindset that when some of the other guys asked if he wanted to come around to theirs earlier this week, his immediate response was that he first needed to check if any of the girls needed to be walked anywhere. I seriously don't know what we would have done without him!

When living somewhere, you get into the rythm of life after a while, and by now, being in Alexandria seems like the most normal thing in the world. However, sometimes things happen which makes me realise that I'm in a country quite different from anything I've ever been used to. One such thing occurred the other day, when someone in our neighbourhood tried to describe to us exactly where they live, and explained that they live right next to Alexandria's former torture chambers. The torture chambers were luckily destroyed during the revolution, but just knowing that they used to be there, shook me up quite a bit. Of course I do know about this darker side of Egypt, but it becomes so much more real when it's my own neighbourhood we're talking about, and when it's mentioned so casually in a normal conversation.

Just being in Egypt does not make me an expert on the political situation here, especially as I have made an effort to stay far away from all demonstrations (I'm sorry, but no matter how great the cause might be, being in an area where there are huge masses of men does not seem like a good idea to me in this country), but of course I do pick up certain things. It is interesting seeing Egypt after the revolution, but my main impression is that people are quite disillusioned now, and very distrusting. After the revolution no one is quite sure how things work any more, which makes them uneasy. They are also impatient for change, and many resent Morsy for not having been able to bring about much change during the short period he's been in office. Many have probably had quite unrealistic expectations, and I guess it is only now people start realising what a slow process a revolution is.

However, last week Morsy brought about a change many saw as a step in the wrong direction, when he issued a constitutional declaration where he among other things stated that any decision of his in the period from his taking office until the constitution is finished, cannot be legally challenged. This is obviously quite worrying, as it means Morsy is putting himself above the law and thus granting himself quite extraordinary powers. However, the situation is more complex than it might seem at first glance. Many people from Mubarak's regime still hold important positions, and many of Egypt's judges are Mubarak's men. This makes it harder getting rid of the corruption in the system, and the question of how to deal with the remnants of the old regime is therefore an eternal dilemma in Egypt's democratisation process. One can understand that Morsy does not want to be held accountable by Mubarak's cronies, many of whom only wish to put a spoke in his wheels.

It therefore might well be that Morsy means well with his declaration, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He now has more power than I think any one person should have, and when he gets used to all this power it might be very tempting to keep it, no matter what his intentions initially were. I therefore think it is very important that people demonstrate, showing clearly that they will not accept it if he decides to hold on to this power when the constitution is finished. However, the protests should be peaceful - burning down buildings is not the right way to go about anything.

So you know. These were my two serious cents. Next week it's back to adventure blogging again! Spoiler: We're seeing the pyramids tomorrow!