From the top of my building

My building is one of the highest in the area, sixteen floors high. Since i arrived here i asked everyone in the building if the top was open, i wanted to see the view; everybody told me that it was not, as it is very dangerous. Yesterday i ignored everybody´s comments and went out to the stairs (see picture) decided to discover for myself, or even to find an alternative way to access the roof.

For some reason the lift (oh! the lift deserves a post of its own) goes up just to the 12th floor, even though the shaft indeed reaches the top of the building. Another little mystery, i could try to ask Aam Sahad :) So, i walked up four floors and to my delight, there was no lock to the roof...mmm actually there was no door at all! I do not know why i do not go and check things for myself every time. The view is mind blowing, truly amazing! From there it can really be appreciated the high density of buildings, as well as to explore the surroundings from a new perspective. You can see the mosque in my street in this picture:


This is a picture of the building next to ours, it contains all the elements that repeat all around: lift shaft, satellite aerials, water deposit and ladder:


In this view we can see the roofs of the buildings surrounding the little street in the back of my house, particularly curious is the great amount of piled up wood in one of roofs to keep the building rising:


In a zoomed detail of the last photo you can find this boy, he seems to be having quite a lot of time in his hands:



In this other building builders could be seen in action and three children playing around in the floor underneath:


I have done a pasting exercise with photoshop for composing a panoramic view of the north-north east skyline of Alexandria from the roof, the result can be seen in the picture (sorry for the couple of patches :P):


Fact of the Day: Since the assassination of Sadat in 1981, Egypt have been uninterruptedly under emergency law.

Details in the streets

There are a number of photos that i did during my walks that i particularly like and that i did not show until now. Just for the need of beginning somewhere, i will do it by another of the already classic adverts, tweety (or Piolin) is there because is a kid´s wear shop (!!??):

This must be one of the few traffic lights in Alexandria (is the only one i saw), but is purely decorative, nobody seems to notice it:


This is a detail of the carreta of the fruit stand at the door of the mosque in my street:


This is a bike of an old man selling oil (i think). Particularly funny is the attachment method of the tin with a bicycle tire:

Some peppers hanging of the window of a restaurant in the centre, i love the colours:


This is one of many of the cats that i have photographed in the streets, this one was specially friendly and cute:


Fact of the day: I know now the name of THE cafe (where i have my kaua halib every morning), its called "el fardús" or "the paradise". Very nice place to start the day indeed ;)

Aam Sahad (Uncle Sahad)

I have told you before about Sahad, uncle Sahad as everybody calls him. He has been the guard, the maintenance guy, the receptionist, the bin man, the mailman and the bread delivery service in the building for thirty years, every day of the year, no holidays.


He is such a simple, religious (you can see the dark mark on his forehead because of so much touching the floor with it when praying) and proud man. He literally guards the building day and night. During most the day he sits in that chair controlling everybody going in and out of the building. Nobody he does not know will pass without a whole explanation of why is he/she coming, what flat is he/she going and any other question that he finds relevant. For example he will not let pass any girl to our flat, cos no girl is supposed to come to visit us!!!. When he is resting or eating during the day, he does it in a room of his basement flat where he can still see and hear when anybody goes in or out. Even in the night he closes the fence in the entrance to the building, so he will have to wake up every time anybody wants to get in. In the middle of the night you will have to call him: "Aam Sahad! Aam Sahad!", you will hear him waking up very slowly and muttering in Arabic meanwhile he finds the key and walks to open the door. I feel guilty for interrupting his sleep, so i always tell him asif (i am sorry)...he always responds with something intelligible that i freely translate for "is ok". He does not speak any English (well, just "hello") and he talks to me in Arabic like i am proficient, but his dark benevolent eyes and his broad honest smile speak an international language...god bless him and might his socks keep him warm!

PS: i dont know who is the woman in the photo, but she sits there all day long too!!!

Fact of the day: Alexandria´s streets are all in continuous work, i have not seen many "finished" ones...the joke in here is that the major is looking for the lost treasure of Alexander :)

Some historical facts about Islamic Sci and Tech.

I have just finished reading a little lovely book called "Introduction to Islam" by Ziauddin Sardar and Z. Abbas Malik. Do not panic, oh Westerner readers!, the book does not intend to be the first step towards the conversion of the infidel. Z.Sardar is a writer, critic and broadcaster living in London, and he is the author of a great deal of books in Science and Technology in Islam and other related subjects ( http://www.counterpoint-online.org/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=533 )

Is really impressive the clarity of the explanations and level of insight achieved in this "for-children" looking like book. It guides the reader through a fascinating travel from the times of Muhammad to present day, showing a great deal of balanced criticism to certain aspects western and islamic worlds alike. This is a must read for any person that wants to understand a bit better the world we are living in, and particularly it is a very objective presentation of Islam, unlike many of the deformed visions presented daily to us in mass media. Much of the material contained in the book i knew it already, specially related with science and technology in the knowledge-based Muslim societies of early days of Islam. Others i simply did not know them. Nevertheless the author does a very good compilation of a few things that the West learned from the Muslim world. Note i have taken the liberty of rearranging the items into a more logical order, rephrasing some and adding others:

- How to argue: philosophical and intellectual methods
- Classic Greek philosophy: Plato, Aristotle and others
- Arabic numerals and the zero (from india)
- Algebra, trigonometry and spherical geometry (taken from the greeks and greatly developed in Islamic countries)
- The scientific method (mathematical abstractions and empirical method)
- Basic set of astronomical facts and laws
- Laboratory tools: test tubes, flasks, etc...
- Hospitals, surgery tools and the basic canons of medicine (Avicena or Ibn Sina)
- Bibliographics tools: Catalogues, bibliographies, dictionaries, thesauri and encyclopedias
- Organization and administration of libraries
- University system: From the two oldest universities in the world University of Al Karaouine (Fez, Morocco) and Al-Azhar University (Cairo, Egypt) established as early as the IX century. Note that in the antiquity there was other learning centres (Plato´s Academy in Athina, Greece) but they are not considered Universities for their different structure.
- Paper Manufacture (paper was invented by TS´ai Lun in 105 A.D, and "stolen" by the Arabs in 751 A.D)
- Publishing companies and bookshops
- Hydrology, advanced methods of irrigation and other agricultural technology
- Navigation, compass and astrolabe (the first analogue computer)
- Cartography, the first world map and travel books

Well, what to say? Just to point out that what we called Renaissance and the scientific revolution could have (Obviously!) never happened without all this advances introduced to us by Muslim people. Actually many of the works that we in the west believe "original" from our scientists were actually inspired or directed copied or plagiarised from some of the works in the aforementioned fields of study. The list is truly impressive and i recommend some further research for the curious mind.

The author mention: "some things that the west failed to learn from muslims (and which muslims themselves have forgotten)":

- Knowledge and values can not be separated
- The importance of holistic thought and action
- Environmental husbandry: The islam establishes protected zones, Haram and Hima, were developments were forbidden for the conservation of the environment)
- Animal rights...yes the first animal right statement was formulated by Ibn abd as-Salam in the XIII century)
- Multiculturalism: Al-Andalus, the place where i come from, was the first and the only truly multireligious and multicultural society in history; Muslim Bosnia and Malasia are contemporary examples.

And these are just the most prominent examples, there are many others...Islam is not a culture of violence, barbarism and ignorance, actually history tell us just the opposite. Nevertheless theres violence, barbarism and ignorance in all places and times regardless of the religion.

As a farewell note a quotation from Muhammad: "Go in quest of knowledge even to China"

Walk in the centre of Alex and the little translation game

Yesterday i went with Belal to the city centre of Alexandria for a meeting in Caritas Egypt and for taking some pictures. I found the centre a very familiar scenario, the views in there are not so different from those ones found in Seville: orange trees, narrow streets and balconies in every building. A typical example of a balcona (yes, another common word in spanish and arabic) can be seen in the picture:


Obviously, the style of many of the buildings are not so similar to those found in Al-Andalus, but dont you find some of the arches in this building reminiscent to those found in the Great Mosque of Cordoba, and others sort of quotating Gothic style?


I know that some of you will be wondering: what are normal looking buildings doing in this blog?, sincerely i just did not want to give the wrong impression of Alexandria city centre. In spite of the most of buildings in there being shocking just for their disrepair state, i manage to find the following pearl among them:

What else can be said? An image worth a million words! A funny thing that happened while taking this picture, is that a couple of girls that pass through there every day noticed for the fist time the building when they saw me photographing it. Their comment (thanks to Belal for the translation) was something like: "Oh, i never notice how beautiful this was!"...emmm obviously they did not have a clue of what my opinion was.

Another similarity i found between Sevilla and Alex is the ridiculous number of coche de caballos in the streets to show the city to (and to extortionate) visiting foreigners:

The driver´s face made me laugh for the calm that transpired out of him, simply lovely! Just round the corner from where this driver was smoking and chilling, i found this the door of a cafe; i just could not get my eyes out of it:


So here is the little translation game: can anybody guess what is this all about? The person that guess right will get a golden cockphant (or gallifante for spanish speakers). The solution to this puzzle will be revealed in the next few days...enjoy!

PS: Party cannot participate in the game cos he already almost died laughing when i told him the solution

Marriage in Egypt

Well, i am back to life! i have spent the last two days tremendously sick: neck and back pain, stomach ache, nausea, vomits, headache, fever...I do not know exactly what it caused it, maybe an insect in my tea, maybe the tap water or, as one of my friends suggested, an airborne virus. In any case , after a 18 hours session in bed, i feel great and i am eating like an animal again.

Last Friday i had a very long conversation with Khaled and Bahz about some social realities and customs in Egypt. Making an effort to compile some of the most shocking wages i found that:
-Engineer makes between £40/month and £80/month,
-Medicine doctor working in a public hospital makes £17/month,
-Medicine doctor in a private hospital £40/month,
-Lawyer £10/month (but as i heard lawyers work for free many times, so many they are...for example the Pizza guy from the corner of my street is a lawyer!),
-Accountant £10/month,
-Teacher £10/month,
- and finally, Government Ministers £1500/month!!!
...never mind stating the wages non-graduate jobs

Keep in mind those figures, now i will describe the requirements that the father of the bride will impose to any man that want to marry one of their daughters (traditional Egyptian customs, they are still widely followed). Note that these figures vary according to the class and education level of the bride, the ones stated are average ones:
0. Education (at least as good as the education of the bride) and sometimes all the older sisters of the groom have to get married before him.
1. Permanent job (contract job many times not accepted, i heard of a case of a guy that had to drop a job in the UN to get married because it was not permanent)
2. Owning a house or flat (rented house is not valid in most cases): as a reference the cost of a flat in the outskirts in Alex is £10000
3. Mahar (dote) is the money has to be given to the father of the bride between £1000-£3000
4. Gold for the bride, around £1500
5. Wedding and honeymoon costs: £1500 + £1000. Obviously these figures vary depending on the size of the family, but they are generally quite large.
6. All electrical appliances for the house
7. Furniture of the whole house, except the kitchen

And what the woman has to get for the marriage?
1. The furniture of the kitchen (normally bought with the Mahar)

How does anybody gets married at all taking into account their wages? By the way, my housemate Badry intends to get married next year: donations are welcome :P

Lost photographs?

It is a pity i do not have my camera with me (Badry borrowed it until Friday for going to Cairo) because there are so many pictures i would like to have taken. The picture of me with my legs hanging off the side of a local carreta [1] pulled by a skanky tiny donkey and driven by a small mustached man holding a cigarette in his mouth. The photograph of Sahad (the "recepcionist" or guard of our building) with lettuce falling over his chin and pulling my arm in a "forced" invitation to eat, with me having to escape as i was going to be late if i stayed there with him. The picture of a woman in my street shouting in an angry and reproaching voice to a man in that pretended to ignore the whole situation. Fortunately i manage to get a picture of the two guys that serve me my Kaua Halib (cafe latte) every morning, they are so nice with me.


The cafe at the end of my street (known as THE cafe) where these guys work is indeed a place where i have been spending quite a lot of time. Last Friday going to THE cafe (mmm i will have to find out the name of it) i crossed the market and i took this picture of my street from my favourite table:

Look at the size of those cauliflowers! (u can click on the pics for seeing it full size). I have to say that i love the detail of the panel of the British nursery; which lead me to the question: what is a British nursery? a place where they speak in english and feed fish and chips to the children? :D . The massive grey wall that can be seen at the left of the picture is the building next to ours. Later the same day that i took the picture, after a meeting (in another cafe) with Bahz and Badry, i came back to the cafe and stayed there all night chatting with Yasser and Khaled. The conversation lasted until 7 a.m. and comprised history, architecture, race, identity, engineering, magic and the weird, religion, another coffee please!!! The next day (actually few hours later) i had to be at 2p.m. in the NGO to sign my contract, so i legally became research consultant and trainer with my best sleepy face.

In any case not everything has been chilling and chatting in THE cafe. In there we did a rough structuring of the course i am going to be giving for a few tens of guys and girls in the next months. In there, Khaled, Bahz and me developed the basis for a proposal related with implementation of renewable energy that has the potential for ensuring the economical survival of the NGO. Yesterday in THE cafe we designed the pieces of furniture that we needed (within budget). From there we went to the wood shop that we discovered the other day, bought all the wood and transported everything to the work shop (for cutting the pieces) in the carreta of the small moustached man. Once back home we begun (we are not finish just yet) to assemble the tables, shelving units, cupboard for the kitchen and the desks. Finally i have a desk! I designed it incorporating the latest recycling techniques: The door of the kitchen was wasting too much (of the little) space in the room, now in my room as been put to better use :D In that desk/door is where many things are supposed to happen in the next few months.

[1] Carreta is the same word in arabic and spanish, in english is a trolley like that one in the picture with the cauliflowers

The biblioteka alexandrina and the seaside walk

Waking up at 11 am after only two hours of sleep was the first of my achievements of the day. After the preceptive coffee under the morning sun and some little chores i went to get the "minibus" to the Biblioteka Alexandrina, by "minibus" they meant a Nissan vanette packed with 15 people (modelo la flagoneta del tintorero del poligono); but with a 15 km trip costing 10 pence is not a question to criticize the transportation means :P The central building of the modern library of Alexandria is a massive concrete truncated cone covered with stone slabs where inscriptions in all known alphabets have been carved:

The Biblioteka is just few hundred meters away from the location of the ancient library (known as the temple of the muses or Musaion), where Euclid taught his Elements, the greatest mathematical treaty in history. Thinking that all the geometry studied in the last two millenia was formally taught for the first time so close to where i was standing filled me with great emotion. I entered the library with this overwhelming feeling in me. The interior is spacious and evenly illuminated by the light entering through openings in the tilted roof. Unfortunately after 3 hours of exploring i was quite disappointed. In first place the library looks more like an attraction for tourists than a research center, and secondly, after careful study of the catalogue i realised that the collection is nowhere close to what i expected from the once greatest book repository in the world. Nevertheless i managed to find a few useful references.

Once out of the library i took the decision to walk back home along the seaside. During this 3 hours walk i would have time to discover the chaotic architectural collage that is Alexandria. An uncountable number of high rise buildings seem to compete for the little available space, almost leaning over each other (see photo).

The whole thing did not make much sense to me, one building would be of colonial style, the next one filled with references to ancient Egypt, followed by a high tech hotel; the next with references to Islamic architecture, followed by a brutalist piece from the 70´s...and the list has no end. The immense majority of such buildings would have made me cringe if in any other place, but overwhelmed by the naivety, improvisation and lack of any sort of architectural convention of this concrete labyrinth, my senses relaxed. Suddenly i found this whole chaos tremendously comic, i was standing in front of buildings and smiling, the passing by pedestrians looking at me like i was mad. And in such a good mood i discovered some of the most amazing pieces of architecture i have ever seen. I will give you some visual examples:

1- The concrete spider:

I found this structure sitting on top of twelve stories high building...there are no words, i simply could not work out what was going on in there after a while observing the "thing". Please if any of you have any idea of what on earth could be that concrete cubicle with oblique supports, please comment.

2- What could be a building by BEST architectural studio (famous American firm that design buildings that look like they are falling apart):

Observe the detail of all the upper floors perfectly finished, meanwhile the bottom ones seem to be falling apart...another architectural mystery.

3- The egg:

This is one of my favourite pieces; completely unaware and uninformed by its surroundings, it looks like a massive animal died in the middle of the city leaving its beautifully textured shell behind.

4- The melting column building:

This building seemed at first glance to be relatively normal, the front columns and the openings of the bottom floor as well as the stone slab covering seem reminiscent of some ancient temples...but what is that bent column on the left? If is not load bearing, why did they put a column at all? and if is simply aesthetic, why they did not put another of those pretty ones? It seems like i have little idea of architecture.

5- The wind cutting building:

This is the side of the building facing the sea wind, i might be conceding too much credit to the designer, but looks that the purpose of such shape is to reduce the tension in the structure...or maybe it was simply the shape of land that was left available :D

I have to say the selection of buildings to put here has been very very contested, i am so sorry that so many other outrageous buildings have been left out of this post. Maybe i will write a second part of this post to include some other pieces. As a farewell note i leave u with a lovely image of the end of my seaside walk.

Fact of the day: The graveyard of Alexander the Great is undiscovered somewhere under the city

Arrival in Alexandria

Sunday night i left the house at 2am and took a taxi to Heathrow Airport. In there i spent my time reading in the deserted airport until the time of embarking (see photo).

I arrived in Cairo airport at 3pm on Monday after spending all my time in the plane recovering all the sleep i missed Sunday night ;) Yasser was in there to pick me up, negotiate with the taxi driver, take me to the train station and invite me to a delicious egyptian coffee. Before i realised, i was (for the first time in my life) in a 1st class wagon to Alexandria. The 2 hour and a half trip to Alex passed without any other mayor incident, other than me committing the mistake of ordering food in the train (i think it was cooked by the same chef that serves that "food" in all the planes in the world). Khaled, the person that ill be grateful all my life for facilitating my trip to Egypt (might Allah have him in his grace), was in the station waiting for me. Together with Badry (one of my house mates) we went for having a proper Egyptian feast: salads, beans with humus, omelette, grilled cheese, beetroot, chips, etc... And then i begun to enjoy and "suffer" the famous egyptian hospitality. I have come to realise that the argument of me trying to pay something and not being allowed is going to happen quite often. They dont know limits of hospitality, god bless them!

After dinner we came to our flat, and my first surprise is that i live in a neighborhood in the east of the city called Miami (no further comments please). The flat is in the 7th floor of a high rise building (18 floors) that look like one that has been teleported from Sarajevo :D Inshallah, I will post an article just on the state of the lift in the next few days, it is simply hilarious. In the flat i met my other two house mates, Bahz and Balal (Bibo), and we went for a coffee in Amys favourite cafe. In there i met two architects, Karim and Mohamed, that begun to help me with my architectural findings. The (hours long) conversation was extremely animated, from buildings to energy, from terrorism to cultural issues and finally, back to in the flat, talking about cinema with Balal until 9am that i went to bed...where i died for only two hours, as i had to be at 12 am in the Biblioteka Alexandrina.

Fact of the day: Egypt in egyptian is called Masr!!!

Introduction

Hello everyone!

The most of you reading out there know already i am going to Egypt on Monday. The main plans: working for an NGO in Alexandria, learning Arabic and doing architectural and technological research. Inshallah, I will be posting little pieces of text and photos for sharing this Egyptian experience with you.

I hope well all enjoy
Nono

PS: Feel free to criticize, comment, reference or discuss.