Well last night was my plane back to the UK and my visa run out...and obviously i did not take it. My place is here right now, i am not going anywhere. The things i have got in here are not many in terms of material possessions, but my heart and my soul are full of joy. I am happy here, there is so much to learn and in so many levels. There are good people and bad people everywhere, there are advantages and disadvantages everywhere. I enjoyed many years the advantages of being living in developed countries* but living in the "other side" (in terms of percentage the "other side" are the majority of people, and theres more than one side!!!) has advantages too. Enjoying and growing, seeing and learning, meeting and talking in both sides are enriching...i know a bit of the Westerner world (or better west-south west European) and even less of this one. I will have to go for the one that i know less cos i will learn more here, its opening more windows. There a quotation from the Holy Qur2an: people choose the inferior over the superior (II,61). How can we discern the superior and the inferior? and what are we ready to accept as a proof? what we call proofs in science is something some how very particular. The proof is accepted when it feedbacks the theoretical background fitting relatively well with it. But what about the whole universe that cannot be quantified? what about those things that we are not able to perceive with our senses or with any technology? all the science in a gazillion PhD thesis are infinitely small compared with the number of events in the Universe at an infinite number of scales. Those proofs, signs and answers sent from the unknown world to the heart and mind are incredibly elusive and/or overwhelmingly obvious. Surely, they greatly determine our decisions in life. I extended my visa another 3 months, the Egyptian adventure continues. I consider i took the better over the worse for myself at this moment...so, in consequence, this blog wont be discontinued, home and open books.
This photo is an obvious translation :P
*progress can be defined in many ways, this issue surely takes many books of development, in this particular case referred from a technological point of view.
PS: last nite i committed a very bad mistake in referencing, now is corrected...i ask for forgiveness and i apologise the 3 people that read the article before i had time to find the exact ref. Ta!
"The fallen man, if is abandoned to his own resources, finds himself somehow in a dilemma between the mental knowledge and the sensitive knowledge: he knows that the mental knowledge is superior to the knowledge of the senses and has to be valued in consequence; but he knows too that the inferior knowledge possesses an intensity that the superior knowledge lacks. The knowledge of the heart explains everything; but in the absence of it and of its extensions, in the absence of faith and the virtues that go with it, in particular the patience in front of what one cannot understand and the reliability in the Providence, it seems like something is wrong; the soul finds itself in a dilemma between hypocrisy and sensuality", M.Lings
As a fallen man I have been looking for water digging a bit here and a bit there, if i keep doing this i will not find it and i will die of thirst. I have to begin my travel digging deep on just one place: my heart; trying to find the string that connects my soul to the world around, trying to find the path that bridges between the finite and the infinite, trying to find the eternal in my memory, trying to find the light in the obscurity of my blinding ignorance. In the place that i am searching, my mind, my heart and my soul will be fused for eternity.
There are so many cats around Alexandria and Cairo, not so many dogs i have got to say. And most of you know i love animals, and cats are special :) Here are some of the cats i found in the seaside, who were being fed by a lovely old man who looked like a sea man:
Some chill in the sun...
Others still are hungry and ask for food:
This one was sitting on the side of the owner of a cafe, it seemed like he has been sitting there all his life, but for some reason was quite scared of me:
Many feed from the bin at the time of the pray:
In here a close up of a cat eating from the left overs of a fish restaurant:
One day sitting in a cafe in Cairo we found these couple of kittens learning to walk under the supervision of their mother:
One of them goes on his first exploration to the next table, i have warn the waiter that is unaware that the little creature is getting under his feet:
I was wondering that being so little how was possible that there were only two around. In that moment we saw the mother jumping on a very big amphora in the door of the cafe and...
In another cafe, i found a mother cat feeding her kittens...and at one point enough was enough:
Then i played for a while with some of the little kittens:
This cat was asking me insistently for food, and he loved the croissants i gave him :)
And how not? my cat in Tugareia:
but the only one i have not found yet is the little Andalusian cat...i think this guy was looking for it:
In here i present some of the random pictures and videos i have been taking of people in the streets of Alexandria. The people is what defines a country, a culture, a way of life...and the people is what i love the most in Egypt, whatever the hardships they face they still find a way to keep smiling and keep working to feed their families. I really admire their strength, they make me feel alive.
Attending to the streets...many of Alexandria´s pavements are under continuous works. The strategy of the major for improving the city is quite shocking: first call hundred hammer-men to destroy them all, and then begin redoing them little by little...so half of the city pavements are virtually war zones (major vs people). I dunno why he didnt choose the more adequate strategy of "destroy just ONE street, rebuild it and then go to the next one". Maybe he is looking for the lost treasure of Alexander the Great for financing the rest of the works...who knows? Doesnt he realise how hard is for people, specially old people, to live in such environment?. If you are disabled or on a wheel chair, you would be in serious trouble here, refrain from living in this city in 2007. In here we can see an old man watching his steps coming back from buying the bread in my still destroyed street:
But little by little pavements are done, sometimes with the old Spanish standard of one works three look, sometimes they look like most of them are actually doing something about it:
The reconstruction of the pavements is not the only work to be done in the streets, some need installation of new pipes. This guy does all the job on his own, around the corner from my house:
Apart of the people working in repairing the pavements and piping, there are many other people that work in the street. I would guess that the profession that gives more jobs in this category is transport services. There are simply sooo many taxis, sometimes a caravan of them can be seen in a yellow and black procession on the streets of Alexandria. They are more relaxed than the ones in Cairo, but still the drivers have developed a refined language using their horns for insulting each other. Certain combinations of short and long sounds refer to your mother, others to your sisters and others specially dedicated to you :D By the way, horn in Ameia (local Arabic dialect) is called clax, very similar to the Spanish claxon. Taxi drivers like in every country around the world are a very varied species, from hilarious to mad, from serious to absurd, from bullshitters to cultivated...there are all kinds in the fields of God (hay de todo en la viña del Señor).
As the buses are so few, the minivans are the life support of the transportation system here. This city extends along 30 km of the Mediterranean coast, long avenues and the tram run parallel to the sea making the transportation very easy and linear: you either go up or down...So do the minivans. There are no minivan stops of course, so another vernacular body language has been developed for knowing if the particular one you are flagging is going where you want. There are hand signals for every neighborhood: the clock, the all straight, the 5 fingers + 2 fingers, the signal of the bridge, the 5 fingers together pointing down, etc...it is tremendously efficient, and makes it easy even for an egnabi like me. In here an extract of one of my maaany minivan trips, observe how i was not kidding about the pavements:
But there is a particular type of public transportation that i found extremely charming: the tuk tuk. It is a mix between a motorcycle and the car of Mr.Bean. It does not goes very far distances, but for the wonderful price of 5 pences (in English pounds) saves you a 10 minutes walk, and with sound track :) Here we can see one in a street of Alexandria at the time of the pray:
And if you were wondering how does it feel to go on one of those, here we are...and yes is a bumpy as it looks:
In the category of public transportation i am going to include the trolley men, there are versions with and without donkey. The service they give is not to transport people, but to move stuff for a more than fair price, that television you just bought for example:
The winner of the price to the second most popular (economical) activity in the streets has to go to food vendors. I am not going to go in any depth to explain the vegetables and fruit vendors, as they are too obvious and they were covered in a previous post. But how i love to see people carefully examining the goods and negotiating:
The bread and milk sellers and delivery service, either in bamboo trolleys or simply bikes-with-stall. Why are these almost extinct in Europe?
There are sellers of baked sweet potatoes, literally with an oven on wheels (pretty much in the same style that the classic castañero). It serves the delicious and dirt cheap sweet potatoes on a newspaper, i love them.
The sellers of Al-Tarmuz in brine, altramuces in Spanish or lupin in English according to the Collins dictionary. Candy sellers, in here in a quite curious version: a guy carries a long stick with the inflated pink and white bags hanging like balloons from the top of it, and optionally blows a ridiculously loud little trumpet.
Pistachios vendors (and versions with other nuts) that walk around cafes from table to table delivering their nutritive goods. The hommos el sham stalls, that i found to be weird food. A kind of soup with floating chick peas (!!!???), i.e. como el caldo del puchero version chunga. The fool and tameia are two traditional plates that extremely popular and are sold in the streets and i throughly enjoyed many times. And of course the cochari, I love cochari! i could have never though of rice and pasta in the same dish, but it is delicious.
In the category of food and drink in the streets you cannot forget the tea and coffee delivery service. Waiters walk with their tray on their hands serving to the people in shops, to the barber, to the people waiting for the bus, anything goes. Others simply serve tea in the street, i had so many of those:
The award to the oddest job i could find in the street has to go to the guy of the merry-go-round. No engine no nothing, simply push:
Some beg in the street, obviously it does not qualify as a job, but is where they obtained their money and pass much of their time:
Others do not have to beg neither so much to do, they just sit watching the passing cars, people and time:
But by massive difference, the favourite activity of Egyptians and egnabis alike in the streets of Alexandria is to sit in cafes to talk,smoke and drink, a true paradise:
PS: these are just some of the jobs in the streets. There is the guy with scales in the middle of the pavements for telling you your weight, perfume vendors, stalls with only remote controls, the ice boy, the guy selling tapes riding a sound system on a bike, tissues sellers, books vendors carrying 20 books on their arms, the stall that recharges batteries of mobiles, children selling socks cafe by cafe, shoe polishers, the flip flop vendor, the photographer that offers you a pic, and so many others...god bless them.
I just received this email, the one that has made me the happiest man in the known universe. If i was feeling lucky before, now i have another big reason.
"Peter Huggard and Paul Snow have approved your corrected thesis. The paperwork is now being passed onto the department and faculty. You should officially hear soon that you have passed and will be awarded your doctorate.
Congratulations Dr Nono"
I would like to acknowledge to all the people that has made my PhD possible with their technical and personal support (many of you reading actually and particularly Dr. Party, gracias hermano, Dr. Pek and Dr. Frog). Thanks soooooo much to all of you
...for having clean water...cold and hot ...for all the clothes ...for the food i eat everyday ...for all the people that helped me ...for having electricity ...for knowing how to read and write and for having education ...for having ethics and morals ...for having Internet ...for the books i have read ...for not being subject of violence ...for having a passport that allowed me to visit so many places ...for speaking more than one language ...for the people i find that become friends ...for having money on my pocket most of my life ...for all the places i slept ...for respecting everybody regardless of condition ...for my critical thinking...or even for having brain cells at all ...for my hands ...for being an independent thinker not brainwashed by media ...for being healthy ...for my body that withstands adversities ...for having no disabilities ...for having my brothers, my father and my mother ...for being mentally sane (really??)
I would love to know what is the percentage of the world population that could subscribe my words...Those not as lucky as me and many of you spend their life in a struggle for getting things some take for granted...it is an utter disgrace that people that has survival ensured forget what a privilege it is to have it, and still they keep complaining about stupid stuff. It is a responsibility and an obligation for us to make this world a better one for all those who cannot choose.
Curiosity of the day: Remember about fulan? well actually i discovered that there are no zutano and mengano, but actually there are three in Arabic too: fulan, aelen and terten...would be something like aeleano y tertano?
Last Friday was the orphan´s day; to "celebrate" it, i volunteered (in a cafe promise to early man) to attend Dar Roshdy Orphanage for girls in Helwan (South Cairo) to take pictures of the party they were throwing and to serve food for few hundred women (the latter didn´t finally happen for some technical problem, but the intention is the important). In there i met the director of the centre, Miss. Nora El Shikh. This woman has a presence and energy that i felt it since the moment i got in the room. Everybody listens to her and the children absolutely love her to bits. I heard the story that one guy that was visiting was massacred by the children because somebody told them, as a joke, that he did not like the director. Water, food, chairs and every imaginable object was thrown to him and then all the girls did a human pile with him on the bottom for punishing him :D this tells a lot about this wonderful woman and about the character of the children :) The orphanage is for girls that have lost their parents, or with parents that cannot take care of them. The door of the place is shown in the picture:
I was a bit uncomfortable at the beginning to take pictures, as i didnt know what kind of reaction i was going to get. But it turned out to be so much fun, children were jumping in front of the camera every time i was taking a picture. They learned my name oh so fast, they were shouting at me to ask me for a picture, bringing me their friends, posing for me, fooling around in front of the camera. They spoiled me with sweets too, everyone of them thanked me for taking their pictures and gave me a cake or a lillypop or anything else, i had to eat them all :D I really loved every moment in there, some of the group pictures:
And in this particular day some boys were there for the party too.
And some of the portraits:
I tried to include as many children as i could in this post, but i am afraid that i still missed some...my apologies to them x x x Do not to forget some of the volunteers:
And finally: the subtitle of the post is a transcription from classic Arabic (Al arabeia al Fusha):
Ana (i) akum (do) kalilan (little/bit) bfard al-kifaya (in social obligation) badar (in tha house) al-aitam (of the orphans) = I do a bit of my social obligations in the orphanage...irrespectively of cultures, we all have social obligations; in the particular case of Islam the concept of fard al-kifaya embodies it. The people and the young volunteers working there are fulfilling that, they are trying to help people that are in worse situation than them...and they are not precisely well off. In this globalisation age these are the kind of concepts that should travel through cultures, these are the kind of actions that should not know about national borders, transnational fard al kifaya. It is my social obligation to use my camera to take the pics, to post them in my blog and to try to help them by asking you to donate money for this place that take care of the of the ones in more need. I will include the web address of the orphanage in this post in the future (the web is being updated), contact me in my email for further information of how to send money. Even a few english pounds would make a big difference for them. Thanks very much. Rabbena Yijalik.
This photo is an obvious translation :P
