Blogging as a journalist today

When I want the news fast and hard, I turn to the electronic edition of the NY Times. Every morning, I scan the page and read the headlines, but it’s not very often that I actually click the link and read the stories for further information; I find that the leads are quite enough.
However, when I do want to read an actual article, it seems that the RSS feeds on my google reader serve as the ultimate source of information. And I’m not subscribing to The Guardian, The Nation or Reuters for information any more.
In fact, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the brunt of the information about the news that I follow up on, as well as the supplemental articles that I read are coming from blogs.

For example, if I need a good healthy dose of political punditry, my first stop is to access the Huffington Post’s Top Posts/Blogger Index. If I need a good healthy dose of humor about the current political climate in Pakistan, I turn to the group blog Five Rupees, maintained by four Pakistanis living both in Pakistan and abroad.

Today, blogs are coming rapidly under fire for their lack of accountability as well as their monopoly on fluff pieces. For example, Five Rupees, one of my all-time favorite blogs, manages to quickly extract quotes by Pakistani politicians from well-meaning newspapers and magazines, giving me their words out of context, which sometimes alters the meaning entirely. In addition to this, Five Rupees sometimes highlights the stupid news about Pakistan. While often reporting on some issues and opinions ignored by major newspapers and magazines, the blog much too frequently pokes fun at sportsmen, children of politicians, and the fluffier pieces floating around about Pakistan.

It seems that along with Big Media, I too am grappling with the advent of blogs. While I read them daily, and arm my political arguments with popular blogger’s opinions, do they really constitute as an original form of journalism? It seems that they can.

When I turn to the blogs I frequent, I’m not looking for some mom’s newest recipe for her children, but rather for the participatory aspect that being a citizen journalist can provide.

Just ask Jay Rosen, faculty member at NYU and writer of PressThink, a blog about journalism. Rosen, who’s revolutionized the way that both professional and amateur journalists interact with the internet, with projects such as Offthebus.net, and beatblogging.org would probably agree that in the age of new media, blogs allow for participatory journalism unlike ever before.

USC’s Annenberg School of Communication hopped on the idea of participatory journalism with the Knight Foundation supported website/blog Intersections. Intersections is the typified community news website, covering the news in South L.A. and its surrounding area. Original in that all contributions come directly from the community, high school students, residents, and J-school students at USC all provide the information on the page.

Intersections isn’t the only participatory journalism blog to exist out in cyberspace. There is no paucity of citizen journalists contributing to the blogosphere today, and some of these blogs are truly the watchdogs of government corruption in countries where neither Big Media nor the government itself can be held accountable. In a countries where controversial opinion is buried under layers and layers of rewriting, blogs such as Teeth Maestro, a popular Pakistani blog written by a successful dentist in Karachi, are not only an original source of journalism, but lone voices of truth in a country where there is almost no free press.

Blogs allow for a democratic approach to the media. No longer dealing with the same aspects of gatekeeping as before, blogs that function as accounts by citizen journalists are much different than the news and opinions that Big Media promotes.

Unfathomable

Progressive Part II

Headline from the Telegraph, as I scrolled their news feed for details about Baitullah Mehsood's death: Pakistan to Outlaw Domestic Violence.

I'm impressed-
Once the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill is enacted into law, Pakistan will become one of surprisingly few countries to have specific legislation on the issue of domestic violence.
Not only does the bill define domestic violence [acts of physical, sexual or mental assault, force, criminal intimidation, harassment, hurt, confinement and deprivation of economic or financial resources], or explicitly state the punishment (fines and jail terms) for offenders, it lays out provisions for relief for victims – relief that includes but isn't limited to simply financial compensation.

Additionally, the bill actually includes domestic help in their definition of those involved in a domestic relationship.

An editorial from The Daily Times proclaims:

Some wives will use it as the last resort. Some wife-bashers will be put to shame when a police station welcomes an FIR from a battered wife instead of telling her to go back home and live with violence. A domestic quarrel among the educated will now unfold in the full consciousness that blows will not follow harsh words from the husband. Among the poor, where husbands habitually thrash wives, the police can intervene to apply reconciliation together with the threat of incarceration.

While a tad naive, the editorial points out an extremely important facet to the law- Pakistan's police must uphold the law and order.
When I worked at WAR, I found that often when legal proceedings began on rape cases, the police were unhelpful as they didn't believe that women needed a court case or legal justice, especially when they were married to the offender. The law addresses, and fixes, only one part of an intricate problem.Unfortunately, nothing will come of the law until we can convince the police that domestic violence is a crime, and one that they must punish.

There's nothing you can do about it

Law and Order

Sometimes, I'll find myself in the car, driving somewhere from one end of Karachi to another.
Mostly, I'll be on Sharaah-E-Faisal, or by the KPT Underpass.

And then, I'll notice them. The traffic police.
Dressed in their white uniforms, in all their glory, they'll stand by their two-wheeled transport vehicles and gab to one another.

The car crossing the intersection during a red light? The motorcycle that turns illegally? The blatant misuse of u-turns at round-a-bouts? Riding pillion?
These should be the very things that Karachi's traffic police should stop. Tickets out of the wazoo could await them. The truth, unfortunately, is much more complex than "The police in Pakistan just don't care," a statement I've heard countless time.

Sociologically speaking, it's difficult for me to be irritated with a sector of the populace that's so abused, underpaid, and ill-educated.

When I came across this article about police in India on The Guardian [it's not long, click it], I found myself somewhat appalled, but not surprised – I've heard stories of women who've been raped going to the police, and being subjected to even more rape at the police headquarters.

This is frightening. It's much too difficult for us to feel safe on the streets of Karachi- and even more frustrating to realize that government spending isn't being spent to assuage any of these problems.

Building one of the largest fountains. Reclaiming land to reconstruct a park. Issuing multiple vehicles to government workers. This is where our money is going. What about mandating education; laws prohibiting aerial firing and civilian possession of firearms; disassembling the kunda system of electricity theft; harsher consequences for tax evasion?

Perhaps we can begin with paying our police force enough to where they feel compelled to value the wellbeing of the citizen they are currently not protecting

Haraam

I had lunch today at KOEL- a gallery and cafe combination that seems like it has never seen the real (read: hot, polluted, noisy) Karachi.

As I sat there eating my blackened chicken with alfredo, one of the girls I was sitting with was talking about the concept of halal vs haram – an interesting conversation, especially considering my agnostic tendencies. She was arguing that pigs didn't clean out their blood through their kidneys well enough, and thus made people much more susceptible to diseases- she even cited reading an article about how eating pigs led to some man's brain cancer.

Frankly, I'm tired of the bad rep that pigs have received as of late. Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, and Babe have all been extremely close friends of mine in my youth. Swine flu, higher cholesterol, and increased risk of obtaining tape worms aside, can we please redirect our attention to the pig bladder (aka pixie dust).

Lee Spievack from Cincinatti regrew his finger after sprinkling it with pig bladder powder.
Read more here, and here. Okay, that may have been a slight exaggeration, he'd only sliced off the top of it, and there was neither bone nor ligament damage. Regardless, pretty damn cool for an animal so harshed on.

I direly wanted to bring up the event during my lunch conversation, but chickened out when Alyna's argument that red wine had actually been proven to be beneficial to health was countered with the girl repeating that she wouldn't drink alcohol, not for religious reasons but for health ones. I've learned the hard way that snark generally doesn't bode well when people are blindly religious.

Battle of the Bovine

I find this much too hilarious to not mention.

A new Canadian company has very happily decided to give Red Bull a run for their money. Slow Cow, has been designed to be the antithesis of Red Bull- it's a de-stresser in a drink. Surprisingly, it's not the first relaxing drink on the market -whatever happened to good ol' Sleepytime?- Drank is another relax-in-a-can.

Red Bull is not pleased- they've sent an official letter to Slow Cow to let them know their packaging (definitely a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the popular energy drink's design), is too close for their liking, and that the company should close.

Ah, the beauty of capitalist markets.

Progressive?

The Pakistan Supreme Court ruled recently that transvestites were equal citizens and should be allowed to benefit from the country's financial support schemes.

That's all.

No, Really?

The leftist weekly, The Nation, decided to print one of the lamest articles I have ever read.
It starts badly with this headline: Lewd Stares Distressing To Women.
Was that really contested?
Then, the article goes on to chronicle a poor Muslim woman's suffering as insults are shouted at her.
However, it is this section of the article that made me literally laugh out loud.

"The Emirates is the most female-friendly country in the Middle East. The Government’s efforts to encourage women to use public spaces is admirable. The Abu Dhabi beach was quickly divided into two sections last year after women expressed their discomfort at gangs of labourers roaming about and leering. Emirati men are courteous. They never stare.
By contrast, sexual harassment levels in Egypt are endemic. In the Punjab and Karachi, images of women on billboards are defaced or just banned.

1. I have seen quite a few non-defaced billboards of women in Karachi. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a defaced billboard with women on it.
2. While sexual harassment is indeed terrible in Egypt, I would never use the word endemic to describe it.
3. How exactly can you just claim something such as Emirates being the most female-friendly country, then chalk it up to "Emirati men are courteous. They never stare."
4. How can she say that a country is doing well when instead of attempting to solve the problem of sexual harassment it further segregates men and women?

It gets better when the author writes:

"Yet western women are also fascinating because they are considered a third gender. They look like females but have the independence of men. Men who have no shame at leering at women make clear distinctions between those who deserve respect and those who do not."

Is she implying that no women in Muslim countries as a rule ever have the 'independence of men?'

There is no mention of the idea of education, strict laws, lack of empowerment being a cause of any of them. Instead she writes that she hoped that she could have a burqa to wear in Afghanistan because she wants it be a barrier between them and abuse. What of the strict Taliban rule that prevented women from leaving the house without the burqa? Was that a result of the Taliban wanting women to be protected from abuse?

How is Hamida Ghafour solving the problem of sexual harassment?

"When it becomes too much I create a mental buffer zone to tune out the calls and stares. If that doesn’t work I try the shoe trick. When the offender shouts an insult, I stop, point at his shoes and laugh.

It subtly shifts the balance of power. And I won’t get arrested."

Disgusting. Next time, just ask them to look away, or to shut up. It does the trick in a much less stupid way.

Hillary, Family Planning and Foriegn Policy

Hillary Clinton was recently awarded the Margaret Sanger award.

Here's a particularly amazing section of her award speech:

"Too many women are denied even the opportunity to know about how to plan and space their families, and the derivative inequities that result from all of that are evident in the fact that women and girls are still the majority of the world's poor, unschooled, unhealthy, and underfed. This is and has been for many years a matter of personal and professional importance to me, and I want to assure you that reproductive rights and the umbrella issue of women's rights and empowerment will be a key to the foreign policy of this administration."

Remember how elated I was when Hillary Clinton was selected as Secretary of State. This is why. From repealing the global gag rule, to offering asylum to women in foriegn countries who have suffered domestic abuse- it's a beautiful thing to watch the Obama administration decide to move on the issue of women's rights so early on.

The Israelis Did It

Living in Egypt, I became quite accustomed to the slew of things that people blamed on the Israelis (the stabbing of Naguib Mahfouz included).

However, this may be the best one yet-
Hamas is blaming the Israelis of exporting an aphrodisiac gum into the Gaza strip to corrupt their young.

Public Opinion in Pakistan

In light of the recent Jamat Islami "Go America Go" movement, I thought it'd be interesting to see what the Pakistani populace thought of the current situation in their country.

Here's what I found:

According to a new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org, it seems that the majority of Pakistanis now see the Pakistani Taliban as well as al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country--a major shift from 18 months ago.
What's so amazing about this, is that now the majority of Pakistanis support the government and army in their fight in the Swat Valley against the Pakistani Taliban. An overwhelming majority think that Taliban groups who seek to overthrow the Afghan government should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan.

While these results may not seem surprising considering that the tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them.

The poll also found that Pakistanis, regardless of a change in administration, still resent the U.S. as much as before. A majority does not trust Obama to do the right thing. Overwhelming majorities believe the US wants to divide and weaken the Muslim world, and 82% reject Obama's predator drone strikes on Pakistani soil. Some 79% want the war in Afghanistan ended now.

The poll, which was conducted entirely in Urdu and interviewed 1,000 applicants face to face in 64 sampling areas seems fairly legitimate, and their methodology and report can be found on the website here.

While to many it may seem as though resentment towards the U.S. is unfounded, I found a recent interview in Guernica with Fatima Bhutto to be quite revealing of why the Obama Administration may not be viewed as favorably as people may think.

Here's what she had to say about it:

I think the problem that Obama has made in Pakistan is an enormous one. Empowering Pakistan’s military and empowering this incredibly criminal and corrupt government with drone access and all the rest of it, and with billions and billions of dollars of aid, he’s just repeating the cycle.

Fatima Bhutto on Pakistan's current President:

Before he became president, Zardari was standing trial in four murder cases; it’s eleven people, I believe, killed in these four cases. The man can barely string a sentence together in Urdu; forget about English. This is a man whose entire mandate rests on the fact that his dead wife named him heir apparent in a letter. He was elected by Parliament in the same way that General Pervez Musharraf was elected by Parliament. So it’s very difficult to say Musharraf was not democratically elected but Zardari was. Both of them were elected by their own parliaments. I think this is part of the great doublespeak you get when you talk about Pakistan. Zardari has not entered into a popular vote, and he’s got no mandate of the people. In my book, that’s not democratic. And I think that Obama has given the man a lifeline that he very desperately needed to stay in power.

That's all the food for thought I have.

The Way We Get By

Beit-as-Suhaymi -- Cairo, Egypt

Ever since the first few people were hit with a strain of H1N1 Swine Flu, the world's response has been recorded by the media in precise detail.  

I remember sitting in my apartment in Egypt, being simultaneously shocked and amused that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had decided to commission the mass slaughter of all Egyptian swine in late April.  In Mubarak's defense, Egypt was hit hard with the avian flu strain (H5N1), and decided that it was in his country's best interest to kill the 400,000 something pigs that roamed the mostly Coptic Christian neighborhoods of Cairo to calm any impending panic in the populous nation.  However, the pigs are the main source of livelyhood for the Coptics, many of whom live in abject poverty and are Cairo's best means of getting rid of organic waste.  

Mubarak's reactionwhile, certainly severe, was only one of the slew of amusing reactions to the flu.  As more information about the flu has become apparent and we can now safely browse the internet and watch the television without repeatedly hearing the words influenza and pandemic (and more of Iran, Madoff, Michael Jackson) , it seems that swine flu is still making the headlines as world leaders (and others) react to the pandemic.  

In Serbia, the thousands of athletes performing in the World University Games will only be able to participate upon showing health certificate proof of not having swine flu.  According to New Zealand chef de mission Lynne Coleman, the restirictions are 'impractical.' She doesn't believe the impositions in place will work. I'm not sure what's funnier, that New Zealand's upset about Serbia's reaction, or that Serbia's asking students from 140 different countries for the alleged health certificate.  [The New Zealand Herald]

Taking a different approach to a similar stance, Wimbledon has gone out of its way to downplay fears of swine flu, but four ball boys and girls have been asked to stay at home because of flu like symptoms. Wimbledon officials, keeping in their usual classy modus operandi, have claimed that sending the unfortunate boys and girls home was just a precaution and the gathering of some England's most elite in close quarters will not be any more or less dangerous than strolling the streets of busy London.  [The Times Online]

Because younger people and the elderly are more likely to contract the disease, they are being urged to skip out on the upcoming pilgrimage to Mecca.  After a four day long conference in Jiddah, which experts from the CDC and the WHO attended, to examine the Kingdom's measures to prevent the flu's spread. I just want to point out that these concerns were raised post the Egyptian Health Minister's claim that the tens of thousands of Egytian muslims performing hajj this year risked being quarantined upon return.  [The Washington Post]

The swine flu story winner, however goes to the The New York Times.  The article makes it seem as though summer camps in the United States are dealing with the biggest hardship in light of the recent pandemic. (Not Mexico, where the tourism related economy has severely declined). According to the article, the camps have to revisualize their entire way of structuring the seven-eight week camps.  What happens when a child begins exhibiting flu like symptoms? What happens if more than one child at the camp becomes infected? How do they contain the illness?  Well, shucks.  For all the parents wanting to ship their kids of to teach them responsibility while standing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, swine flu may be making a dent (financial and metaphorical) in your plans.   (The article was brought to my attention by Akbar Ahmed).  

The King of Pop in the Information Age

Mosque of Nasr Mohammad ibn Qalawun (Mamluk Period)
Southern Enclosure of the Citadel
Cairo, Egypt

When I was in middle school, someone quoted a line in Pay it Forward, and said that if he could change the world, he'd get everyone in China to jump up and down– literally causing the world to shift on its axis.
The thought, since then, has disturbed me.
Some nights, as I fall asleep, I wonder, who could actually convince all the people of China to do such a thing, and what would the consequences be.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Michael Jackson's death had quite the effect on society – even causing the internet to slow down.

Here's what happened:

When TMZ, the celebrity/entertainment gossip website, broke the news, fans began immediately Twittering.
But that's not unusual as Twitter's citizen journalism accounts have been vital in today's rapid changing, constantly online environment (as in Moldova, the Iran Election Protests 2009, and the Tea Party Protests). I'm sure not very many people were suprised when a fail whale began to appear.

Google, on the other hand, bombarded with searches for "Michael Jackson" responded to requests with a response automated for viruses instead, telling users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application." Big whoops. AOL, CNN, also suffered drawbacks, so it's not as though Google was the only one hit, reported the BBC.

That's not all. This morning, after presumably half the wired (and wire-less) world was already informed of the news, newspapers in Pakistan still had to have raging headlines of the flamboyant musician's contributions to err, music? (Dawn, the leading English daily in Pakistan, had most of us at Newsline doubling over in laughter when we saw that their headline read "Jackson stuns fans again, with sudden death").
Really, though? Remember when Lady Di and Mother Teresa died on the same day, and Mother Teresa, blessed soul, didn't get the worthy media attention she deserved. This was like that, only, somehow worse.

Did the leading English daily of Pakistan have to blast a headline that most of Pakistan's elite, English newspaper reading population already knew? And thus subsequently downplay the headline "Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia to act against drugs, terror" a headline, and article which I believe had much more importance and relevance for the Pakistani people.

Well done MJ. I guess you know that's when you've really lived life – when your death not only breaks news hours after it's already been broken, it manages to slow down the internet. As Dawn stated, "Jackson’s death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music’s premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage." (I couldn't have put it better myself).

That's all from me about the King of Pop. Minus the fact that Billie Jean has been playing like a broken record in my head, and hearing people react to his death still amuses me.

Islamic Feminism

When it comes to Arab feminism, I like to point fingers to Hoda Sharaawi, who literally threw her veil off her head when returning from a women's conference in 1923 at a Cairo train station. Others joined in the action, giving the Islamic feminist movement its first first public triumph.
Islamic feminism isn't inherently the veil debate, however.

Today, the death of Neda has become one of the symbols of the protests following the June 12 elections in Iran. All she wanted, said her music teacher, was the proper vote of the people to be counted (The Times).

Ladan Bouramand, the Iranian activist, writes that the regime would not bother to use brutal forms of repression against dissidents unless it feared them deeply. Nobody would have murdered a young woman in blue jeans—a peaceful, unarmed demonstrator—unless her mere presence on the street presented a dire threat.

One thing remains true, in light of the protests making waves across Iran. It is not Twitter, not the end of the Bush administration, nor the beginning of the Obama one, but the women that have caused such a riot.

As Anne Applebaum writes, "the truth is that the high turnout was the result of many years of organizational work carried out by small groups of civil rights activists and, above all, women's groups, working largely unnoticed and without much outside help."

And in the words of Egyptian lawyer, Qasim Amin, women's liberation was a patriotic duty that would serve all Egypt, not just its females. "The evidence of history, confirms and demonstrates that the status of women is inseparably tied to the status of a nation."

4 Things: Islamabad

1. Shah Faisal Masjid- is visible when you go almost anywhere in the city. Named after the Saudi King Faisal, Faisal Masjid is the 4th largest mosque in the world. It's the National Mosque of Pakistan and was completed in 1986, and then used to house the International Islamic University. Famous Pakistan artist Sadequain also decorated the interior.
2. Islamabad was one of the earliest civilizations in Pakistan, located on one of the ends of the Indus Valley Civilizations. In 1958, it was selected to become the new capital of Pakistan and is one of two cities in all of Asia that was planned on paper before being built. As a result, it's a gorgeous example of urban planning.
3. The ancient Gakhar city of Rawalpindi is located adjacent to Islamabad and is connected to it. Benazir Bhutto international airport, located in Rawalpindi serves as the airport for both of them.
4. Islamabad is also home to the Fatima Jinnah Park. One of the largest parks in South East Asia, Fatima Jinna Park stretches the entire f-9 sector of Islamabad, and serves as a wildlife sanctuary.

ICC Twenty20

I don't often get involved in sports.
The occasional Cy-Fair high school football game, I could get excited about.
When the Eagles' Brian Dawkins did something phenomenal, I cheered along with the rest of my household-
But, I don't turn up the radio in my taxi, and scream AHLY, like every Cairene boy when a soccer game is on, and predict that there will be no load shedding in Karachi when Pakistan is playing cricket.

This summer, however, I've found a new respect for the level of patriotism that sports can bring in a country. Shahid Afridi has brought most of Karachi to standstill with his epic catch against New Zealand, and I along with Ammar, was rooted to the edge of my seat watching him.

For those of you, like me, who are not cricket aficionados here is a wikipost. (Ammar, Mashal and I recognized that explaining cricket is one of the most difficult things in life, so I'm out sourcing here).

Recently, I was surprised, when I read a sportblog post on The Guardian in which sports writer, Andy Bull, said that his heart was rooting for Pakistan winning the ICC Twenty20.
My heart's been rooting for Pakistan winning the Twenty20 all along-

International Cricket in Pakistan has suffered a great blow since the Lahore attacks on March 3rd of 2009. Until that point, I'd say that Pakistan had believed that cricket, at least, was exempt from the terror and turmoil of the country. However, when British fast bowler Dominic Cork, in Lahore at the time, uttered the words, “I don’t think international cricket should return to this country. I won’t be coming back here while I’m still living, there is no chance,” I suppose Pakistan knew, cricket in Pakistan would never be the same.

Fact of the matter is, terrorism and cricket have never been mutually exclusive- certainly not in Sri Lanka, or to other members of the international cricket playing community.

For example, April 21, 1987 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a suicide bomber struck a bus station in the city killing more than 100 people when the New Zealand team was in Colombo for a three-Test tour. The three-test tour was reduced to just one Test match and the team returned home. Then again, on November 16, 1992 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, there was a suicide bomb attack by Tamil Tiger rebels outside the very hotel where the New Zealand team was staying. Four people were killed, and five of the players along with the coach decided to go home. More recently, on July 24, 2001, 13 Tamil Tiger suicide bombers strapped explosives on their backs and broke through the airport security in Colombo and detonated themselves on the runway just as a flight from the Maldives landed on the airstrip. At least 14 people were killed and 12 others injured. The New Zealand team continued with their tour amidst tight security.

Granted, none of these terrorist attacks are on the level as the March 3rd attacks- which were abhorrent, terrible, and shocking to the international at large and I'll be the first to agree that the current security state in the country I live in isn't exactly what most Westeners' would regard as safe. However when sports writer Will Buckley decides to write a satirical, almost comical piece about what would happen if the England football team experienced a feat similar to the Sri Lankan cricket team, I was a little shocked. He heralds the Sri Lankan cricket team as the "Team of the Year" for making it to the Twenty20 final after having suffered the March 3rd attack and even goes out of his way to mention that some Pakistanis are also likely to be hoping they triumph.

Pakistan's captain, Younis Khan, explained it well when he said "If we win tomorrow it will be good for our future cricket (and) for the Pakistan nation as well because we've been suffering from a lot of things."
Cricket gives the people of Pakistan- the paan-walla on the side of Tipu Sultan Road, the Pizza-hut delivery guy, the little boy living in a Katchi-Abadi settlement- hope.
Perhaps in the international media their country is regarded as a breeding ground for terrorists and fundamentalists, but here, on the cricket pitch, they can compete with the best of the best, be it West Indies, or South Africa. On the cricket pitch, they can pulverize their sworn enemy, India, without drawback.
These people of Paistan, the jamadaar (sweeper), household plumber, chowkidaar (neighborhood watchman), are never to blame for the March 3rd attack. They deserve to keep that hope.

While Sri Lanka is an excellent team, who has yet to lose any game in the Twenty20 tournament, Buckley's article, was rubbish, in awful taste, and a poorly written piece. Sri Lanka has come a long way since March, and I commend them their cricket-skills. However, to say that they deserve to win more than Pakistan- now that, is way out of line.

Of Mountains and Speeches

I thought that seeing the sun come up between the dangerously ominous peaks surrounding Mt Sinai was exactly the kind of momentous occasion I'd wanted out of my last days in Egypt.
I was wrong. More than wrong in fact.

Highlights from Mt Sinai:

Ben exhausted after our long climb. (Mt Sinai's altitude is 2285m in height, the camel trail which is what I climbed is a 7km trail to the summit).

On our way down from the mountain- the sun's morning rays illuminated everything beautifully.

I shot this photograph while pausing to take a breath halfway down the mountain. "Let's take stock," I told Ben. "There's no way we climbed that thing."

I'm not going to say Mt Sinai was a letdown. I'm still repeating my favorite catchphrase from the event that I got to see a sunrise of "truly biblical proportions" that I may have stolen from LonelyPlanet. But, in the last few days I spent in Cairo, the few glimpses I witnessed of the city that never sleeps, on the eve and morn of Obama's visit were probably the one memory of a city that I love from the bottom of my heart that I'll always hold on to.

It's as though all of Cairo was a abuzz with the news of the president's visit. While most articles I've read on the subject (having returned to a world with internet access), making Cairenes sound bitter about the costs and benefits of the U.S. President's visit, what I witnessed was a sweeter kind of respect, a similar one to that of his win during elections.
These men weren't complaining about the cost of bread, about the amount of money spent on security.
As I stood trying to take some mediocre photographs of a cute man selling little teracotta pots outside my favorite souq on Sheikh Rehan, everyone told me "Bokra Obama," the afternoon before his arrival, as though recognizing the white color of skin of my companions they wanted us to note that they too were enthused.
A cab driver, dropping us back our hotel asked us of our opinion, immediately comparing the charismatic president to Bush, and Musharraf (noting immediately that I was infact a "Muslimah from Bakistan).
On Bein al Qasrayn, on the outskirts of Khan El Khalili market, in front of the mosque of Sultan Barquq, an enterprising vendor (who Jack Shenker seems to have run into as well) held up a white t-shirts with a familiar hieroglyphic rendering of King Tut. Below it the words "Obama, the New King Tutankhamun"
In the Mall of Khan El Khalili, we stop to look at a television screen depicting a stone mosque with three/four layers of tiered muqarnas. "Sultan Hassan?" I ask one of the guys there. "Dilwati, henna. Ba3d 3ain, al Haram" told me the man. Apparently even Obama deemed my favorite mosque worthy of a visit, along with the Pyramids.

Of course finally eating dinner at the Birdcage was pretty pleasant as well, as far as last things in Egypt go.

Small Update

Beit Al Suhaymi
Detail, Underside of Gazebo

Finals are almost over- The Ford Foundation, Amaan, and Orphan Caregivers' and their Training Program had mostly taken over my life for a short period of time.
After that, all I did was study mosques.
Ben is here. We've been hitting up some sights in Cairo together- pictures shall follow soon, however...
Blogging will be taking a break- the internet in my apartment has been disconnected due to a failure on our part to pay our bills.
We will be leaving shortly to eat delicious seafood in Alexandria (tomorrow), soak up some rays at the Red Sea (Dahab) climb Gabal Moussa (aka Mt Sinai) and perhaps venture into the carved rock formations of Colored Canyon near Nuweiba.
I arrive in Pakistan on the 8th of June.
Blogging will be interspersed until then, and will be mostly photographs and links.

Food for thought:
Did you know that women in Russia are simply not allowed to work the St. Petersburg underground Metro system on the grounds that the equipment is too heavy for them?
Apparently one uppity woman doesn't think that's okay.

War-

Detail of door
Mosque Complex of Azbak al Yusufi (1495)
Near the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun
Cairo, Egypt

This mornings most popular story on Reuters.com is a sad one, my friends. It involves a small Iraqi boy, U.S. forces, and a hand grenade.
Here's a plot summary, although I'd recommend you read the entire thing-
The U.S. military announced Saturday that they shot a 12 year old boy dead as they suspected him of being involved in throwing a hand grenade at them. Iraqi officials, however, do not believe that the boy was responsible.

"We have every reason to believe that insurgents are paying children to conduct these attacks or assist the attackers in some capacity, but undoubtedly placing the children in harm's way," said Major Derrick Cheng, a U.S. spokesman in northern Iraq.

This is not about a blame game. This is not about who shot who, or who was responsible. This is really about the casualties of a war-
It's bad enough that the calculated civilians deaths of the war in Iraq amount to somewhere between 91,912-100,339 people. Now children are being used to conduct attacks.
Where does this all end- The Bush administration declared it a War on Terror, but it just seems to me, more and more like it's a War of Terror.

Civil Society, Anyone?

Children on beach
Hawksbay, Karachi
Pakistan

Though I'm sure many of you are aware of this,
Arundhati Roy got herself in gear and headed over to Karachi to show solidarity with the Women's Action Forum for 'Women to Reclaim Public Spaces' a anti-Talibanization campaign.
While in Karachi, she spoke with a reporter from Dawn about 'Taliban' and what exactly it meant-
Arundhati Roy, writer extraordinaire, makes 'Taliban' into a semantics issue of sorts-

"I’m here to understand what they mean by this term." Roy asked in an interview with Pakistan's Dawn. "Do you mean a militant? Do you mean an ideology?"
and then she revealed her grand plan: "I think both needs to be fought. But if it’s an ideology it has to be fought differently, while if it’s a person with a gun then it has to be fought differently. We know from the history of the war on terror that a military strategy is only making matters worse all over the world."

Here's what I think about Arundhati Roy:
The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize (this may or may not have been a shout out to you, Caitlin), was genius- but it's her views on anti-globalization, her ideas of the negative environmental and economic consequences of dams, and her extremely strong views of Kashmiri separation that really won my respect.

Side note: One of the best things that Roy has said ever, was in regard to United States going to war in Afghanistan, when Roy wrote in her famous peace, War is Peace: President George Bush said, "We're a peaceful nation." America's favorite ambassador, Tony Blair (who also holds the portfolio of Prime Minister of the UK), echoed him: "We are peaceful people." So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.

Here's what pisses me off: Why is it that a Keralite Christian who spent most of her life in India, has come to Karachi and said some of the most profound things about Pakistan and the War against Taliban that I've heard in a long while.

In her interview with Dawn, Arundhati Roy shares a story about a little boy who asks why women can’t be like plastic bags and banned. Roy says that the point is that "the plastic bag was made in a factory but so was the boy. He was made in a factory that is producing this kind of mind(set). (The question is) who owns that factory, who funds it? Unless we deal with that factory, dealing with the boy doesn’t help us. "

Sure, Kayani's realized the Taliban's an internal threat (finally)
Sure, the U.S. backing Nawaz Sharif means that Pakistan may return to united governing
but is killing people up in Swat Valley really going to stop the little Taliban boy from asking the kinds of question that he asked her? Probably not. When, when, when, are the Pakistani people going to mobilize to deal with the kind of factory mechanism that churns out the little boy in the Swat valley? There's the United State's War Against Terror being fought in a few regions of our country- that's for sure-
but really, isn't there a similar war that you and I can be fighting? One that attempts to educate young women and men, to provide the kinds of family planning and health education that our country may need-
Now, more than ever, the country could use the workings of a civil society- one that acts instead of the government for the welfare of our people.

Roy's interview with Dawn can be read here.

Sheikh Tantawi

Detail: Hathorian Head from Temple of Dendera's roof
(The Goddess Hathor was the Egyptian goddess of feminine love, motherhood, and joy)

For those of you how don't know Sheikh Muhhamad Sayyid Tantawi, he's the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Mosque and thereby the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar University. Juan Cole described him as the "foremost Sunni Arab Authority."

As the story goes, Tantawi is Hosni's puppet, a glutton for the political prestige and monetary gains that Hosni can give him. Notable views of the Grand Sheikh include having condemned suicide bombings against Israelis, and having said that not wearing the hijab to school is the lesser of two evils in relation to the hijab ban in France. Additonally, Sheikh Tantawi opposed female genital circumcision, having gone on record to say that his own daughter has not been circumsized.

Tantawi's newest fatwa deals with abortion, and my personal feelings on the subject are mixed.
Essentially, Tantawi has sanctioned abortion in the case of raped women.
As always there are conditions.
Condition number one, as reported by Al Arabiya: The chastity of the woman.
What determine's the chastity of a woman? Well, according to Tantawi, if a girl is walking down the road on the way to university and is raped, she is considered chaste. Controversy ensues- the baby is already a fetus, say Azharite scholars! How do you determine her chastity, say the rest!
Condition number two, as reported by Almasry-Alyoum, quotes the sheikh:
"But if she feels comfortable with what happened, she can't have an abortion"

Erg. Abortion rights in Egypt have a ways to go-
My little monologue to Sheikh Tantawi:
1. Do you really believe that the chastity of women should ever play into question in the case of rape? A rape is a rape is a rape. Whether the woman is 'chaste' or not, she should never have to prove promiscuity in that situation.
2. Do you really believe that she would be comfortable with what happened. Let's see something like that happen to you, and then let me ask you if you're comfortable with that. Based on that, would you , my dear, like an abortion?

Food for thought- Friday 8th May

Boy with Ball
Siwa Town, near Shali Fortress
Egypt

Update from my personal life: Last Monday night, my lower back began aching. By Tuesday morning, it hurt so much that I was almost crying about it. Tuesday evening, Silke and I ended up at the hospital getting x-rays. Nothing is broken, however a terrible muscular sprain means that the doctors have ordered me on bed rest for four days.
In all honesty, bed-rest lasted about two days before I convinced myself, Silke, and Julia that I could most definitely walk to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf this morning (I needed a caffeinated beverage), and now I am back in pain and regretting my decision. After some blogging hiatus because of pain, I am back and ready to bitch.
A lot has happened in my hiatus, and so instead of blasting you with tens of thousands of blog posts, I'm just putting up some pertinent links to articles I felt it was absolutely essential that everyone read.

It's probably everything I would have covered in the last week, but wasn't able to. Some are funny, some are political- enjoy:

Women's Rights:

1. Tehran Bureau has beautifully covered the phenomenon of women (and men) lighting themselves on fire in order to kill themselves here. The article isn't as shocking as I'd hoped for it to be, however, it does bring up all of the relevant points- modernization, domestic abuse, as well as the effects of governments not looking after their people.

2. This article, by Dawn.com, discusses women in Karachi and recent effects of Talibanization in the city. Those of you who know me, have probably heard me speak about this, but this article does a more eloquent job of talking about it. It additionally addresses one my biggest beefs with Pakistanis and Karachiites- inability to mobilize.

3. The Aurat Foundation just released its quarterly report on violence against women. The News covers it here. It's as awful as you'd imagine it, but it's more difficult to digest when you realize that these are just the reported incidents.

Pakistan and Politics:

4. Kayani went on record to say that he fully understands the threat that the Taliban poses to Pakistan.

5. PM of Pakistan, Yusuf Raza Gilani is now saying no more peace deals with Taliban. Took you long enough Gilani, but good job.

6. Reuters suggests here, that there may be a return to unity government in Pakistan. Wtf, mate? Dawn seems to agree in this article. Weird, weird happenings.

Fun and Weird (courtesy of Ben and the roommates)

7. Latest hate group in Egypt? Emos. Everyone loves to hate them in the U.S. too, check out the SideWalk-Chalk-Drawing Rebels of Cairo here.

8. Russian prostitutes are complaining because the economic crisis means less sex more pillow talk. Reuters covers the story here.

9. Last but not least, a mission to break up an island in the Pacific made up of trash that's twice the size of Texas.

10. Updated, because it was too good not to add in here. Zardari's interview with Salon magazine. Even if you read nothing else in this list, please read this one. He compares Pakistan's economic situation to Chrysler, restates that Osama is no longer in existence and the best quote of all, that the nuclear arsenal is safe as it's not as if there's just one 'little button' for the Taliban to press. Pakistan, is this HONESTLY, the man you want in charge of your country?

Pakistan; a dance-

Scarves in the sunday bazaar
Karachi, Pakistan

The NYTimes has in recent weeks been writing some of the worst series of articles about my country-
However, today I rediscovered why I had fallen in love with the bold lines, clever opinions and familiar names of that newspaper.

Monsoon winds seem to have hit Cairo- the air is heavy and hot, and it seems ready to burst into sheets of hot rainfall at any second. This has affected my allergies, which have long been dormant. My nose has been leaking salty fluid everywhere, I sneeze every five seconds, and everyone who knows me knows how awfully I deal with being sick.
(In the words of Julia Nash "Aww, pathetic).
Instead of criticising, being outraged, or anything along those lines, I'm simply going to send you all to Sabrina Tavernise's article.
Enjoy it, it's beautifully written-

and for those of you who want something more:

In other Pakistan news, chairman of the party Tehrik-i-Insaaf has been banned from entering Karachi. Why? There aren't any laws that expressly forbid a Pakistani citizen from entering a city- but apparently Karachi is now beyond writ of government.
(Imran Khan, famous-Pakistani-cricketer-now-politician was attempting to board a flight from Lahore to Karachi when authorities told him he was unable to travel to Karachi. The chairman of one of Pakistan's least successful political parties was trying to raise funds for Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust Cancer Hospital. Angry words have been documented, Imran Khan jaan has said that MQM, Karachi's largest political party, is a mafia, not a political party)

Sex strikes for internal unity in Kenya?

Boat yard in the Mediterranean Sea
Alexandria, Egypt

We've all heard of transportation strikes and hunger strikes. Last year I even remember pitifully watching the news to see if the Writer's Guild had called quits on the writer's strike as my watching of television shows came to a slow but painful halt-

Kenyan women, however have taken the idea of strikes to another level. The Women's Development Organisation in Kenya, has decided that depriving men of conjugal rights may be one of the most effective ways to "bring an end to political strife that some fear could ultimately lead to renewed ethnic violence," reports the Times.

Their idea? To ultimately approach the wives of the President and Prime Minister of Kenya.
[Quick Backstory: In 2007, Kenya's political situation went into complete chaos- PM Odinga's supporters claimed he was cheated out of a victory in 2007, leading to mass ethnic violence. Wiki article here. A coalition government was formed between him and Kibaki. Typical of coalition governments, the two have done nothing but bicker- Their current spat is over who should run gov business in parliament- Odinga votes self, Kibaki votes VP Musyoka]
To stop the 'slippery road' back into violence, the women of Kenya have decided to take matters into their own hands. The BBC reports that they may even pay prostitutes to refuse sex.

The BBC also quotes Patricia Nyandi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers:

"Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'"

The Women's Development Organisation's chairwomen describes sex in the Telegraph. It is worth requoting.

"We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," said Mrs Subow. "It does not know tribe, it does not have a [political] party and it happens in the lowest households."

My opinion: Frankly, ridiculous.
Here's what Kenyan women seem to be saying to me-
1. We can only convince men to listen to us if we don't have sex with them.
2. If we don't have sex with our husbands, there is a very real possibility they will have sex with prostitutes, and thus we must pay them to not have sex either.
3. When men are not having sex, they must think better.
4. Women's primary role in a married relationship is to have sex, and only when they are abstaining from that role can something else come of it.

I like that Nyandi appreciates pillow talk, and the fact that first ladies or whatever of Kenya might have a role in defining the country's future, but can they only say/do something, while not having sex?
I do want to give kudos to the women of Kenya for making a stand. They obviously want something to be done- but as the Telegraph reports here, the women are boycotting sex so that the men can persuade politicians to break up the deadlock.
Sorry ladies- I need something more. Like perhaps women persuading politicians themselves. Not using their womanly wiles to get their husbands and boyfriends to speak their minds for them.

Credit for finding this story goes to Silke Martin via Genevieve DeTrude-

Is this a fail?

Detail: Mehrab
Mausoleum of Syeda Ruqqaiya
Southern Cemeteries
Cairo, Egypt

Pakistan stresses me out.
I should elaborate.
I don't mean, I shove candy corn in my mouth as I study biology before a high school exam stresses me out.
Or outline every spare minute of my time on a huge calender designed by Post It that I bought for my college dorm room before finals week stresses me out.
Pakistan the country stresses me out in a different way than anything else has ever stressed me out before.

Every time you open any news source, for example, some one's got something to say about it.
The Huffington Post for example. They recently published a story that highlights Zardari's recent idiot move. Announcing his belief that Pakistani Intel believes Bin Laden dead. (Yep, read it here). Gilani (PM, Pakistan) attempts to pick up the slack by saying:

"I don't know what are the comments of the president, but at the same time, I must clarify this, that nobody knows about Osama bin Laden," Gilani said. "We don't know about it, whether he is alive or dead."

However, Zardari's already done significant damage by saying that his intelligence agencies:

"obviously feel that he does not exist anymore," but he didn't explain how or when they reached that conclusion, and quickly qualified his comment by saying bin Laden "may be dead."
"That's not confirmed. We can't confirm that," he said. "It's still in between fiction and fact."

What does that even mean? Good job Zardari. Way to win respect of half the world. Which is why I believe half the world, including Hillary Clinton have lost their faith in you. This is additionally why, vested in their own interests as usual, the U.S. media is spreading a culture of mass panic again talking about the imminent collapse of the country that my parents, grandparents and a whole host of other people I love live in.
Baby acne springs up across my forehead (I told you Pakistan stresses me out).

Here's an argument different from what most of us have been hearing. Feel free to argue your hearts out with me, I'm open to many ideas. In my opinion, the United States may have their best interests at heart. Their media, their reporting, and their Secretary of State may still want what they want out of Pakistan.

Juan Cole seems to think Pakistan is safe- and he looks at the polling, the behavior in the voting booth, the history of political geography, and assesses them bit by bit here.

Did you know that the Pakistan military is the 6th largest? While they haven't won any wars, they haven't exactly suffered any internal mutiny of severe significance. Last but not least, remember Bajaur (Yeah, most people don't)? Al-Qaeda faced a crushing defeat by the Pakistani army. There goes that argument that Pakistan's not actually capable of fighting the Taliban. More like unwilling. Why? Probably because they're using the U.S. aid they're recieving to bribe the Taliban to attack Afghanistan because they're pissed at Karzai for his deals with India.

What Cole sees is that Washington's afraid of anything that resembles democracy in Pakistan- he goes as far to say tell Obama "Caveat Emptor." (Let the Buyer Beware). Suspicious much?

I'm not entirely sure what I think. The opinions expressed above are mostly Juan Cole's. I'm eager to believe him because I want my country to be safe. I do believe that Pakistan's bribing the Taliban- that one for me is easy to believe. And I do believe that Pakistan is more than capable of fighting the Taliban if they wanted to. But I don't understanding Washington's nervousness about a civillian elected government in Pakistan- although I recognize their opposition to it from the beginning.

As for the baby acne on my forehead,
the words Pakistan and Taliban appearing in the headline news together are the cause of my bad skin problems, I know it.

Egyptian Life (Recap)

Sunset on Nile River from felluca
Luxor, Egypt

Saturday morning:

Claire to Me: "Do you realize how much of our existence in this apartment is ridiculous?"
Quick Backstory: A 6 inch bumble bee had invaded our apartment. The Egyptian Mau cat we adopted had been sneezing incessant due to her cold. And we'd been fighting with our landlord about getting a water heater fixed because it had over rusted, and had been leaking all over the floor.

A toddler's hand sized spider was found over my bed not ten minutes ago. Pathetically, shoe in hand, I begged Katie to kill it. Instead of being calm and collected we stood screaming as the spider landed on my bed and she beat it to death on my sheets. Guess those sheets are getting washed. Whoops.

Fact of the matter is that I wouldn't trade the ridiculous life I have in my apartment for the world. Whether it's trying to figure out who's going to let Claire into the apartment at what time (Her cousin Katie took her key home to America), what exactly is clogging the kitchen sink, or which moron left the tea bag sitting on the coffee table so long that it actually began growing mold on it, I love every second of my apartment life.

I wish that everyone could try it sometime- the hosing down in the shower stall, the attempt to pry open the drain in the bathroom- remembering which someone left the gas knob turned on in the kitchen, and how exactly to light the top of the oven on fire to broil something correctly- And one of these days, when you see the Pyramids of Giza from my balcony as the sun melts at twilight, you'll realize what makes the apartment I live in worth it.

Maybe these experiences cannot find their way onto a resume. But between the fish stench emanating from a drainage pipe, the constant fixing of the toilet, the running and grabbing of the Raid can, and raised hand and silent smiled greeting to our door man, living in Metro Towers has taught me more than I can begin to imagine.

Spam and the Environment

Osieron
Temple of Abydos
Al-Balyana, Egypt (Upper Egypt- Northern Nile Valley)

I just read that spamming harms the environment. According to the Chronicle Herald, McAfee Inc. recently reported that "the amount of energy used to transmit, process and filter spam emails totals 22 billion kilowatt hours annually." Other sources report as much as 33 billion kilowatt hours. I'm not up on my energy readings, but that's like 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline. Or you know, a madman driving around the world 1.6 million times (these estimates are not my own- see the Chronicle Herald and ArabianBusiness.com)

Hopefully this is enough to stop you *cough* Azher Karimjee *cough* from Chain Mailing me to to death.

Egypt fun fact: All the guards have changed into their summer uniforms- they're all new, too. Brand spanking new white uniforms. Julia's been super excited about them- and I've got to admit- I find the generally annoying Egyptian guards/traffic police/tourist police to be quite dashing all of a sudden.

Pillion Riding

Temple of Dendera
Cult of Goddess Hathor
Qena, Egypt (Northern Nile Valley)

The Government of Sindh has once again banned pillion riding.
For those of you who didn't know it by the technical term, pillion riding is the act of more than one person riding on a motorbike.
Wasim Ahmed seems to believe that terrorism and other crimes were higher after the ban on pillion riding was lifted the first time, so it has been enacted once again-
Here is a particularly disturbing article about the death of a PSF member who was killed via men riding pillion.

And thus, as a result of the death of the PSF officer, the subsequent actions of Karachi was to ban all men riding pillion.

I think this is one of the best ideas Karachi has had for a while-
With the way that the economy has been doing, this may force middle class workers already in debt to go out and purchase their own motorbikes instead of riding on the backs of others. Who needs a stimulus package when you have the genius minds of Pakistan? We can just keep overcrowding roads like Shariah E Faisal with more motorbikes now.
The ban exempts women and children, journalists and elderly people. I guess that means two men riding a bike together has been banned. This means that the Mullahs on the side of the road no longer have to watch the haram positions of men straddling a motorcycle while wrapping their arms around each other- way to impose some good ol' Shariah law!
Essentially the ban makes one of the most popular forms of transportation in the 3rd most populated city in the world impossible for a month. As the ban was enacted on a late Friday afternoon, traffic police went to town exploiting the poor commuters who didn't know about the ban
Way to go Karachi! Banning pillion riding is the first step of many to ensuring a safe, terrorist attack and violence free Karachi.
(I do want to note that section 144 did impose a whole host of great rules for ensuring safety. I realize that the death of the PSF member was probably awful, but I don't think that eliminating pillion riding will actually solve the underlying problem- more on section 144 here)

Ring fingers

View from King Tuthmosis III's Tomb
Theban Hills
Valley of the Kings
West Bank, Luxor, Egypt

One of my favorite women badasses out there recently got hitched. Usually, I'd be handing out the mithai myself- a Pakistani custom- in times of celebration you hand out sweetmeats to your friends and neighbors (like cigars, except better?).
First things first-
Most of you know who Mukhtaran Bibi is- the woman who successfully challenged her rape attackers in court. Subjected to gang rape because her younger brother was accused (falsely) of having sex with a woman of a higher caste tribe, Mukhtaran Mai has now written an autobiography, runs several schools and a women's aid group in her village.

The New York Times covered it here. As days passed and Mukhtaran Mai's marriage hit more newstands a few things about women in Pakistani society has become a little more clear.
Zofeen Ebrahim covers the story again here- this time a little more shockingly. This is not your cushy NYTimes wedding announcement from before.

I suppose typically in Western society, the police constable would have divorced his first wife and then married Mukhtaran Mai- but that's not how things work in Pakistan. As the article reports, to avoid watta satta or exchange marriages, the police constable was unable to divorce his first wife, or his two sisters would have been kicked out of their families. Complicated? a little.
Mukhtaran Mai's on one hand is being commended by Western society for having married after having been raped (via NYTimes), a stigma she successfully battled down. Which in all honesty, is great. Most women in Pakistan with the social stigma of having been raped wouldn't dream of getting married, much less getting married in a choice marriage as she claims this one is-
On the other hand, women's rights activists in Pakistan, it seems, are disappointed that she put the first wife in such a position.
And, the article points out, the marriage may simply be a convenient way for her to have married someone with influence over the tribe that gang raped her.

Hatshepsut

Blogging had taken a hiatus for a while- I was spending a few days in the Nile Valley and on the Red Sea Coast-

Obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut
(tallest obelisk in Egypt)
Karnak Temple
East Bank, Luxor, Egypt

As far as uppity women go, Hatshepsut was uppity enough. Tons of stories exist about her reign, but the one I'm sticking to (Egyptologists generally agree with this one, and I'm citing Lonely Planet and Lisa Sabahy, my professor from last semester along with my text books), she married Tuthmosis the II, and when he died declared herself Pharoah. Wearing men's clothes and even the beard that Egyptian pharaohs wore. Most Egyptologist agree that her 15 year rule when she declared herself Pharoah was a period of internal growth and peace within Egypt, she ruled with the help of the God Amun (Essentially, she convinced her constituents that she was eligible to rule by saying that she was the daughter of the god Amun). Disturbingly, Tuthmosis III, ordered all of her cartouches and depictions to be removed from Egyptian history, but the fact is that Hatshepsut was a badass.
Having spent the week listening to tour guides tell various tales of her life, some proclaiming she stole the throne, others claiming that she was fat and lazy and one going as far as to say that she was a violent ruler, it became increasingly apparently to me that that was the story that people wanted to hear about Hatshepsut. They wanted her to have failed in some form or fashion. And most importantly, they kept romanticizing some illicit affair between her architect that may never have happened. Why was it so important for her to have a romantic liason, I don't know?

Spring Break 2009

The Colossi of Memnon
West Bank, Luxor, Egypt

Colossi of Memnon-
The faceless Colossi of Memnon were originally a tiny part of Amenhotep III's temple on the West Bank, the largest temple ever built in Egypt. Today Amenhotep's temple has pretty much disappeared. I guess that's just what happens when you build things out of mud fairly close to the Nile, but it's still sad- but it's a good thing because if it hadn't dissoved Pharoah's probably wouldn't have moved to using stones for their temples. The colossi are the only large scale parts of the temple ot have surfived. The colossi are each cut from a single block of stone and weight some 1000 tons, and were believed to be a tourist attraction since the Graeco Roman times when they were attributed to Memnon. Memnon- the legendary African king, slain by Achilles. One of the statues apparently made some variety of whistling noise at sunrise and the Greeks thought it was good luck, or the cry of Memnon when he greeted Eos, his mother, the Goddess of dawn. Sadly Septimus Severus repaired a crack in the statue, somewhere around 193-211 AD, the greeting was no longer heard.
Bummer deal.

The Colossi have a fascinating story, so I'm including it- but it's probably one of the monuments on the West Bank I spent the least amount of time at- we literally jumped out of the cab, snapped a couple of photographs and then jumped right back in the cab before taking the ferry to the East Bank.

But to back track to my spring break- I spent Spring Break/Easter in typical Mariya fashion- attaching myself to the family of someone I lived with/close by. Think back to the last two spring breaks/Easters. Whether it's cramming myself with Becca and Kara and her brother/sister/father in the New Yorker hotel for a weekend (Spring Break 2008), or sleeping with salt water aquarium in Ali's mother's sister's husband's sister's basement (Easter 2007), or attending Steph's mother's sister's surprise fiftieth birthday (Spring Break 2007)- you see the trend. Of course when Julia and Claire, recognizing my lack of plans for a Spring Break offered for me to join them and their family in Luxor they probably didn't know this about me- but I feel like hanging out with their aunt/uncle and cousins was pretty much right in line with what I normally do. And did I do it with the normal Mariya pizazz- Because Julia and Claire had planned their spring break well in advance, I did most of the getting there by my lonesome- and the interactions I had doing that were well worth the lonesome traveling.

Notes from the Giza Train Station: I had to take a sleeper train out of the Giza train station to get to Luxor. While the main train station is in Midan Ramses, I'd never been to the Giza train station. Julia told me how to say train station in Arabic, so I figured it'd be hard for me to go wrong, and I boarded the Metro to Giza, figuring I'd get out and then head to the train station from there. Uh wrong. The Giza train station is directly below the Giza Metro. So when I started asking all these cab drivers outside the Metro/Train station for the train station, they all thought I was insane. Finally, I was explained that I was at the train station already.
I'm not generally a bad traveler, and generally speaking being a lone female traveler in Egypt hasn't been a problem before. I did take the most expensive of budget options (or the cheapest of the expensive options?) to get to Luxor because I wanted a) to convince the parental units that I was traveling safely and b) it was a 10-12 hour train ride and I just didn't want to deal with sexual harassment. But of course as in with every other part of Egypt, sexual harassment was present. Running on Insha'allah Standard Time as usual, my train was late. In the waiting time I managed to watch a military train pass me by- the experience was insulting beyond reason, I grabbed my bags and actually hid behind a pilar to get the gawking and screeching and cat calling to stop. Last but not least- by the time the train actually did roll around, I was surrounded in every direction by Japanese Tourists, who looked perplexed and distressed at the notion of a train not on time. Between distressed Japanese women being harassed by Egyptian men, and the passing of the military train, I was certain I had made the correct decision.
It's pretty frustrating that the second I saw a white couple in the train station, I walked over to them so that I felt a little safer in a sea of leering, gawking Egyptian men. And about the twentieth time the 20-something year old passed me by with his tea-tray and made the kissing face at me I honestly did want to punch him in the face.
It wasn't a complete loss as far as cultural experiences go- I did make friends with a tour guide who shared his gourd seeds with me, and taught me the correct way to eat them-
So the rundown on Spring Break in short-
April 15th- I boarded my sleeper train an hour and forty minutes later than originally planned.
April 16th- I arrive in Luxor at around 6:35 a.m. I have written direction's to Mara house, the B&B run by a cranky Irish woman that I, my roommates, and their family will be staying at. I'm supposed to walk out of the back of the train station and go right. I go left (is anyone really surprised). The road never widens as it is supposed to, confusion ensues. I retrace my steps, find the B&B, and join my roommates and their family who fly in to Luxor and meet me at the B&B about ten minutes later. We decide to start our vacation at Karnak temple. The vacation is started aptly by our reading facts about Luxor temple from Ben's Lonely Planet while attempting to figure out what part of the temple we are standing at. After a while, we realize we are looking at the information for the wrong temple. We return to Mara's house around 12 (after lunch at Sofra's restaurant), where I promptly lock myself into the bathroom and am unable to get out. We spend the rest of the day catching up on sleep.
April 17th- We tackle West Bank and the 7 sights that we are supposed to see. As 7 people are sharing a bathroom, we get a little delayed on our start and do not make it out to the Valley of the Kings as early as possible. A man named Yousuf is our cab driver for the day, and he drives us everywhere. After Valley of the Kings (where we suck each drop from our waterbottles dry), and exploring the tombs of the ancient egyptian kings we go to the Temple of Hatshepsut, where we just stare at the temple and hit up the various other sites which include, the Colossi of Memnon, Medinat Habu and Deir al Medina. We drive past the Ramesseum.
April 18th- We go further up the Nile Valley to see the locations of the cult of Osiris and the cult of Hathor in Abydos and Dendera, respectively. This time we hire a tour guide, who makes us all a little nutty. Dr Hadi calls us his best friends and makes us want to kill him by the time we're all done. He refers to restrooms at the Temple of Pee-pee.
April 19th- We take a mini-bus to Hurghada on the Red Sea coast where we spend a day. The view from our balcony is phenomenal. Julia and I go adventuring in the water- we make friends with coral and sea snakes. I may or may not have minced my feet on the sharp coral.
April 20th- I say goodbye to my traveler friends, and spend the rest of the day in Hurghada before taking a 3 p.m. bus back to Cairo. Cairo greets me with cranky cab drivers and irritated bawabs, I more than elated to see Aggie back from Lebannon when she returns. View from my hotel room at Swiss Wellness Spa
Hurghada, Egypt (Red Sea Coast)