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)

Perfect Alexandrina Day

The last week, I have been running around Cairo attempting to get errands done Egyptian style.
Last Tuesday for example, I pulled out three different forms of identification to prove that I was indeed a foreigner. (Because you know, Egyptians want to pay $60 to visit Luxor on the AirCon Sleeper Train). Last Wednesday I realized rather lamely that no one in Cairo really knows the location of the Pakistani Embassy (including the guards of the Yemeni Embassy a block down the road), and I fought a few cab drivers a reasonable fair attempting to get to Darassa, an area of Cairo, previously never visited.
When Julia suggested that a platter of seafood, some Meditarrenean views and a seabreeze may be what we needed to kick start our spring break, I hopped onboard that plan. Katie picked up tickets the previous night for 8 a.m. train to Alexandria, we headed to the train station on Friday morning, and by 10:30 in the morning, were in Midan Saad Zahgoul, looking at the historic Cecil Hotel, the gorgeous Corniche, and smelling the unmistakable scent of salt in the air.
Our plan for the day was simple, lots of sitting on the Corniche, lunch at Hood Gondol an a mid-evening train ride back to the city- but it evolved into something much, much more luxurious.
We began our day sitting at Cafe Delicies, a landmark cafe and patisserie that's been a part of Alex since 1922. They claim to use the same recipes they used back then- although I can't really compare either version, I've only ever had their We sat sipping Cappucino Vienoise's- the waiter brought out three plates of sugar packets, four cappucinos, and a plate of decorative whipped cream that all four of us proceeded to attack. Katie and I may have licked the remnants of whipped cream on that plate clean too.
Our waiter took one look at Katie's backpack (she was taking a flight to India from the Alexandria airport in a few hours), our light travel gear, and made a sly remark about how they didn't serve fool, falafel, or koshari. His sense of humor made several reappearances on our trip.
We finished our coffee, left Katie to find an Internet Cafe, and then began our jaunt on the Corniche.
We watched a man fish for a while, then walked eastward to the Biblioteque Alexandria. Katie met up with us, we found Hood Gondol (a testament to my stomach), and ordered spicy clams, fish fillet, shrimp, and fried calamari- three platters at 30 L.E. each. Stuffing our faces.
Claire asked for a fork there, and the woman looked at her in surprise, letting out a shocked laugh. "Mafish Shooka" she told us. "We have no forks here." We set off again to the Corniche, finding a secluded spot with a sandy beach view with umbrellas and deck chairs.
There was even a little surf. We sat there for a while, enjoying the breeze until a group of prepubescent boys decided Katie was hot, hot stuff and got out a hi-tech mobile phone to take pictures of the little back she was baring.
We decided to ignore them, seven minutes later they were gone.
After the seabreeze had chilled through our bones we walked back to Midan Saad Zagoul. Deciding to try another one of Alexandria's famous period cafes we poked our heads into Cafe Trianon. The meeting place for the characters of Lawrence Durell's Alexandria Quartet, and a old haunt of the poet Cavafy, Trianon had definitely lost whatever charm and appeal it had during those days. We stepped back out, sat outside Delicies, ordered a few chilled drinks (Katie took off for India).
We had the same waiter- Claire and Julia ordered chocolate milkshake type things, and when he served them to us, he called them "Aswan."
Cultural sidenote: People from upper Egypt (Aswan etc) are considered darker skinned than lower Egypt (Cairo, Alex)- the joke being on the chocolate drinks.
We didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
After our second caffeinated beverages, we walked back to the Biblioteque Alexandria, where we discovered the price to enter the library was only two pounds. Biblioteque Alexandria, built kind of where the library of Alexandria would have been is a modern architectural feat (see picture of Julia and me above). The last time I was in Alex, I had no desire to visit it, but this time, I found myself walking inside, and somewhat impressed.
We visited the antiquities museum (Julia convinced the guard that we was Masriyeen enough to where we could enter ont he 2 pound ticket), and walked around the entire antiquities museum (a 20 pound per head discount), loving the melding of graeco-roman and egyptian art.
The statues of Aphrodite were merged with statues of Isis and Hathor, the statues of Amun were right along side hieroglyphic stelas and Roman discus throwing arms, and Mamluk mashrebiyyas were right along with Coptic ivory tools. It was a beautiful and thougtfully selected collection, one that I would visit again.
I love marble Aphrodites, and I could look at Aphrodite with baby Eros over and over again in that museum. Plus a sector of the antiquities museum has some of the original mosaics and antiquities found on the location of the original Alexandria library. The mosaic panels were gorgeous-
After the museum, we walked around the main library, where I was amused by being Julia and Claire's third wheel. After a couple of moments, I guess the guard who had told them that they were beautiful twins realized that I may feel a little left out and told me I was beautiful too. Amusing awii.
We ambled around the antique printing equipment looking at the way the glass panels reflected the light of the ocean, and then when we left the library headed over to the western side of the corniche to get a sunset beer at the Greek Club.
Our plan changed as soon as we got to the Greek Club, where we opened the menu, looked at the appetizers- looked at the time, and ordered, ate, and paid our bill in about twenty minutes. We had fried cheeseballs, two glasses of lemon juice and mint, meat kofta, and chocolate mousse, which we split between the three of us before booking it back to the train station.
I've never eaten faster in my life, and between passing the small bowl of chocolate mouse and eating the kofta and giggling at our harassment of the waiter- we enjoyed an absolutely beautiful view of the boat dock on the western side of the fortress of Qaitbey.
Last but not least, Claire and I enjoyed Julia's flirting with a cab driver on the way back to the train station, as he told her that the train was not important, and that she should stay longer in Alex to eat seafood with him. We grabbed our belongings, ran out of the cab, and rushed onto our train with barely any time to spare.
Minus the man jerking off on the side of the road (Julia made some obscence noise, and he stopped immediately), the horse and carriage guy that just wouldn't leave us alone, the group of cute boys who were in love with Katie, the beginning to Spring Break was just perfect.

Honorable

Wood carving detail
Ceiling in Ottoman house (Bait Al Suhaymi)

You can read about new and exciting ways to make your daughters suffer in Turkey, here.

A few months ago, I dragged my parental units to the Expo Center in Karachi and walked out with some dusty new paperbacks. One of them was the Pulitzer winner Snow. I'm not going to pretend I've come close to finishing the book (That's what Spring breaks are for!), but one of the things that Orhan Pamuk talks about is the suicide trend in Batman, in relation to the rise of the suicides in the town his book is set.
Sidenote: The book itself is a hard read. The character development moves like molasses in winter, and the plot, which is a little obvious, can be a little boring. However, parts of the story involve the main character wandering from house to house in a fictional Turkish town asking why their daughter committed suicide. Orhan Pamuk's families however (up until where I've read) share their distress and horror when speaking of their daughter's suicide.
In Batman, it seems these daughters are urged to commit suicide to take blame off their eldest sons, who would be jailed if caught for an honor killing.

Many of you will remember Batman for its ridiculous and somewhat childish attempt to sue Warner Bros for using the name Batman for the title of the movie Batman. However, this Anatolian town had been nicknamed 'Suicide City' for ages before Heath Ledger and Christopher Nolan became involved in its media coverage.

I can't figure out what's worse:
-being locked in your room until you kill yourself
-not killing yourself and then being murdered anyway
-a police force that believes that the murder for honor was justifiable and thus doesn't investigate the case sufficiently

The sociology major in me is drawn to this story-
Remember when around September of 2007, international media went insane about the Iraqi women lighting themselves on fire?
The newsweek article highlights that after a certain point, everyone in Kurdistan would interject "I'll just light myself on fire!" when something didn't really go their way.

That brings me to my question- Will this just keep resulting in a neverending cycle of misery for Turkish conservative women who are being told: 'You have dishonoured your family, please kill yourself'?

Egalitarian

Underside of a fountain
Madrassah/Khanqah of Sultan Barquq

Click me. Be outraged. Please.

My favorite part of the article? The quote from the unnamed western diplomat.
"It is going to be tricky to change because it gets us into territory of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture, which is always difficult."

We know he's not Canadian- as of right now, the only country to issue the equivalent of a formal 'WTF, mate?' is Canada. Jack Layton, leader of the NDP was quoted saying "How can the government say our soldiers have died to protect the rights of women when Hamid Karzai passes this law?" on globeandmail.com. Kudos to you, Canada-
There's a country that understands and remembers that the mission in Afghanistan was to help out the women and children-

Couple of things from a non politically minded person-
1. Will Canada put the kabash on its aid to Afghanistan?
2. Will other western democracies follow suit?

There's a line between being culturally sensitive and covering your ass.
Legalizing marital rape, making women ask permission before going to visit the doctor, applying for a job, and stepping outside the door- that's not okay.
Of course leaving Afghanistan with a well established democracy always seemed like the intention to me-
Did I miss something somewhere along the way?

Convergence

Stucco carving detail
Entrance to the mausoleum of the complex (Madrassah, Hospital, and Mausoleum) of Sultan Qalawun.

Aggie, Claire, Caitlin, Silke and I have all in the last few days at different moments been talking about the biological vs. the social construct in relation to sexuality.
Flashback Julia and me standing in our kitchen. Julia mentions how she used the word heteronormative, and how Mt Holyoke has influenced so much of our language and conversations.
Maybe having been away from Mt Holyoke for a year means, that I'm able to have some of the same conversations about gender in different ways with different people. I still feel as though at the end of the conversation I've hit the chicken and egg mentality. Is gender completely socially constructed? Is gender completely biological?
Being at AUC means that I'm in a completely different realm of conversations about gender-
FlashbackI was assigned Contemporary Feminist Theory as my social theory presentation in my Contemporary Sociological Theory class. I outlined my notes, and actually got extremely excited about the presentation. Backstory: There are generally four different camps of feminist theory- gender difference, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression. I would going to talk about the differences between the camps, and talk about the major movements and theorists within them.
Problem: When I began talking about gender difference, I offhandedly mentioned the debate about the word gender and sex. Blank stares from my class- realizing that perhaps coming from a school and background like Mt Holyoke, I may be a little more than well versed in the intricacies of situations such as sex vs. gender, I decided to explain the difference. The conversation got a little out of hand when another student said:
Hermaphrodites are a biological and social aberration and should be eradicated from society.
Those of you who know me well, know the ways in which I lose my temper. I have never lost my temper in a classroom setting like I did that day, nor did I ever believe it possible that I would have stood in front of a classroom during a presentation screaming the etymological roots of the word hermaphrodite.

Food for thought: A man in Spain gets preggers, transgendered women in Atlanta have to shed their wigs before being able to stay in homeless shelters- progress means regression in so many ways, shapes and forms that sometimes I wonder if we're really going any where at all.

The House Yawned

-written by Zaibun Pasha

The house yawned

a creamy white yawn

of the unsuspcting

then

woke up

startled.

The bill boards

blocking the façade

peeled away

like an onion skin.

Just a tenth of

opaqueness between

you and the world

of the mall road

outside

dear house

Where millions

of humming

cancerous cars

conspire.

We played together

Hide and seek in

your calm

cobwebbed corridors

eighty green years ago.

Now memory is a rusty key

To what

I know not.

Nothing on the other side.

We are but scattered seeds

Unhappening to happen again.

My grandchild has my hands.

The marbles, whorly planets

tap tapping against

the wooden floor.

Water, Fish

Door Detail
Mausoleum and Madrassah of Nasr Mohammad Ibn Qalaqun

(note: the pictures and ensuing post are not currently coinciding in subject matter)

Fact: Among the 25 most populous countries in the year 2009, Egypt is number two in the list of most water limited/water scarce nations, says the United Nations World Water Development Report (for those of you wondering South Africa ranks number one, and Pakistan number three).

Personally, I've never had a problem with water in Cairo-
Okay, this might be a small white lie.
My friend Caitlin wrote a post about the shower situation in her apartment that sums up my showers that you can read here, but our water complaints generally involve things like "Hey, have you noticed that our water heater hasn't been getting our water hot enough?"
I've never actually run out of water living on an island on the Nile.

Of course Zamalek is often referred to the "Expat Enclave of Cairo" and the cushy living that I'm used to is nothing like the squatter settlements ten minutes north of Ma'adi like Stabl Anta.
Last Wednesday night though, our Moho-style-living at Burg-Al-Metro had probably one of the most fascinating episodes of apartment grief I've ever experienced.

I returned from an Arabic Study Session to Claire's furrowed eye-brow and the words "We've got a small problem in our bathroom."
Quick backstory: One of our bathrooms has been spewing fecal matter from the pipe in our toilet onto the ground. Needless to say we have no longer been using that toilet any more.
My initial internal reaction: "Erg, more fecal matter?"
No. Our bathroom sink was giving off the worst stench.
I walked in, took half a breath, walked right back out.
Claire: "What do you think that is?"
There was no doubt about it
Me: "A dead fish."

Who knows how long that fish had been rotting in the u of our sink's drain pipe.

Ten minutes later, Claire stepped out onto the balcony.
"I need to get some clean air to get the smell out of my nose."

You know there's a problem when you're voluntarily taking gulps of polluted Cairene air and calling that clean.

Opening Doors

Door Detail
Madrassah/Khanqah and Mausoleum of Sultan Barquq
First Circassian Mamluk Building in Cairo

Aric 206: Art and Architecture of the City of Cairo
Field Trip: Bayn Al Qasrayn

As we stood in the Madrassah/Khanqah of Sultan Barquq, Noha pointed to the door that we had all entered from (see above). The door was designed to look like a Mamluk Quran. The Quran would have been made out of leather and would have been decorated with gold leaf, she told us.
That's when I heard it.
"Oh my god," said the high pitched nasal voice. "How come the gold leaf's turned so dark?"

Aric206 field trips occur almost every Saturday morning. We meet in Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square), outside the Mohammad Mahmud gate facing McDonalds, on Old Campus. We get on a bus, and peer outside our windows, attempting to figure out which part of the eerily familar city of Cairo the buildings we have been studying that week will emerge from.
Noha, easily described as a slight woman with hair, our professor, leads a group of 40 students (Egyptian and American) through some of the dirtiest, dingiest parts of Cairo. I have never met anyone more passionate about architectural forms. (Quote: "During the Mamluk period architecture used to be art, today is is simply engineering!") and manages to keep an impressive inventory of dates, patrons, and buildings in her heads. Not to mention, she navigates the narrow streets of Cairo like an alley-cat.
Most days we pass butcher shops and sewage water. Once we had to walk over the better part of a rotting cat (Mausoleum and Madrassah of Sultana Shagaret al Dorr). Another time, I was hussled out of a mosque as a funeral procession took place (Mosque of Sali'a Tali'a).

This is not your luxury field trip. My legs, arms, and even neck are aching by the time I return to the bus. Sometimes we've walked four miles by the end of the day, not even distingusing one mosque from another. And the sight when you look at the group of students in the courtyard of a mosque at any given point is generally the same.
Half of them look dead on their feet as they attempt to remember who this mosque/madrassah/mausoleum (or all three)'s patron is. The rest are standing in various poses attempting to get the correct angle to master their amateur photography. If a student is not in one of the above categories, the student is either on a mastaba attempting to rest his/her feet, or has found the shade of the fountain.
It is in the courtyard when the Q&A session generally takes place too, in Noha's signature soft spoken voice.

Q:"Now can anyone tell me what I compared this black and white marble to in class?"
Blank stares all around.
A:"Syrian Khammiya motif in the Mosque of Sultan Hassan"

Between the slideshow lectures and the fieldtrips, and the scarce readings of the textbooks, I manage to absorb a lot of the stuff that I suppose I need to. Apparently the girl at the beginning of post does not.

I wish I could do Noha's expression justice.
I will however share her response.
"No, la. This is a door. It is made out of wood and bronze. A Quran, which is a book, would have looked similar to this and would have been made out of leather and gold leaf. Now let's go."