Chew your qat quietly, please.

One Lebanese newspaper got it right when they caught the Yemenis, dreaming of Saudi Arabia. What a nightmarish thought, you say? Well, yes, apparently, the Yemenis are really exceeding themselves in the pursuit of being all around nightmarish people. Their latest acheivement being the election of a full fledged "promotion of virtue and prevention of vice committee" a la Saudi Arabia, complete with a police force and everything! Some of you might be more familiar with the concept as "النهى عن المنكر والامر بالمعروف"- but give anyone such unabated moral authority and watch them run around beating people to death for having alcohol, or forcing them to be burned in a school fire because they weren't dressed appropriately enough to be saved.

To know more about the Saudi religious police force (as opposed to all the raging secularism going on over there) check out the blog "Religious Policeman" dedicated to the lives of the schoolgirls who were lost in that fire.

In case you had more faith in the Yemen (because, of course, they are known for their triumphs in every field, particulary social justice) just take a looksie at what the committee has had to say already : "God intended women to be beautiful, and men to be attracted to women...if women reveal their beauty, men will be seduced and extramarital sex will occur. This will result in sexual chaos."

Not really sure what sexual chaos entails, but im sure Yemen already has it.

Also, they have vowed to disable all institutions which "wave war against God" like bars. Oh well, guess those crazy club hopping Sana'a nights are over.

Dear lord, I hope this disease isnt contagious.

Living My Life like its Golden

but its been tough. since ive started work, 7 months ago, ive seen and experienced egypt in a totally different way, i cant even recognize my country as i "thought" i knew it, and as i had positioned myself within it. i feel different in the street, partly because now, i am a woman, and i cant tell im seen as one, i dont look like a school girl or a colllege girl, i look different, i dress different, i speak different and i act differently, and its been strange and their have been great triumphs, because i am able now to be comfortable and confident and be everything my father has raised me, but there have been great disappointments too. These come when i ask myself, why i am so motivated, so genuine, so adamant in trying to support and care and work for a society that treats me like shit. for a society of people who call me a whore when i walk in the street or stare at my zipper on my jeans or call me "2alelt il2adab" when i tell some guy who drives up to me and my friend at 11 pm that he is a jerk. why do i give a shit? When i get whistled at, INSIDE cars, when i get looked at from up to down on my way to work when i get pushed from behind trying to buy a newspaper just so that i can read about the news of this nation? Its hard not to decide to just leave, and be free, and be relaxed, and be sexual and be normal, and just. be.
on the other hand sometimes i get these great ideas about what i have the capacity, skill, knowledge and connections to do.sometimes I have plans, schemes, entire campaigns in my head. but do i have it in my soul, and in my razor blade mind, and in my heart, and in my body, to do what it might take to realise them? I know im pretty new at all of this, and im giving it a shot i guess.
Egypt is driving me out of my mind, i believe. In taxis I look at the window into every side street, every car, every shop, every balcony, to try to understand people's lives. the specemins here are endless, the complexities unfathomable, the nuances unexamined, the variations inexplicable. Cairo is a huge, enormous city. There is so much good, and so, so, much bad and its bogged down by its own enormity and stature and the wheels that are already in motion. I read one newspaper from cover to cover, and i need to sit down. I sigh involuntarily as i turn the page. Stabbing over a game of chess. Stabbing over a loaf of bread. Are they related? Mass scandal over high school examination. Mass scandal from millionare business man. No reaction either way. Stifling, constant, passivity, its too overwhelming to react. its paralyzing.
What is my role? I am not willing to be miserable for the sake of a noble cause, I know that much. There are some absolutes I know I need. I know I need love, and companionship, and time away from the desk, and time to be creative, and time to listen to music in my room, in the dark, for hours and feel every decibel and live through it. time to exercise. i know i need my family. i know i need money. i know i need my friends. and i know i need to feel like im contributing and acquiring knowledge, but at what expense? and for what end? Personal or universal, short term or long term, bla bla bla. it doesnt stop.These are the things I cant control. So i need a little help on the things that are in my hands. sometimes.

Dedication

somethings in life are in your control, and some things you can only watch as they follow a predestined trajectory of events, feelings, meetings, coincidences, loves, losts, whatever. and something are a crossroad, where you can either leave it up to the gods and the universe, sigh, and sit back, distracted, or you can take them by the hand and make them yours if you so resolve. Many times Ive felt that this relationship was at a crossroad. and i think all relationships are often that way. and i think every time ive decided to make in my control, and try to do what feels right. and i think every time its been worth it. but sometimes i wonder if its recognized. Clearly, girls have different needs in relationships than guys. girls, for example, have to remind themselves that there is a million other things happening for them, good, great, things, so why do they focus on the tiniest,most oblivious detail? With guys, its the opposite. so many things are happening so they forget about the details. to each is their virture.
i dont really want to talk about girls and guys as if i understand them. but i can talk about myself. i know that there was a day when i felt that this guy i was seeing, it would never work out because we couldnt have real conversations. and i know that know, you're the person i want to talk to the most at certain moments. and you're the person i talk to the least,obviously, because you're gone.But when i feel alone, or overwhelmed, or when i feel stressed, or when i feel like im becoming a computer because of how much i stare at the screen at work, or when i feel so depressed about how difficult it is to live in egypt as a young woman, when every time i walk into the streets its a battle and i have to prove myself with every asshole passing by with something to say, or when i feel disgusted because i find something out about government, and politics, and greed and i feel like im bursting out of my skin to do something about it, and when i feel passionate and alive and young and feminine, and content because i actually get an idea about WHAT i want to do about it, I think of you. and i think sometimes that i have so many thoughts that my mind cant handle. there's a song i love and the line goes 'mind is a razor blade'.

Respect.

OK,
thanks to a comment on the post dated July 21st, its been brought to my attention that perhaps I was being a little rigid with the indicators, or at least being a little too selective. Indeed, Maryanne, indicators are a changing, conflicted, and of course-superflous- thing, which is why I love them so much. So yes, the amount of services/goods available by phone or online delivery is indeed an indicator of the GREAT, GREAT success of a nation. And one of the things that makes me proud to be Egyptian is the ever expansive network of delivery system: pharmacies, supermarkets, phone bills, fast food, home made food, you name it. I for one am shocked by the shameful display of delivery incompetance in much of the so-called developed world. Its not fair to point out things like the outstanding urban planning of the Parisians and forget to hail the impeccable planning and coordination techniques involved in the comprehensive "Call Center" mechanism we have perfected here in Egypt. We should still work on the, say, music and the torture, you know but still, at least even the most absurd product is only a phone call away, and its cheap as hell.Power to the pharoas.

Official Petition to Amend Economic Indicators

I'm convinced that what actually qualifies a first world country as such despite the inevitably arbitrary (and simultaneously calculated) nature of such a category- is not in reality how much poverty or dust or filth you have- but how convincing your "uppity" parts of town are. Sure there's some dirt in Paris (Ok, I'm pushing it but I saw some ugly mounds of cigarette butts I swear) but what matters is that the clean parts, the pretty parts, the rosy picture in convincingly rosy and you cant say shit about regardless of how well your critical minds deconstructs such "illusions". It's gorgeous, even with the passed out alcoholic and the crazy lady talking to the pigeons.

In Egypt for example, we are reaching a tipping point whereby even the hippest, million dollar real estate neighborhood is infested with filth, intolerably polluted, perpetually in decay and moulding over with the inescapable stench of corruption and all around general doom.

Of course, there are other indicators of quality of life other than the height of trash piles in the pretty streets in Maadi and Zamalek, such as

- how many prisoners the police take to electrocuting each day ?

- thethe ratio of covered : uncovered skin a woman can get away with without risking gang rape.

- Decibels of noise drilling into your brain at given moment

- Proportion of population wearing ALL STAR shoes (I never said the indicators were a good or bad thing)

- Quality and overall pleasantness of music streaming in the street at given moment

- Do people insist on decorating Mosques/Churches with florescent green lights to distract from the more attractive architecture?

- the answer to the question "Does McDonalds even TRY to accommodate your culture?" (Did you know that Mcdonalds serve shisha in Turkey? Outdoors)

Middle Aged Niqabi Turtle Heads Vs Turkish facist Power Trips?

I've always been anti-niqab. It's flat out hostility on my part. To my credit, I have nuanced my perception of those who immerse all which manifests themselves in form and space into a black abyss. I do now believe that they talk like other Egyptians and not only in classical, 'fusha' Arabic. Or in gargoyle tongue. Although some of those Khaleeji dialects might as well be.What I'm still conflicted about is how much I'm willing to defend niqab, in principle. Their right to bury their features and shape into a dark jelly puddle with feet, which granted, they are entitled to. This moral debate came up recently when I arrived in the Turkish airport (which by the way has the most disorienting set of arrivals, I was literally peering over people's shoulders to see their passports, where else do you see a group of Uzbek soldiers in full uniform and looking like an ethnic meltpot). Large groups of Gulfies arrive in Istanbul every day and the women are forced to uncover their faces at the passport check in desks to some weird Turkish government employee. What gives some passport stamping, Noor-watching, Mohannad-loving former Ottoman imbecile the right to force the women to show her face at the length of time of his discretion? The Turkish government? The New World Order? National Security? Whatever it is, something just didn’t sit right and I cant even stand that morphous black cloak, no matter how pimped out the sleeves are with diamond studs, or how gorgeous the lashes pertrubing from the peek holes are.

Never Forget