The Dispossessed of AUC

I have compiled a short list of things I wanted to write about, from Egyptian economics to recipes of dishes I commonly make.  However, it is the end of the semester, and I have not had the time to sit down with any of these thoughts.  What I have been thinking about a lot lately, in spite of pressure of finals and papers and a bum knee, is registration.  I have had three major problems with registration.  First, signing up for a new construction engineering minor in architectural design.  Second, being a sophomore (we get the last pick of classes).  Third, discovering that a the exemption exam I took to pass out of a class called RHET 103: research writing, which is the prerequisite to any intermediate level course in which you might have to write a paper, was no longer recognized by the AUC registration system.  I don’t actually have spare time to write about any of these issues.  Instead, the following is a letter which I sent to the head of the composition and rhetoric department.  The dispossessed of

I am sorry to have to bring this up again, but now the situation has gone too far.  I have spent the last 5 days trying to sort out the problem of AUC’s registration system not recognizing my exemption from RHET 103 this semester.  This is distracting and detracting from the time I need to study for final exams and write final papers, both of which are very stressful activities and compose a large portion of ones grade.  When I originally discovered that I was blocked from signing up for certain courses because of an error in the system with a rhetoric class that I had exempted from a year and a half ago, I very logically went straight to the rhetoric department.  Here I was informed that the rhetoric department is merely a progression of classes, not a full department and thus does not posses the authority to make transcript status or system changes.   For this I had to go to all the way to the top, to the registration offices.  After a lengthy debate, the head registrar informed me that since I was a political science major all holds, restrictions, exemptions, etc. should be handled through the head of the political science department, Dr Monira.  I went to the political science department (6 times), and it was established that they only have jurisdiction over political science courses, and since rhetoric 103 is a course for the core curriculum it was their issue.  If the trend of this narrative has become clear by this point then it will not surprise you to hear that the Core Curriculum in turn threw up their hands and said that they are not an actual department or major and that they do not have jurisdiction extending to this my situation.  In fact, they informed me that since this was a rhetoric class, the rhetoric department had to handle it.  Why hadn’t I gone to the rhetoric department to begin with?

At this point I need to stop for a moment and take a deep breath… OK.  In addition to wasting time that should be devoted to writing and study (which is the point of being in University), dealing with this issue is now interfering with my ability to even make it to my classes on time.  I have had to sit and watch as the courses I need close one after another.  I watched as ONE spot opened up in two of the courses I need at EXACTLY the times I wanted, rushed to add them to my schedule only to be rejected by “Pre-Requisite Required; RHET 103” yet again, and forced to bare their taunting presence as I stared at that one open spot that should have been mine until it once more vanished.  I woke up at 6:55AM today after not getting to bed till 3:15AM, because I was writing a paper, to sign up for the last 2 courses I need, in hopes that the political science department had managed to solve the problem. Of course this hope was in vain, and I lost not only yet another place in a class but a few hours of badly needed sleep as well.  Furthermore, I have had to go through all this trouble and visiting departments and offices in every corner and floor of campus with an injured leg.

I have reached a small compromise through my department.  They call up the department of a class for which I am trying to register and try to get me special permission to enter the course. This takes about half an hour per course and is a great inconvenience to the political science office staff.  More importantly, registration, especially as a sophomore, is a time when you have to shuffle a lot of classes around until you get a schedule that works.  I have lost this ability, and at a great cost.  Not only does signing up for one course (that has RHET 103 as a prerequisite, which is a good portion of the classes I am dealing with) mean a trip into school and half an hour in the political science department, but if the exact course that I need, or simply a better alternative to a course I already have, becomes available I lose the opportunity to register for this course.  In addition, the situation is now causing me some embarrassment and infringing on my personal privacy.  After getting permission to sign up for a certain section of ANTH 210, I was told about a very good professor teaching one of the other sections. In a normal situation I would simply have popped onto the nearest computer and switched classes.  In my situation it means going back to the political science department, which is already frustrated with my situation and inconvenienced with having to deal with my registration and explain to them a situation that reflects on my personal preferences and the merit of a teacher.  Clearly this compromise is not an acceptable solution.

All I can say is that the situation needs to be resolved and quickly. If you can claim the authority to correct the mistake in the system so that it recognizes my exemption from RHET 103 this would be ideal.  If this is not possible, could you pass this letter to the person who can.  I am tentative even in saying this however because it sounds like it would be a lengthy maneuver and every day that goes by means greater inconvenience, and I am returning to the USA in a week at which point I will not be able to deal with this myself.  If necessary could the system just be changed temporarily to say that I have actually taken RHET 103, at least until the glitch is solved.  This is a very very busy time for me but I am willing to do my best to insure that a solution is reached.
Cole The Struggling Agar
P.s. Thank you for all your help and good luck in helping me to do whatever it takes.

Knees, Knees and More Knees

I was going to write a warm, cuddly Thanksgiving entry on all the friends and visitors and new family members at the apartment.  I was going to talk about the amazing man named Chritian with the horible taste in music who I met in South Africa and who has since stayed with me twice in Cairo as he pregresses along his travels of the world.  I was going to tell of my recent membership on chouchsurfing.com and the two Ukrainians which it brought to our door.  Lastly, I would have written about a good friend, Kathryn “Kat” Sullivan, who has finally chosen to stand up against the vile opression of her apartment mates and will be moving into our apartment over Thanksgiving.  Unfortunally, all this is being set asside for an up date on my knee.

It has know been just over a month since my knee ordeal began.  I have spent most of this time completely unable to walk.  For about two weeks I felt myself slowly getting better, but over the last 4 days my situation has degenerated the level it was it was at during the peek of the swelling, about three weeks ago.  I have lost much of the mobility and ability to support weight that I had slowly been regaining.  The defult state of my knee now, “Oww, aaow, ok… so that also hurts.” As a result I spent yesterday evening at the Salaam Hospital and saw two different doctors.  After a session of pocking and prodding, twisting, bending and extending that almost made me bite through my lip to stop myself from screaming, the doctors made a new diagnosis.  They believe that I ripped or cut something open inside my knee and it has been bleeding into my knee causing it to swell.  Now the blood has coagulated and as it hardens I am loosing mobility in my leg and finding in its place a great deal of pain and discomfort.  I am going to Alfa Scan for a second MRI tomorrow morning, and meeting with one of the two doctors after school.  He will asses how congealed the blood is and whether I need surgery.  I will be in and out of the hospital this week and if necessary I will go for surgery next week.  The doctors say if we do not get the situation resolved soon there could be permanent damage.  I will be able to say more one I get the MRI.  Keep smiling, and never forget to be thankful for something as simple as the ability to walk.  And, if you have a moment, send a shout out on my behalf to someone in the sky with some sway in this world.

Knee-ill Before Me

A CALL TO KNEES

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we to fear is fear itself.”  And Churchill proclaimed, “We will fight on the beaches.  We will never surrender.”  What you may not know is that originally these blood pumping lines read, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and bad knee joint,” and “We will fight on the beaches.  We will never surrender, unless our knees should begin to give us trouble.”  Luckily, at this point ambitious speech editors advised these great men that, although what they said was indeed true, it failed to carry the tone and message that the people needed to hear.   And so, all talk of knees was erased from the history books.

 

But this is soon to change.  As a contribution to National Hinge-Joint Appreciation Week this is a bit about knees.  Sure, this may seem esoteric and isolated from the important issues swooping through Egypt’s atmosphere, issues like worker strikes in Mahalla el-Kobra and the possibility of an Egyptian president without a military history coming to power by 2011, however more and more over the last two weeks I have realized that knees play a very important role in Egyptian daily life.   It is true that knees are usually covered up, especially in public, and are never seen driving alone.  Knees may get very little attention and respect in Middle Eastern society and sometimes even take a real beating, but I think that if you asked the average ragil ish-shaaria ‘man of the street’ he would admit that his knees have almost always been there to support him and really help him make it through the day.

 

Besides using my weekly writing time to talk about knees, my second confession is that this is not a grand panegyric ode to knees, or an insightful moral and philosophical discussion about knees, rather it is simply a description of my knees, and for that matter just one knee, my right knee.

 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOMETHING SPECIAL

 

The first thing to know about my right knee is that I have one.  This is a good start, and will lay many of your fears to rest.  You see, this is not a blog entry about pain and loss.  Well ok, it is a blog entry about pain, but it is about pain and love.  That is to say, if one were inclined towards feelings of affection towards ones right knee, I personally am, then finding oneself in my skin one would quickly discover that one had much more knee to love.  To be precise, I have about twice as much right knee to love.  

 

The second thing to know about my knee is that it does not work.  This goes well with the nature of knee-love that I discussed above.  We are often inclined to care for that which we love, baby it, and see that it need not undergo any heavy lifting and manual labor.  In my case, my knee, knowing of my feelings towards it, swelled with joy, and took it upon itself to undergo no heavy lifting and demand babying, just incase I should forget. 

 

We also would probably take our love to the hospital should it fall pray to malady.  I have taken my knee to a hospital, a medical centre, and a clinic three times.  And of course, we would want pictures of our love to remember them by.  I get pictures of my knee.  The photographer was very talented and utilized angles that put my knee in a knee light and really cut through the superficial to show what it was really made of, and revealed those little things that our loves sometimes keep deep inside.  I have been spending a lot of time in bed with my right knee since our relationship began to develop.  Once I even skipped my classes just so I could spend the day cradling my knee on the couch and massaging it with creams.       

 

A TURN FOR THE WORSE

 

But as with so many relationships, there came a time when it all went sour.  It is like my right knee thinks it is part of me.  It doesn’t let me go out with friends, or attend parties, or even leave the apartment except for school.  I have to sit how it wants, walk how wants, sleep how it wants.  It doesn’t let me do anything dangerous like climb, or explore or even go running.  I am growing lazy and out of shape because it won’t even let me exercise.  It has become a real pain, and has started taking weight loss drugs, even though it knows this is something I disagree with.  It makes me devote almost all my free time to thinking about it.  I would never say that I want to part with my right knee, but I wish we could find some compromise in our relationship.  I wish it did not always have to be just about the two of us.  I wish I could eat what I want when I want.  I wish I didn’t have to do everything for it, help it in and out of taxis, help it get dressed, put it in the shower in the morning and make sure it is always comfortable.  I wish I could cuddle with or even hug a girl without my right knee coming between us.  But most of all, I wish I could just go on a nice moonlit walk without having to think about my knee.  I would be willing to remain friends, and I will no doubt think of my knee differently for the rest of my life.  From time to time I will look at it and smile over the experience we shared.  But, I need to be independent.  I need to get out of this relationship and back on my two feet again.  

Chasing the Dragon

I have been trying to get high a lot lately.  To cloud my mind and get high.  To cloud my mind and clear out all those nasty little thoughts that plague my consciousness.  To get high enough that I can see everything and focus on nothing unless I pause long enough to really see it, to give it the attention that is mine to give, but that is so often misused.  It is like a filter.  The sleeplessness, the haze takes away all the fuzz, the crackle, the static, the intention and unintention.  It all gets caught in the mesh, the maze of semi-slumber.  But I don’t want to catch it all, I just need to filter out the clutter, the Scrubs, the Lost, the hunger, the sex, the cats, the stomach aches, the cookies, anything that gets me out of my seat or makes me not want to leave it.  And, that is where the height comes in.  Like lips upon a straw, it sucks through only what debris lies under it.  The weary clears my brain and the high tweaks the contrast.  

I need to write.  That is why I am here, nineteen and a half stories above the Nile’s girth, sitting on a cement block, surrounded by sandy satellite dishes, and dark plastic water reservoirs, my only companion is a thick rusty pipe which supports the grandest, the largest, the most receptive dish of them all.  I am trying hard not to tug on the cables that run under my legs.  I fear that I will part two plugs or crimp a connection and midway through some family’s soap opera the feed will go dead just as the oddly European-looking, Egyptian philanthropist in the Italian suit, finally draws in to claim that forbidden kiss from the bobbed-haired maid.  The husband of the family will be sent up to the roof to check the connection but instead of a frayed wire he will find a shivering American kid in an antique fedora perched on the highest point he could find.  The only thing besides this worry that fills my mind unnecessarily is the urine slowly inflating my inability to sit still.  I am not sure how much longer I can take it.  Should the frustrated husband find me in another minute, relieving myself on this roof, his surprise will be greater still.  The sun is rising.  I need to write.

The sun is rising and with it the soundtrack of seventy semi-unsynchronized calls for the faithful booms out over the city.  The sun is rising and along the banks of the Nile a strip of upright elegant buildings début their beauty to the new day, fooling any first time traveler into thinking that this is Cairo.  The sun is rising and now I can appreciate the smog that glows where morning beams glance and glide off its grit.  The sun is rising filing the streets with the sounds of life ready for the first day of Eid, and carrying all the way across the river to my perch the harsh chatter of two men determined not to let sanctity interfere with their pride.  The sun is rising and with it the inspiration begins to congeal; the sentences come slower, and yet still must wait patiently for each dawdling thought.  The sun is rising and I need to write.

I left my apartment looking for inspiration, looking for fantasy and fiction in the shadows which transform themselves for the imagination almost as easily as cumulous clouds on a lazy day.  Yet I was too slow in my exodus and already the watery window of opportunity was sliding shut as I hefted my bag and headed for the street.  I walked for a few blocks, peering over railings and poking into alleyways looking for a tardy bunny who might lead me to a wonderful world of caterpillars and croquet.  I listened for the raised voices that might herald something rash, and looked for the crazed cabby that might lead to grizzly crash.  But, the dieing night did not provide.  Even the shadows were retiring for the day.  Finally, I arrived at the northernmost point of the island.  And there like a lighthouse rose a brawny beckon of brick.  The side facing me was under construction, so I kept walking round.  I got to the entrance, and like all the architecture in Egypt, in defiance of the crumbling exterior, the inside sparkled with mirrors and tile.  I peered though the door half expecting the bawaab to chatter at me and tell me I was lost, but the entrance was empty.  I cautiously entered the building hoping everyone was still asleep.  The elevator too shown with mirrors and I contemplated whether it was time to shave while the lift squeaked and chirped happily to itself as it chugged its way to the seventeenth floor, the top floor.  When I crept out of the elevator and found the stairs I was rewarded with one last floor before reaching the roof.  Here I found the customary, giant, ramshackle structure that houses the elevator engine room, a bathroom and sometimes somebody’s home.  After determining that this one was unoccupied I made my way to the tall red-with-rust iron latter that led to the structure’s roof.  On top of that I found a six foot cement cube with my name penned meaningfully upon its surface.  I climbed up, and here I sit, trying to write. 

I am on top of the world.  I did not sleep a wink tonight, and still I am no closer to completing my task.  I have to write one chapter, that is it.  I even already know the subject, and yet I can’t even lay down one word that satisfies me.  If there is a dragon, it is not to be found in the expanse of the sandy, cement city that surrounds me, not even from this vantage point.  It is somewhere in my head, which is a much bigger arena to search through.  I need to write.

The Laughing Man

This is not a post about life or Egypt or adventure.  It contains no profound insights or descriptive eloquence.  It is simply something about which I feel I must tell my community and the world.  For a month and a half I have been trying to decide if this is worth writing about.  I have finally decided that, small and simple a subject as it is, to not mention the Laughing Man would somewhere deprive all of you of an honest and thorough peak into my life in Cairo.  Here is how simple it is.

There is a student in my Public Finance class who can not stop laughing.  On the first day of class the teacher, a comical Chilean man named Rodrigo Seda, entered room 322SS, saw Laughing Man with his preened chinstrap slouching in his seat listing to his ipod while staring cockeyed at the blackboard as he gently flexed and unflexed his biceps absentmindedly, gave a shudder and said in a warning tone, “I remember you.”  Than he turned to a girl a couple seats away and finished the comment. “He thinks everything is funny.” To which Laughing Man started laughing.

For the first few classes I thought Laughing Man was just trying to be a disruptive wise ass.  But, it turns out he really can’t control it.  Rodrigo once threatened to fail him on the spot if he didn’t stop laughing.  This worked… for 5 minutes, and then he burst out laughing again.  During one class Laughing Man had to be sent out of the room to go on a walk and cool down.  On other occasions he has been made to sit in the corner facing the wall so that he won’t see anything funny.  Naturally, he finds this situation very amusing.

Rodrigo can say something as simple as, “So, Ahmed and Fatima have a given amount of clothing and food to divide between them,” or “As we move along the PPF,” and Laughing man will be ignited.  And, as poetic justice dictates, his laugh is infectious.

Laughing man is about 5’6” and good looking, the antithesis of threatening, and yet timid students are still afraid to sit next to him.  It will be interesting to see who he manages at our first exam.

 

May Be An Angel

“Is someone sitting in this chair?” might be the first thing she asks you.

Someone was, but you say, “Nop, its all yours,” because in that moment you can’t imagine being rude to this woman. Grabbing the top of the wicker chair she will tick-tack it awkwardly closer, intimating the conversation. She seems brittle, and you would offer help but you are still trying to sort out if you are annoyed with her for interrupting your hour a day of internet.

“Oh, I’m I interrupting anything?”

“No, no, not at all.”

The original occupier of the chair across from you returns from the cafeteria with a pineapple Fayrouz. She grabs a third chair. There is an unspoken understanding that you will both be having this conversation.

Your guest talks about her self. It isn’t self-centered or conceited, more like a prolonged introduction in which she is offering up a slice of herself for you to sample. “And then when I went to Mecca,” she is saying “and when I prayed at the Kaaba my face became lighter, more beautiful. I heard God talking to me.” She says God not Allah. You wonder if it is for your sake. You may recall a friend telling you the day before of a crazy woman around campus who talked to God in a hanging plant. As you look at her, trying not to notice that one of her cheeks is larger than the other, you wonder if this is the same woman.

She tells the two of you that she has an engineering degree, but works an administrative job at AUC. She wants to study religion. However, she is afraid she will have a hard time studying after being out of school this long. More than this she is afraid she won’t have time to talk with people. This is her favorite pastime currently, to meet people and talk with them. She feels it is what God wants her to be doing. From time to time during the conversation she will grip the armrests of the chair like she thinks it might take off. She seems nervous and awkward and slightly oblivious and glances around the tiny courtyard as if expecting friends of yours to arrive at any moment and call you away. You wonder if she is a naturally timid person who has had to push herself to become this social. You wonder how many people around this place are willing to sit and talk with her. You wonder how many people make fun of her. You wonder if she knows.

Eventually you find yourself standing and saying to your companion, “We should probably be getting home.” You feel guilty for saying it, like you are backing down from a challenge. As the two of you walk away you will toss this back to the woman, “Hey, it was great talking with you. I’ll see you ‘round?” And to your surprise you mean it.

You round the corner smiling contentedly maybe even smugly. She may be an Angel.

A Place Apart

THE ABODE

[Go to Flickr link for photos. This text is only supplementary.]

It has been one month since school began. I have written my first paper and taken my first test. By my standards this means I am settled in, regardless of the articles of clothing that have still never seen the inside of my armoire, and the bags still lounging on my floor. This means it is time to do my semesterly apartment report.

It’s a nice place on the west side of Zamalek , eleven floors up, overlooking the water. We have a combined living room and dinning room with a balcony and clothes line, and a nice little kitchen with a serious lack of shelf space. There are one and a half bathrooms, neither of which has light. At first there was a working light in the hallways, but that burnt out about two weeks ago, and we have not gotten around to replacing it. The full bathroom has a little window, so during the day you have light. At night you either light a candle or wing it. There are three bedrooms. Jessica’s room is just off of the entrance way. The other two rooms are on the hallway with the burnt out light across the living room. First comes Gillian’s room, the master bedroom with the master balcony. Sam and I share the room at the back of the apartment which has a small balcony.

The apartment was consistent water, that gets really hot, and the power has only gone out once, as far as I know. We have some sort of cable or dish that gets in a few English channels and a few French channels which Sam uses. It takes about 20 minutes by taxi to get to school and is a 5LE ride, unless you get a driver with expectations. We are 7 blocks from the dorms and 9 blocks from the closest grocery store, Metro Market. There are also a few little hole-in-the-wall markets in the area and a couple fruit and vegetable stands. The biggest issue with the apartment is that we have no internet. We sent in our application at the beginning of September and it was supposed to take 7-10 days. Nothing has happened. TeData DSL still hasn’t contacted us. Hours on the phone, spent by me, seems to have brought us no closer to getting hooked up.

In total we pay 6,000LE per month. This is about 2,000LE more than we were expecting. I think we are paying for the view.

 

THE ABODERS

When I entered the apartment for the first time it seemed stale and cold and small. Over the last month however the apartment has blossomed with decorations. The best of these decorations however are not the ones tacked to the walls or hanging from the lights, it is the moving ones—no not the nice glass balcony doors in Sam and my room that don’t latch correctly and bang against the walls and keep me up all night. It is the decorations that lay down on my homework and chew the side of my text books, the decorations that drift out to the balcony to talk with me at 4:00 AM after a long day, the decorations that make me dinner when I have a too much homework to be bothered, the decorations that scold me for doing homework when we have guests over, the decorations that bang against the walls and keep me up all night.

Jezebel: A crazy white cat with a brown tail. Do not pick her up for more than 5 seconds unless you are wearing gloves. Jezebel will attempt any feat of acrobatics once, and, if it does not kill her, she will try it again.

Greatest moment in my eyes: Running all the way up the balcony curtains to pounce on a fly… that was on the ceiling.

Morrison: An odd ash cat with white trim. He is my preferred of the two and hangs out with me more. He once went missing for a day and after causing much worry was discovered under Jessica’s bed.

Greatest moment in my eyes: The first time he responded to me when I said, “Mmmrraaaaooww, mraaaaaow, mmmmmerrrrrroaw,” which is cat for, “please get off my book. I have to read that.”

Sam: A happy blond human with a love for candy. Sam forgot his razors back in Oregon and has been getting progressively scruffier as the semester progresses. I keep telling him he can us mine but he turns me down. I think it is one of those college moments. He tends to emit strange noises like, “Ooga booga!” and “grawmph!” and “eeughxgl!” He was once in a punk band called “The Worst Thing Ever,” at least that is what he always calls it. They released one album but decided to keep it a secret.

Greatest moment in my eyes: Saying, “Cole, lets go down this way. Whenever we come past here I want to go check out that tree.” It was a comment that led to the discovery of one of my favorite places in Cairo.

Cole: A dopy dark brown human with a bit of feline in him. Do not pick him up for more than 5 seconds unless you are wearing gloves. He recently discovered the joys of pristine side parts. Cole has been thinking a lot lately, trying to break cycles, and debating the net benefits of taking it easy. He has started smoking and is questioning his sexuality. If you do not know him, he would like to meet you.

Greatest moment in my eyes: Discovering that he can talk to cats, or at least Morry.

Gillian: A snarky very dark brown human with a scull in her bed. Gillian is creative artistic and spontaneous. She is almost done making a dress out of one of the junky old blankets that was stuck in a corner of the apartment. Graphic novels are her bread and radiation laced butter. She would probably date anyone first name Super last name Man. Do not give her chocolate, peanut butter or potatoes. Gillian is a self declared misanthrope and likes giving Cole a hard time. She projects a very hard exterior.

Greatest moment in my eyes: Being provoked into beating the tan out of me when I had not felt some good pain in a very long time.

Jessica: A joyous nearly-black human with stories. She is an amazing writer currently working on at least one graphic novel which is being illustrated by Gillian. Jessica is Gillian’s big sister (or younger twin depending on which mythos you follow). She arrived a couple weeks ago and will be studying Arabic next semester. It is hard to say what it is about Jessica that makes her so very special.

Greatest moment in my eyes: Telling me that she writes about me a lot, but can’t post any of it now that I know her blog address.

The Moribund Marauder

I am behind on my reading, low on sleep, and my foot is still sore and slightly swollen. This means that although two weeks have past since I collided with a trip to Sinai, the bruises are still visible.

What’s funny is that it was meant to be a relaxing weekend on the coast. I would sleep late, lay around on the beach, and read all day. Unfortunately, like the Schlieffen plan, somewhere between strategy and implementation something was never destined to line up. The bus was scheduled to meet our group of about 35 westerners around 4:30 PM after classes on Thursday. Naturally, we didn’t actually leave until around 5:30. This was not as much a problem as was the fact that it was the first day of Ramadan. We had barely left Cairo when the sun set and the drivers pulled over for iftar. The rest of the “6 hour trip” was frustrating stop and go affair in which every hour saw at least one break either for snacks or check points. The only upside was that being able to eat put our drivers in much better spirits than they had been in when the trip began.

We reached Dahab around 3:00AM and were led in to the Penguin Hotel. Before being shown to our rooms we were led to the hotel’s restaurant, a wood and rushes affair right on the water. The floor was lined with carpets laid right on top of the dirt. Between the wood pillars were long, low, mountain ranges of pillow in reds and greens and blues and yellows, partitioning off sections of floor space for groups of 5 to 20. There were no walls, so the sea breeze wafted through the restraint unchallenged.

I managed to sit still in my pile of pillows talking with Russ and Sam for about 20 minutes before rolling up my pant legs, climbing down the 4 foot stone wall to the beach and wading into the water. The first thing that hit me was the warmth of the water, it was wonderful. The second thing was the firmness of the “beach.” Really it was just rock, solid rock stretching out into the water. The rock was textured by green growth. At first this growth was soft and encouraged the wader to hop from clump to clump seeking solace from the solid stone. But, as I got further out, accompanied by Russ, Sam and a couple others, this changed. A light leap from soft seaweed to seemingly soft seaweed would suddenly spawn a sickening scream as a clump of crusty growth perhaps dried up by the sun would puncture the hoppers foot. This would make you abruptly switch your weight to your other, undamaged foot, giving it just enough pressure to also gouge itself on the rock hard growth. I didn’t let this stop me even as the others stopped a safe distance off, content to watch me two-footed limp deeper into the sea. I found a nice little rock sticking above water, covered in green mystery that was thankfully soft and climbed aboard. I watched the moon for a while, big and bright slowly sailing over Saudi Arabia. Finally, I bit my lower lip, lowered myself off my rock and limped back to the restaurant. I at least had the consolation of knowing that the salt water was washing out and sterilizing the wound. Anything that stings that bad must be good for you.

There wasn’t enough room for everyone at the Penguin, so about half of us were led farther down the water to the Sea View Hotel. Sam, Russ and I got settled in to our room by 4:30 AM, but before I could go to sleep there was something I had to do. I slipped in to my long sleeve black shirt, snuck out of the hotel, sidled down the street and slipped in to a construction site that I had spotted on our way into town. There were about 8 structures, still just a frame of brick and concrete. They looked like they would one day be fine buildings but for now there were just fine play things. The first one I climbed into was small, not much bigger than a large house, and when I determined that there were no secret passageways or exciting circular stairways, I left it for one of the huge hotel sized complexes.

The night was still and starting to turn dim as 5:00 AM crept into view. After exploring the lower levels and traversing whatever interesting architecture I could discover, I found some stairs and made my way up to the third story. I walked till I found a joint between what might become the grand ceiling of a dinning room and the lower ceiling of a guest room. For me it meant a couple-foot crack between the two different levels of ceiling. I scaled a square pillar and slipped through onto the roof. The roof was long and L-shaped curving out towards the sea. I moved slowly across it great expense partly to avoid being seen but mostly because the roof was speckled with sections of steal rebar, sticking throw the cement, and it was still dark enough that these obstacles were as good as invisible until you were almost upon them. I have this paranoia about being impaled. I treated myself to a few minutes just sitting at the edge of the building looking down a few stories to the water below me. Then I pushed my black sleeves back down over my arms, and snuck off the roof, down the side of another section of the building, across some more construction stopping only to jump across some fun looking sections of old or abandoned foundation, back down the street, into the hotel and into bed.

When Sam and I awoke the next day Russ was already gone. So, we went exploring. Where Dahab brushes the water a thicket of villa-ish hotels and hostels has grown up nurtured by the wet sea breeze, the bright beach sun, and the rich silt brought from around the world on the soles of millions of tourists. Clamped to the walking path that runs along the shore, each hotel to the city side of the path has a partner restaurant on the shore side of the path. Most of the restaurants are the same pillow-lined, pole-shed style as the one we had been in the night before. As we strode along the walk way (actually Sam did most of the striding, I mainly limped, hoped and hobbled) we were confronted by a constant shelling of sales pitches by painfully friendly restaurant workers. Almost everyone was offering some special deal—fifteen percent off, free appetizers, free dessert, 15% off plus free appetizers and free dessert. We would try to explain that the sun was still up and as it was Ramadan we were unable to eat. None of the sales men could seem to comprehend that westerners might actually be fasting, because our attempts to explain were usually met by, “OK, OK, for you friend 20% off, OK? 20% OK? Come sit. You like tea? Tea. No Charge. You can at least share a cup of tea with your friend. OK?”

Finally, we broke free from the brambles and found a little beach. By beach I mean an area where the rock dropped off quick enough that you didn’t have to walk a quarter mile closer to Saudi to get your hair wet. We swam for a while and then picked out way back to the Sea View Hotel.

That night we were going to hike Mount Sinai, but first we wanted to get a good meal in our bellies. We met Russ and went back to the battlefield. We settled on small restaurant close to our hotel that only offered a free appetizer platter and free desert but had a good menu and pretty cheap meals. Dinner turned out to be divine. Our little pillow filled nook was all the way to the back, right on the water, and the wind grow thick and damp with spray as the night darkened and the tide rose. The meal stretched almost five hours and while waiting for our dishes I would lean close to our dieing table candle and read short stories to Russ and Sam from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris. I ordered chicken stuffed cannelloni with cream sauce. They switched my cream sauce for simple marinara and it still proved to be the best meal I have had in recent memory. The only detractors were Sam’s shisha tipping over and sending a shower of sparks cascading over the table and all of us (OK, I secret enjoyed this) and the free desert. Considering the amazing quality of meal the only way I can make sense of the slop that was dessert is that the restaurant must have a free version and a paying costumers’ version of each dish. I ordered the fudge covered brownie with strawberry ice cream. What I got would be best likened to a 25 cent, Hostess, chocolate cake slice with some watered down Hershey’s syrup drizzled on top and a blended up strawberry popsicle dumped on the side. But even that could dampen the occasion.

After squaring up our bill, which came to something like $7.50 for me, we made our way to the Penguin were people were meeting to go to Mount Sinai. The trip to Mount Sinai was delayed by a long stop at the police station in Dahab where we had to pick up a police escort. At around 1:30 AM we arrived at Mount Sinai, and the most exhausting an surreal event of the journey began.

There is little I could hope to do–short of quitting college and using my savings to fly each of you to Egypt to climb Mount Sinai in the middle of the night after first giving you an ice cube bath so as to simulate the state of being at the height of a month long cold—to express what this voyage was like. The first thing that hits you is the dark. Living in the Middle of Cairo darkness is a state, occurring late at night, when the dirt becomes less noticeable. This was real dark, not blackness, even without a flashlight you could pick your way between the boulders, but darkness thick enough that it was not uncommon for one of those boulders to suddenly turn into an ornery camel. The second thing that hits you waits for that window of opportunity as your jaw slackens, jumps down your throat, grabs as much breath as it can fit in its 6 clammy hands and dashes back out to hide its new found treasure somewhere a million miles off in the sea of stars that seem to be slowly slipping closer and closer to the slobbering observer. As we hiked up the mountain, I would occasionally have to just stop moving and rotate around on my axis trying to take in everything around me. A Parisian, street side, spray paint artist could hardly have painted a scene this surreal. Sam and I got separated from the rest of the group, and avid hiker both began charging up the mountainside. We slipped past masses of Russian, and clumps of camels, hoping up on the stone retain walls or cutting between two switchbacks. Often we would simple step to the side of the path and walk alongside the immobilized masses snaking up long sections of steps. As we neared the top you could look back down the mountain and see the stars mirrored in the threads of light unraveling between cliff side and cliff top, as group upon group made the somber pilgrimage along the path that Moses may have walked thirty-three hundred years before.

At the top we fled the crowed which was already amassing to watch the sun rise and slipped over the edge of a cliff to a little couch-sized crevice. As the sky lightened my cold deepened fueled by the long hike that was starting to catch up to me, and the cold sweat soaking my back. I squirmed deeper into the crevice while exorcising pints of snot into the tissues I had thankfully brought with me. Though moist, blurry eyes I watched the hills gain independence from the dark around them and begin to seek autonomy in a world of enlightenment and self expression. The sunrise was set to the soundtrack of a beautiful Russian Orthodox service taking place across a small gorge to our left. As the sun climbed further into the sky the Russians were replace by Ethiopians featuring invigorating percussion although they seemed to be beating the same drum.

I slid away from the crowed and went in search of a bathroom or any solitary place to story my crap. At this point I wasn’t quite sure if I was more likely to vomit, sneeze out my brains, or do something more embarrassing still. My affliction and fluids seemed vile and cantankerous to a place like the peak of Mount Sinai, and I was loath to defile any part of it by making it into my emergency bathroom. Luckily after a short search I found a small read hut labeled bathroom and rushed in. The quaint little hut clearly held an attraction to more than merely the desperate traveler for within a minute a man with a digital SLR and lofty aspirations of one day seeing his work on the cover of National Geographic, sauntered around the corner looking for his next great shot. Seeing the hut he drew in and went to work, an archetypal image of rich tan, ramshackled, reed walls set askew against the deep blue brown background of molar-like mountains bouncing around in his mind as he tried to line up his expectations with what he was seeing through the viewfinder. I like to think that I will get my revenge on this man and his invasion of my privacy when he returns home ready to send out these pictures with his résumé and after blowing them up to 11X14 notices my hairy legs peaking through the reeds at the center of every print.

When I imaged somewhat refreshed, most of the peak was deserted. I skidded and tripped and leaped down the hillside stopping only to get bit by a bored camel with bad breath and green saliva. Eventually I reached Sam and we descended the rest of the way together. At the bottom we spent a moment exploring Saint Catharine’s. Then we headed back to the busses where we fell in and out of sleep for 2 hours while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. Those two fretful hours were as close to a nights sleep as I was destined to get.

Later that day Sam and I joined a couple other people heading to the Blue Hole to go snorkeling. The crazy 4X4 ride to the Blue Hole was possibly more exhilarating than the snorkeling itself. I love the way that screams fuel and already insane chauffer. The Blue Hole is an area about 20 minutes from Dahab were the long monotonous stone beach is interrupted by a gaping, underwater, coral cavern reaching within a few meters of the shore. The Hole is about 40 meters in diameter and in one area falls to a depth of 80 meters. The flora has been trod upon and the fauna is rather tame but it is still amazing. This was the first time I had even been snorkeling outside a swimming pull or lack. I was in awe, unfortunately I was so stuffed up that if I ventured deeper than a few meters my head threatened to explode. And SALT. SALTY SALTWATER SALT. I hate it. I really do. My name is Cole Agar, and I hate salt. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad except for the fact that all the hotels draw their water from the ocean, so showering is not so much a cleansing experience as it is a diluting experience. The thought of riding ten hours in a cramped bus grimy with sweat crust and salt dust was enough to make me cut my dive short and head to the shad of a little café, where we had left out bags, to take a nap.

The last hurdle to overcome was tallying up the bill. We had 35 people’s worth of lodging, dining, diving and traveling on one bill, and we were dealing with Egyptians. After nearly 2 hours everything was finally in order and with a sigh of relief we were out the door. Once again we had to stop by the Dahab Police Station to pick up our escort. We were stuck at the police station for a while and no sooner had we gotten back on the road than we had to pull over for gas. This beginning heralded a lurching trip back to Cairo much like our original ride to Dahab. However, while the ride there had been undertaken under the influence of anticipation and excitement, on the ride back we all just really wanted to get home. In addition, on the journey to Dahab I had been the proud occupier of the entire front seat of the bus, the ride back found me lying, cramped in an aisle.

We got back to Cairo at about 4:00 AM. I got to bed about 6:00 AM. Two hours later I was walking up for school.

SINGER/SONGWRITER RESPONDS TO DARE

CAIRO, Sept. 11 -  After three attempts to contact music prodigy Sonya Kitchell, Wednesday local boy Cole Agar finally received a reply.  Agar has purportedly been sending Kitchell a letter every half year since July 7, 2006.  Tuesday night he sent his third email, and true to the saying, it was the charm.

“I just had this feeling, you know, all day, that she was going to write me back,” Says Agar, still noticeably excited by the reply.  According to roommate Sam Walton, after dinner Friday Cole had been discussing things that he would do with his life’s savings if he knew he was soon to die.  Cole settled on funding an investigative attempt to uncover the mystery behind a hidden song, unofficial title “Probably My Little Brother,” that appears at the end of the album “Words Came Back To Me” by young, rising artist Sonya Kitchell.  It was this conversation that inspired Cole to send another letter.

The hidden song awoke Agar from daydreams over a year ago with its uncanny similarities to his own childhood and role as a little brother to two older sisters Erin and Hanna Agar.  “Everything about it, from the little brother reading ’Tintin or Asterix or Garfield or maybe the encyclopedia’  to dressing ‘like 1948′ was so true for me.  I actually thought one of my sisters might have published a poem about me online that this singer found and turned into a song.”

In his most recent letter Agar decided to try a more aggressively approach.  He slipped in clever and potentially aggravating references to Kitchell’s life of stardom and busy schedule.  Agar ended by daring Kitchell to get to know him better.

“Quite honestly, your dare is the thing that intrigued me enough to respond,” wrote Kitchell in her reply.  At age 19, Kitchell has released her first Album and recently returned from a tour of Europe.  She is a brilliant young artist trying to compose art and make a difference in a world dominated by icons like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan.

In her reply, Kitchell began to answer some of Agar’s questions in writing “The song you ask about is simply written about my little brother, who’s a character, and quite easy to write about.”  Whether this brother was genetically engineered using Agar’s DNA, or a repeat produced by a deity with creator’s block is yet unknown.

Nigeria Or Nothing Like It

Cairo was hot.  As hot as a summer in Cairo.  Now take away an air conditioner.   Take away even a fan.  Now open the door to the balcony because it is the last option you have.  My mattress on the floor of the extra room in Chris’ flat didn’t have any blankets, but that was fine.  I would not have used them anyways.   This was the scene facing me when I decided to pack up my computer, leave the apartment, hike the 9 blocks to main campus and at 11:30 PM on Thursday the 23 of August enter the Pottery Café and pledge not to leave I had a plan. 

By 1:30 AM, I had a ticket to Johannesburg, South Africa departing in 25 hours.

Although this entry is about my trip to South Africa, nearly half of the tale actually takes place well before I drove to the airport, boarded the plane, and sat down next to the insane Italian woman.  Its root go back to the end of last semester when one of my favorite political science teachers, a Canadian named Mike Lattanzi, announced that he would be leading a class from AUC to the Island of Cyprus for a summer course.  The group from AUC would meet up with a class from Washington State and a few students from Beirut.  The students would be discussing Orientalism, globalization, cross cultural dialogue and perception, and other such subjects.  Oh, and it would be a full three credit course compacted into a two week, discussion based class.  It sounded like a dream.  

Unfortunately, like a dream where the dreamer finds a treasure and holds it tight only to wake and discover all his treasure has vanished, as I continued to glance from my bank account to the steadily rising course fee and back to my bank account again, I was discovering that all my treasure was soon to be gone.  I endured a few stressful weeks in which I was unable to enjoy my friends because I didn’t have enough free time, unable to enjoy my free time because I felt I should be working, and unable to find enough work.  I realized that I was letting my entire summer be ruined by two weeks that I was not even sure I could justify.  Finally, I quit the course.  The agreement I made with myself in order to let myself back out of the class, was that I would find some other productive activity like travel to occupy the two weeks which I had budgeted at the end of my summer.  I decided that this activity should be journeying to Nigeria. 

I got back to Cairo on the 22^nd of August and I spent the next 2 days hanging out at the Nigerian embassy trying to get a visa.  The first day, after waiting around for a few hours, during which the guard who was Egyptian kept offering me his shelter to sit in, I was let in through the big steal door puncturing the 15 foot stone wall that surrounded the embassy and directed along a dirt corridor to a waiting room.  After another wait, a woman appeared on the other side of a big plexiglass window and explained to me that there is no such thing as a tourist visa to Nigeria.  What I could apply for was a guest visa.  Since I did not know anyone in Nigeria who could invite me to visit them, I would have to write a letter or short essay explaining my reasons for wanting to make the journey.  I would summit this letter along with a short application, which would be reviewed by the Nigerian consul and hopefully approved.  

I returned to the Embassy the next day with my application, passport, copy of my passport, passport photos, and my letter.  This time I was let into the waiting room almost immediately.  Now the waiting room was full of people, mainly Nigerian but some Egyptian.  Everyone was very excited that there was a young American who wanted to visit Nigeria.  At one point the lady from the day before came to the window and everyone rushed forward to push documents and passports through the slit at the bottom.  I gave her my letter and application and passport and went back to waiting.  Slowly people took care of there business and filtered out.  Finally, it was just a middle aged Nigerian woman and me still in the waiting room.  It was hot.  We talked for awhile and then I feel asleep.

“Sir.  Sir.”  TAP! TAP! “Excuse me sir.”  I awoke very disoriented to the sound of the lady taping on the glass.  The lights had been shut off.  I checked my watch, 3:20 PM.  The embassy had been closed for over an hour.  Blearily I rose and stumbled to the window.  The lady apologized for making me wait and explained that my application had been approved, but in order to get a visa I would need a letter from the United States Embassy.  It was Thursday afternoon.  The US Embassy would not be open till Sunday.  The very soonest I would be able to get my visa would be Monday, and even with extreme luck I wouldn’t be able to leave before Tuesday.  School started the next Wednesday.  I had also checked kayak and a few other travel sites the night before, and ticket prices had jumped from $550 to between $800-1,000.  Nigeria was off. 

A TIME OF BEEF OR THE VEGETARIAN OPTION

The day before I left for South Africa was a bit of a blur.  I packed a few books and a couple changes of cloths.   I went to school and researched hostels for my first night in Johannesburg.  I went to dinner with my friend Russ, who had recently arrived from the States, and some of his apartment mates.  I called a taxi, and waited.  

From the moment I sat down next to the insane Italian whose name I can not now remember I knew that nothing on this trip could go according to any plans or expectations I might have.  This suited me well because aside from the name of a hostel in Johannesburg and “The King of Ireland’s Son” which I had sworn to get through, I had no plan.  Although I had intended to use the flight, 2:00-9:00 AM, to get some sleep I abandoned rest in favor of offering an ear to the life story of the woman sitting next to me.  From what I could decipher, she had been dumped by her boyfriend of many years in favor of a younger prettier woman who he had been seeing for a while.  For the next three years my Italian, who had been a well off IT specialist, had found herself unable to work or sleep.  She considered taking off her clothing in front of a web camera for money, but months of grieving had left her eyes puffy, her face lined and her body frail and tense.  Instead, she had decided to leave Italy and fly to South Africa, where her brother lived, to develop a garden for a lady she had met on the internet.  This story was revealed in bits and ever repeated pieces in between such discussions as: my shoes, organic food and dieting, and what her boyfriend had done with all the stuff she had had in their apartment.  Eventually, as the story began to once more repeat itself, I fell asleep. 

A TIME OF MEAT PIES

I arrived in the Johannesburg airport, and proceeded to the information desk where a very nice lady called the hostel for me.  The hostel was only 3km from the airport and the British owner who I would harass with questions for the 8 hours arrived to pick me up within minutes.  

Johannesburg, as everyone kept telling me, was far too dangerous to hang out in.  Instead I joined a tour which started in Johannesburg, went though Soweto and ended at the Apartheid Museum.  We saw two of Nelson Mandela’s houses, the only street to house two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and other such novelty items.  Everyone on the tour was a little disappointed that we were not allowed to walk around Soweto.  Soweto, whose name comes from South West Township, is home to about three million black South Africans whose families were uprooted so that white suburbs could be erected on the rubble of their homes.  It was the site of the 1967 riots.  The apartheid Museum looked as though it would have been very fascinating, unfortunately after only 15 minutes I was picked up by another guide who had to bring me home because I was the only person from my tour going that direction. 

That night I booked my ticket on the Baz Bus.  The Baz Bus is a door to door service used widely by backpackers that has routes all over South Africa and into Swaziland.  For around $145 I got a seven day pass.  This meant I could go anywhere I wanted and stay as long as I wanted, within the Baz Bus system.  This ticket would prove structure for most of my trip.  

As Johannesburg had little to offer me, the next day I hopped on the Baz to Durban.  Durban is the larges port in Southern Africa and has the highest Indian population of any city outside of India.  Durban is also the home of Bunny Chow, a spicy, curry, bean stew served out of a half loaf of bread.  My first night in Durban I went out with my room mate a very tall and fascinating young man named Christian.  We clicked very quickly and he will be visiting me in October.  That night I made another friend, a Dutch girl about my age whose name escapes me. 

The next day I woke up early and wanted to go running, but my knee had become very swollen and was too stiff to run on.  Instead, I went on a long walk through a huge development area along the water, and got lost on the way back.  I arrived back to the hostel late and missed my date to meet my two new friends before going to the market.  Instead I was joined by an Aussie woman named Michelle and after a slightly confused bus rid we arrived at the market.  The market proved to be of little interest until we discovered the tradition medicine section.  Situated on a wide walking bridge spanning two sections of the market, the tradition medicine market was smorgasborg of shredded bark, pelican beaks, nuts, herbs, dried gutted rodents, fish scales, jars of eyeballs and much, much more.  The rest of the day was spent exploring the city with Michelle.  We looked for a cinema but the only one we could find was in an area of the city so bad that you would be wise to keep a fat wallet on you just to keep the muggers happy.  We also went to the Bat Center, famous for its live jazz and drumming circles, but it was closed.  Michelle and I stopped by an Irish pub on the way home where we ran into a diver we had met earlier in the day at the Durban dive shop.  I watched cricket while Michelle and the man exchanged dive stories about sharks, nitrogen and oxygen catastrophes, and putting mussel relaxant in the crotches of their friends’ wet suits. Eventually we wandered back to the hostel and I met up with Christian and Dutch Girl.  The Hostel, named the Happy Hippo, was incredibly nice and we spent the rest of the night taking and drinking tea and wine.  

Day two in Durban saw Dutch Girl, Christian and I cruising through the valley of 1,000 hills on our way to Zulu Village “an authentic recreation of Zulu life and tradition.”  We learned about Zulu cooking, beer making, ceremony, dating, fortune telling, proposing, marriage and dance (which consists of seeing how many times you can vigorously kick yourself in the nose in a row).  Then we got a tour of the crocodile and snake park.  The driver dropped us off at the city center and I went to explore the museums while the other two went off in search of internet.  On my way to the museums I came across a free choir concert that was part of a series going on called “Experimenting with the Arts,” or something to that effect.  There was a nice natural history museum and an art museum that was being rearranged.  The three of us met up back at The Happy Hippo and Dutch Girl and I went in search of a grocery store.  We were all leaving in the morning and I wanted to do some shopping and find some cheap wine before I went to Swaziland.  We found a grocery store and I bought a few items.  On the way out I decided I should withdraw some more money before the next leg of my journey.  I had seen an ATM by the bakery, so I went back into the grocery store.  I inserted my card into the machine, entered my pin, selected 300 rand, crumpled up the receipt saying insufficient funds, inserted my card into the machine, entered my pin, selected 300 rand, crumpled up the receipt still saying insufficient funds and stepped back from the ATM a little shocked.  For a moment I a stood there overwhelmed, then I laughed.  For so much of my trip I had worried about how much money I should spend, and whether I should go on over priced tours, or take a short safari.  Now, like it or not, I could spend exactly the little I had in my wallet.  I had just enough for my last four nights lodging, and I had just done a little shopping.  Suddenly life was blissfully simple. 

A TIME OF APPLES, AVOCADO, SIX BUNS, AND SMOKED HAM CREAM CHEESE 

My trip to Swaziland was long and I didn’t get to my hostel till around 7:00 PM.  That night a bunch of us from the hostel went to an incredibly bad, but free, native dance presentation.  Either the presenters were using the opportunity to practice some show that they hoped one day to be able to perform, or there is a certain part of the ritual that takes place before the tourists get there that involves a lot of alcohol.  At any rate the presentation put me in a perfect mood to go back to the hostel and go to bed.  The next day the large crowd that had been there the night before was gone and I took the opportunity to sleep late for the first time during my trip. 

My time in Swaziland was characterized by two things: hiking, and thousands of virgins.  

Luck had been with me in coming to Swaziland for after receiving a tip from Christian that there was absolutely nothing to do in Swaziland and I was a fool for going there, I switched my hostel from one in the middle of the capital to one in the middle of nowhere on a nature reserve.  As I had no money to spend on city things this was perfect.  The hostel was surrounded by meadows, mountains and wildlife.  There were hiking trails cobwebing the reserve, which I avoided whenever possible.  On my first day of hiking I communed with impala, wildebeest, crocodile, and zebra.  On the second day I added warthogs and hippos to this collection.  My first day, I mainly tried to get a feel for my surroundings.  I hopped from trail to trail taking pictures and looking for a good walking stick.  

On the second day I tried something slightly different.  I call it straight shooting.  I found my way to a spot along a dirt road part way into the heart of the reserve, looked into the horizon, found the tallest peak, pointed at it and said “There!” I spent the rest of the day going straight to this peak.  I quickly discovered that there is a reason why so many hiking trails wind about the country side, and it is not to show the hiker more of his surroundings.  From where I stood on the dirt road it had looked like my hike to the top of the mountain would mean plodding through a field, picking my way through two sections of forest and finally pulling myself up a boulder field.  What I could not have known from where I stood on the dirt road was that each of the “sections of forest” hid massive ravines that cut back down into the hillside a quarter mile through cliffs and thickets and vines with thorns four to five inches long.  What I should have known from where I stood on the dirt road was that the peak that I had coined “There!” was not, in fact, anywhere remotely close to the point I thought it was on my map.  This miscalculation would not become important for a couple hours, and after losing my camera in the middle of a square half mile of brush and thorns only to miraculously find it after only twenty minutes of frantic searching, the fact that I was 60% completely lost didn’t seem important at all.  The thing about mountains is that getting to the top is very straight forward, you go up.  Getting to the bottom is equally straight forward, you just go down, its just that there is a lot more bottom to go down to and the bottom you find might not be the same bottom you left so happily at 1:00 PM not knowing your three hour jaunt might turn into a six hour voyage.  A quickly darkening voyage.  Eventually I found the peak shown on the map and started on my way back down to the hostel.  Just as it was getting too dark to see, I spotted lights in the distance.  I arrived back at the hostel to find that once more it was packed with people.

The virgins were not an aspect of Swaziland that I experienced directly, except as a whisper of anticipation that filled the air.  Let me explain.  The King of Swazi is the richest king in Africa.  He is thirty-four.  He has fifteen wives.  Now it was time for him to pick number sixteen.  Young maidens come from all over Swaziland and even South Africa and Mozambique for the Festival of the Reeds.  They had been going down to the river all week to cut reeds and that weekend the festival would begin.  From what I hear, the maidens dance and try to look pretty in an attempt to impress their king.  Everyone loves the king of Swazi.  Then, from out of the 100,000 or so maidens the king picks 1.  The lottery winner moves into the palace and her family is pulled out of poverty.  It is every little girls dream.  Unless the little girl doesn’t dream of becoming enslaved to a palace able only to venture forth on special occasions and even then with an entourage to preen and protect her and be of sharing the affections of her husband with a score or two other girls.  The last king of Swazi had 69 wives by the time he died.  And once you’ve been married to the king of Swazi I doubt you are allowed to remarry, even if you are only 19 and your husband has just died.  I heard that in past years girls have collapsed in fits of sobs because they had a boyfriend back home.  Hell, isn’t that the dream?  But you have to go.  It isn’t the law or anything.  You just have to go.  Unfortunately, all the action began the same day I returned to Jo’burg. 

The rest of the trip was pretty, uneventful.  I found a nice hostel in Johannesburg.  Watched some chick flicks, met a crew of young geologists, got stuck at a mall for 5 hours and watched some more chick flicks.  Then, I went home.  Back to Cairo.

It is interesting trying to describe everything I did on my trip, because so little of what I DID relates to what made the trip the experience that it was.  Although I write of museums and tours and exploration, it is the people I met, the free bunny chow meal I found, the drunk master chef adrenaline junkie who left his stew boiling over to hit on Michelle, the surreal feeling of pieces falling into place around me, the really Irish Irish, the crocodile, the live Mr. Price manikins, the red dirt and the stiff breeze on top of a mounting meadow that I will remember.  I suppose that is how it should be though.  I could never hope to give you all my experience through words, and even if I could I wouldn’t.  It’s mine.  You find your own trip.