Fears & Anxieties (with statistics!)

It was not my intention to upset or concern anyone about safety in Cairo when I posted my reactions and findings from the book, “Taxi.” [Within hours of posting I received a flabbergasted call from a dear girlfriend who said, “Why the hell did Ron bring his feminist, animal rights, American wife to that horrible place?” (I’m paraphrasing a bit.)] I understand and appreciate her concerns, and in reverse I’d probably feel the same way. I told her that I hadn’t even shared the latest bit of horror – which started with us leaving for the commissary last weekend and seeing a beautiful camel tethered behind a new building across the street. I’ve never seen a camel in Zamalek so I was initially delighted (he looked gorgeous and furry, calmly sitting and chewing away). Ron remained quiet, which at the time I didn’t read into. A few hours later when we returned I automatically looked for the camel as we drove by and was faced with him being skinned (dead). Ron said he was afraid of that, knowing that it’s a tradition here to slaughter an animal to commemorate a new building. Just heartbreaking.

Anyway, in terms of violence and crime (against humans) in Cairo, I did a little research and found the following – though keep in mind, Cairo stats are not plentiful online (and there is the added issue of how much faith to put in any online data), but I found a few scattered references:

> Egypt doesn’t even rank in the top 83 countries for highest murder rate (USA is 5th and India is 1st);
> highest murders with firearms, USA is 4th, South Africa is 1st and Egypt isn’t in the top 48;
> highest rapes, USA is #1, sadly almost double South Africa’s second place and Egypt isn’t in the top 84;
> for assaults, USA is #1, over three times as many as UK’s second position, and Egypt isn’t in the top 78.

Now, I do realize that statistics are only as good as those who report them (plus there’s the added issue of a lot of crimes, such as assault, not getting reported to the police here due to lack of trust), but there’s no question it’s far less violent than the US… so we’ll just leave it at that.

Here are some other findings:

From an August 2005 article:
Washington, D.C., Is 100 To 1000 Times As Dangerous As Cairo, Egypt.
[Quote from the University of Texas:] “'The fact is that the actual incidence of violence in Egypt is very rare: Cairo is a much safer city than any of the major cities in Europe or the United States. The annual murder rate in the city of Washington, DC, a city of just over 600,000 people, tends to be about as high as the murder rate in the entire country of Egypt -- a country of just over 60,000,000 people -- over a ten year period. That means that the murder rate is over one thousand times less in Egypt than it is in Washington, DC, and yet there is still a perception that Egypt is dangerous.' This observation tends to agree with statistics from other sources. Official US figures for murders in Washington over the past fifteen years have fluctuated from about 40 to 80 per 100,000 per year, while UN figures for Egypt show a rate of around 0.5 per 100,000. This implies that murder is 80 to 160 times as prevalent on a per-capita basis in Washington as in Egypt as a whole. I could not find a specific murder rate for Cairo, but UT’s comment suggests that it is comparable to or even lower than the national murder rate. But, although whether Egypt is 100 times or 1000 times as safe as Washington may be debatable, it’s certain that you can feel much more confident walking around the streets in Egypt during the day or at night. It can only be supposed that rates for other crimes follow the same pattern. One might also consider offenses on the street that are less than criminal, like insults, taunts and lewd remarks, which are much more common in the US than in Egypt.”

Another source:
“There is not a large prevalence of violent crimes in Cairo, but tourists should be aware of petty crimes, such as purse-snatchings, which are more common. In addition, it is recommended that tourists who are women should not travel anywhere alone as they may become victims of verbal abuse or sexual harassment.”
(That last line doesn’t apply to me as I’m a “resident” not a “tourist”.) ☺

And while searching I found this, which I found amusing:
“There is nothing that works right,” said Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egypt’s most popular contemporary poet. “Everything is corrupt and loose. And because the regime does not engage in political dialogue, it resorts to police repression. How can a state run on police?”

Of course, now this doesn’t mean I relax my Spidey-Sense and go larking about with vapid innocence, but I hope this can assuage any concerns of us living in a dangerous city. However, in the reverse, I’m now terrified for everyone living back home! Stay inside, barricade the doors, only answer for Ed McMahon!

First Anniversary

Well, we did it! We have officially been married for 365 days – whew! It’s not that I didn’t think we’d make it; it’s just been a rather insane year. Is this what a first year of marriage should be like? I guess every new marriage has its own personal “let’s move to Egypt” issues, just in varying formats.

The night before our anniversary as we were drifting off to sleep, Ron said quietly, “I hope it’s okay, but I didn’t get you a card.” “It’s fine, I didn’t get you anything,” I replied. It’s not that we’re unsentimental cads, there are two factors at work here: 1) Cairo is a card-free zone, they’re difficult to find, and if you do find one it’s often a little strange, 2) we knew this wasn’t going to be our proper celebration. Saying that, we did manage to celebrate our actual anniversary with a nice dinner.

Ron did take the day off from work, but it was for his midterm… not me. ☺ We discussed this a few weeks ago when Ron realized his midterm was due two days after our anniversary, so we agreed to postpone any real celebration until after school, but luckily Ron was able to pack the weekend and most of yesterday with midterm-fun, so we were actually able to go to dinner.

Ron chose the Mena House Oberoi, out by the pyramids. It was built as a royal hunting lodge in the mid 1800s, but was converted to a hotel in 1869 (and has the distinct honor of being the only hotel by the pyramids that has a golf course – so our future outings include getting a photo of Ron “teeing off” in front of Cheops (the Great Pyramid)).

The Mena House has several restaurants to choose from, but the Moghul Room, with its Indian fare, came highly recommended so we opted for that (despite it being the only restaurant that does not have a pyramid view – however, in hindsight this wasn’t really an issue as the pyramids are not lit at night so we had to squint to see them at all).

The other “treat” we gave ourselves (more of a necessity than a treat, but still a treat), was to arrange a driver for the night. We certainly could have found it ourselves (though we don’t have the best history of locating the pyramids, even in daylight), but after sitting in the hoards of traffic, I’m very glad we didn’t drive. Getting there took over an hour (getting home, only 30 minutes). I’m sure traffic is like that every evening, but I haven’t had to sit through it before. At one point, we accidentally tapped the car in front of us, but no one blinks an eye here at that so we just kept going. We did see lots of physics-bending vehicles (see previous post if confused), and at one point I saw a rather ingenious woman who had created her own hands-free mobile device – by wedging her cell phone under her headscarf (well, I thought it was clever).

The hotel is beautiful (probably one of the nicest I’ve seen here), with wonderful arabesque decorations, antiques, gorgeous lighting and luxurious fabrics. Dinner was excellent and we were serenaded with live music (not just us, the whole restaurant – we noticed there was an “Entertainment fee” of 1.21LE per person on our bill, but we were more than happy to add our whopping $0.48 to their salaries and gave a little more in the tip).

We had plans to grab a coffee or tea in one of the other restaurants to relax after dinner and gaze at the pyramids, but in addition to not actually seeing them, we were happily stuffed full of lentils, chickpeas and naan, so we just called for the driver and he took us home.

Maybe not the most romantic of first anniversary celebrations, but there were extenuating circumstances and we are in the midst of planning a true vacation, maybe mid-December to Madagascar (isn’t a first anniversary “lemur”?), where we’ll celebrate it properly.

Regardless of how we commemorated it, we did express great wonder and joy at this past year, and I don’t think either of us would have changed a thing (well, any big thing, that is).

At the close of our first wedding anniversary, as we were reading in bed last night, Ron said lovingly, “You definitely look better than her.” I glanced over to see he was reading the October “National Geographic” article on Neanderthals. Needless to say, he spent the next ten, twenty minutes back-pedaling wildly and claiming it was all a joke. So if anyone asks, this was the moment the honeymoon ended. Let the marriage begin!

Feline Antics

Despite us having hundreds of DVDs, three cable boxes, and thousands of channels to skip through, Ron and I do find that a bit of cat play can make for quite an entertaining evening.

Chuckles and Ricky both love strings, but they tend to play differently (as anyone with multiple felines knows). Ricky likes to dash back and forth, never really wanting to actually catch the string. Chuckles, on the other hand, goes for broke and he and Ron often get in a tug match, with Ron usually cheating and distracting Chuckles or squashing him behind the ottoman, in order to get him to release his vice-like bite.

Ron can also get Chuckles to do amazing leaps into the air or onto the couch (or off). We do find that he is often so intently focused on getting and keeping the string that he falls off furniture without a clue (Chuckles, I mean – for the most part). We also found that if we place the ottoman that has wheels on the wood floor, then get Chuckles to leap onto it, he’ll happily go flying across the room, not unlike Snoopy as the Red Baron. Fun for the whole family.

In addition to strings and balls, they love treats. Though Ron actually had to convince Chuckles of their goodness, who, prior to this, had no interest in them. Now he’s quite the obnoxious pest any time we walk into the kitchen or go near the treat drawer. He still doesn’t fully get the whole concept of taking a treat from our hand though. Ricky gets it immediately, and sometimes even tries to butt in to take Chuckles’. Chuckles tends to wuffle it a bit, rub his front teeth on it, then much like “Insert tab A into slot B,” we slide the treat into his mouth like a reverse Pez dispenser. Yum!

Robin back home kindly sent us some great gourmet treats for the felines to try. One of them was less like the fish-shaped crunchy treats they’re used to and more like bits of torn chicken (ewww). It took some added wuffles for Chuckles to get this concept, but Ron was eventually able to slide the treats in without issue. What a clever boy.

Driving Tales

For the most part, we really only drive once a week to the commissary in Maadi. And after today’s trip, we’re going to try to make that every two weeks.

I have actually taken to bringing my camera with us because you just never know what you’re going to see along the way. Today included a GREAT bread seller, no bicycle, but he gets the award for highest stack. And for some reason he was walking along the highway, which I can’t imagine would produce much opportunity for sales (without a bit of traffic conflict).

There are always the lovely shuttle busses to avoid at ALL cost (they’re truly the craziest on the road). And this one was spouting a rather toxic smoke.

Veg sellers on the street always have what’s current and fresh, so apparently carrots are currently in season (I never really thought of a carrot season, comes from having them so readily available in nice little plastic bags, I guess).

We saw a typical motorbike, but this one was unusual in that the driver had a helmet. Of course, he wasn’t WEARING the helmet, but at least there would be something readily available to scoop him into if needed.

And apparently these gentlemen were trying to figure out either how to get these tires over the wall behind them, or across the 8-10 lanes of traffic on the Ring Road. Good luck, either way!

This morning we trundled down to Maadi around 10:00am and traffic was great – barely there at all. Depending on when you go, traffic can be lovely and light, or typical and exhausting. The issue today arose when we got to the commissary, which has recently changed its entrance. With the change has come a lot of headache, so much so that we waited for 20-30 minutes today just to get into the complex and the commissary. It’s supposed to be a safety thing, and while I respect their intentions, allowing a queue of cars to build and build, doesn’t promote safety, at all. I think after today there will be a lot of heated emails sent on Sunday (our Monday of the week). So despite the lack of traffic, our shopping trip still took 3 hours door to door. Of course, we did also buy a LOT more than we usually do, with the intention of not going again for two weeks. I may have to supplement our fresh fruit and veg with local options… we’ll see how things go.

One bit of excitement on the way home was the fact that we had to collectively figure out how to turn on and off the windshield wipers… because it was actually raining! Now, downpour it was not, but enough rain was falling that we did have to use the wipers for more than half the trip home. Ron was eager to get home and off the roads, as rain tends to muck up things even moreso than normal (not only with literal muck, but Egyptians don’t get much rain, so they don’t know how to drive on suddenly muddy and slick roads). We made it home without incident. But even later in the afternoon it rained again and was tapping on the overhang of our windows. Chuckles didn’t know what to make of it and approached the window as if the Boogeyman himself was tapping (we do enjoy our feline torments).

We have had two recent mid-week mini-drives, by me, at night. Yes folks, Julia has driven in downtown Cairo at night – and found herself laughing out loud as she did so (which is better than crying as it doesn’t blur the vision). Ron called one evening to say that our kitchen trashcan had finally arrived but it was obviously quite a big box. He asked if I’d feel comfortable driving the car to the embassy to get him, the box and our friend Ben. I said sure (never one to really think things through right away).

I got out of our compound just fine, through the gate at the end of the street (manned by the ever-present Cairo street guards), then slowly, ever so slowly, inched my way through a block of parked cars on either side, wishing I had a passenger who could snap in the side mirror to make things easier (yes, the extra few inches can make a world of difference). Then it was time to “merge” into the flow of traffic. Now, back in the states as the one who needs to merge, you tend to inch forward slowly knowing that someone will eventually let you in, or enough space will open up. Here, you just go for it, otherwise you will sit there and collect dust (until someone comes up behind you beeping incessantly). So, with a bit of a laugh, I just floored it and fell in line. Cairo traffic is like a flow of mercury, absorbing mercuric bits along the way as it releases bits elsewhere, but constantly in motion.

Relying on the “Care only about your front end” adage, I drove with confidence, only rarely glancing in my side mirrors to see who might be there and may try to speed up and swerve in front of me. Being able to read other drivers is key. All was good until we got to the Lion Bridge, when 4-6 lanes of traffic (lane being a very loose term as you make your own) merge down into 2-3, and as happened this night, there’s often a stalled car somewhere along the bridge, adding to the fun.

I made it to the embassy without a scratch (that I noticed) and gathered my husband, trashcan and friend. Surprisingly neither of them offered to take over the wheel, so I drove home. At first, I was quite pleased that they felt comfortable enough with me driving, but then I realized that they felt too comfortable and were discussing the possibilities of the Julia Taxi being on call for other nights. I nixed that one. Though a few days later I did do the journey one more time as another few large boxes had been delivered (cat food, bedding, etc.). But it is nice that with each foray, the confidence does grow – oh, and we finally got our taillight guards and front end heavy duty black metal guard grill installed, so anything remotely pliable, like a human, should just bounce off without hurting the car too much.

Double-Decker Bread Bicycle!

I just had to share this photo I captured of a double-decker bread bicycle from my recent “Walls of Cairo” tour through the Khan. I’m still writing up the tour, but since this wasn’t a medieval relic, I figured I could share it separately.

(I wonder why I’m so fascinated with all of the ways to carry items on one’s head? Then again, why wouldn't I be?)