Shopping Trip to the Khan

Yesterday I had a very successful shopping trip to the Khan, so I thought I'd better blog about it. But then realised that I cannot publish the blog post until after Christmas otherwise everyone will read all about their presents!!!

So we had the day off work because it was Islamic New Year. I wanted to go to the Khan to buy a few things and we've just not had time this term as we've both been so busy, but also without any visitors coming over we've not really had an excuse. I wasn't sure if the Khan would be open because of the holiday, so I waited until after lunch before heading down. Scotty's foot has been hurting him for the last week or so and he had a lot of work to do, so I went solo.

I got the metro to Attaba as normal and headed out through the (tip-winning!) book market. I normally head to the right-hand side as this side has the old film posters and once also had some Tintin books. It's a crush as usual at the top of the stairs, but then I am walking along looking at the different stalls. I then notice that for only the second time they have Tintin books. This time I'm determined not to let the opportunity pass, so I pick them up and ask "bikam?" It's an arabic copy of Tintin and the Picaros and Tintin and the Shooting Star. Neither are in great condition, but that doesn't bother me. "hamzah w' hamzah" is the reply. I try "hamzah collo?" but he shakes his head and laughs "ahsra collo" "mesh" He asks "English?" and I reply "aywa" and he starts looking for other books, but I just point to the face of Tintin and say "like this?" He finds me an Asterix book, but it's hard to explain in broken arabic that for me Tintin is far superior to this little French guy. I pay and head off very satisfied with my first purchase; 10LE on two Tintin books.

I wind my way around the theatre that's still being renovated and make my way up Mohamed Ali street. I have fun looking in the shops and just observing life. Half-way up the street I go to make the left-hand turn to wards Bab Zuweyla but before crossing the road decide to pop into the apparently now open Museum of Islamic Art. the first door I try is very sparse and the guy directs me around the corner. Popping my head in the door I see that it is done up beautifully and very well ordered. The sign outside states that it is open 9am-5pm and costs 50LE for foreigners. We'll have to go when we next have visitors over.

Now up to Bab Zuweyla and I pass the small herbs and spices shop that we first stopped in with Aaron and Laura.  It was a good discovery as they sell at proper prices, not tourist prices, and have a decent range of stuff here. I've decided to get some more dried hibiscus as we recently used our last supplies up to make a sweet (but not as syrup-like as we'd hoped) cordial that now stands in our fridge and we get out when we fancy something different to water. "lahsemat? mumkin karkedey?" he replies with a mumble that I cannot make out, but I assume is asking me how much I want. Luckily Mr Ayman our arabic teacher taught us the time in our last lesson, so I know the word for a quarter! "robha kilo" He obliges and then looks at me quizzically to see if I'm after anything else "shukran, hallas" (thanks, that's it/finished) "mesh, tamanya ginea" and I hand over my 8LE

We pass by this store every time we go this way and have always enjoyed the aromas coming out, but never had a reason to go in. It's the coffee place, that roasts and grinds its own beans and we've never had a coffee maker so have only used 3-in-1. Now we have the amazing Aeropress brought back from Canada and we need ground coffee. The first packet we bought in Saveway was far too fine and clogged the filter, so we spent ages finding another coffee that wasn't as fine as the Egyptian standard (and it took them almost as long to find the price of this never-bought coffee in the shop!). I look towards the coffee place now and the guy catches my eye and gestures for me to come in. He asks if I want coffee and shows me an open clear bag with freshly ground coffee. It smells amazing. I touch it between my fingers and try to say I need it bigger. He understands and he gives me a seat. He comes back with some other and I again say I need it bigger as I know it will be too fine for our filter. He says he can make me some, but I must come back in 20 minutes. I say this is no problem and although he offers for me to stay and sit at the shop I know I have a few more things to buy near-by so I promise him to come back again in a bit.

I'm into the tent-makers market now and off to see our favourite man there. He recognises me straight away and we share pleasantries when he says he hasn't seen me for a long time and asks how my friends are. I'm here on a mission. When Jane and Graham first come to visit us they bought a pair of cushions from here, then we bought an additional pair, based on the colour description from them, for Jane's birthday so that their newly painted living room would have four matching cushions. Last year for Christmas though we found a fun pair of Santa cushion covers in the Recycling Shop of Mokattam, so for the holiday Jane changed the covers. However when packing up the Christmas decorations she wasn't able to find the old covers and so the living room has been Santa-themed for nearly a year! I get out my mobile phone and find the photo I took this summer of the two remaining patterned cushions. "Yes, I have!" our man exclaims and he immediately finds two that match perfectly! 50LE job done

I'm also in the market for some calligraphy, but our man doesn't have that great a range, so I pop next door and meet Ashraf who shows me his work. I spy a mini-version of the oud calligraphy that we have in our living room. We've been after one for some time and it's the perfect gift for a muso we know. I know which one I want, but Ashraf insists on showing me every different colour combination and lots of fish calligraphy too. I also manage to get a sufi dancer hanging with lovely colours and movement too that will do as a birthday present for a friend who I'll see over Christmas. 115LE job done

Now I scarper back to my coffee man. It's been more like 30 minutes than 20 and I hope he hasn't forgotten or given up on me. I retrace my steps and see him as I approach the store. He waves me in and has a clear plastic bag of ground coffee - it looks good. He gets me to touch it to see the gind and it looks just right, so he then bags some up for me. They have their own bags and he gives me a little over the "robha kilo" that I asked for. Then when he gives it to me I ask "bikam?" and he says "ghali". I'm confused because ghali means expensive, I'm sure. I look at the board at the back of the shop and it has prices there for half, quarter and another fraction of a kilo. It should be around 10LE I think. "we says ghali - free" he says. "free? no!" and I try to pay, but he refuses. "shukran awi ustaz" I say and shake his hand. I ask his name and it is Tarek, so I make a mental note so that I can speak to him again when we come by this way with our next visitors and will probably need more coffee!

I head off back towards Bab Zuweyla but head through the gate itself now and towards the main market. I can feel through the small plastic bag holding the coffee that it is still warm!
I browse the stalls as I walk along to Midan Hussein. One thing we're after for our NYE fancy dress outfits is some material - it needs to be brown and furry as Scotty is dressing as a monkey. When I get to the main road I walk slowly along some of the fabric shops here before crossing over. I find a little loop if I keep going left on myself and end up under the mosque in a warren of high rolls of fabric. It's good stuff, but not what I'm after.

Over the bridge and I want to buy a Cleopatra-style beaded head piece. I know some stalls will sell it, but we normally see loads being sold by the hawkers who come into Fishawi's as we drink our tea, so I decide to head there. I'm by myself, but this doesn't matter as I get a seat inside and order a cold karkady. My motivation is that I want to see if mine can compare! Mine is nearly there, but still not quite as sweet and strong. I text Scotty and he reminds me that my winter drink is sahleb, and I'm a little disappointed to have forgotten about this. Despite my willingness to buy no one comes in trying to sell a beaded head piece, so I'm back on the streets. I see in two stores close to Midan Hussein they have a metal crown - the type worn by the Pharaoh's of Egypt. It's pretty cool, but a little pricey too. I haggle away and manage to get both for 60LE one each for Emi and Alex so they can play Ancient Egyptians.

This is most of my shopping done now so I start to think about heading back. As I head towards the main road to walk to the Metro I have a brain wave about Scotty's monkey costume. There are so many naff tracksuits here that maybe if I could get a tracksuit of the right material this would do the job. Instead of walking down the main road I decide to take the shopping street of Muski. This street becomes more local once you get just 50m down it away from the Khan and it narrows as it continues (or maybe the shops are spreading more onto the street). There are lots of places along here with potential and so I keep my eye out for something that could fit the bill. I find one tracksuit in brown velour that looks just great. It's 80LE and I phone Scott for confirmation that this is a viable idea. He approves and says that if it doesn't work out we haven't lost too much money. This tracksuit is a great colour, but the logos on it are bigger than I'd like, so I keep going.

I then pass a shop that has something familiar hanging outside it; a dress-up Egyptian police uniform! We've seen and bought one of these before the other side of the road towards bab Zuweyla as we just thought it was too cute to pass up. The one we have already is in white; the summer uniform. But this store has one in balck too! I just cannot resist and ask how much he wants for it. He asks for 80LE and I laugh and say "La-a. I have like this and I pay 30" He does the line about this being better material, but I say "La, same-same" I get him down to 50LE and don't think he'll go any further, so I pay up. Very happy that we now have fancy dress for all seasons.

Further on I finally find a tracksuit that looks really good and has far smaller logos. It's a three-piece with a t-shirt in brown too. The shop-owners are very excited and ask me questions about the training I will do in it! At 110LE and I can't get them down to 100, but settle for it.

I final purchase is a bit of fun. I see an arabic rubix cube and think this will do nicely for Scotty's table present on Christmas Day - something to help us practice!

I'm laden with bags now and have to push my way through the crowds passing the naff Christmas decorations and dangerous fireworks towards the Metro. I get there just before it gets dark which was my aim and jump on. I don't get a seat on the way back, but do once I'm home and enjoy showing Scotty all my new purchases over a G&T.

Merry Christmas! It's time for Sandy Claus!

Merry Christmas!

Yes, we've been planning handmade presents for quite a while this year, and by now those lucky recipients should have found their bottles of the exclusive Sandy Claus beer from the Grand Malt Brewery!

Here's a bit of the background to the beer in two parts.  The first is when we bottled it, the second is when we were nearly denied entry to Cairo airport in October for trying to bring it back to the UK.

And, finally, the tasting...

UKNova Awards

So, we won.  Yay!  Twice!  YAY!

Firstly, the Felukuleles won Best Sitting Duck for the Old Bazaar In Cairo video.  Alice and I also won the prize for the best cultural video, and receive a limited edition (i.e. limited to only one having been made) UKNova Mug.

It's not quite a Guardian Top Tip, nor a meal for two at a 5-star hotel restaurant, but I'm still pleased that hours of hard work paid off :-)

Double winner!

I posted a few weeks ago saying that my ivebeenthere book shop tip had been shortlisted but didn't win. that post though was still 12 hours before the paper was published and when I checked the following day I found that actually I DID win the competition - top tipper!!
I was really chuffed as my Alexandria tip was highlighted before but they weren't giving prizes then. Also the top tip is selected by a writer for the Lonely Planet which is pretty cool. So the prize I've won is a digital camera from Jessops. It looks to be about the same size as my current one which is cool as I like having a small camera that is easy to carry around, but I've had mine for at least 5 years and I think the focus is going a bit dodgey on it (or I use it too much when I'm a bit tipsy). It arrived at MVR earlier this week along with a letter saying I've also got a code for a free photo book. Awesome - because we want to make a 2010 photo book to go with the beautiful 2009 one that Scotty did for me last year.
So we were pretty pleased with being a winner, but then we won again!
Last night was the BCA Ball which was a blast as usual (free bar with proper booze!). They always have a raffle with prizes from various big companies in Egypt with the biggest prize being a return flight BMI between London and Cairo and then another prize being hotel stays in Sharm or the like. The last two years they have sold raffle tickets when you're there, but this year we all had two numbers on the back of our tickets that would be in the draw. It's a notorious fix as we never win anything, or our friend Frenchie wins everything (she won three prizes in her first year). Sometimes they even have consecutive numbers drawn out, so we sit at our table yeklling "fix, fix! Mix the tickets up! Take one from the bottom instead!" etcetc. They draw the four big prizes and then everyone loses interest and patience, so start talking and going to the bar. So they then just put a board up near the bar after a while with the other winning tickets and their prizes for people to check themselves.
I see that the board is up and Scotty starts talking to Mike from the BCA in a joking way about what a fix it is. But then I take a look and think I recognise one of the numbers, so I go back to our table and grab our tickets to check. Get in! We are winners! Our prize is dinner for two at the Grand Hyatt in Chingari, their Indian Restaurant.

















Winners!

Delivery - Egypt Today

In September we bought a copy of this magazine from SaveWay as it looked like it could be interesting. It's called Egypt Today and is a monthly glossy with interesting looking articles on the front.
Inside there are a fair number of adverts and random advertising features, but most of the pages are relevent and interesting stories and opinion pieces. It's refreshing to have a more western outlook on what is happening where we live, rather than reading the distance of the BBC or the overly close government papers. The opinion pieces aren't always the top story in the news, but are topical and definitely bring new light for us.
Not many places stock the magazine and in November we visited three shops before we could find our third issue. Inside the magazine it had a little note about subscribing, so we decided to do that.
I emailed the company - based in Degla - and said we'd like to subscribe. They got straight back and said they'd send a man the next day! Our gas and electricity bill is collected monthly from our door and it seems that this would be the same! He came round and spoke no English, but had an envelope with my name on it and inside a receipt for the subscription price. I paid him the price and took the receipt - job done!
We're in the first week of the month and Scotty comes home and hears our bowab shouting "ya meester, meester!" and running towards his home in the underground car park of our building. He comes out clutching our copy of Egypt Today. Our first piece of mail delivered! (although probably delivered by hand by the company themselves).
I was excited and wanted to share with everyone the label - and hence our address - in Arabic.

Garbage Dreams

It's been a busy time, but I thought I'd get a quick post up about something I've been doing at work.
Part of my new job this year is encouraging community/service work amongst students at school.  At the end of last year I received an email about a film that had been released and was looking to do screenings in schools/organisations around Cairo. It sounded amazing as I was immediately trying to find out more.
The film is called Garbage  Dreams and is a documentary filmed over two-to-three years in the Mansheeyet Nasr (Garbage City) area of Cairo. This is where all the rubbish from the city goes and the community of Copts living there sort the garbage by hand, then compost or recycle it. We've blogged about Garbage City before when we visited the recycling project there. The film follows three boys/young men as they grow up in the "trash trade", trying to make a living, but also facing the same pressures of being a teenager that anyone feels. The film also shows how the Zebeleen community is having their business taken away from them by foreign garbage companies, and so their livelihood is under threat.
It's a truly brilliant film and more can be found out about it on their website www.garbagedreams.com and on the PBS website which also has extra making-of footage, a game and lesson ideas.
The Zebaleen currently manage to recycle 80% of what they receive (compared to 20% in the UK) but he told me that up to 20% of the paper they receive, for example, cannot be recycled as it has been contaminated by organics. So they are now trying to encourage people to sought their rubbish into into "organic" and "non-organic" which makes recycling easier. Thee is also a Recycling School for boys which is an amazing project, sponsored by P&G and kids from garbage city are paid to come to the school and learn about numeracy, literacy, computers and finance - all in the context of their garbage collecting/recycling. For example they are paid by P&G for every branded shampoo bottle they collect (this is in P&G's interests, because otherwise bootleg products are resold in bottles), and this means that their parents can get money to help them compensate for the fact that the kids cannot earn money from garbage collecting when they are in class. All very clever!
So after hearing about this film I was totally enthused and felt we had to do something at school. Since September I have organised a themed Environment Day (aka Green Day!) and managed to rearrange the school timetable to get 800 students into a 300-seater theater (three back-to-back sittings, with only a half our break) to watch the film. I also arranged for a speaker from the NGO Spirit of Youth to come in and he brought with him three representatives from the Source Segregation team that are trying to encourage people to separate their rubbish and two boys from The Recycling School. They visited our break time and advised us on sorting our rubbish and this gave our kids the chance to ask them questions (as the students had just watched the film). Afterwards they did a Q&A with the 6th-formers which went really well.
After school there was another showing of the film for staff and another Q&A.
A very busy day with lots going on (and lots of other people involved too!) but afterwards it was great to have so many comments from other staff that although they normally don't like all the disruption to the school day, when they saw the film they thought it was really worthwhile. Others also said that when they spoke to their students about it they were really interested and there was a real buzz.
Fundraising during the day has so far raised 4000LE that I know about about I suspect another 7000LE but I'm not sure of that other total yet. I have pledged that all this money will go to The Recycling School and I'm hoping that I can arrange a visit to give the donation to them. I really hope that I can continue the work on this project with the buzz and the links that have been created.
Anyway! Enough about work!!! Posts coming soon from Scotty about the two gigs played last night by Mostly Vegas and One For The Road - a great start to the Christmas part season!

One For The Road - Rebooted!

So last night was the first One For The Road Re-booted gig and my band debut.

Scotty joined "the Irish band" when we first arrived in Cairo following a fortuitious bus conversation about playing guitar in a Star Wars themed punk band, and the band played a number of times in our first year here with everyone loving it!  Last year they only actually played one gig for one reason or another, but kept jamming once a month.  At the end of the year though the accordian player left Cairo and so they weren't too sure where to take the band.  They wanted to get going again but needed a bit of a new sound and some new musicians.

So, this September, One For The Road was rebooted.  I first mused the idea with Scotty at the start of October that as don't have a bass in the band anymore, would Jona be interested in having a bassoon play? Scotty approach Jona and he was keen to try the idea so when we came back from visiting the UK in October I bought my bassoon back with me.

It was two weeks before the gig that I first went along to a rehersal. Scotty and Jona had worked out all the arrangements of songs for the band - this bit takes the longest and requires the greatest amount of beer - and then at home Scotty wrote out bass parts for me. Scotty is very used to playing in a band and responding to what he hears and jamming away if something sounds right, but I'm more used to just playing music from a score. So the first rehersal was a difficult for me as I had to really follow what was written for me, but also work out what was going on for the rest of them! Also Scotty and jona knew the songs and their structure very well and it was a real muddle for me at first to follow and find where we were in pieces that invovled up to eight repeats! But both Scotty and jona liked the sound of the bassoon in the band so we kept going with it. A week before the gig Matt came along to join as drummer and his wife Nic was going to sing with a couple of the songs. The day of the gig and we have a run through at jona's before heading to the venue to set up and sound checked.

Scotty has a headset mic that I'll use on my bassoon. Using an elastic band around the top we thread the mic through and then let the thin wire trail down to the mic pack that I'll keep in my back pocket. Sound checked and things are sounding OK - it's hard to tell with no one in the room and the set up isn't really what the band would like, but it will work for the night.

First band on are the covers band Mostly Vegas, then another band and One For The Road Rebooted are on last; headlining. We play well and the crowd loves the set; dancing and cheering us on. A great gig and the band hope there'll be many more this year.

UKNova Film Competition

The UK TV and radio site we are members of (and for whom we present a weekly radio show) is running a competition for people to put together films or A/V presentations about the place they live.

We have hours of blog videos, but have never used them as anything other than discrete 'episodes' in our life out here.  Therefore, we used the competition as an opportunity to create a 'best of' video that describes life out here.

The results are expected on 12th December.