There is nothing I can say - it’s too horrific. I thought about clicking away from the post, but I just couldn’t.

Vestine’s Story

Image from stock.xchng

It’s difficult to get married these days in Egypt. It’s not that Egypt has Australia’s ‘man drought’. Nope. It’s hard cash that’s the problem.

Just as in the West the bride’s family traditionally pays for the wedding, in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, there are traditions about who pays what. As couples don’t leave home until they get married, buying a place to live is key to tying the knot. Tradition dictates that the groom buys the home and white goods (picked by the bride) and the bride furnishes it - completely.

The problem is that house prices are so high that the majority of people cannot afford to buy. For those that would never be able to buy anyway, rents are also on the rise. This often results in children living at home until well into their mid-thirties when enough money has been saved to buy a small apartment.

There are a multitude of problems arising from this, not least, that with sex before marriage severely frowned upon/forbidden amongst both main religions here, unmarried twenty and thirty somethings’ lives just aren’t what adults would define as ‘normal’ in the West. It is even worse for the women, as they are often living with curfews right up until their marriage. I am not joking on this either: a friend of mine, unmarried and in her forties, who had previously lived and worked in Dubai, sans parents, had a 10pm/midnight (depending on circumstance) curfew imposed and upheld upon her return to Egypt.

There are so many ways in which our cultures are different that it can be hard to understand why on earth a 40 year old woman would accept a curfew. Parents are held in such high esteem in this part of the world, that openly disobeying them is an almighty disrespect.

Anyway, back to marriage. The issue about lack of affordable housing has been cashed in on over Ramadan with a TV show offering unmarried couples the opportunity to battle it out and win a two bedroom apartment. It’s been essential watching. Luckily for you, I’m not going to attach a youtube clip in Arabic, the good old BBC has helped me out and made a short report that you can watch here.

I don’t normally post about how I feel, although I guess it comes into it sometimes, but I’m making an exception. This whole business with the site I will no longer name, is upsetting. I have tried various avenues, including becoming a member of the site so I can check more what’s going on and the result is that I’m banned from it until 2010 (and I swear I haven’t been rude)! I can’t even check if they’ve taken my blog down. Lil’ bro checked for me yesterday and it’s all still there. Interestingly they didn’t put up the post about plagiarism!

Short of posting a link to my blog in every single blog post I’m not sure what else to do.

Right, bound to happen at some point, but I was hoping it wouldn’t: Trailing Grouse is SUCH a bloody cool name (ok, I may be biased) and “..so pretty and witty and wise”, that someone has nicked it. Yep. What is more irksome, is that the thief/ves just copy and pasted it and the blog tagline onto their site and, in addition to aggregating some of my blog posts, have a load of rubbish underneath it.

The site is agnabee.com and they’ve got me down as a blog writer (from what I can tell). It seems they’ve now closed the ‘blog’ to further posts since I posted a reply message complete with a link to my blog (which they deleted) - but not removed the TG ‘blog’ and subsequent drivel! Niiiiiiiice.

Now, I’m not alone (so no, it’s not just because I’m pretty), Whazzup Egypt has suffered too, and I suspect that there are other Egypt expat bloggers out there who are also having their posts either systematically or randomly posted by the aggregator. If you are checking your blog stats frequently, then this sort of thing will harm your numbers. If you are the product of educational institutions that drill into students the abhorrent nature of plagiarism, you’re likely to feel cheated.

The idea behind the website is good and helpful, although not the first time a website has been set up for expats/foreigners in Cairo/Egypt - they normally end up being more popular with non-expats - but plagiarising either manually or by aggregator in order to make your blog look more established is not.

I couldn’t find a decent (as in not indecent) image for this post, so here’s something cute from a beach in Victoria, Canada this summer.

As Trailing Grouse, my (lack of) marital status is regularly a topic of discussion (click here for a taster). Most recently Lil’ Bro voiced his concerns. I am now well adept at handling this discussion. Practice makes perfect I find and being asked at least a couple of times a week for over a year, I’m pretty good at this now. Lil’ Bro’s two-cents-worth went something like this:
“When are you and Mr S going to get married?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not? It’s about time.”

“If you want to know if and/or when, ask Mr S, it’s up to him.” That usually brings the conversation to a rounded end.

When the issue comes up between Mr S and I things usually take a somewhat different course. A big issue for TG is that in this country, where engaged couples can often not even have a dinner unchaperoned, I am considered by the less well informed as being little more than a live-in prostitute.

Wish that I were joking.
Tonight Mr S was explaining what my legal status would be if we were in France. Without a hint of French pronunciation he matter-of-factly explained:

“You are my concubine.”

Right. Glad that’s cleared up then.

Might not pass that info along to Lil’ Bro.

“‘Cause the road is long, it’s a long hard climb..” Bob Dylan

The surprise awaitng me upon my return from Canada came two days after our return. The boiler hadn’t leaked, the gas hadn’t been left on, the air conditioners hadn’t broken, we didn’t have a roach infestation, and I considered myself rather lucky. So much so, that I thought I’d escaped the ‘return’. When it hit, I found myself wondering if perhaps cockroaches weren’t that bad after all: in October I am going to be cycling from St Catherine to Dahab. It’s 125km. 3 days. Off road. Oh yes, and with a small group who are all hardcore cyclists - they don’t have a good outing unless they’ve pushed themselves to their (very far) limits - who insist that it’s ‘easy’.

And no, I’m NOT that fit (nor that good of a cyclist).

Dear reader, you may find yourself thinking I could perhaps decline. I can assure you tried. I really did. It just wasn’t accepted, and then, mid-millionth protestation, with only a toddler-tantrum stomp-of-foot left a part of me thought, “Hmmmm. Desert cycling: a challenge.”

We will have backup cars (I’m not cycling over sand and rocks AND carrying a tent, sleeping bag and 3 days’ food!), so there will be a nifty ‘get out clause’ if I’m a little, let me put this gently, fatigued.

The picture above is of part of the area we’ll be cycling through. Must say I’m trying not to focus on how long my quads will withstand riding through soft looking sand and over rather rocky mountains.

Pictures from my summer adventures

“You need to update your blog.” A friend commented yesterday.

“I know, but I can’t! I’ve forgotten my password.” A clear sign I’ve been away for a long and fun time. Having now reached deep into my cerebral void the password is back and I’m up and running.

It was a summer of fun and adventure and probably one of my best ever. I’ve breathed lots of good fresh air, hiked, kayaked, dived, celebrated, relaxed, visited family, watched eagles catch prey in the wild and whales emerge from the ocean.

The highlight came from something rather simple. For the first time since I was 18 months old most of my family managed to gather from our distant lands and be in one place at the same time. It was fantastic to have everybody together, almost surreal. One evening my 84-year old grandmother, aunt, cousin and I went for a girls’ night out to see Mama Mia (Mr S and Granddad most definitely were not interested!) at the movies.

Seeing Grandma dancing around the kitchen afterwards singing

You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen

as the rest of us joined in the ‘oooh-oooaaaaah’ parts was a moment I’ll cherish forever.

We were in France. Bastille Day. My first. All I could dredge from my school day memories was “Let them eat cake!” and some rioting. Oh, and the end of the kingdom. Until Sarko that is. Bread prices or availability of the yeasty staple seemed to be the cause. Kind of similar to these days, I recall thinking. It’s not that I’m not interested in history, quite the opposite, it’s just that the date Nasr took over or the Ottoman Empire ended are more in my line of life. And perhaps, having just reached one year closer to and 355 days away from the big three-zero the clouds of time were becoming gloopy and schooldays seemed ever so far away.

So there we were. France. Deep in the countryside. Or whatever that can mean in France where little village lies a euro-km away from little village. Not real deep countryside where miles away from anywhere, an isolated little cottage nestles a nigh unreachable corner of a valley. Celebrations were unfolding in our particular little village and we bundled up and set off to watch the feu d’artifice (fireworks).

The appointed hour struck and 800 onlookers bore witness to a fizz and a spark. Not looking good. Bets had been laid on how much the village had spent on the evening. Mr S’s sister bet 3000 Euros, Mr S, after pausing and evidently calculating certainties, probabilities of the types of fireworks to be displayed, the transportation costs bearing in mind higher fuel prices and generally things that people who studied physics and maths think about, opted for 20,000 Euros. La Soeur was looking to be the hot favourite.

As for me in amongst 800 merry Frenchfolk, I was preparing to test my sparkly new beast of a camera - there have to be some good things about turning nearly three-zero - in the dark. What we hadn’t counted on upon purchasing the sort of snapper that you have to carry in its own rucksack was that the instructions would be in French. Only. As I twiddled and fiddled the fizzing and whizzing continued. In a before unheard of stroke of luck, both the feu d’artifice and beast camera managed to sort themselves out simultaneously.

Whizzing and exploding and sparkling colours abounded as Grouse here trigger happily snapped away. Bets were now on that La Soeur was going to loose her bet. Les Parents were a little concerned about exactly how much of their tax money was disappearing into thin air. And I was getting some pics.

That is, until I couldn’t see. I wasn’t sure why. It all happened so fast. And all of a sudden I realised my eye was burning. “Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah! Something’s in my eye! Aaaah! It’s burning. It’s BURNING!” Not one to give into bouts of hysteria in public Mr S quickly reaslied something serious was happening: a spark from a feu d’artifice had landed in my eye. To the family members around him who didn’t speak English, suddenly I had switched out of my faltering French, was clutching my eye and unable to stand up.

A quick search for a doctor or first aid point turned out fruitless so La Soeur and Maman rushed home to get the car to take me back. An hour of offers to take me to the hospital were turned down as I rinsed and rinsed my eye and tried, rather unsuccessfully to open it. “Umm,” said Mr S at one point, “Umm, your eyeball is swollen.”

“Yes, I can feel something like that.” I said, again trying to rinse the eye and again declining the hospital.

Finally, the fact that in twelve hours we were supposed to be out of deep rural France and sitting on a Cairo-bound plane coinciding with the fact that I still couldn’t open my eye without searing pain invited my acceptance of the hospital. Les Parents, Mr S and I put on our cold weather clothes again (Summer? I don’t think so) and headed out for a midnight trip through deep countryside to reach the institution that I care not mention again.

Yes, you see, my refusal to visit this care facility was born not out of the fact that I grew up eating porridge and am extremely tough. Unfortunately. I mean, I am tough too, but this building does not secure in me a feeling of serenity. Quite the opposite. So much so, that as Mr S checked me in, Maman exclaimed to Mr S, “She’s cold, she’s shivering violently”. In between sobs, I squeaked out, “I’m not cold. Je déteste les hôpitals” (yes, not grammatically correct, but I did say faltering French!).

Luckily, my eyeball was still in the socket, I wasn’t going to go blind, the eyeball swelling would disappear, the pain would cease, I would be able to open my eye and I will go back to being my severely myopic self.

And the price of the fireworks? Well, we don’t know, but given that they ended up being like the ones from the Castle (Edinburgh’s that is) at the end of the Festival (Edinburgh’s that is), Mr S won.

Ok, so not fishing exactly, more eating of lots of fish. Am halfway through my two week sojourn in France and will be back shortly.

On the birthday front, there was one ‘flash’, no sparkles, and no gentle ear-bashing from Maman. Full update coming soon.

There,

Slouching through the streets,
Dirty sandals scuffing the sidewalk,
Week old stubble, perhaps two,
Stale shorts, skimming the knees,
Yesterday’s sweaty t-shirt, uncrumpled from the floor,
Screams to be washed.

Going ‘local’

Adventurous.
Perhaps.
Unique, different, unrivaled.
You may think.
Fitting in.
Definitely not.

Clones:
‘Going local’.

Darting eyes,
Meandering footsteps:
They give you away.

Bargaining over nothing:
It gives you away.

Costly camera
Clipped round your neck:
It gives you away.

White skin, red skin,
They give you away.

Clones:
Have you not noticed?
Do you think ‘they’ have not noticed?
The patronising.

Pssssst! Clones!
The ‘locals’ look better than you -
And smell sweeter too.