Cairo: 18 million people, 1,000 minarets, and 1 revolution

Monday, March 25, 2013

By: Jason

Sorry for the long post, but it’s really worthy of it.

I think the verdict was virtually dead-locked when asking people their thoughts on whether or not I should go to Egypt.  After a lot of thinking and talking to many of my peers (both in the U.S. and Israel), I decided, that this Fulbright-sponsored trip would be worthwhile.  Luckily, it was a good decision.  One of the most meaningful and eye-opening trips I have ever been on.  The experience provided an amazing combination of academic immersion with my Fulbright colleagues, the rich and ancient history of Cairo and its surroundings, and dramatic insight into the cultural and political upheaval that the Egyptian people are surrounded by.  I would not recommend traveling to Cairo, as a tourist at this time, but having the umbrella of Fulbright to smooth some things over, really helped quite a bit on many levels. 

Besides some of the scheduled excursions, we did take the opportunity to walk the streets a bit and soak up the local sights and sounds.  Incredible tension and uneasiness, often gave way to warm smiles, conversation, and gratitude from the Cairenes who were sincerely glad to see foreigners in their country.  They really have no beef with us – they just want to see economic and political stability resume.  I really felt like I made a difference to the views and outlooks for many Egyptians I met, whether it be at the U.S. Embassy or on the streets.


Cairo skyline on the Nile River

Cairo itself is an immense city!  Largest city in Africa and the biggest Arab city in the world.  Cars (a zillion of them) drive on large elevated highways without painted lines, traffic lights, stop signs, or yields (also, the occasional donkey-drawn carts as well, no kidding!).  It’s a virtual free-for-all, everywhere you go!  Crossing the street (only had to do this a couple times) was treacherous.  Trucks with sheep, goats, trash, you name it, all billowing over were weaving among cars with missing doors, and young children riding what looked like motorized bicycles.  Poverty runs rampant around the city and miles of apartment buildings lie clustered like old gutted relics.


Typical Cairo traffic

Minarets and mosques dominate the skyline and calls to prayer (‘Salah’) resonate throughout the city 5-times a day.  If you’re not outside to hear it, no fear, it’s loud enough to hear through hotel-grade windows and if that’s not enough most TVs and radios will blast it for you at the appropriate times no matter what is going on.


One of thousands of minarets. 

Inside Cairo mosque

My talk was well received and the other Fulbright Scholars are incredible people doing incredible things in the Middle East and North Africa. Way more interesting than me, although most people are intrigued that there is a lobster scientist in the group (actually someone also working on bees).

U.S. Embassy in Cairo

Us Israeli Fulbrighers held a quiet Shabbat in one of the rooms amidst the torrential cars beeping and Salah.  Tahrir Square is only a 15 min. walk from where we are and we saw some glimpses here and there of burnt out buildings, and cars, tents, a strong military presence and lots of graffiti.  

Let me just summarize a few of the highlights: (did other things not on this list that you can ask me about another time).


The Hotel (Marriot Cairo): A former palace built to commemorate the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 and located in the Zamalek district of the city.  Also, the first venue for the opera ‘Aida’ and a prominent destination for many of Europe’s monarchs.  I felt like royalty here especially since nobody else was really visiting.  Actually, the Hotel serves as a base for what appears to be many U.S. travelers including contractors, and diplomats.  I would highly recommend this place if you decide to go someday.  Coincidentally, newly appointed Secretary of State, John Kerry, was a few doors down from our meeting on his inaugural trip. 



Inside the hotel (photo by Phil Hopper)

One of our meeting rooms - not your average
hotel conference room!

By the way, this short video was filmed in the same hallway we had our meeting and we are standing behind all the cameras.  You can't see us but we were there!

The Pyramids: We saw the ones in Giza (close to Cairo) but, because we were in talks and meetings all day, we had to go for a night trip that included some very antiquated and corny light show (do not recommend).  Not to mention it was depressing being the only ones there (a group of about 30 of us in total) and seating of at least 500.  Would recommend going during the day and paying the extra $ to go INSIDE the pyramids.

Egyptian Museum: An easy 15-minute walk from the hotel.  You ever get bored of the same-old-same-old museum?  That is, a suggested route to walk, informative, but often long placards of information, people directing you where to walk, and too much order? Well, this place was none of that.  Besides being the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world, it’s kinda’ like walking through the warehouse of relics that’s in the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (the first in the series).  Immense rooms give way to a mind-boggling number of statues, pillars, and ornaments, many the size of mobile homes -- that’s just for starters.  Then, there’s all kinds of little off-shoots from the big rooms that contain cases of jewelry, mini-statues, trinkets, weapons, and all that stuff you know from the Pharaohs and their cities. Best of all…….. THE MUMMIES.  Never had any clue how amazingly real and scary these things look (much more so than the movie!).  Encased in special air-controlled clear boxes, these 4,000 year-old people were some of the most important in Egyptian history and many looked like they could sit up and talk with you.


Mummy (photo from the web - I wasn't allowed
to bring my camera)

Coptic Cairo: This is the historical Christian ‘quarter’ in Cairo.  The Churches are beautiful, complex, and extremely old.


The Hanging Church in Coptic Cairo
Inside the Hanging Church

AND… my favorite highlight, a Nubian Wedding.  There’s all kinds of things happening on the streets, all the time.  A group of us managed to see this and it is considered rare even in Cairo.  The only way to really convey the experience is the following video link.


Give me some more of that hope-y change-y thing

Saturday, March 23, 2013

By: Rebecca and Jason

We were invited by Fulbright to go see Obama speak in Jerusalem this past week. We were told we would be in the overflow room, but to get there early as there was a chance we would be able to get into the main auditorium.

The email from the Fulbright folks said to meet them at the Crowne Plaza next to the convention center to pick up our tickets around noon. The speech was scheduled for something in the afternoon - basically whenever Obama arrived.

We ran into some other Fulbrighters waiting at the hotel, had some coffee and got our tickets. We had to walk down the street to join the line waiting to get into the convention center. The shortest route was seemed to be to walk through the adjacent parking lot, so we did. By doing so, we accidentally circumvented the whole line, ending up inside the gate. We were asked if we were American (yes) and then if we were with the Embassy (sort of). The security guard (an elite military officer with more weapons than martial arts movie) seemed to think this was good enough and told us just to stay where we were. Getting around the rules is very common in Israel - it's called a kombina

You don't want to mess with these guys!!!

Ending up at the front of the line was the key to the success of the day. Most people were issued blue tickets, which meant they were guaranteed a seat. We had yellow, which mean we were on the waiting list. Once we got inside, we were issued numbers and would be given seats as they opened up. The lower your number, the better your chance.

Not exactly a golden ticket...but it got us in!

After hours of waiting, multiple security checks (I was asked 3 separate times if I had a gun), we were in the lucky 187 that got the extra seats in the main auditorium. Not all the Fulbrighters were so lucky, but the few that stayed in the overflow room got another and equally interesting perspective of the speech. 

Mr. President

We felt proud to be Americans and were pleasantly surprised at the amount of substance behind the President's words. Overall, the audience had a seemingly favorable view. They must have been among the 10% of Israelis that like Obama. There was one heckler near the beginning and we're not exactly sure what he said, but Obama handled it well. He even joked that he felt right at home and it wouldn't be a speech if there wasn't at least one heckler!



It was another completely surreal experience to be watching the President of the United States give a speech in a convention center in Jerusalem!

If you'd like to read the speech, you can find it here.

As you know, this visit wasn't just one speech to students in Jerusalem. There were several press conferences and visits to places throughout Israel. One of which, was Yad Vashem. His remarks there were incredibly meaningful. If you are interested in reading the transcript, you can find that here as well. 

Sunday = Monday and other differences

Thursday, March 21, 2013

By: Rebecca

Things I've noticed about Israel. Some good, some not so good, some just different. 
  • Sunday = Monday, Saturday = Sunday, and Friday afternoon = Saturday. Confused? So were we. 
  • It's dusty. We sweep the floor every day and this is the rainy season. I'm hoping in the summer that the breeze will blow from the sea at least...
  • Everything is small. The country is small, and most of the cities and towns are very compact. Nearly everyone has small cars (my corolla would look big here), but I guess you have to in order to drive and park on the narrow streets. At the grocery store, they seem to only have yogurt in single-serving containers (hummus on the other hand comes in huge tubs). Flour comes in 1 kg packages, that is all. It's the same for sugar. For someone who is used to buying 10 lbs of flour at a time, this will take some getting used to - even though I wouldn't want to have to lug a 10 lb bag of flour on the bus!
  • The produce is awesome! Almost every fruit and vegetable you buy is grown in Israel and it's cheap. I bought delicious melons the other day for less than 50 cents per pound. You can only get things in season - the melons showed up a few weeks ago. I'm looking forward to mango season and hoping lemon season is year-round!
  • You can't get good cheddar. The soft cheese and feta is great, but the hard cheeses like cheddar are difficult to find, expensive and all imported. Dear Cabot, there's a market here for good cheddar (and I know yours is kosher). I am more than willing to be your PR person if you want to expand to Israel.
  • Recycling. There are huge recycling bins for plastic everywhere they are usually next to the dumpster and every street has several of them. However, paper recycling bins are few and far between. Jason sometimes takes our paper recycling to school rather than try to find one of the scarce bins. There is no glass recycling. You can apparently return certain kinds of bottles to the store, but we haven't figured this out and don't go through enough glass bottles to worry. Again, the university has glass recycling bins so Jason has brought a couple of bags with him.
  • You have to use a key to lock the door from both the outside and the inside. Our door has 2 locked settings. Locked, and REALLY locked. The same key locks the door and basically turns that same lock into a deadbolt. This means you can't really lock yourself out, which is helpful.
  • Cars have passwords. Many cars that we've been in require a code to be punched into a keypad on the dash before starting the car. I'm assuming it's an anti-theft measure, but I haven't actually asked...
  • Hot water comes from the sun. This is great in theory because you don't have to use electricity to heat the water, but when it is cloudy and rains for 2 weeks, it would be nice not to have to remember to turn on the electric heater and wait a good half hour or more before you can take a hot shower. Also, it's not great if you are a shower-in-the-morning person since the water is not very hot in the morning even if it was sunny the day before. 
  • People can be very pushy. You really have to stand your ground in line, at the shuk, on the bus, etc. 
  • People can also be very nice. We were invited to several Seders when Pesach was still over a month away. We were also invited for coffee by a very nice couple in the park on Purim. Many people have helped make us feel at home and we appreciate them all!
  • Lunch is the main meal. Except on Fridays when most people eat a big dinner, lunch is the main affair. Even after getting used to the idea of lunch being the biggest meal, there is no way I could eat as much as most Israelis do. Jason and I usually split a portion and sometimes have trouble finishing that. 
Typical lunch - we split this. Most Israelis would
eat the whole thing!

These are just a few of my observations. We will be sure to share more of these as we go. 


Northern Israel - the upper Galilee

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

By: Rebecca and Jason

Two weekends ago we went on another trip to northern Israel thanks to Ehud and Bat-sheva, our unofficial Israeli parents and tour guides. 

After a quick trip to Ehud's dentist in Kiryat Shmona we headed off on our adventure. At the suggestion of the dentist (who is also Ehud's nephew), we headed up a winding road toward the Lebanese border. He told us about a very scenic drive that goes along the side of the mountain near the border. The scenery was gorgeous, the road was petrifying! It was like being on a roller coaster, but surrounded by cherry trees, a large fence (a.k.a. the border with Lebanon), and the occasional UN peacekeeping vehicle. 


Houses on the Lebanese side of the border.


Road along the border was lined with orchards of 
hundreds of cherry trees.

Once we got back to the main road, we headed to the Ayun nature reserve in the town of Metulla. There are four waterfalls along the Ayun Stream, all spectacular and all different. You park at the top and hike down - the trail is steep and in many sections there are long flights of stone steps. Because it is spring, there were many beautiful wildflowers. Israelis are crazy about wildflowers and in fact, there is a law that forbids picking them.  Ehud made friends with a tour guide who offered him a ride back to the car so that we didn't have to walk back up! 


Mill waterfall along the Ayun Stream.


Dizzying birds' eye view of the trail along the stream.


Everyone likes to relax after hiking and what better place to relax than a hot springs? Next stop on the Ehud and Bat-sheva extravaganza, the Hamat Gader hot springs (and crocodile farm!). The hot springs have been used since the Roman times. The spring gushes at a constant 108 degrees Fahrenheit and containers sulfur among other minerals. At first the slight smell of rotten eggs is a bit strange, but after a few minutes you don't even notice it. The bathing pool is just a few feet deep and has several different sections. There are showers and jacuzzis built right in to the pool. It's very relaxing so long as you don't mind sharing your bath with large, hairy middle-eastern men. There were a few other western tourists - mostly Christian pilgrims (including a woman we met from Cape Cod). We didn't bring our cameras into the spa, but here's one from the web.


File:Hamat gader at night.jpg
Hamat Gader at night (thanks Wikipedia)

After a good night's sleep, we headed out for a visit to Mt. Tabor. The mountain holds an important place in history - both religious and political. From battles between the Israelites and the Canaanites, Napoleon and the Mamluks, to the believed Transfiguration of Jesus, this mountain has seen it all including... paragliders. Yes, the first thing we saw as we drove up the nearly single lane, 16-hairpin-turns road to the summit were a couple dozen paragliders.


Paraglider or paranormal?

At the top, the beautiful Church of the Transfiguration, lovely gardens, and the Greek Orthodox church (which, like many things in Israel, is being renovated so we could not go inside). There are hiking trails around the mountain, including the Israel national trail (like the Appalachian Trail of Israel), but it was hot so we passed on that for the day. 


Church of the Transfiguration.

On the way home, we stopped for a photo op in a nearby town surrounded by orchards and fields of gorgeous flowers. 


Quintessential springtime in Israel - a field of lupines. 

Thanks to Ehud and Bat-sheva for a great weekend!

More pictures here!



My Big Fat Jerusalem Wedding

Saturday, March 16, 2013

By: Jason 

Don't try this at home... 
Someone call 911! I think there's a fire on the dance floor!
or at least make sure you have the fire department on standby. 

We were really lucky and privileged to have been able to attend my cousin Yisrael's wedding in Jerusalem after only being in Israel less than 2 months. For those who don't know, my cousins (most of them) are what are called Haredim or Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Their traditions are rich and the weddings are crazy, but a lot of fun! I was able to see most of my cousins (some for the first time ever) and spend time with my uncle Gary who thinks I'm going to solve the world's problems.  Despite some of the "issues" many Israelis have with the Haredim, they are extremely spiritual, warm, passionate and accepted us with open arms. I hope to see this part of my family again while we are here in Israel. 

The wedding was great! There was lots of dancing, drinking under the table (almost literally), and general mayhem. There are more photos and some video (starring the fire juggler) in our web album

Yisrael and Ariella before the ceremony.
Under the chuppah
Ruthi, Miriam, Gary, and Jason
Ariella's welcome to the reception
There was only one disappointing thing... no cake :(

Fulbright Tour of the Galilee

By: Rebecca and Jason

We took a two day Fulbright-sponsored trip to northern Israel and the Galilee. It was great to spend some time getting to know the other Fulbrighters and hear about their experiences in Israel thus far. 


Almond trees and Mt. Hermon.

Our travels included a variety of stops, farms, nature reserves, and ethnic villages: 

Spicy Way Farm Store - more spices, 
herbs, and teas than you can imagine.

One of the most unexpected and surprising stops on the tour was a village called Kfar Kama. The village is home to a group of people known as Circassians. The Circassians originated from an area in the north Caucasus mountains (now Chechnya). The Circassian people are known as extremely brave and fierce warriors - evidenced by the armor and weapons on display. The Cicassians in Israel serve in the Israeli army and consider themselves to be full citizens. 

Our guide at the Heritage Center spoke to us in his native Circassian language. It didn't sound like words, but more like sounds from nature. For example, the word for ocean sounded like a wave breaking, the word for bee sounded like bzzzzzz, and the word for wind sound liked like rustling leaves. 

Although this was a town of about 4,000, the Circassian diaspora is found elsewhere in the middle east, Turkey and the USA (California, New Jersey, and Maine).


Traditional dancers in traditional dress at the 
Circassian Heritage Center

We stopped for lunch in a Druze village called Peqi'in, which is also the site of the Cave of Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a spiritual leader and believed to be the founder of the kabbalistic tradition of Judaism. According to legend, to escape the Romans, he and his son hid in a very small cave for 13 years living on the fruit of a carob tree and water from a spring.

Not sure I could live in this cave 
for 13 years!

The Druze are a distinct religious group - the basis of their beliefs is derived from Shia Islam, but their secretive faith differs from mainstream Islam on many fundamental points. Most Druze live in Syria or Lebanon, but a small (less than 10) percentage live in Israel, where they serve in the military and even have members in Parliament. 


Lunch in a traditional Druze restaurant. 

We stayed the night at the hotel at Kibbutz Kfar Blum. The kibbutz is the Tanglewood of Israel, hosting a large music festival in the summer. The hotel was beautiful and we were happy to spend some time in the spa before dinner (thanks Fulbright!).

The next day, our first stop was Dubrovin Farm in Yesod Hama'ala. The Dubrovin family immigrated in 1904 from Russia (though they were not Jewish, they later converted). The farm won many awards in agriculture and is credited with cultivating a large variety of chickpea which is now grown world-wide. 


The kitchen at the Dubrovin Farm Museum.

After lunch we went to the Banias Nature Reserve. The Banias is the headwaters of the Jordan River at the base of Mt. Hermon (2,800 meters or 9,200 feet!). From the springs emerge cold, clean water that flows into beautiful natural pools. The water from these springs provides drinking water for people and wildlife alike. Water is a big deal here for obvious reasons!


The Hermon Spring at Banias.

We couldn't believe how much water there was and how green everything was. It really felt like walking through a forest! There were lots of trees (willows, Syrian ash, oak, poplar, almonds), flowers, and wild raspberries (we plan to go back when those are ripe!).

As with everything in Israel, there are layers of history superimposed on the natural landscape. The other fascinating part of the Banias is the archaeology. The Greeks built a temple here to honor the God Pan. The temple evolved during the reigns of King Herod and the Romans. Many parts of the temple are still intact and the site is an active archaeological dig. The name Banias comes from the word Paneas (the 'p' becomes a 'b' in the Arabic pronunciation).


The remains of the Temple of Pan.

The last stop on the tour was the Agamon Lake bird sanctuary in the Hula Valley. The Hula valley is a vital stopping point for migratory birds flying between Africa and Europe. You can find more than 200 different species here during the year. Agamon Lake was Israel's first nature reserve (set up in 1964). We were both glad not to have a fear of birds! It was crazy!! We took a guided tractor ride through the reserve at feeding time. There were thousands of birds, mostly wood cranes, and they were hungry! 


Cranes coming in for food.

Visit our photo album for more pictures and some video of this trip.