So the last two weeks have been incredibly busy, as anyone who tries to talk to me from home knows all too well. Between hospitalizations, fighting embassies, midterms, presentations and more medical drama, I haven´t had time to update.
I do have things to share, like the recent Egyptian amendments and our failed attempt to attend a protest, or my trip to Coptic Cairo. I even have some contraband pictures of the Synagogue.
But. It´s spring break, baby, and I´m typing this from my hostel in Barcelona. I just got backfrom a FC Barcelona match, am watching ESPN refresh every 30 seconds for the last minutes ofthe Georgetown-Ohio State game, and about ready to go collapse in my bunk bed, so Cairo news is going to have to wait until I get back from break.
I´m loving Barcelona, and I´ll try to keep you updated. Rome in two days. Get excited.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
How to Survive a Hospitalization in Egypt
So my friend's been sick lately. Like, really sick. Like, she lost 20 pounds in three weeks and can only keep down Gatorade, chronically, really sick. It makes my little run-ins with upset stomachs look like preschool. And since we're now all familiar with the potato remedy prescribed at the AUC clinic, I thought I'd briefly describe her ordeals at the "best hospital in Egypt".
It started a few weeks ago, and after about a week of throwing up everything she ate, went to the on-campus clinic. There, they did three things: immediately gave her an IV of dextrose, took her blood pressure, which was 90/70, and referred her to al-Salaam hospital.
And there she went, where she was hospitalized overnight while they ran "tests." They apparently took blood, did an ultrasound of her stomach, and gave her more glucose (but no normal saline). They prescribed her Nexium (in case it was heartburn?), VomiStop (to...stop...vomiting?) and an anti-parasitic ("just in case"). She spent the night there, and was released in the morning.
Weeks went by, and she still couldn't keep any food down. She lived on a diet of Gatorade and Rold Gold Preztels, and even those didn't stay down most of the time. She went back to the hospital somewhere in there, wash, rinse, repeat. From what I saw, she had her good days and her bad days. Sometimes she was okay and had energy, and sometimes she was slumped in a chair and didn't respond to your questions.
That's how she was last Tuesday when I found her before our colloquial class in the garden of AUC's main campus. She had just taken her second round of anti-parasitic meds (with bread to stave off the metallic taste), and had promptly thrown it all up. Her best friend here and I sat with her for awhile, and I became increasingly worried about her vacant stare and extreme lethargy. We were talking about what to do--back to al-Salaam?--when she got up and ran to the bathroom. When we were walking her back, she collapsed in the middle of the hallway and couldn't talk.
And that's when we called for a doctor.
The doctor from the clinic came, and her supervisor. They took her blood pressure and glucose level, both of which were within the normal range. They told us to go back to al-Salaam ("the best hospital in all of Cairo"), and to our extreme frustration, we did.
On the cab ride over, she was slipping in and out of consciousness. She doesn't remember most of the ride there. They made her walk all over the hospital, from room to room until finally we settled in on the third floor. After some verbal haranguing on my part, a doctor finally saw her. And then the head physician of the hospital saw her: "I don't think it's anything serious." Right. After a minimal physical exam, they told us that, because they do not keep records of charts, all her previous tests would have to be repeated.
This meant drawing more blood. After watching three nurses struggle to get a line in her hand, I was concerned. I became even more concerned while watching them take blood: instead of the standard vacuum tubes I'm used to, these were more like test tubes. The nurse pulled out the stopper, held the tube near the line they had started, and began squeezing her hand. Little spurts of blood would come out of the catheter, and she would try to catch them in the tube. Needless to say, blood was everywhere: the blankets, her hands, my friend's hands, and eventually in the tube. Of course, the nurse then wiped the excess blood on the blanket and balanced the open test tubes of blood on the bed, because she didn't have a hand free. And, of course, no gloves.
They put her on more glucose, took a chest x-ray (TB?), and did another ultrasound (I kept telling her that she's pregnant with kittens).
The plan was for her to seek medical care in London over Spring Break, which is next week, but the plan changed. Her best friend's mom, who's an RN in the states, was here visiting this week. Once she got a look at our friend, she called her mother in New York, who got on the first plane out of JFK to Cairo.
Meanwhile, the doctors came up with a diagnosis: bacteria. Not bacterial infection, not a certain type of bacteria, just... bacteria. And did they prescribe her any antibiotics? Of course not.
And she still can't keep any food down.
So how do you survive a hospitalization in Egypt? You fly back to the United States. And go straight from the airport to your appointment with the chief internist at New York Jewish hospital.
This is, of course, after your passport--which has been "missing" at AUC for the past month--is miraculously found overnight, and after the AUC administration starts in on the biggest CYA mission of the year (e.g. "she doesn't look that sick," "she doesn't need to go home," "we could have sent her to a specialist," "we're sending a car for her mother.").
And don't even ever think about having any kind of trauma here. The Emergency Room is accessible only by stairs.
It started a few weeks ago, and after about a week of throwing up everything she ate, went to the on-campus clinic. There, they did three things: immediately gave her an IV of dextrose, took her blood pressure, which was 90/70, and referred her to al-Salaam hospital.
And there she went, where she was hospitalized overnight while they ran "tests." They apparently took blood, did an ultrasound of her stomach, and gave her more glucose (but no normal saline). They prescribed her Nexium (in case it was heartburn?), VomiStop (to...stop...vomiting?) and an anti-parasitic ("just in case"). She spent the night there, and was released in the morning.
Weeks went by, and she still couldn't keep any food down. She lived on a diet of Gatorade and Rold Gold Preztels, and even those didn't stay down most of the time. She went back to the hospital somewhere in there, wash, rinse, repeat. From what I saw, she had her good days and her bad days. Sometimes she was okay and had energy, and sometimes she was slumped in a chair and didn't respond to your questions.
That's how she was last Tuesday when I found her before our colloquial class in the garden of AUC's main campus. She had just taken her second round of anti-parasitic meds (with bread to stave off the metallic taste), and had promptly thrown it all up. Her best friend here and I sat with her for awhile, and I became increasingly worried about her vacant stare and extreme lethargy. We were talking about what to do--back to al-Salaam?--when she got up and ran to the bathroom. When we were walking her back, she collapsed in the middle of the hallway and couldn't talk.
And that's when we called for a doctor.
The doctor from the clinic came, and her supervisor. They took her blood pressure and glucose level, both of which were within the normal range. They told us to go back to al-Salaam ("the best hospital in all of Cairo"), and to our extreme frustration, we did.
On the cab ride over, she was slipping in and out of consciousness. She doesn't remember most of the ride there. They made her walk all over the hospital, from room to room until finally we settled in on the third floor. After some verbal haranguing on my part, a doctor finally saw her. And then the head physician of the hospital saw her: "I don't think it's anything serious." Right. After a minimal physical exam, they told us that, because they do not keep records of charts, all her previous tests would have to be repeated.
This meant drawing more blood. After watching three nurses struggle to get a line in her hand, I was concerned. I became even more concerned while watching them take blood: instead of the standard vacuum tubes I'm used to, these were more like test tubes. The nurse pulled out the stopper, held the tube near the line they had started, and began squeezing her hand. Little spurts of blood would come out of the catheter, and she would try to catch them in the tube. Needless to say, blood was everywhere: the blankets, her hands, my friend's hands, and eventually in the tube. Of course, the nurse then wiped the excess blood on the blanket and balanced the open test tubes of blood on the bed, because she didn't have a hand free. And, of course, no gloves.
They put her on more glucose, took a chest x-ray (TB?), and did another ultrasound (I kept telling her that she's pregnant with kittens).
The plan was for her to seek medical care in London over Spring Break, which is next week, but the plan changed. Her best friend's mom, who's an RN in the states, was here visiting this week. Once she got a look at our friend, she called her mother in New York, who got on the first plane out of JFK to Cairo.
Meanwhile, the doctors came up with a diagnosis: bacteria. Not bacterial infection, not a certain type of bacteria, just... bacteria. And did they prescribe her any antibiotics? Of course not.
And she still can't keep any food down.
So how do you survive a hospitalization in Egypt? You fly back to the United States. And go straight from the airport to your appointment with the chief internist at New York Jewish hospital.
This is, of course, after your passport--which has been "missing" at AUC for the past month--is miraculously found overnight, and after the AUC administration starts in on the biggest CYA mission of the year (e.g. "she doesn't look that sick," "she doesn't need to go home," "we could have sent her to a specialist," "we're sending a car for her mother.").
And don't even ever think about having any kind of trauma here. The Emergency Room is accessible only by stairs.
Friday, March 16, 2007
One Day in Cairo
A typical day:
Wake up. Roommate is still asleep, and will be until about 12pm. Dress in the dark. Common room is empty; all the girls who were up until 5am shrieking and doing their homework have since passed out.
Hunger pains kick in. Try to quietly eat a Luna bar while checking CNN. Think nostalgically of things like oatmeal, cereal, or eggs. Remember that you don't have a kitchen, stove, refrigerator or microwave. Curse.
Barely make the shuttle to campus, which is the only thing in all of Egypt that is ever on time or early.
Go to Arabic class. Understand a full sentence; feel triumphant.
Grab a lunch of ful (fava beans) and ta'mayiah (falafel) sandwiches. Spend 17 US cents, and be full for the time being.
Be catcalled or hissed at on the streets, but shrug it off because at least you weren't grabbed like some girls you know. Cross traffic. Use 2 of your 9 lives. Avoid stepping on cats.
Go to the library, and spend 10 minutes letting gmail load. Retreat outdoors, get a 34 cent Coca-Cola Light, and avoid the Gucci Corner sprawled out across the steps.
Go to class. Sit in awe at the questions people ask/answers they give. (e.g. My creative writing professor, to an English major: "Are there any particular poets you like?" Her: "I once read "The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.") Realize it's going to be a long semester.
Go to the copy shop to buy your 40LE course packet for the week that flaunts all copyright laws.
Return to the dorms. Have your bag, no matter the size or transparency, searched by a guard who jumps up to stop you. Marvel at his or her hustle, the speed of which is unparalleled in Egypt. Notice the chief guards laughing at your obvious annoyance while they watch TV. Grow more and more resentful. Ask what they're looking for. Answer: "Your gun or bomb." (...seriously)
Attempt to go to the gym. Find that: 1) The two treadmills are occupied; 2) The gym is closed for repair; or 3) The gym is closed, period. Upon further examination notice that the gym's hours are about as consistent as your wireless Internet, and allow for 4 hour lunch breaks for the man who is either never at his desk anyway or watches you for the duration of your run.
Attempt to use your floor's only bathroom to take a shower. Be stopped at the beginning of the hallway because a man is on the floor. Go up a flight. Be judged walking down the stairs in your towel.
Attempt to purchase some healthy food. Find that everything is fried, made with whole cream or whole butter (this includes yogurt and cooked vegetables), or loaded with sugar or simple carbs. Look wistfully at the imported Special K. Attempt to justify an US$8 box of cereal, and then remember you don't have a refrigerator for the (whole) milk. Watch your vision of really getting into good shape this semester go out the window.
Go to a local restaurant and order a chocolate and banana fateer (kind of like an Elephant Ear, but more decadent) because why the hell not. Have the incredibly overeager bus boy steal your drink/soup/meal away from you when you're not looking. Formulate multiple theories: do they get paid by the semi-empty dish they return to the kitchen? Does the restaurant only have one soup tureen? Are they just hungry? Debate and discuss while waiting 30 minutes for the check.
Embrace the conversion rate.
Do no homework, because it's Egypt. Attempt to Skype; lose wireless.
Receive creepy phone call on your dorm phone from man with raspy, high-pitched, accented voice. Have him ask, "Who is this?", "Can I see you?", or today's favorite, "Will you play on the phone with me for just five minutes?" Hang up. Wonder if it's someone from the outside community or one of the guards.
Go downstairs todo homework socialize with your male friends. Receive warning for being on the patio after 11pm with a boy.
Return to room. Roommate is already asleep. Sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Wake up. Roommate is still asleep, and will be until about 12pm. Dress in the dark. Common room is empty; all the girls who were up until 5am shrieking and doing their homework have since passed out.
Hunger pains kick in. Try to quietly eat a Luna bar while checking CNN. Think nostalgically of things like oatmeal, cereal, or eggs. Remember that you don't have a kitchen, stove, refrigerator or microwave. Curse.
Barely make the shuttle to campus, which is the only thing in all of Egypt that is ever on time or early.
Go to Arabic class. Understand a full sentence; feel triumphant.
Grab a lunch of ful (fava beans) and ta'mayiah (falafel) sandwiches. Spend 17 US cents, and be full for the time being.
Be catcalled or hissed at on the streets, but shrug it off because at least you weren't grabbed like some girls you know. Cross traffic. Use 2 of your 9 lives. Avoid stepping on cats.
Go to the library, and spend 10 minutes letting gmail load. Retreat outdoors, get a 34 cent Coca-Cola Light, and avoid the Gucci Corner sprawled out across the steps.
Go to class. Sit in awe at the questions people ask/answers they give. (e.g. My creative writing professor, to an English major: "Are there any particular poets you like?" Her: "I once read "The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.") Realize it's going to be a long semester.
Go to the copy shop to buy your 40LE course packet for the week that flaunts all copyright laws.
Return to the dorms. Have your bag, no matter the size or transparency, searched by a guard who jumps up to stop you. Marvel at his or her hustle, the speed of which is unparalleled in Egypt. Notice the chief guards laughing at your obvious annoyance while they watch TV. Grow more and more resentful. Ask what they're looking for. Answer: "Your gun or bomb." (...seriously)
Attempt to go to the gym. Find that: 1) The two treadmills are occupied; 2) The gym is closed for repair; or 3) The gym is closed, period. Upon further examination notice that the gym's hours are about as consistent as your wireless Internet, and allow for 4 hour lunch breaks for the man who is either never at his desk anyway or watches you for the duration of your run.
Attempt to use your floor's only bathroom to take a shower. Be stopped at the beginning of the hallway because a man is on the floor. Go up a flight. Be judged walking down the stairs in your towel.
Attempt to purchase some healthy food. Find that everything is fried, made with whole cream or whole butter (this includes yogurt and cooked vegetables), or loaded with sugar or simple carbs. Look wistfully at the imported Special K. Attempt to justify an US$8 box of cereal, and then remember you don't have a refrigerator for the (whole) milk. Watch your vision of really getting into good shape this semester go out the window.
Go to a local restaurant and order a chocolate and banana fateer (kind of like an Elephant Ear, but more decadent) because why the hell not. Have the incredibly overeager bus boy steal your drink/soup/meal away from you when you're not looking. Formulate multiple theories: do they get paid by the semi-empty dish they return to the kitchen? Does the restaurant only have one soup tureen? Are they just hungry? Debate and discuss while waiting 30 minutes for the check.
Embrace the conversion rate.
Do no homework, because it's Egypt. Attempt to Skype; lose wireless.
Receive creepy phone call on your dorm phone from man with raspy, high-pitched, accented voice. Have him ask, "Who is this?", "Can I see you?", or today's favorite, "Will you play on the phone with me for just five minutes?" Hang up. Wonder if it's someone from the outside community or one of the guards.
Go downstairs to
Return to room. Roommate is already asleep. Sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Was going to go to Luxor this weekend--had bought the train tickets and everything--but either whatever I picked up in Hurghada resurfaced or I'm afflicted with something entirely new.
Either way, I'm in Cairo for this weekend and next before Spring Break. I'll try to find something interesting to write about in the meantime.
<3
Either way, I'm in Cairo for this weekend and next before Spring Break. I'll try to find something interesting to write about in the meantime.
<3
Sunday, March 11, 2007
42 Dollars and 24 Hours
Even a low-key weekend in Egypt is an adventure.
After last weekend's insanity and resulting illness, I wasn't too keen on venturing off into the desert or the Sinai or another country like many of my compatriots. My vision of the weekend consisted of laying around my dorm room, completing the transition into solid foods, and catching up on my reading. But Hafsa, Hammad and some of our other friends wanted to escape the city--and I don't blame them--and after some cajoling on their part I was in.
Our destination this time was Ain Sukhna, an isolated resort town about 50km south of Suez. Some of our friends had gone the weekend before, and marveled at what it didn't have, namely smog, honking, people or cats. It sounded the perfect getaway.
Thursday evening after classes the seven of us met up at the Turkamen Bus Station and bought our 8LE tickets to Suez. After that, our plan was to follow in our friends' footsteps and take a taxi the remaining distance to the Palmera Beach Resort.
The bus ride to Suez was pretty typical...loud movie, crowded, but not too bad. I bless college for giving me the ability to sleep through anything, anywhere. A man sitting next to our group cautioned us not to take a taxi, but to jump on one of the omnipresent microbuses, as it would be much less expensive. He offered to show us how to get one, and did, to the dismay and ire of most of the taxi drivers at the station who accused him of ruining their livelihood. I can
understand their point: a cab to the hotel would have been about 30LE, while each of us rode the minibus there for 3.5LE. But we're residents of Egypt now, and we have to start doing things the way Egyptians do them. The drivers argued with this man for at least fifteen minutes while we all sat in the bus, regretting for the hundredth time that we didn't speak Arabic just a little better. Eventually we got on our way.
The microbus dropped us off on the wrong side of the highway from our hotel. With a word of caution ("Get to the hotel as fast as you can"), the driver sped away and left us in the middle of the desert in the thick of night. Across the highway there was a large sign for our hotel, and perhaps a kilometer or so down a dirt road, some faint gilttering lights. We discussed how sketchy this whole deal (pictured: wtf?), and quickly walked to the hotel. Wild dogs bayed from the shadows.
Once at the hotel, we booked our rooms (after some futile attempts at price negotiation). Expensive by Egyptian standards, each of us ended up paying about 200LE, which included dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. For a four-star hotel on the edge of the Red Sea, that wasn't too bad.
The resort itself was beautiful, and organized in kind of a compound fashion, where random clusters of rooms, several expansive pools, bazaars, restaurants and bars fit in amongst palm trees, jasmine plans and grassy playgrounds. There were birds, too, the first I have seen since arriving in Egypt.
We were served dinner in an awkwardly empty dining hall. Given the hour, we were the only patrons there. The food was pretty standard Egyptian fare--white rice, stewed okra, mystery meat, chicken and steamed vegetables with bread--but the desert platter was fantastic. After throwing our things in our room, we wandered the beach and sat by the ocean and told stories. We retired to one of the rooms for what can only be described as a pajama party, playing cards, watching TV and drifting off to sleep.
The next morning found us at a buffet, and then on the beach, where we attempted to play volleyball (and failed), build a "sandcastle" in what was probably treated sewage water, and slept in the sun. Some people made a really nice effort at doing work. For my part, I put Steppenwolf on my lap and felt its comforting weight as I drifted into dreams with Kanye as a soundtrack.
It really couldn't have been more relaxing. At some point, we were hot and thirsty, and decided to pack up and get a late lunch. Our comped meals used, we bought "cheap" 20LE sandwiches from the beachfront cafe and watched little kids play in the children's pool.
We didn't know how we would get back to Suez, but we struck out for the highway once again. We hadn't even reached the road when a bus pulled up in front of us, and for 1.5LE each, we got to a microbus station, where for 50 piasters we were taken to the bus station. As we rode into town, Hafsa remarked to me how amazing it is that things fall into place here. It's crazy and
it's chaotic--I mean, buses just driving along, looking for random customers?--but it works. In the United States, you could walk for days along a lonely road in the middle of the desert and never see a bus. In Egypt, you can't help but find one.
We threw down another 8LE for the 6:40pm bus to Cairo, and were on the road again. Another movie, louder this time, with a screaming soundtrack that actually made your ears hurt. I don't know how we manage it, but Hammad and I sit under the loudspeaker every.single.time.
Back to Cairo a little more than 24 hours after we had left it, and for 240LE (that's US$42), we had been to the Red Sea, stayed in a resort, and slept away the craziness of Cairo in the sun.
And that's what I love about Egypt.
After last weekend's insanity and resulting illness, I wasn't too keen on venturing off into the desert or the Sinai or another country like many of my compatriots. My vision of the weekend consisted of laying around my dorm room, completing the transition into solid foods, and catching up on my reading. But Hafsa, Hammad and some of our other friends wanted to escape the city--and I don't blame them--and after some cajoling on their part I was in.
Our destination this time was Ain Sukhna, an isolated resort town about 50km south of Suez. Some of our friends had gone the weekend before, and marveled at what it didn't have, namely smog, honking, people or cats. It sounded the perfect getaway.
Thursday evening after classes the seven of us met up at the Turkamen Bus Station and bought our 8LE tickets to Suez. After that, our plan was to follow in our friends' footsteps and take a taxi the remaining distance to the Palmera Beach Resort.
The bus ride to Suez was pretty typical...loud movie, crowded, but not too bad. I bless college for giving me the ability to sleep through anything, anywhere. A man sitting next to our group cautioned us not to take a taxi, but to jump on one of the omnipresent microbuses, as it would be much less expensive. He offered to show us how to get one, and did, to the dismay and ire of most of the taxi drivers at the station who accused him of ruining their livelihood. I can
understand their point: a cab to the hotel would have been about 30LE, while each of us rode the minibus there for 3.5LE. But we're residents of Egypt now, and we have to start doing things the way Egyptians do them. The drivers argued with this man for at least fifteen minutes while we all sat in the bus, regretting for the hundredth time that we didn't speak Arabic just a little better. Eventually we got on our way.The microbus dropped us off on the wrong side of the highway from our hotel. With a word of caution ("Get to the hotel as fast as you can"), the driver sped away and left us in the middle of the desert in the thick of night. Across the highway there was a large sign for our hotel, and perhaps a kilometer or so down a dirt road, some faint gilttering lights. We discussed how sketchy this whole deal (pictured: wtf?), and quickly walked to the hotel. Wild dogs bayed from the shadows.
Once at the hotel, we booked our rooms (after some futile attempts at price negotiation). Expensive by Egyptian standards, each of us ended up paying about 200LE, which included dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. For a four-star hotel on the edge of the Red Sea, that wasn't too bad.The resort itself was beautiful, and organized in kind of a compound fashion, where random clusters of rooms, several expansive pools, bazaars, restaurants and bars fit in amongst palm trees, jasmine plans and grassy playgrounds. There were birds, too, the first I have seen since arriving in Egypt.
We were served dinner in an awkwardly empty dining hall. Given the hour, we were the only patrons there. The food was pretty standard Egyptian fare--white rice, stewed okra, mystery meat, chicken and steamed vegetables with bread--but the desert platter was fantastic. After throwing our things in our room, we wandered the beach and sat by the ocean and told stories. We retired to one of the rooms for what can only be described as a pajama party, playing cards, watching TV and drifting off to sleep.
The next morning found us at a buffet, and then on the beach, where we attempted to play volleyball (and failed), build a "sandcastle" in what was probably treated sewage water, and slept in the sun. Some people made a really nice effort at doing work. For my part, I put Steppenwolf on my lap and felt its comforting weight as I drifted into dreams with Kanye as a soundtrack.It really couldn't have been more relaxing. At some point, we were hot and thirsty, and decided to pack up and get a late lunch. Our comped meals used, we bought "cheap" 20LE sandwiches from the beachfront cafe and watched little kids play in the children's pool.
We didn't know how we would get back to Suez, but we struck out for the highway once again. We hadn't even reached the road when a bus pulled up in front of us, and for 1.5LE each, we got to a microbus station, where for 50 piasters we were taken to the bus station. As we rode into town, Hafsa remarked to me how amazing it is that things fall into place here. It's crazy and
it's chaotic--I mean, buses just driving along, looking for random customers?--but it works. In the United States, you could walk for days along a lonely road in the middle of the desert and never see a bus. In Egypt, you can't help but find one.We threw down another 8LE for the 6:40pm bus to Cairo, and were on the road again. Another movie, louder this time, with a screaming soundtrack that actually made your ears hurt. I don't know how we manage it, but Hammad and I sit under the loudspeaker every.single.time.
Back to Cairo a little more than 24 hours after we had left it, and for 240LE (that's US$42), we had been to the Red Sea, stayed in a resort, and slept away the craziness of Cairo in the sun.
And that's what I love about Egypt.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Interesting NY Times article about the side of Cairo that AUCians rarely get to see:
In Arab Hub, the Poor are Left to Their Fate
In Arab Hub, the Poor are Left to Their Fate
Forgot to Mention...
This was one of the announcements in our daily "News @ AUC" emails:
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Rabbits at the DDC Kiosk
The DDC Kiosk will be selling rabbits for LE 20 per kilogram on the Main Campus in front of the Science Building starting Wednesday, February 27 through Thursday, March 1 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm and 2:00 to 4:00 pm while supplies last. To place an order, e-mail ddckiosk@aucegypt.edu before Thursday, March 1 at 12:00 pm.
The question is....were they alive or dead?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Rabbits at the DDC Kiosk
The DDC Kiosk will be selling rabbits for LE 20 per kilogram on the Main Campus in front of the Science Building starting Wednesday, February 27 through Thursday, March 1 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm and 2:00 to 4:00 pm while supplies last. To place an order, e-mail ddckiosk@aucegypt.edu before Thursday, March 1 at 12:00 pm.
The question is....were they alive or dead?
Monday, March 5, 2007
Quick update:
Went to the doctor today, mainly because AUC is like high school and professors require doctor's notes. Described symptoms.
Cure?
Potatoes.
"Only eat potatoes. Boiled potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Baked potatoes. No milk, no fruits, no fats, no vegetables..."--waaait a second, aren't potatoes vegetables?--"...and no bread. Potatoes. And in two days it will be gone, insha'Allah."
...really? I mean, I know starch is key here but...
Needless to say, I'm not eating any potatoes, even if I could find some here. And even if I had a kitchen in which to prepare them.
I took the permission slip and crawled back into bed.
Went to the doctor today, mainly because AUC is like high school and professors require doctor's notes. Described symptoms.
Cure?
Potatoes.
"Only eat potatoes. Boiled potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Baked potatoes. No milk, no fruits, no fats, no vegetables..."--waaait a second, aren't potatoes vegetables?--"...and no bread. Potatoes. And in two days it will be gone, insha'Allah."
...really? I mean, I know starch is key here but...
Needless to say, I'm not eating any potatoes, even if I could find some here. And even if I had a kitchen in which to prepare them.
I took the permission slip and crawled back into bed.
How to Dive the Red Sea
Well, you all know how the story ends: I'm crisped, stung, sick and pneumonic, low on sleep and high on frustration. But this bullet point dénouement really belies the total experience, so let's see if I can recreate the weekend in a way that encapsulates both the highs and the lows. Here goes.
Pictures unabashedly stolen from friends.
------
Thursday night after a quick shopping trip, an even quicker shower and a bite of food, Hammad and I headed off to the dive shop in Dokki. Even though it was in the opposite direction of the Ramses bus station, our trip leaders were concerned we that we wouldn't all make it to the station (and also probably wanted us to haul our scuba gear around so they didn't have to). As dusk fell on the city, we rolled into the dive shop, where organized chaos met general disarray. Some kids were digging through their backpacks, wondering if they had remembered sunglasses; others were double-checking all the gear in their scuba bags. All of us were reaching for our wallets.
The proprietors were concerned first and foremost about exacting payment. We had already paid in hard, US cash for the classroom academics and instruction manual (when ended up being over $325, when all was not-quite-explicitly-said and done), and we were assured that the actual dive trip itself would cost just 70LE. When we chose the "safari boat" option, that price turned into 300LE, with meals, transportation and accommodations included. Of course, when we got there that night, the cost was 430LE: 300LE + 130LE for the bus transportation. I had only 450LE in my wallet--a small fortune here in Egypt--and had no choice but to fork it over.
There were about 20 of us, comprised almost entirely of AUC study abroad students, but including one random Egyptian businessman named Ahmed who was quite nice but surely felt out of place with a group of crazy Americans. We took minibuses to the bus station and waited for our bus to arrive.
At around 9:15pm, our bus pulled away from the curb. After some excited tittering and the lighting fast consumption of recently-purchased candy, we settled in to get some fitful sleep on the 5 hour bus ride to Hurghada. You never really sleep that well on buses, but you do your best.
That's when the movie started.
I tell you, I don't get it. Terrible sound quality, misaligned tracking and maladjusted volume aside, I cannot understand why a loud, long movie would be played on an overnight bus ride where every single person on board was trying to sleep. A collective groan went up when the movie started (it's par for the course on almost every bus ride in Egypt), sighs of happiness rippled through the rows whenever the movie stopped, and angry mumbling could be heard when it inevitably started again. Even through the drowning noise of my iPod, it was impossible to sleep. At least the movie was entertaining.
Although it was mostly in Arabic, it was the story of a hapless shisha bar owner and his misadventures with Americans. I wasn't following it too closely--once in awhile, I'd hear one of the customers in his restaurant say, "But I'm an American, dammit!"--until I looked up to see footage of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center. That's a very powerful clip, and I didn't really understand why it was being shown in what seemed like a comedy. You'd better believe after that it had my attention, comprehension of Arabic be damned.
The main character goes on to somehow meet George Bush, who is looking for an Arab to play Osama bin Laden in a video released to the US. They spend a lot of time in the studio, with Bush directing in a Billy Bob Thorton type drawl: "Be more terroristic." Condi shows up at some point, and points at things with impunity. Eventually the main character is brought before the White House Press Corps as bin Laden, and then sent to some Gitmo-type prison where a Lynnie England look-alike strips for him (?!) and he then escapes with the help of a prison guard.
Toward the end of the movie, the bus attendant told a girl in our group who spoke Arabic that he wanted us all to know that it was a comedy. All I could think was: is this how Russians feel after watching any Tom Clancy-inspired movie?
After the movie, they started playing loud music which lasted the duration of the trip. We rolled into Hurghada at about 2am, got on a minibus that took us to the dock.
Our boat was a 50m, four-floor yacht named Empros with a lot of dark wood and brass and nautical stripes and generally everything a boat is supposed to have. After a quick briefing by the crew and our dive leaders, we found out that we would be getting up at 8am the next day, and as it was nigh 4am, we booked it to bed.
The morning found us somewhere in the middle of the Red Sea, anchored on the edge of a coral reef. While we waited for our breakfast to be served,
I took a look at our surroundings. The water was a deep and clean blue. The distant shore was smooth and tawny. And the sea was dotted with happily buoyant pink jellyfish floating like tea candles. Huh.
Assured that the jellyfish weren't anything to worry about, we ate our typical Egyptian breakfast--foul, bread, honey and crepes--were divvied into groups of six, got our brief about the area we were diving (Abu Ramada/The Aquarium) and started suiting up. My instructor was Osama, and I was in the all-girl group. For the rest of the trip, Osama's wrangling yells of ya binat!! (hey girls!!) played a starring role in my dreams.
The suiting up process was always interesting.
Step One (pictured): Attempt to get into wetsuit onesie. Get one foot in. Jump up and down. Get knee in. Remember putting on tights in elementary school. Scrunch up from the bottom. Wiggle. Repeat with other leg. Attempt to get it over your ass. Feel like the
suit is judging you. Moan. Get your arms in. Velcro shoulder straps. Step Two: Put on wetsuit jacket with little half-legs. Wonder why you have to have another layer of Neoprene around your thighs. Wage war against the zipper. Win. Step Three: Wetsuit booties. Step Four: Fiddle with your vest. Attach your regulator to the oxygen tank. Check pressure. Step Five: Put on weight belt. Do your best Shakira hip shake. Mention that this would be a great workout. Step Six: Have one of the very nice deckhands help you put on your insanely heavy vest and tank. Fasten appropriate straps and belts. Step Seven: Shuffle to the back of the boat. Awkwardly put on your flippers. Spit into your mask; rinse. Step Eight: Penguin shuffle over to your buddy. Do a buddy check. Watch in horror as one of your regulators inevitably goes crazy and loses 20 bar of air before it can be stopped. Mentally prepare yourself to get into the water that looks very, very cold. Inflate your vest. Put on your goggles. Tell everyone and their mother that they can go ahead of you.
Step Nine: Jump.
Breathing underwater isn't something that comes naturally. And while that may sound like a pretty obvious statement, even snorkeling goes against my basic instincts. When my face is in the water, I'm holding my breath. And since the cardinal rule of scuba diving is that you never
hold your breath underwater, I had to fight against my brain to accept the fact that I indeed could take a full and complete breath through my regulator. I had gotten over it in the pool, but had to do a little bit of mental encouragement to do it again in the water.
We slowly descended along a weighted rope, pausing every few meters to adjust our ears to the pressure. We went down to about 9m, and sat on the floor of the ocean, practicing skills. We practiced switching regulators underwater, clearing water out of our mask by blowing out of our nose, and how to do the ever-elusive "fin pivot" which demonstrated a mastery of neutral buoyancy.
That was the first dive. After some deck time to absorb the nitrogen in our bodies, we dove again. This time we descended a little faster, practiced more skills like hovering and shared air, and swam around a bit. Personal victory came when my instructor ripped my mask off and handed it back to me, and I didn't freak out and breathe in through my nose. I kept my eyes closed, calmly inhaled through my regulator, and cleared the mask with one strong blow through my nose. We won't go into what happened when I practiced this in the pool.
We were done for the evening, and retired to the boat to listen to music, play cards, eat and just generally hang out. We were getting up the next morning at 7, but I had to wait for a rather important phone call from Jake which would be coming around midnight. From the top deck, we watched the sunset, which lit up the cliffs of Hurghada unlike anything I've ever seen.
I killed time hanging with the Egyptian deck hands and
dive instructors, who, like all Egyptians, seem to never sleep. We watched dive videos, talked about certification levels, and played cards. I showed the resident Speed champion how it's done, and didn't let him forget it. I then taught them all Spit, and proceeded to wipe the deck with them.
In the middle of this, Jake called early to tell me that a tornado had ripped through his tiny southern town, avoiding his house but hitting the local high school and killing a bunch of students. Then my Dad called to tell me that Washington Mutual had decided to shut off my debit card for no real reason, even though I had put a travel notice on my account. After about 15 minutes of being on a conferenced hold with Card Services, we gave up. Then Jake called again to tell me his assignment...and wouldn't you know I couldn't hear a word he was saying. After waiting a year and a half to know this answer, and my reception craps out. Admittedly, I was in the middle of the Red Sea, but still. I finally made out his locale for the next three years: Cheyenne, Wyoming. That wasn't exactly D.C., and all my little hopes and dreams just kind of fizzled out. Disappointed, tired and frustrated with Vodafone and WaMu, I retired to my bunk.
Early Saturday morning, I woke up to some not so pleasant stomach cramps. With the previous nights' events washing back into my consciousness, I elected to stay in bed and skip breakfast. The cramps got worse, but after a large mental debate with myself ("Um, when are you going to be back in the Red Sea again?" "But I'm tiiiired. And sick." "Red Sea, Kari."), I got out of bed and hit the deck just in time for suit up. Hammad had kindly saved me some food that I would later eat. I didn't know that it would be the last food I would eat for quite some time.
We played the wetsuit game again. It's always fun.
The third dive was incredible. A few skills at the bottom, but it was mostly a real dive. We swam all around the coral reefs at about 13m down, and let me tell you, I've never seen so many fish in my life. After a summer as an Oregon ZooTeen working exclusively in the Tidal Pool section, I pretty much consider myself an expert on marine life. And I didn't even know where to start down there.
Masked butterfly fish. Emperor angelfish. Pennant fish with long, trailing crowns. The omnipresent damsels and clown fish. Groupers and parrot fish. Morays. A few blue spotted rays. Long, spindly cornet fish, and massive herds of schooling fish that just hung in the water, still like a curtain. We were even lucky enough to see
the venomous stone fish and lion fish. And let's not forget the foundation of all of this: the coral. Teeming with sponges and anemones, the brilliantly white coral stretched infinitely and intricately around us.
At the end of the third dive, we practiced a shared-air ascent, where my buddy was "out of air" and used my back-up regulator, or octopus, for breathing. Together, we would slowly reach the surface as one unit. It worked very well, and we only had one more skill to practice: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA), where we practice ascending to the surface on only one breath, continuously exhaling as to equalize the pressure in our lungs so that our lungs don't explode. Kind of key.
We were floating in the water one by one, waiting for our turn to practice CESA, when I realized that my right hand was stinging. Clumsily, I pulled it out of the water to see a small pink jellyfish draped over my fingers like some kind of hand towel. With a resounding thwbbpt, I flung it off me; to my dismay, white and red welts had started to form along my knuckles. After practicing my CESA, I stole some vinegar from the kitchen and self-medicated. It didn't really bother me for the rest of the trip, but I still have some neat scars on my fingers.
We rested and relaxed on the deck of the boat before our fourth and final dive, which would prove to be more challenging than I expected.
We suited up for our fourth dive, which was supposed to be purely fun with one skill at the end. The descent wasn't as smooth as the last three times: this time, my ears refused to clear. All the tricks I had learned stopped working. For the rest of the dive, I would be plagued with intense pain in my ears (my left ear still hasn't cleared as of writing this).
As I waited at the bottom for the rest of our team to finish their descent, I noticed I was having trouble staying down. The descent had been difficult anyway, as I wasn't able to sink without someone pulling on my belt. I was doing everything in the book--fully deflated vest, exhaling deeply to remove my lungs of buoyant air--but I could NOT get down without help. And once I was down there, I had to fight to stay down. I don't know why this was the case, but it continued to haunt me the rest of the dive.
About two minutes into our swim, my weight belt fell off. Luckily I caught it, or I would have definitely shot to the surface. I struggled to put it back on, and ended up fighting with the latch the rest of the dive. Most of my diving compatriots were controlling their depth through a combination of breathing (breathe in and you float up, breathe out and you sink) and inflating/deflating their vest. As my vest was completely empty of air, I was using just my breathing to try to stay down, and had to kick and fight for every meter. It was beautiful down there, still, but I couldn't focus on the scenery.
About halfway through the dive, as we swam over an outcropping of coral, I lost my fight with neutral buoyancy and started floating towards the top.
My instructor kept signalling for me to deflate my vest, pantomiming wildly with his thumb over his deflate button.
There's nothing more frustrating to be frantically told to do something that is impossible. I had no air in my vest to let out. I surfaced, followed by about three other girls who apparently had the same problem. Without speaking, my instructor pulled me underwater again, and I struggled once again to maintain neutral buoyancy in the water.
My weight belt came off again, and I was getting pretty low on air. I was halfway through the "red zone" on my indicator, and I had pretty much had it, so it was time to surface. And that's exactly what my instructor gestured for me to do. This time, however, it would be me who was out of air, and my buddy who would loan me her octopus.
So here's where things went wrong.
There I am, about 10m down, struggling to not shoot to the surface, and I have to negotiate breathing from someone else's tank. But I've done it dozens of times, no problem. I'm a pro: I take a deep breath from my regulator, remove it from my mouth, and immediately begin blowing little bubbles out of my mouth. I then take my buddy's octopus, clear it by exhaling deeply, and takea long, hard breath of sweet, beautiful oxygen.
Except this time, all I got was water.
Numbly, as I was still inhaling, I struggled to realize what had happened. Why did I have water in my lungs? What was going on? I took in a little more water. I put my hand up to my mouth. All I had in my mouth was a bite valve.
Did I grab my snorkel instead? That's what it felt like,
as I could taste the salt water rushing into my mouth through the bite valve. No, not the snorkel; I had taken the regulator, which was now floating in a few pieces in front of my face. The mouthpiece had come off the regulator. Huh.
With no air in my lungs, and water in my mouth, I didn't quite know what to do. I reached for my regulator and whacked straight into my instructor, who had his octopus ready for me. But I had nothing left with which to exhale and clear the regulator. To inhale some air from the regulator, I'd have to inhale some more water.
So that's what I did. I took a short, sharp breath, and exhaled as hard as I could. I did this over and over, until finally my mouth was clear of water. I quickly switched over to my regulator and shot to the surface with my buddy right behind me. I don't even know if I had my eyes open on the way up, if I held my breath, or how long it took. It's easy to say that in an emergency situation, you can slowly and calmly ascend to the surface, but when you just got a lungful of water and you can't control your buoyancy anyway, it's a whole different situation.
I could hear the rales in my lungs when I started breathing air on the surface. Those lasted for quite some time, in between coughing fits and waves of nausea. My instructor seemed unphased by what had happened--"It happens."--but to me my near-death experience was pretty jarring. Not jarring enough, however, to prevent me from completing the required 200m swim and ten minute float for my certification after the final dive. But believe me, I collapsed afterwards.
We hung out on the top deck until we docked at Hurghada around 4. After wrangling our gear, we took a walk around downtown Hurghada. We piled into minibuses about an hour later, got to the Hurghada bus station at 6...only to find out that they had sold all of our seats on the 7pm bus because no one had come to pick them up. This meant we would have to wait for the 9pm bus back to Cairo. Annoying, sure, but no biggie, right? What's two more hours in Hurghada?
And then calamity struck my digestive system.
It arrived slowly and insidiously, like a coming storm: I couldn't tell you when it the weather started to turn, but I could tell you when it started to rain. And rain it did. Let's just say that those morning stomach cramps came back with a vengance, and allowed me to see the inside of at least four different bathrooms in Hurghada, all with different states of hygiene. (If you're interested, never under any circumstances use the ladies' restroom in the Hurghada Bus Station, because if you're not sick already, you will be.)
The bus ride was like nothing I've ever experienced before. I was doubled over in pain. I was nauseus beyond name. I spent a lot of time trying to mind-over-matter my stomach into submission, and to some extent it worked. But let me tell you this: when it was 3:00 am and the driver pulled over to let out two passengers and have a smoke, there was almost a diplomatic incident.
We finally made it back to the dorms, dragging our scuba gear behind us, at 4am. After I narrowly escaped an assault charge with the fine security guards at my dorm (see previous post), I spent a lot of time in the fetal position in my bathroom, talking to my parents on Skype because I couldn't sleep, or running to the floor's sole bathroom which is convinentaly located as far as geographically possible from my room.
I didn't really notice my sunburn until I went to lay down, but despite the rampant use of sunscreen employed on the boat, I managed to make my back very, very unhappy. It's currently an interesting shade of angry lobster/fushia.
Sunday, I skipped my only class and just generally felt sorry for myself. Sarah infused me with Gatorade, which is probably more expensive here per ounce than gold. I slept a bit, and continued the war on my intestines. I went to the market with Sarah Sunday night to get some bananas (the only part of the BRAT diet available in Egypt, as toast seems to be a foreign concept here), I noticed an odd rash on my palms. No idea what it was--Kevin, if you're reading this, it was NOT ringworm--but by this point, I could have started growing spines and I wouldn't be too surprised.
So the conclusion of the weekend found me sort of physically destroyed. Sometimes I still breathe and feel a little water in there. My ears haven't popped yet. I can't wear a tshirt without considerable discomfort. And I'm still beholden to the location of the nearest bathroom. I have cuts, bruises, and jellyfish welts.
But I wouldn't have traded this weekend for the world: I saw some incredible, amazing marine animals, met some great people, got away from Cairo to somewhere with clean air, and lived like a king all weekend for about US$75. It was, in a word, fantastic.
Now if I could just start digesting food normally, that'd be great.
Pictures unabashedly stolen from friends.
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Thursday night after a quick shopping trip, an even quicker shower and a bite of food, Hammad and I headed off to the dive shop in Dokki. Even though it was in the opposite direction of the Ramses bus station, our trip leaders were concerned we that we wouldn't all make it to the station (and also probably wanted us to haul our scuba gear around so they didn't have to). As dusk fell on the city, we rolled into the dive shop, where organized chaos met general disarray. Some kids were digging through their backpacks, wondering if they had remembered sunglasses; others were double-checking all the gear in their scuba bags. All of us were reaching for our wallets.
The proprietors were concerned first and foremost about exacting payment. We had already paid in hard, US cash for the classroom academics and instruction manual (when ended up being over $325, when all was not-quite-explicitly-said and done), and we were assured that the actual dive trip itself would cost just 70LE. When we chose the "safari boat" option, that price turned into 300LE, with meals, transportation and accommodations included. Of course, when we got there that night, the cost was 430LE: 300LE + 130LE for the bus transportation. I had only 450LE in my wallet--a small fortune here in Egypt--and had no choice but to fork it over.
There were about 20 of us, comprised almost entirely of AUC study abroad students, but including one random Egyptian businessman named Ahmed who was quite nice but surely felt out of place with a group of crazy Americans. We took minibuses to the bus station and waited for our bus to arrive.
At around 9:15pm, our bus pulled away from the curb. After some excited tittering and the lighting fast consumption of recently-purchased candy, we settled in to get some fitful sleep on the 5 hour bus ride to Hurghada. You never really sleep that well on buses, but you do your best.
That's when the movie started.
I tell you, I don't get it. Terrible sound quality, misaligned tracking and maladjusted volume aside, I cannot understand why a loud, long movie would be played on an overnight bus ride where every single person on board was trying to sleep. A collective groan went up when the movie started (it's par for the course on almost every bus ride in Egypt), sighs of happiness rippled through the rows whenever the movie stopped, and angry mumbling could be heard when it inevitably started again. Even through the drowning noise of my iPod, it was impossible to sleep. At least the movie was entertaining.
Although it was mostly in Arabic, it was the story of a hapless shisha bar owner and his misadventures with Americans. I wasn't following it too closely--once in awhile, I'd hear one of the customers in his restaurant say, "But I'm an American, dammit!"--until I looked up to see footage of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center. That's a very powerful clip, and I didn't really understand why it was being shown in what seemed like a comedy. You'd better believe after that it had my attention, comprehension of Arabic be damned.
The main character goes on to somehow meet George Bush, who is looking for an Arab to play Osama bin Laden in a video released to the US. They spend a lot of time in the studio, with Bush directing in a Billy Bob Thorton type drawl: "Be more terroristic." Condi shows up at some point, and points at things with impunity. Eventually the main character is brought before the White House Press Corps as bin Laden, and then sent to some Gitmo-type prison where a Lynnie England look-alike strips for him (?!) and he then escapes with the help of a prison guard.
Toward the end of the movie, the bus attendant told a girl in our group who spoke Arabic that he wanted us all to know that it was a comedy. All I could think was: is this how Russians feel after watching any Tom Clancy-inspired movie?
After the movie, they started playing loud music which lasted the duration of the trip. We rolled into Hurghada at about 2am, got on a minibus that took us to the dock.Our boat was a 50m, four-floor yacht named Empros with a lot of dark wood and brass and nautical stripes and generally everything a boat is supposed to have. After a quick briefing by the crew and our dive leaders, we found out that we would be getting up at 8am the next day, and as it was nigh 4am, we booked it to bed.
The morning found us somewhere in the middle of the Red Sea, anchored on the edge of a coral reef. While we waited for our breakfast to be served,
I took a look at our surroundings. The water was a deep and clean blue. The distant shore was smooth and tawny. And the sea was dotted with happily buoyant pink jellyfish floating like tea candles. Huh.Assured that the jellyfish weren't anything to worry about, we ate our typical Egyptian breakfast--foul, bread, honey and crepes--were divvied into groups of six, got our brief about the area we were diving (Abu Ramada/The Aquarium) and started suiting up. My instructor was Osama, and I was in the all-girl group. For the rest of the trip, Osama's wrangling yells of ya binat!! (hey girls!!) played a starring role in my dreams.
The suiting up process was always interesting.
Step One (pictured): Attempt to get into wetsuit onesie. Get one foot in. Jump up and down. Get knee in. Remember putting on tights in elementary school. Scrunch up from the bottom. Wiggle. Repeat with other leg. Attempt to get it over your ass. Feel like the
suit is judging you. Moan. Get your arms in. Velcro shoulder straps. Step Two: Put on wetsuit jacket with little half-legs. Wonder why you have to have another layer of Neoprene around your thighs. Wage war against the zipper. Win. Step Three: Wetsuit booties. Step Four: Fiddle with your vest. Attach your regulator to the oxygen tank. Check pressure. Step Five: Put on weight belt. Do your best Shakira hip shake. Mention that this would be a great workout. Step Six: Have one of the very nice deckhands help you put on your insanely heavy vest and tank. Fasten appropriate straps and belts. Step Seven: Shuffle to the back of the boat. Awkwardly put on your flippers. Spit into your mask; rinse. Step Eight: Penguin shuffle over to your buddy. Do a buddy check. Watch in horror as one of your regulators inevitably goes crazy and loses 20 bar of air before it can be stopped. Mentally prepare yourself to get into the water that looks very, very cold. Inflate your vest. Put on your goggles. Tell everyone and their mother that they can go ahead of you.Step Nine: Jump.
Breathing underwater isn't something that comes naturally. And while that may sound like a pretty obvious statement, even snorkeling goes against my basic instincts. When my face is in the water, I'm holding my breath. And since the cardinal rule of scuba diving is that you never
hold your breath underwater, I had to fight against my brain to accept the fact that I indeed could take a full and complete breath through my regulator. I had gotten over it in the pool, but had to do a little bit of mental encouragement to do it again in the water.We slowly descended along a weighted rope, pausing every few meters to adjust our ears to the pressure. We went down to about 9m, and sat on the floor of the ocean, practicing skills. We practiced switching regulators underwater, clearing water out of our mask by blowing out of our nose, and how to do the ever-elusive "fin pivot" which demonstrated a mastery of neutral buoyancy.
That was the first dive. After some deck time to absorb the nitrogen in our bodies, we dove again. This time we descended a little faster, practiced more skills like hovering and shared air, and swam around a bit. Personal victory came when my instructor ripped my mask off and handed it back to me, and I didn't freak out and breathe in through my nose. I kept my eyes closed, calmly inhaled through my regulator, and cleared the mask with one strong blow through my nose. We won't go into what happened when I practiced this in the pool.
We were done for the evening, and retired to the boat to listen to music, play cards, eat and just generally hang out. We were getting up the next morning at 7, but I had to wait for a rather important phone call from Jake which would be coming around midnight. From the top deck, we watched the sunset, which lit up the cliffs of Hurghada unlike anything I've ever seen.
I killed time hanging with the Egyptian deck hands and
dive instructors, who, like all Egyptians, seem to never sleep. We watched dive videos, talked about certification levels, and played cards. I showed the resident Speed champion how it's done, and didn't let him forget it. I then taught them all Spit, and proceeded to wipe the deck with them.In the middle of this, Jake called early to tell me that a tornado had ripped through his tiny southern town, avoiding his house but hitting the local high school and killing a bunch of students. Then my Dad called to tell me that Washington Mutual had decided to shut off my debit card for no real reason, even though I had put a travel notice on my account. After about 15 minutes of being on a conferenced hold with Card Services, we gave up. Then Jake called again to tell me his assignment...and wouldn't you know I couldn't hear a word he was saying. After waiting a year and a half to know this answer, and my reception craps out. Admittedly, I was in the middle of the Red Sea, but still. I finally made out his locale for the next three years: Cheyenne, Wyoming. That wasn't exactly D.C., and all my little hopes and dreams just kind of fizzled out. Disappointed, tired and frustrated with Vodafone and WaMu, I retired to my bunk.
Early Saturday morning, I woke up to some not so pleasant stomach cramps. With the previous nights' events washing back into my consciousness, I elected to stay in bed and skip breakfast. The cramps got worse, but after a large mental debate with myself ("Um, when are you going to be back in the Red Sea again?" "But I'm tiiiired. And sick." "Red Sea, Kari."), I got out of bed and hit the deck just in time for suit up. Hammad had kindly saved me some food that I would later eat. I didn't know that it would be the last food I would eat for quite some time.We played the wetsuit game again. It's always fun.
The third dive was incredible. A few skills at the bottom, but it was mostly a real dive. We swam all around the coral reefs at about 13m down, and let me tell you, I've never seen so many fish in my life. After a summer as an Oregon ZooTeen working exclusively in the Tidal Pool section, I pretty much consider myself an expert on marine life. And I didn't even know where to start down there.
Masked butterfly fish. Emperor angelfish. Pennant fish with long, trailing crowns. The omnipresent damsels and clown fish. Groupers and parrot fish. Morays. A few blue spotted rays. Long, spindly cornet fish, and massive herds of schooling fish that just hung in the water, still like a curtain. We were even lucky enough to see
the venomous stone fish and lion fish. And let's not forget the foundation of all of this: the coral. Teeming with sponges and anemones, the brilliantly white coral stretched infinitely and intricately around us.At the end of the third dive, we practiced a shared-air ascent, where my buddy was "out of air" and used my back-up regulator, or octopus, for breathing. Together, we would slowly reach the surface as one unit. It worked very well, and we only had one more skill to practice: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA), where we practice ascending to the surface on only one breath, continuously exhaling as to equalize the pressure in our lungs so that our lungs don't explode. Kind of key.
We were floating in the water one by one, waiting for our turn to practice CESA, when I realized that my right hand was stinging. Clumsily, I pulled it out of the water to see a small pink jellyfish draped over my fingers like some kind of hand towel. With a resounding thwbbpt, I flung it off me; to my dismay, white and red welts had started to form along my knuckles. After practicing my CESA, I stole some vinegar from the kitchen and self-medicated. It didn't really bother me for the rest of the trip, but I still have some neat scars on my fingers.
We rested and relaxed on the deck of the boat before our fourth and final dive, which would prove to be more challenging than I expected.
We suited up for our fourth dive, which was supposed to be purely fun with one skill at the end. The descent wasn't as smooth as the last three times: this time, my ears refused to clear. All the tricks I had learned stopped working. For the rest of the dive, I would be plagued with intense pain in my ears (my left ear still hasn't cleared as of writing this).
As I waited at the bottom for the rest of our team to finish their descent, I noticed I was having trouble staying down. The descent had been difficult anyway, as I wasn't able to sink without someone pulling on my belt. I was doing everything in the book--fully deflated vest, exhaling deeply to remove my lungs of buoyant air--but I could NOT get down without help. And once I was down there, I had to fight to stay down. I don't know why this was the case, but it continued to haunt me the rest of the dive.
About two minutes into our swim, my weight belt fell off. Luckily I caught it, or I would have definitely shot to the surface. I struggled to put it back on, and ended up fighting with the latch the rest of the dive. Most of my diving compatriots were controlling their depth through a combination of breathing (breathe in and you float up, breathe out and you sink) and inflating/deflating their vest. As my vest was completely empty of air, I was using just my breathing to try to stay down, and had to kick and fight for every meter. It was beautiful down there, still, but I couldn't focus on the scenery.
About halfway through the dive, as we swam over an outcropping of coral, I lost my fight with neutral buoyancy and started floating towards the top.
My instructor kept signalling for me to deflate my vest, pantomiming wildly with his thumb over his deflate button.There's nothing more frustrating to be frantically told to do something that is impossible. I had no air in my vest to let out. I surfaced, followed by about three other girls who apparently had the same problem. Without speaking, my instructor pulled me underwater again, and I struggled once again to maintain neutral buoyancy in the water.
My weight belt came off again, and I was getting pretty low on air. I was halfway through the "red zone" on my indicator, and I had pretty much had it, so it was time to surface. And that's exactly what my instructor gestured for me to do. This time, however, it would be me who was out of air, and my buddy who would loan me her octopus.
So here's where things went wrong.
There I am, about 10m down, struggling to not shoot to the surface, and I have to negotiate breathing from someone else's tank. But I've done it dozens of times, no problem. I'm a pro: I take a deep breath from my regulator, remove it from my mouth, and immediately begin blowing little bubbles out of my mouth. I then take my buddy's octopus, clear it by exhaling deeply, and takea long, hard breath of sweet, beautiful oxygen.
Except this time, all I got was water.
Numbly, as I was still inhaling, I struggled to realize what had happened. Why did I have water in my lungs? What was going on? I took in a little more water. I put my hand up to my mouth. All I had in my mouth was a bite valve.
Did I grab my snorkel instead? That's what it felt like,
as I could taste the salt water rushing into my mouth through the bite valve. No, not the snorkel; I had taken the regulator, which was now floating in a few pieces in front of my face. The mouthpiece had come off the regulator. Huh.With no air in my lungs, and water in my mouth, I didn't quite know what to do. I reached for my regulator and whacked straight into my instructor, who had his octopus ready for me. But I had nothing left with which to exhale and clear the regulator. To inhale some air from the regulator, I'd have to inhale some more water.
So that's what I did. I took a short, sharp breath, and exhaled as hard as I could. I did this over and over, until finally my mouth was clear of water. I quickly switched over to my regulator and shot to the surface with my buddy right behind me. I don't even know if I had my eyes open on the way up, if I held my breath, or how long it took. It's easy to say that in an emergency situation, you can slowly and calmly ascend to the surface, but when you just got a lungful of water and you can't control your buoyancy anyway, it's a whole different situation.
I could hear the rales in my lungs when I started breathing air on the surface. Those lasted for quite some time, in between coughing fits and waves of nausea. My instructor seemed unphased by what had happened--"It happens."--but to me my near-death experience was pretty jarring. Not jarring enough, however, to prevent me from completing the required 200m swim and ten minute float for my certification after the final dive. But believe me, I collapsed afterwards.
We hung out on the top deck until we docked at Hurghada around 4. After wrangling our gear, we took a walk around downtown Hurghada. We piled into minibuses about an hour later, got to the Hurghada bus station at 6...only to find out that they had sold all of our seats on the 7pm bus because no one had come to pick them up. This meant we would have to wait for the 9pm bus back to Cairo. Annoying, sure, but no biggie, right? What's two more hours in Hurghada?And then calamity struck my digestive system.
It arrived slowly and insidiously, like a coming storm: I couldn't tell you when it the weather started to turn, but I could tell you when it started to rain. And rain it did. Let's just say that those morning stomach cramps came back with a vengance, and allowed me to see the inside of at least four different bathrooms in Hurghada, all with different states of hygiene. (If you're interested, never under any circumstances use the ladies' restroom in the Hurghada Bus Station, because if you're not sick already, you will be.)
The bus ride was like nothing I've ever experienced before. I was doubled over in pain. I was nauseus beyond name. I spent a lot of time trying to mind-over-matter my stomach into submission, and to some extent it worked. But let me tell you this: when it was 3:00 am and the driver pulled over to let out two passengers and have a smoke, there was almost a diplomatic incident.We finally made it back to the dorms, dragging our scuba gear behind us, at 4am. After I narrowly escaped an assault charge with the fine security guards at my dorm (see previous post), I spent a lot of time in the fetal position in my bathroom, talking to my parents on Skype because I couldn't sleep, or running to the floor's sole bathroom which is convinentaly located as far as geographically possible from my room.
I didn't really notice my sunburn until I went to lay down, but despite the rampant use of sunscreen employed on the boat, I managed to make my back very, very unhappy. It's currently an interesting shade of angry lobster/fushia.
Sunday, I skipped my only class and just generally felt sorry for myself. Sarah infused me with Gatorade, which is probably more expensive here per ounce than gold. I slept a bit, and continued the war on my intestines. I went to the market with Sarah Sunday night to get some bananas (the only part of the BRAT diet available in Egypt, as toast seems to be a foreign concept here), I noticed an odd rash on my palms. No idea what it was--Kevin, if you're reading this, it was NOT ringworm--but by this point, I could have started growing spines and I wouldn't be too surprised.
So the conclusion of the weekend found me sort of physically destroyed. Sometimes I still breathe and feel a little water in there. My ears haven't popped yet. I can't wear a tshirt without considerable discomfort. And I'm still beholden to the location of the nearest bathroom. I have cuts, bruises, and jellyfish welts.
But I wouldn't have traded this weekend for the world: I saw some incredible, amazing marine animals, met some great people, got away from Cairo to somewhere with clean air, and lived like a king all weekend for about US$75. It was, in a word, fantastic.
Now if I could just start digesting food normally, that'd be great.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Brief recap of the past three days:
Washington Mutual cancelled my debit card while I was at sea.
I'm out of cash, and out of minutes on my cell phone.
I'm badly burnt, despite the rampant use of sunscreen.
I got stung by a jellyfish.
I inhaled mouthfuls of water at 10m after my regulator fell to pieces.
Habibi is being stationed in Wyoming, not Washington D.C.
I have food poisoning, and have been rushing to and from toilets for the past 10 hours (that'd be the bus ride plus dinner, if you're curious).
I tried to talk to the people at the front desk about going to a hospital but all they cared about was searching my bags.
Can I come home now?
....kidding. I actually had a fun weekend, but all of the above has just worn me out. Scuba stories when I'm not throwing up, and have all the pictures.
xoxo
Washington Mutual cancelled my debit card while I was at sea.
I'm out of cash, and out of minutes on my cell phone.
I'm badly burnt, despite the rampant use of sunscreen.
I got stung by a jellyfish.
I inhaled mouthfuls of water at 10m after my regulator fell to pieces.
Habibi is being stationed in Wyoming, not Washington D.C.
I have food poisoning, and have been rushing to and from toilets for the past 10 hours (that'd be the bus ride plus dinner, if you're curious).
I tried to talk to the people at the front desk about going to a hospital but all they cared about was searching my bags.
Can I come home now?
....kidding. I actually had a fun weekend, but all of the above has just worn me out. Scuba stories when I'm not throwing up, and have all the pictures.
xoxo
Thursday, March 1, 2007
It's good having contacts. After bypassing the ridiculous customs taxes and snoopy/thieving customs officials by sending a package to the APO, I am now in possession of:
Guard at the dorms, while pawing through the package: Whisky?
Me: Uh, no. My Mom sent this to me.
Guard: I'm sorry.
Me: [confused]
Um, I love my parents. And the wonderful, wonderful man at the US Embassy who delivered the 18 pounds of goodness to me.
- 15 Luna bars
- 18 packs of Orbit gum
- Dried fruit, trail mix, almonds and pistachios
- Bags of: peanut MnMs, mini Milky Ways, KitKat bars, Sour Patch Kids and Reese's
- Enough Tampax Pearl to last a lifetime
- Advil Cold & Sinus and Tyneol Cold & Flu
- AA Batteries
- Hair ties
- Pictures!!
- Sweetheart's Valentines Day candy and Moonstruck chocolate
- Real Simple and People (academic reading)
Guard at the dorms, while pawing through the package: Whisky?
Me: Uh, no. My Mom sent this to me.
Guard: I'm sorry.
Me: [confused]
Um, I love my parents. And the wonderful, wonderful man at the US Embassy who delivered the 18 pounds of goodness to me.
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