What they dont tell you in the pregnancy & childbirth books (Excerpts)

• If you are breastfeeding, you will spend 70% of your time postpartum with your breasts hanging out. After a few days walking around the house like this it won’t seem strange to you anymore, even when there are other people around.
• Going to the toilet, if you remember to, and taking a shower will feel like major achievements.
• They do tell you there will be a change in your routine, what they forget to mention is that sleep deprivation is the cruellest form of torture. And your torturer is a cute, little, helpless thing, that you adore. I can’t remember what it feels like to sleep for more than two hours in a row and have now taken to just staying up all night instead, those raving days came in handy after all.
• On the breastfeeding thing again, they leak like crazy and you will sometimes smell and feel like a cow. Sometimes the milk just bursts out of your nipple like its shooting out of a water fountain, freaking the baby out as he drowns in motherly love.
• The first days postpartum will seem like an endless round of feeding and changing, you will realise that your life is somewhat fucked, but you will find this quite amusing because you will feel like you are high on drugs, thanks to those wonderful hormones raging around your system. Postpartum blues are a very real prospect once they settle down again. Leaving you feeling very vulnerable once you realise that the high doesn’t last forever and that your baby is human, not an angel sent from heaven, and is open to life’s ups and downs just like you are. The prospect of this will scare the hell out of you.
• Babies are miraculous. You will fall instantly in love. Just looking at him/her will at times make you cry uncontrollably. You won’t believe yours actually came out of you. And you’ll spend the rest of your life worrying psychotically about this little bundle of joy. And you will finally find it in your heart to sympathise with your own mother. But guess what it’s too late, and what goes around comes around.

For more on the fatwa see here

Man Burns Books As Act of Protest

Mo. Man Burns Books As Act of Protest World Latest Guardian Unlimited

El Feel Dah Rakeb Feela

so we're watching animal planet and there's two elephants mating, and the little one goes

"mama, howa el feel dah rakeb eih?"

Now for the Reason

I have a new toy, it’s an Arabic newspaper called “El Dostor”, which I think means “The Constitution”. Anyway, it’s new because I have never read an Arabic paper before. Anyway, anyway, in today’s edition Wednesday 16th May they have dedicated a whole page to the sexual harassment issue, there are 3 separate articles written by one person (I think), named Ehab Abd El Hamid.

Now for the stats: (bear with me while I translate)

22% of Egyptian women are sexually harassed everyday, sometimes more than once a day
30-40% of the sexual harassment cases are of the “dangerous” kind (physical harassment or a man flashing his private parts)
28% of women over 40 get sexually harassed (not sure why over 40 is an issue, but there you go)
28% of the offenders are men over 40 (does this mean they are harassing the 28% of women over 40?)
60% of Egyptian women were sexually harassed as children
Only 2% of victims actually bother informing the authorities (and we all know why)

The writer states that he got the above stats from the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights study.

Cont..in next post

Now for the Reason 2

Now for the Scary Bit:

“Dr Fadia Abu Shehba, Professor of Criminal Law at The National Centre for Criminal & Sociological Research, states that 20,000 cases of rape take place each year, i.e. 2 rapes every hour, and that 90% of the offenders are unemployed.”

“The Ministry of Interior states that 52,000 cases of sexual harassment and rape took place in 2006.”

And like the writer says, these numbers are just a fraction of reality. We all know what happened over Eid.

Now for the Law:
Basically even though there are laws against harassment, a guy can get anything from paying a measly LE30 fine to life imprisonment, nobody takes them seriously, not even the poo-lice, who have been known to partake of this national pastime themselves with great pleasure. Or ignore it when it’s happening right before their eyes, the Eid incident again.

Now for the Optimist:
I still say we can do something about this, we can create some sort of movement, we can get a new law passed, like the one they have in Dubai, where a guy who harasses on the street gets jailed and they put his picture in the paper to shame him. Forget that, I would be happy with just the jail part, even if it’s just a single night in a cell. The poo-lice will do the shaming part I’m sure. Who’s willing?

Sexual Harassment Delivery

Of course I have my own sexual harassment story to tell, it happened in the pre-car period of my Cairo life. Which by the way has provided me with much needed protection, even though it only takes about 5 mins of driving for me to completely lose it, at least I don’t have to deal with about 90% of the harassment that I did pre-car.

One night as I was walking to the hairdressers a pubescent creature on a bike came up behind me very quietly, grabbed my boob quite casually and pedaled away as fast as his grimy little legs would go. I was so shell shocked I had no idea what the hell I should do, apart from scream profanities at him as loud as I could, in the hope that someone with an ounce of decency would intervene and maybe knock him off his bike (which looking back is what I should’ve done). Nobody even batted an eyelid.

To cut a long story short, I jumped in a taxi and attempted to find him before breaking down and wiping my tears away with tissues offered to me by the nice taxi driver man. A couple of hours later, after getting my hair done (what?), Hori and I went on a manhunt for a cretin wearing a red football t-shirt with the number 10 and some foreign players name on the back, the only description I had to go by. It must have been red t-shirt night.

As always, cont in next post...

Sexual Harassment Delivery 2

A couple of weeks later, this time in broad daylight I was walking home, and some lad again on a bike, started following me, I wasn’t about to let that boob incident happen to me a second time, so I waited till we were face to face, and I asked him “Fee 7aga?” (Is there something I can do for you?) and his reply was “Aiywa, ayez ado something I can’t really repeat on this blog.” (Yes, I would like to put something where the sun does not shine).

So I challenged him to do it, a sort of come on then if you think you’re man enough, he was taken aback by this but kept circling me with his bike anyway, not quite sure what to do next, and this didn’t make his small talk any more polite.. so I made like I was going to run after him, and I was wearing my trainers this time and had every intention of knocking him to the ground and kicking the kaka out of him. So he rode off.

Now there is a reason for this random rant, and seeing as blogger doesn’t usually let me write anything longer than a paragraph, I will continue in za nekxt wan.

Something Worth Attending

Click on the image for details

for entertainment purposes

Last night while watching The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe..

Hori: What's that creature called?
Me: It's a Unicorn
Hori: Does it really exist?
Me: (Barely able to contain myself) No
Hori: Are you sure? It's ancient, I mean how do you know?
Me: (Silence)

Iraq protest art on Turner shortlist | Art & Architecture | Guardian Unlimited Arts

Iraq protest art on Turner shortlist Art & Architecture Guardian Unlimited Arts

See more pics of the art here

See the website of Brian Haw who's been protesting alone for 5 and a half years, and whose work was the inspiration for this art.

Just Want Everyone to Meet Banksy

Here

Travelling Curse, No Longer a Joke

Yep, it happened again last weekend. This time i thought an attitude adjustment might be in order, you know the whole think positive and positive will happen type of thing. I thought it was me causing all the negativity that happens when we travel, because i was always expecting it to be a nightmare in some form. But, it didnt work. And, we came home the very next day, with a very sick Hori. Who is still sick to this day. He came down with a mysterious illness. Have to go, little one is calling.

Will Never Say I have Seen it All Again

One day i'll tell the story of how i got my driving licence without resorting to corrupt measures.

Today i went to pick up my licence, and one of the people waiting with me to get his: was a man with a missing arm.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007) - Google Video

The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007) - Google Video

The other side of the coin.

So who is telling the truth here? Are we destroying the world with our pollution or not?