Lord of the Flies

She felt like she was living in Lord of the Flies, that book she studied as a schoolgirl, the story seemed so improbable then, fantasy. But now she knew that man was right, leave them to their own devices and they become cannibals. Humans that is. Why is it supposed to be human, to be good and giving and caring, why is that described as human? Why “Oh the humanity of it all”? What is humanity, but a bunch of raving mad animals? A species. It’s not just a single race that is worse or better than another, it doesn’t come down to the citizens of a certain country, although these people she lived amongst were a ripe example of what humans are really like, deep down. No, it was human nature. That is what she found so utterly disturbing. Why? That’s the question that poses itself, why create us this way? And we all know, there are some whys that can never be answered.

Hitting the traffic again, for the 1000th time in this single year since she began working on the other side of the city, the sprawling metropolis, she saw a sight that at once soothed her eyes and troubled her mind. A tall building with so many windows was reflecting the orange of the sunset, more of them towards the bottom of the building, so that it looked like the building was on fire with flames leaping from its windows. It was pretty, it was also very apt. Yes this city is on fire; yes these people are all just waiting to die.

A man drives past on the other side of the road, he’s on a motorbike, and sticking up off the back of his bike is a handwritten sign, help us it says, and underneath that in smaller Arabic script, oh leader, help us. That’s all she could read as the man sped past. She wondered what kind of help this man needed.

A couple cross the road, she stops so they can pass, they are young, and pretty, she is happy and smiling, he is serious and protective. What do they have to look forward to except each other? And even that goes AWOL after a while. Everything is so fucking temporary.

The call to prayer, she hears it and turns off the music, she drives in a bubble of music and AC and tries to keep the rotten air out as much as possible. She turns the radio station from iTrip to the Quran station, so she can really hear it; she wants to dissect the words. She wants to hear what that call is saying to her and the other millions who can also hear it at this very same moment. It says God is greater, greater than any of your worldly worries you stupid little human being, with all your cares. Didn’t I tell you this a million times before, look to God for help, to Him for guidance, to Him for peace. He is the only constant. The why rears its ugly head, why make us with so many bad sides? Why make us at all?

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.

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.

Rantings of a Sandmonkey » Done

Rantings of a Sandmonkey » Done

One of the most interesting Egyptian blogs around has come to a sudden end.

Update: I did a bit more digging and came up with this "interview"

Justice for Once

If you live in Cairo and drive then you know how beautiful it is to find a place to park your car.
We share a car park with our neighbouring building and it was defintely one of the reasons why i chose this place when we were recently home hunting.
But, a couple of weeks ago a strange thing occurred. Someone (can u say high ranking police official) decided that he wanted half, YES half, of the car park all to his little self. Complete with two suits and their respective sunglasses and walkie talkies. So he cordoned it off with chains and yellow lines and wouldnt allow anyone to even drive through the space, even if they lived in his building too.
Now, after almost 5 years of living in egypt i have seen a lot of injustice, and have sadly become quite accustomed to it, so even though this was directly affecting my ability to park my car every day, i ranted for a couple of days about it to all who would listen ( including the poor security guys downstairs), but then just moved on. Looking out of my window i could see the stark difference between the two car parks, ours was full of cars, double and triple parked, and his was completely empty...

Justice for Once...Part 2

Then a rumor began to spread that the residents of the two buildings (who include some high ranking army officials) were actually going to do something about this ridiculous situation. They were saying that the land doesnt belong to him and that he has no right to do this, even if he is AMN DAWLA (National Security). Of course i didnt believe that for a minute, because Egyptians are very talented when it comes to accepting the status quo and all that.
Yet yesterday morning i witnessed a miracle taking place at my doorstep in the form of the Egyptian army! A bus load of soldiers basically stormed the car park, forcibly unlocked the entrance, leveled all the chains and posts and took them with them. I have never been so happy to see army people in my entire army-hating existence.
Horizontal husband, ever the cautious one, reminded me however that the residents would still be too scared to cross the little man by parking their cars in the lot, seeing as he might seek revenge by making their lives hell in an official manner. So i waited to see if the people were really entirely lost and broken, or whether they would actually continue the good fight.

And guess what? They did, they gave the little man the big collective finger :)
3Amaar ya masr!

Travellin Curse Strikes Again

List of "things" that happened on our first beach-camping trip over the easter weekend:

1. Five holes in one car tire
2. Arrived at camping site at 2am due to various "reasons"
3. Was too late & too dark to set up tent, so had to sleep under the stars, which wouldnt be that bad if it werent for the rain & lightening, & hungry mosquitoes that soon followed
4. Broken glasses, stepped on by horizontal husband, ensuring i couldnt see much for the rest of the trip
5. Full on and sudden sandstorm, ensuring tent collapses with me inside it
6. Broken tent poles poke hole through brand new tent (guaranteed for life against stormy weather)
7. Storm continues through the night as we sleep under freshly fixed tent threatening to dump us in the sea by morning
8. Loud neighbours who insist on shagging all night and providing us with drunken soundtrack ( we had set up tent far away from any other tents, but the next day these people with four tents decided they wanted to move in with us)
9. Injured toe for both of us, which wouldnt be so bad if we didnt have to trek through hot sand with open wounds
10. Flashlight mysteriously gives up on life
11. Lose sleeping bag holder to said neighbours in an act of utter stupidity on my part which was done with good intentions
12. Return home to freezer and fridge full of rotting food, BECAUSE i had mysteriously unplugged it before we left???? What?
13. The above are just the ones i can mention, and remember
14. Did I mention it was my birthday & that I lost my toothbrush...
15. Have i complained enough yet?

Shakira Fiasco

trekking in the desert, no way of contacting others because ur mobile network is too busy to care that ur lost, stuck in traffic for 4, i repeat, four hours, only to catch Shakira waving her tits at u from a giant screen and saying "goodbye egypt, mwa! i love you!"

did i mention finding ur car by coincidence in the middle of the desert where it was ditched in a last feeble attempt to catch the concert in time.

a guy in a car next to us " dee law shakira kanet betewled gowa, makansh dah koloh 7asal."

i wont translate, its not funny in english.

the pyramids were nice though.

Marital Bliss

him: hey
me: yeah
him: so what you doing?
me: i am dancing on the table
him: ...(silence)
me: what the f*** do you think i'm doing?
him: alright, well i just called to tell you am gonna be late again tonight
me: and? what do you want? a prize? (child screaming in the background)
him: tayeb, yallah bye
me: bye