Diving on the ancient city

Today I'm going diving on Cleopatra's city!  There is a boat that goes out from the Eastern harbour in Alexandria and I have been in touch with Dr Ashraf by email and phone to organise it.  My biggest immediate challenge is getting a taxi from here in el Agamy to the harbour which is about 40 minutes drive away on the way to Stanley where the school is.  The actual kilometres are not very much, but the roads and the traffic are so chaotic that it takes a long time.  This will be the first time I've hailed a taxi on the street.

I'll post this while I've got a connection and add to it when I get back from the dive.  Tried to add a photo but it's still taking an age from the wireless at the apartments

I had a great day!  I managed the taxi tango at both ends of the day and went to the new Alexandria library after my dive and lunch.  When I arrived at the "world famous" Tikka grill which was the landmark given to me by the dive operators and was unknown to the local taxi driver, I found the dive company easily.  I was greeted, kitted out with dive gear, completed safety forms, had my guide check out my diving status - I suspect with some anxiety as he noted my age and the fact that I hadn't dived for 20 years - and sat at a table chatting to the young women who helped with the gear and occasionally went on the dives.  One of them was to be engaged in a few weeks and wanted to know about my sunscreen so that she could remain pale for the event!  Both of them were keen to practice their English and chatted about life as a young Moslem woman in Egypt.  One of them had the beautiful blue eyes of the women who come only from a particular village in Egypt.  The boat was well organized and I had a skipper, a dive guide and two male assistants to myself.  So although I was a bit worried about stepping into the water with full dive gear and a 10 kilo weight belt, I managed it with only a slight increase in my breathing rate!  The dive site was unique.  Visibility was poor and there was a strong current so my diving buddy held my hand most of the time - he told me before the dive that he was a Christian so I think that makes it OK for him to touch a woman in public.  

The first thing we came across was a world war 2 fighter plane crashed on the seafloor.   The guide carefully took me around each section pointing out the guns, ammunition containers, the wing flaps.  In the cockpit, he even picked up an old face mask.  At first I thought it was an octopus but then picked out the face shield and breathing tubes.  All this time my guide is pointing and giving me the OK signal and as my confidence grew, I was able to signal back and even start noticing things myself.

I assumed that the wreck was the highlight of the dive, but then we moved away and suddenly we were noticing amphora and other drinking vessels just lying there encrusted on the seabed.  There were also column fragments and even the remains of an old road with paving stones.  We moved around the sea floor inspecting the remains of an ancient city as though it was just an everyday occurrence to find a lost world under the sea.

That first dive was 45 mins at only 5 metres depth, so when we returned to the boat, we rested for a while and my dive buddy, who was skinny without any insulating fat, warmed himself up in the sun.  Then we moved the boat to another site and did a second dive for about 20 mins.  This time there was a huge column with carved hieroglyphs and the top of a granite table and also I think, a scribe's small table as far as I could interpret the guide's signaling.  We also went deeper to about 7 metres and found several tumbled large blocks of sandstone that were good habitat for fairly large fish.

On the short drive back to the jetty, I went up on the top deck to chat to the skipper.  I quickly became his friend when I commented on the sweet note of the engine and asked if it was a Gardiner.  I think he launched into an impassioned lecture on the merits of different kinds of motors that he had worked with!

Back at the dive base, I was ushered to a shower and told that they would be serving lunch.  It turned out to be a delicious small, whole grilled fish with rice and salad.  Hand shaking all round and the presentation of a stamped sticker for me to take away as a memento!

After leaving the dive base, I walked along the Corniche to the new Alexandria library.  There were lots of people out for their Saturday strolling and the cafes were full.  I passed the tomb of the unknown warrior and then called in to Koota markets - a large covered area with a variety of market stalls including kaftan stalls where I bought a pretty, sand-striped kaftan for myself.  At the library, I was in time for an English-speaking tour of this remarkable space with an ancient heritage.  There are also some great exhibitions including one of images and maps of old Alexandria and another of the work of an Egyptian film maker.  I found a small portrait of Laurence Durrell sketched by his artist friend Clea who inspired the last book of his quartet. Their bookshop is also good and I bought a couple of English translations of short stories and a novel set in Alexandria.  I used a passage from the short stories to teach one of my grammar classes in the following days.

Afterwards, it was easy to come out of the library, cross the road and hail a taxi to go back to Agamy.  

Luxor

Yesterday I lost my day's news because I lost connection before I could publish, so will send this up quickly and then edit.  We start our teaching practice with the course today and I am meeting with my co-teacher to plan our lesson.

Image upload is taking so long that I've given up for now.  I'll try and give a bit of an impression about my trip to Luxor and then will try again with images some other time.  Luxor was very hot and dry but I have a wealth of images bouncing around in my head.  My guide to visit the sites has a PhD in Greek and Roman influences on the temples here and has published a book in Arabic which he proudly showed me when we visited one of the tourist shops at the end of our day of site visits.  We went to the Valley of the Kings which is where the tombs of the pharoahs are.  The valley is startlingly bare.  Chosen because of the pyramid shaped hills so that the tombs could be made under a pyramid but could easily be hidden from tomb raiders.  I have gathered that there is a strong cyclic belief system amongst the pharoahs related to the sun so the earthly remains are buried in the tombs on the West bank where the sun sets and the temples of life are to the east.  The sheer number of tombs and temples is overwhelming but my guide helped  to pace myself.  There were also a lot of tourists and as we went down into the tombs there was a line of people outside and everyone slowly walked through.  The third tomb in particular had retained most of the colour in the hieroglyphs.  There is no guiding or photos allowed inside the tombs to stop people from lingering but I was awe struck by the long corridors full of hieroglyphs.  As my guide explained to me in an echoing hall at the beginning of the visit, they started building a pharoah's tomb as soon as he came to the throne, and often the tomb was not finished when he died so they are like a work-in-progress that is cut short by death.

A bit like this blog!  But I should publish in case I've lost connection and will add more later.

Back again.  On the drive to the Valley of the Kings, we passed neat farms and comparatively clean villages; lots of donkeys and people tending their fields with their robes hitched up.  The hotel where I am staying is like a Mercure anywhere in the world, but the landscape is startlingly different.  The range across the Nile changes density as the day wears on - at lunchtime it is pale and ghostlike.  The landscape and the people going about their daily lives save me from a nagging feeling that I am being ripped off by tourist prices now that I have stepped sideways into that circuit.  Moustache Ali, for example, that my guide took me to after the Valley of the kings, was totally charming and reminded me of a carpet salesman in Turkey where I bought my rugs now in storeage at home.  The guide had briefed me beforehand and told me exactly what he would say down to the jokes about his moustache, but when it came to the battle at the end, I just caved in and gave him more than he would have accepted for my cat, dog and fluorescent ring of life!  But he welcomed me with mint tea, gave the guide a water pipe to smoke, presented me with a necklace and a scarab.  "I am Moustache Ali", pointing at his moustache, "not Ali Baba!"  His face is beautiful - nut brown and finely sculpted.  He tells me as we are negotiating prices that he is 60 with 14 children and 40 grandchildren.  He has had three wives but not all at once.  At least one was English and died of a heart attack - "She was softly spoken, like you, and she loved me!"

8th September.  I'm updating with photos and trying to round out a few things.  Already my visit to Luxor is fading into history but there are one or two reflections that I want to add.  The temples of Karnak and Luxor which are actually located in Luxor and were originally connected by an avenue of sphinxs are stunningly  complete.  Huge pillars, carved hieroglyphs, massive statues, one or two still with faces intact, some colour remaining in high archways.  I have hundreds of photos that I will get around to sorting eventually so I have a slide show to bore everyone with.  

We visited the temples after the obligatory afternoon rest so it was towards sunset by the time I got back to the hotel on my whistle stop tour of ancient Egypt.  As the sun went down, I raced over the road to get a photo of the evening hills across the Nile.  I had forgotten about women alone in public places.  Immediately, a smiling man in a white robe asked me if I wanted to go out in a boat to get even better photos.  "Hurry, before the sun sets."  I asked how much to go across and back and he gave me a price.  His English was good and he seemed straightforward so I was helped to climb along a narrow gangplank onto a curtain draped tourist boat called Lucky.  There were three young boat boys on board and we cast off straight away.  I clicked away happily as we pulled out past the huge Nile cruise boats.  The man in the white robe chatted about his work as a teacher and guide and his birth place in the village next to the Valley of the Kings.  As we approached the other side, he said "This is where I get off so can you pay me now?  The skipper will take you back to the other side."  I had a twinge of anxiety but responded on face value and gave him our agreed price.  He gave something to the boy in charge of the motor and jumped off the boat.  Now the skipper took on the role of chatting and insisted on taking a photo of me as it was getting dark and we headed back across the river with the final rays of the setting sun behind me.  The boys I had taken for sixteen now lit up cigarettes and offered me one.  I decided that my safest course of action was to continue to respond to them as though they were young boys.    We got safely back to the other side and the skipper manoevered the  boat expertly into its mooring tucked in between the Nile cruisers.  "Would you like tea?"  I was intrigued about how they would prepare tea on the boat and since I had already paid and was safely back on my side of the river, I accepted the offer.  The two younger boys busied themselves getting out a small stove and tea-making utensils while the skipper, whose English was OK, chatted.  He talked about his family, how he was glad to have his job because he slept on the boat, and how he was 24 years old.   "I am only small because I smoke."  I decided I needed to head off any misunderstandings by telling him I was very old, he immediately went into poetry about my beauty and I realised I was being targeted  for gigolo work!  I had heard earlier about the understanding in Egypt that single Western women often went to the country to hook up with younger men and this must have been how this young boy was reading the situation.  By this time, my tea was cool enough to gulp down so I extricated myself from the situation with promises to tell all my friends at the hotel about their boat.  It was a strange end to my day with the ancient kings and queens!

Luxor

The three hour car trip along the desert road between Alexandria and Cairo started my trip to Luxor.  I have become intrigued by the bee-hive shaped bird roosts that many farms have on their roofs or free-standing in clusters in their courtyards.  I still haven't found out how they are used but Cairo airport was confusing and I was charged 20 Egyptian pounds for a small bottle of water that would cost less than 2 pounds on the street.  But EgyptAir were a good company to fly with for the one and a bit hour flight to Luxor.  They have recently joined the Star Alliance so it will be easier to make them part of travel arrangements.  They are also punctual and there is plenty of leg room.

I didn't realise this had been saved as a draft so will attach a photo and post to edit later.  Sorry - tried but didn't make it.

8th September.  Have added a photo of some of the carved hieroglyphics in one of the temples at Luxor.  We couldn't take photos in the tombs and I'll check the other Luxor post to see what I still need to add here.

Midway

The pace of the TEFL course is getting so intense that it is taking all my focus and everything else is dropping by the wayside.  The only exercise I am getting is carrying my heavy bags of books and laptop up and down the stairs to the school and to my apartment.  I also walk down the lanes to the supermarket or the bank or the travel agent.  But I'm not eating much and have cut out alcohol all together because it is frowned on here, so I am hoping that I am not putting on any weight.

As for my  blog, I can only find the right conditions every few days - a few minutes between school commitments when there is an ethernet connection available and I have a bit of energy left!  

After school today, I am getting picked up at 5.30 (I have brought my backpack in with me to class) to go up to the airport in Cairo and fly up to Luxor for two nights to go on a tour of sites.  I would have loved to go on a Nile cruise but the minimum requirement is four days and I need to get back for classes on Sunday.  So it will be a flying visit to the kings and queens.

Almost lost connection but managed to publish and am now editing but I had better publish this and prepare for my next class before I get stressed!

Seeing the sites and sights

The weekend passed in a blur.  Friday I needed my own space so went to the beach early and then pottered in and out of the apartment completing my first assignment - a journal of our foreign language learning experience - and catching up with chores like picking up my laundry, buying some vegetables and moving the furniture around in the flat.  I'm starting to learn a few things like where the laundry is (I rapidly discovered there was no laundromat and no working washing machine in the apartment building).  I'm not sure why washing clothes is not catered for publicly here, but suspect it is because women are expected to stay home and wash by hand.  

I went to a vegetable shop that I have been to a couple of times before and this time I was greeted and invited into the inner shop where there were better vegetables.  It seems that all the vegetables and fruit you want to buy can be put in one bag and they weigh everything together and give you the price with a quick glance inside the bag.  Every time I work something out, I feel a little more confident about being in public.  I think my challenge for next week is going to be to flag down a minibus on the Corniche and travel down to the famous new Alexandria library.  Today in the lunch break, I walked down as far as the bend in the bay where you can see a fort on the distant headland and I know from our sight seeing tour yesterday that the library is on the nearer side of the curve of the headland.

Our tour yesterday gave me a much better sense of where things are in Alexandria.  We went to the standard tourist sites here like the catacombs, Pompey's column, the sultan's fort and a palace area.  One of the drivers from the school took us around and allowed us half an hour at each place.  It was very hard for us to work out the processes for getting in and how to interpret the site because our driver spoke very little English but we all helped each other and worked things out.  There seemed to be a lot of policemen at the different sites and sometimes we were expected to give them tips.   We also had to pay to go into the sites but as with all other things it was fairly cheap.

I'm writing this in a break between classes and have run out of time so will add one of the photos from our tour later.

TEFL in Alex

We have just finished the first week of our course and it has been very intensive!  Our daily routine involves catching the mini bus to Stanley in Alexandria at 8.45, starting our classes at 9.45, then four one hour classes through until 5.05 with a one hour lunch break.

On top of that, we are all struggling to work out the culture and customs.  The roads appear to be impossible to navigate as there are few explicit rules and so many diverse players from mule carts to articulated trucks.  Most people seem to get about in small minibuses which they hail from the side of the road but I still haven't worked out how they tell where they are going and it seems that sometimes they stop and sometimes they don't.  Also sometimes someone, who has hailed a bus and it has stopped, will get on but other times they will turn away.  I sat at lunch the other day and watched the people on the road outside and I still don't know what was happening in terms of getting a bus.

I'm going to try and add a great photo of a woman on the Alexandria front fishing and if it posts, I'll add more.

The ethernet at the college appears to be much more reliable than the wireless at the apartments, and I'm managing to post photos and longish text, so this seems to be the way to do my blog.  I will need to stay after classes and wait for the later buses at 7.00 or 9.00.  But I will also have to fight for the only two ethernet connection points that seem to be working.  The week here runs from Sunday to Thursday with the weekend on friday and saturday, so most people have gone straight away tonight and I have been able to grab a connection.

On Tuesday night some of us were able to get dropped off from the 5.00pm bus at a shopping centre called Carfour.  I needed to buy a few items of clothing so that I could make my wardrobe into a suitable presentation for our school teaching practice.  We have to wear sleeves below the elbow, knecklines up to our kneck and skirts or trousers below the knee.  We also have to avoid joggers.  Women wear a range of clothing on the streets from full covering including the face to modest western wear.  I have been coming to college in jeans and shirts but the sleeves are too short and we can't wear jeans so I wanted to get what people call a body stocking which is a bit like a long-sleeved leotard that many women wear to satisfy the covering requirement but also enables them to wear fashionable garb over the top.  It is hot but most of the buildings are relatively cool.  I also got a pair of trousers that weren't jeans and a little jacket that can be worn over short sleeves.  So with the longer skirts that I have brought with me, I should be able to dress appropriately.

The 5.00 bus has gone now and the evening is starting to cool down so I think I will go for a walk along the corniche to get my exercise and find something to eat. 

Bus to Alex

Today there is no water so I have come down early to let Abdullah, our assistant administrator know and also to snaffle some time on the wireless system before it gets jammed with people.  But I still seem to be confused about editing and posting so my previous two posts have no pictures and limited spelling.  I'll keep this short but try and post a picture.

Last night we went by bus for our orientation at the TEFL campus in Alexandria.  We all crammed in to a mini bus.  There are 18 people on the course but not all were there last night and some are local people who are staying elsewhere.  I've just heard the bus is here to take us to our first session this morning so must go.

In Alexandria

So far, I've lost two posts because I lose connection so I'm going to try and publish this now and see if it goes and then I'll edit it if it does.

It went!  But I think I need to keep the edit short.  I'm writing in the computer lab of the TEFL International apartment block in Alexandria in Egypt.  This seems to be the gathering point for everyone who is enrolled in the course as I am or who work here in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).  Most of the people who are enrolled are young American men and many are computer savvy and experienced travelers.   I have just been talking with a young Englishman who is trying to travel through Libya after the course as I plan to do.  But he is trying to do it without having to get a local travel agent to invite him and arrange his visa.  So he is bravely trying to negotiate the Egyptian bureaucracy in Cairo.  Getting my visa was complex enough doing it through a Libyan travel agent that I contacted via the web from Australia but I would find it very daunting to try and do it from Egypt without a Libyan invitation.  

We will have our orientation at the college campus this evening at seven.  

This was one of the posts that went missing when I tried to add to it from the wireless lab at the apartments so I'm continuing this from the ethernet labs in at the college campus.  I can't believe now that the orientation was only one week ago.  We have all crammed so much into this first week from phonology, to learning some arabic, to grammar, to teaching techniques, to learning some Swahili.  Not to mention trying to work out customs and appropriate behaviour.  At first I thought it was going to be impossible for me to go outside the apartments on my own but I have been experimenting with small excursions like to the local supermarket or the main shopping street and have discovered that if I just get on with things, mostly people ignore me or just want to acknowledge me.  I am still very cautious and anxious about appropriate ways to show respect but I no longer feel trapped in the domestic sphere!  I know I would have become very grumpy if I wasn't able to go off on my own from time to time.

The photos I am adding to the posts were taken on our daily bus ride into the college or on my lunchtime walks along the corniche which is the front or esplanade on the mediterranean that people may be familiar with from postcard pictures of Alex.  I'll add one here taken on our first bus ride to the orientation.

In Alexandria

I'm writing this in the wireless computer lab of the college apartments of TEFL International in Alexandria in Egypt.  When I first got into the blogspot site, the bar across the top was all in Arabic so I couldn't work out how to sign in.  So I started pressing randomly until I worked out a way to bring up English.  I then tried to make a new post but found that I had lost connection to the site so lost what I had done so far.  Safari was telling me that it couldn't find blogger.com.  I tried to calmly work out what was happening as my niece, Sholeh, has inspired me to do.  And that's when I realised that I had flagged my site as "Objectionable content"!  So if you're getting a red flag at the top of your page, it's not because I've started waving the banner!  It's because I've listed my own site as objectionable.  I've now signed off and on again and it seems to be working OK.

This lab appears to be the general gathering point for all the people who are enrolled on the course or who teach in TEFL.  It's air conditioned!  Most of the people are American or young and some are experienced travellers.  I've just chatted to a young Englishman who is trying to get a visa to travel through Libya after the course, as I am planning to do but he is trying to do it without getting formally invited by a local travel agent as I had to do from Australia.  He seems to be very persistent in trying to negotiate the Egyptian bureaucracy!

I lost my connection at that point and couldn't post.  Now I've logged on early in the morning before going to the college campus to start the course.  We had our orientation last night and the campus is a crazy, one hour drive away but in the heart of Alexandria so it will be a good base for looking around.  When I logged on, I found my other posts as drafts so I scrapped one and will post this one before I loose connection.

A few days later and I am going to try and add at the top a view from our apartment balcony into the garden courtyard below.

Off again

The picture is of a hedge sculpture that Celia has made in her garden with the vegetable patch behind.  I have just heard that Celia will be going into hospital for surgery on Monday when I am in Alexandria in Egypt so I wanted to have a cup of tea with her to wish her well.

I have moved into my anxious state as I do when I am about to move on.  My bags are packed.  I've put all my warm clothes that I don't need in Egypt into a bag to leave here until I return in August prior to going trekking in Ireland.  My case is much lighter than it was leaving Australia.  Tomorrow morning I will get a lift into Gloucester to catch the airport bus at midday ready for my flight in the evening.  I arrive in Cairo early on Friday morning and will be met by transport arranged from the International college where I will be undertaking my TESOL course in Alexandria.  The course is very intensive for four weeks but I'm hoping that I will be able to access the internet and keep up the blog.  So my next post will be about the wonders of Alexandria.

At the Vicarage

This is where my younger brother, Dave lives, with Jill, Hannah and Beth and my niece, Grace.  My brother is now semi-retired and is building a conservatory on the left hand corner of the picture.  The house is surrounded by farm land and I have enjoyed discovering some of the right-of-way walks that are unique to Britain.  Some farmers maintain these paths through their crops whilst others try to discourage people from accessing them.  I have discovered a lovely small lake that was apparently improved using government funds for wildlife.  Yesterday, I was sad to find a dead badger.

On Saturday Dave and Grace and I went into Gloucester for the day.  We had planned to take Grace for her swimming lesson at 11.00am but the roadworks on the A40 were so horrendous that the journey took us an hour rather than 15 minutes so we missed the class.  Discussion of the roadworks has taken over from the weather as the main topic of conversation in Gloucester.  Unfortunately, many people resent the proposed new busway because the busses are expensive and inconvenient and the roadwork will take 6 months to complete.  

Instead of going swimming, we walked through the docks to the cathedral and two of Gloucester's excellent museums.  The Folk Museum has a wonderful collection of children's toys and Grace was able to make her own puppet show using museum puppets.  In the museum shop we bought a piece of string with instructions for what was called Fumble Fingers.  I remember it as Cat's Cradle.  Then at the Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery we saw a wonderful exhibition called the Sharmanka Travelling Circus with kinetic sculptures by the Russian, Eduard Bersudsky.  Every hour the pieces burst into life accompanied by music and lights.  Grace was fascinated and loved working through the activity sheet.  I realised that I had seen one of his pieces a few years ago at the Edinburgh Festival.  It was a stunning clock tower with intricate figures that moved with the passage of time.

On Sunday, we drove over to Cheltenham for the dress rehearsal of my niece's dance show.  My niece is nearly seven and is a butterfly in the show that has a storyline about Sherwood Forest and goes on for 3 nights and a matinee this coming weekend.  A professional standard theatre is located in the school grounds with several international performances on the programme.  We were not encouraged to be in the audience for the dress rehearsal, but when I explained that I was Grace's aunt from Australia, they made an exception.  I was astonished at the number of children who were involved in the show.

This week, with Grace at School, my sister-in-law Jill at work and Dave working on the conservatory, I have been preparing for my flight to Alexandria in Egypt where I will be staying for four weeks to undertake a Teaching English as a Second Language Course.  In my next blog I'll write some more about that.