So, I have moved into my new place - I love it!!!! I am so fortunate and I can almost see the Mediterranean from my balcony. Well, everything about it is really nice. But I do not yet have an internet connection and I am now writing from work to explain my situation. I will therefore be brief. Hopefully I can be up and surfing by next weekend, but with Ramadan and other cultural factors, it may be a little later.
I'll be back.
Sunday, September 30
Sunday, September 23
Iftar continued
Wow, Ramadan has started to really hit me: I have a constant sensation of eating too much. The very rich food served at Iftar is taking its revenge on my poor belly which is not used to eating so much oil of all kinds. So I'm drinking anise seed tea in my office - yes, because I am not not drinking during Ramadan, it would kill me not to and I am not a Muslim so I can drink.
Friday night I had a succulent dinner at my friends: rice with cinnamon and fried chicken liver, nuts and sultanas on top, roast chicken, vegetables and a spinach/okra bake with cheese which was delicious. I ate more than the other 4 family members put together because my hosts would not accept when I said I was full. It was really nice, but a bit too much food.
Tomorrow I will go to Iftar at the Swedish Institute - they have one each year and invite people who work with them or who are otherwise related to it (for example all the Swedish people in Alex - we are 13 all together!). The day after that me and my colleagues are making Iftar for our other colleagues, this will be nice I think. I will make lassies* for afters - to help the digestion along and to have something sweet after the meal.
So it will be the week of the organised Iftars and also of concerts - there is some kind of festival going on in Alex with Mid eastern and Spanish vibes linked together. I am not sure what it is exactly but I will go see.
Hmm it's still raining. I am feeling a bit under the weather actually. I am missing home a bit but I know that it is an illusion (what is home anyway? It's not like I would like to go back to living with my parents, that would really be frustrating). It's because of the fact that I am feeling that my work and my studies are not progressing as I would like. I am doing well though, there is no question, it's just that all my life languages have been easily acquired to me but Arabic is proving to be difficult. Also I think I do not have a brilliant teacher, but with my travelling schedule for this autumn it will not be possible to take a normal course. Anyway, I am sure I will get better.
I'm looking forward to some Spanish tunes tonight, I think it's just what the doctor prescribed.
*Lassie is an Indian drink based on mango and yoghurt which is seasoned with cardamom and possibly some honey.
Friday night I had a succulent dinner at my friends: rice with cinnamon and fried chicken liver, nuts and sultanas on top, roast chicken, vegetables and a spinach/okra bake with cheese which was delicious. I ate more than the other 4 family members put together because my hosts would not accept when I said I was full. It was really nice, but a bit too much food.
Tomorrow I will go to Iftar at the Swedish Institute - they have one each year and invite people who work with them or who are otherwise related to it (for example all the Swedish people in Alex - we are 13 all together!). The day after that me and my colleagues are making Iftar for our other colleagues, this will be nice I think. I will make lassies* for afters - to help the digestion along and to have something sweet after the meal.
So it will be the week of the organised Iftars and also of concerts - there is some kind of festival going on in Alex with Mid eastern and Spanish vibes linked together. I am not sure what it is exactly but I will go see.
Hmm it's still raining. I am feeling a bit under the weather actually. I am missing home a bit but I know that it is an illusion (what is home anyway? It's not like I would like to go back to living with my parents, that would really be frustrating). It's because of the fact that I am feeling that my work and my studies are not progressing as I would like. I am doing well though, there is no question, it's just that all my life languages have been easily acquired to me but Arabic is proving to be difficult. Also I think I do not have a brilliant teacher, but with my travelling schedule for this autumn it will not be possible to take a normal course. Anyway, I am sure I will get better.
I'm looking forward to some Spanish tunes tonight, I think it's just what the doctor prescribed.
*Lassie is an Indian drink based on mango and yoghurt which is seasoned with cardamom and possibly some honey.
Il pleut
Il s'est mis a pleuvoir. J'aime la pluie autour de la Méditerranée - doux et chaud. C'est dimanche - une journée que d'habitude signifie la pause et un film le soir au cinéma. C'était aussi - auparavant- la journée après une soirée réussite avec mes amis de Bruxelles - les amis qui sont comme la groupe d'amis dans "Friends", chaque un avec sa propre caractère et son charme. Ils me manquent!!! Beaucoup.
Le Champagne, les repas ensemble et les verres en terrasse. Ça me manque. J'ai une journée de nostalgie aujourd'hui, mais je vais bien. C'est seulement que je veux leur dire que ils sont très importantes pour moi et même si je suis loin maintenant, ils sont toujours avec moi - dans mes rêves et mes souvenirs et surtout dans mon cœur. Je reviendrais je serai très contente si on pourra fêter le nouvelle ans avec vous, je vais essayer de l'organiser comme ça! Champagne galore mes amis, Champagne galore!
Le Champagne, les repas ensemble et les verres en terrasse. Ça me manque. J'ai une journée de nostalgie aujourd'hui, mais je vais bien. C'est seulement que je veux leur dire que ils sont très importantes pour moi et même si je suis loin maintenant, ils sont toujours avec moi - dans mes rêves et mes souvenirs et surtout dans mon cœur. Je reviendrais je serai très contente si on pourra fêter le nouvelle ans avec vous, je vais essayer de l'organiser comme ça! Champagne galore mes amis, Champagne galore!
Friday, September 21
Iftar
I don't have much time today - I am invited to my friend's for Iftar - the traditional breakfast, the breaking of the fast for the day. I cannot fast myself, that is - I cannot live without drinking water! I believe that not drinking water in the heat is a crime for your organism, but I respect and am surprised at people who can do it.
I need to now go and get some cakes from the bakery to bring as a gift to my host - I am really excited and I will write more about it tomorrow.
Yesterday I was in a coma it seems. The new apartment has a life of its own, i.e. all the preparations for moving in etc. just pumped all energy out of me yesterday. But tomorrow the final touches will be made for us to move in. I cannot wait - even if I am really ok where I am now too, but it's going to be nice to get my own place where I can put my own things and decorate the alls as I wish. After all I think I will stay here for 2 year.
I need to now go and get some cakes from the bakery to bring as a gift to my host - I am really excited and I will write more about it tomorrow.
Yesterday I was in a coma it seems. The new apartment has a life of its own, i.e. all the preparations for moving in etc. just pumped all energy out of me yesterday. But tomorrow the final touches will be made for us to move in. I cannot wait - even if I am really ok where I am now too, but it's going to be nice to get my own place where I can put my own things and decorate the alls as I wish. After all I think I will stay here for 2 year.
Wednesday, September 19
Green Oranges
Ahlane!
After my quite heavy political statement of yesterday I wanted to lighten up the mood a bit. I had a wonderful afternoon today. Ramadan comes with its perks: finishing work early.
After work I walked into town with my two wonderful colleagues, aimlessly at first, then in quest to seek a rheumatism bracelet for Laila and then, when passing a fool seller on the street my colleagues succumbed to the temptation: we shall have fool for dinner! Fool is actually something that Egyptians (at least from what I have heard) have for breakfast. It is a special type of brown bean boiled into perfection which you then eat either as is or, which is more frequent, served with different "sauces" or seasoning. We bought boiled beans plain from the man on the street and set out to find some other ingredients for the accessories my colleagues were cooking up in their minds as we walked along Saad Zaghloul.
Not far from home we found some open fruit mongers and bought tomatoes, parsley, coriander and some green oranges. Actually I didn't know what they were until food was ready on the table: two delicious types of fool (tomato/garlic/parsley/coriander and olive oil/fresh lemon juice) brown pita bread, onion and olives. I had initially thought that these green round citrus fruit were lemons (or huge limes) but I asked and got the answer: green oranges.
Wicked - new tasting experience! I thought it would be really sour, since not ripe fruit tends to be just that but when sticking my teeth into it I felt an enormous sense of happiness of having discovered a really basic and silly little thing: one can eat and enjoy (really enjoy!) immature oranges. Of course I had to know if they were not just another kind of fruit, that one actually is meant to eat raw but no - apparently not! So here is the thing, oranges grow in Europe too, how come I did not know this before? Do we not eat green oranges because they are called oranges and everyone expect them to be orange? Do we not eat them green because by the time they get to our shops they have ripened in that unnatural exported fruit type of way? Probably a combination of the two. I believe that had I seen a green orange in a supermarket in Sweden, would not have chosen it, I had gone for the orange one. (Some day I will post a separate post on the wonderful fruit one get here).
See what little pleasures one misses when one stays in one place all ones life and sticks to old habits and patterns of thinking. Ok, I will not make this into politics...I will just say that I have a mission: candied green orange peels - mmm. Cannot wait to move into my new flat next week - then I will start cooking and exploring this country for real.
God natt.
After my quite heavy political statement of yesterday I wanted to lighten up the mood a bit. I had a wonderful afternoon today. Ramadan comes with its perks: finishing work early.
After work I walked into town with my two wonderful colleagues, aimlessly at first, then in quest to seek a rheumatism bracelet for Laila and then, when passing a fool seller on the street my colleagues succumbed to the temptation: we shall have fool for dinner! Fool is actually something that Egyptians (at least from what I have heard) have for breakfast. It is a special type of brown bean boiled into perfection which you then eat either as is or, which is more frequent, served with different "sauces" or seasoning. We bought boiled beans plain from the man on the street and set out to find some other ingredients for the accessories my colleagues were cooking up in their minds as we walked along Saad Zaghloul.
Not far from home we found some open fruit mongers and bought tomatoes, parsley, coriander and some green oranges. Actually I didn't know what they were until food was ready on the table: two delicious types of fool (tomato/garlic/parsley/coriander and olive oil/fresh lemon juice) brown pita bread, onion and olives. I had initially thought that these green round citrus fruit were lemons (or huge limes) but I asked and got the answer: green oranges.
Wicked - new tasting experience! I thought it would be really sour, since not ripe fruit tends to be just that but when sticking my teeth into it I felt an enormous sense of happiness of having discovered a really basic and silly little thing: one can eat and enjoy (really enjoy!) immature oranges. Of course I had to know if they were not just another kind of fruit, that one actually is meant to eat raw but no - apparently not! So here is the thing, oranges grow in Europe too, how come I did not know this before? Do we not eat green oranges because they are called oranges and everyone expect them to be orange? Do we not eat them green because by the time they get to our shops they have ripened in that unnatural exported fruit type of way? Probably a combination of the two. I believe that had I seen a green orange in a supermarket in Sweden, would not have chosen it, I had gone for the orange one. (Some day I will post a separate post on the wonderful fruit one get here).
See what little pleasures one misses when one stays in one place all ones life and sticks to old habits and patterns of thinking. Ok, I will not make this into politics...I will just say that I have a mission: candied green orange peels - mmm. Cannot wait to move into my new flat next week - then I will start cooking and exploring this country for real.
God natt.
Tuesday, September 18
Muhammed as a dog
I'm sorry I haven't written in forever, honestly I didn't think anybody was reading what I wrote so I didn't have such bad feelings. Now that I have learned that I have at least one reader, I am happy to continue. Thanks!
I'm back in Alex, it's Ramadan and I am following the now international debate about the Swedish artist Lars Vilk's drawings of Muhammed as a dog (actually a dog meant to be put in a roundabout, which has been a Swedish hype since sometime early this year. I mean dogs of all kinds in roundabouts, not Muhammed the prophet). Again the discussion of freedom of expression is under way and in Swedish media one can read many good articles about the importance for a secularised state to uphold the liberties of a free society, including of course a freedom of expression.
Per Baun writes in Svenska Dagbladet today:
"The secular democracy presupposes free questioning of convictions. But if we want to avoid harming conviction we need to give up that principle.
In such a scenario it is the groups who are most easily insulted (and prone to violence) who draw the limits of the freedom of expression. However you call such a state, it is not a democracy.
The enemies of freedom of expression want to make their message more easily digestible by presenting it as an appeal for consideration and respect. By describing themselves as victims, fundamentalists surprisingly often succeed in getting the debate to be about how insulted they are and not about their own intolerance.
They use the soft democracy's inherent fear of not being inclusive enough to advance their positions. But the secular democracy has no reason to apologise for its freedom of expression.
And those who now protest in the name of the Islamic indignation should be aware of that they can do so only in the protection of the same secular freedom of expression that they wish to restrict" (the latter of course applies to those in secular democracies).
Not a bad article and I have read many like it, but let's see what we are overlooking here. For all of us working in the Middle East this kind of illustrations can harm the work we are trying to carry out. In today's globalised world it is enough that one intolerant person hears that someone has defied the rules of Islam and depicted the prophet to create mass protests and casting of fatwas on the responsible artists and publishers of the illustrations. We know this of experience since Jyllands Posten (the Danish newspaper) published caricatures of Muhammed in 2005.
I am occidental and I would hope that the world could be a freer place, but lets face the facts most fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, Hindus etc.) live in those countries where poverty reigns and democracies a best are the names given to the reign by its leaders. Palestine is a Democracy, but there the secularised democracies did not let the people's choices rule due to the nature of Hamas. What had have happened if the West had accepted Hamas and the money flow had not been cut etc.? We will never know. Poverty, desperation and corruption and rivalry between countrymen is reality there and in so many other Muslim countries.
Poor people often are poor out of external factors, not because they are lazy and do not work. If one does not have anything how can one then begin to understand that the only thing in their life which gives them hope and provides them security in which they trust can be questioned and humiliated by the people they see on TV and that seemingly have all they need and even more? I can imagine that they do not understand why an artist on purpose humiliates Islam, and depicts Muhammed and also humiliates the prophet by making him a dog. The Muslim leaders who are well educated and live in the West have accepted the discussion but how can poor people in rural areas who at best know how to read and write, take this information and process it as we who have food, safety and even luxurious goods in abundance can?
I have a hard time knowing what this debate will bring. My conclusion would be to educate the poor- voila! It's what I am trying to do, but it is a far bigger task than drawing Muhammed as a dog to stir up emotions and to put freedom of expression to the test.
Many of my friend back home categorically dismiss the Muslim world's reaction to these depictions but I cannot help finding them arrogant and intolerant in another way: they cannot imagine life without all that they have and have gotten use to. I bet if they were even only quite poor in Swedish standards they would not even get into the discussion from such an angle - they would be more concerned about paying their bills and finding work or, unfortunately hating the immigrants for their intolerance, turning to nationalistic and racist organisations which, after all isn't any better than the reaction we see from the Muslim world.
Happy Ramadan to all of you - it is after all a month of love, peace and reflection.
I'm back in Alex, it's Ramadan and I am following the now international debate about the Swedish artist Lars Vilk's drawings of Muhammed as a dog (actually a dog meant to be put in a roundabout, which has been a Swedish hype since sometime early this year. I mean dogs of all kinds in roundabouts, not Muhammed the prophet). Again the discussion of freedom of expression is under way and in Swedish media one can read many good articles about the importance for a secularised state to uphold the liberties of a free society, including of course a freedom of expression.
Per Baun writes in Svenska Dagbladet today:
"The secular democracy presupposes free questioning of convictions. But if we want to avoid harming conviction we need to give up that principle.
In such a scenario it is the groups who are most easily insulted (and prone to violence) who draw the limits of the freedom of expression. However you call such a state, it is not a democracy.
The enemies of freedom of expression want to make their message more easily digestible by presenting it as an appeal for consideration and respect. By describing themselves as victims, fundamentalists surprisingly often succeed in getting the debate to be about how insulted they are and not about their own intolerance.
They use the soft democracy's inherent fear of not being inclusive enough to advance their positions. But the secular democracy has no reason to apologise for its freedom of expression.
And those who now protest in the name of the Islamic indignation should be aware of that they can do so only in the protection of the same secular freedom of expression that they wish to restrict" (the latter of course applies to those in secular democracies).
Not a bad article and I have read many like it, but let's see what we are overlooking here. For all of us working in the Middle East this kind of illustrations can harm the work we are trying to carry out. In today's globalised world it is enough that one intolerant person hears that someone has defied the rules of Islam and depicted the prophet to create mass protests and casting of fatwas on the responsible artists and publishers of the illustrations. We know this of experience since Jyllands Posten (the Danish newspaper) published caricatures of Muhammed in 2005.
I am occidental and I would hope that the world could be a freer place, but lets face the facts most fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, Hindus etc.) live in those countries where poverty reigns and democracies a best are the names given to the reign by its leaders. Palestine is a Democracy, but there the secularised democracies did not let the people's choices rule due to the nature of Hamas. What had have happened if the West had accepted Hamas and the money flow had not been cut etc.? We will never know. Poverty, desperation and corruption and rivalry between countrymen is reality there and in so many other Muslim countries.
Poor people often are poor out of external factors, not because they are lazy and do not work. If one does not have anything how can one then begin to understand that the only thing in their life which gives them hope and provides them security in which they trust can be questioned and humiliated by the people they see on TV and that seemingly have all they need and even more? I can imagine that they do not understand why an artist on purpose humiliates Islam, and depicts Muhammed and also humiliates the prophet by making him a dog. The Muslim leaders who are well educated and live in the West have accepted the discussion but how can poor people in rural areas who at best know how to read and write, take this information and process it as we who have food, safety and even luxurious goods in abundance can?
I have a hard time knowing what this debate will bring. My conclusion would be to educate the poor- voila! It's what I am trying to do, but it is a far bigger task than drawing Muhammed as a dog to stir up emotions and to put freedom of expression to the test.
Many of my friend back home categorically dismiss the Muslim world's reaction to these depictions but I cannot help finding them arrogant and intolerant in another way: they cannot imagine life without all that they have and have gotten use to. I bet if they were even only quite poor in Swedish standards they would not even get into the discussion from such an angle - they would be more concerned about paying their bills and finding work or, unfortunately hating the immigrants for their intolerance, turning to nationalistic and racist organisations which, after all isn't any better than the reaction we see from the Muslim world.
Happy Ramadan to all of you - it is after all a month of love, peace and reflection.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)