Name Recall

Egyptians are amazing at remembering names, but last night was a truly exceptional name recall.

First, I need to give you a little back story.

On a Thursday night last October, I was chilling with my friends Youssef and Shadi (Americans going by Arabic names). We didn't have any plans for the night, so we decided to just go explore Alexandria. One of our American friends, Jeremy, suggested that we go to the tailor and get shirts made for us. We took his suggestion and headed over to Menshea -- a district filled with souqs i.e. markets. We searched around the cloth market for a while, and after talking to shop owners for a good 30 minutes, Shadi finally picked out two sheets of cloth that he wanted to be made into a button down shirt (with a nice pocket on the front left). With the sheets of cloth in hand we headed to the tailor's shop located right in the middle of the souq. The tailor greeted us with the typical اهلان و سهلا مرحبا بك عامل اه الحمد الله الي اخره (translation: Welcome, welcome, welcome, how are you, thanks be to God, etc.). He then started talking to us about our friend Jeremy and asked us how Jeremy was doing. After a good 10 minutes of getting to know each other, we finally got down to business. First, he asks us how much Shadi paid for the sheets, and give Shadi props for getting a good price. Then, he wants to know every detail about the shirt he is about to make: casual or formal collar, one or two buttons on the wrist, what color buttons, tight or regular fit, and then all the regular measurements.

Shadi returned a couple days later to pick up his shirts. They were pretty styling, so I decided to take his lead and get my own personal Egyptian button down. I went through the same routine as I went through with Shadi before. But, like the last time I didn't return after a couple days to pick up my shirt.

I returned yesterday to pick up my shirt -- almost 4 months after I had dropped off my sheet of cloth. When I entered his shop, he greeted me by name, asked me how I was doing, asked how Jeremy, Youssef, and Shadi were doing, and after the 10 minutes of catch up, he went to the corner of his shop and pulled out my shirt from a pile without a single second of searching around for my shirt that has been sitting around for 4 months. The cost for his services 30 Egyptian pounds (less than $6). Pretty sweet stuff.

Picture Story

They say, "A picture is worth more than one thousand words." But, what happens when it's a picture of words. Decide for yourself.

Above: Christian district in the old city of Jerusalem

Below: Security wall in Bethlehem

Here's two pictures I found on another blog.

The Obama imitation is pretty cool.

 

Peak Oil

Is it something to worry about? Yea, eventually.

But what is it?

We all know that oil will run out someday. But, that day will come far after we stop using oil for industry and transportation. More important than when we run out of oil is when maximum oil production starts decreasing. Ever since oil was discovered, world wide oil production has been increasing along what geologists/economists call a Hubbert curve. 

The idea behind this curve is that obviously the world's biggest oil fields were discovered first and companies grew efficient with experience so initially production quickly multiplied. As time went on, smaller and smaller fields were found and growth in production slowed down. There's plenty of untapped oil in the world (although clearly exhaustible), but the amount of easily produced untapped oil shrinks every year. As new oil fields get smaller, growth in production decreased, and at the same time, reserves in the biggest oil fields decrease. This means that at a certain point production hits its max, and then starts to drop. 

The theory goes: a drop in oil production (supply) will lead to higher prices assuming that demand keeps growing at its current rate. In order to avoid the high prices, you want to extend peak oil as far in the future as possible by consuming less oil today, so you can buy some time to figure out how to use less oil tomorrow. 

Peak oil is still considered a theory. And, so is evolution. Furthermore, everyone gives a different date for when they believe that oil production will hit its peak. Some scientists say it has already happened, and some say it won't happen for twenty years. In a Freakonomics blog post, Levitt, points out that there are three questions to Peak Oil: "1) will the cost of supplying oil jump, (2) If it does jump, by how much, and (3) how elastic is demand." According to Hubbert's Peak Oil theory the answer to number 1 is yes. The answer to number 2 goes to someone with data (which no one has because production numbers are all fudged throughout the world due to oligopolistic competition). The answer to number 3 is totally up to us. How quick can we adapt. We want to make that demand as elastic as possible. How do we do that? An energy revolution. How do we do that? Well, there are some good ideas Friedman's new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded about creating energy infrastructures and moving away from fossil fuels. A lot of his solutions involve government action. Fortunately, in America, the politicians are accountable to the people, so as long as an energy revolution is salient among American citizens these solutions can come about to not only protect America or any other country or the world from peak oil, but climate change and less oil dependent politics.

Anyways, here's a funny youtube video on peak oil

He and She

An Egyptian mix between Summer Lovin' and Anything You Can Do

Tennis

It's super easy to get your tennis fix in Alexandria. I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out. There are 12 clay courts at Nadi Sporting, and there are always pros and captains on call. Captain is Egyptian for ball boy. That's right, everyone (even noobs) uses ball boys. 

A tennis lesson costs less than $10 for a 45 minutes. And, the best part: you never have to pick up any balls because you have a captain doing it for you. In regards to playing ability, the pros are at a very similar level pros at any tennis club in America. The only problem was the pro kept telling me to swing over my shoulder in English. I can assure you that I was swinging over my shoulder the entire time. 

I am very optimistic about my tennis game this semester. I'll rack up some experience on clay and get some cheap lessons. Now, I just have to find some players to hit with.

Premeds

I woke up freezing at 4 am when I had set my space heater to 19 Celsius (66 Farenheit). I jumped out of bed and ran into the hall, so I could throw up in a trash can without making a mess. Since Egyptians college kids are literally nocturnal, 4 guys came running out of their rooms and asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. No, I didn't. I finally felt good after throwing up from the food poisoning. Food poisoning is not something new. But, one of the guys in his last year at the college of medicine insisted that I take 2 pills to of streptoquin to kill the settle my stomach by killing the bacteria inside. I refused for five minutes, but I finally took it because I figured if he keeps it with him in his room, so this must be a pretty common cure. I figured it wouldn't do any harm if I just appeased him and there was no harm done. In the morning when the internet was back up and I looked what I had taken, well see for yourself... Google entries 4-8

The next morning, I explained to my friend that he really shouldn't use that medicine. What kind of generic pill only returns 820 results? (The answer: a drug only used in a country that has yet to fully embrace the internet).  The google sites (nothing official) claimed the drug normally costs 1.5 Egyptian Pounds (30 cents) and it is usually misprescribed to unsuspecting foreigners. I told him. He responded, "That's because it treats a special stomach bacteria that only lives in Egypt. They don't have this disease anywhere else in the world, so they don't need this pill anywhere else in the world. You need to keep taking the pills."

Later that day, he told me, "By the way, I have never been sick in my life. I can't get sick. I am very, very strong physically. But, I am very weak emotionally, and I get down on myself really easily, that's why I always have to talk to people about my feelings."

Anyways, here's an insight into one of the many characters whom I've met here.

ABC as easy as 123

The Arabic  version of Sesame Street is teaching us to sing the ABCs

And here's the 123s

A Counter Intuitive Answer

Who thinks sweatshops are a good thing?

The New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof.

In his op-ed article yesterday, Kristof argued sweatshop labor is a relative blessing for people in the world's poorest countries. There are many jobs that are more dangerous and hazardous that pay less. Then, of course, there's the jobs in the unemployment pool which pays $0. Sweatshops suck, but we all have to eat.

Why do people campaign against sweatshops? Because to the West, these working conditions are inhumane. What we sometimes forget is that the living conditions in the poorest countries can be even more inhumane. Maybe this is just a crazy thought, but it's an idea to consider, maybe sweatshops are as bad as we think they are, but that can actually be a good thing for certain people in relative terms.

Picking Up Chicks Part III

Let's get deeper into this well regulated market.

First, you can't say "that's what she said" to the previous statement. They simply don't have that type of joke here.

Hooking up is out of the question. But, so is what Americans would call traditional dating. There are no dinner or movie dates, and there's never time to spend alone with someone outside of Egypt's watchful eyes. If you're sneaky, you can sneak in some long walks along the Corniche (right next to the beach), but don't even think about kissing her. Culturally, PDA is --حرام -- literally, forbidden. People love to hold hands and they get pretty touchy down by the beach, but you will never see a kiss in public.

One of my Egyptian professors calls her own culture a "culture of glue." It's a reference to the marriage-centric thinking of Egyptians. When I meet new people, the typical order of questions is "Where are you from?" "What's your name?" "Are you married?" "Well, are you engaged Everyone gets married as soon as possible, and Egyptian guys consider all Egyptian girls mozas (babes). I've been asked, in complete seriousness, if the three girls I was traveling with were my wives. Of course, I said yes and the Egyptians gave me a lot of props.

I'm not going to contradict Harry's advice to Sally on their ride to New York, but Egypt really takes it to the extreme in considering any acquaintanceship between a guy and a girl paramount to eternal love.

A couple 16 year-old boys told me that in Egypt, no one is looking to date, everyone just wants to get married. So be careful when you ask a girl for her number, that's the fast track to marriage or a dearly broken heart.

And, that's the dating scene in Egypt.

Picking Up Chicks Part II

Here's a video on one man's experience with women in Egypt. 

Picking Up Chicks

The fundamentals of the game are the same wherever you go, but the Egyptian game has some striking peculiarities. You might say the difference derives from the contrast of America's free market to the well regulated markets of Egypt.

In the next couple posts, I am going to explore this idea. I didn't post enough stuff to keep people interested in December, so I'm going be like the media and take a sensationalist bias to start up the new year.

What's the relationship between guys and girls in Egypt?

There is no such thing as "just friends" in Egypt. If a guy and girl hang out by themselves, they must be dating. But since dating doesn't exist, the only reasonable conclusion that you can make is that they are on track to get married. 

Guys and girls don't hang out in groups together. There are exceptions to this rule, but this is true 90% of the time. Guys hang with guys and girls hang with girls. Geographically speaking, college kids are doomed. The guys dorms are a couple kilometers away from the girls dorms. But, that's not too important because you would never be able to sneak past the armed guards who stand in front of the only entrance to the fort-like dorms. I'm not talking about sneaking into the dorm after lights out (there's no lights out, but I say that in a figurative way), I'm saying you can't go in the opposite sex's dorm at any time of the day. Furthermore, the girls have a 9:30 curfew everyday of the week, so there's no possibility for social life during the night. 

Why guys and girls still don't try to circumvent these external obstacles? I don't know. You can put it up to the culture, it's just considered completely weird for guys and girls to hang out. Last Thanksgiving, for instance, all the students in the Middlebury abroad program along with our Egyptian hall mates ate dinner in the apartment of our professor's apartment. The Egyptian guys hung out with everyone, and each of them made small talk and treated the girls kindly. On the other hand, the Egyptian girls hung out in a separate room, and they didn't talk with us at all with the exception of one girl who made small talk with a couple guys. I asked one of the guys what his opinion is on hanging out with girls after going out on night, and he told me that he finds it really weird because he just doesn't know what to say to a girl.

Christmas x 2

It turns out they had Christmas in Egypt, it was just a little late -- January 7. That's when the Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas. I went to a Coptic service on Coptic Christmas Eve. I've had never seen a service before, but I knew they were into chanting. After 10 minutes of straight chanting that I couldn't understand, I understood that they are really into chanting, so I bounced. It was interesting to see women in Alexandria without Hijabs (because they weren't Muslims), but other than that, I couldn't get any value out of the service. 

The next day, we had Christmas dinner with the owner of a restaurant along the Corniche whom we befriended in September. She is Coptic and her restaurant was completely decorated with Christmas decorations. The restaurant is actually called Restaurant (مطعم). She served us an awesome mixed drink with mint and lemonade (no kicker though), salad, rice, and turkey and even an after dinner tea all on the house (and this isn't the first time she's done this). We met her uncle, cousin, good friends, and chef throughout the night. So here's a post to the hospitality of Egyptians (احسن ناس).

Bartering

It's 2009, and we're back in action. I just arrived in Cairo International Airport (CAI)  two days ago, and I was warmly welcomed by the typical "Welcome to Egypt..."

"... Would you like a taxi?" 

You have to be careful when catching a taxi at places like train stops or airports because the taxi fare varies greatly depending on who's taxi you enter. At CAI, there are three rounds of taxi cab drivers. The first are the "official" guys, their target is foreigners who didn't plan for limos or tour buses beforehand. These guys work in a kiosk, speak fluent English, and they even have a clipboard full of "official" prices to different destinations within Cairo. His taxi is the most expensive because he seems legitimate, and truth be told, he is a little more legitimate that the others because at least he knows how to work the system. The second line of defenses comes right after I exit the airport. These prices are generally too high, but I just wanted to get to my destination, so we agreed on a price and he took me to the car, but then asked me to wait. He told his buddy to watch me while he looked for another customer. I told him I wasn't going to wait, so I went to the third line of taxis: the guys that just wait in their cars and don't try to play games to entice you into their taxis. These drivers wanted to agree on a price up front, so we agreed on a fair price. 

Here's where we get into the bartering. After I put all my stuff in the taxi, the cabbie told me that I had to pay 5 more pounds (equivalent $1) for the parking ticket. 

I call this request the "Just a Dollar Game." It's a game between Egyptians and foreigners, and it always begins once a sale is made. If you can score an extra dollar for every transaction that you make you are going to be considerably more successful, especially since this is always a bottom line profit. So, this is an important economic game. Usually this game is played in a souk (Arabic marketplace), where you might be bartering over a sweatshirt, soccer jersey, or scarves. There's an initial bartering process that usually begins with two vastly different prices between the customer and merchant. After a couple rounds of converging prices, the merchant will try to close the deal. If he can't simply get the foreigner to pay for his overpriced good/service, then he'll concede to the foreigner's offer. To him, the sale has been made, but instead of just giving up he offers one dollar more than the foreigner's offer. The idea is that the foreigner (untrained in the art of bartering) is happy that they are so close to an agreement that the foreigner might as well just pay the extra one dollar to finalize the transaction. But, if the foreigner is smart, he will know that like him a dollar is just a dollar to the merchant. The merchant would far rather make the transaction than lose a sale because he was stubborn over a dollar. So that's where the "Just a Dollar Game" starts.

"We already agreed on 60 (a really generous price in the first place), so I'm not going to pay an extra dollar" (My lines translated from Arabic)

"You speak Arabic good. Don't worry, one dollar is no big deal"

"Great, then we don't have a problem. The price is 60"

"60 plus 5 is 65"

"55 plus 5 is 60"

"The price of the taxi is 60 plus 5 for the ticket"

"I play basketball and soccer. I don't play the dollar game"

"Ok, no problem..." goes on to talk about how his son teaches Arabic and tells me about his service in the military. You have to have two faces here, the bartering face and the human face; once you get the bartering out of the way, you can just be yourself and meet someone new.