What do you do when you don't have a computer, but want to use a computer?
Well, go to a cyber -- not to be mistaken for a net cafe, which is a cafe with internet, but no computers. Each cyber has its own personality (one nearby the university is called Spiderman), but they're generally made up of 8 to 10 computers with headphones and camera, printer, and internet. The crowd is usually little kids playing video games or 18-30 year olds using the computers for yahoo chats and Facebook.
It's super cheap. Only 1.5 Egyptian pounds per hour, and 1/4 of a pound for each page that you print. The downside is that these computers are pretty slow, and that they're filled with viruses.
I don't know why they call the cyber the cyber, but I have seen someone "cyber" in the cyber.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Apple Store in Cairo
Almost nobody uses apple computers in Egypt, and there's no official Apple store in Egypt -- except for authorized Apple retailers that look exactly like an Apple store in the United States.
In case anyone needs information on an Apple store in Cairo, here it is:
Trade Line is an authorized Apple retailer that can fix computers. The address is 35 Sharia Gemeat al-dool al-arabia in the district of al-mohandiseen. Or in Arabic, ٣٥ شراع جامعاة الدول العربية في المهندسين.
According to their business card, they are also located in Citystars (store 50) and Dandymall (store 105A).
Telephone numbers:
(202) 33 37 4041
(202) 33 36 8465
(202) 24 80 0844
In addition, there is another Apple store called Apple Line in Garden City at 75 El Kasr El Einy.
Finding these places wasn't the easiest thing, so I figured this is some good information to hide on a random site that google cannot ping.
p.s. The following is an afterthought, but I could've just spent the whole post on this topic. Bargaining extends to places as formal as an Apple authorized retailer. The price for a new hard drive, os x leopard, and the installation started at 1250 Egyptian pounds, but after a little conversation was lowered to 850 (that's a difference of $75). I didn't even know that bargaining was possible, but I just gave the standard blank look that reads "Oh, it's really that much, I guess I won't be able to afford it." And just wait for the retailer to say something.
In case anyone needs information on an Apple store in Cairo, here it is:
Trade Line is an authorized Apple retailer that can fix computers. The address is 35 Sharia Gemeat al-dool al-arabia in the district of al-mohandiseen. Or in Arabic, ٣٥ شراع جامعاة الدول العربية في المهندسين.
According to their business card, they are also located in Citystars (store 50) and Dandymall (store 105A).
Telephone numbers:
(202) 33 37 4041
(202) 33 36 8465
(202) 24 80 0844
In addition, there is another Apple store called Apple Line in Garden City at 75 El Kasr El Einy.
Finding these places wasn't the easiest thing, so I figured this is some good information to hide on a random site that google cannot ping.
p.s. The following is an afterthought, but I could've just spent the whole post on this topic. Bargaining extends to places as formal as an Apple authorized retailer. The price for a new hard drive, os x leopard, and the installation started at 1250 Egyptian pounds, but after a little conversation was lowered to 850 (that's a difference of $75). I didn't even know that bargaining was possible, but I just gave the standard blank look that reads "Oh, it's really that much, I guess I won't be able to afford it." And just wait for the retailer to say something.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Ascenseur in Free Fall
Expect the unexpected and you'll be prepared for the unpreparable in Egypt. Last night as my friends and I were trying to get back to our hotel room in Cairo, we tried to use the elevator (this is normal) instead of climbing up 8 flights of stairs to the roof. After we got up 3 and 1/2 floors our elevator started slowing down and started reversing direction. We were falling slowly, but much faster than an Egyptian elevator should descend. We were able to open the elevator door and stop the elevator in place, but we were in the middle of two floors, so we had to jump out of the elevator onto the floor below us. This was clearly a crazy experience, but it felt abnormally normal.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
OLPCorps: Middlebury College
Here's what a couple buddies in Alexandria and I are trying to do this summer.
Student-led teams will:
Travel to one of the 53 African countries of their choosing for 9-10 weeks
Participate in a 10-day orientation in Kigali, Rwanda at OLPC’s office
Receive up to $10,000 (USD) per team to cover operating costs
Deploy 100 XO laptops, including hardware and support
Collaborate with up to 100 other teams as part of a life-long global network empowering a generation of children
Send one representative to MIT/OLPC’s all-expense paid summit from Oct 10th-12th 2009
Below is a rough draft of our proposal... if you have any suggestions or advice, I am not opposed to listening...
OLPCorps: Middlebury College Egypt
Our team has teamed up with the Rotaract Club of Alexandria , Middlebury School in Alexandria and eduWeavers to establish an OLPCorps project in the village of Oreen in the governorate of Beheira, which is located an hour and a half away from Alexandria by car. The project's target start date will be June 28th, immediately after the school year ends in Oreen, and it will last nine weeks until August 27th.
In order to create an environment for complete cultural immersion, Matthew and David will live in the village of Oreen next door to Ahmed. After living in Egypt for nine months, Matthew and David are highly proficient in Egyptian colloquial Arabic, and Ahmed is a native speaker who is also nearly fluent in English. Many of the residents of Oreen have never met a foreigner before, let alone one they can question in their own tongue, so the simple contact between us and the village will be an amazing cultural exchange and opportunity to extend the benefits of our project throughout the community.
The Middlebury School in Alexandria will receive the 250 kg package and provide us with a storage place until the laptops are completely distributed. Monica will handle all the technical aspects of set-up. The principal of the elementary school, Abdal Mohesen Atallah, told us we can use the elementary school. Matthew and David have visited the village, and Ahmed has talked with many of his neighbors within Oreen, and he has gotten very positive responses on the idea of a OLPCorps project there.
The four of us will be teaching full-time -- Sunday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the local elementary school -- along with several members of Rotaract who will rotate teaching to ensure that we always have a minimum staff of five teachers every day. This will allow us to cap each class at 10 children in order to give the students individualized attention. Our lessons will revolve around the computers and consist of three subjects: basic computer skills, basic and computer specific English, and the internet. Our aim is to teach the basics of computers and provide our students with a key to open up the world around them. In addition, we will create a blog to document our daily activities and publish the student's creative works to reveal that the children can also share their experiences with the outside world. The local teachers are very excited about our project, and we plan on working closely with them to exchange ideas on how they can integrate computer based learning into their curriculum.
After we complete our summer work, Rotaract will continue working with the children of Oreen by overseeing the project through bi-weekly visits to Oreen where Rotaract members will give follow-up computer workshops and assist in communication between the school of Oreen and its future "sister school" in the United States. Through our partnership with eduWeavers, we hope to find a sister school for the students to participate in cultural exchanges, which will not only add another aspect of utility to the computers, but also contribute to the continuity of our program. Furthermore, the Middlebury School in Alexandria wants to make Oreen its "sister" village, which would mean students studying abroad from Middlebury would participate in monthly cultural exchanges in Oreen and have the opportunity to join Rotaract for its bi-weekly follow-up sessions. Furthermore, this is Ahmed's village, so, our team has a personal stake in this project's success. Ahmed returns to his village every two weeks to spend the weekend with his family, and he will personally be around in the long-run to ensure that the summer's success multiplies in the coming years.
Through our OLPCorps project, we hope that by giving children a window to the outside world at a young age, we can help them grow up with the idea that their culture is one of many and anything is possible if they put their mind to it.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Istanbul, Not Constantinople
O.k. so we got the name figured out, but the culture is a little more complicated. Other Europeans claim that Turkey is clearly in the Middle East, while people in the Middle East consider Turkey an obvious part of Europe. Istanbul is the city where "they" say, The East meets the West.
So here's a quick overview from what I saw: trees line the streets in Istanbul, there's grass everywhere, and often times there's gardens filled with beautiful flowers. The streets are clean, and the traffic is regulated. Very few women wear the Hijab. The Winter fashion is more provacative than anywhere else in the Middle East: dark-haired women in long, black trench coats with tall, black leather boots exposing the mid-section of their legs -- something you'll never find anywhere else in the Middle East! The city is bustling: helicopters fly overhead, tankers come in and out of the bosphorous, and there's plenty of ferries taking people from Europe to Asia (or vice versa), so they can carry on their everyday lives. The Mosques are majestic and are simply enormous. The highlights are the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (both located within 200 meters of eachother), but the many other Mosques are almost just as massive.
Anyways, my computer sits on my desk lacking any form of consciousness.
So here's a quick overview from what I saw: trees line the streets in Istanbul, there's grass everywhere, and often times there's gardens filled with beautiful flowers. The streets are clean, and the traffic is regulated. Very few women wear the Hijab. The Winter fashion is more provacative than anywhere else in the Middle East: dark-haired women in long, black trench coats with tall, black leather boots exposing the mid-section of their legs -- something you'll never find anywhere else in the Middle East! The city is bustling: helicopters fly overhead, tankers come in and out of the bosphorous, and there's plenty of ferries taking people from Europe to Asia (or vice versa), so they can carry on their everyday lives. The Mosques are majestic and are simply enormous. The highlights are the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (both located within 200 meters of eachother), but the many other Mosques are almost just as massive.
Anyways, my computer sits on my desk lacking any form of consciousness.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Relativity
My Macbook's hard drive just crashed last Friday. When I turn it on a folder with a question mark in the middle just blinks and blinks and continues to blink. I can't just go down to the local fix it shops because 99% of people here have never even heard of an apple computer. Fortunately, there are some places in Cairo that can fix macs, so there is a viable solution to this problem.
That same day. Around the same time that my computer broke, my friend Jalel was returning home to spend the weekend with his family. It had been raining for the past 3 days, so the roads were really slippery and wet. At one moment that the rain was pouring down particularly hard, it just so happens that a mom and her two children were crossing the street. Now, we all know how this story ends. A car hits the three people and they immediately die. The car drives off, and as Jalel witnessed the accident he runs out to help these people. He can't do anything because they are dead, so he helps drag there bodies to the side of the road.
Anyways, I won't be able to update this blog for a while since I don't have a computer, but hey, there are worse things in life that could've happened.
That same day. Around the same time that my computer broke, my friend Jalel was returning home to spend the weekend with his family. It had been raining for the past 3 days, so the roads were really slippery and wet. At one moment that the rain was pouring down particularly hard, it just so happens that a mom and her two children were crossing the street. Now, we all know how this story ends. A car hits the three people and they immediately die. The car drives off, and as Jalel witnessed the accident he runs out to help these people. He can't do anything because they are dead, so he helps drag there bodies to the side of the road.
Anyways, I won't be able to update this blog for a while since I don't have a computer, but hey, there are worse things in life that could've happened.
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