AUC workers' strike!

Yesterday afternoon, as I walked out of class I was greeted by a sea of protesting custodians.
The custodians at AUC are protesting a huge pay cut that they were supposedly unaware of before their last pay checks. Talk had been spreading the past few days about a strike looming, but we were unsure of it's legitimacy. Today though, it is evident the workers are angry, and I think they're going to get what they want.
Apparently all the cleaning ladies and janitors were hired from a company independent of AUC and are in the process of transferring contracts. They were promised a pay of 1200 Egyptian Pounds, which is like $200 dollars a month, but this week each of them received a payment of only 400LE. That's less than 100$... a month. A month.
AUC's justification for this is that now the workers have medical insurance. But medical care in Egypt is so cheep (and so rarely sought after) that it is no consolation to those who now are unable to feed their families this month.

I saw a student written article on an iReport CNN page, for more info.. http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-508913

It's really interesting watching this whole thing play out (its only been two days, but still)
In the last 24 hours, campus has become filthy (almost "the rest of Cairo filthy" if we're only talking about trash). At the food court each table has a pile of trash and today the only "clean" table we could find had cat paw prints all over it. The fountains are overflowing because trash is clogging their canals. The main fountain is running at a different pressure for some reason and flooding the path to classes, all the bathrooms are filthy and water was shut off for a while during the day today... it's gross. I never really noticed how much these workers do around campus, but I'll never take them for granted again.

I think I'm actually going to be politically incorrect here... forgive me:

Ok there's a stretch of hallway we call "Gucci Corridor."
You might be able to take a wild guess and figure out its derivation... Well here is where we find the most beautiful and elite Egyptians in their Ed Hardy t-shirts, holding their designer bags, smoking their Marlboros, texting on their Blackberries, walking slowly, talking about how fly they are in their skinny jeans and how they love to dye their perfectly beautiful dark hair orange (blonde?), complaining that how daaare their teacher not accept their late work... anyway. It's like recruiting for Tool Academy up in there. I hate walking past there. And I'm pretty sure the students here think that the food court is a 5 star restaurant where people bus your table when you're done, because they always leave their entire meals on the table. God forbid we stand up and walk an inch to one of the million trash cans, marked plainly in english and arabic. They'd probably break a nail on the lid or something though. God forbid. Insha'Allah maybe the trash will just blow away. Oh wait, it does, because the school was designed to keep wind on campus to keep it cool. So step 1: you leave your trash on the table. Step 2: It blows away... 3: Now every corner of campus looks like this:

I'm feeling a little discouraged at the idea that THIS is how the elite and educated young people of Egypt treat their campus. However, I do feel it is the general consensus of the foreign students that we feel very blessed to be here.

I hope our janitors can be happy soon and return to us because I doubt the work ethic of the students will change in any way. 

........... errr.... sorry guys, but really...

Anyway, on a happier note. Im going camping tomorrow and Im really excited!

And I had an amazing week!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my mom yesterday <33333

Race for the Cure!!

This morning, my friends and I Raced For The Cure around the Giza pyramids <3

It was an incredible event!! Margaux got the ball rolling and encouraged us all to sign up, and Im so glad we did!! Margaux, Sophie, Alex, Gwen, Lacy, Hannin, Lauren and I proudly represented "team TINA" for the day (the name we gave ourselves because everyone else had a legitimate team)!

We were fortunate enough to take a bus with a sponsored group of Egyptian students from AUC. They were really nice, and very very excited to be going. The energy at the event was so awesome. Everyone was singing, dancing, clapping, chanting. I didn't notice how huge the crowd was until the races started and you could see the asphalt turn white and pink all the way down the way. It was like a flood of pink hijabs and white t-shirts. It was awesome.

I know there were at least 2,000 people "running" because I saw numbers that high (mine was 5!) but I feel like there were more. It was also really interesting to notice all the different nationalities there, I saw a lot more white people than usual. Haha.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing was people watching. We saw a lot of survivors with pink shirts on, and international visitors with shirts dedicating their run to a loved one. All the hijabis were decked out in pink and white and there were a ton of little kids running around with their baggy shirts dragging on the ground. It was awesome. My favorite favorite outfits were the survivors wearing abias (in America we dont distinguish so that would just be "burka"). The fully vailed women pinned their survivor shirts onto their abias, it was so cool!!

Personal hero <3

I loved the energy and the view and the spirit! It was such an amazing day!!!!!

Other notables this week:

Shami night! :

"Shamis" are the people of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan, supposedly named after the ancestors of Noah's son Sham! The Shami students at AUC organized an awesome even to tell a little bit about their culture and celebrate it. It was really really cool. The Lebanese and Palestinian students rehearsed some native dances and showed them and the Jordanian and Syrian kids brought delicious food. Each country also showed some pictures and talked about their culture, and there was lute playing and dancing and socializing, it was so fun. The Palestinian dance was the most fun, they tried to teach it to all of us in the audience but we couldn't really get it. Either way it was a really fun night.

Basketball! :

Last night, Alex, Sophie, Mia and I went to watch the Egyptian national basketball team play the United Arab Emerites.... we won... the thing is, well... I think it's safe to say arabs are not good at basketball. Before our game started we caught the end of Iraq vs. Algeria, and that was cool too. Whether or not the teams were good wasn't important, it was still really fun to be there, and yell with the crowd as they clapped and shouted YALLA MASR (Let's go Egypt)!! =)) 

Most Epic Event of the World:

SO! Margaux and I had discovered a really cheap rooftop bar earlier in the week and thursday night we brought Aaron, Sophie and Alex there. It was a really nice relaxed night, then Aaron went to the club and we went to a friend's appartment downtown. On the way though... here's where it gets good.

We stepped into an ordinary taxi, on an ordinary night. We agreed on a fair price and were on our way. Less than a minute into the drive our cab driver gets a phone call. He's speaking excited loud arabic and frantic "humduallah, humduallah!!!"s. He hangs up and says "my wife!" then motions a large belly and says "pregnant!... baby boy!!" 

We all responded accordingly with the AAHs and AWWWs and YAAYs and CONGRATULATIONS!! And he says to us "name!"

We were confused for a minute but laughed hysterically when we realized he was asking us what he should name him!

First we suggested Alex.. he said "no, no, Egyptian name" We said yeah he's Egyptian, "Eskandar"  but he didn't like that one.

We thought we'd try something Muslim then sense Alex is a Christian name, and threw out ALI! And he says "ALI ALI, OK!!!"

So then he got another call and it was more frantic arabic but we made out enough words to gather that she liked it. He also told her he was with Americans and kept saying Ali insha'allah and after he hung up more "humduallah." SO! Happy birthday Ali! Welcome to Earth!!!! 

It absolutely made my life, and we skipped all the way to Danyal's house =))

My name is Kjrstin كر سثن Berg, and I love my life.

Saqqara, Dahshur, Red Sea and security detail

Tatooine? Moon?

Thursday night, Sophie, Gwen, Alex and I got to go to a friend's beach house in a town called Sokhna on the Red Sea. A ton of people were there, we had a lot of fun. Sharif drove us in his car, which was such luxury compared to the AUC busses. Sharif is an egyptian who grew up in the states half his life. Then we met three more americans there, Aaron, Nick and Yaz, and the rest of the Egyptian/Palestinian/Lebanese crew. We had an awesome time and I got to meet some more really cool people. Friday we swam and lied out on the beach all morning. The water was warm, the sun was gorgeous, the sand is white, the water is calm. When we stood still, swarms of little silver and green fish would swim around our feet. It was so cool. Im really really glad Sharif invited us =)

The drive home was really fun too because we had arrived at night so we didnt see the strange desert we were being driven through. I honestly felt like I was on the moon. Sometimes I forget Im in Egypt and then I see things like that!!

Satruday was field trip day! My Egyptology class was joined by an ancient Egypt art class and we trekked down to Saqqara and Dahshur to see the bent, red and step pyramids.

Dahshur is an incredible site. We only had to drive an hour outside of Cairo and we were surrounded by palm trees and agriculture! The Dahshur pyramids are located on the other side of the Dahsur wadi, and were built by a pharaoh named Snofru, the father of Khufu who built the Great Pyramid at Giza. Well construction didn't go too well for the "Bent Pyramid," the first true pyramid by the way =) It's bent because it began to crack during construction so the angle had to be changed to reduce the weight. What went wrong at the very beginning is that Snofru didn't lay down any foundation and the ground was too soft. His second pyramid held up though and that is the Red Pyramid!

After we walked around the bent pyramid we ran... literally ran... across the desert to see its temple. We only ran because the guard was yelling at us that we weren't allowed down there. No big right? Just follow the professor.

My favorite thing about that site was that there are little shards of 4th, 5th and 6th dynasty pottery all over the place. Just little clay pieces from broken pottery. It's incredible.  

Blurry from the sand, but here's me at the temple remains

Here you can see a failed pyramid in the background called
the Black Pyramid. And perhaps equally interesting, those
 two men are our security detail. Egyptian law requires that
 any large group of Americans must be escorted by a security
officer for protection. Crazy right!

Next stop was the Red Pyramid, my favorite part of the day! 

We got to climb half way up the pyramid to the entry way and go inside!! To enter a pyramid... well.. you can't be claustrophobic. You hunch over and walk down a very steep walkway about two slim people wide. The pathway is lit, but because it was Egypt, and we have great luck, the lights shut off halfway down. But once you brave the hallway you enter a large inverted pyramid for the first burial chamber. There are three chambers the public is allowed to visit. At the very top after walking up some rickety stairs you can even see where King Snofru was burried although he's long gone now along with everything else. Some of the artifacts are in museums, most were luted. 
It was incredible to be inside though (although Ive quite literally never sweat so much in my life). After we climbed out we checked out the funerary temple and then headed out to Saqqara.

Outside the Red Pyramid. The entrance
is that opening about halfway up.

Inside! The ceiling is sloped to match the outside!

We only had to be in this passage for 15ish
 minutes and eventually the lights turned
back on!

Going up!

At Saqqara, we first toured the Imhotep Museum. If you've seen the Mummy movies you might know a little bit about Imhotep, they got ONE thing right in the movie, he was the high priest at the temple Heliopolis. Also the vesere for King Djoser, chief sculptor and carpenter, doctor,scribe, poet, Chief Architect and "first in line after the King Djoser." He designed Djoser's Step Pyramid, the OLDEST surviving stone building in the world. He was also the first noted person in history to use stone columns. 
But he wasn't buried alive like in the movie, and Im sure he never had an affair with the Pharaoh's queen as he probably had a gaggle of wives himself. 
His museum is awesome. First of all, it has air conditioning (whaaat?! In EGYPT??) I know!! And its CLEAN! (Whaaattt??) I know!!! 
In it is the first stone column ever constructed, parts of the temple wall, statues of Imhotep and Djoser and the royal family, countless statuettes, sarcophagi and even a mummy!! My first Egyptian Mummy!! Sad to day, the mummy is not that of Imhotep =( Or Djoser or anyone from that dynasty even. It's the son of a king of a later period. Many of the artifacts were not collected at Saqqara. BUT. They do have Imhotep's sarcophagus, it's gorgeous, it's painted wood and the paint looks as fresh as it was painted yesterday. All the artifacts are amazingly preserved in there, I was so impressed!! 

Driving through the wadi on the way, I looove the contrast!

No pictures inside =(

Next we walked around the Step Pyramid complex. Again, the oldest surviving stone building in the world. It's incredible. They're actually doing restoration work on it right now so we're going to be some of the last people in the world to see it the way it is now! So we walked around the temple and talked about the architecture, saw the queens' burial places, and all the places where the king would prepare for the Hep-sed. Hep-sed was kind of a text for the pharaoh that took place about every thirty years of the kings reign. It was a huge festival where the king is made to run around the courtyard in all his garb to prove that he is still capable of ruling. If he tripped, he was mortal, and he was killed. If he was too slow, same thing. If you've ever looked at a hieroglyph of a pharaoh you'll notice his legs are super muscular. This is because he needed to by physically fit to be the king. The thing is though, no one ever failed. So no worries. Maybe they all we reincarnations of the gods!! =) The real purpose of the Hep-sed was that after the king completed it, all the nobles of the land would re-pledge their allegiance to him. Sometimes Hep-sed was conducted just because the king was losing support and needed the nobles to pledge again.

Outside of the temple

Inside the temple =)

Liz and I in the Hep-sed court! (She's my neighbor and I love her!!)

"The sexiest corner in Egypt" The first cuuurve!!

Some left over guys at the temple, they're unidentified

Here she is =)

Ancient graffiti in one of the temples
from a century after the pyramid built
that tells us there were tourists visiting
the monument even then!

Me dying of heat stroke, but in total awe of the wall paintings
inside a private tomb. Cant beliiiiieve the preservation!

At this point in the day, everyone started dropping like flies in the heat. We'd all finished off all our water and hadn't eaten sense 7am. < This is due to the fact that in Egypt nothing is ever organized correctly. Hey Dr, should we bring lunch? Oh don't worry about it. Should we bring water? Eh, yeah that's a good idea. When will we come go back? Probably around 1 or 2 (meaning 6pm of course). >
Anyway so we kept trekking through the desert to more tombs where we were claustrophobically squeezed into tiny spaces to look at paintings of a cow being born. And another smaller pyramid. This small pyramid was renovated by the son of King Ramses II and there are still hieroglyphs that say "I am the son of Ramses, this monument is awesome. We're taking it for ourselves." Basically to establish legitimacy and attach his name to the monument sense in his time pyramid building had stopped. It was awesome the hieroglyphs are still completely readable. 
Then finally there was only one left!!

The Ramses-repaired pyramid

The "VIP tomb" Dr. Hassan called it as no one is really allowed inside. (No pictures either =( sad). This tomb was worth the wait though! It is the tomb of two males and their families. All we really know about them is that they each have families, and they were both hair dressers of the king. It's been proposed that they were either twin brothers or close personal friends. (A lot of jokes were made when we entered and the focal point of the tomb is a painting of them standing arm in arm touching noses. Both hair dressers too, I mean come on.) No this is normal in Egyptian culture though, they were certainly not lovers says Dr. Hassan.
Anyway they are both gorgeously painted and the tomb is amazingly preserved. The colors are still bright and most of the walls are completely covered with scenes of hair dressing and festivals and their families. It was amazing.

VIP, No cameras inside =(

At the time, while I was dying of dehydration, it was hard to press on... and on and on. But it was an amazing day. I can't take these things for granted, this is a once in a life-time experience! I saw so many gorgeous things! 
I am so blessed to be here!!!!! HumdidAllah!!!

And the days go by

10.10.10

Today all I did was homework and eat.

Yesterday all I did was homework and eat,

and swim. It was reeeeally nice to get in the 

pool. It was very reminiscent of some really

good times. Wooh update!!

Also! On our latest adventure to the the bazar, I invested in some muslim prayer beads. There are 33 beads and three prayers to be said on each one. It's much like a rosary and a Hail Mary (and Buddhist and Hindu prayer beads for that matter).  33 times "humdu'Allah" (Thank you God), 33 times "Allah akbar" (God is the greatest), 33 times "la illaha al Allah" (No got but God). I've gained a lot of respect for the muslim people, the devotion blows my mind.

                                                                                                   .                     "The ways of Providence are infinite."                .                                                        - Pope Pius XI 

No subject:

This will be a scattered, random and unorganized blog entry.
Lot's of things I need/ want to say but have nothing to do with one another. Here we go!

Egyptology 101: 
I am currently enrolled in a wonderful Egyptology class- Neolithic cultures through Middle Kingdom (Basically homo-erectus through Pharaoh). The class is awesome, every morsel is deliciously interesting. The ancient Egyptians were ingeniously advanced, their transition from separate cultural groups to a unified state was natural and smooth, they understood astronomical relationships to their river, they built monuments that have survived thousands of years... I mean... well they were light years ahead of the world.
Anyway, the moral of the story is now... well now they might be a little behind. A few nights ago some friends and I were out dancing at a very "trendy" club where the DJ played Akon... and then Backstreet boys. At Pub 28 we heard the Spice Girls. On campus I saw a guy wearing an "I'm with stupid" shirt. Hello 90s.

And Allah forbiiiiid any modern Egyptian might want to do something in an efficient manner. 

Can I get a coke? -Oh sure maybe in like an hour after my cigarette break. 

Dr. Fahmy, could you make a study guide or a review session? -Ahh, insha'allah maybe I'll think about it this weekend. 

Why don't the streets make direct turns instead of making everyone make a U-turn everywhere? Why don't we make a straight path from the entrance to the dorms? Could you e-mail me back maybe? My school back? No? Ok... Do you think we could form a line here at this Mcdonalds? No? Ok.... 

And could you walk faster?? I'm trying to get to class and you're walking like a snail in the very middle of the staircase. Stop. Ohhh helloooo habibi, kiss kiss, lets talk for an hour and block the walkway. It's awesome.

Ah. It felt good to get that out. Moving on.

Sound it out- kuh oh kah ko l ah =D

Arabic!

Arabic is very difficult. But I love it. Because it is beautiful. I have (pretty much) memorized the alphabet, and am now able to recognize words!! Which is reeeeaaaaaalllllly exciting. Usually when I get it I scream it excitedly, and its something like "AQUAFINA! YES!!!" or "AHHH!!! Allah akbar!! Wooh!!!"

This one says "Kjrstin loves Alyssa"
and it is a doodle on my notes

Quirks!!

My group of friends has adopted a beautifully simple slogan that encumpases a world of answers. "T.I.A." 

This. Is. Africa! Why doesnt this elevator have a door?... TIA. Where is the toilet paper?... TIA. Is that a goat? Ah there's no power in my room! What is that smell? Is there a drinking age? Why are you grocery shopping in the middle of the night? Does anyone ever get in trouble for traffic violations? Are there such THING as traffic violations? Why is the bus an hour late? Are there police men here? Did that guard just whistle at you?......... TIA

- It's from the movie Blood Diamond, which is a brilliant movie... and nothing like the part of Africa I am currently in (humdidAllah). Sometimes we say TINA to be more clear, this is NORTH Africa.

So I'll be standing on a roof like this, 
23 floorsup, surrounded by broken 
glass, stacks of bricks, a ridiculous
 amount of satellite dishes, stepping
on cans of food...

... and looking at a view like THIS.
And it never ceases to amaze me. This place is beautiful.
In it's own, very unique way, Cairo is absolutely gorgeous.

 Ancient Egyptians worshiped cats! They were beautiful, they inspired art and fashion, they were glorified! Here I'm going to tell you... Egypt is physically covered in cats. No, but you don't understand. No, they're everywhere. I mean literally everywhere. I've seen more cats here than all the cats I've seen in my life. Some are cute, some cry all night and keep me from sleeping, some quite possible have rabies and all quite assuredly have mange. So when you tell me about your new cat, forgive me for not being that excited. I'm sure he's cute!! We did see a litter of new born kittens today though, soo cute!! =D But literally they're allllll over, its crazy!

Also, lets talk about smoking. If I die from second hand smoke, you can blame Egypt. EVERYONE here smokes. Every single Egyptian I know. It's kind of tragic really. I do really like the boxes though. Others have pictures of nasty teeth, or a limp cigarette, or they say things like "your doctor or therapist can help you quit today!" Big huge LOL.

Khan el Khalili X2

Today my friends and I ventured back to the bazar, Khan el Kalili. We had an awesome day! We saw a lot, bought some things, got great pictures, a successful day! But today the reality of Cairo's poverty hit me a little harder than usual. We are usually approached by a few begging children when we go out. It's pretty common and we usually just give them a few pounds and they're on their way. Sometimes they just wave or come up and hug us, sometimes their parents have taught them in english "I need money to eat" or "I need money to live." It breaks my heart, I wish I could take them all home with me. Today it was a little heavier to me somehow. Today I saw a braaand new born baby, probably less than 7lbs, and her mother was walking the very busy streets holding her and asking for money from the tourists. Honestly, the baby looked drugged, and apparently that is not uncommon. When I was in Rome, we were warned that gypsy women will drug their babies before going out to beg so it looks unhealthy, or even worse they will hand the baby over to you and run away. And then what could you possibly do? 

I can't get wrap my mind around a lot of the things I see. I can't comprehend how a mother could be so desperate to use her child like that. And now that child will never know anything else. =/

This picture is of Sophie and a little girl who was trying to sell us keychains. We said no thank you and paid her anyway, and she gave us each about one hundred kisses. Why can't I adopt her? She was so sweet. Gwen and I also noticed one of the little boys who sells bracelets was crying so we bought two from him. He'd probably just been scolded or threatened by whoever runs the show =/

I hate that there's nothing I can do, and they're beautiful sweet children.

Reading back over this post I'm feeling kind of hesitant to post it, but I feel like they're all things I've been needing to make a note of. I can't just come on here and talk about how happy and rosy and sunshiney everything is. I CAN however, end with this:
Cairo is beautiful, and my life is BEAUTIFUL. I am so so greatful for all the blessings I receive every day and all the amazing things I get to see and do and experience and feel.