Xmas in Cairo – Monday 25 December 2006

Well this is the first Christmas I’ve spent away from my family – in fact it’s the first time EVER that our whole family hasn’t been together… I was a bit concerned I’d be massively homesick all day but I survived quite well.

Firstly I stayed up late last night and rang Manda and then rang home and got to talk to Mum, Dad and Aidan all on Christmas Day morning so that was great. Unfortunately I had to buy an international phone card which from here is bloody ridiculously expensive. I paid £100 LE, which equates to about AUD$23 and for this hard earned cash I got a total of 25 minutes and 30 seconds talk time. When Chris buys them he usually gets about 40 minutes to the US… 25 minutes is ridiculous – that works out to be almost a dollar a minute. Normally we’d use Skype but I didn’t want to have to wait at Beno’s til midnight and I didn’t think I’d be able to hear coz it gets quite loud in there.

Then this morning when I got to work mum rang me so I got to talk to everyone again while I opened the lovely necklace that my mummy had chosen and posted to me. I worked till 1:30pm then fought the traffic home. I found out later that there had been demonstrations in Downtown and Mohandiseen – no idea what for or where, presumably politically motivated – but apparently these demonstrations were to blame for the excessively busy traffic.

Once I finally made it home I walked up to the BCA for Christmas lunch. It was a 5 course meal for £120 LE (plus you get to go back for leftovers on boxing day :) ). First up it was soup (tomato -sensational or mushroom – quite good). Second course was a prawn cocktail with teeny tiny shrimps that were absolutely swimming in cocktail sauce. Third course was the main affair with turkey, lamb, roast potatoes, steamed potatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, peas, carrots and stuffing and gravy – the plates were overflowing. Very tasty but so much food! This was followed by some sort of Christmas pudding type thing and brandy butter sauce (that had about 10 quarts of brandy in it!). After all this food we were so stuffed we went to sit outside. As a result we missed the last course of cheese and crackers (not that I could have fitted it in).

After stuffing ourselves with all this food most people started to drift off. By about 6:30pm there were only about 25 of the 60 or so people left. Most were just sitting around having a few drinks. I was sitting at the bar with Helen (British hasher) and her partner and this Scottish couple form the Hash came up and started talking to me. Well I don’t think I stopped laughing for the next 2 hours. They were hilarious – they were half cut and Dougal was doing Billy Connelly lines and telling stories. I was laughing so much my face hurt. At times Dougal would say ‘eh, what are you laughing at’ then he’d turn to Margaret and say ‘look at this lass – what’s she laughing at’. I was in hysterics they were so funny. I even got up and danced the hokey pokey and various other action related dances with Margaret – she was adamant that she wasn’t leaving until she’d danced the hokey pokey.

Anyways but 8pm I was fairly tired so decided to pack it in. Margaret and Dougal were off to Harry’s pub (I decided I didn’t need another hung over work day so declined) and I wandered home.

When I got home I opened the present that Chris, sorry I mean Santa, had left behind for me – chocolates, biscuits and lollies – what more does a girl need :)

It was a really good day. I got to talk to nearly everyone either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and I got presents, a decent feed and some laughs. For a girl a long ways from her family I think I did pretty well for Christmas Day.

Maadi Hash and a fiery On On – Friday 22 December 2006

Lots of people go away for Christmas, lots of the expats go back to their normal world or go meet their family in other exotic locations. For those left behind there is the Hash. Usually the Hash during Christmas week doesn’t have many people so they hold it in Maadi, just walking round the streets, then they do the circle at the Ace club. This year Mary Fran was kind enough to offer her house for the On On.

So the Hash started late because it was in Maadi – everyone met at the Ace Club at 3pm and we set off on the walk. There was no trail to follow – it was more follow the leader. They didn’t ‘set’ the trail because one year the front runners ended up in gaol! They had dropped the flour trail and set the checks (a circle with a cross in it) early on Friday morning when all the shops were shut. When the shops opened, they though the crazy foreigners were either making religious symbols or making signs to stop people going into their shops! They were picked up by the cops and held until someone else arrived that could explain what was going on. Ever since this little adventure, they haven’t dropped a trail in the streets of Maadi.

So we all set off – the first thing we have to do is cross a road. In Downtown this would have been impossible – about 50 crazy foreigners straggled along 200 meters. In Maadi it was a little easier… Dougal, this hilarious Scotsman, just stood in the middle of the road with his hand up stopping the traffic. Then this guy beeped at us and an American women said, well yelled I guess, ‘do you honestly think that’s going to help speed things along’. He probably didn’t understand the words but I think he got the point.

As we walked around another guy would blow a bugle from time to time to keep us on the right track. About half way through we stopped at a house of a hash couple and had some mulled wine and a chat. Then we continued on back to the Ace club. We didn’t walk very far or very fast but this little wander took about an hour and half. We got back to the Ace Club about 4:30pm for the circle. There were loads of raffle prizes again - I won a point setter plant – that’s two raffle prizes now :).

During the week I’d emailed Wesley (Hash GM guy) to ask for the words to the songs that they sing in the circle. I was sick of not knowing what we were suppose to be saying. Some how this turned into me making the songs of another international Hash group into a draft song book for the Cairo Hashers and leading them in a new song.

I went through the songs that were on the other website, pulled out the completely vulgar ones and threw the rest into a word doc as a song book template. This done I created a short list choosing 3 of the songs as potential options then let Wesley chose which one we’d start with.

The song we tried was to the tune of Yesterday, the Beatles song:

Yesterday,
All my muscles seemed to feel OK,
Now my body doesn't work today,
Oh I went hashing yesterday.
Muscles ache,
They'd be better if I'd stayed in bed,
Now it feels as if they're made of lead, Wish I had stayed at home instead.
Why, I, ran that hash,
Was so rash,
But what the heck?
Now, it's, clear, I'm a mere,
Physical wreck.
Bloodshot eyes…


It wasn’t a roaring success – mostly coz no one could actually sing in tune, in time or at remotely the same speed. Might have worked better had the person leading had any vocal ability whatsoever – given it was me leading then it was a little screwed from the start.

People were fairly responsive though… everyone joined in so that’s something. I think next time I’ll try and make a new song up from scratch. I think it has to be short, fast and simple then it can be ‘said’ rather than ‘sung’.

All this circle business done we stood around for about 20 minutes waiting for the time to tick then headed over to Mary Fran’s. She has a pretty swish house – way too nice to let loose this bunch of dodgy characters! It was a £30LE entrance fee to cover the cost of the food. There was LOADS of food – turkey, lamb, spring rolls, vegetable platter with dips etc. I decided that it wasn’t fair that Mary Fran had to ask people for money given it was her house and as usual with these sorts of things if you don’t ask then people ‘forget’ to pay, It shouldn’t be that Mary Fran end up out of pocket. Given this (plus my previous door bitch experience) I decided to volunteer for the job.

So we kept the front door closed and each time people rang the bell I’d open, say welcome to the Cairo Hash on-on £30LE please. Most people were really cool about it, but some people probably thought I was a bit rude. But I decided bugger it, if someone wasn’t at the door with their hand out Mary Fran would have ended up footing the bill.

Anyways, as party’s go it was pretty good. Lots of people came, we stood around chatting, laughing and drinking – the standard party atmosphere. I had arranged for Essam (Driver Man) to pick me up at 930pm… at 9pm I decided I wasn’t ready so sms’d to say 10:30-11pm… at almost 11pm I decided he’d waited long enough and asked for directions on how to get back to the Ace club (where he was picking me up). One of the guys said he’d walk me back so I didn’t get lost in the dark. I totally would have – the streets all look the bloody same in Maadi :)

So that was the on-on over. Then Saturday morning I find out that after everyone had left Mary Fran was about to go to bed and decided to do one last check over of the lounge and her cabinet was ON FIRE!!

Apparently she had a tea light candle burning and it got too close to some other stuff next thing woosh and the cabinet needs re-finishing and the picture frame above is all sooty. It was just bloody lucky that she decided to do one last round of tidy up before bed – especially as she was pretty hammered and could easily have just fallen into bed and thought she’d deal with it tomorrow. Very lucky.

BCA Christmas Party – Thursday 21 December 2006

Tonight was the Christmas party at the BCA. I had planned to go up just for a few hours… a few hours turned into midnight. There weren’t many people there, a couple of people form the hash turned up - Wael (Egyptian) and Steve (Canadian). Plus Helen and Moody some hash people, but who I normally see at the BCA. We were just sitting round chatting and having a few drinks.

It was suppose to be a party, but there were only 20 people there at most. About 10pm they put the music on, not bad music, but it was too loud. You couldn’t really talk over it. Then Mike got the microphone out and started singing along. It was funny, but not enough to get me up dancing! It was a pretty fun night. Not all that Christmassy, but a lot more fun than I expected. The people at the BCA are a good laugh.

New Years is Planned – Bring On Prague! – Tuesday 19 December 2006

About 2 weeks ago we found out that while Egypt doesn’t recognise Christmas and therefore has no public holidays, their second Eid festival happens to start on New Years Eve. This means Sunday 31 Dec to Jan 3 are all public holidays for Eid. The Thursday is a government holiday, then it’s the weekend, then the Monday is Coptic Christmas so another public holiday.

Since we found out so late about the holiday (no one even mentioned it when they reviewed the project plan) we didn’t have much time to plan. So Chris has been having daily chats with Lufthansa trying to change his flights so he can stay longer in Canada, and I’ve been in frantic emails with my well travelled friends trying to sort something out for myself.

I needed somewhere that someone had already been so I could do the minimal amount of research and planning, but it also had to be somewhere that wasn’t going to cost me millions of dollars in airfares and accommodation. Croatia my first choice was too expensive for flights (over $1500) so I checked availability and costs of flights to pretty much everywhere. Finally I got lucky and found reasonable flights and good accommodation so I’m going to PRAGUE for new years!!

Also thanks to Ange I don’t have to think too hard about what to do while I’m there coz she was kind enough to give me a list of sites that she and Cam saw while they were there. Only downside was that the flight times are fairly average… I’ll work through Christmas, then on Friday night... well technically Saturday morning at 3am, I’ll fly to Prague for 6 days. I’m very excited :)

Hash 4 – Hare and the Naming – Friday 15 December 2006

During the week Wes (the main Hash guy) sent an email round begging for Hare’s. To be a Hare you go out to the site several hours earlier and set the trail by dropping handfuls of lentils or flour for the Hashers to follow. It’s fairly straight forward, but they have a hard time getting people to do it. I guess coz you have to go out so much earlier.

Anyway, Chris and I volunteered to hare for this week. However, when we volunteered we didn’t realise that the first time you hare, you get named. That’s what we get for being helpful… Chris is going to help set the run and I’m going to do the walk. Basically it means that Chris walks 9 or 10kms dropping handfuls of flour with a guy from Holland called Piet and I walk about 4 or 5kms with two Egyptians Karim (Squashed Balls) and Mona (Should Have Been Blonde) dropping handfuls of lentils.

Anyways, this morning we met up with Piet, his wife Mary, their daughters Powla 11 and Doreen 8 and a golden retriever called Sandy that they were dog sitting. Essam our driver man dropped us off at a petrol station near the site and Piet and Mary picked us up from there.

We were suppose to meet the rest of the hares at 11am…we arrive just before 11am and by 11:15am the others still hadn’t turned up. Chris and Piet decided to set off. They loaded up a backpack with bags of flour and carried an additional two containers of flour. They had a GPS and compass and Powla went with them to help set the trail. They were nice and organised.

At 11:30 I was starting to get concerned so I rang Mona. She said yeah yeah yeah, we’re nearly there, we’re just setting up the signs… Anyway, 25 minutes later they finally arrive. In the meantime I’d been chatting with Mary and Doreen. The dog they were ‘dog-sitting’, that we’d thought was peacefully sleeping by the car, had disappeared. After a few minutes frantic search (it’s quite challenging looking for a golden retriever in the desert!) Mary got a phone call from Piet. The dog had wandered off – following their trail – and caught up with them. This is the most overweight, lazy golden retriever you’ve ever seen and it had just committed itself to a 9km walk through the desert! In the end they had to carry it up the steep bits – he just wasn’t coping!

Doreen had planned to play with Sandy while she was waiting for the proper Hash to being. Since Sandy had abandoned us she decided to come with us to set the walk.

So Mona and Karim finally show up and we set off. Mona had previously set 7 or 8 trails and Karim had only done one, so Mona kinda took over. She had the lentils and she was dropping them at random interval… being a little stingy I thought. All through the walk she and Karim were having little chats in Arabic… I think they might have been disagreeing over how to set the trail. Mona wanted to make it really easy and Karim wanted to make it really hard.

To keep ourselves entertained Doreen and I were running around. Every time there was a steep-ish section I’d send her down ahead of me so I could follow in her footsteps. About 3/4 of the way around Mona gave the lentils to Karim and he took off. The wind was blowing flat out and hurting her ears. After about 50 minutes we got back to the cars.

Setting the trail wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be… I think it would be better depending who you set it with. We didn’t have a plan and our trail crossed the runners twice. It was all wiggly too, so not easy to follow (as we found out on the actual trail).

From the start people took off in the wrong direction, people got confused between our trail and an old one that was there from a few weeks before. They missed a check point and they didn’t follow the trail much at all. In fact it was a complete shambles. I didn’t realise that the Hares were suppose to go near the front of the group and keep them on track without actually leading them. I asked if we were suppose to lead and they said no, but I didn’t realise we were suppose to provide directional support… oh well, I know that now.

Doreen and I were messing around and one of the guys had a go at us for running on the walk. It was a wide bit of the trail, not like we were running on a bit that was really hard to negotiate. It was really pissing me off. Mona had set the trail (I’d just really followed along) but she was at the back of the group and I couldn’t remember where the trail went. By the time we got back to the circle I was thoroughly pissed off. People kept bitching and moaning (I guess reasonably, it was a pretty shit trail), but it seemed as though the ones bitching were the ones who never set the trail themselves… Anyways, everyone made it back to the cars eventually (grumbling an all).

The runners had better luck. They stayed on trail and no one seemed to be moaning about it. Although Chris said he wouldn’t’ have set as long a false trails as Piet did. But all in all the run went quite well.

After everyone was back they called the circle. Thy harassed the virgin hashers and called in the sinners (people who’d forgotten to sign back in etc). Then Chris and I were called into the circle. It was our first time Haring so now we needed to be named.

First things first Wes took my scarf (that I had wrapped around me like a shawl). I said to him is this where you throw beer at us and he said yes. I’d come prepared and brought two tops. Unfortunately it was so firggin cold I had both of them on. So I took off my top and of course everyone starts yelling and carrying on chanting more, more, more. I went back to the centre of the circle in my tank top. Then they started calling for name suggestions. Wes said it was going to be hard to name us because we hadn’t been around long so people didn’t know us that well…

Chris was made go first. They asked him about himself he said Canadian, living in Denver, played hockey…working for the Ministry…I can’t remember what else. Then people stated yelling out suggestions. There were loads of options, ranging from Puck Seaman (not idea where seaman came from but the Puck is from the hockey) to Mother Pucker. They vote by yelling. Basically they call out each name that was suggested and people have to cheer for which one they like the best. When they called out the options Mother Pucker got the loudest cheer by miles so Chris is now and forever know as Mother Pucker.

While they were calling Chris’s possible names out Mary brought my scarf back over to me. She said wear it while you’re waiting or you’ll freeze to death. Even with it on I was still cold!

Once his name had been selected they started in on me. When they asked me about myself I asked Wes to be a bit more specific. I had no idea what to say. So he said where am I from I said Australia, originally Tasmania now Victoria. How old am I, am I married, have I ever been married (at which point ‘No Baggage’ was suggested). Then Wes said ‘so you’re 27, single and only here for 4 more months – that makes you the perfect girl to fool around with’. I think that comment combined with my taking my outer top off lead me to my final name.

They started calling out suggestions – the first being ‘Iceberg’ (coz I was almost turning blue), then because I was still single ‘Ice Maiden’ was suggested. Most of the suggestions were along these lines then someone yelled out Tassie Teaser. Everyone was laughing their butts off. Then they did the voting and Tassie Teaser was met with a resounding cheer.

So with our names selected we were handed beers and asked to kneel on the ground. I was made take my hair out (and shake it all around twice!). Then we put our hands over our beers and they said:

"By the Sands of the Saharra
By the Holy Waters of Sakara
On this Hash and Every other Hash
You shall Always Be Known as
Tassie Teaser”

Then they poured beer and sand all over my back and hair.

It was freezing cold, and I had beer and sand (so mud basically) all over me. It was so gross! This bit done we had to skull our beers and accept our new names.

Covered in sand and beer I then went over to Piet and Mary’s car and did a quick strip and change while everyone was still focused on the circle. I ripped my tank top off and used it to wipe most of the sand off my back. Then I pulled my now very ratty, beery, sandy, curls back into a hair band. Put my other top back on, wrapped my scarf around me for some warmth and returned to the circle. My hair was SO ratty!

By the time we got back Powla and Doreen were just being summoned into the circle. People were much kinder when choosing their names… Powla’s options were twig, twiggly wiggly, ponytail, and Tulip – Tulip won. Then Doreen got double dutch, munchkin and Dorito. Wes had been calling her Dorito all day and I thought that was a cute name so I cheered for that one. From now on Piet and Mary’s kids are called Tulip and Doritio :).

Last but not least was Piet. Technically Piet already has a Hash name but as he got it in Malaysia its too vulgar to be spoken. I fact when asked point blank in the circle what his original name was he said ‘not in front of the children’. This was then suggested as an alternative name. However given he is from Holland ‘finger in the dyke’ was the next suggestion (apparently there is some folklore story about a little boy from Holland who put his finger in the dyke to stop the water). Things deteriorated from there and his new name is now ‘Wet Fingers’.

The funniest thing was that he was happy with the new name because it was still so much better than his previous name (which he still wouldn’t divulge).

This over and everyone moaning about the cold the circle was brought to a close. Chris and I caught a ride back to Maadi and wandered around Road 9 for a while then went to the On On. Piet and Mary had suggested Dragon House as the On On venue (same place as last week) so we went there. The food was good again but exactly the same as last week. More people turned up this time. We were there so early so we were on the big table with a bunch of other random hashers and by the time Piet and Mary arrived they had to sit at a different table. It was fun but we were totally shattered by 8pm so we left.

All in all an interesting day… I would set the trail very differently next and I’ve got a new name… not sure its something that I’ll ever use outside the hash but I got off lightly I think :)

Christmas Quiz at the BCA – Tuesday 12 December 2006

Tonight we went up to the BCA for the Christmas Quiz. It was £20 a team to enter and the prizes were all donated (we were going to donate the beer but we were too rushed to carry it all the way to the BCA, we nearly didn’t get there in time as it was!).

Because we were so late we couldn’t find people to make up a team of four, so I asked the MC guy if there was anyone else who wanted to join our team and an English guy called Phil came and joined us.

We were decidedly average. All the questions were Christmas questions, like why is it called boxing day and what does the X stand for in Xmas and who was born on this xmas day in year blah blah blah. We got a few right… we were lucky Phil joined us coz he got some right that I’d never heard of. I did earn my place in the team though when the question came up ‘who had a number one hit song in 1995 with ‘can we fix it’?’ Thanks to Manda’s kids I knew straight off that it was ‘Bob the Builder’. Hardly anyone got that one :) I also took a punt on another question and got it right. The question was if you find a sixpence in your xmas pudding its suppose to bring wealth, what is it suppose to mean if you find a button? The choices were you will travel, be poor, something else I can’t remember or ‘remain unmarried’. I decided a button was kind of ‘spinster-ish’ so went with ‘remain unmarried’ and we got that one right too. I think we got about 5 or 6 points out of ten each round.

They had a ‘joker’ card and the round you played your joker you got double points. Most people player their joker in the first or second round. We played ours in the third which was really lucky because only one other team played theirs and we won the round. For winning the round we got a £50 drink card and £50 cash. Well worth the £20 entry fee!

It was a fun night and people really got into the sprit of it. Unfortunately one of the guys (a South African I think) got a little too much into the spirits rather than into the spirit… he was totally smashed and started being really rude and obnoxious. To the point when at the end of the night he was asked to leave. One of the questions was which of these four stars was born on xmas day in 1971 and they were all girls like Victoria Beckham, Dido and I can’t remember the others… the drunk guys yelled out – ‘I don’t care she’s got bit tits’. I assumed he was talking about the multiple choice selection but I found out later that he was commenting on the Egyptian barmaid. He was basically just being a drunk obnoxious bastard, but it was extra obvious because everyone else was being really fun.

Other than that it was a really fun night. We didn’t win, but we also didn’t wooden spoon so that was ok… I think we came equal second last with about 5 other teams. I really like trivia nights even though I’m total crap at them! I think there is one every month so I’m going to see if I can do better when the questions aren’t so specific to Christmas.

The very last question was what were the names of the traditional reindeer that pulled Santa’s sleigh (traditional meaning not Rudolph). We got Prancer, Donner, Vixen, Comment, Cupid, Dancer Blitzen and couldn’t for the lie of any of us remember the other one… well we’ll never forget poor old Dasher now!

Pyramids at Sunset – Saturday 9 December 2006

Chris and I spent most of the day just bumming round home. I went up to Beno’s yesterday and to the Bakery this morning because I’ve FINALLY got my skype working so I can phone home. It was awesome to finally get to talk to people back home. I’ve been relying on email for 2 months apart from a couple of quit chats to my brother. I could get my skype to work computer to computer, but from work I can’t dial a landline using it. I think its something to do with the firewalls or similar at work. Some technical thing I don’t understand :)

Anyways it’s all sorted now, although it does mean I can only phone home on the weekends because during the week by the time we get home from work all my people from home are a long time asleep… in fact if I stay up late enough they’re all just getting out of bed when I’m going to bed. Bloody time difference!

So this afternoon Ahmed rang to see if we wanted to do anything today. Normally we don’t get the driver for both days of the weekend but I guess he was bored. So Chris asked him to take us to the pyramids so we could take some picture of them with the sun setting around them.

We nearly had to ride camels – yuck. I was prepared to suffer through a camel ride, but lucky for me the stable we went to were either out of camels or it was decided that they’d be too slow so we got horses instead.

I’m not the most confident rider… ok I’m not a confident rider at all so after a little ways the boy who was leading our horses let Chris go and just kept leading me. There was Chris and I on ragged horses, a ‘guide’ on a horse, and the boy running along side me. They took us up through the sand dunes to a plateau type place. Unfortunately we were about 20 minutes too late for the proper sunset and it was quite hazy. We got some good photos, but not the ones we were expecting.

The boy leading my horse was at time running through the desert, running up sand dunes etc. The horses were very boney… they don’t treat them very well considering they are their income, but then I guess some of the people don’t live very well themselves…

When we got back to the stable Ahmed took us inside to the perfume seller (of course, why wouldn’t a stable and a perfume shop be connected!! Here everything seems to be connected.)

We smelled the perfume oils and there was the whole ‘no pressure to buy’ blah blah blah, but we decided to get some anyway. They were only £40 a bottle – little bottles but enough. We each bought a few bottles – Lotus, Jasmine, Lavender – they had every smell under the rainbow. They even had ‘peppermint’. They got a glass of boiling water and put one drop of peppermint in and had us breath in the steam. Man it nearly took my head off. It was like the most potent vicks vapour rub you’ve ever smelt in your life. I didn’t buy any, but I think I’ll go back before the adventure is over and get some more…including a peppermint.

I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow from horse riding… I used muscles that I didn’t know existed!!

Hash at Lower Wadi Digler – Friday 8 December 2006

Well it’s Friday again and we’re braving the hash at Lower Wadi Digler. It’s just a different part of the desert than last time.

It was a good walk. It started off really steep, but then the downward return journey was a relatively gentle slope. It took about an hour and then they had a really short ‘circle’ because tonight is the BCA Christmas Ball. We decided not to go to the ball – mostly coz it was black tie and I don’t have any dresses here and Chris doesn’t have a formal dinner suit. We could have bought one, and I did look for a dress as I was shopping the last few days, but I didn’t find anything I’d even try on let alone wear!!

They have a raffle in the Circle most weeks and I went around selling the tickets this time. Wes was selling them and trying to organise other stuff so I offered to sell them. I bought four tickets myself then wandered around harassing everyone to buy raffle tickets for £10 each. The prizes were 2 slabs of beer or a slab of diet coke. The prizes are different every time – I think it depends what Wes picks up on his way to the Hash!

They had other people choose the tickets and I was the second winner so I took a slab of beer. Not a bad effort… cost me £40 coz I bought 4 tickets, but that still only equate to $10. Unfortunately I don’t think Chris or I can drink a slab of beer (even considering my new found ability to skull beer!) so I’m going to donate it to the BCA for their Christmas party. It seems that most of the prizes at all the Christmas events are donated so I figure this is an easy thing for me to donate.

After the hash we went grocery shopping at the Carrefour in Maadi. While we were walking around Chris and I decide to only buy things that would survive being in the car for a couple of hours and we went back to the ‘On-On’.

There is an ‘On-On’ after each Hash – all the people who did the Hash are invited to a dinner somewhere, generally to continue drinking and carrying on. It’s all at your own expense so you can do whatever you want.

Today’s On-On’ was at a place called Dragon House in Maadi (most the On-On’s seem to be in Maadi). It was an all you can eat buffet of Chinese food. The food was pretty nice, but the refilling of the buffet containers was fairly slack. There never seemed to be much in each pot and they only brought out about 5 at a time of the appetizers (won-tons, dumplings, spring rolls etc).

We left about 8pm but it was a nice way to finish off the day.

Hash Christmas Party – Thursday 7 December 2006

Tonight Chris and I went to Ma’adi (the suburb of Cairo where ALL the expats seem to live). The Hash was having its Christmas party at the local rugby club. It was a good night, but not very Christmassy. I expected there to be decorations and lots of people carrying on in a Christmassy kind of way. Instead it was a bunch of people standing round a basementy type clubhouse talking amongst themselves… not much carry on at all really… We arrived about 9pm and left just after midnight.

It was a good night. We were talking to a few of the other hashers… a couple of the hashers came up to me asking me if my name was Lindsey. I said no, Lindsey is a kiwi with black hair… this happened about 3 times until one of them said ‘Are you sure you’re not Lindsey?’ I told him I was fairly confident that I wasn’t Lindsey.

We were talking to one of the Hashers (AKA Transvestite) he is a Hare for tomorrow’s run. We said that we’d signed up to hare next week and weren’t really sure what we were getting ourselves in for. He gave us a bit of a run down on what we’d have to do and then told us that we’d get ‘Named’ after we’d hared. I didn’t realise that the naming was because you’d hared… I’m a little less excited about volunteering now… could be dangerous :)

Water Falling From The Sky – Wednesday 6 December 2006

Last night as we were driving home it started to rain. We were teasing Essam (our driver man) saying ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘yes I know, water falling from the sky!’.

We said we didn’t think it ever rained in Cairo and he said it didn’t rain much, just a shower now and then during winter then within a few hours it will be like summer again.

This morning when we got up the air was clear, the clearest we’ve ever seen it. The streets weren’t clean (I think it’d take a solid downpour for at least 4 weeks to clean the streets), but at least the air was nice and the fields looked extra green.

Essam said that the air is always clearer after the rain and that the whole day would be beautifully clear. He was a little keen with this pronouncement. It rained from about lunchtime onwards… not really heavy. More than a shower, but less than a total down pour… just steady rain.

By the time we were driving home the roads were all flooded. They have some drainage, but generally the few drains they have are blocked with sand and rubbish so the water has no where to go.

We were going along the freeway and at one point the road we asked Essam if he had a felucca license – we thought we were going to end up rowing home! (felucca’s are the boats they sail up the Nile). The cars were driving really slow, but even so I was sure they were going to end up aquaplaning.

By the time we got back to Mohandiseen the rain had stopped, it was just the water pooling everywhere that was the problem. Then, there were guys on the street with the squeegee’s they use to ‘mop’ the floors – they were pushing the water to the drains! There were loads of them squeegeeing the streets!

I guess with no natural (or man made drainage) they have to do something to get rid of the water… it’d get manky pretty quick with all the rubbish that’s laying around.

Survived My Second Hash – Friday 1 December 2006

Chris and I went on our second Hash today. It was at the same place in the desert as last time, but the trails were much harder. Last time I had to climb up and down sand dunes, this time I had to climb a damn mountain! Actually it was a ‘wadi’ – I think that’s what they are called… its basically and sand/rock formation that’s caused by the wind eroding the loose sand.

The walk trail was only 4km, but we had to climb this massive wadi. Actually going up wasn’t as bad as coming back down again. Up was harder physically, coz it was really steep, but I was more scared coming down because it was loose shale in places.

In fact, for half the time coming down I was in a crouch, kinda sliding on my feet. I must have slipped more than I thought coz when I was climbing back up the next hill a guy behind me said I was bleeding! It’s funny, I hadn’t even noticed until he mentioned it (and of course then it started to sting!). It wasn’t too bad, just a few scratches, only 2 deep enough to leak – and didn’t leak much really.

Then we had to climb up another massive sand dune – I was concerned about getting back down, it wasn’t quite as steep, but it was longer. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this scaling mountains and sliding down sand dune business – turns out I’m a bit of a wuss! However, given there was about 30 other people walking I couldn’t really sit down and have a little cry before I slithered down the wadi! I finally made it back to the main area with everyone else… minor war wounds, but largely unscathed :)

There was a naming in the circle today. It was funny. First they tell the circle a bit about the person up for naming, then they go around the circle getting suggestions. Generally speaking, the suggestions are for names that the person really wouldn’t want to be lumped with.

The guy getting named was Karin (not sure if that’s spelt right or not). Basically they said his name, that he was the Egyptian squash representative and that was about all we had to work with. Not many people had suggestions to start with, but once they started it seemed to go down hill from there. Some of the suggestions were ‘Spotted balls’ (as in the spot that’s on a squash ball), ‘Karin, de la crème’, ‘Nivea’ (as in the face cream), ‘Skinny Good Looking Bastard’ and ‘Squashed Balls’. Voting was done by yelling - they yelled out each name until some were more obviously being cheered for more than others. In the end it came down to ‘Nivea’ and ‘Squashed Balls’. So Karin is now known as ‘Squashed Balls’.

Once the name had been chosen, Karin ‘Squashed Balls’ crouched down, they sung the naming song threw sand on him and poured beers over his back. The naming song had something in it like ‘by the sands of the desert’ that’s when they threw the sand on him. It was fairly funny.

Cairo Tower – Wednesday 29 Nov 2006

Tonight we went to look at the Cairo Tower in Zamalek. It took for bloody ever to get there. I guess we were going through rush hour traffic, but seriously… we can walk there in about 50 mins from our place and it took us over an hour to drive there!

We paid £60 pound to go up. There were different prices depending what you wanted to do – from just looking at £60, to having a meal up there for £100. We only wanted to look so just got the basic ticket. The girl at the counter seemed quite upset that all we wanted to do was look… I wonder if she works on commission…

We got in the lift and a lift man pushed the button for the top… took about 5 minutes to get up there then we had to walk up about a dozen steps. At both bends in the steps a guy was stood pointing us around the corner (coz we had so many other choices!!)

It’s not that high, only185m. The view was pretty cool – you can see quite a ways from that high up. All the lights of the city seem to go on for miles. You can see all the traffic too... it was just wall to wall cars!

Of course there were the dodgy characters up there pointing out sights that you can see for yourself then asking for baksheesh. I was trying to figure out my camera and this guy kept trying to get me to come look at something – I kept saying ‘I’m Fine’… eventually he wandered off. Meanwhile Chris got hit up by some guy pointing out a soccer field (which blind Freedy could see) then asking for baksheesh.

My camera has a ‘night mode’ but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work very well. I got a couple of good pics when I used the image stabiliser but most of our pics are either too dark, or too blurry…

We could almost see our apartment. We could see the shooting club that we live next door to (the lights are like the ones at the MCG!).

It’d be an awesome view during the day, but then you run the risk that the pollution would be so bad that you wouldn’t be able to see more than 10m.

I’m not convinced it was worth £60, but then I guess that’s only about $15 which is about what you’d pay at home for Rialto.

Khan Al-Khalili & The Citadel – Saturday 25 Nov 2006

Today we were going to go to Ismailia, but yesterday when we were to Yasser’s farm we saw most of it. So today decided to do a bit of more local sight-seeing.

First we went to Khan Al-Khalili – it’s a huge bazaar. Kinda similar to the vic market though – lots of stalls of the same stuff. Although here the stalls are perfume bottles, clothes, shoes and jewellery boxes. We wandered around for a while, just looking at the stalls. Then Chris said that he wanted to get some Christmas decoration. He said, that each time he goes on holiday to a new place he buys Christmas decorations so he’s reminded of his holiday each year.

I thought that was a brilliant idea, so we were talking about it as we walked down the aisle. All the stall holders call out to you, saying ‘free to look’, and ‘lovely tops here’ etc and as we were walking down one aisle, after just having talked about it, one guy yells out ‘perfume bottles, crystal, Christmas decorations’. We stopped, went back and said to the guy did he hear us talking and he said no, he has lots of Christmas decorations.

We looked at some and they were cheap thin glass ones. Then he got a box from the corner and showed us some thicker ones. They were really nice. Chris bought one in the shape of a camel! Plus we both bought globe type ones with gold pyramids on them. They are pretty cool :)

Normally I get fridge magnets from every country I go to, but I’ve already got one from last time I was in Egypt so I wasn’t sure what I’d get this time. Now I’ve decided I’ll get a Christmas decoration for every Christmas I’m away from home (if I’m ever away from home again!).

They look pretty cool. They are made just like the perfume bottles, and use the same colouring etc. I bought two that were purple and gold (gold was the only choice). They are oval globes with the outline of the pyramids on them.

Once we’d wandered around there we headed up towards the Citadel – the Mohammad Ali Mosque.

We didn’t go in (the book says there isn’t really much to see). Instead we drove up the same mountain thing that Yasser took us up yesterday and took some photos of the Citadel and the city from there. It was fairly smoggy and hazy so the photos look like we took them through a Vaseline lens, but some came out fairly well.