An Oddball Week in Cairo

Years from now when I look back upon our time in Egypt, I will recall the odd events of this past week. This has been a week where the entire interim government unexpectedly resigned, where soldiers took the place of striking bus workers, and where an elderly Army doctor held a press conference to announce he had found a cure for AIDS and Hepatitis C. Even by "National Enquirer" standards this had been a curious week in terms of the stories grabbing Egyptian headlines.

Outgoing Egyptian Prime Minister, Hazem Al Beblawi.
Photo by World Economic Forum, CC license.

On February 24th, aging Prime Minister Hazem Al Beblawi gave a televised speech announcing that he and his interim government had resigned. In the July, 2013 wake of President Mohammed Morsi's ouster, Beblawi and the 30 other cabinet members, the heads of Egypt's various Ministries, hastily assumed office. Seven months later, they are leaving. In a Kennedy-esque, farewell speech, Beblawi stated, "it is time we all sacrificed for the good of the country. Rather than asking what has Egypt given us, we should instead be asking what we have done for Egypt." No real reason was given for the resignation other than a vague nod to a "need for new blood.' Given that over one thousand people have died in protests since Beblawi assumed the role of Prime Minster, this was perhaps a unfortunate turn of phrase. Never really popular with the public, Beblawi has been criticized for the harsh crackdown on protests and for mismanaging the economy. Recent nationwide strikes among public sector workers and an ongoing energy crisis have swelled the number of government detractors. However, none had demanded the government step down, so the resignation came as a surprise. Beblawi will quickly be replaced as Prime Minister by the head of the Ministry for Housing, while many of the other cabinet heads will continue on in a stewardship role. The new government will be Egypt's sixth since the Arab Spring Revolution of 2011.

Supporter of Field Marshal el-Sisi.
Photo by montager, CC license.

Meanwhile, current Defense Minister and First Deputy Prime Minister, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is still waiting to announce his candidacy for president. The popular general did not comment on the government resignation, this despite his membership in the cabinet. Egyptian media outlets have speculated for month's about el-Sisi running for president. With presidential elections tentatively scheduled for April, the "Quiet General" still has yet to announce his intentions.

This week the Army was called upon to assume a rather unique task, that of driving the city's buses. Thousands and thousands of public workers, public transport workers included, took to the streets this week in what they hope will be the beginnings of a general strike. As a result, some members of the Army were called upon to maintain the nation's rickety public transport system. Striking workers included bus drivers, trash collectors, and even some doctors and dentists. They want an increase in the minimum wage. Egypt does have a minimum wage currently set at 1200 Egyptian Pounds per month. That is about $170. However, the minimum wage only applies to a fraction of Egypt's public workers. The law does not apply to any worker in Egypt's private sector. Many Egyptians earn less than $100 per month. In a country where per capita GDP is about $3000 and where an estimated one in four Egyptians lives on less than $1.65 per day, the striking workers feel a moral obligation to have their demands met.

So the government resigns, a wildly popular general has no comment, and members of the nation's military assume the roles of bus drivers. Although these headlines in and of themselves would make for a pretty interesting week, the biggest oddball headline came from Major General Ibrahim Abdel-Atti. He is an Army doctor and the head of a cancer treatment and screening center here in Cairo. This week, the aging general held a press conference, announcing that he had found a cure for both AIDS and Hepatitis C. In a presentation given to reporters, General Abdel-Atti showed a short film that explained the "miraculous" procedure. He explained that the procedure simply involved transfusing a patient's blood, removing all traces of the virus, and then pumping back in the healthy blood. Simply, really. "I will take the AIDS from the patient and I will nourish the patient on the AIDS treatment. I will give it to him like a skewer of Kofta to nourish him," he stated. Although Egypt has a low prevalence of HIV infections, the WHO estimates that Egypt has the highest rate of chronic Hepatitis C sufferers in the world; about 5.5 million out of a total population of 85 million.

It has indeed been a week of strange headlines. Meanwhile, a Cairo police officer was killed yesterday morning, the latest in a series of drive-by shootings targeting local police. There were also more fatalities in Egypt's restive Sinai. Much like school shootings in the United States, these headlines and others like it were relegated to the second and third pages of Egypt's broadsheets.

An Egyptian Doorman - the Bowab

Depending upon the building, he can be visible or invisible, homespun or cooly professional, intimidating or welcoming. He is a bowab, a doorman, and he is unique to this corner of the African continent.

He is certainly unique to me. Doormen were not a part of my upbringing in rural, southern Ohio. Growing up, the only connection I made with doormen came via the television. I remember Ralph the doorman on The Jeffersons, and I can vaguely remember the disembodied voice of  Carlton the Doorman on Rhoda. The bowab of my building in Ma'adi doesn't look at all like Ralph, and he does not sound at all like Carlton.

For starters, he has hardly a tooth in his head and he speaks almost no English. When I met him for the first time, I shook his hand and gesturing to myself, said "Kyle." He smiled a toothless grin, likewise gestured to himself and said something. Since that day I have replayed that "something" several hundred times in my head, and I still have no idea what the hell the man said. Every syllable he uttered sounded like soft cheese being squished, his breath a curious mixture of stale cigarettes and halitosis. There was even some spittle. Consequently, I do not know my bowab's name. Neither do any of my neighbors; and I have asked all of them. I can only assume that they too, received the same halitosis-fueled, squished cheese and spittle welcome that I received. Six months on, and I hesitate to reintroduce myself. It would be awkward, and I am not certain that I want the mental replay pinballing in my brain for the next six months.

Not all buildings in Ma'adi have bowabs, but most do. From what I gather the residents of a building can get together and decide to hire a bowab. They may do so to project a sense of status (probable in times past) or to project a veneer of security (very probable in Egypt today). When the residents decide to hire a bowab they must decide how much to pay him and then where to deploy him. The bowabs of whom I am aware all work for a few hundred Egyptian pounds per month, each resident contributing a part of the total amount (1 Egyptian pound = .15 $US at the time of writing). Many bowabs have some sort of separate security hut provided by the building residents or owner. Located just off the street in front of the building, these huts make a perfect perch in which to sit or sleep, depending upon the time of day. Our bowab likes his afternoon cat nap at around 3 p.m., for example. Some bowabs have a built in living unit just inside the building's main entrance. Usually no bigger than a closet, these units can be a bowab's home. Occasionally the units are larger - but not much - and can accommodate the bowab and his family.

Bowabs are often very handy, washing cars, repairing household appliances, making minor vehicle repairs, etc. On our morning walk to work for example, we see many bowabs out washing luxury vehicles. Unbelievably, some building residents have their vehicles washed every day. It's not the money paid that astonishes me but rather the utter waste of water resources, particularly in a country where water is acutely scarce. That's not the bowab's fault, by the way. He is only trying to make as much of a living as possible. When they wash cars or make minor home repairs, bowabs do charge for the additional work, and they usually work for a lot less than 1$ per hour.

From what I understand, bowabs have traditionally worn galabeyas (shown in photo above), sandals and some kind of headdress. On our morning walks to work, Dana and I certainly see traditional bowabs, usually elderly gentleman puttering around the front of a building, bidding us a smiling "sabaah al-khayr" ("good morning"). But this is modern Egypt, and today's bowab is more likely to be smartly dressed or perhaps even uniformed. One bowab that we see almost every morning wears designer jeans, a leather jacket and engineer boots. He greets us with a smile and a polished, "good morning sir; good morning madam." Our bowab is a little less sporty and polished; he wears a "pleather" jacket. But he does ride a well-worn, Dayun motorcycle (two bonus points for sportiness).

Our bowab does not work weekends and nights. I think he sub-lets to a night bowab and a different weekend bowab. We only pay our main bowab, so I am assuming a sub-let situation (although I sometimes worry that we should be paying our night and weekend bowabs separately and that we are seen as those "cheap bastards upstairs"). Our night bowab is named Ahmed. I know this because he speaks a little English and understood my introduction when I made it months ago. Unlike our main bowab, I understood Ahmed's response. Ahmed is young and looks like he desperately needs a sandwich. A strong gust of wind would surely knock him over, but he is extremely nice and hip. Ahmed has a phone and a very busy text correspondence that he seems to keep up throughout the night. I am uncertain as to whom Ahmed is texting at 3 a.m., but I have a mental image of hundreds of weekend bowabs texting one another throughout the night to keep each other awake.

On the whole, the bowabs that we encounter are gentle and extremely courteous. We greet them every morning and they always return the greeting. A few bowabs are obviously practicing their English, and they try to sneak in a couple of additional words each month. I smile, speaking slowly. I imagine sometimes that they must think me as the village idiot.

Just when I think I have the whole bowab thing figured out, I am forced to reconsider. In the very early hours of the morning, I am awakened by the din of raised voices from the nearby street corner. I get up out of bed, peering out of a corner window to the street below. Some ten to fifteen young men are standing in the middle of the street, facing off against one or two of the bowabs that mind the apartment building on the corner. Although I cannot understand what is being said, the voices I hear convey a sharp sense of anger and malice. Shouting turns into a shoving match, the young men closing ranks around the two bowabs. Then, from every street leading into the intersection, I hear the running footfalls and brief shouts of other men. Within a minute, the menacing young men are surrounded by twenty or more bowabs, each carrying a thick stick or staff. One particularly brawny bowab carrying something just short of a tree trunk walks calmly into the circle of young men and says a few quiet words to one of lads. He towers over the young man, hefting his club as he is speaking. The young ruffian does not look him in the eye. Without a further word, the young troublemakers slink quietly down the road. The bowabs are still chatting as I climb back into bed.

I sleep more soundly than I ever have since arriving in Egypt.

An all-girls, STEM school in Cairo

Both in the U.S. and in the UK, "STEM" is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and is currently a hot topic in educational circles and debates. The use of STEM as an acronym goes back at least to the early 2000s where it begins to pop up in the academic and periodic literature associated with America's competitive technological edge or lack thereof. By 2006 the acronym wormed its way into George W. Bush's State of the Union address and not long after, STEM wriggled its way into the American Competitive Initiative and the America Competes Act. These initiatives promoted the increase of funding - both public and private - into state and local education programs designed to elevate student proficiencies in math and the sciences. They have have been surprisingly successful as hundreds of STEM programs throughout the U.S., backed by federal block grants, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NASA, Siemans, the Battelle Memorial Institute, and almost all sizable state-funded universities, are now very well established.

I am just a bit surprised then when I get a call from my school head wanting to know whether I am interested in going with him and another colleague to visit an all-girls, STEM school located within a few kilometers of our international school in Cairo.

"Count me in," I say. Inwardly and arrogantly, I am thinking that there is no way in hell that there is really any such thing as a local, all-girls, STEM school. All-girls, yes; but STEM, no way. I log the date and time in my calendar, thinking that this visit will be good fun; arrogant ass that I sometimes am.

The day of the tour arrives, and we pile in one of our school's sedans along with Mohammad, our driver. The STEM school is close, less than 10 km, but having driven half that distance, I discover that we are a world away. After we drive out of the green, tree-lined streets of affluent Ma'adi, we motor into the dusty residential blocks that make up much of Cairo's southeastern dwelling enclaves. We pass by square after monotonous square of partially finished, cinder block hulks, rebar sprouting from tops like ungainly tufts of hair. Here and there we see a finished porch, either freshy painted or newly tiled, in the middle of an obviously unfinished building, the sign of a family having already moved in amidst the debris of a construction site. Or maybe just squatters making themselves at home. Nothing here is finished. Sand covered construction materials litter the streets and the entrances to almost every one of the buildings, the visible signs of an aborted construction boom that met its demise along with ousted president, Hosni Mubarak. 

After experiencing some difficulties navigating the streets in this immense tangle of cement and metal, we finally find our destination, the Girls' School for Science and Technology. The school is mostly finished, which is in stark contrast to the taller buildings that surround it. The school occupies an entire city block, wholly surrounded by a high, cement wall. Atop the wall at odd intervals, electric cables sheathed in plastic look like clots of oddly colored weeds. At some point there will be light fixtures atop these walls but not now; the school is not yet completely finished ... or paid for ... or both. We pull into a paved courtyard, driving right up to the front of the school. I note that there is no security detail or member of staff to stop us. We simply drive up, exit our vehicle, walk into the school, and begin looking around.

After several awkward minutes, a woman in modern dress, her head covered by a tight fitting, brightly colored a scarf, emerges from an office and greets us. She introduces herself as Nagla and tells us that Jan is ready to meet with us.

Jan? Who the hell is Jan? I have never heard of an Egyptian named Jan.

Nagla leads us through a couple of secretarial offices and into what appears to me to be a board room. Oblong oak table with matching matching chairs with padded leather seats and backs - check. Digital overhead projector - check. Large pull-down screen at the far end of the table - check. A couple of oak, three-tiered bookshelves - check. Inspiring and heavily romanticized art prominently displayed on three walls - check. Yep, board room. Except that some woman's large purse has vomited its contents all over the middle of the table. A leather satchel has commited the same atrocity on the floor just in front of the pull-down screen. Jan is sitting at a chair toward the center of the table, sifting through the stuff that the purse spewed up.

Sandy haired, feisty and bespectacled, Jan is the founder and CEO of the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM or TIES for short. TIES is a STEM centered consulting firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. Back when the STEM debate began in U.S., Jan saw an opportunity to move away from her thirty-year career in private education. She left her principal position and founded TIES. Since then TIES has worked with all kinds of schools to create STEM programs. Because of the success TIES enjoyed with those early partnerships, Jan has served as a STEM consultant to both Presidents Bush and Obama, a rare feat in and of itself. Jan is here now at the behest of the Egyptian Ministry of Education, opening STEM centered schools in Cairo. We are standing in the board room of the girls' school. The boys' school is across town. I cannot be more shocked.

We sit down, and Jan tells us a little of her story. Initially invited to Egypt by a forward-thinking minister in the Mubarak regime, Jan came to offer her expert advise on the feasibility of opening STEM centered schools in a developing nation. She is now working with her fifth or sixth Education Minister, she cannot quickly recall which. Two STEM schools offering a three-year program to promising, Egyptian teens are in operation with another ten schools in various stages of planning. The boys' school is in its third year of operation and will graduate its first class at the end of this academic year (2014). The top boy in the school has aleady garnered scholarship offers from many of the Ivies in the U.S. The girls' school is in its second year of operation, and Jan tells us that the school's top female students will probably enjoy similar offers.

"We don't hire math teachers and science teachers," she says proudly, "we hire successful Egyptian engineers and then train them in the best educational practices in the States. The Ministry made it clear to us from the outset that aside from the American tertiary education training that some of its teachers receive, that this is a program for Egypt and Egyptian students. We are not recreating a little America here, but rather planting the seeds of a educational reformation with a curriculum designed by Egyptians to specifically help to solve the problems Egypt faces."

She tells us a little more about what makes these schools special. All of the students are on 100%, merit-based scholarships provided by the Egyptian government and the corporate sponsors partnering in this endeavor. Both schools have basic dormitory units to house the 300-or-so strong student body. Classes run for ten months out of the year with students receiving instruction in STEM, English, Arabic, and religion ... in that order. The schools are mandated by a special decree that allows them to operate independently of the Egyptian public school curriculum, and this decree has been staunchly supported by the Mubarak administration, the transitional government that followed Mubarak, the Morsi administration, and the current transitional government administration. The schools and the decree that bestows upon them the special license to operate are not going anywhere; they are here to stay.

Dumbfounded, we thank Jan and leave her to her planning. She has only a couple more days to spend here in Cairo before jetting back to Cleveland. Leaving the board room behind, we tour the school. We are led by one very proud school principal. He shows us around the cement and cinder block facility. For the most part, the school is basic. We walk through hallways of unpainted, gray cement. Many of the language classrooms are small and packed with desks. It is not uncommon, says the principal, to have class sizes of up to 50. There is a large courtyard that doubles as playing field and open-air cafeteria. What makes this school a little different is its fabrication labs. These are large classrooms jammed with every piece of equipment that I would expect to see in a state-of-the-art design technology school. The principal tells us that this is where most of the students like to spend their time. I do not blame them. The fab-labs are very, very cool.

We look into a couple of more classrooms, and we encounter four of the school's teachers, two men and two women. The principal tells us that they are collaborating in grading part of the final semester examinations that the second-year girls are just finishing. It is here that I become amazed at what I am seeing; and just a tad bit envious. Here are four teachers collaborating and obviously enjoying themselves while examining and assessing student work. This is something that most of my teachers can't/won't/don't do; and there are all kinds of reasons as to why not. Mostly to do with institutional constraints, for sure, but I am not here to fight that battle. I am astounded by what am observing in this all-girls, STEM school in Cairo, an element of teaching and assessment that I find so lacking in the U.S. and international schools that I have seen.

I ask about the final exam the teachers are assessing. One of the teachers tells me that the examination is divided into several parts. What we are seeing is the written portion of the exam, the part reserved for assessing a student's basic learning. The other part of the exam is designed to assess how well the student can relate her learning to real world situations. I ask the teacher for an example. She tells me that the other parts of the final examination are project-based. In one project, for example, a team of students has designed and built a model for a better sanitation system for this building and others like it. Another team of students has built a mock-up of an air purifier. Still another team is trying to design a better engine for Cairo's notoriously dirty tuk-tuks. She directs my attention to some of the "art" on the classroom walls; student created blueprints for the various designs she has just described. The students are graded by a team of teachers and experts from the corporate world, some skyping in for the students' final presentations.

I am floored. And I am suddenly feeling very small and very ashamed of myself. 

We thank the teachers for their time, bidding them goodbye. They tell us that they are quite pleased to have met administrators from "the famous international school in Ma'adi." 

Okay, now I really feel small.

The three of us walk silently back to Mohammad and our school's waiting sedan. I cannot speak for my two colleagues, but I am feeling very humbled and more than a little ashamed of myself. I came today thinking that I would have a laugh, or maybe that I would have some kind of grand wisdom to pass on to this developing school out here in the boondocks of Cairo's dusty residential suburbs. Instead, I am walking out of a school that is in some ways, years ahead of any school I have known. 

And I am hoping that someday soon, a couple of teachers from the all-girls, STEM school in Cairo can visit us and maybe teach us a thing or two.

How to dismantle a terrorist bomb

It's a sunny, Friday morning. Blue skies. Billowy, dreamy clouds meandering about. Birds singing. The whole bit. I am in the front room of our flat reading the morning news, the morning sun streaming in. It has been a quiet morning in Cairo.

Just before 10 a.m., I feel a soft thud, as if someone two floors down has slammed a door. There were people mucking about downstairs earlier, so I imagine the noise could be them. Still, there hasn't been any commotion down there for at least an hour. 

Could it be? No way. Not again.

It IS Friday, though; the day when protests happen throughout Cairo. Protests usually occur in the early afternoon, just after the noon prayers. Two weeks ago, on another Friday morning, a few explosive devises detonated throughout the city, killing several police officers and wounding scores more. One of the city's popular museums, one particularly well known for housing treasured artifacts from Cairo's medieval history, was almost totally destroyed. 

Surely, not again. 

And then just a couple of minutes after the first, I feel another thud. Strange, but I don't panic. Two weeks ago, I did. Not this time. Instead, I calmly open my Twitter app. Sad really. I suspect that two bombs have just detonated near enough to me to feel them, and yet I am calm. Can this be right? Is this how it is supposed to work?

My application opens to the bloop-bloop-bloop of a continuous Twitter feed on #Cairo. Two small bombs have exploded near a military checkpoint on one of the bridges that connects Giza with our suburb, Ma'adi. A reporter for one of the local news agencies happened to be crossing the bridge when the first bomb exploded. He is tweeting from the scene, reporting a number of injured police officers and a lot of broken glass. He says that the devices were small, nothing like the car bomb that exploded two weeks ago. It is difficult to say from a tone deaf tweet, but I am inclined to think that there is more than a hint of relief in the reporter's updates. 

So on this bright, Friday morning, I ask myself a brutal question. When is it okay to stop being scared of the bombs?

Sadly, there is nothing novel in this particular question being asked. Loads of travel blogs tell me that Laos is the most bombed country on earth, so I am certain that millions of Laotians have at some point in the past, asked this very question. I know folks in the UK asked this question in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I can imagine that some of current residents of Baghdad ask this question every day. 

The question is a first for me.

I get a sense that quite a few of my colleagues at school have already answered this question. Some stop being scared a long time ago. They taxi downtown to clandestine clubs. They take photos of gathering protestors at Tahrir Square. They cycle through military checkpoints on their way to neighboring suburbs, suburbs that have suffered through recent protests and clashes. They plan their weekend travels based on the same Twitter reports that compel me to stay indoors. If there is trouble in Giza, then they go to Festival City and Ikea instead. They think me crazy for allowing my routines and patterns to be altered. They say that the odds of being involved in an incident are still astronomically high. 

Some of my acquaintances however, have answered the question and have behaved in exactly the opposite fashion. A teaching couple that began the year with us have already evacuated, breaking contract, never to return. Others are counting the minutes until they depart in June, moving on to other international schools in other locales far safer than strife-riven Egypt. Some of my colleagues have cultivated a deep mistrust of Egyptians, and they seldom leave their houses.

I am of the opinion that anywhere measured in double-digit kilometers near an explosive device set by terrorists is too close. If I can feel the crump of a detonation, then I have chosen poorly. If I can hear the crackle of gunfire, then it sucks to be me. My blue-collar, lower-middle-class, small town American upbringing simply did not prepare me for frenzied teens toting RPGs and extremists in galliabayas burying IEDs by highway checkpoints. 

But by the same token, I do not see these teens and extremists behind every neighborhood tree and corner. I do not think twice about walking to and from school every day, nor do I worry when I stroll down to the shops for groceries. I think your average Egyptian simply wants all of this horseshit to stop so that he or she can get back to work and provide for the family. Dana and I dine in local restaurants. Egyptians tend to smile and say hello to us every single day. We return the smile and the greeting. Average folks in Egypt are pretty much average folks anywhere. 

So much for taking the middle ground. 

But taking the middle ground may not be so helpful on a day-to-day basis. If, for example, on a Friday, Dana and I are invited to a downtown, Cairo restaurant, do we go?

Do we?