(Dave)
The bus from Hurghada to Luxor was long. It was late, of course, and we had to fight to get a seat. One person ended up standing for the 5 hour trip. It left around 11pm and we tried to get some sleep but the driver had the TV volume turned up loud. Eventually we pulled into the bus station. There were no taxis, a strange sight in Luxor, but there was a microbus who was working as a taxi. We shared it with a couple of guys from Australia. After we dropped them off in the middle of Television street (they had no idea where they wanted to stay) the driver tried to ask us where we were staying. We tried to explain it was a flat near Maogof but he didn't understand we tried to direct him but he wasn't comfortable with it. Eventually he found a taxi driver who spoke better English to translate. Sadly the taxi driver's English also was not good enough and we could not convince them to let us navigate. We even pulled out a map and tried to show them where we were and where we wanted to go but taxi drivers cannot read maps. Eventually the driver thought he knew where to take us. When he got about halfway (still a kilometer or two away) he said, "here?" We told him, no, keep driving. He started to drive at about 2 kph waiting for us to jump out. We kept motioning to continue. Finally we got near our destination and got out. Very confused he said, "no hotel here". We just smiled and gave him an extra 5 pounds for being so troublesome.
Mara, Holly, and Ryan were happy to see us. The class had grown and was unwieldy. We helped keep discipline a little bit and would start with yoga which seemed to calm them some. After a few days Mara decided to split the class and let the four of us pick advanced students to teach.
Luxor has so much to see that our time there wasn't enough. Here are the things we saw:
Luxor Temple: A fabulous temple. Huge statues of Ramses II everywhere. One room featured Alexander the Great.
Luxor Museum: Much nicer than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Where the Egyptian Museum is cluttered and poorly labelled Luxor Museum was spacious and well labelled. We were able to see everything in under two hours.
Karnak Temple: We went twice. The light show was nice to see but we would have gotten more out of it if we had seen it after seeing the temple in the day. It is a huge temple complex, the largest in the world with each pharaoh trying to outdo the previous. It is large enough to warrant four half-day visits.
Valley of the Kings: Splendid tombs of the Pharoahs. We saw Tuthmosis III (one of the first tombs. The funerary scenes look like stick figures), Siptah (1194-1188 BC, had cerebral palsy), and Ramses I (founder of the 19th dynasty. Mummy was later discovered in Ontario, purchased by Atlanta, and given to the Luxor Museum). It made me want to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again.
Tombs of the Nobles: Similar to the tombs of the Kings but not as fancy. The walls displayed daily life more than the rituals involved with burying pharoahs. It showed people doing their jobs and playing with their children. We saw the tombs of Menna and Nakht. Nakht was especially interesting because it had a bit of a museum and had labelled some of the wall paintings. It included the three musicians which is famous for being printing on all sorts of souvenirs. We later bought a papyrus drawing of it.
Deir al-Bahri: The fabulous temple of Hatshepsut.
Medinat Habu: It was originally a temple to Amun built by Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III but that is overshadowed by the funerary temple of Ramses III which was inspired by the temple that his father (Ramses II) built.
Colossi of Memnon: This is all that is left of the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, the largest complex on the West Bank. It was once covered with gold, silver, and electrum. They are called the colossi of Memnon because the Greeks believe they were statues of Memnon. Every morning the northern statue would emit a haunting, musical noise the Greeks believe to be the voice of Memnon greeting his mother (Eos, Greek goddess of the dawn). Experts believe this was caused by the sun baking the dew-soaked stone and causing sand particles to vibrate. When the statue was repaired in 3rd century it stopped singing.
Most of the time we spent in Luxor was just trying to figure out how to live daily life. Even getting food was an ordeal and despite cheap vendors we cooked a lot. We had to take a minibus to town every morning, much to the interest of the locals. They seem unused to tourists on the minibuses and they were especially amused when we passed up our money saying "itnayn" (two).
I've complained over and over about the hassles in Egypt and Luxor is as bad as anywhere. We are so programmed to listen to people who talk directly to us that it is difficult to simply ignore them. Many of them sound indignant and urgently say, "excuse me. excuse me!" The best thing to do is to ignore them, shake your head or hand "no" or say, "la, shokrum" (no, thanks). Kids are the worst because they don't realize when they go too far and often they are told by a local when to leave the tourists alone. The calesh (carriage) drivers use the same lines so when they say, "calesh? Hello? Calesh. Very low price. You know how low?" I would say in a bored monotone voice, "five pounds, one hour."
When we went to visit Luxor Museum we arrived a bit early (it opens at 4pm during the high season). A tout tried to inform us that it really opened at 5pm because "today is big market day" (presumably he wanted us to help us do some shopping). I had to ask him to move aside so I could read the posted hours. As he moved aside he told us that it opened at 4pm. Thanks. Very helpful (not). We chose to sit overlooking the Nile (it really is beautiful) even though that meant braving felucca (sailboat) drivers. But then a boy selling peanuts came up to us and would not leave. Eventually I pulled out a package of tissue and tried to sell it to him for 50 piastres (the typical price kids try to sell them for). He got very confused and just stood there. Any time he tried to sell more peanuts I would try to sell him tissue. I even lowered my price to 25 piastres (which got a grin from the nearby felucca driver). Eventually the felucca driver came over to ask why I was selling tissue for 25 piastres when it cost me that much or more. I told him I bought a box of them for 5 piastres each (which was mostly true). I think the felucca driver had a bit of sympathy because he stopped treating me like a ATM machine (for which he forgot his PIN) and started talking to me. Every so often the small boy would try to sell peanuts again and get my demand for 25 piastres for tissue. At some point another boy came up to sell bookmarks and said, hey, three hustlers here! I said, no there are four and offered to sell tissue. He smiled and said that I wasn't going to buy bookmarks so he wasn't going to waste his time with me.
We spent a lot of time at an internet cafe where they only charged 2 pounds per hour for us. It was fairly slow and when we needed more bandwidth he went to the nicer place that was 10 pounds per hour (which is more expensive than Rome).
We bought glasses at a shop. Kim bought two pairs and I bought one. They were about $30 each after haggling. The man said that it was a special price only for me. I asked if he would give the same price to my friends. He said, "oh sure, bring them in!"
The difficult thing about being in a poor country is trying to spend money in the right way. Baksheesh (tipping for even minor things) is common but I don't like people asking for it. When I buy things from the souk (open air market) I try to pay more than the locals but less than the shops. I don't mind tipping the guide/guards at the tombs but many of them don't know much and are more annoying than helpful. One guide pointed at a drawing and said, "Horus". It definitely was not Horus so I asked where but he kept pointing at the big figure. Eventually I said, "Amun?" and he said, "oh, um. Yes. Amun". One lady had two cute kids and we took their picture. We wanted to give her something but I didn't like the idea of giving her money. I just don't want people to equate children with begging for money. I bought some oranges and gave her two (one for each). She looked fairly well off so was probably amused that a tourist overpaid a lot just to give her two cheap oranges and if she was poor she could probably get baksheesh from the orange seller.
I lost my electric razor somewhere along the way and hadn't shaved in two weeks. Apparently I was offending the Egyptians because barbers started to wave me over when they saw me in the street. Then I heard about a treatment they do where they rip the hair out by the root. It sounded painful but Lee, a man in one of Mara's flats, told me that it didn't hurt too much. We made a big thing out of it and headed down there with me, Kim, Ryan, Holly, Mara, and Said. When I sat in the chair the barber looked at my scruff, shook his head, smiled, and said, "like fire". Then he put something like dental floss between his teeth and ran the other end on my cheek. Sure enough it hurt like fire. I stopped him and started screaming at him. My entourage told me not to be a baby so I let him continue. Then he got to the long stuff. I'm pretty sure I didn't bawl openly but when my vision was blurred by tears I had him stop and work on the other cheek. Maybe I passed out because the next thing I know he stopped. Apparently he was drawing too much blood and couldn't continue in good conscious so he pulled out a razor and shaved me in the traditional manner. I have a pretty bad fear of strangers getting close to my face with a razor but I was so numb to the world that I didn't care. After the shave he put cold cream on my face which made me look like some sort of crazy mime. For some reason Mara was happy with his performance and asked him to cut her hair. It turned out well. My advice is that if a crazy Egyptian comes after you with a piece of dental floss hanging from his mouth, run away.
Teaching the class was a unique experience. I had never done anything like that. For the most part these kids are bright but unchallenged in school. They are expected to learn by rote. Of the forty kids we saw about six of them are very bright and creative but the rest are simply not used to thinking or solving problems. Most of the kids came to class because it is a very nice house and they feel special just being there but they would rather talk and play than learn. Here are some kids that I remember:
Achmed: His father had died which is really bad in a country where women mostly cannot work. When he was twelve he took a single bag of chips and sold it for a profit. He used the money to buy two more bags of chips to sell. In two years his little "store" was doing well enough that he could take the time to go back to school. He was extremely bright and well behaved and has the most potential of all the kids. He'll probably end up running a tourist shop but I hope that doesn't make him disdainful of Westerners.
Assma: After we taught the colors to the class she made us a chart with all of the colors on it. She was very friendly and very bright. I have no idea what her potential is since girls seem to be destined for nothing but housework and making babies. Her younger sister is Sarah.
Shaeman: Possibly the brightest student. She has a critical mind, much more than any other student. She even questions the teachers some times.
Zaharla: Older and more responsible than the other girls. She usually came to class with a younger sister who watched. One day we had to kick her out of class for being disruptive and she never came back.
Hasim (or Hussein?): A slow boy who shouldn't have been in our group. I picked him because I thought he just needed some attention to gain confidence. Unfortunately years of ridicule have left him unable to try very hard. Every so often if he got an affirmation early in the class he would be confident and you could tell that he really could learn but usually he mumbled and stuttered. But he's nice, big, and gets along with the other boys and he will probably do well in life.
On our last day we gave the students each a piece of paper with some of the phrases we taught them along with pictures and Arabic translations. We tied them like a diploma and included a piece a chocolate just to make sure they really thought it was special. (We had bought the chocolate from Achmed). Then we took pictures and gave them all our email address. Some of them understood and knew what email is. Hopefully one will write to us.
One thing that disturbed us was when we had to send four or five girls home. After class we found them on the doorstep talking with Mara and Holly. We asked why they were still here and were told that if they were caught being sent home they would be beaten. That really depressed us. Part of the problem is that we can't effectively discipline them. In school if they are disruptive they get hit. It is what they are used to. Being sent home from school is probably an extreme last resort. In our case we refuse to hit them even though that is their culture and it is what they expect. They would rather be hit than sent home but we can't do it. It was very frustrating, especially for someone like me who has never taught children.
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