From August 15 - December 15, 2010, I will be working as an architecture intern with Engineering Ministries International in Colorado Springs, CO. I will be helping to design a girls orphanage in Sudan, so I have the great opportunity to travel to Juba, Sudan for a couple weeks to work on the project there too! I'm so excited for this big adventure that God has me on for these next few months and I've created this blog to share that excitement with you! Thanks so much for visiting, your encouragement and support is always appreciated!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Before I leave Cairo

It's my last day in Cairo and I had the day off of work to pack and get some last minute shopping in with Beth. I was nervous that I would have WAY too much stuff to bring back to the states but thankfully, I've left things I brought in every country I've been to so far so my bag is actually a little lighter now than when I arrived! So, between now and the church event I'm going to tonight, I figured I would get another update about Cairo posted since I've had a second week here to process my experience even more.

Last week, my first week here, turned out to be a really challenging week. Halfway through the week I was hit with travel fatigue and tired every day no matter how much sleep I got. To add to that, it was HOT here. I remember one day it was 40 degrees Celsius here when it was 40 degrees Fahrenheit in Minneapolis. I was not raised to be used to 100-degree F weather in the middle of October! Along with that, I was experiencing culture shock more than I have in my past travels and in a different way. Just about everything made me want to cry---that's definitely a sign of culture shock (combined with tiredness and heat)! I was surprised that I was experiencing culture shock here in Cairo rather than in Sudan, but reflecting on it more it made sense. I was prepared to be in a completely different world in Sudan, and I was ready to be surrounding by things that were unfamiliar to me. Then I arrived in Cairo and finally I was in a city again, and one that looked like others that I've been to (in Athens or Belgrade, for example). But that was the kicker--because it looked familiar I expected to understand it and be more comfortable here, but that wasn't the case. Cairo is unlike any city I've ever been to; it's the Middle East. Social interactions are entirely different here, especially as a woman. Most people don't speak English, not even taxi drivers. And it's obvious I'm a foreigner so I always feel watched, but not in a good way (this may also come back to the fact that I am a woman). Needless to say, all those things added together hit me hard and at one point I really just wanted to leave Cairo.


Woody, Sara & I out to eat with Egyptian friends
 

Thankfully, the weekend came and brought some distractions and more rest. My friend and former classmate, Woody, is working in Cyprus this year and he came down to Cairo for the weekend for some sight-seeing.We met up with Sara and tooled around downtown Cairo for a bit. We went to the Egyptian museum, a boat ride on the Nile, and got some excellent fatta (fet-ta) and mulukhiyah (mull-a-hee-ah) with some Egyptian friends. On Saturday, we did Race for the Cure at the Pyramids with my friends here in Cairo. THAT was quite the experience!! The run was short, but right around the pyramids and sphinx--definitely something I'll never forget! Not to mention the fact that there were 12,000 people there, most running off-road (aka in the desert) while giant tour buses drove UP the road. In the states, an event like this would shut down the road that was being run on, as well as half a city block around the entire area surrounding the event. Not in Egypt! It was a typical tour day at the Pyramids so the race "shared the road" with the streams of tour buses and taxis. At the end was a giant party by the sphinx. Arabic music and dancing and eating, and  A LOT of pink hijabs!! I rode a camel while I was there, too. The weekend ended up being great, and my friends and the getting out really helped me get out of the culture shock slump from the week before.


The craziness that was Race for the Cure @ the Pyramids
 
Now, this past week has been great. I'm much more used to the cat-calls and staring that I get every time I leave the apartment, so it doesn't bug me as much. I've learned a little more Arabic and recognize where I am more in Heliopolis, so I feel more comfortable getting around. I've been getting a lot done for the ministry we worked with in Sudan. I've been putting together a brochure about our project for the ministry to take back to the states. When I get back to the states, I'll pretty much be doing ACAD non-stop. Getting all the drawings ready for the final report, which we hope to have done by the end of my internship in December Insha'Allah (God Willing, in Arabic). I'll also be busy working on grad school applications in my free time. I'm trying not to let the thought of how much work I have to do on those get me more anxious and stressed here than I already am!

Another thing that has really been a great stress release here is Zumba. My friend, Jessy, is an instructor here at a really great womens' gym. Zumba is an aerobics class that uses dance moves to keep you moving and your energy up, making aerobics fun! Since I love to dance, I LOVE this. I've been to a couple zumba classes in the states, but they vary from instructor to instructor. Jessy, originally from Costa Rica, is an amazing dancer so the moves are fun but I definitely get a work out too. The women that go get really into it and it's pretty fun seeing them let loose in the class, and then clean up, cover up, and leave the gym very conservative and reserved. The gym has really welcoming, comfortable atmosphere where women can feel free to let loose, hang out, and shoot the breeze like the men do at street cafes all the time. It was good for me to spend time here because it helped me see that women in Egypt do have the freedom to be who they want to be and be less reserved, it just happens in private more than in public. The private realm is the woman's realm, the public is the man's. What a different culture this is.
Also, the other day Beth and I went on a run early in the morning right by my apartment. Running outside in Cairo only happens in the morning, in only a few places in the city (parks only) and mostly by men. But, occasionally a few women will go out--at like 6 or 6:30. So, I've only gotten to run once here, and it was still VERY hot.

Unfortunately, my computer has a virus I think. I was warned this might happen while I was in Africa, so I was prepared. Mainly, things are being uninstalled from my computer--like my device installer and my wireless/network adapter. SO, if I got on a wireless network early in my trip (like this one) I can still get on, but now my computer doesn't recognize any new networks--in fact, the "view wireless networks" option in my control panel has completely disappeared. And, I can't upload pictures from my camera anymore. It just doesn't give me an option to upload them anymore.  :/




Sphinx & Pyramids, Giza, Egypt
 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A bit about Cairo now

I've been in Cairo a week now, and I think I am finally ready to update about this crazy & confusing city. I avoided posting any first impressions of the city right away because a) I wanted to get my Sudan updates up (which still aren't all up... ) and b) this is the Middle East--- a place I could easily apply Western stereotypes and call them "first impressions", which I didn't want to do.

So, like I said, I've been here one week. Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week were spent exploring some parts of the city--mainly Heliopolis (the area I'm staying in), and some places in downtown Cairo. My friend, Sara, took a couple weeks off from her job in Tanzania to come up and visit Cairo while I'm here, so we did a few of the weekend things together! It was great to have a friend my age around to spend time with. She is staying in a different part of Cairo, and I haven't seen her much this week since I've been working. Nonetheless, it was fun to explore some of Cairo with her.

Heliopolis, where I'm staying, is a suburb outside of Cairo. It started as an area where British councilmen built their villas in the '50s and was quite the luxurious place back in the day. It still is considered a very nice area of town, but it's developed so that it looks much more like the rest of Cairo, and newer neighborhoods like New Cairo have all the villas now. The streets are lined with concrete-block high-rises with storefronts along the street. The great thing about Heliopolis' high-rises, though, is that when you stop and really look at them, they all have their own unique detailing that gives them their own character. As a designer, these are the things I notice the most in cities and Heliopolis gives me endless opportunities to enjoy these details.

I've been riding the bus to work everyday and that's been a whole new experience as well. A bus fare is 1.50 l.e., which is about $0.25 per ride--pretty good deal. The first difference about buses here is that people get on and off wherever--as long as you can flag down the bus in a noticeable way, it will slow down enough for you to jump on (and I mean literally, run and jump). The bus usually slows down enough to let women on  nicely but most of the time my second foot has just entered the bus when the vehicle starts moving again. The door stays open so people can jump out when the bus slows down at an intersection. I've seen many men ride halfway out the door of the bus when they're only on it for a quick jaunt. When a lot of people enter at once, they find their spots and then pass the money for the ticket forward. The driver proceeds to divvy up change, get the tickets, and maneuver his large bus through the hectic Cairo traffic all at the same time. Today was the first time I experienced a ticket check. Two men jumped on the bus with paper in their hands and stood right in the doorway. The bus continued to let people on and off (these men clearly in the way) while the men looked at each person's ticket and ripped it. Then a few stops later, they got off.

A roundabout in Cairo. 
The bus description reminds me to talk about the traffic in Cairo. A mere description in words really won't do it justice, so I might have to secret-spylike take a video of it sometime and post it. Basically, there aren't any controlled intersections, so you just honk your horn when you are coming to an intersection. Whether you slow down as well or just barrel through it is up to you, but you run the risk of the other people coming the other way choosing the same option of you and causing a collision if you barrel through. usually, a chunk of traffic one way will go until someone leading the pack the other way gets enough guts to interrupt that flow and starts driving. Round-abouts have zero organization (not that they've ever seemed organized to me, but that's because I'm not European). Most vehicles are small here, and that means there is very little visibility past a row of parked cars along the street. This requires most drivers to pull out into traffic to get a good look at when they can merge, and ultimately one merges whenever they want to hoping the car coming will slow down. Crossing the street as a pedestrian is basically the same. So, the only real danger to me here is being hit by a car. Not mugging or rape or kidnapping, but just a simple love-tap from a car.

This is a pretty good video I was shown when I got here about Egypt, and it's definitely true!

Europe vs. Egypt




Thursday, October 14, 2010

(backlog of Sudan entries, continued)

October 3, 2010

Time flies. Its hard to believe its our third day in Juba already! So far it hasn’t been too uncomfortable or difficult, but I’m sure that might change by day 10. We were all super tired on Friday when we arrived, so we slept well on our traditional Sudanese string beds that night. We started off at 9am on Saturday and I even enjoyed a shower in the morning! It was cold… but it was a shower! We actually have a shower in our bathroom and I guess the ministry is ordering water in our tank to be refilled daily so as to provide us with water for a shower everyday. The water is from the Nile—pumped straight from the river to a truck to our water tank—so it’s not the cleanest stuff in the world, but with a lot of soap it will do the job. And in this humidity, a little cold water every morning is GREAT. 

We had our opening meeting under the one large tree on site and did team intros and why we’re there and expectations. It was nice and cool under the tree, but the day was getting hotter by the hour. I really like this team—we’ve worked really well together so far, and I think we will continue to the rest of the week. Around 12:30 we went to the restaurant at the hotel next door for lunch and had a feast! (compared to our meager supper the night before). Chicken, beef, rice, bread, French fries, coffee… nothing super African, but it was definitely a lot of good food to give us energy for the day. It was a very LONG meal, about 3 hours long. We headed off to the girls orphanage site after lunch. The site is about 15 minutes across town from the boys site, and in a very nice neighborhood, apparently. You can tell an upscale neighborhood because of a few western-looking houses scattered amongst tukels and mud huts—the traditional housing here for most people.
Tukels. This is what most areas of Juba look like

Traveling through Juba, I’m so confused! People live in these traditional tukels—typically round, thatched roof huts—and it looks like they don’t have running water or electricity directly in their tukel. But as we went to church today and as we’ve been around town, the majority of people dress to the nines. I’m going to be very honest here and clearly show that I am used to a western lifestyle, but it’s just hard for me to think about getting dressed up nicely (like for work or something) in a waterless, electricity-less tukel everyday. (a house with dirt floors)  Now, I’m not knocking the tukel. They can actually be quite beautiful structures and are definitely economical here. But it’s just a way of life that I’m not familiar with, so it’s been very cool to see how people live similarly to us in very different environments.  It also makes me realize all the things I think I “need” in order to be clean and presentable everyday, when really those are mostly luxuries.

The people have been very friendly here. Always waving and greeting us. I don’t feel threatened or unwelcomed by strangers. We have stayed mostly on the orphanage sites and not ventured too far into the markets or town, so that might change if do that. I don’t think we’ll end up going to the markets here… they are mass chaos and we don’t have ready access to transportation to get to and from them without dragging along Dr. James, who has a job to do at the orphanage.

One of the first cooky experiences was money exchanging. Dr. James (our makeshift chauffer) told us that the best exchange rate is from the boys on the street that do money exchange. These are basically guys with handfuls of money that mob your car when you pull over. So, Dr. James handled the money and exchanging, while we watched the craziness that was yelling in Sudanese Arabic and the bartering for exchange rates. One dollar exchanges for around 2.80 Sudanese pounds, and we got an exchange very close to that with the boys on the street. The bank was exchanging for 2.4.

The "office"
Today we started with the master plan of the girls site. Coming into this I though we were just doing dorm buildings, but after having a programming meeting with Philip, the ministry director, turns out he has a LOT of plans and dreams for the site! So we are designing the master plan as if all these plans unfold as hoped, though they buildings will probably come in in phases. I worked on panoramas of the site and starting to get some rough layouts of some of the guest/staff housing done in CAD. It looks like I'll be doing CAD most of the week, with some hand-rendering closer to presentation time. The civil engineers/surveyors on the team will be heading out to the site the next couple days to get that done. I'm actually kind of glad that I will be hanging out at the boys site because it's much cooler in the "office" than it is out in the fields and sun of the girls site. But hopefully later on in the week Stu & I will be able to get out too!
Panorama of the girls' site
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Many Sudan Entries!!

Two weeks later, and I am in Cairo!

As I had guessed, internet was not to be had (except for a short email check here and there) in Sudan, but I did take the time to journal about my experiences in my notebook or on my laptop while I was there. So, I will be trying to get that backlog of journal updates up here this weekend. I'm also finally updating my flickr albums to at least have trip photos on it!
Here are the first of my Sudan entries:

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Friday, October 1, 2010
9pm
I made it to Sudan! We got here around 3:30pm and left the airport around 4:30. The airport consists of one room that has customs, baggage claim, and a waiting area for arrivals. And when I say "room", I mean it. Small! After exiting the plane on the tarmac, a few people waved me towards the entrance to the airport. Upon entering, I was shuffled into a herd of people going towards the customs desk. There were supposed to be two lines, but it was more of a herd. One man took my passport and visa and stamped it, while the other had me literally "sign in" to the country. Like when one signs into a volunteer shift or something. Then I turned around and baggage was being tossed into the room through a large hole on the side of the building. I eventually got to the inspections desk, where they looked through my stuff and then let me through.  I met the architect, Stu, and the civil engineering student, Nick, at the Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) airport and when we arrived in Juba we met up with Janet (engineer in Uganda office) and Shawn (engineer). We were still waiting for Steve and Philipto arrive, and so the doctor from the orphanage (Dr. James) that met us at the airport simply walked up to the air traffic control tower and asked them when the plane would arrive. I tell you this to give you an idea of what our first taste of Juba was like, and as I continue to tell you about Sudan, you will see that our first impressions were fairly accurate! Everything is about who you know.

Once we had the entire team gathered, we headed to the boys orphanage, where we would be staying for the week. I expected a good long drive through Juba, but turns out the orphanage is literally right next door to the airport! We met the staff on site--Jahim, Bob, Henry, Dr. James & Mary. They gave us a tour of the site and then went out to get us food for dinner. We ended up having our food table in the guys' room because Janet and I were staying with two women volunteers from Egypt. One is a doctor (Vivian) who was shadowing Dr. James, and the other (Maria) will be the first staff on the girls orphanage site. They both seem very nice. Our dinner consisted of breadsticks, tuna, and some fruit. I hope we get a little bit more food the rest of the week!

Tomorrow we are getting up at an easy 9am to start off the week of work!

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More later!