Karnak

Temples and Sites
by Orlando A

Today we went to Karnak temple. It was only a three block walk, we woke up and Candice gathered up some lunch stuff for the kids and we walked down the road a bit and went in. The site is huge and was quite impressive, athough there are areas closed and being reconstructed. Not bad though, considering the site lay buried in sand for about 1000 years.


It is humbling to consider the number of people throughout time who have walked through the space you occupy as you walk and sit in the temple. Meanwhile Russians walk by rudely and you try to ignore them. I thought Americans were the brash tourists of the world, not anymore! I met my first American in the last ten days sitting in a little shop inside the compound, she was nice as can be and from Connecticut. She operates tours here and has been doing so for over 20 some odd years. I wonder is she is followed down the street by vendors and such with chants of Obama! Probably not.


Anywhow, this temple was central to the worship of Amun, or Amon who is still a part of the amalgamated God form worshipped by many unbeknownst adherents to the mysteries around the world today in one form or another as they let it be, or so it is said. Of course the later Amen was synergized with the god Ra who is a solar diety and thus became Amen-Ra. While all this was going on, most other god concepts didn't exist or were just coming into existance.

Technically, our modern English name for the creator, "God", comes from the German Language as "Gott." This language didn't come into a full existance until after the 6th century AD. So the word assigned to name our creator, "God" didn't come into being until a thousand or so years later, than when Egyptian high culture was defining and communicating with God right in these here temples. Although I suppose that aspect of the creator was assigned to Ptah. But I digress.


We just scratched the surface with a three hour visit to the temple today. We saw the row of sphinxes, which originally led to the Nile, the Colossus of Ramses II, the Great Hypostle Hall and the obelisk of Hatshepsut. This is the largest obelisk in Egypt, since they been jacking them (well technically gifting them) and putting them in London, Paris, DC, New York and so on. Nice to see one still here though. We didn't go into the open air museum which is supposed to be magnificent. However, the kids were looking like they were draining down, and we had to force Asari to drink water when she started looking like a zombie. After a few minutes and a few nice drinks of water, she was fine, but we decided, better safe than sorry. We did manage a few other sites within Karnak however.



We were led in the back to the temple of Ptah where his headless statue and his wife Sekhmet's statue remains. I am still trying to get a grasp on everything here, however, I suspect the next temple we will head to is Luxor Temple, which is really an extension of this one, it is a few miles down the road, however, it is also beneath where I sit writing on my bed, because technically, the temple exists beneath as well, since we are only viewing excavated sections above ground. Happy halloween to all my US friends, picture me in the temples tonight, underground, drinking a brew with a mummy.

To Market

Day by Day
by Orlando A

Yesterday I went out with my landlady, J, and our neighbor, P, for a trip to the market. This was really nice because it allowed us to learn how to use the bus system here, besides the good company, of course. The bus costs 35 piastres. This is the equivalent of five US cents. However, the buses are really more like minivans that stop when they see passengers who wave and if they are full they drive on. They have a little stripe on them at the bottom, the yellow striped bus goes only into the edge of town, the blue striped bus goes all the way into Luxor proper.



We went to town and bought all the necessities: paper products, cleansers, tea, fruit and whatnot. Later, J, explained something very valuable to me. She said, in her wonderful proper English accent to her husband; "you know when I was standing next to Orlando in the store, I realized he was getting the correct prices on things automatically, like he was being taken as a native. They probably wouldn't realize he wasn't Egyptian (or somehow local) until he opens his mouth." So in essence, if I keep my mouth shut, I will be fine. Yeah.

So anyway, we also visited a magnificent western styled market in town, called Arkwrights. It had very reasonably priced cheeses, juices, crackers, sandwiches and other things travelers from the west would appreciate.

As I walked with the two girls from the UK and my wife I got to soak in the looks from the various local men wondering what the hell was going on here. That was kind of funny. We later sat down at a cafe for tea and coffee. I had Turkish that was perfect and Candice had anise tea, which is said to be good for the stomach.

Later, after we got back home, we hung out on the roof with the kids, we met another neighbor A., who is here for a few weeks from the UK. She was extremely pleasant and talked about her time here and politics at home. She explained that she had come here some fifteen years ago and had begun working with an orphanage and has been coming every few months since that time.

She explained how different the West Bank, where the valley of the Kings and Queens is situated, is from the East Bank where Karnak and Luxor are. She told us that not only do they speak different dialects, there are different living standards, with the West Bank being more rural and agrarian than the East Bank which is more cosmopolitan. She advised me that most expatriates hang out on the other side.

She explained that there was a history of the government moving people from ancestral homes and so on over there. However, it also seems that some of those ancestral homes would be built over sites where tunnels would extend so that locals could gather and later export antiquities. So I have been told and read.

Anyway, I plan on getting over to that side next week and look forward to it. However, for now I am taking it easy and plan to walk over to Karnak in the next day or so. I plan on getting over there early packing a nice lunch and making a day of it. Expect wonderful pictures. Meanwhile I will be munching away on the large delicious mangoes and fresh dates I got from the market.

Anna Masari

Day by Day - Anna Masari (Day 9)
By Candice A.

Relative time in Egypt is still weird to me. We landed only nine days ago, but it seems like at least three weeks. I have trouble keeping up with what day it is because the rhythm is so different here. Back in America, you can sense what day it is because to me, each day has a ‘feeling’, if you know what I mean. Although at times it may be a Monday, and because it’s a holiday, you will think, “it feels like Sunday today”. So as of yet, no day has a particular energy to it for me. I wonder how long I will have to be here before I regain that ‘seventh’ sense.

Little by little I’m getting accustomed to walking in the street, as no one who lives here walks on the sidewalk, whenever there is one available to walk on. The curbs are so high that you have to give a big hop up and down each time a new block arises, which is kind of fun to me. But since you are immediately tagged as a foreigner if you walk on the sidewalk, I will stick to the street – especially since I’m not terrified of getting mowed down by a car whizzing by like I was in Cairo.

Today we had to run a few errands: pay a visit to the rental office concerning our new flat rental, visit the bank, and check out another flat owned by a clerk that works for the hotel we stayed in upon arriving here. Why were we going to check out another apartment when we just rented a perfectly good one a day earlier? Because when we told ‘Ayman’ that we were checking out to move to our new flat, he was horrified by what we told him we were paying and insisted that we should have spoken to him first because he had a place that was more than half less than what our rent was. To refresh, we currently pay 2800le (about $508us). He was offering his flat to us for 1000le, you can do the math and figure out how much that is in US dollars. Basically, it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.

So we hail a taxi to take us to the Mummification Museum, which is where we’d arranged to meet Ayman because we would have had trouble finding his place on our own, as there is not the ‘address’ system here that we are familiar with in America. ‘Mr. Fish’, the taxi owner we’d made acquaintance with on the previous day, didn’t make his way to President Mubarak Garden Park (where we were waiting in front of) because as we found out later that evening, he thought we were in front of Susanna Mubarak Garden (the first lady) – which was down the road aways. I will share more about Mr. Fish in Day 9, part II.

Being the green newbies that we are here, of course the current driver tried to charge us four times the price that he should have for the ride. “Forty pounds”, he insisted. (During a chat with our landlady later on, we discovered that we should wait until we get out of the cab, pass through the window to the driver the ten pounds he is owed for a local trip, then walk away). As he approaches, Ayman sees this fruitless negotiation taking place, gets in taxi and chats up the driver to take us to his flat.

After a few minutes we arrive to a very local part of Luxor and head up a lot of stairs. The place is mediocre, but workable for the rate – even with our other rental taken into consideration. We agree to meet the next day to finalize plans. We direct the seemingly unreasonable driver, who has been waiting downstairs for us all this time, back to where we live. As we pull into the street, he recognizes it and asks us in disbelief if we really live here, because his cousin owns the whole area. We say we do, his facial expression conveys a combination of surprised, happy and ashamed – gives us a bit of a better fare (though still more than local price), and drives off.

Walking back from a short toilet paper and snack run that night, we stop in the local market around the corner from our flat. We’d been in this store two or three times already, but tonight there is an older man there with the younger guys who we hadn’t seen before. We nod, give our hellos and start to look for what we need when the man ask us if we need help and where are we from. We say Chicago, and he gives Orlando the ‘soul brother’ three part handshake. We laugh and wonder aloud where he learned this from and he tells us that he lived in America for 22 years. Then he pulls a New York drivers license. Brooklyn baby! Soon we learn that this man’s name is Ali, and that he is Nubian. But wait, not only is he Nubian, but he was an apprentice under Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannon aka Dr. Ben! And, he knows Dr. Leonard Jeffries and Ashra Kwesi.

For those that aren’t familiar, these men are some of the most revered scholars concerning Egyptian history and anthropology and are responsible for bringing the wealth of the information on the ancient culture back to the Americas and spreading it among our generation. After chatting about 30 more minutes, it feels like we are all old friends, and he welcomes us as family and offers his home and whatever else we may need. Notwithstanding all of the hassles and frustrations that we may have gone through since arriving in Egypt, this was one of the connections that we were hoping to experience while we were here. And it only took nine days to happen.