yesterday it was my first year in Cairo. This year was stuffed with a million different impressions and, as I wrote in my Facebook page, a lot of joy among a million other perceptions.
The whole country changed without changing anything. So far. Also a kind of magic. And magic is maybe needed to bring all this to a good end. Everything flows… we will see… anyway.
And I also survieved the regularly repeated HIV-test. My second one in one year. Nice. All my colleges had to pass this test… and we are asking ourselves what might happen, once HIV is found… we expect something like “pack it, wrap it, ship it” … It is just offensive and discriminating.
The start in my second year was not the best one… but this leaves some space for improvement. Also good!

It started with “Flagman”:
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/488985

in between military and police did nothing to prevent this:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/201199225334494935.html

with the result of this:

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/494653

and now everything is, at it was before… including emergency law, military trials and detention on the fly…
nothing to add.

Looks like a fake game. The israeli Embassy was stormed by angry, and not very smart, egyptians. The ambassador and his family as well as the staff of the embassy fled to Israel. Military and police stood beside the happening without to interfere. A few days ago Flagman climed the building and was rewarded for it buy the governor. The answer of the israeli government was, hm, quite polite compared with other incidents.

And, what do we have now? the emergency law is back and the revolution is drawn in the mud. And western media descibed the same people which were called revolutionary from one moment to the other as a mob. The peace treaty as well as all the other treatys are no longer in question, says the information minister.

Things can change. Only the questions remains, who was behind all of this?

From time to time my beloved wife decides to go shopping. But not in the grand mall right around, for sure, but Downtown. The place with one billion people on one square meter. Without counting the cars and the motocycles and the buses and the sellers and the animals…
Yesterday there was such a day. We went downtown to look for cloth.
First step was the metro. The train was stuffed with people and had roughly estimated around 50 degree inside. Normally there are fans in the waggon, but ours did not work. So we were completely wet on arriving our station.
I thought it cannot be worse. So wrong. It can!
The billion people brought their friends and their family and all of them wanted to sell or to buy something exactly at the place, they were standing by coincidence or divine fate.
If someone needs a research field to examine the chaos theory, welcome to Midan Attaba in direction of Al Azhar. But in all this chaos people manage to find their way without loosing their live or bumping in someone else all the time. Everything is in motion and everyone finds his way. A hundred different sounds, fragrances, surfaces, challenges, the fast moving delivery boys with their vehicles made of steel, the sellers packed with goods so they can not see anything while walking, the calling of the imam from the mosque right behind us, the ancient lady with her sister wrapped in the Burka in front of us who want to climb a meter high pavewalk, the young boy who wants to show us the best goods we have ever seen, the barking of the cars, in a hundred different voices and melodies. And this happens not one after one in real live, it all happens at the same time!
And in this we are trying to find our way through, to focus on our final destination. Sure, there is no destinaton here in Cairo, it is not to look for something but to find something, more accidentally or by devine advice.
And finally we really found something. As always. And we survived. Kind of magic.

of Egypt…
Female rights are an important topic in Egypt nowadays. And Females have all right to talk about their rights because the situation in Egypt is everything but good for them.
But. To make it short. In weak moments I am misleaded to think, that it is partly their own fault. Somehow.

As everyday we went home by our GUC bus after a busy day. Normally you can use the ride home for a short nap. But not today. A mother and her little prince sat in the first row and something seemd to misplease his majesty. The child, maybe 4 years old, started to scream, to cry and finally to hit his mother. This is the moment, I thought, the mother would start to be angry with her son or to bluster him.
But no! Far wrong! She tried to convince her child not to hit her with sweeties and warm words.
And because it worked that perfect, he did not stop screaming and hitting her all the way home.

Some day this little prince will become an adult. And all the women will complain, with all rights, what made this male to behave this way…

Yes, sorry. This is much too simple. The problem is much more complex. And harrassment is a mans fault and not a womans! But we are seeking to change the picture of woman, men have… and it might be a good starting point to explain the little princes, how they should behave in front of a female, for example his mother.

It never stopped really but now the violence is back on Midan Tahrir.
Meanwhile I do not believe that this country has any chance to start in a peaceful future right now. There are too many problems.
The new fighting will prevent tourists to come back soon. And without tourists no money. The situation is already severe, but now it will become much more complicated.
So far the people trusted the military. This seems to change now. And obviously there are good reasons to change this behavior. As far as I can see nothing really changed but some waves on the surface.