Min gheer Ingleezeyah (Without English)

Today was day two without English. It is absolutely exhausting. One would think there would be a lot of quiet time, but we manage to chat in a funny broken way. It was also Rosh Hashannah today and yesterday. Unfortunately, there are NO synagogues in Alexandria that are functioning, and few in Cairo, and the holiday went by without any celebration. We spent the past two days in Rasheed, and they were interesting to say the least.
The claims to fame of Rasheed are few, as I said before the Rosetta Stone was found nearby. Another exciting thing is that it is one of few places surrounded by both the Nile and the Mediterranean. We had minor complications at every step because of language issues, and I think that traveling the first day of the pledge was brave of us. There were 11 of us, so navigating the microbuses was our first adventure. After being hassled at the entrance we found a bus with a good price. A few funny anecdotes from that ten minutes of the day include us knowing they were trying to rip us off and trying to communicate we knew. Esra (from Wellsley) whipped out a pen and paper and showed him we knew how to multiply (that LE3.5 time 11 did NOT equal LE60 for all of us) and we won that bargain. What we couldn’t understand is why they were pointing to the boys and then the driver over and over. Finally, one of the men opened the door to the microbus (like a minivan) and pulled out a boy and put him in the front seat, and said, “Free Arabic lesson.” We laughed, and we were off.
Our first altercation in Rasheed occurred when we learned that foreigners all need passport copies to check in, and we didn’t all have them. That was resolved with a quick call to Nehad, and we stuck to Arabic no matter how hard the clerk tried to speak to us in English.
Rasheed is a small village with no tourism, so we got a lot of stares. Additionally, in Egypt (except in Cairo) foreign tourists in groups bigger than four people are assigned a police escort (ours was an entourage of sorts comprised of four or five officers). I was happy about this because they acted more as tour guides than anything else as we didnt exactly need protection.
We visited the museum, which was done up like an authentic house. The houses in Rasheed are famous for their intricately carved wood shutters. It was beautiful, and very similar to houses I had seen in the old cities of Fez and Marrakesh. We also took a ride on a private felucca down the Nile and saw a beautiful, small mosque. After a long nap, we explored the town (with our entourage of course) in smaller groups. We visited a café by the Nile and walked around the streets of Rasheed. Finding little to do, we returned to a room and played charades in Arabic for a while which was hilarious.
Around 4AM it became apparent from the noise from the streets that Ramadan was over. The exact date is never definite, as it depends on the situation of the moon. There was cheering in the streets and people with bullhorns all over. In the morning, everything was open and people were walking around in their best clothes. We visited the citadel in Rasheed (which is made from limestone taken from ancient pharonic monuments), as well as the famous houses (very similar to the museum but not restored on the inside) and the Turkish bath there. From the citadel, you could see the whole city and a lot of the Nile. It was sad to see about 100 feet of garbage between the land and the Nile. Clearly there isn’t a functioning sanitation department, which contributes to the pollution of the Nile.
We also had a photo op at the place where the Mediterranean meets the Nile, it was beautiful but surprisingly vacant. I would have thought that would a great resort location. We asked all of the local guides to speak to us in Arabic only, so we had to pay specific attention to get everything they were saying, but we confirmed with each other.
I was very happy to come back to Alexandria. I definitely appreciate it more now that I have seen the countryside. After dinner in the dorm a few of us went out in search of kunafah, a traditional Eid dessert. We found it, and were overwhelmed with the choices (raisin, cream, chocolate, nuts, chocolate and nuts, ricotta cheese), and tried the chocolate. After that we walked along the Mediterranean and found an Ahwa (café) and relaxed there. A lot of the night life in Egypt is about sitting and drinking tea and smoking shisha, a great contrast to the bar hopping of America. I am absolutely ready for classes to start.