Amazing Courage

McDelivery

In Egypt, you can have anything delivered to your doorstep. Fast food, pharmacy, full restaurants, bakeries, groceries, etc. I'm not a big fan of McDonald's, but I am a big fan of delivery. These cute little delivery trucks fill the roadways of Egypt. Considering the Cairo roadways - McDonald's on wheels gives new meaning to the phrase "fast food".





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You can never fit enough people on a motorcycle

I believe it is something of an incredible sport in Egypt, to see exactly how many brave people can fit on a motorbike.

(Click me to enlarge)

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Should I stay or should I go? You decide!

Living in Egypt, you learn to navigate choices. You learn that really, at bottom, there is a choice behind everything we do. In Egypt, the message is somehow more explicit than elsewhere...

A traffic light inside Heliopolis Cairo.
Lighting BOTH red and green at the same time.

Immense faith things will all work out

Every time a car comes by in
the next lane, those in this position shout this out and try to duck inside the crowded bus

Innovation is everywhere.

Anything you can imagine is possible. See how the guy below adapted his car and converted it into his very own Jeep!

Unmatched Hospitality

I've been told that travellers are considered to be like orphans, in need of extra care and shelter.

Just a few weeks ago, when the revolution here in Egypt was just getting underway, there was an evening when we found ourselves on the streets after curfew and needed a place nearby to stay. A woman who was a "friend of a friend" took us in. All NINE of us, complete strangers. And treated us as if we were family.

The expression "A friend in need is a friend indeed" can easily be changed here in Egypt to: "A stranger in need is family indeed."

Now, crisis situations do have the tendency to pull people together, but this sort of hospitality is not just limited to emergencies in Egypt; it is the norm.

This sort of welcoming environment makes it easy for foreigners to quickly call Egypt Home.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Encouragement when Learning Arabic

Arabic calligraphy needs its own post,
but I couldn't pass the opportunity to
display how beautiful the language is.

In Egypt, people are MOST encouraging when it comes to learning their language. The Egyptians are fully supportive of anyone trying to talk the talk.

From my earliest visits here, when literally all I could utter was "Salam Alaykum" (peace be upon you), the people would be so encouraging and clap their hands and say how fabulous an Arabic speaker I was - and basically, all I knew was "Hello".

That sort of encouragement goes a long way, and it really makes it a pleasure to learn a language, as challenging and dynamic as Arabic, in both colloquial and classical forms.

Saying "I love you" with your car horn

Music  and poetry is everywhere,
even in honking your car

In Cairo, the roadways are the very pulse of the city and are as musical as the rest of Egypt. 

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Well, fair enough. On the roadways here, the drivers have their own system of messages conveyed just through the beats of the car horn. 

If you beat it out to: ba-ha-bak (I love you), then you are saying thank you to the car ahead of you for being nice, maybe letting you pass. There is also a wedding march that echoes across Cairo streets from throngs of cars every weekend from all of the regular wedding festivities.