Where's Mohammed

On Thursday after a 9 hour long night bus ride, my cell phone must have fallen out of my jeans pocket. When I realized I didn't have my phone -- 10 minutes after the bus drove off -- I used my friend's phone to call my cell. After one ring, some dude answered "Allo." Before I could get out two words, he immediately hung up on me. I called again, and my phone was off... Over the next three days, I tried calling my phone a bunch of times, but it always rang through. Then I sent him a text saying I'd pay to get my phone back.

The phone only costs $20, but  it's worth a lot because it has all my contacts.

When I got on the bus back to Cairo, I decided to try one last time. This is where the silver screen moment comes.

I hit call and two seconds later the Nokia destiny ring tone starts doing its thing. It feels like everybody has this ringtone, so I wasn't completely sure that my phone was going off, but the coincidence of simultaneity got me curious enough to watch the guy answer the ringing phone.

After the guy saw my wide eyes staring at him with a phone next to my ear, guilt swept over his face. I stood up and watched him take the phone out of his pocket. Lo and behold, my callerid was on the phone in his hands... So, I swiped my phone back.

I ask, "Why do you have my phone... Well, it's not important at least I found it. It's my lucky day."
"Oh sorry, I didn't know it was yours."
...
Later he says, "You're lucky"
"And, you're not too lucky, by the way, how did you use $4 dollars worth of minutes in days"
And, like so many Egyptian he responds to my Arabic, not what I said, "Where did you learn Arabic to speak so well.."

So in the end, I found Mohammed -- the guy who had been calling his girlfriends or something with my phone over a 3 day period.

And by the way, the title refers to what the woman who called my phone twice yesterday kept saying. I told her that he stole my phone, and now I have it back, so it's not his number anymore. She wasn't very polite either.

Typical Afternoon at Work

Today

12:18... The Imam arrives from upstairs to set out his prayer carpet

12:20... The bathrooms get bottlenecked by people washing their face and hands

12:23...People start filing in for the 5 minute small talk session

12:25... Somebody turns off the AC

12:31...  It gets real quiet, and then comes the Allahu Akbar (x4)

30 seconds later... The first cell phone goes off

It rings through for 20 seconds

12:32... The second cell phone goes off

12:32:10... An office phone starts ringing

Did I mention people don't silence their phones during prayer?

Suprisingly, it's easy to get used to a bunch of guys bowing and chanting prayers while I'm trying to work, but the constant cell phone buzz is much harder to get over. I assumed that you'd want peace and quiet to connect with God, and that's true, but some people don't really care... Oddly enough, Egyptians are usually pretty considerate in the movie theaters: you usually only hear one phone go off in the theater.

Tomorrow -- Repeat today, but one minute earlier

The New "It" Study Abroad

Check out today's article in NYT's fashion and style section.

It's waaay over the top.

Nile Valley

View of Dronka, Assuit from St. Mary's Monastery

Outside the city of Assuit, it's all agriculture... until you hit the end of the Nile Valley. If you look closely at the picture above, you'll notice the horizon is a mountain of sand (and yes, that gray stuff is the sky). Mountains line both sides of the Nile Valley. Almost everyone who lives in Upper Egypt (the upriver part of the Nile) lives within 10 kilometers of the Nile. Herodotus -- ancient Greek historian dude -- described Egypt as the "gift of the Nile." The Nile literally brings Egypt to life. Just look at a map of the Egyptian governorates, I bet you can guess where the Nile flows.

Map of Egypt with governorates outlined

El Murahan

If you need a loan and you live in a rural villages in Upper Egypt, you might go to El Murahan. El Murahan is the guy who runs the local agricultural pawn shop business. In exchange for a minimum two year loan, he gets usufructuary rights to a portion of the borrower's agricultural land. El Murahan explained his current contract as follows: he loaned 30,000 pounds in return for the rights to farm one hectare (10,000 square meters) of the borrower's land for two years. At the end of two years, El Murahan gets the 30,000 pounds back. If he doesn't the borrower can go to jail, and El Murahan continues to farm the hectare. He claimed that he can usually make 6,000 pounds a year on a hectare of land, so El Murahan makes a pretty penny -- 20% -- on his loans.


Who asks El Murahan for a loan? It's always for consumption purposes. Some people want to help their children marry, but choose another route. The majority buy weapons -- automatic rifles to be precise. 


Why? According to him (and a bunch of others confirmed his story), Asyut is the land of feuds. My local contact, Ibrahim, claimed that the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich can all be involved in feuds in Asyut. Only a couple months ago, the supreme court judge of Asyut killed two people related to someone who killed his son.


Sometimes people wait years for another family's son to grow up and on his wedding day, they'll show up to take care of the vendetta. It's as absurd as the feud between the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Buck Grangerford claims that neither family can even remember who started the feud, but it basically goes like this, "A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills HIM; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the COUSINS chip in -- and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."


So, you have to ask, how would increased access to finance affect feuds? Maybe speed up the process with automatic weapons?