25/10 to 27/10 : Libraries and illness

Salaam alekum!

This Sunday the Cairo semester at the NVIC officially began. We met with the people from Leiden, who will be our companions for the next 2 months : Amy, Cathelijne, Sandra, Steffie, Kaz and Kenny. The first impression was a very good one. We had an introduction together by Ilona about the tasks (museum assignment and presentation subjects), and an introduction by Tilly and Anita, two women from the institute, about life in Cairo. They did it with a lot of humour and enthousiasm, and I immediately liked them. The dutch people are great as well. During our orientation tour through Cairo in the afternoon we got to know them a bit better. They are all very sweet and enthousiastic, and not at all loud or cheap (the clichés for dutch people, sorry guys!). We saw the Cairene opera house, a famous street called el-Ahram which used to be full of bars and prostitution, but not any more :p. We also saw a beautiful nilometer from the Middle Ages, but it gave us a good idea of what it looked like in Ancient times. The citadel was wonderful, we saw it when we passed by on the bus. The Mohamed Ali mosque is very impressive, the fortified walls intimidating. We took a break near the Moqatem hill, which used to be, and still is, a stone quarry. It is also famous for the zehellin, the Christian or Coptic people living at the foot of the hill, and who recycle all the garbage of the town. They live in very poor condition, literally on top of all the filth, and they use pigs to recycle the food waist. We were supposed to have a nice view on Cairo on top of a hill, but there was to much smog, so we only saw a yellowish cloud on the city. Apparently october and novembre are the worst months concerning air pollution, because the farmers burn their fields to make it arable again. We past the City of the Dead, a hughe graveyard with ancient and islamic tombs. Weird enough there are people living next to these tombs. The houses were often unfinished, because in Egypt you don’t have to pay taxes on an unfinished house (which is so funny, becauqe on the rooftops there were metal constructions sticking out everywhere). We stopped also at the Monument of the unknown Soldier, which contains the tomb of Sadat, one of egypt’s former presidents, who was shot inside the Cairo Stadion. The guards at Sadat’s tomb wore a very kitchy farao-outfit! We were taking pictures of them, the poor men. After the orientation tour we rested a bit, and in the evening we all went to have dinner in Café Riche, a famous restaurant where a lot of intellectuals used to come. It was very nice talking with the Dutch people about all sorts of things. We had some delicious egyptian food, all on the expenses of the institute! After that we went to the Stella bar, where they sell, yes, Stella beer! But it’s not belgian beer, it just has the same name.

On Monday i was very excited, because it was my 21st birthday! Quentin had bought me some pastries, and the dutch people all kissed me on the cheek. We visited in the morning the DAIK, the German institute in Cairo. They have a very beautiful and impressive egyptological library, where we can come to search for our assignments. After that we visited the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the basis of Zahi Hawass! He was unfortunatley abroad, but we met his personal assistant. And the Director of the Documentation Centre gave us a tour around his department. It was nice to see, but we were all surprised by the primitive way they documented the ancient monuments (untill 2004 they still used black and white pictures!). In the evening we went to an interesting but confusing lecture by Karol Mysliewyc, about a 6th Dynasty tomb he and his team had discovered at Saqqara. After a nice chat with a British woman who was married to an oil sheik (how cool is that?) and who was under the impression hat Kaz was Irish, the dutch people, Quentin and I went to my appartment to celebrate my birthday. We chatted a lot and we had a cheese cake. It was a very nice way to get to know them better. The darlings gave me Toffifee and a cake and a birthday card :D!

This morning, 27/10, I woke up very nauseous. Very soon I discovered there was something wrong. I had to go to the bathroom a lot. So I decided to stay at home to rest, while Quentin went to the first arabic course at NVIC. During his absence, I got up from my bed to get some water, and I fainted in the sofa. I told him this when he returned. When I wanted to eat for lunch, I started vomiting. So Quentin brought me by taxi to the Anglo-American hospital in Zamalek, where I was examined immediately by an egyptian doctor. I think he was a christian, because he had some pictures of Jesus and Mary on his desk =). He said I had gastro-enteritis, so i took the medication he prescribed. I slept the entire afternoon, without eating because i was nauseous, while Quentin went to visit the IFAO (Institut français d’archéologie orientale) with Ilona and the dutch people. In the evening he forced me to eat a bit (i called him daddy, because he was so strict :p). Around 8 pm i felt very hot and feverish, and it turned out i had 39°C fever! So i called the doctor from this morning again, and he told me to get to a pharmacy to get an injection and a suppository. The man in the pharmacy was at first very reluctant to give me the injection, because it had to be put in the buttocks, hehe. But eventually he did it. It hurt so much, and i was so weak, and it was hot, so i nearly fainted again in the pharmacy. Back at home i just rested, and now i’m writing this message to occupy my mind a bit. I’m already feeling less feverish. If tomorrow i still got high fever, i have to return to the doctor, but let’s hope not. What a lousy day this was!