Pinda, can I use your flash light?

Wow, I’ve seen some amazing things these past 3 days ! On Thursday I attended a part of a colloquium about Theban archaeology at the Supreme Council of Antiquities. In the morning Quentin, Kenny, Cathelijne and I were there, just to see one man, who was giving the introduction. Yes, dear Isabelle (we sort of have an inside joke together), it was... Zahi Hawass! The famous egyptologist, who often features in National Geographic documentaries. The moment he got up to start to speak, Cathelijne, Kenny and I discretely took our cameras and photografied him. It was nice to see and hear him speak for real. In the evening we went again to the colloquium to see 3 egyptologists talk : Salima Ikram again, on animal mummies, Kochelmann on the cult of the crocodile god Sobek, and Daniel Polz, whom we all were impatient to see. Unfortunately Polz was ill, so he couldn’t come.  So we (= me, Sandra, Amy, Kaz and Quentin) ate our misery away in a nice restaurant, Pottery café, where they strangely enough had one of the tastiest pizzas I’ve ever had (who’ld have thought that I would come across it in Cairo?). After that I visited the appartment of Kaz, Amy and Sandra, and I’m so jealous, because they have a splendid view on the Nile!! Of course, they have to put up with the noise coming from the party boats

.

On Friday I didn’t do anything really, except from working on my assignments and doing the laundry and being a bit on the internet at the institute. It felt good to have a little day off, because the program is quite intensive and fatiguing. In the evening there was the official opening of an exhibition at the Cairo Museum about Hungarian excavations (again with Zahi Hawass), but I didn’t go there, because I was too tired. I just crashed down on the sofa with some Blackadder and Monty Python. Quentin and Kaz did go, and they said it was a nice exhibition.

Saturday we went on an excursion to Saqqara. Mouchir the driver immediately put on a CD in his minibus with very corny Dutch music (Boudewijn de Groot, Marco Borsato,...) The poor man probably thought that would please us a lot, but it just annoyed us during our trip. Bless him for trying to be nice.

In Saqqara we first met with Vasil Dobrev, an egyptologist working at the French Institute in Cairo, who’s digging in Saqqara. I was very excited to meet him, because last year, for my Bachelor thesis, I based part of my thesis on one of his articles about a 6^th Dynasty Annal Stone. He turned out to be a very enthousiastic man, with a lot to say. He showed us his excavation and restoration work of an Old Kingdom necropolis. Inside the tombs it was so hot, that Amy fainted. It was extremely hot the entire day, by the way. I felt thirsty all the time, and in the evening I had migraine. Anyway, after hearing about Dobrev’s theories of the piramid of Userkare being hidden somewhere in the sand and he being determined to find it, we quickly ate in the bus, and then went to see some New Kingdom tombs. We saw the tombs of Maya, Horemheb, Tia and Meryneith. The last one isn’t actually open to the public, but it’s an excavation of the University of Leiden, so the Dutch people thought they had the right to see it, and so did Ilona. She just ignored the guard yelling ‘Stop’ at her, and went straight into the tomb. Apparently it wasn’t that forbidden, because they let us have a look anyway. We past also next to an enormous shaft, one of the biggest existing, which is metres and metres deep! I added a bit to the history of the shaft, by dropping my pen in it. Just for the record : I’ve lost a pen in Tell Maskhuta, another pen in Tell ed-Daba, and now one in Saqqara as well. I’m a hopeless case. For the rest of the day we often made jokes about me dropping other stuff into shafts, like my torch light, my scarf, myself... Then we went to the tomb of Mereruka, where Ilona gave us a quick assignment to do. The tomb was marvellous : beautiful reliefs of Egypt’s wildlife (frogs, otters, crocodiles). Then we went inside the piramid of Teti, who has wonderful Piramid Texts inscribed on the walls. I got a bit claustrophobic in the end (I don’t like small spaces, especially not when I know that there are tons of massive stone blocks above my head... But again : everything for egyptology). To finish we had a quick look in the Imhotep museum, where an egyptian military guard from around my age was trying to hit on me by asking if I wanted to have any souvenirs from him. I should have said : Yes, your kalashnikov will be fine!

Back in the bus then (with again Marco Borsato), and then back to Pottery café, where the waiters are starting to know us. Then buy some water (I never seem to have enough water), and up to bed. Well, after daydreaming a bit more about ancient tombs from the Old Kingdom. I just loooooooooooooove the Old Kingdom !!!

PS : I have a nice nickname, which especially Kaz says a lot : Pinda. For three reasons :

1. Kenny was talking about peanuts (pinda in dutch) and I always thought he said my name

2. It sounds like my name

3. I’m more fond of peanut butter than the dutch people are, I can’t stop eating it since I’ve arrived

Phrases like : “Pinda, can I use your flash light?” aren’t uncommon.

Some other pictures

Here are some other pictures :
picture 1 : The Dutch girls (Sandra, Cathelijne, Steffie and Amy)
picture 2 : Me being silly with a piece of pottery
picture 3 : Kaz being silly

Some pictures : part 2

Hi! As you can see, I've put some pictures on my blog. I haven't figured out yet how to write a text under them, so I'll tell you whose on them in this message :

-picture 1 : From left to right :
in the back : Kaz, Steffie, me, Ilona
in the front : Sandra, Quentin, Amy, Cathelijne and Kenny

-picture 2 : Sandra in the bus

- picture 3 : Kenny looking like a terrorist

- picture 4 : Cathelijne inside a mosque

- picture 5 : Amy extremely happy! (and Peter, out tour guide through Fatimid Cairo)

Some pictures

1/11 to 4/11 : Anecdotes

Hi! In the past four days I have done and seen so much, it would take too much time and blogspace to write everything down. So I've decided to keep the information within well defined boundaries. Since most of you have nothing to do with ancient Egypt, it would be boring or maybe even incomprehensible for you if I told you everything I've learned. Therefore I'm only going to give a quick overview of the things I've visited, and then I'm just going to put down some anecdotes.

On Sunday I had another arabic course and in the afternoon we had a wonderful tour around Fatimid Cairo by Peter, and arabist from Gent working in the NVIC. He showed us most of the amazing medieval islamic buildings and mosques. Monday I had the last course of arabic (I'm supposed to be able to conversate woth an egyptian now), and after that we visited the Library of the American University in Cairo, where we saw the first edition of the Déscription de l'Egypte! Tuesday and Wednesday we had a 2-day excursion to the Delta. We visited Tell el-Maskhuta, Ismailya (where we slept overnight), Tell ed-Daba and Tanis. Amazing! I even shaked hands with Manfred Bietak, a famous egyptologist working in Tell ed-Daba.

So now for the anecdotes :

1. During our tour in Fatimid Cairo, we went past a narrow street where some children were playing the tambourine and singing. We stopped to watch them. After a while they noticed us, started laughing and running towards us. It loohed like a stampede, so we ran away! They started dancing and singing, and they urged Quentin to dance as well. What a funny sight!

2. During that same tour a small cat kept following us everywhere. Everybody has got pictures of everybody petting the cat. And I forgot to bring a scarf for my head, so while everybody went into the mosque, I had to wait outside :( Luckily Peter gave me a private tour around the mosque once I could borrow Cathelijne's scarf.

3. One evening I went eating in a restaurant with Quentin, Amy, Kaz and Sandra. We had some good fun, especially when Amy (who is originally American) told us that when she was born, her parents couldn't come up with a name for her. She was only one day left from being released from hospital without a name, and therefore being called Babygirl Butner for the rest of her life (custom in America). So now we call her Bébé Butner (Butner spoken like 'bouquet' in stead of Bucket).

4. The morning of our departure to the Delta, a plummer came in emergency to repair something that hung just outside our bathroom window. He put a rope around a tube and climbed down. It was a life threatening situation for that man : tied up only by one little string on a worn pipeline, 5 stories high! I was really afraid he would fall down, but he seemed to think it the most normal situation in the world.

5. We went to a museum in Ismailya, which was hilarious! The objects displayed there had information cards, but the English was so badly spelled, that we often had le fou rire. Things like :
- Bust of the god Serapis with live loucks from the Geek Period (GEEK period?!)
- wodden box from the Old Kingdome
- stone lambs from pottery (lambs in stead of lamps)
We couldn't stop laughing. The guards looked at us very dubiously. In the evening we also were very fond of the Egyptian-English spelling of the word croissant in a "pastary" shop : kerwason.

6. When we came back from the Delta, we had to be in the bus for a long time. After 2 hours I saw a sign : Cairo, 48 km. I thought : nice, only half an hour left. THREE hours later we were still in the enormous traffic jam entering Cairo!

7. Speaking of cars and busses : Ilona has an american friend who accompanied us on our trip : Jeff. Our bus often drove on bumpy and narrow roads, and our driver nearly crushed someone hopping off another bus. And then Jeff, who has a peculiar sense of humour, says : "You guys might not want to know this, but Egypt has the highest rate of fatalities per driven kilometre". Thanks, Jeff!

Well, untill a week or so for more anecdotes about life in Cairo! Those of you interested in the egyptological part of my journey : I keep a scientific diary, so when I come back, you're welcome to read it :D !
Masaah il gier!

28/10 to 31/10 : Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter

Hello again! First of all : yes, I'm still alive. I have been ill, but the antibiotics worked really fast, so I'm better now. I know now that I had a virus, since Steffie and Sandre have fallen ill as well from the same virus.
I have visited the American Research Centre on Thursday. Unfortunately we only got information about the library and nothing about the instistute itself. When we sat in the library to work a bit, one of the researchers put on some Christmass music in his bureau. It was difficult to retain myself from bursting out in laughter! I'm dreaming of a white Christmass... In Egypt?!
I missed the lecture by Seidlmayer, a very good egyptologist, because the antibiotics made me too tired. I have been able to go to another lecture on Friday, by one of my personal (professional) heroes : Salima Ikram. She's just an amazing egyptologist in my opinion. She lectured us on experimental archaeology. She and her students team at the American University in Cairo had done a wonderful experiment : they had mummified animals to see what is was really like to do it! They mummified successfully three rabbits (Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter), and, a bit less succesful, a sheep called Brownie. They found out that to mummify you need muscle power, a good stomach and a lot of natron to keep the bugs and flies away (about 250 kilo's of natron for 1 sheep!). The lecture was extremely interesting, but extremely disgusting as well. I had just eaten, and at the first image of the sheep's intestines being pulled out, I felt quite bad. Everybody did, you could hear some nervous sound sin the audience. Even Salime Ikram, who had done the experiment, had to drink a lot of water, I noticed! But everything for egyptology!

The same day of the lecture (29/10) it was Kaz' 21st birthday (only 3 days after mine). Alas alas, most of us were too tired or too ill to have a big birthday party. So Quentin and I invited Kaz to our appartment, wehere we talked and laughed a lot. We gave him 'original papyrus', purchased in the Alphamarket, and a chocolate bar which sais 'This is NOT for girls!'. I tried to find the 'This is NOT for boys' counter bar, but it didn't exist!

This weekend Quentin and I went to the Cairo museum to work on our museum assignment. We had to deal with some annoying taxi drivers. The first one tried to let us pay 10 pounds, whereas we know that the common price is around 5 pounds (especially for a 3 minute drive, which was our case). We had to get angry on him for insisting so much. We just gave him 5 pounds and then got out of the cab. The second one was a white taxi, and they always have metres, so we thought : nice, no discussion possible. Of course, you can guess... He did an enormous detour! Luckily Quentin knew the way, so he was able to argue with the driver to take the short cut, so the damage wasn't too bad : 8 pounds. But I'm sure that if Quentin hadn't noticed anything, he would have done a tour around Cairo to let us pay at least 15 pounds. After this I felt really bad. I was still nauseous, it was hot, the assignnment had taken all my energy, Guillaume was ill, the taxi drivers are stupid... I had a little crisis of homesickness!

But apart from that this first week was great. Despite the illness and the culture clash, I had a great time, with some very funny moments. The Dutch people are all very sweet and humourous. I hope every week will be like this one.

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!