Alexis Nichole Brown

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:39 AM

Current mood: blessed
Category: Travel and Places
I love love LOVE Egypt! This place is so exciting! Today, we were up and in a convoy to go see the temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Yesterday, I rode a camel named Oscar (which got away from the cross-eyed camel guy and started jogging a little – SCARY!!!!) across part of the Sahara dessert to a Nubian village where a family opened up their home to us so we could join them dining on the floor. The food was not new to me – very Aleu-esque – so I dug right in.
After dinner, it was time to party. Out of nowhere, I troupe of drummer boys came in and they started breaking it down. I was ecstatic but then I broke down in happy tears when the little 5 and 8 year old girls grabbed a bunch of us and made us join hands in a cirlce while they danced in the middle. Little mamas were poppin’ like pros. It was amazing! After dinner, I bought some handicraft gifts made by the family (including a scarf for Aunt Veda:) and then a teenager came out to do henna for us (henna is like temporary tattooing with strong color from the root of a plant). I got an “A” with flowers on one hand and a festive design on the other.
Today, in addition to going to see Abu Simbel, I went back to the Aswan Market and bought way too much stuff for other people (what about me??). I met a young man named Mido who did sand art and I got 11 from him with our names in them. Mine is the best, however, because mine has my name in Arabic as well as English (well, Greek actually).
Speaking of Greece, I got mildly offended when some guy in Greece called me “Hey, Barack Obama!” because I thought he was saying I looked like a man. But, after two days in Egypt I have heard constant:
“Hey Nubian!”
“Hey cousin!” (who says Egyptians don’t consider themselves akin to Blacks?)
“Hey Welcome, Obama, ah? Congratulations!”
“Hey Rasta!” (must be the braids)
“Rasta never die, you like ganja?” No, thanks (“la shukra” in Arabic)
Anyway, in Greece, I still had some gorgeous-tasting sandwich at that guy’s shop (I took a picture of the name because I don’t remember). I also bought some stress-relieving beads of some sort, one for me and one as a gift.
There are a lot of African masks (same was true in Italy as well) but Egyptians didn’t use them. Still I’m tempted. It’s time to buy stuff for me. Especially since the exchange rate here is so good for the dollar (the Euro was kicking my butt, before, so I hardly bought anything!).
Thanks for the picture comments, I have way more to come (but probably when I get back home after the 18th). Solymar, yes my tour group was young (19-29) and that company focuses on 18-35 year olds. There were more people in the group than that picture, however. My current group is much older but I am older than one person (a semi-hot South African currently living in Australia that shared the train cabin with me because we both came single .
Dinner time! Ciao!