Final comment

Hei everybody,
I am back in Cologne since 4 days. First of all I have had a good and save trip home and reintegrated into Germany and the university. I had a small farewell get together on my last day and I already miss my friends in Cairo.
I have been in egypt 3 months in total. In the beginning time was passing by slow, but in the end it was really running. Back in Germany people ask me if I have a shock being back... no, but I notice how organised and because of that how easy a lot of things are.
Surely I cannot write down all my experiences and feelings about my internship (btw. you don't need to know them all anyway ;-)) but I wanna share some of the things I learned with you.

* Be observing in your life. Watch out and reflect about was is going on around you. Try to improve the situation every day starting with your own actions. Life is short and it is boring standing on a stetteled spot.
* All the people worldwide are the same, they may look different on the outside, but inside we are all the same. With the same needs and beliefs. It is essential that we communicate with people we don't know to avoid misunderstandings.
* I believe in the power of knowledge and I am very happy that I am able to study :-)
* There are always good and bad things in everything. If something is not going good in your eyes ask yourself: why and what can I do to turn it into something good.
* Be courious and travel the world!!

I want to say thank you to all my friends in Egypt for all the help and the nice hours I was allowed to spend with them. I hope to return soon!

Yours Peter

Pictures Upper Egypt

Pictures Cairo

Last month, last week

Hei there,
the last days not too much happened. Since Ramadan is over we are going out again and enjoy the nightlife in Cairo. I am getting close to the end of my time here in Egypt, only a good week is left. It is time to do the last things that are still left on my list and prepare reentering Cologne. Definitly will write a resumée about my time here in the near future and reflect the good and the bad. For today I only want to present you a couple of pictures from last week. My dad visited me and together we went to Upper Egypt (Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simpel), we did sightseeing in Cairo and a one day trip to Alexandria.
Since I have been to Luxor before I had the chance to look at things closer this time, all the momuments became even more fascinating. I really liked Aswan, it is a really great place to relax and enjoy the sun. Since it is close to Sudan you feel the african influence. Abu Simpel is nice, but definetly to crowded with stupid tourists.
That's it so far...

Society and religion

The egyptian society is divides into three unequal parts. The by far larger part is the underclass of poor people, which is about 85-95 percent of the total population. The upperclass with about 5 percent lives a western life protected from the outside. As a problem of developing country the middleclass is far to small. Estimations speak of about 45 percent of the population that can not read and write. As a result of a process of concentration more and more people are searching for their luck in the cities (mainly Cairo), which grow fast. Because not everybody can effort a legal house, illegal settlements emerge in the outer parts of the city. Just a month ago a terrible rockslide with several deaths and hundreds of homeless happened in such a illegal settlement. On the other hand side the upperclass draws back into closed private settlements, with western standards and life.
During my time here in Cairo I sort of jump between the both sides of this country. Most of my friends belong to the middleclass and during my internship I meet some Egyptians which are definetely upperclasse. On the other side when I go to work by bus or when I travel within Egypt I see the lowerclass and their life. These people are trapped in their layer of society and their is nearly no way out of it. I feel anger and sadness when I see children searching for plastic bottles in rubbish heaps or mothers which their newborn begging for money. I try to tread these people with repect.
One more thing concerning this topic for everybody who is planning to visit egypt in the near future: everybody in Egypt dealing with tourist in any way or who earns his livelihood in a touristic place is not poor! These people are making a lot of money dealing with foreigners and it is a good advise to inform yourself about adequate prices and giving the safed money to those who really need it.

About religion: 90 percent of the inhabitants of Egypt are Muslims, about 10 percent are Christians and refering to wikipedia.de there are about 100 Jews living in Egypt. I will not write much about religion in this blog, because english wording is not good enough to discuss about this topic properly. I just want to say a short statement:
I talked to a lot of egyptian friends about religion and belief. About the differences and the similarities, about the good and the bad. I learned a lot and I found friends during these talks. My conclusions are, that the three main religions are only varied interpretations of belief. If you like somebody depends on the person and not on the religion. You can only judge something, when you know it.
Inschah'Allah (meaning: gods will)

Egyptian Food

I wanted to tell you something about egyptian food and egyptian eating culture. First of all there are some dishes I like a lot like Koshary which is a mixture of nuddels, lenses and onions. You can get it for a low price nearly everywhere and it fill your stomage easly.
I like fuul which is kind of a squish of fuul beans. It is delicious but it is very heavy for your stomage. And I really like the fresh vegetables you can get everywhere here, especially the tomatoes and the cucumbers which make a great oriental salat in combination which some parsley.
Unfortunately a lot of the Egyptians I know eat very unhealthy and like fast food in different varieties a lot. A lot of the food you find in the street kitchens is either fried or very very oily. I guess it is because of the heat. Most of the dishes contain a lot of meat and some rice, may be vegatables.
Meat used to be a sign of wealth. But nowadays everybody just eats it because they got used to it.
The egyptians sweets and deserts are also quite heavy compared to european sweets. Sadly most of the time when I travel in Egypt and I make a quick stop at a gas station to buy something to eat, I only find chocolate bars and chips...
One more thing: Egyptians are crazy about soft drinks, especially Pepsi and Sven Up- they drink it a lot.. a lot...
Hopefully I will have the chance to eat some homemade, traditional, egyptian food in the near future, to prove me wrong that everything here is unhealthy. But so far I am quite shocked.

Marsa Alam

During the last 6 days we have had a short holiday, because of the end of Ramadan. I have been to Marsa Alam in the south of Egypt, diving and chilling. Enjoy

Photos Port Said

Port Said and the arabic language

Yesterday I have been to Port Said. The main attraction of this rather small town is the Suezcanal and the canal itself is also the reason why the town was founded about 130 years ago. On the way to Port Said you can see really big ships which pass by from India or China on their way to Europe (or the other way). Unfortunately in the town itself you are not allowed to see the crossing of the ships, because the area around the port is a military area. The fees paid by the ships for using the canal are the second biggest income of Egypt’s economy after tourism.
The town itself was rather boring and ugly in my eyes, you can see some few remaining of the French people who used to live there in the 40’s and 50’s of the last century.
For me the most interesting part was the visit of a big Christian church, the church was divided into two parts (only by some movable wooden walls), one part was Catholic and the other part was Coptic. I have never seen something live this, two shapes of a religion in on church. Furthermore in the catholic part you could see the zodiac signs on the arch of the roof. I did not know that the signs are connected to catholic religion… strange church…

I want to talk about something else today, not connected to my trip, the Arabic language. I am in Cairo now since nearly two months and I can not speak any Arabic (beside some simple phrases like yes, no, 1 2 3,…). In the beginning I wanted to study some, but then I just found myself to lazy and unorganised. I see this as the biggest failure of my time here in Egypt, because speaking the language is very, very important. Everything gets difficult when u are not able to communicate with the people. Starting from shopping, going out or when ordering something to eat. And I am not speaking about difficult things like working in this country or studying. If you don’t speak the language of the country you are living in, you will quickly feel insecure (very often simple situations get difficult or even escalate because of language problems) and will search for people who speak your language, like other foreigners. Further on you will only stick to then, and as final result integration fails, which is TERRIBLE. When I was young I sometimes did not understand the refugees from Eastern Europe in my hometown, why they act so strange, did not hang out with us and always looked a little bit afraid. Now I can understand the situation of this people way better and I am thankful for this experience. I will try to do my best working on the situation (here and in Germany). Integration in Germany is not going very well in my eyes and one of the main reasons is for sure that the people do not communicate which each other. We must work on that!!

Pictures last two weeks