Cairo, the 13th July, 2009
“Addictions made in Egypt”
*** In a country where everybody seems – and absolutely needs – to relax and forget daily life hardships, addictions (licit and illicit) seem to be the theme of the day.
Haxixe is everywhere and has become a mainstream tool of relaxation and entertainment quite like opium once was for the high society of a couple of centuries ago.
Not even the constant and omnipresent police search for drugs seems to frighten poor and rich from all walks of life from getting, smoking and sharing this popular drug. Epidemic would be not enough to describe the presence of this drug everywhere. I watch all kinds of people smoking it in various contexts with the naturality I can watch someone speaking on the phone. Frightening.
Tea and coffee – Turkish coffee, specially – are yet another quite innocent tools of survival in Egypt only paralleled to sexual harassment – this is a major addiction in this country! – and music ( being rapidly substituted by the Holy Koran playing everywhere, at any time as a background music for all kinds of activities).
Gossiping is another national addiction and I attribute this one to the unemployment rate and a large amount of empty brains with no direction in life or substantial subjects to mind about. Both women and men seem to think they´re born with the divine right to check other people´s private lives and freely fantasize about them, creating some of the best fiction pieces you can ever be in touch with and spreading rumours all over this small village that is the monstrously over populated city of Cairo!
Ful and tameya (two of Egypt´s obligatory fast food delicacies composing, I guess, most of the meals any common egyptian from the massive low class can expect to have in a day). More than addictions, these two are simple necessities as most people don´t earn enough to afford other kinds of food.
Music and dance used to be typical egyptian addictions but late developments in egyptian culture show that these ancient tools of survival, relaxation and spiritual connection are being treated as capital sins and activities to avoid both in high and low classes.
Shouting and working all kinds of horns in any vehicle with two or more wheels.
The constant noise in the streets of Cairo attests this addiction and it´s part of the city´s charm(???), fun and disgrace. People will shout for no reason (decibels, decibels, decibels…) and horns will be honked in all sorts of circumstances (to call attention, to say hi, to tell a girl she´s hot, to communicate with another car, to celebrate the loud, constant wedding parties going on all over town, etc…).
Licit and illicit sex (meaning inside of marriage sex and outside of it). This is not only an addiction but a general disease consuming most egyptians – both men and women – who are not allowed – by society´s blaming eyes and by law – to mingle and relate outside of the marriage context. Adding to that fact, there is the despair of thousands of men who cannot afford to marry – dowry, flat, car, a consistent job and finances stable enough to support a wife and the children they are expected to have right after the marriage) – until very late in life and, therefore, are left to their own natural sexual urges with no means to satisfy it unless they turn to pornography on the net or illicit sex with girls so desperate for human contact as they are.
*** As far as I am concerned and after receiving another reproach for being such a nerd – no drinking, no smoking, no fooling around, no cheating or flirting with men, no coffee, no fast-food or meat and, so it seems according to some of my friend´s eyes…no fun! – here I am calling a list of my own addictions dedicated to my beloved critics who seem to forget the simple fact that there are many, many pleasures in life and ways of having fun and not all of them have to be destructive or inclusive of pot.
Here we go (My addictions made in Egypt):
1. Dancing. This is an obvious one as I´m a professional dancer performing, teaching and choreographing all the time. After so many struggles and tests to this natural born addiction of mine, I can still say I am totally addicted to DANCE. It´s my profession and yet so much more than that: my first love (and probably my last) and my biggest escape goat from all the pressures surrounding me.
2.Music and silence. Both are the same and containing each other. Two faces of the same coin. Listening to silence with your full focus, you can reach a point when you´re actually listening to music. On the other side of the coin, you are able to listen to the silence beneath any kind of good music and appreciate the powerful expression of a pause (when silence says more than the music itself). I just love listening to music or being in silence and live on the limbo between the two of them.
3.Food. Goooooood food. I´ve always been a natural born “gourmet”. I grew up very fast and was always a healthy child and, a little after that, a healthy adult and so much of it comes from my love of food. The GOOD FOOD.
I will happily spend in a meal what I wouldn´t spend for a fancy piece of cloth or shoes. Food made with art, knowledge and love is pure bliss and I´ve had an enormous list of nirvana moments in public restaurants (watching me moan of pleasure over a warm mean lasagna in a restaurant is probably one of the most embarrassing experiences anyone can have by my side but also a must because I just can´t help it!).
I associate appetite with joy for life, ability to enjoy the pleasures this world – and the parallel worlds as well – offers us and, ultimately, taking pleasure on being human, taking advantage of our senses and using them to bring us happiness.
I suggest one of my favourite books on the subject: Aphrodite, by Isabel Allende (sorry for other writers but no one describes sensuality, love or food so well as latin people). This book is a treasure to taste, keep and cherish as if it was a Mozart bombom ( my favourite chocolate bombom filled with marzipan and ingredients that melt in your mouth like honey under August sun…).
On the top of my list:
Sea food (anything from the sea, at any time of the day or night).
Indian cuisine. I can get to heaven and, possibly, return only by tasting really good Indian food.
Portuguese cuisine (the best fish, pastries and sweets in the world!).
Mexican and Thai cuisine.
(Not a fan of lamb´s brains and anything involving loins, ears and paws of exotic animals).
4.Evian water. This is a recent addiction but it´s becoming a major thing. This water is like pure Chinese silk slipping down your throat and it tastes like the mountain fountains of my childhood. For no reason this water is called the best in the world. My fridge is full of it.
5.Water. Bottled (Evian, Evian, Evian…more and more, please!), on the river Nile, on the swimming pool, on the beach (my all time favourite!), even on the gutter…water on my three daily showers and water on my winter warm salt peppered warm baths in the tub (I mix salts, flowers, oils, the most luxurious shower gels, everything you can imagine…). Contact wit water is an addiction and also a way of balancing myself as some of my astrologer friends would knowingly inform you after consulting my charts and announcing – not without some concern – that I have way too much fire and need to be surrounded by water and filled with it in order not to boil and, eventually, explode like a cattle forgotten on the stove for too long. It seems I am like a hurricane or a volcano ready to explode and only loads and loads of water can appease my internal fire machine.
6.Reading. All the time, book after book. Several books at the same time. Thirst for knowledge and a very curious mind searching for answers. That´s me. Reading in cabs, reading in the street, in the swimming pool, between shows and even while walking in the street only occasionally taking a pick at the floor to check for stones or irregular steps. Most of my money is spent on books – English, French, Spanish, Portuguese books – and any bookshop is a temptation for me as any cloth shop must be for most women. Yes, I am weird. I was told, more than once, that I am not a woman. I agree. I´m something else, or so much more.
Teas (my dear “chai latte” from “Cilantro” coffee shop is the equivalent to a box of chocolates to any normal “chocaholic”.
7.Oprah Magazine. The only magazine I ever take the time to read. It takes a long time to arrive to my hands (it´s part of its allure) because it comes from the United States and it´s sent to my home in Portugal from where I collect it every time I go there, someone comes to Cairo or my mum manages to send it to me by mail. As soon as I have a new issue of Oprah Magazine on my hands, a hurricane could open the floor under my feet and I assure you I wouldn´t notice!
8.The Gym and, in particular, the swimming pool from the gym. If I spend two days without going to the gym (even if only for a quick half an hour at the swimming pool), I start to feel stressed, ready to explode at any minute.
9.Kissing, hugging, doing all sorts of delicious stuff we do when we´re in love (you all know what I´m talking about! J ). I am addicted to them all.
I need to give and receive a minimum prescription of tender, passionate gestures per day and without those I just shrink like a flower in a vase with no water. I am addicted to love!
10. Learning. Observing. Listening to the ones and the things that matter. I was always more comfortable in the place of the student rather than in the teacher´s role. Being located by myself in the ignorant´s place opening up to other people´s insights has allowed me to grow faster than most women I know. Being taken as a beautiful, stupid girl has worked in my advantage most of the time. While others – who don´t really know me – may perceive me as least intelligent and someone who can be taken for granted, I delight myself on silently observing and learning from their own stupidity, pride and points of occasional knowledge. This was the way I learnt how to speak arabic by myself, no translators or any kind of help. Just listening and being taken for granted.
My curiosity for all that it´s interesting, intelligent and human seems to have replaced – thanks God! – the attention I once gave to people and subjects which were not worth my interest and energy. This is part of learning, I guess…knowing that this current life doesn´t last forever and it´s my duty to make the best out of the time I have available on earth.
This addiction has proven to be a blessing and it´s not strange if you find me listening to a beggar in the middle of the street as if he was Dalai Lama.
Light comes from the most unexpected, darkest valleys. Being attentive has become a great addiction which is also taken as a sign of ignorance by the real ignorants themselves (“Why would someone in her right mind listen to a beggar?!”)
“Addictions made in Egypt”
*** In a country where everybody seems – and absolutely needs – to relax and forget daily life hardships, addictions (licit and illicit) seem to be the theme of the day.
Haxixe is everywhere and has become a mainstream tool of relaxation and entertainment quite like opium once was for the high society of a couple of centuries ago.
Not even the constant and omnipresent police search for drugs seems to frighten poor and rich from all walks of life from getting, smoking and sharing this popular drug. Epidemic would be not enough to describe the presence of this drug everywhere. I watch all kinds of people smoking it in various contexts with the naturality I can watch someone speaking on the phone. Frightening.
Tea and coffee – Turkish coffee, specially – are yet another quite innocent tools of survival in Egypt only paralleled to sexual harassment – this is a major addiction in this country! – and music ( being rapidly substituted by the Holy Koran playing everywhere, at any time as a background music for all kinds of activities).
Gossiping is another national addiction and I attribute this one to the unemployment rate and a large amount of empty brains with no direction in life or substantial subjects to mind about. Both women and men seem to think they´re born with the divine right to check other people´s private lives and freely fantasize about them, creating some of the best fiction pieces you can ever be in touch with and spreading rumours all over this small village that is the monstrously over populated city of Cairo!
Ful and tameya (two of Egypt´s obligatory fast food delicacies composing, I guess, most of the meals any common egyptian from the massive low class can expect to have in a day). More than addictions, these two are simple necessities as most people don´t earn enough to afford other kinds of food.
Music and dance used to be typical egyptian addictions but late developments in egyptian culture show that these ancient tools of survival, relaxation and spiritual connection are being treated as capital sins and activities to avoid both in high and low classes.
Shouting and working all kinds of horns in any vehicle with two or more wheels.
The constant noise in the streets of Cairo attests this addiction and it´s part of the city´s charm(???), fun and disgrace. People will shout for no reason (decibels, decibels, decibels…) and horns will be honked in all sorts of circumstances (to call attention, to say hi, to tell a girl she´s hot, to communicate with another car, to celebrate the loud, constant wedding parties going on all over town, etc…).
Licit and illicit sex (meaning inside of marriage sex and outside of it). This is not only an addiction but a general disease consuming most egyptians – both men and women – who are not allowed – by society´s blaming eyes and by law – to mingle and relate outside of the marriage context. Adding to that fact, there is the despair of thousands of men who cannot afford to marry – dowry, flat, car, a consistent job and finances stable enough to support a wife and the children they are expected to have right after the marriage) – until very late in life and, therefore, are left to their own natural sexual urges with no means to satisfy it unless they turn to pornography on the net or illicit sex with girls so desperate for human contact as they are.
*** As far as I am concerned and after receiving another reproach for being such a nerd – no drinking, no smoking, no fooling around, no cheating or flirting with men, no coffee, no fast-food or meat and, so it seems according to some of my friend´s eyes…no fun! – here I am calling a list of my own addictions dedicated to my beloved critics who seem to forget the simple fact that there are many, many pleasures in life and ways of having fun and not all of them have to be destructive or inclusive of pot.
Here we go (My addictions made in Egypt):
1. Dancing. This is an obvious one as I´m a professional dancer performing, teaching and choreographing all the time. After so many struggles and tests to this natural born addiction of mine, I can still say I am totally addicted to DANCE. It´s my profession and yet so much more than that: my first love (and probably my last) and my biggest escape goat from all the pressures surrounding me.
2.Music and silence. Both are the same and containing each other. Two faces of the same coin. Listening to silence with your full focus, you can reach a point when you´re actually listening to music. On the other side of the coin, you are able to listen to the silence beneath any kind of good music and appreciate the powerful expression of a pause (when silence says more than the music itself). I just love listening to music or being in silence and live on the limbo between the two of them.
3.Food. Goooooood food. I´ve always been a natural born “gourmet”. I grew up very fast and was always a healthy child and, a little after that, a healthy adult and so much of it comes from my love of food. The GOOD FOOD.
I will happily spend in a meal what I wouldn´t spend for a fancy piece of cloth or shoes. Food made with art, knowledge and love is pure bliss and I´ve had an enormous list of nirvana moments in public restaurants (watching me moan of pleasure over a warm mean lasagna in a restaurant is probably one of the most embarrassing experiences anyone can have by my side but also a must because I just can´t help it!).
I associate appetite with joy for life, ability to enjoy the pleasures this world – and the parallel worlds as well – offers us and, ultimately, taking pleasure on being human, taking advantage of our senses and using them to bring us happiness.
I suggest one of my favourite books on the subject: Aphrodite, by Isabel Allende (sorry for other writers but no one describes sensuality, love or food so well as latin people). This book is a treasure to taste, keep and cherish as if it was a Mozart bombom ( my favourite chocolate bombom filled with marzipan and ingredients that melt in your mouth like honey under August sun…).
On the top of my list:
Sea food (anything from the sea, at any time of the day or night).
Indian cuisine. I can get to heaven and, possibly, return only by tasting really good Indian food.
Portuguese cuisine (the best fish, pastries and sweets in the world!).
Mexican and Thai cuisine.
(Not a fan of lamb´s brains and anything involving loins, ears and paws of exotic animals).
4.Evian water. This is a recent addiction but it´s becoming a major thing. This water is like pure Chinese silk slipping down your throat and it tastes like the mountain fountains of my childhood. For no reason this water is called the best in the world. My fridge is full of it.
5.Water. Bottled (Evian, Evian, Evian…more and more, please!), on the river Nile, on the swimming pool, on the beach (my all time favourite!), even on the gutter…water on my three daily showers and water on my winter warm salt peppered warm baths in the tub (I mix salts, flowers, oils, the most luxurious shower gels, everything you can imagine…). Contact wit water is an addiction and also a way of balancing myself as some of my astrologer friends would knowingly inform you after consulting my charts and announcing – not without some concern – that I have way too much fire and need to be surrounded by water and filled with it in order not to boil and, eventually, explode like a cattle forgotten on the stove for too long. It seems I am like a hurricane or a volcano ready to explode and only loads and loads of water can appease my internal fire machine.
6.Reading. All the time, book after book. Several books at the same time. Thirst for knowledge and a very curious mind searching for answers. That´s me. Reading in cabs, reading in the street, in the swimming pool, between shows and even while walking in the street only occasionally taking a pick at the floor to check for stones or irregular steps. Most of my money is spent on books – English, French, Spanish, Portuguese books – and any bookshop is a temptation for me as any cloth shop must be for most women. Yes, I am weird. I was told, more than once, that I am not a woman. I agree. I´m something else, or so much more.
Teas (my dear “chai latte” from “Cilantro” coffee shop is the equivalent to a box of chocolates to any normal “chocaholic”.
7.Oprah Magazine. The only magazine I ever take the time to read. It takes a long time to arrive to my hands (it´s part of its allure) because it comes from the United States and it´s sent to my home in Portugal from where I collect it every time I go there, someone comes to Cairo or my mum manages to send it to me by mail. As soon as I have a new issue of Oprah Magazine on my hands, a hurricane could open the floor under my feet and I assure you I wouldn´t notice!
8.The Gym and, in particular, the swimming pool from the gym. If I spend two days without going to the gym (even if only for a quick half an hour at the swimming pool), I start to feel stressed, ready to explode at any minute.
9.Kissing, hugging, doing all sorts of delicious stuff we do when we´re in love (you all know what I´m talking about! J ). I am addicted to them all.
I need to give and receive a minimum prescription of tender, passionate gestures per day and without those I just shrink like a flower in a vase with no water. I am addicted to love!
10. Learning. Observing. Listening to the ones and the things that matter. I was always more comfortable in the place of the student rather than in the teacher´s role. Being located by myself in the ignorant´s place opening up to other people´s insights has allowed me to grow faster than most women I know. Being taken as a beautiful, stupid girl has worked in my advantage most of the time. While others – who don´t really know me – may perceive me as least intelligent and someone who can be taken for granted, I delight myself on silently observing and learning from their own stupidity, pride and points of occasional knowledge. This was the way I learnt how to speak arabic by myself, no translators or any kind of help. Just listening and being taken for granted.
My curiosity for all that it´s interesting, intelligent and human seems to have replaced – thanks God! – the attention I once gave to people and subjects which were not worth my interest and energy. This is part of learning, I guess…knowing that this current life doesn´t last forever and it´s my duty to make the best out of the time I have available on earth.
This addiction has proven to be a blessing and it´s not strange if you find me listening to a beggar in the middle of the street as if he was Dalai Lama.
Light comes from the most unexpected, darkest valleys. Being attentive has become a great addiction which is also taken as a sign of ignorance by the real ignorants themselves (“Why would someone in her right mind listen to a beggar?!”)
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