Travel features
Jabana: Patience in a cup of coffee
19 May 2010
As far as they can remember, their grandfathers and great-grandfathers have been drinking jabana, a type of coffee that evolved from a drink into a tradition, its thorough preparation being more an art than science. One cup is poured after...
Yes
Saying farewell to the south
19 May 2010
We did not want to wake up that morning. We knew it was our last in Shalateen, and we would soon be leaving. Our motivation to prepare our belongings faded and the will to get going disappeared. We dragged our bags to the car and spent...
Yes
Downtown Cairo's budget hotels: No want of character
18 May 2010
The Grand Hyatt has a revolving restaurant. The J.W. Marriott has a fake beach. The Tulip Hotel, on the other hand, has ants--lots of them. Several days after my stay, I’m still shaking them out of my backpack.
To be fair, the two-star...
Yes
Movenpick El-Sokhna Resort: Almost paradise
17 May 2010
What makes Ain Sokhna such a great destination for Cairenes is the fact that it stands less than an hour and a half away from the busy capital. All you need is to maneuver away from the crowded streets of Cairo to the open road between...
Yes
Henna art, Beja-style
12 May 2010
As I sat among women from the Beshariyya "Beja" tribe in a secluded spot in the mountains where tents were set up for a wedding, 150km west of Shalateen, a small bowl of henna paste was passed around. The dye was dark in color and the...
Yes
Swords, shields and a whip: A Beja wedding night
12 May 2010
We stood under the harsh sun waiting for our turn at the workshop. One of our tires was flat. We had been kindly alerted to the fact by a truck driver and we needed to fix the tire before we could go anywhere. The workshop was small. A car...
Yes
Shalateen: The hunt for truths in a far-off town
05 May 2010
The air was thick inside the small apartment as a rusty ceiling fan revolved sluggishly. We were at our hosts' residence. They were three men in their 30s who moved to Shalateen for work several years ago. At first it seemed that they were...
Yes
Shalateen: The long drive down
28 Apr 2010
Getting ready for the 12-hour drive from Cairo to the Halayeb triangle is not an easy task, namely because it is a sensitive area, about which there is little public information. We were not able to find simple things like weather...
Yes
Shalateen: Growing up between a rock and a hard place
21 Apr 2010
Every town has its story. Shalateen's is on the precipice of a turning point.
Like each of us, towns are born and eventually die. Their life stories mimic those of people, except they exist over a longer time period. They have ups and...
Yes
A trip to the Cape: Beautiful sites, intricate histories
20 Apr 2010
I was offered a free trip to Cape Town to attend an arts/journalism program. Besides my attraction to the arts as a way of making sense out of the world--in a way that political reporting does not--a trip to South Africa sounded enticing....
Yes
