# Wednesday, September 24, 2008

[4:57:15 PM] Dody Gunawinata says: how is pnom penh
[4:57:39 PM] Martina says: just ate a frog and saw mekong
[4:57:45 PM] Martina says: otherwise looks very provincial

posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 3:36:10 PM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Sunday, September 21, 2008

I will be in Laos in a week's time spending time with Martina. She's been in the region crisscrossing Burma and Cambodia for work. International rescue work is a pretty grueling work, with lots of travels and mosquitoes. On the other hand, you get to see a lot of new places.

I'm looking forward to the break. It has been a tough 6 months at work, but it comes with the territory. Things are ups and downs, the critical part is to remain calm and steady.

Also I'm excited about the idea of spending more time in Czech Republic in the fall.

posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 4:35:40 PM (Egypt Daylight Time, UTC+03:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Monday, July 28, 2008

Marta in Nias, Indonesia. We spent 2 days in Surabaya for my Sister's graduation  - taking the advantage of her vicinity while being assigned to work in Aceh 2 months ago.

posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 4:35:10 PM (Egypt Daylight Time, UTC+03:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Saturday, June 21, 2008

That was a long blog vacation (6 months). Yeah, I had to clear up my head and got excited about blogging again. I am now.

I was thinking yesterday about Obama's quote of The Untouchables' "bring a gun to a knife fight". I mean that's also known as Powell's doctrine ("only go with clear object and overwhelming use of force").

Obama's decision to forgo public financial funding is a sample of that doctrine. He will fight unfairly, raise unfuckingbelivable amount of money and defeat John McCain in the November election.

posted on Saturday, June 21, 2008 4:34:05 PM (Egypt Daylight Time, UTC+03:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Wow, what a year.

It's been a year of up and down and up and down and up. The most important thing is that I have managed to go home to my family after 5 years of absence back in March. I also still manage to be in my sweetie's good side for most of the year :)

This blog has been silent most of this year, in contrast of my prolific blogging in 2006. I have been linking news and articles mainly on nomadlife.org. What I am alarmed about this year is that I start sensing a lack of original thinking of my side. So much time this year is spent on ducking down and putting the hours in to get more traction on the velocity of SilverKey in the Middle East. I don't mind the work but the lack of creative output is something to be worried about. I didn't manage to read that many books either. I think I read about 12 books in total this year. In contrast, I used to read 8 books a month back in the heyday of Chicago.

I will have to get into the habit of pondering again.

Life in Egypt is quite tiring. Gone are the days when I spend the weekends traversing the desert on horseback. I only managed to crawl back to diving three weeks ago after a one year absent. I ended up bouncing up and down in a 10 meter depth like an untalented gymnast. Weekends and holidays are spent in the office.

I do enjoy my trip to Morocco, hanging out with Ziyad again chasing the dream of our youth. The trip was a mind opening and having a conversation with a chattier than usual Suzanne over delicious tagines was something to cherish about.

Czech Republic is one beautiful place to spend one's time. The majestic old city and the lush green rolling hills of Central Europe come vividly better in real life than an imagined place any writer can come up with. Marta's family has pretty much adopted me. Nothing beats the surreal experience being in the middle of family conversation in a language that I know nothing of.

We manage to get a pretty cool office (a two floor penthouse on the 8th floor with a huge balcony) and set ourselves up for bigger things in 2008. I think next year is a tipping point of my dear little company in defining its contribution to the Internet life. There are huge challenges ahead but my eyes are filled with the images of stars and wonders.

posted on Tuesday, December 25, 2007 4:30:49 PM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Friday, November 23, 2007
Getting deported is harder than I described. The process was quite straightforward and short but the after effect of the event still linger 3 days after and I still can't put my finger on it.
posted on Friday, November 23, 2007 4:29:42 PM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Tuesday, November 20, 2007

So in the past four days I have had 4 flights, spent one night in jail, three nights in airport and got deported once.
posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:28:04 PM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Friday, November 03, 2006
"University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann threw her annual Halloween costume party at her home Tuesday night. Among the guests was Saad Saadi, who came dressed as a suicide bomber, complete with plastic dynamite strapped to his chest and a toy automatic rifle. Worse, Gutmann posed with Saadi!" (Democracy Project)

It's a Halloween Custome for chrissssake !!

posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 10:19:45 AM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
# Wednesday, November 01, 2006
"During Eid, I had heard rumours and secondhand "friend of a friend" accounts of chaos in downtown Cairo on the first day of Eid - apparently a massive crowd of less-desirable characters were roaming the streets in a huge pack, finding women on the street and mass assaulting them. I was far away in Dahhab and didnt really want to think about it, and when I got a few minutes of internet access I couldn't find anything at all about it." (Tom Gara)

"The stories:
  • One eyewitness recounts a large crowd of youth (shabab) that run after a woman in her early twenties when she trips and falls. The men then start groping her and take off her clothes. The woman gets up, runs, and hides inside a restaurant. The men surround the restaurant until someone shouts, "there is another one at ....". The crowds then run to that location to find another woman completely surrounded by hundreds of men trying to feel her and take off her clothes. A taxi driver takes that woman in his car but the men surround the car and shout for the girl to come out. A Security Officer (appears to be non-government) tries to fend the people off by hitting them with his baton. The crowds do not easily disperse until they see two women wearing the overall Saudi/Gulf veil & abaya walking alone. The crowds then completely surround them, before touching them and taking off their veils. They attempt to take their clothes off while 10/11 year old boys get in their abayas.
  • A well known actress, Ola Ghanem, was seen surrounded by her bodyguards fending off the crowds but were unable to completely protect the actress.
  • A woman in a veil and abaya is harassed by men who take off her abaya before two building Security guys took her into the building and locked the door to protect her.
  • A woman in tighter pants and a normal shirt is harassed and men take off her shirt and bra. A security person takes her into a shop fending off people with a stick.
  • Much worse assaults are reported by the word of mouth but are not witnessed. One in which a woman was sexually assaulted against a wall after taking off all her clothes.
  • Men cheered this before attacking a victim, "yaay, we will f***, we will f***". (yaay is my rough translation for 'heyeh').
  • And when they find another victim, "another woman, another woman".
  • And when they see women in veil & abaya, "go Saudi, go Saudi". (go is my rough translation for 'beep beep').
  • And when surrounding a taxi and calling for a victim to get out of the car, "get out you sl*t, we will show you". The woman was later forced out like they wanted!
  • Some bloggers warned women against entering the troubled areas, and most listened. Some women sought protection with the bloggers as they had cameras. The men did not assault these women fearing that they might be journalists.
  • Some men were observed to use their belts to ward off the crowds and then take the victim in a taxi and flee.
  • Some shop owners sprayed water to disperse the crowds and hailed for the women to come inside." (Mechanical Crowds)

"I am one of the females who got sexually harassed on downtown streets, more specifically on Talaat Harb street starting from Metro Cinema until the beginning of Sabry Abu Alam street.

There were two other friends with me, a female and her male.

We felt like we were in a war--I had my self defense spray was emptied on the endless number of guys who surrounded us and yet still wasn't enough.

We, girls, had our butts, breasts, and every inch in our bodies grabbed. I end up slipping into a car that was parking on the road side when I tried to catch one of the guys who insisted and never gave up on grabbing my butt. I end up with a deep cut in my right hand palm and another one on my thumb of the same hand as I slipped into the cars head light that broke and cut my hand. 6 stitches on my hand palm cut and 3 on my thumb--still my anger is pretty fresh in the deep inside of me that wants me to put all Egyptian men on fire right now for what they have caused. What the fuck mother fuckers? Don't you have sisters who can also face the same thing as we did? How the fuck would you feel about this knowing your sister's butt and breasts got grabbed by the guys on the street?

I think you better act cold towards that since you might be one of the assholes who grab other girls asses. But let me tell you this: It's NOT and NEVER the girl to blame you sons of a bitches, it's NEVER the girl, NEVER! It's you to blame for doing such things to girls who you could consider them sisters and try to protect them not fucking grab them and show the world the worst picture of how Muslim men are who say and insist on how good people they are, but to tell you the truth, Muslim men are the worst human being on the entire planet and they just don't know it. Oh no, they don't even deserve to be called human beings, they are ANIMALS--DIRTY PIGS! Mother fuckers, You're putting Islam in the worst image ever in front of the world, so don't be so surprised when the westerners call you TERRORISTS which I simply agree with them! Think about it, assholes, think about it!" (an anonymous poster in manaala)


Mobs. Beware of mobs. People do things in a mob that they will never dare to do individually.

Like the one happening in Central Park, Manhattan six years ago

" On Saturday, June 9th, at 1 p.m., there will be a rally at Central Park South (59th Street) and Sixth Avenue to mark the first anniversary of last year's Central Park assaults on June 11, 2000, when over 56 women were assaulted, stripped and molested by a large group of men." (The Street Harrashment Project)

It might be useful to carry and know how to use them. I was involved in more school fight that I would have liked back in the Island. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to avoid a crowd in the first place. The next best thing is to take the next man down and make him your hostage (you have to fuck him up pretty badly to be able to do it) - so instead of emptying your self defense spray to 7 guys in the mob, empty it to one or two guys only and make them wish they were dead.

When people are in the mob, they are in a bubble of denial of accountability and the one way to put the fear of God back into them is to make an example of one or two of them.

Then withdraw as soon as possible from the scene.

posted on Wednesday, November 01, 2006 1:50:33 PM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [0]
Have you ever been staying overnight in a private Egyptian hospital?

1. It is the policy of the 7th floor ward not to provide bath towels in each room because this ward is a surgery ward, where they tend to use the towels to wipe blood off the floor.

2. The nurses do check every two hours.

3. The accountants leave at normal hours so you cannot leave the hospital when it is no longer required near midnight and must stay overnight before all your bills are accounted for.

4. The hospital charges 30% over any medicine you get from their pharmacy and call it "delivery charge".

5. The hospital room is all painted green. It is clean.

6. They do not have lock in the room.

7. The nurse needed three attempts before geting an intravenous procedure set up properly (meaning, blood pouring out everywhere from failed attempts)

8. The private bathroom is clean.

9. For 250 LE a night, you can get a single room with a view of the Pyramids of Giza, the Nile river and a showtime movie channel. That's just for the accomodation btw, not including the mandatory blood tests, medicine costs, etc. A guest staying over costs another 100LE a night.

10. The chicken dinner is recommended. It's actually one of the better grilled chicken I've had in Cairo. Go figure.

11. The fattest person in the ward is the head nurse (no lighter than 170 kilos I think).

12. Two doctors and two nurses on the floor speak English.

13. Methylprednisolone is a steroid and it takes about an hour to take through IV (mixed with glucose) - Glucose and all that IV kit costs 20 LE. The streroid costs 165LE.



Overall the service is competent.


posted on Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:24:30 AM (Egypt Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [2]