Alexandria the Second Capital of Egypt

Our third full day in Egypt (Wednesdy March 25, 2009) was spent traveling to Alexandria about three hours away from Cairo. It is the city that of course Alexanda the Great made the capital of Egypt when the Romans ruled in Egypt.

Today Alexandria is known as the second capital of Egypt. It sits on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and is a common vacation spot for Egyptians. It is very much a coastal city of about only 12 million people. My initial impression was that it is much nicer, less hectic, less crowded and more relaxed.

We left our hotel at 6:15AM for what was a full day of touring. Once in Alexandria we first stopped and visited the water front area and sat by the Mediterranean Sea (those are the pictures of us by the water). We then went to visit the "Kom El-Shuqafa Monuments" which is a underground Roman tomb with egyptian details. Next was a stop at the Roman Theatre or the remains of what was once the theatre. We spent about two hours touring the new "Bibliotheca Alexandrina" or simply the Library at Alexandria. This is a new structure dedicated in 2002. The ancient library of Alexandria is mentioned several times in historical text and was the depository of a great deal of knowledge. Sadly it was destroyed twice and now the original site sites under water. This new library was built to honor that historic past and is a beautifully contructed building. It has the largest reading room in the world and has seven levels to it (Three of which are below sea level). It is a modern day technologically advanced library with several really cool projects going on like the digital library, web page project, and a project to record Egyptian history. You can check out the library for yourself on line at wwww.bibalex.org
The last site we visited was "Montazah" which has one of the summer palaces used by the Egyptian President. That is the palace we are standing in front of in the pic.

We took this opportunity to sample some local Egyptian food. We had a dish called "Koshary" which consist of rice, Black lentils, tomato sauce, macroni, and onions. Yes a rather strange combination of food but it was actually very tasty. That is the dish in the pic above on the table. It was also cheap only 5LE (about 1 U.S.D). You know what they say when in Rome and we took the opportunity to sample some local flare.

Cairo Day Two

ok, mark Cairo as another city I will most likely never come back to visit in my life time. I found myself today realizing that at this point in my life I have very little tolerance for very large busy, noisy, dirty, chaotic, pushy, manic, fast-paced, crowded cities like Cairo. This is probably the reason why even though I grew up in NYC I will most likely never live there again in my life time either. I had the same reaction last summer when I was in Mexico City, Mexico attending the International AIDS Conference. Cairo is a city of 22 million people, and Mexico City about 20+ million. Its just to many people in a small space all clamoring like crabs in a basket for the same scarce resources. I much prefer Swaziland, which I would go back to in a heart beat. It was much quieter and had a totally different feel to it.

So what did we do today? This was our second full day in Cairo and we started out with a trip to the 100+ year old Egyptian Museum. The museum is old and is showing its age for sure on the inside (I think they need to tear it down and basically start over) with cracked plaster all over the place and the artifacts in old casings with cards that were not always clear to read. Our tour guide attempted to rush us through at times and I of course being who I am slowed her right down. She wanted to only show us the major pieces in the museum and I wanted to take time to browse a bit more. The most famous King Tut artifacts are all here (minus his actual mummy which was left in his tomb in Luxor in the Valley of the Kings) and they were nice to see. They do not allow any photography of any kind in the museum and in fact you have to check your camera at a booth outside the museum before you go in. While I understand why I still think it sucks that I could not take any pictures (especially since again I will most likely never come back here). We are all familiar with the story of the child King Tut who died at age 19 and only ruled Egypt for 8 years. He is only famous because unlike most of the other tombs of the ancient Pharoah’s, his tomb was not robbed. When his tomb was unearthed in 1922 all of its contents were still inside including his solid gold burial mask that was found on his actual mummy incased in three coffins which was enclosed in three outer gold gilded sarcophagus’s. These items are all in the museum and we were able to see them. The jewelry he was buried with is amazing to see. I did enjoy going to this part of the museum, to bad I could not take a picture. We also saw one of the famous statues of King Rames II who ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 76 years. There are rooms and rooms of stone tablets and monuments dating back thousands of years and with out a few days it is impossible to stop and take in each and every one of them. By the time we were ready to leave the line to get into the museum was very long as the museum tends to get busier in the afternoon.

Our Second stop today was the Citadel. This is a castle that was built by Salah Al-Din who was Syrian. He came to power in Egypt after pushing the French out. It is built on a hill top overlooking the entire city and become the governmental home of many Egyptian rulers to follow. Inside the Citadel is the Alabaster Mosque. This mosque is one of the most famous in the world and is still used for prayer once a week on Fridays. Fridays is their major holly day here and most businesses and banks are closed on Friday. You had to take your shoes off before you walked into the mosque. The mosque took 15 years to build and five of those years was just the ceiling in the inside which is extremely ornate. The panoramic city view from the top of the hilltop was a nice surprise. It was a clear afternoon so you could actually see the pyramids of Giza in the distance as well.

Cairo is an ancient city struggling to assume its place in the modern world. Large parts of the city are simply in disrepair and a lot of building are under construction or were left half built. The main down town areas with the nice hotels and what not is of course much better but you do not have to go far to see what being poor in Cairo will do for you. While yes our economy in the United States is having its own issues (I have been watching CNN/BBC while over here and I will not talk about what I think of AIG or our current president and his economic team) people her still think of all Americans as rich. They all know the exchange rate of our money to theirs and can quote it to you. The current rate is 1 USD = 5.6 LE. Even in the market today I got into a debate with a merchant while attempting to buy some silk carves over paying him in U.S. dollars versus LE (Egyptian Pounds) and he quoted the exchange rate. Needless to say we each stood our ground and I walked away as he was being unreasonable and I would not be taken advantage of, American or not. Even my tour guide today let it slip that a certain amount of money is not expensive for me when I told her to find another place for lunch today that was less then where she wanted to take us. As much as so much of the world does not like America lord knows they all still do want our money and business.

That brings me to my final thoughts today about Cairo. It is such a money hungry driven place and that just irritates me. Yes I understand what my status as an American conveys but as a Black American who was raised poor in America and fought to get an education and worked hard to achieve what I have I find it all a bit irritating to be thought of as just an American when I know they are referring to a White American Ideal that is not my background. On that note they all hate President Bush here and love Obama, go figure. I also think my general irritation has to do with now being away from home for a month and I think its time to come home. So its off to Alexandria tomorrow which is about 3 hours away to the sites there. I was going to cancel this part of the trip but since I know I will most likely not come back I might as well go and see it now. My journey home will also start early on Thursday morning and I will be back home in Rochester on Friday morning.

The pics are of us in front of the Egyptian museum and at the citadel for the most part.

Sheldon

Cairo and the Pyramids

Cairo is a very old, noisy, crowded, dirty, polluted city. That being said I am glad to be here experiencing it for myself. Me and DeWayne got her at different times yesterday with my flight from South Africa (Johanessburg) took 8-hours and in all from Rochester to Cairo (via NYC-JFK and Istanbul, Turkey) took DeWayne and total of 18-hours. Needless to say we were both exhausted from the traveling and after dinner crashed for the evening. We are staying at a local hotel called the Golden Tulip Flamenco on the little island of Zalemek on the Nile River. It is a hotel that one of DeWayne’s colleagues at HWS recommended as they stayed here several times and found it to be a good place. Its not the Hilton but its is nice. It is filled with a lot of tourist from all over the world. It is a pretty good deal at only $74.50/night for both of us that included a full breakfast buffet each morning. Breakfast was actually very good this morning.

Today we spent a day out touring the pyramids at Sakarra and Giza where the Sphynx is as well. On the recommendation of everything we read on line and of colleagues who have been here before we have hired a local licensed tour guide. Her name is Naglaa Samir and she and her husband work as a team. She is the guide and he is the driver. We also wanted our own personal tour guide and did not want to book a tour with an over crowded large tour company that would rush you through the sites and keep you on a tight schedule. This way we will get to also personalize our trip and do what we want to do. There is so much to see here so we have set a three day itinerary that will allow us two days in Cairo and one full day in Alexandria.

OMG they drive like maniacs here. There are no rules on the roads and most streets do not have stop signs so you just go when you can. Most of the cars on the roads are dented and banged up from what has to be a series of fender benders over the years like the ones we saw at several times throughout the day today. I am from NYC and I would not dear risk driving in this city. The roads are beyond congested and chaotic. The roads in a lot of places are not paved and are in disrepair. Pot holes are every where and you are also sharing the road with all sorts of other cars, trucks, and donkey pulled wagons (especially outside the city on the way to Sakarra). That being said our tour guide and driver got us around the city to our various destinations safely and back to our hotel. My closest reference point to this type of congested traffic was when I went to Bangkok, Thailand in 2004 for the International AIDS Conference. The congestion, pollution, and chaos there is exactly the same.

Our first stop today was at the Step Pyramid in Sakarra. The pyramid of course is famous for being the oldest in the world. It like most of the monuments here in Cairo are so old that most of them are under some form of restoration as is evidenced by the scaffolding around most of them. Tourism is of course a major industry here and boy have they figured out how to capitalize on it. You pay an entrance fee for each pyramid site (60LE, about 12 USD) and another fee to actually go down into the second large pyramid at Giza.

We had lunch today in Giza at nice restaurant from which we could see the pyramids. It was a set menu of humus, egg plant, and pita bread as an appetizer followed by a mixed grill dish (I just had chicken) with rice and frence fries. Dessert was a orange that was actually very good.

After lunch we then went to the pyramids at Giza. This is actually a complex of 9 pyramids (3 large ones and 6 smaller ones) and the Sphynx. The great pyramid is a site to behold as is the second pyramid of Pharoah Kufu. This is of course the last of the Seven World wonders to remain on that list of the originals. You have to walk out in the sand and of course today of all days while we were are at the site it was a bit windy and the sand was blowing all around. So we got to experience a bit of a sand storm as well today. I think I have managed to get all of the sand out of my hair finally but most likes not out of my sneakers. The Sphynx is actually not as big as it looks in pictures. It is still an amazing site to behold as well. Especially when you think about how long it has been.

The pictures speak for themselves. Tomorrow were set to visit the famous market area (shopping), the world famous Egyptian museum, and old Cairo where the Citadel is. Bye for now and thanks for reading my ramblings.

Sheldon

Egypt Bound

So today I am actually leaving Swaziland my assignment is over. I am on my way to Cairo, Egypt for a 4 day holiday before returning home on the 27th of March. I figured since I had already came all this way that I would take a side trip over to see the pyramids myself. I am looking forward to touring Cairo and Alexandria as well.

It was foggy in the valley when I woke up this morning and this was the picturs right outside my hotel window and the other pic is me sitting on the bed in the hotel room here which has been my home a way from home for 3 weeks now. Hit you all back when I get to the land of the Pharohs.

RFM People

I have meet some incredible people since I have been here in Swaziland. The gentle in the top pic with me is Sandile Malza, RGN/M, He is the infection control coordinator for the entire hospital. He is a registered general nurse (RN) and midwife. He is new to his job in infectin control so I have been working with him to get organized and prioritize his work. We take so many things for granted such as being able to work a computer but Sandile did not have much experience with computers so we spent on afternoon just going over the various Micro-soft WORD applications on the computer in his office that he shares with the hospital's inservice coordinator. He was very happy when I showed him hom to insert a page header and page numbers into a WORD document. Then we created a schedule for him on line that he can update daily and I showed him how to create a few simple tables as he is setting up a hospital nosocomial reporting system. Such a small things that I know I take for granted made him smile.

The gentlemen in the second pic with me is Dr. C.I. Vitalis. He is one of the doctors who is posted to the ART clinic (Anti-retroviral Treatment) here at RFM hospital. It is basically the outpatient HIV/AIDS clinic. He also admits and rounds on his patients who are mostly in the male and female medical wards. I spent two day working with Dr. vitalis and the wonderful nurses in the ART clinic here. Again this clinic is full each day and the patients come early and wait to be seen. Dr. Vitalis will on average see 50+ patients aday in the clinic. While the patients sit in the waiting room they have "Expert Patients" teach them about HIV/AIDS, taking their medications and why that is important, and why they need to use condoms when having sex. These expert patients are just that current patients who are also living with HIV/AIDS on treatment for the most part doing well. They serve as role models for the new patiets and advocates as well. They are also natives (Swazi) and will serve as interpretors as well for the patients who do not speak english for the doctors and nurses who do not speak SisWati (The Swazi native language). They really are integral to how this clinic functions and are just wonderful with the patients.

Dr. Vitalis like most of the physicians here is foreign. He is Nigerian and is a wonderful doctor. His clinical skills are sharp and he picks up on things just by looking and taking very detailed histories very quickly. He allowed me to observe him while he saw his patients and expalined a great deal to me. I must admit I learned a great deal from him. Even though I have been working in the HIV/AIDS clinical arena for some time now I have ever seen certain opportunisitc infections or drug reactions that HIV/AIDS get. In the course of two days I saw them all in this clinic, steven johnson syndrome, advanced kaposi's sarcoma, lipodystrophy of all forms, tinea, CMV retinitis, PCP pneumonia, molluscum, and many more. It was an eye opening experience but a very valuable clinical lesson for me. I can to teach and mentor but I have also learned a great deal which I hoped would happen when I came here.

To the wonderful people at the RFM hospital and the Nazarene College of Nursing thank you for allowing me to be a part of your world and for doing what you all do on a daily basis.

RFM Clinic

Above is a picture of the out patient medical clinic at the RFM hospital here. People come early in the morning and wait for hours on these benches to be seen. It is very much first come first served so you are not givne an appointment time. They also do not do triage so people have died while waiting in the "que" (as they refer to it) to be seen. The outpatient maternal-child clinic is the most full every day with women and children waiting to be seen.

the patients are seen in the exam rooms off this open court yard area (The greenish doors)and even when it is raining this is where they wait. Not the most ideal of situations but it is what they have here. I go to my doctor at home and if he keeps me waiting more than 15 mintues I get inpatient imagine waiting all day and then being told sorry the doctor has left or that we are close you have to come back tomorrow.

Physical Assessment Master Course

Ok so yesterday in one 8 hour day I had to teach the basics of how to do a comprehensive head-to-toe physical examination to 30 midwifery students. These students are all Professional Qualified Nurses already who are doing an additional one-year of training as a midwife. The dean of the school here asked me to conduct a special master assessment course specifically for these students since they will for the most part at times be alone out in the community attending to deliveries. She was concerned that many of them lack the general assessment skills they need to function independently.

So my challenge was to take a semesters worth of work that I teach at the University of Rochester and condense it down to a 8-hour super course and relate it all to the issue of HIV/AIDS which is the primary reason I am here in Swaziland. Yeah no small task but I was able to do it and the students responded really well. We had a rocky start in the morning as my teaching style is something they are simply not use to. They are use to just sitting quietly and being lectured to or at and that is not the way to teach comprehensive physical assessment. They also do not speak up, they tend to talk very softly and you have to lean in to hear them. Oh and one other thing they do in class is answer their cell phones and text on them as well. So the first thing I did that shocked them was that I requested that they turn their cell phones off and that they do not text at all as I need their full attention. I demonstrated by turning mines off and placing it in front of me on the table. I also made them each introduce themselves to me after I did so and tell me why they wanted to study midwifery. In doing so they had to talk up loud enough for the entire class to hear. Lastly I informed them that they would need to talk to me as I will being posing a lot of questions and that we will not only talk about Physical assessment but we will practicing it throughout the day. After all it is skill so application is important.

I was able to give them the broad overstrokes and did a head to toe demonstration for them in the lab as well. The entire last hour of the day was also spent in their lab practicing. I will tell you that by the end of the day I was exhausted, my voice was gone, my feet hurt, my back hurt, and I had a headache but boy what an awesome challenge to have tackled. They warmed up as the day went on, asked really good questions and began to pick up the skills. I made them all promise to continue to practice and the dean informed me that the instructors here will be following up with them to make sure as well. So another mission accomplished here.

The pic are of me and the students in their learning lab.