How You Get Fired On Your Day Off?

---> Meant to post this ages ago. the Friday before I left for Paris to be exact. Excuse the tense.

Lol. Far from being fired, I actually got HIRED. I just think it's funny that I came all the way to Cyprus and got an internship. Who gets internships while there studying abroad? Tracy does.

I started to feel extremely restless about 3 weeks ago. Though Cyprus is a beautiful island, the laid back lifestyle was beginning to take a toll on my fast paced city girl emotions. In search of a cure for my mental distress, I visited the offices of Student Affairs and the Global Learning Semesters.

The Student Affairs office proved to be venue for a resolution to my problem. After meeting with the Director of Clubs and Campus Activities I signed up for the Wine Tasting Club, the Dance Club and the Volunteer Club. According to her, those are the top three to be in based on popularity among students and amount of scheduled events. My personal fave is the Wine Tasting club (DO NOT JUDGE!) because the Saturday after I (and the entire GLS program -_-) joined, we went on a wine tasting trip to visit the vineyards in the mountains. I'll tell you about that in another post.

The GLS office was also of superb assistance. I explained to my adviser, Thanos, that I was getting bored and had too much free time on my hands. He pointed at Andreas, another GLD employee, and told me that he had more than enough tasks to keep me occupied. Thanos was not lying. I am now an official Social and Marketing Officer of Kypros.com, which simply means I have to figure out how to encourage people to use the site and then get them to do it.

Kypros.com is the brain child of Andreas and the President of the GLS Cyprus headquarters. Similar to how Zagat works for the NYC restaurant industry, Kypros serves as a directory for businesses of all types in Cyprus. The major difference between the two sites is Kypros allows anyone to create a user account and begin adding content to the site. The duties of the Social Marketing Officer are essential to the success of the site because it relies so heavily on user contribution. I'm stoked about adding this to my resume! I spend 8hrs in the office Mon-Thurs and 6 hrs in the field on Fridays. Originally, it was supposed to be 10-12 hrs of office work for the week but Gillian (my roomie and the Assistant Content Manager) and I realized we wouldn't be able to add content to the site if most of our time was being spent at school/in the office. We negotiated with the boss and now we get field hrs and transportation money! Woop Woop!

Yesterday was our first day in the field and it definitely was not what Gilly or I expected btu it was still an interesting experience. In my heart of hearts... I take that back. In my stomach of stomachs, I wholeheartedly believed that my field work would involve going downtown and grabbing bites to eat at all the yummy restaurants! For the sake of my love handles it's probably a good thing that Andreas had us visit tourist sites and attractions but my stomach definitely let out a sigh of disappointment when he pulled out the map and started circling churches and monuments. All the sites were places I had visited previously on a tour during GLS orientation week but I didn't mind visiting them again if it meant salvation from a couch or an office chair.

We took a cab to Famagusta gate because it's smack dab in the middle of all the points we had to cover. There was construction equipment outside when we pulled up which ruined any chances of Gilly getting any good pictures but I reminded her that she had good pictures from the first visit. There are no signs, plaques or brochures outside explaining the historical significance of the gate but to the best of my knowledge the gate served as one of the entries into the city during the Byzantine era a gabillion years ago. For security purposes, it only opened at dawn and closed promptly at dusk. Those who arrived too late were forced to wait outside of the gate until it reopened in the morning.

Gilly put me on map duty because she feared looking like a corny American tourist. With no one to impress on this island, I had no issue navigating with the 2ftx2ft map but I warned her that my sense of direction is seasonal and it might not be working at this particular time of year. I did my best to channel my Kristopher Columbus abilities and told Gilly we should head due west in search of the Cypriot Statue of Liberty. Okay, I'm lying about the due west but it sounded cooler than to the right of the gate. We found the Aqueduct before we arrived at the statue. I was only able to recognize it because Andreas told us to look out for a series of archways, had he not said that I would have never noticed it. Not because I'm not good at finding things but Aqueducts typically have something to do with water and there was nothing even remotely moist about these archways. And once again, there were NO SIGNS. Not even one in Greek. Gilly took pictures anyway but I don't know what type of review either of us will be able to write on that attraction. The statue is across the street and a few feet ahead of the waterless Aqueduct and when we got there we saw other tourists taking pictures which made Gilly feel better. They offered to take pics of us posing with the statue which was nice. Unlike the first two monuments, the Statue of Liberty has a plaque but it was written entirely in Greek. All I can gather is that something happened between 1955-1959.

Next stop on the list of Old City must see's is the Archbishop's Palace. The street perpendicular to the Statue of Liberty leads straight to the Palace so I didn't have to call on Kristopher for help with that one. Again, there were no signs explaining the historical significance of the building but from the title I am almost certain that the Archbishop of Cyprus lives there. We walked into a courtyard adjacent to the courtyard and I immediately noticed a thick rope tied to a hook and hanging 20 feet from a bell tower. Typically, I am not a mischievous person but I can't tell you how bad I wanted to ring that bell and run! I tugged lightly but the yank it was going to take to actually make the bell ring would have caused too much drastic movement and I didn't want to get caught before I even finished hearing the "Bong." For fear of getting into massive trouble I decided to scope out the area instead and chanced upon the Museum of Folk Art. It looked interesting but there was a 7euro entry fee and that was not in the budget for the day. Gillian chose not to violate the no photography rule and there were no brochures so if you ever make it in there please feel free to tell me what you saw! It's not over for me and the bell, though. I plan on finding out what it means when the bell sounds and then if it doesn't mean anything too drastic it then I promise to ring it before I leave. Overly cautious thug life, sue me.

My inner Kristopher was napping so I asked a local for directions to Agnos Antonios Church. The language barrier made the directions choppy but after stumbling to the right for a bit, we found the church. There were a bunch of cute old ladies inside tidying up which means we missed Good Friday Service. I tried to express my disappointment to the women but my limited Greek vocabulary paired with their non-existent knowledge of English made it impossible. There was a counter at the front of the church filled with brochures, I took a few in hopes that Andreas could translate for me. When we got back to the office I found out that my efforts were futile because the brochure ended up being about Women's Health Awareness. We stopped on a side street to find out next destination and I discovered that the Omeriyeh Mosque and the Ethnological museum were close by. The Ethnological museum is SUPER non-descript and we actually walked past it on the way to the church. Gilly took pictures outside but the building was closed so I can't show you any of the contents. Hope the picture is worth a thousand words!

The Omeriye Mosque was the most interesting place I visited. We arrived shortly after one of the evening prayers so there were several clusters of men in the courtyard. Gillian wanted to take pictures and leave but I was determined to go inside. After reading Malcolm X's biography I am very interested in the teachings of Allah and the practices of the Muslim world. No intentions of converting, just curious as to how they worship. I told Gilly she could wait outside but she gave in and headed to the entrance with me. There were mats extending from the door into the courtyard with a few pairs of shoes on them. When we got close enough to the mats, I asked one of the many men if we could go inside. I anticipated a yes but I just wanted to be certain because there really were no women in the courtyard with us. As i suspected, the man said it was fine and we took off our shoes and entered the interior. Inside was like a big carpeted living room with no furniture and there were four more men inside. Three were talking and one was still praying. Gillian and I walked all the way in and started reading the plaques on the wall. I heard footsteps approaching us pretty quickly and I looked over my shoulder to see who was coming. A man was running towards us holding two large pieces of fabric in his arms. I couldn't discern what the garments were but I assumed it was some sort of head covering because Gillian and I both had on pants and our arms/cleavage were covered. I told him Shukran and then immediately attempted wrap the fabric around my head. Why I didn't take the time to open up the garment and look at it, I don't know but boy was I embarrassed when I finished my wrap and looked up to see Gillian with her arms in a sleeved robe. It was awful. I was silently dying of laughter because of how foolish I looked and I couldn't unwrap myself fast enough to avoid the stares of the few people within the mosque. We made a mad dash to the door after that because we were laughing too hard and wanted to avoid disturbing the people who were still worshiping. That was ALMOST as bad as when a brown skinned maintenance man came to my apartment in Cyprus and I said "Hola!" Not even going to go into detail about my reasoning because I don't want to be seen as politically incorrect but you definitely get the drift. Those are my two stereotypical American moments, don't judge. It happens to the best of us.

After the mosque we walked past Famagusta Gate again on our way up to the remaining Churchs and I noticed a very small door in wall and two people were posted outside smoking. I told Gilly that the door was probably open and she didn't believe me so I went over to find out for myself. Sure enough the door was open and inside of the gate is a beautiful art gallery! I was so surprised because I didn't know there were any rooms within the gate. I googled it and it says that the passageway served as workshops and stores during ancient times. Now the rooms have been restored and the South Hall (where I was) is used for art exhibits and presentations. There had been a presentation by the European Union bank earlier that day and I tried to ask the man at the front desk a few questions about it but he didn't speak any English.

After this we went to two more church's before we made our way back to the GLS headquarters. Andreas was pleased with out progress and he reimbursed for our cab fare.

>>>FAST FORWARD>>>

At GLS's graduation ceremony, Gillian Rowley, Kayla Mark and I were awarded for being top contributors to Kypros. We won 25 euros towards dinner at a traditional Greek restaurant called Plaka Tavern not too far from our apartment. You pay 20 euro per person and the waiter brings 5 courses of food out. It is imperative that you eat with moderation because the yummy treat you gobble down in course 2 might hinder you from sampling the next treat in course 4. We were so stuffed after dinner that we walked back to the apartment after dinner to burn off all the calories.



So yeah, getting an internship abroad wasn't such a bad idea after all!

Maybe I need a new prescription...

Photograph by Leslie Alsheimer

When you look at this picture what do you see?

I'm taking a photography class and this week's assignment was to bring in two pictures that are somehow related and then discuss the visual symbolism in both of the shots. The picture above was brought in by one of my classmates. As soon as the picture projected onto the screen Tone and I both began gushing about how much we loved the picture. Tone even went as far as to say if he has a daughter he would frame the picture and put it in her room. Strangely, no more than three sentences into her description, the student who was presenting said, "You can clearly see the poverty in this picture."

Clearly?

At first glance all I can see is two girls sharing a moment of uncontrollable laughter. Second glance, I'm loving the freedom of the older girls movements. It's like the laughter is making her dance. Third glance, I notice the embrace of the younger girl and it reminds me of how a little sister would cling to a big sister. Fourth glance, their dresses make me think of summer and crisp cotton. Fifth glance, the palm trees and the shack remind me of Jamaica. I know it can be anywhere tropical but that's what came to my mind first. Last glance, I see the building in the far left. Could be a house, or a school, or a church but there aren't enough details for me to know. There is NOTHING in this picture that blatantly or even subliminally suggests poverty. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but her statement was much too strong.

No sooner than she finished her sentence I blurted out "Where in the picture do you see poverty ?" Several students in the class chimed in with similar questions and it felt good to know that I wasn't the only one baffled by that remark. The presenter attempted to say that the shack in the background and the little girl not wearing shoes were examples of poverty but the class quickly refuted those statements. One girl from Jersey said "You can see shacks like that ANYWHERE. I see them all over Jersey..." and someone else said it's not unusual for children to play outside barefoot. All valid points but the presenter was insistent on telling us why there is indeed poverty in the picture, claiming that in the caption on National Geographic's website the photographer said it was taken in Uganda, "A nation known for its impoverished conditions." Forgive my ignorance but I don't know anything about Uganda and caption or no caption, the picture still only evokes positive feelings within me. I took it upon myself to Google the caption.

"It is the light, it is the curl in the corners of the mouth, the sparkle in the eyes, and the unedited and untainted laughter. It is a child that does not yet understand the meaning of poverty. It is the child that has not yet seen the violence and destruction so prevalent in the world. It is the child that lost their mother to AIDS or child birthing complications, yet remains joyous and youthful despite the suffering. Dignity: The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect."

The caption CLEARLY states that these girls have not been exposed to poverty. Granted the writer said they have not been exposed as yet but the point is the picture was appropriately titled "Girls Laughing, Uganda" because that is all you can see. I was and still am so thoroughly offended by my classmate attempting to force a vision of poverty on me. Another person in the class used the same picture for her presentation and compared it to a photo of a close up of a dutch girl laughing backstage before a festival performance. In the class discussion of her two photos one young lady said "You can tell that this girl [the dutch girl] is from a more advanced civilization because of the doors." No joke. She said this with a straight face and the presenter actually nodded and made comments that supported that ridiculous statement. The girls in Uganda are CLEARLY outside. How can you compare the inside of this building in god knows where to the palm trees of Uganda? Palm trees now symbolize societies that are less advanced in their development? All I could do was shake my head.

Maybe I'm biased. Maybe I'm upset because the people who chose these pictures took a beautiful moment and attempted to make it ugly. Maybe I'm subconsciously pulling a race card. Or maybe they just couldn't see this picture for what it really is.

What do YOU think?

Egyptian Excursion - Pt. 2

Friday

When we were browsing through hostels, Arabian Nights stood out to us because they serve complimentary breakfast every morning in the lobby. Abraham and one of the many Mohammed's we met while we were their prepared fresh crepes for us (Abraham learned how to make them from his French wife) and they were served with banana's, honey and I opted to put cheese on mine. They had this amazing bread too! I put some apricot jelly and cheese on that bad boy and I was in heaven. Washed all of that down with at least three cups of tea and then we began our journey to the pyramids.


The drive through Cairo was less than scenic to say the most. As we were driving I saw a body of water that looked very much like the Hudson and I asked out loud to no one in particular "Is that the Nile?" Lauren was quick to tell me no but much to our surprise the tour guide Wasif said it was indeed the Nile and we even got out to take pictures. In retrospect, I have no clue why I thought the water would still be blue and there would be palm trees towering over the river banks. It's hard to accept that images in textbooks are not the same in real life, even if it's 5,000 years later. As we were driving I observed that the natives do not have much appreciation for the Nile. In certain areas there was trash piled up alongside the banks, spilling into the water. I actually saw two women who appeared to be walking from their homes dump two big trash bags into the water and it looked like it was apart of their daily routine. Honestly, there was garbage every where. I guess the government isn't concerned with the cleanliness of the city because there were no garbage cans/dumpsters in sight which of course leads to people disposing of their trash any where. When I get famous, I'm going to donate a considerable amount of money towards a Cairo clean up project.

As we got closer to the pyramids the surrounding neighborhoods became more rural. We drove along side several carts of vegetables being tugged slowly to their destination by donkeys and a woman carrying fresh veggies on her head. It was pretty funny the way they fit right in with the flow of traffic. No one was disturbed by the presence of the other. Before we entered the part of the desert where the pyramids were, we had to stop at a rest-stop/check point to purchase $12 Visas. Abraham neglected to tell us that our entry to the many sites we were seeing for the day was not included in the amount we paid him the night before. I forgive him but a heads up would have been less frustrating because when you find out at the entrance you feel like you no longer have a choice.

Our first stop on the pyramid tour was the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. Wasif, our tour guide, is an archaeologist and he gave us an intense history lesson before our physical tour of the pyramids (Click the link for more information). He also told us to steer clear of the men selling trinkets and warned us about how persistent they would be. You know I'm a sucker and and I ended up spending almost $30 before I left. It's cool though, 20 post cards for $2 and 3 necklaces for $25 wasn't a bad deal if ya ask me.

Next we visited a Papyrus shop where we learned how to make papyrus and learned the story behind some pieces of Ancient Art work. Check out the video footage! (It's uncut.)

The whole group was starving when we left so we went to have lunch at the Cleopatra Restaurant which overlooked the pyramids. The food was good but I didn't take the time to savor the flavor because I was so anxious to get to the pyramids and the Sphinx! (Don't fret my pets, i did indulge in traditional Egyptian cooking and i will tell u about it later.)

When we got to Giza, Tone, Gillian, Kam and I decided we wanted to ride camels up to the pyramids. If I remember correctly it was $30 per person and we got to ride for an hour. My camel's name was Mickey Mouse and he was very well behaved. I'm only saying this because he didn't throw me off. I feel like that's the only thing that can make a camel bad, lol. We split up from the rest of the group and had a guide named Alex who accompanied us on horseback but he/she (still not sure of his/her gender) was not historically informative. We talked way more about camel rearing and eating than anything else. Apparently camels make really good dinner when their no longer good for riding. I almost forgot to tell ya'll how me and Tone got caught up!

So we're riding through the streets of Giza on our way up to the pyramids and a group of men run up along side Mickey Mouse and tell us to lean over. They were all smiles so Tone and I both leaned over and two of the men proceeded to put traditional protective desert head wear on us. We were so excited because we thought the head wear came as a complimentary gift with the camel ride. Sike! After the man gassed us entirely by grabbing my camera and snapping pics of

us posing like natives, he begins asking us for 25 Egyptian pounds. I did the math in my head really quickly and realized it was only $5 so I paid it but golly! I swear I met some of the most persuasive/manipulative salesman ever in life on this trip. Our camel riding time ran out before we actually got up to the pyramids so we sent Alex back and hoofed it on our own. We stopped at the Sphinx first for a few pictures. It was unreal to be looking at the Sphinx with my own eyes.

Knowing that such a monument still exists after so many centuries is one thing but to actually SEE it still standing and not just as an image in a book is like... so crazy, man. It was smaller than I imagined it to be but amazing nonetheless. And there were a ton of people there! The entire Giza complex was teeming with tourists from all over the world as if it was peak season. I'd hate to see the crowd during the summer months! After the Sphinx we trooped it all the way up the hill to the pyramids but it was such a task between the souvenir sellers and dodging the mounds of camel poop. These men were crafty I tell you! One of them offered to take a picture for Kam, set up the shot and took it with Kam's camera and then tried to charge him 60 pounds. We literally had to play tug-a-war to get the camera back. When they weren't haggling us to buy presents they were busy trying to figure out who Tone and I were to each other. We decided to say we were siblings because the term "Best Friend" went in one ear and out the other.

We had this conversation ten million times...
Native: Sir, is that your Wife?
Tone: Nah, that's my sister.
Native: Well your sister is beautiful. May I have her?
Tone: You can have her! I don't want her!
Me: TONE! -_-

Overall, everyone was in LOVE with our brown-ness that day. So many people stopped us to compliment us on our skin tone and gush about how much they love Obama. My favorite was a little pre-teen boy who saw us and gushed "I love my complexion! We are beautiful people!" Being Black in Egypt really made me appreciate my brown skin more. Coming from America where there are a million people that look like me I guess I've grown to take it for granted but Egypt made me remember that before I'm an American, and before I'm Jamaican or Haitian, I'm an African Queen. Though Egypt has some people of a darker hue, the majority of Egyptians are extremely fair skinned and European looking due to the years of Greek and Roman influence. Wasif, the tour guide, said to Tone that his skin was pure and he should be happy that his blood has not been diluted. That, my friends, was a BIG statement. All my readers give yourself a quick kiss and rejoice in your melanin!

Okay fast forward a bit ...

It's like two hours later, its the evening and a big group of us decided to go to the market near our hostel to look around before the dinner cruise on the Nile. The market is a street filled with shops that have outside displays. Same kind of haggling techniques but the merchandise is on the table to the men's hands are free to drag you back over while they pitch the sale. We started off all together but I stopped at a table for a little too long and poof! Everyone disappeared except for Tone. No biggie, we're used to making moves together anyway. I strike up a conversation with the owner of the table, another Ahmad, and I explain to him that I need to have a name plate with hieroglyphics made. He tells me he sells them but I need to walk with him to the factory where they handcraft the jewelry. Naturally, I ask him if it's close and he says yeah yeah of course we'll be there in 5 minutes! So I ask Tone if he minds walking with me and he says "No problem" so we begin walking through the market with Ahmad. We got to the end of the market place and then the street turned into more of an alley way but there were still a lot of people, lots of shops and it was well lit. Smooth, no need to panic. We walked for five minutes and things started to look quite sketchy. The lighting got dim, there were less shops and more creepy entrances to buildings with not so nice looking people hanging out in front of them and the floor was GROSS. I had on some suede loafers and I couldn't even look up for long because I had to make sure my foot didn't get sloshed by some foolishness. I'm getting nervous at this point because it's just me and Tone. No one has any idea where we've gone and we had no means of getting in touch with anybody. Tone asked Ahmad if we were almost there and he says "Yeah, Yeah! Soon be there." But after 10minutes of walking when he assured us it was only 5minutes away before we left, I was convinced Tone and I were about to be dismembered and our organs were going to be on the black market before sunrise. Just when I had given up, Ahmad busted two quick turns and motioned for us to follow him up some stairs. Upstairs, Jafar reincarnate was seated at a metal desk smoking a cigarette and there were 7 men ranging from age 15-50 in a back room eating dinner and carrying on. I almost didn't bother ordering the name plate because I had ran out of all kinds of currency and I was scared to find out where the ATM was but luckily I had 10 Euro in my pocket and that was sufficient funds. They made the name plate in front of my face and I made it back to the hostel in one piece. Was it worth it? Yup! The person I got it for would give me their right foot if I asked to borrow a toe. Would I do it again? Absolutely not, I'm not crazy! Lol. I'm sorry I don't have pics but my camera died while we were at the pyramids. It was too skeevy to share visually anyways.

Can I breeze through the Nile dinner cruise? Thanks. It's 5am and I'm about to crash.

The first Ahmad was our guide for the evening of dinner and dancing on the Nile. When we pulled up to the dock there was a crowd of people outside and in very high spirits. Turns out it was a wedding party and they were getting on the boat with us! Legit Wedding Crashing in Egypt. Every traveler's dream come true! Lol. The marriage had clearly been arranged, the first song they danced to as newlywed's was "Hello" by Lionel Richie and they were asking each other questions the entire time. Not to mention they weren't even touching tummy to tummy.

The food was really good but not traditional Egyptian cuisine so I'm not telling you about it. In addition to the live singing, there was also a Belly Dancer and a human kaleidoscope for additional entertainment. During each set of performances people were drawn from the audience to participate and I got to be the human kaleidoscope too! The pictures have yet to surface. After the dinner we went back to the hostel where there was a party in the lobby for Mohammed number two's birthday. I hung out with Abraham and took pics on his camera phone for a few and then I called it a night.





Keep in mind that I have yet to tell you about Saturday and Sunday. Told you it was a crazy weekend!!