Past week's photos

Third visit to the pyramids. I realized looking at the Sphinx that I didn't know which came first--the statue or the riddle. It appears that the statue came first (built around 2600 BCE), but it seems a little ambiguous since the oldest sphinx imagery was found in Turkey, dating back to 9500 BCE, so it could have made its way to Greece before Egypt. The history and explanation of sphinxes is surprisingly vague. In any case, this view never gets old:

Below are some pictures of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik's palace, built around 1900 on Rhoda island. The island is south of Zamalek in the Nile.

The Nile by Rhoda Island:

Inside of Mar Girgis Greek Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo:

Typical downtown Cairo balcony:

And my new favorite shop in Coptic Cairo. Adel sells every variety of old camera along with lighters, clocks, and other antiques. Not a single one of them works.

مصر بتفرح

The opening of the "new Suez Canal" has been the only thing worth talking about in Egypt for the past week. Lights were strung up, giant rubber bears were inflated, and everywhere you looked were Egyptian flags of all shapes, sizes, and designs-- some people mistakenly raising the flags of Syria and Yemen in a flurry of confused patriotism.

Yesterday was the ceremony for the official opening, attended by Francois Hollande, King Abdullah of Jordan, and dignitaries from North Korea, Russia, and a couple dozen other countries, but Sisi was the belle of the ball. He dressed up in different costumes and rode his royal yacht down the channel on the way to a party thrown in his honor. Along the way, he was charitable enough to share air time with a 'cancer-stricken child' whose one wish was to meet the president.

The celebrations yesterday cost $30 million. That is, of course, in addition to the $8.2 billion spent on completing the 'canal,' which is actually just a 35km extension of the waterway, and one that will not deliver what the government is promising. 

It's hard to believe that so many Egyptians would get this excited about an extension of a channel, but they really are losing their minds over it. The propaganda worked and a lot of Egyptians think that their troubles are over and that Sisi is their savior.

The propaganda was so pervasive that mosques around Egypt were required to deliver their Friday sermon on the importance of the Suez Canal and how it is "a model of hard work and perseverance." In fact, all Friday sermons are now unified, in a move to stifle any opposition to the current government and to silence 'extremism.'

Here are some good articles on the reality of the new Suez Canal expansion, and it's economic and environmental impact:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-04/egypt-shows-off-8-billion-suez-canal-gift-world-may-not-need

http://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2015.133?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureMEast

And finally some pictures from the celebrations in Talaat Harb Square and Tahrir Square, complete with fireworks, banners, party lights, and lots of armed guards and tanks that I cannot photograph.

That guy seems to think I'm purposefully photographing him. I wasn't, but the fact that there are five people on that motorcycle makes the picture much more interesting.
The celebrations come in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures around 100-105 each day. The humidity makes the nights equally unbearable and renders the swamp coolers worthless. Here are some toasty Kestrels cooling off today under my neighbor's A/C: