Saturday, January 2, 2010

Why Would A Runners Period Be Late




We spent our last day in Cairo the room to write and finish the installation of the portrait gallery yesterday at the embassy of France and to add a sound walkers had the good idea to take random places: street demonstrations, debates, songs. Patrice ago spent part of the night. We interrupt for going back to the Internet cafe around the corner and take a lunch break around 15 pm
The Merchant of falafel has a small balcony above his shop. On rickety tables and chairs approximate, we witness the spectacle of the street from this loggia with columns, above the eggplant fritters, fries and black radishes.

On the sidewalk opposite - well over what was once a sidewalk - the cafe next door has installed its chairs. Men stop there, order a coffee and a shisha. The server is agitated, and crosses back across the street zigzags between vehicles, pedestrians, charrettes ou voitures, apporte les cafés, les narguileh, hèle son assistant qui amène dans une grande louche les tisons à disposer sur le tabac parfumé. Un groupe de vieux messieurs en tenue traditionnelle, longue toge et cheich blanc, s'est installé autour d'une table ; à coté, derrière de vastes corbeilles tressées des femmes vendent nonchalamment des légumes appétissants ; Une petite charrette tirée par un âne s'arrête, son conducteur récupère auprès des vendeuses deux ou trois cagettes vides et les rajoute à son chargement déjà conséquent. C'est le recycleur de cagettes. Plus tard dans la journée, ce sont les éboueurs qui passent, tirant huge bags they recover garbage from rich neighborhoods, they will sort in their shantytown located in the Moqattam, the mountain home overlooking Cairo.


Well fed fritters and eggplant confit, we return to work to see that video editing has a close contact on an Egyptian. It is absolutely clear it and start all over! It is only 16 hours as we head to the Internet cafe to send our message with a day late.
There we meet friends at the second hotel, where we made a summary of yesterday's meeting with representatives of the Egyptian social movement (where what remains of it, given the repression ...)
The Egyptians were present initially regretted not having had prior contact with the organizers of the international march who have responded very late to their questions.
They are nevertheless happy to do what may have been international and we welcome having to provide visibility to the Palestinian question and the particular case that raises the Gaza Strip to Egypt. The construction of the second wall south of the Gaza Strip for example is a discovery for them on which the Egyptian government is careful to communicate!
They wish now that better coordination is put in place and hope to work with the organizers of the march for future mobilizations. A further meeting is scheduled for tomorrow same time same place, ie today. We are going there.
The meeting is held on the 5th floor of a building hidden behind displays of fruits and vegetables should ask the way to the entrance so the place is unlikely. The office / meeting room is wide open on the stairwell of the old monumental building, two rows of benches smashed to velours grated face each other and the association leaders discuss around a desk. The translations are delayed: Arabic-English and English-Arabic, with some requests for clarification in French, which slows many discussions. The order of public speaking is strictly observed, women express themselves as men. Difficult for us to understand something as we leave the scene to eat;
By borrowing Talaa Harb Street, one falls off to the famous Egyptian movies of the 50s: the quasi-historical monuments! We can not resist the curiosity and take a ticket to the meeting of 22h. One enters art deco architecture, accompanied by smiling ushers in their sequined scarves, leading us to the coffee shop and wait to eat the client: cappuccino, coca cola, pepsi ... large stairs leading to the balcony behind heavy velvet curtains faded. The room is huge, as we might think more in Europe, a large vaulted ceiling strewn with huge plaster rosettes from which hung chandeliers have now disappeared, seats that appear out of the screen in black and white and spread out of sight in the orchestra, small private balconies in a theater as an Italian. A calculation us to assess the approximate room capacity to 1200 seats! A Western music syrupy welcomes the audience a good-natured opener willy-nilly trying to place. This is young couples, some with strollers and children, Said and Saidati dignified under the veil, youth groups a little more agitated ... The meeting is slow to start, We were there mainly for show room, as we leave the movie-romantic melodrama set to go to our bags.
Departure tomorrow at dawn: Sunrise at 4am for the airport at 5am, off at 7am.

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