Hash House Harriers

The Hash House Harriers is an international group of non-competitive running, social and drinking clubs (ok kids...for adults only and in moderation of course). It is best summed up as: "Drinkers with a running problem."

An event organized by a club is known as a Hash or Hash Run, with participants calling themselves Hashers. Hashing originated in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 1938, when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds," to rid themselves of the excesses of the previous weekend. The name "Hash House" comes from the chow hall where they used to meet. (Not the illegal drugs kids!)

The Hash House Harriers (H3) is a decentralized organization with each chapter (sometimes called a Kennel) individually managed with no uniting organizational hierarchy. Right now, there are almost 2000 kennels in all parts of the world, including two organized kennels operating in Antarctica.

Basically, the way it works is that someone goes out and sets a running trail with globs of flour or small piles of paper spread out to let you know you are going the right way. False trails are set as well to throw people off. When you find a check point, the person yells, "On on!" to let the others know which direction to go. It's sort of a race, but I'm not sure if any of us are actually trying to win. I'm too busy taking pictures most of the time, so I'm just usually hoping I don't get lost!
After the run, there is a ceremonial "Hash Circle" where all sorts of shenanigans and general debauchery take place. If you break a "rule" you have to do a "down down" with warm beer while surrounded by the group singing a traditional song. It's like an afternoon hanging out with Monty Python!
The H3 Club was recently resurrected here in Alexandria and is known as the "Delta H3." This was my first Hash run ever. I first heard about it back in 1997 when I lived in Grenada, but I had a jerk for a boyfriend back then and didn't get to participate. On our run today, we had people representing New Zealand, Wales, America, England and Germany. We ran around the countryside, dodging cows, bulls, barking dogs, and children yelling, "Hello! How are you?" at us. Afterwards, we went back to our "headquarters" and consumed more imbibements and food. Good times! Can't wait for next week's Hash!

Hoping Mr. Donkey doesn't kick me in the butt after getting rained on!

The Tram: Safest Mode of Transport? I Think Not.

So, there are 4 main modes of transportation here assuming you don't have your own car and a driver. 1) The train. 2) The tram (think San Fran street cars). 3) Taxis. 4) The bus.

The train will only take you between Alex, Cairo, and Upper Egypt. A taxi can take you anywhere- for the right price. But oh, the HORROR! You can't even imagine how terrifying it is. The bus is mildly better, but I usually end up with a funky rash or some weird illness or some guy tries to fight me to close my curtain. Lastly, you have the tram. It only exists here in Alexandria. It's kind of slow moving, but it's cheap (like a nickel to ride one way) it's convenient, and seems pretty safe. Or so I thought.

So, I had to go to The American Center. I was told Gwen was at the hospital. Why? Apparently, an American student studying Arabic at the university was with his girlfriend. They were going to catch the tram as it started to pull away. The guy tried to jump on but slipped because he was wearing flip-flops, fell, and he ended up under the train. He said he saw his leg go flying through the air. Apparently, the other one was just hanging there and had to be amputated. Yikes! But I guess he lived and will be ok sans legs. Gwen and I were supposed to go the Beyonce concert Friday...but now she has to remain in her jurisdiction until the guy can get Medevaced (how do you spell that?) out. Nice going guy; get your legs cut off and ruin everybody's fun. (Ok, I'm not laughing, it's a horrible tragedy but I'm glad he survived and I hope he has a speedy recovery). Actually, I was just on Beyonce's website and it seems some extremists aren't happy she is coming...so, yeah...maybe it's better I skip that concert.

So much for that being the safest mode of transportation. I don't think I will look at the tram the same way ever again. Yowch.

40th Birthday Blowout

So, it was my 40th birthday. I had planned on going scuba diving in Dahab at the Red Sea like I did on my 37th birthday, but Gwen invited me to go to Cairo instead. Many of you may be familiar with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure breast cancer research runs. They have them all over the world and it just so happened they were having one at the Pyramids of Giza on October 24th. I decided that going to a run at The Pyramids with a bunch of people would be more fun than going to Dahab by myself. My goal, no crying on my birthday!

So, Friday afternoon, Gwen, her friend Jenina, and I took the train down to Cairo. Gwen and I were staying at her friend Christine's place in Zamalek. Jenina is an Egyptian-American and was going back to the States, so she invited a bunch of her friends to have dinner at a place called Sangria.

At Christine's, Gwen had made some cupcakes for my birthday. We lit the candles and did the Happy Birthday song. We headed out to the restaurant. As we were sitting there I spied two very attractive (and I figured American) men. I decided to go over and say, "Hi." Turns out they were a couple of airline pilots on their lay-over for a few days in Cairo. Poor guys had no idea what they were in for.

We decided to move the party to Harry's Pub; an Irish bar in the Marriott. I used to go there for karaoke when I lived in Cairo. Damn, no karaoke tonight. Just some stupid band. I wanted to go up and sing (I can usually schmooze my way on stage) but they blew me off. I'm afraid I'll have to fast forward through the rest of this part of the story in order to protect the innocent. Let's just say I was having a little too much fun, and Gwen dragged me out of there before I got myself into some trouble. Thanks Gwen! I think. But yay! No crying!
The next morning, I miraculously woke my ass up at 7:30 to do the run at the Pyramids. I noticed I was wearing a t-shirt but my arms weren't in the sleeves. Hmmmm, maybe I was cold. Yeah, that's it. I was cold. Once we arrived, we found that there were an estimated 5000 people present at this event. I don't think they expected quite that many and ended up running out of water. Luckily, I brought my own. The run was only about 3K, but by the time we walked up to the starting line and back down, it was at least 5K! After the run, we were both so tired from the night before, we decided to take a nap for the afternoon.

Since I hadn't had my security briefing yet, Gwen thought it would be a good idea for me to spend the night in Cairo and take care of that at the U.S. Embassy in the morning. I still wasn't feeling that great, so I decided I just wanted to get a hotel room for myself and get some sleep. I looked up a few hotels online and discovered they were all booked due to some "Bright Star" exercises. Bright Star is a multi-national exercise conducted in Egypt and co-hosted by Egypt and the United States involving tactical air, ground, naval and special operations forces field training. Conducted every two years, it is designed to enhance military cooperation among U.S. and coalition partners, by strengthening joint commitment to regional stability and mutual interests. Participants include forces from: Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. So, I ended up at The Conrad Hotel because everything else was booked. More expensive than I really wanted to pay, but it was my birthday so what the hell?

Gwen went with me to make sure there weren't any problems. As we were standing at the front desk, she said, "Aren't the pilots staying here?" I said, "I think so." She said, "If you run into them while you're here I will die." No sooner did those words escape her mouth, Geoff (one of the pilots) walked by us. "Hey!" I said. He came over and filled us in on the details of the rest of their night. Again, I will leave them out to protect the innocent. I asked Geoff if he'd mind if I joined them for dinner. "Sure," he said. Later, the guys came to my room to pick me up. We went to one of the restaurants and ordered some food. The soup du jour was "Bird Tongue Soup." You've got to be kidding me. We decided to order it for the hell of it. It was actually really good. Like Italian Wedding Soup!

I said goodbye to the pilots (they had to head out for their flight) and I headed up to my room looking forward to a good night's sleep. I finally fell asleep around midnight. Suddenly, I was jolted awake by the phone ringing. Not my cell phone -the room phone. By the time I realized what it was -it stopped. I wondered if the pilots' flight got canceled or something. No one else knew I was staying at the hotel, so I had no clue who else it could be.

It was 1am. About 30 minutes later, my phone started ringing again. I answered it. "Hello?" A voice said, "Hello?" I asked, "Who is this?" The voice answered, "Who is this?" Then he kept saying, "In Arabic?" "In Arabic?" I hung up on him. The phone started ringing again, "Who...is...this?" I said, very slowly and deliberately in a deep voice wishing I had a man in the room with me to take the phone. All he said was, "Who...is...this?" Again, very slowly, I asked, "What... do... you... want?" Just an echo back as if he was trying to imitate me. His voice was very soft and calm. I couldn't hear any background noise and I began imagining he was in the room with me. I hung up again. This time I called the front desk. They offered to turn of the line that goes to my room. Fine. But by now I was so freaked out I couldn't get back to sleep. I got up, turned on the light, checked the bathroom, the closet, under the bed and the balcony. I shut the balcony door and noticed it wouldn't lock. "Great," I thought to myself. "He can probably rappel his way in."

Finally, around 4:30am I fell back asleep. It didn't last. At 7:00am, my phone started ringing again. I took it off the hook. I think the thing that bothered me most about it was the fact that the guy called at 1am, got no answer, but decided to try again at 1:30. Why would you call a room that you know is empty a second time? Unless, you were following someone and you knew they were in there. I didn't want to even think about it.

In the morning, I got some emails from some friends asking if I was ok. Apparently, there was a bad train crash that night that killed about a dozen people. Great, I had to take the train back the same day. Oh well. I finally arrived back in Alex. I decided to take the tram the rest of the way home. As I was walking to board the tram, I heard someone say, 'Lisa?" I looked and it was a guy I had met once, 3 years ago, in Alex. Weird and wild stuff.

The Ambassador's Reception

Well, this was my first official "state function." The American Ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, made a trip to Alexandria to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the opening of The American Center and the Governor of Alexandria was also present, Adel Ali Labib. I was really hoping for a drink, but I didn't see a bar. I did see a small table where juice was being served, so I went over and got a glass of apple juice. It was kind of warm, but whatever, I wasn't expecting much anyway. I was walking around the room, mingling a bit when I ran into Gwen, the Director of The American Center. She mentioned that she couldn't believe she was almost out of wine already since no one ever drinks it. Wine! Where? It was being served at a small table on the other side of the room.

I made a beeline over there and saw there wasn't much left. I asked for a glass of white wine and took it in my left hand. I chugged the glass of apple juice that I was still holding in my right. As I was doing this, I noticed a couple of people looking at me a bit strangely. I suddenly realized that the glass of apple juice looked almost identical to the glass of wine I was holding. They were probably thinking, "Ew, look at that alcoholic American." Oh well!

After the speeches were given, I noticed a woman slyly sneak up the the podium to have her picture taken by it. She looked a little too somber for me. After she was done I said, "No, this is how you do it." And I posed as if I was actually giving a rousing speech. Everyone laughed. I grabbed a couple of students and told them to stand around me and look like they are my Secret Service Agents. They obliged and hammed it up for the camera. After that, a bunch of people wanted their turn at the podium to show off their best rhetorical faces. Too funny!

Honeymoon's Over!

Yes, I knew it would have to end eventually. When I was here 3 years ago I was subjected to a lot of harassment. Some of it was sexual and some of it was just because good ole G.W. Bush was president and people used me to bash him. fast forward to 3 years later. I've been here for about 3 weeks and I had commented on how this time around, people haven't even seemed to notice me. It was very refreshing. I knew it couldn't last forever. Lucky me had two separate but simultaneous incidents.

I was on my way to go shopping. I decided to walk part of the way and then flag a cab when I didn't feel like walking anymore. I was walking down a street that is fairly busy and runs parallel to the "Latin" cemetery. Soon, a guy pulled up in his car behind me, slowed down and beeped. As he slowly drove past, he practically turned his head 180 degrees to get a good look at me and try to attract my attention. I stopped in my tracks, pulled out my cellphone as if I was going to call someone (this usually scares them away) and started walking the other way. The guy seemed as if he was about to drive off so I started walking again, but then he slowed down and stopped. "Damn," I thought. And there was no other way for me to go.

At the same time, a group of about 5 kids were near the cemetery gates teasing the German Shepherds that guard it. They didn't notice me -at first. They drew their attention away from the dogs and spotted me. 3 of the kids passed me by and then I noticed the other two glance at their friends and then at me. Before I could even turn around to see what they were going to do I felt someone FLICK my hair by the side of my face. I spun around and hurled some curse words at them and then said, "I'm calling the police!" and pretended to call. They ran like hell! I turned back around and noticed the creepy guy was still sitting there in his car! Seriously?! I pretended to take a picture of him with my cell phone and this didn't seem to faze him at all. Damn, that trick has never failed me! To make things worse, he got out of his car and opened the hood and just stood there. Hell no. Luckily a cab pulled over for me at that moment. I jumped in and off we went. Streak is over. I made it almost a whole month with no incidents. Damn.
In the future, I will follow my friend Jenn's advice. From now on I will carry two things with me everywhere I go: Porn mags for the pervs and candy for the little trolls. Next time I'm being harassed, throw them and run like hell in the opposite direction!

Here are a few pics from inside the Latin Cemetery.