104, moms and walks

First of all happy mother's day to all the mom's out there, including all of mine.
=)

I hope you have an enjoyable day and feel appreciated for all that you have done.

:::

It's currently 104 degrees.  Wee bit on the warm side, though thankfully humidity is only at 8%, which is lower than normal.  There's a wind blowing though, and it's not a cool breeze by any means.  lol
I'm holed up in the bedroom with the a/c set at 26 Celsius, which is about 78 or 79 degrees Fahrenheit.  Which admittedly doesn't sound all that cool, but compared to 104 / 40 C, it's quite nice.

Should cool down a little bit after another day or so, but there's no doubt about it, summer has arrived.

*** edit, it's 20 minutes after I made the post today and it now says that it's 109 degrees.  Blech....

:::

I used Google Earth to make a route of the walk we took the other night.

Instead of going to the mall, we just waited til it wasn't quite so hot, around 9:45 p.m. (and actually, it was still pretty warm) and took a short taxi ride (few minutes) down to one of the bridges that goes over the Nile, then we walked for about 2 hours before taking a short taxi home again.

The walk itself was nice and there's always so much to see and I always want to remember everything to write about it but there's so much I can just never remember it all.

I feel like a kid in a huge toy store for the first time and there's so many places to look and you want to see it all but it's impossible to get it all in in one glance.

You can't walk down the sidewalks or streets without keeping at least one eye on where your feet are going because you will trip for sure.

Which leaves only one eye for taking everything in.

The area we were walking in is called Maniel.  It runs along the Nile for a ways.  It's an older area, but it seemed nice enough, though of course it was dark out and hard to see exactly.

There has yet to be an area of Cairo that I have been to where I didn't see some crumbling buildings and piles of dirt/brick.  Litter everywhere and always there are the people who you can see are just beyond poor.  They have some kind of built up grime that not even a shower will take off.  It's something inside of them.  It's sad but what can you do?  You can see some of these people and families will never break out of the cycle of poverty.

And of course, for anyone who has visited here or moved here that is Muslim, there is always the shock that not everyone is adhering to Islamic principles, whether it's in manner of clothing or actions towards others or other things.

Walking down the street, anywhere in Cairo, I will see girls that cover their hair, yet they are wearing clothes that are so tight that there is nothing to be imagined.  This really just kills me.  I'd rather they not cover their hair and wear some looser clothing.  There is nothing I can do about it, I surely can't go up to them and tell them that they might as well be naked for all that they are wearing.  But I wish I could!  Women need to have more self respect than that.

Anyways, it is one of the things that I think is ... well, I won't call it the biggest disappointment about living here, I'm not sure I could qualify that, but it is disappointing.  That this country which is populated with something like 90% Muslims, is so un-Islamic in so many ways.

So many people are Muslim in name only.  You actually have to list your religion on your ID card here, and your only choices are Muslim, Christian or Jewish.  You are not allowed to put anything else and you can't put nothing.  So people have to put something down.  Which of course doesn't mean they adhere to or follow the principles of their named faith.

I couldn't guess at the percent of people actually at least trying to follow their religion faithfully here, but it's not as high as people would guess, people who have never been here and seen how life really is.

Anyways, all that is a bit of a digression from me posting the image I did of our walk.  I'm posting one that is a little further out and one that is tiny bit closer up.  I wish I could zoom in more so you could get more detail, but it was such a long walk that if I zoom in any closer for detail you can't see the whole path.  lol

I outlined it in green, and there are several pins pointing to where we started, where we stopped, and pin 2 and pin 3 are just to guide you along the path.

I don't know how many miles it was, but it was more than I'm accustomed to walking.  I was pooped by the time we got home.

If the path direction isn't clear, let me know and I'll explain it a bit more.

This is the closer up version.  Click on it for a larger view.

And this is the further out version.  Again, click on it for a larger view.