Wednesday, June 26, 2013

My Cairo Update

I still haven't finished all my cruise updates (I will save them for when I have a little more time to upload more pretty pictures!).

Cairo life took over!

Its been a very hectic dancing week with private classes, LOTS of work at the boat and private parties too. Not to mention crashing a few social events along the way (including the Queens Ball and many of Ellie's nights at Outdoors!)

I have felt in work (at the Pharoahs boat, Cairo) this last week, that people are partying as hard as they can in this run up to 30/6. Lots of Chinese, Malaysian and Arab tourists, as well as Egyptians. We have had really busy nights and I did 15 shows in 5 days. Which pre revolution would have been the norm, but for the last 2 and half years has been but a fond memory. My body is reminding me that I should have kept training during those 'down times', so I am actually glad not to have any more work scheduled until the 1st July!

For those that don't know, 30th June is the date which has been called for Egypt's 2nd revolution. They want to get rid of Morsi, or at least bring forward the date for new elections.

Currently, there is a petrol shortage and between that and the panic buying before the big day, the traffic is even more hell that it usually is with massive queues (up to 8 hours waiting in line!) at the petrol stations. The panic is also partly caused by the announcement that Egypt's Oil supply will expire at the end of June! It means of course that people are standing in petrol queues cursing the government  (and in particular the president) that they see it to blame for said shortages and they will probably be more likely than ever to come out and protest on Sunday!

No one knows what is going to happen. It could be a one day protest and then fizzle out. It could be violent. It could be productive. It could bring about a military coup as some people are hoping for, we really don't know. Everyone you speak to has a different idea. Our 'president' is giving a talk on TV today so things may be a little more obvious then, or not...... He doesn't really have a good track record when it comes to talking to 'his' people on these occasions.

I wish the protesters well. I hope it is peaceful and productive.

I however plan to go away from it all for a few nights and spend my birthday (29th) in a nice hotel and sunbathe. So people- If Cairo comes onto international news, which I suspect it will, and you are worrying about me- well, Don't, because I will, Inshallah, be lying by a pool until the 1st anyway!

And- assuming I can change my flight tickets, which is today's task- I hope to be back in the UK on the 6th July anyway.

In UK I will be doing LOTS of dancing too- all over the country. Kent, Cambridge, Oxford, Derby, Hartlepool and Pencoed! (I will be available a lot of the month for private classes in London too - if anyone is interested?!!!). Sorry, no Scottish dates on this tour for a change, but I will be in North England later this year too since I am teaching at JoY festival in October and in Newcastle the weekend before that and suspect I might be seeing a lot of the Scottish dance contingent there then!!!

Now- off to Egypt Air to try to change those flights....Assuming the queue to fly out of Egypt isn't as long at the queues for petrol!!!

2 comments:

Ailie said...

Looking forward to you coming back to the UK - enjoy your well-earned break for your birthday!

OrientalIndianRose said...

Hi Lorna
Have you got an actual schedule for all your workshop dates? If you have, could you email it to me: worldofjasmine@hotmail.com.
Just wondered, have you thought about coming to Brighton