Surprisingly few women, an amazing amount of salt...

There is a small school by our hostel with early morning screaming and excited children's voices filling the air. They are quieted every morning with the Egyptian national anthem and jingle bells - I kid you not - Jingle Bells. It's a beautiful sunny, dusty day in Luxor. Our only real "plans" are to take a felucca ride on the Nile later this afternoon... we leave tonight for Cairo - on the night train - 2nd class. I have a feeling it will be so much better (and cheaper) than the touted Sleeper Train where you really don't sleep one bit.

Last night, before we went to bed, we were chatting about some of the things we found amazing about Egypt both likes and dislikes. One of our observations was there were just an amazing shortage of women - anywhere. We know they're out there. This isn't like Asia where there are fewer women because baby boys are valued so much more. There just aren't that many women in the streets, at the markets, banks, restaurants, etc. They're not in the public workforce. In Western Africa, women ARE the market, restaurants, shops, banks, etc. They're everywhere and so are all of their children. Their men drink tea and chat while they work the farms, schools, everything. The men still partake in plenty of idle chat, smoking shesha and drinking tea but really, really, where are all of the women....

One thing there is plenty of though, is SALT. I had a great dinner last night and went to scoop some vegetables in my mouth - and they were so salty. With each meal, we have at least one thing that we call the "salt lick" - it might be the fried eggs, the tahina salad, shoot the regular salad will have salt on it. So much salt. And for someone who doesn't like salt, it's quite a jarring experience...

Too few women. Too much salt.