El Andalous - Still Here (Showers)

All Peaceful Here

Well, surprise, surprise, my trip got cancelled due to the coronavirus. It was already cancelled a few weeks ago, but I wrote last week’s blog in advance, thinking I’d be away at that point, but I wasn’t!

I don’t want to talk too much about the coronavirus as it’s all that I see everywhere (news, facebook, messenger, etc), but I feel I should say something about the state of play here. I think as of today, Egypt reports something like 576 cases and 36 deaths in total, although, as anywhere, it’s hard to know how accurate the figures are. Thankfully, it’s currently way below the 900 deaths a day in Italy or the horrifying increase in cases in the UK.

Hurghada is not allowing people in or out, although they’ve started having empty planes coming in to take tourists back home. The beaches have been closed. We have curfew from 7pm to 6am; the Egyptians are a night people, so those are busy times here. Shops are closed Friday and Saturday. Entertainment (from cafes and restaurants to cinemas and gyms), education centres, mosques, should not be visited at any time. Only essential shopping is allowed and shops close at 5pm.. No social gatherings. In Sahl Hasheesh, entry is open only to residents, services, and deliveries, and visitors of residents when notified in advance. It's like it's own little quarantined area. Let's hope we can keep it virus-free!

So, not so different from the rest of the world really. I’m hoping that Egypt has taken action promptly and so it will not spread so quickly here, but let’s see. There are definitely worse places to be during lock down!

Anyway, it will no doubt get increasingly difficult for me to write my blog as I won’t be out and about. I’m focusing (or trying to focus) on my writing. I’ve decided to start my third novel, as I’m still waiting for teenage feedback on the one that’s almost ready to start submitting to agents; the second novel probably won’t require that much more work and I’d rather refine that once I’ve started submitting the first one. In the mean time, I’d like a third one in first draft version so that I’m not faced at some stage with my only option being a blank sheet.

For my third novel, I’ve decided to try to write a bit more out of my comfort zone and go for a character that’s experiencing things way different from my own life. So, it’s a male 17 year old who is working, into football, has an accident and has his leg amputated. I don’t have much of a plot in my head yet, other than that he will have psychokinetic experiences that reflect the emotions he goes through as he comes to terms with the changes in his life. I’m hoping that ideas will suggest themselves to me as I write. I used this “pantser” methodology for one of my second novel (which was actually my first, originally). It’s exciting to find out what I come up with as I go along; a bit like reading the novel, but I feel nervous that I will discover it's unworkable. But at the moment, my imagination isn’t working, so I’m going with the flow.

It’s been a bit depressing as I'm spending a lot of time in front of my screen thinking I haven’t a clue what to write. For example, just to get my character from the football changing room to the showers took a lot of googling. What I was really wanting to know was whether a male 17 year old guy would put a towel round him to go to the shower, but in the end I had to ask a friend (who said not).

I did come across this interesting thread of guys discussing group showers. Apparently, most young adolescent boys have to use communal showers at school and they are nervous the first few times, but after that find it’s no big deal. The older boys, who are totally used to it, chat quite normally in the shower. Indeed, some said it was the best place after football to catch up and make plans.

To my amusement, they also speculated about whether girls found it embarrassing at first like the boys did (the guys are all worried about others sizing up their appendages). They decided it would be less of a problem for girls because they didn’t have the whole issue about appendages. Whereas, the truth of it is that women are way more body conscious than men, well in the UK, at any rate. 

Feedback on my novel was that I shouldn’t have teenage girls going into communal (unisex) showers at the gym because they just wouldn’t do it. It was so obvious when it was pointed out to me, but I’ve got so used to Continental Europe, where nudity is more normalized, that I’d completely forgotten. Also, girls, who are renowned for being so chatty, don’t generally chat in the showers. And a fair proportion would wear a towel even before going to the communal showers. So, completely different from the men.

Anyway, it was all very interesting, but it was a lot of work just to write “he went to the shower” in my novel. At this rate, it’ll take decades to finish even the first draft!