I just found myself spending the last hour reading the blog of some AUC grad student from Tuscon. This I ran across searching google for pictures of places in Zamalek I never got around to photograph. I wish I had taken more pictures of the everyday places we went to, but at the time you think it impossible to forget places you go so frequently. Almost a year after my departure last winter I already find myself forgetting a bit of the layout of the place.
I enjoyed reading this other student's gripes about AUC (many of which I share) and also about her attachments to Egypt's idiosyncratic inconveniences (which I also share). I enjoyed reading her assessments of places I had also visited, and related to her rant about self-important American study abroad students trying to out-do each other in terms of "adventurous" voyages into exotic, non-white locales. (here's the link to the post. I hope she doesn't mind me linking to it, but its a public blog so... http://amandainschool.blogspot.com/2009/10/dont-go-for-students.html ).
I especially like that it was the group of Notre Dame students who "randomly" showed up at Petra and crashed the "echolocator's" party. That we would run into other AUC Americans in Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Petra, or Ramallah during spring break was something of which we were well aware. I do, however, relate to the echolocator's desire to do something unique and her disappointment that the arrival of other American study abroaders deprived her of that unique experience. We all desire to do unique things in order to make ourselves stand out, and in Cairo competing American students can sometimes forget that by simply living their daily lives in Cairo they are doing something unique. Instead your world narrows to the 100 or so other people abroad with you. A trip to Beirut or Petra is suddenly not so unique, as ridiculous as that sounds, because everyone abroad with you makes the same trip. I'm still at a loss though as to why she had not expected to run into other study abroaders at a place as famous as Petra.
This "self-important" girl reminded me of a group of American girls who studied at AUC the same semester as I. We referred to them as the Sorority Girls because of their loud voices, tendency to travel in packs, and insistence on pronouncing every Arabic word with a southern twang. I'd assume these are traits they only exhibited around Zamalek to appear cute to store owners, but I think the reason it really annoyed my close friends there is that their behavior was so different from our philosophy of trying to be as respectful of social customs as possible; to try to blend in, not stand out, not be that loud, obnoxious American stereotype.
I suppose the reason I just wasted the past two hours trolling the internet for information on Cairo is that I flat out miss the place. I've been sitting here in front of my poorly insulated apartment window working on my thesis and staring at the frozen Indiana tundra that serves as our parking lot, thinking about where I was a year ago today. I was at my home whiling away the days until my Jan 26 departure, getting extra passport pictures, buying non-branded clothes for fear that giant logos would draw too much attention or unfavorable looks (AUC put an end to those fears), wondering where I would travel, wondering if I would like the other students. I think about the cool mornings and evenings and the warm afternoons, getting lost in the HUSS building, walking half an hour from the Zamalek AUC dorms to Midan Tahrir.
Although I truly feel that my semester in Egypt in no way flew by, I now think about how short it truly was. I was in such a hurry to get in and out of New Campus so I could get back to the heart of Cairo that it was only at the end of the semester that I really developed any sort of relationship with some Egyptian students at AUC. I talked with a girl named Dina occasionally in my philosophy class, but it was not until the last day of regular classes that I talked to her outside of class. I got her full name and she told me to friend her on facebook and to give her a call if I ever made it back to Egypt. It was sad and awkward to finally connect with someone and on that same day know that in all likelihood I would never see her again. I almost felt like I betrayed her by becoming friends only to immediately leave, probably forever. Before the same class I used to talk with a guy named Mustafa. We both usually got to class about 20 minutes early and sat and talked in a courtyard in the interior of the engineering building. He was part Iraqi and for that reason had bounced around from country to country, saying that they usually told you it was time to go after a couple years. He had lived variously in Saudi, New Zealand, Egypt, and most likely a few other places. He was a film major and was working on securing funds to begin a career making documentaries. His first project was about the migration of some birds in southeast Asia. He told me all about Hurghada (apparently an even more Russified Red Sea town that Sharm) and compound culture in Saudi (residents of different American and British compounds would compete against each other in sports and hold mixers and formal dances, much like dorm culture and ND). I never thought to get any of his contact info.
I never got to know my neighbors in my dorm either (this might have been because our next door neighbor's blasting techno at late hours dissuaded us from engaging in any further interaction than the occasional "Hey can you turn that down? We're trying to sleep").
The Egyptian students of AUC see study abroad students turn over every semester. Each term hundreds more enter and at the end they all leave. At some point it must seem futile to attempt to found a true relationship with a study abroad student. You can only begin to know someone after four months. Then they disappear.
I don't mean to sound regretful. I loved my time in Egypt and don't feel that I "missed out" on anything. It is simply a matter that we were only there for four months. They say that to truly have an opinion about a place you must live there for over four months; anything shorter and you are still colored by initial reactions, disappointments, and thrills. It is only after this period of time that initial impressions recede and the place truly feels like a home, or at least a permanent residence. It was precisely at this four month cut-off period that we packed up and left. We were there long enough for the place to truly become not an extended holiday but simply the location of our daily lives, the background to our mundane activities. But we were also there for a short enough period of time that our abrupt departure, just as the place became like home, left things feeling severed, incomplete.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Putting it All Together
It is now August and not a day goes by that I don't reminisce about my experiences in the Middle East. But my semester there was not all fun and games (or so I tell my parents); it had to in some way enhance my education. I began conducting the primary research on my senior thesis just two weeks ago. The History department suggests that your thesis be rooted in the same field as your concentration, and since my concentration is Middle Eastern history, I decided to write my thesis on the American involvement in the Suez Crisis of 1956.
The first stop on my research tour was Abilene, Kansas, home of the Eisenhower National Library. It's amazing that my study of the Middle East has brought me to middle Kansas. I rolled into Abilene on July 26, which completely coincidentally happened to be the 53rd anniversary of the Suez Crisis. July 26th also holds a special significance for us Cairo veterans because its the name of one of the major roads in Cairo and the name of a bridge connecting our island of Zamalek to Downtown Cairo. It was a bridge we crossed nearly everyday. I needed to do this on the cheap. Since I didn't figure out my research topic until the last minute (I was too busy having fun and playing games in Egypt), I was unable to get any funding. After briefly considering camping for my three night stay, I eventually opted for the Budget Lodge. Abilene at first seemed sleepy and boring to me, by the time I left I really grew to appreciate the place. I easily conversed with people about 4H and the upcoming Kansas Fair, and the fact that it was a small town made it an easy place to manage for a place I had never been before. And in some aspects it reminded me of a live and functioning Fowler, Indiana.
The Eisenhower Library were easy to use and the archivists were extremely helpful. It was a great experience and for the first time I was truly happy to be working on my thesis. It's hard to describe the excitement that comes from looking through boxes upon boxes filled with file folders filled with hundreds of papers and finding buried within some gem of a document, some memorandum of a high-level conversation or minutes from a National Security Council meeting pertaining exactly to what you're researching. And even for the documents that weren't relevant to my topic, it was still exciting to hold pieces of paper once held by President Eisenhower or other historical figures. It was amazing to see the signatures of such people as Nasser and Ben-Gurion. Ever wondered whether Gamal abel Nasser spelled his name Nasr or Nasser? Its Nasser. What About David Ben-Gurion? He signs his name with the the dash, not without. Looking at the declassification dates of the documents was fun as well. The more recent the better, since that meant it was more likely that I was looking at something unavailable to people who previously researched the same topic.
I got back from Abilene on July 30th and today arrived in Princeton, New Jersey, the location of the papers of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State. My trip here reminded me of traveling in Cairo. Today was the first time I had been on a plane since my return flight from Cairo, and my first time on a train since the last time I went to Alexandria. If there is one thing I've realized, its that traveling is much more fun with other people, especially when traveling through seedy places. Princeton is not an easy place to get to. I had to fly to Philadelphia and then take the train to Trenton, then take the bus to Princeton and then take a taxi to my hotel. The train was not bad, but the bus wasn't exactly pleasant. Public transport isn't as interesting in your home country. While going through sketchy places in a foreign country is exciting because you get to claim freedom from the standard tourist tract and it usually makes for a good story, doing it here is just forgettable. This isn't exactly a new observation, but public transit in this country really is underutilized, especially when covering between cities rather than within one.
Oh, and then there's the cab. The ten minute cab ride from my bus stop in Princeton to the hotel cost twice as much as the combine two hour train and bus ride from Philadelphia to Princeton. When I tried to negotiate the price (like you would in Egypt), the guy looked at me like I was an idiot. Dismayed, I exited the cab. This is going to be much more expensive than Abilene.
So far, researching has been a great way to stay connected with Egypt. I'm looking first hand at some of the things I studied last semester and I will also be able to visit many of my friends from Cairo when I go to DC to research in the National Archives.
The first stop on my research tour was Abilene, Kansas, home of the Eisenhower National Library. It's amazing that my study of the Middle East has brought me to middle Kansas. I rolled into Abilene on July 26, which completely coincidentally happened to be the 53rd anniversary of the Suez Crisis. July 26th also holds a special significance for us Cairo veterans because its the name of one of the major roads in Cairo and the name of a bridge connecting our island of Zamalek to Downtown Cairo. It was a bridge we crossed nearly everyday. I needed to do this on the cheap. Since I didn't figure out my research topic until the last minute (I was too busy having fun and playing games in Egypt), I was unable to get any funding. After briefly considering camping for my three night stay, I eventually opted for the Budget Lodge. Abilene at first seemed sleepy and boring to me, by the time I left I really grew to appreciate the place. I easily conversed with people about 4H and the upcoming Kansas Fair, and the fact that it was a small town made it an easy place to manage for a place I had never been before. And in some aspects it reminded me of a live and functioning Fowler, Indiana.
The Eisenhower Library were easy to use and the archivists were extremely helpful. It was a great experience and for the first time I was truly happy to be working on my thesis. It's hard to describe the excitement that comes from looking through boxes upon boxes filled with file folders filled with hundreds of papers and finding buried within some gem of a document, some memorandum of a high-level conversation or minutes from a National Security Council meeting pertaining exactly to what you're researching. And even for the documents that weren't relevant to my topic, it was still exciting to hold pieces of paper once held by President Eisenhower or other historical figures. It was amazing to see the signatures of such people as Nasser and Ben-Gurion. Ever wondered whether Gamal abel Nasser spelled his name Nasr or Nasser? Its Nasser. What About David Ben-Gurion? He signs his name with the the dash, not without. Looking at the declassification dates of the documents was fun as well. The more recent the better, since that meant it was more likely that I was looking at something unavailable to people who previously researched the same topic.
I got back from Abilene on July 30th and today arrived in Princeton, New Jersey, the location of the papers of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State. My trip here reminded me of traveling in Cairo. Today was the first time I had been on a plane since my return flight from Cairo, and my first time on a train since the last time I went to Alexandria. If there is one thing I've realized, its that traveling is much more fun with other people, especially when traveling through seedy places. Princeton is not an easy place to get to. I had to fly to Philadelphia and then take the train to Trenton, then take the bus to Princeton and then take a taxi to my hotel. The train was not bad, but the bus wasn't exactly pleasant. Public transport isn't as interesting in your home country. While going through sketchy places in a foreign country is exciting because you get to claim freedom from the standard tourist tract and it usually makes for a good story, doing it here is just forgettable. This isn't exactly a new observation, but public transit in this country really is underutilized, especially when covering between cities rather than within one.
Oh, and then there's the cab. The ten minute cab ride from my bus stop in Princeton to the hotel cost twice as much as the combine two hour train and bus ride from Philadelphia to Princeton. When I tried to negotiate the price (like you would in Egypt), the guy looked at me like I was an idiot. Dismayed, I exited the cab. This is going to be much more expensive than Abilene.
So far, researching has been a great way to stay connected with Egypt. I'm looking first hand at some of the things I studied last semester and I will also be able to visit many of my friends from Cairo when I go to DC to research in the National Archives.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Final Day
On May 30th, my final day in the city of Cairo, Jim and I decided to do something that should have been done a long time ago: visit the Egypt National Museum. It nearly became one of those "I'm here for four months and will have plenty of opportunities to go but never actually do by the time I leave" instances. I can't remember now whether we walked or cabbed there, but I for sure remember that we cabbed back (more on that later!). The museum was very much oriented towards the "week-long tour of Egypt" set, and this is perhaps why we had avoided it for so long. Unlike the quainter or more difficult to reach places we had visited through the semester, the museum is a must-see stop on any tour of Egypt and the Western crowd that this place attracted dampened my spirits. One day before returning to the US, here I was standing awkwardly in a crowd of Europeans and Americans, dressed in shorts, muscle shirts, tank tops, gleefully bearing shoulders and thighs, willfully ignorant of Egyptian social customs. I doubt the Egyptians are as bothered by this as I am; at the end of the day these tourists are responsible for many people's livelihoods. They understand that they come from a different culture and do not intend to insult. And I suppose I should have just found the sight of confused Westerners humorous and went on my way but for some reason I didn't. I see every Western person in Egypt as responsible for representing Western culture, and I want that culture to be represented well. I want the message to at the very least be "Hey, at least I'm making an effort to broaden my viewpoint, even if it doesn't change," not, "Hey! This is like a theme park but bigger and everyone's in costume. Point me to the ancient crap!"
As far as the museum goes, it was great. Too many artifacts to take in all in one day, and definitely worth getting a guide to help explain it all to you. I mean you are literally tripping over stuff as you walk through the place. Highlights were King Tut's gold and the mummy room. The mummy room did anger me a bit though. After paying the general museum admission, it was an extra 100LE fee to get into the mummy room. Luckily the student price knocked it down to 60LE (still a huge price). Too bad I wasn't Arab. They get in for 5LE. At places like this I forget that most foreigners aren't students living on a student budget. Most foreigners are tourists, who find 100LE a fair price to pay for seeing some of the world's greatest artifacts. And those foreigners who aren't tourists but ex-pats, living and working in Egypt, still get paid salaries on par with those of their home nation and not Egypt. The special Arab price keeps the museums affordable for Egyptians while allowing maximum income from foreigners. I guess I'll keep all that in mind and try not to get so upset next time.
Once finished we grabbed a cab back to our dorm. We got in one of the black and white ones waiting outside of the museum. We both knew better than to take a taxi waiting outside such an obvious tourist attraction, but either for some reason we hopped in. We told him where we were going and exchanged pleasantries in Arabic. At this point the guy realized we weren't completely ignorant of the way things worked in Egypt and decided he better set his price now before he got too far away from the cash-cow that is the museum. He said in a friendly manner "25 pounds. Good, no?" Jim and I laughed, saying la, la, la, khamsa. He says "no way," we motion for him to stop the car and we get out. He turns around and heads back to the musuem, most likely upset at getting tricked by picking up the some of the only white guys in the whole place that knew anyting about taxi prices and hoping to have better luck next time. Just as he left another taxi pulled up, perfectly happy to take us back to Zamalek for 5LE.
I spent the rest of the day packing. I was surprised to fit everything, incuding the shisha pipe and souveniers, all in two bags. Later that night I met with Abdel one last time. Tonight we went to the muhandis club he had taken Mark and I to on our first night in Egypt. We sat and talked again about Egypt and his time at Notre Dame as a grad student. I tried a hummus "drink" made from vinegar, lime, salt, and hummus beans. Then we watched a wedding taking place at the club and listened for Abdel's name among the 99 recited at the wedding reception (Abdel means "servant of" and is followed by one of the 99 names of God, i.e., the magnificant, the all-knowing, etc.). Before finally saying goodbye he gave me an extensive list of people to say hi to for him at the Notre Dame engineering department once I got back to school.
As soon as I left Abdel I met up with Ali, Chris, and Jake. We brought some stuff from Drinkies and enjoyed it on one ride down the Nile on one of the loud motor-driven falucha boats. There were a number of Egyptian families out on the river that night too.
At 2am the Yellow Cab we booked pulled up to take us all to the aiport. In fitting fashion, Egypt left me with one last scam. These cabs are metered so one can't really negotiate the fare (or jack up the price for foreigners). To get around this cabbies often simply take longer routes. The fastest way to the airport is through the heart of the city, and at this time of night traffic was not a problem. But instead our cab took us to the airport via the ring-road, about twice the distance. We protested but no matter what we said the cabbie pretended not to understand, we were already captive inside his car. Our final fare was nearly 80LE. The direct route's fair is about 35LE. He didnt' stop there, though. He tried to tack an extra five onto the cost of the parking lot's entrance fee. I'd been to the airport enough times to know that its 10, not 15, and managed to at least save us this miniscule amount.
Three plane rides and about 18 hours later I was in my grandma's Honda minivan driving down I-70 to my house in the St. Louis suburbs. It was the strangest sensation to be exploring thousand-year old buildings in a Middle-Eastern city and less than a day later be sitting in the middle of America, so far removed from the place that for the past four months I had called home.
The taxi scam left me with a bad last impression of Egypt, but it didn't linger for long. As June wore on I really began to miss the adventures of living in Cairo; the exotic quality of simply living day-to-day life. I cannot hop in car and just visit for a day or two. Egypt is now back to what it was before my trip, a distant place visited through books and pictures, not first-hand experiences. Its remoteness now in miles and in time gives my time spent there a dream-like quality. Did I really spend four months of my life in Cairo? Was there really a time when I didn't think twice about taking a weekend trip to Lebanon, riding the train to Alexandria for the day, spending spring break in southern Kenya? Did I really meet all of these people, stand on the satellite-covered roof of a friends apartment complex, practice Arabic with boabs?
I'm starting to sound pretty wishy-washy, so that's where I'll leave it. It's no good living in the past anyway. I'm sure I will be back to Egypt at some point, and there are still so many places to go. I still need to see Syria and Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Who knows, Iraq might even be a viable destination sometime soon! And my friend Tom spent the past semester in Australia and taveling all around Oceania. That sounds pretty cool too. I'll have to add it to the list.
As far as the museum goes, it was great. Too many artifacts to take in all in one day, and definitely worth getting a guide to help explain it all to you. I mean you are literally tripping over stuff as you walk through the place. Highlights were King Tut's gold and the mummy room. The mummy room did anger me a bit though. After paying the general museum admission, it was an extra 100LE fee to get into the mummy room. Luckily the student price knocked it down to 60LE (still a huge price). Too bad I wasn't Arab. They get in for 5LE. At places like this I forget that most foreigners aren't students living on a student budget. Most foreigners are tourists, who find 100LE a fair price to pay for seeing some of the world's greatest artifacts. And those foreigners who aren't tourists but ex-pats, living and working in Egypt, still get paid salaries on par with those of their home nation and not Egypt. The special Arab price keeps the museums affordable for Egyptians while allowing maximum income from foreigners. I guess I'll keep all that in mind and try not to get so upset next time.
Once finished we grabbed a cab back to our dorm. We got in one of the black and white ones waiting outside of the museum. We both knew better than to take a taxi waiting outside such an obvious tourist attraction, but either for some reason we hopped in. We told him where we were going and exchanged pleasantries in Arabic. At this point the guy realized we weren't completely ignorant of the way things worked in Egypt and decided he better set his price now before he got too far away from the cash-cow that is the museum. He said in a friendly manner "25 pounds. Good, no?" Jim and I laughed, saying la, la, la, khamsa. He says "no way," we motion for him to stop the car and we get out. He turns around and heads back to the musuem, most likely upset at getting tricked by picking up the some of the only white guys in the whole place that knew anyting about taxi prices and hoping to have better luck next time. Just as he left another taxi pulled up, perfectly happy to take us back to Zamalek for 5LE.
I spent the rest of the day packing. I was surprised to fit everything, incuding the shisha pipe and souveniers, all in two bags. Later that night I met with Abdel one last time. Tonight we went to the muhandis club he had taken Mark and I to on our first night in Egypt. We sat and talked again about Egypt and his time at Notre Dame as a grad student. I tried a hummus "drink" made from vinegar, lime, salt, and hummus beans. Then we watched a wedding taking place at the club and listened for Abdel's name among the 99 recited at the wedding reception (Abdel means "servant of" and is followed by one of the 99 names of God, i.e., the magnificant, the all-knowing, etc.). Before finally saying goodbye he gave me an extensive list of people to say hi to for him at the Notre Dame engineering department once I got back to school.
As soon as I left Abdel I met up with Ali, Chris, and Jake. We brought some stuff from Drinkies and enjoyed it on one ride down the Nile on one of the loud motor-driven falucha boats. There were a number of Egyptian families out on the river that night too.
At 2am the Yellow Cab we booked pulled up to take us all to the aiport. In fitting fashion, Egypt left me with one last scam. These cabs are metered so one can't really negotiate the fare (or jack up the price for foreigners). To get around this cabbies often simply take longer routes. The fastest way to the airport is through the heart of the city, and at this time of night traffic was not a problem. But instead our cab took us to the airport via the ring-road, about twice the distance. We protested but no matter what we said the cabbie pretended not to understand, we were already captive inside his car. Our final fare was nearly 80LE. The direct route's fair is about 35LE. He didnt' stop there, though. He tried to tack an extra five onto the cost of the parking lot's entrance fee. I'd been to the airport enough times to know that its 10, not 15, and managed to at least save us this miniscule amount.
Three plane rides and about 18 hours later I was in my grandma's Honda minivan driving down I-70 to my house in the St. Louis suburbs. It was the strangest sensation to be exploring thousand-year old buildings in a Middle-Eastern city and less than a day later be sitting in the middle of America, so far removed from the place that for the past four months I had called home.
The taxi scam left me with a bad last impression of Egypt, but it didn't linger for long. As June wore on I really began to miss the adventures of living in Cairo; the exotic quality of simply living day-to-day life. I cannot hop in car and just visit for a day or two. Egypt is now back to what it was before my trip, a distant place visited through books and pictures, not first-hand experiences. Its remoteness now in miles and in time gives my time spent there a dream-like quality. Did I really spend four months of my life in Cairo? Was there really a time when I didn't think twice about taking a weekend trip to Lebanon, riding the train to Alexandria for the day, spending spring break in southern Kenya? Did I really meet all of these people, stand on the satellite-covered roof of a friends apartment complex, practice Arabic with boabs?
I'm starting to sound pretty wishy-washy, so that's where I'll leave it. It's no good living in the past anyway. I'm sure I will be back to Egypt at some point, and there are still so many places to go. I still need to see Syria and Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Who knows, Iraq might even be a viable destination sometime soon! And my friend Tom spent the past semester in Australia and taveling all around Oceania. That sounds pretty cool too. I'll have to add it to the list.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Last Days in Cairo: 4
Thursday (May 28) of my last week in Cairo Jim and I made our last trip into Islamic Cairo. I had been looking through my trusty National Geographic Traveler guide to Egypt for facts for my posts on touring Islamic Cairo and came across some things that I had missed those first two times around which I felt merited a third and final trip. The first was the Museum of Islamic Art and the second the Gayer-Anderson Museum. The Gayer-Anderson Museum was connected to Ibn-Tulun, which made it even more disappointing to miss since I had just been to Ibn-Tulun the week before.
The Museum of Islamic Art
Jim and I took a cab to Opera Station on Zamalek and took the metro from there to Attba, then walked to the Museum of Islamic Art. This walk was exciting because it was through a part of the city that I really had not been in at all. Spencer and I had walk from Attba to the Khan a couple days before but that was in a completely different direction. It was one of my last days in Cairo and I was excited to again be finding my way around by map in a completely foreign place. We walked to Midan al-Attba and from there the museum was a straight shot down Sharia al-Qal'a. Not too much past an outdoor furniture market was Midan Bab al-Khalq and our museum. The building was a massive tan and brown striped stone structure. We walked up to the entrance on Qal'a Street and were turned away. The guys working the desk inside told us to walk around to the other entrance for the museum. Well the main entrance, facing the square (midan), was bordered up. We walked around the entire perimeter of the building as far was the fences would allow and could not find any alternative entrances. We went back to the first one, on Qal'a Street, and again asked how to get into the museum. It was only then that they told was that the museum was closed and wouldn't reopen for another three months. I'm not exactly sure why they couldn't have told us that the first time around.
I was disappointed about the museum being closed, but this did leave as more time for the rest of our day. Ibn-Tulun, where the Gayer-Anderson museum was located, had to be accessed from either Sharia Bur Said or Sharia Muhammed Ali, both of which met at Midan Bab al-Khalq. We chose Bur Said and walked a distance away from the traffic of the square before hailing a cab. He dropped us off at Ibn-Tulun and we made our way into the mosque. Just like last time, the guards at the entrance were at great pains to emphasize that Ibn-Tulun had no entrance fee and that no one was owed any baqshish. Once inside the outer wall of the mosque complex and in the area between the outer wall and the walls of the mosque proper we took a left. At the corner was the entrance to the Gayer-Anderson Museum, which did require an entrance fee and baqshish paid to the tour guide. The museum was a 16th century house owned by an eccentric British lawyer/doctor/officer in the late imperial period. The interior decorations were preserved, complete with secret passageways, intricate wood lattice work, separate men's and women's lounging areas, isolated courtyards and gardens, rooftop patios looking over the mosque walls, and indoor fountains. Each room had a different purpose and different theme. There was the miniature art gallery and a miniature museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Various rooms were Syrian, Turkish, and Chinese themed. There were also the standard sitting, reading, and drafting rooms of such aristocratic British homes, as well as a library. The authentic Islamic architecture and interior decorations made the museum well worth the trip and price.
The Gayer-Anderson Museum from the garden in the back
Jim needed to go to the Khan to pick up some more gifts for family members and I still had two taola boards to pick up from my guy at the woodworking shop. We decided to walk there from Ibn-Tulun and retraced much of the route the taxi had taken us on from the Islamic Art Museum. Again, I really appreciated the opportunity to walk through a part of Cairo so devoid of tourists and people looking to sell to tourists. It felt nice to be in a place where Cairenes went about their daily lives without the intense focus on the tourist economy. We walked northwest on Qadri street, with Ibn-Tulun's distinctive minaret at our backs, until we met up with Bur Said. Here we took a right and walked up to Midan Bab al-Khalq. On the corner of Bur Said and Sharia Ahmad Mahir we found a small, grimy koushary shop and grabbed a cheap lunch. From here we took a right on Ahmad Mahir until we reached Bab Zuwayla, the southern medieval gate of Islamic Cairo. It was refreshing to enter the Khan from such a strange direction. I had been to this part of the bazaar before and had even climbed the western tower of Bab Zuwayla, but I had always come from Midan Hussein and al-Azhar in the north. I had never entered the bazaar from its southern edges, actually entering through that massive stone gate through which so many medieval travelers and merchants must have entered the the old city as well.
I wished to come in this way because I wanted to purchase something from a man whose stall was located just inside the gate, opposite the white and pink striped mosque, and we otherwise had no other reason for being this far south of the main bazaar. It would have been a long side trip had we come in through the more centrally located Midan Hussein. What I wanted to purchase was a yard or so of that diversely multi-purposed and colorfully patterned cloth that was so ubiquitous throughout Cairo. Cloth of this type could be seen draped across the scaffolding of building under repair protecting the workers, decorating the tables of vendors in the bazaar, and even on the gates of Versailles Palace, the cafe right next to our dorm. After buying some fabric for myself and Spencer we walked north past Qasr al-Ghuri, through the tunnels of the pedestrian underpass, and into Khan al-Khalili proper. Merchant stalls run from Bab Zuwayla all the way north to Bab al-Futuh, but as far as I know only anything north of al-Azhar is considered an official part of Khan al-Khalili.
Approaching Bab Zuwayla on Sharia Ahmed Mahir
The Museum of Islamic ArtJim and I took a cab to Opera Station on Zamalek and took the metro from there to Attba, then walked to the Museum of Islamic Art. This walk was exciting because it was through a part of the city that I really had not been in at all. Spencer and I had walk from Attba to the Khan a couple days before but that was in a completely different direction. It was one of my last days in Cairo and I was excited to again be finding my way around by map in a completely foreign place. We walked to Midan al-Attba and from there the museum was a straight shot down Sharia al-Qal'a. Not too much past an outdoor furniture market was Midan Bab al-Khalq and our museum. The building was a massive tan and brown striped stone structure. We walked up to the entrance on Qal'a Street and were turned away. The guys working the desk inside told us to walk around to the other entrance for the museum. Well the main entrance, facing the square (midan), was bordered up. We walked around the entire perimeter of the building as far was the fences would allow and could not find any alternative entrances. We went back to the first one, on Qal'a Street, and again asked how to get into the museum. It was only then that they told was that the museum was closed and wouldn't reopen for another three months. I'm not exactly sure why they couldn't have told us that the first time around.
I was disappointed about the museum being closed, but this did leave as more time for the rest of our day. Ibn-Tulun, where the Gayer-Anderson museum was located, had to be accessed from either Sharia Bur Said or Sharia Muhammed Ali, both of which met at Midan Bab al-Khalq. We chose Bur Said and walked a distance away from the traffic of the square before hailing a cab. He dropped us off at Ibn-Tulun and we made our way into the mosque. Just like last time, the guards at the entrance were at great pains to emphasize that Ibn-Tulun had no entrance fee and that no one was owed any baqshish. Once inside the outer wall of the mosque complex and in the area between the outer wall and the walls of the mosque proper we took a left. At the corner was the entrance to the Gayer-Anderson Museum, which did require an entrance fee and baqshish paid to the tour guide. The museum was a 16th century house owned by an eccentric British lawyer/doctor/officer in the late imperial period. The interior decorations were preserved, complete with secret passageways, intricate wood lattice work, separate men's and women's lounging areas, isolated courtyards and gardens, rooftop patios looking over the mosque walls, and indoor fountains. Each room had a different purpose and different theme. There was the miniature art gallery and a miniature museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Various rooms were Syrian, Turkish, and Chinese themed. There were also the standard sitting, reading, and drafting rooms of such aristocratic British homes, as well as a library. The authentic Islamic architecture and interior decorations made the museum well worth the trip and price.
The Gayer-Anderson Museum from the garden in the back An interior room of the Gayer-Anderson
A fine example of Gayer-Anderson's eccentricity (that's him in picture if you didn't get the hint)
Jim needed to go to the Khan to pick up some more gifts for family members and I still had two taola boards to pick up from my guy at the woodworking shop. We decided to walk there from Ibn-Tulun and retraced much of the route the taxi had taken us on from the Islamic Art Museum. Again, I really appreciated the opportunity to walk through a part of Cairo so devoid of tourists and people looking to sell to tourists. It felt nice to be in a place where Cairenes went about their daily lives without the intense focus on the tourist economy. We walked northwest on Qadri street, with Ibn-Tulun's distinctive minaret at our backs, until we met up with Bur Said. Here we took a right and walked up to Midan Bab al-Khalq. On the corner of Bur Said and Sharia Ahmad Mahir we found a small, grimy koushary shop and grabbed a cheap lunch. From here we took a right on Ahmad Mahir until we reached Bab Zuwayla, the southern medieval gate of Islamic Cairo. It was refreshing to enter the Khan from such a strange direction. I had been to this part of the bazaar before and had even climbed the western tower of Bab Zuwayla, but I had always come from Midan Hussein and al-Azhar in the north. I had never entered the bazaar from its southern edges, actually entering through that massive stone gate through which so many medieval travelers and merchants must have entered the the old city as well.
I wished to come in this way because I wanted to purchase something from a man whose stall was located just inside the gate, opposite the white and pink striped mosque, and we otherwise had no other reason for being this far south of the main bazaar. It would have been a long side trip had we come in through the more centrally located Midan Hussein. What I wanted to purchase was a yard or so of that diversely multi-purposed and colorfully patterned cloth that was so ubiquitous throughout Cairo. Cloth of this type could be seen draped across the scaffolding of building under repair protecting the workers, decorating the tables of vendors in the bazaar, and even on the gates of Versailles Palace, the cafe right next to our dorm. After buying some fabric for myself and Spencer we walked north past Qasr al-Ghuri, through the tunnels of the pedestrian underpass, and into Khan al-Khalili proper. Merchant stalls run from Bab Zuwayla all the way north to Bab al-Futuh, but as far as I know only anything north of al-Azhar is considered an official part of Khan al-Khalili.
Approaching Bab Zuwayla on Sharia Ahmed MahirThankfully my guy at the woodshop had my taola boards in. I had requested three wood-grain boards. Unlike the one I had purchased earlier, which was decorated with colored in-lays, the ones I had commissioned were decorated with different shades of wood stain. This is the type that had caught my eye before but had so upsettingly been sold to a high-bidding tourist the day before I promised I would come in to buy it. Finally I purchased the three boards: two for myself and one I for Spencer who had to take an exam that day. I also impulsively bought a framed ancient Egyptian scene painted on Papyrus, my one kitschy purchase of the trip. These were the last of many items our group purchased from the man in this shop. I know that Mark bought at least one taola board, a mother-of-pearl inlaid Quaran, a book stand, and possibly a mirror. Jim bought some mother-of-pearl inlaid jewelry boxes. We said our goodbyes to the man who had been a continuous part of our Egypt experience. Mark and I discovered his shop on my first trip to the Khan one day in February, less than a week after the bombing, and I had stopped in to say hello of trip to the Khan since then. On the way out he gave each of us a gift: a small box decorated in the same style as the taola boards I had just purchased. I was touched by the gift. This man, just like all the others in the Khan, was in the business of selling items, mostly to overpaying tourists. Very rarely did they just give anything away that wasn't included as an incentive in some sort of haggling deal, no matter how small the item. This gift was completely unexpected.
Down the main street of the Khan, the one that ran north to south between the two medieval gates, Jim found a lady selling ladle-shaped metal cups for making Turkish coffee. They were beautiful and graciously priced, but I was running out of room in my luggage and out of money. Jim crossed one more item off his list and we were then off to find him a galabiya. Here we walked west down a very long and very crowded street mostly selling clothing items, the same street where I had bought a Zamalek football jersey for my brother on my first trip to the Khan, and the same street where I first noticed the hissing/kissing sound Egyptians use instead of saying "watch out, get out of the way, wide load, beep-beep," etc. as some guy was trying to plow through the crowd with a cart laden with sacks of who knows what. Looking at my map now this must have been Sharia al-Muski, although the name is really irrelevant since we never needed it to navigate our way around and most Egyptians don't really use nor need street names to navigate either. There are just streets and landmarks. Names are useful only in conjunction with a map, and this is if you are lucky enough to find the street name posted anywhere; most Egyptians wouldn't know the name of the street they took every day to work unless it was one of the few major thorough-fares in the city. For some smaller streets I feel as if the name exists only on the map, as there are in realy life no signs indicating the street's name or people aware of such a name. Anyway, this portion of the Khan I always remembered for its crowds and proliferation of clothing products, and we soon found a vendor willing to Jim a decent galabiyya in the 40-60LE range.
We taxied back to Zamalek, careful as usual to walk a short distance away from the Khan before grabbing a cab. This decreased the likelihood of getting a cabbie with unreasonable price expectations. I usually paid 15LE for the ride from the Khan back to the dorm on Zamalek. I know this is a little high, but it is by no means exorbitant and it's almost always accepted without protest. You can pay 10LE if you are willing to haggle, but never did I leave the Khan in the mood to haggle. The Khan is compact, crowded, and at that time of year hot and sweaty. When it came time to leave I had always had my fill of haggling and felt physically drained. Any extra haggling effort to me just wasn't worth it, especially when that extra 5LE amounts to only $0.90US split between a couple of riders. Some of us fought for the cheaper rates on principle: "I'm not an ignorant foreigner. I'm not a tourist just passing through for the week. I can speak Arabic and I've been living here for months. I know the fair Egyptian price just as well as you do and I will not bet taken advantage of." I totally agree with the viewpoint in other circumstances, but again, fighting for $0.90 just wasn't a battle I was willing to fight. Besides, I was making almost 4 times more per month in my monthly stipend from ND than a government-employed Egyptian doctor. That extra $0.90 is worth a lot more to him than it is to me.
We found a cab parked along the curb and said Zamalek. He asked how much up front and we said 15LE. He shook his head and pulled forward a bit. Then another cab swooped in and took his place. We made the same offer and he gladly accepted without protest. This seemed to be a common practice around tourist areas. Some of the cabs sit and wait for the unwitting tourists willing to pay the high prices. This is obviously more profitable, but sometimes I wonder how many takers they actually get. Jim and I would run into this one more time before we left, outside the Egyptian National Museum on Friday, our last day in Cairo.
Down the main street of the Khan, the one that ran north to south between the two medieval gates, Jim found a lady selling ladle-shaped metal cups for making Turkish coffee. They were beautiful and graciously priced, but I was running out of room in my luggage and out of money. Jim crossed one more item off his list and we were then off to find him a galabiya. Here we walked west down a very long and very crowded street mostly selling clothing items, the same street where I had bought a Zamalek football jersey for my brother on my first trip to the Khan, and the same street where I first noticed the hissing/kissing sound Egyptians use instead of saying "watch out, get out of the way, wide load, beep-beep," etc. as some guy was trying to plow through the crowd with a cart laden with sacks of who knows what. Looking at my map now this must have been Sharia al-Muski, although the name is really irrelevant since we never needed it to navigate our way around and most Egyptians don't really use nor need street names to navigate either. There are just streets and landmarks. Names are useful only in conjunction with a map, and this is if you are lucky enough to find the street name posted anywhere; most Egyptians wouldn't know the name of the street they took every day to work unless it was one of the few major thorough-fares in the city. For some smaller streets I feel as if the name exists only on the map, as there are in realy life no signs indicating the street's name or people aware of such a name. Anyway, this portion of the Khan I always remembered for its crowds and proliferation of clothing products, and we soon found a vendor willing to Jim a decent galabiyya in the 40-60LE range.
We taxied back to Zamalek, careful as usual to walk a short distance away from the Khan before grabbing a cab. This decreased the likelihood of getting a cabbie with unreasonable price expectations. I usually paid 15LE for the ride from the Khan back to the dorm on Zamalek. I know this is a little high, but it is by no means exorbitant and it's almost always accepted without protest. You can pay 10LE if you are willing to haggle, but never did I leave the Khan in the mood to haggle. The Khan is compact, crowded, and at that time of year hot and sweaty. When it came time to leave I had always had my fill of haggling and felt physically drained. Any extra haggling effort to me just wasn't worth it, especially when that extra 5LE amounts to only $0.90US split between a couple of riders. Some of us fought for the cheaper rates on principle: "I'm not an ignorant foreigner. I'm not a tourist just passing through for the week. I can speak Arabic and I've been living here for months. I know the fair Egyptian price just as well as you do and I will not bet taken advantage of." I totally agree with the viewpoint in other circumstances, but again, fighting for $0.90 just wasn't a battle I was willing to fight. Besides, I was making almost 4 times more per month in my monthly stipend from ND than a government-employed Egyptian doctor. That extra $0.90 is worth a lot more to him than it is to me.
We found a cab parked along the curb and said Zamalek. He asked how much up front and we said 15LE. He shook his head and pulled forward a bit. Then another cab swooped in and took his place. We made the same offer and he gladly accepted without protest. This seemed to be a common practice around tourist areas. Some of the cabs sit and wait for the unwitting tourists willing to pay the high prices. This is obviously more profitable, but sometimes I wonder how many takers they actually get. Jim and I would run into this one more time before we left, outside the Egyptian National Museum on Friday, our last day in Cairo.
Last Days in Cairo: 3
On Wednesday I tried to visit the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art but it was closed during the time I tried to visit. I showed up around 2:30. The man at the door instructed me that the museum was only open from 8am to 2pm, and then again from 5pm to 9pm. So instead I made the half-hour walk back up the island to the HSBC Bank, across the street from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf that I started going to with Julia during the last couple of weeks to study. At the bank I cashed the traveler's checks that had been sitting in my pocket since I left the US four months earlier. I would need the money for my trip to the Khan the next day with Jim and for random airport necessities on my flight home on Saturday.
That night our professor friend from Cairo University took me out for fatir and sandwiches from Na'ba. We walked north along the western side of Zamalek, almost all the way to Sequoia, and took the ferry across the Nile over to Doqqi. We caught a cab to Na'ba, a fast food restaurant offereing Egyptian food. A police officer was kind enough to let the cabbie park on the side of the busy street while we picked up our sandwiches. Since I was American I carried a bit of influence and rules could be bent. Both the cabbie and the police officer excitedly mentioned Obama (one of the few English words they know), and the officer muttered something about Iraq under his breath. The cab then took us to a fatir restaurant where we got two vegetable fatirs before walking across the University Bridge to the Professor's Club on the other eastern bank of the Nile. The professor pointed out the Israeli Embassy. It occupied the top two floors of the first building north of the bridge on the western bank. Security around the building was tight.
At the nadi we discussed Egypt. He was interested in my reflections on my time in Cairo and what I liked, disliked, and if I would miss the city. I told him I would absolutely miss it, but I had a hard time articulating any other feelings. There were things that I loved and hated about Cairo, and I can say neither that I loved the place nor that I hated it. It was just Cairo and I liked it for what it was. He wanted something more concrete, so I told him that I enjoyed how exotically different things were here than in America, and that this made daily life a little more exciting. I also told him that I had a really hard time with how many Egyptian men treated females, especially the foreign ones. He said that this harassment came from the fact that the younger generations were too poor to afford to be able to get married, and that those who could afford it usually couldn't accumulate the necessary money until their late 20s or early 30s. For this reason the youth had developed the very untraditional habit of befriending members of the opposite sex, often going on walks along the Corniche al-Nil or standing on a bridge, staring at the water and talking, maybe even holding hands. While the nature of these boy-girl. He said that society didn't know how to handle the rapid changes in male-female realations. While these "relationships" are definitely new and will have a unpredictable affect on Egyptian society, I found this explanation problematic. For one, Egyptian society has not always been as traditional as it is today. Two, this might explain why some young men were confused as to how they should talk to women, but it didn't explain harassment by the older men, who harassed just as much as the young ones.
A more effective explanation was that our media gives Egyptians a very poor image of our women's morals. In almost all American TV shows or movies, the men and women are almost never faithful (if they were it would certainly make for a boring drama). It is from these TV shows and movies that most Egyptians learn about American women. In their interpretation, having a boyfriend means nothing in terms of fidelity, and even married women can easily be persuaded to cheat. I find this explanation more reasonable. I would not say that American media is representative of the average American woman, but I can see how if this is what you depend on to learn about real American people, you might draw some of these conclusions. But this reasoning still doesn't explain why Egyptian women experience the same harassement as the western ones. And in either case, the harassment is inexcusable no matter what the cause. It's funny how quickly some of these men violate the same feminine modesty that they so vocally champion.
Our talk also turned to the Egyptian government, the prospects of Egypt's future, and the recent slaughter of Egypt's 300,000 pigs in the effort to combat the recent international Swine Flu scare. Corruption kept the government from making any meaningful progress in improving the situation of the Egyptian People. Bureaucratic inefficiency and further corruption had been slowing things down at Cairo University. He even said that it would take a miracle for Egypt to in 50 years maintain the same standard of living as the present, nevermind improvement or progress.
All 300,000 pigs in Cairo, which many poor Coptic Christian depended on for food, had recently been slaughtered to prevent the spread of Swine Flu, even though some scientists doubt that the flu can be passed from pig to man, making this a grossly unnecessary and costly measure. Some saw the slaughter as an excuse to further harm Egypt's minority Christian population while proving to radical Muslim groups, of whom the government was ever scared, that the regime was not in opposition to Islam. The professor and I disagreed on the motivations for the slaughter, but he was fearful of purchasing anything with meat in it that day. He said that the meat would not be thrown away but sold, and since pork would not fetch a good price in the days of the Swine Flu scare, it would be made into sausages and marketed as a non-pork product. I was amused by the prospect of the Egyptian government slaughtering hundreds of thousands of pigs, due to the Swine Flue or Muslim radicals or both, only to sell this potentially Swine Flu infected pork meat to unsuspecting Muslims. I have no idea how true this scenario may have been but I find it amusing nonetheless.
We finished up at the nadi and walked back across the bridge. We took a minibus back to 26 July, and walked across to the Zamalek side and back to my dorm. The professor apologized that he did not get to see Mark again before he left and explained that he had been very busy the past couple of weeks with conferences in Karachi, London, and Aden. I told him not to worry; Mark had moved up his departure date by a week and we had forgotten to let him know, so he shouldn't blame himself for missing him. I agreed to see him again Friday night before I finally left.
That night our professor friend from Cairo University took me out for fatir and sandwiches from Na'ba. We walked north along the western side of Zamalek, almost all the way to Sequoia, and took the ferry across the Nile over to Doqqi. We caught a cab to Na'ba, a fast food restaurant offereing Egyptian food. A police officer was kind enough to let the cabbie park on the side of the busy street while we picked up our sandwiches. Since I was American I carried a bit of influence and rules could be bent. Both the cabbie and the police officer excitedly mentioned Obama (one of the few English words they know), and the officer muttered something about Iraq under his breath. The cab then took us to a fatir restaurant where we got two vegetable fatirs before walking across the University Bridge to the Professor's Club on the other eastern bank of the Nile. The professor pointed out the Israeli Embassy. It occupied the top two floors of the first building north of the bridge on the western bank. Security around the building was tight.
At the nadi we discussed Egypt. He was interested in my reflections on my time in Cairo and what I liked, disliked, and if I would miss the city. I told him I would absolutely miss it, but I had a hard time articulating any other feelings. There were things that I loved and hated about Cairo, and I can say neither that I loved the place nor that I hated it. It was just Cairo and I liked it for what it was. He wanted something more concrete, so I told him that I enjoyed how exotically different things were here than in America, and that this made daily life a little more exciting. I also told him that I had a really hard time with how many Egyptian men treated females, especially the foreign ones. He said that this harassment came from the fact that the younger generations were too poor to afford to be able to get married, and that those who could afford it usually couldn't accumulate the necessary money until their late 20s or early 30s. For this reason the youth had developed the very untraditional habit of befriending members of the opposite sex, often going on walks along the Corniche al-Nil or standing on a bridge, staring at the water and talking, maybe even holding hands. While the nature of these boy-girl. He said that society didn't know how to handle the rapid changes in male-female realations. While these "relationships" are definitely new and will have a unpredictable affect on Egyptian society, I found this explanation problematic. For one, Egyptian society has not always been as traditional as it is today. Two, this might explain why some young men were confused as to how they should talk to women, but it didn't explain harassment by the older men, who harassed just as much as the young ones.
A more effective explanation was that our media gives Egyptians a very poor image of our women's morals. In almost all American TV shows or movies, the men and women are almost never faithful (if they were it would certainly make for a boring drama). It is from these TV shows and movies that most Egyptians learn about American women. In their interpretation, having a boyfriend means nothing in terms of fidelity, and even married women can easily be persuaded to cheat. I find this explanation more reasonable. I would not say that American media is representative of the average American woman, but I can see how if this is what you depend on to learn about real American people, you might draw some of these conclusions. But this reasoning still doesn't explain why Egyptian women experience the same harassement as the western ones. And in either case, the harassment is inexcusable no matter what the cause. It's funny how quickly some of these men violate the same feminine modesty that they so vocally champion.
Our talk also turned to the Egyptian government, the prospects of Egypt's future, and the recent slaughter of Egypt's 300,000 pigs in the effort to combat the recent international Swine Flu scare. Corruption kept the government from making any meaningful progress in improving the situation of the Egyptian People. Bureaucratic inefficiency and further corruption had been slowing things down at Cairo University. He even said that it would take a miracle for Egypt to in 50 years maintain the same standard of living as the present, nevermind improvement or progress.
All 300,000 pigs in Cairo, which many poor Coptic Christian depended on for food, had recently been slaughtered to prevent the spread of Swine Flu, even though some scientists doubt that the flu can be passed from pig to man, making this a grossly unnecessary and costly measure. Some saw the slaughter as an excuse to further harm Egypt's minority Christian population while proving to radical Muslim groups, of whom the government was ever scared, that the regime was not in opposition to Islam. The professor and I disagreed on the motivations for the slaughter, but he was fearful of purchasing anything with meat in it that day. He said that the meat would not be thrown away but sold, and since pork would not fetch a good price in the days of the Swine Flu scare, it would be made into sausages and marketed as a non-pork product. I was amused by the prospect of the Egyptian government slaughtering hundreds of thousands of pigs, due to the Swine Flue or Muslim radicals or both, only to sell this potentially Swine Flu infected pork meat to unsuspecting Muslims. I have no idea how true this scenario may have been but I find it amusing nonetheless.
We finished up at the nadi and walked back across the bridge. We took a minibus back to 26 July, and walked across to the Zamalek side and back to my dorm. The professor apologized that he did not get to see Mark again before he left and explained that he had been very busy the past couple of weeks with conferences in Karachi, London, and Aden. I told him not to worry; Mark had moved up his departure date by a week and we had forgotten to let him know, so he shouldn't blame himself for missing him. I agreed to see him again Friday night before I finally left.
Last Days in Cairo: 2
Last post I left off with my trip to Khan al-Khalili with Spencer on Tuesday of my last week in Cairo. I will pick up from there in a bit but what I forgot to mention though was my trip to Garbage City. I honestly forget when this happened, but I think it was very shortly before Sara left. On some weekend day near the end of the semester, Jim, Sara, Julia, and I rented a driver to take us through Garbage City, a Coptic district of Nasser City known for its resourcefulness with the incredible volume of trash produced by Cairo. This posed a philosophical dilemma for us. On the one hand we did not want to appear as tourists gawking at the poverty of people we hardly understood, and on the other hand we felt it beneficial to expose ourselves to the myriad ways that other people in this world live and that shielding ourselves from the more unpleasant of these would maintain an ignorance that none of us really wanted. So we ended up driving through the district itself and getting out and touring two famous churches.
I never really found out what all they did with the garbage except that they collected it and that bags filled with it were stacked everywhere. The city was composed of narrow streets and alleys what in my memory look like buildings made of clay. The many apartments and shops that made up one city block seemed to all be carved out of one long building with separately raised roofs corresponding with a street-level door. Our last stop of the day was the recycling center, which we were fortunate enough to tour. Either Sara or Julia got the name of our driver from a group of students who had gone the week before and the center had been closed at the time. The part we toured took old clothes and cloth products and remade them into purses, rugs, bath mats and other such goods and sold them either directly out of the recycling center or in the market in Coptic Cairo. I remember though that someone said that the clothes used to make these products were taken directly as donations and so the mystery remains to me as to what was done with all the garbage collected by the city's people.
I forget the specific names of the two churches we toured but I think the first was called the Rock Church. It was a giant amphitheater carved out of rock that seemed to seat thousands. The altar, of course, was at the focal point of the rows of benches. The church had to be accessed from the outside, where from the street level what appeared to be a standard church building sat by a parking lot at the foot of a rock face. Numerous scenes from the Bible were carved into this rock face and our driver told us that they had been made by an Eastern European who had taken a special liking to the church. Entering the church from the street we descended a low-ceilinged walkway which led us beneath the mountain and to the left side of the amphitheater seats. Legend has it that the mountain the church was carved beneath had once been in the center of Cairo, near the old Opera House. There was some sort of conflict involving the native Christians and the upstart Muslims necessitating that the mountain be moved; perhaps it was that there was not enough room downtown for them both to exist and they were fighting over who got to stay. Whatever the reason, the mountain needed to be moved and the Christians prayed for this to happen. Overnight, the mountain was miraculously relocated to its present spot and had since bee the sight of many pilgrimages until the church was finally cut at its foot.
The other church was located in what had been a cave filled with rock rubble. To make the church the cave was cleared of all the rubble and rows for pews and a platform for the altar were carved into the base. A facade was build up at the two opening. The cave was bowl shaped with a rock roof with entrances on either side that opened to daylight. On the side we entered the entrance was narrow and had a domed-shaped mosaic near the short stairwell leading into the back row of pews. The opposite opening was much larger and covered with a large window which let in plenty of light. Bible scenes and verses were cut into the walls of this church as well.
After these churches we drove through the city until we got to the recycling center, and then on the way back to Zamalek we took a detour through the City of the Dead. This had once been a grave yard filled with above-ground graves and mausoleums lain out in a city grid. An earthquake in the recent past had misplaced many people living in poverty who took up quarters in the mausoleums, turning the graveyard into a living, functioning "City of the Dead."
As for our driver, he was a little forward with the girls in the group. This had of by now become expected of most Egyptian men but he was creepster none-the-less. Aside from the uncomfortableness he created with us at times he had done a decent job of chauffeuring us around.
I never really found out what all they did with the garbage except that they collected it and that bags filled with it were stacked everywhere. The city was composed of narrow streets and alleys what in my memory look like buildings made of clay. The many apartments and shops that made up one city block seemed to all be carved out of one long building with separately raised roofs corresponding with a street-level door. Our last stop of the day was the recycling center, which we were fortunate enough to tour. Either Sara or Julia got the name of our driver from a group of students who had gone the week before and the center had been closed at the time. The part we toured took old clothes and cloth products and remade them into purses, rugs, bath mats and other such goods and sold them either directly out of the recycling center or in the market in Coptic Cairo. I remember though that someone said that the clothes used to make these products were taken directly as donations and so the mystery remains to me as to what was done with all the garbage collected by the city's people.
I forget the specific names of the two churches we toured but I think the first was called the Rock Church. It was a giant amphitheater carved out of rock that seemed to seat thousands. The altar, of course, was at the focal point of the rows of benches. The church had to be accessed from the outside, where from the street level what appeared to be a standard church building sat by a parking lot at the foot of a rock face. Numerous scenes from the Bible were carved into this rock face and our driver told us that they had been made by an Eastern European who had taken a special liking to the church. Entering the church from the street we descended a low-ceilinged walkway which led us beneath the mountain and to the left side of the amphitheater seats. Legend has it that the mountain the church was carved beneath had once been in the center of Cairo, near the old Opera House. There was some sort of conflict involving the native Christians and the upstart Muslims necessitating that the mountain be moved; perhaps it was that there was not enough room downtown for them both to exist and they were fighting over who got to stay. Whatever the reason, the mountain needed to be moved and the Christians prayed for this to happen. Overnight, the mountain was miraculously relocated to its present spot and had since bee the sight of many pilgrimages until the church was finally cut at its foot.
The other church was located in what had been a cave filled with rock rubble. To make the church the cave was cleared of all the rubble and rows for pews and a platform for the altar were carved into the base. A facade was build up at the two opening. The cave was bowl shaped with a rock roof with entrances on either side that opened to daylight. On the side we entered the entrance was narrow and had a domed-shaped mosaic near the short stairwell leading into the back row of pews. The opposite opening was much larger and covered with a large window which let in plenty of light. Bible scenes and verses were cut into the walls of this church as well.
After these churches we drove through the city until we got to the recycling center, and then on the way back to Zamalek we took a detour through the City of the Dead. This had once been a grave yard filled with above-ground graves and mausoleums lain out in a city grid. An earthquake in the recent past had misplaced many people living in poverty who took up quarters in the mausoleums, turning the graveyard into a living, functioning "City of the Dead."
As for our driver, he was a little forward with the girls in the group. This had of by now become expected of most Egyptian men but he was creepster none-the-less. Aside from the uncomfortableness he created with us at times he had done a decent job of chauffeuring us around.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Last Days in Cairo: 1
First off, there will most likely be a couple more posts coming over the next few days. There's more that I want to cover about my experiences in Cairo that I haven't gotten to yet. I had meant to take care of them last week, but oh well. We'll start with the last night in Cairo...
Actually we'll start a little earlier than that. My last exam and paper were due Monday, May 25th. I didn't have to stay up terrible late to get them taken care of, so that was nice compared to the previous week where between four papers, an exam, and seeing people off I had to pull a couple all-nighters. The building's on AUC's campus are mazes, and the winding stairways, random lookouts, and split-level floors reminded my of an M.C. Escher sketch. Almost all have some complex network of halls and corridors that eventually lead to roof accesses with great views of the campus. You can spot these from the ground while walking about campus, and the gazeebo type structures on the roofs cleary indicate that they were meant to be used, but finding your way up there can be difficult. One of my friends did however know how to get to the roof of the adminstration building, and from here three of us on the last day of exams on the New Campus enjoyed Stellas and looked over the campus we had called ours for the past four months. In fact, many of us hated our experiences on this campus. We all had our reasons: for some it was dealing with the ridiculous bureaucracy, or the biases of teachers, snobby students, or maybe just the long bus rides to and from campus, among other reasons. But its strange how knowing that you will never see a place again encourages you to forget the negatives and look on the place with a sense of sentimentality.
We had a nice little party the night before Sara and Ed left, although I forget exactly which day that was. It was at Mikey and Ben's apartment in Metro Towers, the giant apartment complex above the Metro Mart grocery store which I had probably been to at least once ever single day either to buy food or pull money from the ATM. The place had a wonderful view from the roof which was especially nice at night. Unfortunately I never brought my camera up there and have no pictures. The next night we met Mikey at the apartment to help him carry all of his stuff down to meet the cab. He was insistent that he leave the same way the show "Cheers" finally ended; that is, by giving the place one last hard look, turning off the lights, and closing the door for good. And then everyone fought over who got to hit the tweeting door-bell the last time.
But before Mikey left, we managed to play our first and only round of golf in Egypt. We made a tee-time at the Hilton Hotel and Dreamland Golf Resort in October City at 11 on what must have been Saturday morning. Of course, we followed the usual script when taking a cab some place we'd never been before. This always involves some poor cabbie agreeing to take you to (insert name of place) even though he has no idea where it is. He gets to the general area, follows ten sets of conflicting directions from various police officers, fellow taxi drivers, and haggs on the street, before finally finding someone who isn't merely pretending to have heard of the place, gives accurate directions, and then thirty minutes after this final set of directions you arrive. Arriving isn't always easy either because you just kind of have to assume "well this must be the place" when you pull up.
Anyway, we made it the golf course and greens fees, renting clubs, and buying balls was cheap as dirt considering we were playing on lush green fairways, at the Hilton, in the middle of the desert. We also decided to have a little fun by putting on galabiyyas and kufiyyas after we got off the first hole. Once during our nine hole round the course marshal even pulled up to us while Mikey was hitting out of the fairway thining we were Arab from a distance. I did look the part of a Saudi oil barron if I do say so myself, with my clean white galabiyya and red and white kufiyya, so I can understand his confusion. The round naturally ended at the 19th hole, where we struck it up with the bartender. We told him we were the guys out there wearing the Arab clothes and he got a good kick out of hit. He had seen us coming in since the bar's panoramic windows overlooked the 9th hole's approach to the green and he had thought that some of the groundskeepers had taken a break to play a few holes! We discussed America for a bit too and he professed his love for the culture. He liked rap and mentioned that Akon was one of his favorite artists. He also showed us a picture of his Russian girlfriend on his camera phone.
So this all happened over the weekend and by Monday I was completely finished with school. I made a trip down to campus the next day to turn in all my library books, clearing all debts to the university and allowing me to get my transcript sent to ND. Unfortunately I forgot one book and had to make the hour and half bustrip to and from school the next day, but finally all paperwork was finished and I would never be back to AUC again. At least not in the foreseeable future. At this point Julia and Jessie had left. The only remainging people were Spencer, Jim Genovese, and Ali. Taz and Michele weren't leaving until Friday, but they were in Luxor for the week. Chris was leaving with me on Saturday (the only other person of the eight from Notre Dame who did, for whatever reason, move his flight up from the Saturday May 30 flight given to us by Anthony Travel) but he was spending the week in Spain visiting some friends. Although I knew I was finishing my exams well before my flight, I had no intentions of getting the flight bumped up a couple days. I had planned on taking full advantage of a whole week with nothing to do but explore Cairo, and that's exactly what I did.
Spencer and I made a trip to Khan al-Khalili on Tuesday. It was his last I believe. He had a few items to pick up still, including a galabiyya, and I just wanted to go check on my taola (backgammon) boards. Before this day I had only ever cabbed to the Khan, but we took a route I had never taken before. We decided to take a cab to the nearest metro station, Opera, and then take the metro to Attba station. From Attba it was a twenty minute walk to the Khan. Partly I wanted to save money (a cab straight there costs 15LE, but the cab to the metro plus the metro ticket only costs 6LE) but I also wanted to do more walking in the city before I left. I find it to be a much better experience to see something on foot than by car. You are in it rather than passing through it.
After much searching, harrassment from ignored vendors, and of course bargaining, Spencer found his galabiyya. He felt he had paid way to much for it, which was probably true, but he did not pay nearly as much as I had for mine. Mark and I in Luxor, for whatever reason, decided to buy cusom-tailored galabiyyas made from the Egyptian cotton of our choosing from a tailor operating right next to the Winer Palace. Spencer's Galabiyya turned out to be pretty nice, and the more he looked at it the more he liked it. I visited Ahmed, the guy who owns the wood-working shop, and he told me the boards would be ready ba'da bookra, after tomorrow.
And now for some pictures!
Me and my Stella, from the roof of the Administration Building
View from the roof of the Admin Building
Jim, happpy to be leaving AUC for the last time ever.
The last night at Cafeteria Huria
Mark and Julia at Huria
Ed and Sara at Huria
And me
Walking from Attba to the Khan
In the Khan
Actually we'll start a little earlier than that. My last exam and paper were due Monday, May 25th. I didn't have to stay up terrible late to get them taken care of, so that was nice compared to the previous week where between four papers, an exam, and seeing people off I had to pull a couple all-nighters. The building's on AUC's campus are mazes, and the winding stairways, random lookouts, and split-level floors reminded my of an M.C. Escher sketch. Almost all have some complex network of halls and corridors that eventually lead to roof accesses with great views of the campus. You can spot these from the ground while walking about campus, and the gazeebo type structures on the roofs cleary indicate that they were meant to be used, but finding your way up there can be difficult. One of my friends did however know how to get to the roof of the adminstration building, and from here three of us on the last day of exams on the New Campus enjoyed Stellas and looked over the campus we had called ours for the past four months. In fact, many of us hated our experiences on this campus. We all had our reasons: for some it was dealing with the ridiculous bureaucracy, or the biases of teachers, snobby students, or maybe just the long bus rides to and from campus, among other reasons. But its strange how knowing that you will never see a place again encourages you to forget the negatives and look on the place with a sense of sentimentality.
We had a nice little party the night before Sara and Ed left, although I forget exactly which day that was. It was at Mikey and Ben's apartment in Metro Towers, the giant apartment complex above the Metro Mart grocery store which I had probably been to at least once ever single day either to buy food or pull money from the ATM. The place had a wonderful view from the roof which was especially nice at night. Unfortunately I never brought my camera up there and have no pictures. The next night we met Mikey at the apartment to help him carry all of his stuff down to meet the cab. He was insistent that he leave the same way the show "Cheers" finally ended; that is, by giving the place one last hard look, turning off the lights, and closing the door for good. And then everyone fought over who got to hit the tweeting door-bell the last time.
But before Mikey left, we managed to play our first and only round of golf in Egypt. We made a tee-time at the Hilton Hotel and Dreamland Golf Resort in October City at 11 on what must have been Saturday morning. Of course, we followed the usual script when taking a cab some place we'd never been before. This always involves some poor cabbie agreeing to take you to (insert name of place) even though he has no idea where it is. He gets to the general area, follows ten sets of conflicting directions from various police officers, fellow taxi drivers, and haggs on the street, before finally finding someone who isn't merely pretending to have heard of the place, gives accurate directions, and then thirty minutes after this final set of directions you arrive. Arriving isn't always easy either because you just kind of have to assume "well this must be the place" when you pull up.
Anyway, we made it the golf course and greens fees, renting clubs, and buying balls was cheap as dirt considering we were playing on lush green fairways, at the Hilton, in the middle of the desert. We also decided to have a little fun by putting on galabiyyas and kufiyyas after we got off the first hole. Once during our nine hole round the course marshal even pulled up to us while Mikey was hitting out of the fairway thining we were Arab from a distance. I did look the part of a Saudi oil barron if I do say so myself, with my clean white galabiyya and red and white kufiyya, so I can understand his confusion. The round naturally ended at the 19th hole, where we struck it up with the bartender. We told him we were the guys out there wearing the Arab clothes and he got a good kick out of hit. He had seen us coming in since the bar's panoramic windows overlooked the 9th hole's approach to the green and he had thought that some of the groundskeepers had taken a break to play a few holes! We discussed America for a bit too and he professed his love for the culture. He liked rap and mentioned that Akon was one of his favorite artists. He also showed us a picture of his Russian girlfriend on his camera phone.
So this all happened over the weekend and by Monday I was completely finished with school. I made a trip down to campus the next day to turn in all my library books, clearing all debts to the university and allowing me to get my transcript sent to ND. Unfortunately I forgot one book and had to make the hour and half bustrip to and from school the next day, but finally all paperwork was finished and I would never be back to AUC again. At least not in the foreseeable future. At this point Julia and Jessie had left. The only remainging people were Spencer, Jim Genovese, and Ali. Taz and Michele weren't leaving until Friday, but they were in Luxor for the week. Chris was leaving with me on Saturday (the only other person of the eight from Notre Dame who did, for whatever reason, move his flight up from the Saturday May 30 flight given to us by Anthony Travel) but he was spending the week in Spain visiting some friends. Although I knew I was finishing my exams well before my flight, I had no intentions of getting the flight bumped up a couple days. I had planned on taking full advantage of a whole week with nothing to do but explore Cairo, and that's exactly what I did.
Spencer and I made a trip to Khan al-Khalili on Tuesday. It was his last I believe. He had a few items to pick up still, including a galabiyya, and I just wanted to go check on my taola (backgammon) boards. Before this day I had only ever cabbed to the Khan, but we took a route I had never taken before. We decided to take a cab to the nearest metro station, Opera, and then take the metro to Attba station. From Attba it was a twenty minute walk to the Khan. Partly I wanted to save money (a cab straight there costs 15LE, but the cab to the metro plus the metro ticket only costs 6LE) but I also wanted to do more walking in the city before I left. I find it to be a much better experience to see something on foot than by car. You are in it rather than passing through it.
After much searching, harrassment from ignored vendors, and of course bargaining, Spencer found his galabiyya. He felt he had paid way to much for it, which was probably true, but he did not pay nearly as much as I had for mine. Mark and I in Luxor, for whatever reason, decided to buy cusom-tailored galabiyyas made from the Egyptian cotton of our choosing from a tailor operating right next to the Winer Palace. Spencer's Galabiyya turned out to be pretty nice, and the more he looked at it the more he liked it. I visited Ahmed, the guy who owns the wood-working shop, and he told me the boards would be ready ba'da bookra, after tomorrow.
And now for some pictures!
Me and my Stella, from the roof of the Administration Building
View from the roof of the Admin BuildingJim, happpy to be leaving AUC for the last time ever.The last night at Cafeteria HuriaMark and Julia at HuriaEd and Sara at Huria
Mikey at our Egyptian Golf Adventure
And meIn the Khan
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