Things I did in Siwa: A lazy blog post.

Drove my own donkey cart.

Drank Araq with the oasis' only distiller.  He was blind and had the best laugh you have ever heard.  Later found out he was blind because he used to mix his batches of booze with paint thinner.  I am not blind yet.

Got lost, barefoot in the desert at night.

Found my way back to camp in the desert after seriously considering whether I might survive the walk back to town.

Napped on fantasy island.

Snacked in the room where Alexander was told he would be Great.  

Burned my skin in the salt of the salt flats.

Drank fresh cow milk with my tea.

Got a blister from racing a 4X4 up and down the sand dunes between desert springs.

Sandboarded down the steep side.

Bellydanced.

Learned to play the drums.

Picked and ate dates right from the tree every single day.

Slept on a bed of sand under the stars.

Drank water that tasted like gasoline.

Learned how to make tea the Siwi way.

Witnessed a different side of homosexuality in Egypt.

Took way too many pictures of the desert.

Did not get sunburned.

View of the eastern lake and salt flat.

Entrance to the Oracle chamber where Alexander went.

Riding along the salt lake.

Some Siwis hanging out at Cleopatra's Bath

The Oracle temple at sunset.

Downtown

Cigarettes anybody?  Ruins?

Nora and Julia, my oldest Egypt friends.

Two of the other girls at the Siwa salt resort (that is a made-up thing)

Pouring tea the Siwi way.

Hemeida pondering his desert homeland

Julia and Nora on our donkey cart!

View from fantasy island over the western lake.

A story about Dahab...

One of my "historically plausible" stories written at the new job...

Dahab, The City of Gold

Disturbed by the sudden darkness, the traveler stirs from his nap. It is mid-day, and yet the sun is obscured by storm clouds, something he has rarely seen in Egypt, even growing up in Cairo. He glances over questioningly at the Dahab local who had agreed to take him out for a boat ride on the Red Sea. In response, the boat captain silently lifts a wrinkled hand from the folds of his gallabeya robe to point toward the shore. Following the captain's finger, the traveler can see storm clouds collecting over the golden-red mountains behind the town.

As the boat captain begins to paddle them back to town, the traveler thinks regretfully about ending the relaxing boat ride so soon, but he notices how the sea around them is already getting choppy. The boat rocks this way and that in the waves, and rain drops start falling with little splashes all around them.

Back on shore, the distant thunder echoing from the mountain range makes the light rain sprinkling the town seem cinematic. On shore, the boat driver tells the traveler to wait as he hurriedly ties his boat to the pier. The driver grabs him by the arm and pulls the traveler toward the town's main walkway, and they walk south toward the bridge stretching over an empty sunken concrete lot the traveler assumed was a parking lot in the middle of town.

He sees that the bridge is full of locals talking and laughing amongst themselves. They lean on the balcony facing the mountains waiting for something. Even the banks of the parking lot are filling with people. Some have set up chairs and sheesha pipes. Young boys carry trays with cups of tea between the men, looking to make an extra pound. The traveler laughs—some things are the same everywhere in this country, entrepreneurial ten-year-olds being one of them.

A handful of foreigners also hang about. The traveler can pick the tourists out from the diving instructors (that group of more permanent foreign residents) by the uncomfortable looks of confusion on their faces. They can hear the storm raging over the mountain range in the distance.

Minutes pass--maybe an hour--and the traveler does not notice the steady trickle of water that has started running down the concrete of the parking lot toward the sea. Only when the trickle becomes a stream and then a river does the traveler understand that everyone is now watching the water. The rain in the town has strengthened. The men's sheesha coals sizzle as the drops make their way into the covers. No one minds seems to mind being soaked.

All at once he realizes the rushing, roaring sound approaching from the distance. An avalanche of muddy, golden water has steadily covered the planes leading from the mountain and crossed over the road separating the city from the desert. The flood is almost the same color as the ground, so from afar it just looks like the earth is being smoothed over.  The water reaches the city and merges with the puddles in the concrete lot, and soon the concrete lot is filled with a sandy, churning golden lake.

The onlookers on the bridge begin shifting over to the side facing the sea. The traveler sees golden tendrils from the sandy pool reaching slowly out into the sea beyond. It is as if someone poured thousands of tons of gold flecks into the waters as the mountain sand enters the water.

Later the traveler will have no idea how long he stood mesmerized by the shimmering golden invasion of the sea, but some time later, he realizes he is wet and cold, so he heads back to his hotel to dry off and to get dinner. The rain does not cease until late in the night.

The morning after, he is awoken early by rays of sunlight pouring through the window. He dresses and eats quickly before calling the boat captain for another ride. Soon he is sitting on the boat as it cuts through the sandy sea of gold. 

The water reflects and magnifies the shining of the sun. The water is still, and the traveler has the feeling he is gliding across a vast golden mirror. Seeing the look on the traveler's face, the quiet boat captain says to him, “and now you know why we call this place Dahab.”

*               *               *               *               *

Without cheating and going back to my blog post about it, can you guess what the word "Dahab" in Arabic means?

Feeling a little restless, I went for a walk tonight that turned into a seven hour prowl all around my new neighborhood in Dokki and Mohandiseen, across the Nile to Zamalek and then eventually to Downtown for some late night Koshary (in what seems like blasphemy to me, almost all of the Koshary places are closed during Ramadan--except for my favorite one!). I spent a good chunk of that time in my old neighborhood on the island of Zamalek revisiting some of my old haunts and just sort of observing the Cairenes as they go all out for their Ramadan night-time affairs.

As I walked around Zamalek, I remembered how big Cairo had seemed when I first arrived there almost exactly a year ago. I also remembered how confusing the island is (still) to navigate, and how lost I kept getting right in my own neighborhood in my first two months here.  For some reason, as I walked the island, I felt far less comfortable in the northern areas where I had spent most of my time when I lived there than in the southern areas where I only ever passed through.

As I discovered new shops and restaurants and cafes that I had never known existed--even in that neighborhood I thought I had so thoroughly explored--I was reminded of just how big this city really is to me still. I have walked so much of this sprawling megalopolis, and yet I have only hit half of it at best.  There's lots more to explore still.

 Case in point is the location of my new work's office (just some part-time writing for a company that is creating a project about Egypt), down in an area called Maadi.  Like Zamalek, Maadi is where many foreigners and wealthy, affluent Egyptians live and work, but it is newer than Zamalek (and therefore also farther away). Whenever I get off the metro down in Maadi, I feel completely disoriented.  Even as my cabs take almost the exact same routes to my office, I can't yet really make sense of the endless series of identical-looking, leafy, developed traffic circles.  I'm looking forward to getting to explore the new hood, now that I have a regular excuse for being down there.

Also of note about Maadi is the number of dudes you'll see wearing shorts there. Maadi is a pretty trendy place, and so it is indicative of a phenomenon I've been noticing all around the city: dudes wearing shorts. This may sound totally uninteresting to you, or it may you may read this to be some kind of slackening of social taboos, but all I really care about is that I can wear shorts and not get weird stares like I did last summer.  Cairo in the summer is as every bit as hot as you would expect it to be (I mean, I live on the edge of the Sahara, so it stands to reason). Being able to wear shorts is important. Who knows why this change has come about, but I'm not the only one whose noticed it.

Sudanese reggae band

In this case the reasons behind the change are pretty unimportant to me, but some people do think it's a reflection of a freer society post-revolution. Then again, I get the feeling that a lot of people, be they Egyptian or foreign, are perhaps trying to ignore some of the more worrying trends in Egyptian opening society by overemphasizing the encouraging ones.  No ones want the revolution to have been in vain.*

*Well...some people might argue that the Egyptian army would like for it to have been in vain, perhaps...

I did have a notable conversation with two doormen in my wanderings of Zamalek that sort of touched on that notion of Egypt's opening society. (N.B. Doormen in Egypt live in the entryways of flats, and are responsible for a number of tasks involving general upkeep of the apartment and parking in front of it.  They pretty much just hang out in the bottom of their respective apartments most of their days.)  They were both from a town near Aswan, in the far south of Egypt (natives of this region are Nubian, a relative of a Northern Sudanese ethnic group, and they also speak a totally different language from Arabic that has roots going as far back as Ancient Egyptian civilization. The two men were sitting out on the sidewalk in their pearly white galabeyas  (better image) enjoying the perfect temperature of the night air when I nearly stumbled right into one of them. In that awesome Egyptian way that still baffles me slightly, he shoved a cup of tea in my hand, as if that's exactly what I was trying for in the first place, and after the second it took me to realize I had absolutely no other plans, I accepted the tea and sat down with the two.

The Arabic they spoke was different from the Egyptian dialect I knew (it sounded a lot like the Sudanese dialect my friend in Damascus once described to me as "Arabic being spoken with rocks in their mouth"), so my understanding was not exactly at its best, but we all made a good effort to get our points across, and we managed to have a fairly interesting conversation.

The older man, Omar, was really intent on my understanding that Egyptians pretty much love everybody. The words he was using to describe this are part of some oft-heard tropes coming from Egyptians which I think reflect a kind of head-in-the-sand mentality though. He talked about how he likes Jews, Christians, Egyptians, Americans, Israelis, and whoever else, because we are all humans and part of a larger extended family. An admirable sentiment, with which I couldn't agree more, but no matter how wonderful I find Egyptians, I don't think that is really the general feeling here (or anywhere else, for that matter).

"Raise your head high, you're Egyptian"

Wanting to press the issue a little, I asked about the violent sectarian clashes that had been going on a few months ago (and sort of forever) between Muslims and Copts in Cairo and Alexandria. Their answer was one of the most overused words in the Arabic political vocabulary: fitna.  The word has no direct English translation, but itt comes from the root having to do with temptation and is something like chaos or tribulations stirred up between people.  It is also the name used for the first Islamic civil war for leadership of the Muslim community after Mohammad's death.  As you'd expect, it's a charged term.  (You can also read the informative, if grammatically mistake-ridden wikipedia page for a more detailed explanation of the word.)  Don't be fooled though: if it sounds like a very specific and evocative answer, it's not.  Fitna has been blamed for problems in Muslim countries for centuries, because it implies no one is really at fault, and absolves the government of actually having to do anything to solve the underlying problems while vilifying the incidents in strong language.

So then I asked who they thought should win the presidential elections.  All I got was that they don't like Baradei, because he doesn't know what it's really like to be Egyptian since he lived abroad for so much of his life.  That's pretty much old news, so I asked what they thought about the army, and of course they said it was pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread, that the army and the people are one hand (a common revolutionary chant), and that the Egyptian army is integral to Egyptian society, because they didn't interfere with the revolution.  They pointed to the armies in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen, and now even in Britain have supported the regime with violence against the people.

(Of course, grouping Britain in a group of brutal Middle Eastern dictatorships is a stretch for a long list of reasons, but an article I read in Aljazeera today about how California mass transit police had the cell phone services of everyone in their stations blocked in order to--get this--inhibit protesters from organizing a demonstration against police brutality in one of the stations.  Now I don't think it's much of a stretch to make a comparison to how said brutal Middle Eastern dictatorships used the same tactic on larger scale in their attempts to disrupt protest movements.  Of course, those movements were actually aiming to topple their respective regimes, begging the question, why could California police act in kind toward a potential demonstration that had decidedly more peaceful motives?)

They weren't really giving me much to work with, so I let them change the topic (inevitably it turned to the usual "I want to go to America; how do I do that?"), and they offered me some dates and a date-milk juice thing that they insisted would make me strong and healthy.  Luckily, I like dates, and I also happened to be carrying a croissant I had bought from a nice bakery on the island, so I happily insisted they take that in return for their generosity and openness.

So what is the point of this blog post?  I don't know.  But I did find a private rooftop pool nearby-ish my place that only charges 40LE for the day, and that is probably going to be my new favorite Ramadan hangout spot, I think.

Cairo sunset from a downtown rooftop

A Friend and Two New Blogs from Syria

Giant Assad poster on the front of the Syrian Central Bank.  I may have posted
this picture already, but it's just so...so propagandistic.

My friend and former landlord from Syria was in Cairo last weekend, and he brought with him some chilling stories about what life has become in Damascus.  He had left Syria in a rush about a month and a half ago without warning anyone.  A friend had skyped with him and he had a big bandage on his head, so we knew something was wrong, and indeed the next day he booked it out of the country.  Syrian security forces now randomly scoop up citizens to extort and fear money or confessions by tactics of violence, though my friend's arrest may or may not have been random.

Pro-government marches of students (who likely had no
choice) were a common sight even while I was there.

He had been sending news reports and pictures to old friends at Al Jazeera and the BBC, carefully rotating internet cafes to avoid being caught, but given his activities, it was not entirely a surprise when one day he heard the sound of boots running outside the cafe.  Seconds later a host of soldiers barged into the cafe and went straight for him.  He force-shut down his computer to get rid of any evidence of his illicit transfers, but they noticed the suspicious activity, and seemed to have come for him anyway.  They bludgeoned him in the head with a rifle and dragged him off to a jail cell.

Knowing they probably didn't have any hard evidence against him, my friend played the part of a scared innocent until the guards floated the possibility that he could bribe his way out.  For about $3,000 (obviously a huge sum of money by Syrian standards), he was allowed to escape.  Aware that the conspicuously large bandage on his head would probably attract the suspicion of another band of security thugs, my friend liquidated what of his assets he could, arranged for his family (his parents and siblings - he has no wife or kids) to stay in Turkey, and then he fled to Lebanon the next day.

Flyers like these were all over Damascus.
This one says "A thousand congratulations
for the love of the people [i.e. Assad]"

Since then he has been living between Berlin and Geneva with friends trying to get a job helping refugees through the UN.  He came to Cairo for an interview to be a sort of go-between official between the UN and Somalian refugees.  Yeah, he actually wants to work in Somalia, but he has done a lot of work like that before, and that's all another story.  Even though he can't help his country anymore, his desire to help the underprivileged has not been dampened.

But when I met with him in Cairo, the recently healed wound on his forehead still just visible, there was a kind of sadness just barely noticeable whenever he would fall silent.  His usually goody, absurd sense of humor seemed ever so half-hearted and distracted, and you could tell he is worried.  It doesn't help that he is originally from the city of Hama, one of the most violent cities in Syria right now, and the city that was massacred during the regime of Hafez Assad, the current President's father.  In the end though, my friend was lucky to have the ability to get out of Syria.  Not all of his countrymen have the same connections that he does.

The Stalinist-esque motivation for citizens to  decorate their cars,
shops and everything else with pro-government propaganda
was in full swing by the time I left.

Then there are the foreigners who are trying to get back in to Syria.  They are a small group, but they exist, those few with connections to the balad a-sham who can't stand the iron curtain of secrecy that has been drawn around it as the situation continues to deteriorate.

In that vein, here are two blogs written by anonymous foreigners who initially left Syria but have since come back.  I don't secretly know who they are, but even if I did, I wouldn't tell you any more information than that.  It's obviously not safe for them to be blogging from Syria right now, so anonymity is key.  All I'll say is that from what I've read, they're both quite good, writing on a wide range of topics related to the situation in Syria in admirably concise posts.  I highly recommend checking them out for a more intimate picture of what life in Damascus is like right now.

A Cup of Cardamom (Cardamom is the spice that Arabs and Turks mix into so-called Turkish coffee found everywhere in the Middle East)

The Ajnabi ("Ajnabi" is the Arabic word for foreigner)

This kind of thing would really only happen in Damascus or Aleppo.

Fiwanees: Ramadan Lanterns

The year is 969 AD (358 AH). The ruler is an older man shuffling along with his cane clicking on the stones of his newly founded capital. His white robe rustles in the hot July breeze.

He walks the streets of his people without fear of attack or death. After all, his subjects revere him for his military might and tolerant rule. Perhaps he feels he is too old for that to matter anyway. He just wants—despite, maybe, the disapproval of his trusty advisors—to be out with the moon and the night in his city and to enjoy the solitude of being an old person surrounded by youths still indifferent to time’s passing. The children scramble about him, playing and singing like they wanted to in the first place,but they make sure to keep his path lit. Some, the older ones, know who he is, but some are just moved by that unknown generosity born of youth and innocence.

Maybe at first the parents were irked when the king insisted they let their children tramp about at night outside their supervision—and with the good festival lamps no less! They had been telling the children not to play outside at night all year, and then the new caliph had come in and told them he liked it when the children lit his way just because some irresponsible parents' child had done it for him once.

Then again, a king—and a divinely inspired one at that—is obviously not to be countermanded.

But nothing ever goes wrong with the children, and soon enough the parents find themselves smiling at the sight of the serene old monarch strolling about, looking up at the moon quietly, surrounded by these jubilant lights, bouncing, hopping, climbing, jumping and traipsing about him as he takes his walk. The city is young and still small, so the parents can follow the king’s path from the tops of their buildings, watching him and his youthful entourage like a cloud of fireflies making its way through the streets.

And without anyone knowing how or when, the lights the children carried became part of the holy month tradition in the City of the Caliph's Victory. Each year the parents start hanging their children’s lights on their doorways when the king starts making his pre-Ramadan nightly sojourns. They begin to associate the month with light and youthful expression, so that after the king dies, they keep up the habit.

Muslims traveling to the new capital city observe the festive lights of Ramadan in the City of the Caliph's Victory, and soon the tradition spreads. And though so much of it takes place in the dark, after the hot hours of fasting, Ramadan becomes a festival of lights. Long after the ruler's walks ended the lanterns of generous children come to light the way for all the faithful into the holy month.

*             *             *             *             *

A fanoos.

I recently had cause to buy a Ramadan lantern for a friend who is getting married.  Around the same time, I was offered a job writing articles related to Egyptian history and culture, and so with the lanterns on my mind, I chose to write about them for the project.  In my attempt to make a slightly more interesting article, I wrote a kind of historically plausible story which may or may not end up fitting into my work, but seeing as how it is the first day of Ramadan today, I thought I would post here what I wrote.

In the weeks before and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, travelers will see distinctive lanterns, called fiwanees, adorning the streets, stores and homes in most every city in the Muslim world.  Ramadan is a month for increased meditations on faith, family and charity, and because the people fast during the day and then sort of feast and party all night, lights are an important part of the tradition.  The traditional fanoos lanterns usually consist of a highly stylized bronze or tin metal cage with colored glass surrounding a light. As the symbol of Ramadan, these lanterns play a big part of in the imagery of one of the Muslim world's most important traditions, but their origin lies further back in older Egyptian customs.

Lighting in the Mohammad Ali Mosque. These are not
fiwanees, I just like this picture.

Historically, they say that fiwanees (the plural of fanoos) are the modern, more elaborate versions of the torches Egyptians lit during pharaonic times to celebrate the birthdays of their ancient gods, and of the Egyptian Coptic Christians community’s Christmas lanterns after that. How the lanterns then were passed on to become symbols of Ramadan is a classic tale in the Muslim world today.

The story holds that Muslims began adopting the lanterns when a 10th century Fatimid caliph (khalif), Al-Muizz Lideenillah, developed a habit of nightly walks through his newly-established capitol city, named in honor of his victory over Egypt, al-Qahira, or "The Victorious,"—or Cairo. His walks always happened in the nights leading up to Ramadan because the month begins with the sighting of the first crescent moon of the ninth lunar month. Every night the caliph would descend from his palace and walk the streets, looking for the crescent moon following the new moon. Because the streets of the city were mostly new and unlit, legend has it that the children would walk with him, carrying the same kinds of celebration lanterns used by their people for millennia before them to light the king’s way.  I thought of that story and the above is what came out.  The parts that seem like facts, the dates, some of the city details, etc. those are all verified, and then I just filled in the rest with a little bit of poetic license.

These days you see the lamps everywhere in the Middle East before and during Ramadan, but nowhere more so than in Cairo. Today they’re more often than not gaudy abominations of plastic gold and green made in China, but you can still find the real ones to buy in the sprawling outdoor market of Khan el-Khalili, and most families have at least one of the nicer metal ones. Every year droves of the lanterns start appearing in the weeks before Ramadan, and everyone who knows the origin story reflects on the tale of children with the fiwanees, lighting the way into the holy month.

Time for a Change

(Pictures below!)

I've had about four different posts stewing in my drafts box for the past two weeks, one about Israel, one about feminism in Egypt, one about Middle Eastern food, and one about the recent political changes in the region.  But for whatever reason I just haven't been able to finish any of them up. Frankly, I've been feeling disconnected from Egypt recently.  I went to Tahrir last week, where there was one of the biggest demonstrations since Mubarak fell, but I left feeling sort of nihilistic and nonplussed.  I've been a little more plugged in this past week as Tahrir continues its transformation into 24-hour street protest festival complete with music, snacks, and souvenirs. Regardless, it's been sort of a slow transition back into Egypt since returning from my trip, and I've concluded that my "job" is a big reason behind my ennui.

To summarize my recent existence, I've been pseudo-supporting myself these past weeks in Egypt by writing how-to articles for the internet (putting my college degree to good use!).  But being forced to spend my days at home in front of my computer for most of the day, reading and writing about things that have absolutely nothing to do with anything going on here, just consumes too much of whatever parts of my brain are normally so stimulated by the language and the life around me.  So instead of really savoring this great time in my life, I often am finding myself sort of restless and discontented.

I don't get to go out much, and when I do, it is usually with the small network of English-speaking friends with whom I like to maintain my friendships. That or I am hurrying to take care of some errands quickly, so I can get back home to work.  If it weren't for the shakshouka (if I get around to finishing my food post ever, you'll know more about that), that I regularly order from the sandwich stop near my house, my life would not really be all that different from how it might be in the States.

I could go to cafes and working from there, just for the sake of getting out, but the only ones that have internet tend to attract the crowd I normally am hanging out with anyway, while the more balady (not perfectly translatable, but it means something like "local" and "cheap") ones won't have internet.  Plus, I'm living off of some decidedly low funds, and I can't just go out and get coffee everyday from the nicer cafes with internet, so those Starbucks-like prices don't fit into the budget.  As a result, I stay home, insulated from the world around me.  And so while I can do this for a while, because I knew this is what I was getting myself into with the whole open-ended stay-in-Egypt plan, I know it is not sustainable forever.

What's more, because my day is already dominated by sitting in front of my computer writing, the motivation to sit in front of my computer and write for the blog takes a definite hit.  So, there's no doubt, I have to get myself a better job than this.  Sure, that ever-curious part of me does enjoy learning trivia all day about tonic water, vinyl record technologies, orange-stealing penalties in Florida, and the whole list of other totally unrelated topics that my job has made me learn all about, but I have to take advantage of my time here.  Not "I have to" like "I should."  "I have to" like if I don't, I will lose my shit.

Plus, it would be really be nice to not have to live on such a strict budget.

So basically, I need to get myself a job that connects me to Egypt more, and this is my anxious stand-in post to make up for recent blogging absence.  This past week has been better as I'm finding ways to speak a lot more Arabic during the days, and I'm reading a really neat book of short stories written in a mix of classical and Egyptian Arabic both.  I also played an awesome game called Rahala which was like Trivial Pursuit but exclusively for the Middle East, and I won, even beating a native Egyptian (I actually am putting my college degree to use, hooray!).  I finally have a nice little schedule where I get up, study vocab during breakfast, write an article, eat lunch while watching Arabic news, write some more, and then try and read some of my Arabic book.  It's not school or working with a tutor, but it's ok for now.  Life works its self out.  Now I just need to get out more with a real, substantive job.

To that end, I've got some plans and a few buns in the fire (I know I messed that phrase up, but I've decided to leave it for its comic value) that I don't want to jinx by saying them out loud here, but there are some possibilities that I'm letting myself feel a little excited about.  I'll keep you posted, loyal reader(s).

Aaaaaand here are some more pictures from my time with my parents in Egypt.

Souq on the walk to Khan el-Khalili

Shoppers in front of a tower seen on the same walk.

Graffiti painting being done in the back streets of the Khan.

View of Al-Azhar Mosque from half-way up its minaret...right before my camera died....

The Sounds of Egypt pt. 2: A Lebanese Sound in Egypt

And here's a snazzy video from a great group from Beirut that I saw play a show about a month ago here in Cairo.  Of all the music posted, this one is easily my favorite.  The name of the group, "Mashrou'a Leila" is a bit mysterious, because it has multiple meanings that the band has avoided explaining.  One meaning could be "Nighttime Construction," while another could be "Leila's Project."  I like that.

The Sounds of Egypt

Cairo is a loud city.  A cacophonous city.  Between the requisite perpetual use of car horns and Egyptians' tendency to speak with this kind of full-bellied, forceful volume, it is almost impossible to find quiet in the city. And suffusing it all are the sounds of a million shab's (young guys) phones playing there music out loud.  So here's some music from Egypt to give you a little feeling of the sound of life in Egyptian.  This post was inspired by being reminded of this first video, but then it turned into (as my posts so often do) something much more.

To start with, here's an awesome parody of Kanye West's future classic, "Flashing Lights" (in English).  The lyrics are ridiculously apt for my and many people I know's experience of Cairo.  I find the whole thing pretty hilarious, but it's a lot of inside jokes for Cairenes.  Nonetheless, if you can't find it funny, at least watch for some really great shots of many different parts of Cairo.

Next is a rather beautiful and thoughtful music video that touches on a lot of the nuances of modern marriage dynamics from the wildly popular Lebanese singer, Nancy Ajram.  I include her because she sings in the Egyptian dialect (which reflects how many Arabs--and, more importantly, Arab consumers--speak Egyptian [it helps that Egypt is by far the most populous Arab country]).  

Then we have Amr Diab, the most popular male Arab singer of all time.  You can see his coastal upbringing evident in this music video for my favorite song by him.  His style is shamelessly poppy (like much modern Arab pop music), but it's notable for being among the first (and certainly the most important) of its kind in the Middle East.  Some people call his style "Meditteranean," but this song's backtrack is basically something you could hear anywhere in the world without knowing where it was from until the words came in.  

Now it's not all kitschy crap that the kids are listening to, of course.  There is a thriving alternative/underground music scene here in Cairo, and the undisputed kings of this scene are the men of "Wust El-Balad" which means literally "middle of the country," but in Egyptian dialect is used to mean "downtown."  This band is so popular now, travelling and releasing albums around the region, it's probably not fair to call them underground anymore, but they are a prominent Egyptian band nonetheless.  I really don't care for their music at all, but I had to include them in a list of Egyptian music.

And finally, I can't respectably post about Egyptian music and not mention the all-time most renowned Egyptian singer of all time, Umm Kalthum.  It's practically impossible to overstate her popularity in the Arab world.  When she died, the numbers of people and the immensity of their despair rivaled that of Gamal Abd el-Nasser.  She even influenced some of the West's most iconic musicians.  Bob Dylan claimed in a Playboy interview that "She is great. She really is.  Really great."  She could supposedly sing in 7 different octaves at her peak.  Standing in front of a live a orchestra, she would still hold her mic a foot away from her face.  She still sells about a million albums a year, 36 years after her death.  She is a big deal.

By the way, to say "music" in Arabic, just say "moo-see-qa."  There, see?  You practically already know the whole language.

On the Edge: Some Thoughts from the Israeli Border Crossings

The parents at Giza

First things first: a little catch-up on where I've been for the past three weeks.

After a week and a half of leading the parents around Egypt, our explorations had taken us to all my favorite parts of Cairo, to a backstreet fish restaurant in Alexandria, down the Nile to see all the sights of Luxor and Aswan, and finally up the coast of the Sinai Peninsula through glittering dance beat bumping beaches of Sharm to the quiet shores of Dahab.  In some ways it was kind of a microcosm of my time in Egypt so far--with the crucial exclusion of one of my favorite places in Egypt, Siwa--and it felt good to be showing them all the dusty wonder of this country I've come to call my new home.  I think they had seen much of the best and the worst of this comparatively chaotic country and left it understanding why I had wanted to stay there.  I may have even planted the seed of a second trip in their minds if I stay long enough.

Furthermore, thanks to their complete lack of knowledge of Arabic, I was afforded an exhausting number of chances to speak lots and lots of Arabic.  Bartering for this and that knick-knack (and what would have been an extremely overpriced camel ride at the Giza pyramids that was made worth it for seeing camel drivers actually physically pick up my dad and deposit him on top of a camel) is actually something I quite enjoy, though sometimes Mom or Dad would wander off in the middle of the bartering session leaving me there to only shrug apologetically at the shopkeep.  I should have explained that the friendly chatting that often interrupts the price settling sessions is an important--if inefficient--part of the process to get the lower price.  Either way, I'm getting kind of fluid in a lot of my less complicated conversational Arabic, and suddenly I'm understanding much more of what people say to me, all of which I am unspeakably happy about

Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem

Anyway, in the end I think they were leaving Egypt with a good taste in their mouths, and as we drove up the eastern coast of Sinai staring at the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aqaba I almost forgot to worry about Israeli border security not letting me through because of the Syrian stamp in my passport.  Nonetheless, after going through Egypt's Taba side of the border, the process of getting into Israel was slowed up from the very beginning when my bag check revealed a collection of short stories by a Syrian author.  After the frowning bag check girl suspiciously put my books back in my bag the questioning began shortly after they saw the Syrian stamps in my passport.

The Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem

I'll do away with any dramatic tension right away and admit that nothing too exciting happened with the questioning.  I was asked about my studies and my "job" and my reasons for being in Egypt as expected.  Things got a little awkward when she asked me about whether I had learned about the Israeli/Palestine conflict in school, and then what I thought needed to happen to resolve the conflict.  It made me laugh to be asked such a complicated question (something like "Quick! How do you solve one of the world's longest running, pervasive conflicts?"), and I gave a satisfactorily vague answer about how both sides were not blameless.  The border guard also asked me a lot of biographical information, and all about my time in Syria, and forty-five minutes of such wandering questioning later, I was out again.  Two and half hours later, presumably after they had looked into and checked out the information I gave them, they sent us on our way.

Petra in the morning light on my birthday!

Fast-forward through a mostly unimpressive four days in Jordan (during which I decided that all the hype about Egyptians' exploitative reputation pales in comparison to the downright deceitful and purposefully rude Jordanians), and I was back at the Jordan-Israel border, this time at the King Hussein Bridge/Allenby border crossing connecting Amman to Jerusalem.  And of course, I was waiting all over again.


And this second time around, as I was sitting in the waiting area I began to think about the dehumanizing feeling of the whole border-crossing process.  It feels like you're cattle being herded through the various security checkpoints, and then you wait.  You wait if you are Arab.  You wait if you have spent time in Arab countries other than Jordan or Egypt.  You wait if you mention having Arab friends.  You wait if you are Muslim.  You wait if you are learning Arabic.  They don't tell you how long you'll wait.  They don't tell you what they are doing with the information they've taken about you.  In their demeanor, you are not innocent until proven guilty, you are guilty until proven innocent.  And so these thoughts stomped grumpily on through my head as I waited for them to call my name, as a Jordanian-American woman wearing a hijab next to me talked a bit incessantly about how she had to do this every year, and every year they kept her for over 7 hours.  She was handling it considerably better than crabby me, and in retrospect I wish I had talked to her more instead of participating in the conversation as minimally as I could politely manage.

Old-school checkpoint of sorts.  This also happens to be where
the minibus dropped us off in Jerusalem, "Damascus Gate."

Once through, we got in the shared taxi (which was really just a fancy minibus) to Jerusalem, and I eavesdropped on the passengers' conversations--all of which were in an Arabic very similar to the kind spoken in Syria.  It was interesting to me that none of them were Jewish Israelis.  I guess they take the more expensive taxis?  Or it was just a coincidence that there were none in our vehicle.  Still irked by my experience at the border, I was inclined to attribute it (probably unfairly) to some sinister Israeli plot to confine Arabs in some way, but my ire evaporated within a few minutes of stepping out into the exciting, lively, welcoming city.  And so began what has been nothing but a fantastic stay here in Israel, that has left me with quite a lot of affection for this country that stand in stark contrast to my political opinions.  It is in this contradiction, I'm realizing, that this issue so often founders, and I'll write more about it in my next post (I think) as I put my thoughts into words.

Jerusalem graffiti...seemed pertinent

For much of this trip, I've felt like my brain was teetering on the edge of something I've been meaning to figure out for quite some time.  No doubt I'll have more time to work through my thoughts as I sit at the checkpoints over the next few days.

Seen at the "Garden Tomb" where Jesus may have
been buried...also seemed pertinent...

On Cairo Traffic

Cairo traffic is at times one of the most maddening aspects of this city, but to me it is also one of the most endearing.  It is crazy and disorganized, but it flows, and when you look close enough, you pick up the rhythm.  It's there in the foot traffic as well as the car traffic and where the two overlap and blend into each other seamlessly without either slowing down.

Despite a dearth of traffic lights, signs, markings, most of Cairo's traffic functions smoothly thanks mostly to the shared understanding of how things work.  It's like a free market of transportation, the anarcho-capitalist approach to intra-urban movement.  Let people regulate themselves and figure out what works best, and they do an ok job.  Perhaps that explains why most major intersections will often have regularly dressed men and boys directing traffic during high-volume times of day. (Unless maybe they're being paid for it as a job and just don't have a dress-code?)  Learning to walk here, like in any city, is a new experience for those who have never been to Cairo, but once you get it, you not only can navigate bustling and shifting crowds, but you feel more at ease in the city.

The fundamental rule is, as best I can understand it, just go.  Go where you are going and do not stop.  Go where you are going and get there by the most direct you can think of.  Just go.

Correlated to that one rule in one way or another, there are plenty of things to understand when traversing the city.  For cars not restricted to staying consistently in any one lane or under any apparent speed limit, communication is key.  A larger set of driving communication tool is required.  Egyptian drivers use hazard lights liberally as signs of slowing down abruptly (for speed bumps, chasm-like potholes, stopping and asking for directions etc.), and blinkers are used to signal big upcoming turns to cars behind (as it should be in the States).  At night, there is a whole morse-code-like system to using your headlights to signal a range of emotions or intentions to other drivers.  One or two flashes are a warning of an upcoming change or an announcement of your presence.  Three or four flashes is often a sign of displeasure.  The disconcerting down side of this one is that at night sometimes cabs will drive with there headlights turned off, only using the lights for communication purposes.

And then there is the horn.  The horn is possibly the most important means of communication in a driver's arsenal.  It is to be used at any and all hours of the day.  It is that important.  After all, when the rule of driving is to just go, the style of driving is decidedly more forward-looking.  Drivers are focusing more on getting there from here.  They can't be bothered with looking around all the time.  So how are they made aware of another car coming alongside?  The other car has already given them a short little honk to alert them of their presence, just as they are doing the same to the drivers around them.  Because really, why limit our sensory input to the visual when driving?  At the un-traffic lighted, blind cross-sections in the night time, this is also how cars alert any cars on the cross streets that they are coming.

Now, you may somehow know about young Egyptians' penchant for listening to their music really loudly (ok, well now you know), so how do they hear the horns all the time, you ask?  Well many Egyptians adapt by getting newer, louder, more obnoxious horns.  There is actually a street of Cairo where they only sell custom annoying-ass car horns.  All manner of noises can be heard, but a particularly popular one is the one that sounds like an ambulance siren...

And to many of the driving habits of Cairenes, there is an analogue for foot traffic.  For example, to the car's honk, there is the pedestrian's hiss.  Like the honk, the hiss is just a means of getting attention.  Sometimes they can mean "I'm coming up behind you with something heavy and need you to get out of the way," sometimes they can mean "hey cab driver, pull over, we'd like a ride," or sometimes just "hey foreigner, come talk to me and entertain me and let me practice my English."  Though none are inherently meant to be impolite or insulting, as hissing is considered in America, the latter certainly toes the line, and because the various hisses mostly sound the same at first, it carries with it a hint of mockery that most foreigners find quite annoying.

What's more, pedestrians move in thye same way the drive: direct and unheeding of obstacles, be they moving or stationary.  When crossing the street into the endless, oncoming traffic (you sure don't wait for a break) it is smooth and predictable as you and the cars simply judge each other's speed, adjusting so that both of you can avoid stopping at all costs.  When walking on the sidewalks, people freely step on and off into the road to keep walking at their desired pace.  In fact, since the sidewalks are often similar to lunar landscapes people opt to walk more in the streets than on the sidewalks.

In driving and walking both, the dodging and weaving through your fellow travelers often results in a number of daily bumps, jostles, scrapes, minor collisions, crashes, etc. but as the basic rule holds, more often than not the concerned parties are off and going again as soon as they can.  They forget about the contusions and keep on going.  The ust keep going.

And for the most part, it works.  It is a system built on centuries of people piling up in this city and figuring out how to get around fastest for themselves, because they had no one to tell them.  The comparative lawlessness of the traffic requires everyone to be paying attention.  Sure, sometimes terrifyingly, I see Egyptian drivers texting as they barrel down poorly-lit, busy streets across cross-sections, but mostly I think Egyptians are actually better drivers than the majority of Americans.

Unfortunately, Cairo is a city choking on its population (see the link on the right entitled "Urban Harmony" for a really interesting take by an Egyptian student from Princeton University on Cairo's urban planning in light of a rather superficial government-sponsored urban planning competition).  With nearly 20 million people, there are just too many people, and so accidents are inevitable.  Even with the rather respectable metro system (although it is starting to smell pretty atrocious in this heat) that huge numbers of Cairenes use every day, the streets are just a mess.  The government is trying to decentralize the city by building up the suburbs of "New Cairo" (where AUC's new campus was), but it's not nearly enough yet.

And so perhaps it is because of this obstacle that I am so enamored with Cairo's traffic situation.  Because it works so much of the time.  Sure there are endemic traffic jams, and certainly car accidents and deaths on a regular basis, but nowhere near what the average American would think upon first being plopped down here.  To navigate the streets of Cairo safely, you only have to remember the basic rules.  Don't let bumps bother you.  Pay attention to all your senses when making your journeys.  And most of all, just keep going.

Because, as I learned yet again staying out past the weakly enforced curfew the last few nights, Cairo never stops going.

.......

Speaking of Egyptians getting up and going, here are my best pictures from Friday's protest.  A new Egyptian friend of mine that I was with in the morning knew of a ninth floor apartment on the square that  pretty much let anyone come in and look out from the balcony.  Besides the weirdness of just walking into this stranger's apartment already peopled with a few dozen or so people who clearly didn't know each other, and of the half-naked (maybe fully?), obese Egyptian owner sitting behind a desk as people tramped in and out, it was great to see the demonstrations from above.

The organizers had called for another million-man march, and while there were certainly tens of thousands, I got the feeling that many of the people there were just there to witness the event more than to convey a political message.  There were typed up demands being handed out, but I don't think they're universally accepted ones.  The movements here need more direction I feel.  The night before they were fighting over whether to chant "down with the defense minister," or "down with the regime."  But at the least, the movement is still mobilizing and will not tolerate being trampled on by the military government, and they are maintaining their peaceful methods, retaining what I believe is their best source of moral legitimacy in the process.