Cairo @ MindSay

Last night I started the first volume of the Cairo Trilogy by Mahfouz… Palace Walk.

 

It is an exquisitely painted picture of family life in Cairo before the British left. The wife and her six children and the fearsomely somber Husband/Master/Patriarch are compelling and exotic and all too familiar  all at the same time. And since there are three of them I should have a good time with them for quite a while.

 

By then my Robert Graves books on Rome should have arrived and I can leave the sordid world of HBO’s sex ridden/ sadomasochistic fantasy rendition of Octavian’s life and jump into the poetic beauty of Graves’ writing.  It’s a good day to think about books as the temperature has dropped and rain  is forecast for all day so I can leave behind my garden obsession and instead  I can build a fire, curl up on the sofa with a thick blanket and a cup of jasmine pearl tea and lounge my day away.

 

Well that’s after I finish two duvet covers for half comforters so Jim can have one weight duvet and I another. And maybe make another kitty bad out of fleece for the Princess Abigail. Here is yesterday’s addition… which she took to instantly.

 

 

 Or  maybe I will simply procrastinate and stare out the windows at the rain.

Just like yesterday, much of today was spent in activities that connected to Egypt’s past as my group and I toured mosques and then rode a boat along the Nile at night.

Being inside the mosques that we toured was quite a surreal experience.  The two mosques we toured were the Amr Ibn al-Ass Mosque and the Sultan Hassan Mosque.  Both mosques were amazing in both their size and the detailed artistry that covered both the exterior and interior of the buildings.

Overall, mosques have a pretty basic structure: there is an outdoor courtyard with a fountain in the interior for Muslims to cleanse themselves before prayer, and then there is an interior for prayer that includes a pulpit on which the imam orates.  Because there are no pews like in a church, the interior of a mosque seems much more massive because of all the open space.  I do not know why, but compared to any other things that I have done since being in the Middle East, standing inside a mosque makes me feel like I am in a foreign land and culture the most.  I think the main reason for this fact is because when inside a mosque, I am inside a building whose design and reason for standing is completely devoid of any Western influence.  The architecture is not Western.  The interior design is not Western.  The values and ideas preached inside the mosque are not Western. Foreignness is the pervasive feeling of the environment when I am inside a mosque, and I love it as this is the feeling you should have when going abroad.

Later that day I was able to interact with the source of the civilization that these mosques came from. Riding along the Nile was an experience I will never forget.  I mean this was the same body of water on which the great civilization of Ancient Egypt depended on.  This was the same body of water on which the baby Moses is said to have ridden along inside a wicker basket.  In addition to the realization that I was riding along Egypt’s lifeline, I also marveled in the way modern Egypt has made the riverside quite beautiful.  Cafes and docks line the sides as the lights of Cairo’s hotels and skyscrapers color the night sky.

All in all, this was not a bad day.  

When I arrived in Amman this past August, my first visual impressions of the airport let me know that I was in a place quite different from the United States.  Similarly, my first impressions of Cairo International Airport let me know that I was in a very different place; however, this setting was different not only from the U.S., but also very much so from Jordan.

 

Compared to Cairo International Airport, Queen Alia International Airport looks like an old warehouse sitting in the middle of a barren desert.  The interior follows this path as it is dark rather than bright.  Unlike its counterpart in Amman, Cairo International Airport looks as modern as any airport in the United States.  The only real difference between Cairo’s airport and an American airport is that most of the people are Egyptians rather than Americans.  In addition to the visual differences between Amman and Cairo’s two main airports, there is simply a much greater amount of activity and energy in Cairo International Airport.

The differences noticed in the airport certainly continued as my group and I were driven to our hotel inside our tour bus.  For starters, there were simply many more cars on the road.  Knowing that Cairo had [several times] the amount of people than the country of Jordan, I was not really surprised by the fact that the streets were much fuller.  The roads themselves were also much different than those in Amman as they resembled the large boulevards of California that have the massive medians full of palm trees and other vegetation.  As I rode along and gazed along the sides of the roads, I noticed too that there were many skyscrapers, a sight that not normally seen in Amman.  In addition, seeing murals of Hosni Mubarak rather than those of either King Abdullah or late King Hussein was quite strange.

 

Surprisingly, it was not only the face of Mubarak on the murals that let me know I was in a different place, but also it was his dress that let me know I was in a much different setting and state.  Unlike the traditional Bedouin tribal garb that King Abdullah and his late father are usually pictured in, the dapper Western suits of Mubarak’s murals reminded that I was in the birthplace of Nasser’s Pan-Arab movement rather than the desert kingdom of the Hashemites; however, with nightfall covering much of Cairo and Egypt’s natural beauty, I was not able to see one of the greatest differences between Amman and Cairo until the next morning.

 

Called “the gift of the Nile” by Herodotus, Cairo, unlike Amman, has the benefit of sitting at the starting point of one of the world’s greatest river deltas.  Consequently, as I went outside on my first morning in Cairo, I saw a lot of green, a color that I had not been that familiar with since coming to the Middle East.  Even though Cairo is a megalopolis, there are still many agricultural fields located in many parts of the city.  Having been staying in a country whose culture, history, and politics have been largely influence by its massive lack of natural resources, I had to grow used to seeing a non-arid landscape once again.

While Amman may be less lively, populated, and green, it is still much wealthier than Cairo.  For instance, during my first day and night, I quickly noticed that the cars in Cairo were definitely not as nice as those in Amman where Range Rovers and Mercedes appear much more frequently.

 

Overall, I am quite excited at the opportunity to contrast Amman with an Arab city that is quite different from it. 

Hey there campers--I'm writing from an internet cafe in Luxor, which is cheap and close to the hotel, so hopefully I will be able to come back before we leave and finish up. The group is taking a chill right now after some hot and sweaty temple visits this morning, so I'm taking advantage of the lull to bring you up to speed on my Egyptian travels.

The remainder of Cairo was a lot of fun. We visited the Cairo Antiquities Museum, which is a must see. The museum feels like it's frozen in time, but not the time of the Pharoh's. Instead, it's like stepping into the eighteen hundreds. The museum has a very Victorian feel to it--it's stuffed wall to ceiling with antiquities with very little organization. There are wooden and glass cases filled with coins and jewlery and the aisles of the museum are crammed with stray sarcophagi and statues, and you can't help but stub your toe on pieces from thousands of years ago. There was a special room just for mummies. Not mummies in sarcophagi, but mummies that had been removed from their cases, and in some case their wrappings. There were several Pharohs including Ramses, who still had some hair. I have to say, I found the whole thing incredibly creepy. The museum also houses Tutamkamens treasure, which I'd grown up seeing pictures of. I kind of felt about seeing it the same way I felt when I saw the Mona Lisa--you're so familiar with it that you don't get anything from actually looking at it in the flesh, but you're filled with this amazing reverence none the less. The only difference was that when I saw the Mona Lisa I didn't have Steve Martin's rendition of "King Tut" in my head. The treasure itself is really amazing, though it kind of sickens me to think of all that wealth for one person, and one dead person at that. I was a bit suprised that so many things were made out of wood, including two or three of his outer sarcophagi (he had a bunch and they fit into each other like Russian dolls) but my friendm, who came equipped with a guide book, told me that trees were so scarce in Ancient Egypt that wood was more valuable than gold. My favorite part of the museum, though, was a display case that housed ancient Egyptian wigs. They were huge and very wooly, they reminded me a little bit of over sized afros with braids attached to the back, sort of a cross betweeen and Afro and a mullet, I couldn't imagine wearing one, let alone keeping a straight face while others wore them!

The other highlight of Cairo was the time we spent in Islamic Cairo. Islamic Cairo is a portion of the city that houses the majority of Cairo's mosques (the actual number is quite impressive, but I don't know it off of the top of my head, try Wikipedia). In order to be respectful the girls tried to dress conservatively for our time there. That meant long pants, long sleeves, closed toed shoes and I carried a head scarf with me for when we actually entered the mosque. It turns out that most people didn't really care, as long as you wore long pants and had your shoulders covered. That was good because it meant I could take off my long sleeve shirt, which was not conducive to the Cairo heat.

The inside of the mosques reminded me a lot of Cathdrals I've been in. They have the same degree of ornateness--stained glass windows, tiled walls and ceilings and those high domed ceilings that make you feel really tiny and insignificant. You have to take off your shoes to go inside, and in some places you carry your shoes with you. It's disrespectful to let the soles of your shoes point at anybody, or to have them point up, so it's safer to carry them with their soles together.

My favorite part of the mosques were the minorets, which you could climb up from the roof. The roofs themselves offered great views of Cairo and Cairo's roof tops, but the minorets made you feel like you could see forever. Climbing up the minorets was frightening because they are all very narrow, and steep and have spiral staircases. At some point in all the minorets we went up there were portions of the staircase which were so dark I could not see in front of me. This is frightening on the way up, but paralyzing on the way down. The stairs are different heights, so you step off one and never know if you will reach another one or not. At one point my friend Caroline was ahead of me, and I called out to her to see if she had reached the light yet. She said no, and I put out my hand in front of me and touched her back. She was on the step right in front of me and I couldn't see her. Once when we were at the top of a minoret, it was time for the call to afternoon prayers. The mosque started its recorded chant that calls Muslims to prayer, but we were in the middle of Islamic Cairo, so all the mosques started their chants at the same time. The noise combined with the street sounds of Cairo and was magnificent, echoing everywhere.

I have to go because my time at the internet cafe is almost out, but I'll try to make it back later tonight to write up Aswan and Luxor. Keep tuned!

Later this week I will visit my seventeenth country. I now have toured Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, North America, and later this month, I will start the big tour of Europe.

I have interviewed a prostitute in Vietnam, off the coast of South Africa I interviewed a woman who has sailed around the world nineteen times, I interviewed a Masai Warrior while on safari in Kenya, I reported from a castle in North Cyprus, and the list goes on, and will continue throughout Europe.

When someone says “Salvador, Brazil” my mind swirls with the feeling, smells, and memories. Cape Town, Sydney, it all comes back to me. I try to talk about my experiences with my friends, but they roll their eyes. “Yeah well it must be nice,” “Yeah you sure do get around,” “Man you are so lucky.”

I have not been on a pleasure cruise, even though it has sure been phenomenal. I have set out to travel to learn things and to give back to the world. Sure, you can learn about orexias in a lecture hall in the United States, but why not actually visit South America and see women wearing the color necklaces of their orexia. I heard of apartheid while studying in the United States, but actually being in South Africa and seeing the success since the abolishment of the system was amazing.

When I flew from Sydney to the Gold Coast, I had a taxi driver who wanted to talk a lot. He started asking me questions, and said, “Man, you have been around.” I knew where this was going, or so I thought. “So buddy, you probably know like I do that the world is [messed] up, right?”

The world is a bit “messed” up. I never knew the injustices of politics or how other people live. I want to tell the stories of people in the world, to help others realize what the great world has to offer.

When I get back to the United States in May, I will have visited at least 28 countries. There are so many memories, so many things I have learned that I could not have learned in the United States, so many experiences. Now, what the heck do I do with them all? That is the major question lately. I cannot just sit and stand idle now; all of this travel would be a failure if I did not do something with it.

I have been reporting about the situation in each country. Sometimes my stories are used, sometimes not. I am told that I should go work for a non-profit organization, where I would basically sit around with colleagues and complain about the world’s onslaught of problems and ask for money from foundations to try to fix it, really knowing that our efforts, even if well intentioned, are not going to make a dent in the problems the world faces. People who are important believe that my travels have put me into a class of a liberal worldly academic who is perceived as a stick in the mud because of his experiences. Maybe it is my crazy youth, but the more I travel, the more energized I get, and sitting and complaining about the world’s problems just won’t do for me.

I am because you are. We are all interrelated. This world is a small place, and no matter if you are in Caldwell, Idaho, or Paris, France, there are amazing people, and astonishing stories. How will this help with the world’s problems?

When people learn about one another, they realize that they are not so much different. Their stereotypes diminish. Education is the key. Learning about one another and knowing what we have in common is the start to helping ease problems in my opinion.

In May I will be in New York again. I hope my plans work out so that I can begin giving back.

Until then, I continue to travel and learn more.