These Streets of Cairo

2004-06-06T20:58:00.000+03:00

Hello all. Just an account of recent doings:

Yesterday I had a fantastic day. In the evening Raghu and I
ordered a seafood pizza and watched at movie called "The River Wild" with
Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon. Kind of a corny suspense movie, but sincere
and with good casting. No pretensions. The real kick, though, was seeing the
midnight showing of "The Day After Tomorrow."

This is a fabulous movie. Go see it. It's not the greatest movie per se, but
it is a movie that has a MESSAGE and actually devotes time to bringing it
home. As Raghu said afterwards, "The silly action and romance was just an
afterthought; the science and the politics came first." Acting is good, the
effects are amazing. Look for DEAD-ON parodies of the biggies in the Bush
administration.

Raghu and I were both crying by the end and spent about two hours after the
movie talking about it, and the things it suggested to us. I have a lot of
respect for Roland Emmerich, the director. There are some especially nice
bits in the script, though I won't give the movie away by talking about them.

All this is to say that, though this is a Hollywood disaster movie, there's
a lot more there and it's nice to see that films like it are still being
made.

This morning, I had a nice talk with Haitham, the morning trainer in the gym.
He and I have gotten pretty close over the semester, since I (and a guy named Frank)
are often the first two people into the gym. I spent about 45 minutes
talking with him, and one of the Egyptian men who comes to BS with him,
about politics. Like most Arabs, they see Kerry as being a carbon copy of
Bush and have quite a bit of anxiety about the coming years. They said, and
I agreed wholeheartedly with them, that there will be no peace or stability
in the ME until there is peace in Palestine. And of course, they supported
democracy in Iraq, but not on the end of a sword and not given like a
Christmas present. (N.B. Egyptians celebrate Christmas, and do exchange
gifts) Interestingly, Haitham said he saw more logic in the Israeli
occupation than in the Iraq war, since Israel at least has a legitimate
threat to its security. Pretty damning criticism of the US. Pretty sad. A
last, interesting note: he said that one of the problems with politicians
today is that none of them have a "vision." Who did he name as the last
American president with a vision? Ronald Reagan.

What heartened them most was my assurance that, upon my return to the
States, I would be one of the voices acting to dispel stereotypes about this
region and its people. These are a people who feel that they have been
maligned for the actions of a few and have not (and may never) been given
the chance to explain themselves.

2004-06-04T15:25:00.000+03:00

Last night was my last in the AUC dorms. I had planned to go straight to Endessuq, my roommate's small hometown outside Alex. Unfortunately, his little brother has tests right now and Ossama's home is what Egyptians call an "electric house" because of the tension. At any rate, Ossama is going to give his brother English lessons. Meanwhile, I'm here, hanging out in Will and Emily's apartment for a few days. They're in Greece and Raghu and I are house-sitting.

So back to last night...I was caught up in a group of friends going to a place called Ritmo's, the club attached to the Semiramis Hotel. All of the big international 5-stars have clubs attached to them, each trying to define a slightly different character for itself. I wasn't much in the mood for dancing, so I focused mostly on the atmosphere. (Though I did dance, partially to shield the girls from the stares of this fat slobby Egyptian dude who was gaping at them.)

Ritmo's is a combination bar/cocktail lounge, but with a DJ and dance music. Usually there are groups dancing, though there isn't an actual dance floor. It's a nice place. The mixed drinks are expensive, but they're big and mostly good. The decor is the interesting part, though: lots of lamps with tasteful lampshades, pastels on the walls, nice bar food (little pastries and apple slices). A conterted attempt to be casual.

The totality of the atmosphere is about as far from reality as it could be. Ritmo's, as a bar in a Cairo 5-star, one of the places where the movers and shakers of Egypt go to chill out. (Last time I was here my friends Kristen and Nancy danced with a pop star named Hakeem.) Presentation here is everything. The Egyptian girls in the party had told the American girls that they'd be ready at 10:30 or 11:00. They didn't come out until 12:30. They spent over 2 hours trying out different outfits, accessories, makeup, hair arrangements. (BTW, some AUC girls spend 3 hours every day getting ready for school, according to an article in the school paper.)

Like many other things in Egypt, reality and appearance diverge sharply at Ritmo's. There is nothing casual about Ritmo's, as the comfy leather booths would suggest. Lots of entrances are being made, lots of people are being seen, and lots of money is changing hands (Raghu and I spotted a couple of "female escorts" with their 50 and 60 year-old employers). Watching the eyes of other people in the place, you notice that many people are constantly looking around, watching those around them. Going out is quite an involved thing in Egypt, and a place like Ritmo's is not a cozy place to go hang out with friends, though that doesn't preclude it from being fun. While some things might truly be casual, some things are as managed as the goings-on at one of those parties you hear about on "Entertainment Tonight".

Of course, all of this is my perception of the situation as an utter outsider, like an anthropolgist trying to unravel the ritual meaning of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This ties in to a theme that has been with me since I've been in Egypt: the fact that I (and my friends) have had a great time second-guessing this country, though we realize that we might be totally misconstruing what we see. That doesn't mean it's not fun, or that there isn't a grain of truth.

Personally, I enjoy Ritmo's, though it's kind of out of my price range. The very ability for me to go there is one of the most fun things about it. In America I would never be able to go anywhere where one can really see the rich and famous. Yet here I can. It's fascinating. Just another of the opportunities I've had in coming to Egypt. Waiting for girls to "accessorize" is a drag, but if you ever go to Ritmo's, do try the "South American Sunrise." It's quite good.

2004-05-27T22:54:00.000+03:00

Hi all. I'm actually in that finals haze into which I usually get once or twice a semester at Swarthmore. I've actually been operating at Swat-level effectiveness and business for the last 24 hours (and have about 12 hours to go). I turned in a 20 page paper and had my first final today, both of which went alright. I've got three more finals to go, but life goes on.

In my wanderings of the internet today, I ran across this site called adequacy.org. Seemingly some site for the heavy-duty "family values" crowd. Very interesting. If you want to find out how daycare teaches communism by distributing building blocks equally, this is the place to go. :) Also: how Thomas Kincade is a savior by only paining "impractical," utopian visions.

On the darker side of things, this is the site for something called "Chick tracts." These are booklets for use in witnessing for way-out evangelicals. The site is here. To see how far out their stance on social issues is, check out their tract on gays. (Warning: it's pretty upsetting, though they wouldn't think so.) American Christianity today is as polarized as the American polity as a whole, which is something that's easy to forget being away from it all.

I'm going to a party for a bit, then back to study a bit before bed. At least I have some good peaches that I got on the street today to comfort me.

2004-05-22T13:10:00.000+03:00

SPRING BREAK PART FIVE: STATIONS OF THE CROSS
I am doing a little studying for the upcoming final in my Muslim Political Thought class by straightening out the different branches of Shi'ism in my head (12ers, 7ers, and Zaydis). This has me thinking about the funny doctrinal quirks that religions seem accrue; and people follow them nonetheless. Says something about how much people need faith.

I was in the midst of some of the quirks of my religion during my time in Jerusalem over spring break. We arrived on Maundy Thursday, and had a delightful evening (including matza burgers for Passover) with Will's friend Ari, who's studying abroad at Hebrew University. The next day we made a brief visit to the Western Wall in the morning, plus a trip to the Holocaust Museum (very ideological, though still in a very peaceful and meditative setting), then headed to the Old City.

We arrived right at 3:00, just in time to join the other pilgrims. For those who don't know, Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) is the day of Jesus' crucifixion by the Romans. The Stations of the Cross is a 12-point path through what is now the bustling Old City of Jerusalem commemorating various legendary events along Jesus' path as he carried his cross to the Place of Skulls, site of his execution. Three o'clock was the time of Jesus' execution (I believe that Roman executions really did take place at 3:00 during the time period).

I played tour guide for Lisa, Will, Emily, and Raghu, which mostly consisted of me throwing in non sequitors about the probable life of the historical Jesus. Personally, I was struck, firstly, by how little I really did know of this ritual. Protestants aren't real big into the Stations, and I'm not real big into doctrinal niceties, so I was pretty lost. We ended up asking where the first station was.

What is amazing about this is the contrast. The stations really do wind through the heart of the Old City, the falafel stands and jewelry shops, the trinket stores and pastisseries. There is so much life there, so many kinds of people. But inside the little chapels and shrines at each station it is so silent and intimate. Some only have room for five or six people. In each, there were one or two people crouched in prayer before candles or crucifixes. These were some of the holiest places I have ever entered. I said prayers in a few of them and it was more than the personal meditation that prayer usually is for me: I could feel the words flying out of my mouth, it was as though the very air was listening. And then it was back into the joyous mayhem of Jerusalem.

So we saw the places where Jesus was tried and sentenced, fell (all three of them), and where he saw his mother. I was struck by how easily it is for me to be proufoundly moved by sacred spaces like the chapels along the route of the stations, but not taken by the stations themselves. At the risk of seeming blasphemous, they seem like liturgical trivia. Yet they still have some hold on me, or at least on my emotions. It helps me understand how people can reconcile their belief in the Occultation and the Hidden Imam, or in the Aga Khan, with their workaday lives. It is the wonder of faith that it can bridge the gulf between the sacred and the profane (i.e. non-sacred). On a little more profane note, there were several parties following men bearing crosses of various descriptions, all with different manners about them, which was really cool. For a description of the most profane of these, check out the April 10th entry on Raghu's blog.

We ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, home of the last few Stations. This was the most amazing religious space I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. There were people worshipping in every conceivable way. Kneeling, praying, prostrating, kissing, singing, chanting, swaying, reciting. It was all there. Just one big glorious conflagration of religiosity. Something about it made me very glad to be a believer. Not just in Christianity, but in any religion. There was something very sincere there. The church itself is enormous, sort of like a storehouse of religious artifacts. I saw the spot where Jesus was crucified, adorned by a rather gaudy multi-colored crucifix and all the other points of interest in the building. An orthodox service was going on at the time. It looked like some Catholics might have been getting ready to go after that.

The Church didn't fit my spiritual sensibilities so well as the Stations, but it was an amazing edifice. All in all, I was pretty bowled over just to be there, in the Old City, on Good Friday. That this small bit of land, and this particular path, is the focal point for 1.5 billion believers is astounding to me. I still can't quite believe that I was there. It's just as well that my camera wasn't working: I don't think I'd want to demean the timelessness of that place with something so quotidian as a photograph.

2004-05-20T16:29:00.000+03:00

Hi all. Today has been a strange day emotionally. First off, it was the day I was planning to confront my econ prof, after she gave an anti-semitic lecture. I won't go into the hairy details, but basically she deviated from the textbook for the only time this semester to give a "political history of Palestine," which turned out to be a very selective history, plus some egregious exaggerations, plus some white lies.

At any rate, today was more of the same. Jews "stole" Palestine from the Arabs, who always get in trouble because they are a "believing" people and trust Westerners, who have mercilessly persecuted them. The Holocaust was glossed over as "persecution by the Germans." Only America "saved" the "weak" Israelis in '67. And anyway, the root of the problem is that "everywhere the Jews go they think it's holy." There's a lot more if you're interested, but I'm not anymore. I went to talk to her after class about two points that I felt had to be corrected.

She had said that "we don't know" whether the "Protocols of Zion" are authentic or not. This is a lie. Since 1921, these documents have been known to be cheap forgeries, based on a French satire and disseminated by the Russian secret police to fuel anti-Semitism in the early 20th century. They are purely anti-Semitic. There is no truth in them. I brought in a copy of the Britannica article on the Protocols, the first word of which is "fraudulent." She glanced at it, then mouthed a conspiracy theory about those who tried to translate the Protocols into English being assassainated. Why the language mattered so much was, of course, unclear. She insisted that we didn't know the authorship.

The other thing I wanted to talk to her about was the statement she had made about the Jews having partial control of the American media. This, she said, meant that all coverage was one-sided. I brought in printouts of the headlines for AP, Reuters, and AFP (wire services of the USA, Britain, and France, respectively) to show her that the Security Council vote and the Palestinian protest deaths were top news on all three.

I was not being confrontational in this and told her that I wanted to give her a little more optimistic look at what Americans think. I told her that Bush does not represent American public opinion. She looked up and very sincerely said, "Thomas, you know, I hope so."

After that we had a very nice talk about the state of the Middle East, an interesting component of which was me explaining to her the state of the Evangelical movement in America today and its relation to the mainstream Protestant denominations. She had assumed that the Methodists (Pres. Bush is a United Methodist)somehow were behind Bush's actions. During the discussion, she conceded that Palestine is an "emotional and sensitive" issue for her. (Of course, she shouldn't be teaching about it if that is true, and she certainly shouldn't go out of her way in a 19th century economic history course to cover modern events in Palestine.) We parted on quite good terms. She also said my term paper was one of the best in the class.

I felt good after that. I don't think I changed her mind, but I think I shed some light on some corners of the problem she had not considered or studied. It seemed like one of those perfect liberal arts moments where tolerance, understanding, and moderation tempered extremism. I still think she's anti-semitic; actually, she probably just holds some anti-semitic beliefs.

On a much more positive note, I got a quote on some prospective flights back to the states from the AUC Travel Office. They can often get good prices not available elsewhere. They gave me two really good quotes, so it looks like I'll be coming home on June 23rd. (Take note, all ye who are wondering!)

I've gone from exhaustion (I didn't get much sleep last night and went on a long run this morning) to anxiety to adrenaline-rush to satisfaction to happiness. Quite a day already. And I haven't even given my roommate his birthday surprise yet! It's his birthday today, and I'm hoping I can get him to have a good day too.

2004-05-17T00:59:00.000+03:00

Hey everybody. The past couple days have been bad for my roommate. Yesterday, Ahlee (transliteration as best I can tell) played Zamalek. These are the two best and most popular premier league soccer teams in Egypt. Everyone has a preference. My roommate is a big Ahlee fan. His team was the favorite going into the game. He was listening on the radio as he did his homework, giving me periodic updates. Sadly, Zamalek scored a couple goals in the first half and pulled out a 2-1 victory. That made him sad.

But the big disappointment for him was the announcement yesterday by FIFA that South Africa would, as expected, host the 2010 World Cup. There have been signs up ALL OVER Egypt since we got here. This bid was a HUGE deal in Egypt and became a very political thing. Furthermore, Egypt failed to garner a single vote, though it had been considered the second pick before the vote. This was, according to my roommate, and apparently popular perception, just another sign of the miasma (my word) that has fallen over Egypt. There is an almost palpable sense of malaise in this country.

On a related note, I touched a raw nerve tonight when I asked about the voting age in Egpyt. He laughed. 'Voting?' He said. 'I don't know anything about voting. Voting is a dream in Egypt.' I had no idea politics was that nepotistic in Egypt, though I knew it was bad. That's very sad. It obviously upset him to talk about it. He told me today that he feels that he can never be a good man in Egypt. That is quite a statement. He really thinks that the culture of Egypt will affect his ethics. That's stunning. I told him, trying to be on the bright side, that my barber was nice.

So I got a haircut today, Arab style. Hygeine is very important in Islam. Washing before the prayers can become quite an involved thing. I can't tell you how many times I have seen men doff their shoes in public bathrooms to wash their feet in the sink. (The mouth, hands several times, feet, and arms are all part of the ritual washing for each prayer.) At any rate, you can imagine what happens when this is extended to haircuts.

I went to a place recommended to me by Raghu. It's a sort of garage near the AUC campus. Unpainted cement walls and an old man with generous eyes. I talked with him and the guy before me, a taxi driver it turned out. It was good: they didn't speak any English at all so I really got to push my Arabic. Of course, we had tea; they immediately asked me how rich my family was in America (literally, they asked how much money we had). My reply that both of my parents were teachers didn't dissuade them. At any rate, they were interested in my being an AUC student. I had a fun time conveying how short I wanted my hair, and where the damage was to be done. By the way, turns out they were both Ahlee fans, like my roommate. They were pretty upset about the game too.

At any rate, Mahmoud fussed over me for over an hour. I got a shave, plus the most meticulous haircut I've ever had. The shave was with a straight razor and not much cream, which was a really interesting feeling. He shortened my sideburns a bit and then gave me a round of pink lotion/aftershave on my face to ease the irritation. I didn't get my ears plucked with thread, which all the Arab men do. Apparently its really painful. They take ALL the hair out of your ears and off your forehead. Ouch.

Results-wise, the haircut was probably as good as I'll get in Egypt. The guy obviously didn't have much experience with white guys' hair. (For instance, he didn't have an electric clippers, since such things aren't really needed with Arab hair.) The cuts not great, and the style is nonexistant, but I'm not demanding. It was worth it for the experience alone. And the guy was very sweet. It's nice to meet simple, kind people in a country where most people you meet are trying to sell you something.

2004-05-10T23:05:00.000+03:00

The khamsin is in fully swing these days in Cairo. These are the spring sandstorms. The sky, when I awoke this morning, was yellow with the dust. The trees have taken on a blurry green, heavy with the musk of the dust. After a day outside, one comes home dirty and choking on the air. A funny sort of weather.

Cairo, in a way, transcends time, at least in the way it has stuck stubbornly to its dirtiness and crowdedness, in the face of whatever slickness modernity would try to impose upon it. These days, though, I begin to think that the city has skipped ahead of time, into some post-apocalyptic netherworld.

At any rate, I had some good mango juice today and a nice conversation with the guys at the chicken-and-rice place near the dorm where I go sometimes to pick up dinner. Also, I tried out my first conditional sentence in Arabic today. Wasn't very successful. The greengrocer thought I was saying that I would buy two more kilos of oranges.

I like this analysis of the upcoming election, and not just because it argues for a result that I, and probably most of you, would find favorable.

By the way, I'd welcome any comments on my recent post about Abu Ghraib. Also, this weekend, I shall hopefully sit down and give a good conclusion to the story of my spring break, which involves Jerusalem and Easter (as a preview). I just haven't had time to do it justice.

2004-05-07T00:27:00.000+03:00

I was going to sit down tonight and write about the great trip I took last weekend into the Sinai. It was with the Egyptology department and so I saw lots of obscure temples and inscriptions and tombs, but the high point was watching the sunrise from the summit of Mt. Sinai. I also got to see St. Catherine's, the ancient (7th century) monastery at the base of the mountain. Quite a trip.

Instead, I finally had time tonight, after a busy week, to sit down and really check out the news and politics blogs and what not. I also got to talk to my friend Will for a while, who is always much better informed on the nitty gritty of current affairs than I am.

I think that I am beginning to feel what I imagine that my father felt about the Vietnam war: the alienation and the shame at what my country is doing. I simply cannot fathom the scope of what happened at Abu Gharib. And I do not mean the abuses themselves, but the institutional structures and procedures that put this system in place.

This was not a terrible accident by a few sick men. This was a systematic institution of techniques used in Guantanimo, the place that international law forgot, in Iraq, on people who are mostly innocent. (Though statistics are not available it is now clear that over half of the people picked up in the military's random sweeps are innocent. This is how you reinstate order under a military administration. It does not mean that all of the detainees should be treated as hardened guerrillas.) The sort of treatment we are now seeing is the result of a machismo that I am afraid is now pervasive in the military that the U.S., when dealing with its prisoners, is accountable to no one.

The pictures that are most disturbing to me are those that show soldiers beating naked prisoners, etc., as other soldiers stand nearby chatting. The nonchalance with which it seems other soldiers reacted to the abuse suggests that it was not only more widespread than it now appears, but also more accepted. As Hersh's early New Yorker article put it, "The 372nd’s [the MP unit reassigned to guard duty at Abu Gharib; the unit had no training in interrogation] abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide."

Reading of the scope of the abuse, and the types employed (the sexual abuse seemed to play on the Islamic prohibitions against masturbation and homosexuality), I am beginning to agree with those that say that this sets relations with the Arab world back "a generation." Though I do not feel compelled to reevaluate my feelings about human nature or any such muck, I am totally shocked by the level of callousness that seems to have seeped into the upper echelons of both the civilian and military commanders of the Armed Forces. It is not just being in Cairo that prompts me to say this, but I can feel a rift beginning to grow between myself and the country of my birth. I love America dearly, but reading (and seeing with my own eyes) how poorly the U.S. is making use of its international influence, is chilling. We could be doing so much good in the world. I can only hope that someday that good will begin to realize itself more fully.

P.S. On a totally different note, here is an article that helps one understand why people still love the President.

2004-04-25T17:25:00.000+02:00

SPRING BREAK PART FOUR: WADI RUM AND A REPLY
So the rest of Jordan...The morning after we saw Petra we headed over to Wadi Rum, which is basically at the end of the line before you get to Saudi Arabia. It's a wilderness area (maybe a national park). Anyway, we spent the day with a Bedouin outfit that does tours, then camped at night.

We saw various and sundry sights: Lawrence of Arabia wandered around here while causing trouble for the Ottomans (Arab Revolt; do your history), so we saw his old digs; some neato sand dunes, with even more neato climbing up and tumbling down; some springs. At any rate, later in the day we camped and got to wander around a bit. I had quite a time climbing around on one of the mesas with a New Zealander school teacher who was in our party. The sunset was beautiful, the land was gorgeous. Very much like eastern Utah or western Colorado, for those of you who have been. Mesas rolling in ranks, into the distance. Silence to make your ears hurt. Stars beyond belief at night.
______________

Now for the reply. Raghu has an excellent post about our time in Wadi Rum on his blog. He speaks about feeling finally, fully immersed in the wilderness; finally being out of the urban/modern mentality. That's very interesting to me, especially his comment about televisions (you'll have to read it).

I've spent a fair amount of time in various wildernesses, trooping around the American West with my family every summer, and now seeing the desert of the Middle East. I've seen many flavors of wilderness, from mesas to mountains to deserts (of several kinds) to the wide open expanses of the Great Plains. They've become sort of a continuum, these wildernesses have. I feel like I've lost the ability to become shocked by wilderness in the way Raghu describes. I don't say that arrogantly. Rather, I mean it mournfully. I can't really be bowled over in the way that the desert, and beautiful places in general, deserves. If you don't believe me, just read my description of Wadi Rum alongside that of Raghu.

Raghu's post makes me feel like I've lost some essential bit of my innocence. Awe is an emotion that is, in a way, very childish, very pure, mostly because it isn't encumbered by the baggage of context. I like to think that I am a person who can still feel awe in many shapes and sizes. That is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by religion, or more specifically, faith, and its ability to convey awe to so many people so powerfully. If my ability to experience awe before the wilderness (which is to me almost a corollary for God) is impaired, then that is a sad thing indeed. I've got some thinking to do. That is not to say that I didn't love my time in the wilderness in Jordan, and wasn't awestruck by it all. Or that I wouldn't recommend it vociferously to anyone considering travel in the region.

2004-04-22T15:55:00.000+02:00

PETRA

There is an amazing place called Petra in far southern Jordan. I hadn't heard of it until we began planning our trip. It's a strategic corridor lying on one of the old Arabian trade routes that was developed by a local group called the Nabateans, who controlled it for centuries, exacting tribute and what not. They turned the area into one big temple complex to the indigenous gods, turning its natural grandeur to their benefit. The place is a series of narrow canyons of the most amazingly colored and contoured rock. It is breathtaking near sundown, when we walked through the several kilometers of passages that constitute the main span of the complex. The canyon walls rise for at least a hundred feet above the floor, with shrines carved into the rock at varying intervals. Much of the sculpting is from the time of David (c. 700 BCE) and the shows really surprising maturity. The centerpiece is a place called the Treasury, a huge temple that grows out of the rock face and is perhaps four stories in height. You've all seen it: the Treasury was used in one of the Indiana Jones movies.

Will was really glad to see Petra for a personal reason: Brown, his school, has a dig there. There now exists a picture of a very happy William Huntington standing by the Brown flag that flies over the dig, which is excavating one of the temples out on the plain near the canyons.

One of my favorite memories from the whole trip comes from a little after we left the canyons. The sun was setting as we returned to our hostel, a really nice little place in the town that's grown up around Petra. This place was run kind of communally and was (very surprisingly) reasonably priced. They also sold beer in handsome 16 oz. cans. Emily and I took two of said beers out to the deck at this place. It's on a hillside, so we were overlooking Petra proper. We sat and talked, at the end of a long day on the road (we got to Petra, from Amman, in a crowded minibus) and a couple hours in the canyons. We'd been going hard for a few days and I hadn't gotten a chance to just talk to Emily in a while. It was really nice to remember why I travel with this group. The great thing about the five of us is that we are all very good friends with each of the other four: I can have four very good, and very different, conversations with them, given the chance. It was nice to reaffirm that. Oh, and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous. Just enough dust in the air to make the sun explode upon itself.

Next: Wadi Rum and the Business with the Border Crossing

Note: We've got a three day weekend and I'll be away, being decadent at an oasis, so I might not write for a few days.

2004-04-19T22:27:00.000+02:00

LEBANON PART 2: INTO THE MOUNTAINS
Hello again. A useful addition to any international traveler's resume is an international driver's license, as we learned in Lebanon. Raghu has one, which meant that we were able to rent a car in Lebanon, thereby freeing us up to explore on our own. Raghu even had a mix tape with him. We had an unholy good time subjecting ourselves to one of his friends' poor taste in music for hours on end. If the "framily," as Will has taken to calling us, needed more bonding, a few car trips did the trick. Anyway, one of these explorations took us to a place called Ba'albeck for an afternoon. This temple complex in the Lebanese interior represents what is reputedly the largest extant corpus of Roman architecture. It's believeable when you see it for yourself.

I can't describe the feeling I had walking into the main hall there. Having studied Latin in high school, I am familiar with the history and culture of the Roman empire and have a great deal of respect for the achievements of that civilization. This place was Rome. Here were the architectural, religious, military, and political accomplishments of the Roman world made real. The complex itself is quite extensive. I could have spent a whole day wandering amidst the courtyards and halls. It was quite an experience to walk among the ruins, with the late afternoon light raking across the landscape. Here one could see prehistoric ruins, the Roman remains, and the changing light of the day. Today this scene is presided over by Hezbollah flags, flapping at various intervals along the road. (South and southeastern Lebanon is the heartland of Hezbollah and the parts we visited were occupied by Syria. We passed through Syrian checkpoints on the way to Ba'albeck.)

I can still picture many moments from that afternoon clearly. So much of those buildings was build with care. Human minds thousands of years ago were thinking about not only how to make the buildings function, but how to make them beautiful. The domes on each of the ancilliary shrines were exquisite; the stairways were all carefully carved. Ba'albeck was the biggest surprise of the whole trip for me. That place is very special. By the way, I was also surprised by how beautiful rural Lebanon is. There is enough distance for the light to have full play--and the intensity of colors is otherworldly.

After a night on the town in Beirut, which I highly recommend (it beats the pants off Cairo's nightlife), we headed up to Byblos the next day, to see more assorted monuments. Basically, the city has been continuously inhabited for about 7000 years and has the ruins to show for it. What got me thinking was the idea that there's this modern city here today that built where the last city was built, and so on. We're depending on the judgment of some neolithic hunter-gatherers for the location of this city. Striking.

At any rate, I highly recommend Lebanon. It's a pretty tidy little country now that seems to have put its checkered past behind it. As far as the story goes, we left Lebanon the next day on an evening flight, flying uneventfully into Amman, itself an uneventful city. We grabbed a hotel and rested up before the next day's trip to Petra, in the south of the country.

Tomorrow: Petra and on to Wadi Rum

2004-04-18T21:48:00.000+02:00

SPRING BREAK ONE: BEIRUT

Hello all. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been trying to get things in shape again after returning from spring break. Then I got sick this weekend, which sort of complicated things.

At any rate, spring break was unbelievable. Actually, we ran out of adjectives about halfway through the trip. The rough outline of our eleven days on the road is this: four days in Lebanon, three in Jordan, then four in Israel, spending part of the last day to get back to Jordan to fly out from Amman. Of course, I can't name any one high point of the trip, but spending the end of Holy Week in Jerusalem was pretty great. However, I'd recommend a trip to Beirut to anyone who wants to see what good can come from the ruins of a civil war, or a city that is a pleasant mix of Western Europe and the Arab Mediterranean.

To give a little more detail about Beirut, the city was (as you probably know) leveled in the civil war that raged from 1975 to 1990. There was, apparently, nothing at all left. Since then, the city and the nation have made an impressive turnaround, mostly due to a solid banking system and the sizable remittances of Lebanese nationals abroad. Today, Beirut is, for the most part, a sparkling modern city, complete with Cinnabons and Porsche dealerships. It approximates a "modern" aesthetic more closely than some American cities that I have visited. The city's relationship with time in general is just very interesting: some of the bombed-out buildings have been left standing, stark reminders of the country's tattered past. These hulks overlook the Roman ruins that dot the city, giving the modern city a sense of being out of time. This is a feeling I sometimes have in cities anyway, with their burnished steel-and-glass monstrosities plastering the skyline, but it was heightened here. At any rate, it was a lot of fun to walk around in the Roman ruins (access isn't controlled; they aren't anything precious).

Something else that added to the general coolness of our time in Beirut was the place we ended up staying. After spending one night in a really crummy hostel (crummy enough to make my running clothes stink of the bathroom for days because I took a shower), we searched for a better abode. As it turned out, Raghu worked his charms (or something) and got a guy to show us a place where we could get a flat for a few days. The rest of us didn't know that was happening: we just saw Raghu riding off on some guy's moped. He eventually returned and told us he had a good place for us to stay. It turned out to be great: we got a flat where we all could stay, plus some nice soap, a nice shower, and beds that weren't covered in shag carpet.

Of course, another high point of Lebanon was the food. It was a lot like Egyptian food, but prepared with more care and better ingredients. Over and over, we wondered why the Egyptians could put as much care into the preparation of a simple falafel as the Lebanese did. Another thing: crepes are popular there, which is really cool. There are little shops along the avenues ("rues" as they would be there--signs are in French and Arabic) that fry crepes on a big slab of stone with any number of toppings. Food wasn't cheap, but then, not much is in Lebanon (our trip took us through the three most expensive countries in the Middle East). It was still quite memorable.

We also got to hang out with Emily's aunt and uncle, who have been living in Beirut for six years, as well as her cousin, who's been living in Saudi Arabia for the past few years. They were a continuation of the "Dorman tour of the Middle East" upon which the rest of us have been embarked, and which has made our trips a lot more fun. We got some good food and conversation, as well as some good stories.

Beirut is quite a place. Definitely someplace to which I'd like to return. I'm not sure how I feel about the way in which development has seemingly taken precedent over the search for an authentic Lebanese identity in parts of Beirut. It's a city that was rebuilt from the ground up, like urban renewal on steroids. The results are superficially impressive, but only in the sense of seeming European; I'm sort of surprised that I responded exactly as I was supposed to, as a tourist. I was just as pleased to see a Cinnabon as the next guy. (We did, in fact, end up eating there for breakfast one morning. It was great.) At any rate, I'm willing to give Beirut another go around. I think it does have a lot to offer, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Tomorrow: The rest of Lebanon and into Jordan

2004-03-31T15:38:00.000+02:00

Whew! I just finished my Arabic midterm. It went alright, though it was a bit stressful, by virtue of the format. Each of us went in and, for five minutes (and five minutes only) spoke with the professor about whatever she wanted. Pretty nerve-racking. Anyway, it's over. Kwayis hallos. Glad it's over.

I'm about to go to what promises to be a wonderful lecture by a funny little Englishman whom I saw give a lecture yesterday. Today it's about religion and politics and Derrida. Yesterday it was about rights and Foucoult and new medical technologies. Basically, it was about the gay rights movement and how they can benefit from the "casualization" of work and war and the increasing emphasis on, and equalization of, reproduction as a galvanizing force in society.

Tomorrow I leave for spring break at the end of classes, which promises to be quite an adventure. Sorry I haven't mentioned it yet, but I wanted to make sure that I had the plane tickets in hand before I jinx myself by talking about it. My friends and I will be going to Beirut, Amman, and Petra, inshah' allah. We've got 12 days, so hopefully we can do a pretty good job taking everything in. I've done a little reading, but I really don't know quite what to expect. I'm really excited, though. We're flying everywhere, which makes visas and borders much easier to negotiate. A very good thing, that. Perhaps we'll run into some of the other study abroaders who will be in the region. That would be fun.

I'm gonna run. I want to get to the refreshments before they disappear. Gotta keep your priorities straight. :)

2004-03-27T22:51:00.000+02:00

Hey all. I just got back from a weekend in the Western Desert, the vast stretch of sand and rock-and-mineral outcroppings that makes up most of Egypt. It was amazing. There were stars beyond belief at night. There was silence on a scale I could never have imagined, silence that loomed large and forced your ears to ring, to pull something from nothing. Alien shapes, crafted of chalk and limestone and quartz and whatever else over millions of years, reared up out of the ground. I am counting the weekends until I can go back.

Also, the people and the food (cooked over an open fire) were great. And the air was clean. It was, most of all, not Cairo. Anyway, I need to get some work done, but I will try to write more tomorrow. Take care.

2004-03-23T19:07:00.000+02:00

Today I looked into an opportunity for some volunteer work in Cairo. I went to a place that does development, education, microenterprise, and NGO training, among other things. It's run by the Coptic church, but was started by Presbyterians (it's called CEOSS; check out their website for more info). I met their one American Presbyterian, who was very nice, and she showed me around. It looks like I might be helping them with writing and editing copy for their annual report, which actually sounds pretty cool. It's way out by the airport, which necessitated a long (and expensive, relatively speaking) cab ride. However, I took one of the big smelly public busses back, which is where things got interesting.

Public buses in Cairo are, as mentioned, big and smelly. They seat 40-45, which means that the conductors (who shout the direction the bus is headed out the door as the bus passes people) cram about 55-60 people on. I was jammed into the back of the aisle along with everyone else, clinging to a rail on the ceiling. The ride was about 25 minutes. It cost only one pound, which sure beats the LE 21 cab ride out.

Anyway, the interesting thing is that as I was riding there, the one white guy on this bus, one of the thousand in Cairo, I realized that no one on earth knew where I was. Even Nancy, at the CEOSS office, had assumed that I was taking a cab back to Cairo. My friends hadn't known that I was going today. I couldn't think of anyone who would have a clue. If I had been killed somehow, my various IDs would have identified me, but for all purposes I was totally adrift.

I think I have been aware of these situations before, but I had never thought through the implications. It seemed to me then that, more than less supportive families, declining civic involvement, poor relations with neighbors and other cultures, maybe what societies around the world are going through is some sort of crisis arising from this radical anonymity. Maybe that is the challenge of modernity, to put it pompously.

I feel that I have a very strong family. We've been through a lot together. My family has always been there for me, and is now. I have never felt uninvolved in the world. But I have felt enough profound malaise that I can relate to Kafka or Camus. If I have felt this, then surely these men on this bus, who ply the same public transportation routes day in and out, in this city of over 15 million, have felt it. They get on and off at seemingly random points along the road, their "lo samaht" bringing the bus to a stop. Yet these points have meaning to them, and perhaps only them, at this time of day, on these days.

We don't question this state of affairs because we are humans, the infinitely adaptable animal. We accept reality as it presents itself. Even I, the boy from rural Oklahoma, have blended into the mosaic of Cairo. I no longer mind smelling like cigarette smoke or slogging through the pollution (the sky was yellow today from the smog, by the way). We don't ask what it means that we are, at times, completely alone in the world, following a path unknown to any other human on earth. Here, in this mass of humanity, what does it mean that many of these millions glide through days at times completely alone in the world, skipping between sparse islands of recognition?

This is reality. This is what we live. Lots of people know where I am now. I am in a crowded computer lab. But where will I be tomorrow? Lost again?

2004-03-22T18:23:00.000+02:00

As you all can guess, the news of Sheik Ahmed Hassin's death was all over the city by early this morning. I first noticed something was up when the shuttle from Zamalek arrived at the AUC campus...and there were troops three rows deep entirely surrounding each of the main campuses.

This morning was the first time I have been proud of or impressed by AUC students since I have arrived. When I got to campus, at 11:30, there was already an impromptu rally in progress. Student speakers were calling spades spades to an extent that I haven't seen since I've been in Egypt. One chap gave some especially pointed remarks, even calling Mubarak a "puppet president" and decrying the apathy of AUC students (it's about time!) because, as he said, "we're all rich and don't have to care." Wow. One speaker said something that gives a good indication about how Egyptians really feel about their government: one of the students said that if any of the speakers walked outside the campus, the police would "beat them to death." (Because it is American-owned, AUC is, as one student once explained to me, technically American soil. Government security forces can't come in unless asked. That's quite unusual in Egypt.)

A sense of foreboding has settled over the whole city. The calls to prayer today were greeted by more horns than usual (people sometimes honk their car horns in response to the calls). I saw a few girls crying. My last class was half-empty. Things seem to be in more disarray than usual.

There's good reason for foreboding. The BBC (article here) took the most pessimistic tack on the situation that I have yet seen:

"The overall lesson to be drawn from these events is that there is really no prospect for peace, that the roadmap has been rolled up and that another 20 years of war is the most likely scenario."

Just FYI, in the midst of the usual detached Western coverage, I've come across a couple decent reports. Voice of America (which generally does a good job with international news, surprisingly) has a good piece here that has a bit of the Egyptian reaction. Also, Arabic News has a more Arab-directed story here.

On a personal note, I had an Arabic presentation today, which marks the last of my midterm stuff, at least until the 31st, when I have what will be an easy poly sci test. I turned it what I thought was a really good paper on Sunday, and had a test and a paper last week. I'm having fun poking around with reading for my econ term paper, which will be on Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine from 1882-1914 or so.

Mostly though, I'm bummed out that I would be in a good mood right now, except that the Israelis took it away. It's a sad day in the world and I'm afraid that, God help us, it will only get sadder. We do what we can. Maybe my smiles to the people I pass on the street will add up to something.

2004-03-16T21:53:00.000+02:00

Hello all. I just got back from the most satisfying meal I have had since...well, since I was in Alexandria last weekend and we ate in the fish market-cum-restaurant...Anyway, this place tonight not only had what turned out to be GOOD AMERICAN COFFEE (a constant search for me), but also: FAJITAS!!!! I had been speaking not three hours before with another American student who craved Mexican food (or at least Tex-Mex, in the case of fajitas). God it was great. They weren't the best fajitas, but all the components were there, most imporantly the wildly steaming pan. Three others got fajitas, so I got to finish theirs off. :) It's nice always being the one with the biggest appetite. And the coffee was good. That was also very satisfying. I haven't had good hazelnut coffee--or any hazelnut coffee, or any good coffee--since I left the states.

It's funny how attached we get to transitory things like food, and how much we can long for them. Of course, I had a hankering for Mexican because it is so emblematic of home for me. El Tapatio (=best Mexican place in Stillwater for you non-Oklahomans) obviously has deep metaphysical meaning to me. :)

A couple of my friends have family members coming in over the next few weeks. I'm not sure how it will be for me. I would love to show Egypt to my family, especially my parents. At the same time, it makes me take the long view: I will be back here, inshah allah. It might not be during such a formative period, but I would like to think that someday I will see Luxor with my father and see the Mediterranean and the Great Library with my mother. Makes me sad to think that they will not be out here this semester, but that is the reality of the thing, and that is fine. I'm thankful for the political scientist in me. It makes me pretty accepting of reality. And the humanities side keeps me laid back, I guess. And it will be really cool to see Emily's parents and Raghu's family. If they are like they've been described, this will be a wonderful couple weeks. Also, it will ensure that we keep up our various explorations.

Okay, on to the papers. These papers are nothing by Swarthmore standards but, when combined with my midterm on Thursday and an Arabic presentation next Monday, it means that I'm pretty busy, which is nice for once. Also, I've got an appointment with a guy who works for a social service organization now run by the Coptic church, but which seems to have been started by Presbyterians. I'll tell you how that goes.

2004-03-15T11:26:00.000+02:00

So I spent last weekend in Alexandria, which was a great time. The train ride to and from Alex was also a great time. Mostly, one the way back I listened to jazz and got nostalgic and mellow, remembering other hours spent traveling in the deep night. I associate these hours with my father and his love for driving at night, choreographing his dance across the interstates. Coming home from Alex was certainly a bit different, but seeing the hulks of the trucks plying their way across the lonely expanse of the highway that ran beside the train was reassuring. I thought I would put up a poem that came out of the ride home.

THOUGHTS OF ELSEWHERE,
COMING HOME TO CAIRO

The last one left awake
One train in the night
Somewhere near Des Moines,
Eating up the plains,
The lights queue--the codes
That spell town, home, fuel
Station--a river of letters
Like a child's cries, awakened
At night, having suddenly forgotten
How to build the scaffold
Of love. Its complete construction
A miraculous sound in silence.

The patient roar, we cross
The border, and I am back.
Another day filled with miracles,
But not so many as are hidden
In the bevels of this night's eyes.
3.12.04

2004-03-14T23:56:00.000+02:00

FOR MARCH 12, 2004, WRITTEN IN THE LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA
Hello all. I am writing this from one of the mid-level computer stations in
the Biblioteque Alexandria, near the site of the old great library. This is
an unbelievably gorgeous building. It was done, from what I can see, in such
a way as to do justice to the majesty of its predecessor. The lighting
changes with the time of day, shifting from a soft green blue, to amplify th
ambient light, provided by huge sloping skylights. The exterior walls are in
stone and carved with characters from nearly every known written language.

It is interesting to be in a library that is built as much as a tourist
attraction and statement of national pride as a working library. The shelves
are minimally full and, in a statement on the direction the production of
knowledge is taking, as many desks have computers as reading lights. It is
like a time capsule, capturing the way in which the late twentieth century
envisioned the twenty-first.

It's magical to be here for me. When I was growing up, my mother spent
several years going to school in the evenings to get certified as a Library
Media Specialist, a librarian. That was, in a way, the piece de resistance on
the respect for books with which I was raised. Libraries are, to me, almost
sacred places. The stillness and the quiet light, the changing patterns of
the people, pacing aisles or hunched over texts. This is a wonderful,
wonderful place to see.

2004-03-10T23:27:00.000+02:00

KNOWING REALITY IN NUBIA, c. 600 BCE

I had a discussion today that reminded me of why I am a religion major. During my Egyptology class (Society and Culture of Ancient Nubia), the professor mentioned a text that described royal succession in the state of Kush (a kingdom in Lower Nubia, in this case around 600 BCE). The document describes the dismay felt by the six generals who had command of the army upon the death of the king. They were like "a flock without a shepherd"; their "lord was hidden from them." It was really rather moving. What amazed me, being brought up in a world of cynicism, restless polities, and coups, was that none of the generals considered taking power themselves. This is not to say that the document was an accurate historical record, but from what we know military takeovers were relatively rare in Egypt and Nubia in antiquity.

What followed was an elaborate coronation ritual in which each of the king's brothers (the preferred successors to the king) was presented to the god Amun at his temple. The god then indicated his choice. We have no record of what sort of indication he made, but it is likely that an image of the god would be brought out by a priest and then the image would turn toward the next king. Apparently on this occasion Amun didn't like any of the brothers, so the king's son was chosen instead. There follows a lauditory passage describing the merits of the son.

The professor made a pithy comment about modern society being secular and scientific and therefore "knowing nothing about reality" during class and I, in strong agreement, went to him after class to continue the discussion. In the towns of Kush, when a crime was committed, the village god's image was carried through the streets until it stopped in front of a house, which was searched, or the owner of which was arrested. Though my professor said that he could easily envision a situation in which the priest, being a member of a small village in which every knew each other, probably had a good idea of the guily party, and stopped before the corresponding house, he said that this is not at all how things would have been seen by the villagers. This just wouldn't have entered the minds of the citizenry. There was no such thing as unbelief. To not believe in the power and pervasive presence of the gods was like not believing in gravity. It was self-evident. [That last is my addition.]

The more I learn about religion, the more I realize how shackeled I am by the secular mindset, which is at least as pervasive as the religious one mentioned above, in which nearly every member of our society is raised. Science has burdened us with a notion of objectivity and a dogged pursuit of an abstract truth that is nearly inescapable. It is comforting to retreat to the religious worldview, in which truth need not be defined, existing wholly within the bounds of a given religion and with no need to defend itself within that context. Religions have a powerful ability to free the intellect. Further, it is amazing to see what effects they had on ancient societies (my professor mentioned that ancient Egyptian religions were not unique in the way they dealt with succession and conflict resolution) and the order they gave to the lives of those peoples who otherwise might have had no recourse to face the challenges of survival.

2004-03-07T18:45:00.000+02:00

This afternoon, I went to Suq Al-Imbaba, which is on the NW side of the Cairo metro and near some agricultural land, with my colloquial Arabic class (actually, just three other members of the class and the prof). Apparently the closer you get to farm land, the better, cheaper, and bigger the markets get. This one ran the length of a couple of blocks of alleys. It reminded me very much of Ciaro's take on the farmer's market in Stillwater. (You even have to get there early, before the sellers run out and start going home!)

As in most suqs, the sellers line up their stands, with prices displayed on small handwritten signs displayed by the various items. Goods are measured on a balance using rusty iron weights. Sellers are mostly older, mostly men, though with a sizable minority of women and the middle-aged. I always enjoy buying from the stands, whether at a real suq or from one of the innumberable independent stands that dot Cairo's streets. It's a very honest feeling, what with the money changing hands and the fruit measured before your eyes, the bananas hacked from the stalk, the oranges picked from their huge pyramid.

On the other hand, it's a terribly inefficient system and is an indicator of the poor consolidation of Egypt's retail sector in general. Economies of scale don't really exist here. While one can make pie-eyed arguments about these jobs giving people dignity and a job, they really just limit capital and prevent more broad based growth and faster development. I enjoy the stands and suqs: it does make you feel good to put money in the hands of someone whom you know needs it, and I always go to the stands instead of the few (Western-style) supermarkets, but they are a sign of how far Egypt has to go. But I digress..

We had way too much fun. After perusing things for a while and practicing our fruit and veggie vocab, we went back and everyone bought what they came for. I was only planning to get a kilo or so of burtuan (oranges) and some mooz (bananas), but ended up with a half kilo of gazzar (carrots) as well. I was involved in a great protracted argument pitting my teacher and myself against a seller who wanted "to give me a better deal" by selling me two kilos of bananas instead of one and a half, while charging the same rate. That's the fun thing about bargaining here: it's usually not at all confrontational, it's just about stating your case. Everyone ended up laughing. And he didn't try to do the same thing when the next one of us bought only a half kilo of bananas. Cute moments were also had with a little girl, there with her grandmother selling things, with whom Emily, a girl in my class, and I exchanged about a million air kisses. (That is apparently something she's just learned to do. Her grandmother was laughing up a storm.)

After the market, we went to get some coffee and baked goods at a nearby bakery. When I finished my coffee, Emily began reading my fortune in the grounds. (This is a real art here: Turkish coffee grounds can be made to make swirly patterns on the sides of the mug, which are "read." Emily, of course, had no idea what she was doing.) Instead of a real fortune, she began describing the girl I was to meet in Cairo, which then turned into a discussion of the ramifications of said event with my parents. My teacher was laughing so loudly! I was afraid we were going to get kicked out.

The carrots, by the way, are fabulous.

The end.

2004-03-05T12:10:00.000+02:00

I'm reading a great novel right now. Two, actually. One is Naguib Mahfouz's "Palace Walk," but that seemed a bit too important to read this mornign when I woke up at ten, in the mood for something fun and cozy. So I picked up Helen Fielding's "Cause Celeb." She is better known as the author of "Bridget Jones' Diary." This is her first novel. It's great. A woman escapes from a relationship with an ogre of a TV host to work at a refugee camp in Africa. Actually, a lot of the passages in the refugee camp are quite informative, and it's amazing how amusing Fielding has managed to make scenes that could be very depressing. It's very smart, and very funny.

Every time I read in "Cause Celeb" I question my relationship to the abstract idea known as "Africa." If Egypt and Africa were dating, it would be the kind of weird passive-agressive thing that makes for great soap opera fodder. Egyptians, they will tell you, are Egyptians. Not Africans. Not Asians. Muslims probably, Arabs maybe, but not Africans. Egyptians. Just Egyptians. According to my Egyptology prof, Egyptians have always had quite a bit of chauvanism mixed in with their identity (not that that makes them totally unique). And Egypt doesn't feel like the Africa that Westerners like to think of as Africa, i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa. Egypt feels like...Egypt. It is that hinge between the Middle East and North Africa, the Levant and the Maghrib. Just when I get to thinking of the Pyramids and the desert and the Nile flowing into the heart of the Sudan, I read the news and see that it all looks eastward, to the Arab countries of the Middle East. "Regional news" in Egypt means the news of southwest Asia. And the music videos, well, there aren't too many other Africans there either.

At any rate, today is Friday, so Egypt has its Islamic character on display. Now it is the hour of prayers; all over Cairo, in mosques and alleyways and courtyards, men have spread their mats, and are alternately praying and sitting, listening to the sermons whose words blend together into a patchwork of voices that criss-crosses the heart of Cairo. It took a while to get used to living in a country so much more outwardly religious than the United States, but now I enjoy it. Americans have a problem with accepting the spiritual side of life, with seeking answers that don't answer to logic. I absorbed this growing up and, as a result, was a little uncomfortable with the outwardness of religiousity here. Cairo is an old place, and Islam is a religion that has very successfully preserved the past, both in its language and in its sacred text. Faced with all that history, one cannot always look to logic to answer questions. And people in Cairo don't. It's refreshing. And just to think of the artistry that goes into the calls to prayers, repeated ten thousandfold across this city of fifteen million...

2004-02-23T18:25:00.000+02:00

Hello all. I spent this past weekend in Luxor, which turned out to be an extraordinary experience. I try not to set specific expectations for trips to new places, but the past few days have been better than any set of expectations I could possibly have held. In a nutshell, myself and the usual suspects (Lisa, Emily, Will, and Raghu) traveled to Luxor, about 10 hrs. south of Cairo by train, and spent three days seeing a combination of the usual tourist sites (i.e. temples and tombs) and the not-so-usual-tourist sites.

I am always surprised by the memories that occur to me immediately after I return from a trip. Obviously, I have only just begun the unpacking process that one goes through after new experiences, so my perspective is limited, which makes things interesting. At any rate, today I have been thinking about our second trip to Luxor Temple. The first day we were in Luxor, we went to the suq (market) and then went to a place called Chicago House for lunch. (Chicago House is a center for Egyptology run by the University of Chicago. Emily went there several times as a kid; her father was one of the researchers on staff.) After a wonderful two (three?) hours seeing the place through the eyes of a young child, via Emily's memories, we went to see the temple. There we did the usual oohing and aahing for a couple hours.

Later that night we came back to see the temple again. This was a more meaningful experience for all of us, I think. The imposing walls (covered with hieroglyphs and carvings), tall columns, and huge statues and obelisks were lit only by sparse floodlights placed on the ground. The walls of the temple still rise several stories in most places--high enough to block the light of the Luxor tourist massif. It is in these pools of darkness that one begins to feel what one must have felt upon entering the temple 4000 years ago. There are few tourists. Most of the sound is the sound of feet stirring the loose dirt. Some of the temple would have been roofed in some fashion and lit with (minimal) artificial light. The effect of the huge carvings and walls filled with the stories of a civilization, rising out of the darkness, is beyond description. The air is heavy with the labor it must have taken to build the place and the gravity attached to it by its builders: it was a monument to their kings, the agents of and mediators with the gods. It was, for me, almost a mystical experience. The place has been, and is today, somehow beating time at its own game.

That hour in the temple made the value of traveling come alive for me. I am sure that I have seen the temple in documentaries and books before, but nothing had gained any meaning for me. I remembered nothing about it, until I did some reading on the train down to Luxor. What is striking, what is exceptional, about the temple at Luxor is the scale on which it is built, the testament it makes to the beliefs, hopes, and fears of its builders. No documentary can capture that. I was talking with Will later about how we will both probably send pictures from Luxor to our friends, but that these photos can't convey an iota of what we felt and will probably be basically discounted by their recepients. I think this trip to Luxor changed me almost as much as my month in Cairo. It is hard to break out of the cycles and currents of one's everyday life, or in this case one's country, but (in shah Allah), it can yield so much.

2004-02-18T22:41:00.000+02:00

Today at lunch, in AUC's cafeteria, I sated a craving. I had a cup of coffee. This, a mealtime ritual oft repeated in the U.S., is a rarity here. Rare, that is, because it was percolated coffee, not Turkish (i.e. Arabic) coffee or the instant Nescafe that usually passes for "American" coffee here. Sitting there, talking with the friend with whom I went to lunch, my mind began perking itself, recalling the circumstances under which I meditatively drink coffee back home.

Coffee is, for me, closely tied to memories of my father, and, equally closely, to the rambling conversations we have over coffee. Naturally, this begs the question of just why I have been craving coffee not of the Arabic variety. I confess, it probably is as much about its association with my father, and coffee's place in my Pantheon of comfort objects from home. I have mixed feelings about giving in to these sorts of cravings. On one hand, they do make life easier, and they do give me some familiar pegs on which to hang my new experiences. On the other hand, I worry that these experiences represent lost opportunities for cultural immersion. But, drinking my coffee (in a measured and meditative way) today, I happened upon another angle. Perhaps my figurative "cups of coffee" will help me to build a new set of associations. Perhaps, when I'm back home, coffee will recall times when I had it in Cairo, thus doing something to make Cairo part of my everyday life in the States. Maybe my morning peanut butter-and-banana will take on new meaning. I'm really not so ascetic as to avoid drinking American coffee because it's too "comfortable," but it does make me feel better to think that I might be giving new life to old rituals from home. After all, I'm only going to be here for five months. I should do anything I can to make those five months stay with me.

2004-02-15T21:39:00.000+02:00

In honor of the way in which my mind works, I shall start my first post with a digression. Cairo, as I have experienced it thus far, works at street level. While Washington's business may be conducted in the halls of various government buildings and New York's in executive boardrooms, Cairo's takes place at the level of the street vendor. It is a different economy, on a different scale. The streets also are the palatte on which the character of the city's spectrum of neighborhoods is painted. The character and prestige of a district is painted in bold colors: the cleanliness of its streets, the quality of the items sold there, and the state of repair of the houses which line it. If one wants to learn ammiya (colloquial Arabic) or meet the working class of Egypt, one must do it on the streets painted in their colors.

On an entirely different note, the other night I got proselytized for the first time since I've been here. Funny thing was, it wasn't by a Muslim, or even an Egyptian. I got some good ol' Christian witnessing from a woman who used to live in Oklahoma. I was at a Marine party (oddly enough, the Marines at the U.S Embassy throw really good parties and invite basically everyone at AUC, plus ex-pats) and enjoying myself when this woman approached me. She had been checking IDs at the front entrance but was seemingly off-duty. She had commented on my Oklahoma driver's license; apparently she lived in Tulsa before joining the Foreign Service. She's about 45-50, 5 foot nothing to a little more than nothing, heavyset, and was, at the time she approached me, holding a Miller Lite that was probably not her first.

I was talking with a friend when she plunked herself down next to me. She's very nice and I was curious about Maadi (Cairo's ex-pat district par excellance), so we talked for a bit. She mentioned in passing that she went to church there. I've been looking for a church and asked her about it. Wrong choice. She began in earnest, at one point actually turning to me, looking very sincere, and asking me, "Do you know where you're going when you die?" Oh boy. I had already told her I was a religion major, which should have scared her off. I told her I was comfortable with my faith, which I really am, and used the various non-confrontational rhetorical devices I use when placed in this situation. The high point of the conversation was when she tried to start a dialogue about ethics and I mentioned something about the similarities in the teachings of Jesus, Mohammad, and Budda. She responded, "Yeah, but Mohammad and Budda didn't rise from the dead!" I wanted to say, "Okay, we can end this conversation right here." Instead I stifled a smile and tried to extricate myself, subduing the outcries of the academic, scholarly side of me. We ended on a very nice note, I told her I'd try to make it to church sometime, and she moved on. I saw her talking very seriously with another student later in the night. I really might go to church sometime. They do at least have services on Friday (the Muslim day of prayer--the weekend is Friday and Saturday here) instead of Sunday.