trash city and a birder's paradise

With one day left in Cairo before returning to Amman, I set out early. There was little to see in the morning since business seems to start later in the day. I went to the famous Khan al-Khalili, an ancient souq that evidently now caters to non-existent tourists and wannabe belly-dancers. Most of the shops were shuttered, but I was able to find some open cafes and one small restaurant that served Egyptian pancakes, which are like crepes but thicker and crispier. I ordered one with banana and nutella and I was instantly disappointed that I had not discovered this dish earlier during my stay.  I decided to wander around the souq some more. Most alleys in Khan al-Khalili are very narrow, meaning that they are dark even at 10am. It was mostly deserted, but every once in a while I would see a few men cross in front of me and then disappear down another side street. After running into a few dead ends and being forced to backtrack, I realized I was on my own and trapped in a maze with not nearly enough people around to feel comfortable. I headed back to the main road and just as I was approaching the edge of the souq a group of men stared at me and one said to his friends, “Look, it’s an Israeli.” I turned back and glared at him and felt like yelling at him. I do not know how much better it would be to say, “No, I’m an American!” but I was furious that anyone would say that especially when I was already in such a vulnerable position. Of course, I do not really care about being mistaken for an Israeli, but this was not a neutral comment about my presumed nationality, it felt more like incitement.

My next stop was al-Azhar Park. On my way I crossed over a hill on a busy street and as I approached the top I could see through the smog and dust three orange pyramids towering over the city. It was incredible. I was looking over most of Cairo and the Nile and I could still see the massive structures clearly. I think it takes seeing the pyramids from that far away to really understand just how huge they are. I visited them in 2008 and for a few reasons I did not feel like it was necessary to see them up close again. Seeing them by accident is so much better. Unfortunately, a picture would not have done it justice.

I arrived at al-Azhar Park before noon and reluctantly paid the entrance fee, thinking “It’s just a park, how great could it be?” As soon as I walked through the gates I was transported to another world with towering palm trees, fountains, and spotless granite walkways. Even the pollution seemed to dissipate inside the huge park. 

I was determined to see every corner of the park that seemed to be Egypt’s answer to New York’s Central Park. The views onto the rest of Cairo were amazing and I was overwhelmed by all the different bird species I came across. Hoopoes, White Wagtails, Warblers, Pied and White-breasted Kingfishers, Laughing Doves, Hooded Crows, Red-vented Bulbuls, and finally, wild Ring-necked Parakeets.

 I sat by the main pond, ordered tea from the outdoor cafe and watched the kingfishers (apparently known as ‘riff raff’ in Arabic). One Pied Kingfisher was a particularly bad hunter and kept dropping his live catch back in the pond and usually failed at retrieving it. 

I was getting up to leave the pond and explore more when a teenage girl approached me with her friends. She yelled at me in English saying “I love you, I love you!” It was really annoying and kind of aggressive and then I realized that that is exactly what some Egyptian men do, but when they do it it is perceived as sexual harassment. A lot of verbal sexual harassment in Egypt and Jordan is in English and I have always felt that the meanings and connotations of the words they use are lost on them, whether they are repeatedly asking me my name or calling me a bitch. This type of harassment is usually considered sexual because it is almost always directed at women and accompanied with other sounds and gestures. If it was a group of men saying that to me at the park, I definitely would have seen it as a form of sexual harassment, but who is to say that men who shout “I love you!” at me and other foreign women are not simply exercising their limited English or making their friends laugh like these girls were? Of course, I do not want to reduce the plague of sexual violence and harassment in Egypt to young men joking around, but I think that this experience with the girls made me realize that at least some of it is just teenagers being obnoxious and overly-excited by foreigners.

I circled around the park and came to the top of a hill where no one else was sitting. After a few minutes I was approached by a husband and wife, a Malaysian Muslim couple touring Cairo. They wanted me to photograph them in front of the mosque. The husband and I were able to converse flawlessly in Arabic and it was a really satisfying feeling, even more so than speaking to an Arab. I feel like Arabs are the obvious target of my language studies, so when I can speak to people of completely different backgrounds and nationalities, who I otherwise would not be able to communicate with, it is really enjoyable to me. After they left I took some of my own pictures of the view and noticed a man on his roof waving a big blue cloth. I knew immediately what it was and I was excited to see it in person. In Jordan they are known as ‘kashasheen’ (one is a kashash) and they are the men that raise and fly pigeons from coops that they keep on the roof. Their pigeons are prized possessions and a lot of money is invested in this hobby--some pigeons can cost as much as $1,000 a bird. But it is not all about money. As one kashash put it, “You get to a stage where you can build a fortune with the birds, and yet you feel that the birds are much better to have than the money.” Quoted from this NYT article. This hobby is also interesting because it is a crime. In Jordan, flying pigeons is illegal because it often involves theft. When different flocks of pigeons belonging to different kashasheen are flying around the city, some pigeons will defect to another flock, so when that flock returns to its owner the new pigeon (which may be worth hundreds of dollars) effectively belongs to a different owner. Kashasheen are so distrusted in Jordan that they are not allowed to testify in court and their signatures on many documents are considered worthless. One of my professors said that people fight and kill over these pigeons, a few murders each year being attributed to pigeon disputes. In this picture you can see the pigeons and the coop on the closest right-hand building. You cannot see the man in this picture, but he was waving the blue cloth to attract the pigeons back home.

I never wanted to leave the park. It is such an incredible oasis in the middle of Cairo. But, I still had a lot to see. I walked past the Islamic quarter and saw the Mosque of Muhammad Ali (pictured) and the Citadel. South of this area is ‘trash city’ in the neighborhood of Manshiyat Naser. I walked around the area for a long time, but too much exploring or photography felt strange to me. It really was not that different from a normal lower class neighborhood and was not the horrible, littered slum that one would imagine from a name like ‘trash city.’ Wandering south I found one of the most stunning mosques I have ever seen. It is certainly not in use, but striking simply because it is so old with no apparent attempt at restoration. I caught a cab near it and asked the driver what year it was built.

“It’s old.”

“Yeah, but from what era?”

“It’s really really old.”

Luckily I was able to locate it now on Google Maps and it is called the Mosque and Mausoleum of Shahin al-Khalawati, built in 1538. Shahin was a mystic born in Iran and after serving as a soldier in Qaitbay’s army, he retired in Cairo to build this mosque which included his own burial place, where he is said to have lived alone for 30 years without ever going into Cairo. More here: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/504/feature.htm

Back in downtown Cairo I got my last meal of koshari and sat between Tahrir Square and the National Museum. As I was eating, some official approached me and told me I could not wait around there. He inquired about my nationality, what I was doing, if I was alone, and he saw me off as I walked further down the street. I stopped again at the other end of Tahrir and was approached by an elderly man with pretty good English. We talked for a while about the U.S., which state I was from, where his children live. He then tells me that he is a journalist that covers politics, then he explains that he is actually a politician, then he says he is an art dealer and a business man. At this point I am on to him and realize that an invitation to his manuscript shop or “gallery” is in the near future. He then asks me if I want to walk down the street with him to see his art store. I realize that this sounds like a kidnapping waiting to happen, but it really is just an invitation to his shop where I am certain he tries to pass off banana paper as ‘real papyrus’ to unsuspecting tourists. Five other invitations like this had been offered to me earlier that day and five more were yet to come. I had little to do that evening, but whatever I could find would be better than following a guy with two teeth and a forged press pass into a back alley. I tell him no thanks.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I look away, sweaty and exhausted, “I don’t want to.”

“Ha, okay.” And he ambles down the road. 

It is moments like these when I think about just how valuable independent travel is for women. Young women, especially. Invitations and propositions are piled onto you and often the only correct response is “No, thanks” and the only honest reason is “Because I don’t want to.” It sounds so basic, but it is a really useful skill to have.

I walked along the Nile and found a riverside cafe to sit down at, unmolested. I spent the whole time photographing the river and the kingfisher couple nearby:

Yesterday a demonstrator, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, was killed in Talaat al Harb, the circle next to the hostel I stayed at the night before I left. She was participating in a non-violent demonstration when she was shot by security. Look at this article, but probably not the videos: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/middleeast/egypt-woman-is-killed-in-peaceful-cairo-protest.html?_r=0

 I realize that I can be in Cairo and see something completely different than the reality of what is happening there. I felt safe and it is difficult to imagine this happening on the streets where I was just walking days ago. I realize that no matter how good my Arabic is, no matter how many years I end up living in the Middle East, I will never be a part of this world or a part of the profound struggle for change that is happening in every Arab nation. This is not something I am envious of, but it does widen the gaping chasm that is between me and any real understanding of what it means to be a citizen of these countries that I visit.

I headed back to my hostel to gather my luggage and find a cab. When I arrived in Amman at 1am, I was greeted with much more questioning than usual at the visa desk. Where exactly do you live here? What are you studying? Why are you studying Arabic? Why were you in Yemen? Egypt? etc. I asked them why they were so curious this time around but I got no response. The most questioning I have ever gotten at the airport was regarding where I study in Jordan. Security seems to be ramped up in the downtown areas, too but I am not sure why. Here are some miscellaneous pictures from Cairo (including a Mohamed Morsi sign):

اسكندرية

The train ride from Cairo to Alexandria is just over two hours. The route is along the western edge of the Nile delta, so there are a lot of crops and irrigation which attract birds. The most common species is the Cattle Egret but there are also Night-herons, Hoopoes, lapwings, White-breasted and Pied Kingfishers, and falcons.

As soon as I reached Alexandria’s shoreline from the train station I was stunned by the view. Huge blue waves crashing on the rocks right next to the corniche’s sidewalk. There were a lot of couples holding hands and watching the sunset. The amount of public affection in Egypt was remarkable to me since it is another thing I do not see a lot of in Jordan. Seeing married and unmarried conservative couples cuddling and laying in each others laps in the park was charming and surprising. I say they were conservative because many of the women wore the niqab. 

The first morning in Alexandria I sat on the corniche wall in the heavy fog. I was approached by a twenty-something Egyptian guy that asked me if he could sit next to me and talk. Up until that point most of my interaction with Egyptian men of this age was uni-directional and consisted of name-calling and hissing sounds. So, I told him he could sit and talk. We later got up to walk down the corniche and he asked me if I was from Syria.

“Yeah, from Syria. But I live in Jordan.”

“I had a Syrian girlfriend once. She’s in Saudi now. I did this when she left me.” He pushes up his left jacket sleeve to show me a large burn on his wrist. 

“Why’d you do that?” 

“I just loved her so much.”

“That’s...nice.”

I stop to take a picture of a wrecked fishing boat in the fog when a man with a bruise on his forehead (see below) approaches us and starts asking me in English why I am photographing that. I respond in Arabic and ask him if photography is prohibited there for some reason.

“Why you take photo?!”

My new friend clarifies for him that I do not speak English, but the stranger keeps up his questioning in English.

“Why you take photo of ugly thing? You’re from where!?”

“Jordan.”

Only then does he start speaking Arabic.

“OK, why are you photographing this? This is ugly, why can’t you photograph something beautiful?”

“Actually, this is a hundred times prettier than anything in Jordan.”

This goes on for a while but I finally agree to not photograph it anymore. My friend looks just as surprised as me since the man seemed genuinely angry.

Here is a good example of the forehead bruise I was referring to: زبيبة الصلاة. Ostensibly, it is a sign that someone prays on a regular basis and the repeated head-to-floor contact results in the mark. The problem is that it is very obviously intentional (either dyed with henna or due to purposeful pressure on that point). I find it distasteful to say the least and the only thing it advertises is how self-righteous and vain those who have it are. Some people tell me that this mark is genuinely a product of regular prayer on the hard floors of the mosque, but that would not explain why it is only sported by Egyptian assholes. If anyone knows of other countries that have a significant number of “prayer raisins,” as they are called, please let me know so I can edit that to just say “assholes.” In any case, they are beneficial to me because it is a clear signal to limit interaction and to lie about my nationality.

The souqs near the western side of Alexandria are full of every kind of fruit, vegetable, and meat, but the main feature is the freshly caught fish and shrimp. To get the best meal, you pick out whatever seafood you want, put it in a bag, and bring it to a restaurant to cook for you-- fried or grilled. I ate fish this way everyday in Alexandria and it was always delicious. The restaurant I went to, which was really a family kitchen with one table open for the public, cooked our hand-picked fish and shrimp to perfection and also prepared garlic mashed potatoes, baba ghanoush, and soups for us, all for a few dollars.

Most of my time in Alexandria was spent walking along the corniche and watching the fishermen and passersby. At the far end of the corniche is the Citadel of Qaitbay, built in 1477.

For the five days I was in Alexandria, there was a power outage for an hour or two every night at 8pm. It seemed to be scheduled but I was told that they were a result of the overused power grid. After the revolution, construction and development became unregulated. Buildings that were once two stories became five and all the occupants were now suddenly sharing the same limited electricity. 

Like Amman and Cairo, Alexandria has neighborhoods with lots of book stands. They sell every kind of book imaginable--Arabic and English romance novels, historical texts, kids books. Alongside Ray Bradbury, Danielle Steele, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are copies of the Protocols of Zion, the one book that seems to be found at every book stand in the Arab world. I was approached by a woman named Sara and her young daughter. Sara was curious how I learned Arabic and recommended some other books to me. We exchanged contact info and decided to meet up again. Interactions like that seemed pretty frequent in Egypt and, again compared to Jordan, it was a refreshing change. 

Getting around Alexandria is really simple. It is close to impossible to get lost since the whole city is arranged along the Mediterranean, so most destinations are just east or west. A cab ride across the city could cost a few US dollars, but if one uses a mashrou’, or a minibus, then the trip is well under a dollar. Of course this means being piled into a small van with ten other passengers, but that itself can be an adventure and a good opportunity to meet new people and practice Arabic.

I was lucky to visit Alexandria University’s TAFL center while I was there. It is the former center for Flagship’s capstone year, the place I would have likely been studying this here if the program had not relocated to Morocco. I met some of the professors and the director. The student population is now almost exclusively Chinese and European. It was definitely sad to see, in both Cairo and Alexandria, all of the opportunities that current Arabic students have lost.

Harassment was strangely increased while walking around with a female professor. Although she is Egyptian and wears the hijab, the men in the street seemed to think that she was an American because she was walking with two Americans. They made comments about how “She looks like she could be Egyptian!” and called her different names. It was bizarre. Possibly the combination of an Egyptian-looking American Muslim woman was just too much for them to handle.

I went to the Alexandria Museum the next day. Of course, the famous one was destroyed between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, but there is a new one that still holds some of the old documents. It is a stunning building inside and out where local students will gather and study, taking advantage of the massive amounts of books in a number of languages. There is also a museum downstairs.

I was truly sad to leave Alexandria and all the people I met there, but I was looking forward to one more day in Cairo because I still had a lot left to see.

Escaping Hoda

The uncomfortably cold weather in Amman became unbearable a couple weeks ago. Space heaters and plastic-covered windows were no match for the record-breaking winter storm that was blowing through. Most people with typical, uninsulated apartments in Amman, certainly myself included, were essentially camping in their homes. Everyone hysterically stocked up on bread, canned food, and candles before hurrying home to huddle under blankets with sweaters and scarves. That makes it sound cozier than it actually was. What this weather really means is that one cannot sleep with any skin exposed to the air. Also, considering that 20 minutes of rain derails everything in Amman, you can imagine the havoc that was wreaked by two days of heavy snow, hail, and strong winds. My flight to Cairo was scheduled during the middle of this storm, ‘Hoda.’ There were no threats of flight cancellations, remarkably, but officials were considering shutting down the road to the airport the night before my flight. I was calling cabbies but none of them were willing to drive in the snow, no matter how much I offered to pay them. They advised me to postpone my flight because the drive would be too dangerous. I tried one last number at 11pm and talked to Jamal. His only response to my questions was ‘Inshallah,’ which I had no choice but to consider a ‘yes.’ At 4:30 the next morning I call and wake him up to see if he’s on his way.

 “Inshallah.” 

I am completely stunned when I head outside with my luggage and see snow covering everything with drifts so high on the sidewalk that I need to drag my luggage down the middle of the road. I finally find Jamal and help wipe the snow off his cab before we head out. We go slow and take a back road to the airport and I try to convey to him just how grateful I am. He really was my savior.

We get to the airport with hours to spare and the flight was on time-- actually the only flight I have ever had with EgyptAir that left on schedule. The trip is under an hour and a half so I arrive in Cairo in the morning. Because of my experience in Egypt in 2008 I am anticipating scammers at the airport, harassment, unbearable traffic, crowds, and pollution. Bracing myself for these things certainly made it all easier to deal with and I managed to find a reasonably-priced cab outside the airport. Although the cab ride was fairly cheap I was expected to tip every person involved in the process-- the man who approached me at the airport and walked me to the parking lot, then the one who put my bags in the trunk, and finally the driver himself. They would all say, “Don’t I get a tip?!” Bathroom attendants would teach me a few Arabic phrases and then hold out their hands saying, “A little money?” On the upside, even tipping every person comes out to only a few Egyptian pounds, well under a dollar. 

I did not know what to expect from Egypt this time around, but after just a few minutes in the cab I started to see all the positive ways that Cairo is different from Amman and I was smitten. I should really emphasize at this point that I cannot help but compare everything to Amman, a comparison that makes Cairo seem much more dazzling than it might be for someone coming from the U.S. or Europe. This relativism is especially important when I am talking about the food, the architecture, and the natural beauty. With that in mind, the buildings were what first struck me because of the variety and the fact that there were decorative aspects to many of them. Despite the fine dust that coats every surface in Cairo, indoors and out, corners of the city are colorful. From the bright laundry hanging out of the windows to store signs and the occasional gaudy buildings. There were even more trees than I expected. Streets that could maybe see a half hour of direct sunlight each day had palm trees and shrubs. 

Cairo is notorious for being overcrowded--the capital and its surrounding suburbs constitute the most populous city in Africa. Rather than seeing this in the amount of traffic and pollution, of which there is plenty, I saw it in alleys and shops. Each glance out the window of the cab would reveal another microcosm of Cairo life: Motorcycles of all shapes and colors speeding past with women riding sidesaddle on the back, young men rolling tires to a repair shop, women slapping the dust out of rugs while a cat gnaws on discarded chicken bones. Every crevice was full of life and each scene was like flipping the pages of a pop-up book or opening all the windows of an advent calendar at the same time. 

The AirBnB I rented was in Dokki, a nice neighborhood on the west side of the Nile. For $40 a night I got a three bedroom, three bathroom penthouse with two balconies, an absurd amount of furniture, and an out-of-tune piano. 

I wandered around the neighborhood to find some food and everyone I came across was remarkably friendly and no one tried to rip me off. I know it may be unfair to expect anything else from Egyptians, but given my previous experience there it was hard to not be a little surprised. Over the next few days I walked to Zamalek, the location of the American University where the CASA program is supposed to be held, and across the Nile to Tahrir Square and Egypt’s National Museum. Walking around this area on a Friday close to the anniversary of the revolution meant that security was really tight. It may be like that most of the time but a cab driver said that security was high on Fridays because of potential protests. There was barbed wire lining all the streets, ready to be pulled into intersections. There were large armored vehicles with soldiers wearing ski masks manning their mounted machine guns. Those were followed by paddy wagons. Needless to say, I was dying to take pictures but I am confident I would have been promptly thrown in jail if I had.

Above is the Nile, the National Museum, and the burned-out remnants of Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party headquarters, which is quite literally a stone’s throw away from the National Museum. It is an imposing presence along the Nile and I do not know what the future of that building is or if there is any desire to even tear it down. Like many other buildings in Cairo, it may stay there for years. 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-29/a-bombed-out-buffer-zone-sought-for-king-tut-at-cairo-egyptian-museum

The inside of the National Museum was amazing-- massive sculptures, 3800-year-old boats, and countless mummies and sarcophagi. The museum is poorly-lit, dusty, and disorganized. I think this is largely because of poor upkeep, but also because there is just a massive amount of artifacts to deal with. There are so many sarcophagi that some are strewn along the outside of the museum. For every glass case of lapis lazuli scarab beetles on display there are fifteen drawers of them underneath that are not for public viewing. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited in the museum and I had to check my camera at the door. I had my phone though, so here are a few of the bad pictures I was able to get.

 

Mummified humans and other animals, including a crocodile with its tiny baby next to it from around 700 B.C.E.

Overall, the museum was definitely worth the visit but it would be impossible to see every display and it does get boring after a while. Once you’ve seen one mummy, you’ve seen them all. 

The absence of foreigners in Egypt was most notable at the National Museum. Aside from the pyramids, the museum is probably the most touristy place in Cairo, and it was clearly lacking the overweight, ignorant, and easily-exploited Americans that were such an integral part of the Egyptian economy. 

On this night, like most nights in Egypt, I ate koshari. I never understood the appeal of koshari before as Egypt’s national food. It is a mix of macaroni, noodles, chickpeas and lentils with a light tomato sauce and crispy onions on top. It is hard to get excited about it but I realized on this trip that it is a pretty good comfort food that fills you up fast and carries little to no risk of food poisoning (which is obviously important to me when eating cheap street food in a new country). Some koshari also comes with really spicy sauce, something that is hard to find in Jordan.

The next day I saw Cairo’s Coptic (Orthodox Christian) neighborhood. It was a beautiful area and very calm. There is a wall that surrounds much of the neighborhood but it is hardly isolated since just outside the walls are busy neighborhoods with a number of mosques whose call to prayer echoes throughout the the Coptic district. We arrived there by cab and had a very entertaining driver. He was Coptic himself and used to be a florist in Italy before returning to Cairo. He would mix his Arabic with Italian and English, referring to “the bambino Jesus” and “Cattolicesimo.” It was a confusing conversation because he seemed to think we understood Italian better than Arabic. He then pointed to a large group of nondescript white people walking down the street and said, “Israelis!”

“How do you know they’re Israelis?”

“From how they look.” He then tried to convince us that the meter read 20 pounds when it very clearly displayed 12 and after a shouting match outside the church we agreed that it was 15. I visited five or six churches, the Coptic Museum, a synagogue (photography prohibited, unfortunately), and wandered around the narrow alleys. The churches seem to mostly be located below street level, which is said to be because the land surface has risen more than six meters since they were built. 

Depictions of Saint George are everywhere in this neighborhood. He seems to be their most revered saint. There is also a lot of imagery of ‘the hermit,' the naked man with the beard who is a saint, but I am not sure which one. The bottom picture is of the Fortress of Babylon, which I thought would be in Iraq, not Egypt, but apparently there is more than one Babylon and this one was built by the Romans around year 100. While wandering around the narrow streets we would come across guards who would direct us where to go and what places were closed or open. They did not speak to us but just gestured, even when I spoke Arabic to them. Later I learned that they are mute. Apparently it is common for deaf-mutes to work in communities like this where minimal interaction is required. In Egypt overall, I saw more sign language than I have in any other Arab country. I was curious to see if there was one form of sign language for this region but of course, this is what I find: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages#Middle_East

Here are also some pictures of the Coptic graveyard, which I thought was beautiful:

 

Before heading to Alexandria in the early afternoon, I was taking out the trash from the apartment when I ran into the doorman who asked if I had been there all morning.
"Yeah, why?"
"Because the police are looking for you."
"Why?"
"They're doing tafteesh (like an inspection/investigation). They heard there were foreigners in the area and they want to talk to you and copy your passports."
"Well that's not happening. I'm leaving to Alexandria now."
"They're going to do the same to you there. Just watch out for the people in the streets and be careful who you talk to."

I wish I had some explanation for what this was all about. It may be that the police were just concerned for our safety since they see so few foreigners these days and they wanted copies of our passports in case something happened. Even so, it made me uncomfortable and I was glad I was leaving right away. Here is Cairo's Ramses Train Station: