Qahira--Umm al-Dunia (Cairo, Mother of the Universe)

For years, I have been dreaming of coming to Cairo. When I first decided to study abroad in the Middle East, Egypt was my first inclination, but after comparing programs and negotiating with my parents, Jordan seemed to be a better location for my first trip to the Middle East. In a way, I've been so focused on Jordan and all the issues and culture surrounding it I had forgotten how much I had fallen in love with Egypt from afar--and so I was taken aback by the sheer euphoria I felt when I stepped off the hour-long plane ride from Amman yesterday afternoon.

From a tour bus window, Cairo unfurled itself before me, like an unkempt garden, everything growing and dying at its own uncontrolled pace, as if the full range of humanity was contained within this sprawling metropolis. Incredible beauty, incredible poverty, relics from every historical period, places of worship of every religion--you name it, Cairo has it. Driving away from the airport, I felt as though I could have been in San Diego; white apartment buildings with massive clusters of satellite dishes covering their roofs, with a wonderful profusion of green vines and trees with brightly colored flowers twisting around wrought-iron gates, proving a welcome contrast to the red-tinged sands of the African continent that leave no Cairene surface untouched. Within the first ten minutes, I saw a sign leading to the "Virgin Mary's Tree", a weathering Olympic village, whose pristine white buildings had faded to yellow, its entrance graced by a variety of different officers on horseback, shooting the shit in the midday sun, and an old woman clad in a bright, floral dress--no black abaya--skillfully balancing an iron pot on her head while walking down the street. Descending into the city from the high way, I rounded a corner to see men of all ages and dress literally spilling out of a mosque into its courtyard, all prostrating themselves on colorful prayer rugs facing east towards Mecca. There were even a few women praying as well, which is virtually unheard of in Amman--the mosque, for the most part, is a male domain (not quite sure how I feel about that, but it seems to be the overriding custom.) Everywhere I looked, opposites appeared next to one another--a dusty, deserted bus station sat next to a pristine, iron and steel office building; a small donkey outfitted in a festive purple saddle pulled a cart of reeds, upon which a young girl was reclining in the afternoon heat, in front of a French pottery store, whose signage was all in English.

There seemed to be a bit of uproar as our colossal bus grunted and heaved its way up a narrow, tree-lined street--at all times, people were running in and out of the street with no mind to the oncoming traffic, yet I soon came to realize that what may have looked like chaos to me, was in fact completely under control to them. While in Amman, traffic rules are certainly arbitrary, for the most part, in Cairo, the pedestrians are expected to behave just as daringly--moreover, there are probably about 15x as many of each of them. Walking in the path of oncoming cars not being  one of my past times, I was absolutely petrified the first time I ventured out into the streets once we had settled down into our hotel in Muhandiseen, a rapidly-developing neighborhood in Giza (on the west side of the Nile, as opposed to Cairo proper, which is on the east side). Staring out across a seemingly endless six lanes of traffic (to be fair, six is an approximate number--the amount of lanes in any given road is completely up to interpretation and fluctuates by the second), I realized that if I didn't overcome my aversion, I'd probably be stuck on this cement barrier, I watched a few of the pros do it, and stepped out into the boulevard. Once I saw that it was ok to stop in between lanes, and pause for a bit as cars whipped by either side of you, it really wasn't so bad. Cairo life-skill number one, accomplished!

My program gave us a mixture of academic lectures, free time, experiential assignments ,and site visits to give us a complex understanding of the driving forces and issues within Egyptian society, as well as the rich legacy of Egyptian history. I was able to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx, Muhammed Ali's Citadel, the Coptic Quarter, numerous stunning mosques, and countless other sites. An academic highlight for me was being able to go to the headquarters of the Arab League, the regional body that functions somewhat like the UN; there, we received a lecture from the Head Advisor to the Secretary-General on the region's struggled for democratization, approach towards peacemaking and diplomacy with non-Arab partners, and spearheading economic development within member states. I enjoyed this lecture particularly because our speaker, Hisam Yusef, was willing to be self-critical, a characteristic not often found among many Arab intellectuals addressing Western students. Yusef compared the Arab League to the EU, saying that the Arab League had been defining its membership in the wrong way, or rather, overestimating the value of Arab unity. The EU had achieved a single currency among people of different nationalities and different languages through economic cooperation, never using the rhetoric of unity, while the Arabs had rallied around unity from the start and achieved nothing. Just as the Europeans started with economic alliances over coal and steel, our speaker noted the recent linkage of gas power plants within the region as the Arab League's equivalents--instead of relying upon slogans, it was time to unite Middle Eastern countries over partnerships with tangible benefits. Yusef continued to address the issue of democratization, expressing frustration with America's adoption of democracy at the international pulpit, as its advocacy for something that is, and has been being fought for for many years merely allowed religious radicals within Middle Eastern states to invalidate the struggle for democracy on its basis of being un-Islamic, and a foreign concept. As to the disparity between democracy in the West and in the Middle East, he pointed to colonialism as the differentiating factor. The Arab League was created in 1963, and started with just 6 of its now 22 member states--because only 6 of them had independence, and thus political self-determination, at that time. To this day, there are still many forces fighting the democratization within the region, yet he reinforced his desire for democracy, as have many of the other Arabs with whom I have spoken, even the most anti-American ones.

In my time studying the cultural and religious phenomena of other civilizations, there always exists the struggle between upholding your own, inevitably subjective notion of universal human rights and maintaining a politically correct level of cultural sensitivity--the study of female genital mutilation comes to mind. Quite often, I find that students overcompensate on the side of cultural sensitivity so as to not appear ignorant or overbearing. However, my experiences here have made me quest that pattern of analysis, because more than anything, in coming and living with people of another culture, you realize the great similarities you have in common, certain cultural and political obstacles aside. Yusef and many other lecturers and people I've spoken to, are more than willing to make direct comparisons with American society, and are eager to convey the political and social movements within their homelands as just the same as those America and Europe may have gone through a few centuries ago. More than anything, I continue to realize the similar hopes and desires between the people I meet here, and those I know within my own society, and continue to take that into consideration when viewing the region's conflicts, instead of dismissing certain issues as untouchable in an effort to remain culturally sensitive. Sometimes, acknowledging common goals is more productive than refusing to try to understand. 

Outside of politics, Egypt is a country that seems to be going through somewhat of an identity crisis, or rather, has so many different identities, it is hard to know which one to adopt. Egyptians take great pride in their heritage, often going so far as to refuse to be called Arabs, saying they are descended from the Pharoahs, not the Bedouin people. I like this, because it makes religion a part of their identity, but not the sole defining factor, whereas most Arabs are taught that there was nothing before Islam--it was merely the Jahiliyya (Age of Ignorance). Moreover, stretching back into the ancient Pharoanic times, Egypt has a long history of foreign intervention, contributing to the immense, multi-faceted historical legacy and influence. As it stands, the economy is incredibly reliant on tourism as its driving industry, and as such, the government does whatever it can to maintain the droves of visitors that come to Cairo every year. Unlike in Amman, where there are considerably fewer tourists, in Cairo, I saw people of every color, speaking countless different languages on a daily basis; European, Russian American, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, African--they're all in Cairo. And unlike myself and those in my program, who have been counseled in the cultural rules of the area, at the Egyptian Museum was confronted with masses of middle-aged Russian women, stretch marks on their exposed breasts, butt cheeks hanging out of their cut-off shorts--how they were at all comfortable next to women in niqab, let alone the aggressive eyes of the local men--was beyond me. Though foreigners and locals alike are lowering their standards of modesty as the weather heats up, I have grown overly sensitive to displays of skin that I normally would not have batted an eye about before.

A huge percentage of the population is somehow connected to the tourism industry, and thus, there are many places in Cairo that pride themselves on having an exclusively Western scene. For example, at the Cairo Jazz Club, Westerners are allowed in free, while Arab men must pay a cover charge of 200 pounds; women in hijab aren't allowed in the front door. In contrast, driving back from a group dinner one night, out of the window of a taxi I saw an advertisement for a store entitled "Sxy", proclaiming, 'it's good to be feminine, it's good to be sexy, it's good to be veiled, it's good to be you'--all in English. Obviously, there seem to be competing forces at work.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with my friends from Brandeis, Meredith and Charlie, both of whom are studying abroad this semester at the American University of Cairo--they were both wonderful hosts and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to visit them (my door in Amman is always open!) Being the brave souls that they are, they made the decision to live in an apartment in the downtown area, instead of in Zamalek, the tranquil island in the middle of the Nile where most AUC students live, that is considerably calmer than the downtown area. After showing me around the campus, where the upper crust of Egyptian youth resides, private chauffeurs and Gucci sunglasses at the ready, Charlie and I went on an expedition into Khan al-Khalili, the centuries-old bazaar filled with tents of haggling merchants, who all thought I was Spanish for some reason. The market is near Islamic Cairo, and is filled with tons of wonderful, one of a king goods that unless you are quite savvy, you will most likely get ripped off for. My ability to speak Arabic helped quite a bit in getting the prices down, and I escaped with some handmade leather flats in different colors, lots of scarves, and some jewelry--much less than some others in my program, some of whom came away with upwards of 4 sheeshas. A friend of Charlie's had heard about a special tower deep within the heart of the marketplace that he had climbed and had incredible views of the city, so once our shopping was concluded, we plunged into the suq, going deeper and deeper until the throngs of tourists had given way to locals who were buying the same goods as the Westerners up front, at considerably deflated prices. A huge stone archway divided the edge of the marketplace from the beginning of a residential area, and at its base, sat a tiny corner store, its attendant smoking argileh in the fading afternoon heat, absent-mindedly counting the dusty glass soda bottles that had been left behind in order to be redeemed for a rebate. 

Checking the name, Charlie tentatively asked: "Fein Bab al-Zumayli? Hun?"

"Ah, Fowq"

Pointing upwards, the store keeper indicated we were standing right below the tower, and needed to climb up the stairs on the other side of the street. Though it was technically closed to tourists after 5, after haggling with the groundskeeper and explaining it was my last day in town, he relented (read: baqsheesh (a bribe) was involved). The first flight of stairs was nothing special, though at its base was a sign reading, "You are now outside of Cairo"--apparently, in centuries past, this had been the old wall of the city. The first flight of stairs brought us to an open, flat stone surface; two narrow minarets (towers) lay at its edge. Employing our handy built-in cell phone flashlights, we ascended the first tower, an incredibly cramped, unlit stone spiral staircase that wound around for what seemed like ages. Though not for the faint of heart, or fearful of heights, the view that greeted us at the top was definitely stunning, with the different quarters of the city melding into one, and the glimmering Nile slicing down their middle.

It would be impossible to speak about everything I saw and learned in Cairo, but let me mention a few brief notes before signing off:

a) The Coptic Museum--Though nowhere near as cool as seeing the gorgeous, intact mosques (the museum held tons of artifacts and relics from Christian sites elsewhere in Egypt, as opposed to one intact whole), I was fascinated to learn that the practice of asceticism within Christianity was first practiced by the Copts and later spread to Europe. Best pieces included ancient disintegrating robes worn by the first ascetics, and a complete copy of the Gospels written in Arabic.

b) Grave of Imam al-Shafi--desperately wanted to see this, but didn't have time--also on my meant to do but didn't get around to list--going to a Purim party at one of the local synagogues (with my fellow Brandeisians in tow, of course). Was sure it wouldn't top a Brandeis Purim, but I thought it would be an interesting cultural experience. In the end, we decided to play it safe and go for sangria in Zamalek. 

On our last afternoon, we went on a peaceful felucca ride on the Nile--think a slightly larger, Egyptian version of a gondola, complete with built-in picnic tables, another respite from the constant traffic, pollution and constant motion that characterizes life in Cairo. I think I would need many, many months to see all there is in Cairo, let alone Egypt, but insha'allah I will return very soon. I'm now back in Amman for yet another week of class, where I'll be finishing up my research project on the Performing Arts  in the Jordanian educational system, before taking off on one more organized trip around Jordan to see Petra, Aqaba, and Wadi Rum. Following that, we'll have a final week of classes, and then our ISP period begins--funny how time flies. After a week of Cairo, Amman is a complete breeze, I feel very comfortable here, though I continue to discover new things, like an amazing organic restaurant yesterday afternoon that is part of a foundation supporting nature preservation and ecotourism in Jordan. I will also be celebrating my 21st birthday soon!

Homework calls.....ma'salaama