SANDStorm

We’ve been back two weeks and it seems like it was a million years ago that we were living by the Nile. The constant traffic noise, the persistent dust in the air, the exhilaration I felt when I successfully crossed the street on a Thursday night…all of these intense experiences seem to have just vanished from my mind.

Egypt is like a dream to me now. I find it hard to believe I was actually living there for nine months only two weeks ago…But I notice that my behavior in DC is different than before we experienced Egypt.

Boy, DC sure seems like a sleepy little town to me now! I walk down the street during rush hour traffic and find myself wondering, “Where are all the people?” I also walk down the side of the street (not the sidewalk) and smile at everyone I see, just because I can without anyone misconstruing my expression of happiness!

But what I miss the most is our friends we made while in Egypt. It’s impossible to express how grateful we are to you for inviting us into your lives and sharing your friendship with us. We miss you all very much and hope to see you again soon.

We leave tomorrow ISA (for our non-Egyptian friends, that means in sha’allah, or “God willing”) to return to the familiar world of American strip malls, pizza by the slice, and coffee-to-go. I’m already waxing nostalgic about Cairo…so what will we miss about Cairo?

1. In the morning, the sound of a man’s voice calling out his produce for sale from his donkey cart in the street below.

2. The rush I feel when I weave through traffic, cars brushing past me, on the Corniche.

3. Knowing that the Nile (the Nile!) is just two blocks away.

4. Juicy, red tomatoes all year long from my local market.

5. How easy it is to walk out my door and see buildings that are 800 years old.

6. Riding in a taxi which seems to be held together with string.

7. The happy horn honk (beeeeeep-beeeeeep-beep-beep-beep) when a wedding caravan cruises by, or when Ahly wins a soccer game, or when someone just feels happy.

8. The routine of eating dinner at 10pm and going to bed at 2am every night.

A photography exhibit at the Contempory Image Collective is well worth a visit if you are in downtown Cairo. The series of black and white images is displayed in pairs; one image of a Palestinian refugee, and the other image of the land which used to be his or hers.

Daily Star Egypt article:
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6008

The exhibit runs until March 25th.

Contemporary Image Collective (CIC)
20 Safeya Zaghloul St., off Kasr El Aini St. Cairo.
(012) 115 8700
11 am – 6pm except Friday and Saturday

There’s a lot to see and do in Cairo, so how to prioritize? After eight months in Cairo, here’s what I will remember most fondly in this fantastic city, in no particular order and excluding the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum, both which shouldn’t be missed, as well as the Citadel, which I never actually visited.

1. Felucca ride on the Nile

Walk down the Corniche and you’ll quickly find someone willing to take you for an hour-long sit on the Nile. It’ll cost you about 40 LE ($7), plus a tip. Bring along some juice and a picnic, enough to share with the felucca captain.

2. Townhouse Gallery
The Townhouse Gallery in downtown Cairo usually exhibits work by local artists related to regional issues. My favorite recent exhibit was about the migration of people from North Africa to Europe. Get on their email list to learn about current exhibits, concerts, plays, workshops, etc. They also have a great gift shop with books, handmade jewelry, and art.

The Townhouse Gallery is located in a somewhat renovated 19th century building with tall, shuttered windows and wrought-iron balconies.

3. Lectures at the American University in Cairo
AUC hosts numerous free lectures and events related to Middle East issues that are open to the public. For most lectures, bring your ID (driver’s license comes in handy for this) and be prepared to leave it at the gate, depending on the mood of the security guard. The lectures are always very informative and usually provide endless entertainment during the Q & A period, often used by audience members to expound on their own personal thoughts about US-Iraeli relations, regardless of the lecture topic, until the moderator is brave enough to intervene.

4. Al Azhar Park
Perfect place to listen to the call to prayer in surround-sound and view the sunset over Cairo or, if the sky is clear, over the Pyramids.

5. Mosque of Ibn Tulun
Although located in a densely populated and noisy section of town, once you step into the mosque you won’t hear a thing from the outside world. The solitude and simplicity of the architectural patterns are just what is needed to escape Cairo, while still remaining in Cairo.

6. Beyt as-Suhaymi
A gorgeous Ottoman-style home you can visit and spend hours in wandering through the rooms and courtyards. A nice way to spend a few quiet hours in the middle of the hubbub of Islamic Cairo.

7. The Makan
The Egyptian Center for Culture and Art (ECCA) promotes traditional Egyptian music every Tuesday and Wednesday night at The Makan, just a block from the Saad Zaghloul metro stop. Cost of the show is 20 LE. Check out the recent Daily Star Egypt article about Wednesday night’s music by Mazaher Ensemble.

8. The Sawy Culturewheel in Zamalek
There’s music here most nights of the week and it really runs the gamat from hiphop to classical oud, heavy metal to traditional bedouin hits. And, the main hall is located under a bridge next to the Nile – how cool is that?

Pop supergroup WAMA woos the crowd, crooning “Habibi, habibi!”

9. Night-time taxi ride across the city
I loooove zooming across the flyovers late at night in Cairo, looking out on the city lights and the streets teaming with shoppers. Closest thing to feeling like you’re flying.

Day two in Siwa we rented bikes and rode through the oasis visiting historical ruins, as well as a little aimless wandering.

We rode about 27 kilometers on a one-speed bike by the end of the day and are still paying for it everytime we try to sit down…

The Temple of the Oracle dates from at least the 6th century B.C., perhaps earlier, however it’s power and influence had waned by 49 B.C.

Down the street from the oracle are the ruins of the Temple of Amum where we saw these inscriptions on the wall.

Siwa has numerous hot and cold springs; this spring is named “Cleopatra’s Bath,” because she is rumored to have bathed here.

The 13th century town of Old Shali is the centerpiece of the current town. The old town was built like a fortress on top of a hill, with buildings that originally stood four or five stories high. Made of mud and salt, the city was abandoned after a three-day rainstorm in 1926.

We just returned from three days in the Siwa Oasis in western Egypt to see the Libyan desert. It’s a million miles away from the Egypt I know – the Egypt where smoggy, noisy, crowded Cairo is the center of everything. In Siwa, Cairo doesn’t seem to exist. In fact, nothing seems exists outside of the green oasis of palm trees, hot springs, and donkey carts.

The bus ride from Cairo to Marsa Matrouh and on to our final destination, the Siwa Oasis, is a long 9 – 12 hours through a lonely, flat, and sandy landscape. We barreled along in a deluxe bus down the same highway that Alexander the Great traveled in 331 BC in order to consult the Temple of the Oracle in the oasis.

The Siwa Oasis is on the edge of the Great Sand Sea in the Libyan desert. We took a 4×4 trip out into the sea – we didn’t have to go very far to feel very far away. We think perhaps it’s the farthest we’ve ever been from a McDonald’s, but we’ll have to confirm that.

Come on – would you be able to resist climbing to the top of the car? No way!

My guess is that this is a good example of seif dunes, meaning “sword” in Arabic. Besides miles and miles and miles of dunes, we found fossils in the sand, a reminder that millions of years ago we would have been sailing, rather than 4×4’ing.

D goes for some dune surfing, sans sandboard.

Our guide takes the quick way down from on top of the 4×4.

Ibrahim, our guide and driver, makes us some extremely sweet tea, with mint

Tea? Did somebody say tea? With mint? Watch out! I’m comin to get some!

Sunset in the Libyan desert. Sigh.

Stay tuned for Day 2 when we visit the Temple of the Oracle and ride bikes till we can’t sit anymore.

Great article (as well as a video and slideshow) which gives a snapshot of the lives of Cairenes and their sense of the role of government in their lives.

In Arab Hub, the Poor Are Left to Their Fate
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: New York Times, March 1, 2007

CAIRO, Feb. 23 — Ali Mezar has spent his life fishing a narrow, muddy patch of the Nile in this, one of the most crowded cities in the world. But Mr. Mezar has little contact with urban civilization. He sleeps in his boat, makes tea from the dirty Nile water and on good days earns a few dollars.

Not far away, on the shoulder of a busy avenue, Karim Sayed, 21, herds sheep and goats matted with urban filth. He spends his days staring into oncoming traffic, hoping to make a sale before the police move him or confiscate a sheep.

At the city’s edge, in a packed neighborhood built entirely by its residents, Mina Fathy and his neighbors fix sewerage, water and electricity problems on their own because they say the government offers them virtually no service in such functions.

Read the rest of the article…

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With only a few weeks left in Cairo, D and I are frantically squeezing in all the sights we’ve missed so far. On Monday, our plan to go souvenir shopping got a little off-track when we ended up spending more time than we imagined at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun and the Gayer-Anderson museum, thus making us too tired to deal with bargaining for trinkets and kitsch (sorry, U.S.-based friends, we’ll haggle for your glass pyramid next week).

The Mosque of Ibn Tulun is my new favorite place in Cairo (I know I say that every time I visit someplace new here). Based on the Mosque of Samarra in Iraq, the mosque was built in the late 9th century, making it Cairo’s oldest functioning Islamic monument.

I haven’t seen a spiral staircase on the outside of the minaret like this one in Cairo before.

The mosque was made of mud brick and timber. The resortation it has recently undergone was somewhat controversial.

We climbed the minaret to get a fantastic view of the city. The Citadel is to my right; the Nile to my left.

The mosque is austere and incredibly quiet even although it’s in the middle of Cairo.

Next to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun is the Gayer-Anderson museum, two 16th-century homes which were restored in the early-mid 1900s by the British major, John Gayer-Anderson. It’s a beautiful home, and since it’s next to the mosque, it shouldn’t be missed, however if you only have time to visit one traditional home in Cairo, I recommend the beautiful Beyt As-Suhaymi in Islamic Cairo.

We left Cairo at 8 a.m. this morning for a day trip to Alexandria with two friends. On the two and a half hour drive we passed by agricultural areas where we saw lots and lots of pigeon coops.

Pigeon houses in Egypt

Once in Alex, we fortified ourselves at Mohamed Ahmed’s, the Egyptian version of the American diner. Breakfast is omelets, shakshouka (egg and tomato), falafel, fuul (mashed beans), beets, and salad. Just exchange the shakshouka and falafel with fried eggs and hash browns and you’d think you were sitting in the Tastee Diner in Bethesda, Maryland. Kind of.

After breakfast we were ready to hit the sights of Alexandria. So, what can you do in Alex in only 8 hours? Plenty!

Start with a walk along the Corniche and check out the fishing boats which will be catching your dinner later today, if you are lucky.

Take a ride on the tram, or just watch one pass by.

Walk to the Fort at the tip of the Corniche and watch the swimmers, fishers, and loiters. The fort is thought to be near the site of the Alexandria Lighthouse.

Go to Montazah Palace Gardens to see how the King relaxed on vacation from Cairo.

Don’t miss out on the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The original library was destroyed in 48 BC and, after more than 2,000 years, the new library opened a few years ago to much fanfare. Wonderful.

And finally, don’t leave without having fish for dinner. Mine had teeth.

It’s been awhile since we’ve written about food. But today, it must be written about because we ate the Egyptian food we’ve been avoiding since we got here: hamam (pigeon) and mulukhiyya (Jew’s mallow).

Hamam (pigeon)
The word for pigeon in Arabic is remarkably similar to the word for bathroom, hammam. Hmm, not sure what that tells us, but thought it should be mentioned. Pigeon is usually served grilled or stuffed; I tried the stuffed version. My pigeon arrived on a bed of leaves, breast-plate face up with the rice stuffing puffed out of its chest. I began to tackle it with my knife and fork, but was told by our Egyptian friend that it was best eaten with my hands.

That was not easy to do, and I considered that he was playing a joke on me (much like D wondered when he was told by our Scottish friends to go commando under his kilt at our friends’ wedding). I picked up the tiny bird – everything was on my plate except the head – and bit into the breast. No meat, just spiced rice. As I picked through the bird I realized that there was very little meat at all. I stopped eating after I had picked out all the rice, but I was probably supposed to eat the skin and eat around the bones. I just wasn’t ready to get that intimate with my pigeon.

D demonstrates the delicate manner in which to eat a pigeon

I give stuffed pigeon a thumbs-up, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go out of my way to ever eat it again.

For those of you are interested and can catch a pigeon:
Recipe for Stuffed Pigeon
http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/RECIPES/RECIPES/poultry/egypt_stuffed%20pigeon.html

Mulukhiyya, “Jew’s mallow”
Even after learning the English word “Jew’s mallow” for mulukhiyya, I still don’t know what it is. Mulukhiyya is the name of the green, leafy plant, as well as the name of the dish, which looks like a bowl of green slime.

What a spread! From front to back, stuffed pigeon, chicken liver and green peppers, yogurt and mint dip, rice, tahini, mulukhiyya (the bowl of green slime), and meatballs in tomato sauce

Can I buy mulukhiyya in the United States? I have no idea, but that’s okay, because I really don’t think I ever will. It’s not that it tastes bad – mulukhiyya is served with tons of garlic and cooked in chicken or rabbit broth so the flavor is very nice. It’s the consistency. It’s slimy and stringy. You can mix it with rice, but then you have slimy, stringy green rice sliding down your throat. However, if you can fight your gag reflex at the texture, the taste is worth one bite. One.

For those of you who are interested and can find the vegetable that mulukhiyya is made from, which bears the same name:
Recipe for Mulukhiyya
http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=170823