SANDStorm

After a month of wishing we could go to a coffeeshop or drink water in public during the middle day, or of enjoying the quiet on the streets soon after dusk, Ramadan has come to an end. For our last gasp to celebrate Ramadan, we headed into the heart of Islamic Cairo, to Khan al-Khalili last Friday night.

The bazaar was packed shoulder to shoulder with Cairenes looking for good bargains in preparation for Eid el-Fitr, the three-day holiday following Ramadan when children are traditionally given new clothes and gifts. We shuffled through the crowds on our way to the 15th century Al-Ghouri Palace to listen to Spanish medival music, walking around rows of tables laid out with children’s clothes, model cars, socks, and headscarves.

We stopped at Fishawy’s coffeeshop around midnight to catch our breath and watch the crowds pass by. Groups of men sat on the small wooden chairs lining the walls of the alley, drinking mint tea and smoking shisha. An ‘oud player and percussionist played lively songs for a family sitting across the alley from us. The family and nearby customers sang and clapped along with the songs – occasionally someone in the wooden balcony above us added a loud and long tttrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiillllllllllllllllllllll.

To our right, a group of young, professional men sat down and said hello to D. D joined their invitation for conversation and discovered they were eager to talk about cultural differences. D learned from them that our friend A was respectably dressed that evening in her long sleeved, button-up shirt and jeans, but that “anything less would not be ok.” He also found out that there is no word in Arabic for “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” since that type of relationship doesn’t exist.

To our left was a group of middle-aged men who interjected English into their conversation in what seemed to be an attempt to bait me into conversation. Of course, after an hour or so, I couldn’t resist the bait and found myself the audience for the former dentist-turned lawyer’s rapid-fire jokes.

Former dentist, turned lawyer says to me: “What does the sheep say in English?”
Me: “baah.”
Former dentist, turned lawyer: “What does the sheep say in Arabic?”
Me: “umm, i haven’t learned animal noises yet.”
Former dentist, turned lawyer: “The sheep says, ‘water!'”
(Laughter all around the table).

He followed that up with, “and why does the Arabic-speaking sheep speak English?!?” (more hilarious laughter).

We left the Khan around 2 a.m. with no indication that the party was ending soon. Families and young teenagers were still roaming al-Hussain Square and groups of friends were still crowded around small, spindly-legged, brass tables at the cafes, drinking tea, talking, and laughing together.

With the end of Ramadan begins Eid el-Fitr. Tuesday morning I woke up at six a.m. to the sound of at least five loudspeakers in our neighborhood all sounding the call to prayer and then – fireworks. (It’s now nearly 11 p.m. and the bang, bang, bang of fireworks is still loud and clear).

I left the house later that day and ran into the daughter of our building’s doorman who was dressed in a new skirt and beaming with pride. As I walked to the subway station, young boys ran around the streets, shooting at each other with plastic handguns, shotguns, or machine guns. Not the plastic, green kinds which shoot water, but very, very, real-looking guns (at least to someone like me who has very limited experience with real guns).

Occasionally, we receive comments on our blog from people we don’t know, and it always comes as quite a surprise to us (someone other than our moms and a few close friends read this?!?). One such anonymous commenter recently asked us to write a bit more about the Egyptian yellow tea, known as helba (or hilba) which we mentioned last September in our posting about Islamic Cairo.

I hadn’t given much thought to helba, but after a quick Google search I found some pretty interesting information about the tea (and yes, my anonymous friend, it’s not really tea from a tea bush, but an herbal tea). (Disclaimer: all information outlined below though is from the internet and so should not be taken as the definitive answer on helba).

A simple Google search for “helba tea” brings up a short article from The New England Journal of Medicine about the false diagnosis of “Maple Syrup Urine Disease.” Interest peaked, I read on to see how this could possibly be related to Egyptian yellow tea. It seems as though injesting helba tea, an infusion of the fenugreek seed, causes one’s urine to smell sweet, “described variously as like that of burnt sugar, malt, curry, or Maggi (a widely available flavoring).”

So, helba tea is made from seeds of the fenugreek plant, a native plant to the Mediterranean region and western Asia. According to Wikipedia, “the similarity in the Arabic word Hulba and Mandarin Chinese word ‘Hu lu ba’ reveal the significance of fenugreek in history,” but unfortunately it doesn’t go into any detail on who got what from whom and when. A food reference website explains that fenugreek was used by Egyptians in embalming.

The website of an herbal supplement company explains the various traditional uses of injesting fenugreek seed by infusion, extraction, or a pulverized powder, including:

– Anti-inflammatory
– Antiseptic
– Antispasmodic
– Appetite loss
– Breastfeeding Aid (increases lactation)
– Colds and Flu, Bronchitis, Sore Throat
– Diarrhea
– Female Health Maintenance
– Indigestion
– Menstrual Health Maintenance
– Respiratory Health Maintenance
– Skin Disorders
– Skin inflammation
– Sugar Control
– Ulcers

(I find it slighly humourous that it was traditionally used as a “sugar control” considering the heaping teaspoons of sugar which were poured into the helba served to us in Islamic Cairo). Another traditional usage which is mentioned on Wikipedia and other sites is for breast enhancement. Sounds like a miracle herb to me.

By the way, to our anonymous commenter, our friend in Islamic Cairo explained how to make helba tea – use one teaspoon of seeds for two glasses of water. Combine the water with the seeds, boil, and serve. From personal experience, a little bit of helba seeds goes a long way – do not use too many seeds or the tea will be very bitter. The seeds are served in the cup with the tea, and eaten for the added turbo boost of health.

Well, we’ve been in Cairo for two and a half months now and we finally hopped on a bus and rode the 10km out of town to visit the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I don’t have much new to say about the Pyramids of Giza – a lot of people have said quite a lot. However, I’ll say it’s well worth the bus fare.

Pyramid of Khafre in the foreground, built between 2589 – 2530 B.C. It is the only pyramid in Giza which still has some of the limestone casing on it near the top.

The Sphinx – half man, half lion – built during Khafre’s reign.

It’s Ramadan so we make every effort possible not to eat or drink water in public before the fast breaks. However, walking around the Pyramids is pretty draining, so we found a quiet part of the Valley Temple near the Sphinx to take a few sips.

It’s me, in front of the Pyramid of Menkaure.

No climbing?

Hieroglyphics near the Pyramids of the Queens, at the Eastern base of the Pyramid of Khufu.

Below you will find a comment from another blog, presumably written by someone to whom English is a second language. I’m not including it here to make fun of it in any way, it just struck me as English as it would be spoken by spacemen who learned English by reading a stiff cocktail of Shakespeare and Noam Chomsky. A dear friend once described the French spoken in Haiti as sounding like “space French.” This, to me, sounds like space English. It is beautiful, in the way that the 1950s-era sci-fi sound effects staple, the theremin, is beautiful.

““State of Denial”. The book cannot be talked of yet. Until we read its content to know what the name signifies. But before then, according to the taste from the author’s interview, it (the book) sounds well and reveals a good taste of American literature and presidency odds and odysseys. It makes Bush regime as an example of his literature. It evaluates his presidential character, ambitions and hard core of completion of his ruling.

Still am not moved. I need to read the book. As pre- adjudgement to the book, it’s the American method of transition. As the Republican is packing out of the state house, they need to soft-pedal the throne for the Democrats to change the hardened face of the global audience about America into smooth and fresh look. Only I’m sorry. This is over. Everybody has known that both Re-publi and Demo are double banner of the same coin. Nothing new to re-publish or demo-nstrate to the world. How possible to denude your fellow friend or partner in public and promise to dress him in gold at home. In this stance of Iraq, if we accept the mistake, can we correct the mistake. For where?“

An everyday look at Cairo, focusing on signs. Most of the photos below are taken along my walk from our apartment to my Arabic school in Dokki.

Street signs are written in Arabic and English. Very helpful for me for practicing my reading and pronounciation.

No honking sign on El Tahrir Street.

Bus stop sign. Only the stop is written in English – destinations and bus numbers are in Arabic.

The big “M” means Metro stop.

The signs inside the Metro stations are written in Arabic and English.

Billboards on Dokki Street

Which way do you want to go?

Supermarket in Maadi

We’ve taken to playing cribbage at a sidewalk cafe in Zamalek along the Nile. Sitting in the red cushioned wicker chairs under the tall, ornately flowered wrought iron columns and green awning, we conjure up imagines of former days of wealthy men of leisure whiling away hours playing games and gossiping.

The staff at the cafe are friendly and smile easily at our poor attempts to order juice and shisha in Arabic. A few pedestrians walk past the cafe, on their way to the Starbucks-inspired, Egyptian-chain coffee shop to the right next door, or the California-chain coffee shop which opened last month on the corner to the left.

When we were there a few weeks ago, a persistent, uninhibited, five-year-old boy was working this stretch of road selling tissues for 1 pound, or however much of a donation you wish to make. He found us in the rear of our sidewalk cafe playing cribbage in our halted Arabic. After a few rounds of Arabic cribbage, we have become fairly quick with numbers one through thirty-one.

The boy sidled up to our friend and held out his tissues, looking at us to recognize him.

“‘la, shokran,” our friend said to him as he stuck the tissues under her nose. He moved onto me.

“‘la, shokran,” I said. He moved on to D.

“‘la, shokran,” he said. No’s all around, but there weren’t a lot of people walking around that night and the boy didn’t leave. He looked at us and began to talk quickly in Arabic. Leaning on D’s arm, he told us his name and age, his eyes following D’s back and forth to his cards.

He told us more, but we haven’t learned many more scenarios in our Arabic classes. Of course, if he had been listing types of fruits or vegetables, or types of buildings, or had been giving us directions to the Maadi Grand Mall, I’m sure we would have understood that.

He stopped for a moment, looked down at D’s hand, and began talking again.

“‘arbaa, sitta, ‘ashra, khamsa,” he said, looking at us, slightly proud.

A and I looked up from our hand of cards and began laughing. The boy had demonstrated his ability to read Western numerals (sometimes referred to as Arabic numerals, because they were introduced to the West through the Middle East, according to Wikipedia, but second in usage here to the real Arabic numerals) and had happened upon our little pocket of Arabic expertise: the numbers one through ten.

“D, you wouldn’t happen to have a four, six, ten, and a five in your hand, would you?” I said between snorts of laughter. D looked down at the boy and turned his cards down, trying to frown at the boy as he laughed.

The boy realized he had gotten a very positive reaction from us. He leaned over to my hand and started,

“sitta, …”

We just got back from a fabulous evening watching Sufi dancing held in a 16th century inn in Islamic Cairo. The music and dancing was intoxicating, so I just wanted to share some of the photos before logging off tonight. Hopefully we’ll write more about it later…

And the spinning begins…

and continues for an entire thirty minutes!

The second set included three dancers together on the stage.

spinning…

and spinning and spinning. The dancers seemed exhausted, but stable, when they walked off the stage. I, on the other hand, was slightly dizzy.