SANDStorm

When we first met K (this is short for an Arabic name, but most of our readers would have trouble reading the Arabic letter) last week at his brother’s “Jaffa Phonix” (they are an amazing hip-hop – heavy on the hop – group who sing about Palestinian politics) concert, he asked us what we do for a wild night out. A wild night out in Cairo? The best we could come up with was karaoke at Harry’s (but to be fair, would I have even known where to find a wild night in DC? Not likely).

On Thursday, K indeed showed us a wild night (and a great Thanksgiving). The evening started out tame enough. We didn’t try to do anything special for Thanksgiving because it’s only the two of us and we have no American friends. So, after a dinner of creamy pasta with K and a couple of Canadian birds (shout-out!) we went to Harry’s Pub for the usual weekend night of karaoke.

The karaoke crowd was especially supportive tonight – D and our friend A were like rock stars, due to their recent fame in the newspaper (ok, well, the waitress said she saw the article). When the karaoke ended at 2am, our new friend K wasn’t ready to head home yet (he was on vacation, visiting family in Cairo), so he took us to the Hard Rock Cafe at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on the Nile for late night/early morning dancing.

Walking into the Hard Rock Cafe, I could never have guessed where I was. Never. The strobe lights flashed and the bass was pumping loudly throughout the restaurant. The dance floor was full of people dressed in the latest fashions, shimmying their hips and waving their arms in the air.

All the tables were filled with young, Middle Eastern men and women sitting together, drinking beer and picking at massive plates of fried foods. Beer bottles seemed to be on every table; bottles of vodka and gin as well. Women dancing at the tables were out to impress and be seen – flawlessly made up with heavy eyemakeup and long, streaked blonde hair. Many wore halter tops or backless shirts, tight jeans or miniskirts. The men were clean cut and handsome, wearing the latest designer sunglasses and tight white t-shirts to show off their muscles.

I was definitely witnessing a different side of Cairo.

When a new song was mixed in, the crowd clapped together and a trill or two sometimes rose up from the other side of the room. I went out to the dance floor, because I figured, “when am I EVER going to do this again?” The music was very difficult to dance to, as the beat was slow and irregular to me. I tried to mimic the people around me, which had K cracking up because I chose to imitate men rather than the women who were swinging their hips all around (I don’t want that kind of attention here). There were stone-faced, suited, enormous bodyguards on the dance floor who pulled apart couples who got a little too close.

The entire scene was opulence like I’ve never seen before and it seemed somehow “off” to me. Turns out, the crowd wasn’t Egyptian – K assured us that the crowd was mostly vacationing Saudis. He could tell because most of the music was from Saudi Arabia, the people looked like Saudis (not sure what that means), and the ladies smelled “like Saudis” (which means, I think, that they were wearing a lot of strong perfume essence). Canadian A bought a shot of tequila that cost $10 American; K bought a double gin and tonic that cost slightly more than $20 American. The average Egyptian government engineer or teacher might make about $100-$200 a MONTH.

As I watched the spectacle around me I tried to imagine the women covered up in black veils and coats like the images I’ve seen from Saudi Arabia. It was impossible to do. I also realized that no one bothered with staring at me – I felt like a fly on the wall, greedily witnessing a private party, and nobody seemed to care that I wasn’t invited.

Tags: Egypt, Tag Index

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 1:14 am and is filed under Egypt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.