Secret Friends...

Jan11, 2012

Final Chapter of Egypt Travel Log...

I was having dinner alone, partaking in my favorite solo sport- eavesdropping. I was listening to a British expat talking to another American about bedbugs in American hostels (ew!) and the Tahrir Square protests. The American tourist asked about all the eye patches and bandages he had seen in Cairo. The expat responded that it was a known fact that the police were systematically targeting the protestors eyes! She had one close Egyptian friend lose an eye in a protest, kept returning Tahrir Square, until he lost his other eye. “He is now totally blind.”

A lovely Nile River Cruise, lol

 Believe it or not, this is where our sugar comes from...and global warming.

 The barge is carrying trucks, which are carrying sugar cane.

It's harvest season.

It takes a little work, but if you look closely, 

the middle figure lying down is Osiris masturbating!

It finally happened! I was on my way to the airport to return home when my driver Ah’med struck up an interesting conversation. It started benign enough, “Are you married?” I respond, “No, I’m divorced.” He says, “I’m not married.” The conversation just got odd, an unmarried Egyptian man in his 30s proudly proclaiming he’s not married?! I ask, “But you want to be married, right?” He said no and that he had no interest in getting married. In an effort to clean up my lie and encourage an honest dialog, for the first time in Egypt I back track and tell him that I’m not divorced but find it easier to say I am. Ah’med then says he has a “secret friend.” Uncertain of what I heard, I parrot back, “A secret friend?” He says yes, and does the Egyptian hand sign for secret; the palm of the hand swipes the mouth. Symbolically, this looks like wiping away words. Ah’med asked if I had a secret friend, I told him I did, but not any longer. He asked if I had an a secret friend in Egypt. I laughed and said no, and try to tiptoe the issue by saying it would be too hard with the cultural differences. But he asked what did I mean. Still smirking, I told him if I tried to have an Egyptian friend I would most likely have to pay him money and where I’m from I don’t have to pay for secret friends (yet, lol). He laughed and said it's true! He even has to give his secret friend money.

Actually, it’s kind of sad…

 Back streets of Luxor

and my favorite bakery...

I hope you all have enjoyed the Egypt chapter...

Interpreting

Horis, son of Orisis

January 9, 2012

The Language of Cars

I’m often asked if I drive in other countries. My answer is “almost never.” I don’t know the local dialect.

 I got caught speeding a few months back and had to take an online traffic school. Six hours of “please-shoot-me-in-my-face” tedium. Anyways, one of the questions I found ridiculous was, “Horns should be used to tell people to get out of the way.” Of course the answer is “no” (from my ethnocentric perspective) and I got the answer right. In America, we use the horn to signify only 3 things:

“Eminent danger!”

“YO! I’m downstairs; don’t make me get out of my car to ring your goddamn doorbell!”

“Fuck you!”

It’s a common mistake to think that a honk is a honk, for each country, sometimes each region within a country, has its own lexicon of toot. With the varying definitions come entirely different thoughts and behaviors about driving.  I find in the West, we tend to be clumsy with the horn, even nescient. Like most things, the more you engage the evolved your skill level. Horn communication carries subtleties often missed to our untrained ears: cadence, pitch, tempo, and duration. There’s the single tap, which can mean, “I’m here.” There’s the double tap, which can mean, “I’m here” or “I’m passing.” I appreciate the long followed by several short blasts, which means, “I’m coming through and you’re going to blink first!”

Unwritten laws appear to loosely govern hierarchy. In descending order: trucks, expensive cars, clunkers, donkey or camel carriages, domesticated livestock and finally, pedestrians. Non-beasts of burden (cats and dogs) might get a courtesy break. I was a bit shocked by the amount of road carnage; vultures do not go hungry in this country. Apparently, according to my military friend, there is a distinction in the pedestrian category between males and females. One of the U.N. peacekeepers hit a Bedouin girl. The peacekeepers were expecting all hell to break loose with the family, who actually turned out to not be very bothered since, “it was their daughter and not a son.”

Jan 10, 2012

There is a prime corner piece of real estate in Luxor. It’s literally a plot of land with dirt, tables, chairs, a stray dog, and lots of tea, the Egyptian kind, in which a scoop of loose granules is added to a cup of hot water with sugar. The bits settle, then you drink. My waiter is Saud. We start talking politics; they LOVE talking politics here. Egyptians are savvier than the average American and certainly care more. Saud says Mubarak was a bad, bad man: “Things are too expensive and he didn’t take care of the people.” I hear this over and over again. The military that we finance are the only apparent system that works and is well-funded. To my surprise, Saud says Kadafi was not a bad man, “He was half good, half bad.” He went on to say, though the Libyans had no freedoms, they had affordable food, fuel, and housing. Saud works 12 hours a day 6 days a week and makes 400 Egyptian pounds a month- that’s about US $75. To get a visa to work abroad an Egyptian has to pay a bribe, about US $200 to work in Saudi Arabia or US $2000 for Europe.

Saud warms up to me and says he thinks all the tourists are looking for sex. I wondered to myself, “Is he hitting on me?” He goes on to say, older women come to Europe to look for Egyptian men, usually for sex but sometimes to marry (this is a known phenomenon). He says with a big smile, “men tourists want to jiggy-jiggy, you know what that means?” His wry smile, twinkling eye and He asked my age and made me guess his. I pegged 24, maybe even 22. He swore on Allah that we was 30, “but everyone thinks I’m younger because I’m small.” I’ve just realized though he may not be hitting on me (still on the fence about that one), he certainly is no stranger to prostitution. He insists with a knowing stare that 70% of tourists are looking for sex, (can you say “hooker damage?”) p.s. He’s not that cute. I decide to pretend he was hitting on me anyways, otherwise I’d have to admit I may be losing my traveler’s mojo. Perhaps I’m getting a little long-in-the-tooth or maybe I’m caving into to my lingering internalized homophobia or just simply I don’t want to politicize my travel, but on this trip, I’ve started telling everyone that I’m divorced. Over the years, in many countries, the locals respond with incredulous looks and comments when I tell them I’m single. By saying I’m divorced I’ve been able to sidestep most of the interrogation, sympathy, and distrust.

View of Luxor City from the outdoor cafe.

...on to eavesdropping and 'secret friends' for the final installment.

Valley of the Queens

January 8, 2012

Friendly Falafel Guy, Luxor

I made a mistake yesterday in following my guidebooks advice and took a tour of the Valley of the Kings. The place was awesome, but tours suck. I forked out the ridiculous surcharge to climb into King Tut-ankh-amun’s TINY tomb. I knew it was going to be less impressive than some of the other tombs, such as Ramses VI, but come on, it was KING TUT! He did have one cute wall mural, his mummy, and one of his sarcophagi. To really see the splendor of Tut you HAVE to check out the Cairo Museum. It’s amazing and well worth the hype.

 beautifully carved gate at Karnak

 The guidebooks and plaques refer to this recurring architectural temple element as a hippodrome. I'm not an egyptologist, but hippodromes are for chariots, I'm not quite sure how they'd navigate pillars? Whatever, it's gorgeous!

 Renovations continue...

The following day I rented a bicycle and road around the west bank to the Valley of the Queens. As long as one has some time and it’s not hot this is by far the best (and cheapest) way to see the sites. Once I got outside the top 3 site groups, I had the Valley of the Nobles to myself! Okay, you can’t entirely escape the hassling tour guides and tomb guards, just suck it up, cave in and pay out a few cents of baksheesh (the ubiquitous cultural practice of tipping for everything including wiping your own ass) and the experience is incredible.

All photos below are of Luxor Temple lit at night.

Above, a mosque has built on top of part of the temple. 

Above, is a closeup shot of a Nubian with earrings

 and  what appears to be facial scars on his cheeks.

I had the good fortune of catching a lecture hosted by the Mummification Museum. Though open to the public, it’s geared towards Egyptologists working in the area. Professor Susanne Ostine shared her current research on the “Life of a Tomb.” Scholarship continues to diversify in archeology. Rather than concentrating on the big find or a rock star Pharaoh, this academic is looking at the tomb, holistically. Who and how was the tomb originally built? Who were the subsequent (dead) occupants (later kingdoms stopped building tombs and started squatting older tombs)? Her team also engaged in forensic studies deciphering premortem injuries and diseases from postmortem vandalism. I could tell from her delivery that she would love to make a great find, but I also emotionally appreciate that she still carries out the less glamorous and romantic, yet still worthwhile investigations.

Tomorrow topics are Cars and Sex!

Train to Luxor

Luxor

January 6, 2012

Cairo Train Station

The overnight sleeper train to Luxor wasn’t exactly the Orient Express, but I have done much worse. I shared a car with a sociologist liberal New Hampshire boy who attended a Southern Baptist College who then joined the military to escape his horrendous student debt. This could be a cautionary tale except he loves the military. They taught him to fly helicopters and he is now serving in the long standing U.N. “peace keeping” mission on the Sinai. No heroics or nationalistic hubris, he just enjoys the adventure and the prospect of a secure future career as a civilian pilot. Army boy told me of a scene he witnessed as he was boarding our train.

Sizing up the train cabin before my guest arrives.

A man broke a carriage window and against the boarded passengers’ best defense to repel the man, he was able to crowd surf through the window. OH I wish I had seen that! But I am grateful that I didn’t have to put up with that bedlam in second class.

I have to admit I was enchanted by this army guy. And no, it wasn’t his flawless good lucks, but rather his disposition. I felt like I had entered a movie set from the 1940’s. With a warmth and humor, this guy was the character that always sees the good side of situations and people and chooses his words effortlessly from a place of kindness. He loves being active, playing music, and charity work. In other words, in my reality, he was completely exotic. This encountered reminded me that I am surrounded by and often the emitter of neurosis.

Luxor

Luxor would be just another sleepy town sitting on the Nile if it wasn’t for the endless flow of international package tour boats and buses. Even during this unstable political time in Egypt, which is keeping away the vast majority of tourists, there are still more tourists than I care to share my space with. It must be like the swarms of locus during a regular season. If you can get away from the river’s edge, the tout-hassle declines tremendously and the city is kind of cute. I gorged myself daily on fresh breads and pastries from a shop that was little more than iron racks of baked treats piled on the sidewalk in front of an industrial oven.

Room mural with mood lighting, such a love nest.

Room even came with a balcony! 

Hotel's rooftop patio 

View of the Nile and the West Bank

My room in Luxor had the luxury of cable TV. Clear your mind of whatever image that might have conjured. This is a shoebox sized room. The TV gets 3 English channels and the screen is the size of my laptop. Back to the point…I was watching an English program and a commercial comes on. A handsome man walks down a street in any-town, Islamic world. He’s blindfolded and following a mysterious man dressed in black with all but his eyes shrouded. Mystery man leads the blindfolded man to the top of a staircase. Blindfolded man then steps out and tumbles and twists, with sounds of his body thumping of the stone and bones breaking. The closing shot is of blindfolded man laying dead at the bottom of the staircase bleeding and with his limbs dislocated. There is no dialog (and the visuals don’t need any), but the closing text is in Arabic except for the url: www.saynototerror.me. This bit of anti-terror was played repeatedly while I watched my American movie? Who’s the intended audience? The most obvious answer would seem to be Egyptians. But when I surfed the regular Egyptian channels I never saw the commercial; it appeared to only be incessantly broadcasted on the all-English content cable movie channel, which I’m sure some Egyptians do watch, but so do all the foreigners.

Tomorrow I go to the Valley of the Kings!

Old Cairo: Coptic, Jewish, and Islamic

January 5, 2012

 A beautiful girl selling cauliflower bigger than her head from her roadside cart. 

Best served roasted in olive oil.

Old Islamic Cairo is astonishing.

I can’t tell you how many churches and temples I’ve seen, but it’s certainly a lot. But I have to admit, the age, embellishment, and design of these buildings left me slack-jawed. The stone walls, windy corridors, and wooden beams darkened with centuries of candle soot and incense smoke and lit by streams of color filtered through stained glass windows were breathtaking.

Above is Old Islamic Cairo at night contrasted below with daytime views.

Traditional coffee shop 

A woman balances on her head the bread that she sells. 

Extraordinary window lattice work. Below is a closeup. 

The bedroom ceiling of a rich merchants house. I'm a little jealous.

Ana Paula, even in Egypt,there is corn. 

The last shop that makes Fezzes in Egypt

Though Coptic Cairo is beautiful, the roadblocks, checkpoints, and military patrols were unsettling. It's a constant reminder of the fragility of peace which exists in this historically diverse country.

Say what you will about Muslim women’s head scarves, but they can be immensely practical. I watched a woman walking down a busy street, decked out in black with red highlights; she had tucked her matching red cell phone into her head scarf as a hands-free device, genius…work!

Metro trains... 

Let me warn you; since my travel guide didn’t warn me, there are women only trains on the metro. They’re intended to allow unattended women to travel without being harassed. On the one hand I think it’s a great work-around to a prevalent problem, on the other I can’t help but think its jury rigged bandage for the obvious sexual inequality. I made the mistake of taking the metro at rush hour. There appeared to be a very religious man with a full length beard and his head covered policing the station. I believe he is a Salafist, one of the volunteer religious vigilantes that patrol looking vice and for violations of virtue or anything which violates Sharia / Islamic law. No doubt tweaking this concept would be a wet dream for many American evangelical social conservatives. In his attempt to police citizens’ etiquette, I saw the man push, pull, and shout at passengers. Despite the salafist’s harsh scolding and rigorous tugging, I still witnessed a fat man jostle all but his stomach onto a train car. As the train pulled from the station, his jiggling belly kept the sliding doors wedged open.

I kept noticing everywhere I went that some of the men have dark bumps on their foreheads. I asked someone about it, thinking maybe they were Shi’ite, some of whom partake in a festival called Ashura in which striking the head is common. However, it turns out the bump is called Zebiba, which means something like “raisin,” and is a sign of piety (or maybe pride /socio-religious status?) since it is caused by the repetitive and (very) rigorous bowing during prayers. It appears to be trendy in Egypt. I say trendy because it’s not seen in most of the Islamic world except sometimes among very old men who have been praying for a life time.

I am amazed at how friendly and outgoing Egyptian men are. I’m continuously greeted and questioned and only a small handful of times a day are these interactions disingenuous (as in, they trying to con or sell me something). A few men like my tattoos, but for the most part they don’t know what to make of them. Through a thick veil of cigarette smoke, I had a taxi driver lecture me on how I’m desecrating God’s temple by marking it. I didn't waste my time trying to explain the hypocrisy of his statement and his apparent carcinogenic nicotine habit. After two days in Cairo I have a cough. When I pat my hoodie a cloud of city’s sediment is already visible. This town is filthy.

Before I left for Egypt, everyone expressed a teasing or genuine concern for my safety. I have to admit you were all right. Cairo may be the most dangerous city I’ve ever visited. But it’s not the police, military, protesting youth, the Islamic Brotherhood, or any other assorted bogeymen, it’s the friggin’ traffic! I’ve met a toothless and scarred up man who had been disfigured by a car, half the city appears to have a limp, I’ve seen pedestrians punch cars, and keep in mind, I’ve only been here a couple of days!

I rounded off my time in Cairo visiting a church above the cave where Joseph and Mary crashed for a time and the river spot where Moses was plucked from the waters. It sits behind the only remaining synagogue. Unfortunately, they do not allow any photographs inside. In the 1940’s there were 75,000 Jews, today there are less than 100 in all of Egypt. Unfortunately, they do not allow any photographs inside. They're kind of touchy so I didn't try to sneak one ;)-

The church covering the cave where Mary and Joseph slept. 

The inner cave sanctum.

(Notice the pyramids in the background!) 

The cover over the 'river' where Moses was plucked from...looks more like a well to me. 

Just beyond the 'river' is the back of the synagogue, with his and her hand washing wells.. 

Tomorrow I board a night train for the ancient capital of Luxor and shack up with an Army helicopter pilot.