Cairo, yalla!

How I managed to go 6 weeks in Egypt without visiting Cairo is beyond me. Not only is it the largest city in Egypt, but Africa as well. It is the center of the regions political and cultural life, considered by most the Hollywood of the Middle East. Home of the Pyramids, The Sphinx, many historic churches and temples, and ten million people who are swept up in the sandstorm where the desert collides with a bustling city. Rosa my roommate and new friend arrived 4 weeks prior, so we immediately made plans to visit. Rosa has familiarized herself with the city after she met her boyfriend Roujy, a 3 year resident. For this reason I felt confident tagging along with them, giving them the duties of tour guide.

Rosa spent the last year teaching in the slums of India and has since insisted on practicing the ways of the Indians. She sometimes prefers to eat dinner on the floor, washes her fruit with her sleeve, and thinks it’s a good idea to take a ten hour Egyptian train in 2^nd class. I had no disagreements considering the price was only 90 LE (18USD) round trip. Considering the only available time to make this trip would be during a weekend, we would take the overnight train leaving Thursday after school, show up in Cairo Friday at 4am, and leave Cairo Saturday at 8pm to be back in time for school Sunday morning. Sounds ambitious, but I was excited.

So we were off.

We made our way to the train station, climbed aboard, found our seats amongst a slew of curious Egyptian man eyes, and settled in with my Arabic book. Even our Egyptian colleagues were a little perplexed that we decided on 2^nd class, but we thought nothing of it…yet.

I’m not going to use this paragraph to complain about the train ride, because I don’t want to shine a negative light on Egypt’s fine rail system, but hopefully I can paint a vivid image of the people who use this form of transportation.  The chairs are in rows of two, I’m sitting beside Rosa, and the man across the aisle one seat up is turned around in his seat not even making an attempt to pretend he isn’t staring through my shirt. I ignore it. The man beside me is chomping away on sunflower seeds and spitting them back on the floor missing my toes by about 3 cm. I ignore it. The guys behind us are playing Arabic music and farm animal noises on their phone purposely holding the speaker behind our heads. I ignore it. There is the most pungent smell of vomit lingering through the air straight into my nose. I ignore it. A baby is screaming bloody murder 10 seats up. I ignore it. One man across the aisle has his shoes off, and his feet rested on the back of the seat in front of him with about 5 years worth of dirt caked into his toes nail. I can’t ignore that.

Men walk up and down the aisle selling chips, bottled water, newspapers, and tea. They solicit these items as if you were at a baseball game, but only in Arabic. I bought a cup of tea for about 1.5 LE (60 cents) which was a terrible idea considering my bladder is the size of a lima bean. The bathrooms are located between the cars, and if you’ve ever ridden a train you know it’s the scariest location because of the bulging gap that connects the two cars. The train is shaking like a paper airplane in Hurricane Katrina, and I’m trying to walk down the aisle without falling over onto Mohamed or Abdulla or Ahmed’s lap provoking even more unwanted attention. I make it to the “bathroom” open the door to find about an inch of water stagnant on the floor. Of course I’m wearing pant that are too long and drag, so I’m simultaneously trying to roll my cuffs and not go flying on the floor into the stagnant piss water. I get my cuffs up, my pants down, and am trying to squat over the toilet and hold myself upright making sure not to touch anything.  Then I have the realization there’s no toilet paper, there’s never any fucking toilet paper in Egypt, and my tissues are in my purse, on my seat far far away. So there I am, dangling above the toilet trying to “air dry”, when the train takes a sudden jerk.  My first instinct is to brace myself with the nearest stable object -that happened to be the door with a broken lock- which goes flying open exposing my air drying technique to Mohamed, Abdulla, and Ahmed.

Roujies family lives in Minya, which is the halfway point between Luxor and Cairo, and he was there visiting but waited for our train and hopped aboard to continue on our voyage to Cairo. By now it was about midnight I was exhausted from working all day and starving. Rouyj saved my life by bringing us falafel sandwiched and ful (smashed beans inside Egyptian flat bread), which put me in a pleasant food coma.

at least someone slept

The next thing I knew I was horseback riding through the most beautiful green field. The sun was shining and there were wildflowers everywhere. I was having the time of my life on that horse, galloping through this field when I heard Rosa’s voice in the distant calling my name. I popped out of my sleep realizing I was still on a 2^nd class car on an Egyptian train, but at least we were pulling up to Cairo.

By now it was 4am, and our initial decision was to drop our bags, shower, and be at the Pyramids at 6 for the sunset. However, this idea was quickly dismissed and instead replace with a more sensible plan of sleep and sightseeing around 10.

The next morning we made our way out heading for Old Cairo. First though, I was promised a proper cup of coffee, since I have only been drinking instant for the past 6 weeks. I was like a heroin addict when we turned the corner, and there was a normal modern looking coffee shop. A shop like this I would no doubt completely boycott in San Francisco, but here it was paradise.

Old Cairo, also referred to as Coptic Cairo, is the oldest part of the city. The compound is surrounded by the walls of the 3^rd century AD Roman fortress of Babylon. After the decline of The Pharaonic religions and before the latter rise of Islam, Egypt was a predominately Christian. Now, the remnants of this past society are still visible and used by members of the local Christian communities. Old Cairo is a spread of intrinsic churches and synagogues interlaced within quant and narrow streets. We made our way through each historic church taking in the delicate but elaborate facades, the scent of incense burning in the air, and quietly lighting candles to represent a personal wish or prayer.

lighting candles for safe travels

watching some kids play futbol

in front of hang church

After, our sights through Old Cairo we met up with Roujy for dinner which included a whole grilled fish, tomato and cucumber salad, Tahina, Egyptian flat bread, and shrimp rice. Delicious! We walked around downtown Cairo for a while attempting to do some shopping, must mostly enjoying our surroundings.

The women carry everything this way. They either have amazing
 balance, or really flat heads. In Luxor once, I saw a woman carrying
 a basket on her head with a live duck inside.

First thing I learned in Arabic was my numbers

These cute fluffy bunnies are dinner no doubt.

 Once the evening fell, we strolled through the night market, which is a maze of narrow streets lined with shops that sell spices, fruits, pottery, and souvenirs.

buying roasted corn

 I gingerly walked around hoping to buy some jewelry and a futbol jersey. With no luck we settled on tea and mahallabiyaa (Egyptian rice pudding) at an outdoor café. Rosa, Rougjy, another friend Mikey , and I sat around with a shisha, drank tea, and for the first time since I have been in Egypt I felt my age.

 I was surrounded by peers in a café full of young people out enjoying the evening and the company of others. Don’t get me wrong I love Luxor, but never the less it is a village.

The atmosphere is small and quiet, and my daily routine makes me feel like I have aged 20 years. But Cairo was instantly familiar and refreshing. It is like any international city-but with an Arabic flare- full of culture and character that shines through in the museums, shops, food, and residents. The personality of the city sang to my heart, and I was unaware that I needed this feeling desperately.

Roujy forbid me from taking pictures of the beauty, but I got one!

 The following day we made an early start for the pyramids. We stopped for my much needed fix of caffeine, and were picked up by Roujy in a 1983 baby blue Volkswagen Bug. Words won’t describe the beauty of this car, but she took my breath away when I laid eyes on her. She was a trusty machine, and we all managed to squeeze in like clowns in a circus, and take off for Giza.  

The weather was comfortable all weekend, which helped when we got stuck in the infamous Cairo traffic. I invented a game that I like to call “Guess how many lanes are on a Cairo freeway”. Rose guessed 3, I said 7, but Roujy gave the most appropriate answer of only 1 big lane.  On the roads there are no dividing lines, defining any particular space from another, so cars just drive as fast as they can, cutting people off, blaring their horns, and squeezing themselves trough any openings between cars they can find. It’s really quite entertaining!

We made our way to the Pyramids, and the photo shoot began.

there are 6 in total



I shot this as we were leaving, so sad to go



                          I knew this was the day my mom was most excited about, so I made her a video. Enjoy mom!

After about 5 hours in Giza, we came back to Cairo for lunch and shopping before our 8 pm train. We were exhausted from being in the sun all day, so we found a nice outdoor café to drink tea, eat baklava, and rest before our 10 hour journey home.

Rosa says I smile like an American

but I say she smiles like a German.

At 8pm we got to our train, lugged 4 bags on, waved goodbye to Rougjy, and attempted to sleep. Our plan was to leave at 8pm and arrive in Luxor at 6am, go home for a quick shower and be at work by 8. For all intents and purposes this seemed like a good idea, except that nothing is on time in Egypt and our train left and hour late. Even though I was beyond exhausted, I couldn’t sleep because Egyptians don’t speak to each other in a normal volume, the air conditioner was cranked up, and I was so cold my body felt wet. My seat was broke and it only had two positions, straight up or completely back into the lap of the man behind me. Finally when I dazed off around 4 am I was abruptly woken at 5 thanks to the gentleman blaring the morning “call of prayer” on his phone and walking up and down the aisles for everyone to hear. We arrived in Luxor, with about an hour before school started, so we hopped on a bus and went directly there. I was disheveled, delirious, and reeked of cigarette smoke because smoking is allowed on trains. We were the first to arrive, and waited outside till the security guard let us onto the property. The doors to the building were locked, so we went to the back yard area to wait for Klaus to arrive.

This is how our principal found his esteemed English and German teachers Sunday morning……