Aswan
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
19
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Aswan,
Egypt
Sunday, November 27, 2005
agakahn
.That night I spied down from our roof top terrace. The street had three wide lanes running in each direction, and wide sidewalks on either side. Clusters of people stood talking and others walked, always grouping with the same sex. 90% of the women were dresses conservatively with long sleeves and dresses with their heads covered. Maybe 5-10% of those women were even more orthodox and covered their hands and faces. Perhaps another 5-10% of those women covered their eyes with thin dark nets as well.
A Muslim woman once told me that she likes covering herself because then men had to appreciate who she was before what she was. It almost sounded logical from a humanistic approach. Sure, men (and women for that matter) ought to be able to approach with out sex coming to mind. But, we are sexual creatures, not asexual, and it is one of the paradigms in which we perceive the world. Almost as quickly as size, shape, and smell we subconsciously register sex as well. What sort of response that elicits varies cross culturally, but it is nonetheless observed.
Islam it seems either acknowledges or dooms men into being completely subjective to it, not being able to resist their sexual nature. Further, it takes that acknowledgement and uses it to divide and isolates the sexes. Whether she being covered or being placed in special corners of the Mosque or sides of Mourning tents, or expected to stay in the home, at least away from unknown men is a sign that she is revered or repressed, I cannot say
boat1
. I am slave to my own paradigm.It seemed that 30-50% of the men that we saw had dark patches on their foreheads where bowing and touching their heads to the ground five times a day has earned the pious calluses. I wondered if the most pious Catholics had calluses on their knees? Both men and women walked in groups holding hands, but rarely were they with the opposite sex. Some men wore suits, others wore gallibeas, a one-piece gown, and others wore t-shirts and jeans.
I thought that it was interesting that in a society that acknowledges sexuality so blatantly, it only acknowledges heterosexuality. Evidently, the part of sexuality that we should feel "shameful" about should only occur between male and female. If a man and woman hold hands in the street or kiss cheeks and embrace each other when meeting it is shameful. But, doing so with the same sex is not. It is normal. For me, I enjoy contact. I appreciate communication and openness, and I like seeing it expressed by people. It is beautiful, but in the States, when a work buddy of mine comes over for a beer, I don't kiss him on the cheek and say welcome. I shake his hand firmly. Why, in the US, do we think of that natural/"shameful" sex when we see people of the same sex walking together holding pinkies or entwining arms? Again, we are all slave to our own paradigms.
desert3
I noticed another strangely obvious phenomena looking down from the roof. Though there were nice wide sidewalks, the outermost lane of the six lanes had more people in them than automobiles. People were standing there talking, children and parents were strolling and the sidewalks were almost vacant. Most of the cars were driving with out their headlights. Like the horn, the lights were used more for communication than what we use them for in the States... to see. A taxi driver later told us that headlights impair the vision of other drivers. Interesting.Our last day in Aswan, we hired a felucca to take us to a botanical garden island. We spent almost five hours there laying on the park benches, absorbing the tranquility and writing post cards that we had bought in Croatia. We hired a rowboat and enjoyed a quiet trip back. By the end of the day we felt like we were back into the pace of our trip.
We had one more card to play in Egypt before we cast ourselves into the unknown. Our friend Megan, Brian's cousin from Colorado, was living in Cairo and we were looking forward to visiting with her there. We had made plans to meet up and stay with her for our remaining days in Egypt.
Once again it was great to see a familiar face, and very interesting to see a place through the eyes of an expatriot. Most of the time we either don't have the time, or we don't happen to meet people who make a life in the place where we are
fishing
. Always, when making contact with those people we leave with rewarding feelings. Friends like Andreas, Ward, Seyod and Megan grant another perspective to us that is impossible to gain from our long walks.Megan opened her home to us, inviting us to share everything. Most of the daytime while she worked, I spent typing my journal entries in an attempt to catch up to the present day and publish it on the web. I wondered if it was really worth it: the mental exercise now, memoirs later and perhaps it would entertain a few people along the way. At least it would ease my mother's mind as we worked our way around the globe. I spent many hours each day transcribing entries and recounting our trail. Erin took long walks exploring Cairo and gathering information for the next part of our trip. After hearing wonderful things about Jordan and being invited to stay in Jerusalem with a couple that we had met on the cruise we heavily considered a trip to the Mideast. But, that would mean penalties to change our flight, and it would take a couple of weeks away from other parts of out itinerary. We began to realize that a year would barely be enough time, and that we would have to cut a few things out. We'd save that for another trip.
Megan's hospitality was great. We shared diners and great conversation. She introduced us to some of her friends and made us feel welcome. We baked chocolate chip cookies and repaired some plumbing. It felt like home, and finally I was catching up to the present in my overdue journal.
On our final day in Cairo, I went to the pyramids one more time. Before leaving Texas I had gone camping with my Uncle and my cousin. The uncle had always inspired me with tales of travel and interest in a myriad of things from astronomy to archaeology to magic. On that camping trip I picked up a shard of flint from the banks of a lake. I walked to the backside of Cheops and rubbed the stone with a prayer and piece of energy from my uncle and the spirits of Pale Face.
As we left the apartment I was nervous. It was almost 9PM. I had no idea of what to expect in Ethiopia. We got into a cab and after drawing an airplane on my note pad and making a couple of U-turns we headed for the airport. A bald old man in a suit pulled up in a car beside us in the stop and go traffic.
"Hey, you, where?" he asked pointing to my head, then patting his. I teased him back, then he asked "where you go now?"
"Ethiopia."
"Ethiopia?" He double-checked.
"Yeah, Ethiopia."
"Ethiopia!" He repeated loudly then laughed, looking up to the ceiling of his car. He turned to his wife and told her. They both laughed and shook their heads, looking up and down.
The driver took out a small bottle of cologne and put a drop on each of our wrists before we left the car and waved goodbye. That was it. The end of the world as I knew it. I thought about one of the guidebooks that we had read, "We've never heard of anyone buying a one-way ticket to Ethiopia." Then I thought of that old man in his car laughing. It was almost 10:30 at night. Andreas' words came back to me and echoed in my head, "oh lord Josh, this is truly where your adventure will begin."
