Cairo in a new light
Trip Start
May 09, 2005
1
13
53
Trip End
Aug 01, 2005
Cairo,
Egypt
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Anwar and I took the 10pm bus out of Dahab. The ride started out interesting as there was a lovely game of musical chairs to begin with. In these parts it seems completely arbitrary as to whether people adhere to the assigned seats on their tickets. On this particular trip, it was decided amongst passengers to adhere. So we found our seats together towards the back of the bus and found that another of the workers from the restaurant was seated across from us. The bus began to fill up and a very large man began to make his was back towards us. At the same time, Anwar's friend was kicked out of his seat by the rightful owners and was standing in the aisle to wait for the big man to pass. The big man's seat was apparently next to a very small Lebanese girl who was traveling alone and she got up as it was obvious this man was going to need more than one seat. So we gave her and Anwar's friend our seats so as to make the situation less uncomfortable. Well, our newfound seats belonged to a lovely Italian gay couple who Anwar tried to bargain with but they insisted that we move. Low and behold the only 2 seats left on the bus were 1)next to the big man and 2)one directly in front of the big man. Everyone's eyes shifted uncomfortably as they had all been watching this game go on. The big man knew the situation was awkward and that Anwar and I were together and he was nice enough to get up and offer his two seats to Anwar and I. He settled in the remaining seat which was next to a sleeping man who also had asthma (I saw him sucking on his inhaler later on). Problem settled...untile a few hours into the trip the big man reclined his chair completely into the lap of Anwar and slept the rest of the journey. Oops.
Okay, so the 8 hour journey was actually more like 9 as one of the Italians thought he could get away without having the proper visa and held us up at a checkpoint while they processed him. The other interesting observation was that at the entrance to the Suez Canal, our entire bus was searched (people and luggage) and bomb-sniffing dogs brought in. Meanwhile, the luxurious buses of Italians and Swiss tourists rolled right on by and into the tunnel to cross beneath the canal. Our bus was an Egyptian bus company and carried locals and Egyptians alike.
We arrived in Cairo around 6:30am and were met by Anwar's childhood friend, Hisam. The next hour or so was spent by Anwar dragging us all over greater Cairo as he couldn't remember where his sister or mother lived. It turns out an hour later that the very first house we'd been to was the right one. Anwar's family is lovely. The house is filled to the brim with Christian relics and every image of the Virgin Mary and Jesus ever known to man. Also, the various Coptic popes grace the walls. We visited quite a lot of Christians and their homes were filled with all of the same photos. Again, these are people quite dedicated to their faith.
In any case, we stayed at his sister Nadia's home with her husband George and their adorable daughters Christina, 4 and Martina, 1.5. Christina immediately impressed me with her ability to recite the alphabet in English and count to ten--which is impressive because I barely remember how to count to ten in Arabic! She chatted away to me in Arabic and I enthusiastically nodded and agreed with everything she said. Anwar's mother was hilarious and was obviously busting his chops at every opportunity.
We immediately set out to make the rounds of visits to friends and family. And the mass feeding began! All of the mothers proclaimed that I was much too thin and what were they doing over in America starving their young women?! These interactions even got physical at times (but always in a joking manner) with one of Anwar's friends having to perform an intervention when it was found she had secretly escaped to the kitchen and was cooking massive amounts of chicken and rice and vegetables. It was really very funny. She even tried to spoon feed me food. But the fun part was that in my limited Arabic...I knew I was liked as I was referred to as "asl" which means honey/sweet.
Next I met a very interesting woman--the wife of Hisam, Dalia. She is from Syria and openly told me that she purposely married an Egyptian man as Syrian men were womanizers. She had a wonderful affinity for all things shiny and glittery (i.e gold jewelry--which I witnessed her purchase close to $6k USD in one sitting). She was set for life as she had just borne Hisam a son--the first grandchild of the family (note that she is 30 and he 20!!) Well, I knew that I'd wanted to cut my hair whilst in Cairo and she bullied me into going to her salon and assured me they spoke English--which they didn't. I frantically watched as the man cutting my hair had shaking hands and literally just grabbed clumps of my hair and cut at an angle as I had requested some layers. I've watched my hair be cut tons of times to know generally how it's done and his way was crazy. It turned out 'ok' and I'll probably end up cutting it a bit more when I have time. I'll send pix later.
I needed a few new shirts as the laundry here ruined two of mine already. We went to a big fancy mall in Helioplis (I guess I could describe this area as upper class) and I used my ATM card to purchase a shirt. Dalia's eyes grew big and immediately began to tell Hisam that she wanted a plastic card as well with which to make purchases. We spent quite a bit of time with Hisam and Dalia and they are really very nice people, although I found myself dying as I watched Dalia chain smoke Marlboro reds while holding her tiny 3 month old son. I'm not exaggeratting--she was never without a cigarette and Hisam had quite the addiction to smoking sheesha (flavored tobacco, of which one round equals that of about 1 pack of cigarettes). I later saw where this may have come from as we had dinner in his family's home and mom never removed herself from her corner chair or her mouth from the sheesha pipe. The children (all 6 of them) dutifully attended to her bringing coals regularly to keep her pipe going.
All in all, it was an unbelievably looooong day filled with lots of food and lots of boredom sitting for hours listening to everyone speak Arabic and I not being able to say or understand much of anything.
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