Lazy Friday, New Years Eve

Cairo, Egypt

From Weekend In Cairo

This is another thing I've been meaning to do since I came to Cairo. I've always wanted to walk along the Nile Corniche in Mounira on a Friday morning with my camera, but I've always been reluctant to do it alone. Having Gwen here was the perfect time to do a little long-awaited, less typical sightseeing in Cairo.

Friday morning is a great time for walking in Cairo, because most shops and businesses are closed, and most people are home with their families for a leisurely brunch before the mid-day sermon in the mosques. The city is as quiet as it ever becomes outside of the first days of Ramadan. There were plenty of cars out, but very few people on the sidewalks, so the usual harassment you get walking down the streets of Cairo was completely nonexistent, except for one young police recruit who very blatantly undressed me with his eyes before stopping traffic so we could cross the Corniche....

In the afternoon, we went to the Egyptian Museum. I don't know if it was because it was Friday or because of the New Years holiday, but there were relatively few people in the museum, making it slightly less overwhelming. Of course, the museum is so over-packed and enormous that it will always be overwhelming...!

In the evening, we went to Rachel's house, where her mother had made us dinner. On Wednesday, when we were invited over for dinner, Rachel told me she was on her way to the clinic to have her cold checked out. Turns out, she got to the clinic and was immediately dispatched to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy! I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to have surgery in a Jordanian hospital, let alone an Egyptian one! Lucky for her, her mother was visiting and was able to help her through it. I expected her to cancel dinner for New Years Eve, but she insisted! Here's hoping that Rachel stays out of the hospital in this new year!

Tourists In Egypt

Giza, Egypt

From Gwen Comes To Egypt

It was at the top of Gwen's list of things to see in Egypt, as well it should be, so today we headed straight for Giza and the Great Pyramids. It was a great day for it, warm enough for short sleeves but not unbearably hot, like the other times I've been there. It was interesting to compare this trip, a deux, to previous solo and group experiences. We were bothered by more hawkers and camel drivers than when I last came in a big group, but as two people engaged in deep conversation about history, culture, etc., we were not pursued as intensely as when I was there alone.

It turned out at the end of the day that Andrew and his family, and Erin and her family were all at the pyramids at the same time today, but we didn't run into each other. It's a huge plateau, and Gwen and I only had the energy to explore the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the surrounding mastabas, and then head down to the Sphinx, but even that is enough to appreciate the scale of what the pharaohs, with their Stone Age technology, were able to conceive of and achieve.

In the evening, we did something that had been on my list for a long time, and took a Nile River cruise, complete with whirling dervish and belly dancer! It was the kind of 5-star luxury that is the opposite of the life I usually live in Egypt.

Gifts and Cookies

Christmas In a Nutshell

Cairo, Egypt

Last night, Andrew and Cosette hosted a gift exchange for those of the potluck crew who are still in Cairo. It was a hilarious string of gag gifts. Apparently, I should drink more and cry less: Andrew and Cosette both bought me alcohol for Christmas, and Erin got me a pacifier since I'm a notorious crier in my class!

Tonight, Rachel invited us all over to her place for another Christmas tradition: cookies! I thought we'd just be over for a couple hours ... but we ate dozens of cookies for hours and hours, topped off with Yemeni take-out for dinner! Not your conventional Christmas, but a great way to spend a holiday with friends!

Getting Away

Dahab, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

From Dahab Landscapes

With the semester finally over, my hot water heater still out of service, and most of my friends back in America for the holidays ... I needed desperately to get out of Cairo! I didn't take my bathing suit. Between the cool (by Egyptian standards) weather and the recent reports of shark attacks in Sharm al-Sheikh, I didn't suppose I'd want to swim, and I didn't. But I did take my camera, and spent quite a bit of time photographing.

I have to say, being an enigmatic lone traveler is not for me. I know that some people are good at getting out and introducing themselves to new people and striking up conversations. I did have a few interesting conversations. A young woman I ate dinner beside the first night is studying construction economics in London. Another woman was on the lingering last leg of a world tour. But generally speaking, I find traveling alone to be more lonely than fun!

From Dahab Landscapes

"I Wanna Get Married," Now In English!

It can be difficult for an interested outsider to find a truly inside perspective on a country, especially one as controversial as the Arabic Republic of Egypt. Bloggers are on the forefront of change in that arena, however, writing honestly about what's really happening in countries where traditional media may be carefully controlled by the government. The author of the blog "I Wanna Get Married," now also a book and a TV series, is one such voice illustrating the everyday trials of an upper-middle class Egyptian woman in search of a husband.

A friend on Facebook recently put me onto this article, more on the academic side than my usual blogging style, that describes the so-called "marriage crisis" from the inside out.

"What distinguishes this latest round of marriage crisis debate is its coincidence with the popularity of ‘Ayiza Atgawwiz, a voice that claims to speak on behalf of single women. In her blog profile, Abdel Aal identified herself as one of Egypt’s 15 million single women between the ages of 25 to 35. Though she does not reveal how she obtained this improbable number, she does something far more powerful and provocative than add a statistic to the hubbub. She coopts the slur “spinster” and proclaims herself a spokesperson for this constituency. In doing so, Abdel Aal exposes the implicit threat concealed within the discussion of the marriage crisis affecting men: the fate of a nation full of unwed women in a society where marriage is the only legitimate outlet for sexual activity, particularly for women. As throughout the twentieth century, the press debates on the marriage crisis have focused overwhelmingly on bachelors and their reasons for not marrying. Rather than ask women why they are not marrying, analysts have assumed that they must be the main reason for men’s abstention from marriage and thus a persistent obstacle to the course of nature. These female thirty-somethings are said to be materialistic, and too career-oriented, educated or “liberated” to make proper wives, not because they wish it so, but because men could not possibly choose them as partners. A single woman like Abdel Aal, who has made a career of explaining why she is not married, reverses the gender roles that maintain the social order. If throngs of single and not-so-young women like her are actively resisting marriage, they may be more subversive to the nation than the bachelors and their supposedly inadequate pool of potential brides."

It's a bit long, but if you're interested in what the feminist movement looks like in Egypt these days, not to mention the marriage crisis, this is a good place to start!

Down At the Farm

somewhere near Alexandria, Egypt

From The Alexandrian Farm

It hardly looks like the Middle East at all! It's so good to get out of the house, out of Cairo, do something different for a change. I keep telling people in the CASA staff and faculty that I'm a country girl, that I didn't just live in a village in Jordan, but grew up in a village in Amish country, too! (Not that Arabs have any idea who the Amish are.... Maybe that's the problem?) They still don't seem to comprehend just how much I dislike life in Cairo, or how much the sheer massive size and chaos of the city scares me. But today was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one!

There were horses and camels to ride. We went for a walk around the farm, and I got some nice bird pictures; just as when I took all those bird pictures in Luxor and Aswan, taking them made me think of Grandma and her birding, so I hope she enjoys them! We played a rousing but dusty game of soccer. I love playing soccer with the CASA Fellows and staff. Even the best players, like Erin who plays for Penn State, always pass the ball to everyone on their team, even the lousy players like me. We're competitive, but only in that way that makes it more fun. We also played another game, like a less violent Red Rover. Kristine stood in the middle and held out a scarf and called out numbers. When they heard their number, one player from each team ran for the scarf. If you could grab it and get it back past one team's line or the other without the other person catching you, you scored. It was fabulous fun!

Then we had a barbecue dinner with more meat than I've seen on one dinner plate in a long time! Kebabs, shish tawook, kofta and a big, juicy lamb chop for each person, plus sides! It was a lot of hours on the bus to get there and back, but it was so worth it!

From The Alexandrian Farm

Citadel of Saladin

Cairo, Egypt

From Citadel and City of the Dead

City of the Dead
It's customary in Islam for the dead to be buried next to the family home, in the sort of family plots that were common across the American West. As cities grew in size, however, this became impractical. Cemeteries developed, often with elaborate tomb markers as big as many simple people's houses. Over time, people started living in these homes, because rent was low or nonexistent, and they could be close to their loved ones. These became known in Arabic by the names of their residential neighborhoods, but foreigners call them "Cities of the Dead."

Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafahi
Sunni Islamic law has four basic schools of thought, and one of them was founded by al-Shafahi. When he was first buried here, his was just a simple grave. Islam tends to discourage glorifying the dead. There's even a tradition that says a graveyard should be plowed under after 7 years and used for other purposes (not that anyone actually follows this tradition). But when the Fatamids came to Cairo later, they built this great mausoleum to al-Shafahi and a neighboring madrassa or religious school to encourage local Muslims to consider more seriously the role of Islamic law and learning in their lives. These days, the pendulum has swung the other way, and both al-Azhar and the Salafis are trying to convince local Muslims that praying to a saint for intercession is heresy in Islam, but the tradition continues among the simple people anyway.

Mohammad Ali
No, I'm not talking about the boxer! Mohammad Ali of Egypt was the first Ottoman governor of Egypt who decided that he would spend the rest of his life in Egypt, not just rule it for awhile and return to the bosom of the empire. He brought his whole family with him and installed them in important positions in his government here. Then he designed the siyasa court system to make sure his family didn't cheat him. He's generally considered here in Egypt to be the founder of the modern Egyptian state, before the invasion of Napoleon and the colonial era. And somewhere along the way, he decided his family needed a mausoleum, which he located just around the corner from Imam al-Shafahi's shrine.

From Royal Tombs to Royal Mosques
Next we went the the Saladin Citadel, where our first stop was the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala'un Mosque from the Mameluke period. Mosques of that dynasty tend to be large open courtyards, not roofed structures. The Mameluke period is also marked by extensive use of wood, which was an expensive import and a more important sign of wealth than gold. All the colonnades surrounding the courtyard of this building are roofed with wood, and supported by columns with capitals from earlier dynasties. There were more windows and doors around the sides of the mosque, but during the French colonial period they were boarded up so this space could be used as a prison.

The Mosque of Sulayman Pasha is an Ottoman-era mosque in what's known as the church style. When the Ottomans came to power in Constantinople (now Istanbul), they were hugely impressed by the amazing Hagia Sophia Cathedral, which boasts an unrivaled feat of engineering: the largest freestanding dome in the world for almost a millennium. This, combined with the fact that many of the Ottomans' early architects had previously been designing churches, led to a movement in Ottoman mosques that used a large, shallow dome surrounded by four smaller shallow domes, like Hagia Sophia. It turns out to also have great acoustics, especially if you place the minbar or pulpit at one of the corners under the main dome, instead of right next to the qibla niche.

In addition, Sulayman Pasha's mosque is different because he did not include a mausoleum for himself. Unlike previous dynasties, the Ottoman governors didn't expect to die in Cairo. They served for a limited period of time, and then moved on or returned to Istanbul. Until Mohammad Ali, that is....

The Mohammad Ali Mosque
If this mosque reminds you of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, it's no coincidence. If you see Louis XIV influence on the details of the mosque, that's no coincidence, either. Mohammad Ali was very much influenced by European culture and art, and it's very much in evidence in his mosque.

From Citadel and City of the Dead

Translation, Poetry and Diplomacy

Cairo, Egypt

Could there be a more perfect confluence of topics for a public lecture? Three of the things I love the most (if we changed "poetry" to "literature") in one talk!

Tonight, the Slovak ambassador spoke in the last lecture of the semester in the translation lecture series. Not a career diplomat but a career translator turned diplomat, the ambassador had an interesting take on diplomacy. In Communist Czechoslovakia, he said, he started reading South American literature because he could escape "from socialist realism to magical realism," and he began a career as a translator.

Later, when the Slovak Republic was founded, he volunteered for diplomatic service, but he's continued his translation career, and has promoted translation wherever he's been posted. As he put it, "for small countries, cultural diplomacy is a must," and translation is a big part of that. He quoted the old aphorism that "a diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to tell lies for his country," but he suggested a different definition of diplomacy: to understand is to set up a relationship. This means not only does he support the translation of Slovak literature into Arabic, but also the translation of Arabic literature into Slovakian.

What It Says About Us
But in the Q&A came some of the best stuff in his presentation. He was talking about yet another woman who came to the embassy to say that her son had been kidnapped by his Egyptian father and taken back to Cairo, and could the embassy help her find him? And for years, they've looked, but come up empty. It's not a singular story; it happens all the time. European women come to Egypt, are charmed by some young man, get married, take him back to Europe, and it doesn't work out. When they separate or divorce, then sometimes the Egyptian parent takes his child back to his family in Egypt, cutting all ties with the mother. It's tempting to blame this on the Egyptians who are scamming European women. The ambassador had a different take. It's really the European men who should be blamed, he suggested. If they hadn't gotten so wrapped up in making money and their own affairs, if they hadn't forgotten how to romance a woman, who are they to complain when she runs off with someone with the Arab's gift of words?

Egypt, Poised to Vote (Or Not...)

by Holly Pickett for NPR

I sometimes am frustrated with NPR's Middle East coverage outside of Palestine and Iraq, because they often seem to miss one side of whatever's going on. That's not the case with Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's reporting on Egypt this week. It's clear that she actually lives here in Cairo, and is aware of the many competing sides of the issues here, not just the party line. She also talks about a lot of topics that are current among intellectuals and youth in Egypt these days, issues that we've spoken a lot about in CASA.

In Part I, Soraya provides a great overview of the situation in Egypt as we’ve been learning about it. I recognize in her audio slideshow a lot of places I’m familiar with and identify with the class divide she describes, including American University where I study, and Sequoia Restaurant, a posh Nile-side place with a $20 minimum charge, when many Egyptians are living on less - often much less! - than $100 a month. She also interviews Galal Amin, whose newspaper column is pretty popular among CASA professors, and who came and spoke to our program a couple months ago. I don’t always agree with his politics, but the man’s economics are sound. Soraya may say that Pres. Mubarak is making progress at liberalizing the economy, but for most Egyptians, things are getting worse.

In Part II, she talks about informal markets like Ataba Square. It’s a part of town well-known among my friends as the best place for cheap stuff. It’s a pretty desperate place, with plywood planks balanced on cardboard boxes and spread with cheap shoes, clothes and scarves, and masses of people shopping at black market prices because it’s the only way they can get by. The economy is a mess here, the formal and informal economy.

Meanwhile, you can go out to Heliopolis and the City Stars Mall, 8 floors of the best you can get in an American or European mall: H&M, Zara, Mango, Ecco, Fila, at least 5 Starbucks and another 5 Costa Coffees, TGIFridays, Chili’s, 3D movie theaters, an Apple store. I went into Levi’s yesterday to try on a pair of really hot jeans … for $110! And next door they were selling scratchy acrylic sweaters for twice that much! And the “minimum wage” she mentions? I did a report on that this week. Everyone agrees, even if you’re making twice that much, you’re struggling!

In Part III, she talks about the 3ashwa'iat, the shantytowns that ring almost every gated community and other rich neighborhood of Cairo. My professor this week said that on ‘Eid al-Adha, he and his brothers usually split the cost of sacrificing a cow, and then they donate the meat to the poor who come to their upscale neighborhood. But often those “poor” who come to the nice neighborhoods collect meat from all the clueless rich folks, then go back to the shantytowns and sell it. This year my professor’s family decided to go where the need is. He couldn’t believe, he said, that such desperate poverty existed in his own country. Unfortunately, that’s an all-too-common response.

The next day, the Center for Refugee and Migration Studies hosted speakers from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which was asked by the UN to do independent research into the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs). These are people fleeing violence, natural disaster or other similar situations, but who do not cross international borders and therefore can’t be classified as refugees under the 1952 Convention on Refugees. IDPs are about half of all displaced persons in the world, but while the numbers of refugees are falling, numbers of IDPs are rising around the world, and very little is being done by the UN or anyone else to help them. In the Q&A, someone asked if Egyptians evicted from their homes by the government as it “cleans up” desperately poor neighborhoods in Cairo are also IDPs. Though they don’t fall under the IDMC’s mandate, there is definitely some discussion about the rights of IDPs displaced by economic “development.” But as Soraya mentions, they are not recognized as such by the Egyptian powers that be.

In Part IV, she talks about Christians, women and Bedouin. Personal status laws in most Arab countries certainly favor Muslims and men, but this is actually improving a little bit in Egypt, as it is in Jordan and elsewhere, too. The Bedouin, on the other hand, are finding themselves with few champions. In fact, many have been known to say (though not on record!) that they were better off when Israel controlled the Sinai. Certainly Egypt as a whole considers itself a settle civilization, and there is some tension between those Cairene values and the nomadic values of the Sinai and Upper Egypt.

In the fifth and final report, Soraya finally gets to this week’s parliamentary “elections,” and next year’s presidential “election.” I say “election” because the outcome is no mystery at all. In fact, only approved party members are issued voting cards, and there’s good reason why Egypt consistently rejects election observers. I don’t know a single Egyptian who is intending to vote. Galal Amin, who is quoted again in this report, is known for ending all his essays and columns with the same phrase: “Democracy is the answer.” But would anyone even trust democracy if it truly came to Egypt? I don’t see that happening any time soon!

All in all, this was a very well done series, and with beautiful photos from Holly Pickett!

I'm Thankful for Wonderful Friends

Who Are Also First-Rate Cooks!

Cairo, Egypt

I've just come back from the most Thanksgiving-est Thanksgiving I can remember having abroad. (Though it probably only beats out Thanksgiving with Karla in Switzerland because there were so many people!) There were more than 20 CASA Fellows and friends gathered at Sarah, Erin and Rachel's beautiful, spacious apartment, where we usually have weekly potluck. That's more than half of everyone I'm friends with in Cairo. It's not family, but it's damned close! (Actually, where the potluck crew is concerned, I see them so much that they might as well be family!) The food was also amazing, but it was especially thanks to the excellent company.

I was sorry to have to leave for the computer class I've recently volunteered to teach at a local NGO helping at-risk Sudanese refugee youth. I enjoy the teaching, but I was sorry to be missing out on most of the party.

In the end, though, I only missed out on half the party! Because after I'd taught for two hours, Thanksgiving was still going strong, and I went back over to the Dokki apartment for a few more hours! We played a rousing game of Mafia, while continuing to munch away at the goodies laid out for potluck. Before we knew it, it was approaching 11:00 and time to start helping the girls clean up. By the time I got home, it was past midnight, my roommates were asleep, and I couldn't Skype home without waking them! Guess I'll have to do that the day after!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Drowned Nation

Aswan, Upper Egypt/Lower Nubia

From Aswan

As we drove up to the High Dam in Aswan, Dr. Shahinda explained to us the advantages and disadvantages of the High Dam, Lake Nasser, and the transformation of the whole Nile Valley.  She started with the advantages:

• Egyptian agriculture is no longer ruled by the flood, which means that the agricultural sector has gone from one crop a year to three. Pres. Gamal Abd-l-Nasser saw Egypt's population explosion coming, and knew they would have to be fed, and this was his best option.
• The High Dam generates enough electricity that every villager in Egypt can have electric lighting and hot showers at a not-too-exorbitant subsidized cost.
• There's now enough water in Lake Nasser to support the agricultural sector of Egypt through several years of drought upstream in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, and this has been necessary from time to time.

From Aswan

But it's not all rosy. There are problems aplenty, and Dr. Shahinda listed those, too:

• There was a German design that would have provided channels for the collection of the silt that washes down the Nile and traditionally fertilized the lands of Egypt all the way down to the Delta, at no cost to the farmers. Unfortunately, the Egyptian government couldn't afford to build it. They went with a Russian plan that ignored the silt altogether. Consequently, farmers downstream are now dependent on expensive manufactured, chemical fertilizer. 
• Meanwhile, that silt is building up behind the Aswan High Dam, and over time it has created an unanticipated weight on the dam that now threatens its integrity.
• Silt from the Nile also provided the stuff to make mud bricks from, and they were much cooler in the unbearable heat of summer than the current cinderblock construction in Upper Egypt.
• The floods not only brought fertilizing silt, but they washed away the impurities of the year before. Now, those impurities build up in the soil, including increasing levels of salt left behind by that chemical fertilizer.

From Aswan

But these are the economic costs. There were also great human and cultural costs. The land of Nubia, both Lower Nubia in Egypt and Upper Nubia in Sudan, is a civilization nearly as old as Egyptian civilization, which was concentrated along the banks of the Nile River that nurtured and supported it. Their entire civilization is now under water. The entire population was displaced: Lower Nubians were resettled in Upper Egypt, and Upper Nubians were displaced all over Sudan. UNESCO provided funds to move some of the most prominent ancient ruins to higher ground, but no one thought of the Coptic churches until it was too late, and they are all now gone, except for a few wall paintings grabbed for museum display.

From Aswan

The Temple at Philae
One of the ancient sites rescued by UNESCO was this Ptolemaic temple, dedicated to Osiris. In ancient mythology, Osiris was killed by his evil brother Set and chopped into 14 pieces that were scattered all over Egypt and are the font of her fertility. Philae was one of those resting places. Later, Isis collected all her brother Osiris's parts, mummified them, and resurrected him. He became the god of the afterlife and patron of the pharaohs who ruled in the afterlife after their death.

From Aswan

The temple was later rededicated as a Coptic basilica, housing the bishop of Upper Egypt. Again, this temple has three inner sanctums, like the tripartite altars of modern Coptic churches.

From Aswan

The Unfinished Obelisk
The woman pharaoh Hatshepsut intended to carve the largest obelisk ever attempted, float it down the Nile to Luxor, and install it in the Karnak Temple. Unfortunately, the obelisk cracked during the quarrying process and was abandoned. Unfortunately for Hatshepsut, but fortunately for us, because we have been left with an example of ancient Egyptian stonecarving. Remember that these carvings are from the Stone Age. They were accomplished without the benefit of stone tools! Some of the round black rocks used in the quarrying process are still lying around. So are the marks of the wooden wedges that were shoved in around a desire piece of stone, and then wetted so they would expand and crack the stone.

From Aswan

We also took a falucca ride on the Nile to see at a distance the mausoleum of an Agha Khan, the tombs of Egyptian nobles, the ruins of other temples under excavation, and lots of boats and wildlife. It wasn't a sailboat, but it was still a great finale to a wonderful trip!

Ptolemaic Temples

Edfu & Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Temple of Horus at Edfu
This is a Ptolemaic temple, i.e. primarily constructed by the Greeks who established themselves as pharaohs in Egypt after Alexander the Great was confirmed by the Oracle at Siwa as the son of the god Amon. It's interesting to notice that throughout the centuries, invaders of Egypt have not usurped local traditions and religion, they've merely adopted them and installed themselves as descendants of the same pharaohs. In fact, the Mamasium (Birthing Room) in the Edfu temple tells not the story of a specific Ptolemaic pharaoh being conceived by the gods, but of all of them collectively.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

It's also the most intact pharaonic temple I've seen yet, with most of its ceiling intact, and much of the inner sanctum. In fact, oddly enough, the reliefs in the bottom half of the temple are almost perfectly preserved, while the upper half of the walls is quite weathered. This is because the temple was filled half way with sand until this century, protected from the elements. But like the temples in Petra, it was lived in during the intervening centuries, and the ceilings are blackened with smoke from their homefires. Later Muslim residents also scratched out the faces and features of the gods they could reach from ground level, so they would not be a distraction to their children from their true religion.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

This temple, like the old pharaonic temples, is dedicated to a triad of gods. In the innermost sanctum is not one chapel, but three chapels side-by-side, a design very much similar to the current design of Coptic churches. One probably developed from the other. Certainly, as we've seen on this trip, many pharaonic temples were developed into churches in various ways. Just as the Roman Catholic Church adopted the East-West orientation of Roman temples into Catholic architecture, so the Copts seem to have adopted triple altars.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Double Temple at Kom Ombo
We arrived in Kom Ombo just at sunset tonight, and found the temple lit in a soft yellow glow, not to mention teeming with tourists! This Ptolomaic temple is unusual in that it is a perfectly symmetrical double temple, dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek and the falcon-headed god Horus. In fact, small crocodiles were probably kept in a well to one side of the temple, and mummified crocs were found in vaults under the temple during its reconstruction.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

There a couple of other unique features to this temple. It has the only known intact Calendar Room, indicating which rituals should be performed, and what sacrifices made on each day of the entire 365 day year. There's also a unique relief of medical implements used during the Ptolemaic era. You can also find evidence of cross-beams and animal hitches hacked out of the rock by the farmers who lived in the temple in later years.

From Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Necropolis of Thebes

Luxor, Upper Egypt

From Valley of the Kings

Egyptians believed that the world emerged from water, and if the balance of good and evil was not maintained, it would drown in water again. A warning for these times of rising oceans, they might say. They believed that when the sun set, it crossed that vast primordial ocean and rose in the Land of the Dead to light their day. Then it set there, crossed the vast ocean again, and rose here in the land of the living. Thus ancient Egyptians tended to live on the East Bank of the Nile, closer to the rising sun, and buried their dead on the West Bank, closer to the setting sun and the journey into eternity. Today we crossed over the river to the West Bank to see some of the funerary complexes of the Necropolis, or City of the Dead.

From Valley of the Kings

Colossi of Memnon
They're not Memnon. They represent the Pharaoh Amonhotep III who built a now destroyed temple that once stood at their backs, but the Greeks later named them after Memnon, an Ethiopian king who was a hero at Troy.

From Valley of the Kings

The Temple of Hatshetsup
Egypt's most successful female pharaoh, she ruled for 22 years, won many military campaigns, and built many monuments. This one has a Temple of Hathor, goddess of beauty, on the left. On the right wing is the Temple of Anubis. The center right gallery is the "Birthing Room," telling the story of how Hatshetsup's mother made a deal with the Sun God Amon to bear a pharaoh, thus rendering Hatshetsup divine. (It helps one's legitimacy as pharaoh!) The center left gallery tells of Hatshetsup's campaign to conquer the land of Punt, which was probably in Somalia judging by its depictions in the temple.

From Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings
Sadly, they have now banned cameras in this valley altogether, not just in the tombs, so I can only leave you with the Internet for visual interest!

And then we loosed our moorings and set off upstream! I put together this little video to show you a few of my pictures, and a little stop-motion capture of the locks we passed through at Esna, because I thought my father would especially appreciate that (both the locks and the stop-motion cinematography!)

Ancient Thebes Revealed!

Luxor (aka ancient Thebes), Upper Egypt

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Almost a Disaster
So, I thought we were leaving at 2:15PM this afternoon for Luxor. But at 1:45AM, as I was going to bed, I thought I'd take one more look at the schedule, just to be sure. Good thing, too, cuz we were leaving at 2:15AM, and I had exactly 15 minutes to pack, and 15 minutes to get to the bus! But I made it, which is good, considering how much money I spent on this trip!

So, of course, I was then up virtually all night flying to Luxor (much preferable to taking the night train, I might add!)

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Karnak Temple
After dropping off our bags and having breakfast on the riverboat, we headed for the magnificent Karnak Temple, begun by Pharaoh Ramses II but expanded by about 30 other pharaohs over 1000 years of Egyptian history. As usual, Dr. Shahinda gave us a wealth of information I couldn't possibly convey, but which I've highlighted in the captions of my pictures. I have to say, above all you have to consider the scale of the place. Everything is enormous, and every inch of the walls, columns and ceilings would have been decorated with raised and sunken reliefs, painted in bright colors. It's even more impressive when you remember that this was the Stone Age, and for the most part these artisans didn't have metal tools, only stone implements. You also have to imagine a roof over most of the complex, which admittedly would have made it much more difficult to appreciate the painted reliefs, but was nonetheless and impressive feat of engineering. To this day, scientists and archaeologists are not quite sure how much of it was accomplished.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

All pharaonic temple complexes were dedicated to a trio of deities: a god, a goddess and their child. The so-called Theban Triad was composed of the sun god Amon, the mother goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu the moon god. Just inside the main pylon entrance to Karnak are three small chapels dedicated to the Triad, but they appear again and again throughout the complex, as do the many pharaohs who contributed to its construction.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

One of the highlights are the obelisks of Hatshepsut, one of which was hidden by her step-brother in a fit of pique. See, upon the death of Hatshepsut's father, Tutmoses II, she was named pharaoh instead of her baby step-brother Tutmoses III, and then she proceeded to rule for 22 very successful years, longer than any other female pharaoh, winning lots of battles and building lots of impressive monuments, all of which pissed off her little brother. When she finally kicked the bucket and let him be pharaoh, he went around much of Upper Egypt scratching out every picture of her, every mention of her name, etc. Only there was a catch; obelisks were considered representations of the gods, and as such could not be defaced in any way. As a compromise, Tutmoses III had Hatshepsut's obelisk encased in a wall, so that her name, while still present, would be completely obscured from view. Consequently, it is the best preserved obelisk remaining to us!

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Luxor Temple
Because one temple is not enough, twice a year the Theban Triad went on vacation to the other side of town and the Luxor Temple. It's thought that a street lined with sphinxes stretched the entire distance between them, and a colorful parade and lines of supplicants bearing sacrifices would have accompanied the statues, which is depicted on one wall of the first courtyard.

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

One of the more interesting features of Luxor Temple is the Abu Haggag Mosque, one of very few examples of a mosque being consecrated on ground sacred to another religion, especially a non-Abrahamic one! Even Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was a church before it was a mosque, and not a pagan temple! As Chris Tuttle explained to us in Little Petra, throughout human history, religions have re-sanctified the places that were already holy to local peoples. Until Islam, that is. With a few notable exceptions (the Ka'aba in Mecca, the Temple Mount, Hagia Sophia), as Islam spread across the world, mosque-builders tended to avoid existing temples and churches, and instead sanctified new ground to satisfy the demands of the Muslim version of God. In this case, they didn't actually know there was a temple there when they built their mosque, but by the time the temple was discovered under their foundations, the mosque had become an important local monument, dedicated as it was to a local saint. So the archaeologists installed a new door on the opposite side, and a second minaret for good measure, and just excavated around it!

From Karnak and Luxor Temples

Ah, Vacation!

Cairo, Egypt

I've been to three excellent dinner parties in five days, and that's the only thing I've even left the house for. Otherwise it's been old movies and NPR and good books for days on end! What a relief!

I'm headed out tomorrow for a Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan. Stay tuned for lots of pictures!!

I Will Not Be Homesick!

Cairo, Egypt

It's all my classmates seem to talk about recently. How much they want to go home for Eid. How excited they are about going home for Christmas. Who they'll visit where while they're in America in January. There's a serious rash of homesickness going around, and I'm determined not to catch it!

It's not that I'm immune. Two years ago in Jordan, when I was unemployed, running out of money, defaulting on my student loans, unable to pay my credit card bills, but being warned by my mother not to come home to an even worse job market in America ... I was certainly homesick then! It was the first real case of homesickness I've had to face, though ... and I don't want to do that again!

I have a tried-and-true strategy. I ask myself, "Would you give up the amazing things you're doing abroad right now, just to be back in America?" I can usually convince myself that I would not.

Particularly now! This CASA Fellowship is a privilege and an honor, and I worked too damned hard to get here for me to give it up now! Not only that, but I'm closer to being home than I have been in almost 3 years. I have a guaranteed plane ticket to America in June, paid for by the good ole American taxpayer, and a dozen ideas for summer jobs when I get back there. This is the home stretch, people! Seven more months? Ha! That's nothing!

And hopefully other people's homesickness will lessen a little after next week's 10-day break for Eid ... followed by a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving, which we will be celebrating with a great big CASA potluck!

St. Simon's Monastery

The Trashpickers' Garden of Eden

Moqattam, Cairo, Egypt

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

There were plenty of things about this place that I didn't expect. As we rode through so-called "Garbage City" in our minibuses, neither the smell nor the trash was nearly as bad as I'd been led to expect. Yes, there was plenty of garbage in this Cairo neighborhood to which the government removed all the Zeballeen (trashpickers) in 1968. The Zeballeen bring garbage from all around the city, sort it to divide out the recyclables, and then bag those recyclables to be sold around the world. I've written about the Zeballeen before, and you can learn a great deal more about them from the multiple-award-winning documentary "Garbage Dreams".

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

That's not why we went out to the Mokattam Hills, though. We went to see St. Simon's Monastery, a figure very important to Coptic Christianity in Cairo. In the 10th Century, the first Fatamid Caliph in Cairo, al-Muizz, was known to host interfaith conferences with the Coptic Pope and Jewish leaders in order to learn more about the Abrahamic faiths. In one such conference, the Jewish leader challenged the Pope to prove his faith, citing a verse from the Gospel of St. Matthew:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

The caliph challenged Pope Abram to prove that he had "faith as a grain of mustard seed." The Pope dreamed of the Virgin Mary, who told him to find a one-eyed water bearer in the market who would perform the miracle. That was St. Simon (aka Simeon), a cobbler who once accidentally saw a female customer's calf, and removed his own eye, obeying a Biblical commandment that if the eye sins, it should be removed. On the appointed day, Pope Abram, Caliph Mu'izz and St. Simon went to the Mokattam Hills, and the cobbler lifted the mountains off their roots as promised.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

In addition to the 2,000-seat Church of St. Simon, there is a smaller church of St. Mark the Evangel. Mark is credited with starting the Christian church in Egypt, and is considered by Copts to be the first of their 111 Popes. St. Mark located his church in Alexandria, and was eventually martyred there by the Romans, and a church established in his honor. In the 12th Century, the Venetians smuggled his relics out of Alexandria under a shipment of pork, to be installed in the famous St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. Some of the relics were later returned to the church in Alexandria.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam

There is also a third church, the cave Church of St. Paul the Hermit - the first hermit! - of whom I've written before.

We also visited a lovely little NGO in Garbage City.

From St. Simon's of Mokattam