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