Mustafa the taxi driver who took me to the airport at 2:30am, told me that there were only 2 things he didn’t like about his country – the traffic and the heat. That’s a little like a ferryboat captain saying that the only thing he doesn’t like about his job is the water and the passengers! I regret that I was too sleepy to ask him what he loved about his country. I can guess, since every Egyptian I met loved to talk about his/her country, about how Muslims and Christians have always lived together well, about the good food and the bad the government, about the water problems, the political problems, the way it used to be… One young man said that it’s a women’s choice to wear a veil or not, but that mostly rich women “trying to imitate westerners” choose not to. On most of the women, the headscarves are an expression of style and the range of interpretation is infinite. Peer pressure must play a big role in whatever decision gets made. To be sure, these are merely the impressions of one who simply passed through…
Traffic seems to be the nature of Cairo. The roads are full all of the time – even at those wee hours of the morning. There are 20 million people living in Cairo, and to my visitor’s eyes, it is a model of organized chaos. Cars, donkey carts, buses, trucks, lots of people, and a few bicycles all coexist in strips of pavement where there are no lines, no apparent rules, no speed limits, no sidewalks, no stopping, not an inch of spare space. There is a precise and continual hand signal and horn language that must be part of the genetic makeup of Cairenes. It is a crazy cooperation that gives me renewed meaning to “share the road.”
Except for when I was crossing the roads (even neighborhood streets) I felt safe. Even on the always-busy metro, there was not a feeling of violence or threat of a situation getting out of control. Andy wondered what role in this the lack of alcohol played… The situations of conflict that I saw were all handled in similar ways. As soon as voices were raised in anger two people would step forward and immediately separate and move away the angry ones with their bodies, though not necessarily touching, certainly not forcing. They would start talking in a friendly way seeming to commiserate with the angry one, listening but also quietly talking until the energy simply dissipated. Everyone else went about their business, no crowding around the situation, no taking sides, none of those things that add to the energy. Nobody seemed to think that something had to be resolved, that the two had to agree or come to terms or even meet again. I saw the same scenario played out several times, always in intensely crowded situations. Blessed are the peacemakers (blessed are all those who know how to live in crowded community!)
Our last night in Cairo we went to Al Azhar park in Islamic Cairo to watch the equinox sunset and the moonrise and hear the call to prayer. A taxi driver (OK, its true, much of my information comes from these men who are the life blood of that city!) had told us that from Al Azhar Park you can hear the call from a dozen different mosques (Cairo is called the “city of 10,000 minarets”) and all broadcast the call to prayer 5 times a day starting before dawn. What an unsynchronized cacophony!
Drinking tea with Rakia, an Egyptian woman who befriended me and initiated me into the mysteries of the metro system and also to crossing Cairo streets, told me that there is a mosque next to the building complex where she lives. She said that the mosque’s loudspeaker is placed such that it blares directly into her building, waking the children in the predawn hours. She said that a group of women from the apartment complex went to complain and that it got better for a while – volume turned down? Placement of loudspeaker changed? I don’t know– my Arabic is nonexistent, and her English vocabulary not sufficient to explain how/why it changed. In any case, this relief lasted only a short time, she said, then it was back the way it was. Being a wayfarer allows a certain rosy picture …
I awoke this morning to the tsks and peeps of the cardinals in the forsythias in contrast to the ancient cry that has beckoned Muslims (and anyone with ears) for millennium. Incorporating, assimilating, digesting Cairo in these Blue Ridge Mountains is invigorating. All morning I have been hearing inside my head the two classic refrains -the Jewish expression “God forbid” and the Muslim “insha’allah (God willing) both used often and for nearly everything. For some reason these two phrases have decided to take up residence here inside Magnolia and are exploring every surface and every nook and cranny – looking for something? Staking out territory? I can’t really tell – yet. They seem quite familiar with each comfortable, even...
I want to tell you, not now, but another time, about the Zabaleens (the garbage collectors) and the livelihood they make and the city and churches they have built on the garbage heaps of Cairo. There are so many questions and feelings that returned from this journey with me… about poverty – no work or work that doesn’t pay enough to live; about kindness and curiosity and humanity; about living with no sense of power to make change, about cops who carry guns to protect tourists - presumably from their countrymen, (who also don’t make enough to live on and must find baksheesh and other work elsewhere); about genital mutilation in the culture (a figure I read says that 95% of women currently have undergone this procedure), about a persistent image I have of the Manhattan skyline buried under the millennial sands of time being like the Nile valley where the ruins of pyramids and temples and monumental structures speak about a life long ago and far away from modern Egypt… About Gaza, Sudan, and destruction now that people survive and continue... About this government’s war on real people and its impact on real people; about government that has little care for the people they govern, about inculturated domination of men and oppression of women and the fear of the innate power of what is female…
Again and always, there is so much that I want to write about, so many stories and endless questions, so many conversations to be started, so many cups of tea to sip, some day… but this is not that day.
Enough for now, dear friends. Thanks for listening.
Much love,
Ruby
