Farewell, Mother of the World

Its time. After finishing up my work at the office, and spending my final night with friends feasting on Yemenis food.

During my stay, I have done but a drop in the bucket to build up women’s development in the Arab world, visited the last standing wonder of the ancient world, walked the shores of Alexander the Great’s favorite city, dived to see the beautiful coral reefs where Moses parted the Red Sea, and of course spent countless nights exploring the winding streets that make up arguably the most important city in all of the Arab world.

I have eaten my fair share of fuul (bean tacos), koosherie (macaroni and vegetable mix), and of course, McArabias.

I have, albeit barley expanded my vocabulary from beyond what wonderful IU has given me in a year.

I have heard rants against my own country, and monologues of admirers. I have gotten lost, found my way, been yelled at, gotten ripped off, and have been graciously allowed to pay later when I was short for cash.

In the famed medieval collection of stories “Thousand and One Arabian Nights”, the author writes

“He who hath not seen Cairo hath not seen the world: her soil is gold, her Nile is a marvel; her women are like the black-eyed hours of Paradise; her houses are palaces; and her air is soft, more odorous than aloes-wood, rejoicing the heart. And how can Cairo be otherwise when she is the Mother of the World?”

Granted, Cairo’s soil has lost its gold, and her women are barley seen in her cafes or public accommodation. Her houses have lost their former glory, falling apart after 20 years of neglect with no government help, and her air is stuffed with constant pollution.

But even with this, Cairo holds something found nowhere else in the world. Its charm is found in its people, and no reckless government or rise in religious fundamentalism can stop that.

The Mother of the World has showed me wondrous things, in places, people, and emotions.

I will return.

Two more Arabian nights…

My trip is in its final days now, and it is sort of fitting that there is little to blog about.

I will always be cautious to ever say that I have “lived” in Cairo mainly since I have come to realize that even if I was here for 2 years, I still wouldn’t fully be a Carine. And this doesn’t even include that I probably still wouldn’t have learned the language or understand all the Egyptian customs.

Being from this city means finding a sense of humor about its many headache inducing ordeals and welcoming foreigners who invade daily to see the famed museums and world wonders on its outskirts. In some ways, I perhaps may never be able to put Cairo’s heavy traffic, heat, or pollution out of my daily routine, and no matter how well I will ever be able to speak Arabic or become even tanner than my Mexican self allows, I may never be seen as a true citizen of the city. After spending my entire life in the states, I don’t think I’d want to live in a city where being gay is considered an unacceptable lifestyle. I like to think when I enter a voting booth every 2 years, my vote actually gets counted, at least most of the time.

That being said, it’s obvious that my own country has its fair share of problems, and I know several of my Egyptian friends would find practices back home in Indiana imperfect and quite unacceptable. And that’s okay. Being immersed in a culture forces us to recognize what divides us, besides mere geography, and, as any foreigner will tell you upon their initial arrival, there is A LOT that divides us. But after spending more than the touristy stay, immersion forces us to also see ourselves as we really are, and recognize what values we share in common. Cliché , I know.

Its easy to feel like an outsider in this place, especially when you get lost in translation. But the Carines never fail to attempt to talk to me, even if their English is poor, nor do they ever get tired of hearing me butcher their beautiful language, or stop me when I ask too many questions on their customs. After five weeks, the outdoor shop owners begin to transform their initial “hello stranger” to “hello neighbor” smiles, asking how my evening was or commenting on the usually dreadful weather. When they see me struggle to read my Samsung phone, they quickly come to the rescue, figuring out how to change the language or add more minutes for me. Tea and seesha are always offered, whether you are in downtown, Garden City, or in any of the bazaars. The constant syncopated car horns signaling another wedding party that once annoyed me when strolling on one of the Nile bridges has become part of the beautiful evening for me.

Cairo has ceased to become simply events stringed together. The city has become an experience together. It’s not necessary to find something new and different to do every night (although that’s always an option in a city of some 18 million people). Cairo is a city where every walk or taxi ride brings something new. Granted, long after this trip ends and when I tell my children’s children of Cairo, I will show them the many pictures of the Sphinx and I. But what I won’t be able to show them are the boys and girls spontaneously playing soccer with a water bottle in the middle of my neighborhood, or the taxi driver coming back to my apartment after noticing I left my bag in his front seat. Cairo is not something just caught in pictures.

I am not a very poetic person, and this is kind of a rant of thoughts I have been having, since my last few evenings have simply been at cafes watching soccer matches. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Living in Cairo is not visiting the Pyramids every night. Its grabbing ice cream, drinking pepsi, and talking to friends every evening as the mighty Egyptian sun finally falls into the horizon.

Three weeks ago, I couldn’t think about anything but home. Egypt has made a strong case for me to stay, but a stronger one for me to at least return.

Two more Arabian nights…

Dahab and Mt. Sinai- A Final Egyptian Weekend

What follows is quite lengthy, and for those who finish it all, bravo. Apologies for the lack of editing:

There are always a few things odd about any city, and another one to add to Cairo’s expanding list is the appearance of its bus station. As someone who has used the city’s metro, airport, and train stations extensively, I expected Cairo’s bus station to be a wonderful parking lot at best. It turns out, the Egyptians have invested big bucks in their bus station.

Around midnight, I found my terminal and met a German and Romanian “couple” on their way to the same place as me, the Red Sea town of Dahab. I say couple, only because, minutes into our conversation, the Romanian girl asked if I knew if there were lots of women in Dahab. Obviously, I think we had different intentions for our journeys.

Just before I actually boarded the bus, a blonde American asked me if this was the bus bound for Dahab, and after we began our conversation, I discovered her name was Melissa and was a first year law student out of George Washington University in DC. We talked for an hour before I had to give up my seat at our first stop picking up more Egyptians bound for the Sinai.

Long bus rides, even on coach buses, are never a pleasant thing. Not only is leg room nonexistent, but here in Egypt, the bus companies try to entertain their customers with either Arab movies on the loudest volume possible, or Quarnic recitation tapes (which are not at all uncommon at any restaurant in Cairo), either of which do not lead to pleasant sleeping.

After 9 hours through the brown rocky mountains of the Sinai, the city of Dahab finally came into view, with a stunning sight of the rough, bluest of blue waters hitting the rocky coast. Melissa and I got a cab into the developed part of Dahab on the coast. Ironically, we both booked places to stay at the Penguin Hotel, a popular and relatively cheap place for students. We had breakfast, some sugar pancakes, and I met several of her friends from the NGO she works at in Cairo, one oddly from South Bend.

All seven of us found the perfect spot in the middle of Dahab’s coast with 7 beach chairs to lie out for the day. I rented some snorkeling equipment and swam into the bay to some of the reef just into the tide. Dahab is absolutely beautiful. The city seems to be centered on tourism, but because the summer is mainly the off season for European vacationers, the place was nearly empty. Just over the Gulf of Aqaba, the mountain coast of Saudi Arabia can be seen. The entire coast is lined with restaurants where pillows are laid out for any visitor to enjoy their meal while laying back in the Roman times. After laying out for hours, we all realized that the Sinai’s sun was much stronger than we anticipated, and none of us were without some form of sunburn. We decided to meet up for dinner later that evening.

I found a local hair cutting place because after 4 weeks in Egypt, I was badly in need of a trim. Although the guy was originally asking for 100 pounds for a haircut (or roughly $17) I got him down to 30 ($5) after he figured out I was accustomed to Egyptian prices by now (plus, I still am getting ripped off, since my co workers pay only 10 for their haircuts).

With a haircut and salt water shower (all that’s available in town), I met up with the group for a drink at the Penguin before we headed to Nirvana, a popular Indian restaurant on the coast. We shared two bottles of red wine, and all sorts of Indian delicacies, all for about $9 a person. It was great.

I booked a midnight bus earlier in the day to Mt. Sinai, since I’ve had this calling to climb it before I leave Egypt. The bus was supposed to leave at midnight, arrive at 2 am at the foot of the mountain, and take roughly 2-3 hrs to climb, just in time to see the sunset. The guy from South Bend, Steven, asked if he could join, and at midnight, we told the group adios! Before getting into the terribly uncomfortable microbus bound for St. Catherines. I like to sleep when I travel, and it is especially easy for me to sleep if I am moving (ie, a plane, car, bus). However, if I can’t rest my head on something, I kind of go crazy. This midnight bus ride to St. Catherines was no exception. But, I handled it, and by 2am, the group from the Penguin and I started our journey up the mountain.

Climbing at night is interesting as you can’t really see how far you have to travel. The only thing we could see was the outline of the great mountains of Sinai, which made for beautiful scenery during our two hour trek. There is two ways up and down Mount Sinai, a long camel path (where at any point of the journey, a Bedouin could escort you while you relaxed watching the stars on a smelly camel), or the steepest stairs known to man. I decided to simply walk the camel path, winding around the steep mountain and occasionally having to avoid the camel dung and large rocks interfering with the path.

Steve and I got to talk a lot on the trip, and I learned his father is actually a state senator in Northern Indiana. He talked a lot about Notre Dame and, fitting for where we were, we talked about religion (interestingly and ironically, we couldn’t even name the 10 Commandments, sorry Moses).

The trek was difficult. There isn’t any other way to say it. We usually stopped every 30 minutes at one of the many café/rest stops the Bedouins have set up to make a few bucks selling candy bars and water. As we were getting higher and higher up, the air became thinner and thinner and stops became a bit more frequent. We eventually hit the part of the mountain where the camels could no longer even go. It was 750 steps straight up to where Moses supposedly retrieved the Commandments. After taking a few deep breaths, Steve and I began the ascent.

After 350 or so, I was questioning why the heck I even decided on doing this, but I pushed on. We all stopped at step 650, the final rest station, where Steve, myself, and our group went into the large Bedouin hut to warm up. The mountain was extremely cold, and the hut was a nice protection for the chilling wind. We were all exhausted, and promptly just laid down and slept for half an hour, as we actually made it up the mountain faster than most groups before us. At around 4:30 am, our guide starting yelling for us to wake up. Steve and I bought blankets to take up to the final tip of the mountain.

After 150 steps, we had finally reached the top. Amidst the chilling, freezing temperatures, I found a spot on top of a large rock formation to watch the famous Sinai sunrise. It was something I don’t think I’ll forget. It was a rewarding finish to such a long climb. Asian Christian pilgrims could be heard singing hymns on the other corner of the mountain top, along with a group of annoying American teenager girls wearing shorts and t shirts pissing off everyone with their loud mouths and their terrible rendition of “Here Comes the Sun” during the sunrise.

After hiking down the same path, we visited St. Catherine’s Monastery and waited for our driver to take us back to Dahab. I got a nap in on the side of the road, protecting the sun from my burnt face with my extra shirt. I signed up for 2 dives the next afternoon at 1pm after the hike, but after we arrived back at the Penguin at noon, the dive centre realized there was no chance of that, and Steve and I decided to eat some pizza at a local café and spend the day lounging around at the previous day’s spot. We loved the Indian restaurant so much that we decided to hit up a round 2 before most of the group (minus Melissa and I) departed back to Cairo.

Milessa and I, who refrained from IndianFeast round 2, found a place selling cheap cheese burgers and cokes and watched the USA-Ghana match. Tsk tsk… no worries. At least it was an entertaining game. Congrats to my Ghana brother and sisters. Ghana all the way, now!

I woke up on Monday morning at 830 for my SCUBA dive for only 18 euros, a steal if there ever was one. Apparently, no one else signed up for the morning dive, so I had to pay an extra 5 euros for a private guide named Ahmed. He was really nice and chuckled when I was in visible pain putting on my wetsuit over my sun burnt shoulders.

We went out to a famous Red Sea dive spot called the Lighthouse. While no lighthouse actually exists anymore on the sight, the spot is famous for the beautiful giant reef along the coast. I haven’t shore dived in a while, but the reef was excellent to enter. My mask kept fogging up during the dive, but luckily thanks to the skills I picked up from the world’s best dive master Karen York, my mask clearing was superb and offered a fantastic view of all the amazing colors under the Red Sea. For all my diving buddies, definitely one of the best diving spots in the world.

I seemed to do pretty well for someone who hasn’t dived since Christmas. My air lasted an hour, which I think is my new record. The dive was everything that I imagined, and included the sight of a giant eel coming within feet of my fins just below me. I decided against a 2nd dive at 1pm for the sake of money, and also wanted to spend a long final day just relaxing on the Dahab beach.

Melissa and I ate at the corny Aladdin restaurant and spent the day under a shaded café reading our books while she did some work on your net book. The English and Germans starting rolling in to watch the match on Penguins large TV, so Melissa and I decided to go get some milkshakes and watch the match from upstairs at another café. Poor England  , you guys so got cheated, but its alright. There’s always the next FOUR years.

When the sun finally set, and the full orange moon glittered on the horizon, we spent our last few Dahab hours drinking Stella Beer on top of the Penguin, and ordered chocolate cake to share. The waiter seemed to being walking to inform me that they had no chocolate cake (common for lots of dishes), but he turned around suddenly and 5 minutes later came back with a large decorative plate of some kind of carrot cake with chocolate sauce , ice cream, apples and bananas. It was not what we ordered, but perfect nonetheless.

Melissa and I had a great chat about life, our guys, our travels, and had to stop to catch the taxi back to our bus station. I arrived back in Cairo at 730ish and had to work at 9 am.

Currently I am at work and drinking enough caffeine to keep me up for another 8 hrs. Awww.. this post may have been rushed, and I know I skipped over lots of parts, but it really was a great weekend on the Red Sea.

Thanks to Melissa, Steven, Brendan, Nadja, Diana, and Lauren! You guys made me want to stay for another six weeks.

Countdown till home: 4 days!

Ahhhhhhhhh. I will have pictures of the weekend up on tumblr and facebook tonight (or afternoon in America).

Bryce texted me and apparently is living it up at the Taj Mahal…. Ugh. Lucky kid 

For the last time on a Monday in Cairo,

Eric

Swamped Before the Red Sea Weekend

Greetings to America, or wherever you’re reading this. If you’re reading this from anywhere outside the “first world”, you should probably ponder why this blog is important enough to waste your precious internet minutes.

So I apologize for being a bit MIA the past few days. I have been swamped at work. On Tuesday, I worked six hours of overtime (9am – 11 pm) trying to finish a grant to the European Union. Those dang needy Europeans! Tensions were high Tuesday night. My sweet coworker Aya just starting crying around 8pm.

To try to ease some of that tension, we decided to order McDonalds to the office. One of the nice things about the developing world is the fact that for some reason, fast food can always be delivered. I’m just going to say, thank god that doesn’t exist back home. If I could order a few cheese burgers for delivery, I may be the most obese kid this side of the Mississippi.

Anyways, back to the McDonalds. I ordered a Middle Eastern favorite, the McArabia which is just a burger on a flat pita bread, but you HAVE to order it if you’re here. Globalization and the Middle East never tasted so good.

Yesterday, after another long day of work, I left promptly at 4 pm to grab a bite to eat and watched the USA-Algeria match at a café just down the street from my apartment. The place was packed, and my eyes occasionally burned due to high intensity of seesha and cigarette smoke filling the air of the small café.

Although Egypt is not in the World Cup, they have the teams they like, mainly Brazil or Portugal, but more interesting, they have teams they DON’T like. There is no team that the Egyptians hate more than Algeria. Odd, at first thought since Algeria is an Arab nation. However, Egyptians, who pride themselves on having arguably the greatest African football team, were beat out of a World Cup qualifier by, you guessed it, those Algerians. So, the café was a nice atmosphere of scores of men rooting for America, not because of any real reason other than hoping to squash the dream from their Arab counterpart.

Could that game be any more intense? I happened to be sitting in front of the only 2 Algerian fans in Cairo, and had to endure their never ending clapping when Algeria stole the ball from the Americans. Seeing my bff Bill Clinton in the stands brought a smile to my face, though, and laughter to Egyptians who apparently love him too.. Just as injury time was nearly finished, and I had already paid thinking the USA had failed to qualify to the Round of 16, Landon Donovan (the guy with probably the most American name in the entire world) scored an awesome goal. My heart sank, and there may have been some emotional eye watering.. idk. Don’t judge.

I decided to spend the night doing a bit of shopping, since my time here in Egypt is winding down and I had yet to purchase any trickets. I caught a taxi to Islamic Cairo, which I realized I had never been at night. The giant bazaar was all along the major mosques of Islamic Cairo, all lit with green lights. While I was browsing the many shops, usually all with the same packaged cheap statues of King Tut, I came upon the entrance of the Khan a Khali mosque, resembling a medieval castle. The doors were wide open, and well lit, so I walked in. To my surprise, there was hardly anyone wandering this castle and mosque. The place, adorned with perfect examples of beautiful, classic Islamic architecture, was someplace I don’t think I will ever forget.
I purchased a few things, mainly for myself (also, don’t judge), and decided I will need to come back next week for a final round.

I am spending my last Egyptian weekend in the Red Sea town of Dahab, and taking a midnight trip to climb the famed Mt. Sinai. I am excited as a lil school boy. This new intern here at the office smiled when I just said the word Dahab. I hear it’s a back baggers paradise, with cheap food and thrills to entertain people for weeks. I only have three days, but I hope to do a fair share of either diving or snorkeling. More importantly, I hope to find an awesome place to watch the US take on Ghana (note- either way the match will turn out, I’ll be happy. Ghana, my last summer abroad destination, holds a special place in my heart).

My bus leaves tonight at 12:15 am, so this may be my last post until I return on Monday. If you don’t hear from me by Monday, its probably cause I sank under God’s rath chasing that deviant Moses across the Red Sea, or I’m just tired, but assume the former.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Love,
Eric

Ps. Cairo’s weather has not only stabilized from the deadly 120 earlier this week, but has actually become quite comfortable. Its only 86 here right now. I think Egypt is trying to get me to fall in love with it before my departure. Its doing a pretty good job at the moment.