Category: egypt

i had 24 hours in cairo, which was amazing! luck had it that my classmate jenna and her mother were on my air sinai flight from tel aviv, and her mom was a little anxious about visiting cairo, so i was able to attempt to allay her fears. grabbed a cab into the city with these ladies before parting ways. i wandered around the area where we had lived when i studied abroad in cairo – agouza. i went to the now internationally infamous tahrir square, and viewed the poignant revolution-inspired grafitti and  burned out bohemoth government building called the muktada where we once squandered an entire day getting our visas extended. wandered the ancient pathways of khan el khalili market, where i made friends with an egyptian law student who got me unto the roof of a large mosque for an unforgettable view of old cairo.

pictures of the new president, al-sisi, are everywhere. unfortunately, egypt seems to be on a pendulum ride between democratically-induced islamism and dictatorship, and now we’re back to the latter. i asked some new acquaintances i met how they like al-sisi – all say that he is a good president, but perhaps the length of the pause before they answer is more revealing than what they actually say.

i found myself near a huge mosque in old cairo during friday night prayers, and suddenly the power went out, pitching the whole area into complete darkness. normally tourists (at least those wearing shorts) are not allowed inside the mosques during prayers, but thanks to the confusion i slipped in and sat on the plush carpet in the dark listening to islamic prayers being sung in arabic, and contemplated the big questions in life. always a good time in cairo:)

after our month of traveling around the middle east, we returned to cairo for two weeks to write a bunch of papers and say good bye to our friends and the streets of cairo. we went on a retreat weekend to a coptic monastery/retreat center north of cairo called anafora. mesp was amazing. wonderful friends were made, a ton of fun was had, and basically my wordview was fundamentally altered. it was a profoundly formative semester for me.

we had some more interesting guest speakers during our last few weeks in cairo. we heard from a guy from the world bank, which is funding some great work and is quantifiably financially beneficial for all involved which is unique among international organizations. we also had young guy come show us a documentary he is making about the situation in the gaza strip which was very interesting. the Palestinians there are basically contained with zero economy and it is a time bomb waiting to explode.

we went to the arab league the other day, which is headquartered here in cairo, and met with the chief of staff for the secretary general. he is very important, we had to dress executively and all stand up when he came into the room. the arab league is basically like a miniature united nations just for the arab world, although that analogy could be strongly argued against only many levels – but i digress. it was interesting to hear him talk candidly about his recommendations for u.s. foreign policy – wouldn’t be too hard to satisfy actually. but if there is one thing to know about this region it is that nothing is ever as it seems.

we were reminded of that truth when we went to al azhar university to hear one of the deans there lecture to us about the tolerance of islam. al azhar is known as the most prestigious islamic school in the world and is quite fundamentalist but of course they put a positive spin on everything when we are there. we would ask direct questions and the guy would avoid them every single time. there was one point when the director of our program got really angry with the guy because he was continually flat out lying about how islamic leadership often treats people who convert away from islam. we were all sitting there just hoping this wasn’t the start of world war three. a while ago we also had a whole day where a bunch of coptic christian youth came to our villa and we talked faith and that was really informative. we also had a big discussion with some journalists from a religious news website called islam online. so we have been busy!

our islam and arabic classes are finished! arabic was really tough. islam was quite interesting, although our professor (a muslim) certainly glossed it over for us. but i guess we would likely do the same if we were teaching a class on christianity.

we saw many sights of ancient egypt in the area around luxor, such as the temple of habu, the colossi of memnon and the valley of the kings. the valley of the kings is where many pharaohs were buried in extravagant underground tombs in one random valley out in the desert so that tomb raiders wouldn’t find them.

we went to upper/southern egypt for a long weekend. we stayed in luxor, the main city in the region, which is about twelve hours south of cairo up the nile river. we took the night train, and played cards until about 4 am before getting a few hours of sleep. luxor is a tourist city filled with ancient egyptian temples and the atmosphere is totally different than cairo. everyone tries to rip you off at every opportunity so it gets really tiring arguing with every person you meet about prices before they give it to you. that said it was a wonderful weekend.

karnak temple is just outside the city, and luxor temple is right in the center of the city. we stayed at a very nice hotel in luxor with a swimming pool on the roof so that was amazing! it is starting to get cooler in cairo but it was very hot in luxor.

thomas and i went to al-azhar park, a beautiful park (unexpected in cairo) funded by a liberal, social justice orientated islamic sect from india. it is an ideal place to watch the sun set over old cairo as thousands of separate mosques sound their call to prayer asynchronously.

each of us in the program spent one week living with a family in cairo.  my friend thomas and i were placed with a guy named anwar. he is in his late twenties and is a crazy cool guy. he is a copt and is basically the opposite of most egyptians, in that he loves george bush and continually reminds us how awesome he thinks particular american televangelists are. he states that he doesn’t like even talking to muslims. in fact, on the night when we all got picked up by our families for our homestays everyone was mingling and he requested that we sit in an empty classroom because he doesn’t like being in the same room as muslims. this is a bit more extreme than most copts here, but it is not uncommon for them to segregate themselves from broader society. sad, but perhaps somewhat understandable considering their constant persecution for two thousand years.

anwar lives in garbage city, one of the poorest areas of cairo. we walk up through these narrow, garbage filled alleys to get to his house. i love it. lots of taxis refuse to even taker us to that part of town. it reeks of garbage but you get used to it after five minutes of being there. we got some pizzas for dinner and they looked good enough, but the meat in them literally tasted like garbage. consuming it in its entirety without vomiting may have been the hardest thing i have ever done, but one has to be a good guest on a homestay. there are a bunch of extended family always hanging out in the apartment – sometimes they sleep there and sometimes they don’t. there is a baby in the home named nancy who is really cute. and a grandmother.

we did feel like an imposition, but at least our being there is interesting for all involved, and they signed up to host us. anwar was the only one in the family who spoke any english, but we played card games and backgammon with everyone else. it was interesting to hear my fellow mesper’s stories about the places they are living – some were great and some have horror stories. i enjoyed living the way these people live and having fun with them.

the second half of the homestay week went really well. the sister in our family, saheb, started to like us toward the middle of the week and started cooking us nice big meals (at the beginning of the week they basically just fed us twinkies and gross pizza). on the weekend we just slept in (that’s basically what they do everyday). anwar, our english speaking contact left midweek to become a tour guide, so the weekend was a little more challenging because we couldn’t communicate with anyone in the house. but it went well, and we had some really fun times despite no verbal comprehension for anyone involved.