Welcome to Egypt

Ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat, ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat…. There was a military march in Switzerland, no, in Berlin, but what are they doing here? ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat. No, the march is real and I was only dreaming of Europe. I lay utterly still for several seconds, trying desperately to herd my scattered brain cells like recalcitrant cats into something resembling order and make some sense of the situation. I lay on a wide and elevated bed, which would exclude most of the places I’ve slept the last two weeks, under heavy bedding and the sound of yelling accompanying the drums and—xylophones? ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat. I tasted dust in my mouth, and it all came crashing into place. Cairo. Not Germany, not Switzerland, Egypt. My impulse was to run out onto the balcony, from which direction the sounds were coming from, but I decided a Romeo and Juliet style balcony number in my jammies wouldn’t be a great call. Pants were a must, should I cover my hair? I think it was a school assembly, but even that is only speculation.

For some unknown and for me incomprehensible reason, all flights to Cairo seem to get in in the middle of the night, and mine was no exception. 3.30 AM is not a great time to land in a very foreign city, but as it seems to be the norm, it’s not too much trouble to arrange to be picked up. Even on the plane I had the feeling Cairo belonged to another world, if only for the fact that we were confronted with sorry looking chicken and somewhat greasy ravioli at about midnight (our “hot dinner”), with a “cheesecake stick” for desert. Maybe Egypt is one of those countries, like Spain, where dinner is eaten exceptionally late. Most of my fellow passengers were bridging the gap between Egypt and Germany, “sitting on two chairs.” Mixed families with one parent German, one parent Egyptian, were frequent, as were expatriates. Some of the staff of the German school in Alexandria were returning from holidays, as were my seatmates. My “single serving friend” next to me struck up conversation. An Egyptian “from the oasis”, he explained to me in excellent German, he ran a travel and construction business in Cairo, with outposts in Vienna, Berlin, Spain, and elsewhere. He was married to a German woman, seated in front of us, and their two children spoke both perfect German and Arabic, and I suppose he could be considered a Cairean success. He promised me a special guided tour of the pyramids with his next tour group (with a wink and a smile), but it wasn’t the kind of promise I would regard as serious.

Pushed along with the other exiting passengers I was more a bit of flotsam than anything else, and I hoped the tide would eventually get me to where I needed to go. Egypt couldn’t care less who enters (a drastic but not unsurprising contrast to Switzerland), and visas can be had for 15$ or 15€ at any of the bank outposts, where I was also handed a large stack of grimy bills as my 5€ in change, before passport control.

Navigating in Cairo is kind of like trying to follow a spaghetti noodle to its source in a plate with heavy sauce (watch out for the parmesan). Thankfully there was little traffic, and while I would characterize my driver’s lazy drifting from one lane to another, or better still, driving upon the white line in the middle as somewhat erratic, he steered the car with confidence, unfazed by traffic. Cairo is a sprawling mass. I think of it as a creature of itself, pulsing, tentacles (traffic lanes) extending in thick lines in all directions, forming a dense web and weaving above and below one another, elevated above and separated from the city itself, undulating slowly (obviously the streets themselves don’t undulate, seeing as how they’re fixed in concrete). Finding our building was another matter, and involved circling the block several times, several phone calls, and asking directions. Eventually we found it, and I was settled into my new home for the next several weeks. The entry to our building is dulled green marble, testament to the fading and faded glory of the city. Our apartment is ornamented in brickwork, with ornamented tiles forming eight-sided stars on the floor. Heavy antique furniture graces the apartment in the Victorian (ornamented) style, and the walls are painted green and yellow in the living room. Apparently all apartments in Cairo are painted either white or some shade of pink, so my friends were happy to find this piece. Light switches are scattered all over the apartment, ‘up’ means ‘off’, and there are two sizes of outlets, leading to the creative use of power strips. Our fireplace features an air conditioner where the fire would be, and the window above it overlooks Zamalek and one of the prettier (apparently) districts of Cairo.

My first venture in Cairo was by foot, across the bridge from Zamalek to take a boat ride. One of the first things I noticed was how high the curbs are, raising the sidewalks, such as they are, over a foot into the air. Which makes climbing up and down each block noticeably more tiresome, though I was later quite thankful for them, as it ensured extra protection from Cairo’s notoriously chaotic traffic. The promenade along the river presents some of Cairo’s more ‘romantic’ scenery, and it’s not surprising that the promenade is adorned with tons of couples—women in headscarves talking and laughing with young men, seated at impromptu cafés, walking hand in hand or simply side by side. For about seven dollars, we could rent a falucca, a flat-bottomed riverboat with a single sail, common on the Nile, to be had for small trips or even parties, blaring Egyptian pop music or simply silently trolling along. We decided after our trip to head over to old Cairo, which involved crossing the street. Crosswalks and traffic lights don’t exist. Crossing the street isn’t simple: you can wait all day for an opportune time, but your best bet is to wait for the closest lane to become somewhat free, and work your way across the street one lane at a time. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be stuck in the middle of the street and traffic flows around you. Under no circumstances hesitate, and since this is the normal means of crossing the street, drivers are aware of you and will slow down, though may honk angrily. This seems to be the only time when the concept of ‘lanes’ is actually respected; otherwise, they seem mostly to be there for decorations. Most natives don’t seem to run, either, simply moving purposefully to the other side.

Old Cairo is a mixture of a street bazaar, a rundown housing area, and a giant outdoor café: private, public, and commercial lives are intermingled, about every third building is dilapidated and uninhabit(-ed and –able). Some streets contain sheep, others shops, others a workshop where steel or aluminum sheets were hammered into shape. Everything imaginable is on sale, and many shopfronts contain a small table with men drinking tea and smoking sheesha. I took a few pictures, trying to be unobtrusive, but I soon packed up the camera and contented myself with drinking in the sites. These people weren’t objects in a museum, and it somehow felt wrong –or more intrusive– photographing them as if they were part of the scenery. I wished I didn’t stand out as much, just to see what the place would be like without all eyes following me and my red-haired companion. Lunch was a delicious mixture of noodles, macaroni, lentils and chickpeas (served with a tomato sauce), which sated my hunger for the rest of the day and was thankfully vegetarian.

More to come, likely without photos for awhile—I leave it to your imagination and to google images.