Our collective gasp filled the microsecond between when we saw the pedestrian come from between two parked cars and when, with a sickening thump, he rolled up the hood to be left sprawled in traffic as our taxi hit him. He lay stricken, a crowd quickly forming about him as he gathered himself, slowly stood and painfully and made his way to the median. Our taxi driver did not protest when we refused to continue in his cab, and we made our way per metro after reassuring ourselves that the poor man was at least in mobile condition.
January has stumbled into February. The days grow steadily warmer, as if someone is slowly turning up the burner under Cairo. At a time when freezing snow and battering winds are smothering Europe, Cairo is bathed in a springtime warmth—magnified by the brown cloud hovering over everything and smothering the city in pollution.
My time here is also coming to a close. Six weeks of Cairo, with brief interludes in Alexandria and in the desert, have taught me so much, showed me so many things, and proved my introduction to another world.
Looking out from the US, the Middle East is not a happy place. Everything from Morocco to Pakistan gets lumped together, and for a lot of people this region is simply the place “where terrorists come from”, horribly repressive, fanatically religious, and definitely out to get us. Indeed, the region can be all of these things—and my experiences have been of Egypt and I can thus not speak too much to anywhere else—but this generalization ignores two important points. First, the division within the “Middle East” can be as great as the divisions between “Islam and the rest”. The religious and ethnic differences are vast: among Sunnis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, majority in Kuwait, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, UAE), Shi’ites (Bahrain, majority in Iraq, Iran), Sufis, Ibadhi (Oman), Druze, and others; among Arabs and non-Arabs (including Persians, Turks, Kurds). The “Middle East” states doesn’t always get along with each other, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan often on one side and Iran, Syria, and some of the Gulf states on the other. The second point this generalization often overlooks is that people—at least in Egypt, though this has also been my experience elsewhere—differentiate between politics and people. The US government makes this difficult, and the deeply unpopular presidency of Bush II (a note to you non-Americans: a lot of us didn’t like him either, and I certainly didn’t vote for him!) has done quite a bit for increasing the dislike and hate of the US government. Nevertheless, in most cases Egyptians at least can distinguish and treat me similarly to how they treat me when I claim to be German: friendly and curious. But nevertheless, the first forty-five seconds of any conversation generally consists of “where are you from?” “America.” “Obama?” “Obama!”. Friends for life, I tell you.
I finally made it to the pyramids, which, completely in line with all expectations of the matter, more or less resemble giant piles of ancient rock—a startling coincidence, because that is, in fact, what they are. The pyramids at Giza are renowned for being a massive hassle, both in terms of getting there and of surviving the gauntlet of overly enthusiastic trinket-sellers and people trying to convince you to do all manner of things (and pay handsomely for them). We let ourselves be convinced (by our driver, a taxi driver whom we had befriended on a previous trip and asked again to take us) to take a camel ride around the pyramids, and were readily equipped with two intemperate camels and two bored-looking horses. Riding a camel is like riding a horse, except your head is at about eleven feet off the ground, the animal makes all kinds of disconcerting noises (“gargling Drano” was L.’s characterization), the motion is more akin to a ship than a horse, and you can neither get off nor steer. Once we convinced our mini companion (aside from our guide we were accompanied by two smallish children responsible for ‘encouraging’ the camels) to let loose the horses and to steer them ourselves, the poor beasts seemed slightly perkier and we continued on our tour of Giza from a distance. Riding in from the back side and coming around the pyramids up to the sphinx is really the way to do it: you miss the hassle, miss the crowds, and have your own burbling camels for company on the way. We spent the afternoon in Saqqara (whose step pyramid was made famous by being featured on the label of an eponymous beer which, besides Egypt-brewed Stella and Heineken, seem to be the only kinds of beer readily available). Saqqara consisted of temples and old burial sites, richly adorned tombs and a pyramid, and basically we were able to muck about and look at most anything while almost completely unsupervised. Our trip concluded with Dahshur, where we were able to enter one of the two pyramids. Pyramids seem like just a giant pile of rocks, but climbing into one really emphasizes both how massive and huge they were, but also gives a distinct feeling of being, well, in a tomb. Entering the pyramid requires descending a 100-meter chute, itself about four or five feet tall, forcing everyone to descend backwards and bent over down the ramp. Reaching the bottom, one traverses another mini-sized tunnel to enter one of three vaulted chambers. Immediately upon leaving the chute the air becomes warmer and stickier, and the question of ventilation and exactly where does their oxygen come from become ever more preoccupying.
Anyways, Egypt will soon be left behind with its crazy streets, congested traffic, endless markets and 1001 mosques. The call to prayer will not echo across the streets of Geneva; no bustling markets are to be found, no pop hits from Lebanon blaring at a deafening volume from the neon-lit boats along the Nile corniche, no mobile cafés consisting of twenty plastic chairs and a kettle, no juice bars, no illuminated mosques and centuries-old buildings hidden among the warren-like streets of the Islamic quarter, no tamiyya, no chorus of “welcome! Welcome! Welcome to Egypt!” will follow us as we pass.
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