An Egyptian Children's Story

Naturally, I took liberties with the translation, some of which may be inadvertent. But this follows the general progression of a story told to me by Yassir, who requested that his name be included in this account:

Once upon a time there was a prince. Now this prince was not a just ruler, and he had little concern for the well-being of his subjects. In fact, he was so aloof that he lived an almost hermetic lifestyle, confining himself to the limits of his estate, utterly disinterested in the goings-on outside its walls. However the day came when he felt compelled to venture out into the surrounding community. And so he travelled from town to town, and in each he gathered all of his subjects. Now naturally, given the indifference of their ruler, his subjects were a bit frustrated. So the prince asked each, individually, what sum of money would suffice to remedy their dissatisfaction. And each answered, individually, and some asked for millions, and some asked for nearly nothing, and most asked for something in between. And the prince granted each citizen his wish. And then he returned to the seclusion of his estate, and he lit a small fire, in a dark, spacious basement room. And above the fire he built a copper bridge. He let the fire burn, and he fed it with oil and coals daily. The prince waited ten years. And every day the copper bridge got hotter. And after ten years he was the king, for his father had passed on, and he summoned all of his subjects, individually to his estate. And he called them down to the dark, spacious basement room. And one by one, he commanded them to walk out onto the copper bridge. And one by one he asked them: "How much did you ask of me, ten years ago?". And some answered "millions", and some answered "nearly nothing", and most answered "something in between". And then he asked: "And what did you do with all of it?" And those who had asked for millions stood on the scolding bridge and listed every last expense that the prince's budget had covered, while their feet sizzled on the scorched metal. And those who had asked for nearly nothing answered: "One Falafel", and stepped off the bridge unscathed.

This City Works (an example)

As I continue my studies of the colloquial Egyptian dialect of Arabic, and as the nuances of this society become more evident, I am increasingly aware of just how well this city functions. From the outside it is a mess: polluted, overcrowded, plagued by unemployment and underemployment, and overwhelmingly unmanageable. But in order to house 18 million people Cairo has developed a complex social and cultural infrastructure capable of meeting any need.

We were told, before moving out of the military hotel, that we would have to pay 300 U.S. Dollars for a bus pass (conversion rate: $300 US = approximately 1,500 Falafel Sandwiches, the effective currency here). We were told that no taxi would be willing to drive to the new campus, and that there were certainly no public buses. And that by moving out of the hotels, and out of AUC-provided housing, we were forfeiting our 'free' means of transport (free is only relative, when you take into consideration the extent to which we were being ripped off, living in the hotels).

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in an AUC shuttle at the new campus with Andrew, one of my flatmates. An RA from the hotels climbed in, and told us that they would be moving out of the hotels into another set of hotels, by November, and that the AUC shuttle (which we have not paid for), would no longer provide service to Nasr City, and that it was about time we found an alternate means of transportation. It was the same RA who had informed me of the supposed lack of such alternate means. This was just the incentive I needed to give public buses a try.

So I left Andrew with my bag and started walking. It turns out there is a bus route named Gam'ia (the arabic word for University), that originates in 'Ashr, makes its way out to the AUC, does a lap around the campus, and returns to 'Ashr, which as far as I can tell is on the eastern edge of Nasr City (probably around Taha Husayn Street, on this map). From 'Ashr, there is a bus that runs down our street. As Andrew and I raced one another back to the Apartment, taunting each other by text message, I was sure this new route would take twice as long as the AUC shuttle, which is contracted to take the fastest route possible from the hotels to the campus. Naturally, I was taken aback when I saw Andrew in his conspicuous Viking's jersey turning the corner to our Apartment. I have since been informed that the route we are now taking is far more direct than that which the AUC shuttles take, and that were it not for the inevitable 10 to 15 minute wait in 'Ashr, the trip would take less than half an hour, making it the shortest commute of any student at AUC, in AUC or self-provided housing.

Before I finish, I'd like to take a minute to describe these buses, because there exists no means of transportation similar to them in the United States. From what I've gathered, they are not public. They are privately owned, unsubsidized microbuses that call themselves Big Taxis. They are the organic product of sprawling city with limited public transportation, and they were at first outlawed. The drivers were persistent, and so were the passengers. And today they are almost as common as small taxis. They run fixed routes, yelling the name of the route out of a window, but they are subject to change an intended route based on, as an Egyptian described it: "flow". In essence, they respond to demand. Capitalists might cite them as an example of the free-market's outstanding capacity to solve any problem. They are all white. Though the passengers will open the sliding door themselves, the driver often utilizes a basic understanding of the laws of physics to close them. He will get a little momentum going and, once the van is full, slam on the breaks, sending the door sliding shut at a speed that makes your fingers hurt just thinking about it. They cost between a pound and two pounds, which converts to one or two falafels. They drive fast, but they're professionals, and perhaps it's unjustified, but they feel safe. In short, I propose the white-microbus-system as a solution to a plethora of social and economic issues that plague our country: emissions and pollution, the rising cost of gas and unemployment, to name a few. 

Jordan

We left for Jordan at 10:15PM on September 29th from a bus station on the edge of Midan Ramsis, which is, in some sense, a microcosm of Cairo itself; it’s overcrowded and sprawling, and yet it’s a vital hub of transportation, commerce and culture. Since our trip to Jordan, we have experimented with the white Volkswagon micro-buses, omnipresent in this city, half of which seem to end up in Midan Ramsis.

Our bus out of Cairo reached Taba, the northeastern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, by four in the morning, and Nuweiba by six. We got off at Nuweiba, expecting to take the ferry directly across the Red Sea to Aqaba, a coastal city in Jordan.

We napped briefly, awakened intermittently by the sun and the flies, until around 8 o’clock, when we began to line up to buy tickets for the ferry. Naturally, given the ferry’s monopolistic status as the only route from Egypt to Jordan that circumvents Israel (and thus the only route available to Egyptians), we reached the front of the line to find that the price was twice what had been advertised, a whopping 95 US dollars. So, in the interest of heeding the U.S. State Department’s advise (‘It is especially important for travelers to be unpredictable by varying their times and routes and to maintain a low profile’) we hopped in a cab and headed to Taba. 

We crossed the border into Eilat, Israel after a robust interrogation (truly an exercise in twenty-first century racism) and took a cab to Israel’s border with Jordan. Leaving ‘the motherland’ proved to be a bit easier than entering, with the exception of the exit tax, which they slap on you as walk out the door. We then made our way to Aqaba, in search of falafel. We arrived in Aqaba 10 hours earlier and 50 dollars cheaper than our friends who opted to ferry across the Sea.

On our first night in Aqaba we met a Jordanian named Mahmoud who was eager to show us around. He walked us along the coast, from which the lights of Eilat are clearly visible. We met his friend, who commutes to and from Israel every day. As the night came to an end we talked about plans for the next day, and Mahmoud suggested we take a ride on a glass-bottomed boat. I thought that he said something about military tanks under the ocean, but I wrote it off as just another miscommunication, inherent to my conversations in Arabic. 

We fell asleep watching حروف والووف, the Arabic equivalent of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, in which each series of questions is punctuated by what we called ‘Dancing Sword Time’, a bizarre performance by the Saudi Regis Philbin. And we reveled in our ability to understand a question here and there.

On our second day in Aqaba we visited a disappointing ruin, swam, ate and took a glass-bottomed boat ride. Admittedly, I was quite smug when we passed over submerged tanks, as I am anytime I translate something that seems peculiar but proves to be true. 

We tried to find Mahmoud again, unsuccessfully, and we ended our night in a coffee shop, discussing Egyptian-Jordanian-Israeli relations with a newfound body of evidence from which to draw: the cultural experience of crossing a border.

On our second morning in Aqaba we hoped to take a 7AM bus to Petra. However, the morning bus waits to fill up before it leaves, and there aren’t too many people in Jordan awake before noon during the Eid il-Fatr holiday celebrations. So we reluctantly climbed into a taxi, for what proved to be a scenic and pleasant hour and a half to Petra. 

We checked into the “Sharah Mountains Hostel”, and made our way into the ‘Rose Red City’ by 9:30.

I’ll leave the description of Petra to my photos.

Awkward Turtle at the Petra Treasury

After a long day exploring the ancient city, we went out to dinner.

The family in charge of the baby on the table behind us proceeded to change the baby’s diaper on the table, in what was quite an unappetizing act of questionable hygiene. We napped and returned to the site for ‘Petra by Night’, a candle-lit walk and musical performance in front of the Treasury, Petra’s most recognizable building.

We got back to the hostel by curfew and slept for a couple of hours, waking up at four to watch the vice-presidential debates on al-Jazeera. From five-thirty on my dreams were haunted by Palin’s winks and ‘folksy’ rhetoric, and I rolled out of bed at 10 hardly feeling rested.

The rest of the day, Friday the 3rd, was a race against the less than punctual clock that is MBC2’s movie schedule. You see MBC2 is the premier American movie channel, or if not the premier, at least the only movie channel we got in our hotel room. And we knew that ‘School of Rock’, starring Jack Black, was scheduled to come on at 10:00 KSA. Now we’re not sure where ‘K’ is, but we have calculated that 10:00 KSA is approximately 9:13 Cairo time. So leaving Petra we knew we had a meager 12 hours and 13 minutes (Jordan is an hour ahead of Cairo) to get back to our hotel room, shower for the first time in 5 days, order an Egyptian pizza (a ‘fatir’), and turn on the television.

We taxied to the Aqaba border with Israel, taxied across Israel, found one of those aforementioned white minibuses on the Israeli-Egyptian border, and shared it with a couple of Palestinian students on their way back to Cairo after Eid break.

The Sinai Peninsula is beautiful driving country and the entire trip, from Petra to Cairo, was actually quite relaxing. We did indeed make it back in time for showers, pizza and ‘School of Rock’. And I found it amusing how quickly the fast-food places and coffee-shops around our abode in Cairo have become sources of creature comfort, and have filled the niche that Wawa does when I’m home, and Basil’s does when I’m at school. [On a side note, I by no means am implying that anything compares to Wawa in quality or convenience.]

We have since moved out of the hotel with one movie channel, into an apartment with more than I could ever imagine watching. We are still in the same neighborhood, Nasser City, but we’ve relocated to a busier part of town. We will certainly still make the trek to our old stomping grounds, over on Nasser street, because we’ve yet to find a coffee shop with as friendly an atmosphere as ‘Soft Drink V.I.P.’, and nobody beats the BabaGanoosh at الشرقاوى.

Traffic

I recently read 'The Urge to Merge', a New York Times Magazine article by Cynthia Gorney in which she argues that "the North American driving populace" is made up of two distinct "camps": one camp being that of the Line-Uppers, those who respectfully form a line in the lane which leads to their desired exit, and the second being the Side-Zoomers, those who carelessly cruise in an open lane and, by means of force or affected ignorance and apology, merge into their desired lane seconds before the exit ramp. She goes on to explain, rather counterintuitively, that the most efficient solution to this common traffic phenomenon would require that the Side-Zoomers continue in their seemingly selfish ways, and that the Line-Uppers, in a brief and spontaneous act of random kindness, simply allow the Side-Zoomers to merge, without complaint or hesitation. The sight of such a thing would be breathtaking. Imagine the seamless merging of two lanes into one. In which every car had only to slow down enough to allow ample room for a car to fit in front of them (40, or 50 feet, at most). At this point in the explanation of Gorney's article I typically clasp my hands, in a here-is-the-church-and-here-is-the-steeple fashion, and I say 'You know, like a zipper'. Apparently there are ant populations that do this naturally, in their daily commutes to and from the Hill. And yet our highly intelligent population of suit-wearing, socially-productive, Starbucks-drinking commuters cannot seem to fathom the notion of charity for the common good. The above rant has very little to do with Cairo, but I have been thinking a lot about traffic. There are 300 million people in the U.S. There are 80 million in Egypt. There are about 40,000 traffic deaths in the U.S. every year. Given the New York Times' description of Cairene traffic as "chaos", the comparative utter lack of pedestrian and vehicular infrastructure, and the anecdotal evidence that paints crossing Cairo's streets as being akin to playing "Frogger" but with higher stakes, one might assume that the number of Egypt's traffic deaths should be, at the very least, proportionally equivalent to that of the United States: around 10,600 given Egypt's size. There are 6,000 traffic deaths a year in Egypt. Why?

Steven Cook suggests that a set of informal, unspoken rules dictate the flow of traffic. And, once understood, these rules effectively prevent accidents and govern vehicular interactions. I'll go further to say that Cairene traffic is an organic being that flows through the city, beautiful in its squalor, ordered in its chaos. Its body parts communicate by means of sonar, a honk here, a honk there, sounding constant but rarely irate. Where an American street might fit 100 cars, in Egypt there are ستة آلاف (six thousand, in the words of an eloquent taxi-driver). And yet they exist in a peaceful harmony of yells and beeps. Rearview mirrors are few and far between, seat-belts seemingly non-existent, both are merely counterparts to traffic lights and divider lines, remnants or reminders of a profoundly different type of driving, a type of driving that is dictated by formality and uniformity and order. Such protocol does not dictate the animal that at times creeps, and at times sprints throughout Cairo. Maybe there is some informal set of rules, or maybe that is merely a Western mind's interpretation. If a horn honks in Cairo, but it is drowned out by the Call to Prayer, does it really make a sound?

A Brief Update

After leaving Istanbul I spent some time in Morocco, living with a host family.This is my friend Adam. This is the room in which we stayed until March 18th. I flew home on March 25th, celebrated my birthday on the 26th, and returned to Carleton for spring term on the 30th. During Spring term our brewing operation really took off. You should check us out at threeoaksbrew.com.
I spent the summer in Olympic National Park, in Washington State, leading a backpacking/mountaineering trip for 16-year-olds.
I spent some time with my family in Washington.

And some time with my extended family in Santa Maria, California. 

And today, August 25th, I return to Cairo for a full semester at the American University.

Consider yourself updated.

Leaving Istanbul

Our last week in Istanbul was memorable, the kind of memorable that necessitates a few days of recovery. As I am relatively apathetic to chronology, I will begin with our trip to the Ali Sami Yen stadium in Sisli on our final night. In 'Galatasaray' apparel we descended into the distinctively silent underworld of the Turkish subway system. I should stop to emphasize the extent to which Istanbul is marked by this silence, both in a very straightforward, acoustic sense, but also in a more metaphoric sense. There are positions, within the spectrum of Turkish politics, that are never vocalized, and there are words that are never said in succession. I can only imagine this is the outcome of a forced sense of nationalism, and of laws like Article 301 of the Penal Code which outlaws the "denigration of Turkishness". Instances of enforcement of this article include the prosecution of Orhan Pamuk for saying: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it"*. Naturally, in the context of this silent society, we were somewhat conspicuous. However we assured ourselves that our saving grace, in the struggle to blend in, would be the various 'Galatasaray' scarves and hats we purchased only days before the match. We were convinced that we could pass as true Turkish football fans. So we bounced along on the subway, keeping an eye out for similarly colored scarves and hats, in hopes that we could abandon a hopeless sense of direction for a far more practical tendency to follow the crowd. We succeeded in following fellow fans, and eventually found ourselves amidst a crowd of excited Turks.The game we were about to witness was the first match of round three of the UEFA cup, and apparently a pretty big deal. The crowd was boisterous but friendly, and we were well received, despite being distinctly foreign.

After ninety, goal-less minutes the game ended in a tie, and the masses reverted to their natural, silent state. We shuffled out of the stadium, our ears still ringing with the 'Galatasaray' chants, which we had not understood, but had nonetheless participated in without reservation.

Next, I will recount our evening at Munzur, a leftist gathering place off of 'Istiklal', Istanbul's busiest street. Louis, a former Carleton professor who taught our "Beneath the Surface" seminar on the underground subcultures and marginalized societies of Istanbul, led a couple of us through the backstreets that run parallel to Istiklal, with promises of a rather abstract 'good feeling' he had about the evening. We found ourselves at Munzur, whose walls are adorned with portraits of Che Guevara, and we were ushered to the second floor by an excited waiter. He whispered something to Louis and rushed off to grab refreshments. We had, by chance, stumbled upon "a night which we will tell our grandchildren about". These were the words of Yavuz Bingol, Turkey's most popular folk singer who was sitting with his friends, and fellow celebrities: Onur Akin, Cengiz Ozkan, and Can Dundar, in the back of the place. The night progressed, and the musician who was scheduled to play abdicated his seat, as the celebrities took turns reading poetry, playing Saz, and singing. We were escorted closer to the stage, where we took front row seats at what was the most intimate musical performance I have ever encountered. The above photograph, of Bingol, was taken from my seat. It became rather apparent, as night transitioned into early morning, that we, as Americans, were a kind of secondary center of attention. And that the celebrities, for whatever reason, were performing for us. Thus, we were trapped. To leave would be to disrespect Turkey's finest and most revered musicians. We were a captive audience. At one point the police showed up, but upon being informed of the situation, left without a word. By the time we left the sun was on its way up, and we made it back to the hotel in time to shower and prepare for our morning class. It was, by all accounts, a once-in-a-lifetime event.

*This quote was shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia

From Cairo to Istanbul

I write to you from an Internet Cafe. I am surrounded by pre-tween turkish boys playing first-person shooter video games.
We landed in Istanbul on Saturday the 26th, and were immediately conscious of just how clean the air is here. The blue sky above the city, punctured by a plethora of minarets, starkly contrasts the heavy blanket of smog that traps Cairo and gives the city an undeniably claustrophobic feel. The breeze is refreshingly salty along the Bosphorous, a river which, when compared to the Nile, seems almost pristine. The people are well dressed, and the Lira exchanges with the US Dollar at a rate alarmingly close to 1. The street vendors prepare sanitary food. From the balcony of our hotel room we can see the dome of the Hagia Sophia which, for nearly 1000 years, was the largest church in the world. The waiters at a nearby bar know us by name and coerce us into dancing a Turkish folk dance every time we stop by.


What more could you ask for?

To be honest, I am homesick for the tea and coffee shops of Cairo. It is easier to find a cup of Starbucks here than it is to find the sludgy Turkish Coffee they served on every corner in Egypt. And I admit I was a bit concerned for the cultural integrity of Istanbul when I asked a man whether he spoke any Arabic and he sternly reprimanded me. I was afraid the Turks had sold out their Muslim brothers in the struggle for Westernizatıon. What I have since come to realize is that Turks exist within a cultural context that is neither Middle Eastern nor European. The transliteration of their language, 90 years ago, was not an instance of selling out, but of progress, and of acknowledging their place within a Western dominated Global economy. Turkey´s cultural integrity is still fully intact.

How do I know? Because I have been to a Turkish Bath, a 'Hammam'. In the midst of a Pamukian snow storm, Adam, the Dans, Erik and I ventured into a damp basement by the Sultan Ahmet Train station. I had, quite honestly, thought that Dan was kidding when he described a Bath as 'a fat Turkish man having his way with you'. I thought wrong. Scantily clad in towels and sandals, we were directed to the Hammam's innermost sanctum: a small, dome-ceilinged room that smelled distinctly of chlorine. We were told to wash, and just as we were beginning to wonder what exactly we were meant to do next, in sauntered three paunchy Turkish men, clad in matching towels, mustaches and chest hair. We were told to lie on a slab of marble in the middle of the room. One of the men grabbed Adam by the neck, quite forcefully spun him around, and proceeded to slap him across the back. In succession, we were all treated quite similarly. What followed was a half-hour of what could be loosely defined as a cross between a deep tissue massage, a soap bath, and a Greco-Roman wrestling match.

I can only imagine how bizarre this account sounds, out of context. But you must understand the degree to which what we have defined as 'man-love' permeates this society. This was by far the most extreme degree of 'man-love' that we've encountered thus far, but it is not at all uncommon to see men holding arms as they walk, or kissing cheeks upon meeting, things that would seem outrageous within the context of a largely homophobic American society.

Naturally, we left the Hammam feeling relaxed and revitalized.

Over this past weekend we rode down to Troy and Ephesus. Needless to say, the ruins were unbelievable. But the sense of wonder one feels, walking along a road that was built 3000 years ago, is indescribable. So instead of relating a brief history of Ancient Civilization, I thought I would finish this entry with a story about Rummikub.

In the interest of providing us with a little more free time on our trip to Ephesus we were allowed the option of skipping a previously mandatory Museum trip... We found ourselves in a Coffee shop, surrounded by Turkish men playing Rummikub, a game similar to Gin-Rummy that is a family-favorite in the Kring household. To be honest I have never seen the game played anywhere other than in the Kring household, and until coming across this Coffee Shop I wasn't entirely convinced that it even existed in the real world. So we sat down, and I began to teach my classmates. Being Carleton students, almost all of them immediately comprehended the rules and strategic nuances of the game. Adam didn't. He struggled. This is a picture of Adam:

We played for about 45 minutes and Adam got thirsty. Apparently, it was a thirst that tea could not quench, so he wandered out of the shop in search of a Pepsi, leaving his game pieces for all the world to see. Almost immediately a man, seeing the open seat, asked in the universal language of hand gestures whether he could join our game. He won, for Adam, in one turn.

This is a picture of the world's greatest Rummikub player: