Running Around Cairo

Rachel and I have been running around Cairo, which is not as cheap as I have remembered it. Part of this is coming from Syria, part is inflation here, which has made everything more guinee while the dollar has fallen against the guinee, from close to 7 when I was here last to 5.5 today. It's strange being a tourist in a place I used to live, and I keep feeling like I should go home to my apartment rather than our hostel. Not that much has changed, except the road outside the AUC dorms in Zamelek has changed direction, since that is more convenient for the president's son Gamal who lives near by. According to Hisham, the foreigners are also different: in our semester, there were about 110-120 or so. Now there are 450 and the university rents out entire former brothels to house them for the semester.

After eid al-groping, Rachel and I woke up the next noon to eat kushari (a uniquely Egyptian dish of rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, and spicy red sauce. I have fantasized about this dish since leaving Egypt. Rachel thought it was "okay") and chill in Downtown, much more sedate on the fourth day of Eid than usual. I called Karim, a classmate from back in the day, who picked us up and we went to Malibu in Mohandaseen to smoke shisha, then met some of his friends and went out to a film.

"kharig ala al-qanoon" (outside of the law) about drug running in Egypt, was hilarious. Every seen was punctuated by loud dramatic swells of music and ended with close-ups on the eyes of the characters. I understood quite a lot of it but my favorite part was that it starred an old actor who looks like Fred Thompson as the head of the drug cartel. Why is Fred Thompson Arab and running has in Egypt? Karim dropped us off not 20 meters from our hotel. Still, in that short walk, some 15 year old touched my ass. Seriously, never coming during Eid again.

Hoping for the best, I tried calling Hisham with the number off my old Egyptian simcard. Yes! He still has the same number!

The next day Rachel and I did some touristy crap: went to khan al-khalili where I had sticker shock. I tried to bargain near to prices I remember paying back in the day, but the vendors just refused to sell at that price, even when I walked away. I kept changing the price to Syrian lira in my head and thinking I could get this for so much cheaper in Damascus.

We visited Hussain's mosque and al-azhar, tipping a guy to let us climb the tallest minaret, which afforded a great view of the city. We left Islamic Cairo, walked through city of the dead, graveyards where people live alongside the dead because of the lack of housing in Cairo, and ended up at al-azhar park to watch the sun set over Cairo. Then Hisham called and I had what had been a typical night out back in my youth in Cairo: we got home at 5am.

2006: Damascus: Mosque Party!

I had finally made it to Damascus after a fun journey. I was dropped off at al-Haramein hotel on Sharia Bahsa, got a room, threw my shit down, brushed my teeth, and took a long-overdue shower. Despite having not slept since the ferry the previous day, I felt envigorated and went out into Damascus.

It was immediately apparent that I was in Syria: pictures of Bashar al-Assad everywhere. Not just on giant billboards, but on the backs of cars and in store windows, like a mustachioed icon, a saint in sunglasses. Some back car windows even had the trinity of the current president, his late father the former president, and his late brother the former heir to the Republic (all in sunglasses naturally).






I followed the copied pages from the Lonely Planet Middle East and went to Suq al-Hamidiyya. Since it was Friday the street was pretty empty and most of the shops were closed. But the Ummayad Mosque was sure open!

There are seperate entrances for tourists and the faithful, the former needing to give up about a dollar in entrance fees and don a black abaya. Once inside, you can wander and photograph to your heart's content, as I did. It was after Friday prayers so it wasn't stuffed, but still had a bit of activity. The Ummayyad Mosque was a Roman temple to Jupiter turned into a Christian church under the Byzantine Empire then turned into a mosque under the Ummayyad Empire. It's very cool because vestiges of the mosque's previous incarnations are visibile: the structure. The mosaics looked Byzantine to me.

Just outside the mosque are the bones of the gosh darn bestest Muslim in the world (at least according to every Crusader): Salah ad-Din. Without much fanfare or signage, twin sarcophogi are lit up by green florescent lights. Salah ad-Din was buried in a wooden sarcophagus in 1193, but in 1893 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany donated a marble one. The body was never transferred so there remain the two.

Away from the Ummayyad mosque, I went to the Shi'i Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, daughter of Hussein grandson of the Prophet. Built by Iran, Lonely Planet finds the mosque "quite alien, but very striking, Persian".Those with better standing to evaluate Persianity must judge. I once again was handed a temporary abaya (this time by a man, who also tried to help me secure it). Handing it back to him when leaving I discovered that he spoke English, and he discovered that I was an unsaved soul in need to proselytizing. "Meet me tomorrow. I will tell you all about Islam" he said, giving me a paper with his number. He was cute, and I wondered if he was trying to convert me, hit on me, or both.

I was mosqued out so I ate some falafel (delicious) and made for Azem Palace, residence of the wali (governor) of Damascus during the Ottoman Empire. I took a free tour in Arabic, of which I understood a surprisingly large amount (surprising to me). I even asked a couple of questions. The guide was very impressed, as many people are when a foreigner, especially an American, speaks Arabic. Sadly, the bar is set very low: I guess "Sabah al-gheer" is a welcome change from "EX-CUSE me, do YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? ENGLISH?", at least in Egypt. In Syria people were surprised that I was even in their country.

COMING UP: I explore the Christian Quarter which means Church Party!

2006: Cairo to Damascus by Bus Part II

I left off in Aqaba, Jordan about to board a 15-passenger van with a bunch of Palestinians and Ahmad, a half-Jordanian half-Indonesian. It was Thursday evening, a full day of traveling (and mostly waiting around in Nuweiba) after I left Cairo Wednesday night.

Third Leg: Aqaba to the Jordanian/Syrian Border: Across Jordan
Ahmad had taken a shine to me early on. He was the first one of that group to approach me waiting for the ferry in Nuweiba. He manuvered to sit next to me on the ferry and invited me to his sister's wedding and to stay with him in Amman. He would have liked to have been my protector during the crush to get on the ferry if not for Bilal's superior size and assertiveness. He did accept my decline of the wedding invitation the first couple times, and I had told them all I already had a boyfriend (not entirely true), but Ahmad was undaunted. "Get off with me in Amman" he said. "No, I want to go to Syria." Ok, he shrugged, and I thought the matter had been settled before we even set off.

Low on cash, I asked the driver if we could stop at an ATM in Amman so I could get my share (we had to stop in Amman for Ahman anyway). Sure, mafii mushkila, I was told. No problem. So we loaded into the van. Ahmad was out-manuevered, and had to sit up in front next to the driver, while I was in the second seat wedged between Bilal and another man. So as not to appear partial or raise any one's hopes, I simply sat in the back and let them work out the rest of the seating arrangement. Ahmad did not look happy up in front.

A half-hour into the journey, pitch-black now, we heard several thumps as the shit piled and tied onto the roof of the van slipped and fell onto the road. We pulled over and a couple guys ran back down the road to retrieve their shit. Everyone accounted for their possesions (my backpack had been in my lap). Some one was missing a suitcase. The driver put the car in reverse on the road, paying no mind as another car, going the correct, forward direction, swerved not to hit us, honking and cursing. We felt the car roll over something. It was the suitcase. It was added to the retied pile on the roof and we were on our way once again.

Apparently not exhausted earlier, the talk turned once again to dating, American style. They wanted to know what Americans did when they dated, how much boys and girls hung out, if they could really hang out and just be friends like some of them are in the movies. Sure, I said, aren't we all just friends? This drew laughter, and Bilal assured me he thought of me as his sister.

The questions continued. "You have a boyfriend?" "Do all Americans have sex with their boyfriends?" "Would you marry an Arab man?" "What do you think of Arab men?" "Would you marry a black man?" When I said, why not, I've dated black men, my answer was met with shock. "How could you be with a black man?"

Bilal was particulary emphatic on this point: "I could marry an American or European girl, but not a black one." Well buddy, that's your hangup. No one in Cairo had any trouble hitting on (or proposing) to Mariama, one of my supremely sexy roommates. Bilal much preferred my answer to "Do you drink alcohol?" I reminded them that I was Christian (that's a yes). "So do we! Do you smoke hash?" Sorry, shisha bas, but then I was then regaled with stories of their partying out in the desert with copious amounts of booze and hash. "Next time you're in Cairo, you should come with us!" Sure, why not?

During our conversations, we had also been listening to the driver's tapes. Songs we all knew elicited cheers, as did my ability to sing part of Nancy Ajram songs. Then the tape changed to Sami Youssef, a British Muslim who sings all relgious songs about Islam. The mood became much more somber. In one song, Sami sang in English, Arabic, Turkish, French. "That's because everyone should come to Islam. He's trying to reach everyone." The men started talking about their faiths (note: all Fatah supporters - Bilal even had a portrait of Yasser Arafat in a locket necklace) and asking me about mine. "You should cover up more. I don't mind the way you dress, but it's not what I say. It's what God says. He says women should wear hijab."

"Doesn't He also say you shouldn't drink?"

"Yanii, no one's a perfect Muslim."

Inside Amman, I heard Ahmad speaking with the driver (in Arabic naturally) about how I was to be let out with him. "No, I'm going to the border." I said in Arabic. Ahmad told me "No, it's okay" in English and then he reiterated to the driver how I was going to get off with him in Amman in Arabic. "No. I'm not going to Amman. I just need an ATM but I'm going to the border."

"Yes," Ahmad said in English, "don't worry. You will go to Syria." Then again, to the driver (who didn't speak English) about how I was going to get off with him in Amman. "Ana afhimak!" I yelled, I understand you! "wa iyeeza arouh lihudoud souriya. Mish liAmman!" The other guys started yelling back on my behalf, while Ahmad kept trying to reassure me in English, then talking to the driver in Arabic. The driver pulled over to a police officer. I was told to get out and talk to him.

"Miss, do you want to get down from the car in Amman?" He asked (in English). Ahman ran over and tried to talk to the police officer, who waved him away. "He says you want to get down in Amman?"

"No, I want to get down at the Syrian border." The officer told the driver, and we all got back in the van, Ahmad pouting. At his house he got out, asked if I was sure I didn't want to stay with him. Fucking definitely, buddy. So on we went to the border. Before we left Amman I kept asking to stop at an ATM, when I realized the driver didn't know what one is. I explained about the machines, from banks, you put in a card, they give you money. "mafii mushkila" he said. There's some near the border.

It was very late, so I dozed off on Bilal, who told me it was okay because I was his sister. We pulled up to the border past 4:30am. It was very desolate, unlike Lebanon-Syria. No dutyfree. The driver asked for my share of the cab money. Where's the ATM? He wouldn't let me leave the van's side, afraid I would run off without paying, so he held onto my backpack for collateral while I searched for cash. The border guards led me to the one bank, where they woke up a man sleeping inside, who got me a cash advance on my credit card. I ran back to the cab, paid, said goodbye and posed for pics with the guys, got my backpack, and proceeded to go through Jordanian customs.

Fourth Leg: Jordanian/Syrian Border to Damascus
The Syrian side of the border was a good kilometer or two away, and I had no transportation other than my feet. But the border officials decided to help me out, and had me wait outside with a guard. We chatted in Arabic, until he told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world and then I waited a little farther away form him. The officials coerced the next person crossing the border to take me to the Syrian side. "He will not charge you." So, hello strange man, thanks for letting me into your car.

This man was insane. The border officials introduced us, and then he told me to run! to the car. The officials had no reaction to his hustle, so I ran afterwards. He got in the car and tore off. We were going over 120 km on a badly maitained road. We got air on a bump and slammed down hard. The man only laughed in my direction likeisn't this fun? and kept going. He offered to take me into Damascus, but for a high price. Plus, I like living, and I don't know how long I would have lasted in that car. At Syrian immigration, he ran in. I walked.

This time, it was perfectly smooth, took only a few minutes. "Have you ever been to Israel?" The border official asked. No, I replied. "Why not?" He asked. "Ana bakrah Israel," I said, finally getting something out of that song. He laughed. I was in, but I didn't have a ride. I was told there would be a bus coming through at 8am I could join. It was almost 6am. Sounds good, so sat down and got out my copied pages from the Lonely Planet and few tourist brochures there at the border and set about making an itinery.

I wasn't waiting long when a man came up to me. "You need a ride?" I assured him I was fine, I was just waiting for the bus. He asked me several times. "Look, my family is outside, you can come with us." So okay, I walked out to his car, where his wife, son, and their every earthly possession were loaded into a car. There didn't seem to be any place to sit, but he insisted, so his wife and I shared the front seat. She was young, maybe a few years older than I and massively pregnant. His 15-year-son from his first marriage (wife dead) sat in the back. They were moving from Saudi Arabia back to Syria. The wife and I moved so that she sat on my lap, more room for her belly, but she still didn't look happy about her husband's generosity. I told her I could just talk the bus, no problem, but she insisted now too. Damn that Arab hospitality - can't refuse tea or a free ride with a pregnant lady on your lap.

We stopped at their place South of Damascus, and I helped unload their stuff from the car. There was a marital spat that I really hope was from the stress of such a long roadtrip and not the passenger they had picked up on the last stretch. He ran down to the car, told me it was only her moods from the pregnancy, and drove me into Damascus. He wanted to know all about my travels and studies, so we talked. In Damascus, he accidently ended up in the old city and almost hit a man on a bike. He asked if I was hungry, and I said no, so he stopped in the middle of traffic to run out and grab some zataar for me.

Finally, we pulled up in front of al-Haramayn, the backpacker's staple. "Ahlan wasahlan!" he said, and took off again. It was 10am Friday morning - I had left Cairo Wednesday night - but I had finally made it.

1936 Travelogue to Damascus and Jerusalem

Sometimes youtube spits up pure brilliance:

Damascus and Jerusalem in a 1936 travelogue. Syria was under French mandate, and Jerusalem was part of the British Mandate of Palestine. 1936 is in fact the beginning of the Arab revolt in Palestine, which lasted until 1939. But the haughty superiorior expressed by the narrator, the mangling of foreign words, calling Islam "Mohammadan" - this is truly a gem. The narrator is particularly keen on emphasizing the dirtiness and lack of progress of Damascus:

"Cheap soap, but from the appearance of the people there is little demand for it." Men are described as wearing "headdressed which remind us of Biblical characters." At a bakery, we are reminded "no, the baker's not wearing gloves."

How Orientalist can you get?

2006: Cairo to Damascus by Bus Part I

Near the end of my semester at AUC in May 2006, I knew I still wanted to go to Syria, despite failing horribly on the first attempt. Nothing would keep me out. I decided to play it safe and get a visa beforehand the only way possible: mailing my visa to the Syrian embassy in Washington DC. For three anxious weeks I waited for my passport, which finally came back on the last Monday of classes. I moved my ticket home back two weeks. I spent Tuesday packing up all my shit (a suitcase, three shishas, a duffle bag, and various other shit stuffed into plastic bags and boxes that wouldn't fit) leaving myself only the essentials what would fit in a backpack. All my other shit was supposed to go in my friend Alex's apartment until I got back two weeks later.

Wednesday I bought my bus ticket to Nuweiba in the morning. In the afternoon I found out that Alex would still be in Sharm al-Shaykh with his girlfriend Joanna when I got back, thus I wouldn't be able to retrieve my shit before going to America. I called everyone I knew with an apartment in Cairo, but everyone was giving up their places to go home or travel. Shit. With darkness and the time of bus departure approaching, I ran down to the bowab (doorman). He didn't speak any English, so I had to make use of the Arabic I was supposed to be learning for 5 months. "I have a big problem. I need to put my stuff somewhere while I'm in Syria," I explained. He took me to an abandoned apartment in complete disrepair on the 8th floor (I lived on the 10th). We moved all my shit into a corner of the room and put a tarp over it. "Is that really going to be safe? For two weeks?" He assured me it was. Everything I had was there: my clothes, my souvenirs, my laptop and associated electronics. I offered to pay him to watch it. "No no no no" he told me. He'd watch it for me. So jumped in a taxi with my backpack, with only a few copied pages from Shadee's Lonely Planet: Middle East to guide me.

First Leg: Cairo to Nuweiba - Across the Sinai
At the bus station I struck up a conversation with a young muhagaba, complete with face niqab and gloves on her hands. She wondered how I could travel so far by myself, wished me luck and good health.

An hour outside of Cairo the bus broke down. We all piled outside, waiting in the sand by the side of the road. An hour later a new bus pulled up and we were off once again! During the wait I struck up conversation with an Iraqi man who was studying in Cairo, family in Amman. They had fled Falluja. We quickly got over that awkward "yeah, sorry about that war that forced you from your home and all." On the new bus he sat next to me and kept me entertained with video clips on his phone and we talked about various stuff. At some point I fell asleep. Thursday morning we rolled into Taba, my next destination point of Aqaba clearly visible past the sliver of Israel (Eilat) in between the two Arab nations. But I wanted to get into Syria, which meant as little Israel as possible - none. So the bus swung south to Nuweiba where there's a ferry to Aqaba. It was early, about 8am.

Second Leg: Nuweiba to Aqaba - Across the Gulf of Aqaba
The ferry leaves once a day to Aqaba. I wanted to buy a ticket but found out that I didn't have enough money. With buses, my residence visa got me the Egyptian rate, but it didn't work on the ferry. I wandered off to find a bank, waiting quite a bit for them to open. While waiting, I saw a lone camel walking down the road, no sign of an owner in sight.

After changing some money I had enough for the ferry. I fought the line and went into the large shaded waiting area, where I soon attracted the attention of a group of about 14 Palestinian guys and one half-Jordanian, half-Indonesian who went to school in Cairo. We started talked in half Arabic and half English. Bilal, tall and muscular, enjoyed talking to me, shutting out Ahmad, the half-Jordanian, half-Indonesian who had approached me originally. We waited for hours so we all had a lot of time to talk. We talked about the occupation, about Bilal's older brother shot dead by IDF during the intifada, about Cairo, about religion, about relations between men and women.

"You see," said Bilal, "if you were my wife, I wouldn't want you to go outside wearting that." That was big tied pants that reached mid-calf showing off my lower unshaved leg, a big t-shirt, and my short hair tucked under a baseball cap. Sexy. "Other men would look at you."

I replied, "If you were my husband, I wouldn't want you to wear that." I said about the tight t-shirt he wore, which showed off his well-defined upper body. It was, um, not bad looking. "Other women would look at you."

"It's different!" he replied. "No it isn't." I said.

Finally we could board the ferry. It was massive, but the crush of people rushing toward the small door out onto the dock was more massive. The Palestinian boys took it upon themselve to protect me, which was mutually beneficial. The boys protected me from the mass of men trying to board (I found out later there was a seperate entrance for women and families), and my presence in the group moved us all up quicker, as the ferry employees noticed the white, foreign woman and let her and her friends through.

We sat for forever and waiting for the ferry to fill. It took hours. We waited for the ferry to leave the dock. It took hours. It was a horrible purgatory, alleviated little by the conversation. Ahmad told me about his sister's wedding tomorrow in Amman and invited me along. Sorry, nothing was going to sway me from my mission: Syria. Besides, I imagined an awkward scene if Ahmad rolled into his sister's wedding with a random American whore (and we all are whores). Plus I had nothing nice to wear. Despite Bilal's insistance that my outfit made me quite the temptress, in truth I looked like just a grungy backpacker. At some point I dropped off. Ahmad woke me up once we docked in Aqaba, with the long shadows of afternoon. We waited to get off the ferry. We waited to get our visas. There was no ATM, and I had little money after the unfavorable exchange rate from Egyptian guinee to Jordanian dinars. It was sunset by the time I got off the dock to ground transportation.

"Ya Aneet! Habibi! Come with us!" yelled the Palestinian men by a 15-passenger van. "I was going to get on a bus..." I said. "Don't you guys have to go Palestine?" "The border's closed until tomorrow. Ahmad's going to Amman and then we'll take you all the way to the Syrian border." Well, fine then. So onto a van in Jordan with 15 young men at night...