Welcome to the Cairo Zoo Club...

We’ve become really close to a group of Egyptian guys, so have gone out with them probably 5 of the past 8 nights. The other night, we had a surprise birthday party for Basem and Kareem. We ended up playing Spin the Bottle. HUGE cultural difference here- unlike in the States, this does NOT involve kissing. Basically, you spin, and whoever the bottle lands on, you ask that person a deep, thoughtful, or personal question- the whole idea behind the game is to get to know people better. We talked about everything, from having tried marajuana to what we don't like about Egyptian culture. Mostafa and I got into an interesting discussion on Israel and Palestine too, with the end result that we just want peace. A bunch of idealists, aren't we?

Lily, Katharine, and I were curious about why the guys liked spending so much time with us Americans, so we asked about that. And it's really cool- basically, they want the same thing as we do- to meet people and better understand them and to make connections with other cultures. Hanging out with them has been the best part of the dialogue, and this will make it incredibly hard to leave Cairo in a few days. Katharine and I were debating whether we should just fake being sick in order to skip out on the trip to Marsa Matruh and Siwa so that we could stay in Cairo and just hang out with them, although this probably isn't too realistic.

Coming home from the birthday party, we encountered some unpleasantness at the hotel which upset me a lot. Some of the Egyptian guys had come back with us so that they could burn us a CD with Arabic music, and we all headed up to the central meeting spot, AKA Katharine’s and my room. After about 2 minutes, we got a call from the front desk of the hotel saying that the Egyptians had to leave! We went downstairs and talked the guy into letting us all sit on the porch, at least, but it was still the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. First of all, it’s their country, why can’t they come in the hotel? And who is the hotel to regulate what friends we bring to our rooms? Finally, it just made me feel bad because I was a tourist staying at this hotel and essentially supporting this policy in a financial way. Definitely such bullshit- that’s one thing here that I really hate. The country’s economy depends a lot on tourism, so tourists are catered to, with the result that Egyptians are denied the same rights in their own country. There has to be a better balance between these conflicting influences.

Last night at a cafe, after Karim had left, it was Mostafa, Katharine, Lily, and I sitting in a cafe downtown, and we got into talking about religion some more. All of us American girls are either atheist or agnostic, while Mostafa is Muslim. But it was still really cool because we could ask him anything we wanted. So we asked him what thing about Islam he would change if he could, and he gave, what I thought was the best answer possible. To paraphrase, he wouldn't change the religion itself but the way people interpreted it. I think that's the problem with most religions; people interpret them too strictly or hide behind a religion to say that they are pious, but don't carry out any of the meaningful teachings behind their faith.

Along these lines, we saw a woman performing a fire-eating act, which, if memory serves me right, I've never seen before. Apparently it's sort of a sacred thing, passed from parent to child, and so after her act she was saying that she did it for food and whatnot. So everyone in the cafe was tipping her, but keeping the money clenched tightly in their hands and passing it to her without letting the money show. Mostafa told me that it's done because if you give alms to someone in a showy way, then you are not perceived to be doing it from the goodness of your heart- you are doing it because you want others to see that you are giving money. But if you do it discreetly, then it means that you are doing it because you are genuinely good and want to help the person to whom you give money.

Last night we went out to the Cairo Jazz Club, which was a really fun experience. It was jazz but then with some Egyptian rhythms and instruments thrown in, which spiced it up a lot. It was another great night in what’s been the most fun week in Cairo.
Besides hanging out with our Egpytian friends, we’ve been busy doing a lot of last-minute stuff before we leave Cairo. For instance, we took our Arabic teacher out to dinner at her favorite restaurant. I miss her already! Friday night, a big group of us ate dinner at Sequoia, a really nice place on the tip of Zamalek, and watched the sun go down over the Nile. This was more or less a good-bye dinner with the engineers, because they unfortunately won't be going with us on the rest of our travels :( Also, Katharine, Lily, and I went to Al-Azhar Park yesterday, which is where our group debriefing will be held today. It’s a ginormous park, an oasis of green in the middle of brown, dusty Cairo. We walked in and nearly collided with a wedding procession on the way out. That was fascinating to see- everyone was singing and clapping what I presume is a traditional song, since everyone knew the words. And within the wedding party, you had women dressed in a variety of ways, from mutahagibba, meaning wearing the head scarf, to women with skirts slit almost all the way up their thighs. And yet they were all brought together to celebrate the same occasion.

Our visit to the park coincided with an environmental awareness festival. This was extremely ironic, considering Cairo is one of the least green cities in the world (literally and figuratively). We were able to see some school kids putting on a play (so weird because the play was in English, as were a lot of signs around the area…I’m not sure how great of an idea that was on the organizers’ part).

Being at the park also gave me a renewed appreciation for just how enormous the city of Cairo is. Hearing a couple muezzins simultaneously reciting the call to prayer against the backdrop of this sweeping cityscape was a poignant reminder of where we are right now.

One other interesting note is that twice in the past few days we’ve seen street fights right on Zamalek. One time it was just a brief incident with one guy throwing a rock at the other. But the first time, it was a drag-‘em-down, knock-‘em-out kind of event…and it took place in front of a member of the tourist police force, too. I mean, we were seeing a guy get shoved on his face in the middle of the street, and the cop was doing nothing about it. I guess it’s his job to worry about tourists, and not Egyptians, but that seems like bullshit. It gave me half a mind to walk near the fight so he’d have to do something about it, but by that point the fight had finally dissapated.

Tonight we have dinner at Abduh and Hayaam’s, then the park debriefing. Tommorrow we leave for Marsa Matruh and Siwa, to return next Friday for another few hours in Cairo. Then Saturday morning, it’s on to Abu Dhabi and Dubai until the following Thursday, and Friday is our return to the United States. With all this travel, I don’t know how much more I’ll be able to write, but wish me luck!