Jacinto in Cairo

Siwa

2006-10-30T20:33:00.000+02:00

'Id al-fitr, the Feast of the Breaking of the Fast, began last Tuesday. Like so many Egyptians, we travelled. Our itinerary began with a cab ride to the bus station. When we arrived near 7.30am, the plaza was filled with a religious gathering - hundreds of people sitting on canvas tarps thrown across the ground. So, with time running out until our bus's departure, we took off our shoes and made our way through the devotees. Our first stop was Marsa Matruh, a small city on the North Coast all the way west near the Libyan border. The city is known for its delicious seafood and the striking colors of the Mediterranean there, pictured below.

After consuming whole fish and calamari, and watching Zoolander in our mediocre hotel on the Corniche, we set off the next morning for the Siwa Oasis. Siwis are actually Berber, like the inhabitants of Kabylie in Algeria and the Rif Mountains of Morocco. They eat couscous and harissa, speak a Berber language, and often have gorgeous blue or green eyes. Oh, and it's the olive harvest now and we got some delicious freshly pressed olive oil, so fruity and delicious. Also, the first picture in this blog entry is a field of karkadé, or hibiscus, or flor de jamaica, used to make a delicious deep red drink that's really popular here. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

This donkey cart took us from the bus depot to our hotel on the edge of the oasis. It's hard to describe the effects of approaching Siwa after 3 hours of driving through the desert, with nothing around but scrub brush and sandstone formations. Of course, this must be nothing compared to arriving after two weeks caravaning on camels through the Sahara, but still. The oasis is so lush, like the banks of the Nile but somehow even moreso. Underneath Siwa is a freshwater ocean that provides most of Egypt's bottled water, and there are thousands of date palms. It's also date season, and you can just pick fresh dates off the trees. So yummy.

Above you see our hotel, the Desert Rose - lovely and tranquil, with a refreshing non-chlorinated pool fed by an underground source. 5km from town, it was seriously isolated. We waited four hours for a ride into town which never came, then set off on foot, only to be picked up by a farmer bringing fresh hay into town. We ate at the fancy restaurant, and my prix fixe menu of the day included fresh pita, tahina, couscous and vegetables, a huge grilled steak fillet, and a fresh date crepe - all for $8! Then we ambled around, underneath the old fortress/town of Shali, and bought some handmade baskets in the Siwan style.

I was itching to get into the desert, and we met a group of Egyptians also staying at the Desert Rose who were planning an overnight excursion with a local guide some of them had travelled with three years ago. How fortunate for us! Twelve of us piled into two Land Cruisers and drove into the dunes, bathed in a sulfury hot spring, sandboarded, bathed in a cold spring, roasted two whole spiced goats in an underground coal pit, danced around the campfire to the sounds of a Siwi musical troupe, then set up tents to sleep under the impossibly bright stars. Now back in Cairo, how I mish that fresh air!

Ramadan!

2006-10-10T22:25:00.000+02:00

At 3am the masharati walks through the street banging a drum, waking people to eat sahur, the early meal, and drink lots of water before going back to bed, because the day will be long. At 3pm you start to feel the distraction and anticipation: everyone's looking just ahead to iftar, breaking the fast. By 5.45pm, the sun has set and the streets are silent and deserted. After dark the party begins, sweets and sheesha and music.

We went to a concert in a plaza in Hussayn (above), the epicenter of Ramadan night life. People come from all over Egypt, it seems, for the festivities there. Firecrackers explode, music blasts, cheap toys get bought and tossed aside later. Late at night, exhausted, some people even manage to fall asleep right there amidst all the excitement.

Some facts: At sunset, people often break their fast with dates, fresh or dried, plain or soaked in milk. You say, "Kol sena wa entu Tayibeen [May you be good every year]" or you respond, "Wa enta Tayib [And may you be good]." Muslims often try to read or hear the whole Qur'an over the course of the month. And you eat lots and lots of good food and delicious sweets (baklawa and basbusa, yum). Below we've got pomegranates, fresh dates, and persimmons.

The streets are decked out with lights and lanterns, now electric and made in China. Here's some shots of our neighborhood, which wouldn't win any Christmas decoration awards, but...

October already...

2006-10-04T13:08:00.000+02:00

It's October already! Sorry for not writing in so long. My schedule's busier because I started taking an Egyptian Arabic (aka "colloquial" or "'amiya" - as opposed to Modern Standard or "fusHa") class at a language school here. They placed me in 'Intermediate Low' - which was like getting credit for spending all that time smoking sheesha at the 'ahwas.

Ramadan started, and I promise to do a whole entry (with pictures etc.) on the holy month sometime soon.

Unfortunately, the film project never came off. M'alish (oh well). Fortunately, I've seen movers here load a dozen pieces of antique furniture on the bed of a mini-pickup, strap it down with yellow rope, and set off for their destination. Seriously, the trucks were overflowing. So maybe I'll try to get in with some of those folks, rent a video camera, and go along for the ride.

I read a great interview with Marjane Satrapi, author of the Persepolis books. Just thought I'd share.

Anyway, enjoy the photos. The building in the background of the first shot is American University in Cairo (AUC), the second shot is inside the campus. They're all Downtown (wust al-balad, in Arabic).

Clientitis

2006-09-23T11:37:00.000+02:00

Learned something interesting last night via a U.S. State Department employee. The State Dept. transfers its workers to a new country every two or three years in order to guard against "clientitis." Clientitis is when you start to care about the country you've been stationed in; the U.S. government worries that once this happens, you may not be able to serve U.S. interests anymore, hence the transfer.

In other news, equipment has not come through yet for my film project. I'm hoping that I may be able to catch the piano on its return trip from Haram to Heliopolis. The 60-year-old Steinway is the best and most famous piano in Egypt, played by popstar Nancy Ajram (pictured above) at her concerts.

Happy and sweet new year to everybody, and bravo to these folks.

Film project "in the works"

2006-09-20T23:51:00.000+03:00

Hazim Shaheen and his quartet, which includes our friend Miles the bass player, have a record deal! Signed to Incognito Records of la CDthèque Beirut, they have been rehearsing intensively and will soon retreat to a flat out in Haram (the Pyramid quarter of Cairo) for four days of recording. Fancy mics and all.

Well, they also require a GRAND PIANO to be moved from Heliopolis all the way across the city to Haram. I have a vision of the opening of La Dolce Vita: Jesus soaring over Rome, hanging from a helicopter. Then I translate that vision into Cairene - I simply must record this journey. I'm going to make a few calls tomorrow. Can you imagine the footage? From one side of Cairo to another, the day before Ramadan starts, with the pressure on. Perhaps even a feature-length real-time affair...

Turkey, Part 3 - Lycian Peninsula

2006-09-15T15:50:00.000+03:00

Another overnight bus ride brought us to Olimpos, site of a different Mt. Olympos, but also a dwelling place of Zeus. From here we caught a 4-day-3-night cruise along the Lycian coast, so named for the ancient Lycians who settled here in ancient Greek times. Their ruins dot the coast and the interior of the peninsula. Below you can see our boat, which had a crew of 3 Turkish sailors-who-looked-like-surfers and 8 other passengers from Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey.

We sailed from Olimpos to Kerkova, with its Lycian citadel, to the Sunken City, an old Lycian city that slid into the water after an earthquake (you can see the corner of a building if you look closely). And yes, the water is that perfect. We'd frequently pull into a protected little natural harbor and just dive in.

Probably the most beautiful stop on the "Blue Voyage" was St. Nicholas Island. The ruins in this part of Turkey are really special. They are not grandiose or in tact the way they are in some places, but sparse and nestled into the land. It's like you have access to how the locals fished, herded, prayed, and played.

After docking in Fethiye, Bettina and I backtracked down the coast to Patara. 18 unbroken kilometers of soft sand beach, fed by a freshwater river from the interior. To get there from the village, you walk through the ruins of a Lycian town, past a lighthouse the Turkish navy is in the slow process of rebuilding with the original stones, over the massive sanddunes, through some brush until a beach so big you can't take it all in opens up in front of you. Due to the ruins and the dunes, the beach is protected from development, which has left Patara sparsely visited - an ideal place to chill out for a few days, which we did, for the last four days of our Turkish vacation.

Turkey, Part 2 - Göreme, Kapadokya

2006-09-10T12:41:00.000+03:00

Turkish overnight buses defy expectations. They are made by Mercedes. A bow-tied attendant serves you sour cherry juice, tea, and little fruit cakes. Accomodation and transportation for the price of one.

After our 10-hour journey, we arrived here in Goreme. What a pleasant little town! We ate lots of pide and lahamcun, varieties of Turkish flatbread pizza, from this one excellent bakery that had their own sourdough starter and a wood fired brick oven.

Here's a typical little Cappadocian cul-de-sac.

"Fairy chimneys" dot the landscape. Residents carve them out for homes, churches, monasteries, and depots. The Goreme open air museum is a valley full of these, many with frescoes still in good shape. There are also underground cities, some eight stories deep. Villagers would retreat to these whenever marauders invaded. For self-defense they had rolling boulder doors and channels to pour hot oil down. To keep their spirits up, they had wine presses.

Sunset over Goreme, seen from the top of the valley:

Turkey, Part 1 - Istanbul

2006-09-06T15:44:00.000+03:00

And just like that everything changes. The calendar becomes real. Summer ends and fall begins. Three mornings ago we sat on a bougainvillea-filled terrace looking out across the valley, past the ruins, over the sand dunes toward the endless sandy beach of Patara. Then last night at 1am I put our house guest and what remained of the summer in a taxi to Cairo International.

We spent over two weeks in Turkey, and right now I'm only up to writing a lil bit. So I'm gonna spread this stuff out over a few entries, going heavy on the photos.

We splurged on a hotel in touristy Sultanahmet and then got upgraded to the Ottoman suite. Turns out the whole trip was a splurge, Turkey being much more expensive than anticipated. Also, the country is in Europe. There's nothing really Middle Eastern (anymore) about the places we went.

Above is a view from our window. Below, see Bettina in front of the Hagia Sofia church-then-mosque-now-museum and a photo Bettina took inside.

There are amazing tiles inside, as well as gorgeous veined marble:

Here's a man who knits cute house slippers and sells them in the courtyard of the Blue Mosque:

A neat pavilion...

The Basilica Cistern, an underground water supply for an old emperor. Later people forgot it was there, accepting it as strange but true that they could go fishing down their toilets.

Water transportation is really one of the greatest things about Istanbul. For the same price as riding the subway or the bus, you load onto these massive ferries and sail around the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmara. Not only that, but they serve delicious tea in tulip glasses during your commute!

We ferried to the former fishing village of Ortakoy, with this lit-up mosque providing the bockdrop to cobblestone alleys lined with great market tables -- textiles, old prints, wooden boxes, jewelry. There's really amazing shopping to be done in Turkey. It's not cheap, but there's well-made stuff that you can get for less than in Europe and the US.

Coming up next, Kapadokya aka Cappadocia....

Dahab

2006-08-13T11:45:00.000+03:00

Our week in Dahab is over. This blog entry is a bittersweet testimony of our seven days in paradise. Dahab used to be nothing more than a small Bedouin village with a few restaurants and campgrounds. Hippies, divers, and the lure of tourist monies changed the place into a low key town built around a bay that looks across the Gulf of Aqaba at Saudi. A cool breeze keeps up all day, and the coast is lined with coral reefs.

Look how relaxed we are, reclining on the cushions of the "bedouin tent" (similar to a Oaxaca palapa) or swinging in the hammock. Patches and flows of turqoise, sapphire blue, and seagreen stare back at you from the sea. Shades of wheat and lavender cascade down the mountains...

Imagine, banning horses and camels in Bedouin lands! Thankfully, no one obeys these signs, and guys ride up and down the corniche on gorgeous horses and camels all day, selling rides. On the other side of the hotel, our block had a family of renegade camels that liked to amble up and down the street. You could walk right amongst them, seeing their soft coats and silent fluid lope. On the night pictured above, they were particularly mischievous.

Bettina and I played a lot of backgammon and dominoes. A group of children started hanging out with us, lounging in our corner of the tent. They taught us a simple form of backgammon, and we taught them a simple form of dominoes. It turns out their grandfather, a local Bedouin notable, owned the hotel we stayed at, and their family owned a few other major local businesses. They invited us over to their home, where we met their aunt and their adorable baby brother. On the floor of their parlor was this rectangular sand pit, about 3 foot long and 2 foot wide. Not until the aunt offered us tea did we learn its purpose: as you would outdoors, she got a coal fire going in the pit and prepared a large metal pot of traditional Bedouin tea, infused with sage and brewed with the sugar to give it a sweetness you just can't get by adding spoonfuls of sugar. She also served us fresh dates right off the trees in their garden - amazing.

The hotel staff prepared towel sculptures for us every day. Our favorite was the bird domino game.

I haven't mentioned snorkling in the Blue Hole, or the delicious food at the local restaurants (locally caught tuna! chocolate crepes! walnut cream tortelloni! fresh pita!). And finally, here are a couple more pictures...

Hazim Shaheen on 'oud; Dinner party with bass player

2006-08-02T15:43:00.000+03:00

Down under the 26th of July Bridge in Zamalek sits the Sawy Culture Wheel, an experimental art and theatre complex. Literally built into the bridge, Sawy hosts sculpture, drama, and music. Through connections old and new, we befriended M----, a bass player who said we really should come hear him play with Nazim Shaheen on 'oud, accompanied also by piano and percussion.

Bettina and I were transfixed and inspired. Such music! You could hear so many influences, but it all sounded totally their own: traditional Egyptian, classical Arabic, flamenco, ragtime, classical European, Marc Ribot... Nazim shredded the 'oud like I've never heard before (albeit my exposure is more or less limited to a few traditional 'oud balladeers in Syria and on PBS).

This quartet plays with a larger ensemble, Iskandarella, that we're going to see Friday night in the new Al-Azhar park.

And last night we ordered beer from Drinkie's (Cairo's alcohol delivery service), kofta (from the phenomenal little Kebabgi al-Sheikh adjacent to the butcher in the alleyway I mentioned in a previous post), and rotisserie chicken for a small dinner party. Bettina whipped up a delicious eggplant, yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, cucumber, and tomato dip that some call mouttabal and some baba ghanouj. We also had lots of sweets and fresh fruit. The party lasted past 3am, and everybody left glazed, blazed and stuffed.

"Yehyah Lubnan, Tehyah Filisteen"

2006-07-28T15:03:00.000+03:00

If you look closely, you can see Bettina and me rallying in solidarity with Lebanon and Palestine Wednesday evening. It was a lot of fun (until the riot police paradoxically disrupted things with an attempt at "crowd control" that created a giant crush), cheering and dancing, chatting with activists, media folks, intellectuals, and everyday sympathizers. Neil MacFarquhar wrote an excellent article about the rally in (gasp!) the New York Times.

Ironically, the demonstration took place in a section of Midan Tahrir right in front of the landmark "Visitez le Liban/Visit Lebanon" building. People had Lebanese, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Hizbollah flags, some great posters ("Human Rights? Maybe. Arab civilian rights? Never.") and lots of pictures of Nasrallah ("Ya Nasrallah, ya habibi"), the leader of Hizbollah. If you read the MacFarquhar article, you'll see how Nasrallah is now like a Muslim Che Guevara, folk hero, intellectual darling, and symbol of resistance. His interview with Al-Jazeera is at times inspiring. You may need some geo-political background to make total sense of it, though, in which case I recommend this article, or this one for a slightly more alarmist surmise.

After the rally a whole bunch of us went to the Greek Club, for some rooftop drinking and euphoria. Then, the air was filled with the voice of Fairouz, the Lebanese chanteuse, broadcast over loudspeakers from the leftist party's office. Despite all the military vehicles on the streets, solidarity ruled the night.

Around the house

2006-07-27T14:44:00.000+03:00

This week marked the end of Bettina's summer session, full of final projects and final exams. I too brought my Faulkner reading to an end (has any other "great" author written so many awful books?!) and started writing the second chapter of my dissertation. The strange Cairo sleep patterns have returned, and I've been waking up randomly at 4.30am, unable to fall asleep for a couple hours. Last night I even turned on my computer and did some writing. This morning I finished the draft, so I'm very happy with myself.

Because we were such busy bees this week, I have no real adventures to report. Well, actually I do but I'm waiting for some pictures to show you. But pretend you don't know about that (it's what the Egyptian government does!). That was a clue...

Anyway, we have been steadily making our apartment feel like a home. We went to Ezbekiya to buy old movie posters to decorate our walls. As you'll learn if you click through that link, Ezbekiya's a pretty fascinating open-air used book, magazine, and poster market. You can find amazing stuff there, in all sorts of languages, and the quarter has a pretty salacious history.

Below you can see our newly remodelled living room (well, one of them):

This is a movie poster for al-Hub fawq hadbat el-haram (Love on the Pyramid Plateau). Based on a Naguib Mahfouz story, it is about the days after al-Infitah, or the Open Door Policy. This was part of Anwar Sadat and the ruling elite's program to sell out the Palestinians and the Egyptian masses with an emasculating peace deal and a "liberalized" economy. Things have gotten steadily worse for both the Palestinians and ordinary Egyptians since al-Infitah, but it serves the elite (and their American and Israeli bosses) pretty well.

Anyway, the story is about 'Ali and Raga', two young, educated government employees who fall in love, get married, and can't move in together because they don't have enough money. The hotels are sketchy, full of nasty looks, innuendo, and even police hassle. Exasperated and horny, inspiration stikes 'Ali. He takes Raga' and some blankets to the pyramid plateau. A police officer approaches them and says they can't do that there. 'Ali offers him 25 piastres, but the cop says it's not enough. So he gives him a pound, and they have the plateau to themselves... cheaper than any hotel.

Sabai Sabai

2006-07-22T09:18:00.000+03:00

We happily discovered a great Thai restaurant here in Cairo. Called Sabai Sabai, it's this chic resturaunt/lounge with great wroughtiron fixtures from which antique and handblown glass dangles elegantly. It's in a building called Rive Gauche, in Zamalek's Sidqy Square, and definitely has the feel of a tucked away Parisian bonne addresse. We ate spring rolls, spicy papaya salad, red curry with beef, and pad thai - all of which was excellent, really high quality. And with tax and tip it all cost under $30; not bad for such a highend place. We've now got a pretty good repertoire of Asian restaurants here: great Thai, great Indian, and solid Korean.

Also, I went to one of Cairo's western-style supermarkets, Metro, and bought Kikkoman soy sauce, Kikkoman sweet and sour sauce, and some chili paste so we can now make a mean stir fry here at the apartment. There must be some serious tariffs on Kikkoman, though, cuz those things cost like $5 per bottle.

(Political content: Most US and UK coverage of this region has been nauseating me with its ignorance, racism, and propaganda. But here are Professor Rashid Khalidi in the NYTimes and Tariq Ali in the Guardian.)

Homage to Beirut; 1948

2006-07-17T19:12:00.000+03:00

Here's our Cairo-Beirut-Istabul-Cairo ticket. Sadly, we'll soon be cancelling the Beirut leg of it.

So, in honor of the trip we will not have gotten to go on, I've dug up some images from delicious, literary, cosmopolitan Beirut. This one, for example, is a lighthouse that no longer exists. Obviously, it was of strategic military value to Hizbollah.

Here are shots of lovely central Beirut. The so-called Lebanese Civil War (a.k.a. the wars in Lebanon) only just ended in 1991. The city was coming together nicely, tensely but nicely. The wars in Lebanon, and the destruction of Beirut, were a direct consequence of the 1948 expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from Palestine, the ethnic cleansing that inaugurated the state of Israel. Hamas, Hizbollah... it all stems from 1948. So here I am in Cairo, seeing clearly what's happening today, thinking about 1948 and how refusing to deal with the crimes of 1948 condemns this whole region to continuous violence. And seriously complicates or jeopardizes various friends' lives. My closing thoughts go out to them.

Loopy Nuts

2006-07-15T10:19:00.000+03:00

Ants got into our oatmeal, so I'll be eating Loopy Nuts for breakfast today. Temmy's is the local equivalent of Kellogg's, except there are no additives or preservatives, and a box of cereal goes for about $1.25, rather than $4 or 5.

Wadi Natroon

2006-07-13T13:19:00.000+03:00

Wadi Natroon is a 5th century Coptic monastery in what used to be the desert, but given all the new desert agriculture technologies, and the swelling population of the Nile Valley, it is not quite as isolated as I imagine it to have once been. Either way, it's way out there, about two hours from Cairo.

The monastery has grown over the centuries, adding more wings, more chapels, a large cathedral, etc. They grow lots of crops, and make really nice candles too.

Something about this junk pile caught my eye. Maybe it's the stuffed horse in the background.

Our friend T----- took this one. I had thought only mosques offered this sort of interior. Another friend then told us that there is a correlation between a region's climate and the height of its seating arrangements. Neat, huh?

Coptic imagery has this sort of "art naïf" thing going on, and here are two Egyptians chilling before a typical scene. (I have more images available upon request.) Wadi Natroon was full of (presumably Coptic) visitors the Sunday we visited.

Pyramids at Dahshour, etc.

2006-07-07T15:46:00.000+03:00

We drove about an hour outside Cairo to Dahshour, where there are three pyramids just outside the Nile Valley. Unlike Giza, this place is deserted (especially in July!) so you really feel the isolation, the quiet, of the desert. Above is the Bent Pyramid, so called because the engineers miscalculated and then adjusted the angle of ascent. They perfected the engineering on the Red Pyramid, which can be seen in the background, and below.

Here's a picture of me with a collapsed pyramid made from mud bricks. This pyramid was built long after the Bent and Red Pyramids, after a period of instability, appropriately enough.

Bettina stands with the Red Pyramid in the background.

Here's me again in the ruins of the temple where they mummified the bodies in preparation for the afterlife.

If you look closely, you can see the stairs that lead into the Red Pyramid, which gives you some idea of how massive it is. Once you get to the entrance, you descend a long cramped passageway to some very high ceilinged interior chambers and contemplate the awesome fact that you are INSIDE A PYRAMID.

A traditional Egyptian pigeon coop in the countryside on the way back from Dahshour, passing through Saqqara.

In the background you can see the large step pyramid at Saqqara, which pre-dates the Bent and Red Pyramids.

As you re-enter the Cairo city limits, the countryside fades into the gradually urbanizing outskirts, with sporadic fields of fellaheen working the land. You can see the Giza pyramids, built right after the Red Pyramid.

Grazie, Italia--from Le Grillon with love

2006-07-05T11:58:00.000+03:00

Last night Italy revived my World Cup spirit and rescued the tournament from the prospect of a German victory with their 2-0 win in extra-time. We watched on the large-screen TV in the garden of Le Grillon in Down Town, which last night was pretty swank, thanks partly to the Cairo version of the Sex and the City girls sitting at the table next to us, smoking shisha and knocking over my shisha in their exuberance. Le Grillon was packed, with prime tables reserved ahead of time, and the place finally exploded when Grosso curled in his shot from the right with only minutes remaining in the extra-time. Such unanimous dislike for German football... it almost makes you feel bad for them. Almost.

A bit about the neighborhood...

2006-06-30T16:38:00.000+03:00

So by popular demand I've added more photos. It's not as easy as you'd think. Cairo is all about streetlife, and there are few times of day when you can wander empty streets and snap away to your heart's content. Also, I get the sense that people here aren't really into being photographed. These are the sorts of obstacles I'm dealing with. I'll see what I can do, though.

The top photo is a few blocks from our place. It's a narrow street that serves as a sort of secret passageway from 'Agouza to Mohandiseen, the adjacent neighborhood that is very difficult to get to following the major arteries. I guess most of our neighborhood was farmland 40 years ago. My hunch is that certain sections of the neighborhood are older, part of the former village infrastructure. I've seen some houses I suspect date from Ottoman times. (I wanted to photograph them but there were too many people around.) Anyway, these old alleyways are not as posh as some of the neighborhood, which boasts plenty of Mercedes and German car specialists. The quarters are cramped, there are goats wandering around, but these alleys also host the best and liveliest market around. It feels very Cairo to me how all the social classes are right on top of one another.

I passed the truck in the bottom photo once about a week ago, and I was very happy when I stumbled upon it again, this time with camera in hand. The writing says "masriya," meaning Egyptian.

Shopping in 'Ataba

2006-06-25T14:53:00.001+03:00

I have a rule for Cairo: only try to do one errand per day. It's one of those cities where if you try to do anymore than that you'll end up frustrated and exhausted. So yesterday I set out for 'Ataba, the neighborhood in Cairo "where you can find anything," to buy some lamps. The neighborhood is spontaneously divided into zones according to products: there's the TV/Home Appliance zone, the Furniture zone, the Textile zone, the Musical Instrument zone, etc. Zones not only sell finished products, but each component you may need if you yourself wanted to repair a TV, stuff a couch, or -- as I was about to do after two hours of fighting crowds and fruitless searching -- build your own lamp. Presciently, the first Western-style emporium, built smack in the middle of 'Ataba in 1910, was the aptly named Tiring Department Store.

Sonallah Ibrahim

2006-06-23T11:10:00.000+03:00

I went to (another) rooftop party last night, knowing in advance I might have the chance to meet Sonallah Ibrahim, the Egyptian novelist. He's an intimidatingly uncompromised intellectual. For example, he was to receive a LE100,000 (USD16,000) award at a government-sponsored literature conference in 2003. As the conference convened just three weeks after the death of Edward Said, the Minister of Culture dedicated the conference to his memory. Well, Sonallah Ibrahim gets up to give the keynote/acceptance speech at the end of the conference and (I quote):

"spoke, in his unsettling ten-minute speech, about Israeli rulers being received in Arab capitals with open arms at a time when 'Israeli troops are invading whatever remains of the Palestinian land... carrying out a methodical and systematic genocide against the Palestinians."

He proceeded to turn down the award because, in his words, "'it is awarded by a government that in my view lacks the credibility that would make this award worth receiving.'" "Ibrahim [then] walked out, leaving the cheque and trophy on the podium, many of those sitting in the front rows angry, and at least half the auditorium applauding."

Anyway, that's the sort of man he is. When I saw an opportunity to introduce myself I did so, and we chatted briefly about my reasons for being here (I'd be suspicious too!) and then about Cairo. I commented that it's a pretty easy transition because I live in New York which is also a very energetic city. And with perfect deadpan aplomb he replies, "Too energetic." After gleaning that little gem, I walked away happy.

News from the north

2006-06-22T14:25:00.000+03:00

Bear enters house, feasts on oatmeal

June 20, 2006

WEST VANCOUVER, CANADA -- It was a real-life version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"--only in reverse--when a woman came home to find a young bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen.

The bear apparently entered through an open sliding glass door, broke a ceramic food container and started eating, West Vancouver police Sgt. Paul Skelton said.

"It sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn't it?" Skelton said. "At least we have a health-conscious bear on our hands."

Three officers who went to the home Thursday couldn't get the bear to budge, so they let it finish its meal.

"The bear didn't appear to be aggressive and wasn't destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing," Skelton said. The bear finally left.

(from the Chicago Tribune)

New ring tones; Brazilian belly-dancers

2006-06-21T12:20:00.000+03:00

An Egyptian man at the bar last night had for his ring tone "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Could he be Coptic? unaware? joking? I just don't know. Try to imagine your life if everytime some called your cell (even in June!) you heard that dinky little version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Another Egyptian man, who lives in New York, arrived in Cairo to visit his mom a couple days ago. Aboard his KLM flight was a troupe of 35 Brazilian belly-dancers coming to Cairo for a competition. Like China, I suspect Brazil must be up to something, plying its "comparative advantages" as the economists say.

Mishmish season

2006-06-19T20:39:00.000+03:00

Yum, it's apricot (mishmish) season here in Egypt. The pictures don't convey it maybe, but these apricots taste really good. In Arabic, if someone asks you when something that you think is unlikely to happen will happen, you can say "fi-l-mishmish" -- meaning loosely "in apricot season," which lasts only a month.

Football madness

2006-06-17T01:05:00.000+03:00

As if to spite the World Cup, for which Egypt did not qualify even though they won the African Nations' Cup, the Egyptian Cup tournament has been happening over the past couple weeks. In a showdown between Cairo's archrivals, Ahli beat Zamalek 3-0, which means nothing to me, but it's sort of like if the Mets beat the Yankees in the World Series. The streets were full of shabab in red waving red flags and pounding on the hoods of passing cars. At the time of writing, I could still hear occasional hornhonking.

Nadi as-Sayyarat - The Automobile Club

2006-06-16T00:58:00.000+03:00

Last night the R------ family invited us to dine at the famous Nadi as-Sayyarat, the Automobile Club. You need to be a member to go, and members need to make reservations to go on Thursdays and Fridays.

Unlike Down Town (the exciting commercial and cultural heart of the city, where we lived two summers ago), there is nothing shabby about the Automobile Club today. You enter through a glimmering marble- and gold-appointed lobby, then you get the royal treatment by the staff who lead you up the elevator to the roof-top terrace. Very chic, all told.

We ordered a sampling of cold then hot mezzet. Particularly noteworthy was this one cheese, a blend of blue cheese and gibne beyda, a sort of soft Egyptian feta. Also, their kofta, brought out almost as an afterthought, was fantastically seasoned and just the right texture. For dessert, the table watched me eat a bowl of juicy red watermelon.

BMW specialists

2006-06-14T08:52:00.000+03:00

Near midnight last night we came upon a late model BMW 5-series with its hood propped open. The gleaming engine lay on the street in front of the car. Three men were setting up a tall, three-pole teepee-like frame. They slid a chain through a pulley at the top and began, with minimal lighting and fuck-all for support, hoisting the engine up to lower into the car. My friend estimated that this method saved the owner 3000 LE (about $575).

Volunteering for ridicule

2006-06-13T11:41:00.000+03:00

I don't believe the US deserves to have a good soccer team. Not enough national heart goes toward the sport, so I think it would be plain unfair for the country to excel. Thankfully, Bruce Arenas and his team seem to agree. Nonetheless, I do feel enough loyalty (?!) and curiosity to at least watch their World Cup games.

Now, as you might expect, US soccer is about as popular as US (link 1) policy (link 2). Well, even with my beard it's no secret I'm American, and I did cheer for the US, albeit subtly and half-heartedly. In fact, I felt like I was a good visitor, allowing myself to be the object of the other viewers' ridicule as Team USA failed to create chances (Eddie Johnson's second half performance being the only bright spot) and the Czech team periodically produced moments of brilliance.

My status as vicarious whipping boy for the sins of my country vanished as soon as the Italy-Ghana game began. Oddly, support for Ghana was not universal, there were some Italy fans too. Good looks go a long way.

Strange allegiances in el-'Agouza

2006-06-11T11:58:00.000+03:00

This charming leafy quarter of Cairo, like most, abounds in 'ahwas, or coffeshops. Bettina pointed out to me that one of the nicest, occupying a green-canopied corner, is (in the eyes and vocab of us American liberals) segregated: Blacks on one side, Arabs on the other. Perhaps Black Arabs refrain from patronizing this 'ahwa so as not to confuse its seating arrangement. (I sat on the Arab side).

Well, the other night, in my quest to watch the World Cup despite ART's price-gouging, I visited another 'ahwa down the street in the other direction. A packed house of Egyptians cheered relentlessly for Cote d'Ivoire in their fiery but ultimately frustrating loss to Argentina. Continental loyalties apply in football, but maybe they don't translate to dominoes and backgammon.