And Everything Else...

Time continues to pass fast, I returned to chilly, sunny Germany more than a week ago, but I still want to add some more lines on these two weeks in Cairo and their good mix of daily routines and extraordinary things happening on a daily basis at the same time.

Being back at Kalimat (the language school) feels as normal as everything else, only getting there on the first Sunday for registration teaches me something new about Cairo traffic: It takes me 20 minutes to find a free taxi at 2pm, all the others have what looks like about ten school children piled onto their seats. My traffic calculation based on experience in Ramadan and during summer holidays proves to be quite useless. In the morning before the courses, however, traffic is fine and at noon I walk back. Traffic is an issue whenever thinking of activities beyond Zamalek and Mohandeseen: I don’t see Reem again after she and her brother picked me up from the airport because this city is too big and the streets too jammed to cross between our neighborhoods in times of the day when we are free. And I only see my host sister once for a quick coffee after school for the same reason…

After having seen a 40 years old picture of Tahrir Square looking all green and calm and quiet with just some occasional cars and looking at the carefully designed decorations in the Arab League Street and its side streets that have not been kept in good condition gives me a melancholically mixed feeling about the city’s and country’s potential and the rough road they are currently on.

Gameat Al Dawal Al Arabeya (Arab League Street)

Inside Zamalek life is much easier. No need for cars (though there are lots of them, mostly crossing through with a lot of noise), many of my friends live or work here and I am very happy to have Pizza with Ahmed during lunch break or sushi and shisha with Marissa and a friend of hers at 26^th of July one night. Two Americans and a German exchanging world views in Cairo, the mother of the world. These are moments when the world seems both huge and tiny at the same time and I feel like I am at the very right place in it.

The afternoon before I leave I carry my heavy bag all the way down 26^th of July (I bought two huge dictionaries) to Marissa’s and Cade’s place where I will spend the last night. The plan is to join Ahmed and his friends for a St. Patrick’s Day party in the British Club later. I want to eat koshary before I leave Egypt so Marissa and I go to Top Alex just around the corner, probably one of the very few places in Zamalek where at least the big menu on the wall is solely in Arabic. Only moments after ordering two tin bowls filled with the steaming mix of rice, noodles, lentils and chicken peas and two cups of spicy tomato sauce appear on the table. Delicious vegan dish, though it does make us a little sleepy.

After the change of location, Irish live music and coke wake us up again at the British Club which has an open night for the St. Patrick’s Day party. Everyone wears at least some green and I don’t remember when I last saw a group of such mixed ages have so much fun, after some warming up everyone dances, claps and sings along with the band who sometimes encourage quite an exhausting speed of jumping and dancing. It really is a perfect night.

The next morning is a mix of goodbyes and not feeling as if I am leaving at all. So many people to talk to after the service, so much I’ll be back, inshallah. Injy stops by shortly to say goodbye as she has a lot of work at home these days and we didn't get round to have coffee. Then the usual group heads for lunch, this time at an Egyptian diner not far from the church, some tables and benches in the street, the men have just finished their Friday prayer and start to prepare chicken, rice, soup and salad in the open kitchen. The air has the temperature not noticeable as warm or cold, some leftovers of last year’s Ramadan decoration sway overhead, the food is just what we wanted and everyone enjoys this combination of Sunday and first day of the weekend. I talk to Johnny who works for the US embassy about switching between different places and countries and how it’s not difficult for me - especially as coming back after a short time spares me the culture shock - which also makes leaving not all that hard. But the feeling of fitting in here also tells me I need to return to Egypt not too far in the future.

It is already early afternoon when we return to Marissa’s and Cade’s apartment, so I just grab my bags and we have to say goodbye. It is a bit strange to pass by all the places that were parts of my daily commute last year only when leaving the country this time, but I also enjoy the ride through this part of Cairo. Traffic is smooth on Friday afternoons. The taxi driver doesn’t speak any English and also doesn’t slow his speed of speaking Arabic, I am delighted that we can discuss which terminal will be right for me (my schedule doesn’t tell) and I can answer most of his questions.

No problems at the airport this time (last year my flight was cancelled), so I spend an hour in the crowded, but silent waiting area at the gate listening to Arabic, English, German and Turkish flight announcements and three hours in my window seat trying to take photos of Egypt and the sunny Southern European coasts and mountains, many of them still topped with thick winter snow.

A short layover in Vienna, an hour's flight through the night and a bus and subway ride later I find myself back on the dark street walking to Christiane’s house an hour before midnight. Friday lunch and Cairo seem very close, this same dark street two weeks ago feels like an ancient memory. Looks like I made the most of these two weeks and Egypt and my Cairo friends made it the best for me.

Anafora

I had hoped to visit the White Desert this time, as it doesn’t work out I go to Anafora with some girls from church. Anafora (Coptic for well) is a Christian retreat place a one hour bus ride outside of Cairo close to the Cairo Alexandria Desert Road.

It was first built because women could not stay in the nearby monastery as far as I understand. By now it has developed into a large compound with guest rooms, fields, gardens with small canals, a main house with a library, kitchen and large dining room and, of course, churches and chapels. Some sisters live here permanently, take care of the buildings and prepare traditional Egyptian meals from the organic vegetables grown on Anafora fields. Many more women work as assistants or produce scrap rugs (they are EVERYWHERE) and other craftwork sold at the gift shops. We literally buy baskets of them, the most astonishing items being Coptic priest hand puppets.

The surroundings make us feel very holiday-like. We spent the days outside on the terraces or roofs (or sometimes inside when it gets too hot) reading and singing, use the chance to get some exercise and take walks through the fields and to other parts of the compound. Sometimes we meet young guys walking around dressed as Roman soldiers and even Jesus himself seems to have fuul and tameya for lunch (we are told they are from a church in Heliopolis and are preparing the annual Easter movie). The other guests are mainly Egyptians and Swedes, so there is some language mix around at meal times. Coming from Cairo, of course, it is very quiet or rather, a different kind of noise created by the strong wind.

The air is fresh, but in this second week of March the sun is already strong enough for hot early afternoons – and I get some sunburn to take home to the German spring with its 8 degrees.

To me both the palm trees and the buildings where we sleep remarkably resemble drawings from children’s books: The branchless straight trunks crowned with the prototypical leaves brushing the roofs of playfully arranged two room apartments, every room topped by its own high cupola with five small colored glasses in it.

At night the only sounds are the wind, the mighty rustle of the palm trees, a faint sound of the road in the distance and occasional barking of dogs from far away. In the second night I take a moonlight walk on the roof of our house. Unfortunately I don’t know my camera well enough to make it actually take pictures here, but apart from the light the most eerie thing was the wind. I don’t think I can catch that on photo anyway.

Returning to the city I actually get more of a Cairo shock than when I arrived here ten days before. Probably because I don’t know this part of the city. Entering from the desert road under a grey sky that today seems to end not very far from the endless blocks of half finished houses, all concrete skeletons and brick fillings in various states of completion, it feels like descending into a different world. Soon the scenery changes  to somewhat smaller houses, more busy streets with vendors and people spending time outside in the small patches of greens in the center of roundabouts. When we reach and cross the Nile the world changes again, green, open, but very urban. From the car I see some parts of Mohandeseen and other neighborhoods not at all far from where I usually go, but I haven’t been here before. Banks, embassies and private schools in sleek glass skyscrapers and beautiful old town villas right next to each other face the riverside street, the restaurants on the ships are getting ready for the summer, the rush hour traffic leaves no empty spaces. I get of the car at 26^th of July Bridge and walk home, feeling a bit overwhelmed although this is my usual way back home from school. But as soon as I reach the guest house and the balcony, things are back to normal and the sound of the city doesn’t seem that loud anymore.

Half Time

Time is passing way too fast again. Hit by a spell of spring fever I stay at home today, read (Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver which I started when I stayed at the guest house for a few days last year – as green from the inside as on the cover, set in a rural county in the Appalachians it makes for a nice contrast in the middle of this mega city with a mix of car horns, motors, shouting street vendors and children) and finally write something here, too. I sit on the small balcony, risking getting my first sunburn this year, hoping the sun will burn out my illness. This part of Cairo at this time of the year looks relatively green and not even artificially so. High dark green trees on both sides of the church compound which I overlook from the fourth floor. The houses on the other side a part of the old, more beautiful face of Zamalek, a concave fifth front towards the small square outside the church yard, only four stories, high arching windows with just not too much stone embroidery around them.

The Sudanese community gathers in the church yard. I wonder if sitting in the sun at 20 degrees in the shade one can really feel that cold that it is necessary to wear woolen pullovers and leather jackets. Maybe one can, coming from a country where summer means 45 degrees and winter hardly exists. Maybe it has something to do with being a refugee. Maybe it’s something else. Many small children play happily in the yard. Some grown-ups talk in sign language.

It’s Thursday again, so the first of my two weeks here is over. Just about time to also complete some half-finished first and second impressions and put them here.

FRIDAY

I start getting into my Egypt rhythm right away: Friday is Sunday. My watch stopped (again), so I hurry into the church while the bells ring, good thing I live right next to it. The reverend is still walking around greeting people. He is surprised to see me, but seeing people come and go, leave and return is the daily business of expat clergy, so some other people and me are officially welcomed back when he starts the ceremony. I sit next to Marissa and Cade and it feels completely natural to be here. After the service I am very happy to meet more friends I made last year and to be welcome here at any time. And one thing I missed out on last year is completed right away: I am introduced to a charming Latvian lady who works for the embassy and start talking to her in Latvian. I haven’t seen many people look as stunned as she does during my first two or three sentences. Then she is really pleased to meet someone who speaks Latvian and we have a nice chat. As few Latvians as there are, they basically are everywhere. Speaking Latvian in Cairo seems a bit exotic, but I think my theory of a more active foreign language network in my brain being abroad helps a lot, the last time I went to Latvia I didn’t speak as fluently right from the start.

The after service lunch group is small today for different reasons. Marissa, Cade, Sue and I have an Italian lunch at a nice little restaurant. The only other guests are a German couple and their two little sons, strange language again. Some of the boys’ remarks make me smile, they obviously don’t speak Arabic or they wouldn’t have to incessantly ask their mother if she already ordered the salad. Her ‘Ameya (Egyptian colloquial Arabic) is quite fluent and I wonder if I have the same accent.

After lunch I take a long walk around Zamalek and it feels very much like home. I still sometimes get lost for a moment, but at the next corner I usually know where I am again. The air is clear and relatively cool with a strong wind blowing more or less from every direction. I notice some construction sites to have changed or be finished altogether. The clubs on the Nile are starting to get ready for the season. Here, too, everything looks very green compared to my summer memories.

At the end of my long walk I have a mango granita at Cilantro and read the latest issue of their magazine – a lot of green issues in there. Ranging from articles of general make over days at some villages to advertisements of upcoming events and hands-on advice on everyday behavior like bringing your own bag when shopping to consume less plastic bags.

I walk straight back home down 26^th of July catching some breaths of Shisha as I walk past people in winter jackets sitting outside at the road side cafés.

When I go shopping for food later in the day I do take my own bag as I would always do in Germany. I didn’t actually think of that last year, all in the mode of integration by imitation. Now I got the nerve to be a strange German with a cotton bag.

Getting Back

As I leave Christiane’s house in Berlin at 5:15 am on the additional day of this year I am not cold in my summer jacket, although it’s only a few degrees above zero. After a short walk to the station I am on the subway together with nearly exclusively men wearing security shoes – I’ve never been on public transportation this early, those who regularly have to do this are craftsmen, construction workers, some paramedics and members of security services. After some stops I change to the bus and reach Tegel airport which really is manageably small. Although I only slept for four hours each night the third night in a row I don’t get to sleep much on the plane – the very tasty coffee Austrian Airlines serves is also quite strong, didn’t think of that in my sleepiness.

The plane from Vienna to Cairo is delayed, but the winds seem to be favorable, we arrive perfectly well in time. A mother wearing Niqab and her four children – or that’s what I assume, maybe the other completely veiled woman is not her daughter, who knows – sit next to me, as they hold solely Swedish citizenship we talk about how much the visa costs, it’s probably still 15 Dollars.

And then we’re back.

Still up: Ads quoting international politicianspraising the revolution. 

It’s wet and not at all hot, so Cairo looks a bit different from what it was when I left five months ago. Apart from that it feels very familiar, even the Thursday afternoon traffic (equivalent to Friday rush hour in Western countries) seems just normal. Reem and her brother pick me up at the airport and at once we are in the middle of crazy hospital stories, some of them apparently universal, and discussions of career perspectives and culture shock.

No shock for me here this time, the bridge is familiar, the Nile is familiar, Zamalek is familiar. Although we get into some chaos in the streets behind the Marriot, taking a way to the church guest house previously unknown to me.

The guest house is the same, so good to see Helbees again! As some people’s flight has been cancelled and they will only leave on the next day I spend the first night in a small room next to the one I stayed in last year. So I also have the balcony, the view – and the sound exactly as I expected it. I didn’t really think much of how it would feel to be back and am somewhat surprised how much it feels like the very natural continuation. Probably it’s really only the weather that stops me from saying, it’s like I hadn’t been gone.

View from the back of the guest house towards 15th of May Bridge

Details confirming that view keep on popping up everywhere: The water from the tap tastes the same! And then the muezzin starts singing… AND, of course I have to mention this, guess what, IT’S GETTING D A R K! And FAST.

I really am back.

Although I am really tired I decide to see the “Umm Kulthoum is Back on Stage” string puppet show

at El Sawy Culturewheel. Because it’s close by, I visit Ahmed at his new office before and he spontaneously decides to join. We are a bit late, but no one cares, people keep on coming in for a while still. Umm Kolthoum and her orchestra are already in the middle of their performance. After the Beatles show we saw last year I am once more stunned how well the mouth and instrument movements match the sound and how original Umm Kolthoum’s gestures are. In some songs the whole audience joins in and even the little boy sitting next to me knows the words.