.*.*.*.*.*.*. An Introduction in the Desert .*.*.*.*.*.*.


*.*.*.* How do I begin to describe Cairo? With the plane whose wings shuddered as we shot over the vast, weaving sentence of clay buildings, glass skyscrapers,and turquoise Nile, punctuated by great stacked stones that make a city of 17 million souls seem small? Or with the heave and flow of its flush of traffic that squeezes through each intersection as if the traffic lights are lights left up after a forgotten party, long devoid of any meaning or purpose? Or, the most difficult of all to describe, the people of Cairo, who turn the words "Welcome to Cairo" into the most unwelcome of phrases, spat into the ear of each foreigner by every tenth Egyptian? No, I don't believe any words can describe Cairo fully, and certainly not English ones. I can, however, begin to describe my experience here, but it is merely an introduction. The rest of the story you will have to write yourself, my dearest, whenever you are here. And, if you are anything like me, you will be cursing this damned city and making immediate plans to leave as you decide to spend the rest of your life here.
*.*.*.* I shall start with the most important subject: food. For isn't food the fuel that feeds the beast of a machine that is the city? If it is, Cairo's is well oiled. Falafel, baba ganoosh, all preparations of eggplant, potatoes, pita breads, tomatoes, beans, and on and on. Not to mention the juices. Okay, I will; coconut, date milkshake, mango, watermelon, yogurt milkshake, strawberry and banana milkshake, tamarind, lemonade, peach, fig, pomegranate, prickly pear... I savor each morsel and drop as if it cost me my last pound, but it never does. A dinner for three at a good restaurant will run you around 5 pounds (less than a dollar), with leftovers too. Any number of juice bars or bakeries on the way home will satisfy even the most corroded sweet tooth.
*.*.*.* The culture of Cairo is not that of the romantic cosmopolitan city it once was. It has been largely homogenized into a hybrid of cutthroat capitalism and religious fundamentalism, that savage beast that seems to be scouring the globe at our moment in history, chewing up cities full of the juice of a thousand cultures and shitting out a thin grey cream of convenience separated from its origins, mixed with the seething foam of the anger of displacement. It's strange to visit beautiful old mosques that have a thousand years of history resonating in their walls and then find a new but run down mosque not a block away packed with worshipers. It's not because the old mosques are closed to worship or charging to get in. They are neither (except the latter to naive foreigners). But this land is not here for my unraveling. The decisions of groups of people even in my own country often baffles me in as many ways as in this country. I suppose that in the US I am at ease with the fact that it is not something to fully understand, for how can I possibly know it any better, a place that I have lived nearly my whole life. Here there's the illusion that if I stayed a bit longer, it would all make sense, that with enough polishing, the lens of perception would disappear and the contradictions would right themselves. Woe unto the person who places their life solely in the slender hands of logic.
*.*.*.* Speaking of slipping through the fingers, plans for a journey through Israel seem to have vanished, as the undoing of the cease-fire with Hamas has joined with the pains and hassles of the Israel/Egypt border to build a wall not worth crossing. In its stead will be more time in Cyprus and a more leisurely ramble to Istanbul. Jewels lost and gold found. And on the morrow we visit that holy of holies, the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Stay tuned for pictures and videos, if I ever find a connection much better than dial-up.

Postscript: The first three pictures were taken of and/or at Ibn Tulun, an incredible mosque from the 9th century that offered us a few hours of solitude and reflection. The second picture shows in the background the Muhammed Ali Mosque, whose limestone was taken from the pyramids. The third picture shows the big pyramid in the background, to the left of the tall building (it's difficult to see). The fourth picture is Nick and Teresa walking in the alleyways of Coptic Cairo.