IV. "You are always welcome in Egypt" Part I

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I know that I should be overwhelmed, but strangely I am not. This morning I walked out onto the dusty balcony, all decaffeinated and groggy, but couldn’t help but feel how everything was just as it should be. I coughed instantaneously as the smoke of al-Qahira hit me, like that harsh, inexperienced drag from your first cigarette. The bawwabs (doormen) were chatting up and down the street, occasionally giving a car directions or helping an expat load luggage into a cab. The many police officers sat in gangs drinking tea and coffee with their presumably-unloaded rifles pointed all whichaway. It’s just a matter of time before I lecture one on gun safety.  Wherever there was a load of rubbish there would be stray cats in twos or threes, and the children filled the streets with football (soccer) games and other devices.  Maadi is a quiet neighborhood, but there’s a wealth of life that gives it a 1920’s New-York kind of charm. It is also the tropical paradise of town, very green and shady, with little traffic. That does not eliminate, however, the abundance of honking, for in Cairo you honk  everywhere, for no other reason than to let pedestrians and stray animals know you are nearby.

When I arrived Wednesday night, my cabbie Ahmed told me Maadi was the preference for Americans, but ungodly expensive by Cairene costs.  He had been animated and warm from the moment I got in the taxi at the airport, gesticulating to aid his broken English and laughing at my minimal Arabic. After a brief exchange and a pause he exclaimed, “Welcome to Egypt”! Which was funny, as the young man who had arranged the cab for me had also uttered these words with a look of amusement.  I had simply told him my Arabic was “shwy shwy bas” (only so so). We headed out of the airport at breakneck speed while I struggled with the apparently non-existent seatbelt. As I conceded defeat, the window rolled down and a cop stuck a notebook into car, asking me to sign. “English?” “No, American. Should I sign bil’arabiyya?” “No problem. Welcome to Egypt…” Again, a slightly humored grin.

Cairenes adore Americans very much, and it becomes clear talking to anyone at random. Ahmed the cabbie had worked for an American company on contract and made a fine salary until Obama’s presidency, when the contract ended. Now working as a driver, he lamented the loss of his “Big Am’rican Company” 9 or 10 times throughout the ride. “And Egyptians all love Am’rica – all things Am’rican! Love all Am’ricans!” A friend later postulated that Cairenes might be used to Americans thinking Arabs don’t like them, and the hospitality effort is an attept to amend the notion.

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I’m staying with an American student for a few days until I work out housing details.  Nicole is a talented dancer from Seattle and has been in Cairo for 7 months out of an eventual year.  After waking up at dawn (damn jet-lag) and biding my time until Egypt actually woke up (well after dawn), we went to her work, a belly-dance costumer’s shop in a poorer part of town called al-Haram. While crossing the Nile, with Arabic music blasting and the windows rolled down in classic Cairene-cabbie fashion, I looked to the skyline to notice that larger and more prominent than any high-rise were two golden, ancient pyramids. P-Y-R-A-M-I-D-S. Listen, friend. It does not matter how often in your life you’ve looked upon that image. It does not matter how many screensavers, desktop wallpapers, dormroom posters, bookmarks, doodles you’ve drawn on SAT practice tests, paintings you’ve done at 3 am on school nights, effigies of them in the movies, scenes that take place at or around them in the movies, cartoons that have animated them, Facebook friends who have uploaded photos of them, readings that you’ve done about them, or computer games from the ’90’s that take place in their midsts you have seen before, you will never. EVER. be prepared – to see THE PYRAMIDS – in real life.

Upon getting into al-Haram, we got out and into the open lobby of the building, only to startle two cats fighting – Mau’s, or pyramid cats, the kind ancient Egyptians worshiped. To our left a mangy kitten ran out of a room where I saw a young, tired woman on the floor, nursing a baby. Her hair covered and surrounded by several other small, dirty children sitting in filth, the first thing I noticed were her circle-ringed eyes – because they noticed me right back. On the first floor there was a red splattering on the wall, and Nicole explained that when a new flat is purchased, the inhabitants slaughter an animal like a lamb or goat and share the meat with everyone in the building and the poor people in the area. The blood is painted on the wall to ward off the Evil Eye (jealousy, evil spirits, etc.).

At the door to the shop she rang the bell – WHICH SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE A COMMUNICATOR FROM THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK SERIES. This is a staple of all Egyptian doorbells… Fellow Trekkies, we need to import this immediately. One very large but very beautiful woman greeted us and introduced herself as Ola. After making us Arabic coffee – amazing – thick, gritty, with milk, cardamom and sugar, she left to find the owner, Halla, a Then Halla, the owner, came out looking tired and worn-down but decidedly American. Her blondish grey hair hardly sat in one direction, her eyes ringed with red bags, and her fingernails were remarkably yellowed from smoking. Kind of hard and sarcastic, she took a liking to me and began to elaborate on her 10 years in Cairo.

Within an hour of talking to Ola and Halla, we were joined by Nicole’s language exchange partner Mohammed Ali. Tall and skinny, softspoken and extensively knowledgeable of fuss’ha (classical and Qu’ranic Arabic) and ameyya (Egyptian dialect), Mohammed is easily one of the most earnest people I’ve ever met. We stood on the balcony as he patiently coached Nicole with an expertise for socratic questioning. If I interjected he didn’t hesitate to point out the grammatical variations of the fuss’ha from the ameyya, but would then take my question further and work it back into a line of conversation for Nicole.

When I wasn’t listening to their practice in fascination, I was marveling at the impoverished world below. Directly across from the shop’s building was a garage that had evolved into a dumping ground for waste and sand, and in its serenity a wild dog slept in the shade. Little boys covered in white paint hauled slabs of moulding twice their sizes down the dirt road to a building project. Occassionally, a donkey cart would pass through on the verge of break-down and the owner would yell distinctively while clanging pans. At his call, a hijab-covered girl or a brown man in a flowing galabeya would bring old clothes or used plastic containers for the poor. And after an hour or so the Call to Prayer ceased all conversation with its great volume and proximity. During the rhthymic pauses in the singer’s phrasing, dozens of other calls could be heard like simultaneous echoes from miles around. All at once beautiful and yet eerie.

I also wondered at Mohammed and the ineffable kindness of Egyptians. I don’t know why it should have affected me, but for lack of socialization to Arabs in their native land. Yet I was startled by how pure of intention and platonic his relationship was to Nicole, how happy he was to help and how poised an individual. In one’s own home, far away from the world, it’s so easy to forget that people are the same everywhere. So it was with my first real Egyptian friend. I am indebted to Nicole for the introduction, and grateful to know him.