I was sitting atop the Cairo Tower - 610 ft up. I paid ₤8 to get the lift to the top (which is extortionate for Egypt) so that I could at least have seen the pyramids during my stay.
My trip lasted 5 days and was for the sole purpose of handing in my paperwork for an MA at the American University, Cairo. This took me 4 of my 5 days to organize so on the 5th day I did some site-seeing, taking in the Egyptian museum and scaling the Cairo Tower so I could glimpse the pyramids in the distance. And glimpse them I did. Just. Through the yellowy-brown haze that stretches up from the clusters of grey lego buildings into what eventually becomes blue sky. The silhouettes of the two larger pyramids are just about visible in the distance – dirty clouds around their base.
I could see the Nile, wide and flat, break into two and flow around the island of Gezira in the middle of Cairo on which the Tower, and I, stood. I wondered how far the city stretched in the days of the Pharoahs, I probably could have seen its limits from there, and the surrounding villages. The Pyramids and the Nile are all that are left behind of that great civilization. I wonder what will be let of ours in 3,000 years? Our skyscrapers? Our cathedrals? It seems we have always reached for the heavens, wondering how high we could go and whether it would make a difference.
Our culture prides riches above all. Why else would Tutankhamun be the most famous of all the Pharoahs? He ruled for an extremely short time but his tomb was found almost completely intact with all the beautiful priceless treasures still adorning his body and his place of rest.
The Egyptian Museum has sarcophagi after sarcophagi, beautiful jewellery and statuettes but nothing is said of how the man on the street was buried. Will it only be our rich and powerful leaders who are wondered at behind glass cabinets, nothing said of the people they served?
Having said that, I felt a sadness at the museum – that these pieces of people were not where they would wish them to be. I'm guessing the citizens of Ancient Egypt continue to rest in peace. Unlike their great leaders.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
I'm in Cairo for 5 days trying to sort out all my paperwork so I can apply for an MA in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. This is my 3rd day here and all I've seen of Cairo is the inside of taxis, traffic, the new campus of the American University, Cairo and glimpses of the Nile - which is very wide and flat. I can easily imagine vast, beautiful wooden boats with huge sails mooring beside one another, people clammering, taking sacks and boxes of goods on and off board while dressed in what look like white saris. (I'm not saying any of that is historically accurate, I'm just saying I can easily conjure it up in my mind, probably from reading Asterix and Cleopatra as a kid.)
Even though I haven't been on the usual tourist trails, my impressions of this strange city are still very strong...
The drivers here are actually insane. I thought Syria was bad. They drive just like people in Syria - all the ducking and weaving and no indicating, just a horn to say 'get out the way' 'I'm going left' 'I'm going right' etc. - but about 5x faster. Jeez. I think my new favourite Arabic word is going to be 'majnoon' - crazy. Oh well, at least I'll get a nicely toned bum through all the panicked clenching.
The people are really nice, my cab driver was telling me the finer points of the Egyptian accent which will actually be very useful as it'll help a lot with communication; the differences aren't too extreme I think. Points like they say a hard 'g' instead of the soft 'j' (although it's spelt with a 'j' and they don't officially have a 'g' in the language) will help with easier communication. Also the woman at reception was really sweet, everyone has been. I think having some Arabic really helps - it really warms them up and gets you chatting. I've been warned about keeping my bag and purse close in the souq though as thievery abounds and people (apparently) are a lot more aggressive in trying to sell stuff but I haven't had any experience of that yet. Also at first glance they seems to think I'm Egyptian. The Syrians thought I may be some kind of Arab but not Syrian, however here the guy who did my final passport check after my visa had been stamped was about to wave me through without checking but looked down as I was holding my passport open at the page where my visa and stamp were, he then looked really confused, looked at my visa, looked at me, closed my passport and turned it around to see where I was from, he saw it was British and slowly gave it back to me - still with an extremely confused look on his chops.
Oh, also, on the plane on the way here, the meal put in front of me was two vine leave things, one samosa, one olive, what looked like chicken and ham, some slices of cucumber, some butter and a couple of rolls. So I assumed we were supposed to make some kind of sandwich out of these ingredients. So the first thing i did was cut the roll, smear it with butter, pick up the chicken, rip it up a bit to make sure it didn't poke out of the sides too much, add the cucumber, bite and...oh look it's salmon. Even the texture when I was man-handling it didn't tell me it was salmon. So then I looked again at the ham and thought to myself...I'm flying from a Muslim country to a Muslim country, the likelihood of that being pork is about as likely as an Arab indicating before a turn. Well, I must say I was mighty hungry so scoffed the lot. Still not sure what that other meat was and honestly don't really care as long as my stomach and gut accept it.
(My next trip to the States will be interesting by the way, because of my new passport the only stamps and visas I have are a Syrian one and an Egyptian one and by the end of the trip I'll probably have a Lebanese and Jordanian to add to the collection.)
So I'll leave it there as I've got to go to the University to hand in my application. As long as everything is accepted, I should be able to play tomorrow which should mean stories ahoy.
I'll keep you posted.
Even though I haven't been on the usual tourist trails, my impressions of this strange city are still very strong...
The drivers here are actually insane. I thought Syria was bad. They drive just like people in Syria - all the ducking and weaving and no indicating, just a horn to say 'get out the way' 'I'm going left' 'I'm going right' etc. - but about 5x faster. Jeez. I think my new favourite Arabic word is going to be 'majnoon' - crazy. Oh well, at least I'll get a nicely toned bum through all the panicked clenching.
The people are really nice, my cab driver was telling me the finer points of the Egyptian accent which will actually be very useful as it'll help a lot with communication; the differences aren't too extreme I think. Points like they say a hard 'g' instead of the soft 'j' (although it's spelt with a 'j' and they don't officially have a 'g' in the language) will help with easier communication. Also the woman at reception was really sweet, everyone has been. I think having some Arabic really helps - it really warms them up and gets you chatting. I've been warned about keeping my bag and purse close in the souq though as thievery abounds and people (apparently) are a lot more aggressive in trying to sell stuff but I haven't had any experience of that yet. Also at first glance they seems to think I'm Egyptian. The Syrians thought I may be some kind of Arab but not Syrian, however here the guy who did my final passport check after my visa had been stamped was about to wave me through without checking but looked down as I was holding my passport open at the page where my visa and stamp were, he then looked really confused, looked at my visa, looked at me, closed my passport and turned it around to see where I was from, he saw it was British and slowly gave it back to me - still with an extremely confused look on his chops.
Oh, also, on the plane on the way here, the meal put in front of me was two vine leave things, one samosa, one olive, what looked like chicken and ham, some slices of cucumber, some butter and a couple of rolls. So I assumed we were supposed to make some kind of sandwich out of these ingredients. So the first thing i did was cut the roll, smear it with butter, pick up the chicken, rip it up a bit to make sure it didn't poke out of the sides too much, add the cucumber, bite and...oh look it's salmon. Even the texture when I was man-handling it didn't tell me it was salmon. So then I looked again at the ham and thought to myself...I'm flying from a Muslim country to a Muslim country, the likelihood of that being pork is about as likely as an Arab indicating before a turn. Well, I must say I was mighty hungry so scoffed the lot. Still not sure what that other meat was and honestly don't really care as long as my stomach and gut accept it.
(My next trip to the States will be interesting by the way, because of my new passport the only stamps and visas I have are a Syrian one and an Egyptian one and by the end of the trip I'll probably have a Lebanese and Jordanian to add to the collection.)
So I'll leave it there as I've got to go to the University to hand in my application. As long as everything is accepted, I should be able to play tomorrow which should mean stories ahoy.
I'll keep you posted.
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