@ sixes & sevens

Summer interlude, with flamingos

It has been so quiet in this space -- I have been wrestling for months with a blog post that simply won't write itself! -- that I offer in the meantime this video clip of the flamingos in the Bronx Zoo, from our visit there some weeks back.

Cairo finale: hold that memory

SIGHTSEEING IS GIVING WAY to more mundane activities centered around getting packed and getting home. Kiki got one more giant suitcase, which we hope will be enough for all her belongings. Tonight will probably be a preliminary packing just to make sure. The router will probably go back to the IT provider this evening, leaving us Internetless until we get back to New York. That's probably more a 'hardship' for me than for Kiki.

We aren't entirely avoiding entertainment. Last night we went to a packed-house screening of twelve short documentaries shot by graduate students and local continuing professionals as part of AUC's electronic journalism program. The 'first person' project called on the students to profile an individual or group with an emphasis on first-person narration. Most of them were quite well done with only a ringer or two in the bunch. (Unfortunately the short subject on the camel market was one of the poorest.)

Tomorrow night we host the 'Yalla Bye-Bye' party for Kiki. It looks as if well have upwards of two dozen guests! I'll be busy squeezing photos no doubt, which I will have to upload once I'm in New York. The next morning (Wednesday) it's back to reality. Luckily the expected high temperature has been reduced from 105 degrees to only 101. And at about 3 a.m. on Thursday morning we pile into the minivan and head for the airport.

Cairo finale: Last call

THE OTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT as I tossed and turned, I caught the azaan (adhan) al-fajr, or first call to prayer of the day. Something odd struck me about it this time: it seemed actually pleasant, not the cacophonous and drawn out caterwauling I had grudgingly become accustomed to. I sensed that Kiki was awake, so I mentioned how different it sounded to my ears. "Oh, the government made them all use the same call to prayer. It happened a couple of months ago." And she rolled over and went back to sleep.

But this news, far from answering my curiosity, actually troubled me. Was this some sort of homogenization effort by the government to make Cairo more palatable to the likes of me? Did I ask for this? Was there really a problem here that needed solving?

The next morning I quizzed Kiki further about it. She remembered reading it in the English-language Al-Ahram Weekly a while back, she was sure I could find the story online. (Which I did and so can you, here from AFP and here, a few weeks later, on NPR.)

Truth told part of the problem of the azaan is that each mosque has a different call, of differing quality, played over systems with varying levels of sound quality. The fact that they aren't synchronous, one of the points made by a Ministry official, seems much less important than these other factors, certainly when taken together. I'm certainly not in any position to tell whose version is better than another. It certainly suggests what's patently untrue, that Islam as practiced is uniform or homogenous.

Maybe part of my unhappiness is the sense that future tourists like us won't be sharing one of those quintessential hazing experiences of the Muslim world. Kiki and I still recall, fondly I suppose, in the summer of 1990, finding an acceptable hotel in the seaside town of Tabarka, Tunisia, to bed down in ... only to be rudely jolted out of our beds early the next morning by the deafening azaans from three nearby mosques. The hotel was situated at the aural intersection of all three.

Maybe the biggest problem, at least in the case of the azaah al-fajr, might be that the 'approved' version might be too beautiful to rouse you from your slumbers; for in the words of the azaan,

الصلاة خير من النوم (Prayer is better than sleep). 

Cairo finale: Camel market

FLUSH WITH OUR SUCCESS with the trip to the October War Panorama, Kiki and I decided to tackle another overlooked destination: the camel market. Hatsuki had reminded us of it over tea a few nights before. Lucky for us the market happens every Friday, and Friday was only a few days away.

Until a few years ago the market was held in the Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba. We would learn afterward that the government didn't feel it was an appropriate tourist site even then. They moved the whole operation to Bil'esh, some forty kilometers northwest of downtown Cairo. Tourist buses aren't permitted, and it takes either the intrepid native transport fan or just someone willing to hire a taxi for a few hours to get there. As for ambiance, seekers of the warm-and-fuzzy might want to stay away.

We managed to get up and out of the house before seven-thirty, and by chance the first cab we saw was discharging its passengers. After a quick negotiation we were off and away. Of course, it turned out that our driver thought the market was still in Imbaba and headed there. Imbaba is arguably one of the poorest and least picturesque neighborhoods in Cairo. We crawled through central Imbaba behind slow-moving traffic, a teeth rattling journey past dusty storefronts and abandoned and cannibalized cars; a continuous trash heap ran down the center of the street. It's jarring to see what to you are noble egrets stalking through the piles of garbage, but they have to eat too.

From there we moved farther out of town, stopping occasionally to let the driver to ask where the camel market was. It was all quite lighthearted, but after the third or fourth set of directions you began to wonder whether the average Egyptian on the street would offer directions whether he knew or not. We bombed down well paved stretches of highway, weaving in and out of slow moving and oncoming traffic, with the walled estancias of the wealthy on either side; only to slow to a crawl for the frequent speed bumps, missing pavement, or obstacles. Along one stretch the driver pointed to a camel headed in the same direction on the other side of the canal -- as if this were proof we were on the right road. Kiki even spotted an enormous sign that read "Camel Market" at one point. I was amazed that she knew what sign to read and what to ignore, they all look pretty much the same to me. But even so the market wasn't exactly down the road. We knew we must have been close when we passed the smoldering tip with the carcasses of camels in it: auspicious only in that we were close.

THE LINE OF CAMELS outside the walls of the market was our clue that we were there, about an hour after we set out. We doled out 60 LE for two tickets and two camera permits and began to walk down the central road. On either side were gatherings of camels, from a half-dozen to several dozen, like small cocktail party groups, standing and sitting camels alike. Most every one had one leg hobbled to prevent it from dashing off. Those that weren't did tend to dash about unexpectedly: One camel racing up from behind and was past us before we realized how close we came to being mowed down. The owners and their assistants would thwap his camel charge with a large stick every so often, ostensibly to keep them in line but probably as much out of boredom as anything.

On the whole the camels themselves weren't the handsomest bunch you're ever likely to come across, even given the selection among the hundreds we saw there. Many of them seemed to be shorn of their camel hair. Each camel had a distinctive design spray painted on its shoulder to mark its owner. Kiki did manage to spot a couple of cuties all the same. You also didn't feel the urge to reach out to touch or pet them, although again Kiki got a chance to pet a juvenile camel with supervision. I had originally though these animals were mostly sold for hauling or racing, but Kiki suggested that some of them might simply become dinner. This did put a damper on our enjoyment the proceedings. The camel merchants pretty much ignored us as we walked among the flocks. I think we saw two other tourists during our visit.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON Nigel and some locals he had hired came to take away the washing machine. It resembled a visit by the Keystone Kops: they wanted to cadge tools from us (they hadn't brought any), they weren't entirely sure how to secure the drum during transport, and they had this tiny little Suzuki mini-truck to transport it, the three guys and Nigel back to his flat. We haven't heard yet whether they successfully attached it at his house. He'll be coming to the farewell party on Tuesday: we should find out then.

Cairo finale: Roadside Egypt

'YOW!'

I woke up clutching my foot and rolodexing my brain to figure out where I was and what just happened. Before long I settled on: Cairo, in bed, and chomped on by Zadeh in the middle of the night.  By then she had vanished into the darkness and retribution seemed pointless. (It would only have been to grab her by the scruff and march her to her 'bucket'.) There's little consolation in knowing you've 'arrived' in the cat's estimation.

DINNER LAST NIGHT with Hatsuki and her beau Armando turned out quite pleasant. (Sorry, no photos.) The restaurant, Estoril, was not the one we thought and feared it would be. The fare was Egypto-Lebanese, which is to say Cockeyed Continental. Its local claim to fame is that it was where some scenes from "The Yacoubian Building" were filmed. Mind you, I haven't seen it myself so I couldn't say, but we do have the DVD (in PAL, but we'll figure that out eventually). Hatsuki is a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford working on a dissertation about the 'fan club' surrounding a now deceased charismatic Sufi sheikh from Cairo. Kiki and she met in a colloquial Egyptian language class last year and hit it off.

After dinner we picked up Kiki's favorite rice pudding-to-go and wandered to a pedestrian passage where we sat and had tea. Downtown Cairo was jumping in the cooler evening hours, a more laid back urban liveliness I hadn't experienced here until just then (and didn't know enough to realize I was missing it). There was a general hubbub, the sound of traffic and horns in the background, and the rolling of dice and the slapping of backgammon tiles more nearby.

AFTER A MILD HISSY FIT yesterday when I expressed disappointment at not doing much that was fun so far on this trip, we came up with the idea to visit the October War Panorama out in Heliopolis. You see it every trip you take to or from the airport: This building that looks like a hat box surrounded by planes, tanks and artillery. We had each harbored a desire to visit it but somehow had never mentioned it to the other.

Those Zionist Imperialist history buffs among you might know the 1973 October War as the Yom Kippur War. On the other hand, if everything you knew was based on a visit to the Panorama, as our guidebook points out, "you might almost think the Egyptians had actually won the October War."

"During President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak's visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [North Korea to you and me] in 1983," the back of our ticket tells us, "he agreed with the Korean President Kim Il Sung that Korean technicians would help construct a monument to honor the great October Victory, the heroic deeds of the Egyptian people and their brave sons of the Armed Forces."

Well, you can certainly see the Subtle Hand of the Great Leader and Eternal President in the style of presentation here. And a tour of the Egyptian armaments on the museum grounds reminds you that once upon a time it was the Russians supplying Egypt with all their hardware. The MiGs are really quite fascinating to behold. Across the center drive are a number of American- and British-made tanks captured by the Egyptians during the early hours of the war.

Once inside the rotunda boasts bas-relief murals illustrating great historical battles in Egypt, such as the battle to unite Upper and Lower Egypt. A large mosaic depicts the generals planning the assault on the Bar-Lev Line. The flags of all the branches of the armed forces and various cavalry battalions ring the circular hall. After a little while we were ushered into a side hall with theater seating facing a wide pale blue curtain. Audio headsets were fetched and tested for the English translation. The lights went down, the curtains parted, and we were treated to a black-light diorama of ... well, I couldn't exactly say what it was. Miniature radar screens whirled wobbly, tiny fighter planes periodically crossed the sky on their not-so-invisible wires, lights illuminated parts of the terrain, rockets rose en masse to the curtained rafters or descended to the ground ... all accompanied by martial music and stentorian narration. The English version was quite poetic, considering it described a military campaign.

That presentation over, we were led to the central core and up the curving staircase to the piece de resistance: A 360-degree near life-sized panorama of the battle scene with trompe l'oeil murals. We sat on an enormous turntable and slowly revolved around the tableaux. Once again the battle was rolled out for us (once again over our headsets). [For a video clip of the presentation -- uploaded sideways, unfortunately -- click here.] I have to admit that the mural painting was spectacular, in some cases surprisingly realistic. The foreground was strewn with the detritus of war -- spent shells (they looked a little like cigarette butts at first glance), the stray boot, a three-quarter sized tank in ruins. Any corpses were painted ones, on the backdrop. By now we probably could have passed a test on the events of the war. But we still had one more room to go.

In the last room another diorama, this one no longer used, was the floor for a projection screen on which was played newsreel footage and 'Hollywood' re-enactments of the first glorious days of the October War. Several scenes ran twice, and I noticed one ran three times, all to support more stirring accounts of the battle. I could see in the footage the source material for some of the panorama depictions.

But this was about as much as we truly needed to see, so after leaving the museum grounds we caught a cab to the City Stars Mall to grab a bite to eat and maybe do a little stray shopping.

Cairo finale: out with the old and in with the oud

My brain may finally have caught up with my body yesterday, but it didn't guarantee a good night's sleep. No, it wasn't the muezzin call at whatever god awful hour that takes place: that I slept through. No, it wasn't the cat throwing up (that was the first night). It was the extra hard mattress that makes me sore after only about six hours on it. After what must have been ninety restive minutes of tossing and turning, I eventually decamped to the living room sofa, where I could luxuriate in its overstuffed cushiness. Dawn (or at least our scheduled hour of rising) came too soon today.

Dinner at Taboula was a nice way to unwind. Next time maybe I'll order the 'lamb cubes' that Kiki got. We sat next to a table of AUC students -- juniors? seniors? -- and I was swiftly reminded of my college days. Two women and three men made up the group, most of them sucking on their shishas -- that last feature, I hasten to point out, wasn't part of my college days. No, it was the posturing of the male of the species before the females of same. They must have been Arabic Studies or PoliSci students, judging from their fascination with Middle Eastern geopolitics. One gassy male in particular (he wore his NY baseball cap throughout the evening) was particularly sure of himself, delivering pearls about this Arab state and that one, using the word 'hegemon' three times in one very long sentence (if you don't stop with a period, you don't risk being interrupted).

For a while the women were game, challenging the most flagrant oversimplifications. One was evidently Iranian-American, which not gave her special credibility but also made her the go-to person to field unanswerable questions about the future direction of Iran. Before long the women tired of the men's conversation and spoke mostly to each other. The men continued to spread their feathers before a more appreciative audience, themselves. I leaned over to Kiki and whispered what frightened me most was that these guys were probably going to be making U.S. foreign policy in twenty years or so.

Like clockwork the packers arrived at eight-thirty this morning and took away the boxes they had packed a few days before. It barely interrupted our breakfast. Now we simply have to hope that it's as smooth on the other end of the shipment, although we have been assured and reassured of this. But that's only one of the day's tasks. We schlepped the last remaining books signed out to Kiki back to the Library, only to learn that there's one stray not accounted for; We're hoping it didn't get packed in the shipment. And then the postponed shopping trip to Zamalek for groceries; home for lunch; and then out to 'Attaba Square to buy that oud.

I've got to hand it to Kiki: she doesn't let the fact that she hasn't a clue how to play an oud stop her from going out and buying one. It's what she wants, and that's that. After three phone calls to Lufthansa talking to as many people there, she finally got from them an admission that she could take the oud on board with her, no problem. The web site had suggested special treatment for musical instruments. It turned out that meant buying a seat just for the instrument. Then they assured her it was too big to go in the cabin, it would have to be checked. And then that it most likely would be too large for 'excess baggage'. It was looking more and more like it would have to be added to the AUC shipment.

But buoyed by this good news, we went back to the store with the instrument Kiki liked best and began the purchase. By great good luck we were joined in the store by a delightful South African on a quest for strings for his twelve-string guitar. It was his third country on this search, and he figured if he couldn't find them in Cairo he was sunk. (Of course, the other two were Kenya and Morocco.) We struck up a conversation with him -- after all, he spoke English and knew far more about stringed instruments than we did. He found his strings, we got a lesson in stringing the oud, and after we all left the store we decided to go have a coffee together and get acquainted.

Karabo it turns out works for the SABC (South African Broadcasting Company) as an analyst and advanced researcher for national elections. He's based out of Kenya but working out of Cote d'Ivoire mostly, with responsibility for covering the continent (outside of RSA, presumably). This was his holiday and the first time to Cairo. Needless to say, he's otherwise widely traveled, and that promised lots of stories and observations. For having been in Cairo only a few days he'd picked up quickly on a lot of the contradictions of Egypt, social and economic. In some respects I think this must have felt like 'civilization' to him, although he assured me that the 'controlled chaos' of street life in Cairo was the same across the continent. He has a perfectly delightful laugh, which he delivers freely and frequently: quite infectious. We've invited him for the farewell party next week and we hope he can join us.

Tonight it's another dinner out (lah-dee-dah), this time with Kiki's colleague Hatsuki at a restaurant that I'm assured has great food even if the decor is over the top. (Of course, I don't know the name, but you can expect a report in the next post.)

Cairo finale: the time warp again

It's only Tuesday and I feel as if I've been here for a week. For everyone back home it's been no more than a three-day holiday weekend. Adding to the seven-hours time difference is a work week that begins on Sunday, making Tuesday the Cairenes' hump day.

Word evidently went out last night that today was going to be a scorcher, so the locals seem to be taking it slower themselves. Lucky thing: The New York Times says it hit 105 degrees today. So maybe that was the airport temperature, but I wouldn't expect it to be much cooler in downtown Cairo, given the pavement and vehicle traffic. There's a persistent 'breeze' as well, effectively sucking out any residual bodily moisture.

Kiki headed out for her swim early this morning, and then crossed town to the veterinarian's office in Zamalek to start the paperwork needed to get Zadeh back into the States. She only needs to surrender her passport, wait a few days, and pony up 100 LE and furface can accompany us on the flight.

After a leisurely lunch at Pizza Hut (with waiter service, I'll have you know), we crossed under Tahrir Square to the Nile Hilton, where I got my annual haircut. A lovely job (no hairspray this time), for only 60 LE. And the hairdresser remembered me from last year! Okay, so maybe it's not so hard to remember this head of hair.

We've given up the idea of shopping for dinner tonight (two cab rides and about a hour round trip) in favor of hitting up our favorite local bistro, Tabouleh, or maybe to the vegetarian place in Zamalek, L'Aubergine. That sound about the right speed, and I have all these lira burning a hole in my pocket.

Tomorrow we go back to Oud Row (Shari'a Muhammad 'Ali) for Kiki to buy her instrument. I offered to pay for shipping it if it went separately, just to keep from worrying about it on the flight. Now it looks as if we can send it with us as excess airline baggage (discounted for musical instruments), and get the packers from AUC to build a wooden box around it for safe shipping.

Just another day in Cairo.

(About the photo: The bright red-orange trees throughout Garden City have proven impossible to capture accurately. This must be the fourth or fifth try. The camera insists on washing out the brilliant colors. What's up with that?)

Cairo finale: the packers

Well, we had a wonderful time at Jonelle's for dinner last night ... such a good time that we've been feeling wretched all day. Too much Scheherazade, the Egyptian white wine, for our own good. We ate as well as we drank, I hasten to add, and dinner was scrumptious. You'd have thought we were all conversation starved the way we talked about nearly everything under the sun, from Pro-Choice politics in the States to the lures and pitfalls of living overseas.

It made for a fitful night for us both. Kiki had to head over to campus to give a final exam at 9 a.m. My chore was hosting the unctuous Mr. N* from the Housing Office. It was described to me as an 'inventory': an accounting of all the AUC furniture and furnishings. But far from an inventory, we simply took a spin around the apartment, I signed a document indicating when we would be vacating, and after fifteen minutes he was out the door.

Since the maid was due at eleven, I couldn't exactly loll around the apartment: she usually does her handiwork alone. So I stumped off to campus and holed up in the library. As I write this (at 9:30 at night) it's 91 degrees out. It was supposedly 96 degrees today, and it's expected to be 101 tomorrow. That said, any plans I might have had of gallivanting around Cairo came to a crashing (and sweaty) halt. Between the hangover, lack of sleep, and jet lag, I'm not in the best shape for challenging temperatures. It also strikes me that as I get older I am less tolerant of extreme heat. So hanging out in the library trying to get interested in The Forsyte Saga was about the right speed.

Kiki and I decided to take a cab to Zamalek for lunch at Mezza Luna, to which she had been introduced only last week. She had a heaping salad of greens and shaved Parmesan cheese. That was the way to go. I opted for Pasta Rosso (okay, the name caught my attention), which would have been fine if they had managed to cook the pasta even as much as al dente.

No rest for the wicked: Kiki had ordered bespoke sandals from a shoe salon in Downtown Cairo. Her first fitting last week was something of a struggle between Egyptian 'good enuf' (the shoemaker) and a comfortable fit. This second fitting -- the shoemaker adjusted the straps to the sole with masking tape -- was no less a struggle, but by the end it looked as if a really handsome pair of sandals was in the offing.

By now our little tails were dragging, so after picking up some things at her office, Kiki and I headed home (on foot, naturally) and crashed until the packers arrived at five. This was another anxiety-producing necessity, but we were proved spectacularly wrong. A crew of two young men, a middle-aged man and a short and indomitable henna-haired granny showed up practically on time with all their supplies. In forty-five minutes they had assembled the boxes (quite elaborate ones at that), bubble wrapped the fragibles, and packed 110 kilos worth of rugs, clothing, books and supplies into four neat boxes: Very impressive! Tomorrow morning at 8:30 they show up to load the boxes and send them to an AUC storeroom. If all goes well the boxes should arrive shortly after we do late next week or early the next week. Amazing.

So not much chance for sightseeing (trust me, it'll be way too hot for that tomorrow) yet. But we may be reduced to that if everything else about wrapping up the Cairo adventure goes as smoothly as today.

Cairo finale: oud-é fixe

I admit it's been pretty quiet around these parts lately. Seems the blog revives only when I'm overseas, and this trip promises to be my last to Cairo for a while. Not that I'm all that broken up about that: The prospect of bringing Kiki back to the States, however briefly she alights in New York, makes this trip both necessary and entirely endurable.

As if to make the visit all the more rewarding, the trip to Cairo did not go without a hitch. The travel itinerary included a forty-five minute layover in Frankfurt that seemed dodgy at best. By the time we took off from JFK, it was almost two hours after our scheduled pull back from the gate. Our pilot was guardedly optimistic that we'd make up for lost time in the crossing, but when we touched down in Frankfurt thirty minutes after my plane left for Cairo, there wasn't much point in worrying. Many of my fellow passengers had missed their connections as well, so there was a relaxed resignation throughout the cabin.

The next flight to Cairo was nearly five hours away. After picking up my new boarding pass, calling Kiki to let her know I wasn't on the flight she thought I was on, exchanging some dollars for euros (ouch!), and scarfing down this remarkably dreadful breakfast offering from McDonald's, I still had three and a half hours to kill in Franfurt Airport. I've never really cottoned to the airport, and it somehow seemed all the more depressing this time. The transatlantic crossing out-of-body experience makes most time killing activities hard to concentrate on. I spent most of my time alternately waiting for the flight to appear on the departures screens and nodding off in uncomfortable seating.

But leave we did, and the flight to Cairo was as painless as it was swift. Kiki was there at the airport to chaperone me back to the apartment, and we both managed to keep our eyes open long enough to cook a real meal and eat it. We crashed and burned immediately after.

Today was mostly a get-used-to-Cairo sort of day, which I spent lollygagging around the apartment reading, showering,  napping, and then meeting Kiki for lunch near campus. I managed to leave my AUC i.d. in New York, so we got me a spiffy new i.d. for the souvenir i.d. collection. Kiki had been to an oud concert given by Naseer Shamma and ensemble a few days ago, and it put into her head the idea of getting an oud of her very own. She had scouted out oud shops in Cairo and we strolled into three of them on this initial sortie. Mind you, Kiki's never played an oud before, and as she told the shopkeepers, it had been a long time since she had played guitar. ("Min zamaan, min zamaan!") But far be it from that to daunt her, as she strummed the ouds proffered to her and asked questions in a mixture of English and Arabic. We think we know which one she's going to bring back with her. It's hard not to imagine this is only an effort to make juggling our carry-on luggage that more difficult -- not unlike the jugglers who juggle a chainsaw and a bowling ball.

Tonight we're off to what I hope is the first of a succession of dinners out, with her teaching colleague Jonelle and her cat Zorba in Zamalek. Should be a lot of fun.

The exoticism of camels

For Kiki:

'One of the finest things is the camel,' wrote Flaubert from Cairo. 'I never tire of watching this strange beast that lurches like a donkey and sways like a swan. Its cry is something that I wear myself out trying to imitate--I hope to bring it back with me, but it's hard to reproduce a rattle with a kind of tremulous gurgling as an accompaniment.' Writing to a family friend a few months after he left Egypt, he listed the thinks that had most impressed him in that country: the pyramids, the temple at Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, some dancers in Cairo, a painter named Hassan el Bilbeis. 'But my real passion is the camel (please don't think I'm joking); nothing has a more singular grace than this melancholic animal. You have to see a group of them in the desert when they advance in single file across the horizon, like soldiers; their necks stick out like those of ostriches, and they keep going, going ...' -- Alain de Boton, 'On the Exotic,' in The Art of Travel (2002)