This is our last full day in Egypt.
Tomorrow we'll be flying back to Germany. It's a bittersweet
feeling. This has been such an intense experience, it feels in some
ways we've been gone a year. But Peter's got a bad cold, and I think there
isn't much more I can take in. It's time to go back home and resume
our old life. But until then, we'll experience as much as we can today.
At breakfast I see two women who
couldn't be more different. One of them is a blonde - a European?
She is accompanied by two men, and is wearing a very low-cut top
showing much of her ample breasts. She is dressed in a very short
skirt. My eyes feel almost assaulted by the sight. Is it more of
this that we'll be going back to? At least it's winter, when people
cover more of their bodies for warmth. I know I'm quite conservative
about clothing. I don't wear low-cut tops in Germany, even though
some of my Christian friends are very generous when it comes to
offering glimpses of the upper parts of their bodies. I feel
offended, but say nothing. We live in a free country, and I value freedom
even more than modest attire.
There is another woman who almost takes
my breath away. Her beauty strikes me as something almost
otherworldly, entirely different from that of Mohammed's
archaeologist friend. Her eyes are large, open and warm. She moves
with modesty and grace. She is dressed in a long, straight, brown and
beige gown with a long matching scarf covering her head. She seems
to float through the room. She has two handsome boys and a
distinguished looking husband. The males are all dressed in Western
casual attire. I noticed her yesterday, and longed to know at least
where they come from. Today I muster up courage, despite Peter's
protests about my invading their privacy. I walk up to their table,
ask if they speak English, and they say yes. I tell her I love her
clothes, and ask where they're from. "Pakistan," her
husband says. When they have finished their meal, on their way out
of the restaurant, the entire family walks up to us, shakes our hands
and wishes us a good day.
As I leave the hotel, I spontaneously
decide to cover my head with my scarf. We buy some water for the
day at a kiosk, and an Egyptian woman, also waiting to buy something,
notices my scarf and smiles at me in approval. I like the feeling of
having my head covered. I wouldn't want it forced on me, but I feel
somehow more lady-like this way. We pass a mosque just before prayer
time. A man stops me and says, "I know you have Egyptian
blood, but you should wait until the service is over to go into the
mosque." After a while, I let the scarf fall down to my
shoulders again. I am touched in surprising ways as this by this culture,
but I am still a Westerner.
We take the Metro to Old Cairo. We
know what we're doing now, and grin at each other because we have the
same thought - we can get around Cairo on our own!
Woodwork in the Hanging Church |
Interior of St. Barbara Church |
We peek into St. Barbara, another of
the oldest Coptic churches of Cairo. It has more of that beautiful
woodwork which originated with the Copts. This
technique uses a combination of ivory,
ebony and bone as inlay for the wood. This technique was
incorporated into Muslim art and later spread all over the Muslim
world.
Interior of Ben Ezra Synagogue |
We see the same woodwork in the oldest
synagogue in Cairo, Ben Ezra, just a few steps away from St. Barbara.
This synagogue, originally a church, was purchased in 882 A.D. by
Abraham ibn Ezra of Jerusalem, and beautifully restored. Here we see
more of the woodwork we've seen in the churches and mosques.
According to tradition, this is the very spot Moses was supposed to
have been found as a baby in a basket in the bulrushes. This
symbolically significant location is practically next door to another
one - the site, now the crypt of St. Sergius Church, where Mary and
Joseph are said to have fled with baby Jesus. Ben Ezra was once an
important synagogue for Cairo. Maimonedes, one of the most famous of
Jews in history, worshipped here. Cairo had 60,000 Jewish inhabitants until 1947, when Jews began to be evicted en masse
from Egypt. Now there are only about 100 Jews left in Cairo, and
this synagogue is a museum. How sad! Cairo and Alexandria have had the same fate - losing that wonderful blend of cultures because people let their fear, prejudice, and excessive patriotism turn into hegemony. They are all the poorer for it. This country, as other Arab nations I have read about and Germany, which I know first-hand, has suffered from the consequences of bigotry and antisemitism. But, unlike in Germany, it seems as though the need to rise from hundreds of years of subjugation by countries such as Turkey, France and Britain, leaves no room for exploration of one's own part in a guilty past. Hubris leads to its own fall, and all that follows is impoverishment.
We shop on the ancient "book mall"
street, finding several excellent books in English, which we buy.
There are also many in French and German. This is our last chance to
buy books - the airport will only have the same old travel books.
It's a good thing the books are covered in plastic - it's raining! A
rare occurrance for Cairo.
Exterior of Coptic Museum |
We learn some interesting things about Christianity here. We learn
that the transition to complete Christianity in Egypt was gradual.
We see gravestones with both a cross and the ancient Egyptian god
Anubis. There are lots of Greek mythological sculptures, sometimes
mixed with ancient Egyptian motifs, and others with Christian
symbols. The dominant religion of Egypt was Christian, from the time
of the inception of the Church until about 900 AD, when Islam slowly took over. Now Egypt is 90% Muslim, with only 10% being Coptic.
Since the revolution in January 2011, around 100,000 Copts have left Egypt. I wonder if the same thing will happen to them as happened to
the Jews. I hope and pray not.
We see one of the first ever bound books, from about 800 AD, I think.
There are also some of the gnostic writings found in Nag Hamadi, on
display.
In the afternoon, on our way back to
the hotel, Peter, weakened by his cold, really needs to eat. We walk
by a fast-food restaurant. "Koshary Restaurant," it
says. We have no idea what koshary is,
but we decide to enter anyway, looking forward to an adventure. It
turns out to be a
concoction of two types of noodles, lentils, tomato sauce, topped
with fried onions. It is spicy, a little bit vinegary, and
delicious. It costs only about a euro to get full on this delicious
meal.
We rest for the rest of the afternoon,
and then take a taxi to the restaurant where we will eat our last
dinner in Cairo - at the Sabaya, the Lebanese restaurant in the
Semiramis Hotel. Even before you walk inside, it is inviting,
with decorated wrought iron lamps giving off a dim
light.
We each order a menu - fish for me and
grilled meat for Peter. Everything is exquisite, absolutely
beautiful to look at and delicious. I loved the cold karkadé tea,
and could swear there is cardamom and cinnamon, maybe also cloves
mixed in, but the manager says it is only the hibiscus. I get the
feeling that Lebanese must be to the Arabic cuisine what the French
is to the European. Egyptian food is similar to Lebanese, it appears, but the Lebanese seem to have
a way of refining it all. We must go to Beirut some day and find out for ourselves. I am
ecstatic about everything we eat, from the mezze to
dessert. At the end of the meal, the manager brings us a
treat - a Lebanese tea, which I think is heated rosewater, in lovely
crystal cups with the metal handle at the bottom, like a tea glass.
He's so pleased with my compliments, he asks if we could write an
honest report of the meal. The only negative thing there is to say
is that the waiter didn't ask which dessert we wanted, so in the end
we got both kinds, including the mahalabiya, which
I've been wanting to try. What a way to end our trip to Egypt!
We end
the evening with a romantic stroll on the bridge next to the
Semiramis Hotel. We hear Arabic music in the distance. It's coming
from one of those boats I read about in Coctails and Camels
- we see the legs of dancers moving to the rhythm of the music. And
ahead of us, a car is parked right on the bridge, slowing down the
traffic. People do things like that in this crazy city. People
stand next to the car, enjoying the Nile at night. Our last night on
the Nile.
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