Cairo: friends now

No photos for this entry, but a story worth hearing, I promise.

We arrived in Cairo in the early afternoon, and immediately ran into trouble. The tour company that was supposed to meet us with our train and boat tickets was nowhere to be found, so we took a cab to the main train station in Ramses Square. Cairo was, as advertised, big, noisy, dusty and dirty, but we were thrilled nonetheless.

The thrill ended when it took almost three hours to sort out our train tickets: we planned to take a sleeper train overnight to Aswan, where we would board our boat for a three day cruise down the Nile. Our efforts were complicated because this was not only Friday, but the final Friday of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Although Cairo is a fairly secular city in what (by the Islamic world’s standards) a fairly secular country, you can expect the world to grind to a halt come sundown on Friday. Add to this the fact that, like every day in Ramadan, most everyone has been fasting since dawn and people are generally short of both energy and patience. Our travel company office had apparently shut down early, also not uncommon this time of year.

To our rescue came a young officer of the tourist police named Mohammed (who else saves you during Ramadan?), who despite a limited grasp of English was able to ascertain our problems and steer us to the correct office. When everything was resolved, it was after five, and what we had hoped would be a day of tourism in old Cairo had instead been spent navigating the bureaucracy of the train system. We weren’t going to waste our nearly three hours before departure, though, so we headed out to explore after stowing our bags in a locker.

Directly across the square stood a large mosque, and we headed inside, leaving our shoes with the minder at the door. Normally women aren’t allowed inside, but westerners like Nathalie are regularly given a pass (we later hypothesized that with her short haircut and the right shirt, we could and perhaps should have made her appear a young boy). The space inside was the size of three basketball courts, and covered in a thin but soft green carpet. Perhaps a hundred men sat around the columns or walls reading the Koran or talking quietly. As soon as we found a spot to sit, several men came up to us offering dates or date rolls (fig newtons but with date filling), the later of which we accepted. Muslim tradition, I later learned, teaches that the Prophet broke his fasts with dates.

A few minutes later the light outside began to fail, and the muezzin came to a microphone at the front of the room, faced the wall (which of course faced Mecca) and began to chant. Everyone around the room eagerly unwrapped their dates as the call went out over the loudspeakers outside the building. Other men gathered around large water coolers, drinking deeply (the especially devout do not even drink water while the sun is in the sky).

A moment later men began queuing at the front of the room, and to my surprise, they began beckoning me to join them. I extended my lower lip, pointed dubiously at my chest and shrugged in what I hoped was the international sign for “I seriously doubt you mean THIS white boy.” They seemed to understand, but were insistent. Nervously, I handed Nathalie my fig wrapper and walked to the front to take my place in line.

Having been raised Catholic, I’m no stranger to calisthenics during a worship service, so I was comfortable following the motions, and if my silence during the call-and-response portion was awkward, no one acknowledged it. We bowed, put hands on knees, and of course touched foreheads to the ground multiple times. After about ten minutes, the service concluded and the line dispersed, some staying behind to pray further. It’s a powerful practice to experience even when you don’t understand the words.

My neighbor stopped me as I moved to stand, and clapped me warmly on the shoulder. He started speaking rapidly in Arabic, smiling and pointing alternately at me and the sky. I have no idea what he said, but whatever it was, it was full of affection and piety, probably just an expression of joy that I, clearly a nonbeliever, was there sharing prayer with him. It was wonderful: I was so nervous that my participation was somehow inappropriate or rude, and my new friend had banished that fear. Now my only regret was that I hadn’t gone to the bath under the mosque to cleanse myself first. I wish I could have conveyed to him my gratitude.

I walked back to Nathalie and we gathered our things to leave. As I tipped the shoe minder and we recovered our sneakers, a bearded young man began a fervent argument with the shoe minder (who also acts as the doorman), gesturing disapprovingly at Nathalie. The minder shook his head, unfazed, and though he listened attentively to the young man’s rant, he gave no ground in approving her presence. It was an interesting lesson for my first day in an Islamic country: purists exist, but the moderates win, at least this time.

We headed out into the city at random looking for food: Nathalie had determined that during Ramadan she wouldn’t eat or drink in public during the day, so both of us were starving. After walking a few blocks we came upon a modest street café in a side alley, where we were able to point at several dishes that looked promising. The owner showed us to a table and brought us round little loaves of bread, stewed vegetables, pickled veggies in a pink vinegar, plump-kerneled bowls of rice, and Egyptian felafel, called ta’amiyya. It was delicious. When we took out our money to pay, our host refused to take it; broad shakes of his head brooked no argument. It suddenly dawned on us that this was Ramadan, on a Friday, when the wealthy are obligated to feed the poor. It at least one Muslim home, it seems, this extends to travelers. He turned to Nathalie and said the only English we heard from him: “Friends, yes?” He then grabbed my shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks, smiling into my face with perfect affection. Welcome to Egypt.

An hour later we were checked into a comfortable two-berth cabin headed down the length of the lower Nile to Aswan. When we woke just at daybreak a few miles short of the station, we looked out our window to see the hot air balloons greeting the dawn over the fields of papyrus.