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| Tuesday May 13, 2008 |
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By Christopher Kenneally
Tourism In Egypt - What's The Real Story? CAIRO, EGYPT -- Sharia al-Muski, a medieval footpath worn rough by the traffic of seven centuries, runs directly through the heart of Islamic Cairo. "Muski Street" and the adjacent Khan al Khalili bazaar are to commercial life in Cairo what the Nile River and its sprawling delta are to Egyptian agriculture--a timeless source of sustenance and activity.
The passage of non-Egyptians, however, could certainly be counted on to attract some attention. Lanky young men in jeans and dark printed shirts stood on the edges of Muski Street ready to catch customers like herons at a river waiting for a fish supper. "Hey, mister, you want to see my shop?" they called persistently. "Gold, silver, papyrus? T-shirt, galabiyya? Free for looking today." Best Seats in the House
Just as soon as my traveling companion Derek Szabo (a photographer and veteran of six previous trips to Cairo) and I were settled in, Moustafa, Fishawi's resident shoeblack with a permanently arched back and gapped-tooth grin, rose from his corner seat. He had come to understand from our compliance on an earlier visit that we would always require his services. "Salam alkum, Moustafa," I greeted him and he placed a smooth wooden foot stand at my feet. My dust-caked Timberland hiking boots were quickly unlaced and I slipped them into his waiting hands. A floor-level breeze passed through my socks and cooled my toes. Lounging there in my stockings, I felt as if Fishawi's were transformed into a kind of fabulous outdoor living room. The denizens of Islamic Cairo tramped by me as unassumingly as family. Fishawi's version of "Entertainment Tonight" featured a parade of local stars. Tireless salesmen hawked wallets, carpets, sunglasses, cigarettes and lighters, canes with carved handles, electric light fixtures and acrylic tablets inscribed with passages from the Koran. Small children, the youngest possibly as old as three, approached us to trade pocketbook packages of mentholated kleenex for spare change. A boy whose face was terribly scarred by burns swirled burning frankincense before me while he chanted a blessing. The smoke as much as anything made my eyes well with tears. It's Anyone's Guess How Many People According to the proverb, once you have drunk from the Nile, you will return. I had visited Cairo briefly on a trek through the Middle East six years earlier, but I saw then only enough to leave me wanting a second, longer look. Before flying out of Boston in late fall, I told friends I was "off for some rest in a quiet, peaceful little town." Now here we were--Derek, me and 14 million other people--with nothing to do but puff on a shisha and watch the world go by. I asked just about anyone I could, "Do you know how many people live in Cairo?" because I knew the true size of Africa's largest, most crowded city was notoriously unclear. I was variously informed that the city was home to 12 million, 14 million, 16 million and even as many as 18 million inhabitants. World almanacs and the Egyptian government mostly prefer to quote figures on the lower side but more honest Cairenes have a less sanguine view. "If they tell you the population is only 14 millions, the number is disguised," Ayman, a freelance photographer, assured me. "That's the population at night. By day, Cairo probably has 18 millions." Indeed, while a population explosion may be Cairo's most frequently cited nemesis, Egypt's capital also seems prey to another devastating kind of "time bomb," namely "history." Founded as a provincial Arab fortress town, the city of Cairo is young--only about thirteen centuries old--at least when put against the ancient monuments at nearby Giza. The Citadel is a meandering complex of military encampments and mosques begun in 1176 A.D. on an imposing hill at the city's eastern edge. A hand-lettered sign there offered visitors a tour to "See the development of the Pharaonic, Islamic, Mohammed Ali and Modern Age." In a dozen words, the author had summed up the profound and confounding sense of overlapping time I found everywhere. The past weighs heavily on a people who have witnessed the rise and fall of Ramses, Alexander the Great and Napoleon. End of the Road for Joe Camel
On first inspection, this camel market did not seem to belong where it was in Imbaba, though I later realized that what did not belong was what surrounded it. I wished I could see down the Forty Day's Road south toward Khartoum where the Sudanese camel drive originated but leanings stack of cheap modern housing hopelessly blocked the sight-line. A nine-year-old boy who spoke surprisingly good English quickly attached himself to the day's first visitors at the market. Not certain at first whether I wanted his company, I asked the child, Ahmed, if he didn't have to go school. He said he was an orphan and waved his hand in the air defiantly. "This is my school," he declared. A chunk of flesh missing from his left arm indicated where one of his teachers had bitten him while delivering a lesson. How many camels were there in the market? Ahmed put his hands before his face, then he opened and closed both palms several times. "Many, many," he said. Honk If You Love Cairo
An expatriate American told me he took one look at Cairo traffic on his first visit eight years ago and immediately determined, "Right, I wish to live within walking distance of my office." He has never since gotten behind a steering wheel. From the vantage point of either a city bus (crowded but above it all) or a black-and-white taxi (roomy but uncomfortably close to the action) I could begin to make several rudimentary conclusions: in Cairo, pedestrians are an obstruction to be eliminated; red lights are a nuisance to be ignored; and the horn is indispensable. In fact, it is impossible to imagine driving in Cairo without a properly working horn. As I learned from Mamdho, our preferred cab driver who was a seventeen year veteran of Cairo traffic, horn honking is a refined form of communication and not at all a crude expression of impatience or aggressivity. He provided a simple key: Two strong honks (BEEP-BEEP): I'm coming, please watch out; two short honks (beep-beep): Excuse me, I need some help. As for Mamdho, he feels funny if the joint's not jumping. "Sometimes, if I find the street empty, I'm not happy," he said. "I want crazy street." Spice Of Life Later, back again at the Khan al Khalili, Hassan Metwally showed off the family business in Souq al-Attarin, Islamic Cairo's spice market. "Don't forget, I was born here," he reminded me proudly. In his late 20s with short, greased black hair that stood straight as nails and a broad body-builder's chest, Hassan pulled open drawer after drawer in a wall cabinet at his father's stall. He held up his discoveries in the dim alley light. "This is called 'Mary's hands,'" he explained about a three-inch long dried twig with grey leaves at its end that were curled like fingers. "If you have an evil inside of you and the devil touches you, we put this in a special incense with devil's eyes." I asked to see those "devil's eyes" and Hassan fished about again in drawers until he found them--tiny red oval beans with dark black ends like the pupil of an eye. Arranged around a counter where Hassan stood were a dozen bulging gunny sacks. Cumin and caraway seed; sage, mint and fennel; bright, eye-catching indigo powder for whitening clothes and dull beige "fuul" beans for making an Egyptian dish reminiscent of Mexican refried beans were displayed for shoppers' inspection. The scene was repeated at a half dozen other nearby stalls. In the late afternoon, children hid among the sacks of spices or watched "Felix the Cat" cartoons dubbed in Arabic on color television sets. An episode I watched from the corner of my eye had Felix in the role of Sinbad struggling with an inscrutable Arab "genie" in goatee, vest, bell bottoms and curled slippers. Hassan continued pulling out bags of exotica. He showed me two kinds of frankincense--one for burning, the other for chewing like gum to ease a sore throat. Dried Israeli olives, if finely ground and mixed with lemon juice, were reportedly a cure for kidney stones. Another sort of olive pits were for a potion Hassan called "Jealous Dead." Wear the pits strung in a necklace, he assured me, "And no more jealous after that." Hassan wasn't clear, though, whether the coveter or the coveted must wear the charm. In the City of the Dead, Watch Your Step Anywhere else in the world and a sure bet for finding peace and quiet ought have been in the city's cemeteries, but, remember, this was Cairo. A half million squatters make their homes today in what has become known as the "City of the Dead." Located in two separate cemeteries spreading north and south of the Citadel, the bizarre "city"--actually little better than a shanty town--enjoys the conveniences of electricity, running water and telephone services, an indication that authorities have little intention of ever running the squatters off. Clotheslines were strung from mausoleum to mausoleum. Indeed, I was reliably told there is even a DHL drop-off point in the City of the Dead (can they guarantee next life delivery?). We accepted an offer of coffee from two women who were introduced as the daughters of a neighborhood chief or "boss" (it seems the police do not patrol in the City of the Dead, leaving residents to organize a kind of limited self-government). Their father's two-story stone house was painted with decorative lettering that declared he had performed "hajj," the pilgrimage to Mecca required of every Muslim at least once in his or her life. Pallbearers suddenly turned a corner and marched within inches of our impromptu coffee klatch. The half dozen men in galabiyyas held aloft a simple coffin draped with a green satin sheet. A trio of sobbing women trailed immediately behind them. The group vanished back into the labyrinthine necropolis much to my relief. The sisters seemed not to have even noticed the traffic. Pyramids Kissing Apartments The living and the dead in Egypt have long been boon companions. A pyramid not only served as a monumental tomb for a deceased Pharoah but also as a temple for his people to celebrate the man-god's final triumph over death in the eternal persistence of his "ka" or life force. First arranged on the plains of Giza beginning in the 27th century BC, the several million stone blocks in the site's nine pyramids (known collectively as "al-Ahram") come as close as any human effort to achieving immortality. On my first sight of them six years ago, I recalled like a good history major that when Herodotus visited there and named them one of the seven wonders of the world, the pyramids were already more than two thousand years old. The pyramids were ancient even to the ancient Greeks. At the enormous pit around the pyramids where most visitors find themselves trapped, peddlers of post cards, papyrus and stuffed camel toys are as ferocious and persistent as hungry mosquitos in a swamp. We avoided the mayhem by driving in from the far side of the vast complex nearest the Sphinx. After a few moments of calm bargaining with the owners of a riding stable (a far cry from the shouting matches common in the "pit"), we hopped aboard dromedaries for a trek into the desert. Twenty minutes was time enough to climb several hills and gain a spectacular panoramic view of sweeping dunes, the pyramids and a smog-shrouded Cairo skyline. I suppose I wasn't any different than most non-Egyptians in believing (until I saw otherwise) that the pyramids lay surrounded by desert. In fact, urban sprawl has made its unstoppable way right up to the Pharoahs' doorsteps. The effect of pyramids kissing apartment blocks is like one of those trick shots in "Forrest Gump"--it doesn't seem real, yet there it is. All the while, our guide smoked a "Cleopatra" cigarette and endured the wait. "You must forgive us," Szabo said to him after finally putting away his camera. "We don't see the pyramids every day. You grew up with them. For you, it's probably no big deal." The guide politely shook his head. "Sometimes when I look at the pyramids, it is like for first time," he said. "I think about the ancient times and how the people did this thing." We three looked again at Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus. We thought about the ancient times. Then we got back on our mounts and returned to the late 20th century. Be sure to also read Christopher Kenneally's latest piece on Egypt:
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Be sure to also read Christopher Kenneally's latest piece on Egypt:
On
a hunt for color, clamor and other treasures, I wandered its labyrinth.
Music played endlessly and the odor of sandalwood and cumin drifted on
the air. Peddlers stood by carts with mounds of purple olives, shrunken
lemons and roasted yams heaped high. Day and night, a churning flood of
Egyptian humanity poured into Muski Street from narrow alleys at either
side. The countless Cairenes were absorbed in routine and oblivious of
the carnival around them. If a buzzing Vespa tacked through a crowd like
a bee darting in a flower bed, no one paid attention. When a bolt of cloth
suddenly rose and fell in a lubberly arc from one sidewalk stand to another,
no one flinched.
My
track through Islamic Cairo inevitably led to "Fishawi's," a two-hundred-year-old
café in the shadow of the Mosque of Sayyidna Al-Hussein. The best
seats in the house were at several wooden benches like old church pews
that were parked in a narrow canvas-covered alley. 
We
gave our order and steaming turkish coffees (doubles, served with medium
sugar) arrived in glasses on a shiny tin tray. In a blur of activity,
waiters also swung into place by our feet a pair of two-foot-tall water
pipes called "shisha." The bowls were stuffed with "tofah,"
a tobacco flavored with apple. If there was time, the waiter used a pair
of metal tongs to apply plum-sized bits of charcoal to the tobacco plug;
if he was in a hurry, he simply picked up the red and white hot stones
with bare fingers. 
At
dawn on a Friday morning, Cairo's camel market, the Souq al-Gamaal
on Sharia Sudan, held hundreds of camels that had been driven across the
shifting sands from Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Aswan only for them to end
up hauling tourists at the pyramids or swinging by the hooves in a slaughterhouse.
To
the outsider, the behavior of automobiles and pedestrians in Egypt's capital
apparently defies common sense. The underlying system, nevertheless, has
its own internal and irrefutable logic. Don't ask when is rush hour because
it is always rush hour. An aggregate of 14 million human beings and four
million cars (not to mention buses, Vespas, motorcycles, bicycles and
donkey carts) challenges the universal laws of physics on Cairo's thoroughfares
and by-ways daily. 
Go
ahead and try not to let the pyramids excite you. I will admit I can't--even
if they are the world's oldest and corniest tourist attraction. I slid
off my camel's back and confronted the mystery and the grandeur but darned
if the pyramids don't defy any attempt at coherent understanding. 
