Dear Kathy and 0ne and All:
In a few hours we shall be in the air en route to India, where we shall disembark gritty eyed and muddle-headed into Mumbai. |So it is time to look back on our time in Egypt.
Barbara disapproved of my sending my initial account of Cairo with its opening emphasis on garbage. I'm glad to say I have won her over to my point of view. Actually, I did very little. Downtown Cairo did it for me. But since that first and pungent impression, our experience of Egypt and its capital has, inevitably, become more complex. I think I had read too many flattering and glossy guidebooks before coming here to have remembered some simple basic facts about the country, such as: Egypt is a third world country; it is a de facto (or should one say a "constitutional") dictatorship; it has lived in a state of emergency, with a concomitant suspension of many basic liberties and protections, for decades; it is burdened by chronic international debt; it has a population of a size it cannot educate, support or employ; the government is in the grip of a huge, inert and self-protective bureacracy; the state is riddle with corruption. If one starts with these facts, and puts aside coffee table books with carefully culled and gleaming photos of Pharaonic Egypt and feluccas on the Nile at sunset, one is better prepared for everyday Egyptian reality, and better able to appreciate even the modest triumphs over squalor and despair achieved by ordinary Egyptians.
But I do have one more observation about garbage. I thought it was confined to the streets. I was wrong. One of the views of Cairo that is constantly stressed in guidebooks is the high view, that is, the prospect of the city from, say, a rooftop restaurant, a high minarets, or some elevated area such as the ancient medieval citadel built by Sala a' Din. And I found such a view, several times, and on every occasion it took my breath away, but not because of the view. Form that height you see the hundreds of flat roofs all over the city,and every flat roof, in between the satellite dishes, is crammed, packed, stacked and heaped with garbages, in quantities and confusion that defy calculation, each piece doing its best to catch every particle of dust and grime it can out of the passing air. In many cases it is as some kind of bomb has exploded on the roof. In others it is as if an upper story has simply imploded on the level beneath it and no one has bothered to clean. Until someone produces an illustrated book on "Rooftops" in Cairo this remarkable sight will remain out of sight.
But there is royal precedent for this kind of rooftop jumble. The most famous items in the Cairo Museum are those from the tomb of Tutankhamun. They are fabulous. Some 5000 objects were found by Howard Carter in his famous 1922 discovery of the tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Given that number, only the most famous can be exhibited in the museum,. They are all neatly displayed, grouped, spaciously arrayed carefully lit, and well anotatated. "What neat and meticulous people those ancient Egyptians must have been," one exclaims. And then one looks at the oversize photos of the tomb as Carter actually found it on first entering. It looks like one of those rooftops, a chaotic heap of stacked thrones, beds, statues, implements, jewelry, chairs, whatever, a kind of heavenly left-luggage office, rapidly assembled and equally quickly abandoned. I'm not sure the average rooftop collection would look as well in a museum. But give it four thousand years.
Let me be more positive. There are Islamic monuments in Cairo that we have all visited and which are magnificent. My own favorite is the 9th century mosque of Ibn Tulun (founder of the Tulunid dynasty). Simple, austere, serene, it is in the shape of a huge open square, surrounded by arched prayer aisles. It has been finely restored and repaired. It is a container of quietness in a raw city. Not far away is the market (souk, bazarre) of Khan al-Khalili, where all of us have had fun bargaining with insistent vendors. Outside the market, on its west side, on a lengthy, cobbled, and quiet street, is a row of three 13-14th mosques and madrassas, the Qalawun and Barquq complex. Imagine three Gothic cathedrals set side by side and you have some idea of the architectural wonder.
These, and the many other historic buildings, remain very much alive. Even more than in Turkey, in fact much more than in Turkey, Islam is a matter of everyday life and observance in Egypt. One sign of this is the dark callous that many Egyptian men have on the front of their forehead, the result of constantly touching their heads in prayer to the carpet on which they are kneeling. Whether it is caused by the force with which they touch their heads to the ground, or by the condition of the carpet, I cannot say, but that dark smudge on the skin suggests grim penance. The five-times-per-day call to prayer is also even more audible here than in Turkey; that is, the loud-speakers are set to a higher volume. Liberal Egyptians object to intrusiveness of these amplified calls to prayer. They view it as tantamount to religio-poltical coercion by the religious authorities. They also object to the increasing prevalence of "veiling' by women. They fear that Egypt is progressively losing whatever residual liberal tolerance it once had. Apparently, within the Muslim world, only in Damascus is the call to prayer still given by the unaided human voice. Everywhere else, including here, it's the amplifiers-chamber music gives way to rock concert.
We have now visited the early medieval Coptic monasteries in the western desert, as well as Coptic churches here in Cairo. I was ignorant of all but the name of the Egyptian Coptic church. We have now all learned that the Copts and their extraordinary monasteries (the earliest of all such monasteries) can claim to be Christianity ground zero, and that their Pope can claim to be the ur-Pope.
Our last trip out of Cairo also took us up to the WWII battle-fields of North Africa. We visited the various memorials around El Alemein. The Commonwealth Memorial contains 8000 graves laid out in simple rows and an additional 12,000 memorial plaques. Many of the graves are for unknown soldiers. Such are inscribed: "A Soldier of the 1939-45 War. Known unto God." Most of those memorialized were about the same age as our students. Our students, all of us, were reduced to tears. It was a searing history lesson. The German Memorial is designed as a large, high walled, brown-stone bunker, a kind of protective nest, inside of which, cast on bronze plates, are the names of those who fell. The interior is completely silent and at peace. The Italian Memorial is a tall tower of sheer white marble, its interior arranged like a mortuary. To move from the Commonwealth to the Italian is to move from the highly personalized and intimate ("To Robert, Aged 19, Never to be Forgotten by Dad, Mum, Brother Michael and Sister Anne) to the collective and impersonal.
Our students continue to delight and amuse us. Last weekend they went to see the the soccer match between Egypt and Italy in the Under-20 World Cup. There were 74,000 in the stadium. One of our lads wrapped himself in an Egyptian flag. Egypt won 4-2. He became a national hero. They all made it on the TV broadcast of the game. Regrettably, Egypt was knocked out by Uruguay in the next round.
Parents: you are constantly in the minds and thoughts of your children. They have various favorite topics of conversation-what they have been doing, what they have seen, each other, movies, music, and--Mum and Dad. You are all held in high, loving and inquisitive esteem. "My Mum says . . . My Dad does . . My Mum has this habit of . . . Once my Dad . . ." and so on and so forth. Don't worry-it's all good! You are never far away.
Tonight, our last in Egypt, we are all having meal together on a boat on the Nile. Our "Social and entertainment Committee" have made all the arrangements. The boat is moored to the bank. I think. I hope.
With our warm greetings to you all. Next time from Bangalore, India-
Jonathan
In a few hours we shall be in the air en route to India, where we shall disembark gritty eyed and muddle-headed into Mumbai. |So it is time to look back on our time in Egypt.
Barbara disapproved of my sending my initial account of Cairo with its opening emphasis on garbage. I'm glad to say I have won her over to my point of view. Actually, I did very little. Downtown Cairo did it for me. But since that first and pungent impression, our experience of Egypt and its capital has, inevitably, become more complex. I think I had read too many flattering and glossy guidebooks before coming here to have remembered some simple basic facts about the country, such as: Egypt is a third world country; it is a de facto (or should one say a "constitutional") dictatorship; it has lived in a state of emergency, with a concomitant suspension of many basic liberties and protections, for decades; it is burdened by chronic international debt; it has a population of a size it cannot educate, support or employ; the government is in the grip of a huge, inert and self-protective bureacracy; the state is riddle with corruption. If one starts with these facts, and puts aside coffee table books with carefully culled and gleaming photos of Pharaonic Egypt and feluccas on the Nile at sunset, one is better prepared for everyday Egyptian reality, and better able to appreciate even the modest triumphs over squalor and despair achieved by ordinary Egyptians.
But I do have one more observation about garbage. I thought it was confined to the streets. I was wrong. One of the views of Cairo that is constantly stressed in guidebooks is the high view, that is, the prospect of the city from, say, a rooftop restaurant, a high minarets, or some elevated area such as the ancient medieval citadel built by Sala a' Din. And I found such a view, several times, and on every occasion it took my breath away, but not because of the view. Form that height you see the hundreds of flat roofs all over the city,and every flat roof, in between the satellite dishes, is crammed, packed, stacked and heaped with garbages, in quantities and confusion that defy calculation, each piece doing its best to catch every particle of dust and grime it can out of the passing air. In many cases it is as some kind of bomb has exploded on the roof. In others it is as if an upper story has simply imploded on the level beneath it and no one has bothered to clean. Until someone produces an illustrated book on "Rooftops" in Cairo this remarkable sight will remain out of sight.
But there is royal precedent for this kind of rooftop jumble. The most famous items in the Cairo Museum are those from the tomb of Tutankhamun. They are fabulous. Some 5000 objects were found by Howard Carter in his famous 1922 discovery of the tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Given that number, only the most famous can be exhibited in the museum,. They are all neatly displayed, grouped, spaciously arrayed carefully lit, and well anotatated. "What neat and meticulous people those ancient Egyptians must have been," one exclaims. And then one looks at the oversize photos of the tomb as Carter actually found it on first entering. It looks like one of those rooftops, a chaotic heap of stacked thrones, beds, statues, implements, jewelry, chairs, whatever, a kind of heavenly left-luggage office, rapidly assembled and equally quickly abandoned. I'm not sure the average rooftop collection would look as well in a museum. But give it four thousand years.
Let me be more positive. There are Islamic monuments in Cairo that we have all visited and which are magnificent. My own favorite is the 9th century mosque of Ibn Tulun (founder of the Tulunid dynasty). Simple, austere, serene, it is in the shape of a huge open square, surrounded by arched prayer aisles. It has been finely restored and repaired. It is a container of quietness in a raw city. Not far away is the market (souk, bazarre) of Khan al-Khalili, where all of us have had fun bargaining with insistent vendors. Outside the market, on its west side, on a lengthy, cobbled, and quiet street, is a row of three 13-14th mosques and madrassas, the Qalawun and Barquq complex. Imagine three Gothic cathedrals set side by side and you have some idea of the architectural wonder.
These, and the many other historic buildings, remain very much alive. Even more than in Turkey, in fact much more than in Turkey, Islam is a matter of everyday life and observance in Egypt. One sign of this is the dark callous that many Egyptian men have on the front of their forehead, the result of constantly touching their heads in prayer to the carpet on which they are kneeling. Whether it is caused by the force with which they touch their heads to the ground, or by the condition of the carpet, I cannot say, but that dark smudge on the skin suggests grim penance. The five-times-per-day call to prayer is also even more audible here than in Turkey; that is, the loud-speakers are set to a higher volume. Liberal Egyptians object to intrusiveness of these amplified calls to prayer. They view it as tantamount to religio-poltical coercion by the religious authorities. They also object to the increasing prevalence of "veiling' by women. They fear that Egypt is progressively losing whatever residual liberal tolerance it once had. Apparently, within the Muslim world, only in Damascus is the call to prayer still given by the unaided human voice. Everywhere else, including here, it's the amplifiers-chamber music gives way to rock concert.
We have now visited the early medieval Coptic monasteries in the western desert, as well as Coptic churches here in Cairo. I was ignorant of all but the name of the Egyptian Coptic church. We have now all learned that the Copts and their extraordinary monasteries (the earliest of all such monasteries) can claim to be Christianity ground zero, and that their Pope can claim to be the ur-Pope.
Our last trip out of Cairo also took us up to the WWII battle-fields of North Africa. We visited the various memorials around El Alemein. The Commonwealth Memorial contains 8000 graves laid out in simple rows and an additional 12,000 memorial plaques. Many of the graves are for unknown soldiers. Such are inscribed: "A Soldier of the 1939-45 War. Known unto God." Most of those memorialized were about the same age as our students. Our students, all of us, were reduced to tears. It was a searing history lesson. The German Memorial is designed as a large, high walled, brown-stone bunker, a kind of protective nest, inside of which, cast on bronze plates, are the names of those who fell. The interior is completely silent and at peace. The Italian Memorial is a tall tower of sheer white marble, its interior arranged like a mortuary. To move from the Commonwealth to the Italian is to move from the highly personalized and intimate ("To Robert, Aged 19, Never to be Forgotten by Dad, Mum, Brother Michael and Sister Anne) to the collective and impersonal.
Our students continue to delight and amuse us. Last weekend they went to see the the soccer match between Egypt and Italy in the Under-20 World Cup. There were 74,000 in the stadium. One of our lads wrapped himself in an Egyptian flag. Egypt won 4-2. He became a national hero. They all made it on the TV broadcast of the game. Regrettably, Egypt was knocked out by Uruguay in the next round.
Parents: you are constantly in the minds and thoughts of your children. They have various favorite topics of conversation-what they have been doing, what they have seen, each other, movies, music, and--Mum and Dad. You are all held in high, loving and inquisitive esteem. "My Mum says . . . My Dad does . . My Mum has this habit of . . . Once my Dad . . ." and so on and so forth. Don't worry-it's all good! You are never far away.
Tonight, our last in Egypt, we are all having meal together on a boat on the Nile. Our "Social and entertainment Committee" have made all the arrangements. The boat is moored to the bank. I think. I hope.
With our warm greetings to you all. Next time from Bangalore, India-
Jonathan