The Prophet's Birthday is a national holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. People tell me it's mostly an Egyptian thing; it's not really celebrated in other Islamic countries. Many people still work, of course--stores are open, taxis are still running. It seems to be mostly a day when people hang out with family and friends and eat sweets, and there are also these elaborately-dressed bride dolls for sale at stands along the street, and jelly-like sweets with nuts in them.
For the Prophet's Birthday, I ended up going to the Saida Zaynab mosque area, which I believe is in Islamic Cairo. I went with three blonde Norwegians, all carrying cameras around their necks, so we stood out even more than usual. Two seconds after we got out of the cab, an old, wrinkly woman grabbed my hand and kissed both of my cheeks.
We wandered around the neighborhood for a bit, and had tea and coffee at three different coffeehouses (the coffeehouse is the main hangout for Egyptian men, and there are literally three or four on every street. The ones we went to were outdoor coffeehouses, so it was less weird that us girls were there).
We ran into some boys playing soccer, and two of the Norwegians--Nikos and Christian--joined in, while Gida and I were swarmed by the girls and the boys too young to play. They were yelling, "sura, sura!" ("picture! picture!"), so we had to take 50 bazillion pictures of cute Egyptian kids. It was intense.
Rita, another AUC friend we ran into at a cafe, taking pictures of some neighborhood boys.
The older girls wanted to show off the little ones...
Rowdy boys
The owner of one of the cafes wanted his picture taken while smoking sheesha (hookah). Everyone in Egypt smokes, because, as someone told me, "the air is cleaner through a filter".
Some guys playing backgammon, and a woman who was working at the shop across the street.
These guys wanted their picture taken. I'm not sure if they have a motorcycle or just a helmet. I realize this post is getting long, but I wanted to mention a few other things that seem to be themes in Egypt.
Religion:
This is an obvious one, I guess. Egyptian society has changed quite a bit in the past couple of decades, and religion is a major topic of discussion everywhere you go. In general, religion has become much more public. This past Sunday, we watched an old Egyptian movie from 1960 with some Egyptian girls in the dorms (it was "Rumors of Love", with Omar Sherif, and it was the funniest movie I've ever seen in my life). Had it not been in Arabic, one could easily have mistaken it for a Hollywood movie--the girls had bobbed hair and were dressed in knee-length, sleeveless dresses, and went out dancing. Today, that kind of outfit would draw way too much attention in the street (although many AUC girls will wear less than this when they go out at night...but AUC girls are not really typical). Most Muslim women wear higaab (head covering), and a good number (a very small minority, actually, but growing) wear niqaab (face covering). Of course, many women turn the scarf into a fashion accessory, and you can get scarves with rhinestones, or made of silk, and there are tons of different ways to wear it. Many men have prayer bruises on their foreheads where their heads rub on the ground during prayer--it's a mark of piety. There are people who believe that women should stay at home, in seclusion--like the restaurant owner who invited us to Minya--and there are women like my Arabic lit professor, who says that religion should be private and that the "Islamist" interpretation of the Qur'an is incorrect, and that the seclusion of women is a cultural practice, not religious. Then there's the women who teaches me about the Qur'an every week, who doesn't cover but is extremely pious. There's Al Azhar mosque, which is the "official", (generally) state-sanctioned center of Islamic scholarship in Egypt (and authoritative throughout much of the Middle East), and there's the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government would dearly love to wipe out, and which most people in the U.S. believe is a "terrorist organization"...but which, in reality, generally advocates for democracy in Egypt. And then there are the Copts.
School: There is a preschool outside my window, and every morning the children chant and sing at the top of their lungs for a good hour. It's actually a really good alarm clock, but kind of annoying.
I know my Aunt Cathy told her class about my blog, and asked me to try to find an Egyptian elementary school to visit. I'll try to work on that, but in the meantime, I can say that I've seen a couple of elementary schools from the bus and outside our Luxor hostel. At every school I've seen, the kids wear uniforms, and line up outside in the morning to do exercises and recitations or chants or something. They always look pretty excited to be there--or maybe they get extra points for yelling extra loud.
Skin: I hadn't realized that race would be a big deal in Egypt, but it is, to some extent. Egypt is home to "Egyptians" (Arab descent) and Nubians, who mostly live in Upper Egypt near Aswan (near the border with Sudan). "Egyptian" culture is very Middle Eastern, while Nubian culture is more African...I'm not quite sure how to describe the differences, but they're there. Our hostel owner in Luxor was Nubian, and he said that Nubians have historically been treated poorly by the Egyptian government and aren't always looked upon favorably by Lower Egyptians. People are quick to comment on skin color. My travel group usually consists of two black girls and two white girls, and I think that this strikes some people as strange, for whatever reason. Sometimes they assume that Annette and I are tourists and Janis and Jennah are Egyptian. Anyway, it's not like there's outright racism, but people definitely notice what color you are.
Dictatorship: It's easy to forget that Egypt is a dictatorship when you're in the AUC bubble...but it still pops up sometimes. Philip Rizk, an AUC student, was kidnapped by the police for several days after a pro-Palestine rally; our lit prof has to buy banned books in London and ship them here in a plain, brown box. When President Mubarak goes anywhere, there are miles of black-clad soldiers lining his route. In fact, there are soldiers and policemen absolutely everywhere. People worry about writing provocative blogs. It's not like the general population lives in fear of the government--I don't think--but you do have to be careful, and you don't really get any exciting presidential elections.
Culture Shock: Timelines of culture shock generally tell you that the "depression" phase hits around 2-3 months. It hit many people this week, maybe because of midterm stress. Lots of people have been sick four times or more already, with colds or stomach problems. We're tired from school, and not knowing the language is exhausting. And there are a thousand other small things, like gestures and little social things that are usually unconscious, but that we still aren't adjusted to, which makes it difficult to read people. So many people this week, myself included, have just hung around the dorm, because going out just seems too difficult. There cure for this is to go out more, of course, so I'm going to try to do more exploring in the coming weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment