The Easter service at the Aswan Coptic church (Saturday night, 8-12). This is before it really got going. A bishop was there, and he gave a sermon in Arabic. Before that, there was a lot of beautiful chanting by the priests and monks, and at one point the lights went out, then when they came back on everyone clapped. I think it was some sort of "He is risen!" kind of thing.But anyway. This is a picture of the women's side of the church--in Coptic churches, men and women are separate. The women's side was crazy the entire time--women walking around taking care of their screaming, fidgeting kids, women greeting each other, finding chairs for friends, walking back and forth...the two women next to me kept up a pretty steady stream of conversation with each other, with their phones, and with me, in high-pitched Arabic that I couldn't really understand. The men's side was pretty much the exact opposite--rows of men standing still, listening, orderly. And during the whole thing, the courtyard outside was packed with men, women, and children, milling around, chatting, eating the loaves of bread being sold near the door.
Easter dress: huge, puffy hair and everything from modest jumpers and doily-like veils to fashionable jeans, skirts, and T-shirts.
It was crazy.
A boat in Aswan.
The niece and nephew of one of our hosts in Aswan, playing with my friend Makeda's camera.
Fellucas on the Nile.
Annette and me relaxing on our all-day felluca ride on our last day of break.
Alexandria, the exact opposite side of the country from Aswan. And, like Nubians, Alexandrians have a sense of being different ("Alexandrians are the real Egyptians!"). We took the train from Cairo for a daytrip the weekend before spring break. There were lots of boats, painted in sea-green and blue and orange. Alex is a very sea-oriented place. It's actually pretty similar in many ways to Cairo, but there's a more open feel (plus it's a lot smaller). There's also just a different feeling there in general...I'm not sure what it is, exactly. Maybe more of a sea-feel...everything smells like fish, and there are more clouds and it's cooler.
What we did in Alex: visited the catacombs (tombs, I think mostly from the time when the Greeks were here...we couldn't take pictures); saw the obelisk and theatre from outside the gates rather than paying 40 pounds to go in; took a boatride across the bay to the Great Library (a recent "rebuilding" of the amazing library that once stood in Alex but burned down), saw the library from the outside rather than paying 50 pounds to go inside (who wants to pay to go inside a modern library?).
A hand-powered, rickety metal carnival in a backstreet of Alex. It was kind of creepy, in the way that clowns are creepy. We also saw some not-so-nice poverty in this part of town.Between seeing all this stuff, the day consisted of: walking along the Corniche beside the Mediterranean, eating ice cream (mango, lemon/strawberry, and then another mango), eating cotton candy, eating fattir (flaky, sweet bread), and trying to find a beach. Unfortunately, the only close beaches were along the Corniche, and we weren't about to swim in front of an audience in Egypt. But we did take our shoes off and run around in the waves.
The last day of spring break was Shem el-Nessim, an Egyptian celebration of spring that apparently goes way, way back to pharonic times. People get together with their families and eat spring-like foods: lettuce, fish, and...dyed eggs! Two of our friends from the Nubian center, Shaimaa' and Iman (sisters), invited us to their aunt and uncle's apartment in Cairo to celebrate. So we ate with their family, seated on the floor in the traditional way, trying to talk in Arabic and Arabinglish with their aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters. Then we broke out the music and had a dance party. Shaimaa' is in the middle, in pink, Jennah is on far right, Annette is next to me, and the two little girls are Shaimaa' and Iman's younger sisters, who are absolutely adorable and wonderful dancers. Actually, pretty much every Egyptian I've met is a wonderful dancer, at least by my standards.
