Final day & I don't want to spend it typing. Rather, I plan on eating all the Egyptian desserts I haven't tried yet. And seeing the pyramids, because I haven't yet.
I found a mummy skull, slept on a boat on the Nile, went in a pyramid w/ poor Mohammed who was very unhappy about the whole situation, was (/am being) creepily stalked by a Saudi so awful he may as well be a cartoon character.... yep,had all sorts of illuminating thoughts that you will have to ask me about when you see me in person when I come home tomorrow and you all call me and we go and see movies and eat snacks together! yes yes!
I like to lurk about the American University and stare at the hip college kids. The whole area is cluttered with American-style coffee shops, which apparently are the new Thing. American-style: as opposed to Egyptian-style coffee shops, which are full of men hunched over tiny cups of Turkish coffee or puffing on shisha.
So: Beanos, Cilantro (weird name for a coffee shop I know, don't ask me) & Costa's. They are some of the silliest places I've ever been... I was going to say that they're like the Cafe du Livre in Marrakech but without the pretention, and then I realized that that is a ridiculous thing to say. They're just pretentious in a whole different kind of way. They take Starbucks to its implied extreme with all of these dumb frilly sugary drinks, everything is all whipped and hazlenuted and drizzled with a few syrups. And then the walls are painted with these really hyper paragraphs in several languages about PASSION for coffee. and the menu has all these extremely serious adjective-heavy descriptions of the different beans they use, the Guatemalan vs. the Ethiopian, as if it matters if you're just going to dilute the coffee with as many different forms of sugar as possible.
I sound so crotchety! Actually it's great because I love sugar, and these places have the best desserts, too. And they serve you a small brownie with your coffee! And they play Justin Timberlake. And I can sit and observe the kids flirting, I love their coy looks and I get so happy when girls here smoke because they look so COOL, they are flaunting so many societal rules and I love it. I mean, I fear for their lungs and all but also I support them in their bad-ass-ness.
so many thiiiiiings I ate a dessert called Death By Chocolate for lunch and I do feel sort of dying-ish. I am skittering between fancy Cairo and old-timey Cairo and the contrasts make my head spin. The herd of goats scurrying across the street to get out of the way of the Mercedes with the blackest-tinted windows: you've heard it all before, but it's still disconcerting, especially since I'm not really sure exactly what the point of me being here is again?
I felt STRONG yesterday so I went to the Museum -------> oh I don't even know what its real name is, everyone just calls it THE Museum. perhaps the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities? Something like that? It was full of groups travelling in slow-moving bus-sized clumps but because I am alone & quick I could dodge between them and see all the special things by myself. soooo many special things. too many special things? a Rosetta stone: I did not know that there were more than one. That papyrus that you had in your elementary school books about Egypt, with the pictures about how when you are dead they weigh your heart; statues that you have seen many photographs of. The jars that Tutenkhamen's guts were stored in (so where are they now? have they evaporated? are they in a lab somewhere? how does that work?). Little kids running around in that bored/ overwhelmed way of kids in cool museums. MUMMIESSSSSS, to the point of mummy overload. and I didn't even pay extra to go into the other, even more special mummy room.
I'm going to head south to upper egypt soon. I keep forgetting to notice that the river flows the wrong way. I probably won't see any crocodiles but OH I hope I do.
The other day I was frustrated and lost and but when I turned a corner, there it was for the first time: the NILE. I would've hopped a little from excitement except that everyone around me was acting like it was no big deal, just this narrow brown river. Whatever, I was excited.
Today I found it again but on purpose this time. The whole corniche was full of couples -- there is much hand-holding and arm-linking in this city. Bashful/coy hijabi girls and their gell-haired boyfriends and the Nile, all ripply and brown. I liked it very much. There were a few gangs of girl-less boys, stalking around and smoking cigarettes and scowling like they desperately want a habibi of their own. The tough older boys smoke cigarettes in a very menacing way but the tough little boys slouch against the bridge and gnaw on sticks of sugar cane and are equally menacing in their own small mean-faced way. I also like being back in a place where men link arms, hold hands: they walk down the street with their heads bent toward each other, talking seriously.
Where are all the Americans? Or just all the tourists? I suppose they're all on those massive buses? Not that I miss them. But this is not exactly what I expected. Yesterday I walked to my hotel past a square that is I suppose Cairo's approximation of Djemaa al-Fna, although not nearly so wild or so good at getting your money. The restaurant men have only one joke as far as I can tell, and it has to do with telling you that you're walking like an Egyptian (or if they want to change things up, they tell you that you're not). This level of salesmanship would NOT last a second in Marrakech, where the restaurant men know enticing slogans in at least 15 languages and are better at holding onto your arm and not letting go. Or maybe I just don't look worth it: last night I walked behind a Gulfi (??) looking couple -- he was strutting, sunglasses (prolly Gucci) at 10pm, looked sooo cool -- and she was wearing a niqab but I could tell that it was expensive, they both just walked in an expensive-looking way, even though they weren't much older than me, maybe even younger. And the restaurant men all leaped over themselves to try & entice them -- they know where the real money is at. I'm just puttering around in my dusty coat and eating frugal, amazing sandwiches.
The phones here are too hard to figure out, sorry mom & dad.
more than small boys I love food. it turns out Egypt invented all of my favorite foods before I got a chance to: yesterday I had the ideal sandwich (fava beans, mashed potatoes, chips, fried eggplant, & hot sauce all mushed up in a pita) and today i had KUSHARI which I will now dream of for the rest of my life: lentils, macaroni, spaghetti, chickpeas, hot sauce+ crispy fried onions on top. swoon!
the general plan is: I befriend an old man with my charmingly inept arabic. I get him to tell me where his favorite restaurant is. I try to follow his complex directions through obscure neighborhoods & get hopelessly lost; I ask other kind old men for directions. either I find it, or I get a new place from the new old man and repeat the process. it's worked out well for me so far, and plus i get to go to neighborhoods where there are donkeys.
today I rode the Cairo metro, which was immaculate and easy
I mean I don't really mind. Guess they don't call girls that here... I do sort of weirdly, perversely miss it. But so yeah: CAAAAAAAIRO!!!
I keep thinking about Morocco: normal, I guess; day one and my brain is stuck on compare/contrast, so I CAN'T HELP IT, hopefully it'll go away soon. like for example: there are no donkeys here. tragic! I miss them and their sad-long faces & silly floppy ears. There are still giant carts piled with stuff (televisions, cement blocks, crates of chickens) but with men pulling them instead. And no avocado juice! double tragic!! I'm going to waste away.
Except not: I am going to explode after being unable to stop myself from eating street food all the time. aallllll the time. and apparently it's still funny when I do it: a boy kept taking my picture with his cell phone and I yelled at him, but all my mean phrases are in the wrong language.
Last night for the new year I fell asleep, but I woke up when they shot off fireworks & peeked out of my hotel window. People were happy, running around, etc. One GIANT advantage that Egypt has over Morocco: old bent-over ladies selling fireworks on the side of the street. amazing! they all look totally deadly and confusingly Chinese. There were explosions all night & into the morning, followed by little-boy giggles. last night's internet cafe was full of 6 year old boys playing internet soccer games, yelling and making other enthusiastic arab boy sounds. I missed those sounds! I have an unhealthy obsession with small boys.
So: today for wandering, eating, staring at things.
George Bush is in Egypt, too! jerk. always following me around.
in the near future: temples, Osiris, pyramids, ancient things, ruined things, adventures, the desert, the Opera House, haunted things.
HEY LOOK OUT: I think I'll blog from Egypt. Because it fits the whole (self-imposed) diglossie theme, and because I'll be weirded out & a little lonely, which are usually very good blogging moods. especially when combined!
Flaubert went to Egypt, saw old ruined things, wrote this in his diary:
"Stones that so many people have thought about, that so many men have come to see, are a joy to look at. Think of the number of bourgeois stares they have received! Each person has made his little remark and gone his way."
Yep! me too! I will make many little remarks & then go my way. I don't leave until Sunday, but I thought you (you, the internet) deserved fair warning.
Also I am studying Egyptian vocab & it is sort of hard and unsatisfying. The word for ghaib (bad, ugly), one of the most fun-to-pronounce Moroccan words, is the unsatisfying wiHish in Egyptian. not that I'm biased or anything.
It was suddenly Hanukkah tonight, and we had a jokey haphazard celebration in Brian's living room. Dreidels, Fiddler on the Roof sing-a-longs, etc. It made me think (hard) of last year, when we huddled up on the roof with the bold international boys... I wonder what they've done to that house? A photo, just for remembering's sake:
The terrace looked out onto the Koutoubia and there was a fireplace on the roof! And now it's a carpet shop or something equally awful. But so I think Abdul Rahman was there, too (was this all the same night? "Go big go or home"?), but I mostly remember the international boys being annoyingly, casually boastful... Jonathan, with his secret origins and even more secret future (what else could that be but CIA?) and his sinisterly good Arabic, and then those 2 friends who were all "Oh yeah Syria blah blah blah sneaking over the border into Iraq last month," very faux blase but still a little exciting, in an irritating way. I guess this is before Maura got into town? Was Jordan there? The fire was sort of faint but even so it was exciting to be on the roof with a fire and the Koutoubia all lit up in the distance, and I think I ran around and lit all the candles in the lanterns, and it was just the most lovely and atmospheric place I've ever lived -- maybe it was Brian's Moroccan tea glasses that brought all these memories back -- but so we huddled under blankets, we cheered on the fire and sang Hanukkah songs... and the international boys were Jewish, all 3 of them, and there was a good pure minute where the boys who lived in Syria were just happy to sing these songs out loud and more-than-half reverently, and Abdul Rahman sort of bobbed his head and said weird things in his hysterical voice, and then the moment broke and the international boys were boastful again, but I will always remember it as a true Holiday Moment, and I think I will miss that roof for the rest of my life.
oooh oooh oooh as further "research" I've been looking up Cameroonian music on iTunes & recklessly spending 99 cents every time I find a song that brings back memories.
"Mon amour pour toi" by Francis Bebey being the classic. Although I think we had a fun version in English? He also has a song called Casablanca, Rabat, et Fes, Marrakech" which I of course enthusiastically downloaded.
BETTER STILL is "Viviane," catchier than soulja boy and with a more entertaining video (more butts!). This song makes me want to jump around. I wish Kari weren't at home.
Cameroon has better music than Morocco. Or at least the music videos are definitely better. Here is Nass al Ghiwane, the beatles of morocco, being kind of boring:
I'm trying to write a Cameroon story for school (I'm faking them out, since I bet they all think that I'm going to write a Morocco story) and, as "research," I'm re-reading my Cameroon blog. It's so dramatic and adventurous! Remember when I ate the fish eyeball? and the viper? and the antelope? Remember Sambo Labbo and the Tchabel Mbabo and the search for the last unicorn? What did we do in Morocco, anyway -- shop at Zara, buy peanut butter at Marjane, watch Spiderman at the air-conditioned Megarama (w/ buttered popcorn!)? Ohhh real Africa. (I am channeling Shashi's blog voice a little I think.) There's only like 3 stores in all of Cameroon that sell ice cream (the typhoid ice cream doesn't count).
