Today is Noha and Javier's wedding - the reason we're all in Egypt. Most of what I've learned to expect is that there wil be dancing until there's food, and then there will be more dancing. Not to start before 9:30pm and unlikely to end until 2am. There is some worry about sandstorms destroying the wedding. Fingers crossed on that front.
Yesterday we went to the Citadel (historic fortress/mosque) and the Coptic Quarter (Christian part of town). As our guide kept reminding us, Egypt is about 87% Muslim and the rest are Christian, so going to see the religious sites is kind of a must do. At the Citadel they didn't seem to care if women covered their heads or not (we did as we're not jackasses), which surprised me, but they almost made me put on an extra robe over my clothes even though I was covered from head to toe, because my pants were slightly sagging when I walked by the guard and my belly was showing momentarily. I found that fascinating. In the Coptic quarter we were in churches that were 1600+ years old, one supposedly built over the place Jesus and fam hid when they fled to Egypt 2,000+ years ago. I knew Egypt had old stuff, but it had not really occurred to me that included things since the pyramids. Talk about history. That just makes all those centuries old churches I've seen in Europe seem kinda...well...new.
And of course, speaking of traditions as old as time, yesterday was when we got the heavy handed introduction to what we termed the "shakedown" where we got taken by our tour guide to the places to buy all the tourist swag. Since we did actually buy stuff I'm not sure whether that made the shakedown more or less ok. The day before we'd gotten our first shakedown - a "tour" of a "school' where ten year olds were hand making oriental rugs. Interesting to see and also a bit sickening. A big rug was quoted at $5,500 before haggling. Given that they explained it would have taken ish 2,000 hours of effort and you know the kids aren't seeing the profit, it's kind of astonishing that was a touristy thing to swing by. Today we got a mini-shakedown just walking down the street from the hotel. Everyone is trying to sell you something all the time. It's impressive. Still, most of the "negative" things I've seen in Cairo pale in comparison to the equivalent I saw in Mumbai. I realize though that I'm far more sheltered here than I was there.
Most surreal moment of the trip so far has been driving an hour+ out into the desert to a gated community to see how the ultra-rich of Cairo live. Lush garden + pool + several story mansion where we awkwardly ate sweets and listed to some hired musicians, far, far, far away from the noise and crowds of the city. It was nice, just a bit surreal. Getting away from the noise and crowds is no small achievement. I can see why those who have money to burn do it. Javier tells us that Cairo is the loudest city in the world, and I can't say I have any reason to doubt him. Even conversations seem louder here. I can't tell if it's just a culture that likes to argue with each other or if everyone is angry all the time or if what sounds like shouting to my english-inflected ears is actually the norm.
I finally acquired an Egyptian phone number, though surely it would have been more useful to me earlier in the week. Better late than never, right? My number is 0194884393. No idea if that is all you need to dial or not. But I have a ton of minutes so feel free to reach out if you need to. As long as you remember it's a 10 hour time difference from Seattle. If you want a post card from some part of this Africa trip, let me know!
Also, while it turned out I had 45 free internet minutes A DAY (I thought total) and I wish I had known that earlier, after today I'm not really sure what my internet situation is going to be like. I do have a phone from which I think I can at least kind of get online so at minimum I should be able to check in every once in a while.
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