Monday I had a chance to really get in touch with Cairo. My entry visa expired on June 10, so I was long overdue for a new one. The only place to get a visa is Mugama - the massive brick of a building that looms over Tahrir Square downtown. It's the heart of the Egyptian bureaucracy and so it handles all the paperwork. There are policemen with guns outside who direct you through a metal detector and ask you to run your bags through the x-ray machine. The fact that I walked through the metal detector with my keys and cell phone should give you an idea of how tight the security really is. Inside it's surprisingly cool, despite the lack of air conditioning. Egyptian buildings are designed with lots of tile and light colors that keep the indoors relatively cool (well, at least bearable).
I fought my way through winding hallways and endless lines for an hour, only to be pointed to another line once I got to the counter. I had copies of my passport made, and returned to the ladies at the tourist visa counter. They took my paperwork and told me to go buy stamps. To this I responded that I didn't want to mail my passport...I just wanted a visa. Apparently you have to buy stamps that go on your papers for them to process your passport. I paid the 11 pounds and 50 piasters, and returned a third time to the tourist visa counter. More waiting in line...handed them my stamps...and they told me to return in 2 hours to window number 38.
This is where the story gets interesting. What am I supposed to do in downtown Cairo by myself for 2 hours in the worst heat of the day? I thought I'd play it safe and just read at a cafe. I'm reading a short novel called
Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz, a Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author. I took a walk down some street looking for the closest coffee shop or something. Walking down the street as a white foreigner in Egypt is not a normal activity. It takes skill to walk like you know where you're going in a city where you can't read or understand anything, you can't walk on the sidewalk because it's too uneven, and the cars make you flinch every time it looks like they're going to clip you as they pass. If you make eye contact, smile, or in any way acknowledge someone they will want to talk to you, and most likely be trying to sell you something. The point is, my street walking skills were not up to par that day.
Of course a nice old man came right up to me saying "salaam alekum" - peace be upon you -and grabbing to shake my hand. He asked if I was American, where I was from, what I studied in school, etc. I had plenty of time to kill, and I was interested to see where it went, so answered all his questions. "What are you looking for?" he asked me (his English was good - don't think that my Arabic is good enough for a conversation like this). I told him I was looking for coffee, and he said he could get me some...so I followed him down a side street. I asked myself if I would ever do this in any other city in the world, and the answer was NO. I convinced myself that it was safe in this instance because Cairo is one of the safest cities around in terms of crime, and I needed an adventure. We ended up in a little room off the street with a couch in the corner where I reluctantly sat down. "It's my hospitality" my host kept saying. He left to go get the cup of coffee he had promised me. When I noticed that the room was filled with bottles of perfume, I knew I wasn't in a coffee shop.
My host, who's name was Ahmed, returned with some Turkish coffee, black, which was really good. We talked for seriously about an hour about everything. His story was that he lived in Fayoum (an oasis about an hour from Cairo) where his family grew flowers that they made into all-natural, alcohol-free perfumes. He talked about his brother who lives in Wisconsin, and his sons who are studying hotel management at Cairo University. Over the course of two coffees, we talked about what seemed to him to be the "good old days" under Sadat, when the government cared about he poor people, and supported them. His opinion on Mubarak (the current president) is that he doesn't care enough about the common people and, like any ordinary Egyptian right now, Ahmed is worried that prices are going up and salaries are stagnant. I asked him if he thought Mubarak would die soon and the president would change. He replied "inshallah" which means god willing.
In the end, it came down to the fact that he wanted me to buy his perfume...so he began rubbing it on my arms. Lotus, rose, 'arabian nights', and jasmine. They really do smell good, but he was asking 200 pounds for 100 grams. This might not seem like a lot in terms of dollars, but I spend 200 pounds in an entire week, so it was pricey. He obviously thought that I hadn't adjusted my price-perception to Egyptian standards. I told him I just couldn't afford it, but he really wanted to haggle. The closer I got to the door, the lower the price went. As I walked away, thanking Ahmed for the coffee, he dropped the price to 100 pounds for two 100 gram bottles. Tempting...but I really didn't need perfume and I knew I could get it cheaper. Unfortunately, Ahmed and I didn't part on the best of terms.
I finally found a cafe and got a little reading, and just do a little people watching. I'm starting to feel comfortable in Cairo. I headed back to Mugama to pick up my passport, freshly stamped with a 3 month tourist visa, because I'm not working in Egypt ;)
Tomorrow I'm of to the Sinai peninsula to visit Dahab on the Red Sea. More on that when I get back...
