Egypt--The Place and the People

Since I’ve posted enough visuals including a slide show, I’m going to summarize the trip at this point one or two areas of interest (place, people, shopping, food, any unusual experiences, et al.) at a time.

First, here is our itinerary:
http://www.oattravel.com/gcc/general/default.aspx?oid=220541&linklocation=search (price varies depending upon the month one picks to travel).

The Place:
Living in New York, the only time I feel the need for a longer break from my familiar surroundings is in February. Wanting to get away from the dead of winter for a few days is probably the biggest reason to take these annual trips to a warmer clime. But this precludes cold places and I’m running out of warm places in winter. Anyway, for now, I don’t plan to travel anywhere too far for a while.

In February, Egypt is very pleasant during daytime although Cairo (during the open-air sound and light show in Giza I had five layers on inclduing a down vest and my bra) being in the north is chilly at night. I took only cotton clothing (very light to fairly thick) with me that could be layered if need be, a wind-breaker with a hood and three light weight Pashmina shawls, that served a purpose both as a fashion statement/a cover for the cooler weather. People who wore shorts were not always comfortable. Familiar with conservative mores, I had chosen not to wear shorts while in Egypt and so did no take any. B did and he wore it in the warmer clime of the southern part (Upper Egypt).

It’s in the south of Cairo that one finds the land more verdant. More greenery is visible. However, overall, the dry heat and dust (Egypt is mostly desert—duh!) do leave a mark on you both literally and figuratively.

Being in this very ancient land with a very ancient civilization that obsessed over life after death, one’s thoughts about such things are more pronounced once you return home. A sense of awe does take one over while visiting the various temples, the valleys of the kings and the queens, and witnessing the remnants of the continuous dynastic history of the place that is and will be its draw forever.

During one’s entire visit to Egypt one cannot help but feel that almost every human endeavor’s seed was sown in this ancient land. Mythology, the numbering system, the calendar, astrology, astronomy, religion, fashion, just to name a few. Now I could see why Egypt is called the cradle of civilization.

The People:
The people are very friendly and helpful. Though it feels and looks like everybody understands English, this can be deceptive. If they only nod their head as if they understood what you said, but do not speak much, you can assume that no real communication has taken place. Regardless, one feels very welcome in Egypt. It's almost as if the people here would like for you to stay here forever. In fact, our program director, in his e-mail after we reached home said that we "had arrived as strangers but left as a family. " I was very touched by this. In a way, this was to be expected I guess when you spend two weeks with people you have never met before but during the trip forge bonds that feel long term.

All the Egyptians I met feel very comfortable under their skin. While friendly nobody tries to impress you except maybe the modern generation in a big city like Cairo where I felt that the host’s son we met wanted us to think his generation was very American.

Talking of the young generation, the nineteen-year-old girl engaged to be married we met in Kom Ombo, the Nubian village we traveled to on camel back from St. Simeon monastery (7th Century A.D.) ruins in the middle of the desert there, left quite an impression in me. Her kohl-lined eyed were unusually expressive. What she could not convey through language her eyes communicated and what they could not, her smile revealing a slight gap between her two front teeth supplemented.

She was dressed traditionally including the hijab covering her head. She apparently had some commercial degree but had chosen not to work. Her family seemed to be comfortable middle class though their home was a two-story traditional mud house. The grandmother wore several gold bangles (I noticed on the plane back to New York, too, a Nubian woman with a lot of gold on her) and they served us a mouth-watering cabbage role dish and Egyptian falafel (basically same as south Indian aamai vadai) made of fava beans, an Egyptian staple and of course, the customary hibiscus juice.

The young woman (I forget her name) looked older than nineteen and so I was curious why she was not married yet. This is when I was told that she was engaged. Whoever marries her can be sure that she would make for an excellent mother and manager. She would expect her man to make a good living, provide for her and her family adequately and in return she would keep a tidy home and her kids would be neat and well behaved.

After serving us the snacks and drinks, she did henna painting on some of the women in the group. The designs were from a notebook she showed. They were small flower patterns and her hand moved dexterously while drawing the designs on the women’s hands. It cost $4 a pop. She was efficient and quick.

Thinking the knickknacks I saw on the walls were for sale, drawn to a Nubian mask, I asked for its price. Though she hardly spoke any English she understood my question and said the price was 100 Egyptian pounds and said something to the effect the mask was made of camel leather. I said that I’d pay $10 and after some resistance she agreed, but when her grandmother came in and she told her about the transaction, the grandmother (a minor celebrity because of the fact her picture had been included in a book about Nubian Women by an African-American professor many years ago, which in a beat up condition she brought out and showed to us) said no. The mask was taken back from me and hung back. Later I came back into the house to check out a duplicate of an item a fellow adventurer had bought. At that point the girl’s aunt was around. She tried to sell me a different basket, which did not interest me. Nor did the other one. But I decided to use the opportunity to revisit the mask. The aunt sold it to me for $12 after settling on the price all through hand gestures.

As we were finally ready to leave, at the exit several locals were milling around who I thought had out of curiosity come to see us foreigners but we were told they were beggars. We were instructed to walk past them. We did. On the way to our ship, at the riverbank we saw several galabeya-wearing vendors selling the same mask I held in my hand over my face. Surprised to see several replicas of what I thought was a unique piece, I held out my piece to the vendors and said "how much?" One said, $8 and another $5. I felt stupid that I had just paid almost double. B said possibly the vendors’ masks were not leather. Later the tour guide said that I was really not supposed to buy anything at the Nubian house and secondly, the vendor might have said $5 just to make me feel bad. After all, he didn’t really sell it to me, did he?

After this incident and the book incident, I was beginning to feel that I didn’t have the right instincts when it came to pricing an item. From then on I became tight-fisted except at the Papyrus factory in Aswan and the Albaster factory in Luxor where we bought three items we knew we would cherish. One was a sultry looking Nefretiti on papyrus and the other two were a finely crafted owl made of basalt and with a certain personality and a regal looking onyx parrot in soft shades of pink and white with a black beak and eyes and an impressive crown to boot. He sits majestically in my living room showcase next to the onyx in light green and pink shades toucan one third the size and price of the parrot I got from Chile in 2008.

Ciao!
Ro.