“Welcome in Egypt,” A Journal

Part 1

By A’isha Azar

ã 2008

The following is an account of my visit to Cairo, with a side trip to visit friends in Alexandria, in April of 2008. My main purpose was different than that of most dancers, since I was really there to visit my dear friend, costumer Hallah Moustafa, and to try to get a deeper understanding of the people of Egypt.

April 14^th- “Welcome in Egypt!”

It has taken me thirty-four years in reality, but for the last twenty hours or so, I have been traveling physically toward my destination. I am tired and my feet are swollen from extended air travel. The straps on my shoes will not fasten and I am none too tidy and clean, but I have stepped off the plane and on to Egyptian soil at last. Here I am, in Cairo!

I walk with my carry-on and huge purse down the walkway to the entry gate and Oops! I am turned back to get my entry visa. The clerk accepts my $20 American. When he offers me my change USA style, I ask for Egyptian money. His smile is broad as he takes back my mundane five -dollar bill and exchanges it for a lovely array of currency and coins that are the legal tender of his country.

This time, my passport and visa are in order and I am allowed into the baggage claim and customs area. My friends have said that because I am American, I likely will not be stopped and asked to display what is within my suitcases. I really hope they are right because it will be difficult to explain the odd contents therein. Hallah cautioned me in her last email, “You have nothing to declare.” That works for me. As I approach the customs man, I consider the horse gear, two purple zippers, the huge economy size box of Tums antacid and the seven, count them, seven coats that I am bringing to frozen Egypt. It really looks, according to my luggage, as if I plan to go horseback riding in the North Pole! My Egyptian friends have sent the coats to various relatives in Alexandria, where it gets cold, at least in theory. Being from the Northwest United States, I wonder…. Will the customs man believe I am an equestrian with the chills and a stomachache? Not to worry, I am American, and as predicted, allowed through customs with nary a second glance. I walk out into the Egyptian night for the first time in my life!

I am a belly dancer and I am here to visit fellow dancer, costumer and dear friend, Hallah Moustafa. She has resided in Cairo for the last seven years now and makes her living by creating exquisite costuming and couture clothing. We have known each other for most of our dance lives, but have not physically seen each other for the last 15 years.

I am met on the other side of customs by Hallah’s driver, Ahmed, and his wife, Ola, who interprets for her and is her assistant. Ola is dressed in her finest, having come from the Nile Festival where she has been working. She is very beautiful. She and Ahmed are holding up a sign with “Madame A’isha” printed on it. I soon learn that “Madame” is the polite title for all women in Egypt.

We are driving back to the Pyramisa Hotel, where Hallah is finishing up at the Festival. Cairo by night is fantastic! The streets are busier at 1 A.M. than they are in my city at any hour of the day or night. I marvel that the drivers all seem to get into the rhythm of the traffic and that no one seems to get even slightly maimed. I am amazed and horrified at the pedestrians who dart into the traffic with not a care for their safety, it would seem. Everyone cheerfully honks their horns as musical accompaniment to this mobile traffic jam. Why are they all not killed is beyond my ability to comprehend.

At the Pyramisa, my first glimpse of Hallah overwhelms me with joy!! Has it really been fifteen years? We hug and kiss and tear up a little and laugh loudly in the street causing amusement among the hotel concierge population. We get into the car and our driver joins in the impossible traffic to go to Hallah's flat. I am surprised to see kids outside though it is after 1 A.M in the morning.

Hallah lives on the 12^th floor of an apartment building in the Mari Oteyah district, maybe still in Cairo but very close to Giza if this is so. Even though it is so late, there are people in the doorway and the very elaborately scrolled doors are not closed. I hear that most of the time, the elevator works and tonight we are in luck and are slowly lifted to the 11th floor, as high as the elevator goes. The stairwell looks old and there is sand and garbage in it, along with chinks in the walls and other signs of wear and tear. The stairs themselves are beautiful under it all, marble and concrete, dignified and elegant, somehow. She says it is a relatively new apartment. Most of the garbage is eventually cleared away during my stay, it being the refuse left by tenants on the llth floor who have moved out. I am charmed by the doorknobs in the middle of the doors instead of to the side as they are in the States.

Hallah’s cat, Mau, greets us at the door. More about Egyptian feline life later. Her flat is just beautiful, with the marble floors, crown molding on the high ceilings a formal and informal living room, galley kitchen behind a mosaic looking rounded half wall, skinny little bathroom with a deep tub (I’m told it leaks badly), and three very spacious bedrooms. There is a wonderful balcony as well, and to our left over the wall we see the Great Pyramid and its companions. There are a few warts, including holes in the walls and some electrical wiring hanging out where the old tenants took the lighting and other electrical fixtures with them when they moved on. (This turns out to be the general state of affairs in Egypt, where there are no Landlord/Tenant Act laws to protect either party.) There is a hot water heater that is situated hanging above the toilet, with an on-off switch. The flat is too charming for words! Hallah has decorated in her eclectic and unerring “shabby chic” taste. Bedouin tassels lay draped over a high Victorian style couch. On one wall hangs a somewhat tattered but extremely rich looking killim rug, from which are suspended lavish displays of single tassels, horse bracelets, faced veils in the Bedu style and other items of equal cultural and visual interest. On a table in the entry area is a tall vase filled with rocks and sea shells, crowned with a beaded and tasseled Tibetan woman’s metal headdress. The shrunk in the living room has a jumble of Egyptian and Moroccan style lamps on top, and on shelves, a nice collection of dellas (Arab coffee pots), both old and new interlaced with photos of friends and horses, and costumes, old postcards, and other colorful items. Another table holds crystals and statuettes of gods and goddesses, and the little Ushabti statues, the servants of gods and kings. Hallah's place is a treasure trove of wonderful and interesting things!

We talk all night. There is so much to catch up on! Hallah loves Egypt and has come to know it is her real home. She is happier than ever before in her life and knows she is doing what she is meant to do, and is where she is meant to be. She feels complete here.

As the day dawns one of the most moving of my experiences in Egypt comes to pass. In my entire time there, it never failed to affect me and it never lost its allure and magic. I hear over the city the Call to Prayer from at least a half dozen mosques. It is astounding, amazing, and poignant in a way that I cannot begin to describe. It is a thing that must be heard to be understood, and it gives me a glimpse into the hold that Islam has on its followers. When this is one’s awakening, it is possible to believe that “Prayer is better than sleep”, as the muezzins sing in their morning call.

The view from Hallah’s balcony

April 15^th- Animal rescue and dinner at Barry’s

Hallah tells me to put on jeans and a T-shirt. Her driver is taking us into the countryside, on the outskirts of the city. She and her friend, Sabina keep their rescued horses, Elvis and Red at a rescue farm run by a European woman and we are on our way to see them. Hallah bought Elvis before he was in terrible shape. He came from the Nile Delta region. Red, on the other hand, has until recently led a life full of cruelty and severe neglect. He was a stable horse, rented to ride out of the stables by the Pyramids. He was frequently used by an Iranian friend of theirs who one day decided to unsaddle Red himself after riding; a thing which he had never done before. He discovered that the poor creature had hideous saddle sores all over his back and they had been there long enough for maggots to be living in the wounds. The man complained and the horse disappeared and was not to be found the next time he went to the stables. He reported this mysterious disappearance to Sabina and she went off to find out what had become of the horse. She found him in a filthy stall with no light in the very back of the stable, with no food or water. The owners were going to let him just starve to death.

Red now lives on the farm and has been cared for enough so that his back is mostly healed, though you can see scarring and bumps under the skin still, and his new coat in that area is a different color slightly than the rest of his hair. He has a ways to go and they have not tried to ride him yet because he is still recovering. They say he has put on weight and he has a voracious appetite. He is a beautiful horse and so is Elvis.

On the drive out to the farm, we begin to see signs of country life. Not only are there more donkey carts filled with vegetation, but also there are water buffalo and more goats and sheep and other creatures in the road. The manner of dress changes also, so that more people are dressed in gelebiyahs than we saw in the city. The houses and shops are all close together and might or might not have doors of any sort. Structures become more one or two story, though they are still like row houses, all attached. Little barefoot children work or play in the dirt in front of these structures. Adults are also busy, though some sit idle in doorways or in front of the shops. One old man has his gelebiyah raised above the stumps that stop above where his lower legs should be. Missing limbs seems to be all too common in Egypt, as I will see. Sabina says that when we come to the country like this, we are seeing “The real Egypt”. I comment on the poverty and Hallah says that most people do not seem unhappy in spite of seeming to be very poor.

The rescue farm is a wonderful place. There are about 15 dogs that live here, mostly of a kind that is called Beledi. They look like a cross between a Basenji and a Dingo. There is a Dalmatian who had been abused beyond belief and now has three legs instead of four. There are some Rat Terriers that seem to have multiplied by the minute, a Great Dane and various mutts. There are no cats here, but among the rescued are about 20 horses, a water buffalo, some goats and sheep, a few donkeys and an aviary housing different kinds of birds from turkeys to conures. Mary Ann, the owner of the farm runs a clean and spacious place. She has hired Egyptians from the countryside to help her and as one man goes into the pasture area where the donkeys, sheep and goats, water buffalo are kept, they follow him into the shed where the food trough is, looking rather as if Noah had just gathered them to put them on the boat!

Hallah and Sabina discuss a complication with Red’s recent gelding procedure. Things just do not look right. They used a different vet and they are not sure about his work. (Later in the week, Red ended up going to their regular veterinarian, and it was found that he had a raging infection even into his stomach area, and he had to be put on antibiotics as well as having another surgery. This poor horse has really had it rough!) They want to ride him, but feel it is better to wait. The ladies had some items sent to my house for me to bring to Egypt, just for Red. He now has support socks and a special riding pad that will feel good on his back. They will ride him soon, they say.

Hallah says we must go to Barry’s for dinner and see the laser light show that is shown on the Pyramids, of all things! It is an open-air restaurant two floors up, with a close view of the Pyramids at Giza, and of course, the Sphinx. The food at Barry’s is really delicious, by the way. I highly recommend the shawarma, served with wonderful rice and expertly cooked Egyptian vegetables. There is a laser light show at night, beamed upon these mysterious, ancient structures, complete with narration and a musical score straight out of a Charlton Hesston movie about Moses. Tonight we hear the story of King Tutankhamun and other long dead kings in both Italian and Arabic. It seems so very Egyptian, somehow, to combine things literally thousands of years old with a completely modern technology. Hallah says it is a very surreal experienced to eat at the KFC nestled cheerily in front of the Sphinx at very close range. Regardless, the power of the Sphinx and the Pyramids to awe the observer is not diminished, and I will see this melding of old and new at every turn. It becomes the symbol of Egypt for me.

“Noah” and friends

April 16^th- The cats of the Khan El Khalili

In the morning we go to the building where Hallah has her shop. I notice that often businesses and residences are housed in the same building. Zoning laws might or might not exist here. The building is in an alley about a block from her place. We walk over, stopping at a juice bar on the way . These little juice bars seem to be everywhere, and the juice is freshly squeezed before our eyes. The proprietor does wash the fruit in tap water, which is so loaded with bleach that I can smell it from here. During my entire trip I will never once suffer from any kind of digestive insult, thank goodness. I am careful, however, and the only fresh fruit or vegetables that I eat comes from this particular juice bar. Hallah says that Egyptian fruits and vegetables are the sweetest and tastiest and the offerings so far have attested to that. The O.J. can be gotten to go, in a clever little plastic bag, tied at the top around a straw. Delicious!

Cairo’s streets are full of garbage, dust and every imaginable kind of traffic, from expensive cars to donkey carts to human beings, and cats and birds, all in a huge jumble. We dodge all to cross the street, Hallah feeling the need to protect me and grabbing my hand as we run. In the alley there are very new cars parked aside old carts. Cats slink into corners or behind a heap of rubbish, the dust is rather pretty in a sun stream. People dressed in all manner of combinations from women completely covered in black to men in western jeans and t-shirts can be seen in this alley. The shop is in a typically tall building that has been well used, but it retains a lot of charm in that it has a spacious foyer, sunny stairs of chipped cement and marble leading upward to the third floor where the shop is located. The people live here and in the surrounding buildings, often built so close together that they appear to be the same structure. Ola and Ahmed live here, on a floor above the shop.

Hallah’s place of business is on the second floor and the door opens with a ring, since it is kept locked. We walk into a room that is private due to a colorful curtain placed between it and the front door. The shop has several rooms including one area for handwork, one for sewing with the machines and one that has an array of beads, jewels sequins and other finery that makes my fingers itch to play with it all.

In case you don’t know about Hallah Moustafa, she is one of the finest costume designers that I have ever met, and many others agree! Egypt’s Dina, members of the Belly Dance Super Stars, Cairo’s Yasmina and Liza Laziza are just a few of her better known customers. Her work is fresh and original, and of superior quality. She offers two hundred fifty designs in a catalog style to help her clients make costume choices. Her work is graced with fabulous Sworovsky crystals and other fine ornamentation that she combines with her designs in ways that make her costumes speak to the heart and soul!

Hallah employs at least five people at any given time. She has her regular crew, plus beaders and other workers who are employed on a piecework basis. In the shop today are Ola ,Eman and Mimi. You have met her assistant Ola, who it turns out, is mistress of many trades. She is doing beadwork by hand today, but will work in the capacity of interpreter later in my visit. She also cooks, makes business calls, deals with trades people and any number of other handy things. Hallah loves her and so do I. Eman also does handwork and she and Ola banter as they sew, their izdells cover their heads and shirts. Ola explains about the izdell for me and shows how it is actually a garment that is both head and body covering in one piece, kind of like a shirt with a scarf attached. Ola is wearing leopard skin patterned izdell. Eman, on the other hand, is dressed in somber blue with a beautiful, hand-woven blue headpiece that has delicate strands of metallic thread in its borders. Eman keeps her izdell in place with two straight pins on the side of her head, I kid you not!! She says she never gets stuck by them. Ola tucks her’s beneath her chin.

Along with costumes, Hallah also makes clothing. Mimi emerges from the back room where he has been sewing a wonderful tailored white blouse. It is beautifully made, with elaborate tucks and plackets and other complex design features on a two toned white striped fabric. We all ooohhh and ahhh while Mimi beams his pleasure at our approval.

Hallah eyes a costume and adjusts some draping in the skirt. The costume is a beautiful hot pink with loads of handwork and diamante in fabulous colors. She gives some instructions to the crew and then it’s off to the famed Khan El Khalili for us!

The Khan el Khalili is beyond huge. It is not even really possible for me to tell how many floors it is, how many blocks it covers, or any other thing about it’s size or shape! The word Khan once denoted a kind of caravansary where people could stop for the night, kind of like an inn only more so. The Khan el Khalili appears to be several stories high in parts and has so many streets and alleys, with shops behind shops and over and under and in front of shops. It is a maze of shops on the streets and in nooks and crannies. Each shop has its own hawker, who bids you to come in and look at his wares, which are far superior to anyone else’s in the Khan or even in the entire country of Egypt. I receive three separate marriage proposals from the same shopkeeper, one for each time we pass by. I don’t respond because I am aware that he only wants to marry me for my money! Some of them are quite amusing, having a most interesting command of the English language. One beaming gentleman says to me, “Let me lose all of your money here, Madame.” A tempting offer, but I move on without entering his worthy establishment. There is truly everything for sale here and Hallah is an excellent person for insisting on a bargain. She dickers as well as the most seasoned proprietor. It seems that it is common practice for tourists to be charged far more than natives, and haggling over the price is the accepted and even necessary custom.

In one shop she knows the owner well. It is filled with all manner of things metal, hanging from the ceiling, sitting on shelves, resting on the floor, one on top of the other, in drawers, in the entry way, from floor to ceiling. It is a maze of metal. His things are old and new and they are all his greatest treasure, just ask him! I find a della ( Arab coffee pot) that looks as if it has been untouched by human hands in this or the last century, if we are to judge by the dust on it. I love dellas and have a small collection at home. This one is very nice, he tells me, and one of his favorites. It has someone’s name written on it, see? He shows me the name etched in the metal in Arabic. How he knew that under all the dust is beyond me….maybe it really IS his favorite!! He names a price and Hallah scoffs and they argue until she is satisfied with the price. She also has him throw in some horse bracelets I had admired, for very little more. We go to all her favorite shops and I come out of the Khan with dresses from one shop, gifts for my dance company from several others, some fabrics and beads and music CDs and Alexandrian face veils and a whole bunch of great stuff…. And I still have money!! (I am proud to say that on my second visit to the Khan, I made a couple of good bargains all on my own!)

Along with the hawkers, there are also the beggars, to whom Hallah suggests we give with care. She chooses an ancient looking man without legs ,sitting in the dirt in the middle of the street. She nearly always will give to old or maimed beggars, and I follow suit. I have been told that you can eventually get used to seeing such dispiriting things as a human being with just one oozing eye and no meat on her bones, dressed in a pile filthy of rags, with no teeth, sitting listlessly in the dirt by the side of the road not even raising her voice as she pleads for money, because she just does not have the strength for it.

The Khan el Khalili is a pretty old place. Fishawi’s is a teahouse inside the Khan and Hallah informs me it has been continuously in business there, in one form or another for about 800 years. We stop and have tea with an old friend of her’s. If you sit still you are continuously approached by people, mostly children, who are selling things on the move, so to speak. They are hired by shopkeepers to circulate in the Kahn with crazy stuff for sale. We are offered cheap necklaces, balloons, flowers, gym bags, cards, any number of things, including hats with sunglasses built in. (I eventually buy one of these for my grandson who will just love the concept….. and does not need to work for a living.) These mobile salespeople are worse than flies and you have to keep shooing them away.

Cairo is just teeming with feral cats. I notice that most people do not seem to bother them, but basically pay them no mind at all. The cats do not look very healthy in general. Their fur is without luster and they are usually small and thin. They are descended from the Mau, which are the cats that the ancient Egyptians kept as sacred animals.

Hallah and I are waiting now for the driver and we are in an al fresco “pancake house”, which serves a wonderful, very flat bread with numerous choices of topping. We get one with powdered sugar and butter and another with cheese, and some coffee. The breads are truly delicious. We share with the cats. They all have short hair, luminous eyes and longish ears, and this seems to be the common look for the street cats I see, no matter where in Cairo and Alexandria. Some look way too young to be eating pancakes for sure. Some are injured and some are very thin. One quite pregnant cat is so thin its painful to watch her move. They come in many colors, but almost all have at least some spotting in their coats. Hallah’s Mau comes from a rescue shelter where he appeared with broken ribs and other injuries.

The owner of the pancake house occasionally comes out to the patio and half-heartedly wiggles a stick under the tables where the cats sit and wait for handouts. He does this, I am sure, to demonstrate his care for the comfort of the customers who have no appreciation for them. I have counted fifteen cats in this establishment alone. He is far more sincere in shooing away the hawkers who carry their wares from table to table and are sure to stop by three or more times before they get discouraged and believe you will not buy from them. Many are adults, but there are many more who are children. I give baksheesh to a very old man selling gym bags. I am taken completely by a kid of about eight years old, who keeps coming by and flirting with us. He has paid at least ten visits to our table. I hide behind my hand, exaggerating my despair at seeing his face once more. I suddenly look out over the top and solemnly say “Peek-a-boo”. He loves it!! He says it back. He leaves our table to stand in the middle of the street and covers his eyes, and then looks over the tops of his fingers and shouts “Peek-a-boo!!”. It becomes a great, fun game and pretty soon he has taught all the other sales kids to stand in the street, cover their eyes and yell “Peek-a-boo” at us. Hallah and I are deluged with pint-sized entrepreneurs stopping by to play. My young friend sells necklaces. Cheap little ceramic hearts on a string, worth maybe twenty-five cents on an expensive day. He comes to stand before me and implores with his big brown eyes, in his kid voice with his Arabic accent. “Madame, not one hundred bounds, just one bound”. How can I not buy one of his hearts when that kind of logic is staring me right in the face? I want to take him home and feed him soup, wash him and his clothes, tuck him into bed safe and sound where he can be a kid and dream kid dreams. Hallah interjects a dose of reality by adding that I would be ripped off of all my possessions of any value and the kid would be on the streets and hawking them tomorrow! I have no small Egyptian money and ask if he will accept an American dollar, worth over five pounds. He is thrilled and skips away with money in hand, to show the other kids what an idiot the Hawaga sitting over there is, I’m sure. He occasionally comes by to stand in the street, reward me with a huge smile. He plasters the dollar to his forehead for my admiration.

Before we leave the Khan el Khalili, we are approached by two real beggars. One is a boy of about seven who comes to our table while. He does not speak to us, but gestures with his hands that he is hungry. He is terribly thin and very dirty. He reminds me too much of the cats. Hallah looks around to make sure there is no adult waiting to relieve him of whatever money she gives him and he runs away with his gains.

The street in front of the Khan is full of vehicles and people, and donkey carts all crushed together. The second beggar approaches us as we are leaving and jammed into this life stream like canned herring. She is pregnant and carrying a baby that looks to be about ten months old. She also does not speak and only gestures and pleads with her eyes, as did the boy. Hallah is very rude to her, telling her to go away in really rough voice. This surprises me as she has been so very kind with other people to this point. She says that she is really angry about what is going on here. It seems that often babies are rented for the night by beggars and it infuriates her that these little ones are so ill used that she cannot stomach beggars carrying babies. She even doubts that the woman is pregnant, but probably she is just stuffed for sympathy and hopes of getting a little more money for her night’s work. I am pretty appalled by what she tells me and thank God, Ahmed, our driver has just arrived to take us home.

Cats in the Khan

April 17^th- The cloth souk and the Nile Festival

Today we go to Wekailet El Bellah, the fabric souk!! Like getting from any place to any other place in Cairo, I run the emotional gamut from delight to terror. Please, God, do NOT let us run headlong into the car six inches to the right, or the donkey cart on the left whose side strap just grazed the car’s side mirror, or the pedestrian one foot in front of us who is taking his life in his hands by dodging traffic. The man just must have a death wish! But, he weaves expertly in and out of traffic, dancing to a very demanding drummer, and safely reaches the other side of the street. I want to give him a big round of applause. Hallah says that driving in Cairo, and in fact practically anywhere in Egypt is just more than she can do, so she is thankful every day for Ahmed. From what I can see, he is a truly miraculous driver. Here, the lines that indicate traffic lanes seem to be a sort of decoration on the road rather than an actual indication that one’s vehicle should stay in between them. We are in a three-lane street, but there are five lanes of vehicles, and here comes a flock of sheep just to make it even more interesting! They are herding around a Mercedes bus and followed rather unconcernedly by their owner in a horse drawn wagon. And, there are countless numbers of black and white taxis as well. The scene makes the L.A. freeway at rush hour look like a leisurely Sunday drive! It seems there is constant motion and noise here. The honking of horns is a musical accompaniment in Cairo day or night, but is especially robust in the afternoons. Loud speakers announce the call to prayer or deliver a sermon. Human beings shout to each other, animals make their various sounds, music plays on radios and speakers, and vehicles of all kinds contribute their various mechanical incantations to the cacophony. It is the sound of Cairo and it is never stilled.

The fabric souk is immense! There is an open-air market with used clothing and other items made of cloth or rope or any other textile item. And, there are streets and alleys with literally hundreds of fabric shops! Have I perhaps died and gone to heaven? The eager proprietors vie for our attention in exactly the same way that they do in the Khan El Khalili. It seems to be the way to do business here!! They hawk their wares from the doorways, exclaiming that their goods are the best, cheapest, more of what I need and want in every single store!!

But Hallah knows exactly where we are going and our first stop is to pick up some fabric that resembles tent fabric used for celebrations. The real stuff is quite heavy and has layers thick with lots of quilting, but we are not out to buy, only admire and wish we owned it. The fake stuff comes in a variety of colors and I decide on one that is predominantly blue. It almost feels like it is made out of nylon and the design is printed on rather than sewn. Hallah strikes the bargain and we move on. I am so astounded and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fabric in one place. There seem to be miles of fabric stores up, down and around! We enter one of her favorite shops and I notice a distinct lack of any patrons who are not native Egyptians. We get a few hostile looks in here, but the proprietor knows Hallah well and rushes over to greet us. She is one of his most steady customers and he is not about to lose her to another shop! There is so much lavish, glittering, beaded, sequined stuff in here. The fabric lines the walls from floor to ceiling and each wall in each room offers cloth even more wonderful than the one before. I decide on several pieces of just exquisite Lycra and a few pieces of beaded and sequined georgette and net. I spend some time trying to hone my bargaining skills. The shopkeeper is an expert and I am a beginner! Apparently Hallah is listening in and she is completely unsatisfied with the prices that he is offering me. She bulks her fabrics and mine together on the table and proceeds to tell him what we are both willing to pay. I come away with a much fuller wallet than I otherwise would have.

We proceed to a third shop and she buys a fabric to die for, for a wedding gown. It has a subtle sparkle, like champagne bubbles in the sun! This shop has some of the most exquisite silk I have ever, ever seen. It makes my heart want to sing to be in the presence of it’s elegant sheen of the fabric, in such a variety of colors in the soft light. There is one piece that has a bronze metallic burnish that I could weep over! It is almost too beautiful to bear.

We leave the souk with our excellent lengths of cloth and go home to admire what we have bought, and drool over each other’s purchases as well. Any day with that much fabric in it is a good day. The afternoon has been a costumer’s dream.

Hallah makes a purchase at the fabric souk

Tonight we go to the Nile Festival Dance Competition. The Festival is a weeklong event with dance shows, teachers from various locations, and other dance related goings on. We meet two dancers from the Orientaldancer.net forum, where I am a member and so are they. Maariku is from Estonia and Stella is from Greece. We have taken part in many discussions there together, and I am so pleased to meet them in person at last. We have coffee and talk dance and costuming. Who have they had classes with here at the festival? Who do we all like to see? When will I come to Greece? Another forum member, Aya, has sent a gift for me through Maariku. It is videos from her Oriental Soul shows!!!! And Stella gives me music! I feel very special that they would think of me, and will watch and listen when I return home, and be reminded of their kindnesses.

We go to the competition. There are a few exceptional dancers. My favorite is a woman from Russia named Alexandra. Her costume is simple and allows the audience to see her exquisite movement which is both strong and subtle. She has an excellent sense of timing with the music. She knows when to draw out the sound of the violin with her swaying response, how to cover space to bring out the energy of the fast passages, and much more. She is totally connected to the music and she understands it deeply, emotionally. She has the things that I need from a dancer! She has that right cultural feeling and feminine essence, as well as great technique physically. She is elegant and visceral at the same time. She is a dancer’s dancer!

There are many wonderful costumes on the stage. Two stand out as really exceptional, both worn by Japanese contestants. One is multicolored and bright, with a gusset skirt in rainbow colors. The other is bronze and gold against black with an over belt that reaches the floor on one side, over an animal print skirt. The flatwork is delicious and the fringe looks like quills because it is so fine.

The absolute highlight of the evening for me is the band that plays for Khaled Mahmoud. They are a full Egyptian orchestra before my very eyes and ears. Here is the kind of band I have wanted to perform with all my dance life! It’s not five guys doing their best to sound like 20. It is 20 guys packed onto a small stage in fine Egyptian fashion, playing their asses off! The music is stupendous! Hallah and I are so tired that we need to leave before the second half of the competition. Hallah’s friend Liza Laziza, the Mistress of Ceremonies for the competition advises us to stay for the second half, but we are just too done in.

I must be sure to tell readers that I had the chance to get to know Liza a little better, and that I like her immensely both as a person and as a dancer. Hallah thinks the world of her. I had not heard of her at all until I came to Egypt and I hope that more dancers get to know about her. She did teach some classes at the festival and I heard great things about her from some fellow dancers. They said her classes were among the best at the festival. She is a good teacher, very concerned that students understand and can use her information and techniques to their benefit.

On the way home, we see a zeffa, or wedding reception, in a parking lot! The bride is there in her white dress, the musicians are there playing music, the guests are talking and laughing and dancing, there are tables of food and drink, in a parking lot.
Ahmed fills me in on the “parking lot wedding tradition”. I am told that this sometimes happens if the apartment of the family is too small for the guest list and they cannot afford to rent a hotel or other type of facility. This party sounds and looks like it is as much fun as the most fancy and expensive five star hotel wedding. In fact, it might even be better!! The location does not seem to be the least bit damping down the festivities and I wish the bride and groom a long and happy life together.

Khaled Mahmoud’s band with Liza’s agent

April 18^th- A day of rest

Today is Friday the Muslim holy day and the day off for Hallah’s employees. We also take the day off to relax at home.

I have talked about my first experience with the Call to Prayer. I can see why it affects Muslims so very strongly. Even with my very limited understanding of Arabic, I am totally drawn in to the beauty the Call, enchanted by the voices that sing out that it is time to give to God what belongs to Him. We are twelve stories up in Hallah’s flat and we are up among the minarets, half a dozen from which the Faithful are called to prayer by different muezzins at the same time. It is a deeply moving jumble of song and heartfelt invitation that I cannot begin to describe on paper. It is the voice of history and it has shaped the lives of many millions of peoples and many nations. I stand outside of this reality, and yet it has such a profound effect on me. How much more intense it must feel to those who have a depth of knowledge and generations of adherence to this religion that five times a day reminds them to submit to the will of God.

Hallah talks abut her life in Egypt a bit. She says that here in Mari Oteyah district as different than when she was living in Al Haram, because she is the only “Hawaga” in the area. The term might be said to loosely mean female foreign devil. The polite term for foreign females is “Ag nabiyeh”. She says that she could not rent her apartment or her place of business in her own name. It had to be done by Ola. She has occasionally m with some hostility, but mostly more with curiosity. There has been one time when she was threatened. A man followed her up the street for a while, swearing at her and saying very unfriendly things. She finally turned around because she felt like he was about to attack her. Before she even got fully into a position to defend herself, a couple of the shopkeepers in the neighborhood made he perpetrator leave her alone. She says, “I might be a Hawaga, but I am THEIR Hawaga, and they take some sort of perverse pride in that”.

April 19^th- Alexandria

We are off to Alexandria!! Ola and Ahmed are very happy to make the trip. They love it there. Ahmed will drive as usual and Ola will come along as interpreter. Our real purpose for the visit is that I am going to deliver some gifts to their families for some friends who live in America now, but who do not want to miss an opportunity to send things home.

Alexandria is some two and a half to three hours from Cairo. The drive itself is interesting and I have a lot of questions, all of which my three companions are happy to answer. We come to the desert and I am surprised at how of it there truly is, and how much of it is being tamed. I am surprised to see how much I am aware that the rubble of the city is missing out here. I have grown used to Cairo’s piles of dirt and building materials and rock that one sees in most areas of the city. It looks often as if buildings have been torn down, but just left where they were. The truth of this is that there have been many projects started in Cairo that were never finished, and the constant blowing of dust and sand makes them look much like ruins. What Sadat started has been abandoned by Mubarak.

We drive through an agricultural area, thanks to the wonders of irrigation. There are acres of bananas and other orchards that stretch as far as we can see, and it is pretty flat out here. I am intrigued by the appearance of one regularly seen architectural feature. Fairly often I see beautiful arched structures that look like entryways or large gateways. But there are never any supporting fences or walls, or any buildings beyond except for the occasional hut that tools might be kept in or a worker might live in. Ola informs me, “This is the way people say it is their land”. Hallah adds that in order for people to keep lands bought from the government, they must build something on the property or the government will reclaim it after a relatively short time. This happened to a friend of hers. The arches are cheap to build and pretty, so they are often the structure of choice!

We stop at a rest stop, which is kind of a mini-mall, restroom and food court all in one. Everywhere I have been out in public in Egypt, the restrooms are surprisingly clean. There is an attendant who hands users toilet paper, and cleans up water around the sinks, etc. There is usually so much litter and other garbage in the streets and alleys that it is always a kind of happy discovery! Inside, though, it is nearly always clean. Shops are usually fairly tidy, homes are clean and cheerful, and restaurants are in decent shape for the most part.

In peoples’ homes I notice that often the stairs to their apartments are chipped and dusty or sometimes even trashy. Once inside again, it is usually clean and sometimes this is no easy feat. I find that many homes have holes in the walls where wiring is sticking out from the last tenants stripping the place of electrical fixtures, and I think I only saw one complete toilet inside a home, but everyone has a bidet! In spite of all this, people seem pretty tidy and clean in their own homes.

To travel to Alexandria we go through several check points along the way. They seem to be places where Ahmed must show his identification to a man in a line of what appear to be tollbooths, though no money changes hands. The actual structures are lovely and lavish with carvings of Egyptian gods and goddesses and other such decorations. They also place hundreds of panels about three feet high on both sides of all the tollgates in straight lines. They advertise many different things, but Pepsi seems to have bought the most space here! Literally several lines of about 50 panels invite us to drink up! I have come to almost expect that Tutankhamon and Pepsi will bed down together here. There is something almost bipolar about the old and new, side by side in this country, and it seems a summation of a culture that is constantly reminded that it might be the twenty first century, but there are things here which have been here for thousands of years into the past and will endure when what is here now has disappeared.

When we reach Alexandria, we immediately feel a change in the air. We can see the Sea! The traffic is as insane as it is in Cairo, but the city seems somehow a bit more relaxed. The beaches have many people on them and most, both men and women are very modestly dressed. Women wear everything from shalls, to izdells to full abaya and face veils. Men are mostly dressed in western shirts and slacks, though we see the occasional gelebiyeh.

The beach at Alexandria

We stop at the beach for a short walk. We try to go to one side of the beach but it is a government run private beach and costs 50 pounds to go. We act disgusted and go to the public beach instead. Ola and I walk out to a jetty and watch the boats go by. One small motor boast goes by and immediately a snorkeler pops out of the water and starts yelling. I ask Ola what he is saying, She says, “He is telling the guy in the boat, ‘Every day I snorkel here and every day you hit me with your boat. What is wrong with you!!’ and the guy in the boat does not listen.” We laugh at this silly guy who keeps snorkeling in the same dangerous place “every day” and I suggest she should shout at him to find a new place since he is not smart. Her reply, “No, it’s more fun this way!”

Ahmed the miracle worker gets us safely and unerringly to the alley in which the first place we will be visiting is located. It is the home of my friend, Manal’s family. The alley is very colorful and Egyptian! There is a gentleman up the street in a gelebiyeh sitting in front of his rug store at a little table drinking tea. Further up a man sits on a plastic yard chair and he, too is in gelebiyeh, as well as having his head covered by his scarf. Several women are dressed in very old-fashioned clothing. The street is dusty and lived in and comfortable. The balconies are filled with drying laundry or large curtains for privacy. Manal’s apartment is three floors up. The staircase is dark and dingy and chipped, tiny and cramped like that of a castle in an old movie. Once we get inside the apartment everything changes! The place is so charming; with a small living room with lots of Victorian style couches against the walls and a very modern coffee table in the middle of the room and tables beside the couches. It is homey, cluttered and totally warm and friendly here. There is Christmas Garland decorating the ceiling and a small Christmas tree on a table, complete with ornaments, including a cross and Santa. Manal says they leave it up the year round, which I just adore! Manal’s family are Copts. In our city back in America there is no Coptic church but she attends the Syrian Orthodox church.

Manal’s mother greets me profusely. She is the mirror of time for her daughter, who will look exactly like her one day. I deliver the gifts from home, four winter coats!! I ask how it is that they would need such heavy coats and they assure me it gets “very cold” in Alexandria in the winter. It is clear that Manal gets her effusive personality and sense of fun from her Mom. Her brother and sister-in-law sit with us and we chat and laugh. We are given tea and Pepsi and Ola is kept very busy interpreting for us all. (I learn later that this is the very first time in her life that she has been in a Christian home.) We have so much fun that it is all too soon time to go. We are expected for lunch at another house. Manal’s mother expresses regret. She had hoped I would perhaps stay the night….. I explain that it is not possible , but if I ever return to Egypt, I would love to be invited. She holds me very close and is so reluctant to let me go that I am very surprised. Hallah reminds me that I am the physical link to her daughter, so far away in America

Our next stop is at the home of my best friend’s husband’s family. Amr came to America about two and a half years ago and his family misses him very much. They live in an apartment on a street that is not far away from where Manal’s family lives, but it is clearly an upper class neighborhood. The street is wider, there is less trash and only sunshades on the balconies. I rather miss the laundry that is a balcony staple in Hallah’s neighborhood just as it is in Manal’s! The Talb family apartment is newer and has both a doorman and an elevator. The elevators seem pretty small in apartment buildings in Egypt and can fit maybe three people if they are not too fat. Hallah, Ola and I go up first and then Ahmed follows. We are greeted by Amr’s brother Ala’a and his mother. I feel like royalty because their welcome is so profuse. We meet two of the brothers and the sisters in-law, who do not stay to visit but disappear. This may be because Ahmed is visiting as well as us girls. We get to play with the babies, who are just a bit older than Leila and Amr’s child.

This apartment is lovely, with well-kept rooms decorated in good taste. I ask to wash my hands and I am shown down the hall to a bathroom where the toilet has no lid on the water tank. This seems to be a normal situation in Egypt, but I am rather surprised since this is a wealthier home. Everything is as clean as it can possibly be, however, and I an getting used to such things.

We are treated to a lovely feast with grape leaves, cabbage rolls, two kinds of meat, a green sauce for dipping bread and other great food. Oddly, the family does not eat with us. It seems strange, but the say they got hungry and ate before we arrived. I talked about this later with an Egyptian doctor from the upper classes and he says it is an old fashioned custom where the guests must have the best of everything, so they leave them to eat alone in order to give them ease and relaxation. I think I do not like this custom!

After we eat, we all have tea and dessert together and we talk of Amr and Leila and the baby, and we joke and laugh a lot. One thing that I love is the Egyptian sense of humor. I have found that laughter knows no economic boundaries or class lines and we can sit comfortably and enjoy each other’s company.

Much sooner than we would like, it is time to leave. Again I am expected to stay the night. In fact, we get a call from an uncle who lives near the mountains who wants to send his car to take us to his house. I beg off all the way around explaining that my time in Egypt is short and I want to spend as much of it with Hallah as I can because I may not see her for a very long time again. I know I am disappointing them, but we all part with warm wishes.

On the way home we stop at another rest stop and again I am impressed with how spotless it all is. This one has a large area with picnic tables and greenery. When we go back to the car, I happen to look over at a group loosely gathered around a table and see… what?….. a baby lion on a leash! It is about the size of a Chow dog and it is happily mauling its captor’s head, much to the delight of the crowd. Hallah and I ruminate on just how cute that is going to be a few months from now and we hope that nothing tragic happens to the lion or the owner. No one in my group knows if there are laws against owning wild animals here or not. None of us can imagine a happy ending to

this situation.

April 20^th- A chance meeting

So many things seem to be able to happen in Cairo! This morning we are in Hallah’s shop waiting for some dancers to come by. One is having a fitting and the other is along for the ride. When they arrive, I discover that I have traveled around the world to meet a dancer who not only lives in my own region of the U.S., but who I have been thinking of contacting. I am introduced to Astryd deMichele!

About a year ago one of my most promising students moved to Eugene, Oregon. We did not really know the dance scene there, but I hoped for the best. My student, Amira Azar spent some time in the dance community and she eventually met Astryd, who lives half the year in Cairo and half in Oregon. She began to take classes with her and they hit if off very well. Astryd has generously helped Amira to get established in the dance community there and hires her when she needs another dancer. I am so happy to meet her and I thank her profusely for being so kind. The realities of the business of belly dance are not always so very pleasant. Many dancers jealously guard their “territory” and would not dream of sharing, so Astryd is a treasure as far as I am concerned.