Bricks and Stones

Cairo is a growing city and so, there's a lot of construction. It seems that as big and full as the city is, there's always room to put up more buildings. Construction's a bit different than I've seen in other places. There's no building with wooden beams and sheet rock here. No nails or plywood. Nothing that crumbles or molds in the first bit of flood. In Cairo, in the middle of the desert, they build with brick and sand and cement and metal. Even apartments are built this way. Nothing shoots up overnight, like the insta-partments I've seen in Austin. There's no building that's going to be rushed to make a faster profit. Egypt is somewhat disorganized and this is a factor in the slower way of building, but it also hints at something more. These buildings are made to last. It makes sense that in an ancient city with ruins thousands of years old, the notion of being only a small part of a greater whole, a tiny speck in an entire universe of time would be a natural way of being. That things are built with the understanding that far after we are gone, generations after us, will be people that are still here; these buildings will be used again and again until they crumble to the ground. When I first set foot in St. Paul's Cathedral in London in 2000, I felt this. And most other parts of Europe. This feeling of being connected to a deep, rich history that we are all a part of. It's not something I think that much about in the U.S. Our buildings are young and built without much thought for the future, it seems to me. It's easy to forget about the rest of time and the world and other people with nothing to remind us. There's no way to forget it here.

My Space Invaders

After having changed my MySpace location to Cairo, Egypt less than a week ago, I've decided to change it back to living in Texas. I have gotten more friend requests from single men (or boys) living in Cairo than I ever thought possible and it's getting annoying. Funny and very telling of the men here, I think, but mostly annoying and starting to piss me off. Anyway, it's not like all Egyptian men are these creepy, annoying and gross little perverts. And there actually are some Egyptian women that have boyfriends and don't cover their hair. (They're probably upper middle class from what I can tell, though...) And I'm sure some of these MySpacer's are just looking to make friends, but I'm very suspicious. I just can't help it! Anyway, I didn't start this blog just to bitch about Egyptian men. It's pretty easy to do, though.

Lord Help the Misters that Come Between Me and My Sisters

Last week, I gave in and bought 2 skirts that almost touch the ground. They were on sale and actually pretty cute and not too thick for the summer. On Sunday, I went out on the town with Azza (the lady that cleans my parents' apartment) and her sister Donya. I wore the skirt and buttoned up my shirt all the way to go with them and it worked out alright. Azza brought me over to her neighborhood and made me lunch in her apartment (in a building where all of her husband's family lives-I can't even imagine...). Her husband is apparently in Libya, working, and only comes back every few months. Azza lives in a tiny apartment about the size of my efficiency with her 2 little sons. Her husband's family doesn't approve of her nor do they know about the fact that she's a cleaning lady - they think she works as a nurse in a hospital. It's not uncommon to hear of married women taking care of their children all by themselves while their husbands are off somewhere they won't mention, or nowhere to be found - at least with lower middle class ladies that clean expat houses. Nobody's really sure if it's actually as common as these ladies say or if it's a way to guilt expat women into giving them a job. Typically, the truth in such things is somewhere in the middle. In Egypt, though, I suspect the truth lies closer to the side of the ladies that live here. Women don't get a lot of respect and wives don't have a lot of rights.

Inside her apartment, Azza, Donya and I talked, in a mix of broken English and Arabic, about men and marriage. They asked me why I wasn't married. It's a question I get a lot here and it's one that's difficult to explain because it's more of a concept. It's not easy to explain it in another language I don't really know how to speak. Basically, my answer ends up being something like, "I'm too young,"- which at almost 30 years old, doesn't really work much anymore - or, "I marry later." It seemed like I would never get anywhere with this whole why I'm not married thing especially since I've told them I have a boyfriend that's wonderful and who I actually love. It just seemed to be a concept that they didn't understand. Egyptian women don't have boyfriends, both of them told me while making the sign of slitting their throats. It's serious business. Women get married and that's it.

Then Donya, whose English is better than Azza's, explained that American women can get rid of their boyfriends if they are bad; Egyptian women can not get rid of their husbands. I guess that sums it up. At that moment, I realized that women are women and we can all relate to a no-good man. Things aren't so difficult for the men here. I've heard that, literally, all a man has to do is say, "I divorce you" three times and the marriage is null and void. For better or worse, at least in a place where divorce is all-too-common, I could get rid of a man that didn't treat me right. And I wonder how many men here have felt free to treat their woman as horribly as they wanted because they are raised and live in a place where they could get away with it. Anyway, I know I'm just an outsider looking in and that maybe I don't understand the complexity of it all. But I know about women not being treated right. I also know that even without legal or social power, women ultimately stick together; and in Egypt, it seems we need to.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Elbows

When I was planning to come to Egypt, I was aware of the more conservative dress expected of women. I went to Morocco about 6 years ago and I remember that we all dressed a bit more modestly than we normally would. It was early Spring anyway, though, so it wasn't hot enough for it to be that big of a deal. I knew that Morocco was one of the more laid-back largely-Muslim countries (or it was in early 2001, anyway) and that things might be different in Egypt.

People who didn't know better would try to scare me by bringing up burkas and complete cover and maybe the odd reference to cutting off hands if they catch you stealing. (This punishment comes from "the body of Islamic law," called Shariah, which is a set of guidelines established for dealing with both public and private daily life that was said to come from the prophet Mohammed. These days, most official governments may incorporate aspects of Shariah, but they don't use it as their judicial system. I'm pretty sure there's not a whole lot of hand cutting going on in Egypt. At least, in the media...) Anyway, I decided to ask some women who'd been to other Middle Eastern countries to see what they thought about how I should dress.
These ladies told me that as long as I covered my legs to the knees and my arms to the elbows and didn't show too much cleavage, that I'd be fine. As a result, I bought three pairs of capris, four tank tops and about seven button up shirts to wear over everything. I also brought a few skirts that cover my knees and one that goes to the floor.

What these ladies didn't tell me was that, while no one's going to spit or yell disapprovingly at you in the streets wearing capris and a loose shirt over your tank top (which has happened to some of the women here), you absolutely, without question, still get some undesired attention. Most Egyptian women wear long pants or skirts that touch the floor, long sleeve shirts to their wrists, and cover their hair completely with scarves. A few women go all out with the full-on hijab (women's head and body covering) and wear burkas with gloves and sometimes even a sheer cloth over that so you can't even see her eyes. Needless to say, most expats stand out in Cairo.

Two days ago (when I wrote this, which is about a week ago now), my mom and I went to Carre Four--the Cairo equivalent of a Wal-Mart--that's in a less expatty, more local part of town. I had a longish skirt on and my standard shoulder covering shirt. My mother wore a knee-length skirt and a short sleeve shirt. The truth is that she probably should have covered her elbows, but whatever. Neither of us expected to get so many dirty looks from all of the women. It was like high school all over again with stupid girls, but with more hostility. With women like that, I've taken to looking them in the eyes and smiling very sweetly at them. Every once in a while, one of them smiles back, but I think it throws the bitchy ones off a little and that makes me laugh. Really, there's not much else to do. But the women aren't really the problem. It's the men.

A few days before the Carre-Four incident, I was walking down the street to meet up with my mom who was volunteering at CSA (the organization created to help expats living in Egypt)-- knees covered, elbows and chest covered -- walking briskly, minding my own business and definitely looking down when some guy just pulled up in a car and tried to get me to talk to him. (Sure. That works in America too!) I just gave him the typical annoyed, screw-off look you'd give a lame guy that tries to hit on you at a bar and kept walking. It wasn't really that big of a deal. On the walk back, a car full of teenage guys drove past me and my mother slowly calling out to us and just being dumbasses. That wasn't that anything other than annoying either.

The real issue is that the men in Egypt generally don't respect Western women, and feel that we're easy. And that can cause problems. A few expat women have been walking in my parents' neighborhood and have been attacked by men who tried to drive off with them. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they planned to do. It's really just not safe for a non-covered woman to walk around alone here. And even if those things hadn't happened, I'd still be kind of uncomfortable. When I'm walking down the street, or browsing in a store, or especially at the gas station, sometimes an ickiness just comes over me and sinks into my gut. I can just feel eyes on me. Creepy lecherous eyes that only a woman could pick up on. And even though I know, at that moment that I'm safe, the feeling stays like an alarm. Like the kind of feeling you get when you know you're in danger. Theresa would call it an alert, I think. That's exactly what it is. And there's not much I can do about it.

Graduation, Egyptian Style

It was totally surreal. A graduation at the freaking pyramids! It was great to see and hear so many young ones full of hope and excitement. They talked about their dreams and aspirations and accomplishments. And then, at some point, I began to feel sorry for my parents and the 8 boring graduation ceremonies they'd had to sit through for all of us. Man, those speeches sure take a long time...