Cairo: Rants and Raves

Cairo really is amazing, but it is endlessly exhausting as a woman. You can't walk down the street without getting laughed at by other women and stared at or approached by men. We've tried to be respectful and wear long skirts, tunics that cover our and hint of shape in our shoulders, breasts, elbows and asses, and head scarves to cover our hair, but men still call at us salaciously and blow kisses and women still think we're a joke. Other tourists that we see wear tank tops and shorts that befit the hundred-degree weather while we sweat it out like suckers, trying to be respectful and modest in sleeves. It's not worth the effort! I'm surprised by how much I've liked Cairo, but it is truly exhausting to even walk down the street. A walk to lunch becomes a battlefield. You bat off tours on your left trying to sell ankhs and postcards and tours to the pyramids, and lewd men on your right who think that you're automatically lascivious because of your white skin and their impressions of Western women that have been formed by Hollywood movies.

But every time I'm about to write off Cairo to the cat-callers, tours and pushers, Egypt finds a way to surprise me. After a short and frustrating day of errands, a cabdriver bought each of us a strand of jasmine flowers to wear around our necks as a gift. It was such a genuinely sweet move; we were taken totally off-guard.


Yesterday we visited the Citadel, a fortification built in the 12th and 13th century that circles around the most beautiful mosque I have ever seen. Words will not do it any justice. All marble flooring, globe lighting and chandeliers like the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast. I have never seen a place of worship remotely like it. Today we visited the two synagogues that linger in Cairo as the final relics of a 4000-year Jewish history in Egypt. One of them has been restored and lives among a number of Churches and Nunneries in a very touristy part of town. The other is actually around the corner from our hostel, is heavily fortified by fifteen to twenty policemen at all times, and is in a pathetic state. It is kept by donations but receives no visitors. The custodian wears a cross around her neck and doesn't know the first thing about Judaism. (Cutely, she pointed to the Bima and said "this is the Meeba!") The Torah is out on the Bima covered in a sparkly cheap market scarf, and the whole synagogue hasn't been properly dusted in probably a decade. It's a very sad state to see the remnants of the Egyptian Jewry dusty and in disrepair.

This evening we took a brief felucca jaunt around the Nile from one tip of Cairo to the other. It was lovely and relaxing, but we wound up having to fight the felucca captain to pay what we rightfully negotiated. It was rather symbolic of our time in Cairo: a bittersweet mix of lovely experiences and frustrating people.

Tomorrow we take a bus to Eilat to hang out on the Red Sea for a few days!