Becoming Cairenes, week 5

Kiki in her street clothes

Kiki in the apartment

It's starting: we are really getting used to living here. A city of 20 million people, hot and dusty, takes getting used to, and it's happening. Daily life is taking on a pleasant rhythm, aided by housekeeper Kiki, who makes us fresh Egyptian falafel four mornings a week, which is spoiling us quickly. BTW, Egyptian falafel is different from what we were used to eating. It is spicier, contains greens, and is addictive. If you visit, you too will enjoy breakfast! Something else we have learned is that Egyptian numerals are not Arabic numerals; they co-exist, but are not the same. Since prices are often only marked in Egyptian numerals, we've learned them and quiz ourselves on license plates.

I joined a gym, Samia Allouba, a short walk from our flat. It's small but pretty much identical to a gym in the U.S. excepting the occasional gym rat wearing a hijab (full headscarf) and sweating to techno. It's been a great place for me to blow off steam and wake up the muscles. Another find has been someone to do my hair and get both cut and color right! Thank heavens this won't be the Year of Bad Hair. We are also becoming regulars at a fabulous Chinese restaurant around the corner and are working our way through the menu. We joined a club up the street called the Ace Club, open only to those who hold non-Egyptian passports. It's essentially a place to have a drink and good food, and unlike most places, has imported liquor. Harris gets to drink his Scotch there. Indeed, having imported spirits is a badge of great cultural capital here because it means that you travel internationally.

Classes are going well, after a rockier-than-usual start, and I am ahead on my work and happy with my students. Harris has been working like a demon on his monograph on the poetic theories of Roman Jakobson, and has a standing lunch with a pal down the street on Wednesdays while I'm on campus. I'm starting the research on my Fulbright project, a comparison of advertising for multinational beauty products in Egypt and the U.S..

A view in Cairo of the middle pyramid

Us at the Pyramid of Cheops--with camels

The Solar Boat

I put off entering this week's blog because we went on an AUC-sponsored trip to the Pyramids, and I wanted to show off some photos. Our guide was a professor from AUC who was filled with details and insights, and we learned a lot (ex: the brain was removed during mummification by opening the back of the head during the Old Kingdom but by the Middle Kingdom, it was dissolved and removed through the nose--how gross is that!). We had been to the Pyramids in 1996 while teaching with Semester at Sea, but this visit held something new: we finally saw the so-called Solar Boat, a painstakingly reconstructed Nile vessel made of Lebanese cedar that was one of two buried with each pharaoh so his soul could cross the waters morning and night. It was astonishing to realize that not only was this created with stone tools (as were the pyramids and temples) but held together with ropes woven of local grasses. The boat's excavation turned up some ropes and mats, and they were lucky enough to preserve things quickly before oxidation turned everything to dust. Harris calls it the Pharaoh's Gulf Stream.

Saqqara and Dashur in the distance

Today is unusually clear, and in addition to the Giza pyramids and Sphinx, we could see all the way to Saqqara, where there are more tombs and pyramids. I like the combination of the ancient and the modern in the views. No wonder Egyptians are so proud of their history.

And, to our delight, the pyramids were only a 25 minute ride from our flat--I had no idea we were so close. So life here is getting smoother and richer. We look forward to seeing Harris's sister Nancy and husband Tom next month in Sharm el Sheikh, and plan of flying to Luxor to visit with my uncle Bill and aunt Rita in November. Our special birthday wishes go out to TC on September 29th!

The postcard view; note skyscrapers in the distance