Cairo Trilogy, Pt. I: En Route to Egypt

by Andrew Bast

I didn’t get my hair cut to go to Egypt, but strangely enough, a lecture I got while sitting in the barber’s chair was much of the reason that I’m leaving for Cairo this week. As my confident coiffeuse unceremoniously snipped away the curly blonde locks I’d been growing for more than a year, she scolded me, “You Americans don’t understand. You are the ones with the passports, and where do you travel? Nowhere. You can go anywhere in the world, and you don’t travel. Ever.”

Fearing what she could do to my hairdo, I bit my tongue. In the last couple of years I have traveled a few times to Europe—Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, Rome, Geneva, London—to Quito, Ecuador, to Jamaica, and to Colombo, Sri Lanka. As she continued her rant, I silently reminisced. Traveling is difficult, and at times quite expensive. The water always mucks up your insides. Duty Free is never worth it. Being a tourist means you will offend someone, if not many. Passing through customs is always intimidating. At the same time, however, traveling has taught me more about the world, and about myself, than any university education ever could.

More than twenty years ago when I was in grade school, I remember a teacher explaining, “If there’s ever another world war, it will be in the Middle East.” A prescient statement, perhaps. Witness the American fiasco in Iraq, ceaseless violence between Israel and its neighbors, tough talk between the US and Iran.
In fact, reading the newspapers, one might be led to believe that the entire region of the world, so rich in history and innovation, is prone only to violence, vengeance, and destruction.

Considering the demonization of Islam in American public culture today, I wonder if we’re not digging our own grave of prejudice with an ignorant shovel. So, because I have the passport, I decided I want to go to the Middle East to see for myself.

Egypt is the most northeastern country in Africa, and Cairo, today a sprawling metropolis of 16 million people, twice that of New York, is located on the Nile River about 80 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea. Nine out of ten Cairenes are Muslim, and the city is often considered the cultural hub of the Islamic world. The city’s history is thick, and nearly 5,000 years old. According to Max Rodenbeck’s wonderful book, “Cairo: The Victorious City,” “Invaders have come and gone: the Asiatic Hyksos, Libyans, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, French, British, and recent hordes of tourists.” And of course Cairo is home to the only one of the seven wonders of the world that still stands: the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Stay tuned as I will file a dispatch next week from Cairo, and then another once I’m again stateside. Unquestionably, a week will be wholly inadequate to absorb this massive oasis in the middle of the Sahara desert, but traveling isn’t about soaking up the city; instead, it’s the opportunity to wander across boundaries, and, with the littlest bit of luck and a dose of good sense, return with a story worth telling.

(Image from cscotchmer's flickr.)

Comments

[Angela Salamy]

It is true about the water...but I still want to travel and stamp up my passport. Where to next?

[Bulk SMS]

While there are literally hundreds & thousands of articles available on this subject, there is only a few ones that attracts the attention. The credit goes to the authors who writes them. Thanks for presenting such a nice post here.

[Hrvatska Lutrija]

Egypt is changing as well as the whole muslim world. Let's hope the change will be for the better when it comes to the clashes with the west!