Today I am at the blog This.Is.Katha writing for Katha’s 31 Days in the Life of a TCKseries. Katha has written for me several times and I’m excited to guest post at her blog! You can find more info on the serieshere. For now I’ve started you off on this piece and link to the rest of it at the end. Enjoy!
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Cairo Cool!
“Ragaouna Misr! – Take me back to Cairo!”
“So – are you visiting?”
The question took me completely by surprise. We had returned to Cairo for our first visit two years after leaving. Cairo had been our home for seven years.
It was in Cairo that we had watched three of our five children take their first steps. It was in Cairo where our youngest two were born, three years apart. It was our community in this city that had loved us and cared for us through pregnancies and sickness; through post-delivery chaos and family crises; and through packing up and leaving when the time came. The apartment we lived in still had markings of our children’s measurements on the doorpost. We had seen these just a day before while with our friends.
Cairo had been home for a long time and it broke our hearts to leave. We said goodbye to all those things we loved so deeply. Rides in huge, wooden boats called feluccas on the Nile River; Egyptian lentils (Kosherie) with the spicy tomato sauce and crispy fried onions to top it off; friendships that had been forged through hours of talking and doing life together; a church that was one of a kind with people from all over the world.
So when the woman asked me the question, I didn’t know what to say. A lump came into my throat and I willed myself to hold back the tears. Head over to Katha’s blog to read the rest.
Bloggers Note – Thank you everybody who responded and chose to follow this blog following the post Tahrir Square – Walls and Graffiti being Freshly Pressed. I hope to respond to all your comments and appreciate that you decided to follow this blog. Here’s hoping you won’t be disappointed.
One of my readers and friends commented on the post “These are the Moments – Alexandria, Egypt” that she felt the stories from our trip to Egypt would tumble out once back in Cambridge. While they are not tumbling, they are swirling around my brain and I know I am not finished writing about them. A quote attributed to Mark Twain says that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Perhaps it is also fatal to contentment for it is hard to be content with the normal when you have experienced the extraordinary.
This post then, is an attempt to give glimpses of the extraordinary through pictures and narrative. Thank you for taking the trip along with me to Egypt, an extraordinary place with extraordinary people.
The Beginning
Arriving in Cairo on a Thursday afternoon is like arriving in a western nation on a Friday afternoon. There is a sense in the air that the work week is ending and as we arrived there was a celebratory feel that had nothing to do with the fact that it’s two days before Christmas and everything to do with the end of a work week. As I said in an earlier post, the comfort of familiarity greeted us immediately – we were, in many ways, home. We settled into the guest house where we were staying and then headed to Annie’s apartment on a busy street near Midan Falaki. The kusherie shop at the entrance to her building brought tantalizing smells of lentils, pasta, rice and spicy tomato sauce. Through a side entrance we took a rickety, ancient elevator careful to heed the warnings of a man who let us know that no more than three people should be riding at a time. The elevator stopped at the 9th floor, top of the building and we spent a good hour ooohing and aaahing over the view. It was incredible. The Mokattam hills stretched out miles away and a Coptic church was in the foreground. Across the street were the dusty remains of an ancient outdoor theatre, long gone but chairs still sitting ready for a show. Just below to the right we saw four tanks and ten army men in full riot gear, at the ready should any trouble erupt. This did not give us comfort but rather made us realize the force that is sometimes quietly, and other times loudly used against protesters. An early dinner of shawerma and fuul bean sandwiches was followed by chai and shisha in a coffee shop across a busy street and down a side street from the apartment. After hours of talk and laughter we headed back to Zamalek and a jet lagged sleep, fully of satisfaction and the comfort of belonging.
View from Annie’s Roof top
Tahrir Square, Bab Zuweila and More…
Friday is the Muslim Holy day and is a day off in Egypt. Sermons from mosques throughout the city are periodically heard and men gather in large numbers at local mosques to observe this holy day through prayers and meeting together. We headed out to get a lunch of fateer (Egyptian pizza) close to Tahrir Square where a large demonstration was taking place. Newspapers quoted numbers of 50,000 and more at the square. We were amazed by the passion and numbers, something that was quickly squelched during the Mubarak years and now a common occurrence. Graffiti on newly constructed walls and leftover from the uprising in January captured our attention and the lens of the camera. We took a slow walk from Tahrir Square over to the Nile where we took a boat ride, something that has long been a favorite family activity, on the Nile. Dinner at a Yemeni restaurant ended a day that will stay in our memories for many years.
We headed out to Bab Zuweila and the Khan el Khalili on Saturday, Christmas Eve. If you ever go to Cairo, Bab Zuweila is a must see, must do. Despite living in Cairo for seven years and many trips back, it was only in 2010 that I entered this medieval gate and climbed the minarets to the mosque beside the gates. The minarets give a 360 degree view of the city and it was an overwhelming sense of how small I am in this city of millions.
We took the short walk from Bab Zuweila to the Khan el Khalili market and walked into one of the many entrances to this well-known tourist destination. The spice shop we have gone to for years was still there, solid through change and revolution, pungent aromas and spices you never see in the west ready in large burlap sacks.
Despite the vendors constant shouts of “Let me help you spend your money!” “Welcome to Alaska” and “Come here, I have lovely things for you to buy!” I still love this market. I love the game of bargaining and finding treasures for pennies. I love being served tea while I pick out perfume bottles. I love ending the shopping experience with mint tea at Fishawy’s café.
After cleaning up from the dust of the city, we put on our Christmas Eve best and met at the Lebanese restaurant Taboula in the heart of Garden City. Mezzas of every kind, fresh pita bread, and aseer lemon (frothy lemon juice) was a perfect Christmas Eve meal, followed by a 10:30 pm service at the All Saints Cathedral in Zamalek. Time was rushing past and I wanted to hold it back, hold it tight so that it wouldn’t escape us like a dream. Now as I sit in Cambridge, it feels like a dream.
Cairo Tower from the vantage point of a boat in the Nile
Walking to Khan el Khalili after Bab Zuweila
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Christmas Day and Alexandria
No snow greeted us on Christmas day but clear skies and 68 degree weather were reminders of many past Christmases. Christmas dinner was roasted chickens from a street vendor with traditional condiments served buffet style in a high apartment overlooking Tahrir Square. We celebrated with friends of Annie’s from various places around the globe. Growing up overseas and then living overseas as long as we have makes us quite passionate and vocal about God not being an American, but rather a global God with an international vision. Christmas overlooking Tahrir was one more reminder of many of the truth of that belief.
The day after Christmas saw us on a train to Alexandria, beautiful city on the Mediterranean. You can read more here but this too was an extraordinary trip and an amazing time. The Alexandria Library is a beautiful building with a rich history and serves as both a place of learning as well as a cultural center. A must see in the city of Alexandria. This city has a different and more relaxed feel to it than Cairo – perhaps it’s the Mediterranean air that works its way into the psyche and affects everything from the pace to the general mood. It is another reminder of all that Egypt has to offer the world.
Pyramids, Bulaq and Al Azhar Park
Our last days in Cairo included family favorites. Egypt is best known for the ancient Pyramids,said to be the oldest and only remaining ancient wonders of the world. Built around 2600 BC, they are beyond what you can imagine – only this time, I stayed back for coffee and shopping with Annie while the others headed out for horseback riding out into the desert and another visit to the pyramids. I know some of you may be thinking “Are you kidding? You skipped a trip to the pyramids!” but let me assure you, I have been to them dozens of times and have been wowed every time. Plus – I didn’t want to put my 51 year-old body on a horse. The stories that came out of the trip for the rest of the family are not mine to tell but are great and include a falling horse and amazing pictures.
We ended our time on Thursday at Al Azhar Park. This park is my favorite place in Cairo besides Marty’s balcony. In a city with little green space, the park is an oasis with views that cannot be described. I wrote about this park in the post “In Praise of Green Space” so will not go into more detail here, but it is a calm and beautiful space in a city where you need to get refreshment.
Back in Cambridge Cairo feels like a dream but bearing witness in narratives is as old as life itself – so thank you for listening and letting me bear witness to our trip through this medium. I realize that even as I write, the words are far too many and I don’t want to bore. So I’ll end with pictures and hope that you want more! I have said this before, and I’ll say it many more times – it is a privilege to share just a bit of this country. It is so much more than you will see on Fox news or CNN. It is so much more than the pyramids and old mosques. It is a people and a place that move into your heart and mind so that you beg to experience more.
Located around 375 kilometers from Cairo, on the banks of the Nile is the city of Assiut. At a glance, Assiut’s facts are not impressive but there is a place in Assiut that has had world-wide impact since 1911. Lillian Trasher orphanage, the largest orphanage in the world and home to roughly 800 children of every size and every age. It can without hesitation be described as a “Light of the world and a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden“.
Lillian began the orphanage on February 10th, 1911. The story goes that this young woman, engaged to be married, felt a ‘calling’ to go overseas and help. She had previously worked in an orphanage in North Carolina and through a missionary talk at her church developed a deep compassion for people who lived thousands of miles away in desperate situations and circumstances. 10 days from her wedding day she defied all social norms of the time by breaking off her engagement and informing a non-supportive family that she was going to Egypt!
In all of Egypt there were no orphanages and after living there for no more than a few months a man came to her with a little baby girl, asking her to care for this child whose mother was dying. The word “child-saver” was given to her as more and more would come with the same request. This began what would turn into a home for over 1200 orphans by the time of her death in 1961.
So why tell this story? In the midst of the chaos in Egypt, the Centennial Celebration for Lillian Trasher was scheduled for this week, today to be exact. Feeling it was unwise to hold the festivities given the unpredictable events in Egypt, the Centennial is now cancelled. George Assad, who was raised in the orphanage, is the compassionate and gifted director of Lillian Trasher Orphanage and earlier this year sent out a world-wide message as well as a notice on the web site asking former residents of the orphanage to send any messages that they wished to have read at the event. People had purchased tickets from all over the world to head to Assiut to celebrate the memory of this woman and the legacy of her work and the orphanage. Practically speaking, adoption is not legal in Egypt. The government has strict laws governing any kind of adoption arrangement and stiff penalties for trying to go around the law. That is where this orphanage steps in as a refuge and community, giving food, shelter ,and best of all, peace.
With a shoe-string budget and against all odds, the orphanage has survived and thrived. It prides itself on operating as a large family, not as an institution. The current director and his wife, George and Fathiya, open their hearts to orphans on a daily basis, and and their home to visitors whenever they come. They raised a family of five- four girls and one boy who are now adults living in Egypt, the United States and New Zealand. The family is beautiful both inside and out. I’ve rarely seen so many good-looking people in one family!
Our family has the privilege of knowing the Assad family and call them our friends. We have been treated to the hospitality of the orphanage several different times and their son, Joseph, was a lifesaver to us as my husband’s assistant in the Middle East Studies Program that he began many years ago. My now adult children have great memories of weekends away from the crowds of Cairo, participating in a field day and enjoying great food cooked especially for us by Fathiya. An especially fond memory is that of our 3 oldest at the ages of 10,8, and 7 singing Jingle Bells in Arabic to a room full of Egyptian children, residents of the orphanage and drinking the home-made wine for communion that had the potential to turn them off of alcohol forever!
Although mass protests and unrest may stop a formal celebration, the enduring legacy of “Mama” Lillian and the faith that sustained her and gave guidance will never stop. The Assads and others at the orphanage continue to live out a love for God and care for widows and orphans. It will continue having an eternal impact throughout Egypt and the world.The words that guided Lillian when she first left for Egypt are just as compelling today as they were 100 years ago.
I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.
Marilyn R. Gardner 