Masr, where people get naked in public

Last weekend, Julian and I decided to go to Coptic Cairo. I assumed we would take the metro, so I walked the 15 minute walk to his flat to pick him up, and off we went. But Julian had other ideas, which involved walking all the way. He promised it would only take abpout 40 minutes - over an hour later, we still hadn't got there, my water supply was running out, I was getting hungry, and my feet were beginning to hurt as a result of my bad plastic flipflops. I was strong, and did not complain. We got there, eventually, and didn't like it very much. We were herded around by the flow of tourists along very narrow streets, in and out of churches and synagogues, none of which seemed particularly interesting, just a nice break from the very bright sun which reflected off the very shiny paving. We found ourselves in a cemetery crossed with a rubbish dump, and exited. But not before some tout had tried to get lots of baksheesh (tips) from us for kindly showing us into a church we'd already seen, and insisting he was doing us a favour. I am telling myself I will enjoy Coptic Cairo more on a day when I am not already tired, and when it is not full of tourists. However, I am wondering if such a day will ever come my way.

Just outside the walls of CC, we went into the metro station (thank goodness) and took the metro over to Islamic Cairo. Julian promised it was much more interesting. Needless to say, I was apprehensive, but what else was I going to do? We left the metro, and Julian said "oh I can't remember where it is". We got directions from a couple of people, and I still wasn't quite sure what "it" was as we set off through a fruit-vegetable-plasticshoes-saucepans-anythingelseyoucanimagine market which was also half-rubbish-dump. I was (still) hungry, and forced Julian to let me buy an orange juice from a very friendly street-seller. Just as I had finished mine (hurriedly, so that Julian didn't get too annoyed with me), he decided he wanted one too. And we set off again, wandering through some pretty strange places, with a rather vague direction somewhere in Julian's head. Suddenly "it" became clear - the Ibn Tulun Mosque. (At least, I think it was Ibn Tulun, and not Al-Azhar, but I may be wrong). It was surrounded by huge walls, and we walked the wrong-way around them, with hoards (small ones) of children saying "hello hello" and asking for money, through the rubbbish dumps (they are everywhere), round the ubiquitous donkeys, and through a fair number of muddy and oily puddles, before we eventually found the main entrance. We were immediately accosted by a man in galabeyya (the long cotton robe that a lot of the traditional men wear) offering to show us to the minaret. More baksheesh. But it was well worth it - despite my dislike and distrust and general fear of spiral staircases, I made it to the top and the view(s) were breathtaking. Check the photos I put up the other day. Cairo just goes on for ever. I should have realised that really, but it was very different seeing it from so high up. Oh and there is no health and safety in this country. I could very easily have fallen a very long way. Half way up we were able to walk around on the roof of the I-don't-know-what-you-call-it arched bit of the lowest level, which was very cool. There are photos of that as well. After at least half an hour of playing with cameras and wandering around in lofty and dangerous places, we went down into the main part of the mosque. Instead of taking our shoes off, we had canves sacks tied around our shoes. These were very uncomfortable as they were full of grit, and really warm. On an already warm day when I was hot, thirsty, still hungry, and hadn't been to the loo for several hours. But I loved the mosque. It is the only quiet place I have been yet in Cairo, and it was amazing. There was hardly anyone else there, and we were free to just wander around wherever we wanted. I will be going back there again.

We took the metro back, to the station second-closest to Julian and Toby's flat, and walked the rest of the distance. This was because the metro was so crowded (I had decided not to go in the women-only carriage, as I was not travelling alone) that it was a much pleasanter option than trying to get on and off another train once we had changed lines. As we got off the train, everyone stampeded for the door at the same time as everyone on the platform rushed to get on the train, and I was very, very squashed and had absolutely no choice about which direction I was going in. Luckily we both made it in one piece. Apparently that's normal here.

I have given Julian a very bad press. I am actually very grateful to him for showing me around and being interested at looking at interesting things, just find it mildly amusing that he was completely oblivious to the physical torment he was putting me through, despite my less and less hint-like complaints.

The next day, I found myself at home at a bit of a loose end, so I cleaned the whole kitchen (it actually wasn't too bad to start with) and cleared out and sorted the cupboards - I have only ever seen more hoarded plastic bags than that once in my life, and I shan't say where. I had a lot of fun, and the floor was soaking wet by the time I finish. It was then that I realised hy Egyptian kitchens always have a drain in the floor.

Our washing machine (if you can call it that - I have started calling it the "washer-thing") is amazing. And dreadful. And a bit of a character. Danielle has promised to write a book about it one day. I'm sure the manufacturers would insist it was semi-automatic, but I'm pretty sure it almost counts as manual. It looks like a big barrel, you put your clothes in the big tub inside, put the soap in, spend 15 minutes filling it up with buckets of water from the tap in the sink, put the lid on and switch it on. It whirrs and splashes. Every couple of minutes, the clothes get all caught up around the turny-bit so it stops turning, at which point you have to switch it off, put your hand in and un-clog it. You leave it for as long as you fancy / can be bothered. It has a hose coming out of the bottom which you point at the drain in the bathroom floor, let it drain for about 10 minutes, fill it up with rinse water, and repeat the process. So far I'm quite enjoying the very retro feel I get when using it, I'm sure the novelty will wear off before too long.

One day last week, my Swedish friend Jonas and I were walking back to Kalimat with our take-away lunch (of taamiyya and fuul), and Jonas suddenly said "don't look over there there's a naked guy". So I didn't look. Then he said "actually I think it's a woman ... yes it's a woman." Apparently she had been squatting in a bus stop. That was quite bizarre, and everyone found it amusing. Two days later, my American friend Nate and I were walking over to get our take-away lunch, and we saw a naked man wandering around in pretty much the same place, on some grass in front of a mosque. A moment later we passed a very angry-looking woman carrying a large piece of wood, and two small children flanking her. A moment after that, we passed a man carrying a bundle of clothes. We didn't connect the three characters at all, but Toby, Rikke, Jonas, Jette and Johannes were walking a minute or two behind us, and when we were all reunited, it transpired that they had seen the woman with the stick chasing the naked man, and the man with the pile of clothes running after them. They didn't mention the two children, perhaps they had been blindfolded by this stage. Obviously, the spot has been named "Naked Corner", and Jonas currently believes that Rikke and I saw 4 elderly naked men sitting on the ground there the day before yesterday.

On Thursday after classes, Nate showed me how to get to a better supermarket than the one I have been using so far. And my goodness it is better. More choice, fresher products, and the prices are lower. And they have a cash machine inside the shop. I took a taxi back home all by myself (it would have been at least a half-hour walk, and I had heavy shopping bags) - I had not yet taken a taxi by myself. Egyptian taxi drivers generally don't know their way around, so you have to give them directions, and obviously they don't speak any English. I managed, without any wrong-turinings. I was mightily impressed with myself.

In our classes, obviously we try to speak Arabic, and the staff speak to us in Arabic whenever we are capable of understanding enough of it. At lunch time etc, we all speak to each other in English - all the other international students speak very good English. But there are 3 or 4 Germans around, so if I am speaking to one or more of them, I like to try and remember some German. And one of the Germans speaks good Russian, so we speak Russian to each other. Therefore I am speaking up to 4 languages every day that I have classes, and it's quite confusing.

Yesterday after church, Danielle and I wandered around Zamalek for a bit. We found ourselves in a shop called the Egyptian Fair Trade Craft Centre, which was amazing amazing amazing. Everything was hand-made and local, and all fair trade (hence the name). They had rugs, bedclothes, clothes, jewellery, bags, baskets, kitchen stuff, notecards, all sorts. And it was all very beautifully made, and the prices were good too. A lot of the stuff there is made by the people from Garbage City (more on that when I have actually been there - all I know so far is that it is a Coptic community somewhere in Cairo, who collect rubbish from all over the city, take it back to their area, sort it, recycle it, and make stuff out of it - apparently flipflops are the Wrong Thing to wear there). I bought a beautiful Egyptian cotton handwoven bedcover - I have been wanting new bedclothes ever since I first set eyes on the horrible bright orange things which were in my room when I arrived, so am very please with that. Now I just need another sheet and some pillowcases.

In the evening, we took out broken clothes (Danielle had some jeans that needed hemming, and I had a faulty zip on one of my nice new skirts) to a seamstress around the corner, and she fixed both of them inside half an hour. The zip-change cost 5EL, which is about 60p. While we were waiting, we went mirror shopping - Danielle wanted a mirror for her room (I want one too, but not quite so urgently) and we had a fun time exploring the streets around us. The first place we tried, for an un-framed un-bevelled long mirror the man wanted 300EL (about £40). We moved on. The next place described exactly what we were looking for, said 75EL, and ran back to the first place we had tried to get it. It's no good being white here. While we were waiting, we poked around the junk/antique (depending on who you ask) shop. Most of the stuff was pretty dreadful, but there were some nice bits of furniture, a gorgeous painting which I really wanted but the price was just ridiculous, and a tiny tiny violin with 2 strings, in a really old-fashioned case. Unfortunately there was no label about where it was from or anything, and there was no way I could justify buying a violin, so I didn't even ask about the price. But it was hardly what I was expecting to find in a junk shop in a Cairene back street, a long way from any Western hotels. The mirror eventually materialised, and got wrapped in newspaper. The newspaper was "borrowed" from the butcher next door, and had a scrap of meat stuck to it. It was still there when we got home. The shopkeeper's son (or brother or nephew or something) was sent across the road with a 1EL note to buy a roll of sellotape to do the newspaper up with. And this was ALL done VERY slowly, with much waiting around inbetween, because the shopkeepers knew that if people saw Westerners in his shop, he would get more customers. He really did. There was no one in there when we arrived, but there was a constant stream of customers the whole time we were waiting, and he of course saw to all of them before getting Danielle's mirror. Egyptians, hey?

Apparently a new law has been passed recently - if a husband hits his wife, she is allowed to hit him back. If he hits her twice, she can hit back twice.