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February

February 1st, 2004
    This day I awoke to the sound of fresh carcasses being hacked into pieces with machetes. My neighbors, who live below on the roof of the next building, were butchering three sheep in rapid succession. I imagined that the victims had enjoyed an exciting and unique elevator ride before their sacrifice. From my windows I looked down on a scene worthy of the gory apex of an Aztec pyramid. A sea of blood oozed into the building’s central shaft, while slimy glands, hacked off feet, gory severed heads, and an inextricable tangle of intestines lay strew indiscriminately in the morning sun. Even three stories above, the stench was overwhelming. I was scarcely able to choke down my breakfast of mandarin oranges. A powerful fascination induced me to return to my window to watch my albino neighbor diligently squeezing excrement out of the innards, which were tangled in a frighteningly complex series of glistening knots. He was engaged in this task for well over an hour. At last he attached a hose to the intestines and cleaned them out in this manner. The remains of the bodies were borne away to be cooked below.
    Around one o’clock I crossed the street to make a third visit to the Egyptian museum. I’m now quite satisfied that I’ve thoroughly inspected every last scarab. I also derive some pleasure from being in crowds of Europeans- an unusual experience here. My hopes that the museum would be devoid at least of Egyptians were not gratified, and I was bothered by a small crowd of mocking boys, whom I was strongly tempted to hurl from the balconies. I returned home and made dinner. Venturing out later, I saw near riot conditions prevailing in the streets. Endless myriads of Egyptians thronged the intersections, bringing vehicular traffic to a halt. This feast is to continue for several further days.

February 3rd, 2004
    The feast madness seems to be increasing. As I walked to and from work, the corniche was crammed solid with people. A carnival atmosphere prevailed. People drove crazily, others stood on bikes as their friends pedaled, others filled trucks while clapping and singing. Many carried drums. Cairo is usually crowded, but this is madness. Walking home from my post-work beer-run, I purposely sought the most crowded avenues. Talat Harb was a sea of heads from end to end, interspersed with immobile cars and motorcycles, their female passengers sitting sidesaddle. I turned into a side avenue and was just thinking that it looked almost like a riot, when a solid wall of hundreds of screaming boys charged down the street. I sheltered by a burgeoning kiosk, then pressed forward. A man tried to protect the glass walls of a bank. Kids were climbing on buildings and cars while shouting. I guess they broke a window or something. There was a definite riot atmosphere there that I recognized from Portland –a chaos of bodies, mad rushing, no one knowing what’s happening. I slipped down an alley and things instantly got quiet. Now as I sit on my countertop, listening to my Robert Johnson tape, I can hear occasional wild screams and yelling from the streets below. This atmosphere of wild abandon is not something I’ve noticed here before, indeed I would not have expected it. I noticed a large crowd of men gathered before the display window of the liquor store, inspecting the bottles with their crude labels, and perhaps speculating as to the effects of the forbidden fluids within. Despite this, I think the wild atmosphere had basically nothing to do with alcohol. I wonder if this feast is celebrated in a similar manner in other Islamic countries.

February 5th, 2004
    I clipped out this picture of an Egyptian musician because I found something in his eyes that to me perfectly expresses a certain aspect of the national character. I was talking about this character with Lubna my boss, and we decided that words like stubborn or obstinate failed to convey the depth and comprehensiveness of this profound, monumental, cyclopean immobility. I get the feeling that I could talk with certain Egyptians for hours, days even, using every rhetorical device or philosophical argument and find them at the end unmoved by even a single millimeter from those beliefs that they initially held. And all the while they would be casting this witheringly polite look into the exact center of my eyes. When I’m teaching my classes, the students will often direct their stony gazes en mass through my eyes. At night as I lay in bed, these gazes return in weird flashes. The newspaper pictures of flight 11 pilot Muhammad Atta convey this same intense immobility. Certain cats also. It is expressive of ancientness, unwearied resolve, and monolithic fixity. Bu by no means can all Egyptians muster up this sphinxy gaze. Certainly, the ability to do so is not something I would necessarily consider bad. Lately I’ve met some really nice Egyptians. To anyone else moving here, I would give the following advice-Egyptians can be warm and friendly people IF you have some sort of established long term relation with them-such as co-workers, neighbors, long-time customers. Anyone who tries to talk to or befriend you outside of these contexts is almost certain to be a fraud., a small time scamster, a vicious parasite, irrevocably determined to drain you of every last fraction of a piaster, and then some. Anyone who hasn’t got some kind of established long-term relationship to you is the enemy, or at least an adversary, out for your money only. Yet I can’t really hold this against the Egyptians in any way. Its just their way, something they learn as kids, and its only a problem if you don’t understand. Only lately, after living here for five months, have I started to meet some really nice people. Most of my co-workers are actually really cool people, and even the few who don’t exactly like me still treat me with kindness and respect. Also, a few of the local grocers have started to be nice to me after many visits. It seems that the poorer and grubbier the shop, the less venomous the owner. Also, giving away my collections of plastic bags has helped.

February 2004
    This day I observed two humorous things. First in an alley, under a small tree, I saw an old VW bug entirely coated in a blanketing encrustation of birdshit. I’d say the thing had a quarter pound of shit per square foot. I suffered a serious laughing fit when I saw this, and people started staring at me. I was thinking about how pissed some people get in the states about a single birdshit on their shiny car. Also, I watched part of the Tunisia vs Senegal game of the African Cup of Nations Championship, which is being held in Tunisia. At some point in the game, the Tunisian fans started lighting off these magnesium smoke bombs, and soon the pitch became entirely invisible. The French commentators were at a loss as to what to say. Every few minutes, vague forms could be seen dashing about. Tunisia won 1-0.

February 13th, 2004
    This day I saw the last part of Peter Jackson’s film version of The Lord of the Rings. It was pretty cool, if a bit high on the old cheese factor. Seeing people display their emotions on film always seems meaningless and tedious to me. Some peculiarities of the Egyptian cinema experience: constant cell phone ringing and talking, heckling and laughter. These I don’t mind. What always gets me is the random and jarring intermission that strikes like a painful deathblow to the comfortable illusion of escape, which is the reason one sees movies, right? Also like in England your ticket is for a certain exact seat that you must sit in. Another notable characteristic of the Egyptian cinemagoer is his desire to leave at the first sign that the movie may be over. People get up and sit down an average of three times at the end of films. Perhaps this only happens for Western movies, which might jar with some accepted dramatic structure in Egyptian films.
    Also today I noticed that the contents section of the English version Al Ahram newspaper was massively hilarious in a totally unintended way. The headline “Ibrahim Nafie: Not So Fast” struck me as funny, and then I started looking over some back issues I had around, and was soon convulsed with waves of racking laughter. I actually started to cry. The pictures of these monsterous bloated Egyptian intellectuals were priceless. The titles of their articles were laid out in such a way as to appear to refer to the authors themselves. I pasted them in the front of this book. My favorite caption is perhaps: “Ahmed Abdel-Halim: After the Hurricane.” Then again, who can pass up “Mustapha ‘the Death of Discourse’ El-Feki?” or Hassan Nafaa, who is labeled “Dubious Courage and Doddering Wisdom.” In his photograph, he appears to be a marginally sentient distended mass of excess adiposity. From now on, Thursdays, when this paper comes out, will be the highlight of the week.

February 14th, 2004
    I’ll interrupt this series of whiney and derogatory entries with a list of a few of the things I really love about Egypt. By far my favorite thing about living here is the overwhelming aesthetic experience. Almost everything, whether buildings or packaging, store displays or advertising, or even scraps of paper blowing about in the street is strikingly beautiful and strange. Everything is gilded with an aura of faint decay. Even something you buy new looks old. Every stairwell is covered with layers of flaking paint, whose patterns of corrosion are fascinating. Bright cold sunlight illuminates the layered dust. I especially love some of the older buildings, which are covered in plaster statuary of robust sporting nudes – an unthinkable abomination in these more conservative days. Yet these idolatrous beauties are left intact and ignored under their deep blankets of grime, casting a cold eye over the veiled masses. Also, buildings undergoing renovation are wrapped in coarse burlap cloth, which soon turns black and tattered from exhaust. These old buildings are like ghostly rotting pirate ships lost and adrift. Yet other buildings in what used to be the expat neighborhoods are wildly incongruous parodies of mediaeval German architecture, half-timbered with steep sloping roves and gables, topped with rusting ironwork. Others are abortive phantasy versions of some rich colonial Englishman’s imaginary eastern palace. These combine Angkor Wat with Islamic and Ptolemaic styles. Most are now tenanted by bats. Perhaps also lost kittens come there to die.
    Another thing I like about Cairo is the sense of enclosing comfort. Every nook is filled with people. The place never feels lost or empty like American cities almost always do. Also, free drinking water is available everywhere from these little stations in neighborhoods or in front of mosques. I believe these are endowed by the rich as charity. I must also add that Egyptian women are unusually beautiful and graceful. Many are tall and voluptuously built, dark eyed, high bosomed houris. For some reason, perhaps because of their chastity and religion, they have this powerful protective aura around them. Like whenever I see a particularly beautiful girl here, and I turn and give her a second glance, she is always just then passing behind some obstruction. I’ve noticed this repeatedly. Sometimes I’ll walk past a girl, not even noticing her at all, or even looking her way, when my meditations will be broken by a sort of a self-contained and elegant presence that is quietly but distinctly aware of me, and curious. It’s something I’ve never experienced with American girls.
    Finally, I really love the produce that is available here, which in variety, quality and value is massively superior to any in the US. Cauliflowers, which are a staple of my diet, are enormous, well over 14 inches across, and cost the equivalent of less than 50 cents. Also, they’re still attached to their stalk with its roots, so they’re totally fresh. All sorts of wonderful shopping is actually fun in Egypt. In the states, entering a supermarket is an appalling assault on the senses, a descent into the absolute abyss of corporate hell – megawattage of fluorescent light, canned music –ah hell, I can’t stand even to think about it!

February 15th, 2004
    Another thing I enjoy about Egypt is that, despite the massive police presence, there is a sort of freedom and laxity concerning personal actions here. For example, people can smoke anywhere, j-walking is not only normal, it is essential if you plan to ever leave the curb. There aren’t really any serious regulations on things like building, fire, or food safety. I often see motorists escape from police trying to ticket them. The police are so abundant that their humanity is obvious- they buy bread and haggle with sidewalk vendors just like the rest of us. They’re just basically silly kids with mustaches. Despite their AKs they’re not anywhere as fearsome or loathsome as American cops.

February 17th, 2004
    When I first moved into this apartment, the walls were entirely blank, except for a single handwritten sign taped to the door. This contained a fair paragraph of Arabic text which I have never been able to decipher until now. Oddly enough, I don’t think I even noticed the sign for the first few weeks. When I did notice it, I assumed it concerned some sort of regulations for the tenents. Maybe it said “Renters will be held responsible for all damage to the apartment” or “No pets or loud music after 10.” I made a mental note to ask the next Arabic speaking guest to translate it. Today I was suddenly tempted to look at it again, and found that I could easily read the first line- bismi allah, al rahman al rahim and so on – the introduction to the Koran. At the bottom I could also read “sura al baqraq, the cow sura, 2:255. Looking in my Koran, I found the passage, a nice description of Allah. Its strange to think that a transcription of this mysterious passage was laying around all the while. What I thought might be some bureaucratic regulations actually said:

God, there is no God but him, the living, the eternal one. Sleep never overtakes him. His is what the heavens and the earth contain. Who can intercede with him except by his permission? He knows what is before and behind men. They can grasp only that part of his knowledge that he wills. His throne is as vast as the heavens and the earth, and the preservation of both does not weary him. He is the exalted, the immense one.



February 22nd, 2004
    The other day I finally accumulated enough baby and wedding photos to complete the collage on the previous pages. Not that that was difficult. Such photographs compose the backbone of contemporary Egyptian iconography. Most magazines have several pages of brides and fresh spawn. Even the driest bureaucratic publications will frequently display images of the employee’s latest wives and children. Looking over these back page compilations, I feel I am observing the single parts of a vast swarmlike monster. Millions of small arms claw for the same food. Millions of small eyes squint or game in various fashions. As for the brides, these too are a ubiquitous image in Egypt. The prohibition of sex before marriage has resulted in a strange archetype- the bride as whore, or slinky seductress. The stores selling bridal clothes display huge images of brides wearing gobs of dark makeup, posed in the most provocative come-hither poses. In the West, brides are portrayed as virginal and innocent when they’re not, while here brides are made to look slutty when quite the opposite is the case. I think kids here are pretty frustrated sexually. I walk to school everyday along the corniche, a tree lined walk next to the Nile. As soon as the sun sets, couples appear at regular intervals all along the railway, mashing themselves together in desperate fashion. The girls all wear hijab, and the guys are coated in oleaginous and reeking unguents. As for baby iconography, this too presents some unique aspects. Often an enormous magnified neonatal head will be used to advertise some totally unrelated product, like oil filters or drain cleaner. These pudgy and disembodied heads peer across the city like emissaries from a colonizing planet. There seems to be a dim awareness that overpopulation is a problem, but maximal child production remains a, if not the, central goal of existence.

February 24th, 2004
    Lately I’ve been thinking about the binding monomania caused by work. This is so sadly evident in some of my students. For example, I have one student employed in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, and he seems incapable of contemplating any idea independently of aqueous contexts. The phrases grid system, photo-analysis, very important in our social, and, curiously, chaise lounge, recur like hardwired involuntary ticks. All this doesn’t stop him from being a really nice guy, but I can’t avoid pitying these polished indentations of the old mind forged manacles. Ask any man about his work, and chances are that although he hates it, he’ll talk about it for hours. The enslaved thoughts roll round and round through their rutted slots. In my own case, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, drilling some grammatical point. Even more irritatingly, I find it difficult to read any book without thinking how I would explain the hard words to my students. I really hope that these thoughts will stop, or that I will be able to stop them I’ve only been teaching a month.
    The ambulances here are equipped with deafening loudspeakers, through which the drivers yell frantic exhortations. Although I can’t understand these announcements, I like to think they’re saying “ Ah! Help! There’s blood everywhere! His spleen ruptured in my eye! Gelatinizing organs are pouring out! Get out of my way, damn you!”
    In other news, I’ve been trying to decide how long to stay in Egypt, and where to go next. I found some tempting offers to teach in Yemen, but I learned that alcohol is forbidden there. A miserable existence.

February 27th, 2004
    Today it became mercilessly hot again. It seems like winter was so short. The heat as brought out numerous insects. Mosquitoes and fruit flies are picking up their roles where they left off. The hated flies, which only really disappeared on the coldest days, are back in force.
    I found a gruesome website today devoted to Kuwaiti car crashes. This petrocountry apparently has the highest ration of people to cars, and the highest rate of auto deaths. Although appalling, this website really served to confirm my belief that cars are a demonic alien force, or agents of such a force.
    At first Cairo can seem like a noisy city, but this is only because of the deafening roar of traffic, and the constant application of car horns. Usually I can tune this out, but sometimes sitting in my apartment, I’ll realize just how much honking is going on, and start to laugh. If honking the horn for five solid seconds achieves X, how much may be achieved by 15 seconds of honking? By 25 seconds? Show your work. Some people even have car alarms hooked up to their dashboards, allowing them to emit squalling mechanized yelps at will while driving. But despite or aside from these automotive noises, Cairo is actually rather quiet, especially away from the big roads. Often I’ll be walking down a quiet dark side street at night, thinking I’m alone, only to suddenly realize that there are many people around, leaning together and talking quietly. Below my window is the rooftop carpet cleaning business of my neighbors, and beyond this is a huge cubical empty space surrounded by tall buildings. At night, bats wheel and swoop there. Looking out over this vacuity at night, or in the early morning, I am utterly surprised by how quiet it is. Perhaps some of this quietness is also due to the solid concrete construction of Egyptian apartment buildings. No wood or drywall is used at all. Despite their occasional collapse, I’d say that concrete buildings are something the Egyptians are really good at making. Also pens.
    Certainly my favorite sounds here are the dreamy nocturnal Koran recitations, which can sometimes be heard floating across the still air from a distant mosque. These can only be heard faintly on certain Friday nights, or during Ramadan, at once eerie, haunting, and beautiful. Aside from these soothing and quietly exultant sounds, there are six deafening calls to prayer everyday, broadcast from all mosques, and from loudspeakers posted on building every few blocks. The first call happens before dawn, and always seems weird and garbled in my dreaming mind. After this, there are calls to prayer at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night. One soon gets used to these, and and they become comforting, letting us know all is well, or reminding us of infinity.
    It often happens that I’ll wake up and start going about my morning routine, when suddenly an incredible silence strikes, and I stand transfixed and listening. Some grinding machine in the auto shops below, which has been emitting a dull constant roar since before I was awake, was turned off. What else may we hear, when other things cease?

February 28th, 2004
    Among other more mysterious auditory phenomena may be listed the habitual and echoing vocalizations of certain vendors. For many months, I heard what sounded like “Yikeeyaht,” or “Yikeeya” called out hundreds of times a day, without understanding anything of the meaning behind this cryptic phrase. After living in Cairo some months, I observed that these yikeeya criers were small, wizened men riding on empty donkey carts. Sometimes these carts would be filled with rusted metal. My Arabic teacher Mona at last cleared up this mystery. Apparently, these people are saying Biikeeya, or Roba Bikeeya, which means something like “anything.” They will buy anything, or any sort of old rubbish, presumably to sell it as scrap. Now, where all this rubbish is taken and what is done with it there, are further mysteries obscured in the depth of possibility.
    The other most common itinerant noise is an incredibly loud and piercing metallic ringing. Bang! Bang Bang! Bang! Bang Bang! This noise is caused by men riding old black bicycles, to which up to four gas cylinders are somehow attached. These gas vendors carry a wrench, with which they strike their gas cylinders. The sound produced is excruciating if you are nearby, and can be heard for blocks. These gas cylinders are used for cooking, as nobody here has gas piped directly into their buildings. To my intense delight, I learned that the name for these cylinders is Amboobit butagazz, surely one of the most euphonious combinations of syllables ever devised. When one’s amboobot butagazz runs out, one waits until the distinctive clanging is heard, then indicates, either by shouting from a window, or descending, that a new cylinder is desired. One of my most vile experiences involved obtaining a new amboobit. This helped me realize that these Egyptians really will try to charge you as much as possible, and then either keep inventing new charges until you send them off cursing, or your bank account is drained. Which brings me to another common sound – enraged screaming. I have observed that Egyptians are generally quite tolorant and easygoing, putting up with delays, obscenely dressed tourists, and governmental incompetence. But, this tolerance masks a hair trigger, a short fuse leading to a tightly packed keg of dynamite itching to detonate. After the explosion, things quickly return to smiles and sugary sweetness. Yet the detonation can be spectacular. One woma in my apartment appears to detonate every morning around eleven o’clock. Its not uncommon to see enormous rollicking arguments in the streets. In one of my classes, I offended a student, and when I went to apologize, he exploded in wrath and did not return. I can’t say it’s a regrettable development. I think this touchiness is a sort of balance or counter effect to the high levels of sappy, gushing sweetness generally pervasive.

February 29th, 2004
    Other Cairo sounds include the calls of mourning doves, and the almost silent flitting of bats. Men and boys also make a series of unique noises, including a piercing whistle that leaves the eardrums in tatters. Its quite a bit louder than anything else I’ve ever heard coming from a human mouth. People riding bikes through crowded markets emit a loud hissing noise Hssssssst! which I still cant get used to. The first few times I herd it I almost got in a fight! In our culture, such a noise would be extremely rude, perhaps used only for bad animals. Also men make a sort of clucking, sucking noise to get your attention, which also sounds really rude to foreign ears.
    A nicer noise is heard at night. There is a wonderful radio station that broadcasts Koranic recitations 24/7. Many shopkeepers roll down and lock a latticed steel grating over their shops at night, leaving the Koran station on quietly inside. Late at night, walking down a dark and sleeping street, the sound of the Koran floats hauntingly out of the shuttered grates. Last night on the BBC I heard some guy from the US state department say that education in the Islamic world consists only of rote memorization of the Koran, and how US intervention was needed to change that. Such ignorance is truly jaw-dropping. The Koran is the central and most beautiful thing in the lives of millions of Muslims, and if you try to take that from them, yes, they’ll blow themselves up in your face, and you’ll deserve every rusted shard. Besides, memorizing vast ancient poems is an incredible feat of devotion and discipline, practiced in many great civilizations, such as those of the Greeks, Hindus and Celts. Often in my walks around Cairo, I’ll come across an old man sitting on a chair in front of his house reciting the Koran, his eyes glazed over with cataracts. The consolations derived from such heroic memorizations evidently not something the US state department considers in its eminently philanthropic endeavors.


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