Egypt: Veils, Scenery and Alleiya
Part 2 of my travel fest was Egypt. I spent two weeks there and returned to New York barely a week ago (I can't seem to get over the jetlag though, am still up at ungodly hours).
Before arriving in Egypt, I knew close to nothing about the country. Sure the pyramids, obviously the Sphinx, the pharaohs, "Asterix and Cleopatre," the Nile, papyrus, sand sand sand. But aside from those things, embarrassing as it sounds: nada.
When I stepped out of the airport, I thought I was in LA. Blue skies, palm trees swaying over wide avenues. But it was the policemen who gave it away: Egypt is a police state, a dictatorship. The second thing that tainted my LA-cum-pharaonic paradise was the veil. 95% of the women were veiled, 10% of those wore complete veils (only the eyes peer through the black billowing fabric).
The third depressing realization (brace yourself for many more to come) is a direct corollary to the previous one. Many Egyptian men are completely sexually frustrated. Half of my luggage was elegant dresses and skirts. I vowed they would remain right there after I had my first walk on a Cairene street (in a fancy Western neighborhood).
I was wearing a raincoat, loose denim pants, white high heels and a scarf. I don't know whether it was the no-veil or the high heels that did it. But the effect was the same as wearing a thonged bikini in farther Queens. I was getting a new cat call every two minutes, predatory stares by the gallon; some men walked right up to me and snapped their fingers in front of my face. The next day, I took a cab, did away with the high heels and tighed my hair up. The fourth day, I took back the high heels, put on some tight pants, let my hair down. I imagined I was diva: "so much aggressive attention, so little time."
(Surprisingly, this insouciance has carried over into Manhattan where I now unabashedly sing out-loud to my MP3 player on the New York subway)
Egypt is a very poor country. The wages are dismal, unemployment is the norm. According to a recent NY Times article, people can't get married because they don't have enough money for the dowries (most marriages are still arranged). According to a local friend of mine: no jobs = no money = no marriage= no sex = nothing else to do with their time than pray to God. (The veils are one incarnation of that, the male equivalent is forehead scars due to frequent prostration.)
That doesn't really explain religious fanaticism in a satisfactory way. (the following line of questioning comes from another friend of mine). Not all poor, third world countries breed Islamic fanaticism. What is it in Egypt that causes this mass turn to Islam? An expat I met pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood that fights against the rampant corruption in the Egyptian school system and draws in young followers. An Alexandrian cab driver spoke about the El Dorado of Saudi Arabia, how young Egyptians are treated like slaves over there and come back religious. There are rumors of an implicit pact between the Egyptian dictatorship and the local Muslim powers: "leave us alone, we will leave you alone." (When I hear about the atrocities committed by the government, it does seem that the Muslim powers that be have left Mubarak and his son quite alone).
Tourist Egypt: there was some of that in my trip. Most noteworthy was my visit to the pyramids. They were much less impressive than the mental image I had formed of the 7th World Wonder. Moreover, climbing onto the pyramids had been forbidden since the early 20th century. Where is the fun?
It turned out I was sitting on it: a beautiful black mare named Alleiah. I smiled a few times at my guide Ali (above) and he took me off the beaten pyramid track ("you don't want to see those pyramids, they are so boring!") and we galloped around the Sahara desert for an hour. Ali is 28, has two wives (meaning that he earns very very high wages from scamming tourists at the pyramids) and asked me to become his third wife. He offered me three camels. I politely declined.
