my My Wandering

Hassan’s narrow eyes seemed able to look only straight ahead, as if he himself denied their option of looking sideways, up or down, while a big smile seemed stuck to his face, showing his perpetual openness to anything life threw at him, his kind nature and plenar humanity. The Western Desert was his home where he seemed familiar with every grain of dust, every rock formation, every ksar and faint trail that would in fact prove to be the right way. Then, oddly (in appearance only), it was not the few words – not only in his basic English, but also in Arabic -, but rather his lengthy and frequent periods of silence that allowed him to communicate in extenso with those around him.

The night sky was like a black crystal, with a million stars across it. It was bitterly cold and the otherwise light wind made it feel even more so. The rough, heavy camel wool blanket, one I had bought from a chance local the day before, weighed consistently on one’s bones and muscles, while providing enough insulation to have one pass the night, but far from enough to allow sleeping. Which was in fact fortunate, as this way, in between rather short times of dozing, one could take in the magnificent star canopy above that went all the way down to the horizon line where low, moonlit dunes and rocky formations acted like characters in a silent play with the only soundtrack granted by the said wind making its way around some scarce, dry shrub and by the odd jackal having his solitary say in this remote place off Al Hayz.

‘What have you seen here of any interest, it’s all rubbish’, said the police officer part of the mandatory team escorting us from Bawiti to Dakhla after my asking them to make a detour through Farafra en route.

‘These adobe houses, ruined as they are once their owners moved away, now surrounding themselves with reinforced concrete and hollow bricks. To build these houses, people needed only locally sourced materials, like clay, palm tree trunks and leaves. Their half a meter or thicker walls kept cool under the torrid midday sun and warm at night. The whole ksar blended in with the scenery, hence maintaining a sense of balance, of respect. Instead, the new houses with their thin walls require air conditioning and a whole logistic apparatus to function, and even so they fail miserably when a simple issue occurs, like a power outage. This great local knowledge we choose to ignore or wipe out, this is what I have found of great interest here.’

Luxor and generally the main tourist towns across the country came complete with stark contrasts between their busy avenues with chaotic parking, broken sidewalks, busy shops that often invaded the pavement or street as well, smoky and lively shawarma or kofta places, respectively the hotels and resorts meant for tourists, where barriers denied the access to non residents, the grass was carefully mowed, even trees had their own careful trimming and the whole business was by far and wine overstaffed (given the low wages in the country, that was not hard to achieve) so as to ensure a pleasant, yet, alas, sterile environment and experience for them esteemed guests. Considerably more than a century of mass tourism had obviously provided enough background so as to create a nearly perfect experience, unfortunately the solution for that, of keeping visitors in a bubble, wiped out the very idea of a true local experience.

It did not take me long to realize that, in fact quite expectedly, I was no fan of the grand, imposing architecture and projects of the 31 dynasties of pharaohs and the two Greco-Roman dynasties following them. Beauty was lost to size, the background was either mutilated or, at best, overshaded by erect figures, the walls had been invaded by armies of subjects, while leaders were depicted equal with gods (and some, like Ramses II, even envisaged themselves as one). Scenic and impressive as it definitely was, the legacy of the 3 millennia along the Nile was meant to crush those facing it and, while the ingenuity, skill, craftsmanship and effort behind it were all obvious, beyond any doubt, a question arose at every other sight: ‘Why?’. Why in the first place have your depiction or statue at that scale? Why build yourself a tomb that would definitely send many to death or go through exceptional effort, then tempting others to sneak in and loot it and eventually have others crawl in to take pictures? While, taken to an extreme, such thinking could deny any form of art depicting rulers, keeping proportions, it was the size and scale of these ancient Nile civilization achievements that cast a shadow on them: when one becomes oblivious to his ephemeral, mortal and imperfect nature, assuming a sacred role, he in fact becomes small, very small. Luckily, the ksars in the desert, the refreshing, peaceful oasis, the intense life buzz elsewhere and the late afternoon sunlight on the brick minarets in Cairo balanced out well this thirst for grandeur.

To a wider extent than in other countries in the Middle East, a product or service price was as volatile as irrelevant a matter. A seller could often quote a price 5 or 10 times more than the real value of things, negotiation was often hasty (a rather peculiar issue in the Middle East) and included the seller’s whole body, with shouts and ample gestures, while the potential buyer had his say by leaving just to be called back, all that in a sort of tumultuous dance, in a sort of tango where the two seem to both fight and love each other at the same time. And then, differently from other countries in the region and not only, once a price was settled and things were agreed upon, it was not actually over, as the seller’s mere question upon the completion of the transaction – such as a simple ‘Are you happy with the service?’ – would invite for reconsideration. For, had it not done so, things were immediately explained further: ‘If you are happy, let me be happy also, how about a baksheesh, a little extra?’.

Busy with dozens upon dozens of buses and minibuses coming from Aswan in the morning, the ado in Abu Simbel would diminish by midday and the town would get dead quiet by the late afternoon. It was then that one could have a closer look at the mix creating the local population, from the Egyptians coming from the North, to the original Nubians with their round faces, dark complexion and fine features. Later on, after the sunset, the town turned rather dark, with flickering lights coming from the few groceries and a busy aish bakery, with the prevailing silence being broken only by the odd car and some unseen children’s laughter, just until everything died out, leaving only crickets have their say.

Aswan Airport, complete with the tourist tat and convenience glitz, provided a proper environment for a debate between the airline staff manager and the airport clinic shift doctor. The airline employee wanted the doctor’s written and stamped statement that my father – that had stumbled and fractured two right hand metacarpal bones, with his hand now in an ortopedic cast – was apt to fly. The doctor argued that he could not issue a document for a patient that was not his and had not been under his surveillance. In between, my father smiling at the gloriously – and typically – bureaucratic scene which was all about people running away from responsibility even against their very official duty. In the meantime, above, a clock with the boarding time ever closer. Eventually the matter was solved as the doctor agreed to take my father’s blood pressure, then issuing a paper stating that the passenger was apt to fly in a general manner, while the airline employee was satisfied that 1. he had got things his way, as a manager always does, and 2. come what may, he was covered with a paper exonerating him of all and any responsibility whatsoever, even though the blood pressure might not be the best reference for a fractured bone. All that was missing was half a dozen rhinoceros dashing in the ‘Welcome to Egypt’ poster-adorned hall, crushing everything in their way and munching on bureaucratic paperwork.

Most people were helpful and kind with the stranger, and while some might have had some interest in selling something (even people one stopped down the street to ask for directions would eventually prove to have a shop, a restaurant, a kahwa, a cab he invited the stranger to), most were genuinely considerate. Typically curious questions about one’s country, well-being, impressions of Egypt were followed by wishes of happiness and tranquility, and one could feel that by merely answering these people and placing his right hand over his heart cheered them up, as busy as they were while popping their head from under a car they were repairing, while baking aish (such a wonderful word to use for both the day-by-day flatbread as a must for our existence, and life) or feteer, their hands covered up in engine dirt, flour or oil, accordingly.

The hotel I was staying at in Cairo, a once sumptuous, high ceiling room, Victorian touch affair, had been relatively restored (the very ‘relatively’ part granted it all its charm and it was the one reason making me stay there) and had extremely courteous staff, but the street side ground floor, instead of a fancy cafe or restaurant now hosted half a dozen garage-like shops selling car parts and bright colour fire brigade equipment. One evening, while returning from a walk and curious to see whether I could also reach the entrance by taking a shortcut behind the hotel, I found myself surrounded by a pack of stray dogs that, taken by surprise, surrounded me and started barking.  

’Do not be afraid, stray dogs are kind-hearted, more so than mankind’, said a grey hair lady, and she then called them softly.

I patted them, they rubbed their heads against my trousers and licked my hands. I wished the old lady a happy new year, as we were just over an hour from midnight.

‘Oh, thank you. To you too, have no fear and may you enjoy peace for the coming year!’

The building did not come as a surprise, as it could be seen from miles away, like the back of an enormous crocodile popping out of a river. Its gargantuan size was further emphasized by the fact that vast grounds surrounded it: a huge parking lot, an extensive admission area, a cement-paved open area leading to the actual entrance and various annexes or service streets and alleys. Once inside, a football stadium size hall provided access to the equally large museum galleries, as well as some ‘adequately’ large dining and shopping areas. The galleries, hosting outstanding sculpture, carved and painted items among others, were purely impressive through size and exhibits. And that was, in fact, one of the two main ideas behind the concept of the Great Egyptian Museum, with the old one downtown being too small to host all these. The other idea behind the concept was the country’s attempt to get back its treasures taken over by foreign countries and former colonists and nowadays hosted in various museums – and not only museums – across the world, because every time its leaders had asked for these items, one of the diplomatic answers they got was that Egypt did not have a proper, secure place to display them. Designed in Switzerland, costing a fortune and dropped off Giza from Planet Mars, it now did.

Cairo was noisily, hungrily gulping at its first time visitors and was actually doing the same with its residents or more familiar guests, only that they had developed a sort of oblivion, of blindness to it. A bustling city one could almost feel every single person of the 20 million-strong population. One way streets that seemed not enough not for the traffic, but for the traffic manners, as rules did not exist other than last second brakes or turns, a constant torrent of horn blowing and rather discrete hand or head gestures meant to let one know when he / she could pass. Streams of cars, trucks, trailers and minibuses including the odd donkey or man-pulled cart that seemed never to end during the rush hours that lasted for more than half the day. Avenues that one could cross only Tehran style, a ‘lane’ (whatever that meant) at a time, with short breaks in the middle of the road before another leap, always in a constant pace but never actually running. Deep in the old Islamic town – with its bustling bazaars and ghostly historic madrassas and caravanserais now turned into dead museums Bukhara or Khiva style -, where traffic was officially banned at daytime, rickshaws and motorcycles were at home. Complete with their roar, blue fumes and picturesque (hadn’t it also been nearly deadly at times) occurrence quite often out of nowhere, out of narrow alleys or even shops. Complete with their drivers were blowing the horn or shouting, while the stream of pedestrians, often carrying big loads of vegetables, cloth or bread among many other shoppings, did not move until the very last moment, when both the vehicle and those walking budged just enough to avoid collision by a fraction of an inch.

‘The entrance to the Citadel is on the other side’, said the mid-aged man while seeing me contemplate the citadel hill and ramparts from the deserted sidewalk off the Mosque of Sultan Hassan.

’Shukran jazilan’.

‘Afwan. And do not forget: always put on a big smile. Get used to wear it all the time, despite anything or anyone, in any circumstance life might have you in. That and faith is all you actually have’, he carried on calmly before walking away.