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Published: August 31st 2008
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I flew from Detroit to JFK to Rome to Cairo. I was greeted by Abdul, the AUC Travel Representative, once I arrived at the Cairo Airport. Leaving the airport I was greeted by Rowaida, the Presidential Internship Director and a very powerful lady at AUC. En route to my apartment, Rowaida explained to me certain aspects of life in Cairo. She pointed out all the police officers in the streets and how soap operas are very popular to people in Cairo, especially during Ramadan (which would be coming up in a week). I experienced the horrifying traffic of Cairo driving to the Hostel in Zamalek. Traffic lanes don’t mean a thing, traffic signals are ignored, and pedestrians don’t have the right of way. The city of Cairo is divided up into different sections. My apartment is in Zamalek, an island in the Nile, where many embassies are located. The apartment is beautiful and the kitchen was filled with food and other necessities to get me by the first week. I was the first to arrive so I unpacked and went to bed early to catch up on some sleep.
I met Lauren the next day. We decided to have some
Egyptian cuisine from a very nice restaurant called Abu El Sid in Zamalek. I had chicken in walnut sauce and Lauren had Foul, which is a traditional Egyptian dish made out of fava beans and flavored with spices.
Note to Cairo tourists: People in Cairo want to be helpful and won’t admit that they do not know how to get somewhere, even if it means giving you wrong directions. Therefore, you should ask more than one person to be sure you are headed the right way. I speak from experience.
Although there are many Cairenes that speak English I was intimidated to have a conversation. After interacting with several locals I have been motivated to learn Arabic. It will also be helpful when I travel to other Middle Eastern countries during my time in Cairo.
On Friday Muriel, Andrew and Jeff (interns) arrived in Cairo. We decided to walk around downtown Cairo from Zamalek, a good 20 minute walk. We were successful crossing the 8-lane street in Tahrir Square. Andrew has been backpacking in the Middle East for the past two and half months, so he knew his way around Cairo. He took us to experience Egyptian
fast food called kushwari which cost us LE 3.50 per bowl ($0.70 USD). It’s made of pasta, rice, fried onion and tomato sauce. Lots of carbs but tasty.
Saturday was amazing! Lauren, Muriel, Jeff and I decided to go to Khan Al-Khalili, an open air market and a tourist trap. Here you can find everything from clothing, to furniture, to perfume, and all the Egyptian souvenirs you can imagine. The vendors always allow you to “look for free,” and creating new nicknames for you. I went from being called Rocky to Jimmy Carter to M (because I was wearing my Michigan football shirt). However, we wanted to explore the local market right across the street because we were looking to furnish our bare apartments. Apparently we looked out of place and an English speaking gentleman approached me and told me that the tourist market is across the street. I told him that we came from there and we wanted to shop in the local market. I informed him that we were working at the American University in Cairo. He decided that it was his job to show us around the local market, especially the factories located in the area
which produce authentic Egyptian goods. He took us to a box making shop (these boxes can be used for holding jewelry and other smaller items) where he showed us the difference in quality between the boxes sold to tourist in Khan Al-Khalili and authentic Egyptian boxes used by prominent figures in Egyptian society. We could see the name cutting the white geometrical shapes by hand and inlaying the pieces onto the box
. Just to be clear, these factories are far different from the factories that American’s imaging. These factories are usually one or two rooms max on the first floor of the persons house and have 1-2 workers. Our final stop was Abdul’s father’s papyrus studio. Displayed on the walls were magnificent paintings of Egyptian rulers and tales. These paintings were on high quality papyrus, a papyrus not used to sell similar paintings in Khan Al-Khalili. I will probably head back sometime to purchase a couple, because the art was amazing. Abdul recommended that we try the Egyptian pancakes at a local restaurant. An Egyptian pancake is almost like a pizza, with some eggs on top and the meat is cooked inside the dough. Abdul was showing us around for over 2 hours so the least we could do was buy him dinner. Of course, since we look like tourists, we were quoted the tourist price. Abdul was able to negotiate the price down by telling the chef that we are living and working in Cairo. After dinner we chatted over a cold bottle of coke at a local café watching the locals prepare for Ramadan. After exploring some more of the local markets, Abdul left us at Al-Azhar mosque and university. Many people claim that it is the oldest university in the world. Having Abdul take time out of his day and show us around his community was a once in a life time experience. I was able to see the extreme poverty that many citizens of Cairo experience and allowed me to contrast the very rich community of Zamalek, where most ex-pats and I reside.
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Kelly Wang
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Cairo sounds amazing, I would love to try some authentic Egyptian food! Post your pictures!