New Friend

Last week we welcomed our first visitor.  Jonathan Ostrow, brother to our good friend Tonia, stopped through Cairo on his journey home from a wedding in Athens.  We did not know much of Jonathan before his visit.  Turns out we have a new and dear friend who opened our minds and eyes in ways we didn't quite expect.

Jonathan blazed into one of the largest cities in the world without a detailed plan, but with a wellspring of undaunted determination.  He flew solo his first night and wasted no time, making his way around in cabs to his hotel and to Khan el-Khalili market.  The challenge of completing even a single cab ride in a city this size, with cab drivers who don't speak your language but who have mastered the art of scamming foreigners, is a triumph unto itself.  And to continue onward and brave one of the oldest, most disorienting souks in the world?  On your own?!  Well...  hats off to you, Jonathan.

In the few days that followed, Justin and/or I joined Jonathan on trips to the Museum of Islamic Art,  Khan el-Khalili, and al-Fishawy Cafe.  The Museum of Islamic Art is my kind of museum.  Usually, I feel some sort of weird social pressure to absorb the extensive information that accompanies exhibits in American museums.  Here in Cairo, and I recall this was the case in India as well, the background and descriptions provided are short and sweet.  As someone who spends lots of dreamy time in her own head, I really appreciated this approach.  Observe, imagine, and wonder.  This museum is chock full of woodwork and ceramic, glass, and textile artifacts.  All the pieces are so geometric in their design that it's a great place to sit and sketch, if that strikes your fancy.

To visit Khan el-Khalili is to experience sudden and overwhelming stimulation of all senses...  and then some.  It is an utter labyrinth dripping in brass antiques, brass junk, rainbows of textiles and jewelry, ribbons of shisha smoke, tea and coffeeshops, spices beyond compare, and more than everything in between.  The souk dates back to 1382 and spreads out horizontally in some areas, but more often towers above encasing you in it's looming maze of alleyways.  We visited the market at night, which made for a hypnotizing evening that twinkled in the shine of so many goods and wares.

Al-Fishawy Cafe rests in the heart of Khan el-Khalili and translates to 'cafe of mirrors'.  A perfect comparison, as the whole area is so winding and alive that I swear you'd disappear if you dared to blink.  Al-Fishawy was a frequent hangout of Nobel Prize winning author Naguib Mahfouz, and offers mystifying charm.  The three of us camped out in the cafe past midnight after wandering the serpentine streets of the old souk.  We drank tea, ate falafel and tahini, and enjoyed the unexpected live serenade of an oud player.

Jonathan's appetite for experiencing and understanding other cultures is as genuine as spring rain and entirely contagious.  It's been a long time since I've met someone with such an endearingly curious and inquisitive nature.  I had no idea what a good time we'd all end up having together and am really thankful he shared his zest for the outside world with us.  Thank you, Jonathan!  You have set the bar high for all future visitors.  :)  

Check out the albums from some of our adventures!  Justin's eye strikes again!  Peruse when you have a minute, as the photos are many and all quite stunning.

Antiquing
Our Trip to Khan al-Khalili and al-Fishawy
The Islamic Museum

Taxi chats

I spend a lot of time in taxis these days. Thanks to Cairo's infamous traffic, I have been getting a lot of impromptu Arabic lessons from cab drivers. Boshoy (my driver today) have been going back and forth for the past hour and a half. Mainly traffic related vocab, it sounds something like this:

'Ey da bil ingleezy?' (What is that in English?)

'Pothole'

'Bothul?'

'Pot... Hole'

'Balt..hull?

'Pot hole'

'Bothole'

The next five minutes are quiet while Boshoy whispers 'bothole' to himself over and over.

His English approximations are much better than my weak attempts at Arabic. We both laugh at each others inability to pronounce certain letters.  He shows me his "I heart you Jesus" bracelet after asking about the ashes on my forehead. I tell him about Ash Wednesday (which I loosely explain as 'the start of Catholic Ramadan'). He shows me his Coptic tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. I listen to his taraneem (Coptic music), I show him some jay z but we can't figure out how to transfer files between our phones.

We pull up to the apartment. I ask for change, he smiles and corrects my pronunciation. "I glad to meet you" he says haltingly as I leave. I tap on the glass add he begins to pull out and say "Ana mabsood... shan... shufta".

Come on!

Secret Garden

I spent Sunday morning at one of the most quaint and beautiful farms I've ever seen.  Nestled thirty-five miles outside of Cairo in Mansheyet Kasseb, Giza, the land teemed with fruit trees, vegetable crops, herbs, flowering plants, birds, and bees.   It's owned and operated by a small business owner named Menar.  I learned of her business, Minnie's Dried Fruits and Vegetables, during my December visit, when a friend introduced me to her products on sale at a local restaurant.  Anxious to sniff out farming/gardening possibilites upon my move here, I read a bit more about Minnie's online.  Turns out the mission of her work is just as much about providing training and employment opportunities to women in rural communities as it is about offering healthy, organic, and sustainably produced foods to neighborhoods throughout Cairo.  Menar responded to my email inquiry with kindness and generosity, inviting me to visit as soon as I'd settled in.

The photos below capture a few nice close-ups.  The women you see are setting out strawberries for drying on a solar-powered dehydration tunnel.  Although the business sells only dehydrated products, Menar and her team of women grow scads of other crops that feed their families and friends.  I wandered around all morning, sketching what I could of dill, caraway, linseed, and other herbs, but the greatest highlight was seeing my first cinnamon tree!  Wow!  I eat cinnamon daily and was all smiles to see where it comes from.  Cinnamon trees have to grow for quite some time before the bark is ready for our enjoyment.

Menar sent me home with an overflowing bag of garden goodies.  Justin and I ate an enormous salad that night full of spinach, romaine, arugula, celery, green onions, and a zesty homemade lemon-herb vinaigrette.  We've got leftovers comin' out our ears.  

I am looking forward to seeing how this new connection grows.  Saturday, I'll join Menar in Zamalek, Cairo to sell at a farmer's market.  She also works with an NGO that has interest in starting a community gardens program here in Maadi.  Most of the women are working so hard on other projects that they haven't had the time to move forward on this one...  but perhaps with a new set of hands, they will!

Life is buzzing; many more photos and words are brewing.  Our first visitor arrives tonight, so J and I are in a race to see who arrives first...  Jonathan or the sheets for his bed in our guest room!  

Beautiful turnips.

Dill!  Patterns, numbers, everywhere in nature.  Perfection.

Working hard, laying out fresh strawberries in the solar tunnel for dehydrating.

Dehydrated peas, a new addition to Minnie's menu of deliciousness.

Behold color!

Felt like I'd found Eden.

The oranges and tangerines tasted like candy... 
sweetened only by their own, natural sugars.

Tunnel vision.

My Meyer lemon tree back home looks nothing like this.

:) 

pregnancy in 4 scenes

Navel Gazing

Long time, no blog!  I joined Justin in Maadi, Cairo just shy of a week ago.  Fully adjusted to the time change, I'm ready for life and ready to share news of it all with everyone back home and abroad.

My first thought has nothing to do with Egypt in any direct way, rather with someone I knew who passed away two and a half weeks ago.  Bill Densmore Sr. was eighty-eight years old and a humble paragon of a blessed, fulfilled life.  I suppose I know Bill's wife and daughter more closely, but I was lucky to get to know him a bit over the past couple of years.  I flew to Egypt five days before the service organized in celebration of his life, so I was touched to get an email copy of some of the words spoken.  I read them here in our new dining room, after a day of the usual misadventures that often happen while traveling and can lead to hours of self analysis and doubt.  Bill Jr. made mention of his father's preference for focusing on the world beyond the self and less on personal introspection.  Too much "navel gazing," as he called it, was not time best spent.

The first days of life in a new and foreign city felt like a gauntlet of challenges designed to defeat one's spirit.  We would set out on foot in the late morning with the intention of heading directly to a kitchenware shop to buy a decent knife and return home four hours later covered in dust, empty handed, and thinking...  so Eins-Egypt Organic Cookware and Kitchenware really means overstock Tupperware, hoop dresses, and bean bag chairs in someone's living room, with a catalog full of knives from all over the world!  We learn that what we believe is the Arabic word for 'park' is actually the Arabic word for 'parking lot'.  The consequence of that mistake, as a stranger told us, is 'blog-worthy' so I'll wait to elaborate.  We learn that the vacuum store opens at ten o'clock, which actually means 10:15, and the shop with space heaters that allegedly opens at ten o'clock, really opens at eleven o'clock...  which actually means 11:15.  

My natural tendency is toward navel gazing, so day after day of these and other mini-disasters left me sinking in the quicksand of self-doubt.  Reading the words of Bill Jr.'s while feeling so stuck...  and reading them in reference to someone deeply respected and revered by hundreds...  pulled me from the muck.  The beauty of what's going around and inside of me right now came quickly back to the fore.        

Our 'house' slowly becomes a home.  Houseplants and a Golden Retriever named Harley fill it with life and loving, faithful company.  Fresh foods fill our refrigerator and bodies and the magic of vinegar makes delicious raw fruits and veggies possible.  Egyptian women everywhere look at my belly and smile kindly at the three of us.  The baby moves more and more, as I feel him/her do somersaults in my belly.  The ghostly cooing of early morning birds signals a new day; the warm sun follows.  I haven't traveled too far beyond our neighborhood yet...  but already, I sense that layers upon layers of civilization, stories, and history cradle us.  I doubt the most advanced archaeological tools could take us to the deepest layer of this place.  Scroll through Justin's photographs from the Pyramids...  really look at the people.  What he captures amazes me and surrounds us here in Cairo.

We live in Egypt.  Bill Sr.'s daughter Deb recalled a favorite quote in the opening remarks of her father's celebration ceremony and it reads, "The world is run by those who show up."  Yes!  Damn my navel!  And though we might have to wait or walk or navigate for hours upon showing up, we will check our American pace at the door...  be patient...  and notice all that lives and breathes around us in the meantime.