ps: i'm 25 today. word up to twin sister.
nearly alone in the middle east. good times. but -
i've got the coordinates of a pork-chop, some beer, and a nice person from Virginia.
we'll see.
10.10.03
i was sitting in a street-side restuarant with maksim, the american guy with russian origins. clever guy. good arabic.
i was settling into my low flu-fever and after dinner bloated feeling, maksim was explaining something about jewish mindset and culture.
there was a shadow.
a huge paw of a hand swept my plate clean and stuffed the bits of chewed and spat out lamb grizzle into one of the leftover pieces of pita on our table.
my eyes met his eyes.
i dont remember his face, just his eyes. they were brown, beady, angry looking, yellow whites, bulging at me; they were familiar. my dog cara defending a small peice of pork i dropped in the kitchen once.
he walked away, i saw him from behind.
he was tall, fat, and not poorly dressed.
it happened in maybe 2 seconds.
c: "desperate, huh?"
m: "i think so."
i was settling into my low flu-fever and after dinner bloated feeling, maksim was explaining something about jewish mindset and culture.
there was a shadow.
a huge paw of a hand swept my plate clean and stuffed the bits of chewed and spat out lamb grizzle into one of the leftover pieces of pita on our table.
my eyes met his eyes.
i dont remember his face, just his eyes. they were brown, beady, angry looking, yellow whites, bulging at me; they were familiar. my dog cara defending a small peice of pork i dropped in the kitchen once.
he walked away, i saw him from behind.
he was tall, fat, and not poorly dressed.
it happened in maybe 2 seconds.
c: "desperate, huh?"
m: "i think so."
9.10.03
"Mr. Cem!"
I look across the bedroom at Akbar. Hes sitting to the left of the computer that Mohammed #1 and Mohammed #4 are fighting over. They are installing Windows XP professional onto a Pentium 2 PC. This software, when legally purchased, costs more than they make in a year, especially in the slum town of Helwan we are sitting in, in which the roads are uneven dirt and garbage is simply thrown into unkempt piles and picked over by legions of cats. There is a donkey outside. They didn't purchase the software.
"Mr. Cem!"
Akbar again. He was a nice guy, if a little dim cmopared to the rest. He crosses his wrists in front of himself, palms inward, as if to display handcuffs.
M4:"Akbar want to say yesterday he arrested for fighting on the train."
Akbar smiles at me, shaking a huge, stubby Felaheen fist at me. I note that his forehead is one inch.
M1: "Mr. Cem! Do like Terminator 3?" M1 is starting Windows Media Player to show me the movie. I imagine the American developers who wrote the code for WMP, and if they ever imagined this kind of user. It occurs to me that maybe copy-proof software is a good thing, and that from Shanghai to Tunis people are freeloading on American/Japanese ingenuity. I flinch, beacuse I have always been anti-copyright, but I cannot deny the feeling.
Staring at the guys fighting over whos going to control WMP, I realize that seeing illegal copies of all kinds of software and entertainment in Thailand never bothered me. What was bothering me was that these people are the same ones who were just talking shit about my country, and now they are high fiving to one of America's worst sequels ever on pirated American software.
M4: "Mr. Cem! You like Egyptian music?" Suddenly M4 switches T3 to some kind of horrible Egyptian pop. All 4 guys jump up and start dancing at once, in a way that I find horribly goofy, feminine, and alien all at once. Akbar gets a large knife from the next room, and they start incorporating the knife into the dance, passing it from person to person weaving it through the air, throwing it from hand to hand. I was dumbfounded.
Figo:"Senore Cem, musica Egyptiano bieno, no?" (sp?)
Figo's real name is Gamel, but he doesn't know English, so he speaks to me in Italian, of which I understand 30 percent. None-the-less I was met with unbelieveable hospitality several hours prior when his whole family took me in for dinner. Figo's mother, who has breast cancer and cannot afford a doctor, prepared an unusually good meal for me on the spot, even making the pita bread fresh and by hand. We sat around the TV in their ancient two story house watching re-runs of October 6th celebrations which reminded me of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Salt-Lake City.
Amid all the dancing, M1's mother enters the room with 6 glasses of fresh mango juice.
"Shookrun." (Thanks) I say "Enti latifa gidan" (you are so very nice)
"Afwan" She says, and walks back to the female area of the house.
Suddenly M1 looks at me, and seemingly out of nowhere asks:
"Mr. Cem - do like Bush, or Saddam?"
Politics are far more important to everyday life and conversation here in the ME than in the US, and often when people know I am American, it seems that the statements are on the tip of their tongue
M1's father suddenly enters the room - a small, wide man in a long white robe, his forehead bruised form constant supplication. In English he blurts out:
"Saddam good man. His people love him. He make them happy."
Knowing better than to argue with the man of the (muslim and arab) house in a religious quarter of a very distant slum in the biggest Arab city the world, yet not wanting to bend over for this and aware that any attempt at explaining would be unproductive, I looked at Figo quickly and said-
"Coza-coza" (Italian for so-so)
I smiled and looked at my mango juice.
Mohammed #1's mother, covered completely in black except for her eyes and thick hands peered through the door.
She blinked.
I blinked.
And for a few moments, we were all silent.
I look across the bedroom at Akbar. Hes sitting to the left of the computer that Mohammed #1 and Mohammed #4 are fighting over. They are installing Windows XP professional onto a Pentium 2 PC. This software, when legally purchased, costs more than they make in a year, especially in the slum town of Helwan we are sitting in, in which the roads are uneven dirt and garbage is simply thrown into unkempt piles and picked over by legions of cats. There is a donkey outside. They didn't purchase the software.
"Mr. Cem!"
Akbar again. He was a nice guy, if a little dim cmopared to the rest. He crosses his wrists in front of himself, palms inward, as if to display handcuffs.
M4:"Akbar want to say yesterday he arrested for fighting on the train."
Akbar smiles at me, shaking a huge, stubby Felaheen fist at me. I note that his forehead is one inch.
M1: "Mr. Cem! Do like Terminator 3?" M1 is starting Windows Media Player to show me the movie. I imagine the American developers who wrote the code for WMP, and if they ever imagined this kind of user. It occurs to me that maybe copy-proof software is a good thing, and that from Shanghai to Tunis people are freeloading on American/Japanese ingenuity. I flinch, beacuse I have always been anti-copyright, but I cannot deny the feeling.
Staring at the guys fighting over whos going to control WMP, I realize that seeing illegal copies of all kinds of software and entertainment in Thailand never bothered me. What was bothering me was that these people are the same ones who were just talking shit about my country, and now they are high fiving to one of America's worst sequels ever on pirated American software.
M4: "Mr. Cem! You like Egyptian music?" Suddenly M4 switches T3 to some kind of horrible Egyptian pop. All 4 guys jump up and start dancing at once, in a way that I find horribly goofy, feminine, and alien all at once. Akbar gets a large knife from the next room, and they start incorporating the knife into the dance, passing it from person to person weaving it through the air, throwing it from hand to hand. I was dumbfounded.
Figo:"Senore Cem, musica Egyptiano bieno, no?" (sp?)
Figo's real name is Gamel, but he doesn't know English, so he speaks to me in Italian, of which I understand 30 percent. None-the-less I was met with unbelieveable hospitality several hours prior when his whole family took me in for dinner. Figo's mother, who has breast cancer and cannot afford a doctor, prepared an unusually good meal for me on the spot, even making the pita bread fresh and by hand. We sat around the TV in their ancient two story house watching re-runs of October 6th celebrations which reminded me of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Salt-Lake City.
Amid all the dancing, M1's mother enters the room with 6 glasses of fresh mango juice.
"Shookrun." (Thanks) I say "Enti latifa gidan" (you are so very nice)
"Afwan" She says, and walks back to the female area of the house.
Suddenly M1 looks at me, and seemingly out of nowhere asks:
"Mr. Cem - do like Bush, or Saddam?"
Politics are far more important to everyday life and conversation here in the ME than in the US, and often when people know I am American, it seems that the statements are on the tip of their tongue
M1's father suddenly enters the room - a small, wide man in a long white robe, his forehead bruised form constant supplication. In English he blurts out:
"Saddam good man. His people love him. He make them happy."
Knowing better than to argue with the man of the (muslim and arab) house in a religious quarter of a very distant slum in the biggest Arab city the world, yet not wanting to bend over for this and aware that any attempt at explaining would be unproductive, I looked at Figo quickly and said-
"Coza-coza" (Italian for so-so)
I smiled and looked at my mango juice.
Mohammed #1's mother, covered completely in black except for her eyes and thick hands peered through the door.
She blinked.
I blinked.
And for a few moments, we were all silent.
6.10.03
Hey Everybody - Happy 6th October!
WHAT?! You DON'T KNOW about 6 Oct.?! Please tell me you are kidding. Praise be to God that He designed you with such humor.
Wait, you ... you don't? What are you, some kind of hooked nosed Zionist blood-sucking hydra who will spend eternity in hell chewed by nameless vermin made only of fire and pure misery for your unforgivable sin of being born into the pool of unholy venom and filth that is the Jewish race, praise be to God?
Ha ha, of course you aren't you silly American! Of course you don't know - you are merely mindless peon of those subhuman villains! You still have a chance for eternal paradise! Now listen -
Ever heard of Columbus day? Its similar, 'cept not really an all out genocide thing. Okok, listen close -
Get out your [Egyptian only please. Er, those approved of by the Ministry of Education only please] History books - because TODAY is the the anniversary of that time we really kicked Isreal's ass!
Yep, its FUCK ISRAEL day here in Masr - the mother of the world, aka - Cairo. Want a balloon? No? Howabout a flag? OK - OK - oh! Let the little one light it!
So, jeepers - we are having a REALLY BIG PARADE, and everyone can stay home and spend this time with the children!! Bring the kids - you are never too young to learn to hate!
Our unstoppable army of synchronized hairy men will march down Talat Harb Street in Al Qahira - the City Victorious - in remembrance of how We Fucked Them Up! .. in 1956.. uh.. once. . well, it wasn't really a war.. it.. it was one big battle really, and we.. uh.. lost every single other confrontation. . .but shit, for those 6 hours, they were running, they were RUNNING!
Look, despite the fact that military historians call the defeats suffered by Egyptian and Syrian forces at the hands of much smaller Isreali forces from WWII forward some of the most audacious, and comprehensive in modern military history, we really fucked them up that one time!! Boo-ya!
Good times! .. Yep, and I'm celebrating by kicking some INFIDEL ASS, my very own ass actually, as I prepare to throw myself down a flight of stairs and give myself multiple papercuts with this embossed holy Koran.
Whos with me???
What? This has nothing to do with religion?? This is a purely nationalist/political situation that has little to do with religion and is merely a memorial for those lost in battle in the struggle for the return of indigenous land from imperialist fuckers?
Oh you are rightrightright!! This is the middle-east, religion is barely relevent.
And the Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic Opposition here in Cairo isn't nearly as powerful as the actual fucking government, so the government isn't scared for it's survival, and doesn't use opportunities like this to show the population that they can have a religious dimension/role as well.
That said, yeah, I can see the whole imperialist fuckers thing. BURN THEM BURN THEM BURN THEM!!
Do you hear something?
Whats that Mr. Said? Oh wait, I can't hear you, because you are burning in a special area in hell reserved for non-muslims. You will merely face eternal punishment at the hands of barbed imps, which is not without its moments of pleasure. Another plus is I think you can get Harpers down there. Ta!
.
.
.
..damn this is a fucked up situation, I don't agree with any side over here.
Happy 6 Oct.
and God Bless religious wackos - Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish.
WHAT?! You DON'T KNOW about 6 Oct.?! Please tell me you are kidding. Praise be to God that He designed you with such humor.
Wait, you ... you don't? What are you, some kind of hooked nosed Zionist blood-sucking hydra who will spend eternity in hell chewed by nameless vermin made only of fire and pure misery for your unforgivable sin of being born into the pool of unholy venom and filth that is the Jewish race, praise be to God?
Ha ha, of course you aren't you silly American! Of course you don't know - you are merely mindless peon of those subhuman villains! You still have a chance for eternal paradise! Now listen -
Ever heard of Columbus day? Its similar, 'cept not really an all out genocide thing. Okok, listen close -
Get out your [Egyptian only please. Er, those approved of by the Ministry of Education only please] History books - because TODAY is the the anniversary of that time we really kicked Isreal's ass!
Yep, its FUCK ISRAEL day here in Masr - the mother of the world, aka - Cairo. Want a balloon? No? Howabout a flag? OK - OK - oh! Let the little one light it!
So, jeepers - we are having a REALLY BIG PARADE, and everyone can stay home and spend this time with the children!! Bring the kids - you are never too young to learn to hate!
Our unstoppable army of synchronized hairy men will march down Talat Harb Street in Al Qahira - the City Victorious - in remembrance of how We Fucked Them Up! .. in 1956.. uh.. once. . well, it wasn't really a war.. it.. it was one big battle really, and we.. uh.. lost every single other confrontation. . .but shit, for those 6 hours, they were running, they were RUNNING!
Look, despite the fact that military historians call the defeats suffered by Egyptian and Syrian forces at the hands of much smaller Isreali forces from WWII forward some of the most audacious, and comprehensive in modern military history, we really fucked them up that one time!! Boo-ya!
Good times! .. Yep, and I'm celebrating by kicking some INFIDEL ASS, my very own ass actually, as I prepare to throw myself down a flight of stairs and give myself multiple papercuts with this embossed holy Koran.
Whos with me???
What? This has nothing to do with religion?? This is a purely nationalist/political situation that has little to do with religion and is merely a memorial for those lost in battle in the struggle for the return of indigenous land from imperialist fuckers?
Oh you are rightrightright!! This is the middle-east, religion is barely relevent.
And the Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic Opposition here in Cairo isn't nearly as powerful as the actual fucking government, so the government isn't scared for it's survival, and doesn't use opportunities like this to show the population that they can have a religious dimension/role as well.
That said, yeah, I can see the whole imperialist fuckers thing. BURN THEM BURN THEM BURN THEM!!
Do you hear something?
Whats that Mr. Said? Oh wait, I can't hear you, because you are burning in a special area in hell reserved for non-muslims. You will merely face eternal punishment at the hands of barbed imps, which is not without its moments of pleasure. Another plus is I think you can get Harpers down there. Ta!
.
.
.
..damn this is a fucked up situation, I don't agree with any side over here.
Happy 6 Oct.
and God Bless religious wackos - Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish.
5.10.03
i put down the chopsticks, it all changed.
Bangkok International Airport, I was sitting back with my eyes shut, feeling happily bloated from the totally unnescessary 2nd dinner I had taken. I was just about to carefully let a giant, magnificant burp escape quietly after a huge bowl of Thai noodles - they were sen yai - the wide kind, the ones with the balls of congealed pork blood that i love so damn much and the pounded 'salted crab' on top and then -
and then:
"You are finish? 120 baht sir thankyou."
I looked up at the waitress. Unlike before, before when she had invited me me to sit down and after, when she had commented how happy I looked with my food with a sweet, shrill Thai "Arroy, nakha?" -
Unlike before, she was not smiling. She wanted me to pay and fucking Move. She looked pained, and urgent. This was very un-Thai. Something must be wrong? Something must be wrong. And then I heard it. Arabic.
"Fee lahim sandawitch?"(Do they have meat sandwiches?)
"La ya habibi, ma'feesh, yallah - al mata'aam mish qwais, w'al-bint 'aandah"(No my dear, they dont have them, c'mon lets go. The restuarant is no good and this girl is slow)
I looked behind the girl in front of me - she seemed paler than any Thai skin whitening cream could have gotten her.
All I could see was black.
I finally understood that I was leaving Asia.
The work was beginning.
--
Walking towards the gate, I looked back. The 4 women from Saudi Arabia or some other gulf country were swarming around the table I had been enjoying, it looked like a ninja party. They were fully covered - all black burkas revealing only their eyes, and shapely, bejeweled hands. I could sense that the poor Thai girl hadn't seen anything like it before. I heard their broken English and hilariously stupid questions to ask at a Thai restuarant, about whether they had bread or lamb noodles in broken English.
Fucking Saudis.
They need to be educated. And shaved.
--
Egypt Air, flight 804 nonstop to Cairo.
The service in the air - stunning.
The attendents? Surly.
The food? Scary, horrible mock western.
The passangers? Angry. It had been less than a month since Egypt Air changed their smoking policy on-board, and several people had to be asked to put away their lit cigarettes.
I recalled a paragraph in a Middle East affairs journal I had read some time ago, in which an Egypt Air flight had been hijacked. Egyptian "commandos" had boarded the plane on the runway in Cairo. The hijackers were killed by the crack team, along with 57 passengers who were caught in the crossfire. There were 92 passengers on board.
It is not terrorism I am worried about, it is just the Egyptians. Something in my gut is telling me ..
--
Cairo Egypt.
a better writer called this place the "great upturned ashtray". I have to agree with him. the fucker.
But I'm all for urban blight.
Cairo, where rabid seething Imams scream into microphones on Friday - gutteral, desperate, angry.
Was it I that said that Islam is not inherently violent?
This sounds violent. I've never heard a Christian or buddhist sound like this. This screaming can't be creating a sense of tranquility.
Cairo, where covered women move down the streets on platform open-toed shoes, their ill-bent and brightly colored toes a source of excitement for the ubiquitous nose-picking guards in white cheap uniforms crouched on every street.
Where believers who pray so much they have permanently bruised foreheads (like Wesely Willis, RIP) and confused looking eyes which scan you, relentlessly, unshyly, as you stand nearby.
Where the Muslim Brotherhood's samizdat tracts are passed out quickly on the French-built metro, and collected before the next stop.
Where lines don't exist - you simply crowd around the ticket booth/cashier and wave your money, stepping on anyone, stealing a ticket if the cashier looks away.
Cairo, home of the Felaheen.
Felaheen? The peasant class, the oafish subjects of the (great!) Ottoman empire and the Mamluks before them, and empires before that. The people who now occupy the land around the pyramids and whose descendant generations have lived here for thousands of years. Cairo started as a labor camp for building the pyramids.
Some of the poor are still known as the Felaheen, and you can see that they still retain many of the same worker-drone characteristics to this day. Big hands, stout, oddly shaped men, round women, quick and stupid tempers, guile and dishonesty - all a mix of Africa and the Middle East.
Arab, but Egyptian Arab. Not as clever as the Levantines, not as fervantly ignorant as the Gulf Arabs. Thick, expendable drones, in a hive of 17 million.
Most disappointingly, they lack their own cuisine, stealing from Turkish and Lebanese.. "They eat - but only to fight off death" said a good friend to me once. He's right. On the bright side, tea is everywhere, and costs 4 cents a glass, a falafel sandwich costs 8 cents. Yes, thank god for their plummeting economy, I can eat for cheap
These people tho. ..
--
Ahmed, our new friend, is under arrest. For walking with us without a permit. They put him in the back of a small van. I ask why they grabbed him
"He need Tourist-Leader permit for be with tourist" says the giant Felaheen asshole in horrible english. I reply in horrible Arabic.
"Huwa Sadiiki! Mish Tagen!"(he's my friend - not a businessman!" I say, desperately trying to remember any Arabic at all.
The other guards just look at us, stupid in their white uniforms, holding old Chinese AK-47s.
The 2 hilarious french guys with us just keep smoking.
The huge, pot bellied Felaheen captain pulls out his gun for us, and shows us the bullets are real. Why do most Egyptian men have those god-damned potbellies? For a starving country, everyone is so fucking fat.
He makes a popping noise witjh his mouth, as if to simulate the sound of gunfire. He then smiles through his ridiculous sunglasses. We stare at him, unimpressed.
They just wanted a bribe.
--
Yes, I've never met such a wildly dishonest people before in my life - these people have tried to take me for money or worse at least - I'm not exaggerating - 4/5 times in every interaction I have had with them. I pray it is just the tourist area that I
am temporarily in, and I miss the cool-hearted and sophisticated East Asians deeply.
Lord, these people - they make my Ottoman blood boil.
Insolence!
And my Southern USA blood is telling me to call in airstrikes.
Maybe I will get a ticket back to Thailand.
--
do i have the right to be so annoyed by
these people?
am I misinterpreting something?
is this culture shock?
if so, why didnt I feel it in Thailand, Myanmar, or Vietnam?
its 2003. culture shock isnt an excuse anymore.
or is it exactly what defines 2001-2003?
this is why im here right -
this is the work.
to understand these people.
but -
why am i asking you people?
--
Islamic Cairo - Old Cairo
Stray cats and winding, impossible streets. Slums built on buildings 800 years old. beautiful buildings. the entire area has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. UNESCO sites are supposed to be quiet, solemn, holy. This one is still alive. Pepsi cans are everywhere among the ruins. A little kids in a school uniform peed from the old fortress wall.
Donkey carts vie with vespas for the space around a truck from which a man is screaming at another man whose vegetable cart he bumped into. No damage, but It seems like they like the sport of it.
I'm learning. The sport of it - they are not angry - it is a ritual. They are saving face. I'm beginning to understand. In Thailand, you don't make a peep. When a white guy gets knocked into a truck on his motorbike, you pretend that it isn't happening. Here - here its the opposite - you Must make a peep about everything, or you lose face.
Children are saying hello to me everywhere. Unlike near the tourist attractions, they don't want money. I buy a kid some sugar cane juice for his outstanding farting noises. I buy some bread. Some young people practice their English on us. The roads, the buildings, the alleys, they are swollen with people, choked by exhaust. Flies whip through clouds of dust, a young girl sits among old tires and eats grapes, offering some to me as I walk by with her small hand.
Her hand is so clean.
Her uniform is so white.
Deisel smoke curls around us,
and I am somewhere else.
--
Bangkok International Airport, I was sitting back with my eyes shut, feeling happily bloated from the totally unnescessary 2nd dinner I had taken. I was just about to carefully let a giant, magnificant burp escape quietly after a huge bowl of Thai noodles - they were sen yai - the wide kind, the ones with the balls of congealed pork blood that i love so damn much and the pounded 'salted crab' on top and then -
and then:
"You are finish? 120 baht sir thankyou."
I looked up at the waitress. Unlike before, before when she had invited me me to sit down and after, when she had commented how happy I looked with my food with a sweet, shrill Thai "Arroy, nakha?" -
Unlike before, she was not smiling. She wanted me to pay and fucking Move. She looked pained, and urgent. This was very un-Thai. Something must be wrong? Something must be wrong. And then I heard it. Arabic.
"Fee lahim sandawitch?"(Do they have meat sandwiches?)
"La ya habibi, ma'feesh, yallah - al mata'aam mish qwais, w'al-bint 'aandah"(No my dear, they dont have them, c'mon lets go. The restuarant is no good and this girl is slow)
I looked behind the girl in front of me - she seemed paler than any Thai skin whitening cream could have gotten her.
All I could see was black.
I finally understood that I was leaving Asia.
The work was beginning.
--
Walking towards the gate, I looked back. The 4 women from Saudi Arabia or some other gulf country were swarming around the table I had been enjoying, it looked like a ninja party. They were fully covered - all black burkas revealing only their eyes, and shapely, bejeweled hands. I could sense that the poor Thai girl hadn't seen anything like it before. I heard their broken English and hilariously stupid questions to ask at a Thai restuarant, about whether they had bread or lamb noodles in broken English.
Fucking Saudis.
They need to be educated. And shaved.
--
Egypt Air, flight 804 nonstop to Cairo.
The service in the air - stunning.
The attendents? Surly.
The food? Scary, horrible mock western.
The passangers? Angry. It had been less than a month since Egypt Air changed their smoking policy on-board, and several people had to be asked to put away their lit cigarettes.
I recalled a paragraph in a Middle East affairs journal I had read some time ago, in which an Egypt Air flight had been hijacked. Egyptian "commandos" had boarded the plane on the runway in Cairo. The hijackers were killed by the crack team, along with 57 passengers who were caught in the crossfire. There were 92 passengers on board.
It is not terrorism I am worried about, it is just the Egyptians. Something in my gut is telling me ..
--
Cairo Egypt.
a better writer called this place the "great upturned ashtray". I have to agree with him. the fucker.
But I'm all for urban blight.
Cairo, where rabid seething Imams scream into microphones on Friday - gutteral, desperate, angry.
Was it I that said that Islam is not inherently violent?
This sounds violent. I've never heard a Christian or buddhist sound like this. This screaming can't be creating a sense of tranquility.
Cairo, where covered women move down the streets on platform open-toed shoes, their ill-bent and brightly colored toes a source of excitement for the ubiquitous nose-picking guards in white cheap uniforms crouched on every street.
Where believers who pray so much they have permanently bruised foreheads (like Wesely Willis, RIP) and confused looking eyes which scan you, relentlessly, unshyly, as you stand nearby.
Where the Muslim Brotherhood's samizdat tracts are passed out quickly on the French-built metro, and collected before the next stop.
Where lines don't exist - you simply crowd around the ticket booth/cashier and wave your money, stepping on anyone, stealing a ticket if the cashier looks away.
Cairo, home of the Felaheen.
Felaheen? The peasant class, the oafish subjects of the (great!) Ottoman empire and the Mamluks before them, and empires before that. The people who now occupy the land around the pyramids and whose descendant generations have lived here for thousands of years. Cairo started as a labor camp for building the pyramids.
Some of the poor are still known as the Felaheen, and you can see that they still retain many of the same worker-drone characteristics to this day. Big hands, stout, oddly shaped men, round women, quick and stupid tempers, guile and dishonesty - all a mix of Africa and the Middle East.
Arab, but Egyptian Arab. Not as clever as the Levantines, not as fervantly ignorant as the Gulf Arabs. Thick, expendable drones, in a hive of 17 million.
Most disappointingly, they lack their own cuisine, stealing from Turkish and Lebanese.. "They eat - but only to fight off death" said a good friend to me once. He's right. On the bright side, tea is everywhere, and costs 4 cents a glass, a falafel sandwich costs 8 cents. Yes, thank god for their plummeting economy, I can eat for cheap
These people tho. ..
--
Ahmed, our new friend, is under arrest. For walking with us without a permit. They put him in the back of a small van. I ask why they grabbed him
"He need Tourist-Leader permit for be with tourist" says the giant Felaheen asshole in horrible english. I reply in horrible Arabic.
"Huwa Sadiiki! Mish Tagen!"(he's my friend - not a businessman!" I say, desperately trying to remember any Arabic at all.
The other guards just look at us, stupid in their white uniforms, holding old Chinese AK-47s.
The 2 hilarious french guys with us just keep smoking.
The huge, pot bellied Felaheen captain pulls out his gun for us, and shows us the bullets are real. Why do most Egyptian men have those god-damned potbellies? For a starving country, everyone is so fucking fat.
He makes a popping noise witjh his mouth, as if to simulate the sound of gunfire. He then smiles through his ridiculous sunglasses. We stare at him, unimpressed.
They just wanted a bribe.
--
Yes, I've never met such a wildly dishonest people before in my life - these people have tried to take me for money or worse at least - I'm not exaggerating - 4/5 times in every interaction I have had with them. I pray it is just the tourist area that I
am temporarily in, and I miss the cool-hearted and sophisticated East Asians deeply.
Lord, these people - they make my Ottoman blood boil.
Insolence!
And my Southern USA blood is telling me to call in airstrikes.
Maybe I will get a ticket back to Thailand.
--
do i have the right to be so annoyed by
these people?
am I misinterpreting something?
is this culture shock?
if so, why didnt I feel it in Thailand, Myanmar, or Vietnam?
its 2003. culture shock isnt an excuse anymore.
or is it exactly what defines 2001-2003?
this is why im here right -
this is the work.
to understand these people.
but -
why am i asking you people?
--
Islamic Cairo - Old Cairo
Stray cats and winding, impossible streets. Slums built on buildings 800 years old. beautiful buildings. the entire area has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. UNESCO sites are supposed to be quiet, solemn, holy. This one is still alive. Pepsi cans are everywhere among the ruins. A little kids in a school uniform peed from the old fortress wall.
Donkey carts vie with vespas for the space around a truck from which a man is screaming at another man whose vegetable cart he bumped into. No damage, but It seems like they like the sport of it.
I'm learning. The sport of it - they are not angry - it is a ritual. They are saving face. I'm beginning to understand. In Thailand, you don't make a peep. When a white guy gets knocked into a truck on his motorbike, you pretend that it isn't happening. Here - here its the opposite - you Must make a peep about everything, or you lose face.
Children are saying hello to me everywhere. Unlike near the tourist attractions, they don't want money. I buy a kid some sugar cane juice for his outstanding farting noises. I buy some bread. Some young people practice their English on us. The roads, the buildings, the alleys, they are swollen with people, choked by exhaust. Flies whip through clouds of dust, a young girl sits among old tires and eats grapes, offering some to me as I walk by with her small hand.
Her hand is so clean.
Her uniform is so white.
Deisel smoke curls around us,
and I am somewhere else.
--
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)