Five Days in Heliopolis
The Sleep of the Dead (Tired)
(Thursday, August 5)
We sleep in till 2pm, getting a full 12 hours of deep, deep sleep. We wake up, unpack a bit, then dare an expedition to the local Metro grocery, which is a couple blocks from our apartment building. On the way, we cannot help but notice that pretty much no-one gives us a second—mostly not even a first—glance. Maybe they’re all distracted by the caravan of honking cars with a groom and bride in the front vehicle that circles the area for the next half hour?
At the grocery store we buy a few simple items—some towels, soap, etc.—and I get a chance to talk to a young man from Upper Egypt (meaning Southern Egypt; Cairo is in Lower Egypt) who says he’s taking a class at the nearby military Academy to learn Arabic. I say I’d like to learn, too. He asks me where I’m from, and when I tell him “the United States,” he looks a bit taken aback, though not angry or hostile. We depart with awkward smiles exchanged between us. We spend 54 Egyptian Pounds (L.E.)--about $9 for two sizable sacks of stuff.
Expedition of Conspicuous Consumption
(Friday, August 6)
Sharifa Mohammed sends a van with a non-English-speaking driver to pick us up at 4:30 pm. We make what seem to be far too many turns through downtown Heliopolis to actually get anywhere before arriving, at long last, in front of what turns out to be her apartment building. Until she actually comes out and gets in with us, we aren’t sure whether our driver is lost or not. (He seemed to be asking a nearby policeman a lot of questions as we waited.)Then it was off to what I affectionately call the Egyptian-Super-WalMart. This is a mall in the desert south of Cairo which has a Cinnebon, a Radio Shack, clothing stores, a furniture store, numerous other stores, and a huge rectangular space containing food, clothes, electronics, toys, etc. Once again, we attract no special notice as we load up on food. (I also buy a nice hard-bound copy of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for literature and The Cairo Trilogy is supposedly his best work.) Finally, we have the best cinnamon rolls in the world at Cinnebon, then head home. We take the scenic route, driving along the Sharia Salah Salem (“sharia” meaning road or way), and catching sight of seemingly countless mosques, part of the City of the Dead, what looked like an ancient Christian monastery, the mosque of Mohammed Ali (not the boxer!) and the massive Citadel of which it is a part, and a smog-enriched beautiful deep red sunset. We also, far, far in the distance, spy what must be the great pyramids of Giza pointing skyward through the haze. We see so much, it is impossible to drink it all in. It is both dizzying and exhilarating all at once.
But now, it’s dinner time. Instead of taking us straight home, Sharifa brings us to a mostly vegetarian restaurant in downtown Heliopolis where we enjoy bread, olives, French fries (Sharifa makes a reference to “freedom fries,” which we all laugh at), hummus, fool, and falafel, and maybe a half-a-dozen other items. (I’ll try to get Faith to explain the food in a later post, perhaps.) We have a very nice time talking to her, our conversation revolving for a time around migraine headaches. Her father, she told us, has had these terrible headaches for 30 years and sometimes stays in a dark room for two or three days straight. Sharifa herself (who does not suffer from headaches), is very pleasant. She is about our age, has been married 12 years, and has three children. She does not cover her hair, is soft-spoken and a little shy, and said that although her husband and children preferred hamburgers to our present fare, she herself could eat at this restaurant all the time. Her patience and aid were invaluable in our first major expedition out into the titanic world of Cairo. Like many Egyptians we have encountered, she is quick to smile and laugh.
A NOTE on drivers: Drivers in Egypt do a lot of waiting. Our driver waited in the parking lot with the van for maybe 3 whole hours while we shopped (though Sharifa gave him some shopping money, too), then another hour while we ate. On our travels, however, he and Sharifa spoke quite freely, and apparently he was very funny for she laughed often as they spoke. He helped Faith and I take our groceries up to our apartment and, with a huge smile, declined my offer of a tip.
Our Apartment
(Saturday, August 7)
On this day we mainly settle in, finishing our unpacking and getting used to our apartment. It is a one-bedroom flat with a balcony facing another apartment building across the narrow side-street onto which our apartment building’s front door opens. The kitchen is small, there is air conditioning in the bedroom only, and a small fridge is set in our small dining room. The technology and decor is nothing a time-traveler from 1960 would look twice at. A painting of the Last Supper on one wall gives us pause. (It turns out our landlady, Ms. Samira, is a Christian.) We are unpleasantly surprised by a pair of the largest cockroaches we’ve ever seen—creatures Faith describes as “the size of all the lower 48 states put together.” They also, apparently, have wings, but we are fortunate enough not to encounter them in flight. Soon, however, both are dead: one having been crushed by Sharifa, the other poisoned by some special powder we put down on the floor. Since then, we’ve been safe.
Ms. Samira, meanwhile, was utterly horrified we found cockroaches in our apartment. Apparently it hadn’t been cleaned recently as she was told no teachers would be arriving until the following week. We assured her it was no big deal, that the roaches were gone, and that confusion about our arrival date was understandable since we actually did arrive much earlier than everyone else. Wanting to show us a really clean flat, Ms. Samira took us upstairs to apartment #10—a palace with three bedrooms, a large kitchen, a sizable living room and dining room, two balconies with a much better view than ours, two bathrooms, and two air conditioners. We were quite impressed, then returned to our suddenly even smaller flat, half-wishing we could move.
Moving on Up!
(Sunday and Monday, August 8-9)
A miracle! Ms. Samira, Amr, and a couple other men show up to tell us we can move up to the flat we had seen the day before and had come to call “the Palace” and “the Taj Mahal.” We have now completed the move and are enjoying it very much. (Attention all potential visitors: this means we have a full-fledged guest room!) The third bedroom is being used for storage—which is fine since we have more room than we know what to do with as it is. As for how we got here, it seems there was some confusion about who should be where, and a single man was put down to take the Palace. Ms. Samira and the school apparently agreed this was unfair, and so they moved us up. In short: we’re living large!
Tonight Faith and I sat on our balcony overlooking our little piece of Heliopolis. Next up: Impressions of Egypt thus far, our Battle of the Time Zones, and a description of our neighborhood.
Until then, farewell, and thanks for reading.
(Thursday, August 5)
We sleep in till 2pm, getting a full 12 hours of deep, deep sleep. We wake up, unpack a bit, then dare an expedition to the local Metro grocery, which is a couple blocks from our apartment building. On the way, we cannot help but notice that pretty much no-one gives us a second—mostly not even a first—glance. Maybe they’re all distracted by the caravan of honking cars with a groom and bride in the front vehicle that circles the area for the next half hour?
At the grocery store we buy a few simple items—some towels, soap, etc.—and I get a chance to talk to a young man from Upper Egypt (meaning Southern Egypt; Cairo is in Lower Egypt) who says he’s taking a class at the nearby military Academy to learn Arabic. I say I’d like to learn, too. He asks me where I’m from, and when I tell him “the United States,” he looks a bit taken aback, though not angry or hostile. We depart with awkward smiles exchanged between us. We spend 54 Egyptian Pounds (L.E.)--about $9 for two sizable sacks of stuff.
Expedition of Conspicuous Consumption
(Friday, August 6)
Sharifa Mohammed sends a van with a non-English-speaking driver to pick us up at 4:30 pm. We make what seem to be far too many turns through downtown Heliopolis to actually get anywhere before arriving, at long last, in front of what turns out to be her apartment building. Until she actually comes out and gets in with us, we aren’t sure whether our driver is lost or not. (He seemed to be asking a nearby policeman a lot of questions as we waited.)Then it was off to what I affectionately call the Egyptian-Super-WalMart. This is a mall in the desert south of Cairo which has a Cinnebon, a Radio Shack, clothing stores, a furniture store, numerous other stores, and a huge rectangular space containing food, clothes, electronics, toys, etc. Once again, we attract no special notice as we load up on food. (I also buy a nice hard-bound copy of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for literature and The Cairo Trilogy is supposedly his best work.) Finally, we have the best cinnamon rolls in the world at Cinnebon, then head home. We take the scenic route, driving along the Sharia Salah Salem (“sharia” meaning road or way), and catching sight of seemingly countless mosques, part of the City of the Dead, what looked like an ancient Christian monastery, the mosque of Mohammed Ali (not the boxer!) and the massive Citadel of which it is a part, and a smog-enriched beautiful deep red sunset. We also, far, far in the distance, spy what must be the great pyramids of Giza pointing skyward through the haze. We see so much, it is impossible to drink it all in. It is both dizzying and exhilarating all at once.
But now, it’s dinner time. Instead of taking us straight home, Sharifa brings us to a mostly vegetarian restaurant in downtown Heliopolis where we enjoy bread, olives, French fries (Sharifa makes a reference to “freedom fries,” which we all laugh at), hummus, fool, and falafel, and maybe a half-a-dozen other items. (I’ll try to get Faith to explain the food in a later post, perhaps.) We have a very nice time talking to her, our conversation revolving for a time around migraine headaches. Her father, she told us, has had these terrible headaches for 30 years and sometimes stays in a dark room for two or three days straight. Sharifa herself (who does not suffer from headaches), is very pleasant. She is about our age, has been married 12 years, and has three children. She does not cover her hair, is soft-spoken and a little shy, and said that although her husband and children preferred hamburgers to our present fare, she herself could eat at this restaurant all the time. Her patience and aid were invaluable in our first major expedition out into the titanic world of Cairo. Like many Egyptians we have encountered, she is quick to smile and laugh.
A NOTE on drivers: Drivers in Egypt do a lot of waiting. Our driver waited in the parking lot with the van for maybe 3 whole hours while we shopped (though Sharifa gave him some shopping money, too), then another hour while we ate. On our travels, however, he and Sharifa spoke quite freely, and apparently he was very funny for she laughed often as they spoke. He helped Faith and I take our groceries up to our apartment and, with a huge smile, declined my offer of a tip.
Our Apartment
(Saturday, August 7)
On this day we mainly settle in, finishing our unpacking and getting used to our apartment. It is a one-bedroom flat with a balcony facing another apartment building across the narrow side-street onto which our apartment building’s front door opens. The kitchen is small, there is air conditioning in the bedroom only, and a small fridge is set in our small dining room. The technology and decor is nothing a time-traveler from 1960 would look twice at. A painting of the Last Supper on one wall gives us pause. (It turns out our landlady, Ms. Samira, is a Christian.) We are unpleasantly surprised by a pair of the largest cockroaches we’ve ever seen—creatures Faith describes as “the size of all the lower 48 states put together.” They also, apparently, have wings, but we are fortunate enough not to encounter them in flight. Soon, however, both are dead: one having been crushed by Sharifa, the other poisoned by some special powder we put down on the floor. Since then, we’ve been safe.
Ms. Samira, meanwhile, was utterly horrified we found cockroaches in our apartment. Apparently it hadn’t been cleaned recently as she was told no teachers would be arriving until the following week. We assured her it was no big deal, that the roaches were gone, and that confusion about our arrival date was understandable since we actually did arrive much earlier than everyone else. Wanting to show us a really clean flat, Ms. Samira took us upstairs to apartment #10—a palace with three bedrooms, a large kitchen, a sizable living room and dining room, two balconies with a much better view than ours, two bathrooms, and two air conditioners. We were quite impressed, then returned to our suddenly even smaller flat, half-wishing we could move.
Moving on Up!
(Sunday and Monday, August 8-9)
A miracle! Ms. Samira, Amr, and a couple other men show up to tell us we can move up to the flat we had seen the day before and had come to call “the Palace” and “the Taj Mahal.” We have now completed the move and are enjoying it very much. (Attention all potential visitors: this means we have a full-fledged guest room!) The third bedroom is being used for storage—which is fine since we have more room than we know what to do with as it is. As for how we got here, it seems there was some confusion about who should be where, and a single man was put down to take the Palace. Ms. Samira and the school apparently agreed this was unfair, and so they moved us up. In short: we’re living large!
Tonight Faith and I sat on our balcony overlooking our little piece of Heliopolis. Next up: Impressions of Egypt thus far, our Battle of the Time Zones, and a description of our neighborhood.
Until then, farewell, and thanks for reading.
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