X-Fighters, Coptic Cairo, and a felucca ride at sunset

May 15, 2010 - 5:00pm
Yesterday was our "free" day. We spent the morning at the Egyptian Museum here in Cairo, which I have to say I was pretty disappointed by. As a child of museums, I assumed a museum this important would be more European-style, what I was used to. Instead, the museum reflected the general theme of Egypt: very laid back. It was hot and disorganized. There were some incredible treasures to be seen, but they were arranged so you could barely even find them. The treasure from King Tut's tomb was in its own room, which was more climate-controlled, but was still pretty disorganized. It was definitely worth it to see his burial mask in real life, though. Photos do not do it justice. Everything Tut was buried with was much more gilded and elaborate than I could have imagined, I had to remind myself it was all real.

I heard a story that a mummy was put in one of the unmarked sarcophagi (that are stacked 3-high in display cabinets lining the hallways) and was only found some years later because one person happened to remember it was there. It doesn't surprise me at all that Queen Hatshepsut spent years in the museum's collection as an unidentified mummy. Still, the museum's admission was cheap, and it was amazing to see all the ancient works.

There was a (free!) annexed Children's Museum, which we also visited. This was much newer, air conditioned, and generally an awesome place for kids. Among some of the more "complete" ancient sculptures (to be easier for kids to understand?) were LEGO sculptures of the Sphinx, King Tut's burial mask, and scenes of Ancient Egypt. Plus there were LEGO tables for kids to play at. It was a pretty fantastic place.

Later that night, we traveled back to Giza for the Red Bull X-Fighters show. It was unreal. I was pretty dehydrated and was feeling weird and sick, so Rob, me, and a few others left the "standing" section to get food. Rob made sure I ate a whole sandwich, which made me feel much better. Somehow, in that time, we all ended up with Media passes and got to hang out in the press box (with free water and Red Bull for all!). We took some cool photos up there, then went back into the standing section for a different perspective. At that point, the group had totally split up, but I found Kareem, Abduh's son. (Abduh is a local tour guide that has very strong ties to our program, and is always there to lend a helping hand.) I spent the rest of the night with Kareem and his friend looking for good spots to see the action from. They were very kind and polite to me. I think men here are definitely taught to respect women more, but some can definitely still be rude. Kareem and his friend were awesome, though. They led me to all these different spots, and we squeezed through the crowds to take pictures. The motocross jumps were incredible! I'm pretty sure an American won that night, which is cool. All the music at the event was American, which Kareem said was very popular in Egypt. Everyone in the crowd seemed to be having a great time, and it was so fun to experience this with Egyptians all around me!

The view from the press box.

What a great backdrop - the Sphinx and Pyramids!

After the sun went down, the lights were incredible.

Fans at the base of the jumps.

Some of the moves were so insane!

























May 15, 2010 - 11:30pm
Today was another busy day. We spent a good part of the day seeing famous Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sites in Coptic Cairo. I was feeling under the weather again today, especially during the midday heat. I made it through, though! The result is a slightly hazy recollection of today's events.

We split into groups of 7 - each of us had previously been given a site or topic to research and present, so all 7 of us effectively became tour guides for the other 6 at each spot. It was actually a good system, because everyone actually did the assignment, and it was structured enough to be successful. At each location, we split up into our groups, had a mini info session, then explored and took photos. A lot of the sites had great significance to various faiths, and now I can only imagine what Jerusalem must be like.

A Greek Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo.

An ancient Roman "tower of Babylon" - its twin provided the base of the Greek Orthodox church above, which is why it is round.

Inside a mosque.

The group in the mosque - all the women were in headscarves and everyone's shoes had to be taken off.

The rock-cut church.

The altar with the image of Mary and Jesus on the ceiling.

My topic was the history of Coptic Christianity - specifically, who are these people? I was interested to learn that the Coptics (which used to just mean "Egyptian" and now means "Egyptian Christian") are actually the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, whose religion fit well into Christian stories (for example, the story of Isis and Horus as compared to Mary and Jesus). Their religion is different than that of other Christians, and a lot of them either live on the fringes of society (like the Zabaleen - the trash people) or are upper-class members of society.

After we got our fill of the sites, we drove through the Zabaleen village to get to another famous Coptic church that was cut out of a mountain. The Zabaleen village was both fascinating and depressing. We drove through in a caravan with a police escort, one car, and big vans carrying all of us. We certainly stuck out, but it wouldn't be safe or respectful for us to go on foot. Not many people visit the Zabaleen, and we would've stuck out in a negative way. Still, it was amazing to get a glimpse of these people and how they live. Before we came to Egypt, we viewed a documentary about them, called Garbage Dreams, that gave us some much-needed background. Still, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The Zabaleen literally bring their work home with them - they collect trash in the morning, bring it back to their village, then spend the day recycling 80% of it by hand, and selling the raw materials.

After our visit at the church, (which professed many miracles, one being the movement of a whole mountain 3km, and another being the mysterious appearance of an image of Mary and Jesus in the rock ceiling) we headed to Abduh's house for an incredible late lunch. His wife truly outdid herself, feeding 40+ people with food to spare! She made two huge turkeys and the sides included delicious rice, pita, grape leaves stuffed with rice, french fries and chips, hommus, eggplant salad...the list goes on! Plus they had water and soda for all! It was an intense day, and the lunch was the perfect way to get centered again. After lunch, we discussed some logistical plans, and we got our dialogue t-shirts, designed by Kareem (who is back serving in the army now).

We were given an hour at the hotel, then we all met up again for a sunset felucca ride on the Nile. It was a very different experience riding one within the cosmopolitan city of Cairo versus the calmness of Aswan. The boys that swim up to your boat in Aswan were missing in Cairo - further proof that this city is not one frequented by tourists as Aswan and Luxor are. The rides were both very relaxing, though. It's nice to be on the Nile, where it's quiet and there's a nice breeze.

The view from our felucca.

The group was so big, we needed two boats!