ok, mark Cairo as another city I will most likely never come back to visit in my life time. I found myself today realizing that at this point in my life I have very little tolerance for very large busy, noisy, dirty, chaotic, pushy, manic, fast-paced, crowded cities like Cairo. This is probably the reason why even though I grew up in NYC I will most likely never live there again in my life time either. I had the same reaction last summer when I was in Mexico City, Mexico attending the International AIDS Conference. Cairo is a city of 22 million people, and Mexico City about 20+ million. Its just to many people in a small space all clamoring like crabs in a basket for the same scarce resources. I much prefer Swaziland, which I would go back to in a heart beat. It was much quieter and had a totally different feel to it.
So what did we do today? This was our second full day in Cairo and we started out with a trip to the 100+ year old Egyptian Museum. The museum is old and is showing its age for sure on the inside (I think they need to tear it down and basically start over) with cracked plaster all over the place and the artifacts in old casings with cards that were not always clear to read. Our tour guide attempted to rush us through at times and I of course being who I am slowed her right down. She wanted to only show us the major pieces in the museum and I wanted to take time to browse a bit more. The most famous King Tut artifacts are all here (minus his actual mummy which was left in his tomb in Luxor in the Valley of the Kings) and they were nice to see. They do not allow any photography of any kind in the museum and in fact you have to check your camera at a booth outside the museum before you go in. While I understand why I still think it sucks that I could not take any pictures (especially since again I will most likely never come back here). We are all familiar with the story of the child King Tut who died at age 19 and only ruled Egypt for 8 years. He is only famous because unlike most of the other tombs of the ancient Pharoah’s, his tomb was not robbed. When his tomb was unearthed in 1922 all of its contents were still inside including his solid gold burial mask that was found on his actual mummy incased in three coffins which was enclosed in three outer gold gilded sarcophagus’s. These items are all in the museum and we were able to see them. The jewelry he was buried with is amazing to see. I did enjoy going to this part of the museum, to bad I could not take a picture. We also saw one of the famous statues of King Rames II who ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 76 years. There are rooms and rooms of stone tablets and monuments dating back thousands of years and with out a few days it is impossible to stop and take in each and every one of them. By the time we were ready to leave the line to get into the museum was very long as the museum tends to get busier in the afternoon.
Our Second stop today was the Citadel. This is a castle that was built by Salah Al-Din who was Syrian. He came to power in Egypt after pushing the French out. It is built on a hill top overlooking the entire city and become the governmental home of many Egyptian rulers to follow. Inside the Citadel is the Alabaster Mosque. This mosque is one of the most famous in the world and is still used for prayer once a week on Fridays. Fridays is their major holly day here and most businesses and banks are closed on Friday. You had to take your shoes off before you walked into the mosque. The mosque took 15 years to build and five of those years was just the ceiling in the inside which is extremely ornate. The panoramic city view from the top of the hilltop was a nice surprise. It was a clear afternoon so you could actually see the pyramids of Giza in the distance as well.
Cairo is an ancient city struggling to assume its place in the modern world. Large parts of the city are simply in disrepair and a lot of building are under construction or were left half built. The main down town areas with the nice hotels and what not is of course much better but you do not have to go far to see what being poor in Cairo will do for you. While yes our economy in the United States is having its own issues (I have been watching CNN/BBC while over here and I will not talk about what I think of AIG or our current president and his economic team) people her still think of all Americans as rich. They all know the exchange rate of our money to theirs and can quote it to you. The current rate is 1 USD = 5.6 LE. Even in the market today I got into a debate with a merchant while attempting to buy some silk carves over paying him in U.S. dollars versus LE (Egyptian Pounds) and he quoted the exchange rate. Needless to say we each stood our ground and I walked away as he was being unreasonable and I would not be taken advantage of, American or not. Even my tour guide today let it slip that a certain amount of money is not expensive for me when I told her to find another place for lunch today that was less then where she wanted to take us. As much as so much of the world does not like America lord knows they all still do want our money and business.
That brings me to my final thoughts today about Cairo. It is such a money hungry driven place and that just irritates me. Yes I understand what my status as an American conveys but as a Black American who was raised poor in America and fought to get an education and worked hard to achieve what I have I find it all a bit irritating to be thought of as just an American when I know they are referring to a White American Ideal that is not my background. On that note they all hate President Bush here and love Obama, go figure. I also think my general irritation has to do with now being away from home for a month and I think its time to come home. So its off to Alexandria tomorrow which is about 3 hours away to the sites there. I was going to cancel this part of the trip but since I know I will most likely not come back I might as well go and see it now. My journey home will also start early on Thursday morning and I will be back home in Rochester on Friday morning.
The pics are of us in front of the Egyptian museum and at the citadel for the most part.
Sheldon
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