Tannoura Sufi dancers at Wikalat al-Ghouri

I remember loving to spin when I was little. When I got spinning fast enough it seemed almost like I was staying still. I could see the world whizzing by but the immediate space around me seemed to stay still, my arms felt free of gravity, and my momentum kept me spinning long after my feet were too exhausted or confused to carry me on their own. It was kind of a surreal feeling.

But then I would stop and fall over, watching the ground tilt this way and that while my body tried to make sense of where I was.

And I would only spin for a few minutes at a time. Sufi dancers spin forever.

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After our long tiring walk and long afternoon nap yesterday we woke up just in time to make a quick dinner and head off to Wikalat al-Ghouri to watch the Whirling Dervishes. We left Rachel at the Houses, which is a good thing because we ended up having to wait a long time for the show to start and we didn’t think she’d be able to handle just sitting there for that long.

Seating is limited, so if you want a seat you have to get there plenty early. The doors open at 7:00 PM, but the show doesn’t start until 8:30 PM. We got there at 6:45 and I was glad we did because there was already a little crowd gathered around. We were able to grab chairs near the front, but the whole room filled up soon after we got there. I’m glad we didn’t have to stand to watch the concert. I’m not sure Mom or I would have been able to handle that.

The show was so amazing! And the best part is that it was absolutely free! I asked Andrew how they manage to give weekly concerts for free and he said they probably have a waqf (endowment) that stipulates free community concerts or something.

First they had some musicians on stage who danced around a bit and showed off what their instruments could do. The man on the finger cymbals was such a ham!

All of the musicians did a little bit of dancing and spinning; I actually think that BYU’s Folkdance Ensemble should consider putting together a number like this because I haven’t been impressed with the dances they have chosen to represent the Middle East in the past. The drummers in the vests were fun. They were spinning and dancing in circles. It was interesting to watch, but truthfully we were all waiting for the real Whirling Dervishes to come out.

To put it simply, Sufi whirling is a religious ceremony involving a lot of symbolism…and spinning. Quite often there will be one dancer in the middle with other dancers spinning around the middle man, which apparently represents the solar system. There were a lot of hand gestures, which were obviously indicating God, man, and scriptures. Tannoura dancing is original to Egypt and is much more festival-ready than the more demure Sufi dancers we’ve seen whirling in Istanbul and at al-Azhar park. Andrew said he read somewhere that their costumes weigh around 11 kilos! That’s a lot of clothes to wear!

They peel off their skirts layer by layer and twirl them around in the air, sometimes throwing them up and catching them, all the while spinning in their endless circles.

The first dancer to get up on stage was spinning for forty-five minutes straight—I kid you not—and when he stopped, he didn’t even look like he was going to hurl or anything. He stood there, as composed as could be, took his bow and walked off stage in a straight line. It was amazing!

Apparently the spinning is a sort of meditation for Sufis, which I could almost understand since I found spinning both fascinating and relaxing as a child. The part about not hurling after 45 minutes of spinning, though, I don’t understand since I can only imagine how queasy I’d be after 45 minutes and have seen Rachel puke after only 5 or 10 minutes of continuous spinning.

The next group of dancers to come on stage only spun for 15 minutes or so, but they had more skirts on than the first marathon-spinner and did some cool tricks with their skirts.

The performance lasted for 75 minutes and we were transfixed the whole time. It was an incredibly polished performance with wonderful fluidity between numbers. We had no complaints, except, perhaps, that it was a little too loud for our liking.

When the music stopped our ears were still ringing with the sounds of horns, flutes, drums, and singing. For hours.

The show was very captivating, though, and we’ll definitely try to make it back for a few more performances. It’s on my mom’s list of top 5 things to do in Cairo, so comes highly recommended. I’m not sure anything else is on that list yet…

When we picked Rachel up from the Houses she was wearing a nightgown (presumably Sarah's). We carried her home wearing that nightgown and without putting her shoes on. She thought that was the most absurd thing.

"I'm wearing my jammies outside!" she laughed, "And no shoes on!"

Well, of all the outlandish things to do; that's living life on the edge, Rachel!

From the bottom of the Nilometer to the depths of the crèche of the Holy Family

We just about wore ourselves into the ground yesterday. My mom agrees that the heat is simply oppressive. It was nice to have her with us, though, because she was slow like me…or maybe we’re not actually slow. Maybe Andrew’s just fast. I can never keep up with the boy, especially when I’m pregnant, and usually have to yell to him to slow down. But my mom is just my speed, so we got to take things a little slower.

After breakfast we hopped on the metro and rode out to Mar Girgis. From there we walked across the Nile to visit the Nilometer and Umm Kulthum museum, walking through some lovely back roads and showing Naanii a bit of authentic Cairo, complete with imploded buildings being used as garbage dumps, public water fountains made of clay jars, and having to make her jump out of the way of donkey carts laden with fresh fruit.

We stopped on the bridge when we were going over the Nile, just because we always do. I don’t think we’ve ever walked the whole way across without stopping at least for a second. The Nile is so big and so beautiful that you just can’t help it. Andrew looked down and saw a dam of water bottles, which made us all a little sad. As my mom said, the Nile was a sacred river for so long; it’s hard to see it be treated so poorly.

When we got to the Nilometer, Andrew bribed the guard to let him walk down to the bottom. He was the only one brave enough to do it. Rachel was quite concerned about him and asked,

“What’s my daddy doing up there?”

“Your daddy is down there, and he’s taking pictures of us,” I told her.

“Oh!” she said, “My daddy’s down there!”

The stairs are ancient and worn and slippery. Andrew asked me to drop our tripod down to him so that he could balance the camera better, but I told him no way. I thought about walking down the stairs to meet him halfway, but then I looked at the first set of stairs; they were so uneven and so worn down they were shining. Marble gets very slippery and I just didn’t trust my pregnancy balance to take me down those stairs.

The guard ended up taking it down halfway to him and then he spent a long time arranging shots and taking pictures. He said it was nice and cool down at the bottom of the Nilometer. We, on the other hand, were sweltering at the top and were very happy when he made it back up so that we could go to the Umm Kulthum museum and cool off in their lovely air conditioning!

My mom teaches a world music course at UVU, so she knows quite a lot about Umm Kulthum—more than we knew, anyway. She was excited to see the museum since she’d only seen it in a video.

The museum costs 2 LE per person. We didn’t pay the last time we went because not a soul was around to tell us how the museum worked. It was open, though, so we went in. This time we stopped at the desk to buy tickets. Unfortunately our only options were either 4.25 in change or a big 50 LE bill. 4.25 obviously isn’t enough, but the man at the desk said he didn’t have change.

“It’s easy,” said the man, “Just 2 LE, 2 LE, 2 LE. Done.”

“We don’t have change. This is all the change we have.” Andrew explained.

They went through this several times in both Arabic and English. Finally the man said that he’d take the 50 LE and we could enjoy the museum. We stopped by to get our change when we were finished. The man hadn’t even tried to find change. He told Andrew he’d just keep the 50 LE since we didn’t have change.

It was a big kafuffle. We ended up just leaving all our change with him and taking back our 50. We’ll have to pay extra the next time we go. Usually people are really good about finding change; not this time. Oh, well. We left him grumbling and enjoyed the surrounding gardens. Rachel found a litter of kittens that she thought were just so cute! And really they were. They looked clean and healthy, unlike the mangy cats she’s used to seeing around town.

  

When we were finished there we walked back to the Mar Girgis metro station to visit Coptic Cairo. We wandered around the graveyard and took my mom to several churches, including one that claims to have a little cave where the Holy Family hid to escape King Herod’s infanticide.

  We also took her to the Ben Ezra synagogue, one of few synagogues left in Cairo, which was built on the site where the baby Moses was found in the Nile River, or so the legend goes.

To get into the synagogue you have to pass through a metal detector. For some reason, Egyptian guards don’t like to let babies or pregnant ladies through metal detectors. They had Rachel walk around the metal detector but I walked right on through and got yelled at for it. We just laughed it off and right before my mom came by, Andrew told the guard,

“Hia mish hhamel.” (She’s not pregnant.)

He thought that was funny. I don’t know why they are so worried about it. It’s not like the magnetic force is going to pull the baby out of my womb and I don’t think I’d get away with skipping security in an airport simply because I’m pregnant.

Our last stop of the day was the ‘Amr Ibn al-As mosque. We just think it’s neat to go to Christian, Jewish, and Muslim places of worship all in one day…

We got there right during prayer and I really wasn’t sure if they would let us in, but they invited us in right away. Mom and I had to go in through the women’s entrance, though, because the men were praying, and we had to put on the ugly green robes again. A group of women who had just finished praying walked past us and a few of them whose outfits had been deemed too immodest had to stop to return the green robes they had had to borrow.

I don’t know why, but it made me feel better that they don’t only force Christians to put on the stinky old things. They also make girls who bend the standard of modesty wear them, even if the girls are muhajjabat.

When we got home we all fell asleep for a long afternoon nap, except for Andrew, who somehow managed to keep on going all day long. I don’t know how he does it!

Airport Mix-up and Nile Sunset

Before my mom left South Africa, I sent her an email detailing how to get through the airport and explaining how the taxi company would meet her and bring her to our apartment.

She was nervous to come here by herself, of course, and the taxi company assured me that they would take care of her. I had every reason to believe they would because we’ve used them before without any problem. They picked David up when he came to visit us and the picked Rachel and I up from the airport when we came home from Greece.

But then this morning, my mom called. No one was there to pick her up. I panicked.

Andrew called the cab company and they called their driver, who didn’t answer his phone. Instead a police officer answered it. Our driver had been arbitrarily arrested at the airport and was being detained. No reason for his arrest was offered, which means there probably wasn’t one. He wasn’t allowed to call his supervisor to explain that he wouldn’t be there to pick up my mom, so they weren’t able to send alternate transportation.

Luckily (or not) my mom found a cab driver who let her use his phone to call Andrew, so we just had him drive my mom here. He ripped us off *grumble, grumble* but at least she got here!

She was pretty shaken up when she arrived. Not only had she been travelling for a long time and been stranded at a strange, foreign, and quite scary-looking airport (she came in at the old terminal; it’s scary, trust me), then she had to endure a car ride on the ring road in broad daylight. That’s enough to send anybody packing.

Rachel was excited to see her though, and spent a good portion of the afternoon curled up on Naanii’s lap. Poor Rachel was exhausted. Having Naanii come was literally like waiting for Santa Claus. Rachel couldn’t fall asleep last night and woke up this morning at the crack of dawn wondering if Naanii was here yet. Too much excitement.

We put her down for a nap and I had a good chat with my mom all to myself, which was nice. This is the very longest I’ve ever gone in my whole life without seeing my mommy! I’ve missed her so much!

After Rachel woke up we had a quick dinner and then headed out to enjoy the sunset on the Nile. Dad was worried that Mom wouldn’t want to take a boat out on the Nile, but she braved it (even though she just about choked when I said there weren’t any lifejackets).

 

Our ride was perfectly uncomplicated and Mom quickly relaxed. It was a pretty windy day, so even with our sail half-furled we were going pretty fast. Not too fast, but fast enough to be enjoyable, even though our captain was letting us drift lazily along. Feluccas are huge and are easy to trust; Mom even got up the courage to climb on top of the boat by the mast.

 

Once Naanii got up there, Rachel had to as well, and then she kept bossing everyone to help her climb up and down the stairs and jump into the seating area. She’s pretty brave on boats, which tends to make everyone terrified. She’s also scared stiff of falling into the “Nile Ribo” so she takes enough precautions that she feels safe. Her idea of precaution just don’t match everyone else’s idea of safety measures.

 

I think Naanii was most nervous when Rachel was with Daddy. His idea of precaution doesn’t exactly match everyone else’s, either.

   

The sunset was beautiful; the skies were clear enough today that we actually got to see the sun set. That doesn’t always happen because sometimes it gets swallowed up by a haze of pollution long before it starts its brilliant daily finale of color. Today’s sunset was wonderful.

   

We walked home from the felucca ride, stopping on Road 9 for some gelato, which, by the way, felt so nice on my throat! Swallowing still hurts like the dickens so I ate my ice cream slower than usual; still, it was gone way too fast. Everyone got lemon, of course, except for Rachel, who got strawberry.

Andrew and Rachel ended up swapping flavors. Even though Rachel insisted that her favorite kind was strawberry, she kept sneaking spoonfuls of Andrew’s until it wasn’t worth it to even claim his as his own. I have a feeling that her declaration of favoritism was based solely on color, not on flavor, because she only had a few spoonfuls of her strawberry gelato.

In our post-gelato bliss, we continued our walk home, passing the newly opened Cinnabon. When we came to Cairo in 2006, the restaurant was Quizno’s; when we moved here last August Garden Foods Healthy Foods had just celebrated their grand opening—they went out of business a couple of months ago. Yesterday we saw them putting up the Cinnabon sign and painting the outside of the restaurant in Cinnabon colors. We were very excited because we happen to really like Cinnabon.

Tonight they were open! We walked by and commented how yesterday they had been installing ovens and there was no seating in the restaurant and how surprised we were that they were open already.

The manager was standing on the sidewalk and overheard us. He ran into his shop and brought out some free minibons for us, and not just any minibons—pecan minibons. We told him we’d be back. It will be hard to not go back too often. We’ve never had such temptation so close to our neighbourhood before…

Bacteria al-Halq

It's been so hot lately and I was sick of my hair. I couldn't leave it down and putting it up didn't seem to do much good, either. No matter what I did, I was a hot, sticky mess. So in a sudden Pedro-like stupor, I asked Andrew to cut my hair on Wednesday night.

Well, when I came home from school my head started to get really hot. So I drank some cold water, but it didn't do nothing. So I laid in the bathtub for a while, but then I realized that it was my hair that was making my head hot. So I went into my kitchen and I shaved it all off.
-- Pedro, from Napoleon Dynamite

Luckily, we stopped short of shaving my head bald. I asked Andrew to cut it just below chin length and showed him some pictures of how long I wanted it to be. I told him how to cut it--basically, don't cut to where you think I want it cut, cut several inches below that and slowly work your way up.

"I'll cut half way to start," he said.

"Sounds good," I said.

"Ooops," he said.

I looked at the chunk of hair on the floor. "That's more than half way."

"Yeah," he said, "How about I cut your hair this short?"

"There's no going back now," I agreed.

And that's how my hair ended up as short as it ended up.

In other hair cutting news, Rachel also got her first hair cut on Wednesday night. Hers was more of a trim because I couldn't bring myself to cut off anything more than the little feathery wisps at the end. Also, I cut Andrew's hair and did the top using scissors instead of the clippers. I got it pretty even, too, and only snipped my knuckle two or three times. This is a serious breakthrough. It opens up so many other hair-styling possibilities for Andrew.

The haircut is growing on me, literally. I guess it’s alright and everyone seems to like it, or at least to say they like it, but it’s just shorter than I wanted it to be. I figure this is a good time to cut my hair too short, though, since I’m taking prenatal vitamins and my hair growth is off the charts recently. Soon it should be the length that I wanted it to be when Andrew originally cut it. He did a good job (but was a little over zealous in his hacking off).

With my hair problems solved I still haven’t been feeling very well, especially since coming home from Alexandria. It’s been a weird not-feeling-well because I actually almost feel fine, except for that I feel rather cruddy.

Usually when I get sick I get laryngitis and headachey, so I can’t talk and I want to lie down to relieve the pressure from my skull. While I definitely feel sick, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m not sick because I don’t feel like my ordinary sicky-self. Mostly my throat hurts, but I kept trying to convince myself that I was making it up because I don’t have laryngitis, and I always get laryngitis.

Last night when we were out I picked up some throat lozenges to suck on, even though I don’t have even a hint of a cough. No matter how much water I drank or how many cough drops I sucked on, my throat kept hurting. Sadly, I’m not sure how much I actually managed to drink or suck on anything because swallowing was getting too painful.

This morning when I woke up, it was even worse. I felt like I was swallowing cotton balls...mixed with thumb tacks.

I actually did a google search to see if you could have a sore throat without getting laryngitis. I didn’t think you could, but that’s only because I never have. Turns out your pharynx can get infected, too, without infecting any other part of your throat, which explains my pain and lack of laryngitis. For once my larynx stayed healthy!

After reading some more about pharyngeal infections, I stumbled upon the topic of Streptococcal pharyngitis. Naturally.

I’ve only had strep throat once in my life. It was at the end of the Fall 2003 semester. I had been sick all semester long, running a high fever and feeling absolutely awful, but never coming out of the doctor’s office with any sort of diagnosis. It was the most frustrating semester of my life. Then, on the morning of the oral section of my Russian final, I woke up feeling, well, even more absolutely awful.

I remember checking out my throat in the bathroom mirror and seeing that it had broken out in cottage cheese. My mom took me to the doctor for the umpteenth time and I was finally diagnosed with strep throat. My doctor said I was probably sick all semester long because the strep bacteria was working its way through my body, infecting this and that along the way, and finally showed itself in my throat, and that I was lucky it hadn’t chosen to break out fully in my lungs or heart.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be so sick. I finally knew what was wrong and after a few days of antibiotics I was feeling healthy for the first time in months. I hardly managed to squeak out a word for my Russian final, since I had laryngitis as well, but at least I had a solid diagnosis.

So this morning I went to look in the mirror, just to see, and there was my cottage cheese, which fully explained why swallowing was so hard this morning. Granted, this time around it wasn’t full-on cottage cheese mouth, but I did have several white flecks growing on my tonsils. More like cottage cheese reside than actual cottage cheese.

I totally blame this on Bridget. I don’t know if you can spread bacteria through a blog post, but it’s too ironic that we both got it in the same week. So, readers, beware, this disease is highly contagious and can spread through your computer screen.

Luckily we already have our insurance set up here, so I called to make an appointment with the doctor, but it’s hard to get an appointment right away here. So instead we just wandered down to the pharmacy and talked to the pharmacist. He agreed that it was strep and gave me some penicillin tablets. 35 LE for a full treatment of strep throat, without doctor’s fees. That’s a pretty good deal.

So now I’m at home, not getting ready for my mom’s arrival tomorrow. Instead I’m resting up so that I can hopefully be healthy enough to have fun.

And I’m sure you’re all wondering what hair cuts and strep throat have in common. Well, I’ll tell you.

We looked up how to say strep throat in Arabic before going to the pharmacy, just to be on the safe side. Who wants to pantomime strep symptoms? Not me. Here they call it بكتيريا الحلق/bacteria al-halq.* Andrew looked up halq in the dictionary (since it generally has to do with hair, not strep, per se) and found that it means: barber, to shave, and pharynx (or throat).

First our family went through a series of haircuts and now I have strep. How very appropriate. Although we all suffered through hair cuts, I hope that I’m the only one who has to suffer through strep!

*We were talking about it at lunch and I said بكتيريا الحلق, which involves a qaf (the q-sound at the end of halq). Oh, my goodness! It was the most painful sound I have ever produced in my whole life.

"Yikes!" I said, "Is qaf a pharyngeal?"

Andrew made the qaf sound before answering, just to make sure, "Yes."

"Good, then I'm saying it right because that hurt sooo bad."

It's actually a pharyngealized velar, so more velar than pharyngeal, but pharyngeal nonetheless. Definitely it's my pharynx that's sore. Definitely. Actually, that's a pretty good test to see if you have bacteria al-halq.

Doctor: "Can you say the name of this disease?"

Patient: "Bacteria al-halq...¡Ay, caramba! What in the world did you have me say that for?"

Doctor: "To make sure it was your pharynx that was the problem. Don't worry. It is."

Electricity Blues

Yesterday the power went out several times. We spent the day lighting candles and playing with the flashlight, which Rachel calls the "shadow light." It seemed to just come off and on all day, which was rather frustrating. It stayed on long enough for me to arrange a ride from the airport for my mom. As soon as I was finished emailing her the details, the power went out. It stayed on long enough for us to talk to our families. As soon as we hung up from talking with my dad, it went out again.

We had a few power surges, which scared the living daylights out of me. Rachel and I were sitting down, coloring together, and holding the shadow-light (even though we had sunlight streaming through our window--Rachel was very concerned about the power going out and couldn't survive not touching the flashlight) when all of a sudden there was a flash of light by Andrew's computer desk, accompanied by a hissing sound.

A few minutes later it happened again with the light fixture in the living room.

Rachel and I ran into her bedroom and hunkered down there until the power came back on. Upon further reflection we should have run into the guest bedroom since that is actually the room with the fewest electrical outlets...not that any of our rooms have many of those.

It was also a very bad example for me to freak out so badly about the power surges when I had been telling her that there's nothing to be afraid of when the power goes out. But Andrew was on campus doing research and it was scary...

Later, when Andrew got home we had a candlelit dinner, out of necessity not for a romantic atmosphere, which was kind of fun. Rachel insisted that we sing Happy Birthday before we ate dinner--because you can't light a candle without singing Happy Birthday, right?


We also had Rachel chasing the light from the flashlight around on the walls.

It was nice to enjoy the deafening silence of the power outage. Most of the air conditioners here are window boxes--there is no central air--so they are noisy and clunky (and I'm sure they are what cause the many power failures we have in the summer since they use up so much energy). When they all turn off at once, though, the silence is quite noticeable.

By the end of the power outage Rachel was convinced that they were really pretty fun and only a little bit scary. She's the only two-year-old I know of, though, who exclaims, "Oh, man! Power went off!" when she hears all the electrical appliances shutting down.

She's also the only two-year-old I know who answers the question, "Where are you from?" with "Amrika!"

By the way, we already had two power outages this morning...but the power has been on continuously since 9:00, so maybe it will stay on all day!

Train Wreck Update

Andrew finally found an article about the train crash; it's in Arabic so most of you (including me) won't be able to glean much from it. Andrew posted about it on his blog:

According to their report, the accident was caused by a brake failure as the train travelled from the nearby Sidi Gaber train station. It was indeed empty, fortunately, and there were no fatalities. Two of the crew members were injured in addition to a vendor—since there are snack booths at the end of each platform, he must have gotten smashed. There are conflicting statements as to the cause of the accident. Some claim neglect and disrepair; others sabotage. I’m leaning towards neglect—those trains are ancient.

Apparently one crew member sustained light injuries while the other had more major injuries, like broken ribs and things like that. As for whether it was sabotage or disrepair, I'm with Andrew on this one. The trains are not in tiptop condition--most of them have shattered, but still intact, windows that no one bothers to replace. The outsides are rusty, and inside the seats are falling apart, with metal parts hanging off the seats and, of course, garbage everywhere, things like that. It's not terrible for second class--we've only taken a first class train ride once (when we were out here with BYU) and the interiors of those trains were pretty nice, although the outside was still pretty scary looking. I shudder to think of what third class is like. No, really, I'm shuddering.

But Arabs do love a good conspiracy theory. Sabotage, indeed.