Report from Abroad: Cairo's Rough Shell
Opens to Reveal a Luminous Treasure

Hannah Wood '08, an English major with a concentration in creative writing, spent the fall semester abroad in Egypt at American University in Cairo, where she studied Arabic language and English literature and met two Bryn Mawr alumnae who are on the faculty there. Her reflections on her stay in Cairo follow.

Hannah Wood '08 at sunrise on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt

The temperature hasn't gone below 80 degrees for over a week. It is four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, the most awful time to be outside. Rush hour has started and I am standing in the middle of Cairo's busiest traffic intersection. Strings of taxicabs and buses snarl together as they careen along the roads like marbles down a chute. Mopeds twitch in and out of the lanes while children hug the sidewalks, waving bags of pitted lemons and packs of tissues. At the center an overwhelmed traffic policemen gestures frantically with his white-gloved hands but the cars continue to fly past, their horns calling to one another across the square. Round the perimeter uniformed soldiers stand behind their riot-proof barricades, cradling their Kalashnikovs and sharing cigarettes. All around me the clouds of petrol fumes, already unpleasant in the fresh coolness of the morning, are suffocating. I cough. We all cough, all the time, and our noses stream from the sharp metallic air. A day in Cairo, they say, is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. I finally understand why so many street vendors sell tissues.

Walking home from the university is always like this. As vehicles churn around me, the men catcall from the other side of the street, leering and gesturing in between bursts of guttural Arabic. An old woman sits cross-legged on the ground surrounded by piles of cheap plastic combs and hair clips. She tugs at my ankle, and when I look down she grins, black shadows where her teeth should be. A man shouts and points, grabbing his friend's arm. "Habibti!" he yells. He's calling me his baby, laughing as he cups imaginary breasts with his hands. I turn away, hurrying along the Nile bridge, past the couples holding hands and the optimistic fishermen who trawl their lines through the murky water. A veiled woman links arms with her male companion as they amble along; she carries a carefully wrapped bouquet of plastic roses. The windows of the five-star hotels along the riverbank gleam in the sunset, and below them restaurant and bar boats bob up and down, their lighted signs flickering to life. Wobbling carriages filled with tourists and pulled by nervous, malnourished horses fight for space on the bridge. I wish I couldn't feel the 500 male eyes locked upon me, sweeping up and down my unveiled body while I walk.

"She cheated you." My Egyptian roommate, Dina, examines the embroidered cushion cover I bought in the bazaar. "You were ripped off."

Dina uses that phrase a lot. She's had several American roommates, and they all — like me — fell for the lethal combination of smooth sales patter and unconscious colonial guilt. When I return from a trip laden with purchases, camel bone boxes and copper lamps, she expertly peeks through the wrappings and quotes the price I should have paid.

She touches the cushion cover again and smiles. "Next time, I will come with you. I don't want this to happen to you again."

Like many of the Egyptian students at the university, Dina is all too aware of her country's problems. When I tell her about being groped by a taxi driver her face creases with frustration.

"Why do they do this?" She throws up her arms. "They are so stupid! We are not all like that, but when this happens, how can people think we're not?"

Her father rings up on her slick Nokia; the ring tune is our favorite Arabic pop song. A male friend, Ahmed, has just called him to discuss marriage. Dina's face is white when she hangs up.

"I told him I wasn't interested. Ahmed talked to me before, he told me we should get married and I said no … now look what he did!"

I barely stop to think about my response. "Well, just tell your father that you don't want to marry Ahmed. You don't have to." Surely, in a wealthy family living in the 21st century, marriages aren't still arranged like this.

Dina sighs. "It's not like that. Ahmed is from a good family. To my parents it seems like a good match." She turns to me. "You know, I want to come to America. To get married. I don't want to stay here. Can you help me get a visa?"

It takes 20 minutes to get to the Citadel, Cairo 's hilltop fortress. Dina and I are in the back of taxi, sitting as it winds slowly through the traffic, swerving around teenagers kicking a soccer ball and a donkey cart heavy with mangos. We get out and walk up the last hill to the main gate, where a stern soldier takes our tickets. The main path is lined with merchants selling stuffed camels and ouds, glasses of mint tea and overpriced water. A group of tourists argues loudly over a map, the women's sunburnt flesh spilling around the straps of their tank tops. Their nakedness is shocking; I haven't seen female legs since I got back from the beach a month ago.

Before we can enter the Muhammad Ali mosque we have to cover ourselves with special shrouds and wrap shawls around our faces. As we walk into the cool and cavernous prayer room we hold our shoes; they cannot touch the lush red carpet. Lanterns hang close to the ground, suspended like circles of stars. Men are already assembling outside, washing their faces, hands and feet, getting ready to pray as the muezzin's chant sweeps through the hall. We look around in subdued silence until the worshippers begin to enter, their minds already elevated above the painstakingly painted ceiling. Stumbling into the bright sunlight I stop on the terrace and, as the glare clears, I see Cairo spilling before me. Through a light dusting of smog the Nile sparkles as it winds its way through the concrete forest, and beyond it the shadowy peaks of the Pyramids melt into the horizon.

Up here, stroked by a soft breeze, the city's rough shell falls away. I think not of the men I describe to Dina but instead of the men who are kind: the men who direct me in halting English when I am lost, who help me fight my way across the street and give up their seats in crowded cafes and shops. The students who patiently listen to my faltering Arabic, who tell me how happy they are that I came here before gently suggesting that I should try to say "her cat" instead of "the cat of her." The drivers in their battered taxis who show me photographs of their families while we speed across a flyover, who make a point of explaining that, although they hate Bush, they still like Americans. For over 20 million people this vibrant city, seething with music and discussion and laughter, is home.

I think of a song that I still can't get out of my head:

And I can't understand a word she says
And I don't know why she's such a mess
And I can't get through no matter what I do
But I love her anyway.

That's the kind of place Cairo is. There are so many problems, but they cannot eclipse what is so powerfully present. I wait until the last moment to pack, and my cheeks are glistening as I travel through the quiet dawn to the airport. For never, ever, have I felt so alive or so real. I may never understand this city or its people, but I love it anyway.

<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 4/12/2007

Next story>>