Eqyptian Charms

written by Nathan

Cairo, Egypt land of ancient civilizations. We are feeling quite at home here. It is not just the cosmopolitan character of Cairo, the port city air of Alexandria, but the feeling of an Arabic Melting pot which has been so welcome to us. It is a megalopolis stretching from Cairo to the sea - diverse and developed, proud and confident.

Life is a tangle of friendliness. The charms of the streets are found in the morning and evening. In the neighborhoods at various hours of prayer, competing mosque sirens wail from every corner.

As usual, children and old folks are very interested and engaging. People can be approached easily (and will try to help- but outside the tourist center English is not prevalent)

Egypt, (Cairo and Alexandria) are places we immediately fell for. The combination of mixes of mostly early 20th century architecture - wide boulevards with tiny ancient streets branching off; easy transportation systems; and varied delicious Arabic cuisines - make the cities totally approachable.

Contrary to our normal approach to travel. Egypt is just too rich with history to miss some of the biggest tourist sites. We have visited both the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum and been delighted by both in spite of tours buses and tour massive groups. In both places, we used our knowledge of tour group behaviors to steer around the crowds. We were at the Pyramids at opening (8:30) and rushed past the Great Pyramid to get away from the onrush. Once away from the crowds it is easy to find places where the tour groups are not. The Pyramid ’campus’ is an enormous space and totally open for exploration. We particularly enjoyed being ‘explorers’ getting into the recently uncovered and under reconstruction support tombs of engineers, architects, captains of the army, and those whose small tombs are littered like a tomb city surrounding the pyramids.

**** While it is always advisable to learn some of any language before visiting a new country, Arabic is very inviting to us. For one thing, there are so many words that were incorporated into Spanish that we know our knowledge of Spanish will help. More importantly, Arabic is such a large language. I have now added it to the ‘world’s important languages’ list which I espouse too often to those interested in learning languages or how we travel without them. My previous list, to which Arabic is now added, was Spanish, Mandarin, and French [English, of course, is native to me, but would be top on the list for people from non-English speaking countries].

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Call To Prayer

 written by Nathan

We have seen so many sunrises this trip. Every one is unique, often their setting tells a story.

One thing new that we have gained from the sunrises of Asia and Africa is a desire to live life near a mosque - to hear daily the Muslim ‘call to prayer.’ Sunrise, sunset and prayer fit.

People are pious here. Most places, the singing verse and howls of prayer signify day break and the waking of a city or town. Addis Ababa if different. Addis mixes prayer with the end of night.

If my hometown, New Orleans, was half Muslim like Addis, it would likely wake up the same as this city does - mixing imens’ howls with a muffled drone of fading dancehalls and occasional street crackles from the last patrons’ revelry. As night haunts wind down, mixing pulses quietly provoke the early dawn light along with mosques and church bells, nudging ladies and gentlemen who are night people back into the wastes of last night’s streets. They spill out in conversations where fear of the brightening sun sends them scurrying home toward their private shadows at a crack of dawn.

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As I write this, I am reminding myself what a city person I am. I have loved being in small towns. I love other places, rural places, too, where morning prayers wake up first roosters, rising cantonances with the holy sounds until the mutual efforts of guarding the earth sweep out above the mountains and across valleys in dulling muted harmonies. Cadences when so muted, whisper of our lot shared together. Why does the image of Jesus on a cross have this rooster crowing? What about our rooster causes no alarm?

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Here in Addis, in the heart of this Ancient country’s hundred year capital, as the prayers whirls into a morning din that is mixing bus engines, wild birds, and rising human movements and early conversation, I am always being reminded of my natural embrace of urbanity.

This morning, like most mornings, I think of other people like me. I remember friends and family when it occurs to me what they might like , what they would want to see, how differently we might approach a place. One of my favorite people to think of these past months as we pass through all these capitals of human urbanity is David, my stepfather.

David and my Mom would both wake up like me before sunrise, before the call to prayer. My mother would wake, greet anyone else awake, then muster out for one or two hours of hiking the cities. She would go everywhere and greet anyone - up the hills, around the ports and seashores. David would sit here in this bench seat - observing, smiling, watching and listening.

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