Christmas in Cairo

Christmas in Cairo coincides with a local holiday, Eid el Adha, during which many a sheep and goat are slaughtered. There may be some purpose to the killings beyond feasting, but I am not the one to ask what this deeper meaning might be. I had been warned that the streets in some neighborhoods run with blood, but happily I managed to avoid such torrents (although I did step over a few suspiciously red puddles and past piles of what I guessed are recently animated skins).

Christmas, then, was not central to the thoughts of the populace, although decorations abound, and not only in Western places. The Nile Hilton (where my parents spent some of their visit) was adorned with a gigantic Santa next to the stairs to the fitness center, and many restaurants and super markets had Christmas trees and tinsel and the like (no mistletoe that I saw). But Westerners are not the only ones who enjoy Christmas, which makes sense considering how much a non-Christian like me enjoys it too. I've seen Santa hats pedaled (or is it peddled?) on the streets, and the friendly sorts who give "Welcomes" to every foreigner switched to "Merry Christmas."

In fact, my family encountered a few more friendly types than I cared for. Although I'm used to being greeted and stared at, for the most part, I usually don't stick around long enough for my new friends to try to engage me in conversation. But when my parents and I went to the citadel, we were one of what felt like about three foreigners in the entire place, and we rapidly became far more interesting to the hordes of locals than the views or museum exhibits. Egyptians were pouring into the place, since we were there on a holiday and all, and because although admission fees were around 30 pounds (15 for students) for foreigners, Egyptians pay 2 pounds (1 for students), so they had no reason not to pay ol' Mohamed Ali Mosque a visit.

Families were having picnics, enjoying the vacation, flirting, and harassing foreigners. Not all of it was harassment, of course. The guy who linked arms with my father and didn't leave until I told him to in Arabic was harassing us, and I wasn't too fond of the three or four young guys who asked to take my photograph (I finally got exasperated and asked "Why?" to which the only answer was a shrug. Why not?) But my parents found this encounter more delightful than annoying: A teenage girl came up to me with some friends and presented her cell phone. On it she had a text message, in English, that she asked me to read. After I read it aloud for her, she nodded and left. But she came back, and my mother volunteered, as is her style, that I study Arabic. This got the girl and her friends rather excited, and a group formed for whom I was requested to translate the text message. I did my best, although I'm not sure exactly how to say "May God grant you peace and love for the rest of your days" (or something much like that) in Arabic. Then my mother insisted on telling a woman staring at us that her dress was beautiful, and we did the whole Where-Are-You-From game (she was from Port Said, my father decided to speak Spanish and pretend to be from Spain), after which the cell phone girl asked for my phone number. Why on earth she wanted it is beyond me, but I insisted that I don't have one. "I'm just a tourist" I tried to communicate. Thankfully, she seemed convinced.

We were similarly popular at the zoo on Christmas day. A class of about 20 schoolchildren walked past my parents and I with wide eyes, completely ignoring the elephant immediately behind them. We hadn't planned to go to the zoo. In fact, we were headed for Coptic Cairo and had been told by both the Hilton concierge and my guidebook that it could be reached by boat. Since my mother is boat-crazy, we searched for this mode of transportation. But the boats we managed to find went to the "University," which turned out to be Cairo University, near the zoo. These horses are from the zoo's playground, abandoned in favor of more animated playthings (I hear that you can pet and hold baby lions. I didn't try. I remember seeing a nature show as a kid in which someone petted a baby bear and the mother then rejected her offspring because it smelled like human hands - this makes me reluctant to touch wild animals. That and the losing a hand factor.) (Perhaps that's an uncomfortable reference, considering what happened at the SF Zoo on Christmas day? If so, please excuse. I felt a bit strange hearing that news the next morning, having just visited a zoo for Christmas myself.)

I had been warned against the zoo because of its not-exactly-humane-ness, but I didn't find it too terrible. The cages are small, yes, but the whole thing is more damaging to people than to animals, in my opinion. People can come right up to the cages, even those with dangerous beasts like lions and bears (no tigers), oh my! Small children (when not gawking at foreigners) were ushered right up to giant bears and were encouraged to spoon feed them what looked like oatmeal. I wasn't aware that bears enjoyed oatmeal; I thought they liked to eat dead things. You know, like sheep and goats - it's not like there was a shortage around Christmas-time.

To return to the sheep and goats, they may be slaughtered in the streets, but they're butchered at home. When I took my parents to see my old apartment (the door of it anyway, I didn't have a key and no one was home) a group of men were hacking up a goat carcass in our hallway. There were trails of bloody footprints up and down the stairs. I was very glad to have already moved.

Another day, we took an overpriced package tour to see pyramids older than those in Giza. In Saqqara (also the name of a beer) we visited the oldest pyramid in Egypt, a step pyramid. And in Darshour (I think that's the spelling) we saw what they call the "Bent" pyramid and another, nearly-as-old one. We also visited Memphis, in which there is a large broken statue of some ancient Egyptian dude, some smaller broken statues of other ancient Egyptian dudes, and not a lot else. I enjoyed Memphis, Tennessee better. Memphis, Egypt may be among the birthplaces of civilization, an earlier capital of Egypt and what not, but Memphis, Tennessee is the birthplace of the Blues, of Soul, of Rock and Roll and home to the real King.

I think you all know whom I mean.

Yet another day, we finally made it to Coptic Cairo, this time on the Metro. There is a Metro stop right outside of the Coptic Museum, which is far superior to the Egyptian Museum in terms of display, beauty, actually having explanatory placards on items, and not-being-packed-ness. I like this museum quite a lot, even though I'd already been to it. Also in that 'hood, we visited what I think was a convent, or a graveyard, or a church. . . some sort of Jesus-related establishment where I took this photo of a leaning angel. I'm not sure when this Angel intends to celebrate Christmas - Coptic Christmas is on January 7th, but the graveyard was labeled as a Greek one. Have Eastern Orthodox and Greek Orthodox a separate calendar also? The angel was not responsive, so I don't have an answer to that and many questions.