The Bustling City of Cairo

The streets of Cairo are overcrowded, dirty avenues of ceaseless activity with countless tentative tourists toeing their way through the unrelenting tide of confident and boisterous locals.(locals being a relative term, seeing as people from all over the world lived in Egypt.) As the lonely planet destination guide puts it: noisy,polluted, chaotic, completely unfathomable, and "home to more than sixteen million Egyptians, Arabs, Africans, and sundry others, the "Mother of the World" is an all-out assault on the senses." As Iris, pulled me out into the public marketplace, but a fifteen minute walk from the Ramses Hilton, my vision swimming with more people than I had ever seen gathered together in one place during my lifetime, a black and white taxi trailing a cloud of black exhaust in it's wake honked it's horn and plowed through the center of the street, the crowd wildly running to the the sides of the road to avoid being hit. Iris grabbed my shirt and pulled me out of harm's way, leaving me panting against a shop window. "What was their problem?" I asked, irritated. Iris gave me a wry smile. "Problem? You can say that again. That is what all of the cab drivers in Cairo are like. They are completely disrespectful and vile creatures. Not once in my life have I met a cab driver without the customary cloud of cigarette smoke clouding his face like a veil, or without the select yet colorful vocabulary regular to such vulgar creatures. Once they have the passenger in the taxi, they spend the entire trip assessing their new victim. Many the tourist has been taken advantage of because they had no idea of what a fair price really is, and so the taxi drivers thrive off the tourist business. They push through the crowds honking crazily, with no minds for the lives they may extinguish along the way. If you don't get out of the way, that is your promblem. Terrible philosophy, really...." "It is," I said. "That sounds absolutely awful! .....and those horrible black fumes....how old are those cabs anyway?" Isis shook her head sadly. "It is true," she said, pointing to the brown haze that I had already noticed hanging over the city, "this ever present brown shroud over the city can be mostly attributed to those disgusting cabs. They go around the city, spreading chaos and pollution in our midst. Many people fall ill with chronic respiratory conditions and my own father has developed asthma. He would like to meet such a fine young man as yourself, my father would." She said, teasingly. "But really, there are just too many people in this city....but I must I admit that I am in love with Cairo." She sighed and looked down. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, "I can see why. Cairo is a beautiful city. You should be proud to live here." Isis raised her head and looked me fiercely in the eye. "I am. We all are."



I stared wonderingly into Iris's eyes until, something in the corner of my vision distracted me. A gleaming yellow taxi was driving slowly through the street, and the crowd of people was parting before it like the Red Sea. As the cab passed, the driver waved to the onlookers, from what I gathered from her hand gestures, the women seemed to be bragging. I pulled out my camera and snapped a picture. "What is that?" I asked Isis. Isis seemed excited. "That is the yellow cairo Cab. They're a new development. The government bought them to solve the problem of the city's pollution. Of course, they are so expensive that hardly anyone can afford them. Now that is truly the luxury ride. I hear that the cabs have air-conditioning, and that the driver is told to ask you whether you want the radio on and they are all real gentleman-like." Isis's cheeks were flushed. "The fair is ridiculous though. The rates are at least 25 percent higher than the normal cabs, and the twenty percent of Egyptians who earn less than a dollar a day find it hard to ever scrounge up enough money to ever take one." One look at Isis's face told me that she had never had enough money to take one. "Still, it is the best service in Egypt, let alone Cairo."

I tried flagging one down-after all, I had enough money. Isis told me it was very sweet of me but that you must call in advance. She laughed that wonderful laugh of hers and took me on a journey I would never forget. First, we went to the Egyptian museum, a mere ten minute walk from the bustling marketplace. The most famous exhibit in the Cairo Egyptian Museum is the King Tut Exhibit. King Tutankhamun was the Egyptian pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. Although King Tutankhamun's own lifetime was only moderately historically significant, the fact that his tomb was discovered almost entirely intact in 1922 by Howard Carter gave him a considerable amount of fame. King Tut's funerary mask was inlaid with precious and semi-precious stone, and Isis spoke almost lovingly of the thing. It was clear that she was extremely proud of her heritage as she showed me Tut's solid gold throne, which shows Tutankamun and his wife Ankhesenamun under the rays of Aten, and told me in hushed whispers about the mummy's curse. King "Tut" as he was dubbed by popular culture, would not be half as interesting if it weren't for the supposed mummy's curse upon his tomb. King Tut was found dead in his chambers, a large rupture on the back of his head. It is suspected that he was murdered by his vizier, and a curse would be placed upon whomever dared to disturb his tomb. Howard Carter died not long after discovering Tut's tomb and becoming famous. She then went on to show me King Tut's sarcophagus and the three inner coffins, around which were four gilded shrines on which were inscriptions from the Book of the Dead. I think that the most interesting artifacts are the alabaster canopic jars, which contained the organs of King Tut, that were removed for mummification. The stoppers of the canopic jars were fashioned in the heads of Neith, Selkis, Nephthys, and Isis. When she reached Isis, I gave her a little nudge and a smile. She laughed. "Yes that is who I was named after!" "Isn't she the goddess of beauty?" I asked innocently. "Yes...." At my meaningful smile, she merely grinned. "Come on," she said, rolling her eyes. "Let's go." We stayed at the Egyptian museum for another hour, and visited some of the secondary exhibits such as the statue of Cheops, the commissioner of the Great pyramid, before leaving. There is an odd mix of huge hotels, medieval mosques, and modern shopfronts that make up the city of Cairo, and as we passed through the teeming streets in the suffocating heat, I had the fleeting impression of being a fly caught in the web of Cairo. When I mentioned this to Isis, she laughed and told me that with Cairo, you are either repulsed or seduced by its intensity.

Next, we visited the Citadel, the oldest mosque in Cairo, begun by Salah-ad din in the twelth century. as I snapped this picture from the top of the Citadel, Isis told me something about herself. She told me that she was born in Cairo, and that her parents were never very wealthy. "For the first thirteen years of my life, we lived in a small cramped house on the east side of Cairo. It is tradition in my family to learn the ways of belly dancing from the last female in line; that belly dancing outfit was my mom's. My father's friend- the maitre'd at Windows on the World- saw me dancing one time and told my father that I could make a lot of money entertaining the dinner guests at his restaurant. Within a week I was hired and working. Still, the money I make is only enough to pay mortgage for my parents house, and to pay off my father's debts. Now, two years after being hired, I hope to save up enough money to make something of myself, and to finally ride in that yellow taxi." Isis stared into space with a dreamy expression on her face while I sat at a loss for words.

"You're......you're only fifteen?" I asked incredulously. Isis laughed, as she did so often. "Yes," she replied. "many people say that I look at least twenty, but I'm really just a fifteen year old girl on the inside." Looking straight at her I took her hand in mine and told her: "Well, you've already made something of yourself." I squeezed her hand and released it. "Where to, guide?"

We ate lunch on a river boat restaurant floating the Nile and got off in Giza. We visited the great pyramids of the pharaohs and the mighty sphinx. Many people are under the impression that all three great pyramids- The Great Pyramid of Khufu, The Pyramid of Kafhre and The Pyramid of Menkaura-rest on top of the Wonders of the World, but in truth it is only The Great Pyramid of Khufu. These massive limestone, 4500 year old structures did not only serve as tombs to the kings of Egypt; the symbolism and design of these great mathematical and organizational feats is unparalleled except perhaps by the Great Sphinx. As Isis told me about the pyramids and the sphinx, I snapped these pictures. The sphinx has the head of a man, in most Egyptian cases a king, the body of a lion, and sometimes the wings of a bird. This enormous structure of limestone is thought to be part of the Kafhre complex, and it is very likely that the face on it is in fact the face of Kafhre. It was King Thutmose IV who placed the Dream Stele with Kafhre's name on it in between the paws of the colossal beast. The Great Sphinx is believed to be the biggest stone sculpture ever made by man. 72.55 meters in length and 20.22 meters tall, the Great Sphinx is a sight to behold. After fooling around in the shade of the beast for a while, I asked Isis for some more belly dancing lessons. "Well," she said, placing her hands on my waist. "Belly dancing is all about the movement of the hips, and the attitude. First, let's work on the roll again." Isis pressed down on my waist, alternating between her left and right hands so that my hips rose and fell in rhythm. "Hey, this is pretty fun!" I said, now jumping around swinging my hips in exaggerated gyration. Laughing so hard that she was gasping for breath, Isis said, "that's...that's great! Now work on the attitude." Affecting an angry face, she brushed past me and pushed my shoulder, rolling her body in the motion that I was trying so hard to get. So I stuck an uncaring pose and brushed past her, rolling my hips, and giving her an expression like "puh-lease!" She started belly laughing uncontrollably and fell into my arms, her hand over her mouth. I laughed too and we looked into each other's eyes, smiling. Then she kind of backed up, and Isis was looking at her feet, and I was examining my shoe laces.

Isis took me back to the hotel and we ate dinner together at Windows on the World. We belly danced again, and swam until midnight afterwards. Isis had a hotel room at the Hilton, so we both dried off and went to our separate rooms, promising to meet tomorrow for lunch. Tomorrow is my last day in Egypt. Oh, I'm going to miss it!