Cairo, Egypt

I spent Monday in "Islamic Cairo" visiting Al Azhar University (the most prominent Sunni Muslim seminary in the world) and hanging out in the Al Azhar mosque with some Indonesian seminarians from rural Java. After joining them in the mid-day prayers, I visited the mosques of Al-Ashraf Barsbay and Al-Hakim and the madrassa of Barquq in Khan al-Khalili. I spent the late afternoon at a coffeehouse drinking Arabic coffee with ground cardamom and smoking an apple sheesha (the ubiquitous water-pipes from which men smoke apple and honey flavored tobacco). That evening I met with Brad Clough from the American University for dinner and beers at the Windsor Hotel Bar.

On Tuesday I met with Frank Abu Sayf's sister, Nagwa, and we went to "Coptic Cairo." We visited the Hanging Church (Al-Muallaqa), the Church of St. George (where St. George the Dragonslayer was imprisoned and tortured), and the Church of St. Sergius (one of the resting places of the Holy Family as they fled from King Herod). Afterwards she took me to the Aga Khan's Al-Azhar Gardens for an amazing lunch. We had half a dozen appetizers of fresh pita bread, baba ganoush, hummus, yoghurt, feta cheese, eggplant, and other things that I can't remember right now. The baba ganoush in Egypt is out of this world! The best I've ever had. The hummus, on the other hand, is always way too salty for my taste. For my main course I had moloukhia (a soup made with a green leafy vegetable) and rabbit! The fur got caught in my teeth, but otherwise it was pretty good. And for dessert I had a delicious rice-pudding type of creation with Arabic coffee and ground cardamom. After lunch we went to the Abu Sayf apartment, where Frank and Nagwa grew up, and later we went out to dinner with some of Nagwa's friends. I finally got home around 2:00 in the morning.

Yesterday (Wednesday) Nagwa and I went to Cairo's citadel and visited the mosques of Muhammad 'Ali and Al-Rifai and the madrassa of Sultan Hassan. Later we went to lunch on a Nile riverboat and then said our farewells.

I am heading back to the American University today, and then tonight I am leaving on a seven-day tour of Upper Egypt, visiting Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel before heading across the Eastern (Arabian) Desert to Hurghada. From there I will take a ferry across the Red Sea to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula.

Regarding my armpit funk:

All's well.

Regarding my bowels:

All's well.

Regarding the veil and lingerie:

Veiling, to various degrees and in various manners, is quite the fashion here in Cairo. Headscarves are the norm, in lots of different colors and patterns. There are also many women covered from head to toe in black, usually with a small slit for their eyes, but sometimes with a black mesh fabric covering their eyes as well. At the same time, there are more lingerie shops in Cairo than I've seen anywhere else in the world, and they are crowded with veiled women purchasing naughty negligees. So naughty, in fact, that the Puritans living in Paradise would be quite embarassed by the open display of sexual playfulness (if only the Catholics... or the Muslims!... had arrived in Hawaii before the Congregationalists...)

(Photo by Eric: Madrassa of Barquq, Khan al-Khalili, Cairo, Egypt)