Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha (Not the boxer)

"Hello" they recite in unison. A group of school girls are trying out
their english.

"Hello." Dad replies. "How are you?"

This is met with giggles. They're not sure what he is asking them.

"Mr. Where. Are. You. From." They slowly pronounce each word as they
practiced in class.

"Canada." Dad smiles at his flock of admirers.

"Oh yes. Canada Dry. Nice. Nice." They reply.

This is the first time we have had this response. We will hear it many
more times before we head home.

"We won't get anywhere if he keeps encouraging him." Alice says. We
joined Alice and her daughter Erica along with the guide Essam for our
Egyptian vacation.

Alice talks. I'm not sure how she manages to get oxygen into her
lungs. I have known her for three hours now and I know she is from
California, worked in banking until her bank was taken over by the
Fed., has a troubled relationship with her daughter, lost her father,
loves to travel, has a police officer husband, hates Obama, has Greek
ancestry, had a bad European tour experience, loves Hawaii, and
Mexico, has been to Egypt before, drinks coffee not tea... She is the
embodiment of the "American" tourist, but seems genuine and kind. So,
I swallow my prejudice and try to engage her.

"Shake a leg." Essam calls and holds up his blue clipboard as a beacon
for us to follow.

We head to the entrance of Muhammad Ali's mosque. Essam hands us
tickets. We line up at metal detectors for a cursory inspection of our
bags and persons. Essam heads through first and shakes hands with
everyone he encounters. The same men line up to search our bags.

Father of modern Egypt. Reformed the military. Headed land reform.
Built a central bureaucracy. Essam fills us with more details that we
can possibly hold onto. I start to learn how deep the history of this
country runs. I am reminded of how young Canada is.

Muhammad Ali's Mosque
I love the architectural details in moorish influenced buildings. The
arches, the curved doorways, and window details combine to create an
elegant facade. The details remind me of the buildings in Seville.

The mosque's courtyard houses a few women holding out white modesty
gowns. I dressed with modesty in mind this morning. My skirt covers my
knees. My shirt covers my shoulders. That doesn't stop the man behind
us from pushing women forward and demanding I wrap myself in a gown.
Two women lift my arms and start robing me. In arabic, they firmly
demand something from me. I'm pretty sure it's money they are looking
for.

Essam realizes that Treesa and I have fallen behind the group. He
returns to the entrance looking for us. Short sharp words are
exchanged with the man in charge of the gowns. Then the handshake
where palms never meet occurs. Money was passed between them, and
Essam herds us off to meet up with our group.

"Privatization." he says. "This man has been hired recently to run the
gown rental. It used to be run by the government. He is "stricter" in
his assessment of acceptable dress."

Even religious institutions need to drive a profit these days.

It is beautiful. The court yard's alabaster reflects the sun. The
interior of the mosque is painted in green and gold and hurricane
style lights are suspended from the ceiling. The floors are covered in
persian carpets. We pad about barefoot and learn about Mamluk
architecture, the height of the mihrab and Muhammad's son whose death
inspired the building.

As we leave the mosque we are approached by women who disrobe Treesa
and me. I step into my shoes and out into the sun. Cairo lies at our
feet. I can see why Muhammad came to this mountain.

www.adogabroadayear.wordpress.com for images

Breakfast

My first breakfast in Egypt.

It happens at the ungodly hour of 6am. I hate mornings, but after a
few days here I will come to see the common sense behind starting your
day this early. For now the breakfast buffet will be my solace.

My introduction to Egyptian food starts with black tea. Here, they add
mint to the hot water and then brew the black tea. Awesome!

The hotel we are at must cater to both western and eastern travellers.
The breakfast buffet has a crepe bar and an egg man making any
omlette, over easy, or fried egg thing you can dream up right next to
a felafel maker with fresh hummus. There's also a bean, tomato and
onion spread with pita that people are digging in to, but this seems a
little too heavy for me for the first day.

The baking deserves a special mention. The breads are sweet and
fluffy. Buns are fresh, some are covered in granulated sugar and some
are stuffed with a fig paste or chocolate. So good.

And if you want a little honey on your toast or in your tea there is
always this: www.adogabroadayear.wordpress.com

Rickie

"Call me Rickie" he tells us. We are finally on the bus that we will
ride to the hotel. "Anything you need, you tell me. Egypt is a great
country. Anything you need, you call me."

We careen through the streets. Four cars squeeze into two lanes, and
horns beep. The horns are not angry horns. Drives use them to say
hello, I'm taking over this lane, and this light is taking too long to
change so I'm coming through. People shrug off the sound. Donkeys and
their passengers move to the side and everyone negotiates their space.
If I hadn't ridden in cabs in China and Thailand the traffic might
have bothered me, but the rush and noise seem quite calm to me.

"Ahh." Rickie says. "We have crazy divers here. Egypt traffic مجنون (Mjnwn)"

"They just make the lanes too wide." Is Jerry's response.

Before I left Canada I read a bunch of books by Egyptian authors. One
of the book, The Yacobian Building involves the intertwined lives of
groups of people who live in a building. Some of the people live on
the roof. While reading it I understood that people lived on top of
the roof, but I never thought of how that would work. As we make our
way to the hotel I start to see it. The tops of some apartments have
rebar sticking out and loosely woven palm that provides shelter to the
people living there.

The official population of the city is 17 million. I can't see how
they could possibly count everyone here. As we were taking overpasses
and winding our way through the city I thought the apartment building
were not that high. Then I looked down and realized that the road we
were driving on was five floors above ground level.

Mosques, army headquarters, army mosque, football field, more mosques
and finally a bridge. My first sight of the Nile. It's almost 2am and
couples are crossing in groups, people are fishing, and crazy.... cars
are parked in the outside lanes. They pull up, stop, and everyone
climbs out and gazes at the water below.

When we finally get to the hotel I can see how security is an issue
here. Our bus pulls up to the parking lot. The driver identifies
himself and Rickie, and the the bus is sniffed at by a dog. Men with
guns eventually lower the steel pillars in the roadway and we drive
into the lot. Now we are just a metal detector and x-ray machine away
from bed. Man am I tired. I can barely appreciate the grounds.

"So. You need AnyThing you call me. I can find anything in this town.
You just tell me." Rickie smiles.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Princess's former castle. Visiting dignitaries.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Egyptian cotton and a feather pillow await.

www.adogabroadayear.wordpress.com for images

It's Sunday

Paris. Notre-Dame. Sunday.

It was amazing how amidst the tourists, the congregation and priest
managed to create a space that they saw as holy.

I came into the church and heard the sounds of hymns. The hymns in a
Catholic church are very different from the ones I grew up with. We
sang things like Jesus Loves Me, and This Little Light of Mine. My
hymns were kinda jr. faith meets new agey worship.

On this Sunday I heard the Psalms being sung in French. They made no
sense, but were comforting. The ritual and structure offered communion
(in the non-Eucharist sense) to those gathered and they shared it with
all of us watching.

Maybe it was comforting because I couldn't understand it...

This way people were joined together in a happiness I could feel, and
my mind didn't jump in and start to punch holes in their theories.

Unfortunately, to see the picture you will have to check out
www.adogabroadayear.wordpress.com

Customs. Check?

Meeting up with the family in the airport is not that difficult. There
are not that many, looks like they are going to be sunburned in about
a minute, groups milling about. And, they are watching the door for
me. We all think the first five minutes in the country is too early to
lose someone.

Jerry and Dad are in the "line-up" to get our visitors visas. It is
amazing how many people are trying to get paperwork processed at
midnight on a Sunday. Ten minutes of "elbows up" nudging and 15 US
dollars per person and we all now have shiny visa stickers to hand
over to customs.

"Keep moving to the end wall." A familiar voice floats out from a
black cloud. "The line ups move faster."

"Thanks." I smile and herd the family along to the wall. Here is where
you can see money making things easier for some. Small groups move
through customs with such ease I have to believe something other than
love passed between everyone when they were hugging, kissing, and
shaking hands.

There are no stanchions, velvet ropes for guiding, or even a clear
line up, but there are lots of men in white uniforms carrying machine
guns to prod stragglers in the right direction.

Passport control. Check.

Luggage. Check.

"Don't take your hands off your bag. And don't let anyone else touch
it or they will want money from you. Do you need cabs to your hotel?"
Posh spice asks.

"Nope. My sister the travel organizing Goddess has arranged for the
hotel shuttle to pick us up." Which is a relief. I'm not sure after
all the travelling I could handle the cabbie madness and heat I step
into outside the airport. As I dodge "helpful" outstretched hands I
turn to thank my new friend.

"تصبح على خير" she says. "And, wear sunscreen!"
--

You're Not In Canada Anymore!

After twenty hours of travelling, my plane is touching down in Egypt.

"Please stay in your seats until the plane comes to a complete stop"
the flight attendant calls out over the PA and repeats the request in
Arabic.

Tourists on the plane glance at each other and tug their seat belts to
reassure each other that she's not talking about us. The Locals ignore
the entreaties floating over the PA system and keep pulling out
carry-on bags and passing them back and forth across the aisles.
Travelling companions call out, identifying their suitcases, duty-free
bags, and coats, and wait for the standees to distribute the overhead
compartments holdings.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Please remain in your seats until the plane
comes to a complete stop and the Captain has turned off the seat belt
sign." The attendant repeats this, but seems resigned to the fact that
very few passengers are going to comply with this request.

The plane stops and the rest of us passengers stand and join the
chaos. Tentative smiles, yawns, and anxious glances pass amongst the
new standees. None of us know what to expect outside the plane.

I get closer to the door. The heat surprises me. It's 11.30 at night
and it is warmer than a summer's day in Vancouver. Sweating at
midnight...

This is one of the stop on the tarmac and take a bus to the terminal
landings. Like a polite Canadian I line up and make my way towards the
door. By the time I reach sight of the night sky, I have been
separated from my family. Hesitancy comes with a cost here.

"توقف" (twqf) a gun toting man in a white uniform shouts at me as I am
about to head down the stairs.

A hand reaches out from behind me and tugs on my t-shirt. "He wants us
to stop and wait here" A posh british accent attached to the hand
tells me. I turn to thank the woman translating for me. She sat near
me on the flight from London to Cairo. She was wearing upscale jeans
and t-shirt, but is now covered from head to toe in a black headscarf
and dress.

"I'm here to visit family." She says. "I wear this to please my
grandmother. It is easier than arguing with her." She smiles.

I helped butcher chickens to please my grandmother. I understand
compromising to keep the peace.

"You're going to need to be a little pushier if you're going to
survive in Cairo." She laughs.