Seeing the City, One Step at a Time

 I sat on the ledge of the Citadel's platform, overlooking the city. Cairo flowed out in every direction below us like a rippling of buildings, roads, and parks, until it faded into the hazy horizon. The Citadel is a huge, medieval fortress at one of the highest points in the city. It is now a huge, tourist attraction, complete with museums and the Muhammad Ali mosque, and an absolutely amazing view of the city.

“Is it clear enough to see the pyramids today?” someone asked.

“Yeah, look, there they are.”

At the very edge of the haze hanging over the city, the shape of the pyramids could just barely be made out.

“Hey look, Tarek,” I joked with my flatmate, “there's home. Wanna walk?”

He laughed. Just because we were still in Cairo did not mean that we were anywhere near to home. Going back would take an hour and a half. The city is just that big.

We had made big plans for Friday, my friend Reda and I, to check some things off of my ever-growing “Cairo To-Do List.” We were going to see the Citadel, Islamic Cairo, Coptic Cairo, and even grab breakfast before we started. We did two of those things, and obviously breakfast was one of them.

We ended up just moving our way through the Citadel very slowly and spending our time there, enjoying the quietness of the mosque, the pictures in the museum, and the view from outside. There were seven of us spending the day together, a good chunk of it spent people watching at the Citadel.

Coming from Giza was myself; Rene, the curly-haired Dutch intern; and Tarek, the tech support Egyptian from Alexandria. From downtown we had Reda, the most obscenely nice guy I have ever met, Egyptian or otherwise; Norm, a fellow American evacuee from last summer's program who is just hanging out in Cairo; Mahmoud, Reda and Norm's good friend from the language buddy part of the program last summer; and Nouthayla, Mahmoud's best friend of four years. Four Egyptians. Three foreigners. Not a bad ratio.

I decided this laid back approach was a very nice way to enjoy Cairo. Sometimes I am jealous of the tourists who come and see more of the city in a few days then I have in over a month. But then at moments like that, sitting on a bench watching children play on the lion statues of an empty fountain, I realize that it is much more pleasant to actually enjoy the sites that I am seeing. It's better than just rushing to cross them off my list.

Cairo can be an overwhelming city, and getting from one place to another is not very time efficient because of traffic and overcrowding. It can be stressful if you are on a tight schedule, so I think we made the right decision to postpone some sightseeing for another day, rather than trying to fight the traffic to fit them all in.

I really liked visiting the mosque, it was very spacious, with a beautiful chandelier and hanging lights. We sat on the rugs on the floor, with our shoes in our laps so they wouldn't touch the floor, looking up at the lights and the designs on the walls and the ceiling.

We finally left because we decided we wanted something sweet, and to catch a falooka for the sunset. We got “sobia,” I think it was called. It was amazing! It was like coconut pudding, with coconut pieces in it, with cinnamon on top. I was in heaven! Immediately after that, we walked to the Nile to ride one of the traditional sailing boats, a falooka, for an hour and watch the sunset. To say the least, it was beautiful.

 

Bribing babies

 I was pushing for a successful circle time with my students. Well, technically semi-circle time. Their little wooden baby chairs were arranged in a half circle on the Finding Nemo rug in front of the whiteboard. It was already a few hours into the day and their attention spans were fading fast. I sat in the middle of the group, with a plate full of apples. My scheme was to bribe them with food in order to learn something. But even with four bright red Washington apples, they were still easily distracted. Oh, to be three again. So cute, but so hard to be productive.

I started teaching preschool at the last minute, right at the beginning of the school year, when I arrived in Cairo unexpectedly. Teaching preschool was new to me, especially working with babies all day, but I was excited about the opportunity in order to spend the year in Egypt.

“What is this?” I asked loudly, hoping to gain someone's attention. Malak was out of the circle sitting next to Asmaa, the classroom helper. I didn't push for her to leave Asmaa's side, knowing she would only break down crying. Again. Hala was wandering around the room, she wouldn't come when I told her to so I gave up, not wanting to risk losing the rest of the babies by trying to get one. The rest of my babies, who were sitting in their chairs, were all distracted by Fareda. She was, as usual, messing with her pink Hello Kitty backpack. She hated to be separated from it, and was always attempting to rearrange things inside in a way that didn't make sense to me why it was important.

“Marawan, what is this?” I asked the little boy next to Fareda. One paying attention is better than none paying attention.

“Apple!” He shouted, his face bursting into a huge smile as he recognized the object from last week's lesson.

“Good job, Marawan!” Relief washed over me, at least that much had sunk in from our “A” week. I turned to the boy on the other side of Fareda, still messing with her bag. “Moustafa, say apple.” He looked at me with his wide eyes and his head tilted. He didn't understand. “Moustafa, ool apple.”

“Apple!” he repeated. By now, Fareda was paying attention to the red fruit in my hand. “Apple,” she echoed, smiling shyly.

“Good job! Apple! A is for apple. Renad, oolee apple.”

“B!” said the little girl in pigtails enthusiastically.

“Apple.” I insisted.

“B!” she tried again. Close enough, I thought to myself. And honestly, that was her answer to everything. She was one of the youngest in the class, just over two and a half, and barely even spoke Arabic yet. I would take B. At least she would ace the next lesson after A.

“Who wants apple?” I asked the students in from of me. Silence. Wide confused eyes. “Meen aeez apple?” I repeated.

Fareda jumped out of her chair. The little blue chair to be exact. If she didn't get that chair, class would not move forward until she had it.

“Ana aeeza dee! Ana aeeza dee!” She pointed furiously at the red apple I was holding.

“Okay, Fareda, sit down. Sit down. Audee.” When she sat down, I turned to Moustafa who was at the edge of our circle. “Moustafa, do you want apple?” He nodded his head down once, his eyes wide open. He was my ball of energy. “Say, I want apple.” Nothing. “Ool, I want apple.”

“I want apple,” he repeated, putting his hand out. I cut him off a piece and handed it to him. I repeated this process down the line, Hala even graced us with her presence as she realized there was food involved. I was getting relative success with the phrase “I want apple,” other than Renad who said “B” and Mohammad who just managed to get out “apple.” I would keep working on this.

Every time they asked for more, I made them say “I want” instead of “Ana aeez.” Maybe we didn't have much focus time in this nursery class in the middle of Giza, but I was proud of myself for at least introducing a new phrase. Bribing always helps. Welcome to Egypt.