Egypt: Day Sixteen, & Reflections

Mustafa Waziri

No need to get up early.  And I’m already packed.  My only obligation is to vacate the room by noon.  So a quiet breakfast is my immediate goal.
       I run into Jihan after breakfast and we talk a bit.  She’s a very interesting person.  I hope we can keep in touch now that she’s given me her e-mail address.

Zahi Hawass

       After that, time for myself.  It’s a nice, warm, sunny day... a lot warmer than it will be in Paris and way warmer than it will be in Michigan.  So I take my book out on my terrace and just enjoy.  The rest is interest-free.  Lunch outside.  A nap in the room of the Two Lindas.  The trip to the airport.  And then the lights of Egypt fading into the blackness outside the window of the jet taking me back to winter.
       It’s been an amazing trip.  I’ve seen things I’ve wanted to see since I was a child and touched monuments over 4,000 years old.  I’ve met with two of the world’s foremost Egyptologists - Zahi Hawass and Mustafa Waziri - as well as had tea and conversation with Jehan Sadat, the widow of the late President of Egypt.  What a wonderful two weeks it’s been!

Here a few Little Nuggets I gleaned throughout the trip.  It’s a hodge-podge.

Jehan Sadat

       I learned for example how the interiors of the temples were lit without depositing soot all over the walls, as happened later when the Coptic Christians hid from the Romans in some of the temples.  The answer?  Castor oil.  It makes no smoke.  And it’s a more pleasant use than having to swallow it.

Ahmed

       As we drove around the city and the countryside, I was struck by the number of buildings that are unfinished.  Pressed with questions, Ahmed explained that projects may lack money once they get started, but also that some buildings are constructed to be unfinished on purpose.  He explains that families buy a shell of a house, with no electricity and no plumbing.  They get someone to finish it for them.  But they often leave rebar sticking up stumps of columns, ready for the next story to go up.
       I learned that the Egyptians have their own version of La Turista.  It’s not Montezuma’s Revenge, but close: The Nile Revenge.  And they have their own little miracle pill to take care of it.  I get lucky and don’t catch it.

Horus

       I giggled at the name of that silly little Nubian stringed instrument a bit like the Japanese shamisen but less melodic.  It’s called a rababa, and that’s about as repetitive a name as the melodies played on it.  The bow is as big as the instrument and it looks more like someone’s trying to saw through it rather than scratch out a tune.  Which would probably be merciful because I don’t know what that string is made of (often there’s only one) but it really sounds like a cat being skinned.

     I’ve found some new favorites among the ancient gods and goddesses.  Still don’t care much for Anubis and his jackal head; mummification is just not my thing but it is his.  Also a bit gross is Khepri, who doesn’t have a head but rather a beetle in its place.  And the jury’s still out on Thoth, with his pointy ibis head.  I do like Ma’at though, the goddess who looks down from the lintel of tombs, her wings outstretched to welcome the dead seeking their way to the Afterlife.  And spite of her cow ears; Hathor seems like the kindly, motherly sort, but I may have been influenced by that attendant in the Valley of the Kings who smiled and called me Hathor; I hope that was a compliment!  And the crocodile-headed god Sobek is a hoot, especially as I once dated a guy named Sobeck.  Horus is still my favorite though.

       I’ve been very good and only bought a few things.  That is, if you except all those books.  There’s the woven bag to carry them in, of course and it was a bargain at $5.  And that little carved wooden hippopotamus that has to replace the Horus I couldn’t find anywhere.  And the white cotton tunic with the blue trim which might have been $10 and will be perfect for summer.  And the bracelet they said is turquoise but definitely can’t be for only $6 (100 Egyptian pounds) but I love the color (which is turquoise) and the gold veins in it.
       Which brings me to a word of advice for anyone traveling to Egypt:  take a whole lot of dollar bills.  A whole lot.  You’ll need one to pay for the toilet paper at most public toilets, especially outside of Cairo.  And for all those souvenirs the vendors are selling as your bus pulls into any monument at all.  That’s what they want.  Dollars.  You’ll help their economy.  And make them smile.
       And when Egyptians smile, their whole face smiles.  And lights up the room.