Jet Lag Part TWO

So where do I start in describing the strange night I had Thursday Sept 24, my second, jet-lag-filled day back? (See part 1 for the day at school)

Off we went to Lucille's, a burger restaurant with the improbable accolade of "best burger in the world". Our resrevation was made by D. our one male teacher. A. goes in to explain that a reservation was made earlier for 7 people and instantly the host says, "ah yes, Mr. D . . " Seems our Mr. D. is famous! We look (and listen) around, there are quite a few Americans and other non-Egyptian patrons. Dinner is lots of fun. It is so good to see these folks again after having been gone for a month. They have been through a lot together including the 5 women and 1 man sharing a 4 bed (yes I meant to write BED) apartment! More than one of them mentions to me in asides that it will be "OK if you freak out cuz we all did pretty much." Yeah . . . thanks.

After dinner we walk along Road 9 where the restaurant is. This is in the middle of our neighborhood, Ma'adi. This road is filled with shops and I stop to buy a small lamp. I "barter" down the price by 5 Egyptian pounds. I guess I need practice but it is OK - the lamp costs about 5 dollars in American. Now I can read without having to turn off the overhead light. That is all the lighting we have in any room in this apartment.

Off we go to the Metro. The well-lit stucco building is spacious yet rustic. We purchase a small yellow ticket and slide it into the slot at the turnstile. Good thing I stuck mine back into my pocket since we find out later that it needs to be put back in the turnstile in order exit the train station too!

The train is dirty - with dirt. I mean dirt, dirt - as if it were a giant clubhouse for fifth grade boys. Not too crowded - it is only 9PM after all - early!! The windows are all open . . . or missing. Either way there is quite a breeze blowing through the car - a warm, warm breeze. The windows also have pull shades made of wooden slats! We can imagine that they provide shade from the blistering sun while still allowing air to come in, or perhaps they keep some dust out?

The train ride is long - about 20 minutes. Even with jet-lag and not knowing the area by map I can tell we are not heading for the Corniche near where I live. That would have been a very short train ride.There are not too many characters on the train. As is the case everywhere we go there are mostly men in the crowd. If there are any women they are traveling with another woman, a child, or a man. We cannot remember seeing a woman traveling alone. We have heard that the first car in a subway is for women but someone else says it is the middle car. Next time we will be sure to look. Tonight I am glad we have two local males and our own Mr. D. with us.
The one charcater worth mentioning is Sparkler Man. Sparkler Man comes aboard our car shouting something in loud, and what I take to be aggressive, Arabic. I find little comfort in the fact that he is wearing nothing to indicate that he is a fanatic - he is wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans. I keep my eyes averted and watch what the others on the train do. They are all quiet but keep their eyes on him. They are smiling in amusemnt, so OK. I think if any of them leave the train on the next stop I am so out of here. Then he takes out a fist full of blue paper packages about the size of . . .well, sparkler wrappers, and pulls out a sparkler. And lights it on fire!! All the time he is going on with his loud Arabic, the locals are smiling patronizingly and I am wishing for the next stop which doesn't come and doesn't come! In order to prove some point he is making Sparkler Man rubs the lit sparkler on his face and down the front and arms of his shirt repeatedly. I do not know which I find more disturbing: that he may burn his skin or that he may set the packs of sparklers on fire. Strangely, the worry for each of these possibilitiies seems to cancel each other out and I start to watch the whole show with everyone else in amazement. I hear familiar Arabic words in his shouting and it dawns on me that he is SELLING sparklers! Apparently rubbing them over his body is a selling point. "Buy these sparklers - see you can rub them over your body!" maybe it is a new advertising method showing people things they might never have thought of before for each product like, "Look at these chocolate chip cookies. Pile them on top of each other and use them as a perfectly safe stepladder!" Suddenly we are at our stop and off we go - so many things to see that I almost instantly forget about Sparkler Man.

We get off the train and go up some stairs. Much of what we see or do reminds me of the old subway stations in Boston just with lighter more beige color schemes.The train staircase opens onto a HUGE rotary in the center of Cairo!! Now I am truly speechless. Wow! Billboards abound - I mean everywhere - this is where the movie 5th Element got its cityscape ideas!! There is the tall cylindrical Cairo Tower covered in colored lights, and the Egyptian Museum, and . . . just everything. And LOTS of noisy traffic.

We begin what turns out to be a brisk and harrowing 20 minute walk through speeding traffic I mean SPEEDING traffic. Every patch of grass around this busy rotary is being used by couples and families for sitting and talking and eating. It is late at night, warm, and even little children are out enjoying . . . .the city rotary?! We walk around the rotary, under an overpass, through a crowded micro bus station. It is astoudingly crowded here with many people piling in and out of micro busses that fill an underpass area. Not too much further it starts to get pretty smelly and the ground is pretty dirty and we are in some sort of market area? where people have stands set up and many local families have gathered. We continue to walk. MORE traffic and more death defying street crossings. Our guides bravely go before us and slow traffic with their raised arms (sort of). When I say death defying I mean it. I get the EXACT same feeling as when I was a kid and the bar to the roller coaster is locked in place and the car is rolling forward - no turning back!

We arrive at a highway that runs along the Nile so this is the Corniche just miles down from where we started. It is VERY crowded. We are wondering if a soccer match just got out? Ususally there is a lot of honking but tonight it is insane. Finally one guide makes us to undersrand that there is a wedding. Oh! We get it now! Well it wasn't until later that we realize there are MANY wedding parties driving by this area. So, you get married and then you and your wedding guests hop in your cars and drive along this area honking the whole way. You are joined by a whole bunch of other couples doing the same thing. The car for the bride and groom either has bouqets of flowers decorating the front and back hoods of the car with a ribbon running from front to back OR christmas lights blinking all over the car. I do not mean a string of christmas lights but the big recatngular patches of lights that you can get to put over bushes. They blink - all blue, al green, and look very cool.

Like I said the sidewalk is jammed as if a sporting event just got out. Many other people than the wedding-type people are her too. There are vendors selling everything: candy, grilled corn, bags of nuts, something that looks like popcorn . . . on a string?? (what that was I do not know), things in paper cones at the end of a stick (again, do not know). One man had blocks of ice set out with drinks for sale on top. People call out to us "Wellllcome. welllcome to eeegypt!" One man asks to have his picture taken with us, he insists. There is a stone wall along the sidewalk and on the other side a steep rocky embankment about 20 feet above the Nile. Every inch is covered with men, women in head scarves and flowing robes, and small children. The littlest ones are held, some of them sit straddling their mom's shoulder and hanging on to her head as she balances the baby while holding the back of his pants. Some children that can barely walk are balancing along the tops of the stone wall! Yikes! people are also sitting togetether on the sloping stone bank.It is quite festive and very friendly. All I can think is Man! we do NOT use our riversides enough in the US. But of course, this warm weather is what makes it all possible.

More brides and grooms go by and it seems they are heading down the steps to the Nile. People cheer as they make their way through the crowds. We look out on the water and see boats all over. After descending a staircase we find ourselves on the docks below. Their are boats about the size of the Nantucket Harbor Launch tied up and taking follks out for rides. They have a frame for a top built for them but the frame is covered in colored lights. Out on the river these all look like children's toys. There is music playing too. We wait just a moment while our Egyptian friends speak with a boat owner and then we are off!. There is a small generator on the bow to run the lights and an outboard in back. The man running the boat plays Egyptian music. The first song starts with a chicken clucking! Aparently it is popular because the 12 year old girl who has joined us with her mom knows all the words. She is coaxed into dancing for us and we move the table that is in the center of the boat. It is strange but even though this girl has her head scarf on, and very modest clothes covering her wrist to ankle, she dances belly dancer style. One hand behind her head and the other outstretched with a lot of movement in the wrist.Plenty of hips. Hmmmm. I just can't figure it all out. She is very cute and clearly enjoys the dancing. We all join in and have so much fun!

King Farouk's castle and Anwar Sadat's home are pointed out to us. The expenisve hotels loom over us and we see many boats like ours passing us. It is amazing. We are all pinching ourselves. I think of home, home, home of course being on a boat - whishing I could share this with my boys or friends. But there are new friends beofre me and we are all dancing and smiling.

The night winds down quickly after the boat ride. A long train back and then a taxi to our buildings. Is this really my first day in Egypt??

Wow!