Egypt: Cairene Scenes

Cairo, population 25 million and growing daily, is home to almost one in three Egyptians. Feb 13, Friday and prayer day is bright, unusually clear and sunny, crisp with a morning chill. Perfect. We are up half the night, have breakfast in and take off for Giza – during the week a one-hour drive, but on Friday thankfully only 15 minutes. Long enough to drive the ring road which could hold 5 or 6 lanes of traffic (no lane lines) on very uneven pavement lined with garbage on each side, and watch the illegal squatter housing zip by. Endless blocks of unfinished (to the unpracticed eye) blocks of housing, built on former agricultural land until owners realized they could make more money building unlicensed housing and renting it out (or selling it? not clear). The outsides of the buildings have open holes for windows and look half-way abandoned. But the garbage is a giveaway – people must live there because their garbage is on their neighbor’s roof. Garbage is just a fact of life. No one notices it or seems to care. It is entangled in trees, concrete, under rocks, in swept-up dirt. It encircles houses and buildings and just is.

Giza, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Saqqara’s step pyramids and ancient tombs. No matter how many pictures you’ve seen; they are just astonishing. Cairo spreads right up to the Pyramid parking lot, which is full of Egyptian tourists and a few westerners. The view from Saqqara is softer with the ribbon of green and date palms surrounded by desert hills. In the tomb of Queen Idut, where we are completely alone, I sneak a few pictures of the remarkable wall carvings that are almost 4,400 years old.

Entering the area of the Coptic churches in Old Cairo, it is either re-assuring or disturbing to see police everywhere and the road barricaded, pedestrian only. Disturbing because the police appear to be hanging out in clumps and barely awake, or maybe this is just clever subterfuge. There is a train stop nearby, and I get vague answers about – Well you never know what people are carrying and there have been incidents near train stations — Incidents?!? Well, like home made bombs. But that was in Alexandria. Oh. Well OK then.

There are plenty of people in the “hanging church,” pride of the Coptic Christian community, and it is amazing. Icons, inlaid woodwork, domed ceilings, beautifully restored, built into an old Roman tower. Many of the icons are dated 18 AD. I point out that this cannot be, as Christ did not die until 33 AD, no one could be a saint and a martyr before the man himself went first. It’s assumed that 18 means 18th century but clearly the icons are much, much older.