Return to Cairo

I know, it's been too long. But guess what, I've been traveling.

I returned to Cairo last week. Fifteen years ago as a nearly graduating college student from the Midwest, it was only the fourth stamp in my passport and the first from a “developing” country. After over a month of studying ancient history, eating Koshery, visiting every museum and pharos’s tomb there was to visit, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. I don’t remember much detail about my time in Cairo at all, but I do remember the last day as my classmates, professor and I were finally checking out of the Cosmopolitan Hotel and heading to the airport. Over a month in a country and the most vivid memory I have is of leaving it – of standing in the hotel lobby (I don’t remember a thing about the street outside the lobby) waiting for our airport bus to arrive. The peripheral memories of Cairo are of seemingly every person that helped us in the slightest way, sticking their hand in our faces and asking for baksheesh; of every man in the Khan el Khalili not only luring the naive foreign women into their stores to buy things but also to make an offer of hundreds of camels for a hand in marriage. I think the reason I don’t remember the street outside of the hotel is because I avoided going out in it. The dirty, crowded, loud, and in September, hot streets of this foreign country were something I had had enough of and wanted nothing more than to fly far far away from them.

Fifteen years later those are the memories that stick with me. In those years I have spent a whole lot of time in some pretty big, crowded, dirty and developing cities – New Delhi, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and yea, although obviously not a foreign city, New York might as well be foreign to some Midwesterners. Fifteen years later, I surprisingly find myself preferring to live in cities where there is a bustle and beat to the streets – a crowd and even a grit. The crowds, noise, stink and filth have become things the senses have learned to tolerate. However, when I was told that I was going to be going to Cairo for a work-related conference this year, I was not excited at all. I was pretty much dreading it, as a matter of fact. When my colleagues talked about their plans to head to The Pyramids, Sphinx, the medieval city, the Khan and the Citadel I did not grab the offers to join them. Most simply, the thought of getting into a taxi to go anywhere raised all sorts of red flags because I knew we would either get ripped off or killed in a car accident. No, I imagined myself once again just staying in my hotel and avoiding the wretched place of my memories.

It was early evening when we arrived. By the time we got to the hotel, checked in and settled a bit, it was time for dinner, a drink and a walk to the corner store for a bottle of water before heading to bed. Our hotel was in a neighborhood I had never been to before – not that I would remember it if I had been there before. The Nile River was right there and very few shops lined the streets. I had forgotten my toothbrush so I had no choice but to go to the dreaded streets and hunt for one. With my feet dragging, my roommate went with me and fortunately there was a little pharmacy open right down the street. I was prepared to have to pay $30 or more for a descent toothbrush and toothpaste – I mean, everyone in Cairo wants to rip off the foreigner, right!? To my surprise, the prices were clearly posted and were quite reasonable. A very sweet woman behind the counter smiled and told me the price in English, which I handed to her, smiled back and said thank you. Not bad. Getting the bottle of water was equally easy and cheap and I went to bed with an attitude showing a slight glimpse of improving.

We had meetings all the next day. Sitting in a big conference room on the 10th floor of the hotel, we had a beautiful view of The Nile and the city beyond. During a break, I walked over to look out an open window and felt a cool Cairo winter (it was about 70F) breeze blow through. The smoggy yet sunny view and the Cairo smell were hitting me straight on. But wait, it didn’t stink so badly. From this high up it still looked dirty, but it was also a pretty spectacular view. I could still hear the honking horns but really, that’s just the sound of a city. What I was seeing, hearing and feeling from the top floor were not the horrific memories of a city that had grown to annoy me, but the forgotten memories of amazement I had when I saw this foreign country for the first time. Instead of bringing back the dirty city memories in the forefront of my mind, I was suddenly brought back to the naivety of a 21 year-old college student smelling garbage, hearing honking horns and negotiating in a foreign culture for the first time . . . again. It was new, funny, strange – a curious adventure to get swept up in. That breeze from the 10th floor did not represent just another dirty and foreign city – it represented and brought me back, literally to the first truly foreign city I had ever been to and I was 21 and seeing it for the first time all over again.

The "nicest man in Cairo" drove every taxi I got into from then on. Every one of them smiled, asked “Where you from?” smiled even bigger at the answer with the words, “Welcome to Cairo,” said with the utmost sincerity. Only one tried to take us for a ride, literally and figuratively, by taking an extremely long route back to the hotel and crossing the Nile River four times at least. Not sure if he knew we were onto him or what, but even he was honest in the end saying that he had made a mistake and charged us less than what the meter said. Unbelievable, really. And things like that happened everywhere. Despite the conditions of their city, these people were happy. I don’t see that in Turkey too much and I am not sure why, but it was very apparent and I was amazed.

The crazy memories hit me from everywhere once again when I went back to the National Museum, Egypt’s attic, and saw endless floors and rooms full of old stuff. Coptic jars, sarcophagi, animal mummies, trinkets and big pieces of wood labeled #632 for cataloging purposes. Then, as I walked back into the campus of the American University in Cairo I was stopped dead in my tracks by a door. It went to the university library – the place where 21 year-old me entered every day, showing my student ID so I could sit and study and hide. I couldn’t find the shop where we always bought ice cream. The area where all of the students sat and my classmate Kari was bit by a cat had changed a bit as well, but standing there again, I was detailed memories and emotions long repressed were flooding back.

I still didn’t head out to Giza to see The Pyramids. Didn’t want to do too much at once and ruin it all. But I did go through the heart of the city, through some of the poorest neighborhoods I had ever seen, into mosques and out through the Khan with a much broader perspective than I think I was capable of at 21. I even thought for a second that I could live there for a little bit some day. Cairo. I went back to the last place I had ever wanted to go and am now hoping that I have a chance to go back there again.