A Night in Old Cairo.

Rather than tell you about the wonderful touristy things I did there, (which you can see if you click here), I’d like to tell you about a night in Cairo that I will always treasure.
I accompanied my fellow English Language Fellow, Whitney Mirts, to the Coptic Quarter, but we arrived too late to see anything. The souvenir shops were still open so we did some shopping. I bought a nice cross with mother-of-pearl handiwork. We spotted a craftsman, etching Arabic writings into stone. Whitney ordered one saying “Ahlan wa salan” (Welcome) to be made on a beige marble-like stone with a polished finish. It cost 120 Egyptian pounds. (roughly $24 USD).

She had to return to the Hotel Flamenco in Zamalek to catch a shared taxi ride to the airport. Since I was staying a couple of more days, I stuck around old Cairo and looked for some street food, which is one of my favorite things to do when traveling. I passed a guy selling macaroni and sauce, and thought about that, but I spotted an Egyptian BBQ going on a little further and I was in the mood for something like that. I ordered some grilled chicken and sat down. I had hummus, fresh pitas, some salad and the chicken and it was only 8 or 9 pounds. (~$1.80 USD).

Old Cairo was alive with people going to and fro, some on donkey or horse carts and there was a great neighborhood feel to the way people say hello and hang out. Now, I really felt like I was in Cairo. I had some tea after that and then walked up to Masgid Amr Ibn el-As, the oldest mosque in Cairo. Kids were playing soccer, and the prayer call had gone out recently. I walked around and snapped photos. I saw large ablution rooms there for both sexes and a special section for women to pray too. I sat on the steps just outside the mosque and listened to the beautiful prayers as the imam led everybody in worship. Somebody even invited me to join. That was nice.

After that, I continued strolling on the main boulevard and tried out some garbanzos and then some baked sweet potato. Some men invited me to drink tea, which I accepted and then I went on with my walk. I came to a dirt road and decided to go down it into a neighborhood and I am so glad I did. It was darker than the main boulevard, but there were people here and there and occasionally a shop or two was open. I came to an intersection and saw lights in two directions and asked a man drinking tea outside of his shop which one he would recommend I check out. He told me that the one to the left, which appeared more colorful, was a wedding- though we were facing the back of it- and the one straight ahead was really nothing much. He encouraged me to go the wedding which appealed to me. (I must confess I’m a bit of a party crasher.) There is something great about a place like Cairo though, where I don’t need to know a single person or have an invitation to go to a wedding. Remembering the wild Yemeni wedding celebration (see Wild Wedding post) that I partook in spontaneously, I thought “Let’s see how they party in old Cairo.”

When I made it over to the front side of the setup, I found a great havela (party) alla Kairo in full effect. The wedding was basically a wild block party in the street. Men socialized around gurgling sheesha pipes, while children frolicked playing soccer, dancing, and play fighting. In contrast to the Yemeni wedding, both sexes were present. There was a great stage setup with a colorful inflated arc in the back ground. In the foreground, an ornate metal bench where the aroos (groom) and aroosa (bride) would be seated upon arrival. There was a makeshift aisle set up in the middle of the dirt street going right up to the stage. The path was aligned with sticks in the dirt that had balloons on the top end and there was a colorful mat there to serve as the royal red carpet. Chairs were chaotically left anywhere for anyone to grab and sit or dance with, depending on their inclination. The DJ played the latest Egyptian party songs. I recognized one that the taxi driver from my first night in Cairo had played for us, “Hamra Uta” which translates to “Red Tomatoes”. I love it. All in all, the wedding party had a carnival-like feel to it, yet it reminded me of DJ parties/celebrations I’ve seen in Mexican towns.
It was great watching people arrive and get ready while the music played. Some sang along as their favorite song came on, and many were inspired to do belly dance arabesques as their friends and family clapped egging them on. One guy danced with a cane and made a mini-spectacle,but this went on all over the scene. I met a couple of brothers that were waiting as well for the party to begin. Gamal and Mohammed were gracious and tried to explain the wedding to me and insisted I smoke cigarettes with them. Then I heard cars honking and I knew this was it! The cars pulled up, all eyes and smiles were upon them as the newlyweds came out and greeted their families. The bride went up to her female relatives and they all gushed around her wishing her well. Fireworks went off and the aforementioned decorative aisle quickly disappeared once the couple made it on stage.
I really wanted to take more video and pictures, but my darn battery died! (What a time for that to happen! I really need to just buy a spare soon.) Nevertheless, I loved watching the festive event. Just when I was ready to see what happened next, Gamal and Mohammed said it was time to go. Confused, I pleaded with them to let me stay and watch, but they insisted and said there was another wedding to go to that would be better. I really wanted to stay, but I didn’t want to refuse their hospitality, so I went along and followed their instincts.
Back into the calm of the neighborhood, I walked with them and noticed poor conditions everywhere. At one point, we passed a bulldozer hard at work. Mind you, it’s now around 8pm and this seems a bit incongruous given the fact that it’s also Friday night. A couple of more minutes and we arrived at wedding number 2. It did not disappoint. Here I saw a similar scene to the first, but bigger and already at a later stage in the raucous joy. I noticed the space was wider and that the oldest mosque in Cairo was beyond the back wall of the area. Again a DJ played hypnotic Arabic music to get the crowd moving, but this one was doubling as an emcee and occasionally performed songs and dances. Wearing a Ferrari red sweater, he was a trip to watch in his own right. Men, a few shirtless, brandished large machetes as they followed the sinuous rhythms. Women were on stage with the newlyweds and dancing too. People were all over: men smoking water pipes; women congratulating the bride; and others hanging out of windows smiling and sitting on ladders watching the excitement. Occasionally there were fireworks or a makeshift flamethrower (aerosol can and lighter) and sometimes a car, taxi or bus needed to drive through, so we’d move our chairs out of the way. Some danced on their chairs, some were lifted on their chairs and cheered and others simply danced with their chairs on their head or held aloft.
Not everybody was happy, though. At one point I saw some kind of ruckus coming from the back of the stage and there was pushing and shoving and strained faces. The wedding party self-policed it and the unhappy guest was escorted away. I was relieved to see that it never escalated more than that. That dampened the mood for about 10 nanoseconds and then the party went on, as DJ Ferrari stood on a chair near the amps and belted out an emotional number and a throng of fans clapped along and did more machete brandishing. After that, there was no way I could not love Cairo. Gamal made sure I got a taxi with a reasonable price back to my hotel. Then it was off to a hip scene along the banks of the Nile with another fellow. We went to Absolute, a trendy place right out of any city, where people dress smart and the food is cutesy gourmet (sushi, calamari et al), and the drinks are priced for the well-heeled. The difference there was that Egyptian flair around…the DJ emphasized Arab pop dance, and garnished it with some Shakira, a dash of hip-hop and then gave it a taste of Miami with some reggaeton y merengue.
How fascinating I thought to be one minute in Old Cairo experiencing something so down home and neighborhoody- an only-in-Cairo type of thing and then a couple of hours later, dancing the night away with trendy cosmopolites. What can I say, I was mabsoot! (happy).