Coptic Cairo

Today I went and checked out Coptic Cairo (part of Old Cairo or "al-Fustat") on a tour done by the AUC dorms. I was sort of turned off by the huuuge tour group (like 100 students!) cause you couldn't hear the tour guide and it was hard to move around in some of the buildings. Also, the tour was done at like 2 PM, perhaps the hottest time possible to do it. Even still, the area was awesome and there were some ridonkulously cool and old buildings. I've put my photos on my Picasa Web albums which are a lot easier to look at than posting pictures on this blog, check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/neilksawhney/


Basically, this area of Cairo is the part that existed before the Arab/Islamic conquest of Egypt in 641 AD. The Coptic Church is the native church of England that was started by St. Mark way back when, and still about 12% of the Egyptian population is Coptic. Most the buildings we checked out were Coptic churches, the best being St. George's Church and the Hanging (Suspended) Church. There was a cool Greek Cemetery, which had mad old family graves...apparently in the earthquake a couple years ago there was a major problem with rising groundwater in the Coptic area, so most of the buildings were restored and you could tell haha (as in the hella white walls of the Hanging Church). We also saw the oldest synagogue in Egypt, about 900 years old called Ben Ezra, although this place was renovated very recently as well. While the churches were still in service, this synagogue has been closed for a while. Actually, and sorta sad, was what the tour guide was talking about: out of the 25 synagogues in Egypt, only two (one in Cairo and one in Alexandria) are still used, because the 80,000 population of Jews in Egypt has now dwindled to like only about 200.

What was most amazing though, was we saw the first mosque established in Cairo, the Mosque of Amr Ibn al-As (the conqueror of Egypt). Most of the girls who didn't bring a scarf to cover their head had to wear really goofy green cloaks with pointy hoods that made them look like they were elves from Rivendell (Lord of the Rings geekitude). While the mosque has been redone and probably some of the Coptic churches were overally cooler in architecture, I had the most evocative experience so far in Egypt in this mosque. We came in the mosque around 4:15 PM, right before the afternoon prayer. We were all seated listening to the tour guide give a talk about Islam (not a great one but whatevs) and then the call to prayer began. This call to prayer is sang by the muezzin of a mosque to call the people in the nearby area to come pray. The minarets you see in most mosques were used to amplify the muezzin's voice, though of course they now use loudspeakers and microphones. The call to prayer was amazing and emotional---even if you have no idea what he's saying, you can't help to be moved. I just put up a video of a short part of the call to prayer online at my Picasa album (http://picasaweb.google.com/neilksawhney/).

Anyways, besides that have just been chillin. Weekends here are friday and saturday, so thursday truly is the new friday (narnia! I know i'm a really funny guy). Also, it is ridiculous how much sheesha gets smoked here, I see men from all backgrounds, rich and poor, old and young, in their neighborhood corner coffeeshop at 8:30 AM when I walk to class smoking hookah, playing chess, reading newspapers and talking with their friends and colleagues. While smoking sheesha has been traditionally a male activity, there are now a decent amount of ahwa's (coffeshops) where women are welcome, as well as the more trendy sheesha bars and cafes in the richer parts of town. The price is also ridiculous: in Boston, a hookah when you're going out costs like $20. Here, at one of the ahwas a hookah is 3 Egyptian Pounds (50 cents) and at even the nicest place it will cost 8 Pounds max. Pretty tight!