The Ahwa

Probably the thing that I will miss the most about Egypt, if I had to name it, would be the ahwa culture here (aside of course from the friends I have made and my glorious apartment!). "Ahwa" is the word for coffee in Arabic, but it also has the meaning of a coffeehouse, or cafe. These cafes are not the Western or European style cafes, but a completely Arabic experience that has existed for hundreds of years. Throughout downtown, and all parts of Cairo, you see tiny hole in the wall places that have a couple dingy chairs and tables outside of them. People (mostly men) are sitting on these tables, smoking shisha pipes, drinking tea and coffee (invariably Turkish coffee which is soo good), reading newspapers and playing backgammon and chess.

There's a whole range of ahwas, from really tiny, dirty ones that have the same thirty men sitting there every day to really nice one's like Fishawi's in Khan al-Khalili (the main bazaar) that is always full of businessmen, Egyptian tourists and foreigners (the pictures below are from Fishawi's). My favorite ahwa is definitely Ahwa Zahara-Bustan, which is a small ahwa in an alley off one of the main roads downtown. It is an ahwa in the middle of the spectrum: you see both women and foreigners there, but its in a sorta dingy location and the prices are phenomenal (15 cents for a tea/coffee, 50 cents for a shisha pipe). This ahwa used to be famous because it was the intellectual haunt of Cairo--apparently Nasser and the Free Officers made plans for their famous revolution in 1952 here.

The ahwa is just an amazing place, a place to hang out with your friends for hours talking, playing awesome games and just watching people all around you. It's too bad that we don't have a similar type of social institution in the States. Its place is sorta taken up by the bar scene, but that is a little too hectic sometimes, and doesn't allow for chill and conversation-centered socializing. If you ever, EVER, come to the Arab world (or Turkey), I say that you MUST go sit in an ahwa (not a trendy one, but a regular one), and you will probably become obsessed with it just like me.