Cairo, Egypt: Week 1 ! أهلاً وسهلاً للقاهرة

I arrived here around 2:30 am Egyptian time from Tel Aviv, responding to all questions in Hebrew instead of Arabic (oy vey). The first week was orientation week for Study Abroad students. We toured Old Cairo (where I saw the synagogue built on the exact place Moses was scooped up from the Nile), we went on a falluqa (Egyptian sail boat) ride on the Nile, I saw the pyramids, I went on my own adventures with other students and I filled out a lot of paperwork.

I am touching the Great Pyramid in Giza. You can see the Pyramids in the distance from the city which is very cool. I haven't discovered any secret tombs yet, but I still have the whole year so I didn't want to rush it on my first week.

A reinactment of the hard labor my ancestors performed in the land of Egypt.

My schoolbus.

First Mosque in Egypt.

Souq Khan el Khalili: This is a market where men ask me how many camels I am worth and tell me how beautiful I am. (This is a very good place to go to build your self esteem). I now know I am worth 1 million camels and look like a spice girl.

And apparently my gentlemen friends are very lucky to have 3 beautiful wives.
Hungy anyone?

Me and Ali.
One thing really amazing about being in Egypt during at this time is experiencing a bit of Ramadan. Each day Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown, by the last few hours of the fast a lot of the city shuts down and things for Cairo standards are pretty quiet. All of a sudden the call to prayer is heard from wherever you are (Allahu Akbar!) and everyone breaks their fast at the same time at the iftar meal. While walking through the markets with some AUC friends, strangers invited us to join their meal. It is traditional as part of the spirit of Ramadan to welcome anyone to the iftar meal. We ate with a shopkeeper and his family communicating through broken english, arabic and hand gestures and smiles. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life, to be so welcomed by a complete stranger. I soon saw that hospitality was a very strong trait in Egyptian culture. Later that night we bought spices from a man who invited us to his iftar another night, the photo above is of me and the spice man's (Salah) son's friend, Ali who continued to follow us after the meal.
Brianna, myself, Ellen touring a 700 year old mosque in downtown Cairo.
(Mosque etiquette: shoes off, headscarf on)

Lying in Cairo: When I got to the dorm I was asked about my flight: how long was it? where did you fly from? And so the lying began to save me from explaining my trip to Israel. My next lies followed with saying I am a vegetarian (you are currently reading the blog of a kosher steak enthusiast). Many people asked me why I was vegetarian and at first it was hard to stick with one story, but luckily the inquiries have mostly stopped. The biggest lie of course has been the question of religion. When asked by American students I say I find beauty in all religion and I really enjoy studying religions. Only today in fact I was directly asked by two friends on separate occasions who perhaps suspected. I was also asked by an Egyptian man who I briefly met if I was Christian and I said yes. Lying about my Jewish identity is mentally very straining and upsetting and it can be very hard to be myself sometimes. Even in my sociology class I am required to write an essay titled "Who Am I?" and I still have not decided if I will write about who I actually am or simply continue with my alter-ego.

Antisemitism in Cairo: It is interesting to experience anti-semetism when no one knows you're Jewish. My orientation Arabic teacher was talking about the meaning of hijab (headscarf Muslim women wear) and then said Jewish women don't understand modesty because they only cover their hair after marriage, and something about how they believe their hair is sinful. I used a Jewish website on my ipod to explain to this women the Jewish traditions and confronted her without outing myself. I've also seen t-shirts that say "free palestine" with a palestinian flag over the entire map of Israel, students who joke about how Israel probably controls Egypt's internet and can just stop it whenever they want, and of course swastikas all over the city. Most of the antisemetic propaganda is directly from the Holocaust and I can easily pick up an Arabic copy of Mein Kempf from the little stand in front of my grocery store that only sells Hitler's book, the Qur'an and maybe 10 other options.