catching up!
This one might be a little random, but bear with me. I'm going to try catch up a bit on our time at Luxor and the Red Sea, and share some more thoughts. We'll see how far I get! Firstly I want to comment on an important issue my grandparents raised, which is my "disappointment" at seeing amazing historical sites which in reality don't live up to one's imagination. While superficially at least this may be true, I have to stress that every aspectof this trip--everything I have done or seen--has been worthwhile. Every experience has value for me, because I am learning that the only variable that can truly determine whether an experience is positive or negative is my own attitude. The only thing I have control over is myself, and I can choose to see each situation as an opportunity to learn something about myself and the world around me. With this attitude, at a place like Troy or the Valley of the Kings, simply being there presents an opportunity to question the ephemeral nature of civilizations, and to use my own imagination to reconstruct the former glory that is only hinted at by the remains of the physical site today. This questioning and wondering is where the value lies, for me, in every place I go, and which makes even those "disappointing" sights undeniably important and worthwhile to see in person.
When we got back to Cairo from our fall break on the Red Sea and four days in Luxor after that, we did some more touring around Cairo. We spent half a day visiting the Giza Pyramids (which are completely the opposite of "disappointing"!) , and were able to climb all the way inside the Great Pyramid through dark, narrow tunnels to reach the impressive burial chamber in the center. What an incredible experience! I still can't quite believe how lucky I am to be able to say that I've been inside the Great Pyramid, probably the most famous building or monument in our cultural lexicon. Egypt is just incredible. While we were in Luxor, visiting the elaborately decorated tombs and temples in the Valley of the Kings was like walking through a dream world. I never thought I'd have the chance to do these things. Last week, we visited a part of Cairo called Garbage City, which is basically a large slum area between the City of the Dead (the vast cemetery of both ancient and new mausoleums) and the steep sandstone hills which mark the end of the Nile Valley and the beginning of the desert. Garbage City is where many of the city's unofficial garbage collectors live and work, sorting trash for recyling to make a living. Many large cities around the world have these so called 'garbage towns' but what makes this one unique is the large churches that have been carved out of the side of the sandstone mounains against which the city is built. The mostly Christian community created these churches without the knowledge of the government and they have become an incredible testimony to the faith and determination of the thousands of poverty-stricken people who have only been able to find work doing what no one else wants to do. The churches are decorated with beautiful carvings of famous scenes from the Old and New Testaments, with verses written in Arabic and english. It was breathtaking to see.
Well, I barely even touched on Luxor--more coming soon. To be continued!
post-Thanksgiving update
It's been a while since I've had time to sit down and write something substantial, since we've been moving around quite a lot in the last few weeks, what with our trip south to Luxor and Hurghada and then our Thanksgiving weekend in Alamein and Alexandria. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday--I know I missed being at home and seeing my family but I had a good day with my new "family" here!
We were actually in Alamein (site of WWII battle) on Thanksgiving day. We drove all day from Cairo, visiting the ancient monastery of St. Bishoi on the way, and ended up being the only group at an otherwise empty resort/hotel right on the Mediterranean. It was so beautiful, partly because we had basically a private beach to ourselves! The sand was so white and the water incredibly turquoise blue and fairly warm. So we had our Thanksgiving dinner there, and the next day we had free to relax and swim. I read a book (I've been doing a lot of that lately, which has been great!) and swam and walked out by myself to a small point, and did a lot of thinking. Then on saturday we visited the El-Alamein war museum, the German and Italian memorials, and the British commonwealth cemetery/memorial. It was powerful to see the gravestones rising out of the barren desert and to imagine young men fighting and dying by the thousands out there. It was overwhelming.
In the late afternoon we reached the city of Alexandria , which was neat because of its location right on the edge of the Mediterranean. Itwas cloudy and cool (well, cooler than Cairo anyway) and not smoggy. but there was not much to see in the city itself in terms of visible history because it has grown so much over the past 2000 years and much of the history is buried underneath the layers of modern urban sprawl. The Greco-Roman catacombs were really neat though, as was the Roman theatre where we all took turns standing in the center of the stage and making fools of ourselves while listening to the loud echo caused by the perfect acoustics of the place. The best part of Alexandria was visiting the new library that has been built near the site of the famous ancient Museum (library) of Alexandria. What a beautiful space! after our tour there we all spent an hour just browsing around. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is designed so that all 10 or so floors are open at once, with two staircases connecting the floors like giant steps, if you can imagine that. Although the new library is nothing like the old one, neither in architecture nor function (the old "Museum" was a place where great scholars and philosophers came together to think and produce scholastic literature, not a public lending library), it was an impressive place.
On Monday we got back to Cairo and had some free time before going out to see the new Harry Potter movie with our Egyptian friends. It was a lot of fun, although it feels like kind of a cop-out to watch a movie instead of taking advantage of being in Cairo. Oh well--that will probably be the first and only movie we see here! But it was fun anyway. The rest of this week we have more classes and this weekend we'll be touring part of the old Islamic Cairo where the great mosques and monuments of the Fatimids and Mamluks stand.
some thoughts.
I was looking over what I've written so far here and realized that I really haven't talked at all about some of the questions and issues that have been raised for me throughout the trip so far. This entry is partly motivated by the wonderful evening last night that we spent talking with three young Americans who are here working in Cairo for a year through a program sponsored by the Presbyterian and Lutheran (ELCA) churches. We spent a lot of time discussing reasons for coming on a trip like this, especially to countries in the Middle East, and what is possible to gain from our experiences. I am the kind of person who is constantly questioning and analyzing everything in life, especially myself; I am always trying to discern value and meaning in every situation and to apply my own understanding of ethics and justice to everything I encounter. Most of the time, I really don't have concrete answers, which I've learned to accept. But anyway, I just thought I'd share some of what has been running through my mind, as a matter of interest or possibly as a point of discussion in the future. Some food for thought:
- What is the value of traveling at all? It's great to be able to see things I've only read about in person, but what is gained by actually being there physically? One obvious answer is that, in a sense, one can't really experience the full gravity of something they have only read about or seen pictures of. While I think this is definitely true some of the time, on the other hand, some of the sights that I have seen have been disappointing--for example, the site of Troy. So, maybe the value of traveling does not lie in simply what we see or do, but in what our attitude is towards the experience as a whole. Being a tourist is fun, but it is too shallow of a perspective. You can't go into a country looking to "get something out of it" because the reality is you will always be disappointed in some way; the only way to have a meaningful experience then is to be open and flexible and non-judgmental. Does that mean we have to take off our own cultural and moral lenses through which we've seen everything in life so far? Is that even possible?
- More later...I have so many thoughts running through my head that I can't begin to put them all down right now. But I guess that is a good thing. So, to be continued....
blessings,
Abby
cairo is insane
Again I have to apologize for neglecting to update my blog for so long...almost a month now, I think....that's so bad! Well, it's hard to believe that yesterday marked the halfway point of this trip. Perhaps it was fitting to mark such a momentous point by having a major group breakdown, which is what happened last night. I won't get into details, because there's really no point, but I do want to highlight something that is very positive, which is the fact that all 12 of us were able to sit down together and really share our feelings about a number of issues that have been simmering below the surface for a long time and just now reached the boiling point. It is inevitable that group dynamics are not smooth all the time, so it's normal that there are difficulties that we have to deal with. Plus, on top of everything, there is the general stress of having been away from familiar territory for over 2 months now and the lack of freedom that comes along with traveling and, especially for women, traveling in third world and Muslim countries. I'm really looking forward to our fall break on the Red Sea, which is coming up on Tuesday!
Anyway, now we are in Egypt. Cairo is a crazy place, it turns out, especially during the week-long holiday marking the end of Ramadan, which just concluded yesterday. But in general, the city is crowded, dirty, noisy and overwhelmingly busy. We are staying at the Cosmopolitan Hotel downtown, which is an experience in and of itself. The hotel was a chic hangout place for journalists during WWII, and one gets the feeling that not much about the hotel has really changed since then, except (thankfully) the carpets. It has the atmosphere of a place that once was probably pretty awesome. There are huge lobbies on each floor and the ceilings are 12 feet high; it would be the perfect setting for a horror movie! Or a really good game of hide and go seek....
Our classes at American University are amazing. John Swanson, our main professor, is basically an expert on most subjects, from anthropology to zoology and everything in between. No joke, he's amazing. On Friday we had a whirlwind bus tour of the city, the highlight of which was catching a glimpse of the Giza Pyramids beyond the eastern bank of the Nile as we circumnavigated the city. I can't wait to get out there to see them soon.
Yesterday morning we visited the famous and incredible Egyptian Museum,which is downtown and only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. I will be going back there multiple times, because there is just too much to see! I still can't believe I actually saw the coffin and sarcophagus of KingTut and the treasures of his tomb. That, along with the city of Ephesus, has been one of the few things I've been looking forward to during this trip that have not been even the least bit disappointing. Last night, to cap things off, we went to dinner at an amazing Lebanese restaurant across town. It was a minor victory because it was our first time getting in cabs here in Cairo. It helped that we had directions in Arabic from our hotel receptionist!
This morning Jenna, Denise and I went with Mac and Jackie to church at St. Andrew's, a small ecumentical church whose congregation is largely made up of ex-pats and African refugees. We met a couple of American guys who are volunteering through a program with the ELCA (Lutheran church) and are here in Cairo working with Sudanese refugees involved in programs set up by St. Andrew's. It was interesting to talk to them, and hopefully in the next few weeks we will have to opportunity to volunteer with the refugees as well. It would be incredible to get involved somehow with that program.
Now, we have one more day of class before our fall break at Hurghada, on the Red Sea, and our excursion down to Luxor after that. Hopefully I will have tons of amazing pictures from the Valley of the Kings, the Karnak temple, and other awesome sites. And while I'm on that subject, drumroll please....I think I may have figured out a much more efficient way of uploading pictures! I am trying Yahoo!Photo which is working well so far. So for now, I am going to just post a link to my pictures from this blog so it they are easy to find from here. so, here it is:
http://photos.yahoo.com/abbymatthews_23Let me know what you think! I was able to get more pictures up, in a better format, although I didn't comment about any of them. Anyway, hopefully I will have a chance to update again soon. Until then, love and greetings from Egypt to you all!
