On our longest trip together yet, we spent 10 days in Cairo, Egypt. I had to go for work and it worked out that Juanjo could join me (at the last minute–he bought his ticket two days before we left–and it cost him less than it cost me!). The trip was an adventure for us, and a lesson in a new and very different culture. We visited our first mosques, and felt how deeply religion marks the daily lives of Muslims. We braved the local taxis, careening along streets that seemed to have no rules other than to look out for other people and never stop–not even at red lights! It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “drive defensively”.
Then of course we saw the pyramids, beginning with the oldest pyramid in Egypt, a step pyramid that is more than 5000 years old, and ending at the grand pyramids of Giza.
I became fascinated with the Arabic language, both by its sounds and by its beautiful letters. I could truly spend the rest of my life studying languages and history and be perfectly happy! Tourism is the largest industry for Egypt though, and people addressed us in English and Spanish with equal frequency (Juanjo’s dark and handsome Spanish good looks gave him away in seconds!). As far as tourism though, we were more inclined to take the advise of the tourist guides but find our own way through the city, walking through regular neighborhoods where the sea of humanity was sometimes overwhelming but where we felt like we were getting a truer sense of daily life for the regular Egyptian. Men especially live and work in the streets, and walking on sidewalks is most of the time impossible because you have to pick your way around furniture, fruits and vegetables for sale, people sitting on the street and an occasional donkey. I was especially glad to have Juanjo with me on these walks, as I would not have been able to walk it alone. Few if any women had their hair uncovered, and in general we did not see many women on their own in the streets. We took the subway one day, which has cars reserved for women only. Women can go in other cars, but many prefer not to. It was quite an experience for me to stand in a subway with my uncovered hair and Western dress and have many pairs of eyes openly, curiously, staring at me–the only woman in the car.
On the whole, the experience opened my eyes to a new culture and impressed upon me anew the need to look outside our borders and really see how other people live. Only by getting to know other cultures can we understand our own place in the world, and have a sense of the larger picture of humanity. I hope this was the first of many such trips for Juanjo and me–the conversations we had and what we saw showed us how much we can learn and grow together. I feel so lucky to have the man and the job that I have–Who would have thought I would end up here?!
