Bits & Pieces

Veggie heaven, running incidents and the beauty of being lost

Today, I finally got around to put on my beloved running shoes and go for a long run around Cairo. I’ve been hesitant to run in this city for various reasons: it’s dirty and polluted, it’s crowded and hot, the traffic is crazy and everyone stares at me (I prefer to run in the dark when no one can see me). But the thing is I love running and it’s been way too long since I left the Swedish forests so I would probably get more crazy from not running at all, than I would from running in this dirty and sometimes crazy city. 

So how was it? Well I almost started to cry a couple of times due to all the dust and shit that kept getting into my eyes (but, crying is a good way for the body to detox I’ve heard), I was almost run over by a car (but, hey only once), I got stared at, honked at and called out by men (but, I didn’t understand what they said and I kept my music on loud so I almost didn’t notice) and then I got lost half of the time, (BUT you know what they say right?! It is only when you are lost that you can be found (or something along those lines)).

So as I was running around trying to find my way back to Agouza, I got a bit lost - I thought I was in Zamalek, but I was actually in Dokki and I even ended up running inside a cafe for a little while as I was trying to find the right street. (yeah, don’t ask me how this happened, let’s just say I’m very good at getting lost and running into things.. ) Yet, it ended up being a perfect morning - I got to see parts of the city that I haven’t seen before and I found the most amazing veggie and fruit markets (vegan heaven!).

In my mind, to get lost in a new city is actually the best way of experience a new place. It is always when I get lost that I find my favorite places that are not touristy and commercialized. So go and get lost :P 

The wind at my back and the sun on my face

My room is dark, I hear the Fajr outside. It doesn’t bother me, I enjoy the sound of the prayers, even the Fajr, which is the first prayer, one that often wakes me up before the sun has risen over the city that never sleeps. The city that is my new home. The city that is the largest city in the Middle East. Cairo. My Cairo.  

I love Cairo, I love my new life in Cairo. I love how different it is from Sweden and I love how I’m adapting to my new life here. How I now quickly zigzag between the never-ending stream of cars, how I by default says shukrān instead of thank you and how I no longer notice how people, mostly men, stare at me. I love how quickly I have found new friends here, wonderful friends, Egyptian friends. Friends that teach me about the Egyptian life, such as how they have a special language for driving and what the myriads of honks mean to why the majority of Egyptians will not vote in the upcoming election and what really happened during the Arab spring. I love waking up in Cairo. I love waking up to the Fajr and to the busy streets. It is like you hear the sound of life. You hear it when you fall asleep and you hear it when you wake up. 

This morning is different. This morning I don’t love the sound of life. This morning I don’t want to wake up. Life is not beautiful, not today. The Middle East is infected by bad politics, the whole world is infected by bad politics. By greed and evil and by conflicts over power and religion. Conflicts that should never happen. But the world is also infected by ignorance, how come everyone changes their Facebook profile to a French flag, but no one changes it to a South Sudan flag, a Syrian flag or a Somalia flag? How come the media in my home country Sweden reports about dead children on beaches in Europe, but fails to mention how children in South Sudan are forced out to swamps in order to flee violence and deaths? 

Don’t people care about people that are far away or do people simply fail to see what is happening outside of their own continent? Maybe it is too much for most people. Actually not maybe, it is definite. There are too many bad things that happen all the time in the world, so many bad things that most people don’t have the energy to care about things anymore. That is why I didn’t want to wake up this morning, there is so much evil that I didn’t want to care anymore. But I do. And so should you. Because the minute we stop caring, is the minute when evil wins. It is hard, caring is hard, but we have to, it is our responsibility, it is everything. Because life is still beautiful, there are still good people, beautiful places and beautiful days that are worth fighting for. So keep caring, but do more than that, open your eyes and look beyond your home country, beyond your daily newspaper, beyond your Facebook feed. Learn about the world, all of the it, and try to understand. Understand other cultures, understand other people and understand that it is only by understanding others that we can find peace.

More pictures from this weekend’s pyramid-adventure! Brian, a friend from work, who is also my roommate, and I went to Giza this Saturday to visit the pyramids. They were really cool and I got to ride both a horse and a camel, which was fun. Riding a camel was kind of like riding a horse, except that the camel is a hell lot taller! I was happy to cross of some more stuff off my long bucket list!  (Camel-selfie, check!)

The desert was stunning and very hot! It is actually kind of weird that I live in the desert, you don’t really think about it when you're in the city, but you have to keep drinking lots of water to stay hydrated. 

In Egypt the weekend is through Friday and Saturday, thus I work from Sunday to Thursday. So this weekend, i.e. Friday and Saturday, I wanted to do as much fun as possible and explore more of Egypt as I am pretty busy during the weekdays and doesn’t get to see much more than the office, the houseboat and the occasional late-evening-shisha.. And I really succeeded with my mission. So much that I haven’t had time to update the blog for a while and so much that tumblr won’t allow me to upload all the pictures I want to in one post. So I guess I have to upload several posts!

Let’s start with my Friday afternoon! Ahmed picked me up and took me to Khan el Khalil, an old part of Cairo. Khan el Khalil really blew my mind and I can highly recommend it to anyone who plans to come to Egypt! I loved the genuine atmosphere and the beautiful handicrafts at the market. I got to try sugarcane juice (very very sweet, but nice), barbecued corn cob (tastes kind of like popcorn) and traditional tea (the tea here is amazing!). Ahmed also took me to a beautiful mosque, where I finally could wear my veil (I think veils are aesthetically pleasing) and I finally got a tattoo, although only a henna, but I will use the henna tattoos as trial versions until I manage to figure out what kind of tattoo I want. 

At a certain point it started to rain, which is very rare for Cairo. The rain makes people go a bit crazy and the kids started to play football in the water and danced around in the rain. Pretty hilarious for a Swede who is used to rain, but I guess Egyptians think I’m a bit crazy for walking around in the garden in a bikini in the middle of November.. :)

My life is ridicules, I live in the freakin Middle-East! (I still can’t wrap my head around it..) I live in a city that has more, a lot more, inhabitants than the entire Sweden. A city that is so busy that you can’t feel anything else than alive. A city where nights turn into days and makes you feel like one day is an eternity.