I spy, with my little eye...

I realized something yesterday, while thinking about what I might write about. I have a lot of time to think during the day, as you will soon learn. One thing I realized is that I have neglected one of the most important discussions, that of the everyday visual. That may be in part because it’s so obvious to you that you see with your physical eyes what you see, so why would you need to tell anyone about the ordinary view. Your thoughts are obviously something that others aren’t privy to, and from a visual sense, only when something spectacular enters your field of view do you consider it noteworthy to share. But you don’t see what I see.

What do I see? If you could describe Cairo in two words, they would be “big” and “brown.” Big. Of course the city is big, in a square area. It has to be, to hold the some 20 million it does (don’t quote me on that number, I hear lots of different numbers from different people). But what else is big? The buildings are. In this I mean that the majority of buildings are apartments, ranging from 5-12 stories high. And brown. All the buildings are brown, if they were originally made of stone, or reddish-gray if originally brick. This is because of the dust. This is a very dusty city. (A brief gross interlude: I learned that mucus and nose hair both have very useful filtering purposes. Now, when I blow my nose, I find that there is lots of grey in the Kleenex, because it is a collection of filtered dust and pollution.) As I was saying, all the buildings are the same color, a dirty, dusty light-ish brown.

There is a conspicuous absence of space and color. There are a few trees, but they do not dominate the landscape to say the least. Those trees that do persist are often quite dusty, and they don’t have a strong and healthy appearance. But of course, I’m painting a broad picture with a broad brush. It is more correct to distinguish between regions. The richer the area, the more trees, the lower the buildings, the more color, the greater the space. The poorer areas are more grey and brown and devoid of trees and color. I work in both types of places, and you can really feel the difference.

Then…the people. How to describe? Moustaches aren’t quite as out of fashion here as they are there, so you find lots of men with them. Most people look Middle Eastern, but there is a range of light/dark. Still, you don’t see many foreigners at all, except in certain places. Men dress conservatively, either button shirts and slacks, or galabayya’s (I don’t know the proper spelling). A galabayya is basically like a nightgown. It’s more common for older men and people from Upper Egypt. The galabayya is often accessorized by a scarf wrapped around the head. And it’s still winter, so for everyone sweaters and (regular) scarves are common. (This is a guess, but) about 70% of the women (i.e. females above say 15) wear veils of some type. These come in a variety of shapes and styles. This percentage also varies by region, with some regions having a higher percentage of Christians/Muslims, or varying by conservatism. When you consider that this 70% of women includes 20% Christian, the figure comes closer to 85% of Muslim women are veiled (again, this just by my estimation).

I can’t put a percentage on it, but a very small but present population is fully veiled, exposing only eyes or not at all. And almost always she is wearing all black. This was one of the biggest culture shocks for me when I first came, but I’m fairly used to it now. It’s still weird to see a fully veiled woman when she’s walking with her regularly dressed husband, and they are talking or shopping or doing anything normal that couples do. It’s weird because 2/3 of equation (the activity and the husband) looks totally normal to me, and the other 1/3 seems out of place. But, like most things, I’m getting used to it. I expect some visual reverse culture shock upon coming home.

Okay so that’s just a bit on what you see here.