...with quite a few pictures. and these are the better ones and they exclude my holga photos, which won't be out for a while, since i have to wait a couple weeks for film processing. but if anyone cares, here are some places to look at what i was up to for the last 3 weeks.
bare bones highlights (30 pictures)
middle east little bits and extras (22 pictures)
sinai highlights (30 pictures)
cairo highlights (25 pictures)
making friends in egypt (39 pictures)
i read the title of this blog in a book the other day and i made my skeptical face. an unrequited love affair is more what i was thinking.
love cairo, but as a westerner, and a female westerner at that, i may love cairo but she will never love me back.
not that i love her by any means, she and i only need small doses of each other. sinai on the other hand, well we could run off together and be quite happy for a long time.
one more night. one more day. then back to the clock, back to my grind, back to the familiar which makes it possible for me to adapt to and adore the unfamiliar.
where i'll be
the sense of entitlement here is shocking for this western girl.
they touch. they grab. they stare. they hiss. they offer marriage or as one so eloquently put it, "for you, i will kill my wife."
and i am expected to do nothing. to take it and not complain.
there's only so much i can take. my line has been crossed. even in long sleeves, long pants, and wandering with a group, i am over cairo.
i am running away. to paradise.
but right now, a juicy cantelope just for syndie.
stumbled into the loo sometime last night to pee. i was without glasses and it was darkish in the room with a bit of ambient light coming from the window.
i am not sure what it was but there was a black oval thing. about 5 inches long and 2 inches wide, on the wall. it had lots of legs and took off in a serpentine fashion along the wall and disappeared behind the water heater.
when i got the light on, i could not see it for it must have escaped through the one of the holes in the wall.
a large centipede? maybe. disconcerting? for sure.
they are not stingy with their smokes here. in fact they will offer one every five minutes and it is not polite to refuse.
side note: cigarettes here are 3 egyptian pounds. that's roughly $0.55.
most popular brands: cleopatra and marlboro.
yesterday, i went to the pyramids by camel.
and then the taxi broke down. there was some yelling between my cab driver and the police. then i was driven by another man to the dahshur pyramid and left there.
an hour later, i started walking down the only road in sight in the middle of a desert like area.
then my cabbie found me and all was well.
he felt bad and bought me peaches and two big bottles of water.
more later. i am melting and covered in bug bites.
wandering around cairo is the best cure for ego. never have i felt more alien than i do here. even in long pants, t-shirt, and head scarf i am truly all foreigner and each pair of eyes i pass rake over me, taking in my appearance and eliciting a variety of responses. the women glare, the men smile, and the children point and laugh.
tomorrow, a long-sleeved shirt for sure.
tomorrow, the pyramids.
