Tant Andrea

Marhaban!  I've been staying in downtown Cairo with the family of my friend and Arabic teacher from San Francisco.  It's exciting living in the heart of the capital of Egypt!  This family definitely exemplifies Arabic hospitality.  They warmly accepted me into their home and made me feel like family right away, even though they didn't know I was coming! My hosts, Morad and Amani, have a 6-year old daughter named Mirna who calls me Tant;  it translates to "auntie" and it's used to address a woman who is a friend of the family, but more than a friend.  We don't really have a word like this in English.  I really hope I can improve my Arabic while staying with them, and of course be as gracious a guest as they are hosts.  Amani showed me how to make ahwah, or turkish style coffee, and she'll show me how to read the grounds as well.  I did her make-up for her for the engagement party we attended today.  I'm helping Mirna learn English and, like her uncle Maher in San Francisco, she's being a great teacher of Arabic for me.  My favorite phrase that she taught me is "Butnee Hatinfigl" or "my belly is going to explode."  That's what you say when you have just eaten and you are very full and you are 6 years old.  Or you are a silly grown-up like me.

I've gotten most of the tourist stuff out of the way so now I can pretend I'm a local.  True to my word, I'm getting the most out of experiencing things I've never experienced before in Cairo.  
Morad and Amani took me Muqattam which is an area southeast of Cairo.  It's an elevated platueau with an amazing view of Cairo!  It's so lovely at night--cool, fresh, and there was even an impromptu ahwa or coffeeshop there.  Unfortunately the police came and closed down the ahwa for operating without a permit or something like that.  Hey it was my first police raid in Egypt how exciting is that!  Today they took me to an engagement party in the "popular style." Basically this means that the family decorates a small section of the street with lights, puts ups a pretty dais for the happy couple, hires a DJ and band, and people dance and clap and cheer in the street!  I got some great pictures and video of the dancing!!!!!  Kids, adults, men, and women were dancing up a storm!!!  In case you didn't know, Egypt is the home of the what we call "belly dance" in the U.S.  Of course I danced with them--how could I resist the music and the celebratory vibe?   I've said it many times, the Egyptians are the best dancers of raqs baladi and this footage proves it.  

I'm glad there weren't any chickens
Last thing I'm going to write about now, because it is 4 a.m. in Cairo for crying out loud, is the zar Amani took me to.  My fourth time in Cairo and finally I get to see a real zar!  A zar is an event which is increasingly hard to find and is considered haraam according Islam.  It's where women go to get into a trance and feverishly dance out their demons.  (Why only women and not men?  I don't know.  Maybe that's what soccer is for.)  There are musicians pounding out music that is supposed to induce the trance and you dance until you faint.  Sometimes they slaughter chickens at these zars too.  Sounds voodoo-ish and cool huh?  They started with a prayer, then lit incense and let everyone sort of bath in the smoke, and then musicians started banging away!   At the start there were only 3 women in addition to Amani and I, but later more kept trickling in.  They were all country-folk.  Several women danced and fainted and one had the most crazy look on her face and attacked one of the drummers as if he was one of her demons!  (got footage of this too.)  In retrospect I don't believe that the trances were real.  How can you enter a trance, faint, recover your sense in less than 5 minutes?  That's how the trances happened.  I'd think it would take at least an hour of continuous music and dancing to achieve that.  I'm convinced that one of the ladies was working with the band, dancing wildly to convince us that their music is magical and the zar is working.  At any rate it was damn entertaining and the music was great!  Real trance or not, the women there must have had some real problems in their lives to bring them to the zar.  Maybe someone's mother was ill, or her husband cheated on her, or her sister disappeared.   I asked Amani the rhetorical question, "I wonder what their problems were?"  and she answered "Maganeen.  (They are crazy.)"