Dahab, in Memory

I loved Dahab. Look back and few posts and you'll see the fun I had in that tiny strip of hippy tourist heaven. Two days ago three terrorist bombs turned it into hell.

I had friends who were there, they screamed "Get down" as they heard one explosion after the other, one in a place they had shopped at an hour before. Another friend of mine was at one of the bombed restaurants, in the midst of screams and smoke. Around him lay his friends, some badly hurt. Less than 15 feet away his waiter lay dead - his brains and blood splattered across the floor. My friend escaped death that day, touched only by fate.

Some call this evil. Some say it's a play against the West or the Egyptian government. But I know who really felt it: The normal people -- Egyptians and foreigners.

The Egyptians: Denied the same hospital care foreigners got; told to look for friends among a stack of dead bodies; forced to watched as the town mayor pranced in among the carnage to see the damage -- until the angry, tearful owner of a destroyed restaurant grabbed him by his lapels and gave him a conscience in cuss words.

The foreigners: Vacationing German and American doctors quietly consoling the frantic and the dying, cheerfully bring some back from the brink of despair and death; a friend who wonders still if it's safe to go outside and can't stop wondering if that nice Egyptian man she met at a restaurant is alive or dead.

Dahab was peace. It was happiness. It was Bob Marley with an Egyptian accent. Now the burned bloody holes on the battered boardwalk serve notice that something worse than death can strike, turning each day into the blackest night.

It's called fear.

The Changing Relationship - China and the Middle East

In the 'Well put, old chap' quotes department:

Yet Saudis are quick to note that China's gain is not necessarily America's loss. China cannot provide the security guarantees that the United States has to most of the countries in the Gulf region. In that light, the idea that Saudi Arabia would turn entirely to China can also be seen as a bit of political stagecraft.

"We are in a Catholic marriage with America," Bahlaiwa said, emphasizing that divorce was unthinkable. "But we are also Muslims - we can have more than one wife."

Read the rest of the story.

In Italy, Blushing at Knees

I spent all of 13 hours in Milan, Italy on my way to Senegal. I was a bit woozy still from the sleeping pill I popped as my Alitalia flight went wheels up from Cairo International.

I wasn't going to be ambitious, just curious. Wander around Milan a little bit, savoring the fact that I had packed less then I usually would for a sleepover. Maybe drink an espresso and flex my childlike Italian.

But then there were . . . the women's knees.

See, in Cairo? No womanly knees, no legs at all really. Now it's not like I have some thing for knees, you understand. It's just, living in an Islamic country means you get used to seeing a lot less of the female species than usual.

This means that anytime I go to places in Egypt with Western tourists, be it the beach in Dahab or the entrance of the Egyptian Museum, I have this immediate reaction, similar to what most people in the Midwest US would feel if someone came down the street in nothing but a bikini bottom. Mothers would call children indoors and the town hall bell would announce an emergency city council meeting to discuss the latest affront to good taste, apple pie and baseball. Well not quite. They'd probably just say "Stupid Yuropeans" and go back to their coffee.

Okay, so my reactions are different: Raised eyebrows, usually, and some under-the-breath comment about low women. Or, "they must be Eastern European prostitues," as some friends of mine whispered as two slinky minxes high-hipped by us at the Egyptian Museum.

The point is: You get used to the modesty. It starts to affect how you feel about people.

In Milan, immodesty surrounded me. I think my face turned a shade of the red-light district and stayed that way throughout my entire visit.

Other than be embarrased the whole time, I really didn't do anything that exciting. Wandered to the city center, window shopping along the way. Went in the big cathedral, where I sobbed my eyes out (still working on the reasons for that).Had a cappucino AND espresso by the central piazza. Ate a Texas McMenu meal mostly because you could get beer with it. I had to "Maxi-size" the meal to get the beer. Drat.

Hours later I shoved my Euros in my bag. No more fashion shopping for me - West Africa, here I come.

Dahab - Abdullah's Unstable Water and Other Arguments

It was a weekend. That’s it, nothing special. But I smelled sand, snorkels and seafood, and for poor students in Egypt, that means Dahab.

It’s not that special of a place, really. Most of the resort towns springing up around the Red Sea are just that: Package tourist hell courtesy of piped-in trees and spray-painted cement. But Dahab, while just a blip on the Eastern edge of the Sinai, tries to be different.

It’s hippy-heaven.

Or was, anyway. Like most hippies, Dahab has aged and gotten a bit more practical. The days of huts on the beach are long gone – now there is a plethora of rasta-shops, pizza places, and beach-seafood joints with hawkers who’s best English is the type meant to get you to eat at what is (obviously, they say) the best place. Among dozens.

Unlike Cairo, Dahabian English is decidedly Caribbean. Tinny strains of Bob Marley dribble out of inadequate speakers. Want some lemon juice with your fish? “Ya mon,” says the waiter, his carved-shell ganja necklace fighting for hang time with the dreads that sprout from his Muslim head.

Ah, Egypt. How thou doth confuse me.

I went with a trio of friends – K, D, and M. Oh, what fun. Nothing like mixing friends in the blender of travel and seeing what comes out the other side.

Of course, like any small town, you run into people you know – a gaggle of other AUC students, in my case. Before you know it, we were doing things in bunches; my dream of a vibrant foursome now shot to shreds.

Meet Abdullah. He’s a Jordanian-Palestinian, but more American than I. He’s down with the latest lingo, the current pop culture. Want an obscure (but like, way hilarious, bro) movie reference? Abdullah’s your man. He’s also massive – he played football for a US college team. Three years I think, y0.

Like a cloud, we descended on an “Indian” restaurant for supper that night. We expected quality. After all, the sign out front clearly said “Real Indian Chef.” Ya mon, don’t even try going to the other Indian restaurants on this Egyptian beach – they only have Egyptians steamin’ up THEIR jasmine rice.

Jamaicans, Indians, Egyptians. The multi-ethnic electricity zapped in my head. Especially because most of the tourists hailed from Russia’s Great White North.

I saw one Russian woman, wearing an accent and little else, talking with a man who looked disturbingly like Osama bin Laden. Osama is from Saudi Arabia, has a long beard, wears a turban and a camouflage jacket, and enjoys repression. He likes long walks on the beach.

I almost wanted to flash a peace sign at the guy and say, “one love, bro.”

It got late, K and D got happily smashed. K gets un-quiet and D gets boisterous, by the way. They happily chatted about things, and slowly fell over backwards on their bench. The better to see the stars, I guess.

Before you know it, D and M got into deep discussion about, um, things – you know, politics, the environment, religion, values, morality. Nothing that could offend, obviously.

In a short amount of time, daring D insulted M’s man (“He’s a dullard”), convinced her he didn’t feel anyone’s pain (especially poor people or animals), and was going to sell his services to the highest bidding oil company, morality be hanged.

M wasn’t going to let any of that stand unchallenged. Hoo, boy – there’s a good time. For the record, D is not like that. He just was that night.

Then a fellow AUCian strolled into the picture, about the time D and K checked out together – riding the bench into the starlight of sodden dreams.

I missed most of the conversation. Let’s just say, when I came back to get M (she had my room key, mon), she and the AUCian were in a dueling stance ten paces apart. The other girl lifted her pistol . . .

“You just open the Bible, and read it, and you’ll see what is true,” she said.

Such good hippy conversation.

I promised to mention Abdullah’s Unstable Water. The next day he couldn’t get his fins on for snorkeling, his rotund body splashing in the shallow water. “I can’t do it,” he said. “the water’s unstable.” I looked around and didn’t see a pop culture reference coming to his aid, so I did.

Maybe you don’t care, but the best part of the weekend was when I flew through the water, flapping my wings like the large manta ray soaring 10 feet away. It didn’t say anything about Jesus, but I had water in my ears. I might not have caught it.

Adventures with Saeed, or, How Not to Get Religion, Drunk or Stoned

His name was Saeed. First impression? Old, stately guy in a big, blue button-up sweater, a scar on his weathered face. Walked with a bit of a limp.

“Taxi,” he told me, giving himself permission to not only tell me the story of the fateful traffic encounter, but educate me on the danger of headstrong drivers in a headlong rush.

I had known him for three minutes.

He had asked the time, and found out I was American. In a rush, we bonded in a love for WWE wrestling. Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t actually love the soap opera episodes inherent in the onscreen lives of angry, tight-wearing sweaty men. I just know a bit about it all, enough to carry on a conversation about Brock Lesnar versus The Undertaker.

Oh - Lesnar, all the way, right?

A casual conversation led into a long afternoon smoking sheesha and drinking tea and talking about life. Mostly him talking, though - in the broken English he said he learned from watching wrestling and listening to the BBC.

Eventually he ran out of English and I ran out of Arabic. We sat in companionable silence, watching the flow of the street – donkey carts and 1960s-era taxis jostling for position; The occasional traffic cop, worthless as they often tend to be in Cairo, casually gesturing for no-one to go anywhere.

After several hours, he took me close by to his neighborhood mosque. The imam and I looked at each other, both a bit confused, I think. But Saeed knew what was going on: He wanted to tell me about Islam, and what it should mean to me.

His English fell flat. I got it, regardless: his passion signaled in the way he squeezed my hand, the zeal shining in his eyes. The pleading in his voice.

“This is how you get to Heaven,” he said, handing me a mosque copy of the Koran. “Praise god, praise god, praise god,” he said in Arabic - with fervency so familiar to me from my youth spent in revivals, special meetings, Wednesday night Bible studies and Sunday school.

We sat for awhile. Soon, I left for class – but not until we arranged for him to come over to my apartment the next day to cook fish. “GOOD fish,” he said.

It took about a day to change my mind. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it: Was I leery of inviting a stranger I barely knew into a home I shared with two girls? Was I a coward, afraid of too much unknown in my zone of comfort?

The next day, he showed up and instead of fish at my place, I took him out. Or rather, he took ME out, to a bar – across from a mosque – like a good Muslim. “Are you happy?” He asked. Sure, I’m happy, Saeed. (But was it disappointment I felt? What was I expecting? What exactly was I doing? Why did I feel so strange deep in my gut? Why was I checking for my wallet?)

Then, off to a restaurant a few blocks from his house for some cheap grilled meat, bread and salad. Afterward we went a block down to drink some tea and look at more traffic. “We should buy hashish,” he said, conspiratorially.

I wasn’t smoking hash, I didn’t want beer, and I didn’t want to become a Muslim. The feeling in the pit of my stomach grew even stronger.

I said goodbye. He seemed sorry and sad, although I’m not sure why. In my mind, I pretended it was because we had shared good times and good conversation, not because he was disappointed I didn’t want to get religious, drunk or stoned.

I was sick all night. The next day, I spent hours in the bathroom, vomiting.

I still tell myself it was the salad.