Cairo Hospitality

A word to the wise. Never, ever, under any circumstances, take out a map while you are on the streets near Tahrir Square in Cairo. Before you can say "Which way is north?" someone very friendly will be at your side offering to lead you to the Cairo Museum. Funny thing, though, on the way to the museum there is always a perfume shop/papyrus museum/spice vendor owned by my brother/cousin/uncle where we just have to stop in to have a cup of tea......and while you are here, let me just show you our best essential oil/scroll/saffron. When you try to leave they will protest that you MUST have the cup of tea, it's Egyptian hospitality. We got wise after the second perfume shop and the 200 Egyptian pounds worth of orange oil (with "free" perfume bottle!) After we escaped from the perfume shop John said he thinks that people exploit the tradition of hospitality to take advantage of tourists. He has a point.



However, we have seen the other side of Cairo hospitality.



We were standing on the cement barrier in the middle of the street outside the Islanmic Art Museum, getting ready to play chicken with six lanes of traffic. He was carrying a backpack and a copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". "It's busy" he said. "It's awesome" I answered, "Harry Potter?". He explained that he teaches English to children ages 6 - 9 and he's going to read it out loud to them, because they will have fun listening to the story. Once across the street he introduced himself, Mohamed, and asked where we were going. We don't know, we said, (quite honestly) because while John was at the hostel doing his math assignment we planned to wander through the Islamic neighbourhood. "There are three things you must do while you are in Cairo," he said. "You must visit a mosque and climb the minaret, you must drink real Egyptian tea, and you must try the spice called bohdrat. I will show you." He had not offered us a business card or suggested we should go to the shop of his brother/cousin/uncle, so we decided to follow.



The mosque was not one of the famous, thousand year old places, it was his mosque, across the street from his apartment. He said he was happy to visit with us for a while because his wife just had a baby, which makes three boys under the age of five, plus his mother-in-law and his wife's sister in the apartment! The first stop was the mosque (shoes off, headscarf on). Mohamed told us we should give the caretaker a donation of twenty Egyptian pounds (about 5 dollars). There was some anxious talk in Arabic. The caretaker wanted to show us what the donation would be used for: some for maintenance of the mosque, some for medicine for the poor people who come to see the doctor who volunteers at the mosque, some to buy children's clothes to give to poor families. Works for me! Before we climbed the minaret Mohamed sat us down and explained the different areas of the mosque and how it is used everyday. He pointed out the 700 year old wooden screen dividing the prayer area from the inner courtyard and the women's prayer place. Then it was up the tower, and up the tower, and UP the tower, to see the view of the city.



After we came down from the minaret, Mohamed said "I want to take you to my favorite tea shop, then to the real spice market. After that I will leave you....". As we followed him through the crazy maze of streets we were surrounded by small school children saying "Hello, hello, hello". He explained that in recent years the Ministry of Education has mandated English language instruction from age 6 (which is what he teaches) so these little sweethearts were trying out their language lessons on us. We obliged with lots of "Hello, how are you?" and "Hello, what's your name?" and got lots of giggles in return.



During the walk I got the lowdown on Mohamids life: he's 17 years older than his wife and he thinks she's the most beautiful thing in the world. He carries her picture in his wallet. He has three sons under the age of 5, he wanted to stop after two but his wife wanted to try for a girl. Woops! He wants to travel the world and hopes to Paris on his next vacation because he has a friend who has invited him to visit. He took his family to Luxor a few weeks ago and he says there is nothing more beautiful than sailing on a felucca down the Nile river at sunset.



The tea shop was another adventure. We got "yellow tea" which is a herbal brew and tastes a bit like barley. Mohamed said that it's a real thing, and people who say they've tasted Egyptian tea at the tourist shops don't know what they are talking about. While we were having tea I got him to write the Arabic symbols for numbers from 1 to 10 in my book, and I got the little boy who was busy staring at us to teach me to say them in Arabic. The boy showed off and said the numbers in English too! When Nelson tried to pay for the tea he was told "No, no, you are my guest." Our last stop was the spice shop. Mohamed said he's one of the only Arabic men he knows who cooks (his wife appreciates his tagine!) so he knows about spices. He got us to smell "bohdrat" and said we can use it to flavour anything and it will be the "real taste of Egypt". We bought some, and some of the tea too. Then he lead us out of the maze of backstreets and market booths to a place where we could catch a taxi or walk back to our hotel.



In the end we did not follow the guide book advice to see the ancient Al-Azhar Mosque, founded in 970, and we did not visit the famous Khan al-Khalili market. I think we did get a glimpse of real Egyptian hospitality, though.