Egypt, Part One: Where to Start?

So, I went to Egypt, which means I went to Africa, which means I went to the Middle East.  Despite my pre-trip reading and studying, the whole "Africa / Middle East" part wasn't somehow very clear to me conceptually before I left.  Yes, I would see the pyramids, and yes, for the first time in my life I would be a typical American tourist, shuttled about in buses and following a guide, but it wasn't possible to prepare to be in a place so foreign and see things so amazing.  I am not sure where to start!  Perhaps with some general impressions - and advice, should you contemplate such a trip:

Language - Everyone you will meet (if you are there for tourism) will speak English.  However, the single best thing I did that make my trip hugely more enjoyable was learn some Arabic.  They loved it.  I mean, they LOVED it.  I listened to the Michel Thomas Egyptian Arabic which was very easy - and I didn't get past CD Six, but it was enough to be able to construct sentences, and incorporate the new words I learned, which everyone was eager to teach me.

It had a few advantages:

• It highly amuses the guides, and as I discovered, the guides make the trip.  The more they like you, the more they will do for you, and once you are speaking some Arabic with them, it feels a lot better.  (I wasn't so comfortable with being the rich American, hiring private services, being catered to, never once touching my luggage - which by the way, was one small light bag that baffled every porter who saw it, looking around for the rest of my luggage.  I learned to say "This IS my luggage" in Arabic).
• It makes the vendors you actually interacted with more friendly and less aggressive.  Not sure it got me a better price on anything because I am a weak haggler, but it was fun.
• It broadens your scope.  When you feel way out of your element - and trust me, if all you have done is Western (i.e. Europe / Canadian / American) travel, you will feel out of your element - it helps to have an edge of understanding.  I caught VERY few words in actual Arabic conversation around me, but I did catch some (and overheard a few times a guide telling the driver or someone else about how "she speaks Arabic!"), and that was not only linguistically gratifying, it made me feel more a part of what was happening, as opposed to being shown it all.
• It makes the Egyptians very happy.  There they are, in a country rife with under- and unemployment, fighting to be underpaid drivers or porters or whatever, most of them are bilingual or more, stuck vying to serve these Americans, who as a rule are not necessarily known for being smart, culturally sensitive or polite, and most of us can't even say "thank you" in their language.  (It's shokran, by the way).  The looks of surprise & delight on their faces when I piped up in Arabic were consistently some of the best moments of the trip.  They all wanted to teach me more, and when it was someone I saw again over several days (like the guides or the cruise ship staff), they were tickled pink when I remembered the phrase.
• It's fun to amaze people.  Universally, they all assumed I lived in Cairo and were astonished I was just here on vacation. One of the guides said to me, "But why you learn Arabic if you are here only a week?" Some respect for your culture, I said, and to gain some understanding of the people. "This is amazing thing," he said. They also all protested and said it is a "very difficult language." Well, it wasn't as easy as French, sure, but it was totally do-able.
• It shows some respect, and if you ARE going to be an American traveling someplace where relations are strained, it's a good thing if you can do your part to make it better.  Is me speaking a little Arabic going to bring about world peace?  No.  Will a few Egyptians go home and tell a story about the American woman who learned Arabic to visit for a week?  Probably, and as we all know, peace is just about getting to know each other better.

Clothes & culture - Guidebooks tell you that, as a rule, women should cover to "knees & elbows" and wear loose, not tight, but that in most tourist areas, tourists will be wearing anything and Egyptians expect that.  Well, I covered up.  Upon getting there, I realized I didn't have to - really, no one seemed to notice or care.  But you know what?  I did it for me, to show my respect for their culture, and I am glad I did.  Besides avoiding sunburn, there were a few times when it felt better to fit right in.  In one stroll down the medieval section of Cairo - which was really one of the few non-tourist specific places our feet were ever allowed to touch pavement - I wore my headscarf into the mosque, which was the thing to do, but took it off when we were in the street.  However, as we walked, I felt...vibes...something....I was not being overtly stared at but I felt a tiny edge of something potentially unpleasant.  So, despite the heat, I put it back on, and instantly felt blissfully ignored. 

It's hard to see the women in the full hijab - the ones whose eyes only are showing, or, in some cases, not even that (there's a thin veil they can see through).  In the stifling heat, layers of heavy black, plus stockings of some sort, gloves, etc just seems like torture.  It's unimaginable.  Of all the things I saw, this was the one I felt most conflicted about.  When I asked our one female guide about her job, she said she was in hotels, but her hotel was bought by the French and they don't allow the veil, so she had to train to be a guide.  She also envied me my travel skirt (The Macabi Skirt, which I highly recommend for hot weather foreign travel!), which snaps up instantly to be knee length or down for ankle.  She said, "I wish to have this patten for my dressmaker!" 

I was also surprised - but realized I should not have been (my own cultural bias) by how many men wore the gellabiya (the man's "dress" - you've seen them).  Outside of Cairo, it was basically every male wore it.  For some reason, I picture traditional / indigenous dress as being increasingly wiped out due to the Los Angelesification of the world - which, by the way, I find tragic.  So I expect it to be disappearing in developing countries, but it was going strong, and I liked that.  I don't want everything to look the same!

Tipping - Ok, so tipping is familiar enough but it's a way of life in Egypt.  That's fine, I am down with that, they need to supplement the low wages and I am a walking ATM by their standard of living.  But here's the weird thing - there's very little small change in Egypt.  You're supposed to give 1LE (Egyptian pound) coins for porters, bathroom attendants, etc, but good luck getting your hands on these coins.  Even the 5LE (about $1) are kind of rare.  Aware of this, I brought dollar bills - which are widely accepted - but my guide complained that was too much!  Well, what is one supposed to do?  I hoarded small bills so well that when I paid my cruise incidentals bill at the end (135LE), the fact that I had exact bills caused the clerk to exclaim, "You really are 100% Egyptian!" 

By the way, they like 100% - the phrase "maia maia" means "100%" and you say it to mean, perfect or right or good.  The most useful phrase I learned sounds very like it: mashi-mashi.  Mashi means OK, and so mashi mashi means basically "okey dokey," but it's used for a zillion reasons - it can mean: I understand, here you go, I got it, that's fine, etc.  The reply (all Arabic seems to have a reply) is mashi mashi - you say it right back.  If you learn shokran and mashi mashi, you are ready to go!

Bathrooms - In terms of tipping bathroom attendants, really, you were buying a bit of toilet paper.  I expected places like, oh, museums and airports to have fully functional bathrooms with TP.  Not so.  TP only came with hotels.  And, no TP in the toilet!  You do not throw in the trash as the plumbing can't handle it - no matter how five star the hotel, the sewage eventually gets to the city pipes and TP is a dealbreaker, apparently.

Traffic - You've heard about Cairo traffic, and I'm not sure I can even fill in much more.  It has to be experienced to be believed.  Tourists have been known to take taxis to cross the street.  People ignore all non-human signals: signal lights, lines in the road, rules, etc.  If there is a policeman there, they obey that.  Otherwise, there is ONE rule (well, two):  Do not hit things AND fill the space in front of you.  I very early on realized my own concept of traffic would not serve me, so I decided if my driver wasn't nervous, neither would I be.  This allowed me to relax and enjoy the scenery outside my air-conditioned mini-bus as my companions were gritting teeth over the hundred close calls.  Pedestrians weave in and out and I can't believe I didn't see anyone get crushed, but it all seems to work.  They must all be excellent drivers. 

One quirk: there are traffic lights and crosswalks, and recently they are being "digitized," which means there are larger red letters that countdown the seconds left.  There is an LED man (like our American figure) who stands still at first, then walks, and then, as seconds countdown, runs faster and faster.  It's very clear what to do!

I've got more observations, but that will have to come in Part Two!