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Over Here
7/1/09
“What’s it like over there?”
This is the most natural question to ask someone who has been abroad, but it is extremely difficult to answer. There’s a lot to say. In an attempt to tell you “what it’s like over here” we will describe Mokattam on a given day.
We are walking on the road between the highway and the monastery. It is very hot. The sun shines down through the pollution that keeps our skin from burning and warms the sewage that has overflowed onto the street, releasing its pungent odor. Stray dogs bark. Children laugh.
A man herds goats with a piece of thin PVC pipe from the trash, serving as both a whip and staff. He might be herding pigs too, but they were all killed by government orders in the midst of the swine flu scare.
Garbage’s scent constantly permeates the air – not terribly strong, just always there so none forget this is where trash goes. Herbs from roasting lamb and frying falafel, the sweet shop where we buy sugar cane juice, and hookah tobacco combine to a delightful medley in our nostrils.
Brick and concrete buildings line the streets. The bottom stories have holes in the walls. Every story higher, walls and apartments get nicer and newer because they build them layer by layer as housing is needed. Rebar sticks out of walls and roofs to allow for more construction.
Garbage sorted and bundled in bags is loaded onto trucks in piles that sway as they slowly round corners. One misses us by a few inches, then maneuvers around animals, pedestrians, and donkey vegetable carts. The truck barely misses everything; we’re a bit impressed and terrified.
We climb the hill to the monastery and enter its gates. The Mokattam cliffs, for which this place is named, tower over us. In their sides are carvings of biblical scenes. Above an enormous one of Jesus’ second coming reads in three languages, “Behold you will see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” In these cliffs are giant caves where churches were built and worship meetings are held.
Across the road are the rooms where we stay and the cafeteria where we eat – usually pita, cheeses, yogurt, cucumbers and tomato – wonderful food.
From our roof we see the Cairo skyline. The sun is red as it sinks into the hovering smog, turning the skyline to silhouettes. Kites rise from roofs as children play after a long hot day. They swoop hundreds of meters overhead.
We venture back into the village now. Men relax by sipping tea in coffee shops and smoking hookah. We hear quiet discussions, hearty laughs and not-so-angry shouts.
We buy mango juice and laugh with neighborly locals. We feel good walking back to the monastery and wish the whole world was like Mokattam at 11 p.m. Rats run in front of and behind us on trash-lined streets. We think, “These people were made for more than this.”
We crawl onto our beds and fall asleep.
That’s what it’s like over here.
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