Unease in the Garden of Allah

At school we are celebrating World Peace Day. The day is one of the major school events of the year. Weeks of planning and practice have gone into the celebration, from the student processional featuring 100 high school students each bearing a huge flag belonging to one of the member nations of the UN, to the Chamber Choir delivering a lovely a capella medley. Students from every level of the school take part; speeches are made and skits are performed.

Halfway through the performance, I hear the familiar staccato thudding of a military helicopter. This one is close and flying low. I can feel the air vibrating as it snarls overhead. I can see that the chopper is fully armed, side missiles at the ready, and it is menacingly heading quickly towards the River Nile. Our school ceremony stops until the helicopter passes over. The little ones think it is kind of cool. The older students look skyward with a distinct air of resignation while the adults shake their heads at the sad irony of the moment. Finally the moment and the helicopter pass, and the ceremony continues, though a little more subdued now. Throughout the remainder of the celebration, I hear a faint crump repeating in the distance across the River Nile, and I wonder if the helicopter has found its prey.

Road 14

We live in a lush, affluent neighborhood of Cairo. It is an area of lovely green trees, residential parks, sprawling dwellings, quaint markets, lavish embassies, and international businesses. We walk to work, traipsing as it were, through the Garden of Allah. In such a place, where our daily existence revolves around the walk to work and back, it is easy to become lulled into a sense of genteel security. 

Periodically this false sense of security is fully exposed. The helicopter thundering overhead reminds us that we live in a country experiencing civil unrest. The tank and army detachment that have been dispatched to guard the local police station just a mere two blocks from us, remind us that no one here is truly secure. The curfew, though it has been scaled back in recent days, reminds us that we live under martial law and can be arrested and detained indefinitely without due process of law. The faint crump of mortar shells in the distance reminds us that people are dying for their cause.

Mosque & market

Our unease is most acute on Fridays, the holy day for Muslims. Our school operates on a Muslim work week. So instead of Monday through Friday, we work from Sunday through Thursday. Friday is meant to be a day of rest, meditation and prayer. Although one of the central tenets of the religion of Islam is to pray five times per day, most Muslims in our area do not. Some pray once per day, some not at all during the week; but they do on Friday. On Fridays the mosques are filled, and ironically enough, Fridays have become a day of protest for the supporters of deposed president, Mohamed Morsi.

A little over a month ago the military government ordered the Egyptian armed forces to break up two large groups of camped protestors. Almost a thousand people lost their lives in the violence that ensued. Since then, every Friday has become a day of public protests, marches and demonstrations. Led by the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, these public protests are usually supported by hundreds, sometimes thousands of people who take to the streets as soon as afternoon prayers have ended. Although the recent protests and marches have been generally peaceful, they are no place for foreigners, and we have been strongly advised to steer clear. We generally do.

It is now Friday; a day off for us. We spend a leisurely morning drinking coffee, listening to music and planning our day. The plan is to prepare a few home-cooked meals for the week ahead. That means grocery shopping. So we head out, not really paying attention to the time. 

Our neighborhood is laid out in a more-or-less gridded pattern. We live on on the creatively-named, "Road 14." The markets nearest us are quite nearby on "Road 9." Road 9 is lined with coffee shops, nice restaurants, small grocery markets, and mini-bazaars catering to the large number of Westerners that live in the area. Road 9 is for us, a most convenient shopping destination, being only a few short blocks from our flat. As is the case with most businesses catering to Western tastes, the markets on Road 9 are relatively expensive. 

Just across the metro rails from Road 9 is "Road 7." Road 7 is also a shopping destination, but it is a universe away from Road 9. Road 7's markets are noisy, open air affairs piled high with fruits and vegetables and swarming with flies. This is where many local Egyptian residents shop, and where foreigners who do not mind shopping in typical Egyptian markets, can find inexpensive fruits and vegetables. Today, Dana and I are heading to Road 7.

We leave the relative safety of Road 9, taking the foot-bridge fly-over to Road 7. That we have crossed into a different universe is not readily apparent. We stroll down the residential portion of Road 7, passing some lovely homes and a couple of upscale restaurants. These buildings gradually give way to smaller homes and typical Egyptian shops. It is here, as we approach a Metro station crowded with blue-and-white taxi/passenger vans and the odd produce truck, that I hear the call to prayer lilting from a nearby minaret. I am immediately reminded of the U.S. Embassy's email of last week, warning us to keep a low profile and to avoid public markets especially on Fridays. I become very ill at ease.

Despite my worry, we continue walking toward the Road 7 markets. I notice one of the drivers of the passenger vans emerging from his vehicle and walking toward us. He is perhaps mid-twenties, clean-shaven and thin. He has a swagger about him, and he has just lit up a cigarette. Walking straight for us, he seems intent not to deviate from his path. We make room for him; difficult with cars zooming up and down the road and the entire right-hand side of the street packed with empty passenger vans waiting for the metro trains to disgorge would-be passengers. As we pass, the cabbie shoots us a menacing glare, barking something in Arabic. This is unusual as most Egyptians greet us and one another with hand held high and a smile. This man's scowl and bark is definitely not the customary greeting. Now that we have passed, he is seemingly calling after us. I don't dare look back, fearing some kind of reprisal. I walk much closer to Dana now as his yelling continues. From up ahead another cabbie emerges from his blue-and-white van, yelling back and glaring at us. For an instant, I am convinced that we are fucked, and I eyeball the street, desperate to find a helpful face. Five such faces emerge in the form of three women wearing traditional abayas  and two children walking with them. They cross the street just in front of us, unwittingly intercepting the cabbie up ahead. Dana and I pick up our pace, walking now just behind our female saviors. The second cabbie, silenced by the presence of three women and two kids, stares us down as we pass. Once we walk a little way down the road, I sense that the two cabbies have met up behind us, and they resume their yelling. We are by now too far from the metro station and the cabbies' blue-and-white charges for them to pose further threat; but I walk now in a kind of stunned silence, wondering what could have transpired had that family of five not happened to cross the road when they did.

The rest of our journey continues without event, but we are both on edge and in a hurry to get home. Our false sense of security has been laid bare for the bald-faced lie that it is. We have made a mistake today, one that we need to avoid repeating.We have however, emerged from the judgement error unscathed, saved by five people who had no idea that their mere presence perhaps saved us from a very ugly, potentially very nasty incident.


*This week's photos taken by Dana Purpura