Gaean. I’m hungry. An hour before iftar, the nightly breaking of the fast during Ramadan, the 9th month of the Islamic calendar, a single thought occupies the minds of most of Cairo’s 15 million people. I’m hungry.
Each day of this holy month, faithful Muslims let nothing pass their lips — not a cigarette, not a sip of water — from sunrise until sunset. It is such unified devotion that built the pyramids. In solidarity with the Muslim family graciously hosting me, I fast. The hunger robs my concentration and pricks my skin with impatience.
Downtown in Tahrir Square, cars desperately try to rush home. Nothing is moving but their horns. In a Darwinian transportation food chain, a smoke-sputtering bus jammed with ten-cent riders overtakes a donkey-drawn vegetable cart, a bicycle beats out a stalled Mercedes and two taxis collide. I practice crossing the street the Egyptian way, slowly and gracefully, aiming my body at a passing car to slip effortlessly between it and the next with a hair’s breadth to spare.
After weaving through the seemingly drunk parade of vehicles, I reach the relative calm of the Metro. Its front car is kindly reserved for women. I can almost smell the kofta meatballs, pickled vegetables and cream-drenched dates as they are devoured in the minds of these women, though the cradle of their thoughts is concealed.
Their hair hides under hijab as varied as their heirs. Schoolchildren wear short, silky-flowered wraps that let a few wisps escape; working women have chic Chanel scarves to match their gold and black pantsuits. Laden with chicken cages and unsold goods, the country ladies tightly secure their black polyester hijab with a fine topknot.
Ghostly sheets of fabric, without even slits to see or breathe, shroud the shapes of an extreme few. Still other Muslim girls (and of course the Coptic Christians, who make up almost 15% of Egypt’s population) choose not to cover their hair.
The religious significance of the veil is open to interpretation. The Quran says that women should not make themselves appealing for men other than their husbands; those who are covered from head to toe are thought to be too beautiful to show any inch of themselves to the world. Yet nowhere in the Quran it is written that women must cover their bodies. In fact, women must show their faces when they make the haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, so that there is no barrier between themselves and Allah.
As a token of respect, today I choose to wear a scarf, awkwardly tying it like a turban. Whether my golden locks are haphazardly covered or in plain view, I never ride unnoticed. Brash bands of young giggling girls yell “Hello, what’s your name?” Others steal glances at my shoes and notebook. When a translator emerges from the masses, an impromptu press conference about my stay in Cairo ensues. A woman makes a present of a pen and confides that “What happened in Luxor, they were not Egyptians,” and from the kindness, generosity and hospitality the Egyptian people have shown me as a khawaaga — foreigner– I am inclined to agree.
A maid, the mother of four, invites me to tonight’s iftar when she finds out I am fasting. “Bukra, insh’allah,” (“Tomorrow, if God is willing,:) I say, knowing I cannot really accept because the financial burden would be too great. “IlHamdu lillah, thank God,” she replies. “Maeas salaama,” (goodbye; literally “may peace accompany you,”) she says when I reach my stop, El Maadi.
Maadi is for the buttermilk amongst the flies, wealthy foreigners and Egyptians who hoard more than their share of Cairo’s palms and pointsettias in their spacious, dusty green yards. Money can’t keep away the sandy beige that blankets trees, houses and sidewalks here and everywhere in Cairo.
Black-and-white-booted soldiers drowsily watch over Maadi’s every corner, but they offer no protection against the deluge of sexual remarks that follow me on my morning walks. I have learned to defend myself with a small army of cutting Arabic phrases, unfortunately perfect with practice. I am told that racy American movies are to blame for the behavior of boys who should know better.
On Ramadan Fridays, the poor flock in crowds outside the homes of Maadi’s well-to-do, who hand out bills as long as their wad lasts. The poor, in turn, give whatever they can to the poorer, be it a loaf of bread or a geneeh (30 cents). Giving zakat, or alms, is one of the five main pillars of Islam, along with prayer, pilgrimage, fasting and public declaration of faith. This duty is most seriously heeded during Ramadan, when wealthy families and businesses (as well as mosques) host bountiful iftar tables for the penniless and round-the-clock workers who cannot afford the time to return home.
In bygone days, a mosque official known as the muezzin would climb the spiral staircase of the minaret and personally belt out the evening prayer, Ramadan’s dinner bell. Nowadays the prayers blare from loudspeakers, and families wait around the television as each Arab country from east to west is progressively excused from fasting.
A glass of juice and a handful of dates are brief preludes to a serious feeding frenzy. Cucumber-yogurt salad; grape leaves; stuffed zucchini, peppers and pigeons; fuul beans; rice and lentils, big loaves of brown pita bread slapped in hommos and baba ganoosh (garbanzo and eggplant purees made with garlic and tahina) noisily disappear.
Like wilted flowers reviving after a downpour, Cairenes flood the festive streets from dusk until sohour, the last meal before sunrise. Evening light beams from great golden lanterns hung outside houses; green and white neon bars illuminate the dusty, pencil-shaped minarets of the mosques. Freedom is in the air.
Khan el-Khalili, the city’s 600-year-old bazaar, is the pinnacle of Ramadan’s nightly celebrations. Men and a rare, bold woman draw sweet apple tobacco from hourglass-figured shisha pipes in outdoor cafes. Everyone has their spoons in sahabs, creamy drinks thick with coconut, raisins and nuts, and soup-glasses of hommos shamy, a tomato, lemon and chick pea beverage. Gold jewelry and ìpharonicî papyrus are peddled in the Khan’s main passageways, where prices are inversely related to one’s knowledge of Arabic.
I prefer the landscape of the side corridors. Tea in hand, men in mint-green gowns straighten pyramids of oranges. Popcorn carts pass dim stalls where leathery hands cobble decade-old shoes. Radios quiver with the sleepless lullabies of Umm Kalthoum, Egypt’s most beloved singer.
Around five a.m., millions of prayer rugs are unfurled towards Mecca. The first of five daily prayers soars through Cairo, the sound staggered among hundreds of mosques. The millions recite, bow and kneel; press palms, noses and foreheads to the ground. Another day of fasting has begun.