Leaving footprints in the sand

I spent the last Friday and Saturday in Alexandria with the majority of my group. We drove there in the vans and they shuttled us to the Qaitbay Citadel, Catacombs and the Alexandria Library.
The Citadel was my favorite. I could’ve stayed there for a long time.Mary, Ted, Me, Megan, and Molly sitting on the Citadel. Alexdria's there behind us.

The best moments of the trip for me were off the trail. After seeing the sites Friday night Tara and I wondered away from the rest of the group in search of an authentic fish restaurant. A little ways down the Corniche we came across a casual looking café with an Arabic name and little show—a good sign. Upon entering a couple men led us to stocks of fish arranged in ice. Though the men who worked there didn’t speak English we got the gist—if we wanted to eat there we were picking our own dinner.

We turned around and walked out before re-entering and choosing our dinner. A man asked us “fried,” or “grilled” in English—seemingly two of the dozen or so English words he knew.
We went upstairs, where we were the only two Americans and sat down at a table overlooking the Mediterranean. After a bit a man came and covered our entire table with a huge sheet of paper. He came back with salads, tahini sauces, pita and vegetables followed by our fish.
There were no prices anywhere and we didn’t ask; we figured it had to be cheaper than the touristy place on the sea where are peers were dining.
Along the same casual trend as the meal—i.e. no menus, they simply stated a price at the end. It was 100 pounds, less than $20 US total but more than we expected. It is hard to believe all the locals surrounding us were paying the same.
How much to pay, what to blow off and when to argue is a constant struggle for us here. I can see it from two sides. First, why should we pay up to five times what locals pay for essentials like food and cab rides. A lot of us are broke college students, they have no right to assume we have money just because we’re foreigners. On the other side, the brokest of us, just by virtue of being here, have more opportunities than most we interact with ever will.
This is a tangent…but before this trip I never realized how lucky and rare it is to be able to pick up and leave a place. People here don’t have money for a cab across town, let a lone a plane ride. Plus they have different concepts of family, responsibility and values. Most are just trying to get by; success and fulfillment take on completely different meanings.
Anyway, the fish was lazeez owi owi (very delicious).

After dinner, sitting on the Corniche looking at this, Tara and I had another idea. We decided to see Baby Doll Night.
In part because we wanted to minimize time at A”crap”olis (acropolis) our adventure-of-a-hotel, and because we’d been wanting to anyway, Tara and I decided to go see Baby Doll Night, an Egyptian film with no English subtitles. We had the impression, via miscommunication with our Egyptian friend Mustafa, that it was based on the classic collection 1001 Arabian Nights.
Tara, whose Arabic is far superior to mine, successfully bought the tickets, a feat considering no times, prices or titles were posted and we had to pick our seats on a chart. We finally entered the right room after being questioned by the doorman—you want to see this movie? You speak Arabic?
The room was the same size as one in the United States, but there were at least double the amount of seats jammed together. Comfy chairs and drink holders—pshh people were here to see a film and socialize not kick back, relax and jam their faces with oversized popcorns and sodas.
After a good 20 minutes and every seat plus some were filled, the screen flickered to life. It became apparent pretty immediately this was no classic love story.
From the Arabic we understood and the reactions of the audience it was about terrorism and relations between the Arab world Israel and the United States following September 11th.
There were torture scenes from Abu Ghraib, Jews shot as they tried to escape from a concentration camp and a woman shredded by Israeli tanks as she defended Palestinian turf.
There were a lot of things we couldn’t follow. A woman cares for children in a temple in Israel, her hood flaws to reveal half her face is terribly disfigured. The doors of the temple are thrown open, men enter and begin shooting.
The audience burst into sporadic laughter.
It’s moments like that which remind me how much stuff there is under the surface.
When we introduce ourselves as American restaurants give us free food and drinks, taxi drivers tell us Ahlan and our Egyptian friends and refugees dream of visiting the US, many things aren’t said.
Throughout the film people talked their cells, babies—why were they there?? cried and men and women a like stared at us. Tara swore she heard people whispering there were Americans in the theatre.
I want to see the movie asap with subtitles. “I will be your subtitles,” Mustafa told us, but I don’t think we’ll have time before leaving….
A little information we didn't know before viewing...http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=14210 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809938892/details