Robin Young and Bassem Youssef converse at the Kennedy Library

Bassem Youssef converses with a member of the audience at the Kennedy Library after
 his on stage conversation with Robin Young.                                 Photo by Marash Girl

Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian satirist and former host of the popular Egyptian TV show, Al-Bernameg, held court with WBUR's Robin Young (Here and Now) last night at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts. Considered the "John Stewart of Egypt", while broadcasting in Egypt, he had 40 million viewers a week.

Beginning his career in Egypt as a cardiac surgeon, he soon became a renowned TV comic. (What's so funny about that?)  (He hinted that the surgeons practiced their humor while their patients were under anesthesia.)    "Broadcasting is about money, power, and politics," he said, and continued:  "Political satire and humor can breed peace. . .Here in the United States, none is silenced -- people can express their opinions openly; whether there will be change is a different matter. . . In the Arab world, we don't have this luxury."  Once he had to leave Egypt, he refused to do the same program from outside because it would not be satire then.  "Folks were hurt every time I spoke in public."  And when Robin Young asked about his future, he answered, "I hope to reinvent myself somehow.  I live in Dubai now as do my wife and daughter  (though presently I am a visiting scholar at Harvard University).   I'd like to do a Pan Arab show."  When asked about Isis, Youssef exclaimed, "Isis are stupid people -- crazy -- They're not everywhere. . ."  

When Robin Young asked him, "What in the United States is so funny?" Youssef answered, without hesitation, "Fox News and Donald Trump (the wig, of course)!  I actually respect him.  He's honest."

Youssef admitted to missing his country where it's warm and sunny -- "something you don't know about here in New England.  I miss my family.  Sometimes I wake up and I don't know what city I'm in.  I woke up one day and I was in Vegas. . ."

Robin Young asked Youssef whether he could translate any of his jokes from Arabic into English.  His answer:  Humor is a third language.  In Arabic, much of our humor comes from the use of profanity."  And on politics, he commented, "In Egypt, the military is more sacred than religion. . . Why would history make any exception for us?  In Egypt, we're in the 1960's. . . If you don't have money to buy a time machine, just go to Egypt!"

"In Egypt," Youssef continued,  "there are lots of divorces because of political issues.  (Do Democrats marry Republicans here in the U.S.?)  And many parents report their children to the authorities! . . . My personal life has been a mess My family is game for everybody, so my family is living in Dubai now. . . In Egypt, people are questioning everything now: religious authority, autocratic authority, the status quo."

The Bench in Cairo

Two weeks ago, Marash Girl was at her warehouse on a Saturday around lunchtime and saw several police cars in the parking lot, parked near the picnic tables which were in the shade under the trees on the hillside.  Inquiring if there was a problem Marash Girl soon learned that the police were simply enjoying lunch; no problem at all.  That was a relief!  When Marash Girl asked the landlord about it, he just smiled and answered, "Isn't it good to have them here?"

Relating this story to Marash Boy today elicited a telling of one of the first stories that he had ever read in Arabic, a story recorded by a well known 19th Century Egyptian novelist, and published in one of Marash Boy's early Arabic readers.  The story goes like this.

A boy was watching his father build a bench outside of their house.  The boy asked his father, "Why are you building the bench outside of the house?"  The father answered, "Wait and see."  The father completed the construction of the bench and set it outside of the house.

Every night after that, the boy noticed the night watchman for that quarter of Cairo, after making his rounds, sitting outside of their house on the new bench his father had built.

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, through the eyes of an Egyptian Armenian, Part 2

Guest Blogger Kid from Alex writes about life in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1950's & 1960's. 

Here is something to go with the pictures (which are below with more of my photos posted in Marash Girl's blog yesterday).

I was born and lived in Alexandria, Egypt, 'til the age of 19.  We lived a simple but happy and very safe life in the Armenian residential apartment building in the Armenian section of Alexandria, which included the St. Paul and St. Peter Church, the Boghosian Armenian School, an athletic stadium "Gamk", and church offices. This was an old establishment; in 1820 Boghos Bey Yousoufian bought this land and property from an Egyptian Arab named Saied Mohamed for 160,000 Egyptian currencies. In 1838 as the Armenian population in Alexandria was growing, Boghos Bey donated his real estate with two buildings, on Abou Dardaa street, parks and a massive land to the Armenian community, with the dream to build a newer church and school and keep the Armenians together, save their culture, and educate the new comers.  After his death in 1844, the Armenian Community Committee was formed, and eventually as years went by, a new church, and school were built carrying his name, "St. Boghos Bedros Church" and the school "Boghosian National Armenian School".  Later on, a large residential apartment building on Abou Dardaa street, was built, replacing the original buildings that Boghos Bey owned. This section of Alexandria, called Laaban, and the Armenian quarters are very well known by taxi drivers & other transportation and delivery people: you don't have to give the address --  just say Armenian quarters, (waqaalat Armally). Two private roads, one from Abou Dardaa street and one from Al-Badawi street, both take you to a dead end with large metal gates. From Al-Badawi is the side entrance to the church and church offices, and from Abou Dardaa the side to the Gamk stadium and the school which also connects to the church. Now you can understand when I say "living a safe life" in the Armenian Apartment building, in 18 years,  there was not even one major crime.

Many influential Armenians lived in the Armenian Apartment building: school principals, teachers, the local Postmaster (Armenian), doctors, lawyers, and even the wife of Armenian (fedayi) freedom fighter Serop Aghpuir Vartanian, a hero herself -- Sossy Mayrig Vartanian (in apartment #12).  Each floor had two large hallways, 40 x 10 feet, where at times children used to play, and folks would hold birthday and engagement parties.  Everyone knew each other, every one looked out for each other.  Afternoons, ladies got together for coffee, neighbors borrowed sugar or eggs, and most importantly yogurt (madzoun) cultures from each other. And of course some neighbor's yogurt culture was better than others and made better yogurt (madzoun).  We had two doormen (security-caretakers) who watched out for the residents.

Because it was a large tenant building, it was profitable for vendors-peddlers, but only selected ones were allowed in the building, and for many many years we had the same vendors. And it was a routine and part of life. At 7am every day, the milkman would come in and announce his presence in each hallway, carrying a 5 gallon milk container, ladies would open their doors and stand with a cooking pan; milkman would measure and pour the requested amount in the pan. The pan was immediately put on the stove to bring to a boil, (the milk was fresh, not pasteurized or homogenized),  and as it cooled the cream would rise and create a thick film (skin) which was later put on toast and drizzle with honey for breakfast. Then at 7:15, the bread vendor with baskets full of warm fresh French baguettes -- mothers would make sandwiches for school lunch with this tasty bread.  Later on the vegetable peddler named Aam Moursi would arrive, with baskets full of seasonal goodies. Aam Moursi's height and specific appearance would identify him as a true ancestor of the old Egyptians,  perhaps a descendant from Ramses. Mid-morning the Makwagi (shirt and pants ironer) would collect shirts and pants and after ironing them, would bring them back in the afternoon. All these vendors knew residents by their name and or their apartment number.

 

 Boghos Bey Yusufian (1768 – 1844)was such a successful businessman that he soon became the Governor Mohamed Ali’s partner. Boghos Bey was appointed the Wali’s chief dragoman, or translator, first counselor, official spokesman, Minister of Commerce and Foreign Affairs, and for decades Egypt’s leading statesman. The Wali placed such implicit trust in him that he signed documents even before they were drafted by Boghos Bey. As Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, a historian of modern Egypt, testifies, “Boghos has been given several carte blanches by the Wali, and could draw on the treasury for any sum whenever he needed funds for himself. He was never paid a regular salary but the Wali trusted him to do as he pleased in terms of payment. For a man as suspicious as Mohamed Ali was, this was a signal proof of trust and a unique favor allowed to no one else.” In the reign of Mohamed Ali, Boghos was the first Christian to be granted the title of Bey.

http://www.armembegypt.com/main.php?page=comhist&path=ARM_EG:ARM_EGYPT:COM_HISTORY

Above, the Armenian Genocide Memorial Khatchkar located next to the Armenian Apostolic Church in Alexandria.

 Above: Khatchkar, April 24, 2005, commemoration ceremony. Scouts guarding the Armenian Genocide Memorial, Alex

Behind the Armenian Appostolic  Sourp Boghos Bedros Church located on the main street ("Abou Dardaa") in Alexandria, is the large 4 story residential apartment building (64 apartments), in 1950-1963 90% occupied by Armenian families. (1980 photo). Note: Because of the Egyptian apartment rental laws, the building is not being maintained, and I heard that only a few Armenians live there.

1950- 1964, surrounding the Armenian quarters in Alexandria were many industrial, manufacturing and trade shops mostly owned by Armenians: Leylekians, Dersimonians, Piligians, Vartsbedians, Hagopians, and many more.

  In the suburbs of Alexandria, towards the Evangelical Church, Dickran Yergat  Armenian Cultural Center (above).

And, although Kid from Alex had no picture to prove it, he wanted us to know that the Armenians of Alexandria also had the Arachtimasser Cultural and Youth Center.


Though the Kid was not quite sure, he writes, I think in mid 1950's AGBU (The Armenian General Benevolent Union) bought the building pictured below (it has an outdoor basketball  court and track and field) and gave it to HMEM (The Armenian General Athletic Union and Scouts known as HOMENETMEN).

      

Left: HMEM Club, AGBU Building, Alexandria, Egypt





  

Sourp Krikor Lusavorich, (St Gregory)Armenian Church in Cairo, Egypt

Thanks to guest blogger KID FROM ALEX for this interesting account of Armenians in Alexandria, Egypt.

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, through the eyes of an Egyptian Armenian, Part 1

Kid from Alex felt so sorry that Marash Girl had missed the 'Armenian Experience' while in Egypt in 1964,  (click this link to read the posts from Marash Girl's journey to Egypt) that he has made an effort herewith to share some of his memories of the buildings and places that were a part of his Armenian childhood growing up in Alexandria.

 

 

                      Armenian Evangelical Church (above), Alexandria Egypt  

Above, the Armenian Apostolic Church (Sourp Boghos - Sourp Bedros) that has Marash Girl's uncle's and father's name St. Paul and St. Peter,  located within the Armenian quarters, on a private road, no public traffic going through.

                           

                             Inside the Sourp Boghos - Sourp Bedros Armenian Apostolic Church

At the time when Marash Girl was in Alexandria, (1964), within the Armenian quarters there were the Boghosian Armenian school, sports stadium "Gamk",  two small parks, with fruit trees and rose bushes, and the Armenian Patriarchate offices (pictured below).

                                        .

A burial memorial (right) of Nubar Pasha Nubarian, (1825 – 1899),

the first Prime Minister of Egypt, in one of the parks in the Armenian quarter.  A uniquely gifted statesman, Nubar Pasha Nubarian held the highest administrative posts for five decades, achieved international stature, and left his decisive imprint on Egypt’s modernization, especially in the sphere of social justice. Nubar initially served as his uncle's, Boghos Yusufian’s secretary, then after his death he became dragoman to the Wali and second secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs. In addition to translating, his work entailed acting as a diplomat and counselor. Later during the reign of Abbas I, Nubar Nubarian was appointed counselor and delegate for special missions. Among his other achievements were also organizing Cairo’s Water Company, which introduced piped water, and led to the creation of the city of Heliopolis in mid desert. During Sa’id, Abbas I’s successor, Nubar Nubarian was appointed the director of health services, then Attorney General, policy coordinator between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassies as well as the viceroy, and finally, trade representative in Paris. Afterwards, during Ismail’s rule, Nubar became stationed in Paris handling financial and legal matters concerning the Suez Canal, and then in 1865 he was appointed Minister of Public Works, where he prepared a well-studied irrigation plan. The results of his plan were so excellent that Ismail honored him a new canal in the province of Beheira, named after him Nubariyya. Also, as a reward for his encouragement in improving the various types of cotton, Egypt's single most profitable and prized product at the time, a type of long-staple cotton was named Nubari after him. Moreover, according to some well respected Egyptian political figures, Nubar was the first Egyptian statesman to raise humanitarian issues and the principle of social justice in the 19th century. Nubar's greatest achievements in Egypt were legal reforms and the establishment of Mixed Courts. Nubar Nubarian was the first Christian to be granted the title of Pasha and the gift of a large plot of fertile land. He also was appointed the first Prime Minister of Egypt in 1878 and reserved the right to head the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice. In 1895 Nubar Pasha received Egypt’s highest award, the Nile Medal of Honor, and retired from political work, after having served six viceroys and Khedives (hereditary rulers).

http://www.armembegypt.com/main.php?page=comhistamppath=ARM_EG:ARM_EGYPT:COM_HISTORY

ADDENDUM:  In response to Ali's comment (see below), I have added two more pictures of the statue of Nubar Pasha.

Old picture of Nubar Pasha statue in Shaalalat Park

Picture  of the statue of Nubar Pasha in the new location at the Opera House, Alexandria, Egypt

Above post & photos contributed by guest blogger, KID FROM ALEX.

ANYWHERE YOU TRAVEL, YOU'LL FIND AN ARMENIAN WHO'LL INVITE YOU IN!

My friend Kid from Alex, who was born in Alexandria, Egypt, tells me that he is reading my blog posts on Egypt, looking forward to hearing what I have to say about the Armenian community there. . .  I can't wait for you to write about the Marashtzis you met there, about the coffee houses, the churches, the hospitality, he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Now that I think back, I believe it was all for the best that Egypt was the one place we never did meet Armenians.  If we had, they would have insisted on our staying with them, on their caring for us, and we would have brought them nothing but trouble!

In actuality, Kid from Alex, I did find the following note at the back of my journal (lost in the turmoil of our visit to Egypt) --  relatives of Nevdone Pasha Pahlevi, one of my best friends in college, and of his mother Diko (my mom's good friend) , and his father Ellis (a friend whom my father had known way before Ellis was married).

My journal note reminded me to be sure to look up

Mrs. Pourbaix, friend of Diko Kupelian, 14 Sh. Ibrahimieh, Lokkani, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt

Alexandria - seashore - cousin to Mrs. Kupelian (Diko Esserian)

Mrs. Bahar Der Avedisian (widow), 14 Sidi/Bicher, Alexandria, Egypt

Nevdone Pasha Pahlevi -- Did you know these people?  My mother must have talked to your mother when my trip was in the planning stages, trying to ensure my safety,  but I didn't remember that your mother was from Egypt!  Was she? And anyway, it's a good thing I never contacted your relatives, or they may have been under the same threat that Gail and I posed to our Coptic friends in Alexandria!  [Blog Readers -- to learn more about Nevdone Pasha Pahlevi, please go to my blog entitled Vaht to Do entered on January 4, 2011.]

All our lives, my father used to comfort us and be comforted when he would regularly remind us that no matter where in the world we found ourselves, we could always open the phone book, look for an 'ian' at the end of a name, call that phone #, and be welcomed into the home of that Armenian family as if we were long lost relatives (which we well might have been)!  My brother had had that experience on his travels, but not Gail and I.  (Gail, by the way, would add an ian to the end of her Welsh last name during our trip through the Middle East whenever it suited her, just for this reason!)  We had been in Egypt, after all, we could not read Arabic,  and I had only a dim idea at the time that there were Armenian communities there --  only the Armenian writing we saw on a church in Alexandria, a church which did not seem to be in operation (as we sped past in our taxi on a weekday), called to mind the possibility of Armenians in Egypt.  [I had completely forgotten about the names my mother had insisted that I write in the back of my journal!] Indeed, God saved our Armenian compatriots from certain harm by keeping Gail and me from their doorsteps!

N.B.  Today I learned from the internet that the Egyptian-Armenian Community and the Armenian Apostolic Church of Egypt has constructed a monument to the victims of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1922) in the courtyard of the Saints Peter and Paul Armenian Church, 12 Baidawi Street, Alexandria, Egypt.  Had I been more persistent, and made the effort to stop the taxi and read the Armenian writing on the front of the church, I could have visited and photographed this Armenian place of worship that bears the name of my father Peter and his brother Paul.  They would have been so pleased.

LAST DAY IN EGYPT, 1964, & OUR PROMISE

Driving back to Cairo at 3 in the morning, we saw the pyramids by moonlight, and had some trouble making the curves because of the desert which was attempting to straighten those curves in the road by covering half of the curve with sand!  . . . If we ever thought midnight on a country road was lonely, we had never experienced two o'clock in the morning on a desert road!  Gail and I laughed and sang all the way back [behavior assured to avoid any possible trouble.]  Arrived at the hotel in Cairo (which by that time we were calling home)  at 3 AM, to bed at 3:15AM, up at 4 AM. Dashed to the UAR office at 4:15 AM, in time for the airport bus.  That accomplished, we had to wait at the airport until 7 AM.  (That camel the Libyans had gifted me on our first day in Egypt was a big success!)   [See blog for Saturday, February 5, 2011 - Libyans & Alexandria, Egypt, August 16, 1964]. 

                                                         ( Images below  courtesy of Numismondo.com)

And we discovered that the international gift shop of the Cairo Airport would NOT accept Egyptian currency. What blatant admission that Egyptian money was without value!

An hour later, at 7 AM, we arrived in Beirut to the happy surprise of my cousin Garbis at the sight of Miss Gail . . .

I have forgotten to write about perhaps the most important feeling of that day -- freedom.  On arriving in Beirut, Gail and I felt we had truly reached the freedom land, the freedom land we had been so hopefully (and prayerfully) singing about for the last week.  

We're on our way to the freedom land

We're on our way to the freedom land

We're on our way to the freedom land

We're on our way, praise God

We're on our way.

 The burden of the police state was lifted as we walked onto the landing strip in Beirut, Lebanon.  

America, we love you, and praise God for you.  It may sound exaggerated and soap opera-ish but the feeling is more real to me than any I can  remember.

Here ends my journal entries on our trip to Egypt, 1964.

 It is interesting to note that the trip to Egypt I describe in my journal from 1964 was in sharp contradistinction to the joyous days, Summer 1964, I had spent (without Gail) in Paris & Istanbul,  and (with Gail) in Amman, Damascus, Beirut and Teheran.  We loved the Middle East.  But Egypt -- that was different.

After our trip, Gail and I made a pact: we promised each other that since we could never return the kindness and generosity, the selfless hospitality that we had received during our trip throughout the Middle East, we committed  to 'passing it on'.  In fact, to this day, my husband and I welcome friends and relatives, friends of friends, and even strangers, to our home, treating them like family, just as we had been treated.  (Yes, my husband has done his share of traveling, but not only to the Middle East.  When he was just out of college,   -- he actually traveled as a merchant seaman to  the Far East to Armenia and throughout the Middle East . . . AND he had the advantage of being able to speak Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, English and French!  I wish he would dig up the journals he kept during that trip!)

And just an aside.  The pact I made with Gail was nothing more than reinforcing the code that I had been taught by my mother and father growing up . . . Being Armenian, (and, of course Marashtzi), I could do nothing less than open my home and my heart to others, just as my father and mother had, and their fathers and mothers before them.

WHIRLING DERVISH, BELLY DANCERS, & SHISH KEBAB, SAHARA CITY, EGYPT 1964

Monday - Dr. & Mrs. Ishmael and their two sons (Cassa's brothers) and cousin picked us up and brought us to their home for a lunch of chicken; we learned how to eat mangos properly.  We returned to the hotel, had our hair done (???) but didn't have time to finish because we rushed off to see the Klines (Director of Fulbright there) and their daughter Vicki who was attending the American University of Beirut (AUB). They asked us to stay for dinner but we didn't because we had to go back and pack and the boys picked us up at 10, (despite the fact that they were told that we weren't there because the hotel was trying to protect us from strange young men!) We went to Sahara City through the desert via the pyramids. 

Tuesday, August 25 -- Assuming a day begins at midnight, there I shall begin.  For this day had no real beginning.  At midnight, then, Gail and I found ourselves at a table about 5 yards from the dance floor of Sahara City, finishing off a 'small' order of shish kebab (under a tent, no less) with the two young (one actually not so young) Egyptian men -- Haani and Moustafa.  Dinner, belly dancers, whirling dervishes, African dancers, a girl with candles on her head and a table in her mouth, the congo line and the whirling dervish (who, by the way, invited Gail to dance with him -- she foolishly said no).   Indeed it was more like a carnival or a circus than a nightclub.  The belly dancers were more covered than any public dancers we had ever seen. Boston's El Morocco belly dancers supercede in face, figure, dance and costume.

The one good dancer at Sahara City was African (5 years ago the religious of Egypt clamped down on scanty, bikini like costume and now the belly dancing outfits resemble 1950's strapless evening gowns with straps.)  The whirling dervish whirled about 2,000 times for us (interested by a dead drunk 'belly dancer').  The Africans performed a cross between a mock battle and the American 'twist', and the finale consisted of every performer grabbing a customer, jumping around on the stage, and finally forming a congo line around the room.  (I cringed when one of the dervishes asked me to join the line!) The little children joining in made the whole fete seem a bit like a degenerate orgy, but the dance was saved by a young sporty mid-Western strawberry blonde girl who happily and innocently danced with the whirling dervish.  After this display, Gail was sorry she had refused when the Dervish asked her to join.

The above was taken directly from a journal entry written during my 1964 trip to Egypt.  Tomorrow read the last of my journal entries written in Egypt in 1964.

Photo Credit:  Egyptian dancer Ashea Wabe, performing as "Little Egypt", photograph by Benjamin Falk circa 1896, courtesy of Wikipedia. Note that belly dancers were more scantily clad in the Egypt of 1896 than in the Egypt of 1964!

BACK IN CAIRO: WE TOURISTS VISIT THE SPHINX [EGYPT, 1964]

In Cairo.  Up in the morning, eggs for breakfast,  and to the American Embassy where they assured us all was o.k. as long as our passports were stamped.  Then we discovered that BOAC would not take our money (because we had no paper showing we had bought it in Egyptian banks, and not at black market rates -- by the way, while with the Libyans, we were brought to a black market Jewish tailor who sold money on the side -- the rest of our money we had bought in Beirut and smuggled in).

Then to the Garden City Hotel which was run by Italian-Egyptians.  We explained that we wanted the least expensive room that they had, so they gave us a tiny back room with two beds in it (they moved an extra one in) for $1.50 a night.  They were very kind to us, and they gave us a free supper.  We were embarrassed because we felt we had unintentionally misled them.


Met Fuat (the conductor) at the BOAC office -- but John never showed, so that evening with them was cancelled.


Sunday -- shopping and a trip to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, starting out from the Nile Hilton, the most modern hotel in Cairo,  where we joined a group of tourists for our trip to see

"Son et Lumiere" (Sound & Light) -- During the "Son" part, the Sphinx spoke to us in the unmistakable voice of John Gielgud, an Englishman who in Nasser’s independent Egypt, intoned, “Man fears time,  but time fears the pyramids.”   The place was crawling with tourists -- all kinds (including us)!  On our return from the show, we went into the Hilton to find a very expensive gift shop run by -- who else -- Armenians, of course.  [Note: This was our first time meeting any Armenians in Egypt, even though my friend KK tells me there was a large community of Armenians there in the 1960's.] We splurged on a tuna salad dinner in the hotel's outdoor cafe, and feeling very guilty about our hosts at our humble hotel, and feeling very full, headed for what was now our home base.


In looking back on our stay in Egypt, it seems that most of the time we lived on free Cokes and stale bread. . .Every shop that we walked into offered us Cokes or tea (the wise Middle Easterner drinks hot tea to cool off), wanted to know if we had American money to change (they could give us a good rate, they told us -- though their rate was only 1/2 as good as the one we got in Beirut!)

N.B. Years later, back here in the States, I learned that the erosion to the Sphinx and the pyramids caused by the sands of time over thousands of years was equalled by the erosion caused by air pollution (yes, there is air pollution in Egypt) over the last 40 years!  Or did I learn that then?  Not sure!

Stay tuned for more Egyptian adventures recorded in my  1964 journal.

FLEEING FROM LUXOR, "GOOD AND SCARED" - EGYPT, 1964

Egypt, 1964: my journal continues through the valley of the shadow of . . .

. . . We were sure these men were leading us to some dark alley, which they did, then up some stairs.  Just when we were sure the men were leading us astray, we came to a door at the top of the stairs which announced the local police captain.  He questioned us as to where we had stayed during our visit to Alexandria.  We pretended we couldn't remember the names of the hotels, so we were taken back to the hotel in Luxor on the pretext that we would find a bill, or something, with the name of the hotel on it.  We sat in our hotel room, trying to think what to do, to make plans, hide the money -- we were followed by the guards (hotel men) who kept knocking on our door and insisting that we hurry . . . our conductors didn't dare speak to us, and we were good and scared.


We were unceremoniously ushered back to the Luxor Police, still not knowing what to do, except knowing that we would not reveal the name of our hosts.  The police questioned us as if we were criminals.  I explained to the man exactly why we could not tell, and that we would not tell, but he kept questioning us.  Who were our friends in Alexandria? Did we have friends in Luxor?


An hour of questioning -- always the same question -- "Who were your friends, Egyptian or American?" (The hotel "guards" kept telling us to lie and give the name of any hotel, insisting that we should say anything just to get out, but we, being stupid, honest Americans, would say nothing.


We never told, and finally the Police Captain wrote a report in Arabic (assuring us it was what we had told him) which we signed; he stamped our passports, and we left, relieved though ready for trouble ahead.


We returned to the hotel to find our conductor friends gone, and lizards crawling up the walls of our room.  

 [We didn't know at the time that for the Egyptians, the lizard represented divine wisdom and good fortune, that the lizard was one of the Egyptian god Atum's symbols, that Atum was often represented as a lizard -- that amulets and small reliquaries of lizards were often worn in honor of this god in the  Late Period 664-30 B.C.E. -- now we know why!]

We wanted out.  As a matter of fact, we wanted to get to an American Embassy pronto!  And the closest one was in Cairo.  We ran to the train station at midnight, just before the train was about to leave, and found our conductor friends who gave us their compartment on the train so that we could get out of Luxor that night.  They returned to the hotel with us, got our bags for us and we checked out.  The people at the hotel wanted to know why we were leaving, where we were going, what train, etc. etc.  We felt watched and pursued ("The night had many eyes") and at the mercy of everyone.  The conductors not only gave us their bedroom on the train, but bought us cheese sandwiches and watermelon and we had a party of five.  They decided they wanted to see the moon and kept turning the lights off in order to see the moon, so we kicked them out.
More tomorrow from the 1964 journal I wrote during my travels through Egypt with my friend Gail.

EGYPT: FROM THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS TO THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF ???

Returning to my journal written during my travels in Egypt,  August, 1964 . . .

The erstwhile guide kept assuring us that 'the donkeys know the way.' Apparently the guide didn't! Some assurance. He insisted we go by (NOT buy) the Colossus of Menon -- we could have cared less at that point. It was the last thing we wanted to see. We were almost falling off the donkeys, this time from the sun -- the only time in our journey throughout the Middle East that we were suffering from sunstroke.


All the people we saw along the way were walking toward the railroad tracks, because the freight train was due in very shortly. We sat in the men's coffee house (don't know why they allowed us in) where they ate filth, and apparently so did we [and here I quote from my journal word for word, as I have been doing all along.] The men wanted to know how much money a Mexican peso was worth. . . We took the boat back and we were never so happy to see our two clean neat European-looking conductors waiting for us on the other side of the Nile. They took us in the carriage to the hotel where we were informed that we would have to go to the passport authority at seven o'clock that evening. (We had failed to have our passports stamped in Cairo when we first arrived -- hence the trouble.) Luckily, we were told by our conductor friends not to say that we had stayed with friends in Egypt, for they (our Coptic friends in Alexandria) would then be liable to a fifty pound fine and six months in jail.

Not particularly worried about the imminent trip to the passport authorities, we continued our tour and went to the Karnak Temple (pictured above).


Just too much of that for the day. The sacred lake with fungus and mud and no water and lots of Colossus and ankh (a cross with a loop at the top, also known as the Key of the Nile. ...) which we saw everywhere and a honey bee [see yesterday's blog] and all the hieroglyphics.

Ceiling Heiroglyphics: Ankh (the Key of Life) & honey bees, at the Temple of Amun, Karnak (Luxor), Egypt - Source of Above Photos: Internet

We decided not to go to the Temple of Luxor.

We went back to the hotel and took a shower and a 15 minute nap, and then two men belonging to the hotel rounded us up to go to the police. They practically barged into our rooms, and insisted that we go then and there. [Luckily we were dressed.] We finally went, walking through the streets of Luxor, a guard on each side, feeling like prisoners, not knowing what lay in store for us. We were sure these men were leading us to some dark alley, which they did . . . then up some stairs . . .

WBUR & CURT'S PHOTOS, HONEY BEES & EGYPTIAN HONEY

Yesterday I volunteered at WBUR's Valentine Fundraiser (yes, we met our goal!) and my friend Curt, as he often does, after treating us all to Lox and Bagels, announced that he had brought in photos he had taken and printed as gifts for volunteers and WBUR staff. There was a mad dash for the table which sported the photos as we scrambled for our favorites -- Robin Young selected

or was it this one? (I can't quite remember . . .)

and I chose the photo below, photographed by Curt in Oregon in early summer, (reminiscent of summers in Wilbraham, Massachusetts.)

Photo taken off route 26 "Sunset Highway" traveling west from Portland, Oregon to Seaside and Cannon Beach. The stream site is near the turnoff to Saddle Mountain State Park, the photo a testimony to Nature's ability to heal after fire, in this case, the Tillamook fire in 1933.

But my least favorite photo was a magnificent closeup of a bumble bee hovering over a daisy. I couldn't bear to look at it.

Photos Above Courtesy of Curtis Bryant

Why did I find this beautiful photo so upsetting? WBUR volunteers admonished me: we need bees in order to survive, we need bees in order to pollinate plants so that we can eat; we need bees for honey! Well, of course I knew all of this; I had grown up with bees in three beehives in our back yard, and helped my Uncle Paul care for them . . .

Photo above pictures a beehive which needs a good painting after wintering over into spring. (Not ours -- my Uncle Paul always kept ours painted a beautiful white.)

The bees pollinated my father's vegetable garden, my uncle's apple and pear trees, and cured my father, my aunts and uncles and grandfathers and grandmothers of arthritis. Yes -- didn't you know? Bee stings cure arthritis!

Every summer Sunday, among our many visitors, would be an aunt or an uncle who wanted the cure. Mary Baju, one Sunday, would bravely bare her knee, Uncle Khosrov, his elbow, while Uncle Paul, protected under his beekeeper's screened hat, long pants, long-sleeved shirt and gloves, smoker at hand, would pick up a worker bee with his tweezers, and hold it to the arthritic knee, the arthritic elbow. The worker bee would then do her duty and sting that arthritic joint, giving up her life so that the joint would be healed. I always wondered whether the bee sting hurt so much that the arthritic knee no longer felt the pain of the arthritis. . . but my uncles and aunts, and my father, all survivors of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1922, swore that the cure was a cure.

The only problem was that after years of the remedy, my father became allergic to bee stings. Now what . . . his brother (and the garden and fruit trees) were committed to apiculture, and my father would die if he were stung by a bee -- die, that is, if he didn't keep epinephrine at the ready by his side as an antidote to the sting . . . which, of course, my fearless father would never do!

What happened? The garden thrived, the trees thrived, the bees thrived, the relatives thrived. Uncle Paul became famous as he performed in full regalia for years before Claflin Elementary School students (who walked as a class to the house from the old Claflin School in Newtonville Square and later from the new Claflin School across the street from our house), giving them a dramatic 'hands on' lesson on bees and honey which they remember to this day. (Thanks be to God, the bees never stung the children!) And the bees who did NOT sting folks, those bees died of old age, as did my father who died in March of 2010 at 97 years old, having survived the arthritis and the allergy to bee stings without ever having to use the epinephrine which he so disdained.

Oh, and the Egyptian connection. . . As Mark Andrews reminds us, and you may remember,

ancient vessels that were uncorked by 20th century archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings still contained . . . honey that was almost liquid but still preserved its scent after thousands of years.

I wonder if our bees, the bees that resided in hives on Lowell Avenue in Newtonville, Massachusetts, in the 1950's and 1960's, were descended from the bees of Ancient Egypt . . .

RETURNING TO LUXOR FROM THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS, EGYPT, 1964

Heading back home from the Valley of the Queens, [I can't believe I was calling the lizard ridden hotel home, but I did -- it's right there in my journal -- any port in a storm, I guess] -- the guide insisted on giving us the complete treatment and taking us to the tombs of noblemen -- no matter how much we begged him to take us directly home, he told us it was only a short visit, and he wanted us to take full advantage of the trip; also Gail was somewhat more game than I was. [I wonder why!] So we went, but I stayed on my donkey and waited in the shade, while Gail took her little tour. The tombs were part of a small village, evidently -- or rather a group of huts where people lived -- and in front of the huts were round mud-looking constructions. We were told that these were used to sleep in when it was too warm to sleep indoors; however, I was never convinced by this explanation.

After about a half hour ride on the donkeys, we came to a rest house which had no water. The second one had some, but not to drink, and not in the faucets -- this water was brought to us by a girl (to whom, of course, we paid bakshish) -- we thankfully splashed our faces with that water. . .

At this stop I saw several hand-carved alabaster vases for 50 cents each, but I thought that was much too much, and finally bought three of them for a dollar.

Everywhere we went there were lots and lots of pictures of Nasser and many of Nasser with Khruschev, though not in Cairo.

The men were always pulling up their robes, for one reason or another, and they wear great pantaloons underneath. Turbans on their heads -- many wore sheikh headdresses -- they keep pulling those up also.

We saw a new village, one that the government was building, so that an old dilapidated one could be evacuated, but already the people were filling in the windows with rocks. We took a short cut home over very caked and cracked earth --

the donkeys kept slipping into the cracks and we kept holding what little breath we had left. Here the Nile had flooded and receded and left mud caked over the land.

Above taken directly from my journal written in 1964. Taking a break over the weekend to share my adventures at WBUR this week (actually, an Egyptian connection) and a recipe. More on Egypt on Monday.

VALLEY OF THE QUEENS, EGYPT, 1964

Saved by the donkey from a burial fit for a queen . . . My journal continues.

. . . The saddle slipped to the side of the donkey, I fell off, and the donkey fell on top of me (apparently saving me from imminent death -- the Lord does work in strange and wondrous ways!) Had I fallen one moment earlier, I would have fallen over the ledgeless edge into the Valley of the Queens, and joined the queens forever.

I tried to lead my donkey the rest of the way down, but he insisted on stepping on my toe every so often. Between the two accidents, I was so shaky, I could hardly get myself, let alone the donkey, down the mountain. The beautiful view Gail says we saw from the mountain passed me by unnoticed.

1960's Coca Cola Advertisement we envisioned on our long trek over the mountain

Our guide led us to the long-awaited Coke stand which turned out to be another dirty (literally) Arab with a dozen Cokes in an old bucket of melted ice. All the Cokes were hot. This was the last straw -- so when the man opened the Cokes (before we had ordered -- a trick we found throughout the Middle East, especially at borders, etc., an effort to force the tourist into buying), we refused.

We went into the tombs of the Valley of the Queens -- this was after going into all those ombs on the other side of the mountain, where everything was meant to be so beautiful and where they had some interesting hieroglyphics -- bees and scarabs and such, where it was not at all like what Gail had recently read -- described by a woman who had been there and talked about how you went down from the bright sun the glaring dusty yellow desert, down the dark steps, into the brilliantly lit tombs with the clear, exciting hieroglyphics of the olden days so beautifully visible. . . I don't think so!

At this point we were bored by the markings on the walls of the Queens' tombs -- our sense of humor had left us -- so much so that when some wise guy Russians made comments to us, we were disgusted. We did welcome the Queens' tombs, however, for the cool shade, and we took advantage of that part of the trip to relax and cool off.

By this time, I was convinced (and I still am) that the best way to see the markings on the walls of the Egyptian tombs is through a picture book in an air-conditioned room -- the pictures are clearer, one is in a better frame of mind to appreciate them, and the information in the books is far superior to anything told us by the tour guide.

Dear reader, I beg your indulgence as you continue reading my journal, written in 1964 during my trip to the Middle East. The narrative continues tomorrow.

ON DONKEYBACK TO THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS, LUXOR, EGYPT, 1964

I sit at my computer today, thankful that I am alive to tell the tale. My journal from 1964 continues thusly . . .

I woke up feeling ill, because the air-conditioner [yes, there was one on this train from Alexandria to Luxor in 1964] was bringing in stale air, or some such thing. (Gail got sick in the middle of the night and took 2 penicilin.) Big breakfast of omelet and rolls (we couldn't have been that sick)! By this time we had arrived in Luxor -- the Ammun Travel Agency man was ushered to us ceremoniously, but he went off without us -- where, we don't know. So we got John (one of the conductors) to take us in a carriage to a good but inexpensive hotel--"Hotel de Famille", which certainly sounded respectable enough. [But the reality?] Flies, dirt, and lizards crawling up the walls. But cheap and a cheap tour arranged. [The lizards were there to catch the flies, I suppose -- reminds me of that Pete Seeger song: I know an old woman who swallowed a fly -- I don't know why she swallowed the fly; I guess she'll die. Funny Pete Seeger never mentioned lizards in that song!] We discovered that we could have had a free tour and a half price railroad ticket if we had known enough to tell the travel agency that that's what we wanted, or if they were good enough to offer us the option.

We were given a guide (a skinny old man in a long white gown) with whom we headed off for the boat to take us across the [Nile] river to go to the Valley of the Kings. Flies on all of the donkeys and the people, walking across the open eyes of children, open sores, in open mouths, on lips, etc. Reminiscent of what on would expect to find in India along the Ganges. Flies and heat.

Vintage postcard circa 1910 of saddled donkey (NOT the one we rented, although perhaps it was the same one we rented, just 54 years after the photo was taken).

We rented donkeys on the other side of the [Nile] river, and went jogging (on the donkeys) along a desert road to the Valley of the Kings -- no green in sight -- about 110 degrees, and we had no hats, no water. We were very thirsty. We went past villages, cliffs . . . drier and hotter as we got farther from the Nile. not many live here. Only tourists and tombs. At least an hour on the donkeys -- no full skirts blowing in the wind, for although we were wearing full skirts, there was no wind! We arrived at the Vally of the Kings, too hot and thirsty to want to go any further, but we decided to postpone drink and rest time until after the momentary visit to the underworld. Lots of steps down to the tomb which was, in despite the open doorway, nearly suffocating. When we finished our visit to the tomb (which, by the way, was thoroughly unappreciated by Gail and me), we went seeking a glass of water to the shiny new concession-restaurant. There was no water to be had, no matter how much one was willing to pay for it. We settled for a Coke (exorbitantly priced) and dawdled over it, not wanting to move from the slight relief offered by the overhead shleter. We contemplated buying another Coke, for our thirst was at that point unquenchable, but our guide assured us that his friend on the other side of the mountain -- in the Valley of the Queens, sold Coca Cola for much less money, and anyway, we would be really thirsty by the time we got there, and would appreciate the drink more. So off we went, up the steep mountain trail (we got off the donkeys and led them up -- the sand mountain was covered with small pebbles which slipped underfoot and started miniature landslides at every step). At the top of the mountain our guide told us it was now safe to mount the donkeys, as we went for a way along the ridge. I felt very unstable atop the donkey atop the mountain, but my guide assured me all was safe, and when I continued expressing my fears, the dirty old man held me on the donkey. That was enough to convince me that I was safer in my precarious position atop the donkey than I was anchored on the donkey with the aid of the old man. As we started down the mountain, however, the saddle slipped to the side of the donkey, I fell off (nearly into the Valley of the tombs of the dead Queens) and the donkey fell on top of me.

BACK IN CAIRO, BUT NOT FOR LONG!

My journal continues: In Cairo, we were met by the rather 'atrocious' man from the travel agency. . . He introduced me to the train conductor, John. I couldn't really believe that John was the conductor -- he was tall, young, and very good-looking (and clean looking). Having become accustomed to the kindly old men who are usually train conductors in the Boston area, I withheld my trust until future proof, which came soon enough.

Our trip from Cairo to Luxor: We boarded the train and went directly to the dining car, where we took some lovely pictures (after the train had started) of the sun going down behind the palm trees and the pyramids, and began talking to Fuad in French -- also clean-looking and nice, who evidently had been a tour guide. He got us bread, and more bread (at our request . . . we were envisioning days of starvation ahead). We ordered a dinner of pea soup, macaroni casserole, meat pate, mixed vegetable salad, and watermelon WITH seeds (there was a standing joke in Lebanon about watermelon without seeds, but can't remember what it was.)

We sat for a long time over dinner, and the two young men (who it turns out actually WERE the conductors) sent us some beer, we toasted back and forth across the room, and then went to our room. They came by to talk, and we went to their room for Greek wine (John was a Greek Egyptian). The bed had been made but they turned the bed into chairs again. The Greek wine, by the way, was made in Egypt. Nicolas joined us. They grabbed more dinner for us, and some pears; they began to feel the wine so we left. (According to Gail, we had some time leaving, too, though I can't remember.)

Marash Girl (on left) & Gail (on right), Jiita, Lebanon, August 1964, just before traveling to Egypt

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1964: LAST DAY IN ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

Thursday -- We went to the Coptic Church (which is illegal -- the church, that is). They want to get government permission and build a real church, but there'll be a long wait, if permission ever comes through at all. The lady who was our hostess was extremely obsequious to the priest, who was, by the way, married. The priest told us all about the church which was the church of St. George. At this point it was just brick with a tin roof, that the Coptic community had renovated. We met the priest's wife and a crowd of local women. On the way home, we noticed that there was a communal television in the square where everybody was watching a football game -- in the open! We went back to the casino, then to our hostess to whom we said goodbye. She gave Gail a small camel (plastic covered and somewhat flea bitten) and admired Gail's hairbrush (good old nylon and plastic - USA). [We didn't know enough at the time to gift her the hairbrush! Oh, the ignorance of the young!] Our hostess went around telling everyone about my answer to the question of whether or not I would marry an Egyptian. [I can't remember what the answer was, but I'm sure it was in the negative!] She asked us to write. . .

We left in a taxi for the Cairo train station. We had to fight off the porters (Gail nearly kicked one). The train ride back seemed longer. We tried to take pictures out of the window -- somewhat of a failure. We slept and people kept pulling the shutters on the windows up and down, blocking the view. They thought we were crazy to let the sun in for the sake of looking out the window. From the train window [when the shutters were up], we saw a little village which looked more like little burial mounds in England. We gathered that that was so as not to take up room for cultivation of the land. The flat roofs of the buildings were covered with straw -- to keep the heat down; even on top of the city buildings you saw this.

Thanks for reading . . . More from my 1964 journal tomorrow.

FURTHER IMPRESSIONS & ADVENTURES IN EGYPT, SUMMER 1964

Observations: People sleeping on ground everywhere -- smell of the drains -- local dress appears to be like our pajamas, less stylish than the Bedouins. Many women in modern dress. Dirt everywhere! Candles & carts at night (?), round hats. The men who pushed, the women who kept poking us with their fingers to get through the crowd. The ocean and the trees, the canals and the buffalos in the water across from Nassar's palace.

The Libyans don't even trust the Egyptians that they know personally.
Went to the zoo with our Libyans (where Gail thought the zookeeper was so nice for letting her feed the camels -- she didn't notice the Libyans paying him off for every peanut she fed the camels!) Then visited the hospital which was VERY clean. The Egyptian "friend: of the Libyans kept announcing in every store that we wanted to change American money (this is illegal save in the banks). He had been taken along to help us bargain, but we soon discovered that we did better by ourselves, without the help of a native who knew the customs or spoke the language.
We were told stories about the secret police, the great no., the disguises, the great percentage -- the story about the three brothers, all of whom were secret police, none of whom knew the others were!

Everyone wanted us to change money -- give us hashish & whiskey (?) The boys we were with said that Libyans in general were wealthy, but had no place to spend their money. There's a huge American Colony there (Firestone -- with a semi-govmt., etc.)
You always have to pay bakshish -- even to park on the street. The boys left us, or rather dropped us at our house, and we slept. Then went to the stupid post office.

Impressions: flies, sores on the feet, bad eyes, but in some ways not as bad as we had thought, or expected we might find. Although we would eat the food we would find in stalls in other parts of the Middle East, we were afriad to do so in Egypt.

Then we went to the little casino by the sea, we spent hours drinking lemonade, eating kebab, salad, grapes. The fruit is very different -- very sweet -- like nectar, or perfume. Almost everyone is barefoot.

N.B. Yesterday, on WBUR, heard about an Alexandrian woman poking a reporter with her finger, and I was interested to note that the behavior I recorded in the first paragraph above persists to this day!

LIBYANS & ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, AUGUST 16, 1964

To Alexandria by train. Big fight [on the train]. . . a woman screaming at a man there, and a kindly man in a white gown who was shocked at the scene, and later helped us make phone calls in Alexandria to locate [the famous] Badawi using an Arabic phone book.[Neither Gail nor I spoke, understood, or could read Arabic. The only words we knew were La said with the toss of the head upward and backward) (No!!!) and Shukran (Thank You). Two very useful words, especially when used together!] We never did find our friend Badawi!

We descended [or literally ascended] upon an unsuspecting Egyptian Greek Copt woman who was the mother of a friend of Debbie's (Gail's sister). We arrived on her doorstep with all of our possessions, the cab driver carrying our bags to the 4th floor of the apartment house where she lived. She and her husband were very hospitable. Her husband, having greeted us in his pajamas, insisted on changing into street clothes and greeting us again. Their son was not at home -- he was in Libya, but I guess their philosophy was, "Any friend of a sister of a friend of our son's is a friend of ours," because they took us in (not that they were left with much choice!)

Bazaar -- bargained for key chains (which Gail bought) and a camel made of rabbit's fur [a stuffed camel, as it were] which was too expensive. We met two Libyans at the camel stall who bargained for and bought the camel, and gave it to me as a gift from Libya. They told us how horrible they felt the Egyptians were -- black market, etc., and how dangerous it was for two girls to be walking alone in the bazaar... The Libyans don't even trust the Egyptians that they know personally.
Running back to the travel agent (had to be there by five) to pick up the tickets, and we were running so fast, we ran right past the agency! Back in time, though. Bought leather pocketbook for $1.50. (I almost lost my camel there!)


N.B. As you may remember, above are transcribed notes from a journal I wrote while travelling in Egypt in 1964. More from my journal tomorrow . . . And just a note on the famous Badawi -- The Badawi that we sought was Mohamed Badawi, a scholar from Alexandria, Egypt, whom I had gotten to know when he was a participant in the Harvard International Seminar, and I was an assistant to Dr. Henry Kissinger for that Seminar during the summer of 1962.

OUR FIRST DAY IN EGYPT, AUGUST 15, 1964

Our first day in Egypt, from the  journal I wrote during a trip to the Middle East, Summer, 1964.

[Saturday, August 15, 1964] Plane to Egypt [from Beirut]-- flew over the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez(?) Arrived in Cairo with all our money hidden in Tampax tubes, straps of bathing suits, etc. [because of Egyptian governmental monetary restrictions]. Looked for customs and asked the nice man who had just stamped our bags where customs was.
"I am customs," he said. Off we ran through another gate where an officer asked whether we were looking for anyone in particular. Badawi, we said. On hearing the name Badawi, he broke into a roar of laughter. [For those of you who are in the know, you're probably laughing too!] Badawi is as common a name in Egypt as Smith is in the United States.
... Into the city by taxi, we were relieved that we had successfully smuggled [young and foolish as we were] our money into Egypt, but almost disappointed with the ease of the operation. We were made to feel at home when we saw on the side of the road a huge stone church

 on which there was Armenian writing; but in retrospect, I do believe that the church was abandoned. (Thanks to Kid from Alex, we can all see above that the church was NOT abandoned--picture compliments of the Kid.) Cairo is alive with dark men in long white gowns. . . walked with the porter from BOAC to the hotel (a good 10 minute walk in stifling heat) which, we were soon to discover, would cost us more than a taxi would have -- either that, or we paid the porter more than we should have . . .!

It took us most of the afternoon at the Amman Travel Agency to arrange a trip to Abu Simbel -- which we couldn't arrange because the Nile was flooded -- a small point which nobody had bothered to tell us. However, in good Middle Eastern style, the ticket agent bought us a Coke and finally arranged a trip for us to Alexandria, Luxor (& Aswan?).

No mail at the American Embassy, so we went shopping, in our typical fashion, 'to drown our sorrows, or something'. I bought a lovely necklace and earring set (orange and turquoise stones set in brass, reminiscent of an Egyptian Queen) which I later found in another store for 1/3 the price. [Yes, I know, I'm talking like an American tourist; well, that's exactly what I was, even though it was the '60's!] The other store, by the way, was owned by a very nice man who, after a while realized that we thought he was very nice, because we kept going back -- and (of course) he started raising the prices. Actually, he was responsible for our staying alive a good part of those days in Egypt -- amazing how much nourishment there is in one Coke! [By the way, Cokes were ubiquitous throughout Egypt!] Even a taxi driver bought us Cokes -- the only man who wasn't looking for free sex, money, information or something that we could give him from the good old US of A! This taxi driver was so nice that he even tried to refuse the tip we gave him!

That evening we went to the movies to see BELOVED INFIDEL with all the obvious awkward cuts in it.

Beauty is a gift in the young, an achievement in the old. [A quote from BELOVED INFIDEL]

We sat on the first floor in the cheapest section of the theater. Young men kept fighting for the seats next to us, until we discovered that our seats were meant to be up in the Loge where the seats were better anyway, and where we would no longer be [and in fact were not] bothered by rambunctious young men.

Back to the hotel for lemonade and a good night's rest. Next morning to Alexandria . . .

N.B. The above entry was taken directly from the journal that I kept (at my father's insistence) during my only trip to the Middle East in the summer of 1964. I'm so thankful that I took the trip when I did, and that I followed my father's advice!

THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM, CAIRO, EGYPT, Summer, 1964

The other day, sitting at my computer listening to WBUR's reporting on Egypt, I heard that the Egyptian Museum in Cairo had been taken over by the Egyptian armed forces. The Egyptian Museum? Gail and I were there in 1964, the summer after my first year of teaching, when everyone loved Americans, the summer following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, when Gamal Abdel Nasser was the ruler of Egypt.

In fact, I think I have the journal that I kept during that trip. Let me run upstairs and rummage through the bookshelves in my bedroom . . . hold on . . . yes, here it is! Lots about Egypt which I will share with you in future blogs, but nothing about the Egyptian Museum except for . . .my memory: a vast museum full of huge white stone statues, pedestals taller than we could reach, alabaster pottery, delicately hand carved figures, all jammed into every possible corner, no labels, just beautiful, magnificent Egyptian antiquary. Certainly no military presence! The collection in Cairo put the Museum of Fine Arts Boston's Egyptian collection to shame! [A friendly rogue once labeled an elegant sparsely set out museum in the United States, պարապ թանգարան - barab tankaran -- an empty museum. He must have been accustomed to museums like the one in Cairo.) Gail -- if you have any memories of the Museum we visited in Cairo, please comment! More on Egypt 1964 tomorrow. I promise!