An Oakland Girl in the World
So. On my way to Cambodia I went to Cairo. (No, it’s not actually “on the way.”) I went with a lot of expectations and very little planning—pretty much a sure-fire way to ensure disappointment. It was really hard and kinda sucked. Until the last night.
You can read about it here. And then repost it, tweet it, tumble it, whatev. Cause that’s how we do.
Thanks.
I landed in Cairo like something shot out the bottom of a waterslide: a sharp gasp and splash of forward momentum, wedgie-style with a sting up the nose, blinking, shaking water from my ear for the four days. Completely unprepared, and didn’t know what to expect, except that I hadn’t even given it enough mental energy to expect anything.
Which isn’t entirely true—I expected it to be fairly modern, fairly developed. After two weeks in Albania, Cairo felt downright fancy, wealthy even. (There’s a Metro! When’s the next time I’m gonna get to ride a Metro?) I arrived during Eid, which is basically a four-day shitshow of fireworks, honking, running the streets—a Muslim teenage boy version of Girls Gone Wild.
But the daytimes are sleepy as fuck, Downtown dead, shuttered, traffic-less and breezy. I met up an old friend’s little sister, who I hadn’t seen since I was in high school (insert requisite “Oh my God, you’re a woman now!”). We ate koshari and drank Turkish coffee and wandered around, making our way over to Tahrir Square.
Where, if I’d stopped to think about it while I’d been crashing down that waterslide, I would have expected it: a shitton of political stencils.
Running around snapping photos, many of which Kate was able to translate and explain to me, turned out to be the dopest part of my four-day stay.
Leading up to the square, this is a pretty typical shot of what the walls are looking like down there. The half-face on the left is one of the more popular stencils, which I saw in various forms. It’s of Alexandrian blogger Khaled Said who was beaten and killed by the police, pre-Arab-Spring. Outcry and attention (speareheaded by FB group “We are all Khaled Said”) over his death are credited with fueling the flames that eventually led to the January 25th uprising.
Cool because I’d seen almost the exact same Anarchy head in Kosovo.
Another jailed blogger, Alaa Abdel Fattah.
Face on the left of the tree is of Mina Danial, another blogger who was killed.
The next batch are all on the wall by the American University.
“We are all the martyr Mina Danial.”
“Retribution for Mubarak.”
Date of a protest, alongside the star-and-fist logo of the revolutionary socialists. Stencils are apparently one of the primary ways protest dates get circulated.
“I am the brain, you are the muscle.” Liked that this lady walked into the shot.
Face on the left is of a TV newscaster (missed his name) who canceled his show rather than be censored.
A classic. Writing beneath reads: “Long Live the People of my Country.”
Writing inside the TV reads: “Go down to the streets”—ie, don’t rely on the TV/media to tell you what’s going on.
Another of Khaled Said. Quite liked the placement beside the doorway.
Never quite figured out what the cow meant, but there were a lot of them…
K, here’s one all the Occupiers can get down with: a banker being, um, poked, with a caption that reads: “Strike!”
Perhaps not the most well-executed, but reminded me of the Sherpard Fairey guns and roses piece.
Personal favorite, for obvious reasons (though only got groped once): “No touching. Castration awaits you.” Shit yeah!
Don’t have captions/translations/context for the rest of these. If anyone’s got any insights or context to offer, holler…
Metro stops.
…And, a typical street scene round the Square, with a lil hidden gem.
It was really cool and really fucking refreshing to see all these stencils up. You know, you come across a lot of jaded people—people who will tell you that street art is played out, has sold out, commercialized and commodified and done for. There’s an element of truth to what they say, sure, but I think that level of cynicism is dangerous.
So it was rad, all else aside, to see all this up, in this context. Street art is, in its origin and at its core, a political act. At least that’s how I see it. It may be all the other sceney bullshit too, but walking around Tahrir Sqaure, I was reminded of the crucial role it can still play, the dissent it can represent, and how it can be un-fucking-stoppable. And, in a place where there’s such intense repression and media censorship, street art plays a vital role.
It’s like social media—which can be be soul-sucking and superficial—if you let it. The same cynical voices will tell you that FB and Twitter are deteriorating authentic human interaction. Which very well may be true. But, if you look at the fuller picture—holy shit, look what it can do! Look how it can connect people. It’s not a coincidence that authorities, from Tahrir Square to BART, shut down cell phone reception in the face of protests. It’s not a coincidence that the majority of faces stenciled here are bloggers. Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of BS that comes along with the territory, but that’s the world we live in, you know? And check out the crazy, amazing tools we have to make it a better place.
Street art is one.
Dusty
Arms poking at me, fingers tapping—shove a postcard book in my face and flap it around.
Smell: Camel shit, horse shit—a stink, yes, but it’s a healthy, robust stink, blooming in the heat. Think of my dad, leaving the bathroom in the morning: “Ah, that smelled fertile—like it would make shit grow.”
Taste: Dry, thirsty crackle in my throat but too stubborn to buy overpriced bottled water. Linger of packaged jam from breakfast. The mint of my chapstick.
Sound: “Camel ride,” “Postcard, madam,” “Welcome to Egypt!” “Where you from?” “Camel ride, hello!”—haggle-hassle town, a chorus of cries, hungry touts with cracked feet and chipped teeth, sharp limbs and sharper eyes.
I understand the dynamic—I know my place in the global socioeconomic ladder, that I’m a Have, the 1%—or 10%, or whatever—but basically, not a Have Not. I understand that this is the price you pay, along with the admission, and that neither are very much.
But it’s aggravating as hell, which is kinda the point, the technique, if you will—and the best I can do right now is to ignore it, not engage or react, not look or respond. I bust a move from my old teenager bus riding days: wear headphones without the sound on, so I can still hear everything (in case it goes beyond annoying to threatening), but can pretend I don’t.
So I walk like that, then decide—Well, shit, may as well drown this shit out. So I turn to what was playing last—new Ty Segall, which is bad-ass but doesn’t fit the mood, the scene, the monumental, crumbling, cracked-lip ambiance. Stop and do a scroll through. Wait, wait…
Theeeeeere we go.
So I’ve got the drone-moan doom metal in my dome, and I’m mad-dogging it through the place. Touts and hustlers like flies to a light bulb—knock, knock, knock and you can’t get in.
Sight: Well, it’s the Pyramids, the effing Pyramids, and you know what that looks like. And you’ve probably heard that it’s plop in the middle of suburban sprawl, that there’s a shitshow of tour buses and taxis, that there’s a KFC across from the Sphinx, that there’s people everywhere, everywhere—climbing on the stones the signs tell you not to, posing for photos and I see, in a flash, 1000 framed photos on mantles and walls; I see a cacophony of Facebook profile shots and a clutter of newsfeeds; I see cards sent out at various holidays, see digital scrapbooks suffered through by captive relatives.
More Egyptian families than anything else, but the groups of teenage boys are second. They climb up the stone and flash smiles and hand gestures and gather around the viewfinder and nod in approval. They shout shit at me as I pass, but I’m like, “I can’t hear yyyyyyou”—even though secretly I can and (less secretly) they know I can.
But it’s the charade of the day, the game we play. I turn my headphones up louder.
Sight: Figure approaching, black clothes against the yellow dust. Alone, wearing headphones.
Feel: That I’m looking at some parallel version of myself, the Egyptian dude version. I can tell by his new clothes that he isn’t gonna try to sell me anything; can tell by his straight walk and forward gaze that he isn’t gonna hassle me, that he can’t be bothered to hassle a random Western girl.
Sound: “Funeralopooooooolis / Planet of the dead”
Smell: Dust in my nose.
Taste: Dust in my teeth.
Feel us approach each other like tangential lines, tangential lives, intersecting for one moment, then diverging into the big blank desert.
I give him the “yoyo, what’s up” nod.
He returns it without a smile.
Feel him walk away, disappear behind me and out of my sight.
He was cute, I realize. Goddammit—the one cute dude I’d want to talk to in this place.
I blink the dust from my contacts and keep walking
Lonely Girl Travels 
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