Letters

June 12, 2011
Dear Friends,

You need to know from the start that I am so completely a non-swimmer that I don't even take baths often. My daughter, who is a great natural swimmer, who glides through the water like a porpoise smooth and sleek, decided one summer that it was high time I become a capable swimmer. Every day we went to the pool at the local club and claimed a lane near the edge before it got really busy. Mady walked up and down the side, calling out orders or pointers and once every lap or two raising her eyebrows in that skeptical way of hers as she offered what I chose to construe as compliments, things like, "Wow, Mom, that was the most interesting approach to an underwater turn I've ever seen," or "I think it's fairly amazing you even made it one length given the incredible unevenness of your right and left kicks." It took less than two weeks for her to give up. We did not renew the club membership.

But now here we are together again, years later and wiser and assuredly more wonderful, again on the water's edge, this time the clear waters of the Red Sea, on the western, Egyptian shore. The water is not a shade less brilliant a blue than the chemically-induced azure of the swimming pool in Boulder, Colorado, and that, my unseen friend, is where all terrestrial similarities end. I will forget the summer at the pool eventually; I will never forget the world of the coral reefs.

Under the sea. It is, in fact, just what the animators showed us in Disney's "The Little Mermaid," a whole new world. Did you know that the underside of the water's surface looks like quicksilver? It's hard to decide what is more amazing: The coral reef, itself a living, breathing animal, all its textures and colors and the sadness of the white coral graveyards? Or the fish, all their constantly moving and mutating colors, only the dreaded lionfish remaining still for more than a second, the rest a constant swirl of shapes and shades, flickerings that nearly catch your eye long enough to record upon your retina? Or is it simply the fact that I'm here to see this, staying in the temperate water for unprecedented hours, floating easily (thanks to the saltiness) just at the surface, sometimes not even paddling, just hanging in the water like some pallid version of the glorious jellyfish.

Mustard yellow, pale lavendar, cornflower blue and the nearly lurid spring greens of the coral attract and shelter the swarming and even more brilliant colors of the darting fish. I do not know their names yet, but they do not seem perturbed unduly by our presence here, especially mine, which is restricted to the surface. Mady swims without a snorkel and goes much closer to the coral. She is just another fish down here. I wish I could swim like she does; my snorkelling gear seems so needlessly noisy. She tells me that the faint crackling sound is the sound of thousands of fish nibbling at the coral reef. I, my breathing apparatus magnifying my exhalations into a rush of windstorm, can't even hear it. Mady dives deep, her arms pressed along her sides rendering her human form more sleek than it already is. She twists and turns like the fish do, as one smooth body, no awkward limbs sticking out at odd angles as mine do. She glides through the schools, and the fish scatter like glitter, revealing as they flit in new directions new colors to my gawking eyes above. Even the palest of the white fish, when he spins about, reveals a triumphant little tail of luminescent indigo.

Under the sea, no one is plain or gawky once they relax and let the water have its way. Eventually, here in the Red Sea, even I learn this. And when I rise from the water and plant my bare feet on the soft white sandy bottom again, I too feel beautiful and full of the grace of living.


Sunday, June 5, 2011

My Dear Friend,

On the balcony of Megid's apartment on a nice, slow morning, my daughter and I enjoying a little bit of "home" time, alone time. The first work day I've experienced in Cairo: remember, the weekends here are Friday/Saturday. This means that occasionally the small intersection below balcony is actually empty of traffic. Never for long; the traffic, which is an unfiltered, unregulated throng of cars and bikes and pedestrians, plus an occasional animal, is incessant, and the sound of beeping horns is always present in the air, always. Not usually angry horns, like you hear in American traffic; there is a language of car horns here, a system of warning used by drivers to alert other drivers to their exact spot in the flow of cars. You see, there are no lanes here, and a single road with room for only one lane of traffic may go either direction and if not for the language of horning, this entire city would shut down. It is an extraordinary counterpoint to the chanting that is megaphoned over the city every few hours. Today, the Muslim calls to prayer are interspersed with the sounds of syncopated clappings and Alleluia choruses in this neighborhood. A sort of compound across the street must house some Coptic Christian group; there are nuns in blue habits and white wimples mixed in with the black burqua'd Muslim women today.

I am, you are so right, utterly absorbed in the sights, sounds and smells. Being here with my daughter and her Egyptian friends has been allowing me a close-up and intimately Egyptian perspective on everything I see and hear. My pictures are going to be amazing, I think. I'm hesitant to use my battery for browsing them, and I certainly don't have the time or computer access to download them, but I have taken some great ones, I'm quite sure. I am eager to work with them and see what's worth keeping.

I can't say I miss Wisconsin yet, but I do miss your camraderie.



Saturday, June 6

Hello again,

The man who's opened his home to us (which is lovely by Egyptian standards...or ours, but especially by Egyptian) has been a fantastic host. Not the kind of host who shows you around --- he's at work every day --- but he has totally opened his home and refrigerator and not objected to being awakened in the wee hours by travellers coming home exhausted but in need of being "buzzed in" to the building. He's not an "active," as in devout or even practicing Muslim that I can see, but he's been raised in a Muslim culture, so of course he doesn't drink alcohol as liberally as we do in the West, but he's always ready to sit up and enjoy a vicarious glass of wine, which I have really craved to help me relax after these intense days observing so much and thinking, thinking, thinking. On my way back to Wisconsin, I'll probably stay here another night or two. Meanwhile, heading out to the desert. Hard to believe any place on earth could be drier or more desolate than Cairo. Or crazier. No people love their children more, and yet the other day we passed a sedan with its trunk open, doing that up and down bouncey thing they do, and there, in the open trunk, were two children, laughing and playing as the car sped through crazy careening traffic. I was sorry not to get a picture of that, but I have taken many that will show much about this place, and I've also been scolded by stern Muslims here and there for trying to take pictures. I do my best to respect anything that is personal or sacred by the different cultural standards here, but sometimes I just can't resist. Going by the Syrian embassy, though, as violence mounts in that land not too far from here, I did not even wait to be scolded by the machine gun toting guards at the gate. Today is not a good day for tempting fate. Tomorrow, going across the Sinai through all the checkpoints, all on high alert these days of unrest, maybe that will be the day to tempt fate or to enjoy it.

Time to explore now. Wish you were sharing this with me, though I know you would probably hate all the noise here.

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