A Wonder in Egypt

Of the seven ancient wonders of the world, only the Giza Pyramids in Egypt are left. The slow torture of human impact, erosion, and their sidekicks, have done in the others. Not having attended the life or the funeral of the Alexandria Lighthouse, the Temple of Artemis, the statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, I am grateful to have at least met the Pyramids. And our meeting was surreal.

Surrealism, my companion and guide through Egypt has become my faithful and relentless friend. Search engines define it as the belief that the liberation of the human mind, and subsequent liberation of the individual and society can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the unconscious mind. All this to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately, “truer” than everyday reality. The presumption, of course, is that the human mind, the individual and society need liberation. I say yes, yes, they do, and surrealism has sent many an invitation to try.

Today, the word is used colloquially to describe unexpected juxtapositions, but Surrealism began in the 1920’s as an artistic movement. It soon became a system of thought, grew political legs, and before long, like all movements, it had extended its branches every which way. Louis Aragon, Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera are famous ‘surrealists’, and they were in the camp of those who believed it to be in essence a revolutionary movement.

So, you get the picture. The word, the concept grabbed me very early on in Egypt and it hung on tight. As I was riding a camel into the desert with the Pyramids in the background, our friend Nate’s cell phone rang and Lionel yelled back to me: “Now that’s surreal!” And I chuckled to myself… ‘You have no idea, buddy.’

Indeed, the Pyramids are surreal, and Nate’s cell phone in that context made them more so. But what Lionel didn’t know was that I was in the middle of a seminar on Muslim sex.

Hours earlier, we had been dropped off by a door-less, rickety old bus at the entrance of the desert and had rented two camels and one horse from a man named R.P. Mr. R.P. had come with us to serve as guide, a mandatory accessory unless you want to get hassled by the police. We liked the look of him and all was well. So, as a happy little bunch, we wound up the path, broke into the desert and BAM, the moment assaulted. First, the Pyramids – Wow, Wow, Wow… Simply surreal. Years of seeing photos only intensified the dream-like effect of seeing these massive, magic triangles magnificently swaying in the desert heat haze. I entered this very calm place of myself, marked only by the musical to and fro of the camel. Lionel and Nate rode ahead and R.P. stuck to my side. He broke the silence a few times with suggestions on improving my hip motion, but otherwise the ride was enchanting.

Then, a little closer to the Pyramids, and a little further from Lionel and Nate, my guide’s breath quickened and he took a deep one. I waited, tended my ear and then POP: “Miss, do you know any new sex positions?” Gulp. “Um, I’m sorry… why are you asking?”

R.P. then opened the shaft and told me all about his three wives and his Italian lover, whose existence is of course “top secrit” because “my wifes would be craiizy”. The story goes that, one fateful day, an Italian woman came walking into his shop looking for a trek. They went into the desert for several days and had a wild affair. She showed him some tricks, stirred his imagination, and he’s been bent on sexual edification ever since. I’m not at all squeamish about this stuff, so I engaged… and I benefited from serious edification myself. I had no idea what goes on in a multiple-wife household in your average Muslim home on Friday nights… or at least what goes on in the home of R.P. on Friday nights. Now, a transcription of the conversation that ensued would be downright pornographic, so I will stop. Suffice to say that Lionel’s, “Now that’s surreal!”, was followed on my end by R.P. asking, “I’m sarry, where woould herr legs go?”

Bumping along toward the last remaining ancient wonder of the world, I had to wonder how in the world this stuff always happens to me… I didn’t wonder long because I sort of know the answer, but I still thought it was funny as hell and I could only squeeze my abs and suck in my giggling cheeks with every bounce of that camel.

Anyway… where were we? Ah yes, surrealism. The more you travel, the more you work, the more you see and feel, the more “real” life becomes. Your repertoire of experience gets wider and you forget that all those things didn’t exist in your consciousness before. They amass in the bank, it takes more to be impressed, it is harder to find that dream-like space, and when that happens, a flat and cruel apathy is not far behind. So, for me, when something is added to my bank of life that I’m even tempted to call ‘surreal’, I feel alive in a very special way. The word becomes my own small revolt.

From Cairo, we took a long bus through Suez, down the coast and into the interior of Egypt. We stayed at this camp run by the Bedouin tribe in St-Katherine’s protectorate and met, would you believe, a French artist heavily influenced by the Surrealist Art movement – his name is Herbert Tilly. It was wild to meet him then. I smiled at the continuity. Herbert brought me further into the world of surrealism – we talked about passion for art, the work he’s been doing, the books we’ve been reading… and together, we climbed Mount Sinai.

At 2285 metres, it took 3 hours to climb to the summit. And to say the view from up there is ‘surreal’, I suppose, is not technically correct. But I will say that it felt that way to me, and that it induced a state of surrealism. The rock formations, the colours, the stream of shadows, the sky of pillows… It is breath-breaking. High up in this old theatre of war, I lay down, stared out, and took in all the history, faith, love and bloodshed this mountain has sparked and witnessed. A terrific wonder.

We came down from the mountain talking about everything and nothing. The next day, joined by a lovely couple from France, we rode out in a little troupe to the Red Sea Coast. In the gorgeous, sandy village of Dahab, we spent our gluttonous days and nights reading, exchanging, playing dominoes at our beach camp, and Herbert and I watched surrealist films by Luis Bunuel on his laptop.

When Herbert left, a breath of thought lingered behind him. The others also left, and soon, it was just Lionel and me. In the days that followed, I spent another surreal afternoon, this time at a spa getting scrubbed, rubbed and pampered by a beautiful Arabian man in a towel while a CD player blared “Nights of Endless Pleasure” by Céline Dion… And I had my first view of the world from below. Scuba diving turned everything on its head and because of it, I think I finally know what it’s like to meditate.

But it was the day Lionel and I went shopping that surrealism struck its height. Generally, in Egypt, I dressed as conservatively as possible, but in Dahab, women are more relaxed, so I was too. There are lots of foreigners and the men are used to seeing skin, so they don’t react in the same way and no one seems to be offended. The day we went shopping on a little road parallel to the beach, I wore long pants, flip-flops and a shawl wrapped creatively to cover all necessary parts, but I left my upper back and shoulders exposed. I was looking for sandals. Lionel and I went to one store and found nothing, so we moved onto the next one. Here, I saw a cute little pair and was bending down to pick them up when I heard the owner whisper something. He was just a few feet from me, so I lifted my head and saw he was praying. When he stopped, I looked at him quizzically. He pointed at my shoulders with a look of disgust and said, “It’s you”, and walked away.

Ok, it’s me… what about me… I vaguely knew what he meant, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to force him to say it. So, I approached, smiled gently, and said: “I am asking this out of respect. This is a friendly question… Why are my shoulders a problem for you?” Lionel was beet red, squirming with all his might… But the man was not offended. My tone was soft and he was willing to answer. He carefully explained to me that he had to say a prayer when I bent down because he caught himself admiring my bare back and shoulders. Allah does not allow him to look at any body parts that don’t belong to his wife, and so his brief interest in mine constituted a sin, and he was asking for forgiveness – both his… and mine. My sin was temptation. He motioned to my shoulders again, and with that look of disgust, said: “For this, you go to fire.”

I go to fire. I go to fire. How shaken, how devastated, how ashamed I was. My bare shoulders shamed me and I wanted to cry for shoulders everywhere. I was shocked to react this way. It would have been much more natural for me to feel anger, defiance, disdain… anything but shame. The man saw the look in my eyes and his own welled up with tears of what felt like empathy. It was as though he deeply believed that this young girl before him was going to suffer in the afterlife if she did not repent this trespass. I felt ill, but this was such a gentle man that I could only thank him for his candor and leave. Afterward, it was me that was surreal. My whole body, my whole self… I was in this beautiful place feeling in love and wonderful and pretty, but … ‘I go to fire?’ I floated on the conscious, the unconscious of this, and the very existence of those words, for a long, long time.

Egypt, for me, was a place of wild contradictions. It offered gusty escapes from mind and reason, and with them came a few welcome moments of my own small revolt.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 4:22 pm and is filed under She Said. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.