By the morning we got back to Cairo, after the 10-hour overnight train from Luxor, we were just about ready to be done with Egypt and its abundance of friendly but persistent touts. After taking a nap at about 7AM, we were woken up by our hostel staff a few hours later and told someone was here waiting for us. And then we met Magy! A native Christian Egyptian who spoke great English. A friend of a friend, she had agreed to meet us and show us around Cairo, with the perspective of a local.
Hanging out with Magy was a breath of fresh air after roaming around Egypt for a week not being able to read signs in Arabic or communicate properly in broken English. It was great hearing about what life was like as a non-Muslim (and unveiled) woman in Egypt. As modern as Egypt can be, the clash between mainstream and Islamic culture is still very evident. Magy mentioned how she still gets stares all the time for not wearing a headscarf. She had to tell over-curious men to bugger off just as much as Jessi. I get the sense that she feels like a foreigner living in her own country at times.
Nonetheless, we had a fantastic time walking around downtown Cairo. We were finally able to understand some phrases we had heard all week but never understood. We had lunch and then dessert at a popular cafe not too far away from our hostel. It was post-Ramadan, so there were lots of sweets and treats available, all exotic to us and tasty. Afterwards, we unwound at the hostel and got ready for our 2am flight to Ethiopia. We got to drop off Magy at her place in Nasr City on our way to the airport and get a glimpse of middle-class Egyptian suburbia (she was next to a shopping mall after all).
After a week of being a tourist, the day with Magy reminded me of what our trip was about- meeting people and learning their stories.
If you ever come back to California, come look us up Magy!
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