LOVE & ART IN LUXOR - PART 2

View from the studio, Luxor, Egypt

 

Excerpt From 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

After a six am flight from Cairo twenty-five artists from a variety of countries from all over the world arrived slightly crumpled and bleary eyed in the Ancient Egyptian city of Luxor. I plonked my self down on a sofa in the garish lobby of the Hotel Pyramisa and waited for the Symposium organisers to check us in. It was a long process and I was dozing when a group of Middle Eastern men entered the lobby. An artist from Romania nudged me awake and begrudgingly I rose to meet the assembly. The men were from the Ministry of Culture, the Fine Arts Sector in Cairo. I was presented to them one by one but I’d already noticed him long before he was introduced to me as our translator. He was a truly beautiful looking young man. One of those kinds of men that were too good looking, so good looking that a mere mortal female like myself usually dismisses him as out of her league. Tall, large build, a head of tight dark curls like the Emperor statues I’d seen in Rome, his eyes were gentle and brown and his lips like a living cupid. My God he even had a chiseled chin with a small cleft. By Egyptian standards his skin was quite pale and he could have passed for Greek or Italian. When he held out his hand to greet them I noticed my female companions go weak at the knees.

As we shook hands I looked up at his face and into his eyes and saw something happening to his composure, like an invisible wave washing over him. I felt something too. It was palpable. At my age I’m embarrassed to admit that my breath and heartbeat did that whole shortening and quickening thing. I quickly disengaged, sure that everyone present had noticed what had just occurred.

 

‘Katherine what are you thinking?’ I chastised myself as I scurried away to the ladies loo to catch my breath and take a look at myself in the bathroom mirror. ‘He's too young'. And more to the point, you're too old’.

We often reminisce about that first meeting in the lobby and he likes to tell his version of the story.

‘I saw you first', he recollects. ‘On the sofa’.

‘Oh my God’, I think, mentally scrambling to picture my bedraggled self back there on the couch. ‘I must have looked a wreck’.

‘It was as if I already knew you’, he continues, unaware of my dismay. ‘The second I saw you, you entered my heart and I knew that you were my destiny’.

Only an Egyptian Demi-God or a Barbara Cartland protagonist can say that sort of thing and get away with it I thought.

My hotel room at the Pyramisa, which was also to serve as my studio for two weeks, was every artist’s dream. It was a good size, light and airy and overlooked the imposing Valley of the Kings with the Nile virtually lapping at my doorstep. But I didn’t have time to savour my new surroundings for long. After a short rest we were summoned to assemble in the lobby and immediately whisked off to visit the Luxor Museum. I remember walking around the tastefully lit antiquities and bumping into him as I rounded the corner of a huge Pharoanic burial casket. Our eyes locked in that classic eye locking way and I knew, like any Egyptian slave, I was doomed.

The following night the whole menagerie of artists and organisers loaded onto an assortment of open-air wooden boats to take a short cruise up the Nile to a Nubian restaurant where we were assured there would be great food and belly dancing. When we arrived, the outdoor restaurant, decorated with colourful traditional rugs and Egyptian pin prick lanterns was packed. Groups of very merry, half sloshed and sunburned English tourists were already tucking into a smorgasbord of Middle Eastern dips, lentil soup, lamb tangine, roast chicken, flat bread and rice. As the night progressed a succession of Nubian drummers, singers, whirling dervishes and belly dancers performed for us and after we'd had our fill of the delicious food we cast off our shoes and despite our lack of technique or expertise, belly danced into the night. It was after midnight when we all stumbled back on board the boats. He signalled me to follow him as he climbed a ladder and disappeared through an opening in the roof of the vessel. It was a perfect balmy evening with the gentlest of breezes. We lay down next to each other on the flat wooden platform, gazing up at the stars as we putted back down the Nile to the hotel. We didn’t touch but the proximity of our fingers created static electricity. When we’d disembarked and everyone had retired for the evening he walked me back to my room and pushing me up against the door sneaked his first kiss, hard and insistent.

For the next two weeks the pace was frenetic. All the artists had committed to producing a body of work which would be included in an exhibition opened by the Governor of Luxor at the end of the Symposium. In the evenings we were required to attended discussion sessions in which we'd describe our individual art practise using a Power Point presentation and then answer questions about our work. Most afternoons there was organised trips to visit the ancient sites, galleries or museums. The pressure was on.

I'd undertaken a residency in the south of France earlier in the year and been inspired to use local materials gleaned from the surrounding environment to make my art. I experimented with 300 year old oak beams, unrefined beeswax I bought from a local honey farm and clay I dug from a river bed on the edge of the small medieval village in which I was staying. I was introduced to 'bru de noi' - a stain distilled from walnuts which could be applied like watercolour and 'la chaux', a powdered limestone used for centuries as mortar in the linen-coloured stone buildings of the region.

 

For the first time I attempted sculpture and created a series which I entitled 'Beyond The Black Stump'. The origin of the well known Australian expression derives from the use of fire-blackened tree-stumps used as markers when giving directions to travellers unfamiliar with the terrain and eventually evolved into a term referring to an imaginary point in the landscape beyond which the country is considered remote or unknown. The expression seemed to tap into the sense of melancholy and dislocation you can sometimes feel when you're living in a foreign country far from home. At a local flea market, called in French 'un vide grenier', meaning 'an empty attic', I practised my language skills and purchased a second hand blow torch to char oak beams, scraping back the residual charcoal with hand tools to sculpt the desired shape and then blackening the wood even further with 'poudre d'ashphalte' (powdered asphalt) to preserve it. I made encaustic medium by heating rounds of raw beeswax with dammar resin crystals and applied it to the timber sculptures. The pungent smell produced by the burning wood mixed with the melted beeswax reminded me both of my days in the Australian bush and the hushed atmosphere of a French medieval church.

When I arrived in Luxor I'd already decided that I wanted to incorporate traditional Egyptian materials and natural resources derived from my surroundings into my work. I was assigned a studio assistant, Mido, a polite, lanky, eager to please streak of a kid who was an art student at the nearby Luxor Art Institute. It was Mido's job to acquire all the materials I needed. The first task I set the hapless boy was to find me some lengths of palm tree trunk. The next morning I woke to the sound of my name being called from outside. It was coming from the direction of the Nile and I quickly dressed and ran to the riverbank. There was Mido in a wooden boat proudly standing astride, like he'd just hunted and shot an African wilder beast, a big hunk of palm tree. We lugged it ashore and I asked him to bring a saw and cut off a few slices for me. He returned not with a saw but with a bread knife and proceeded to hack through the tough and stringy trunk with the flimsy kitchen utensil. It took him hours dripping sweat in the hot sun to complete his assignment but by the end of the day I had the beginnings of an art work. Some days Mido would bring a group of art student friends with him and the curious young people would stand around my work table and watch me work. The international artists had been given a tour of the Art Institute where they studied and we'd been shocked by the lack of facilities and resources especially when we considered how much money had gone into the funding of our Symposium .

My next request was for some slabs of limestone. The kind that was used to line the facades of the Pyramids. Mido came through with the goods and delivered three beautifully irregular squares of the stone to my studio. I set about carving the soft surfaces with tools I borrowed from the Art Institute. I found some sheets of papyrus on a visit to the local market and integrated them into my work. Finally I asked Mido to buy me some rolls of cheese cloth bandages so I could make a 'Mummy' painting. The binding factor in all the work I produced during that two weeks in Luxor was the Ancient Egyptian medium, encaustic and I applied the melted beeswax with reverence and respect for the artists of old. At the exhibition I thanked Mido for his hard work and resourcefulness. He was very happy that I'd been so pleased with his efforts and we both knew I couldn't have done what I did without him.



 

 

 

THE ARRIVAL - An Artist In Egypt

Buildings, Cairo

Excerpt from 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

'You are in my eyes', he whispered as breathlessly I collapsed into his arms.
 

I guessed what they meant but in the dim light of his unadorned apartment with the call to prayer filtering through the dusty wooden shutters, I asked him to interpret his exotic words of love in order to savour them a little and relish the unfamiliar sound of English spoken with an Egyptian accent.

‘It means that I see the world through you and whatever I do, wherever I go I have you in my mind', he explained earnestly as he smothered the palm of my hand with soft kisses.

I thought so', I said smiling secretly and deliciously to myself beneath the covers.

It was late in 2010, just prior to Egyptian Revolution, when I flew into Cairo for the first time. Egypt had never been somewhere I'd particularly wanted to visit. Mostly I'd gravitated towards Europe - to France, Italy or Spain. I wasn't that interested in Ancient Egypt or the Pyramids, perhaps because I found the whole Pharaoh thing rather sickening. It seemed to me that the reign of the Sun Gods produced a huge amount of human suffering and for what? The veneration of a bunch of deluded megalomaniacs? I knew nothing about Islam or Egypt's political situation or culture. Apart from as a teenager idolising the seventies pop star Cat Stevens, who bafflingly and devastatingly for his fans and for me in particular, as I'd had my heart set on marrying him, ditched his career at its peak to become Jusuf Islam, I’d never had any connection with a Muslim. Then out of nowhere the Egyptian Ministry of Culture invited me to an all expenses paid International Artists Symposium in Luxor, Egypt. It was an offer too good to refuse and I accepted the invitation even though it meant undertaking another arduous long haul flight so soon after returning home to Australia from an artist's residency in France.

An artist's life can be interesting, unconventional, unpredictable and at times a bit scary, financially that is. There's no regular weekly wage coming in and it's either feast (when you sell paintings) or famine (when you don't sell any paintings). A report by The Australian Arts Council claims there's a 98% attrition rate amongst artists and only 0.004% of them make a decent living. On the plus side being an artist allows you to do something you love. You're not condemned or confined to an office or a factory floor or even to a country which means you can work wherever in the world you choose.

 

'Why don't you get a job you hate like everyone else!' my cautious, conservative, insured to the hilt, Sign of The Goat daughter says whenever I become anxious about money.

 

But I'd made a choice a long time ago to pursue a career in art. When I was quite young it dawned on me that one day I would grow up and have to work. What a terrifying prospect I thought, maybe not in those words but certainly with that sentiment. I looked at my parent's dreary working lives, running a small business in a big country town in rural Victoria. The idea of spending my life doing something eight hours a day five days a week I didn't like filled me with dread. But at school I'd become completely engrossed when a teacher assigned us interesting projects to do such as making coffee stained treasure maps with burned edges or the head of a zebra with Clag drenched strips of newspaper plastered onto an inflated balloon and I knew without a doubt that creating things was the only thing worth doing.

 

At Christmas I'd fashion decorations from silver foil and glitter to hang on the tree and at Easter I'd collect the still warmish eggs from the chooks and paint intricate designs on their blown out shells with pretty crimson cochineal. Weekends and school holidays I'd drive my mother crazy coming up with a fantastical ideas that were way beyond my abilities and pester her until she'd agree to help me realise my dazzling visions. When we were bored my  sister and I would black out the long passageway in the centre of the house and back light our heads with candle light to trace the outlines of our silhouettes on the sheets of butchers paper we'd sticky taped to the door at the end of the hall. Peace would descend on the house hold as we spent a fight free afternoon colouring in the crudely drawn profiles with black Indian ink and my mother would breath a sigh of relief and go and put her feet up.
 

Rainy Sundays were reserved for upturning the sewing basket and constructing whole cities out of cotton reels, buttons, a pack of playing cards and domino tiles. When that ended in tears, as it always did, Mum, to get some peace, would allow us to use felt pens to draw intricate weather maps on the lounge room window and we'd take it in turns to be The Weather Girl from the Bureau of Meteorology on the ABC, expressively pointing out the concentric rings of high or low pressure with a knitting needle and well rounded vowels. Hours could be filled hunched over the kitchen table designing groovy outfits in an oversized sketch pad - culottes, hot pants and mini-skirts, whatever I'd seen featured in the fashion pages of Dolly Magazine that month. I'd cut out the fragile designs with meticulous precision using Mum's precious green scissors and hang the ensembles on my cardboard manikin with their tiny paper shoulder tabs. So as you can imagine, many years later, when my portfolio and application to study Graphic Art and Design at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology was accepted I was at the same time overjoyed and relieved.

I have to say that from the air the Cairo looked bleak. Dust encrusted concrete cubicles with fields of satellite dishes disappeared in the distance, swallowed up by a dirty brown haze of pollutants. It was like someone had taken a huge flour sifter of beige self raising flour to the place or like one of my childhood finger paintings where the colours would turn to mud if I mucked around with it too much. The only appealing landmarks I could see through the mire were the mosques with their elegant white minarets and perfect domes. To my unaccustomed Western eyes, much more accustomed to flying in over rolling and picturesque expanses of green, where glistening rivers twist through craggy, tree covered mountain ranges with interesting little villages perched on high, it appeared inhospitable, almost uninhabitable. I tried to picture what it would be like living in one of those apartment blocks, driving on those roads and walking in those streets. It seemed like one apocalyptic sandstorm would bury the whole city alive. Perhaps a hundred years from now there'd be nothing but a sea of those satellite dishes poking through the desert sand like huge metallic seashells. I squinted to see the Pyramids but couldn't make them out in the gritty atmosphere. 

 

Down there, somewhere in that sprawling mass of mankind and masonry, he was there, like an insignificant grain of sand in the vast desert. I didn't know he existed then. I wouldn’t meet him until I arrived in Luxor in a few days time. But events were conspiring and had been since well before he gently pushed his way into the world only twenty-six years ago.

'I will tell you something', he announced in the early days of our union.

 

It was my first taste of his legendary and endearing introductions.

 

'My birth was painless for my mother', he declared.

 

I immediately thought of the painless birth of the Buddha, supposedly born from his mother’s side. 

 

'She felt almost nothing and looked down amazed to see me lying there beside her’, he added proudly.

 

'Like a little ray of Light', I teased.

She had called him Nour, meaning Light in Arabic. Just one of the ninety-nine names for Allah.

Then the plane banked and I saw it …the mighty Nile. And my heart raced as we hit the runway and taxied into Cairo International Airport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BOY FROM CAIRO

Excerpt from 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

The apartment block stood to attention at the edge of the desert when his father brought him there in the year of 1987. Like a brave soldier in the 6th of October War, it’s foundations dug deeply into the swirling miasma, it held itself steadfast and heroically on the front line against the onslaught of wave after wave of ferocious attacks from it’s sandy enemy. It wasn’t until years later, when identical buildings positioned themselves all around it, that it could drop it’s guard and stand at ease, knowing that, as any wise, war weary building knows, there is safety in numbers.

‘Come! Hurry up’, his father growled through gritted teeth to his wife and small children. Evolved over decades of prostrations the tell tale ‘prayer bruise’ of the devout appeared on his forehead more bruised than ever in the stark neon light of the lobby. They would all squash themselves into the tiny elevator as quickly as possible, trying not to further agitate the smallish, already greying man’s seemingly permanent state of irritation. Then with a jolt, the good Muslim family would be slowly and laboriously raised up on high to their apartment on the top floor of the building.

When he was older and rode the elevator alone, he'd spend the wasted void of time going up and down constructively preening and admiring himself in the mirror that covered the back wall of the airless box. Sucking in his stomach muscles, expanding his upper torso and flexing his developing biceps he'd try to catch hieroglyphic glimpses of his Pharaoh-like self in profile. Patting down a wayward dark curl that had dared follow it’s natural instinct to escape from it’s compatriots he'd check for any desert debris caught in the slightly flaring nostrils and count the individual hairs multiplying on his swelling chest until, like the evening stars in the darkening amethyst sky, there became too many to count. There was never a need to inspect his perfect white teeth.

Inside the large apartment the grey and white streaky bacon marble tiles felt glacier cold to the touch of bare feet in winter or hot and clammy after soaking up the heat of the day in the oppressive Egyptian summer. He'd slip into his waiting flip-flops on entering the room or jump from Persian rug to Persian rug to avoid the prevailing conditions. Even though he could well afford it, it had never occurred to his father to install one of those split system air conditioners or at the very least to have some kind of insulation laid in the ceiling. Maybe his long suffering mother had never dared to complain to her ill tempered husband and he was unaware of the discomfort endured by his family or perhaps he considered the harsh internal environment good training for his budding brood of over privileged spiritual warriors.

The reception area featured a collection of reproduction baroque sofas, a number of formal armchairs and an elegant chaise lounge, regally upholstered in satin bands of cream and burgundy and adorned with a staggered row of over stuffed, tasselled cushions. Faux rococo vases and porcelain ornaments jostled for position on elaborately carved mahogany sideboards and bow legged occasional tables. In the late afternoon rays of golden sunlight and imperceptible drifts of stifling air filtered through a gap in the gauze curtains causing the two cut glass chandeliers to delicately tinkle and pretty shards of rainbow light to waltz across the room.

On the plaster wall, adjacent to a window draped in blood-red brocade hung a Constablesque painting encased in a chunky, gilt frame. As a small boy he would stand for hours below the picture gazing above with such intensity that he would feel his soul leave his diminutive body, gravitate upwards and enter the idyllic scene. Here he could run through the artist’s palette of Cadmium Green grass, roll up his trousers to wade in the Cobalt Blue shallows of the bubbling brook and lying down on the Raw Umber earth beneath the old oak tree, look up through its leafy Viridian branches to the Titanium White clouds floating in Cerulean sky above. Having never smelled rain he'd imagine breathing in it’s sweet, damp aroma. Further and deeper into the landscape, way beyond the bounds of the picture frame, he would roam. In a sun dappled forest where fat rabbits hopped and birds flitted, a greedy wolf eternally stalked a pretty blond haired girl in a cherry red burqa. On the far side of the woods by a small lake sat the cosy log cabin where he knew in his heart one day he would live. In the farmyard chickens scratched at the dark, moist earth, cows serenely chewed their cud and curly fleeced lambs bleated to their plump woolly mothers. Continuing along the winding path to the top of the hill he would breach its crest and for a long time scan the lush valley below before picking his way through the field of wild flowers down the gentle and fragrant slope.

Unfortunately he couldn’t stand before the picture perfect Paradise forever. The reality on the dusty, monochromatic streets outside were a universe away from the chocolate box painting on the living room wall. In those days the satellite suburb of Nasr City, situated on the outskirts of Cairo, consisted of only one of everything - a bakery, a pharmacy, a grocery shop, hairdresser, cinema and mosque. The roads were mostly empty of cars and people. He would run wild with his friends and play soccer or ‘War of Stones’ until one of the kids got hit in the head by a rock and his wailing mother came looking for blood. When he was grounded and confined to indoors he'd invent a different war game using a militia of kitchen knives, spoons and forks. A knife held in one hand would brutally attack a spoon in the other. As Commander in Chief of his Army of Cutlery he'd decide who would live and die. If his father became infuriated with the clash of metal on metal disturbing his prayers he'd be forced to revert to the quieter yet no less intriguing Army of Cards game in which the King of Spades would be thrown violently at the Jack of Diamonds, the chance landing of the cards deciding the fate of the card soldiers and the outcome of the war. Eventually he'd tire of these solitary military operations and enlist his younger siblings to re-enact the plot of a famous movie in which an Egyptian national is arrested by the Security Force’s Intelligence Agency and executed when he betrays Egypt by selling information to Israel.

The conclusion of Ramadan, the gruelling month long fast performed by practicing Muslims, provided far greater opportunities for entertainment than his regular games. The family would all come together for Eid Al Fitr, the Fast Breaking Feast and his grandmother would bake 'kahk', honey filled semolina cookies powdered with icing sugar and traditionally eaten with cups of tea. Crouched beside his cousins, Mohammed and Ahmed, their pockets bulging with fire crackers, he would hide in wait on the narrow balcony of the fifth floor apartment. Through the gaps in the railings the boys had a good view of the arrival of uncles, aunties and a menagerie of kids below. Before their 'dressed in their Sunday best' relatives had a chance to enter the lobby of the building a shower of exploding fire crackers rained down on them from the boys above and everyone on the ground would be squealing, laughing and leaping on each other to avoid the detonating bangers. But the billowing clouds of fire cracker smoke created chaos making it difficult for the victims to find their way inside and eventually one of the aunties would loose her cool and start screeching for a cease fire. Upstairs the victory cries of the young assailants would ring out over the neighbourhood.

 

'Allah Akbar!' they would yell. 'God Is Great!'

One year it was his family's turn to break the fast at his aunt's house, so of course the customary bombardment from the balcony was out of the question. Not to be out done the little cousins devised a cunning plan and talked their parents into letting them drive to the event with their affable Uncle Adel. On the way to the feast, with their whistling chauffeur concentrating hard on the road ahead, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the back seat, the boys furtively lit their fire crackers with a cigarette lighter and then hastily and indiscriminately threw them into the open windows of the cars passing by. Hooting with delight they'd jump to their knees to watch through the rear window the faces of the drivers and their families as the crackers exploded on the dashboard of their vehicles.

'Having fun boys?' their humming Uncle Adel enquired as he reached to turn up a warbling Egyptian love song on the car radio.

On one occasion the boy's exploits literally backfired. Ahmed fumbled and dropped his just lit cracker on the floor. Quick as a flash he snatched up the ready to explode device and shoved it firmly under his backside. The cracker went off silently and painfully but luckily for him, his unsuspecting uncle was none the wiser.

Eid Al Adha, The Feast Of Sacrifice or The Meat Feast as it is affectionately called is held throughout the Muslim world during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Across the Egyptian capital thousands of sheep are slaughtered and the meat is cooked in three stages by the women in the family then eaten by everyone for four consecutive days. The first dish consists of liver and kidney fried with onions. Next comes 'fattah'. Layers of bread, tomato puree, rice and lamb are baked in a clay crock pot in the oven and served with salad and pickles. Lastly the grilled ribs are devoured and then, too stuffed to do much else, the men of the family loosen their belts and sit back to watch the miraculous footage on TV beaming live from the Holy City.

Sometimes, after everyone had gone to sleep he'd scramble out of bed, careful not to make a sound as he slipped on a T-shirt, tracksuit pants and a pair of well worn flip-flops and avoiding the clunky elevator sneak down the internal stairwell of the building like a mini Special Forces agent to steal his mother’s Chevrolet sedan. Mohammed and Ahmed would be waiting for him in their mother's stolen cars at the agreed rendez-vous point and the seemingly driver-less vehicles would set off in a worryingly meandering convoy to patrol the deserted streets of the slumbering suburb. Past the boarded up tobacco stand on the corner, the domed mosque luminescent in the moonlight and the open air coffee shop, it's flimsy tables and chairs stacked under a striped canvas awning they would drive. Past the communal rubbish heap in which emaciated cats with tails bent at abnormal angles (obviously betraying some prior hellish suffering) poked gingerly around in the putrid contents of the disemboweled plastic bags, the wretched feline descendants of a once glorious era unaware of their former God like status. Past the hairdresser cum beauty salon where a faded billboard of a swinging sixties Middle Eastern belle with a coiffed bob and a velvet headband glowed bluely under a weak fluorescent light.

In the dead of the night the empty dirt streets became the domain of the Dogs Of Nasr City and fierce territorial battles, often heard but unwitnessed by the human residents raged as rival packs of desperate canines fought for supremacy, the mange infested and lanky creatures slinking off into the darkness as the boy's entourage approached. Perched high on the edge of their seats, their feet barely reaching the brake or accelerator pedals, the locks on their angelic looking heads scarcely protruding above the arc of their steering wheels, the eight year old car thieves would imagine themselves soldiers in the legendary Egyptian Army on the hunt for Zionist insurgents. After he'd parked the car precisely where his mother had left it the day before the young hero would creep back to bed to cuddle his plastic toy pistol and drift happily off to sleep counting enemies of Egypt being shot in the heart one by one by firing squad. To this day his mother is unaware of her son's midnight missions.

In fact neither parent had the time or energy to be aware of much that was going on with their offspring in those days as both of them determinedly forged their respective careers in the cut throat world of print journalism. His mother had done more than her duty in breastfeeding him until he was three years old, when at the birth of his little sister and the revitalisation of the supply of breast milk, he had, pushing his baby sibling aside, greedily come running back for more. The task of raising the cluster of dark haired cherubs then fell to his portly, lumbering, salt of the earth, heart of gold grandmother. In her illiterate, Upper Egypt eyes, being the oldest male son meant he was on a par with the Egyptian Sun God, Ra and she spoilt him rotten. If he felt like skipping school he had only to sidle up to her immense form, bat his long lashes and feign frailty and she would immediately call her daughter to tell her that the boy was too sick to go. His mother of course acquiescing, knowing she couldn't argue with the matriarch of the family even though she might suspect foul play. Should he want a new game or a book his grandmother would instruct her daughter to purchase them. If he needed money to buy sweets or a Coke his adoring Teta would never deny him. If he was hungry for pizza she would make his lowly sisters go out and buy it. There was no limit to her unconditional love and devotion. When she died it was he who carried her bulky, muslin wrapped body into the musty family tomb to tenderly lay it on the ledge beside the parched bones of his ancestors.

His grandmother may have ruled the roost on the domestic front but when it came to the critical matter of religious instruction it was his father who took strict control. As a small boy he was given his own little prayer mat and taught how to perform the daily prayers. What to say and when, how to do the prostrations and most importantly how to focus his heart and mind on the direct communication with Allah. Hand in hand father and son answered the Friday call to prayers which emanated loud and wide from the balcony of a minaret across the district and solemnly make their weekly pilgrimage through the sandy streets to the local mosque. He would stand proudly alongside his father and all the other men and boys in the spacious, muted atmosphere and feel himself part of something Big and Special. As a child he found praying five times a day a bit much, his religious zeal as yet unformed and his practise sporadic. No one really forced him to observe his religious duties so it wasn’t until early adolescence at that highly receptive and often puritanical age when it all seemed to coalesce and he began, of his own volition, to read the Qur’an and pray in earnest.

On the way home from the mosque his father would often stop to rent a Jackie Chan or Jean Claude Van Damme video. Sitting cross legged and enthralled in front of the TV on a Friday afternoon, stuffing his face with foul and falafel with the rest of the family, he dreamt of becoming a martial arts hero and it was he slaying the villains, eliminating evil and conquering the day. So when his parents told him he had to choose a sport to play he chose Tae Kwando. His mother took him to his first class to show him the bus route and after that he negotiated the journey to his lessons alone. He was only six years old but he wasn't afraid.

 

'Where is your mother?' the kindly old gent driving the mini-bus asked one day.

He had studied and then tried to emulate the behaviour of adults so that no one could label his behaviour childish. To be considered a 'man' was important and he saw his forced expulsion into the outside world a necessary part of his warrior training.

'I do not need my mother', he replied dismissively as he marched to the rear of the bus.

As he matured he preferred to sit with the elders rather than hanging out with his teenage cousins. Listening to their animated talk about religion and politics was far more interesting than aimlessly roaming the streets, bored and agitated looking for Allah only knows what. By the time he was sixteen he'd earned a Black Belt in his chosen sport and had learnt how to disable or kill an attacker in a heartbeat. By nineteen he'd won the Egyptian National Championship in Tae Kwando three years in a row. To hear his name roared by the crowd when he entered the stadium was thrilling but as soon as he began to fight the voices melted away, he felt no pain and wasn't aware that he'd fallen or been badly hurt. He broke many bones during the years he played the sport and once he was rushed to hospital by ambulance after landing badly during training and cracking his skull. His mother told him he was unconscious for days and they feared he might not wake up, the doctors explaining that the thin, transparent liquid oozing from his ear canal and soaking his pillow was brain fluid. His other grandmother died two months after the incident. 'From the shock', the rumour quickly transferred by osmosis in knowing whispers along the long line of aunties.

He considered himself far too pure to be tainted by an actual physical encounter with a female of the species. But in high school a hopelessly besotted young girl repeatedly threw herself at him so he decided to take advantage of the situation. One day after everyone had left the classroom he locked the door and sweetly but insistently convinced the lovesick girl to reveal herself. When finally she lowered her panties and raised her skirt he was horrified by what, however briefly, confronted him. The image of a large expanse of jet-black fleece and a flash of something crimson instantly imprinted themselves on his memory. From then on he chose to satisfy his curiosity by watching air brushed porn on his laptop in the sanctity of his bedroom and praying to Allah for His Mercy and Forgiveness.

At University his friends nick named him 'Joey' after the handsome but not so bright actor in the American sitcom 'Friends', although he could never decide whether to be flattered or insulted by the comparison. He was a brilliant student and a martial arts star and his good looks landed him a part time modelling job to supplement the already generous allowance provided by his parents and the pocket money given to him on the sly by his grandmother. His mother bought him a car and there was talk of buying him an apartment when he finished Uni. He dressed to impress and never left the building without admiring his dazzling reflection in the trusty elevator mirror.

He avidly studied the Qu'ran as well as Western philosophy, the conflicting and constantly repudiated views of the latter merely serving to reaffirm his belief in Islam and intensify his spiritual pride. Devoutly religious and no doubt annoyingly self righteous he admits that back then he was the epitome of  arrogance and conceit. But after obtaining his degree two years of compulsory military service put paid to that and the primping, haughty and pious youth emerged from the Egyptian Special Forces a humbled, modest, though still God-fearing, young man.

THE DERELICT PALACE

The Derelict Palace, Cairo

Excerpt from 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

 

Outside the airport I was greeted by bedlam. Families struggling with piles of luggage navigated their way precariously to or from the exits and entrances to the terminal through a gridlocked sea of cars. Taxi drivers yelled and gesticulated wildly to each other from the wound down windows of their battered vehicles. Horns blared insistently, it seemed to no avail, while the sounds of Egyptian pop music and verses from the Qu'ran drifted from the idling cabs and mingled in the sulphurous air. Boys with coarse, matted hair and skinny men in long robes and turbans begged Westerners for a few piasters in exchange for carrying bags or minding cars and lined and worn weary women in dusty veils and sandals, babies bound to their backs, roamed the crammed car park trying to sell packets of tissues or biscuits, their plaintive pleas to prospective customers lost in the din.

Somehow the polite young man from the Egyptian Cultural Development Foundation managed to find me, sitting on my suitcase slightly dazed after a twenty five hour flight from Melbourne, as I watched the engrossing scene. After weaving our way on foot through the mayhem to his car he drove me skilfully through the treacherous traffic to the city centre and dropped me off at my hotel. I'd wanted to spend some time by myself in Cairo before I met up with the other artists participating in the Symposium at the end of the week. I‘d booked the hotel because of its location just off the now infamous Tahrir Square and also because of its name, ‘The Cairo Downtown Hotel’. It had reminded me for some reason of the 70’s rock band, The Eagles and their famous song,’ Hotel California’. That’s as good enough reason as any in the ‘lucky dip’ world of hotel booking to book cheap and cheerful accommodation online. ‘This could be Heaven or this could be Hell’, I mused. But my intuition paid off. The hotel and the staff rocked.

For the next few days I did the things that most tourists do, the Egyptian Museum, the mosques, the souqs, culminating in the obligatory camel ride around the Pyramids. One day I was walking down Champollion Street past the line of outdoor motor mechanic workshops trying to catch a glimpse of the rows of gleaming, immaculately detailed early model Rolls Royce’s and Bently’s in the garages behind when I came across a secret jewel. A huge 19th century edifice, spectacularly run-down like Havisham Hall in Dicken’s Great Expectations. When I arrived back at the hotel I asked Wahid on reception about it. He told me it was Prince Said Halim’s Palace and then for many years a school, until after years of abuse it fell into total disrepair and has remained that way ever since.

‘I heard that a rich guy from Alexandria has bought it and is going to turn it into a big hotel’, he said.

I asked if I, as a visiting artist to Egypt on invitation by the Egyptian government, could possibly get permission from the Ministry of Culture to take photographs of the interior.

‘Of course’, he said. ‘It will not be a problem. Leave it with me. I will arrange everything’.

I raced upstairs to my room to Google the palace on my laptop and found this intriguing reference:‘Halim was obsessed with Rome -- the city in which, ironically, he would eventually be assassinated by Arshavir Shiragian, an American agent, in December 1921. It was only natural that he should commission Antonio Lasciac, the Italian who designed, among other regal downtown buildings, the palace of Princess Neamat Kamaleddin and the headquarters of Bank Misr, to build his Cairo residence in 1896. In line with the extravagant tastes of the house of Mohamed Ali, materials were imported all the way from Italy. And despite his wife's preference for the Bosporus, where she eventually died, Halim spent much time in this, the envy of his blue-blooded cousins.The palace was confiscated by the British in the wake of WWI, in which Halim had sided with the Ottomans, and later transformed into Al-Nassiriyah secondary school for boys -- many a deputy and cabinet minister would receive their education there -- before the latter's gardens, once the site of marble fountains and unique species of tree, were cordoned off and occupied by apartment buildings. It was then, too, that the street was named after Champollion and the rumour spread that the Egyptologist was living there while he deciphered the Rosetta Stone, unlocking a limitless cache of ancient mystery. Early in 2000, the palace was finally included in the register of the Institut Français d'Archaeologie Orientale, which seeks to document all monuments.’

The next morning after breakfast Wahid told me to be ready to leave at 2pm. I had permission to access the derelict palace. He would take me there. I was so excited by the prospect and felt like I was about to step into a wardrobe to find Narnia on the other side.

As we approached the grounds of the palace I asked about the written permission I assumed Wahid had obtained in order for us to enter.

‘I am giving you permission', he declared.

'What if we get caught?' I asked. 'Won’t we get into trouble’?

‘Do not worry’, he said. ‘Come’.

He veered abruptly into a side street and suddenly we were at the entrance to the palace. My partner in crime pushed open the large wrought iron gates and I followed him stealthily into the grounds. I could see the guard with his back to us in the distance. Like a couple of characters from a Bond movie we made a dash to the ornate portico and slipped through the front door and inside. As I caught my breath I took in my surroundings. To my eyes it was breathtakingly beautiful. In Australia we rarely have the opportunity to experience this kind of crumbling grandeur, pouncing on old buildings and restoring them to immaculate perfection the minute they look like even slightly deteriorating. But fading beauty and decay in architecture has always made me reflect on the fleeting nature of things, a theme that has consistently inspired my artwork over the years.

The interior was wonderfully ramshackle. A thick layer of the pale grey dust covered the bare wood floor, not a footprint marring the powdered surface. No one had been in here for a very long time. At the far end of the once grand entrance hall a magnificent, branching wrought iron staircase sat before a vast panel of murky lead light windows. Walking from room to room, soaking up the hushed atmosphere, I took photographs and mused about the things that must have taken place in the ‘belle epoch’ of the building. I climbed the ever narrowing stairs until I surfaced onto the large, flat expanse of rooftop and looked over the parapet wall to the tree lined streets below. There was more to discover. Beneath the disintegrating palace I found a labyrinth of passages and dim, dungeon like rooms where the servants must have lived and worked. But the light was beginning to fade and it was time to leave.

Wahid checked to see that the coast was clear. We stepped outside and ran furtively towards the gates. But half way across the forecourt the guard spotted us and like some kind of angry, bald, Egyptian giant he began striding thunderously in our direction. He was wearing a billowing galabeya which seemed to emphasize his enormous bulk. I glanced sideways at Wahid’s svelte frame and thought -‘we're fucked’. Surprisingly my feather weight guardian appeared unfazed. On the other side of the grounds I could see the guard’s wife locking the gates, blocking our escape. Wahid and the guard began arguing with each other in Arabic. I stood back but I soon realised the quarrel wasn’t malicious. There seemed to be no venom in the men's animated exchange. After a few minutes Wahid asked me if I had any money. I gave him ten Egyptian pounds. The guard became even angrier, crying out like he'd been stabbed in the chest,throwing his arms up in horror as if what I had given him was an insult to Allah Himself. The two men resumed their argument with greater intensity. They were really making a meal of it. But it was like watching an over acted pantomime rather than any real life drama. Wahid asked for another ten pounds and again he handed the bribe to the guard. Instantly the Middle Eastern monster’s fury evaporated. Wahid had obviously met his foe's expectations. The former adversaries shook hands and beaming as if they were the best of friends clapped each other heartily on the back. Now the giant turned his attention to me. Materializing into the most congenial tour guide in Egypt he smiled ecstatically exposing two mouldy front teeth and with a flourish of his brown dinner plate sized hand and a slight and charming bow he beckoned me back inside to continue my tour, even making polite and helpful recommendations about things of which I should take note. So concluded a successful business deal.

‘Welcome to Egypt’, Wahid said smiling dryly. ‘Baksheesh. That is how it is done’.

At the end of my stay at the Cairo Downtown Hotel I thanked my guide for his assistance and tried to give him a modest tip which he repeatedly refused to accept. ‘No worries mate’, he said to me with a perfect Australian accent and a wide grin as he turned his attention to the Japanese tourist at the reception.

 

To see images of the Derelict Palace click link below

 https://www.facebook.com/katherine.boland.3/media_set?set=a.10150093103424343.300116.650769342&type=3

 

 

THE VEIL

    

 School Girls In Veils, Cairo

 

 

  Excerpt from 'They Call Him Light' by Katherine Boland

 

You won’t be surprised to learn that the first thing to strike me when I entered the airport terminal was ‘The Veil’. I felt a nebulous, dark aura of oppression descend upon me like my own virtual niqab. Of course I’d watched scenes of crowds of veiled Muslim women on TV but the reality of this phenomena is different thing altogether. This is another world I grimly surmised. One where a women has to hide her body as if there were something wrong with it. Where it’s her responsibility to protect men from experiencing lewd sexual thoughts and her fault if he looses control when confronted with the sight of her exposed skin or hair.

I wondered what new arrivals from the Middle East made of the parade of human flesh everywhere on display when they first stepped foot in my country. I could sense a rising indignation and I hadn’t even made my way through Customs. I inhaled and reminded myself that this wasn't my country, culture or religion and I should respect, appreciate and embrace the differences. Nonetheless it was a surreal experience to see so many women swathed in black, gliding along like floating lumps of coal, some sporting designer sunnies, Prada handbags and dripping with gold rings from their ebony gloved fingers. Charcoal eyes rimmed with kohl flashed through narrow slits in dark cloth. The occasional motherly black swan swam hurriedly by with two or three brightly attired cygnets following closely on her tail. How terrifying it must be for a small child to get separated from his niqab wearing mum in this place. Where would a little boy lost find her in the veritable black forest of mothers?

I noticed the difference in the quality of the material worn by the women which, I gathered, rightly or wrongly, indicated their economic circumstances. Most wore plain, black cotton robes without adornment. Others were dressed in the finest quality black silk, which fluttered around their bodies in, I assumed, an unintentionally but nevertheless unquestionably enticing manner. Delicate embroidery, borders of gold braid or a twinkling of black sequins decorated the fabric. Despite their almost total lack of fashion choice in the public domain (the mind boggles to think what they must wear behind closed doors to compensate for such a restriction) these elegant apparitions, these Islamic fashionistas oozed style. I couldn’t help but wonder about the detectable lingerie they were more than likely wearing beneath their dark shrouds and how immaculate their grooming. I imagined the delight their lucky husbands must take in the knowledge that these exquisitely manicured women were for their eyes-only.

Amid the field of black poppies, plump tulips in an array of colours also dotted the landscape of the terminal. Women and young girls wearing vibrant, patterned or subtlety tinted head scarves must shop for hours for the perfect hijab to co-ordinate with a skirt or top I thought. It was heartening. It seems creativity and the resourcefulness of the female of our species prevails wherever you go in the world.


Some of our first discussions were about the veil.


‘The idea behind the veil is that a woman keeps herself only for her husband’, he explained earnestly.


‘She wears it to protect herself from the rudeness or harassment of men who are naturally more predatory than women.’


Of course I immediately arced up with the usual feminist arguments against the custom and chastised him for his paternalistic view of women. But inwardly I smiled, restraining myself from telling him about the women I knew back home who could certainly be described as ‘predatory ’.

‘It has become a way of strengthening national pride’, he countered. ‘She wears one now but my mother did not wear a veil when she was younger. She used to wear mini skirts and dye her hair different colours. It is only since the death of President Nasser in 1970 and the dissolution of his secular regime that it has become more and more popular to wear the veil as a way of restoring Islamic identity’.

‘It is also a way in which a woman dedicates herself to Allah’, he continued. ‘I do not see why you have such a problem with it. You have nuns wearing veils in the West. It is the same thing’, he said. ‘Muslim women want to take the emphasis off their bodies and their sexuality.’

 ‘As long as they can still accessories,’ I said with a grin.
 

‘Yes’ he said, lightening up a little. ‘Some women like wearing the veil because they cannot be bothered washing their hair or going to the hairdresser.’

‘And did you know that thieves, men, have been caught disguised in the niqab robbing people in the streets?’ he exclaimed, his voice rising to the singsong level of indignation that I would come to know so well.

 ‘That is why I do not agree with the full face veil’, he said. ‘It is a question of security. It is necessary to see the face.’

 After spending some time in Egypt I’ve developed a few of my own light hearted theories about the veil which almost tempt me to don the niqab myself. Firstly it’s a wonderful beauty aid. Middle Eastern women cover up to protect themselves from the harsh environment. Hair and skin is sandblasted by the wind off the desert or crisped by the relentless sunshine. My own fragile locks turn to straw within two days of arriving in Cairo and my skin becomes as desiccated as ancient papyrus after a week. Secondly it solves the problem about deciding what to wear everyday. In our final year in high school they gave us the option of wearing our uniforms or civilian clothing. At first the novelty of dressing in normal attire was liberating but after a while most of us drifted back to our uniforms not wanting the hassle of picking out a new outfit each morning. Lastly, you can really let yourself go in a niqab. You don’t have to worry about stacking on the kilos because hey, who cares, no one is going to see your burgeoning body, apart from your husband and family, who either love you regardless of how fat you are, or take you for granted and don’t give a shit. What a bless-ed relief it would be. A considerable number of mini pyramid shapes hover-crafting around the terminal like black clad Daleks from a Middle Eastern episode of Dr Who had obviously embraced this sensible approach to their attire.

Did he expect me to wear the veil I hear you wondering. It was one of the first things I asked him.

‘No I do not’ he replied emphatically. 'It is your choice of course’.

But I suspect he would love it if I adopted the hijab. One day, before his family took out the fatwa on me, he and I and his two sisters were wandering through the labyrinth of the Khan El Khalili souq in Old Islamic Cairo when the call to prayer began bellowing out in deafening decibels from a virtual orchestra of loud speakers in the district. It was time to pray and they needed to find a mosque. The sisters disappeared for a moment and came back with a bright orange cotton scarf they'd bought for me to wear so that I could enter the sacred stone building and watch them do their thing. We removed our shoes and I followed the girls to the back of the ancient and cavernous edifice standing behind them as they bowed to pray and prostrate. Their brother joined a small group of men at the fancy front end of the mosque. When we came out to wait for him to surface from his important men’s business inside I was still wearing the new headscarf. I remember his face when he appeared from the shadows and saw me. He looked like he would melt.

‘Oh dear’, I thought at the time. ‘I’m in deep trouble’.

 



 

LOVE & ART IN LUXOR - PART 1

Katherine Boland_2010_Moon_60x60x8 diameter, palm tree, encaustic, oil stick

In 2010, just prior to the Egyptian Revolution, I was invited by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to participate in an International Artist's Symposium in Luxor, Egypt.​Twenty-five artists from around the world gathered on the banks of the Nile, our studios looking across the  river to the majestic Valley Of The Kings. ​In two intensive weeks our culturally diverse group produced a body of work for an exhibition, toured the ancient monuments, attended nightly artist presentations and visited each other's studios to critique our work, share artistic experiences and make life long, life changing friendships. I responded to my surroundings by sourcing materials from the local environment to make my art - a length of palm tree delivered to the doorstep of my studio on the Nile by boat, soft slabs of limestone similar to those used to line the facades of the Pyramids, mummy bandages and sheets of papyrus. I experimented with encaustic, an Ancient Egyptian medium formed by melting together the raw beeswax and Dammar  resin I'd  bought from a local souq. And it was in Luxor that I fell in love with Nour, an Egyptian Muslim, a journalist, half my age.

Below is and excerpt from my book ( unpublished) entitled 'They Call Him Light' in which I write about my experiences in Egypt as well as 'nitty-gritty' aspects of contemporary Egyptian life, culture, religion and politics. I describe Nour's life growing up in Cairo and my efforts to negotiate my way through our eventful and unconventional love affair. I invite you to follow my story.



 

 

 

 

‘Come with me’, he said masterfully and he shepherded me along the road until we reached an open fronted shop where a number of brown skinned men in long, pastel coloured gowns called 'galabeyas' stood in line. Behind the counter lengthy stalks of pale green sugar cane were being fed into a steel 'Brutalist' contraption from which  gushed forth the fresh juice. He ordered two frothing glassfuls, the colour of newly unfurled bracken fronds and we stood outside in silence watching the bustling Egyptian world go by and sipping the delicious nectar in the warm ocher light.

Wandering back through the souq, we passed wicker baskets of dried saffron and hibiscus flowers, pumice stone, dates, deep yellow spice and vibrant indigo pigment. It was a treat to be away from prying eyes and spend some time together alone. Then suddenly we turned the corner and there with a backdrop of the Valley of the Kings, casually parked on the banks of the Nile as it has been for centuries sat, in all it's golden splendour, The Luxor Temple. Life and traffic going on all around it as if it was unaware that it’s one of the most spectacular structures on the planet. The evening call to prayer rang out simultaneously from the nearby mosques. A row of nodding horses shackled to glossy black enamelled carriages waited patiently in the square for the odd tourist who might require their services. 

‘Would you like to take one of those back to the hotel?’ he asked.

'Could I die and go to Heaven too?’ I silently wondered.

As the horse clip-clopped its way along the Nile we chatted. I was curious to know about the status quo of relationships between men and women in Egypt. How does it work? How do people meet? Can you have sex before marriage? What’s the deal?

‘According to Islam we cannot have sex before marriage. It is a sin’, he said.

'Great’, I thought. ‘We’re both going to Hell in a hand basket’. But I didn’t believe in the existence of, as Australian comic and self confessed atheist, Paul McDermott, calls Him, the ‘Pretend, Weird, Beardy Guy In The Sky’, so with somewhat warped logic I figured it would be ok. For me at least.

‘About ninety percent of marriages in Egypt are ‘salon’ marriages’, he continued.

‘People do not generally marry for love. Couples are introduced to each other through family connections. Then their marriages are negotiated between their families in the reception room or ‘salon’ of the family home. In an Egyptian marriage the husband and wife know very well their rights and responsibilities so both parties benefit. But it is an arrangement often devoid of romantic love.

’What?’ I shrieked. ‘Are you kidding me?’ ‘So what about you? Will your family arrange your marriage?’

‘They know that this does not fit with me’, he said, a small frown creasing his brow. ‘I will find my own partner and marry for love’.

 
‘I will tell you something’, he announced and I leaned back to make myself comfortable against the padded leather upholstery. I knew him well enough by now to know I was in for the long haul.

 

‘Nowadays, it is very difficult to get married in Egypt’, he began.

 

‘In the countryside it is easier. Life is simpler. Most people are poor and the man is not expected to provide an apartment or a dowry, so couples can marry when they are very young. But in the big cities the family of the future wife wants to ensure that their daughter is entering into a secure situation. A man must have a good job and enough money saved to pay the deposit for the apartment the couple will live in when they are married. He should also provide a dowry of jewelry and have money to pay for at least half of the furniture expenses and the cost of upgrading the infrastructure of the apartment if it is necessary. He needs to save about $80,000USD in order to get married. The average wage is about 3000EGP a month, about $500USD. The average rent for a working class Egyptian is about 1500EGP a month. Most young people live at home with their family because they cannot afford to pay rent and save for the marriage.

 

‘So it can take a very long time for a guy to save the money’, he continued. ’He will not start earning anything until after he finishes university by which time he is already in his twenties. If they meet at University and want to marry, a couple can be engaged for up to eight years or more before they can finally afford it. Unless of course they receive financial help from their family. My family is quite well off so they were able to buy me my own apartment. Plus, al hum du allah, I have a good income by Egyptian standards’, he said.

 

‘Some families agree to a marriage where the man does not have to pay a large dowry and the other expenses are shared’, he went on. ‘But I know guys in their forties who still can’t afford to marry and those that will never marry because of this situation. Their future wife would not wait for them and left them to find a better prospect. The woman is under pressure too because she needs to marry in a reasonable time frame in order to have a child. No man will want her if she gets too old.’

 

‘And during the time that they are saving to get married they don’t have sex?’ I asked, incredulous.

 

‘Not if they are following Islam correctly’, he replied.

 

‘Look, here is the thing’, he continued.

 

‘During President Sadat’s time, when everything was nationalized, the rents were fixed, like at 10 EGP a month. It was very cheap and no one could throw you out of your apartment for not paying the rent. It was not necessary for the man to provide accommodation for his wife. Couples could marry whenever they wanted, rent an apartment and be secure. But landlords and property investors agitated for new rent laws to be introduced so that rents could be raised to the current market value and everything changed’, he concluded.

 

I thought back to a conversation I’d had one day in the Cairo Downtown Hotel as I took a break from the relentless sight seeing. I was sitting in reception drinking cups of sugary mint tea, smoking Cleopatra cigarettes and chatting with Wahid the concierge and another young Egyptian guy about life in Egypt. They told me how unhappy the Egyptian people were and how angry they had become with their situation.

 

‘Are you married?’ I asked them. ‘Do you have kids?’

 

‘No’, they said in weary unison.

 

‘I work sixteen hours a day, seven days a week in this place but I do not make enough money to afford to marry’, Wahid said. ‘I do not think I will ever be able get married’. I noticed the dark circles under his eyes.

 

At the time, just weeks before the Egyptian Revolution, I didn’t understand the context in which they spoke or know anything about the dilemma they faced. I didn’t ask them to elaborate as I was reluctant to pry but I remember thinking that their remarks were strange. In Australia if you want to get married you just do it and muddle along. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a lot of money. Welfare ghettos, where whole neighbourhoods are crammed with the unemployed and under privileged are testament to the powerful force of love and lust. It was only later that I learned the name Wahid can mean 'alone' or 'lonely' in Arabic.

 

‘So that explains why Egyptians your age are still virgins’, I said as the carriage picked up pace on the last stretch of the palm tree lined boulevard.

 

‘You can’t have sex before you get married. But you can’t get married until you can afford it. But you can never afford to get married. So you can’t ever have sex.’

‘That sucks’, I thought. Generations of young Egyptians are missing out on happiness and the best love making, child bearing years of their lives because of economic and religious constraints. And just imagine the sexual frustration! I’m surprised the whole Islamic world isn’t completely psychotic. No wonder the region is a hot bed of tension and the odd suicide bomber looses it. Perhaps the poor bastards have given up any hope of getting laid in this life and blow themselves up, figuring the only chance of scoring is with the seventy virgins in the Afterlife.

 

‘Did you ever read the book,’ Catch 22’ when you were studying English Literature at Uni?’ I asked.

 

But the carriage had drawn up to the entrance of the hotel and our pony ride was over.

 

 

 

 

 



 

‘