The first stop was to Sultan Hassan Mosque and School. It is
the oldest mosque in Cairo. We had to dress very conservatively, put on head
scarves, and remove our shoes before even stepping inside the court yard. The
mosque was very different from Mohammad Ali’s mosque yesterday. Professor Hamad
took us through the washing process, which they must do before each prayer.
Then Medo demonstrated how they do their prayers. We entered a beautiful room
and had a sung performance of prayers sung to us. It was amazing how loud and
resonant the singer’s voice was.
(Left) The fountain for cleansing. (Right) Professor Hamad showing us the ablution process.
(Left) Some of the girls in our head scarves (Right) One of the four areas for prayer
After the mosque, we went to the Hanging Church. This is the
third oldest church in Egypt dating back to the 3rd century A.D. and
was built on top of two shafts from an old fortress. We learned about the
traditional construction and layout of the churches and how the old mosques,
churches, and synagogues were built by the same people, so at some place in
each, they had the same pattern on a wall or other object.
On the right is the pattern seen throughout the mosque, church (this one), and synagogue we saw this day
Next we went to the second oldest church in Egypt, Saints
Sergius and Bacchus Church, which was built above a crypt that the holy family
stayed in for six months while making their journey to Egypt. The crypt is
underground and only higher priests are allowed to go inside.
Following the churches we went to a synagogue that was once
a church but transformed into a synagogue. Medo pointed out that there are only
9 synagogues in Egypt and none of them are used for prayers/services because
there are only 300 Jewish people living in Egypt today.
Lunch was at our Professor’s in-laws house. Haytham is
Professor Hamad’s brother-in-law and is with us on the trip, so it was a lot of
fun to see where he grew up and talk with his parents. We had stuffed pigeon,
which is a delicacy in Egypt. It was super tasty! I noted that the rice inside
tasted somewhat like bagel bits, but maybe I’m just super weird. All of the
food was absolutely phenomenal, and we were so grateful for them to have us
over for an amazing meal.
Our lecture took place at our lunch location. Haytham
brought one of his female activist friends to come speak with us about her role
in the revolution and post revolution leading up to the election. She talked
about how she was not suffering from the old regime and had not real reason to
want to get involved in the revolution initially, but after seeing how people
were dying for absolutely nothing, she couldn’t stand to sit and do nothing. She
felt obligated to make the future of Egypt better for her son. She went to
Tahrir Square three days after the revolution began back in January 2011 and
has not left. The lecture was emotional and passionate, and we were very
inspired after listening to her story.
In the evening we suited up and headed to the Cairo Opera
House for a concert by one of Egypt’s top composers, Omar Khairat. Before the
concert, a number of us got to go back stage and shake hands with Omar! He
played the piano in front of a full symphony orchestra, equipped with bongos
and other African drums. I knew this was going to be very different from the
traditional classical symphonies I had seen back home when the audience started
enthusiastically clapping along with the music. It was so fun and energetic! We
all had a blast, and again, another amazing day came to an end with a bang!
Title: The sellers on the streets like to say things that they think will relate to us as Americans. When they see all 40 of us filing by they like to say things like "Aloha, one yankee doodle dollar" or "ohhh Shakira!" when they think a girl is cute. It can be quite entertaining the things they come up with at times.
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