Covering up

Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country – 94% Sunni, by official census. To me, the most striking evidence of its influence in the culture was in women’s dress. There are four main styles of dress. The vast majority of women wore headscarves, but for them the headscarf has become another accessory. Their scarves are color-coordinated with their outfits, decorated with embroidery and sequins. There are many different styles of wearing a headscarf – so long as it covers your hair. Many, especially young women, wear makeup and earrings. Their dress is Westernized – jeans, fitted tops, heeled shoes.

The second group of women wore loose robes and the headscarf. Their robes and headscarves were usually soberly colored, with subdued decorations – brown or black, though I also saw green and maroon. Notably, these robes are worn over other clothing. Plenty of these women were also wearing jeans, visible beneath the hem of their robes. The coverup is just worn to go out in public.

The third group of women were fully covered. They wore loose robes, the headscarf, a veil, and often gloves. The only part of them that was left visible was their eyes. The vast majority of these women were completely dressed in black, though I saw brown a few times. There was no embroidery or other decoration on their robes. These women represented a larger portion of the female population in rural areas, unsurprisingly. (In contrast, the first group of women, in Western dress with the headscarf, were completely absent from the village we visited). On the train from Cairo to Alexandria, I watched two fully covered women going about the cumbersome process of eating while wearing the veil and gloves. One of them finally took over a glove to fix the sandwiches they were eating. In Cairo, I noticed a women incongruously fully covered in black, but wearing strappy high heels (at least 2″).

The last group of women wore Western dress and didn’t cover their heads. They represent a very small proportion of the population. The majority of them are Christian women.

From everything I’d heard before arriving in Egypt, I expected the women to be subdued, timid. What I found was quite the contrary. Egyptian women were some of the most outgoing I’ve met on this trip. They talk to strangers – men and women, locals and foreigners. I was taken aback when a fully covered woman in the Bahariya Oasis waved at me as she passed. Like the people in most of the ports we’ve been in, they stared at us, the foreigners. But unlike my experience in any other port, when I caught their eye they didn’t quickly look away; rather, they held my gaze and smiled, so I could see the curiosity welling up in their dark, expressive eyes.

While I’m not in a position to judge Egyptian culture, I cherish the right to express my individuality in the way I dress. When women don the full coverup, veil and all, they erase all marks of their identity. I heard various opinions regarding the veil while in Egypt. Some feel that it levels the playing field, forcing people to get to know women’s personalities, instead of focusing on their outward appearance. Westernized Egyptian women, on the other hand, are alarmed by what they feel is the invasion of a foreign influence into their culture from Saudi Arabia. These women fear that they will lose rights they have fought hard to obtain, as conservativism in the culture grows along with the number of women wearing veils.

Egypt

In Egypt I camped in the Western Desert, saw the Great Pyramids at Giza, and went around Cairo & Alexandria. It was a relief to step out into the dry heat of Egypt, after the tropical humidity we’d experienced since Japan.

We took a desert safari from a local guide to the White Desert, camping out for two nights. It was fun to see the interesting geological formations, but the best part was the vast silence of the desert, a void that swallowed up the small sounds we made. For the first few hours in the desert your ears ring with the unaccustomed absence of white noise. You don’t realize how much the hum of lighting, air conditioning, machinery, and distant voices fill the “quiet” in civilization. I stayed up after everyone else had gone to sleep and sat in the sand, looking at the stars and listening to the silence. It was absolutely intoxicating – I didn’t want to go to bed. Both days that we camped out I woke up before anyone else, just before the sun came over the horizon. I slipped out of camp to watch the sunrise in the quiet of the predawn desert. The whole experience was incredibly powerful. Strangely, after I got back into civilization I could close my eyes and recall the silence – the way you recall a favorite song.

In Alexandria I spent half the day in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a beautiful modern library built on the site of the legendary Library of Alexandria, one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. It has the world’s largest open reading room, capable of serving 2000 readers at a time. The library is beautifully laid out, with generously sized desks everywhere, elegant stacks, and lovely soft lighting. The library was built by the Arabs during the rise of the Islamic empire, and grew in fame to the point that scholars came from all the over to consult its impressive archives. The original Library suffered from a series of fires, some of them politically linked, and fell into disuse and disrepair. The modern library was constructed in the 70s, to a design chosen through an international architectural competition. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina really captured my imagination as a center of knowledge, freely accessible to all who wish to learn. Sitting down at a reading table, I could imagine scholars over the centuries doing the same thing, drawn to this place from all over the ancient world.