Crossing Borders

First of all, kudos to Bill Moyers, a fellow Texan and someone who’s been fighting the good fight for a long time.

Midway through this interview I hit the pause button, opened up a new Firefox browser window, went to The American University in Cairo’s webpage, and did a search to see if the library, at the place where I work, has any of Luis Alberto Urrea’s books.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t.  As soon as I made that sad discovery, I vowed that I would—by hook or by crook—get my hands on some of his work, in the very nearest future, and take a look.

Like the author, I am very much interested in borders.  As a frequent traveler and longtime expatriate, I often cross them.  Doing so takes me to places where people speak languages that are unintelligible and behave in ways that are unfamiliar.  Of course, this exposure to “foreignness” is jarring.  It is also terrible refreshing and very educational. 

Over the years, I’ve published lots of writings, in all sorts of places, lauding the value of travel.  It may sound like an exaggeration, but joining the Peace Corps, back in the mid-90s, saved my life.  It certainly saved my sanity.  Those two years in Poland was my first exposure to life outside the confines of my home country.  The experience opened up my thinking, provided me with the opportunity to grow in all sorts of ways.  It also turned me on to a style of living that was very addictive.      

My American family—as opposed to Azza’s kinfolks, my Egyptian family—lives in Texas.  I go back, once a year, to the Lone Star State to visit everyone and reconnect.  I cherish those trips back.  They give me an opportunity to cross borders—to move between what some might call “the developed world” and a place that’s “developing.”  I always learn more about myself when I move through space and time this way.

Speaking of travel, I see that I’ve made it to the end of this particular entry in my blog.  So, until we meet again… 

Just for the Aladeen of It

About a week ago, to celebrate the start of Eid al-Fitr, a holiday that comes at the conclusion of Ramadan, Azza and I drove to Bandar Cinema, a multi-screen complex located in Maadi, and bought tickets to see Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest, an over-the-top, campy thing called The Dictator.  To give you a little taste of what was on offer that evening, I’ve included the official movie trailer.

 

Earlier in the day, a few hours before we set out for the theater, I had Azza call the place just to make sure it would be open for business and to check that the film would come with Arabic subtitles.  The woman who answered the phone gave us an affirmative to both queries and then warned, speaking in a really serious voice as she did so, that the film was definitely not for children, a fact that was also made clear to anyone who happened to look at the movie poster on display at Bandar’s front door. 

     

Because I was familiar with some of Cohen’s earlier work, I knew what we were in for, and I tried to warn Azza about the director’s acting style and sense of humor before the film began.  I explained how much he liked to lampoon things.  I told her that he enjoyed making many moviegoers feel really uncomfortable.

To this day, I feel that Borat is one of the funniest and most interesting films of all time.  At the conclusion of The Dictator, I was a lot less sure that Cohen had succeeded.  I felt, many times during the movie, that he was being way too self-indulgent.  That said, I would still recommend the film to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

I suppose I mainly wanted to see the movie because I was curious how an Egyptian audience would respond, especially given the country’s recent history and the current political situation.  How, I wondered, would viewers in this part of the world react to a film about a dictator?  Plus, I wanted to know if they’d be able to handle a work that portrayed North Africans in stereotypical (and even offensive) ways. 

My answer to these questions came as soon as those around me laughed uproariously at Cohen’s first gag.  From that point forward, I sat back, relaxed, and got into the film.

On the Streets

I’ve got culture shock again.  I’ve just returned to Egypt after spending weeks in America, visiting family and friends.

Azza met me at Cairo International Airport on the morning of my arrival.  Of course, I was very happy to see her and immediately began telling her about my trip, especially about the flight across the Atlantic and the days I’d spent in Madrid.  I recalled how I’d felt like yelling “hallelujah” as soon at the big Boeing had touched down on the runway at Madrid-Barajas Airport.  The ride across “the pond” had taken place in the middle of the night, and about mid-ocean or thereabouts, hundreds of miles away from the nearest land, we ran into a storm.  With nothing but deep blue beneath us, the jumbo jet buckled wildly for what seemed like forever.  I’m not a good air traveler even during the best of circumstances.  When the circumstances are the worst—I can’t imagine a more turbulent and scary trip than the one I just had—I become an emotional basket case.

The three days I spent in Spain’s vibrant capital were just enough to whet my appetite.  Had I stayed there longer, though, I probably would have gotten exhausted.  One often hears cities being referred to as places that “never sleep,” but in Madrid’s case, it’s more than a cliché.  The metropolis seemed eerily uninhabited during the day, but then exploded with activity an hour or so after sundown.  The Spaniards also struck me as proud, impulsive, and wildly inventive.  One way the latter most clearly manifested itself was in the number and quality of street performances I ran across while walking about.

I used my Nikon to record some of these.  Unfortunately, my camera battery went completely dead on me at the moment I wished to capture the most impressive of all those I witnessed—it involved levitation and those participating must have employed some sort of very effective optical illusion to float the way that they did.  I had a hard time choosing which video to embed here.  I finally settled on this one, which shows a performance that took place in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, one of the city’s iconic locations. 

I eventually dropped a Euro into the tip jar and promptly got the bejesus startled out of me when the three lunged forward.  My face immediately reddened and then I faded back into the crowd as nonchalantly as possible.  A few minutes later, I left the scene to see what else the city had to offer.

Later that same day, I discovered that some of Madrid’s buildings also like to perform, as you can see from the following clip. 

 

And the Winner Is…

My parents divorced during my eighth-grade year.  This prompted my mother to do one of the most courageous things she’s ever done.  She loaded all our worldly possessions into a U-Haul truck and moved our three-member household—minus my dad, of course—out west, to Big Spring, Texas.  Because she has lived there ever since, I continue to be connected to that little town out on the Great Plains.

Over the years, I’ve formed a love-hate relationship with the place.  I love its big skies and rugged, cowboy demeanor.  I adore its breezy, summer evenings.  I find its quietness—in contrast to Cairo’s loudness—extremely attractive.  I also like, very much, the town’s bicultural character—one often hears Spanish being spoken on the streets and Tejano music being broadcast across the airwaves.  As you might guess, Big Spring is chockfull of wonderful Tex-Mex restaurants. 

I don’t like the politics of much of the citizenry, though.  Many in town seemed happy during the Bush years, probably because one of their own—a god-fearing WASP with a real talent for jingoistic thinking and speaking—was occupying the White House.  Today, on the other hand, they believe that America’s “Marxist” president has to be stopped (before it’s too late!) because he has secret plans to do all sorts of evil things, like sending the feds house to house to confiscate guns.  When I hear one of the locals make such a claim, I never know whether to guffaw or sob.

When Azza was here, we’d often go on walks just as the sun was about to drop down behind the horizon line.  Now that she’s gone, this continues to be one of my favorite methods of passing the time.  As a matter of fact, I took my trusty Nikon along on one of these recent strolls so that you could see a bit of Big Spring. 

I want to say a few things before you watch.  I apologize for the poor audio during certain portions of my little, two-part documentary.  (I did refer to the evenings here as “breezy,” and you’ll hear evidence of that here.)  I also suppose I should warn you ahead of time.  There’s very little chance that my movie is going to be receiving any Academy Award nominations in the near future.