Day 34

February 22^nd

Today John and I decided to walk to Islamic Cairo. Islamic Cairo was Cairo about 1000 years ago, before they turned the land by the Nile into the center of the city. What this all means is that the Mosques and monuments we were seeing were all at least 8 centuries old. We got to see the north gate of the city, which is this massive wall that was on the outside of the city, built by the Fatimid Caliphate in 960. Here let in inform you of a little bit of Cairo’s history. Cairo before the Fatimids was called Fustat. When the Fatimids came in they took the city from the Abbasid Caliphate and renamed it Al-Qahira, (Cairo) which translates from Arabic into The Triumphant.

We got to go into two Mosques, the Masjid al-Hakin and the Masjid al-Aqmar. The Masjid al Hakin is almost built into the northern wall and is a beautiful white marble mosque on the inside, making it almost too bright to look at. Regardless we stayed in the Mosque for about 30 minutes just enjoying the tranquility and for me the Sun. John sunburns easily, so he didn’t enjoy that as much. The Masjid al-Aqmar was built in 1125 and is the oldest stone built Mosque in Cairo. The cool part about this mosque was that we got to climb up in the minaret and see over the entire area. This is actually kind of depressing view, because all what you see all squalor homes stretching for as far as you can see. At least on the street, you don’t really get to see the living conditions of these people, just their workshops. But here we got to see all the tiny apartments or in some cases where they were missing a roof or a wall I got to see right into their homes.

Even more interesting than hitting the tourist sites in Islamic Cairo was the walk over and back. I think this goes along with the saying that half the fun of a trip is the journey over. Here it was definitely more than half the experience. We went through places where foreigners/white people never go. You see Fatimid Cairo also features the well known Khan-al-Khaili market, a must see spot for tourists. The major streets in this market are those geared for precisely for tourists and are fairly clean, have a lot of security and just tons of people trying to get you to buy their stuff. However, if you go just a few streets out of the way you get into how the majority of Cairo really lives. The streets are small, dirt roads and are just filled with small shops, lots of people, motorbikes, donkeys, and cars. It’s a complete zoo and these things stretch on forever. The shops are all small and don’t have much stuff in them, nor do they have many costumers, but instead everybody seems to hang out in the streets or the myriad of hole-in-the-wall food places. I personally thought it was eye-opening to see the absolute poverty and lack of opportunity or job fulfillment that pervades most of Cairo. I mean this is how most people live in the world live. Just scraping by, selling just enough things to keep their tiny shop open and them alive. In these shops, I don’t see any chance of moving up in the world or actually feeling good about your work, infact I wonder how these tiny shops provide them with enough to get by. It’s actually quite depressing to think about how these people live their lives day and day. You see kids working too, and you wonder what kind of future lies ahead for them. It’s times like these that make you understand why Capitalism and free-markets can be a good thing in comparison. It also makes you realize again just how blessed you are to be American.

It’s a strong incentive to actually do as much as I can with my life. I have been given a lot of opportunity not only as an American but even compared to many other Americans. I shouldn’t sell these gifts short and settle for just having a happy family or raising children. I mean these are important but this can be accomplished in many contexts. If I had grown up in Egypt you can raise kids and give them opportunity to succeed.

I also watched Saving Private Ryan last night. This was a depressing movie, more depressing than I remember. But now one of the messages that the movie conveyed is starting to resonate more with me. Tom Hanks told James Ryan, as he dieing, to “earn it,” earn the fact that all these people just died for me to get back to America I feel that I also have a duty to earn the fact that I am so blessed, that I have a responsibility to do something special with my life, to really do as much as I can to make this world a better place because so many have died to get me this ability. I have also been blessed with the potential to do so much. Over ½ of the world, over 3 billion people don’t make over a dollar a day. I for some reason, some twist of fate, won the genetic lottery. Now the question is what am I going to do with it. If I hadn’t won the lottery I still could have developed relationships and raised a good family. But since I have this ability to get a job where I can find fulfillment, where I can make a difference in this world, and more than just scrap by, I had better not fail, better not just settle for adequate. For too many people have given too much to make America a country where I could have this opportunity. I had better “earn it.”