I was the only one they detained. A veritable flood of people of every color and they stopped me.

Friday night I didn't sleep, instead I was dropped off in the center of Cairo and walked all night until I found the pyramids. When for a camel ride in the desert as the sun rose, they tried to navigate the sharks who were tricking or simply hounding people for money. People who pretend to me your friend - fill you with compliments and whisper in your ear, then offer to take you somewhere special, as a friend...then demand money once you get there. Luckily, I caught on pretty quick and let them take me places, then told them I couldn't morally pay them because they had used swindler tactics. If they had been up front about their intentions then i would have paid them no problem, but because they waited until inopportune moments to demand money...
I spent the whole day walking around Cairo and was exhausted by the end. I saw the museum, where I caught some snatches of sleep, and generally just walked around the city. It was a scorcher.
At 10 pm, I caught a night bus back across the Sinai to Taba, the main border crossing into Israel. By this time, I had sent out dozens of couchsurfing requests, but hadn't had time to check their responses yet (I suspect things would have turned out differently if I had). I made it through security and all that quickly and painlessly. In fact, I managed to get all the way to the place where they stamp your passport and say "Welcome to Israel" before I was flagged. Then I was flagged.
They took me to the back room and scoured my stuff in the exact same way as the first time, except now I had a few more souvineers that caught their attention. After strip searching me again, they confiscated my journal, a portable Qur'an I picked up as a gift, and a medallion with a verse on it which was also supposed to be a gift. Then they took me in the other back room and interrogated me. They told me I had been deemed suspicious at the last border for wearing a Muslim hat (a souvineer from Amman) and for wearing my beard in a Muslim was (what I look like unshaven). Then they asked me about my intentions in Israel and everything I did in Lebanon and Syria. They took down the numbers of the people I was going to meet (again, if I had checked my couchsurfing profile, maybe I could have provided them with enough to shake suspicion), and asked me all about Islam. Was I a Muslim? Do I have any interest in the religion? Would I consider myself closely aligned to the culture? All of which I responded, no no no, I'm just a student of culture in New York, out studying people, sociology, the way cultures work, interact. They asked me all sorts of quesitons that made me assume they thought I was a spy - were you asked to take pictures of anything, give anyone any information, etc. The way I spoke with the woman, I felt she was on my side, talking to me like a reasonable human being, and asking me to elbaorate where i could.

Then they made me wait 6 hours (8 including the search and interrogation) during which I read, I slept, I meditated/prayed to god-knows what. When finally she came up to me, who was in charge of extracting information, and blankly told me "You have been denied entry by the ministry of interior affairs."
I tried to protest, though I was feeling very strongly like crying. "But I'm just a harmless student!" "I have a flight out of Tel Aviv in a week!" I told you my whole itinerary! I'm not a spy! Not a terrorist!

They sent me back to the Egyptian side. There, the guy in charge was an absolute dick. He told me I needed to buy a new visa which would only be good for the Sinai peninsula. Otherwise I could go back to Elliat and get a full visa for $15. I told him I already had a full visa and the whole problem was precisely that I COULDN'T get into Elliat. Nobody would believe that they had turned away an American. Finally after waiting nearly 2 more hours where it was not air conditioned, a guy helped me find my exit stamp in a big pile and found the cancel stamp and let me go. I was shaking and miserable out in a 105 degree day with high humidity.

I had to start thinking. What the hell am I to do now? My flight is out of Cyprus in 10 days, I've spent $150 on a flight I can't actually take, and all other flights to get there are extremely expensive. I'm looking towards the ferry out of Port Said now, but I think it only leaves on Tuesdays. The quesiton is do I take advantage of being in Egypt now or just go on to Cyprus and blow off Egypt. It is so fucking hot.
I'm also still traumatized from my rejection by Israel. Every time I think of it I get a big ache in my chest, stomach, and throat. I'm absolutely furious. Now I really know how an Arab feels. From what I gathered, the most suspicious thing about me was that I showed some interest in Islam and was actually carrying a Qur'an (which I admit was a mistake, having learned how racist they really are at the other border...but I wanted the souvineer and could think of no other opportunity to take it home).

I took the bus back across the desert to the town of Suez, and spent the night walking along the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. I slept on some concrete by the water's edge and woke up at dawn. I met some guys smoking joints and they took a shining to me. One has a German wife and the other a Swiss wife. They took me home and said I could stay with them as long as I want. I spent the rest of the morning asleep in a bed, waking up every now and then in a pool of sweat.

The question: What now?
The Tarot cards in Istanbul said I would find a perfect love on this trip, and the fortune teller/aura reader I met in Cairo told me I should go to Israel. Both of these seem to have been utterly untrue (though the world works in mysterious ways). The thing that really upsets me is the profiles of the Israelis I was going to stay with are all so cool. They all seem so well educated, laid back, environmentalists, hippies, and they live in lush kibbutzes. After all this desert and rigid gender roles, and Arab culture, I'm so ready for a week of rest among laid back hippy Israelis under the shade of fertile farms.

I asked myself, given a week, where in the world would I like to be more than anywhere else. Then I found an answer: home.

Maybe this blog, aimed to spread cultural understanding, debunk myths of terrorism, and explain the real living conditions of a specific region of the rest of the world has been a failure, if given the choice to remian among the Arabs for one more week, or to just throw in the towel and go home, I choose the latter. But maybe therein lies the greatest truth about culture: It isn't something to witness, to pay your tourist ticket and experience. Culture is the daily lives of people among their friends and family, and at this point in world history, there isn't much of a difference from place to place. It's economics really more than anything else. I've seen and interacted with some very poor people, heard sob stories about sleeping on boxes in the desert, or dreaming of going to America where there's money to be found. Everyone it seems either wants to leave to have an economic chance in life, or else they just really love where they come from because they can call it home. I don't think that's very different anywhere else.
The details, like veiled women, the role of religion, etc...those no longer make much of a difference either. At heart, most of the young generation just wants to chat on Facebook with members of the opposite sex, and listen to some of the most corporate American kitch music I can believe. As far as traditions are concerned, they lament the loss of them - blame America - but it's they themselves who pursue the "Western Model" of economic gain and corporate fashion. Traditions like drinking tea, playing backgammon, smoking nargile are all very much alive - the only problem is that because of globalization, that's really nothing to write home about. It's just what people do (and little else at that), which can be, and is done everywhere.

Every now and then I get a snatch: Riding on the bus, there is a melodious Qur'anic recitation wafting through the heat. Or walls covered in verses in the same way that (rarer and rarer) you can visit peoples homes in the states and they have crosses on the walls. The type of food and its serving is different, but then again, you can get all of this stuff in New York.

I'm not saying there's nothing to be said about the Arab world. All I'm saying is that because of globalization, traditions are generally a reactionary, vice-gripped type of thing, and the other aspects of life tend to (if not a bit naively) imitate the countries that have money - which afterall, I think is swiftly on its way to surpass God/Allah/Tao as the most revered thing in existence. I've seen pious Muslim Evangelicals lie bluntly (in the name of God: bismi-allah) about prices just to make an extra buck.

Given all of Egypt: stunning ruins unparalleled in the world, famous snorkling/diving places, old town souqs and mosques, beautiful architecture, and more people to meet...I think I would rather just go home. I'm going to try to catch a ferry to Cyprus tomorrow. Hopefully get a refund on my flight (though it'll be expensive) from Tel Aviv, and then perhaps try to change my Lufthansa reservations for a week earlier. A week among friends and family before I rush back off to New York...this sounds the best to me given all options. I can now understand Zach's desperate flee home when he still had 2 weeks before he NEEDED to be there.

I write with a message of peace, a message of beauty and joy, though it may be hard to recognize. It has something to do with "people are people everywhere you go" "tourist sites are expensive and full of man-eating sharks" (plus as the Tao says, 'Must you value what other people (the 100 billion who have taken that exact picture before) value, avoid what other people avoid...how ridiculous!" (verse 20)

All of my love, and I'll see you soon,
tcm