other stuff i write.

They said that it couldn’t be done. Or, rather, that it shouldn’t.

When my friend and I announced our plans to take a two-week trip to Rome and Cairo, the concerned voices of friends and family across the country all chimed in with opinions.

“You’re two young women traveling by yourselves. Two young American women,” they would say. “How on earth will you be safe over there?”

We weren’t worried. The friends we would be staying with in both locales were young American women themselves, each of whom had been studying in their respective cities for at least nine months. They knew how to conduct themselves; we figured we’d just follow their cues.

“But the Italian men will prey on you, and the Egyptians will just hate you,” the voices continued to say. We were instructed to learn the phrase “No, I will not marry you, and please take your hands off my behind” in Italian, and “I am a Canadian” in Arabic.

In the end, the reverse seemed to be true. Identifying our national origins in Cairo proved not to be a problem, but it was when our gender encountered the odd balance of power between the sexes in Egypt’s Muslim society that things took a wrong turn.

After weeks of careful planning, our plane happened to drop us off in Rome two days before the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Millions of pilgrims from all over Europe and the rest of the world were flooding into the city at the same time. On the train from the airport into the city, other passengers assumed that we were there for the same purpose and chatted us up on recent events.

We had to tell them that not only were we there simply to sightsee, but that we weren’t even Catholic. On the day of the funeral, we made an effort to walk in the opposite direction of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The young Italian men of the city, whose loudly amorous attentions we were thoroughly warned about, seemed to be in mourning for their Padre Santo and kept their observations on our physiques to themselves. Only on our last day there did one slip, telling my friend he wished to be the cone of gelato she held in her hands. Like our hostess had demonstrated, we simply walked on without giving the admirer any acknowledgement.

But to our surprise, sentiments like these permeated the dusty air of Cairo for the entire week we were there. Even with the anti-American attitudes of the Middle East, we felt free to tell those who asked where we were from. One merchant in the Khan al-Khalili, a popular bazaar that had been targeted by a bomber the week before our arrival, even apologized for the actions of another Muslim who shares his first name—Osama.

Our gender proved to be much more of a sticking point. In Cairo, women freely walk the streets, though many don’t do it alone. And while Western wear is popular, most of a woman’s body, including the head, is covered. Only the occasional Egyptian woman wore a full burqa, where only her eyes were visible.

As our hostess there had instructed, we only brought conservative clothing. Our sleeves were always at least three-quarter length, and nothing was too tight. As the weather got warmer, our resolve slipped—but with borrowed shawls, we still passed the conservative dress test as we walked around town.

It was easy to resent fellow tourists who disembarked from air-conditioned tour buses in shorts and t-shirts.

But even with the utmost attention paid to proper Cairo etiquette for women, we still felt the weight of our gender pressing down on us. Our guidebooks told us that thanks to the importing of Western movies and television shows, Muslim men often expect Western women to be loose with their morals. And our interactions indicated as much.

Everywhere we went, there was the sense that someone was watching you. Even Muslim women with head coverings passing by gave us once-overs. Cabbies and vendors tried to get our attention by calling out names that sexual harassment manuals have made scarce in this country. And while visiting an American-style nightclub with our hostess and some of her friends, the stares of the waiters made the prospect of dancing to the familiar American music daunting.

On a day trip to Alexandria, our anxiety reached a fever pitch. The cool glances we attracted in Cairo became downright hostile there—men shouted at us and tried to get our attention as we walked down the street. Children came up to us to say hello and ran away giggling, as though they’d just completed a dare.

The most disturbing incident happened while navigating a taxi ride, which was always an interesting Egyptian experience. When I attempted to hand a cabbie five pounds for a five-minute ride—already more than was customary—he grabbed my arm to demand more money. I shook him free and we walked off, but the cabbie did a U-turn in the middle of the road. I whispered to my friend under my breath: “He’s coming after us!” The folks in that district of Alexandria had little sympathy for us, just watching us power by.

The city did have its moments, including the Egyptian ex-pat who was back in town to visit his parents and told us about his time living in the United States. We talked with him while taking refuge in a tea room, and he sympathized with us for the difficulties we’d encountered that day.

But by that point, we were ready to cut our day short and hop on a train back to Cairo. If we could have, we would have hopped a plane back to the U.S. that very day.

All we wanted was for the staring and catcalls to stop. The nagging questions of our relatives were whispers by comparison.

***

This is a piece I wrote on spec for the Los Angeles Times in 2005, the same year that my friend Meredith and I took this trip. There was a possibility of getting this in the Travel section, though I soon learned that going to Italy and Egypt is so common that it really doesn’t catch the attention of any editors who cover that beat. That’s fine, because we had a great and—as you can see—educational time.

Oddly enough, this may have been the only piece I wrote about that trip. Which is odd, because it was epic.

And yes, I took the pictures. Along with a ton more, which you can see on my Flickr page.