an exhibit and the unexpected

Recently I read about a showing of contemporary art at a local gallery called Darb 1718 and decided to check it out. The theme of the exhibition was bread, in particular the wholewheat pita that is literally the staff of life here in Egypt, called 'aish baladi.' The gallery was showcasing the work, in mixed media, of 13 different artists. A further bonus was that this gallery was located 'just behind the hanging church', as the web site casually proclaimed, near Coptic Cairo, the historic Christian area only four convenient metro stops away from Maadi. So Connor and I hopped on the subway and were whisked to the walled city-within-a-city that is Coptic Cairo.

I insisted that we didn't need to print the map from the gallery website, as the directions looked so easy and surely we would spot it the second we got off the train. Well we started wandering (it turns out, in the correct area) and once we left the immediate vicinity with its historic churches and excellent museum filled with loads of tourists--literally 15 seconds after we left this very popular site--we were in a different universe altogether. Life for the Cairenes who live just outside the carefully-manicured courtyards and abbeys of the Coptic neighborhood is hardscrabble. As we continued to explore/look for the gallery, we walked by men tinkering with cars so worn out and worked over that I couldn't imagine they would ever carry a passenger again, but yet admired their perseverance nonetheless. Even though we were in the middle of the city, there were herds of goats and sheep milling about. Children ran through the streets giddily and shouted 'Welcome to Egypt!', a popular and charming phrase that locals use frequently here. A maze of precarious apartment buildings with laundry hanging out to dry between windows was a scene that has remained unchanged for centuries. While I catch glimpses of neighborhoods like this while in transit, it's rare so far that I have found myself immersed in one, and it really was fascinating and an honor to be present. We felt safe, even looked after, within this urban village. Finally we bumped into the gallery in question, which was at the end of the one very polished street around, and took in the paintings, short films, and interactive exhibits within. While some of the pieces were engaging, I couldn't help but think the real learning experience, and the images I will take away with me from that day, were actually from our accidental stroll through the backalleys of this neighborhood. In a matter of minutes, we were whisked away from the bustling metropolis and into a culture that operates on a completely different sense of time, space, and necessity. It's a glimpse into an alternate lifestyle that most of the tourists who had been bussed in to see the orthodox architecture and ancient icons, then quickly bussed out to continue their whistlestop tour of Cairo, had no idea they were within mere meters of. It is that Egypt, however, that I think people will gain the most from experiencing.