27. Cairo, 1996 - The Nile

In which Eleanor goes rowing.

The Nile flows; Eleanor rows. 

Eleanor

I get out of the taxi and approach the clubhouse nervously. Outside there is a group of young women, talking, laughing. They look so comfortable and at ease with each other. I’m the stranger. The outsider. The foreigner. 

And I’m also fascinated as I look at this group of young Egyptian women. They are all in leggings and T-shirts like I am. And three quarters of them are in headscarves. I’m used to seeing Egyptian women in galabayas, or jeans and long-sleeve shirts, or professional western dress at the Council and the Embassy, but this is new to me: young Egyptian women in exercise clothing. 

I’m here to join them. I’d seen two rowing eights out on the water a few weeks back. My fusha Arabic teacher at the Council had made enquiries for me and said that yes, there was a women’s rowing team in Dokki, and that yes, the coach, Hassan Al-Busiri, was happy for me to try it out. She’d expressed her amazement at such a thing existing. “They will be an interesting group of women, prepared to row in Cairo, and their families let them.”

So here I am. At a rowing club in Cairo. Eager to row on the Nile. The Nile! 

¹“.ألسّلام عليكم”

I say as I approach them. 

²“انا اسمي الانور. انا جديدة هنا. فين الاي الاستاذ حسن, لو سمحت."

I use ‘ammiya, rather than fusha and feel a moment of intense discomfort as they all look at me. Did I get it wrong? It’s so frustrating for me sometimes when I’m sure I’m saying it right, but the person I’m talking to still looks utterly confused. Like I’m speaking Martian or something. “Be patient,” my teachers at the Council tell me. “When someone isn’t expecting you to speak Arabic it often takes a moment to register. And they’re not used to your accent either. Keep practicing.” 

So as much as possible, I stick to speaking Arabic wherever I can. But invariably whoever I am talking to switches over to English. Their broken English is still better than my beginner’s Arabic. It’s demotivating when I’m supposed to be doing immersive learning and no-one wants to speak Arabic to me. 

³“.و عليكم السلام, السيدة"

A young woman wearing glasses and a bright pink head scarf with sequins all over it greets me back. 

⁴“,اسمي نور. الاستاذ حسن جوه” she says, pointing to a door. 

⁵“.شكرً” I say. 

Inside I introduce myself to Hassan. 

“Ah yes, the woman from the Embassy,” Hassan switches to perfect English. “South African, no?” 

I nod. 

“What’s your rowing experience? Do you know your side?” 

“Stroke,” I say. “I rowed at University and then was part of a club in Pretoria for two years before I came to Cairo.” 

“Ok,” he says. “We’ll get started in a minute. You can wait with the others outside. Nour! ” he calls out.

⁶“.تعال هنا”

They speak in rapid-fire Egyptian. I catch a phrase here or there, trying to follow the conversation. “Nour will look after you. She speaks English and can help you.” 

⁷“.شكرً” I turn to Nour. 

⁸“.عفواً, تعالى” She switches to English. “I will introduce you.” 

Outside she introduces me to everyone, then explains to them in Arabic why I’m here. Just then Hassan comes out, and he starts giving instructions in Arabic. 

I turn to Nour, not having followed everything. 

“First, we run,” she says. “To warm-up, no? Warm-up, that is the right word?” 

“Yes, warm-up,” I reply. 

We head out, staying close as a group. A tall girl, at least as tall as me, is in front. She sets an easy loping pace. We start running north, the Nile to our right, it's quiet brownness broken with silky threads of current emerging on the surface from time to time. 

Immediately the cat-calls start. Our entire run is punctuated with them. I had thought that the cat calls were targeted more towards western women, but now I see I was wrong. They’re clearly not. The group just ignores them, and carries on jogging. At one point a few shabaab⁹ try to jog alongside us for a bit, but Hassan quickly intervenes and they break off, still shouting cat calls. It’s strange to feel both so visible and invisible. Other than not wearing a headscarf, like some of the others, my dress is no different than theirs. My daily walks from Zamalek to the Council and back have introduced me to the constancy of cat calling in Cairo. I dislike them, but I’m learning to just tune them out, to let them be part of the incessant background din that is Cairo, as clearly they are for these women. It feels strange now to be running through Dokki, hearing those same cat calls, but not being the direct target of them. The leader turns us around and we head back to the clubhouse, the Nile now on our left. The same group of shabaab are still hanging out at a corner, but their cat calls now sound half-hearted, formulaic. This is what’s expected of them: they whistle and call, we ignore. This is the game we all play. If they stopped, we would be as surprised as them. 

Hassan puts me in the middle of an eight. I feel excited as we get the shells out. The Arabic commands are new to me, but I figure them out by watching and following along. Hands on. Lift. Show sides. Split to shoulder. I can hear Alasdair’s voice in my head like it was yesterday. 

We get the shells onto the water, kick off our running shoes, and get in. Everything is familiar. The seats, the rowing shoes, the blades, the creak of the boat. But the context turns everything familiar into something brand new again. Stroke side pushes off from the dock, while bow side let their blades lie flat on the water to steady the boat. In front of us is the broad open stretch of the Nile. Felucca’s, tour boats, party barges and fishing boats are dotted all over the water. Hotels, office buildings, apartment buildings and houses crowd both banks. To the south I see the low arches of the Cairo University Bridge and the long defunct water fountain just sitting there in the middle of the river. 

Brown-blue-green river, gray-brown city, smudges of green against the shoreline, bright blue sky: during the day Cairo’s tones are muted; its color is the din. The traffic speaks here, with the incessant chatter of horns. Short, long, sharp, harsh, friendly, cheerful, cheeky even. The cars weave chaotically. Traffic lights, traffic lanes—they are notional; to be observed, or not, depending on one’s fancy. If there’s space to squeeze, squeeze. However dense or fast the traffic, if you want to cross the road, you cross it — wherever you want to. The occasional hulking black SUV sticks out like a sore thumb from the tangle of banged-up little cars, menacing in its unblemished blackness. 

Then five times a day, above the symphony of car horns rises the call to prayer. It rises above the city, spreading from minaret to minaret. Some speakers scratchy, others clear. It’s a moment of mystery and magic as the sounds float over the city. Cairo’s chaos makes sense under the call to prayer. 

As we slip out onto the water from the club house, Cairo’s sounds mute, change key. They’re softer here, down on the water. Our coxswain, petite in the stern of the shell, guides us into the channel between the West Bank of the Nile and Zamalek. 

We start with the familiar pick drill. Arms only. Arms and body. Quarter slide, half slide, full slide. My body settles in and stills to the comforting smoothness of the wooden handle in my hands, the sush and squeak of the seats as we slide, the thunk of the oarlocks as we release, the weighting and unweighting of the blade as we catch, then release. 

Pick drill done, we start the pieces, working in fours, then sixes, then finally the whole eight. We find our rhythm. My vision narrows to the back of the woman in front of me. Eight become one, everything flowing in a precise sequence: catch, drive with the legs, swing upper body, draw with the outside hand, tap down, feather with inboard hand, arms away, body over, slide, square-up, reach, unweight the blade, catch. To my right and left Dokki and Zamalek glide by dimly in my peripheral vision, my eyes staying in the boat, all focus on following, on being as one. 

The Nile, silent, deep, ancient, unknowable, slides by beneath and around us. We are a tiny insect on its surface, the dimples from our blades disappearing behind us. Our presence leaves the barest whisper of a mark on the river, gone in a moment. 

When our cox calls a stop we all hang over our blades, reaching for water, salt sweat mingling with sweet water. Breathing, loud at first, settles back into silence. A sense of deep satisfaction fills my body: tiredness and energy, contentment and aliveness. We spin the boat, stroke side backing, bow side rowing. Now I can see the bank curve to the east at the north end of Zamalek. My apartment is not far away from where we are on the water. We slide back under 15 May Bridge, the sounds of the boat bouncing back to us. We resume with steady state, then build over three, put power into the drive. Eight are one, slicing like an arrow through the water, straight, set, focused. Cairo melts away, our world is the boat, the calls of the cox, the feel of the blade, the drive of our legs, the swing of our bodies. 

As we come back to the dock, some men come out of the club house, catch the bow side blades and pull us in gently. They help as we get the boat in. We’re tired now, and the extra help to lift and carry is welcome. 

I join the girls standing loosely in a group afterwards, just listening. Listening to ordinary lives. Most of them are students at the American University in Cairo. All still live at home; the AUC is not a residential university. I catch snippets: frustrations with parents, pressures to take this subject or that subject, boys, brothers, music, exams, deadlines for assignments, their hopes and dreams for what happens after they graduate. Gradually we all drift off. I’m headed to the Embassy to check-in. 

“How was it?” Magda asks me later in her office. Gray haired, bespectacled, somewhat thickset, she alternates between kindly and severe. Today she’s severe. 

“It was lovely. They’re mostly students at the AUC.” I find myself somewhat reluctant to say more. “I’m just doing it to help my Arabic, for the exercise, and to maybe make some Egyptian friends,” I add as her probing silence extends and I feel compelled to fill it with something. “They’re just ordinary young women. There’s really nothing much else to add.” 

Magda doesn’t look quite satisfied but lets it rest. She’s impressed on me that any interaction is an opportunity to understand more, to get to know how Egypt works as a country, to be able to build a picture of what is happening politically at the ground level. I give her monthly reports of how my studies are progressing at the Council, and anything I am hearing from my teachers about their views and outlook. But they talk very little about their personal lives and nothing at all about their thoughts about the government and its policies, so I always feel like I am falling short of Magda’s expectations. 

As I leave, I check in the mailroom and am pleased to see a wad of letters waiting for me, from Granny (she never fails with her weekly letters), Mum, and Tig, and I see also from Meredith and Sizwe. Sizwe’s got his posting—he’s going to the UN in New York. Well that’s a feather in his cap, for sure. Nothing from Mahdi, of course. He can’t take the risk. 

Back in the apartment, finally showered, I curl up on the sofa with my letters. 

It’s been a good day. 

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Book Club #3: Saturday January 4, 2025

Young Diplomats in a Young Democracy

It was the dawn of the new era. Freedom had come. And we were young and literally right there, starting our careers as diplomats.

Sober? Generally. Sedate? Sometimes. Hopeful? Overflowing.

Our guests this month are Linford Andrews, now head of Electoral Support at The Commonwealth, and Ingrid Kirsten, who’s career has focussed on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Book Club #3: The Bold and the Beautiful—Young Diplomats for Mandela.

1. As-salaamu alaykum. Arabic. Literally: peace be upon you. This is the usual more formal “hello” greeting in Arabic.

2. I’m Eleanor. I’m new here. Could you tell me where Mr Hassan is please?

3. Hello, miss.

4.  I’m Nour. Mr Hassan’s inside.

5. Thank you

6. Come here

7. Thank you.

8. You’re welcome. Come.

9. Arabic. Literally, youths.