Cairo: showin' some calf.

I don't wear a head scarf here [except when I go into mosques, of course] or anything, but I do cover up a bit more than I would otherwise in this weather. During the day, I usually wear pants and a tank top - and that gets me enough comments. Once my roommate [Yasmin] was wearing a very decent skirt that definitely went below the knee and everything - but that little bit of calf showing got her more comments than ever. At night, I make sure to cover my shoulders, even though it doesn't really get much cooler when the sun goes down.

I don't feel threatened in any way, even though I tend to show more than the average Egyptian woman [which is not saying much, because the average Egyptian woman doesn't show much at all]. Men on the street tend to say whatever they want to whoever is walking by, but that's all it is - talk. They never get aggressive in any way. And since I usually have no idea what they're saying, I've learned to ignore it and don't notice it as much anymore. It can also be cute - Yasmin said that the day she was wearing the skirt, an old man cried out, "What is this beauty!" Aw. Then again, a lot of men just make the kind of lip-pursing noise you make when you're calling a cat.

The tour guide for the pyramids is half Egyptian and half Turkish and was raised in Turkey. She doesn't wear a head scarf and says that she gets a fair number of comments from strangers about not covering up. I don't think I get those, since I'm clearly not from here, but even I now tend to look twice when I see a woman who looks Egyptian but isn't wearing a scarf - it's somewhat unusual.

My top three stranger-on-the-street interactions so far:

3] This was in Arabic, but Yasmin was there to translate for me - a guy driving by on a moped shouted out, "Hello, whitey!" Well, hello there! Just give me some time to soak up the sun here...

2] A guy asked Yasmin [who's actually half Egyptian but was raised in Norway] and me, also in Arabic, "Are you tourists or are you Egyptians?" If he couldn't figure it out just by looking at me, he doesn't deserve to know.

1] The microbuses here usually have someone hanging out of them shouting out the destination. I was walking in that space between the parked cars and the cars rushing by - and wearing a tank top - when I felt someone slap my upper arm. I looked up to see a boy of probably about twelve hanging out of a bus driving by and grinning at me. Drive-by upper arm slap? Okay...

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Most women just have the head scarf, long sleeves, and pants or a long skirt, but I've also seen a lot of women wearing burqas/abayas/niqabs. Most of them even wear gloves - so really all you can see of them is their eyes. Apparently they usually start wearing burqas shortly before they get married, but a few days ago I saw a girl of nine or so wearing one.

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An Egyptian I went to a mosque with told me, "You look nice in a hijab [head scarf]." I think that's Muslim flirting...?

It was strange to wear the hijab - I'm not used to having something surrounding my face, and it was hot. I suppose you get used to it if you wear it your whole life and, of course, have an actual spiritual reason to wear it, but...it's not really my thing.

And I just generally don't understand why women in the hottest countries in the world are usually the ones who "have" to cover up the most. Doesn't seem fair!