Cairo: CouchSurfing and Israel.

Although I met some cool people at the language school, I went to some CouchSurfing Cairo events to meet some real Egyptians and other CouchSurfers [it's not all about crashing on couches - many cities have a community that gets together for dinner, nights out, and other events]. The people who met up at a café in Zamalek my first week there ended up forming a core group for several other activities over the next few weeks - a good mix of Egyptians [all men - Egyptian women don't seem to do CS, which makes cultural sense] and travelers from the US, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, and more.

The last week I was there, we had a dinner at the Brazilian's place.

Shady wanted to bring something truly Egyptian - some gross fish. But I tried it!

After dinner, we turned the dining room table into a ping pong table for a Ping Pong World Cup. I represented Portugal - but don't tell them, because I was terrible.

Richard's mom was visiting from Brazil - she was awesome. And pretty good at ping pong - although not quite good enough, so she did a near-victory lap with the flag.

The only sour note of the evening was when a German guy and I started talking to a couple of the Egyptians about Israel. Oh man...Egyptians tend to hate Israel - which I understand, but they also hate all Israelis, which I don't understand. These guys were CouchSurfers - and the whole point of CS is opening your home, heart, and mind to people from different cultures so you can learn from each other, show each other your countries and cultures, etc. And they were saying, "I would host anyone - except an Israeli. There is no way I would ever host an Israeli." One of them said that family members had died in conflicts, and I certainly feel his pain and can't even begin to imagine what that would be like, but...the Israelis who are involved in CS are almost certainly not the ones who are out there fighting and bombing and so on - they're more likely to be people who are working with Palestinians for peace and a better solution. And how can things ever get better if both sides refuse to even talk to the other side? I told them how AFS started - that German high school students went to the US right after World War II - but it didn't seem to make an impression. Of course - this is one of those topics where it's very difficult for either person to change the other person's mind. But it was very frustrating and after a while of the back-and-forth I just couldn't handle it anymore and tuned out.

On a related note, if I were to get my tattoo again, I would get it so that the Hebrew is not the only part that shows when I'm wearing some tank tops. No one ever actually said anything, but I felt very self-conscious about it sometimes - like when we were at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere and a busload of soldiers got out.

Bah. It's just sad to see how people can be so divided from each other.