Lunch with Borzou

Lunch in Zamalek: Had lunch today with Borzou Daragahi, a journalist with the Financial Times at 1:30 PM in their nice apartment in Zamalek near Um Kulthum Square (the Middle East's greatest singer). He had to cut it short since the paper wanted an article on Libya at 5:00 PM. It was a great lunch: salad, thin crust pizzas, chicken alfredo, olives. His wife, Delphine, works for Le Figaro; and their baby, Samara, is a gem (5 mo. old). She already has her own pool on the balcony and a nanny. Borzou may be leaving in a couple of days for Syria. Both of them certainly lead an exciting life. Samara was born in Beirut. Egypt doesn't have a nursing culture; nurses are treated like orderlies and poorly trained. The couple met in Tehran, have traveled all over the Middle East together. Delphine has a book out on a child bride from a remote village in Yemen, who found human rights lawyers to help her claim her rights.

Borzou's take is that the Muslim Brotherhood has moved to capture so much power in order to hold off the Salafis. That's the main challenge in many Muslim countries today. Can the moderate Muslims keep the more extreme ones at bay. While the struggle goes on, women's rights may stagnate–maybe not regress but not progress either. Where are those Salafis Anyway? However, I took these pictures on a bridge over the Nile, which show couples courting each other on the passage. Some were getting quite intimate. As you see, much goes in Cairo. While the political tone may be pressured by the Salafis, they can't be everywhere at once. Borzou and his assistant, Leila, gave me some contact numbers today; so I hope to meet some interesting women. Chanting has been going on every evening in a mosque (or mosques) in the area since I arrived. I thought they were special to Ramadan but they have continued. The rhythmic spiritual practice gives me positive vibrations as I sit on the 14th floor of my apartment building.

The most pressing issue in Egypt is illiteracy. The number of illiterate young people is very upsetting, since at least half of the population is under the age of 30.And more women than men are illiterate. It seems to take its toll on everything, from livelihood to polluting the environment to politics. If the Brotherhood really wants to keep the Salafis in place, improvement of the economy would be the biggest step. That's been a challenge for a long time and clearly needs some action. Nefertiti: In December, Berlin is to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of the magnificent bust of Queen Nefertiti – wife of monotheistic pharaoh, Akhnaten – with an exhibition of objects discovered at the Amarna archaeological site in Upper Egypt where the bust was originally found.