AbdulMawgoud, Pied Piper

2 July.
There was a breeze on Wednesday night (1 July), and the felucca's sails caught enough wind to move upstream slightly faster than the current. AbdulMawgoud was like a snowball rolling down hill, his gathering of people growing every moment. This felucca ride included the young American Arabic students from the prior night, the Fulbrighters and four young teachers from a neighboring town whom they had met with that day, and us. We overflowed the boat, and the water authorities saw an opportunity for baksheesh, so came after us in a Zodiac. Our captain paid them off.

I've concluded that AbdulMawgoud arranged the felucca rides for two reasons. First, they are iconic and a good way to enjoy the Nile, but also because he likes to pray at sunset on the water. The felucca was run aground a small island at prayer time and a group got off and prayed.

Back at the dock, we piled off the felucca and walked as a group on the Corniche along the water. AbdulMawgoud said that the authorities might assume we were an unlawful assembly, which is another way the government controls the people. He told us to keep walking and he jumped into to his parked ochre colored, 1980s vintage Mercedes sedan, which Jacqueline (also known as Jacq-leen as they call her here, and my former professor who introduced me to AbdulMawgoud in the first place) named "the gift" (I'd love to tie it with a huge red bow -- the contrast with its paint color would be so wonderful!). Driving a few blocks, he commandeered a couple of public microbuses to drive us all to a party on his roof deck near the Karnak Temple.

There were his wife and daughters and her sisters who had been cooking all day, and even more family and guests. We had a Kocherie party -- the typical Egyptian pasta/rice dish we had shared with Sondos and Ahmed. AbdulMawgoud's Egyptian-American children are poised and lovely. His daughter Abrar spoke movingly about enjoying her second home in Egypt, and his young son led a song in English about the blessing of being Muslim. Other young female guests sang an Arabic pop song, helped along by AbdulMawgoud's brother. It was a warm intimate multigenerational family party, to which all of us American visitors were invited.

It was after midnight when we headed back to the ferry in a bus. Children were playing; families were sitting on the park grass as though it were noon on a Sunday. As we walked to the ferry landing, one beautiful young preteen girl was chasing a big yellow balloon that was bouncing along in the wind. We stopped it, and she looked at us and said "merci". The hot wind was welcome because it was cooling, but it carried a lot of pollution and desert dust and made my eyes burn.