As Obama said once before: everyone should go to Egypt at least once in their life, because Egypt is the cradle of our civilisation.
I’ve never been to such a fascinating place as Egypt. I was overwhelmed by chaos, dust, dirt, love, beauty and so on. But most of all by the warmth of the people.It’s a 100% self-regulating country full of mystery and excitement: everywhere you look something amazing or crazy is happening.At the same time things are there and disappear, things happen and don’t happen, places are there and the next minute it looks like they never existed and the same goes for the people.I’ve been extremely priviliged to meet the local people of Cairo. My guide Mini Noshy, General Manager of the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo, enabled me to meet and cook with local people. He showed me Cairo, its people and their hearts, I discovered a new talent in myself, because in no time I was able to get people to open up towards me when I visited them. They showed me their houses, their rules, their kitchen secrets and they made me a central presence in their families. I met families from different social classes who lived scattered all over Cairo.
I was also priviliged to be a part of the daily Egyptian life: I was a guest in workshops, I went to a mosque, met a real imam, learned the game 31 and even walked on top of mosque with my friend Ibrahim. I also went to Garbage City, the Coptic church in the caves, the factory of a Sudanese man, an Egyptian style disco boat, the market on friday. I was bluetoothed for a day by the lovely Hannah Montana, I was followed by secret police and I travelled by took took, subway, train, bus, minibus, car and bike and was nearly run over a thousand times by all of these vehicles. I even killed rabbits, learned how to negotiate, bought cotton from Coptic nuns, failed to learn how to say no and was lost, lost, lost. Best of all, I didn’t get sick at all, sold some paintings and I didn’t drink a single drop.
About all these adventures, recipes, visits, meetings, etcetera I kept a diary. I also got all of the original recipes for the people I worked with, made a video, did some interviews and took a lot of pictures.
All these things will be gathered and transformed into a book and I will organise an Egyptian month at the end of the year.
Egypt, thank you very much for letting me be a part of you and your people and for letting me feel the warmth. You will all be hearing from me very soon!!!
