At a masjid fi misri just before maghrib I find jidatee* with her nose in His Signs, while a metronome of bone on bone keeps time with each fatha, each kasra. Those knees creak as much as the scuffed plastic of her chair.
She’s not really my grandmother. I hear only one word out of her hundred. “Ana la atakalam arabiyya”, that’s what the guidebook told me to say. “Er er er, ana talibah, min junoob iffrikiya”, that was today’s lesson.
Jidatee, who’s not really, fingers the cloth of my jacket before pointing to my skin. I think she’s trying to ask me why I’m not black. “Er er er, ummmi, er er er, ummi’s ummi’s ummi er min Hindee-yah”. I hadn’t yet learnt the word for grandmother or the greatness thereof. Jidatee brings her finger to her forehead to make a little circle in the middle. “La, la, Muslim” I say. Sounds a bit like a song, and we laugh before we pray.
–
*arabic for my grandmother
This started out as a poem, but I couldn’t.
I ran one of those vintage photoshop actions on the photo of a window in Masjid Bilal. It’s just down the road from our flat in Madinat Nasr. I’ll be posting more pics soon. Perhaps I should retitle my 20-ken project to “The Year of Shooting Recklessly”. I’ve been a bit suck about the writing. Our place is on Naguib Mahfouz street, so I’m trying to channel some prolific writer spirit. So far all I’m filling up with is karkadey and basboosah. Good gorge, Cairo’s wonderful.
Â
See what I've pinned
