Khan el-Khalili

We started out the day at a mosque. Head coverings are required for all women. Most of the women wear head coverings anyway. Actually almost everyone here is clothed from head to toe. Even though it's 100 degrees. Jess calls this reverse adaptation. Very few women reveal their head. There is a decent size group of women in burqas (only their eyes showing). It's a very interesting feeling for someone to see you while you're unable to see them. The mosque had a tower that overlooked the city. Cairo is dry and dusty, full of cement buildings with mosques scattered in between.

Next, we headed to Khan el-Khalili, a huge local outdoor marketplace. Khan el-Khalili gave us a real taste of Cairo...tons of people, colorful clothing, spices, bargaining, ect. I love outdoor markets where people are yelling and shoving stuff in your face and bargaining their hearts out.
One of Hannah's students from Sudan is on holiday in Egypt with her family. We spent the evening with them at a huge 'western' mall. Everything we have in the U.S. was there. It was like Mall of America or something. It was so interesting to spend the morning at the market and the evening at the mall. There is such a huge gap here between the lower class and the upper class. A huge portion of the population is on the lower end of the totem pole while another decent size portion of the population is very wealthy. Coming from a country where the middle class dominates (in size anyway) the middle class here seems to be sparse.