BROWN GIRL BURDEN #1: Aunties and Unibrows

   

I've always thought that a woman's face is as fickle as the moon. Somedays my face is smooth and free of hair and then one morning I wake up and notice a slight curve of peach fuzz sitting above my upper lip defying every pluck and rub. I am a freakishly hairy beast. Objectively I don't mind. When I see a fellow brown girl with a unibrow on the metro or at the grocery store, I smile enviously in admiration. I wish I could get away with that. I objectively think the unibrow is beautiful. Frida, my inspiration and my light, has the fiercest brows in the history of prominent brows. For Halloween every year, I grow out my unibrow for 2 months as an excuse to rock a single brow.

                                             


















 (see the similarities)

 

My poor mother. She can't even bare to look at me face in the Fall. I secretly love it. For one, I am defying ascribed notions of beauty passed on to me from brown generation after brown generation until it reached the shores of 'Amreeka'. (cue the rolling of eyes). Ok fine. Another reason is the sheer pain I endure stretching the skin between my brows as hair is plucked, cut, or literally rolled off my face. Threading is a painful endeavor. I hope the intense moments of torture in a comfy leather salon seat don't go unnoticed. I hope this is all worth it. In the wise words of Maxime Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (describing the man of her dreams) "I hope he isn't a tit's and ass man. I hope he appreciates a smooth brow". 

Aunties hate the unibrow. They can't bear to see it. They cringe at the sight of the fat caterpillar resting above my eyes. I scare them. I am not only unattractive to them but I let the cat out of the bag about our freakish hairiness. When my mother picks me up from my university in Washington DC to drive me back home to Pittsburgh, we do not drive home. Rather, we make a pit-stop to Roopali Aunty's BROWS r' US salon boutique to pluck away my mother's embarrassment.  Coming to Cairo, I thought my brow would be free from prejudice. I was in for a rather fabulous surprise. 

Here in Cairo, all the women around me- hijabi or not, old or young, beautiful or ugly- have beautifully arched  brows.  Now I have been in Cairo for a week, unibrow in full bloom. Today the landlady visited our apartment because our air- conditioner had been broken. Her hands fluttered all around the apartment and the kitchen and my room mates and I and then they landed on my forehead. While discussing the AC I noticed how uncomfortable she was  when she looked at my face. (Aunties react in one of two ways to unibrows- staring or completely ignoring. Both are supposed to shame you with a blunt force.) She kept mentioning a salon she had to go to so I took the hint. While we left the apartment together for the salon across the street (it seemed this was quite an emergency) she kept asking me if I ever noticed my unibrow. I nodded and said yes. She huffed telling me that she would never let her daughter walk out of the house like that and from now on she would be my 'Egyptian mother' and that she (I quote) "would not rest until my brow did not look like a jungle". I almost laughed but before I could, she took me by the hand as we crossed the street. We entered the salon and she plopped me into a leather seat and waved the beautician over frantically. The aunty pointed at my face and described ( in Arabic so I could not even understand) every correction to my eyebrows that needed to be done. The beautician turned to me and started her work. The heat of the salon and the sharp pricks of rolled thread made me wince. The aunty laid her hand on my shoulder and peered quizzically into my face the whole time as a gesture of her support and that 'everything will be for the best'. Finally it was over. The aunty took my chin in her palm and turned my face from one side to the other. She then grunted with approval with a hinted smile. SHE PAID. She sat in the leather seat where my torture was taking place. It was her turn now.  She nodded that I could go home now. (I still do not know the lady's name)

On my way home, I grinned secretly and admired my neatly defined symmetrical brows in the reflections of taxi cab windows. Nothing like the passive aggressive love from an aunty. It does not matter where you are in the world, aunties who dread unibrows WILL FIND YOU. Sure its a burden but its one I will bear by rolling my eyes with delicately shaped eyebrows sitting on top of them. 

being a bad blogger.

Cairo streets inspire me intellectually and aesthetically. From the tightly packed sidewalks in Dokki lined with mustachio-men gossiping and puffing on hubbly bubblies I squeeze through on my way to classes to Old Cairo streets teeming out of walls once built by Saladin in Egypt more than 800 years ago or the graffiti stained barricades of Tahrir, I can't help but sigh or gawk or laugh. It has been a week since I have written because I frankly do not know how to articulate my emotions about this chaotic city.

Last weekend, like most stereotypical tourists in Egypt, we rounded up in an AC bus and sped through Cairo to the pyramids of Giza.It was fascinating to go because of the history and the like but I am still uneasy and concerned about my identity as a tourist. On one hand I provided an income, on the other, I felt strange taking pictures of men on camels as though they were a relic like a 4000 year old statue or offering stone. We did ride camels, and I won't be modest- I looked pretty damn chic doing it.

I really apologize for not writing more often. I am so so so sorry. OK I have so much to write about- my classes, my decisions, and my new internship (which I will reveal very soon. surprise surprise!). So stay tune. I have so much to write about tourism.

Much love from the Nile,
Pri

Cairo Sunrise, 1

Last night, half jetlagged, half nagged by shrieking breaks and dog barks, I could not sleep.  It was 5:30 am and the sun was rising. Below my apartment, the bakery was so busy the scent of melting butter and marzipan floated through my window.  I could hear sweeping and pacing under me. I wish I could capture all of this in a photograph but yallah no more complaining. An old friend of mine once told me "the best camera is the one you have with you". So wallah Cairo sunrise shot with a Canon PowerShot SD something:

Dokki at Dawn

Through my purdah

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Never delete a shot. You never know what you will get

I've been trying to reach these for the dining table but they are too far. So I shall watch from here 

My favorite shot in the series. The color of the sky is so beautiful. I would wake up every morning just like this if I could

Pre- Cairo Blues

Salaams. I have to come to the Arab world out of heartbreak. Three semesters ago, I read Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism” and realized that I have been making an age-old academic faux- pas: romanticizing my subject. I took a Middle Eastern studies class, although I was at the time a Latin American studies student. It was because I was fascinated by the distinct silhouettes of veiled women and the harsh beauty of desert sands portrayed in the 1962 Oscar-winning film “Lawrence of Arabia” that I wanted to draw back the curtains of the Arab world and feast my eyes on the misunderstood oasis of a society that was the Middle East. Said told me otherwise and wrote about the “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture." I realized by fetishizing my interest, I had been refusing to see the dimensions of post-colonial societies. These societies grapple with the collisions of modernity and tradition whether it is cheap Bollywood knockoffs of Hollywood blockbuster titles or the selling of lacy lingerie in a souk. Globalization is most visible in details that are taken for granted and missed. As an anthropology student and a diasporic individual, I am fascinated by the subtle contradictions and absurdities that bring us together and set us apart as global communities.

It is through the constant motions of communities coterminous of imagined borders that mold and adapt culture. We are constantly in the midst of reconfiguring our world. This spirit of deconstructionalism is what drives me in my academic strata every day. I feel that I need to see the world from the ground up, to look deeper with my senses as to what creates the world around us. Culture is as organic as the skin we are in. As we stretch our hands out from us, trying to grasp symbolism and semantics, the quick prick of fear of the unfamiliar holds us back. Though heartbreaking, I must come to terms with contradiction.

(Essam Marouf)

The musallsall unfolds from the very cores of desires- oil, fragrance, veils. The orientalism is all around us, we just need to pull away at the cobwebs. I cannot help but see similarities and differences across the globe- from Chiapas, Mexico to Delhi, India to Cairo, Egypt. The semantics, the symbolism, the nation-building. “Imagined communities” are not landlocked. The same trails of broken treaties are no different from Mexico to Palestine.

Here I am with heartbreak and an Umm Kulthum song, bags all packed for Cairo. As a contemporary art junky (Frida Kahlo is my favorite) I am most excited about exploring the art and literature scene(s) here in Cairo. Recently I have been interested in graphic design and the Arabic script is so inspiring. I can’t wait to gawk at labels on things. I also really enjoy eating and reading about all the yummy Egyptian food has made me quite hungry- especially Molokheya soup, which Lonely Planet describes as a ‘sexy slimy soup’ has peaked my interest. Yanni. On my way to Cairo. Ya allah, let’s go.