The day i was treated like a muslim terrorist

Masr, historically, has certain similarities with Al-Andalus. As a start is the only other exit of the Mediterranean (literally the Middle of the Earth) to the ocean which makes it a very strategical point to commerce. Since both are relatively flat lands with abundance of water they are very rich agriculturally. Due to such circumstances many different powerful civilizations have controlled those areas, Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs, Ottomans, etc...For the particular case of the Roman Empire, Al-Andalus was the granary of the West and Egypt the granary of the East. Such civilizations not only benefited from our lands, but they left a tremendous technological inheritance that throughout the centuries mixed and evolved. As a result, in both places, we became a center of interest, not only for economical reasons, but for cultural reasons too. Due to that, we attracted intellectuals from different religions and places in the world that enriched furthermore our lands. In Al-Andalus, as well as in the particular example of Alexandria, we had periods when Muslims, Christians and Jewish lived in in relative peace. Reminders of such mixes can be found in both lands, from Seville (with the second biggest cathedral of Catholicism after St. Peter in Rome), where the "christian" temple is half Islamic (conserving the Minaret and the patio of ablutions of the old mosque) and half gothic...

...to Alexandria, where mosques and churches stand side by side:


I have been having very long conversations about religion and faith with some locals, and i have realised how long it has been since i went to church or even considered my own faith. I stopped making questions because i could find no complete answer, i could not find it in the Bible, Torah, Coran, Bhagavad Ghita, Tao Te Ching, Popol Vuh or any others i read. So a couple of days ago, i was coming back from my visit to the Carita's building outside Alex, when i found myself walking between that mosque and that (Coptic) church in the picture. I stopped and observed all the people going in to pray and i felt like going inside the church to explore that field that i abandoned so long ago. i know most of you are surprised with this...but surely not as much as i did (actually when i told this story to Bahz he asked me if i went in there for research :D). I walked to the church, and in the door two security guards stopped me: They asked me for my passport, meanwhile one inspected it, the other was saying in Arabic that i was Muslim pointing to the Mosque opposite (my 2 month long beard was not helping). The next idiotic question from the man looking at my passport was "where are you from?"...ehhh i thought it was obvious from my passport, but i answered. Then he took my right hand and checked my wrist trying to find the tattooed cross that most Coptic people have, and obviously couldn't find it. Then he asked me why in my passport doesn't state that i am Christian, i answered because almost every Spanish is Christian (at least on paper) as freedom of religion was abolished five centuries ago. Both were quite aggressive, and that was not putting me in a very good mood. Then the guy turned his attention to my bag, i opened it and begin taking things out: my notebooks, my books, pens, my sweater, my calculator...basically the usual stuff. He searched every pocket in my bag until he found something and gave me an accusative look and with a menacing voice he inquired: "what is this??" You could have guessed it was a gun from his face, but it was my USB pen. I thought that was the end of it, and that they would let me pass to the church. I was wrong again, the guy was taking me to the security office to do a body search!!! At that point i refused to go further with that non sense, i sent him to fry asparragous (lo mande a freir esparragos) in my best Spanish, i turned around and left the building. I felt what many Muslims feel everyday in many places around the world, pure religious discrimination...I do not think that i am welcomed to the house of God anymore, it was a sign: i will stay away from it...

Curiosity of the day: Egyptians just have one sound for "p" and "b", and many of them interchange it very happily. This difficults communication even more, let me give you some examples: pan and ban sound the same, palette-ballet, bale-pale, bay-pay and the always funny brick and pitch :P