My mission impossible - visiting a moulid

What is moulid?
Moulid is a public religious festival to celebrate the birth of an ancient local saint. Both muslims and christians have moulids, but seperatly.

The dream
Ever since 2007 when I started travelling around Egypt I hoped to one day witness the moulid, the dancing arabic horses and live saidi music. But I never happened to arrive in the right time in the right place. Only until 10. november 2015 I got what i hoped for!

Lonely Planet

I recently spent a few days in Luxor with my dad and on the last night of my stay I came across an overview in Lonely Planet (LP) travel book about moulids in and around Luxor. There were several written down, but just one, Mar Girgis, drew my attention as it should have been happening the very same day. Moulids can last up to 7 days and usually peak on the last day. I decided to ask the locals in my hotel if it's still accurate, because my LP was from 2006 (!). An older muslim man working in the rooftop bar told me it's happening as we speak and it's the biggest christian moulid in Egypt. I made up my mind there and then! I had to go, this might be my last chance. I just had one problem on my way. According to LP foreigners are forbidden to enter this area without police escort for security reasons, and these escorts take long time to arrange. So I decided to break the rules and try anyway, undercover and secetly, if necessery.

An undercover mission to get there
I negotiated with a taxy driver in arabic to take me there, wait 3 hours and bring me back by the time of my departure. I also explained to the driver he cannot take the main road as they have police
checkpoints and any foriegner will be sent back so he has to find a way around the checkpoint and has to ask locals well in advance not to come face-to-face with police until it's too late. He understood well and we agreed on an undercover story that he is from the village of Razagat (the closest city to the moulid) and Im closely connected to the Luxor orthodox church.
Me and my dad were now heading out of the touristic area to the unknown village far from Luxor, in the darkness of the night possible getting in trouble with Egyptian police ann in the name of witnessing a moulid with my own eyes.

On the road

After about half and hour drive the driver told me to cover my face - the police was on the road. In my head I was furious, he has still gotten me in troubble after carefully explaining him the risks. He then told me and my dad to pretend we were sleeping, we followed his orders and acted to be alseep, I then had an idea to put a scarf on my head to look like a local. Even though christian women here don't cover their hair, I was hoping it would work. It worked! They did not stop us!
2 minutes from that we got caught. There was another check-point and they stopped every single car. The policeman greeted the driver and asked where were we going. The driver turned to me and told me  to reply to him in Arabic. I spoke to him in fluent Arabic, happy and friendly. He was amazed and wished us a pleasent stay in the moulid. I think my well-acted confidence and arabic saved the day. We were now minutes away from our destination.

Inside the moulid
As we were approaching Mar Girgis I noticed mini-buses arriving with big loads of furniture. I later learned people lived in open-air tents around the main church for the whole week so they brought their homes, everything from furniture to towels with them. The tents were built on a large area side by side all looking alike, honestly at first sight from a distance it looked alike a refugee camp, big and overcrowded and very basic. But coming closer It started to look more and more like a fun-park or a huge festival.

Street action

The center of the moulid is the church dedicated to Mar Girgis (or Saint George), surrounded by endless labyrinth of shopping streets, vendors coming from across the country (selling food, toys, religious paitings, statues, clothing, shoes etc). Its big, crowded and noisy, several booths playing religious songs at the same time.

Tattoo booth

Something exciting were the tattoo booths. Egyptian christians have an old tradition of tattooing small cross on their wrist to show their religious belonging. I saw more than just small crosses being made, I saw a lady getting a biblical incription on her inner side of elbow and a man getting a big face of Jesus on his back.
Streets were packed with egyptians of all ages, many groups of young guys among them. I knew they might want to try to get too close to me so I grabbed my dad's hand and instructed him: "Dad, now we are married, we walk as a couple and if I push you to any direction, know, it's my "Cairo technique" to avoid the naughty guys".

Coptic church

Meeting a "superstar"
We walked through the church where a mass was happening in the same time. As we left the church my father pointed out a small room on the side where a few girls were gathered, curious as we were, be looked inside. We found a small room where a priest was blessing these young girls. The priest welomed us, shook our hands and invited us for tea. We kindly accepted and had no idea that meeting this man would become the crazy highlight of the trip to Mar Girgis moulid.

We were escorted to the VIP back-room of the church, we had tea and had a long conversation in Arabic about moulids, the history and traditions and I learned evey year 1 million (!) christians make their way to his celebration. He was called Father David, he was kind and funny and a great example of Egyptian hospitality. Then the door opened and several high-ranking priests walked in, the mass had ended. Our friend-priest David jumped up and kissed their hands and forehead, they even greeted and smiled to us. We felt like we were the quest of honour, the olny foreingers this moulid will see, treated almost like diplomats.

A ride to remember
Father-David then offered to show us around the area and we happilly accepted. Little did we know how it would turn out. We just knew this will be the best and most safe way to explore the moulid, accompanied by a prestigious priest. To our suprise he asked us to sit in his car, we got a private-car tour along the streets. Normally I would not get into the car of a stranger, but in this case I made an exception. It was then that the priest started showing his real colours.

A priest - police
He turned on the inner car light so people could see him, stop and obey him and so he could show off driving with foreign company. To my suprise he started acting like a local police, from the car window ordering any motor-bikes or tuk-tuks (a three-wheeles motor-bikes) or minibuses to leave the streets and not come back. When I asked why, he explained they cause jams and accidents, that seemed compleatly true. Then he started stopping groups of joung boys who were carrying a wooden stick, the assaya. He told them not to look for trouble, took their sticks and drove off. When I asked him why, he explained yun guys are looking for fights between muslims and christians. As the christian families make their way to Mar Girgis, they already face trouble by on the road. Unfortunatly young men are eager to settle scores and carry wood for protection and revenge. There was already aroung 6-8 wooden sticks in his cars.
Sometimes Father-David swared and shouted, sometimes he smiled and joked with the people. His word was the law of the street, he was like a supertar, like God. I remained cool and calm, but inside myself I was screaming with joy and excitement, I felt we had the front-row seat to a reality-show in another universe.

I could see how proud he was of the moulid and he asked me over and over again if I liked it and if I was happy. I kept telling him it's the best experience we had all day and that was the truth. At the end of the night he took us to our taxi driver waiting at the gates and invited us back next year. But as for moulids I hope the next one I see is a muslim moulid, then, I think, I have seen it all.

PS! For privacy reasons I have changed the name of the "superstar" priest and have not posted a photo we took together. I was also advised not to publish it for my own security. Blogging on sensitive topics, like Christianity, from a muslim-majority country like Egypt is not that simple. Maybe some things are best left for imagination.