Life these days in Cairo

Cairo, “the city of a thousand minarets,” is the biggest city in Arab world (with 17 million people). And whether you’re wandering aimlessly through the market streets of its Islamic quarter or driving out of town through towering canyons of high-rise apartment flats, you can’t shake the sense that this city goes on forever.

Vast apartment blocks built without concern for code surround Cairo. Taking advantage of a loophole in the tax law, they are left technically "unfinished" so their inhabitants pay no real estate tax. This way, the government gets no revenue, and the city looks uglier than ever. It’s a two-fer!
Vast apartment blocks built without concern for code surround Cairo. Taking advantage of a loophole in the tax law, they are left technically “unfinished” so their inhabitants pay no real estate tax. This way, the government gets no revenue, and the city looks uglier than ever. It’s a two-fer!

In fact, random housing is the new scourge. Vast fields of rare, rich agricultural land have been plowed for the last time, as developers throw up towering, cheap, concrete-and-red-brick apartment flats. It’s scandalous: Productive fields are so scarce and precious in Egypt; this housing could be built on sand instead, allowing good soil to survive and continue to feed the multitudes of hungry people here.

As is the sorry case in most of the developing world, the poor and uneducated multiply like rabbits, and the wealthy and educated have only a couple of children. Trying to explain the new post-revolutionary dynamic in this country, my friend said, “Democracy has advantages and disadvantages…and we’re experiencing the disadvantages.”

Wandering through Islamic Cairo in the cool of the evening, it seems everything is a bit more relaxed and mellow.
Wandering through Islamic Cairo in the cool of the evening, it seems everything is a bit more relaxed and mellow.

I find traffic chaos endlessly entertaining. Only in Cairo have I seen cars randomly choosing to go against the traffic — their drivers actually mad at those going in the lawful direction for being in the way. Tuk-tuks, three-wheeled motorcycle rickshaw taxis recently imported from India, are perfect for the Calcutta-like chaos of the streets.

Streets recently cobbled to be pedestrians-only are now a battlefield of both cars and walkers — like an accidental double exposure that didn’t work out. There’s nothing graceful about cars, merchants, and pedestrians all struggling over the same space. Horns honk as if to fill a “void” that’s already jam-packed. Wagons loaded with long, wobbling pipes and boards joust through the crowds. Doing battle with the cars and motorbikes on the streets, I recall how just a few months ago, I crossed a street in Seattle that was empty of cars. A cop stepped up and issued me a $50 ticket for jaywalking. When you live in a lawful society, you may not appreciate the value of strict parameters being set, with strict consequences enforced. That ticket makes a little more sense to me now.

On the fertile streets of Cairo, life is everywhere. And so is death. I hear what I think must be a child is squealing from an apartment high above. Then people gather, the squealing becomes more heart-wrenching, and my friend tells me, “Someone in that apartment has just died.” Later, while catching a rest over mint tea at a restaurant sprawling under a blanket of exhaust at the side of a chaotic highway, I see a somber parade of people following the simple plywood coffin of a dead loved one — marching through the traffic on their way to the city of the dead. Muslims (perhaps waiting for their own Martin Luther) believe in scoring religious favor by doing good deeds, and — as if eager to score a few easy points — people race to help carry the coffin.

If there’s any order amid the intensity, it’s Egypt’s social class system. The big determiner of which class you fall into seems to be education. The vast sea of uneducated masses share the poverty. The hardworking, educated middle class struggles against a flagging economy, desperate not to slip to a lower rung. And a tiny economic elite lives in its isolated, parallel world. I was struck by the dignity and grace and good humor of the people I met all across the board — especially the poor. I felt safe here, more so than in big cities in Central America. I encountered no aggressive beggars, and hustlers were limited to the predictable, touristy places. And, while I saw a few international visitors in my hotel, after three days spent on the streets, at the sights, and in the mosques of the greatest city in the Arab world, I met no Americans and only one Canadian — a Sufi Muslim with a big red beard from Montreal who was glorying in the spirituality of his favorite city on earth.

Comments

9 Replies to “Life these days in Cairo”

  1. I find traffic chaos endlessly frustrating. And Seattle speeders, tailgaters and are like those all over the big cities in the U.S. and Canada. But Cairo sounds very threatening to me and far from deserving of tourism. Perhaps Rick’s successors will introduce us to a more stable country sometime in the future.

  2. I think I saw two stoplights the entire time during our three day stay a few years back. Crossing the street is equal parts confidence that someone will stop and stupidity (do I really have to brave this onslaught of chaos?)

    Glad to hear Cairo is tourable. Absolute amazing experience.

  3. Your comment about the poor and uneducated multiplying “like rabbits” overlooks one of the major motivations for large families in underdeveloped countries without a welfare state: economic security in old age. In poor countries, people generally have children to support them in old age, not Social Security or IRAs. Moreover, what is the child mortality rate in Egypt? If children are the retirement plan, a high childhood mortality rate may lead people to have more children to ensure that some survive to the parents’ old age.

  4. I’m glad you’re enjoying Cairo. To me, the most amazing thing was visiting the Egyptian Museum…with what was just a few years ago (and may still be) old yellowed typed descriptions on many of the exhibits… and the throngs of stuff seemingly shoved in corners as they have so much. Stuff which would be the main attraction at most museums around the world.

    There’s a great shwarma place called “Smiley’s”. Also, be sure to feast on some koshari (Egyptian vegetarian meal…lentils in a spicy tomato sauce) and macarona bechamel (like Egyptian Pastitos/Lasagna). Also try one of the fresh juice stands that seem to be on every block. For maybe a dollar or two you can have any “cocktail” of your choice.

    If you have any desire to actually learn Egyptian Arabic, the Michel Thomas Arabic series is the best (and most useful).

  5. Cairo sounds fascinating. Although I’m not likely to ever visit, the blog is providing the next-best experience of being there.

  6. I spent my time in Cairo stepping on an imaginary brake, thinking that my driver would surely run into something. He didn’t. With confidence high in much less chaotic Luxor, I thought my guide/driver would hit a pedestrian. I kept quiet, but Wham! He ran right into the guy. The victim’s leg was broken, my driver/guide soon drove off and said it was the pedestrian’s fault for being in the street.

    Next day I watched a mother and daughter climb out of a Mercedes they had driven into a canal. Back in Cairo a car plowed at high speed into a row of parked cars, damaging about 20 of them. The Egyptian Museum, pyramids, Temple of Karnak, Valley of the Kings, and sphinx were great, but my sharpest memories of Egypt were of traffic accidents. Forget terrorism and airplane crashes, riding around is the greatest risk we take overseas.

    No I did not make a CAPTCHA error.

  7. Rick, you must get off of the tourist route and take a one hour first class train ride to Tanta, the biblical land of Goshen (towards Alex) for a day to see the real Egypt. We lived there for 2 years and fell in love with the people who are generous and real. Stay at the Panorama Hotel, walk thru the alleys in the evening to a sweet and shwarma shop, go to the Souk Geban in the morning for fresh bread and vegetables, visit the Said Badawi Mosque and sit for tea and shisha and talk to the men, visit the American Hospital and Al Salam Private Language School across the street and see what the Presbyterian Church started in the 19th century. Take a service (mini bus) to Mahala Kabir to visit the carpet co-ops for fantastic silk or wool rugs (as always bargain with them!).

  8. “The big determiner of which class you fall into seems to be education. The vast sea of uneducated masses share the poverty. The hardworking, educated middle class struggles against a flagging economy, desperate not to slip to a lower rung. And a tiny economic elite lives in its isolated, parallel world. ”

    Sounds a lot like the US.

  9. One of the many great things I am enjoying about this blog are the great stories and comments by the readers as much as Rick’s posts!

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