Cairo 101

My first time to visit Cairo, Egypt, and I choose to stay for 6 months and live in an apartment amongst the locals... Culture shock?  Not exactly.  I’d like to think of it as a blind date.  You never know what to expect.    

The driving is crazy, it feels like we are cheating death every time we get into a cab or try to cross the street.  And speaking of the street, people here seem to be confused on the distinction between a street where a car drives and a pedestrian walkway.  There is no such thing, it is one in the same.  Pedestrian right-of-ways do not exist here.  So good luck getting around because if you are walking, cars will not stop for you unless you just dart out in front of them and hurry up... and that is if you are lucky!  You could be driving along in a cab on the highway and look up and see people walking amongst the cars.  It’s insane.  And there is also no concept of lanes.  They sure do have them painted on the streets, but no one stays in them.  You just drive where you want.  It’s a motorized free-for-all on the pavement where people may also travel by foot.  Survival of the fittest!!  It’s Darwinism at its‘ finest!!  Earlier today we were riding along in a cab on an overcrowded highway when all of a sudden we were taken over by a swarm of motorcycles.  When I say swarm, I mean about 100 - and when I say motorcycles, I mean vespas.  Each of which was carrying 2 to 3 people.  These guys were serious.  Weaving in and out of cars that were simultaneously weaving in and out of the non-lanes.  Suddenly our cab became a speck in the middle of a stampede of raging two-wheelers.  It’s each man for himself here on the streets of Cairo.  You must fight or fail.  Cairo is definitely a different world, and it’s crazy to see it first hand.  I also have Morocco to compare it to which I thought would be pretty relatable, but it’s not at all.  Totally different.  For one, Cairo is filthy.  Mind you, only about 3 million people in this city live above the poverty line.  Most live on less than $2 a day.  So when you think about it in those terms, you can imagine the lack of cleanliness and sanitation here.  One of the apartments Michelle and I looked at was located right by a massive trash pit.  We didn’t realize it however until after viewing the decadent flat and lastly, stepping out on the balcony to see the view.  This was possibly one of the saddest things I have ever seen in my life.  Imagine an area of land about half the size of a football field completely surrounded by buildings in a major metropolitan city, but covered in garbage, sick animals, human feces, and throw up.  In two of the corners adjacent to one other, are shanties.  Yes, they are inhabited.  When I saw this I checked out for a minute, completely forgetting that the owner of the property was still talking to me.  Is someone really LIVING in there?  I ask myself.  And for a few moments I go back to the US picturing my beautiful life there where on any normal day, one of the last things on my mind is the possibility that there is someone somewhere on the other side of the planet living in such conditions.  Don’t get me wrong, I have been completely aware of such facts for a long time now.  International news doesn’t hide these and given that International Development is my field of study and desired line of work for the future, I have read and learned a lot about it over the past several years.  However, there’s just something about seeing it in real life, right before your eyes, that changes you.  It’s impossible to explain the emotions I experienced.  Walking along the streets you will also find that trash dumps are on most corners and are overflowing all around it.  I’m sure the cats appreciate it though because that is how they survive.  There is a surplus of cats roaming the streets.  Apparently they don’t belong to anyone though because most of them are sick, skinny, dirty, and sad.  Cairo is also very smelly.  And I don’t mean smelly as in it stinks (although it gets pretty rank in certain areas of town), but smelly as in pollution.  I’m talking, all of my internal organs are screaming at me with every breath I take in.  Mostly my lungs, but the others are pretty angry too.  There is a lot of smog.  It comes and goes though.  Sometimes I look out my window and it’s only halfway smoggy (whatever that means) and at other times I look out and can’t see my neighbor’s house, but I sure can reach out and touch it.

It’s hard to believe that many of the world’s majestic beauties are hidden in such a place as Cairo.  Of course there is the most well known treasures of this land - the Pyramids of Giza.  But this city is also packed with fascinations most people are completely unaware of.  I have a list going of things to seek out and discover while I am here and cannot wait to share them with you.  I will post again soon, “Insha‘ allah”!