Cairo

Today is Day Two of actual classes, but I figure I’ll wait until I’ve had every class at least once to write about them.

Instead, here’s some quasi-interesting information about Cairo and life here.

First, Cairo herself: Cairo is big in a way that we in the United States cannot fathom. The ratio of people to square inches makes me now laugh to think that New York or Washington at rush hour are busy. Every hour here is rush hour, every minute you’re passing hordes of people on the street. Walk across central Cairo in something like 30 minutes, and you’ve walked past almost 10 million people. The entire Cairo metropolitan area is something like 400 square kilometers, with 20 million people. Twenty million. But nobody really knows how many people live here. Census figures are a terribly erroneous low-ball at best, and really pretty much worthless.

It’s also dirty. You’re smack in the middle of the desert, so any wind brings sand and grit and grime and trash blowing every which way. 20 million people also make a whole lot of trash, and there’s nowhere good to put it. So much of it sits. Recycling here would have no meaning. When I blow my nose, it’s almost black with grime and sand. Shower, walk down the street, and you need another shower.

Traffic is a joke. On an average street, both sides are parked up completely and there’s something like 3-4 lanes of traffic. Oh…the lane markers are for two lanes, but that’s really just a suggestion. And one nobody takes. There are about six traffic lights in all of Cairo, and again, nobody pays them any mind. People yell and scream at the traffic cops, cursing them and their mothers in a colorful combination of Arabic, English, some French, and what can only be described as grunting noises with some deeper meaning.

Crossing the roads here must be done in a fashion that would get you put on suicide watch in the US. Literally, you walk into traffic. Granted, Cairo traffic is usually moving at no more than 30 mph and drivers and pedestrians live in relative safety and harmony. You walk out when cars are either stopped, or the next one is more than 30 feet away. Holding your hand out towards the car, you proceed until you reach the next lane. Repeat process with the next lane of cars until you’re across. Generally, looking the driver in the eye produces the desired slowing effect.

Everyone in Cairo has their car horns mechanically enhanced, and reminds you of it approximately every eight seconds. You honk when you’re passing someone, when you want to be in the same lane as them, when they’re going too slowly, when someone is crossing in front of you, when you’re giving someone permission to cross in front of you, when you want them to be aware of your presence, and generally when you want to make known to the world that you, the Driver, are out on the roads. Honking one’s horn is also a celebratory sound, often done in rhythm with four or five other cars at obscene hours of the night. Although I should be thankful. At the American University of Kabul I’m sure they shoot AK-47s into the air in all of the aforementioned circumstances.

Cats are everywhere. Not “free range” pet kittens. These are street cats. A surprisingly large number of them look reasonably healthy. Almost all look well fed (there’s lots of places to get a meal around here…read: public trashcans). But they’re just everywhere. Egyptians (and unsuspecting tourists) will pick up and cuddle the cuter ones. Many are content to be handled and petted. I refuse to touch them. At the Georgetown orientation for AUC, returning students told us that one Georgetown student from their semester (name withheld to protect the guilty) came back with ringworm from playing with the cats. But I can’t figure out why they’re here. Two explanations. First, that someone realized a city this massive would have rats (of which I haven’t seen a single one), so the best defense would be an inordinate number of over-reproducing rat-hunters. Second explanation is that it’s what happens when your ancient culture spent some 4000 years revering cats.

Cairo is 90% Muslim, and roughly 10% Coptic Christian. One thing that Egyptian Muslims are very good at is building mosques. And mosques that last a long time. Many of the mosques you see when driving through the city are easily 400 years old, usually closer to 600 or 800. They’re everywhere, really. Go three blocks and you’ve seen at least one. In older areas, go three blocks and you’ve seen two. And they’re beautiful. It haven’t managed to go into but one or two, but even the outside is amazing. The architecture is absolutely magnificent. It’s like living in a city of cathedrals.

Second, Bathrooms: This is an important part of living in Cairo. My dorm used to be a hostel, so it’s fairly generic; my triple room has three beds, three night stands, three desks, three chairs, and three built-in closets. The interesting part is when you walk into the bathroom. Toilets don’t flush like they do in the States. You pull up on a plunger-like knob on top of the tank, and it flushes. Oh, and did I mention that because Cairo’s sewer system is unable to handle anything but *ahem* natural substances (and sometimes not even that!), nothing can go down the toilet? Ladies in the states will be familiar with the warnings to not flush feminine products down toilets, but in Cairo that rule applies also to toilet paper. There’s almost always a tiny trashcan next to the toilet to place that, but it takes some getting used to. (You want me to put what…where??) And Cairo’s toilet paper…that’s a hit-or-miss process. Sometimes the bathroom has it, sometimes not. Public restrooms seem to be at about a 50% hit rate. So you carry those little packs of Kleenex with you.

Maybe 20-30% of bathroom stalls in Cairo are armed with a bidet. Those of you who have been to swanky places in the US and Europe will be familiar with the warm water jet to be used after one uses the facilities. Here, it’s a small spray nozzle and oh my goodness the water is cold.

There’s usually a lady in public restrooms, a bathroom attendant. Cairo’s working population is immense. There are not jobs for all the people here, so the government creates jobs. Unfortunately they didn’t go the “Public Works” route of the New Deal. They just made lots of minimum wage service positions. So you go into the restroom and there’s an old woman sitting in the corner, watching. You go into the stall (nope, no toilet paper this time), come out, and wash your hands. When you finish, the bathroom attendant (now standing next to you, hovering solicitously while you wash your hands) hands you a few squares of…you guessed it…toilet paper to use for drying your hands. For this service, you are expected to give baksheesh, a tip of 50 piasters to LE 1. The pushier ones will demand LE 1, or even LE 2.

Cleaning in Egypt has a different flair than cleaning at home. At home, we clean our bathrooms (public and private) armed with bottles of chemicals and wipes and rags and buckets. The ammonia kills some brain cells, but at the end we are convinced that the bathroom is reasonably hygienic. Here, bathrooms are cleaned using a bucket, a pitcher, and a rag. There is no soap, no chemicals. The cleaning lady on our floor throws water over every surface in the bathroom (floor, sinks, countertops, toilets), wipes it with a rag, and voila! the bathroom is now ready for use. It may sound mean, but I refuse to let go of my need for some kind of chemical to be used in cleaning the bathroom. Until such day as I return to the States, I’ll simply suffer in silence and in the company of many, many germs.

People in Egypt also don’t shower as often. Because 90% of the population is Muslim, they perform wudu, a ritual cleansing before prayer five times every day. Water is rubbed over parts of the body: face, hands, feet, hair, etc, to purify the person for prayer. Spiritually, not a bad idea. (Heck, even a good one.) Physically, however, it doesn’t cut it. Much of Cairo suffers from serious B.O.; even people with well-paying jobs who seem to be able to afford showering seem to…well…not. Which makes things even more awkward when you remember that Cairenes have a very different definition of personal space. Americans (I hear varying tales) are alternately some of the most personal and most impersonal folks around in terms of standing distance. (Think: how far do you stand from someone when you’re speaking? Two feet? One?) Personal space in Cairo is like our American notion of privacy: it really doesn’t exist. So when you’re talking to someone, they’re right there next to you. And sometimes you really really wish they weren’t...

Until next time, I remain your harebrained correspondent from this harebrained nation...