Cairo: A Foreigner’s View

When told to proceed forthwith to Cairo for three years, I must confess I was not filled with enthusiasm. It was more with a sense of obligation that I packed my luggage and children and boarded the plane. I thought to myself well its just three years and quoted the Bible “and this too shall pass.’

The airport of any destination presents the first clue to an outsider, and the first clue as to what Cairo may be was not very inspiring. Being a blue blooded Pakistani and a fervent “Karachite” to boot, I sniffed at the apparently run down look of the airport and said well Karachi airport is much better. Having passed through the sleepy immigration officer who at five in the morning was not his usual efficient self, I was whisked away to a friend’s apartment for some rest.

As days turned into weeks and months and as I explored this hitherto, unknown to me, part of the world I realized to my great surprise that it had several features in common to my own natal town. The landscape of Cairo is essentially brown and greenery is as infrequent as rain. The pollution, noise and the sheer press of humanity are also comparable to my girlhood town. Statistically speaking one third of Egypt lives in Cairo. As they say in France “all roads lead to Paris” so it is true of Cairo. It is the biggest, the most populated and the most developed city in Egypt. The commercial, political, spiritual and cultural hub of Egypt, if not the entire Middle East or so the Cairiens think.

The heart of Egypt and naturally that of Cairo is the Nile delta, that eternal and majestic river that has witnessed the rise and fall of empires that saw the bloodshed of the crusades, and that gently carried the basket of baby Moses through its length and safely deposited him at the Pharaohs door. The first sight of the Nile is breathtaking. The thought of all that has happened at the banks of this river is a humbling experience, its gentle waves a reminder of human mortality. One finds history beneath each step and modernity dotting the skyline. My first cultural stop was the sound and lights show at the pyramids of Giza, the most famous of the pyramids. There are others also to my surprise, at Sakkara and in Luxor in Upper Egypt. The sound and lights show is conducted at night at the foot of the Sphinx in the desert and is truly an eye opener, both informative and entertaining. Our next stop a few days later was the Egyptian National Museum that houses the treasures of the pyramids including “the mummies’ which are kept in special glass coffins centuries after the immortal souls had left their earthly coverings. My five year old already acquainted with the movie; “the Mummy” was feverish with excitement and couldn’t believe she was looking at the mummies up close and personally. It is said that if one were to take just three minutes to view each artifact in the museum it would take nine months to see the entire collection contained therein.

Beyond the breath of history offered by Cairo, it is also a party animal’s paradise. You only have to say what your pleasure desires and it shall be served. The city never sleeps at any hour of the day or night. There are always places to go, food to eat, things to buy and the Nile to gaze at. For me the best way to pass an evening is either to take a cruise on a dinner boat with its musical shows, mouth watering food under the starlit sky or as an option pound the pavements of the eternal Khan al Khaleeli, bazaar which is a bit like Bohri Bazaar but so much more exotic and culturally rich.

Cairo is also a city riddled with socio-economic cross currents. Donkey- carts and ram-shackled taxis jostle for space with Toyotas and Mercedes Benz. Veiled women surreptitiously hold hands of their paramours along the corniche; the more intrepid ones dance at Hard rock cafe just as the voices of muezzins call the faithful to prayers in this city of thousand mosques, dotted with beggars hoping for some alms or maybe just baksheesh.

Cairiens, as they like to call themselves embody their city’s spirit of continuity and change in their attitudes. Laid back, often insouciant and living in the moment is how one can safely describe them. Yet they remain conscious of what this land and its people personify; descendants of a great civilization, progeny of kings and dynasties and leaders of the world is how they perceive themselves. Although in the modern era they may not be leaders of the world but certainly of this part of the world. An Egyptian friend of mine recently recounted his experience of taking a course in American history during a longish stay in San Francisco. In his words he was most shocked to learn that American history began two hundred years ago. His arrogance cannot be over ruled, since most history in Egypt is traced back 5000 years ago and Islamic history and the reign of Salahudin Ayubi is called recent history.

I guess it would be untrue to say that I feel at home here. True there is a sense of familiarity, a déjà vu that can be felt in any third world country. Yet on my daily trajectory from work to home I get a sense of being a bystander, a curious observer and not an actor in this particular human theater. Waiting at the traffic lights or sailing through interminable traffic jams that are so common in this city, I feel as if it is an out of body experience for me, curious, detached and alone in the madding crowd.

The other day when someone asked me what I thought of Cairo, I responded that in my view it offered different things to different people depending on what you were looking for, be it; history, spirituality or just a good time. In my view no other city in the world perhaps gives such a diverse flavor of life.