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Cairo's new coat
By PATRICIA SMITH © St. Petersburg Times, published June 10, 2001
Eight years after I was last in Egypt, I felt like I was coming home. I grew up in New York, but Cairo was the place I called home the year after I graduated from college. It was where I had my first real job, where I first immersed myself in a completely alien culture. And, in many ways, it was where I really came of age. Returning as a tourist to a place you once lived is both invigorating and reassuring. The rhythms and rituals of Cairo were familiar, but I saw everything with fresh eyes.
Instead of being wowed by the sight of the pyramids, I was impressed by the appearance of ATM machines on the streets of Cairo. When I lived in Egypt in 1992, this sort of convenient electronic transaction was unthinkable; I was paid my monthly salary in cash, a stack of limp bills that looked like they had spent a month curled up in the toe of someone's shoe. This time, I spent much of my time in Cairo sitting in coffeehouses, sipping thick Turkish coffee and puffing on a water pipe. Since I did not feel compelled to sightsee, this seemed like the best way to soak up the city's aura. From my perch, I watched tourists moving in packs through the streets like a bunch of nervous college freshmen. They made me recall my own bewilderment when I first arrived in Cairo: Even having grown up in New York City, I was overwhelmed by the noise, pollution, crowds, smells and traffic generated by a Middle Eastern city of 17-million people. I remember what a challenge it was just to cross the street. Cars do not stop for red lights, much less yield to pedestrians. Vehicles merged together in fluid waves at intersections. Pedestrians had to wander out amid the swirling traffic. The first time I crossed a Cairo street was on the heels of an Egyptian; he grabbed my hand and yanked me out into the flow of cars. I was terrified. But this time around, I found everything about the chaos reassuring. The endlessly honking horns made me smile. The distinctive smell of burning garbage comforted me. Even the crush of taxi drivers pulling at my bags outside the airport arrivals hall seemed somehow endearing and familiar. But it was not just my perspective that had changed. Cairo had changed, too. I always thought of Egypt -- a country that measures time in millennia rather than centuries -- as a timeless place. So many things seem to happen exactly as they have for ages: men in long robes sweeping the streets with rough-hewn twig brooms, wooden sailboats bobbing along the riverbanks, men smoking water pipes in the sidewalk coffeehouses. But it is amazing the kind of change that a developing country like Egypt can undergo in less than a decade. There used to be just one word for beer in Egypt: Stella. The state-owned brand came in brown and green one-liter bottles so dusty and worn they resembled sea glass. The quality of Stella was unpredictable; the beer was often rancid or flat. Before opening a Stella, we would hold it up to the light to see if anything was floating in it. Waiters poured it from a foot above the glass to make sure it fizzed. In my absence, beer production was privatized. Gone were the dusty old bottles. There were also glossy, Western-style supermarkets and new movie theaters with stereo sound systems. Two rival telephone companies had recently installed public pay phones on Cairo streets. I even saw some traffic police writing tickets for cars that had run red lights or haphazardly parked in illegal places -- something that would have been unthinkable before. While all these things were startling changes, they are superficial. They have merely added a more Western veneer to Cairo; they have not altered its essential character. I remember remarking to a friend when I first arrived in Cairo that the giant neon billboards atop many downtown buildings looked funny in Arabic. I had always thought of Arabic as a script best suited to graceful calligraphy rather than flashing lights advertising soda or bug repellent. But now I realize this is the essence of Cairo: a constant blending of old and new, a city of infinite contradictions. It is not unusual to see a woman leading a herd of goats through residential streets lined with shiny Mercedes cars. The ancient call to prayer is projected through the streets via electronic loudspeaker. Intersections are equipped with modern traffic lights, but drivers routinely ignore them. When I returned to Cairo, I was initially horrified to discover a TGI Friday's on the banks of the Nile. It seemed to clash with the call to prayer. But to the wealthy Egyptians who frequent the restaurant, nachos and minarets are not a strange combo. Next time I visit Cairo, there might be a Starbucks next door to my favorite coffeehouse or a Banana Republic on the road to the pyramids. But that's okay, because it won't change the enduring, essential madness of Cairo that I fell in love with long ago. Freelance writer Patricia Smith lives in New York City.
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