From Cairo with love - 3

Written upon a business trip to Cairo, in June 2011, 6 months after the revolution.

*******************

Dear all,

It feels nice to know that, no matter how haywire the world is going, has gone, or will go, some things remain, no matter what. Upon my third trip to Cairo, I was wondering on the plane what to expect, as I had not come since the revolution.

And, to my mild surprise, not much has been altered in the little I see. My taxi swerved on the expressway last night, to avoid an entire block of californian wall that had fallen onto the road. Once the blood returned to my brain, I remembered that my last taxi, upon my last stay, had done the same thing, as the half-ton cement block was already there. That would be a year ago. Rumour has it that people are thinking about moving it out of the way.

The drives between airport hotel are long, and I get to look at the landscape, the desert, and all the things we don't have in our daily-vacuumed streets. I see the trucks carrying sand, probably from one desert to another (because that ton of sand didn't belong there), and letting half of it pour out onto the road. I see the thousands of buildings in construction, only half finished, which were at the exact same level of completion last time I came, with gear and cranes and all, but not a worker in sight. The only explanation I have gathered so far is that Egyptian workers must all suffer from severe attention deficit disorder.

The people are still as nice, polite, and helpful, their English is still as charmingly approximative, and people still cross expressways at night, with 9 children, on foot and wearing dark clothes. Bus drivers still use the expression "to drop someone off" quite literally, and all drivers regard traffic lanes as optional and charming elements of symetric aesthetics. The equivalent of half the population of Mexico is estimated to be killed every day on Egyptian roads. Which leaves me double-damned with perplexity. 1) How come there are still Egyptians around? 2) How can you kill people on roads when the entire country is at standstill, because of traffic jams? Exhaustion or hunger, perhaps.

Tomorrow, I will try not to miss my plane again because the taxi driver forgot to put gas in his car. Upon leaving Cairo, I will regret once again, not to have stayed an extra day to visit. Meanwhile, bless you all, keep it country, and all that.

Best,

James Harrington