Ask any Egyptian right now what’s on their mind and the chances are that the ever rising cost of living will be foremost in their thoughts (for more, read this).

The government announced on Labour Day (1 May) that it was going to up public sector salaries by 30% – an interesting figure given that the official rate of inflation is somewhere in the teens, but unofficially everybody knows it’s, hmm…30%.

So there were a few days of rejoicing coupled with queries about where this extra money was going to come from.

A few days later it has became all too clear: 30% increase in the price of cigarettes, removal of tax-free status for private schools and 35-47% fuel increases. The last one is the biggie.

The whole world is suffering the problem of increased commodity prices, but Egypt has far more people living on or around the ‘bread-line’ than most other places. A large swathe of society cannot absorb these rises in the way that the majority of the developed world can i.e. grumbling about having less spare cash at the end of the month. These people have no spare cash at the beginning of the month, never mind the end.

There are plenty of forecasts of doom and gloom out there about Egypt’s future. What I haven’t seen these predictions take account of is the natural resourcefulness of Egypt’s people. Many will suffer and I don’t mean to down play that, however, humans are great at finding work-arounds and I have to say that Egyptians are absolutely superb at this. So while health and safety is an unheard of luxury, money-saving devices and ideas are likely to be making an appearance sometime soon.

On a completely different thread, is the Grand Hyatt’s decision to go ‘dry’. It is a large 5 star hotel in central Cairo with Saudi ownership. Rumours abound about why the owner/chief shareholder decided to take this route with some newspapers citing his personal religious beliefs, some saying it was the result of a dispute with top management and others saying that in the competitive summer market for tourists from his native land and the Emirates it was a marketing strategy. The result is that the story has made all the newspapers in Cairo with further talks about the Ministry of Tourism downgrading the hotel to 4 star status or even that the Hyatt will pull out of this hotel.

Meanwhile, H&M is apparently going to open in Cairo on 5 June. Whatever the state of the economy, this place is going to be packed out. Fashionistas won’t know what to do with themselves: a foreign brand with fashionable clothes at equal to and cheaper than Egyptian brand prices. It’s pretty amazing really. Three years ago I still had to go out of the country to buy clothes (unless I wanted Versace and the like – not really affordable on an NGO’s salary!) and now there are: Next, Evans, Accessorize, Karen Millen, French Connection, Mango, Top Shop is coming and there are more that I can’t remember right now. Not bad for three years!

Lastly, to follow up from this – we did change the clocks! Apparently some other countries in the region didn’t and next year Egypt won’t either.

Actually, there are two words on the Street right now.

First is that we are not going to change the clocks this year. This has yet to be proven as we normally do it three weeks to a month later than the UK, however, the theory I’ve heard is that it is because of Ramadan. This year Ramadan is due to fall on or around 1 September, when the weather is still pretty hot. Last year, Ramadan started a week before the clocks normally change, so they were changed early (a week or two) – hence the ‘word’. We’ll see.

The second word is that tomorrow there is going to be a national strike. There has been no official approval for this strike, so we’ll see if people decide to stay indoors. The strike would be about (as I understand it) the rising cost of living. I’m not sure what the would-be strikers hope to achieve though, as with food, the government has been sheltering a sizable part of the population from what is happening on the global markets by way of subsidisation. With petrol, this is so for the entire population. Saying that, prices are rising far faster than salaries, and times are extremely tough for many. Again, we’ll see.

~~

Our bowab (doorman) works hard for the building. He is up every morning washing the cars, he cleans the stairs, which has been no small job with the number of workmen in the building for the past 18 months and generally keeps it looking good.

He also does a lot of running around town for The Lady Downstairs (TLD) who has a business and seems incapable of going to the bank or offices on the other side of town herself. The business has employees and sizable funds, given where it advertises, for marketing. Her mode of transport is a BMW, his, because she won’t give him a taxi fare (which is nothing here) is the microbus – Cairo’s most dangerous and crowded form of transport. His pay for all this is minimal. On top of that, she treats him as a verbal whipping boy. Living above her, I am treated to her daily (on average) screaming fits. The bowab isn’t the only recipient, however, being close at hand, he is yelled at daily for absolutely nothing.

The day before yesterday, I was waiting for the elevator and heard him downstairs ringing her doorbell. Someone came to the door (not TLD, probably her maid) and he told her he had the electricity bill. Next hurried footsteps came to the door, followed by TLD’s raspy screaming, “You’ve got the electricity bill for me? Give it here!”.

Nice, huh?

So, Mr Bowab told me last month that he would be leaving for his home in the South for a few weeks at the end of March/beginning of April because his wife is going to give birth. This would be the second time he’s seen her in the past 12 months as the job of doorman does not come with holiday time.

Yesterday I realised that it was well into April and he was still here. Why? Apparently TLD won’t let him go because she has too much running around town for him to do.

And she has him by the short and curlies, because everybody knows that jobs are scarce and people on his his salary have few savings. What he does have though, is a savings account of hatred towards here growing with compound interest.

Due to some work engagements of Mr S, I found myself heading to Alexandria again this weekend. I didn’t mind that he had to work, I was planning to take it easy at the hotel, reading my book on the balcony and looking over the sea.

I expected there to be a problem when we got to the hotel, there have been the two previous times I’ve stayed there. Apparently 5-star grading doesn’t take into account check-in (or check-out!) procedures. Anyway, I am not going to whine about staying in a 5 star hotel. Primarily because I think the stars are there purely as decoration, not as part of any rating. I will say, still not whining (only because I’m saving it for another post), that it is the only time in my life where I have told the manager of a place of accommodation directly to their face that I do not want to stay in their establishment. It was not a good weekend.

We took the train to Alex. It’s a decent train and usually runs pretty much on time. I’ve done this journey plenty of times over the years and until today, had not realised that every time I have gone, I have arrived in the morning and left the same day, or another, in the late afternoon/early evening. What brought this to my attention today was watching the commuter trains arriving.

You can forget right now any polished notions you have of commuter trains. These trains had not seen a lick or a spit probably since they were purchased in the seventies. A lot of the commuters themselves were not on the way to the office in freshly pressed suits, but were traveling in from outlying farming communities to sell their wares at the market.

I did not take any pictures of what I am about to describe, because I was so shocked and so sad at the suffering that I did not want to capture a moment of it on digital celluloid. A picture may say a thousand words, but in this instance, your imagination and compassion are required and words are infinitely better at conjuring them up (I hope I can do justice – and I am not going to weave a tale of whispering hubbly bubbly smoke and minarets in some far gone exotic land, that can be saved for the movies and writers wanting to make a quick buck off a Western myth).

Also, before I continue, I would like to clarify that although I now live in one of Cairo’s most exclusive neighbourhoods (so exclusive that I barely consider it part of Cairo), I have not always and I have worked for organisations actively working to improve life for some of the the most unfortunate in this country, so I have a fairly good idea of how life here is for many.

So, back to the platform. It was 7.45am and our train was due at 8am. The platform for the Cairo train is an island between four sets of tracks. We were standing on the platform as it filled up with other Cairo-bound travelers. Hawkers were working their patch selling newspapers and magazines, there were a couple of elderly female beggars moving from passenger to passenger looking for a small act of kindness that would secure their food that day. There was nothing unusual.

A train appeared down the tracks and Mr S commented that he had never seen third class carriages in Egypt. I assured him there were many, particularly on the type of train that was approaching. The engine passed and the first carriage was passing. Inside it was jam packed to the extent that people were hanging out the doors that were by now open. Movement inside the carriage of people wanting to alight made those at the doorways literally ‘pop’ off the train and onto the tracks below. They would then make their way over, in no particular hurry, to our platform.

Once the train jerked to a halt, the work really began. A boy about eight years old jumped off, on to the Cairo bound tracks and took a 1 metre diametre aluminium pot piled full with vegetables across the tracks to our platform. Then he went back and got another. His portly mother, in her long galabeya, sat down on the floor of the carriage and jumped out onto the Cairo tracks and took a sack of potatoes, easily 10kg and heaved it across to our platform. The little boy clambered back on the now moving train while she stood on the Cairo bound tracks waving him off. She then made her way up onto our platform and proceeded to drag her goods pot by pot across the platform to the other side. Once gathered there, she made her way down onto the tracks coming from Cairo, and heaved one of her pots over to the next platform, then made her way over to the tracks coming from Cairo. Just in time, because another train arrived. Doors open on both sides again, this woman then lifted her two pots and sack of potatoes onto the train, clambered aboard and slid in the single pot from the adjacent platform, just before the train left.

This story was repeated many times over, with her train and subsequent ones.

The train following hers, however, was (somewhat impossibly) even fuller. As the engine rolled past along with it came two young men, straddling the train buffers, holding on to the train with flat palms against steel of the engine and the front carriage.

Sure enough, at 7.55am they, as with many others, jumped off the train, onto the Cairo tracks and made their way, without much haste onto our platform. More women with lead heavy sacks and pots made their way across the tracks, either unaware that a train was due at 8am, or not caring much that it was.

The whole scene, in contrast to us holding our first class tickets and waiting for our plush seats in our air conditioned carriage was, and still is, extremely difficult to stomach. Of course I knew that the trains were crowded, extremely crowded and I’ve been squashed up against voluptuous female bodies on the Cairo metro at rush hour, and I’ve heard of people traveling on the roof on Delta trains. Mostly, however, I have not seen it and I was led to believe by the people describing it to me, that it was teenage boys who wanted to be dare devils. Perhaps so in some cases, but this was something quite different.

In all honesty, worse that watching it, was knowing that there is nothing I could do to help. I mean, yes, I could have tried to help the women carry the potatoes etc, but in reality, I would have been a hindrance more than a help.

So this is life in Egypt. You can live in a cocoon and never see anything like this and complain about how tough life is, or you can get out and about and see things what life can be like. The thing is, a poor reflection on me perhaps, it doesn’t stop the grumbling for as long as perhaps it should.

Knees, terribly sexy.

“Shorts? In Cairo?” my friend remarked with raised eyebrows.

“Oh, yes. Definitely, but only in the Hood and only in certain parts.”

It hit 35C yesterday – extremely unusual for this time of year, and more than that, after a few days of warm weather, no sand storms have hit. Perhaps there’s a real biggie on the way. Hopefully not. In the meantime, however, it’s kind of like summer.

The recent temperature hike has taken a lot of people by surprise. One result is that the cinemas haven’t turned on their refrigeration systems yet, aka A/C, so you can actually enjoy warm weather outside, then sit in the cinema and not catch a cold. Heaven.

After my little foray into the coffee bars and cinema of the Hood wearing shorts (just slightly above the knee – risqué) I felt superbly summery. Humming a happy little tune this morning I washed the summer stickiness off my skin and stepped out of the shower. I had just reached for my towel when I heard a cough. It wasn’t Mr S.
Then I heard a clattering and realised the cough came from outside. Being sufficiently high up that nobody could be near my window I had a moment of confusion.

In my happiness I had totally forgotten that scaffolding (of a sort) has been erected outside my bathroom window. I had no idea if Mr Cough had seen me in the buff, but I was sufficiently concerned that he shouldn’t see anything else (not least for fear that it become a regular occurrence for him and his buddies) that I was then stuck up against the wall holding a towel length-ways over my front waiting for a moment to sidle up to the door and slip out.

Suddenly the shorts seemed like very conservative attire.

Poor old Beejo has been feeling pretty neglected. Stuck in the corner, tyres beginning to deflate and big soft handle bars looking expectantly at me with puppy dog eyes every time I enter the room. Unfortunately, due to a strange, persistent and painful knee problem (that only occurs when I’m cycling uphill), Beejo’s sorry state is somewhat justified.

Today, while chatting with friends, I got a call from my physio.
“Hello.” he said.
“Hello.” I replied.
“You have an appointment now.”
“No, my appointment is not for another hour.” I said confidently. Unfortunately too confidently, as I was wrong.
“If you can come over immediately, there will be enough time because my next client is always late.”
“I’m on my way.”

Cue a major rush, not least because if I didn’t find my shorts, I would have been treated in my underwear – not something I relished. Shorts located I rushed out, got in the elevator and headed down. All this in about 30 secs. It was at exactly that moment that I realised Beejo could be a saviour at this point, so I headed back up.

Purring along the streets, Beejo was happy to be out, enjoying one of the nicest days of the year so far.

It wasn’t until we passed the first policeman (of about twenty on the route) that I remembered that I wasn’t wearing the best ensemble for cycling. A female cycling is an uncommon-enough sight in Egypt, even the Hood, but blonde hair blowing in the wind kind of helps attract a little more attention. Then there was the matter of footwear: flip flops. The only people who wear them out in Egypt are people who can’t afford proper shoes: strange on a foreigner. Coincidentally the only people who cycle anywhere are delivery boys, and it was a pretty odd picture. Add to that a striking green t-shirt with a massive V-neck and I suddenly found myself sitting pretty erect, fingertips barely touching the handle bars and pedaling as fast as possible.

“Oo’a! Oo’a! Oo’a! El agnabeya!” (Watch out, watch out, there’s a foreigner coming behind you!) yelled one man walking down the street to another in front of me.

As luck would have it, part of the road en route is being dug up, so in addition to the policemen, there were about ten workmen, never mind the 15 bowabs sitting relaxing mid-afternoon.

Cries of “Ya mozza!” (hey chick) and “Eh el halewa di!” (what is this beauty – rather literal, can’t remember what people say in countries where workmen have been banned from making comments) were accompanied by a cacophony of wolf-whistles.

Had I not been in such a rush, I would have minded, however, it was kind of my fault anyway (well, I was ‘teasing’ them..*). Anyway, on the flip side, at least I brightened up some people’s day, even if it was only to give them something to laugh at!

*That cliched argument of ’she was dressed like a tart so she deserved it’ hasn’t been disputed here yet.

Youssef was talking to the mango farmers.

“What does your father do?”

He knew this answer was going to be the end of their conversation – it always was.

“We’re zabaleen.”

“Oh right,” said the farmers looking at each other.

Youssef’s family lived and worked in the rubbish collecting area of Cairo. Bottom of the social ladder. If, indeed, it even registered on the social ladder.

The next day Youssef met the farmers again at his post in the delta. His stint of military service was over half way through.

“Do you come across mangoes?” the farmers asked.

A bit of a stupid question really, most of Cairo’s refuse ended up with the zabaleen.

“Yes.”

***

And so it was that one young man with one of the country’s dirtiest jobs, came to be the first and only mango seed collector in his area. Summer months are spent working 24hours a day collecting the discarded seeds of the city’s favourite fruit, drying them and transporting the kernel to his friends in the delta for replanting.

Ok, back in the Mother of Civilisation. The building work opposite is still in progress, not much progress, however, seems to have ocurred, apart from the roof becoming the builder’s toilet. I don’t mean that there is a portakabin up there getting grottier day by day. Just the plain old flat roof.

I do understand that calls of nature are perfectly normal, but presumably the roof isn’t the best option? In the past two days I’ve seen four men relieve themselves. I had decided not to share it with you, because it may seem like I’m becoming obsessed with the builders (which I am – more later). However, about three minutes ago, up came one who after the usual scout around to check he was alone, took a dump.

Unfortunately, the building next door is one floor lower than ours, so all this is plainly, painfully visible from the window in front of my desk.

Happy New Year?

“Oh no, oh no! Oh no, I don’t believe it! I DON’T BELIEVE IT,’ I was suddenly yelling to my friend down the phone, ‘There’s a guy taking a shit on the roof next door!”

“What?!” she yelled.

“Oh, no. No, he’s not. He’s not. He’s..?” and I couldn’t exactly figure out what was going on.

The workman in a galabeya (long robe thing) was squatting down and had pulled down his longjohns.

“I don’t know what he’s.. Oh my goodness!”

“What is it?!” she yelled at me.

“I can’t believe it! Oh my GOODNESS!”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!”

“He’s washing his…diiick! And…,” Now, there are some things I will probably never blog about, but let’s just say I wasn’t a virgin when I met Mr S, “…he’s hung like a bloody HORSE!!”

Yep, on the roof opposite me, one of the workmen had taken five minutes when (I’m guessing) he knew nobody else would be up, and used the water brought up for mixing cement to wash his very long, very fat manhood in broad daylight, at the start of his ablutions before noon prayers.

The sight is unfortunately impressed on the inside of my eyelids.

“What do you want to do?” Mr S asked as we walked into the centre of a French town.

“Hmm. Let’s go and take pictures of the poor area. According to the map, there’s a run down housing estate near here, so let’s go and see how the real French live.”

How utterly ridiculous that sounds: offensive to take pictures of people who are unemployed, or employed in menial jobs, struggling to make ends meet. Yet this is what happens every day in Egypt and countries like it. How many people go to India and take pictures of people in the slums? “It’s amazing, they’re so poor, but they’re so happy. They’re all smiling,” is commonly heard coming from former slum day trippers and something I’m fed up of hearing here as well.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on this subject, but it keeps coming up.

I’d like to set the record straight. A smile does not mean that someone is happy in their life or happy with their circumstances. Cultural body language is a complex issue that could be a thesis in itself, but this business about poor people in a dusty, run down part of town being really happy with life is something that drives me nuts. What is it that makes Western tourists think that people living without running water or electricity, or who are subject to frequent water shortages and power cuts on top of scrimping to survive and holes in their flimsy roofs are actually happy with the situation? Gain their confidence and perhaps unsurprisingly, it will not be hard to find that not being able to wash their children’s clothes, or struggling to feed their offspring is as much a problem as it would be for the tourists themselves. The only difference is, that these people are used to it, and don’t spend their time complaining about it. Offer them the opportunity to change their circumstances and the chances are they’d jump at it.

And they do. The number of Egyptians who leave families behind for years to earn a bit of money sweeping streets, or working in low paid construction jobs in Saudi Arabia, where, incidentally, there are also a lot of Indians, or, more recently, in Israel, is a clear indication of this. There is a generation of children being brought up with more money than their parents were, but by a lonely mother and without a father because he is abroad working to better their circumstances.

This desire to have a better life extends across the parts of our planet that are “developing” and those that are still in the “third world” status and is what drives people to set out on arduous, long and often fatal journeys to cross our borders illegally. These are not people who are happy with their circumstances.

So, how about this as a suggestion: before taking the picture of a poor family on a donkey, or a kid smiling through a mask of dust, or someone in a similarly difficult situation, the interested tourist should pause. If the potential snapper would be comfortable photographing a tired single parent standing at a bus stop in the rain with his/her children, back in their home country, then they should snap away. If not, perhaps the camera should stay in its case?

“What day can I come to collect them?”
“Saturday”
“Not today? They’re very simple.”
“No, not today, I’ve got a lot of work.” (yes, obvious from the number of people sitting around doing nothing and no work in progress in the workshop), “What about Saturday?”
“Ok, well I’m going away for a few days so I’ll come the following Wednesday. Is that ok?”
“That’s fine”

The following Wednesday:
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I’ve come to collect my frames.”
“Oh yes, the frames. I’m sorry,’ (it didn’t exactly sound remorseful), “I was sleeping.”
“Pardon?”
“I was sleeping.”
“What do you mean? It’s been a week. You told me two days.”
“Yes, but I can do them in two days now.”
“I’d like my deposit back please.”

A few days later somewhere else:
“I’d like four frames made please.”
“Ok, no problem. Come back in two days.”

Two days later:
“The wood is in the machine.”
“Pardon?”
“The wood is in the machine. It will be here in two days.”
Deep breath.
“Right. Two days. What time?”
“3pm”
“Right.”

Two days later, 6pm:
“The wood is in the machine.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
“But what about this, and this, and this?” I said pointing to the latticework doors and tables around me, “They weren’t here two days ago, you managed to do complicated things, but not frames in unfinished wood?”
Shrug of the shoulders.
“But the wood was here the first time I came.”
“Yes, but now it’s in the machine.”
“When will it be out of the machine?”
“In two days.”
“Id like my deposit back please.”