The City
Laura Breslin
Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: features
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Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]
In the city that never sleeps, Cairo's early morning hours are quiet. Men in gallabayas yawn over cups of tea and the first of a steady stream of cigarettes. Those on their way to work stop and embrace each other on the street, greeting one another in the traditional manner - one kiss on each cheek. Makeshift kitchens are set up in the streets enabling early risers to begin their day with a falafel sandwich and fried potatoes. The smell of the food fades into the smell of a city teeming with life. It permeates all corners; the smell of car exhaust and pollution prevails, masking the scent of cooking meat and fresh flowers, cigarette smoke and subways, fast food and fruit juice stands. In the heat of the desert, even sand has a smell.
It is impossible to take a breath of fresh air in the heart of Egypt. The taste of the world's most polluted city comes rushing in with every breath. Yet the unappetizing combination of gasoline, mud, and Nile water is countered by produce of unrivaled quality. Cairo offers fresh mangos, ripe and dripping with nectar. The city is sweetened by sugar-cane juice, honey-covered desserts, and imported chocolates; salted by an unimaginable variety of seeds and nuts, Cairene taxi drivers' favored snacks. Although the city is old, it as fresh as the fruits and vegetables growing along the banks of the Nile river.
The sky is heavy, blurring the line between the earth and the heavens. It cloaks the massive city in a grey dressing gown of smog. In any other city, men and women would be looking up for that first drop of rain. But these Cairene clouds are born of a city home to twenty million people and twenty million cars. Mid-morning brings both light and color, removing the grey and leaving in its place the hues of a desert city. All colors seem muted, blending together into the uniform shade of sand.
Cairo's history is written on its buildings. At eye-level, the city seems tainted by globalization and commercialization, for every block offers yet another product to be purchased. The higher one looks, however, the older the city becomes. British colonial-era architecture is visible in the balconies, doors, and windows; the remnants of Cairo's Islamic past can be seen in the mosaics, mosques, and minarets. From the tops of the highest buildings, the limestone jewels of Egypt - the Pyramids - sparkle and serve as the timeless link to Egypt's past, present, and future.