Cairo: the unavoidable city

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 28

Cairo: the unavoidable city

By

JOHN MACAUSTER

Everyone now knows something about Tutankhamen, but if it hadn’t been for a chance accident, this minor Pharaoh would be virtually unknown today. Fortunately for us, a land-slide concealed the entrance to his tomb from grave robbers, and so it wasn’t until early this century that Howard Carter discovered the treasures and ensured international fame for himself and the long-dead .Pharaoh.

Now the treasures are on display in the National Museum in Cairo, and are one of the city’s chief attractions. By Pharaonic standards the golden grandeur of Tutankhamen might be modest but we marvel at it, as well as at the delicate craftwork that created such things as walking-sticks decorated with a mosaic of bark and beetle-wings. Yet, when you are in the room that holds themost fabulous of the treasures, there is a distraction. It is noise: the noise of traffic, of car horns being continually sounded, of pneumatic drills and road-works. The noise of Cairo, the modern city, drifts in through the windows.

Whatever else it may be, Cairo is a city with problems. And the problems are people, too many people. You walk along the street at dawn. Bodies lie

on the pavement, sleeping. Under a bridge beside the Nile someone has erected a windbreak — this is their home. On the roofs of office buildings in central Cairo, families live with their goats and their chickens. Traditional village life continues in a modern city.

Various estimates of the city’s population average out at about 12 million, but no-one seems to know for sure. What is agreed, however, is that the population of Egypt grows at the rate of one million every nine months. The prognosis for the country and for the capital could be much better. There are so many problems.

Cairo assaults the unsuspecting visitor. It is a frantic mess, a crowded city, and you can never escape the traffic. Consequently getting about becomes an endurance test

Egyptians do not look where they are going as a rule. If a person wants to push a cart across the road, he does so. He does not look to left or right first. If a car or bus is approaching, the driver needs quick responses and working brakes. Pedestrians act as though the onus is always on the other person.

A recklessness in the face of cars and a disregard for fellow pedestrians characterise the Cairene. A new campaign compelling people to cross at the lights is having some success in curbing this sometimes nearsuicidal behaviour, but Cairo’s roads will never know Western restraint It is unlikely that the public transport system will ever become less like a scene from Bedlam either. Getting on or off buses and trains, Cairenes exhibit energy and urgency not normally seen in Egypt Everything is push and shove. There is no waiting for the passengers to get off before you get on ... if you are lucky enough to board at a stop. Very often boarding is a matter of leaping on to a moving vehicle, an action usually accompanied by a discomfiting splatting noise. And in extreme moments the windows are used in preference to the doors for boarding and disembarking.

A further hazard of Cairo buses is that usually it is standing room only, sardine-fashion at that. Which is a problem for women tourists particularly. Almost immediately they encounter a wandering hand, or some such similar harassment No wonder then that many visitors to the capital of Egypt prefer to travel by taxi. The only problem is establishing a fair fare — meters are not widely used.

Nor is it a wonder that Cairo exhausts most visitors. Just coping with the incessant movement wears one down. Yet one could not, would not want to, come to Egypt and avoid Cairo. The city may not be pretty, it may not be orderly, you may

loathe it, but the attrao tions are too numerous and diverse to neglect No prizes are offered for guessing the number one attraction. It Is found on every packet of Camel cigarettes. The Pyramids at Giza. Getting to Giza is not difficult whether by public bus, taxi, or organised tour. A main highway leads out of the city in that direction, with pyra-mid-shaped bushes down the centre of the road, which is lined on either side by hotels, restaurants and night clubs; a gaudy display of neon by night Once on the site there is a non-stop barrage by touts, Offering their services as guides, or horses and camels to hire, or, inevitably, to change money. But although the human activity at the base of the great pyramids and in the vicinity of the Sphinx gives the site the air of a tatty holiday camp, there is no escaping the timeless majesty and the awesome quality of these structures. Come, and marvel. Yet even at Giza, Cairo’s ugly face is visible. Looking east, a dirty brown pall of dust and pollution hangs over the city. Despite all this, however, Cairo can be enjoyed. It is possible to escape the freneticism Shd relax, pursuing agreeable pastimes. The streets and alleys of Islamic Cairo are a world away from the central city, and even from the twentieth century, and are well worth exploring. The Cities of the Dead are a quiet haven, though not so dead for these many acres of cemetery have been taken over by squatters and become a low-rise residential area. Among these less usual sights for the visitor per-

haps the most rewarttag is the' camel market which takes place every Friday morning In the district of Imbaba. It is best to get up early and reach the market before 7 a.m. At that hour nothing very much is happening, but it is beginning, and the atmosphere of the market develops as the sun climbs to the sky. There are hundreds oi camels at the market, most of them driven from the Sudan. The ever* friendly Sudanese herdsmen await the arrival ot the buyers to their brilliant white djellabahs. A large camel might fetch twelve hundred Egyptian pounds — a lot of money. The majority of camelare sold for slaughter — meat is expensive In Egypt During the morning the Sudanese will go to a small adjoining market where they can buy clothing and various household items. There are the inevitable tea stalls and food vendors, an old woman in black cooking felafel in a large pot of hot oil, school-boys selling- sweei buns from big flat trays balanced on their heads. In a neighbouring area another market is also operating on Friday mornings; this one for horses and mules, where a horse is tested for strength by being harnessed to and forced to haul at an immobilised cart, with whips as an encouragement to extra effort This Friday morning market at Imbaba is not Cairo, the modern city. But here you can forget all the problems, both those you have to cope with and those the city must face, and somehow solve. Perhaps this is Cairo as it never was, but*, it will be as you will want to remember it