2 posts tagged “traffic”

Water cuts are common across various neighbourhoods in Cairo. We live
in an area lucky enough to suffer only two sets of two-hour cuts. The
word on the street is to not drink tap water directly: boil it and
filter it first, or buy bottled water (courtesy of Coca Cola -
Dasani, Pepsi Cola - Aquafina, or Nestle). We are not sure bottled
water is, in fact, to be trusted, but we have no choice.

The main roads across the city are serviceable, but once you turn
into smaller streets, holes and uneven surfaces become the norm.
Rubbish collection takes place, but some people can't afford to pay
for the apartment-collector and dump their own rubbish themselves in
a big metal skip. This usually overflows and becomes a dogs-n-cats
haunt, as well as a smelly eye-sore.

Healthcare is obviously hit-and-miss, what with doctor clinics and
hospitals that may not be hygienic.

Public transport is unappealing. The buses tend to be over-crowded.
The micro-buses (privately-run) are totally irresponsible. About a
half of them are driven by young cowboys who do not have a license to
drive. They stop anywhere and speed irresponsibly, paying no heed to
the passengers they have on-board. Even the taxis are hit-and-miss:
fares are a negotiation, and the taxi itself is, 50% of the time, a
car that should not be on the road.

My well-to-do middle-class friends drive around in strong,
air-conditioned cars. They drive responsibly and may occasionally
give way to pedestrians, but their number one preoccupation is to
watch out for the "animals" and the "donkey-and-cart-drivers". These
are code terms. Traffic is self-regulating, self-organising. A friend
who drove in India noted the key difference of aggressive
competitiveness in Cairo driving.

We hop from one relatively chic spot to another, ordering juice or
coffee, and we complain. No one has a good word to say. The default
is to complain and blame someone else. From the bastards up high, the
beardies on the side, the "new generation" on the other side, to the
poor and ignorant down low.

Passiveness is the order of the day. You partake in it with relish
and in your heart of hearts thank God that you've got yourself a way
out.

Right in the middle of this degradation of yourself and immersion in
a form of group-nihilism, a friend points out that if we all give up,
we are promoting the status quo.

So I am in Cairo. It is Ramadan time (the muslim month of
dawn-to-dusk no-food-no-water daily fasts). The weather is muggy
although not terribly hot (high humidity, 30C-ish temperature). My
parents are well. Internet speeds are abysmal.

Whether in people's homes or at internet shops, speed is barely
around the 256Kbs range. It used to be comparable to the UK, but not
anymore. Hooking up to a new internet provider is not easy because
our local telephone exchange is way oversubscribed. There is a few
weeks' wait before you get hooked up. It does not make a difference
if you have the money to pay for the fastest service available (8Mbs,
I think) or the masses-friendly 256Kbs, you still wait.

Big-name companies (such as Vodafone) can hook you up quicker because
they pre-bought bulk slots on various exchanges. But they are
expensive. Their 8Mbs package is LE500 a month. That's a salary
around here. Most young professionals earn LE2000. (LE1 = £0.1 =
$0.2) Imagine: you pay a quarter of your salary to get a decent
internet connection. No wonder some people subscribe to a 256Kbs
service and split it on a few apartments to cut costs (LE100 divided
by four is a much more affordable LE25 per month). But their
experience of the internet is different to the one you and I have
come to expect in the wealthy world. (Although if you're on one of
those 3G mobile internet connections, speeds are slow too.)

I was disappointed at the speed I got at a local internet cafe (LE2
per hour). Kids were playing internet games, people were having
lengthy chats, and some idiots were talking like they are in their
own living room. The kind of place where you're surprised anything
works.

On arrival, I mistook someone else's suitcase for mine and had to go
back to the airport three hours later to exchange suitcases. For a
guy my age, the swap was more funny than alarming. But to my parents
(minimum age 65) it was as if I had informed them I needed major
surgery. Poor mum and dad ended up waiting in the airport parking lot
until 6am as I got to grips again with egyptian bureaucracy (the
airport operates at slightly more professional standards than
typical). I got into my de rigueur "fights" with men who perceived me
as insolent and were determined to show me who is boss. On both
occasions, I backed down, as I knew I would.

The first occasion involved a lost-luggage officer over-ruling his
colleague and instructing me to talk to him instead, when i snapped:
"you or him, does it matter!", I knew I was going to be in for a long
wait. The second occasion concerned trying to convince the senior
police officer in charge of admissions, to admit my parents to wait
inside the departure hall rather than in the car park. The officer
said it was Omra time (minor pilgrimage season) and they were not
allowing anyone in but passengers. When I indicated that the hall was
empty and he probably lets those with "connections" in without
question, he looked like he was going to set his officers on me.

My parents intervened right away: they calmed the officer down,
excused my behaviour as "foreign", and told me to walk off. They soon
joined me and we all agreed that whereas I may have been dismissive
of the rules, the man had escalated the matter in an ugly manner. I
went in on my own from that point on, while they waited in the car.

Cairo proper is busy and crowded, although miraculously efficient.
Traffic is bad, but usually flows. Pollution envelopes us, but we are
surviving. The heat and humidity can curb you, but they relent and
you soon feel cool and pleasant. People can yell at you like they
might plunge a dagger into you but then everybody calms down and they
ask you over for dinner. Words people use every day are highly
emotive, almost poetic, now they use them to express love and
devotion, two hours later you are damned, deemed rotten and worthy of
the company of dogs. Predictions of the demise of the country have
circulated since the 70s, but, hey, things are actually getting
better. It's Egypt, man.