I just had to share this photo I captured of a double-decker bread bicycle from my recent “Walls of Cairo” tour through the Khan. I’m still writing up the tour, but since this wasn’t a medieval relic, I figured I could share it separately.
(I wonder why I’m so fascinated with all of the ways to carry items on one’s head? Then again, why wouldn't I be?)
There’s a very popular book here in Cairo that’s being pushed in every bookstore and shop called “Taxi” by Khalid Al Khamissi. It’s a collection of stories from Cairo taxi drivers. I read it this weekend (Ron read it months ago, well at least the first few chapters). I was fully expecting to finish it feeling sorry for taxi drivers, feeling guilty for getting frustrated, just overall empathizing with their lot in life. While there’s no question I empathize with their struggles, I also came away feeling more concerned than I ever have been about being a female and an American.
Now it has been a concerted effort on my part to keep myself insulated (and blissfully unawares) of the level of anger against America throughout the rest of the world. And luckily, my interactions with foreigners have all been relatively pleasant and apolitical. However, reading someone else’s words as they rail on about how much they hate America is disconcerting. No surprise, but there are a lot of people in this world who see America as the be all and end all of evil. Now, is this something they would typically bring up during a quick cab ride? Probably not. And I do realize that the majority of people I interact with have radically differing views and beliefs than I do on a whole range of topics (I am under no dissolution that if Cairenes were merely presented with tofurkeys, they would instantly adopt vegetarianism as the Egyptian doctrine), but luckily it does not mean that we cannot interact in a cordial business-like manner. I think the most frightening part is realizing that this hatred is not just from outcasts and lunatics in desert caves, but it held by everyday people. It just brings it much closer to home.
Even more frightening, however, was the attitude towards women and girls that was expressed by more than one driver. Now, I believe they are a definite minority (or maybe I just really need to believe that) of religious extremists (I’m assuming Islam, but since it wasn’t specified in some cases, with no Qur’anic quotes, I won’t make a blanket statement). But the level of hatred and distrust and true venom against women was so blindly ignorant as to be dangerous. The “Madonna-whore” complex doesn’t even begin to address their psychotic beliefs. It hails back to the days of the Salem witch trials, and was a bit like reading KKK literature. And these comments were never about American or western women, they were just about women in general (even their own daughters). These men are equal-opportunity scathing toxic misogynists.
A friend who read it, also said she was surprised by her reaction. She came away feeling like it vindicated her secret thoughts that she was always being scammed. She said it not only confirmed these thoughts, but made her realize that scamming and scheming is pervasive throughout Egypt, regardless of position, title or nationality. In fact, the book basically presents it as essential. The book told of how police threaten the drivers, who then pay them off so as to not receive a ticket; and how bribes have to be given in order to get your license renewed, or even get the correct forms; how lost paperwork can be found or instantly recreated with a money transfer. It really is amazing and I’m coming to believe that the chronic bribery that goes on has become so commonplace that it’s not even recognized as being corrupt.
Now, there were also interesting stories in the book, and it’s obvious that driving a taxi in Cairo is never anyone’s first choice of how to make a living. Most drivers are barely scraping by, or this is their second job of the day, and even still they’re barely making it. Most lease their cars from the owners, so some days they don’t even make enough to pay for the lease. Then they’re presented with new traffic laws, such as the most recent ones which require a seatbelt and a reflective hazard triangle. On the surface these sound reasonable. What I learned was that when a car is imported into Egypt, seatbelts and air-conditioning are considered luxury items, and the import taxes are so astronomical that people actually manually remove both before importing. So now seatbelts are being sold on the side of the road. And drivers said that before the law they were 50LE, after the law they’re 200LE (~$40). And drivers aren’t stopped to see if they have a working seatbelt, it just has to be draped over them. Ron and I both have had drivers tell us to just pretend to wear it, as it drapes over us with the metal end clanking against the emergency brake because there’s never (almost never) a clasp to actually attach it to. It’s all just such a joke.
Here are some of the statistics that the book presented:
> 80,000 taxi cabs in Cairo
> 250,000 taxi drivers (I think a special “commercial” license is required)
> On average, a young man starting out in the police force makes 350LE/month (that’s equivalent to ~$70 – you can see where and why the bribe demands start)
> The average college-degree accountant earns 350-450LE/month starting out (~$70-90)
> Rent and utilities for a family apartment is 150LE/month (~$30) [Sad realization: same cost as my spice rack from the Black Welders]
> Renewing a taxi driver’s license is about 470LE (~$94), without bribes
So facts like these do bring things sharply into focus. This is a very poor city and the people are definitely struggling. I guess I need to just accept the mechanics of this economy. I can’t change them; I wouldn’t even know where to start. But I can’t deny it’s frustrating. And despite reading in black and white the hatred that some people have, I’m not going to let it affect me. I can’t. Then they win.
I’ve written the following for the embassy newsletter. Typically, my articles for them come out of blog postings, but are edited to remove any possible offensive comments (I was a little worried about my Fish Garden article, which I toned down from my blog posting, but the editor’s comment was, “It’s tasteful but truthful.” So I guess it’s okay). But in this case, I wrote the article first, and figured I’d use it here.
The only added comment I’d make is that it took me a ridiculous amount of time to try to dig up the names of these gardens. Many maps don’t include them at all, some do but lump them all under Andalusian Garden, and other than Hurriya and Andalusian the others are barely referenced in any books or online sources. For being public parks that are between 50-100 years old, I am amazed at how little is known. But I guess that adds to their serenity. There is actually also another one in this grouping, with a really nice statue, but I can never catch it when the gates are open – except for today, when workers were bringing out heaps of dead branches and grasses, so maybe it’s closed for maintenance?
Anyway, here is my piece on the public parks of Zamalek (sans Fish Garden).
Parks Exploration, continued
For anyone who’s driven or walked to Zamalek and crossed over on the Qasr al-Nil Bridge (affectionately known by many as the “Lion Bridge”), you may have noticed some parks, or gardens, on your right along the Nile. But did you know there are actually four separate gardens just in that little stretch? And even more surprising is that each one is different from the others. So a nice and easy outing for an afternoon is to grab a camera, a snack and go explore the public parks of Zamalek, but take along a few pounds as the entrance fee to each one is 2LE.
If you’d like to explore them linearly then have the taxi drop you off by Henri Jacquemart’s lions in front of the Opera House on Zamalek. You can also avoid the whole taxi journey if you take the metro and exit at the Opera stop. But before hitting the Nile-side gardens, cross the street to the Hurriya Garden (this is an added bonus).
The Hurriya Garden (“al-Tahrir Gardens” on the Practical Guide map) was initially called the Ismail Garden when it was designed in the 1870s, and covered over 12 hectares. In 1952 it was renamed “Hurriya” (Freedom) and had been reduced to only 2 hectares (about 4 acres). In addition to the wide paths and tall shade-producing trees, it also houses ten statutes, including Talaat Harb and Hafez Ibrahim, and six Latin American liberators.
Crossing back over Midan Saad Zaghloul (always an exercise in sprightliness), you enter the Andalusian Garden gate from just beside the left lion. This is the only park, among this grouping of four along the Nile, that has direct access to the Nile (whether that’s a positive or a negative, is up to you). It was originally designed as a gift for a royal wife in 1929, but was opened to the public in 1935. It’s also more bench and concrete oriented than the other gardens, which tend to highlight more of the actual nature side of a garden. But there’s no doubt that this is a favorite of the courting couple sect, with a bounty of benches and nice Nile breezes (and only the occasional nosy expat).
Walking around the corner following Al-Gezira Street along the sidewalk, you come to another gate. This is for the Arab Garden, which is the smallest of the gardens. Here you find a nice collection of towering palm trees, stone pathways, some statues, chairs and tables, well-manicured grounds and quaint old-fashioned lamp posts.
Continuing on up Al-Gezira Street, just under the automobile on-ramp for Sixth October Bridge, you find two more gates. These last two gardens are definitely the least populated, though there are always couples to disrupt, but I thought they both were well worth the extra steps (with one housing a little-known artifact from Ramses the Great).
The first gate leads into the Pharaonic Garden. During the day it’s populated with just a spattering of courting couples and some maintenance men pruning, trimming and planting. There are some tables and chairs set up at one end under archways, and throughout there is a nice collection of statues positioned along the paths. The pools and fountains have some stagnant water, but regardless there are flowers and bushes and this is the only place in all of Cairo that I have seen butterflies. The hidden jewel to this garden is the obelisk positioned along the Nile, which is one of a matching set, with the other being at the Cairo airport. These two are from Ramses II (19th Dynasty, reigned 1279-1213 B.C.) and were brought here from Tanis in 1958, and are said to be the only obelisks in Cairo.
The last park in this little collection is River Garden, located just across from the Pharaonic Garden. As per most of the others, the paths and plants are manicured, with nice flower assortments, landscaping and large grassy areas. The grounds continue on under the Sixth October Bridge, to the other side which showcases arches and pergolas covered in flowering plants and vines, with nice little private benches, a gazebo and a quiet circular path. There is active maintenance work occurring, but none of it seemed to bother the couples or the egrets milling about.
I have to add that the names of the gardens vary from source to source, but I tried to choose the ones that seemed to have the most “votes” (from books and online sources). A lot of the details I’ve presented here are from Lesley Lababidi’s book "Cairo’s Street Stories," which I would recommend for anyone curious about interesting and unknown facts, tid-bits and areas of Cairo. Regardless, if you start at the lions on Zamalek and wander north, and hand out 2LE every time you find a gate, I’m sure you’ll discover some noteworthy finds, and may make a few friends along the way (depending on who you give the 2LE to).
Ron and I, admittedly, have very little collective knowledge of physics. However, we have enough to know that Cairo apparently exists within a physics-bending bubble.
During our drives and travels, two things continue to amaze and amuse: the ability of Egyptian women (I think I’ve only seen one or two men doing this) to carry packages of varying sizes, weights, and dimensions on their head seemingly effortlessly, and the lengths (and widths) to which Egyptians can pack a truck.
I’ve started collecting photos, when possible. So I will share what we have to date of transportation methods in Cairo:
One of my favorites, is the egg delivery man. It always brings to mind the gooey possibilities of one misfortunate traffic accident.
Furniture moving is often a family affair, despite a lack of seats.
I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what this is. But I believe it's a truck laden with bags, upon bags, of bags.
Strawberries could also create quite a gooey mess, especially if colliding with an egg truck (see also the need, repeat NEED, to thoroughly wash local fruits and veg before eating -- but at the same time, I can greatly appreciate the lack of over-packaging).
Tree trimmings reaching maximum volume.
Tires, and men. We see a lot of human-perching going on, and it's not uncommon (though still gasp-inducing) to see children perched on top of various piles of items.
The most recent, and only-sighting to-date, was of a wedding procession. A minor variation on the rented-black-limo theme, this one employed three trucks. One carrying men and boys, one carrying women and girls, and the first carrying the bride and groom, standing amidst a highly energetic group of well-wishers with tambourines, drums and lots of joyous yelling. They were driving so fast that it was all Ron could do to try to catch up with them so I could snap some photos. Again, you can't help but think of the carnage from an accident, but thanks to the physics-bending bubble, everyone was okay.
For all its dust and dirt clods, Cairo does have a lot of green bits. Just doing a cursory count of the named public gardens, parks and sporting clubs in Cairo brings up at least 35. Now, some of the clubs you have to join to gain access, and even some of the parks require a fee, but there are some free parks and the entrance fees for the others tend to be nominal (2LE = $0.38).
One of these nominal-entrance-fee parks is called the Fish Garden, a.k.a. Aquarium Grotto Garden, and it’s located just a few blocks behind our apartment in Zamalek. I had heard a few mumbling recommendations for the park, and with a bit of hesitation, I decided to check it out last week. My hesitation arose from my observance of conditions for animals in Cairo. Let’s be honest, humane conditions for animals here are essentially nonexistent – we’ve heard countless tales of zookeepers at the Giza Zoo allowing visitors to handle the baby tigers for a small fee, or slaughtering the Moroccan camels to take home to eat, and just today an expat told me on her one and only visit to the zoo (most who actually go there, say they’ll never go again) that they actually had domestic cats and dogs in cages on display (running low on stock, I guess). With all the issues Cairo has to deal with, I would think they could find thousands of ways to better use what minimal funds are going to barely maintain the zoos (but, yet again, no one’s asked my opinion, so I remain silent).
The Fish/Grotto Garden is a completely fenced-in area that was once part of the palatial grounds of Gezira Palace, which now makes up part of the Marriott Hotel. The Fish/Grotto Garden was initially built around 1870 by Khedive Ismail for his collection of fish and animals. It was modified in 1900 to add aquariums inside the grottos (caves) and was the first park in Cairo open to the public. In the year 2000, it was completely revamped with the intention of revitalizing it to the 1900 style.
My first visit to the park was actually quite pleasant. After entering you are seemingly transported to a compact Central Park, with wide paved walkways, trees, flowering bushes, benches lined with families, areas with various bouncing and spinning playground equipment for the kids, shade everywhere for the adults, and courting couples stashed all over (the latter are truly in every nook and cranny, at each turn you come upon a young Egyptian couple, sitting next to each other, arms and legs touching, heads bent talking quietly – it’s like someone sprinkled them liberally all over the garden). 
I wandered and found a beautiful wooden bridge reaching over a large empty pool (I read somewhere that geese, ducks and swans are here, but maybe they’re seasonal – or tasty). I opted not to explore the caves by myself at this time and instead just clambered over and around them, getting a fantastic view from the top, and managing to interrupt several couples during my scrambles. I was also quite delighted and relieved to not come across any animals in deplorable conditions. So I left the Fish Garden, sans fish, and came home pleased with my discovery. Overall it was a really nice, pleasant, calming atmosphere (on my first visit…).
Upon conducting some additional research at home, I learned that there are actually aquariums inside the caves. Bummer. So I decided that I needed to return and see whether this is true or not. (Part of my interest is that I’ve been writing pieces for the embassy’s weekly newsletter, and I thought that this would make a good kid-friendly piece but I wanted to be thorough.)
Now, from a previous post I mentioned an incident I had with a cab driver last week, where I felt I had been scammed. I do realize I was knowingly and willfully scammed, but I also felt there was coercion involved. So, having come on the heels of that, and having come from an unsuccessful attempt to find either (any!) museum near the train station earlier that day, I will admit that I might have been a tad edgy. But after a bite of lunch, I gathered my things and walked back to the Fish Garden to see if there were indeed, any fish.
Before even entering I asked the nice man at the ticket counter, in Arabic, if there were any fish, in here, right now, today. (I would not have been at all surprised had the Fish Garden not actually have any fish.) He said yes, and the guard there assured me as well that there were fish in the aquariums in the tunnels and caves. So I paid again, and entered.
The difference this time was that I suddenly had a very eager and attentive (read: velcro-like) personal guide attached to me. The front entrance guard apparently decided he could leave his post and show me around. I knew the scam here, give a tour, expect bakshish. I was not interested in the tour but wanted to remain nice and pleasant (first mistake). I also did not outright say, “I’m not paying any bakshish” (second mistake). In other situations I’ve done this with no problem, but for some reason I didn’t this time. I did try unsuccessfully to get away from him on at least three different occasions, once resulting in him running after me yelling, “Madam, madam!” So for whatever reason, weariness, resignation, masochism, I allowed him to show me around and got the full tour.
And I got to see it all. All of the small dank grimy aquariums set into the walls of the tunnels. About a third of them were empty (still grimy), another third had dead fish floating, and the remaining third had fish just waiting to die, desperately. There were very few signs anywhere and when there was one, and I pointed out “Guppy,” the guard said, “Wrong sign, moved fish.” Of course.
With every fish, be they alive or dead, I would get to hear how long they were and how much they weighed, and sometimes the familial relations between the tank’s inhabitants, mommy fish, daddy fish, baby fish. And his final kernel of information was always, without fail, “Beee-uuutiful eating.” Boy, this was getting better and better.
Some additional disturbing things were the aquariums filled with shelves of glass jars stuffed with decaying specimens of dead things, mostly fish, some sharks and eels (all “beee-uuutiful eating” though!). There were also a few “mummied” displays, which were either really bad taxidermy jobs or papier-mâché models from the 1900 exhibition, of alligators, seals and an underwater seascape. Overall it was sad, depressing, uneducational and poorly displayed. The worst part were the few tanks containing turtles. These poor guys live forever, even in the worst conditions. I told Ron there may be a turtle liberation in the mix.
As my dear little relentless and overly cheery tour guide led me through all the tunnels and caves, he would roust the lovely little quiet couples everywhere. I felt like a damn queen and he was clearing my path of peasants. I wanted to apologize to them as they shuffled off to find another quiet spot.
There were two highlights to this whole painful episode. One, is that if you ignore the aquariums, which isn’t hard considering many are empty, the tunnels themselves are really interesting and fun. They twist and turn and there are lots of places to explore. Secondly, as we came out of one tunnel into a large cave (all of these are man-made, obviously) I suddenly heard little squeaking noises. I started looking all around, but the top of the cave was a good two stories above me so I couldn’t see it too well. I asked my personal guide if there were bats and he said yes. Now that’s really cool. They weren’t captive and could come and go as they please, and they obviously had found a great habitat. I hope to come back near dusk and see if we can watch the nightly exodus as they head out for dinner.
At the end of the tour, as we were standing at the highest point of the grottos, after rousting the three couples who had been there first, I thanked him profusely and said I really had to go. As I walked down he followed and asked if I liked the tour. I said yes, it was fine. He then said, “I want bakshish.” I laughed and said “Bakshish? No.” He remained extremely persistent, all the while also nice and pleasant, if that’s possible while coercing someone and I can tell you from MULTIPLE experiences that it is. He said, “You can give me whatever you want, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars.” Finally, I stopped, took out 2LE and handed them to him. He stood there with them in his hand and said incredulously, “What? Two pounds? No!” I said, “Yes, that’s the same as the entrance fee,” and walked out.
I realized as I was walking home that I was shaking and completely fuming. I had become that scathing jaded expat who was waiting to be scammed at every turn. And I felt justified in feeling that way! Egyptians can be so nice and friendly and generous and helpful, but those few who are nice and friendly and generous and helpful, and then expect to be PAID for it, just enrage me. Be honest, be upfront. Ask if I want a tour for a small fee. Don’t be sneaky and pretend to be nice, just to demand, truly demand, payment for being nice. I was completely worn down and decided to nix the rest of my plans for the day, return home, and detox from all the human interaction I’d had this week. It’s really sad how just one or two people can truly color your perception. But I won’t let it happen, I’ll fight it. And next time, because without being jaded, I can guarantee you that there will be a next time, I will save myself the aggravation and angst and will speak loudly and clearly up front. And if that doesn’t work, I do what Ron suggests and just sit down and refuse to move until they go away (when in doubt, apply passive-aggression I always say).