The week is not over before I move again, this time to Mohandeseen, there is a free room in the flat two of my class mates spent August in and it’s cheaper than the guest house. Apart from the close to non equipped kitchen (there is a stove and a sink, but no real pan and hardly any knives, just to mention some points) the apartment is perfectly fine and very Egyptian. One point about Egyptian apartments a European needs some explanation for is the presence of what looks like two living rooms, often within the same large room. If you take a closer look (and sometimes you see it dazzling from far away) you will find one of the sets to be much more luxurious with golden decorations or embroidery or larger armchairs, this is the reception used to formally welcome guests.
The other set with the more modest chairs and sofa is the one used in everyday life by the family. In this apartment regularly rented out to Western language students the both sets don’t differ much in standard, but while one is centered on the TV, the other is mainly surrounded by an array of quite large pieces of purely decorative purpose, most prominently an angel in a golden dress with silver wings. Including the base she is about 1.4 meters high and carries a lantern on her shoulders… I have the TV running quite a lot following the events in Libya on BBC. And here I also sometimes use the air-conditioning, in spite of the debilitating noise. It is very hot these days, so we keep the doors to the balcony shut while outside the blazing air and the prayer calls are wavering in seemingly the same rhythm, completely covering the neighborhood in a thick, yet transparent blanket.
Noon - not the time to be outside
It is a nice change to live in an ordinary flat in an ordinary house in a small side street, with a large tree in front of it, its whole top full of birds I never see, incessantly singing in a light tone. As far as I can see we are the only foreigners in the neighborhood, and I find it makes shopping in the small supermarkets next door more relaxed than in Zamalek, where a large percentage of customers are international. Our Arabic and the shop owners’ English are on about the same low level, but shopping for food was one of the first topics covered in the language course, so we’re doing fine. The course, unfortunately, is already over. This however gives us some completely free days. I use them for a mix of studying chemistry (no comment, but I have a retake exam five days after returning to Germany) and digesting this first month. Some evenings we just spent on our own balcony, while those of our neighbors are always empty, and I enjoy living close to the city center and thus being able to meet people for a quick coffee or to spontaneously go out in the evening without having to worry about how and when to get home. One night I accompany Jonny to meet some of his British friends in a roof top café in Doqqi, the busy quarter south of Mohandeseen. The Syrian embassy is right next to it, guarded by several soldiers and armed vehicles, keeping off some fifty protesters shouting against Asad’s regime. In the backyard of the embassy a concert is taking place, strange contrast. After a while we only hear the singer, the protesters left. Six stories above a large group of English as a foreign language teachers smoke shisha and drink beer. I can’t really tell which of the elements in this picture is the oddest to me…
Cairo at night and from a roof is great to look at, as it is similar and different in all directions, I really feel in the middle of this warm, sparkling organism, but the noise of the busy streets is pleasantly kept at a distance. I stand in a quiet corner of the roof top, some clean and tidy space all to myself and yet I can feel the buzzing life of the metropolis at a comfortable intensity.
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