Month: July 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

Any New Yorker who says “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” should spend a month in Cairo. It bustles like any other huge city but it’s brand of chaos is particularly… relentless. As you walk around, air conditioners from the overcrowded apartments above drop big juicy beads of water directly on your head. When you cross the street, cars and motorbikes indifferently zoom around you. One time we were walking on a narrow crowded street and a woman standing outside of an essential oils shop was spraying big plumes of perfume in the face of every person that walked by, presumably performing some kind of urban baptism under the guise of salesmanship. Most relentless of all is the desert sun – the dry heat makes it quite manageable in the shade, but you can easily find yourself stranded on an unshaded road feeling completely exposed.

Jack Murtagh contributed to the writing of this post.

Today we went to Moqattam, an area on the outskirts of Cairo named for the small mountain it features. The suburb is primarily Christian (Christians make up 10% of Egypt’s population) and the mountain has several biblical portraits and verses carved in its perpendicular face.