eudaimonia & anagnorisis

This was one of the nicest weekends I have had in Cairo. A weekend full of firsts and new things.

The highlight, of course, a new apartment! Everything just seems more right with this apartment than the last, and it is literally a 3-minute walk from AUC campus. mmmm. high ceilings. balconies. a functioning shower and windows and floors that -inshaAllah - will remain entact. Also, the bowab is discrete and unintrusive and we have a very good repoire with the owner. I will have to work really hard about being quiet in the hallways, though, as my laughter while hauling luggage upstairs yesterday drew old Egyptian woman from their flats crying "fiii aay?" (what's going on?). It's my goal for Sasha and I to be known to our new neighbots as "those lovely American girls we never see or hear" and NOT as "those scandelous American ladies bring boys over late at night and laughing like they're drunken at 10am". Long-term life viablity in Egypt is seriously compromised by the sheer volume of my voice and laughter, a fact that I will adjust accordingly but refuse to change. Also, my bed (aka: wood frame with thin pseudo-cotton mat upon it) is awful in comparison my blissfully-comfortable bed at the AbdelHamidSaid place. Nothing an investment in a comforter can't solve.

This weekend was my first time to ride a motorcycle, but more impressively, a motorcycle on crazy cairene streets. Traffic is one of the things that makes Cairo distinctly Cairo, and even though I have already mentioned this repeatedly, I can’t pass up the opportunity to exaggerate the point again. My feelings about traffic, traffic police, and the general idea of traversing the city has been expanded since having the opportunity to maneuver through cars seated on a motorcycle, instead of safely and ignorantly in the backseat of a taksi. On a motorcycle you function both as a pedestrian and an automobile, more on that in a moment….

Unemployment is not high in Egypt, but then again, some of the “employed” people don’t seem to do much in terms of employment. Traffic police are my prime proof of this observation as they seem to stand unbeknownst of the driving no-nos and traffic pandemonium that ensues most streets of Cairo most hours of the day. My observations can be broken into three basic principles:

1. Speed is relative. It seems each driver is outfitted with their own personal speed limit depending on how fast it is possible for them to go at any given moment. Thus, while driving from Cairo to Alexandria, or any long distance from Cairo, an average of 140-180km/hr is not abnormal: Roads are straight, relatively uncrowded, and there is no reason (ie: traffic jams, police, or checkpoints) to suggest anything less than peak speed. Inner-city driving applies to this same principle, too. Many drivers I have been with seem to see any space between themselves and the car in front of them as a sign that they are not going as fast as possible. Should space be available, it must be taken. Sometimes I think space is a currency and people here are simultaneous greedy and giving. Greedy because traffic is a constant battle for space, yet giving because no one seems uncomfortable or unwilling to let other eagerly encroach upon theirs.
2. Rules are also relative and do not apply more often then they do apply. One-way streets are only one-way when it is impossible to traverse them in the prohibited direction. Traffic lights (rare) are secondary signals of when to go and when not to stop, as the ability to go is more important than if you are allowed to or not.
3. Pedestrians are crazier than drivers. I now return to the feeling of being both a pedestrian and a driver while on a motorcycle… You have the flexibility of a pedestrian to wade between cars, but the luxury of doing at a fast pace like the cars. Sidewalks are irrelevant. Pedestrians have free reign of any space not occupied by a car. In a motorcycle, the same rule applies: if you can fit, you can go. The public buses have no official stops, as far as I can tell, but instead when traffic forces them to slow down men jump to and from the doors. It is not uncommon to see a man dash between cars to hop aboard a public bus, nor for a man to appear spontaneously infront of your car, having just exited a bus mid-traffic.

Last rule: you cannot just be seen, but you must also be heard. This requires any driver to be well-versed in the multiplicity of honks used on the street. I sometimes think pedestrians should be outfitted with their own horns. Honking is not limited to cars, however, as deliverymen use wrenches to clank the tanks of milk perched on their bicycles as “horns” and the men and women who wade through traffic with large crates of balady bread upon their heads use their voice as a “horn” too.