Doo Doo Doo Lookin' Out my Back Door

Or in this case- my back window.
I’ve developed a little ritual for myself to help me digest and reflect on the day’s events. At the end of every day, I like to look out my window for about 10 minutes and people watch. I have seriously considered buying a pair of binoculars, but something tells me my neighbors won’t appreciate it.
At night, this is what my view looks like.



On the surface, there is nothing particularly exciting happening. You see cars, people, balconies, all the things that you expect from Egyptian street.
But start looking closely.
To your right, you see a line of parked cars. It is unbelievable how no matter the size of the car, no matter the size of the space, Egyptians can parallel park like it’s their freakin’ job. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. SUV’s parked where a tiny one-door car should be. It is as if they have the ability to shrink their car down to proper size to fit into the space, and then expand it back to its original size once parked. It’s uncanny. My former program director assigned this phenomenon, among others, to the mysterious ability of Egyptians to weave their way through impossible situations and make something out of nothing. Give them an obstacle, and somehow, they persevere and find their way through. Give them line after line of bureaucracy, red tape, no after no after no, and they somehow make it work. Give them a three inch space to park their car, and by golly, they’ll do it!
To your left, there is a line of men sitting on plastic chairs, smoking shisha, drinking shai (tea), and playing dominos. They discuss the days events, sometimes bring their children outside to play (the other night, they had a toy gun and the kids were hiding from the father as he chased them with it), and they watch soccer, shoot the shit, and come back, night after night, and stay out there until 2, 3, 4 am.
When you look up, you see the lives of women in Egypt. You watch as they go in and out of their apartments, look at the streets, check on their laundry on clotheslines, dress their children, and unlike the soccer games playing outside, there are Turkish soap operas, entertainment television, music videos, or old movies playing inside.
The children run back and forth between their mothers and fathers. When the fathers hear the babies fussing inside, you can hear them from between their breaths of shisha yelling, “ma lak! Eiyza eih?” (what’s wrong? what do you want) and then the kids either calm down or come outside.
Men come every night and rinse the street with water, moping up the dirt from the street. People come and go from the trash dumps, throwing their trash bags either in the bin or on the ground next to it. Taxis come and go. People walk around all night. Sometimes fights erupt over neighborhood scandals.
Think what you will, judge the gender roles as you like, but this is Egypt. And it’s awesome to watch.


PS. Alexandria just enacted a new no-smoking ban. This means no shishas in any public space. The fine for shisha smoking is 100 pounds for an individual and 1000 pounds for the establishment providing the shisha. If you ask me (and anyone in Alex), it’s probably because the government needs some quick cash, it won’t last more than a month, and that it is an attack on the very essence of Egyptian culture- the Ahwa (the coffee shop). For a country suffering from astronomical unemployment rates, why try to take cash away from thriving local businesses?

PPS POMEGRANATES!