Alexandria, Egypt 25.4-26.4

cairo behind the mask cairo (2)

Iskanderiyya! The capital of Iskander al-Akbar (occasionally known as Alexander the Great), rival of Rome in its heyday, the world's greatest center of learning for millenia... and now a dusty seaside Egyptian town with an inflated population of 5 million. The limestone and the French-style parks again remind me of Tunisia, and indeed smatterings of French survive even on street signs as a legacy of Napoleon. Alex used to have 50,000 Greeks, most of whom fled after Nasser nationalized everything they had -- except the Greek restaurants and cafés that still dominate the cultural scene.

Yesterday I saw a sign at a Cairene KFC that said "KFC is proud to have the 1st store operated by the hearing impaired" (grammar or lack thereof theirs), and wondered what it meant. Today I went to a KFC in Alex and found out -- the cashier wasn't using sign language because he didn't speak English, but because he didn't speak, period. Almost all the staff was deaf-mute, which made the kitchen quite a bit quieter than usual! Socially responsible multinational fast-food conglomerates in third world countries -- will wonders never cease? (Evidently not, as I could swear that this Supreme Filet sandwich contains slices of swine.)

Not that Alex doesn't have (more than) its fair share of squalor. A few blocks back from the center start the slums, only a few of the 1054 officially recorded ones in Egypt. In the Egyptian definition a shantytown is not a run-down community, it's an area that does not exist: no running water, no electricity, no gas, no sewage, no paved roads, no street names... As I hunted for a suitable place to crash, a particularly annoying imp -- maybe 6 or 7? -- tried to sell me bango, making toking motions and repeating his mantra despite my increasingly insistent protestations ("Lä! Lää! Imshi! LÄÄ!!!"). The smell of burning garbage hangs in the air and some people are fishing in the heavily polluted sea...

Alex is noticably cooler than Cairo; the breeze from the sea is wonderful, and in the shadow it's occasionally... well, "chilly" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but at least "not very hot". The air is quite humid and laden with not just the normal Egyptian sand, but also a hint of salt from the sea.

Currently, Alexandria is -- I was about to say "busily", but this is Egypt, after all -- reconstructing the Bibliotheca Alexandria, in what will be at least the fourth reconstruction of the edifice over the last few hundred years. This time, the design is a Norwegian (!) construction, looking like an oil barrel sliced in half, engraved with various bizarre scripts. It's a few years behind schedule, but it is definitely starting to get there... and there's plenty of other construction going on as well: like Cairo, Alex is working on something as distinctly un-sexy as basic infrastructure. In the last 5 years Cairo has spawned two lines of subway (the first on the African continent), an elevated highway through the center, a ring road circling the city and all that other stuff that should have been built a few million inhabitants ago (Cairo's population is currently estimated at 15-22 million, depends on who you ask).

Damn. I was expecting Alex to be a bit more quiet and quaint, but with 5 million people... it would've been interesting to go to the countryside, but I'm handicapped by nearly total illiteracy in Arabic and local customs, and the flip side of rustic peace and quiet is rustic grinding poverty. Even the one acceptable compromise, desert oases like the reknowned Siwa, are far away -- 10 hours one-way by bus and no other means of transport available.

The sun is setting and the one-eyed beggar sitting on the same wall as I just wrapped his dusty brown turban over his head, placed his hand as a cushion on the hard, pitted limestone, and fell asleep. And I'll go blow his monthly income on a single meal at restaurant Elite. (The only intentional irony here is that I am not joking.)

This restaurant may have inspired imitators all over the world in its heyday (even in Helsinki -- note the font!), but despite the four stars still posted over the window, this place looks pretty sad. I'm reminded of an American roadside diner, chipped white plastic and red vinyl seats. At least the maitre d' is snotty enough to speak only French and Arabic, and the plat du jour at 23 pounds is still approximately 56 times the cost of a meal in the streets. (And about 1/4 the price of a meal at the Helsinki Elite.) Here today, gone tomorrow, so why not... ...and Egyptian Stella beer is good. So good, in fact, that I've been downing approximately 3 per day ever since I came here. (This is approximately 2.98 more than average). It would be poetic justice to become an alcoholic in an Islamic country... The other customers in the restaurant are all other tourists with money to spare (not many backpacker-types in sight) or older locals courting pretty women. German folk songs place in the background. Outside, Sharia Sayit Zaghoul's pseudo oil-lamps look bizarre by day but almost enchanting after dusk.

No fair! All the locals got a plate of fuul (mashed fava beans) for breakfast, but the khawaga contingent (me) got a slice of processed cheese instead. Excellent coffee though, yet another nasty habit I've picked up here... fortunately (?) I find the normal plain black Finnish brew undrinkable.

Now that was fun: the tram from the center of town to the western tip of the Corniche, a distance of maybe a kilometer or so, took about 45 minutes. Every now and then the ticket collector climbed atop the cars to rejig the cables... all in all not a bad show for 15 piasters.

on to cairo part 2