Nader greeted us with his customary warm smile as we arrived back in Cairo after the ‘revolution’. Our suitcases felt heavy but we felt a lightness of being returning to an Egypt which was not the country it had been two weeks ago when we had departed, almost as evacuees. The events had been momentous and we had followed each day back in England, at times with bated breath, at times with the greatest of frustrations empathising with the crowds at Tahrir Square.
Thursday evening, 10 Feb 2011, Hosni Mubarak made a lengthy and rambling speech but at the end of it, he refused to stand down, warbling sentimental drivel over being a paternal figure who needed to be at times harsh with his children. It was predictable deluded tosh. What astonished me was how the crowds did not bay for his blood and storm the Presidential Palace. They were angry after such a build up that the ‘moment’ had come, but showed more restraint and graciousness than I would have done. The following day, Friday 11 Feb, almost ignominiously, he was gone! His Vice President, Omar Suleiman, made the smallest of statements and the biggest of changes of the last 30 years came into being. The Army made a few communiqués and suddenly it was all over. Egypt had crossed that ‘event horizon’ of change and the ‘arrow of time’ would now take it forward decisively. I watched the Al Jazeera pictures and felt the jubilation of the people, their sense of relief, victory and euphoria. It was historic, momentous and came in a manner so unexpected. When the mighty fall they fall hard and fast it seemed! It was difficult not to constantly smile. The protesters had earned their moment and they had achieved it without violence. They could truly be proud of themselves on that day, at that moment. That evening, an eminent UK reporter made a comment that if he was a leader of Libya, Yemen or Algeria, he would not be sleeping soundly in his bed. His portentous words have since been fulfilled. Nearly every country in the Middle East is on shifting sands, some more violently than others. The events in Libya have been the most disturbing with those in Bahrain most surprising. All countries have had protests, some for regime change, others like Syria for reforms. Our main intention of moving to this ‘neck of the woods’ was to travel to countries like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon... Now, that has become unwise. Security and safety have become precarious as protests become unpredictable. In many ways it’s heartening that countries which have been fearful towards unfair rule have been inspired and mobilised by the success in Egypt and yet, with no obvious opposition leaders, these popular uprisings are fragile and potentially dangerous machines.
Nader loaded our cases into the same car with the shattered windscreen that had transported us to the airport two weeks earlier. He had the same young driver with him. He told us how Egypt is now ‘better’; how people are happier and really want to build a better country. He had been to the Square many times and it was good. He mentioned how people from his neighbourhood were taking brushes and brooms to clean the square and their own streets daily. We had heard from the Barries how the streets seemed cleaner in Maadi. On our way back, we saw fewer tanks and as we drove into our quarter, there was clearly less traffic. We did not see a single ex-pat on the roads.
Our apartment was as we left it. I turned on the taps to check water and switched on the lights. Revolution or no revolution, my paranoia about such things would not melt away that quickly! It was already dark and we settled to bed rather excited about exploring our area the following day.
We awoke drowsily, and were surprised at not having heard the Muezzin at the mosque opposite for dawn prayers. There seemed to be less hooting of car horns. We looked out of the window and whilst we appreciated the ‘quiet’ of the Friday morning, we were aghast at the sight that greeted us. The six huge vertical orange cylinders were now joined by two enormous cranes and various filthy gaudy apparatus which took up nearly half the road where my taxi parked in the mornings to pick me up! The watchmen’s shack was still there, looking incongruous and dwarfed amongst those mustard coloured industrial monsters! I said to myself, ‘Welcome back to Egypt, Madame!’ Where else would I find a major piece of...what were they doing?...outside residential apartments? I later discovered from my South African neighbour who had been looking after our apartment that Crane Canaveral arrived the day after Hosni took an extended week-end to Sharm! She said they started work about 8 am and stopped at dark hour. I asked if the noise was bad. I could tell by her nodding head and pursed lips...indeed it was! I braced myself for what the week would bring. Well, sure enough, dear Linda was not exaggerating. Saturday morning, the generator came on before 8 a.m. and created a din that lasted the entire day. In the last weeks, our windows have got dustier to the point that the ugly view is now veiled in what looks like brown fog! Hassan my taxi man parked next to the cranes in the first week- much to my horror- but once work started at 7.30am, I asked the taxi chief, Muhammed Ali, to send my driver to the front door of the apartment so that I did not have to walk across the moonscape of mud, sand and slow drying concrete. The daily noise in the living room has felt like Blake’s satanic mills are on overdrive! Very early on, they put floodlights on the orange booster rockets and work continued on some nights till midnight. I have felt like I had tinnitus daily. And all for what? Linda tried to find out in vain, but Captain O rang the Lord Lucan bawwab and apparently it’s a well to pump water to New Cairo! Why they had to dig outside our apartment is beyond me! The joy now is that it seems to be over and the generator has not been on for nearly two weeks. The daddy crane is still there, but the other two have disappeared. The convoy of cement mixers also seems to have departed. However, there is no sign that the ‘square’ i.e. quasi roundabout will be resurfaced or tidied up! Parallel to the site on the other side of the railway track where a new road ramp is being built, another crater is being dug! Clearly the same process will take place there at some point. It took four months for serious work to take place outside here....how long till the din of the generator purrs once again?! Houston, we have a problem!
Elsewhere in Maadi, the first week was hauntingly quiet. Fewer cars, less noise and barely any ex-pats. Shopping at the local supermarket felt almost enjoyable! The traffic to work was like Friday traffic for nearly two weeks....but , in the last weeks, as more ex-pats have trickled back, the traffic has returned to sardine levels and the hooting back to ‘ trigger happy’ momentum! Another factor I think is there is still a curfew from midnight till 6am-what I call the Cinderella curfew! There are certainly more micro buses about as nothing can get going til much later in the morning than normal. My trusted driver Hassan - who could make his taxi squeeze into and around impossible spaces like a determined woman trying to shoehorn herself into a dress two sizes too small -has been replaced by an ole boy on most days. He talks to himself regularly and mutters at ‘irresponsible drivers’ under his breath; but is quite calm and most importantly punctual! He usually greets me in English and says goodbye in French! I don’t complain. I’m glad he does his job!
Maadi is also visibly a cleaner place. Well, when I say cleaner, I mean relatively speaking! The piles of rubbish don’t seem to hang around for as long and for the first two weeks, there were street gangs of youths with masks, bin liners, brooms and brushes cheerily cleaning up the streets. We welcomed this sense of new found civic pride as it was patently absent before. Clearly, youth leaders had decided to seize the moment and galvanise the spirit of ‘a clean slate’ and start something which has immediate and desired results. It was heart warming to see these teenagers enthusiastically cleaning, painting pavement edges and colourful murals. On my way to school, it’s rather wonderful to see the fruits of their labour and the English used is correctly spelt and shows admirable solidarity. However, my street does not seem to have benefitted much from this ‘clean me’ image! I have only seen one family of mainly girls collecting rubbish around the apartment and I have not seen them for several weeks now! Uniformity of approach and true organisation clearly has some way to go.
Road 9, our main drag, somehow managed to stay utterly filthy. On the first walk back, I was reminded why I called this my ‘step-aerobics’ street! The pavements, where there are any, are of gross uneven height and at odd points, for no reason, they seemed to have been dug up! There were more donkey carts of fruit sellers than usual and litter was strewn asunder. It is a road where walking looking ahead is impossible as it would mean falling on your face and ending up with a bloody nose! I try to avoid the street as much as possible and have taken to shopping across the railway tracks at a mini supermarket I find far better organised!
Today, we went for a long stroll along the side streets of Maadi. Spring is in full bloom! The colours range from delicate lavender to sharp bright pink bougainvilleas. The temperature is warm but not hot and there is always a slight breeze. Most of the police are back on the streets after a period of uncertain times for them. The Ministry of the Interior has been dissolved and some sense of integrity has been restored to the security force. The Military are still in charge but there are regular protests as the populace remain vigilant that the changes they want implemented are exercised. The Referendum for the Constitution took place two weeks ago, peacefully as far as I can make out. The Egyptian staff at school talked about it excitedly as I commented they are the first generation to do this. There is no blueprint for the perfect democracy. History has proven that. The idea of democracy must fit the times and be moulded to the needs and the DNA of the culture adopting it. The course I doubt will be smooth, but so far, the Egyptians are doing it the best in the region it seems.
To Walk Like an Egyptian now carries a whole new meaning....
