We’ve mentioned the dangerous intersection near our apartment building, where three streets meet at once – two in a vee-shaped fashion – with no regulation except the older daytime policeman who directs traffic during the busiest times – before and after school. Near misses occur constantly, brakes screech, and cars frequently smack. But here is what’s happening right now. A group of four or five teenaged boys – joined now and then by other boys and adult men – kicks a soccer ball to and fro, up and down, right in the middle of that intersection. Cars and motorcycles honk and swerve around them. The boys play. They whoop. They laugh for joy. At home I would probably think, Idiot young’uns! Get out of the street!

Here, no. Antique Guy (who I’ve mentioned before) dawdles on the crumbling curb before jumping into the fray for a few seconds. The soldiers laugh. Throw down those broken guns and join in! It’s starting to seem simply familiar, this kind of thing, the shape and make of these neighborhood streets. Of course, the green space per person in Cairo is said to be less than the size of your average person’s foot. And boys must play. You have to pay for a park. You have to pay to get to the banks of the Nile in Cairo. Despite all of this, it’s almost as if I am experiencing an old American film set in a city neighborhood – the way people recognize each other, have localized stores, the way boys – even the soldiers with their dopey rifles – seem innocent and…well, adorable. I’m getting nostalgic for no experience I’ve had. Maybe this is just city life. Maybe it’s something I didn’t experience in Minneapolis (the only other city I’ve lived in) because of my proximity to the university. I don’t know. While I would be severely mistaken to view this camaraderie on the streets as indicative of the mood of the people, there is something to be admired about the congeniality of Egyptians. Not the pandering tourist congeniality, no. Boys in the middle of the dangerous street. That’s what I’m talking about.



Above: Shop in Old Cairo

Shops line the streets, many the size of a walk-in closet. Grocers, electricians, antique dealers, makwagis. One night we stopped in a store because we spotted a small reading lamp along the lines of what J had been looking for since we arrived. The lamp was crammed in with ancient alarm clocks, light bulbs, bits of wire with no apparent home, ink pens, batteries, a lonely stuffed bear with “I Love You” on its tummy. Some of this stuff predates Sadat, surely. Anyway, a man sat smoking in the back of the closet-shop, not interested in moving unless we moved from browse-to-buy mode.

James employed the phrase we must all learn: “Bi-kaam?” How much? The man stepped out of the store and into the street. For a minute I thought we had finally offended someone with our Midwestern Arabic. He called over his shoulder, “Minute. One minute.” He returned with a kid in his twenties who wore a yellow sweatshirt and looked as if he may have been napping. This was the first time we realized that there are people who look after the store – that is all they do. The smoking man returned to his post behind the desk and didn’t move again.

J agreed to buy the lamp. OK, great. The kid maneuvers it through the window-hodgepodge. Then he goes over to a socket on the wall. That’s when we notice the lamp doesn’t really have a cord. I mean, it has a little stub of cord, a little longer than my fingernail, and a little fray of wire emerging from that.

(You’ve probably figured out by now that electricity is simply magical for me. Flip the switch! Let there be light! This little piece of writing is by a person who thought the gas oven was going to explode last fall because it was making a crazy rhythmic ticking. The electrician/gas guy I called about the “emergency” arrived and in half a second of observation opened the oven to reveal that yours truly had somehow leaned against the button that starts turning the rotisserie. So you’ll have to forgive my lack of terminology.)

The kid sticks the fray into a socket on the wall. The lamp demonstrates its warm glow. “Tayeb?” he asks. OK?

We both sort of sputter. Um, wire. No wire? Cord? For socket? Plug-in? Plug? J starts a pantomime of plugging a length of cord into a wall. I was ready to leave. Was it a joke? I looked to the window. Nope – the other lamps were in the same state.

The kid opens a dusty cabinet and pulls out a roll of white cord. He holds it up, and we nod yes. He looks surprised that this is what we want, like he never does something like this for a customer. He actually shrugs, which makes me suspicious – is he going to rip us off, acting like this is some kind of big, extra deal – adding something that should have been there in the first place?

J chooses a length, and the kid goes to work. I don’t watch this part – an older man in a green suit has come in wanting a particular set of light bulbs, and I listen carefully to the exchange, plucking out meaning. I remember how conversations begin and end with pleasantries threaded to religious praise, and wonder how J and I come off when we forget these staples. By the time the man has left, the kid has finished. For this extra service, all he wants is LE 3.

Since then we’ve bought one other lamp, at a store that sells handmade stuff from local artists and craftspeople. It’s where we got the Egyptian shawls for some of the womenfolk we know. The same cord/wire/plug-in/doodad situation applied. For that, J went right back to his friend in the yellow sweatshirt. Here's a photo – ain’t it cute?



By the way: Happy birthday, Dad!!

A