Chaos in Cairo? Just smile
Especially for Happy Happy , but enjoyable reading for all......
By Lily Sussman
CAIRO -- I stand on the corner, impatiently waving on each slowing cab.
A couple of men stand nearby, also waiting. A green bus, a white, or a microbus. Any will do.
A bus in downtown Cairo near Ramsis Station.
People tried to board a microbus in the 6th of October area outside Cairo.
After a few minutes a dirty green bus rounds the bend. Men’s heads, legs, and arms stretch out the window and door, which is nothing more than an open frame filled with bodies.
I step further into the busy street, hand in the air, and the bus slows, stopping a few yards in front of me.
Even for the greater Cairo area, home to about 18 million, it’s particularly crowded today. People are pressed against one another from front to back.
I push my way onto the bus. “Ramsis? Tahrir?” I ask, naming my destination and a place I would happily walk from. It doesn’t matter much -- I’m already on the bus. I know it will pass one or the other.
Standing in the aisle, I dig in my purse for the fare, half a guinea, equivalent to about 9 US cents. I pass my smallest bill, 5 guineas, to the man next to me. He turns, passing it to the man behind him. It travels in this fashion to a man holding a wad of dirty cash. He rips me a ticket and counts my change. The money and ticket travel a weaving path back to me, as the men point, telling one another to whom it belongs.
As the bus weaves through the traffic, through a constant chorus of honks and yells, I relax. The rickety windows are all open and my hair blows in the wind, a marvelous break from the 100-degree-plus weather outside.
If you let it, living in Cairo, especially speaking little or no Arabic, can be infuriating. Traffic and pollution are unavoidable, women are harassed constantly, lateness is normal, and buying a simple bottle of water can easily turn into a haggling match.
Full article:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/blog/2009/08/_by_lily_sussma.html
hopping out of moving vehicles in Libya. There's a little physics to it, relative motion, you gotta know what you're doing or you might break your legs, or worse fall over and become roadkill :D
quote:" hop out as the bus slows.
I cut past it, through the traffic, before it regains speed.
Crossing the street, amidst honking and yelling a car stops short before me and a man shouts out his car window. I keep walking, smiling, I am just another part of Cairo’s wondrous chaos." unquote.
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
Just about enough to avoid causing a rift in spacetime :D
There's obviously method in this madness :O)
Crossing the street, riding in a cab, it's always a gamble, always a dance on a tightrope, total chaos, it truly shows you in no uncertain terms how insignificant you and all your problems are, and perhaps all your dreams too. It's a pretty ruthless place, and I know people that see it as hell itself, but I could live there quite happily. I'm glad I did what I wanted though. Waved down a cab the last day I was there, sat in and told him DRIVE FOR HOURS. Where? Wherever!
There we never feel boring!!!! LOL
Hmmm....
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Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it, anything but live for it
but it isn't for westerners, old people, or anyone with a short temper and without a sardonic sense of humour. Actually, it's one of my fave places in the whole wide world...it never sleeps, and never ceases to amaze. Every day seems like it's your last, no such thing as an ordinary day in Cairo :)
I love Cairo... but not for living!
I would prefer Alex...
I love Cairo !!!!