Since we don’t have a car, I get around mostly on foot. I don’t normally mind walking - in a safe and orderly place. Walking in Cairo is anything but safe and orderly. In fact, pedestrians are considered just one more hazard in the road.
It’s become even more tricky to walk lately since the one decent sidewalk that existed in our neighborhood has recently been torn up. It looks as if they are intending to improve it a bit which would be great:
However, they tore it up with much more speed and enthusiasm than they seem to be reconstructing it. I haven’t seen anyone working on it in a week.
And it seems to be tree trimming season in my neighborhood. It all started when a large tree limb broke and fell onto that sidewalk pictured above. Not only did no one clear it, but it seemed to give people ideas and everyone in the vicinity started adding their own tree trimmings (and other misc trash0 to the pile. That enormous pile has been cleared away to make way for the sidewalk destruction but there are similar piles springing up all over the neighborhood.
I could go on like this all day! It’s kind of fascinating in a way, though it does make it hard to walk along when your path is suddenly blocked by a big pile of tree limbs. And the poor trees! We aren’t talking about precision pruning here either - think a barefoot guy up a tree with a blunt axe, cutting off anything he can reach until all that is left are a few leafy sprigs. It’s a wonder than anything survives.
Only three weeks until we leave for our Christmas holidays in the US. Maybe when we get back, the sidewalk will be fixed…
Jenyfer, having been to Cairo I can picture what you’re saying. I had to laugh about the tree prunings. Every year we have an inorganic rubbish collection. We always wait until the last minute to put ours out because people from other areas bring their rubbish and add it to your pile. Our entire suburb looks like a bombsite for about a month until all the rubbish is collected.
by Shelley Munro November 19th, 2008 at 2:54 pmShelley - most of the tree branches have been collected but the sidewalk is still a mess. They keep tearing more of it up down the street but no one has done anything toward putting it back together!
by Jenyfer November 20th, 2008 at 8:12 am