Dear Cairo,

It’s kind of embarrassing to tell you this in front of all these people, but I’m afraid I couldn’t live with myself if you didn’t know: I love you.

I heard lots of nasty things about you from people—mostly Jordanians—before I got there.  The last time I visited you, I remember finding a lovely, vibrant city, but all the dreadful press you were getting from folks in Amman really made me second-guess myself.  I was told to expect filth, sexual harassment, danger at every turn, and food poisoning within the first twenty-four hours.  I was warned about parasites, pervy taxi drivers, violence, bribery, and bad food.  You’ll hate it, they told me, and you’ll think Amman is paradise when you come back.

I wish I could say that all those things they said were untrue, Cairo, but that would be a falsehood and a lie.  The level of pollution is shocking, and if I stepped in one pile of rotting garbage I stepped in a million.  The gentlemen in the streets have a repertoire of comments that might be called extensive, and negotiating with cab drivers over the fair price for a trip downtown is a nuisance, to say the least.  I nearly met my death a hundred times trying to cross the street during rush hour.

I won’t pretend these things don’t bother me, and I won’t lie and say I think your flaws are beautiful—they’re not, and a lot of them are not only ugly, they’re downright dangerous.

But I take the good with the bad, because for every mound of steaming trash piling up in the middle of the sidewalk, there is a green park with grass and trees and green forms of life we couldn’t see in Jordan if we paid for it.  For every police officer who demanded baksheesh after I took a picture at the pyramids, there was one who very kindly and slowly gave me directions to the nearest Coptic church, then complimented me on my Arabic.  And for every eighteen-year old dude who materialized out of a crowd to grope me as I got into a taxi, there was an older gentleman who emerged from nowhere to smack the crap out of him.

You’ve produced so many wonderful things: stunning architecture, koshari and pigeon, fantastic sheisha, and, in my assessment, the most beautiful people in the world.  You are home to some of the kindest, most charming, most vibrant human beings I’ve ever encountered.  You are the kind of city where taxi drivers stop their cars in the middle of busy avenues to watch the national football team play on the televisions in the street, and no one gets violent about the traffic pileup that results; you’re the sort of place where university students will skip their afternoon classes to take you out to a café for a chat and comforting words about navigating Egypt.

Your flaws are troublesome, and they aren’t pretty, but they’re part of what makes you so rich: it’s the vibrancy that results from the combination of dreadful and delightful, of filthy and lovely, and of scary and comforting.  Without both halves, you wouldn’t be half so dynamic and exciting, and I think that’s what makes you so attractive.

I feel a bit melodramatic saying this, but leaving you was one of the most dismaying experiences of my life: leaving your exciting expanse for the quiet compactness of Amman was depressing.  But, just like the last time we parted, I’ve kept two Egyptian pounds in my wallet, which ensures that I will come back.  You scare me plenty, but in all the right ways—the ways that ensure I’ll return.

Until I see you again,
Kelly

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Travel Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.