Chaos in Cairo? Just smile

A bus in downtown Cairo near Ramsis Station. (Photos by Lily Sussman)


People tried to board a microbus in the 6th of October area outside Cairo.

Lily Sussman, an undergraduate student at Northeastern University, is working at the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo and studying Arabic.

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.

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.

We’re driving over 6th of October Bridge, named after the Yom Kippur War that Egypt fought with Israel in 1973. I have finished my morning Arabic class and I am heading for the Resettlement Legal Aid Project, where I work as a informational and legal adviser for refugees.

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.

How to live here and sustain love for the city?

I appreciate Cairo best when, rather than shutting the city out, I embrace it. Rather than seeking reprieve, I work to make sense of it.

I live in a traditional middle-class neighborhood, take public transportation, and follow my Egyptian friends’ lead, laughing and rolling my eyes at chaos and inconvenience.

The first time I took a microbus was unplanned. Unsure of my orientation, I asked a boy where Tahrir Square, the center of downtown, was. Do you want to take a bus? he asked.

He led me to the side of the road and instructed me to wave down any bus or microbus and say my destination.

Successfully squished aboard a white van, I noticed my fellow passengers, mostly men, looking at me differently. I was no longer simply a white woman, assumed to be a tourist, trekking Cairo streets and relying on cabs. Like them, I was navigating the megalopolis of Cairo by the fastest and cheapest means possible. Unlike the norm on the street, the men did not hiss or utter indistinguishable words in Arabic.

When the driver passed me incorrect change, the guys next to me protested, ensuring accuracy to the nearest piaster (Egyptian cent). I ended up far from my location because the bus had not stopped long enough for me to ask. Despite that, I walked home with a sense of satisfaction -- one more thing in Cairo that was not as complicated as it looked.

Ever since, I take buses and the subway constantly. Navigating public transportation I feel capable in a city easy to get lost in. In taking public transportation anonymous faces turn to friends, and suspicious stares to enlightening conversation.

One night, coming home late I meet a woman, Soheir, who tells me about her son studying engineering in New Jersey. She talks about the architecture of the buildings we pass, her experiences in the United States and her deceased mother, for whom she returned to Egypt. She kisses me goodbye, giving me her number and promises of future meetings.

Riding the subway, teenage girls across the aisle stare and giggle. After a few minutes, I ask them what is so funny. In a mix of Arabic and English they ask me where I’m from, my name, how old I am, if I am married, what I am doing in Cairo, and where I am going. I ask them if they know other Americans. They shake their heads, no.

Because my circle includes many expats and tourism is Egypt’s prized industry, it is easy to forget large sections of the population have little if any contact with foreigners. Taking time to talk, I gain increased appreciation and patience for individuals around me and better understanding of the society in which we live. This is the best shield I know against every Cairo vexation.

My bus has crossed the bridge and is nearing the busy intersection, where I work. I gesture to the two men propped sideways by the door and 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.

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