This pic’s not exactly Kafr El Sheikh but its similar to the kind of street I’m living in at the moment. U-huh, not exactly The Hyatt but there’s nothing short of drama here.
One house number, one building, by one family, with one or two apartments per floor.
Its not unusual to find the grandparents living downstairs and with whoever gets married first (mostly the sons of the family) build their apartments up…each one clonely-designed like the other, with chooks and pigeons nesting on the top bare floor right beside the entire clan’s satellite dish. So its a very tightly-knitted extended family unit. Sometimes almost too claustophobic and suffocating.
If one’s strap for cash or needs some tea or sugar because they have guests and can’t go out and buy some or if anyone’s having any domestic disputes, rest assured your brother or mum nextdoor might have ample of supplies there. Everything is basically consolidated.
OK’s on a typical day here…on this street…
*you would hear (at least 4 times a day) a man riding on a carriage pulled by a donkey on your street banging on a gas cylinder shouting if anyone needs to buy any gas for their ovens/stoves. Only LE 15.
*once a day -an old guy shouting if you need your knives sharpened, he can do it for you,
*the same, for an old woman who pops up in the afternoon right before Maghrib/sunset selling sweet breads. Kids just swamp her in order to get a glucose fix. You’ll see mothers lowering plastic bags from their balconies just to purchase some. its mostly like the ones you dip in tea or coffee with dates and nuts inside them.
*we have another old dude who goes around carrying and selling organic, hand-feld chicken on his head (always great for soup/bases. You can really taste the difference). Chicken costs around LE15 per kilo. Meat now from LE40 (quite a luxury) for a kilo, whereas the meat in Australia’s only $9/kg. If the food prices keep spiking up and up every week -it’ll eventually make me a vegetarian.
*people going around in trucks to see if anyone has any second-hand furniture they want to get rid of
*others in more carriages selling onions, garlic which people here buy in one big 20-30 kg bags because its cheap and they seem to know when its grown best. You’ll always find garlic bulbs littering every balcony
*someone wailing about their difficult condition and begging for money
*kids playing soccer, annoyingly hitting windows, going over roofs, singing Al-Ahli songs and shrieking “Gooooooooooooooaaaal” every 5 minutes. If they’re not playing, they’re fighting and you could always hear someone crying
*husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, sons and fathers fighting, hitting, even taking it onto the street, if not family someone’s always fighting with their neighbours. Mostly when it comes to neighbours, it starts with the kids
*tubby housewives doing rounds on top of their roof tops to look sofia-loren-like for their husbands
*home-grown chickens, ducks, pigeons being slaughtered
*see women hanging their laundry, bed sheets, carpets, mats
*at night when the weather’s cool, family members normally pinic on top of the room again or hang out beside the Nile River (which crosses two parts) at the place I’m living at
*you’re bound to get wedding celebrations happening every week with dj’s remixing and blasting the latest tunes, people watching the families of the bride or groom boogie-ing, bellydancing, horses going crazy until midnight. My neighbour just had one last week in front of our building with one of their daughter’s leaving for Kuwait after the reception the next day with her new hubby. The groom’s always 10-20 years older, financially-secure (mostly because after working in resort towns like Sharm el Shei,h Hurghada, slaveing to tourists or they go expating to their nearest neighbouring countries). The bride is normally educated but stays home and does nothing with the 4 years she’s slogged her ass for to get that piece of paper (its all for the name) and if its her fate to have someone not that well-off, has to stay with her in-laws whilst her hubby enjoys himself in Europe or Korea with godknows how many other girlfriends or mistresses on the side, raising and caring for the kids herself, making her own money to do so. You really see the effects of what its like having an absent and most of the time cheating father and also what a really bad economy and system does to the family unit.
Its so sad…
