Whatever the truth is about the past, today Maadi is a quaint suburb that hosts many foreigners as well as middle and upper class Egyptians. I have complained about its problems with trash removal, but it is one of the cleaner areas of Cairo, with lovely foliage, and it is delightfully quieter than downtown. Just a few blocks from my apartment building is a street called Road 9 that has among other things, fast food restaurants, sit-down restaurants (including Mori Sushi, a place I'm slightly afraid to try), patisseries, book stores, a CD/record store, a bank, a grocery store, pharmacies, convenience stores, and many cellphone shops. On a related note, did I mention that Egyptians are obsessed with cellphones? I pass a cardboard shack on the way to the bus stop every day, and a few times its tenant was sitting in front talking on his mobile!
Egyptian girls also found a clever use for their headscarves as a hands free phone set (they stick the phone near their ears and secure it with their headscarves).
But I digress . . .
Also near my apartment are a series of French schools through which I see nuns and monks walking to and from to teach. Having the schools so close to my building makes it especially difficult to walk in the street around 7:30 am and 3:00 pm when students are commuting by bus to school. Yet, the overall atmosphere of my area is one of quiet and calm.
Now, let me take you on a virtual tour of my apartment.
Upon entering through the door you are greeted by this single dining/living room.
Welcome to my gracious drawing room. 
The view from the front balcony. A now the kitchen.
Notice that a dishwasher is conspicuously absent. While I do have a laundry machine, I don't have a dryer so I have to hang up my laundry. 
This stove is my adversary. I need to light it manually. Beast from hell.
This sink is possessed. 
Hallway. 
The bathroom which is currently unusable due to no running water.
My roommate's bedroom before she moved in. . .
My bedroom before I moved in . . .
My bedroom after I moved in . . . Yet sadly, three hours into this running water shortage, and facing the possibility of peeing into a water bottle, I'm beginning to hate this beautiful apartment. Dear Allah, someone please fix that broken pipe.
You rock honey! I'll be back to comment properly after work. Bah.
ReplyDeleteThe water is back. I repeat, the water is back. No need for rudimentary potties. Alleluia!
ReplyDeletewoooo!
ReplyDeleteYour apartment is sunny, well-lit, has a gorgeous view, is beautifully colored and has comfy looking beds. Grr at the lack of utilities. Maadi (spelled Méadi in French) was once the chic resort town, more countrified back then, where many French, Italian and Turkish Jews used to live in the 1920s all the way through the early 50s. When Egypt became a nation after the Revolution of 1952, most of them left. So, by being there and by being Italian and Jewish, you are returning Maadi to its roots.
ReplyDeleteYou can read about it in Colette Roussant's wonderful memoir, Apricots on the Nile, or in Andre Aciman's "Out of Egypt".. both authors are of mixed European/Egyptian Jewish stock and describe that wonderful old vanished world- but not an ideal one, one as segregated as Gone with the Wind, where Jews, Greeks and other Europeans formed an elite minority, and employed Egyptians only as servants (and even then were told never to touch an Arab's hand).
The Auc blog made me laugh out loud! I see that I was behind in my blog reading! The pictures of the campus were very nice. Tell me, is the maintenance workers strike over? Keep writing, honey! I like Mark's book recommendations...reading for Christmas break.
ReplyDelete