Five million people come to Cairo every day on business or for pleasure. Mohamed Morsi surveys the scene Downtown at midday is different from any other time of day. There is of course the traffic peaking from three directions -- Tahrir to the west, Ramsis to the north, and Ataba to the east -- thousands of people shuttling back and forth to finish transactions in dozens of banks and government offices. They are transported in an armada of automobiles that crisscross the cluster of always-jammed streets, looking for a free lane to go through or a free spot in which to park. People make jokes about the traffic, quips such as "meet you tomorrow on bus 17 at the Isaaf traffic lights." The Ministry of Interior says it is looking into imposing fees on cars entering certain parts of the downtown area, or into alternating days of use according to licence plates, giving one day to odd numbers and another to even numbers. It's not a problem that will go away on its own. Nearly 14 million cars go through Cairo every day. Last year alone, Egyptians bought cars worth LE17 billion. The heavy traffic is not confined to vehicles. Pedestrians, too, roam the downtown streets. Some are window shopping, others hanging out at cafés. Are they conducting business, or just taking time out from their jobs? Do they have jobs? Statistics about the productivity of Egyptian workers come to mind as one contemplates the scene. It's not that downtown is not an exciting place. Of course it is, and it has a lot to offer. Take, for example, the fuul and falafel sandwiches you can buy at all hours from Felfela, Al-Tabei, or Akher Saa. There is koshari, too, at Abu Tareq or Sayed. Around Tawfiqiya Square, it's hard to keep track of how many eateries there are working around the clock. Not everyone takes their meals in restaurants. Some take their sandwiches to the wooden benches on Alfi Street. Others buy sandwiches and then sit in any of the nearby coffeehouses, ordering tea and proceeding to consume their meal in a leisurely way that the benches don't offer. Cafés double as ad hoc offices for people meeting to discuss business and do deals. Often, different cafés specialise in certain aspects of business. If you need to get things done at the courts complex near Isaaf, also known as Dar Al-Qadaa Al-Aali, you could go to the café just across 26 July Street, or the popular Café Al-Shams, which is also quite close. For the stock exchange, there is an entire pedestrian area bustling with cafés for meetings. Midday is a favourite time for pensioners wishing to read their newspapers and meet other senior citizens. They congregate at a coffeehouse on Bab Al-Louq Square. Other coffeehouses are more intellectual in nature. Go to Champollion Street and you'll find all sorts of artists and bookish types gathered at the coffeehouse near the Townhouse Gallery, spilling over occasionally into a couple of cafés in the After Eight Corridor across Antikhana Street. In any of these cafés, you can order your meal from a small restaurant nearby and have it delivered to your table. By midday, downtown is already bustling with people exercising all types of professions, including the touts with no special vocation who stand at familiar corners looking for something interesting to do -- a tourist, perhaps, to take around, or a prospective buyer who could be interested in a cousin's shop nearby. However, many do have something to do, and you can tell who they are because they tend to carry dossiers and briefcases. Every day, about five million people come to Cairo from the countryside on business. Nearly all the banks have downtown branches, as do most ministries. The courts and hospitals are also magnets for the crowds. Whether on business or pleasure, many people take time to sample the pleasures of pavement shopping. On make-shift stalls, as well as on blankets stretched out on the ground, merchants sell cheap clothes, perfumes and toys. Many of these merchants are unemployed young men with college or pre-college education. They are constantly chased away by the police, who don't want them to block the pavements. They tend to concentrate near the ministries in any open space that is convenient enough for office workers to buy household goods, clothes and CDs on their way home. On Sundays, filmgoers appear in force, congregating in front of the Metro and Miami cinemas and waiting for the one o'clock show. The early morning show at ten o'clock is now a thing of the past. No one wakes up that early anymore. People stay up late watching satellite television and get up too late for the early show. The film crowd likes to hang out at certain cafés before the show, such as the L'Americaine on Talaat Harb and the Excelsior near the Metro. There is a special flavour to downtown Cairo, and one that is not necessarily only associated with fuul and falafel. The architecture is unmatched anywhere in Egypt, and the shopping is easy and cheap. Taking a newspaper to L'Americaine in the morning is one of the unequalled highlights of living in this city, at least for me. Every time I do it, I end up spending more time watching the crowds than reading the paper. Just the way it should be.
