Cairo is a megalopolis where crazed drivers honk incessantly as pedestrians choke on fumes. But its indomitable people refuse to be cowed by either traffic or throngs, writes Gamal Nkrumah Click to view caption Crowds are for Cairo what the ravens are to the Tower of London. And no more so than in the rush hour before iftar in the month of Ramadan, when teeming millions head for home to break their fast at sundown. Cairo is not just big. It is among the most densely populated cities in the world. The estimated 20 million daytime Cairenes live and work in an area of merely 214 square kilometres. In contrast, Oslo is a city of some 500,000 people living in an area of 242 square kilometres. London, with 12 million people, has a land area of 625 square kilometres. Drive from Helwan to Heliopolis -- from one end of town to another -- on a Friday morning and you'll realise how tiny the city is in comparison with the world's other great cities. Cairo is no island, like Bombay, Hong Kong, Singapore or Manhattan. But, since time immemorial, Egyptians have preferred to live by the banks of the River Nile and abhorred the surrounding desert. As such Cairo is lean, with a tiny waistline around the downtown area. Athletically built, it is tall and long- limbed. The broad shoulders span several sprawling suburbs; Shubra to the north, Heliopolis to the northeast, and Nasr City spilling east into the desert. Cairo, alas, has no head. No body obeys orders, even though everybody pretends to. Everyone is a law unto themselves, and the streets are chaotic. Cairenes jostle for space among nondescript apartment complexes and concrete slab buildings, on traffic-clogged thoroughfares, and in overcrowded markets. Bustling with activity, even during the wee hours of the night, Cairo's old Islamic contours are not obscured by the new outcrop of skyscrapers. The metropolis is entangled in contradictions. Mud brick hovels face towering skyscrapers across the River Nile. Shacks rub shoulders with plush apartment blocks. Cairo is a city that defies contemporary urban planning techniques for survey, analysis, design and implementation. The resulting mess creates three distinct but related hazards: environmental, social, and health (mental and the rest of it). Cairenes fortify themselves with a matchless sense of humour, notorious throughout the Arab world for its sagaciousness and vivacity. Cairo is a city that you could never get bored of. All the more so because the city is replete with unorthodox juxtapositions: a religious Muslim woman wearing the black niqab (covering body and face), complete with gloves in the sweltering summer heat, obviously wants to avoid the touch of a man's handshake. Yet, at one point or another, she will have to contend with the moral implications of sardine-packed public transportation. (The Cairo metro has set aside a women car to minimise the undesirable prospects). Al-Qahirah (city triumphant or victorious) as Al-Mu'izz Li Din Allah Al-Fatimi, its founder, named her a millennium ago, is a true megalopolis, in a league of its own. "It is the metropolis of the universe," pronounced the Arab historian Ibn-Khaldun in 1382. To its inhabitants, Cairo (or Masr) is umm al-dunya, mother of the world. Indeed, Cairo feels much bigger than it actually is, because it is bustling, teeming with people who, in spite of hazardous pollution and a national predilection for television soaps, enjoy hanging out, shopping, eating or playing backgammon in the countless cafés. Unfortunately, Cairo penalises pedestrians. "You are a nonentity if you don't own a car," complained one Cairene pedestrian after a life-threatening crossing of a busy thoroughfare. Crossing the street on a red light is not always safe. Few drivers pay much attention to the traffic lights, unless a traffic warden is on duty. In Cairo, jaywalking is a necessary, though unsavoury, adventure. If you do not cross while traffic is moving, you can be stuck on the pavements endlessly. Prime property stretches along the Nile, where many of Cairo's five-star hotels and a welter of towering skyscrapers are clustered. The area is also the city's most inexpensive leisure venue and in the evenings swarms with the promenading crowds. How about peeling away from the press of the throngs in the bustling downtown to the safe haven of the outlying suburbs? They are just as crammed with people and vehicles. Cairo's oppressive summer heat offers the perfect excuse to hang about in the air-conditioned malls. And we're talking about nine months of summer: March to November. The shopping malls of both downtown and suburban Cairo are busiest in the summer holiday season. Nasr City is a concrete reminder of the Open Door policy first launched in 1976. It is pretentious and featureless, and has an inflated sense of self-importance. Nasr (victory) City sprouted in the desert, soon after the 1973 war, and is where new money is poured, and paraded. Its broad avenues are invariably clogged with loud adolescents in spanking new cars, honking hysterically to attract the attention of their paramours, perhaps, or just for the hell of it. Nasr City, with its ugly shopping malls and drab apartment blocks, symbolises the sheer triumph of intemperate consumerism. The malls are a minefield of must-haves, with rampant bargain-hunters snatching every sale item, and idle youth loitering aimlessly about. And most of the items on sale aren't up to much, to be honest. Heliopolis is more refined: older money, more tastefully put on display. Its boulevards are immense. And its landmarks both inexplicable and colossal. But Heliopolis, too, can be hellish. Endless traffic jams, especially around the favourite haunts of its well-heeled inhabitants, and congested back streets, can be frightfully unpleasant. Helwan, at the southern tip of Cairo, has a sad story. Decades ago, this used to be a fashionable winter spa resort. The once flourishing resort has since wilted and withered with industrial pollution. The air is acrid with toxic and exhaust fumes. Steel and cement factories relentlessly belch their poisons. The rich have moved out and the dilapidated Japanese garden, spa and other former tourist attractions are a sad testament to Helwan's fall from grace. Upmarket Maadi is sandwiched between two of Cairo's most deprived districts: Tura and Dar Al-Salam. Dar Al- Salam is a sprawling run-down area and perhaps the most crowded of Cairo's low-income districts. Its estimated one million inhabitants stoically suffer the appalling sanitary, social and economic conditions. Its streets -- many unpaved -- are narrow and seething with humanity. No trace here of the charm that exudes the souqs, bazaars and back streets of Islamic Cairo. Millions of villagers from the surrounding countryside and the far-flung provinces of Upper Egypt and the Delta make a living of sorts in Cairo, and stay on for years on end without being officially registered as residents. Refugees from neighbouring countries, especially the war-torn and economically-ruined Sudan, have also sought refuge in Cairo. Commuters cram the city during the day and Cairenes take to the streets at night. Some loiter about in their local neighbourhoods. Others escape their high-density zones to the downtown shopping district or head for Corniche, the riverside thoroughfare. Considering that some quarters of the city have population densities exceeding 20,000 persons per square kilometre, there is no point in trying to escape the crowds. Even in the middle of the Nile, the barges that ply the river and ferry passengers to and from the various suburbs and districts of Cairo's twin city Giza, across the river on the western bank of the Nile, are often overcrowded and overloaded with food and goods, sometimes animals. Along the Corniche, carriages drawn by horses on slippery asphalt offer a comical interpretation of what is supposed to be pleasure rides for tourists. Brave inhabitants occasionally try to escape the city by venturing into one of the amusement parks ringing the city, Dream Park and Magic Land. As a result, these could get, particularly on weekends and public holidays, busier than the city itself. As an alternative, one may be tempted to seek the calm of the surrounding rural areas. There, you'll get more nature, perhaps, but often you will also find yourself in the middle of crowds. A short trip by boat to Al-Qanater Al- Khayria, the barrages and promenade to the north of Cairo, will give you a basic idea about the population density in the lush Nile Delta. Cairo can be overwhelming for newcomers. Most of the people you see on the streets of Cairo are peasants or have village roots. Many were not born in Cairo and still harbour strong attachments to their villages of origin. Rural mannerisms linger on in the city, and will have to be tolerated. This is not a place for the half-hearted. It is difficult to escape the prying eyes in a city where, for the overwhelming majority of its population, privacy is a commodity that's hard to come by. When not outright inquisitive, Cairenes can be loud. To visitors with an uncharitable disposition or in an irritable mood, the locals would seem meddlesome and feisty. It is not just the throng of people that gets in the way. Everything comes in big dozes: the lights, the sounds, the scents, and the resilience that borders on stubbornness. Right now, somewhere in the congested streets, there is a cart-drawing donkey desperately trying to overtake the flashy cars. Half the time, it succeeds.
