The residents of Cairo's cemeteries are sceptical about government plans to reorganise the area, as they explain to Dena Rashed Deadly silent may sound like a cliché when describing the alleyways that separate the cemeteries in Cairo, but there is an unexpected quietness at the Al-Ghafeer cemetery nonetheless. There are no burials, and no one is walking about or visiting the graves of loved ones. Minutes away from the bustling noise of Cairo's streets and in the middle of the day, stray dogs seem to own the place, relaxing and sleeping in the sandy alleys. The residents are the people who keep the place alive, with many either choosing to live in the cemeteries or having little choice but to do so. Since Egyptian tombs consist of an underground burial room and a vacant area above ground level housing a room or two, many families reside in rooms above the dead. People residing there are not always related to the business of burials. Having not succeeded in finding cheap accommodation in the city, they end up renting rooms in the cemeteries. Now it seems that this situation is about to change, since the government has announced that some cemeteries will be moved in an effort to revamp the city over the coming decade. While the Al-Ghafeer area is not among the cemeteries slated for removal, the future of its residents has long been on the line. The Ain Al-Sira cemeteries are expected to be moved to the outskirts of the city, on the other hand, because the area suffers from rising ground water. The residents of the cemeteries are used to people inspecting their living conditions, whether students doing research, government officials conducting censuses, or journalists investigating housing conditions. Walking out of one of the tombs, Umm Kamal holds a tea tray and passes a glass of tea to one of her acquaintances. She mistakes us for visitors, yet still gives us a warm greeting. Umm Kamel has been living in the cemeteries for over five decades. After her husband died and left her with young children, her sister's husband, himself an undertaker, asked a family for their permission to allow her to live in their family tomb. Since then, Umm Kamel has lived in the area, raising her children there, and today the idea of moving away from what has become her home is incomprehensible to her. "I would never leave the cemeteries. They have become my home. An elderly person like me is used to staying here," she says. There is nothing about her that suggests regret at the place in which she is living. In fact, she seems quite content with how her life has turned out. This pattern is reproduced among other older residents of the area, who in the main seem contented with where they are living. However, the same is not necessarily true of the younger generations, who have different aspirations. Sitting on a small porch in front of the tomb where she lives, Umm Kamel introduces us to another resident, Mohamed Salah, who is an undertaker. Salah's mother has just passed away, and he is overwhelmed with grief. Salah is a young man, and his aspirations go far beyond those of Umm Kamal. "I am 27 years old. I was born and have lived here all my life, as did my father and grandfather. But I don't want to stay here till I die like my forefathers," Salah says. Salah inherited his job from his father when the latter died, and since then he has been head of the family. He says that he has followed every lead in order to try to get an apartment somewhere, but all to no avail. Salah says that talk about relocating the cemeteries and their residents has been going on for decades, but has never taken place. "Where would they put the dead," he wonders. While Salah is wary of government plans to relocate certain cemeteries, he is also worried about his future and about that of other young men like him. "I am still in my 20s, but there are many men in their late 30s who still can't get married. What would they say to the family of the girl they want to marry? 'I will accommodate your daughter in the cemeteries?' Who would choose that for a girl? I wouldn't want to marry a decent girl and expose her to that kind of life," he says. Salah also remembers better times when an undertaker's job could be a lucrative one, though that, he says, is not the case today. In the past, people used to visit their loved ones a lot, and that meant they would give money to those who cleaned and took care of the tombs. "But today people often ignore tradition and don't even come during the feasts, or even on the first and second Fridays, or on the 40th day after the burial. Some don't even visit graves of their families for years." As a child he can remember the family receiving as much as LE1,500 from visitors to the cemeteries on one feast day, but this does not happen anymore. The worst thing that can happen to a resident of the cemeteries is to be evicted by the tomb owners, since the undertaker's family lives in the tomb with the permission of the owners. "If for any reason the owners have problems with the undertaker, he will be asked to leave, even if he has been there for decades. If this happens, he will no longer have a home for his family," Salah explains. However, Salah does not simply lament the lack of opportunity now available in the cemeteries. He has another job in a printing house in 6 October governorate, and he is doing his best to hold down both in order to make ends meet. "The lowest rent is LE350 to LE500 in Moqattam, and I can't afford that. What can I do?" he asks almost in despair. He says that the harsh living conditions have caused some other young men to lose their faith in waiting for a better life. Some have started to deal in drugs, while others look for easy money by selling marble from the tombs. "However, there are many good people who live here, and people in general have a false stereotype that everybody who lives in the cemeteries is an outlaw." Salah says that he hopes that the authorities will give people like him the opportunity to live a normal life by rehousing them in housing projects. "I wish a minister would come and visit to see people's needs. It only takes a drop of ink from an official to make the dream of an apartment true for people in my condition," he says. According to statistics provided by Mustafa Madbouli, chairman of the General Organisation for Physical Planning (GOPP) at the ministry of housing, utilities and urban planning, there are currently some 60,000 residents living in buildings constructed in the cemeteries area, out of which 10,000 live in rooms in cemeteries stretching over 14,000 feddans in Cairo, including the Al-Ghafeer, Al-Mogawreen, Al-Sayeda Aisha and Ain Al-Sira cemeteries. Salah moves away to look after his job, and other residents arrive who are reluctant to talk to strangers. A man and his wife who live in one of the cemeteries appear tired of researchers and journalists asking questions. "We have nothing to say," they commented. Yet there are also other more welcoming residents who have no problem in sharing their views on the government's plans and their actual living conditions. A group of three women sitting by the porch of a spacious tomb decide they will talk, although they are sceptical that it will make a difference. Umm Mohamed, 48, has been living in the cemeteries for 30 years, and believes that if the government wants to move people out, it eventually will. "What we really need is action, not words," she says. "The government wants people out of the cemeteries, so it should provide us with an alternative." Her two sons Mohamed and Ahmed share their mother's point of view. Ahmed, 16, is a dreamer, and his grandmother feels sure that he has a great future ahead of him. As for the younger son, Mohamed, who is only 14, he seems to be more of a player. Behind him in the cemetery area are a couple of truck drivers taking a break. Mohamed's future dreams? He imitates driving. "I want to get a licence and be a professional driver," he says. Both Ahmed and Mohamed are hopeful about the future, though, as their mother says, "I hope our days will be different, because otherwise it is the same story repeated every day." As they serve tea during the conversation, discussion and storytelling continues, and they forget, or perhaps choose to forget, to talk about their living conditions. "Did you know that when the governorate opened streets between the cemeteries years ago, they just removed the upper rooms but paved over the underground graves?" Umm Hussein, who shares another room with the family but does not work in the cemeteries, says that one day people were shocked to see black hair coming out of the ground in the cemetery area, the paving having collapsed into the burial chamber below. Whether or not this story is true, Umm Hussein says that all the area's residents know about it, and it is one of the many stories that the living residents of the area share with the dead, at least for as long as they remain there.
