on cairo streets, dust collects in huge piles. fine brown/gray filth.
you can stand on these little piles, making footprints, smoking cigarettes.
ive spent my time doing this.
watching the people go by.

the exception is downtown, and the richer areas.
these areas are kept clean.
ive spent my time here too, watching the people go by. the tourists and the hustlers, the beggars with various swellings. the ultra rich, the covered girls who smile at you, the men in dirty galabeyyas .

you can do this, you can smoke, standing on dust.

i smoke while im waiting for the microbuses. they seem to pick people up at dustpiles only. tiny 1.4 liter engines pull japanese aluminium boxes designed to carry groceries and little japanese children through tight japanese streets -- yet here they carry up to 12 people assed up on one another. the assing up isnt bad, and they play egyptian pop music at volume 10 for your enjoyment. its hard to say no - music and a ride is a great deal for 50 piasters (8 cents). thrill too, mind you

the buses scream through the city, constantly thousands in dented white at every possible direction - etch-a-sketch trajectories - uneven speeds - in the background everywhere - loading and unloading women in robes, thick middle aged workers, small families, occasionally some with chickens and rabbits. to stop one, you wave and scream your destination at it as it is going by. it will then either continue onwards, or stop suddenly, veering off to the side. a man will scream something at you about hurrying the fuck up, and then you scream your destination back at him. get in.

the felt of the seats is long gone, but that is far less worrisome than the long gone breakpads, the seething twitching dust covered driver (these men work incredibly hard and for long hours just to turn a small profit) repeating a sunna from the Koran ad infinitum and watching the ground go by through the floor.

the microbuses are the chief reason cairo has the highest road-death average in the entire world - 52 times that of the US. when one of these goes down, the result, in the words of Robert Young Pelton is "a lot like putting a couple of mice in a coffee can full up nails and broken glass, then shaking it really hard."

another factor might be the fact that..

.. .

noone drives with headlights on here.
at night.
yeah.. . thats what i said - noone uses the headlights on their cars.
yeah.. . everyone is driving around all night with no headlights.
in the. ..dark.

the common perception [sic] here is that:

1. headlights use up the battery. (again - why doesnt Mubarak have some kind of national headight awareness day?)
2. its really rude to shine that light in someone elses eyes.

funny, yeah -
and confusing -
people driving around in the dark,
colliding with one another
operating on dubious information
its a good parable
of some type
i think


--


"y'allah, y'allah!"(lets go, lets go)
the man was holding his head, screaming at the driver. blood trickled through his fingers, which were shaking.
"yanni - y'allah!"
they left in another microbus.

the bus sat on the side of the road, in the dust, scraped all along its left side. people were standing around, some screaming at eachother, some silent, some dazed, one on the ground moaning, some whispering. someone had left their bag of groceries in the bus.

i looked down at the dust, at the tiny trail of blood left by the man in the front seat whose head cracked the window. he was the only one bleeding - because of the glass which probably a cheap replacement).

apparently it wasnt that bad.

the wind kicked up for a second, and the little red clots dissappeared as the gray silt shifted.
the street was drinking.

i wonder if people report seeing ghost microbuses, filled with dead people, rusty and hot, trailing smoke. maybe only the beggars see them.

i read that in saudi arabia there were recently rumors among the young.. of women with goat legs dancing in the alleys of Riyadh, singing and dancing and committing other such sins, trying to succor in the weak of faith, presumably into the hands of the devil.

i shut my eyes and try to imagine the sound of a collision
the wind kicked up again.

FLIP

it is over.

i have taken a full month to bash egypt, and the stupid, mindless, hairy, horny, drooling, dangerous, primative, "crudely constructed [human] bombs" that inhabit this overflowing ditch latrine of woe and wretchedness. by now, if you have been following this, you have called your senator and asked for prices on carpet bombing raids and anti arab spray.

now -

everything i have written is entirely true but -
please -
don't believe everything your hear these days.

there are certain people out there who want you to have certain opinion about ..
certain people.

and they dont have to lie to you.

they just have to leave out certain parts of the story

shopping in principal; an amended definition

in the downstairs foodcourt area of a downtown Cairo mall with Samir and Gamel, doing what they seem to like to do most - staring silently at passing women. Gamel is wearing what is apparently his only outfit.

Samir occassionally lets out a "Helwa" (sweet) or a "Gamoosa" (cow) at the passers by - but aside from that, none of us talk. bored, im getting ready to leave.

the table is at the bottom of an escalator going up and another coming down. its a kind of parade of covered women in bright, cheap, trendy clothing, and guys with sunglasses and lots of hairgel. everyone flaunts - its a fashion show - a wierd, sexually repressed/machismo/latently homosexual one to my foreign eyes. most of the guys are wearing the hilarious rip-off mechandise - the ADADIS or NIKIE type stuff ubiquitous all over the poor world. i note that i keep seeing the same people, and then realize that almost everyone seems to be doing laps of the mall - and noone seems to be carrying any bags.

Gamel and Samir are from the distant suburb of Helwan, way out past the pyramids. this is what they like to do with their time - come downtown and.. stare. when i ask them what draws them all the way from Helwan (40 minutes away)

Samir: "so exciting here, fun, so many people, all the musics, the good beautiful stuffs - this the life."

of course, Samir and Gamel cannot afford "the life". they can barely afford the horrible french fry sandwichs (?!) they are eating (french fries are a halmark of urbane living in the poor world. eating them includes you into the world of malls, globo-culture.. . which is an important thing to people who complain about their donkey shitting outside their window) they definitely cannot afford the flashy merchandise or the cell-phones.

the blaring, horrible egyptian pop music and the smell of fried food test my patience. as i am about to stand up and leave, i notice a woman walking by with bags - a thick, heavily made-up woman with expensive and ridiculous looking loose vinyl pants, a baby blue shirt, and orange tinted sunglasses. suddenly i realize that she is the only one wearing the type of clothing for sale at this mall. everyone else is wearing what Gamel and Samir are - cheap, 3rd-rate ripoff merch. she cuts through the crowd easily - everyone is aware of her presence.

its then that i realize that all the people doing laps are not shopping - and in all likliness, they wont be doing any shopping any time soon. only a few egyptians are actually shopping. the rest are like samir and gamel - poor people from the poor suburbs, attracted to the loud, bright commercial space of the mall like moths. with all this time on their hands from unemployment, they circle the mall, window shopping, argueing over which products that they can't afford are better, brushing up on specs of the new Nokia.

we leave the mall and head towards the Nile. tired of their company, I'm trying to politely shake them, and failing.

samir:"cem, why dont you stay at the Nile Hilton?"
cem:"what? my bank account would be done in 2 days."
samir:"oh.. . it costs $185 a night?! you are American, this no problem for you!"
gamel:"that one Ramses Hilton - it $165 for a double"
samir:"or you can go to Marriott - $280, big rooms."

they then listed the exact prices of all of the major hotels, including amenity specifics like cable TV, hot tub. they knew these all by heart, even though all of them were places that would cost them 6 months pay. places they would never be able to afford.

samir:"you try the ritz - this one has big bed."
cem:"guys: my hotel costs $3.00 a night"
samir:"what - you are American?! why?"
gamel:"are you poor in america? you not live the luxury life?"
cem:"luxury life? im not rich. i do have more than one outfit tho, gamel."

--

sitting on the bridge as samir and gamel argue over the price of the Nile Sheraton, i notice a trio of beautiful girls walking across the street.

c:"hmm.. "
samir:"man these are hoookars."
c:"hookers? really? they dont look like it, they look like college students"
samir:"man, I know, i know women, these ones are hookars, they are the bitches"
c:"na .."
samir:"really."
c:"then they look like really expensive well educated hookers. how much?"
samir:"how much? for the having sex with man? only few do it for money. most do it just for fun."

something is going to blow up during the final 10 days of ramadan this year

i took a look at the searches that result in a link to my page. they are kind of like fortune cookies - all mysterious an shit:

the top 5 are:

1. milfs (8)

2. russian nymphettes (5)

3. greys papaya (4)

4. drunk boys fondled (4)

5. captain stubby and meth (!!)


the following searches also sent readers to my page:
dutch clogs breasts

disgustin womans

i was a ten year old gay boy fondled by a gay man

how to make methamphetamines ingredients to make methamphetamine how to cook methamphetamine

argueing over the internet is like winning the special olympics

vietcong sound dampening

pronto shrimp peeling machine

chicken intestines omelet

her massive ass

angry bearded men

recently paralyzed from i need 2003 gay

veiled muslim sluts

russian toenail polish

futuristic leathermen

nice phrases and qoutes



soo - now that i know who my audience is.. .