I’m guessing that the richest person in this part of the world is the one who has the sun glasses franchise. There’s lots of sand obviously, and lots of sandstone, again, obviously and limestone (not so obviously). Consequently the vast majority of buildings and most of the ground replicate the colour range of the late great Richie Benaud’s jackets – white, off-white, ivory, cream, beige, tan etc. That’s one for the cricket fans. The point of this being that the glare is ubiquitous. The only respite, apart from night is the occasional patch of green which, if it’s not a football pitch is a fig orchard (if that’s the correct terminology). Grass is so rare it could be a tradeable commodity. That’s couch type grass not mary jane.
On the drive west from Alexandria out to El Alamein we passed countless well appointed holiday homes on the north i.e. sea side of the road. Either sun-glasses-man has a lot of relatives or there is a large middle class in Cairo. On the south i.e. desert side of the road were very large palatial homes (for extended families) built by the government for Bedouins. Not sure if there’s any conclusion to be drawn from this separation so we’ll let it lie. The Bedouins must have been on walkabout and it isn’t summer so we drove past mile after mile of empty houses both sides of the road. Egypt’s lucky it doesn’t have an open border like the USA or the government would be finding people to place in those empty houses although unlike in the USA, it’s unlikely many would come from North Africa. They’re all in hotels in Manhattan.
Driving back to Cairo from El Alamein we must have taken a different and inland highway because there was no sign of life or the Mediterranean Sea or human existence for that matter and the topography was as featureless as a catwalk model’s smile. So much of this place is unlivable its amazing they’ve been able to fit over 100 million people in. I guess you do what all overpopulated parts of the world do and that is stack them on top of each other.
Which brings me to culture and how we interpret the same things differently which is the definition of culture I guess. Someone on our trip made the point that all of the things Egypt is famous for relate to death. The explanation is that everything to do with life – houses for example – were made of things that didn’t survive the ravages of time whereas the oldest monuments to death are pushing a stony 5000 years and counting.
Speaking of death, today’s cemeteries don’t quite have the grandeur of the Valley of Kings but also aren’t quite what we in the west are used to. They don’t comprise a majority of individual plots. In Cairo (and probably elsewhere in Egypt) you don’t have a plot you have a high-walled burial enclosure. We don’t want anyone presumed dead escaping and spoiling the wake, do we? There are three sections in your enclosure; one for the men, one for the women and one for the bones. So when one section is full or you couldn’t be bothered going deeper, you shift someone from the male or female sections into the bone section. Any slim chance you thought you might have had of your fossilised remains being discovered by some robot archaeologist a million years hence, are toast. Ashes to ashes, dust dust. But in keeping with the ancient Egyptians’ providing for their dear departed’s afterlife, some of these burial enclosures come with satellite dishes.