A Walk Through Dokki

"To walk through Dokki" is a statistically improbable phrase. In fact, google is unaware of it having ever been used on the known internet. This may be because generally speaking, Egyptians don't appear to be the most ardent walkers. This is perfectly understandable given the lack of sidewalks, the insane traffic, and the high levels of pollution which give walking the same health profile as cigarette smoking.

When people do walk, they don't come here. Dokki was once an affluent suburb of Cairo, but as rural migrants moved into the district, and the government built hideous concrete towers to house them, the character of the neighborhood changed radically. There are still a number of the old villas, and not all the apartment blocks are monstrous, soviet-era constructions, but the end result of poor planning is that Dokki is not particularly convenient, visually appealing, or pedestrian friendly. Still, as suggested by this blog's title, I like to knock about, so I decided to walk from the Dokki metro stop to the ILI campus in northern Mohandiseen, a distance that is better measured by the number of deadly multi-lane roads to be crossed (three) than kilometers (four).

Despite demographic changes, Dokki and Mohandiseen (Dokki's neighbor to the north and the district in which I live) are still destinations for upscale shopping. This results in the curious juxtaposition of high-end retail with shops of a more humble nature. You might find a Mercedes dealership sandwiched between a blacksmith and a goat butchery. I passed a Bang & Olufsen store exactly like the one in our old neighborhood in Hampstead. In Mohandiseen though, before you can get in the front door to buy absurdly expensive Danish A/V equipment, you have to leap over a ditch filled with sewage, fermenting trash and packs of feral cats.

The odd mountain of garbage aside, individual shop owners (no matter who their target clientele) are fastidious in sweeping and mopping the areas directly in front of their shops; less so the further you move from the front door. To protect their work, they spray the perimeter with water to keep down the dust. Unfortunately, the water runs out into the street, where it collects in the fetid moats described above. It's a vivid demonstration of the tragedy of the commons; one that covers your shoes and gets tracked all over the apartment.

My walk took me past something my map described as a "Shooting Club." I didn't hear any gunfire, but I saw lots of well-dressed Egyptians getting in and out of expensive cars, which leads me to believe that the the Shooting Club is actually an upper-class social club. There are quite a few of these: I'm familiar with the Gezira Sporting Club on Zamalek, which was originally founded to serve the British officer class. I've also heard of a fair number of social clubs; the type in which Bertie Wooster would be comfortable. It's a sad holdover from the hyper-exclusive, hyper-wanky clubs of which a certain type of Englishman is so fond. I honestly have no idea how there's not more class warfare in Egypt.

I can't say that it was a nice walk, though there's an hour or two in the late evening where the sun lights the city's noxious pollution in a pretty way. Most of the time, you walk through urban blight until you reach a terrifyingly busy road. I've mentioned before that my strategy is to cross the street down-traffic from someone who knows what they're doing. I've since realized that this is everyone's strategy, and that in fact none of us knows what we're doing. When you're forced to rely solely on hope and luck, it's impossible to actually develop skills through experience. Actually, there's one thing I've learned that may just save the reader's life: when an oncoming car flashes his lights at you, he's not indicating that you can cross, he's saying: "I have seen you, but don't intend to slow down." He's very serious: if you cross in front of him, he will kill you.

The sunsets here really are very beautiful. I've also read that on a clear day, you can see the Pyramids of Giza by looking west on the Gamaat al-Dawal al-Arabiyya, or the "Arab League Street," which is the main commercial artery in Mohandiseen and is very close to my apartment. I'm not going to put this to the test, however, because I've promised Ms. Chadha that I'd wait until she arrived before I check out the pyramids. Only a few more weeks to go!

I realize that this entry may sounds slightly pessimistic, but I think that only means that it's time for a Cairo break. Happily for me, I've planned just that. Well, not planned so much as intend. I'm intending to go to Siwa Oasis this weekend, which is some 700 km away and is close to the Libyan border. If I leave for Alexandria directly after my 2:30 p.m. class, I could be in the oasis by Friday morning. If I don't post by Tuesday, I have died.