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National Geographic : 1993 Apr
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Voice of moderation, PresidentHosniMubarak has broughtsteady leader ship to Egypt since taking power in 1981 after the assassinationof Anwar Sadat. Some of his efforts go toward appeasingthe powerful Islamic clergy. Speakingat a book fair in Cairo,Mubarak outraged publishers by failing to inter vene on behalf of a writer deemed blasphemous by conservative clerics. Badran was something of a shock, because so much life had moved into the street. Caned chairs and tables from tiny tea shops crowded beyond the sidewalk, rerouting the mobs of pedestrians that filled both side walk and street. Old mustard-colored buildings were up to four stories taller, accommodating new residents but dramatically darkening the street I had known as drenched with sun. The cramped shops of clothes pressers and jewelers now looked out on a swarm of black-draped countrywomen selling produce in the middle of the street. Their huge aluminum trays were crowded with radishes, celery, cauliflower, parsley, onions, bananas, oranges, lemons, and white cabbages as big as basketballs. Old whiskery men in striped galabias- the long, loose robe traditional in all parts of Egypt-sat cross-legged by buckets of Nile fish on ice and shouted across the muddy market. They spoke in the city's dis tinctive Masri dialect. Strongly accented, this rapid-fire speech sounds like an operatic torrent of alternating jokes and complaints, which it usually is. The vendors were just gossiping. "Ragheb from Asyut, Elhamy's son, is going to marry one of the Saad girls and move in with them," a vegetable hawker confided, in a shout, to her neighbor across the way. "God help them," came the response, with a cackle. "As it is, you can faint in the Saads' apartment and not fall over!" This was often said of tiny apartments that seemed as crowded as any commuter-packed Metro car. "O my fish, you crazy things!" bellowed a fishmon ger-his cry referred to their rising prices and was a warning to shoppers to buy before the price got any dizzier. In a near by street wrathful motorists maneuvered between donkeys and carts of kumquats and legions of children. I had once been among them, living with an overflowing Egyptian family in the Shubra district. Shubra is an industri ous place, and while it was cer tainly dirtier and more crowded than I remembered, I saw no begging. These throngs of Cai renes, whether in school or army uniforms, sneakers or high heels, all seemed to have a sense of purpose. And such neatly barbered heads-in a city of cheap hair cuts even the very poor often looked well-groomed. Only a few days before, I had been shaved in a public park by Sabry, the same outdoor barber whom I had patronized when I lived in Cairo. He had not been a bit surprised to see me show up after so long: He smiled, motioned me to perch on his low wall, and said, "Your mustache is still uneven, Sayyid Peter." Twelve years are less than a heartbeat in this city, where tradi tion holds that Jesus spoke his first words. The city's history is so deep and so many people walk in and out of the Cairenes' lives that NationalGeographic, April 1993
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