Stu's visit to Egypt (year 2)
09/11/02
Last night, my landlord took me downtown to Attaba Square. Downtown Cairo. I mean, DOWNtown Cairo. This was "bowels-of-the-earth" Cairo. The kind of
Cairo that you have to take a shower after visiting. The soot and dirt and grime was surpassed only by the foul stench of the unwashed mass of humanity.
I endured all of this for lighting fixtures.
Our apartment is a typical furnished "flat". Typical in an Egyptian sort of way. Apparently there is no Arabic word
for "tacky". Or, if there is, it translates differently. Ivana Trump's dining room would be described as "moderately tasteful" here. I really have no idea what Ivana Trump's dining
room looks like, but I imagine it to be festooned with golden chandeliers laden with jewels, woven rugs with fox hunting scenes on them, and exotic oil
paintings of Greek goddesses. Don't even get me started on the knickknacks. This is what a typical apartment looks like here except
the gold is brass, the jewels are cheap glass crystals, the rugs depict flowers, and the oil paintings are overshadowed
by hugely grotesque lacquered frames.
So, I asked my landlord, Mr. Adl, for permission to replace some of the light fixtures with more modest, less
assuming models. I expected some resistance and was prepared to argue for them, but he was extremely
accommodating. He offered to pay for the bathroom fixtures, I think mostly because there are
none currently, just a bare light bulb hanging on the end of a wire. I would pay for the dining room, living room and foyer lights, though.
This isn't out of the goodness of my heart, of course. I am not in the habit of donating materials to home
improvement projects of rental properties. (Although I did install a medicine cabinet in my last place. And I almost
spent two thousand dollars putting wood floors down in an apartment in New York.) But these lights will go with
me. Or I can sell them at the end of the year.
Mr. Adl even offered to drive me to buy the lights. He wanted to get a good price. He knew I would be
overcharged in Maadi, my posh westernized suburb, so we hopped on the Autostrade and zoomed into town. Not
so much zoom than crawl actually. Bumper to bumper traffic, or should I say bumper to bicycle
wheel to donkey cart to knee traffic. The noise of horns and machinery and screeching tires made the experience more claustrophobic
than the shoulder to shoulder sidewalk and narrow alleys already made it. We were submerged in a sea of gaudy
brass and sparkly glass. Wires snaked overhead and underfoot. Every display was carefully accented with just the
right amount of electrical tape.
I finally found the least offensive lighting fixture in the place. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. What I
found is made of metal, dark in color, absent of glass beads, and contains a minimal amount of gold color. Only one
was on display but I wanted two. No problem. Just sit here and stare blankly at each other while we fetch you one.
Enjoy a lukewarm Fanta while you wait. Don't mind the blaring loudspeaker in your ear, just the
evening call to prayer. It'll be over about the time my shop boy returns from China with your light. An hour later I was the proud
owner of uninstalled lighting fixtures.
I didn't quite work out the whole installing process in my mind ahead of time. Perhaps I should have, given my
history of home improvement in this country. (The bug spray smell is almost gone from my pillowcase.) I don't know
what I was thinking. Maybe a friend would drop by for a visit and see my new lights sitting on the table with wires
sticking out of them and say, "Hey, I'm a licensed electrician. Why don't I just have a look-see here and
pop those up for you?" Luckily my landlord offered to send a guy around this week to hang them for me. I am grateful to have
such a helpful landlord. I have lots of pictures to hang. I wonder if he has a can of Raid I can borrow?