Over the last 24 hours, I've witnessed the two extreme living situations that exist in Cairo - the very wealthy and the very poor. The dichotomy is striking and actually a little scary. Don't get me wrong - I love Cairo for all its frustrations. Although sometimes the heat, the dust, the crowdedness, and the nonstop honking of the cars can get to me, I love this city: the friendliness of its people, its weirdly twisting and broken sidewalks, the breeze as you walk the bridge across the Nile, and the way the call to prayer echoes tinnily through the streets everyday. Regardless, I can't help but acknowledge the huge disparity in the circumstances of Cairo's people.
Last night, I went with the rest of the group to the Four Seasons Hotel located right on the Nile to watch the Uruguay-France soccer game. This place was incredible - we watched the game outside on a deck overlooking their pool (I think we were about 6 stories up) on two of at least 10 TVs lined up in the same area. We watched the game and ate their delicious food and drank fancy drinks on plush sofas. The whole experience was amazing in its luxury (although the game could have been better... it ended up a 0-0 draw).
Today was packed - 4 hours of class in the morning (actually discussing poverty and extravagance in Cairo, fittingly enough for the purposes of this post), then we left almost immediately for Ana Al-Misri (an NGO that I volunteer at). This was our first day of work there, where we will be playing with and interacting with children who used to live on the streets of Cairo. The place was about to explode with enthusiasm for our presence. As soon as I walked into the introduction/reception room where the kids were waiting, one bold girl named Khalud came up, took my hand, and led me to a seat next to her. As we walked to the arts and crafts room 20 minutes later, not only did Khalud have me by the hand, but so did another girl and a third was clutching my waist and steering me through the halls from behind. Though we were only at Ana Al-Misri for a few hours, we certainly felt as much love as we could take from these kids and left both exhausted and exhilarated. Afterward however, we started to realize the sadness of the situations that many of these children had come from as we shared stories from the day. We all received notes from the staff about children we shouldn't touch or carry because they had had negative experiences in the past with abuse, and we saw some children (new to the center) who grabbed 10 pieces of cake to hoard, because they were so used to the concept of meals being few and far between. The experience was certainly fun and exciting, but also very thought provoking, especially when compared to the lavish way I'd spent my evening yesterday. At this point, I certainly haven't come to any conclusions or insights about the intense class stratification in Cairo, and such probably won't come until later in the trip (or at least until I have caught up on sleep some).
The night ended with a few of us watching the US-England soccer game in a koosheri restaurant near our apartment, which was fun if a little awkward - the workers in the restaurant thought our cheering was hysterical and actually recorded us watching the game at one point. Most Egyptians root against America, but there is one country that all Egyptians are united against in terms of soccer - Algeria, so it will be very interesting to see who they support when the US plays Algeria in a few weeks!
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