 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A more humane way
By Fayza Hassan
People of my father's generation fondly remember the horse-drawn caleches which, by the time I was growing up, had begun to disappear from the streets of Cairo, replaced by shiny motorcars. My father often recounted that, when he was a student, he would take the family carriage along fashionable Shubra Avenue on Sundays, thus keeping up with the city's social state of affairs. On some evenings, when the coachman was off duty, my father would drive his older brother to a favourite night spot, where he would wait for him until the wee hours of the morning, bundled up in the carriage, studying his lessons to the light of the brass lanterns. On cold nights, he never forgot to place a warm blanket on the back of the horse, who, he felt, was as much a victim of his brother's roaming as he was.
My father also hinted at many courting episodes taking place behind the back of coachmen intent on steering their horses on a safe path, but sadly, I was born too late to experience such exciting flirtatious encounters. None of the young people I knew would have dreamed of being seen crossing Qasr Al-Nil Bridge in a horse-drawn carriage; nor would my mother have taken kindly to this nod to nostalgia. Actually, I remember her telling us that caleches, a charming feature of the Cairo of her youth, had become little more than flea bags; riding in them was simply an occasion to catch a mass of exotic diseases.
Caleches for hire remained popular for a longer time in Alexandria, however, where housewives preferred this mode of transportation to go to market, while mothers kept their young children quiet during the long afternoons by taking them for carriage promenades along Sultan Hussein Street, the Greek quarter or the Corniche, a very popular venue in summer.
In those days, the coachmen were proud of their carriages, which they kept in tip-top condition, and of their beautifully groomed horses, jauntily shaking their carefully plaited manes, craftily threaded with ribbons and bells.
When my older daughter was a little more than a baby, I took her on short caleche spins for a treat and, once she had been invited to sit next to the coachman, it became an every day occurrence, which began with the preparation of a little bag in which lumps of sugar, carrots and assorted treats for the horse were placed, and ended with the presentation of the offerings to the gentle animal. From that time on, my daughter learned to love and respect animals, sentiments that she was careful to pass on to her own children.
Nowadays there are no children riding caleches, and quite rightly so; the infernal Cairo traffic is a potent deterrent to environmentally-conscious parents. What amazes me, though, is that one sees every day, right in the middle of Cairo, a number of such relics from a more genteel past, in an advanced state of disrepair, drawn by exhausted and starved animals, weaving their way between trucks, buses and cars, to take, at great risk, groups of boisterous tourists from one fashionable hotel to the other. Reckless coachmen whip their horses for all they are worth, heading for the strip of corniche which links the two Hilton hotels to the Semiramis Intercontinental and the new Shepheard's, compounding the already high chances of accidents at this particularly dangerous crossing. The badly-shod horses slip on the asphalt, but get whipped even harder for having missed a beat. On particularly busy days, the caleches are driven against the flow of traffic, thus jeopardising both the lives of the occupants of the carriage and the oncoming motorists. Last week, a horse dropped in front of one of the five-star hotels, probably from exhaustion, maltreatment or overcome by the traffic fumes. Is that really the kind of spectacle we wish to treat tourists to?
The excuse for shooting dogs and poisoning cats in broad daylight is that municipalities lack the means to contain the stray animal population in a more humane way. Parents are assumed to be able to explain to their dismayed children why harmless creatures are being murdered needlessly in front of their eyes. It may be argued that this is all part of the Egyptian experience, but horses and donkeys, on the other hand, are tools of the trade, badly needed by their owners, who should know better than literally whipping their beasts to death.
Our record in the care of domestic animals is already irremediably blemished by the sight of the zabbalin's worn-out donkeys, straining over slippery bridges to later ply the streets of Maadi and other residential quarters, drawing glances of pity or flippant comments from observers who cannot fathom why we do not give a minimum of attention to creatures from which we exact so much service.
The truth is that, in a mega-city like Cairo, boasting modernist aspirations and striving to attract international tourism, our brutal treatment of animals is far from being to our credit. It is time that the Cairene caleches were removed to Luxor or any other more appropriate location, where less horrified tourists will be able to enjoy a quiet, pollution-free drive by the Nile, while those responsible for garbage collection stop congratulating themselves on their achievements and invest in a few small trucks, putting their abused donkeys to well-deserved pasture.
