Mood Swings:
First SARS, now CARS
By
Colette Kinsella
While the rest of the world is getting to grips with SARS, I, personally, am more worried about a potentially-fatal phenomenon occurring here in front of our very eyes, one which threatens, on a daily basis, to wipe out one of the most vital sectors of society as we know it today -- me.
My sleepless nights are caused by CARS -- Complete Absence of Rules-of-the-road-and-far- too-many-vehicles-in-the-city-anyway Syndrome. Statistics show that between 1.5 and three million cars travel through Cairo each and every day. The same statistics also show that approximately half of that number drive right by MY house in the direction of downtown Cairo exactly at midday when I'm trying to get to work, and the other half drive right by the building where I work 40 minutes later when I'm trying to reach my office with lungs, limbs and sanity intact. Really.
Dealing with Cairo traffic is not for the faint- hearted, so every day I steel myself, leave the house, turn left and walk 500 metres. And there it is, lying in wait: the Intersection from Hell. With the concept of traffic lights and pedestrian crossings having somehow been lost in the space-time continuum, picture, if you will, a four-lane roundabout with four adjoining roads, the three-lane road becoming a six-lane highway as those 1.5 million cars (seriously, I've counted them) squash up against each other in the great race for space. Horns honking, engines screeching, the cars whiz by, barely acknowledging the traffic policeman -- who by now has inhaled enough lead to tile the roof of a small edifice -- vainly trying to make sense of the whole thing. Cars on the inside lane plough through the other five lanes of traffic to turn left. Boys on bicycles balancing trays of bread on their heads come within a hair's breadth of clocking in at that great bakery in the sky, as donkeys pulling vegetable carts try to avoid becoming road-kill. Other foolhardy pedestrians, sometimes becoming impatient while waiting for the traffic policeman to manoeuvre his iron lung enough to actually get the traffic to stop, often take fate into their own hands by trying to cross before the cars have halted! Squeamish as I am, I can't watch.
But at least this intersection is equipped with a traffic warden; the road between the underground station and my office is a free-for-all, and there's no other choice but to do some fancy boxer- weaves between buses, cars, horses, that boy on the bike again and motorbikes travelling in the wrong direction.
Now, I have never been one to indulge in paranoia, but after a year of Cairo life, I finally realise that each and every driver in the city, especially the million or so in Heliopolis, has it in for me. They want to cream me into the pavement. Yes they do. But I'm on to them; no expense has been spared in the search for the secret weapon to beat the traffic.
And I have it.
It all hinges on the boy-girl thing we're all so familiar with. Has anybody out there noticed how chivalrous men in this part of the world are? Well, if I had a pound for every time the door was opened for me or my shopping was carried, I'd buy the Microsoft corporation. So what does this have to do with the roads, you may ask?
Well, the role of the male, it seems, is to protect and serve, pay for dinner, carry the backpack and get you to the other side in one piece. And if you can dance, it's even easier. Oh what joy! No more thinking and analysing, judging distance and speed, nor calculating the square root of the velocity and density of the taxi zooming in your direction. The man does it all for you.
You see, in order to fulfil his contractual requirements as protector and bona-fide male, your escort has to walk on the outer side of the pavement at all times. Now try to cross the road. He is required to stand between you and the oncoming traffic, so hop, shuffle and skip, and he's on the correct side of you. A second to judge the moment, he'll grab your nearest appendage (elbow or wrist are preferred) and whisk you past certain death to the safety of the traffic island in the middle of the road. Now to your other side (hop, shuffle, skip), grab the nearest appendage and whiz you across the street. But hey! The bank I want is on the other side! So it's one -- and -- two -- aaaand -- hop -- shuffle -- skip -- aaaand -- skim across the road -- aaaand -- shuffle -- skip -- hop -- aaaand -- reach the other side....etc.
You get the picture.
It's really fun. If you're bored, just try to walk across without him and you'll have him shuffling and back-flipping to get on the correct side of you before tango-ing over. Call it what you will: the Sidewalk Shuffle, the Traffic Jig, whatever. The main thing is that I haven't lost an escort yet, (thankfully -- I hate the sight of blood) and I can do my transcendental meditation during peak-hour traffic.
So, if you'll excuse me, I have to limber up before going to the supermarket.
