Mood Swings:
Curtains for picnics
By
Rana Allam
Back in the early 1990s when I was a college student, my friends and I would go on day trips to the beach or desert, picnicking in the open air. We would make sandwiches and salads, put our drinks and water in an ice-box, pack a big kelim rug and cram ourselves in a couple of cars, or sometimes even hire a bus if there were too many of us. If it was summer time, we would drive for an hour at the most to the nearest beach, be it Ain Sukhna, Fayed or the like. The beach was for everyone, and because of the extensive stretches of beaches in Egypt, it was never crowded. We would pick a spot, any spot we liked, and we would get our kelim, food and drinks out of the boot of the car, go for a dip in the sea and enjoy a day at the beach without spending a penny, except on petrol.
In winter, we would pack the same stuff -- instead of the ice-box, we had a thermos of coffee -- and head for the desert; there was the Maadi desert, the desert around the Pyramids, the Sakkara Pyramid and other similar locations. Those trips were what kept us going.
Nowadays, there is not one single spot close to Cairo where you can go on day-trips like this. Not one. The beaches are closed off, the desert is out of bounds, and outdoor trips are out of the question for students in the low to medium-income range. The only option is a hotel, or if you are lucky enough, a family retreat on the North Coast, Fayed or Ain Sukhna. But that is all you get.
A 21-year-old fresh graduate was telling me how he tried to spend the day with his friends at the beach in Ain Sukhna. "We drove all along the coastline, which used to be free for Egyptians, but we didn't find a single spot," he said. The beach was either hotel property, or surprisingly hidden behind a concrete wall. There is a high concrete wall along the beach close to the water, so that it becomes impossible to take a dip in the sea. After a few hours drive, the frustrated young men turned around and headed back to Cairo.
The Maadi desert, the Sakkara desert, are no more. For some reason, somebody thought it would be a good idea to close off Wadi Degla in Maadi and the desert area around the Pyramids. Picnicking around Sakkara has long been forbidden and forgotten.
A few years ago, we used to go on horses or four-wheel-drives to spend an evening around the Pyramids. We used to have barbecues on a hill overlooking the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Now that too is prohibited. The only thing you can do is go horse riding for a while -- how long can you stay on top of a horse, anyway -- and you have to pass through a gate in the middle of a two-metre concrete wall to get into the desert. After the ride, you head back through that same gate. This wall encircles the Pyramids area, making the whole place invisible from the other side.
The only place where you can actually take a walk in the open air on a hot night is on the banks of the Nile. And what a walk that is. Cairenes from all social classes are present on that particular section of sidewalk. The walk in itself is a health hazard: air and noise pollution from the traffic, enormous crowds, let alone peddlers of all sorts.
So, there is a concrete wall around the Pyramids, a concrete wall separating the beaches from the roads, and concrete walls surrounding people in their homes, schools and offices. "We are suffocating," said a college student. "We are living in a concrete jungle with no space to recharge. And it will not get any better for who can now afford to do a day-excursion at a hotel?"
