Behind the Correspondent's Curtain
101
Suddenly I let out a series of oaths in Turkish, Armenian,
English, and a few I had learned in Arabic, that would have
reddened a mummy's face. The first salvo apparently terrorized the little bully; the encore sent him scurrying.
"Yon have learned Arab ways very quickly," Yusef said
admiringly.
Except for the boulevards, tourist spots, and wealthy residential areas, Cairo is foul and smelly, one of the most unsanitary cities in the world. Dates are sold on the streets, black
flies swarming on them by the hundreds. I saw native barley
bread displayed on a tray on the sidewalk, making it easier
for dust, flies, and finely ground horse-dung to settle on it.
The Egyptian fly enjoys a reputation unique among the pests
of the world. An especially hardy breed, its ancestry probably
dating to the time of the Pharaohs, it is almost impossible to
destroy. It is the best-fed (and least molested) fly in the
world, thriving on huge piles of rubbish in streets, alleys, and
on roofs of native dwellings where the refuse of generations
collects.
With Yusef I saw a family of four children and their parents squatting near the gutter, eating a meal of bread and
fasoulia, cooked marrow-beans. The bread rolled to the gutter.
Ma'alesh, never mind. One of the children picked it up. A
little further on, we saw an old woman in a black dress selling
oranges the size of lemons which she displayed on a rag at the
gutter's edge. Within arm's reach was a steaming manure
pile. Huddled against the doorway we saw a woman holding
a filthy infant in her arms, examining his head with nearsighted diseased eyes. She paused for a moment, coughed,
then leaned over and spat. With her fingers, she scooped the
dirt on the sidewalk to cover her sputum, then went back to
her lice-picking. I noticed tiny mounds of concealed sputum
around her. Heaven only knows whether she was tubercular,
syphilitic, or what.
A beggar stopped at the fruit stand, pleading for rotted, flyspecked dates. He was chased away with a whip, accompanied