102
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
by oaths. He was on crutches, a rag over his head, dressed in a
patchwork of rags. I caught a glimpse of his face. It was horribly pockmarked, and his right eye was a molten grayish ball
ringed with a perimeter of reddish sores. I turned my head.
"Have you thought where that beggar or his family might
live?" Yusef asked. "You will now see. We are almost there."
We arrived at a section in the heart of Cairo known as
Aishash el Tourgoman, a typical Egyptian slum. We entered
a world so completely different from anything I have seen in
twenty-three years as a