Life in Maasara

My roommates and I are now living with a conservative Orthodox Christian family in the neighborhood of Maasara, a good 30 minutes south of downtown by the metro. Maasara is a "fresh from the village" kind of neighborhood, and poor. As in many parts of Cairo, the streets are exactly one car-width wide as endless rows of shanty concrete-brick apartment buildings, corner stores, make-shift vegetable stands, outdoor markets, and impromptu tea shops form the backdrop to the residents' daily lives. My street is paved for the first two blocks, and then, like all the other streets in Maasara, turns into a dirt road peppered with bits of discarded papers and wrappers, vegetable matter, and fruit rinds.

In such a poor neighborhood, the local economy operates fluidly and spontaneously, as people improvise ways to fill needs and earn some money. Often, this means trying to adapt rural economic survival tactics to this uber-urban setting. So some families nearby keep goats in the alleyways, or roosters on their roofs. Donkey carts weave between the taxis and microbuses to carry fresh produce to sell next to the metro station. At night, the donkeys and goats graze the garbage heap for food—which helps reduce the amount of garbage. So it all works out in a haphazard kind of a way.

I should mention that as a "fresh from the village" neighborhood, it is culturally very conservative. My Orthodox Christian family does not go out past 9pm. They do not allow photographs to be taken of them. They do not socialize with men. And they are VERY concerned that we do not socialize with men, either! They insist on accompanying us everywhere in the neighborhood, even though we are quite safe and well-treated, despite being a bit conspicuous as foreign nationals. Our walls are also adorned with life-size posters of Jesus, a glow-in-the-dark Mary figurine sits on my bedside table, and stickers of crosses are affixed to every mirror, table, counter, and otherwise available surface. Like many Orthodox Christians, they also have a small tattoo of a cross on the inside of their right wrist—children get this done when they are 1 year old. I thought this might mean that they would like the cross tattoo on my foot….nope, no dice. My nose piercing got equally uneasy treatment, but they're so sweet and hospitable that they leave it at curiosity and don't press it further.

The Muslim population in the neighborhood is equally conservative. A much higher percentage than usual of women wear face scarves (Nikab) and gloves, in addition to headscarves and such. As I was walking through the market last night, I noticed that even on a Monday night, all of the mosques were packed for the 8pm call to prayer! Normally the big prayer service is at 1pm on Friday, though some people go to the mosque to do any or all of the 5 calls to prayer that occur every day. All this to say that religious observance is a large part of the culture here, for both Christians and Muslims.
As always, there's more to say about life in Cairo, but I'll leave you here since this postis quite long already. But for now, here's a small update and a big "I miss you" from Maasara, Cairo.