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The rest of Cairo
Since I was last in Cairo more than four years ago, the city seems in many ways a more difficult place. There are more people and more cars, more grime and more noise — and more desperation.
While the mall adjacent to my hotel seems a playground for Cairo’s very small privileged class — who seem more privileged than before — the rest of the city is barely eking by. The global financial crisis has hit Egypt’s stock market, but for Cairo’s masses, a crisis was already underway.
Prices for food and fuel rose sharply over the past year. Wages have remained the same. Unemployment is rising. Some people who had scraped themselves out of poverty have slipped back.
One measure of the tough times is a proliferation of street vendors, hawking everything from tissues to flip flops to used household appliances. Mustafa Hussein, 33, sells plastic bags made in China for three and a half Egyptian pounds, or about 63 cents, in Ramses Square, near the central train station. He said business is slower and his profit margins are less.
“This economic crisis has caused people to not be able to purchase things,” Hussein told me. “This bag, which is three and a half pounds, is beyond the means of many people.”
He plays a cat-and-mouse game with police, who attempt to enforce laws prohibiting unlicensed vendors. In Ramses Square, there are hundreds.
“The officer in charge is taking a break right now,” he said. “That’s how we’re able to sell.” He’s been peddling bags and other stuff on Cairo’s streets since he was 21.
“Egyptian people are close to the boiling point,” he said. “They have only one step to go before beginning to revolt.”
That’s something you didn’t hear four years ago.
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