The First Rains of Cairo
1 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Thursday, October 18 at Thursday, October 18, 2007.
It started raining lightly on Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning it was pouring down, complete with thunder and lightning. Rain is one of those things, like public drunkenness or rolling around in lush green grass, that is appreciated on a completely different level when experienced through the lens of Cairo: fleeting and weird, totally out of place, and no-one is really prepared (or dressed) for it.
When it rains in Alexandria, it really comes down, reminiscent of a good old fashioned winter storm in Australia - springing out of nowhere, intense and loud and all-encompassing. It is a regular enough occurrence that you can tell the Alexandrians are kind of accustomed to it - windscreen wipers flip on, umbrellas pop up, people take shelter under balconies and awnings.
Nothing like this happens in Cairo, where the rainy season is as fleeting as the three-week period in August when the streets fill with piles of beautiful meshmesh (apricots), only to disappear again just as quickly. It rains maybe six times a year here (I might be horribly wrong on this, but it feels that way) and the reactions to it are priceless.
First up, whole intersections just flat-out flood, filled with water half-way up the side of the average car wheel. Instead of drains, out here in expat-friendly Maadi you see a guy with a truck, complete with huge cylindrical storage container and pump. He drives to the flooded intersection, puts a big tube into the giant puddle and just sucks the water up into the tank. It takes a while, but it works.
Drivers seem to use their windscreen wipers sparingly, much like the way they use their headlights at night, flashing them on and off for quick, almost completely inneffective five-second bursts. People walking around on the street shrug the rain off with indifference, although when it first comes, everybody looks to the sky at once, holding their gaze for a few seconds as if a shiny, never-before-seen kind of UFO is hovering above.
One of the cutest things I have ever seen and heard in my entire life happened right at the start of my first ever rain in Cairo, sometime around this time of year in 2004. A strange yellow-green, apocalyptic kind of light was suddenly everywhere, and you could almost feel the difference in the consistency of the air, even indoors. It felt like maybe the End Time was approaching, or at least a Great Flood or whatever.
All of a sudden I heard that pitter-patter noise that had hounded me constantly for the previous year in Ireland. I thought I never wanted to see rain ever again! But this time it was new, weird, special, out of place, and I ran outside to surround myself with it.
As I made it outside, I saw a gaggle of tiny little Egyptian girls, looking unbelievably cute in their puffy rain jackets and rubber boots. They were skipping round in circles together, singing a song in Arabic to the same tune as "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring". I still remember them whenever it rains here, which is rare enough that it puts a smile on my face every single time.
When it rains in Alexandria, it really comes down, reminiscent of a good old fashioned winter storm in Australia - springing out of nowhere, intense and loud and all-encompassing. It is a regular enough occurrence that you can tell the Alexandrians are kind of accustomed to it - windscreen wipers flip on, umbrellas pop up, people take shelter under balconies and awnings.
Nothing like this happens in Cairo, where the rainy season is as fleeting as the three-week period in August when the streets fill with piles of beautiful meshmesh (apricots), only to disappear again just as quickly. It rains maybe six times a year here (I might be horribly wrong on this, but it feels that way) and the reactions to it are priceless.
First up, whole intersections just flat-out flood, filled with water half-way up the side of the average car wheel. Instead of drains, out here in expat-friendly Maadi you see a guy with a truck, complete with huge cylindrical storage container and pump. He drives to the flooded intersection, puts a big tube into the giant puddle and just sucks the water up into the tank. It takes a while, but it works.
Drivers seem to use their windscreen wipers sparingly, much like the way they use their headlights at night, flashing them on and off for quick, almost completely inneffective five-second bursts. People walking around on the street shrug the rain off with indifference, although when it first comes, everybody looks to the sky at once, holding their gaze for a few seconds as if a shiny, never-before-seen kind of UFO is hovering above.
One of the cutest things I have ever seen and heard in my entire life happened right at the start of my first ever rain in Cairo, sometime around this time of year in 2004. A strange yellow-green, apocalyptic kind of light was suddenly everywhere, and you could almost feel the difference in the consistency of the air, even indoors. It felt like maybe the End Time was approaching, or at least a Great Flood or whatever.
All of a sudden I heard that pitter-patter noise that had hounded me constantly for the previous year in Ireland. I thought I never wanted to see rain ever again! But this time it was new, weird, special, out of place, and I ran outside to surround myself with it.
As I made it outside, I saw a gaggle of tiny little Egyptian girls, looking unbelievably cute in their puffy rain jackets and rubber boots. They were skipping round in circles together, singing a song in Arabic to the same tune as "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring". I still remember them whenever it rains here, which is rare enough that it puts a smile on my face every single time.
Nice posting man!