Egypt - an education - part 3
OK - more observational commentary:
There must be, and actually are some modern (cement and fired brick) buildings in the cities' downtown bushiness districts and tourist (hotel) areas, on the whole though in the multi million populated Cairo as well as other cities, the people live in hovels (the worst parts of Harlem in NY are in better shape). The buildings are still mostly built from mudd bricks and in various stages of construction or collapse. Our tour guide did point out that their tax structure is such that until the building is not whole and complete, no property taxes are levied on it. No wonder that most of the drab buildings have people living on the ground floor and a story or two above, and over them, bare, partial mudd brick walls stare into the skies threatening collapse at any time as if they had just recently survived an earthquake. These unfinished buildings are not of recent construction, they are not 5 or 10 years old, but generations of families have been living in them. The situation in the countryside is perhaps even more pitiful where, next to the dilapidated mudd 'buildings', people and donkeys together live in lean-tos made of reeds or palm fronds.
"Where is Mosses to demand: 'Let my people go!' in this land of laboring peasants and makers of mudd bricks - that hasn't changed in 5 thousand years?"
The sanitation in the cities, as in the countryside, is something else! The best way to describe it is that they never heard of it. Garbage everywhere - in the alleyways, on the city streets and country roads, market places, parks, railroad stations, canals, etc. (exception is strictly where tourists stay - there it is beautifully landscaped with palms, shrubbery, green grass, and flower beddecked bougainvilleas and oleanders). The water canals that are everywhere are virtually an open sewer system into which stores, households, etc., routinely dump all their garbage. Someplaces (where bridges over them are low) the wind piles up the non decomposable refuse into a big floatable mass of plastic bottles and wrappers as well as dead animals. On two separate instances I observed same - once a dead cow, another time two dead horses in stages of advanced decomposition - and no vultures, hyenas or crocodiles anywhere to naturally dispose of same, only flies. Not far from there children were playing and swimming, and nearby a woman was washing clothes in that canal.
By the way, since the Asswan dam was built, there are NO crocodiles or hippopotamuses left in Egypt in the river Nile below the Nasser lake - and above it is already Sudan.
More in the next installation.
Ata
There must be, and actually are some modern (cement and fired brick) buildings in the cities' downtown bushiness districts and tourist (hotel) areas, on the whole though in the multi million populated Cairo as well as other cities, the people live in hovels (the worst parts of Harlem in NY are in better shape). The buildings are still mostly built from mudd bricks and in various stages of construction or collapse. Our tour guide did point out that their tax structure is such that until the building is not whole and complete, no property taxes are levied on it. No wonder that most of the drab buildings have people living on the ground floor and a story or two above, and over them, bare, partial mudd brick walls stare into the skies threatening collapse at any time as if they had just recently survived an earthquake. These unfinished buildings are not of recent construction, they are not 5 or 10 years old, but generations of families have been living in them. The situation in the countryside is perhaps even more pitiful where, next to the dilapidated mudd 'buildings', people and donkeys together live in lean-tos made of reeds or palm fronds.
"Where is Mosses to demand: 'Let my people go!' in this land of laboring peasants and makers of mudd bricks - that hasn't changed in 5 thousand years?"
The sanitation in the cities, as in the countryside, is something else! The best way to describe it is that they never heard of it. Garbage everywhere - in the alleyways, on the city streets and country roads, market places, parks, railroad stations, canals, etc. (exception is strictly where tourists stay - there it is beautifully landscaped with palms, shrubbery, green grass, and flower beddecked bougainvilleas and oleanders). The water canals that are everywhere are virtually an open sewer system into which stores, households, etc., routinely dump all their garbage. Someplaces (where bridges over them are low) the wind piles up the non decomposable refuse into a big floatable mass of plastic bottles and wrappers as well as dead animals. On two separate instances I observed same - once a dead cow, another time two dead horses in stages of advanced decomposition - and no vultures, hyenas or crocodiles anywhere to naturally dispose of same, only flies. Not far from there children were playing and swimming, and nearby a woman was washing clothes in that canal.
By the way, since the Asswan dam was built, there are NO crocodiles or hippopotamuses left in Egypt in the river Nile below the Nasser lake - and above it is already Sudan.
More in the next installation.
Ata
posted by Okorn Family at 2:33 AM
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