Crying babies ... barking dogs ... ringing cellphones ... swerving taxis ... all are free to do their thang in Cairo, land of freedom. Mosquitoes fly unmolested through the hole in my screen; my landlord doesn't have the heart to turn them away. Kids play in the street after dark or on the cement pile at the construction site. Overstaffed soldiers loaf luxuriously at their suburban patrol posts. Fried-chicken lovers toss the bones where they may. Even my own puppy craps freely in the planter in front of our apartment building, unless the boab is around.
--November 14, 2001