Jamming into a microbus

In the crowd in front of Mosque Moustapha Mahmoud I deferred too many times and ended up last in line, again, as people stuffed themselves into the microbus. As I wedged myself into the sliding door, I was unsure there were any seats left and I recalled the spectacle of the previous van that pulled away a few minutes before:  Two guys, unable to squeeze inside by the time it started to roll, clung to the outside, blasé, with their feet on the edge of the inside compartment floor, patiently waiting for passenger-compression to progress as the van edged from the curb and neared a stopped taxi.  The van made its move, veering left around the taxi, and the men were still hanging onto the outside as the van entered traffic and dove into the multitudes.

In my van, once the guy in front of me had squeezed in and turned himself around and seated himself, there was, in fact, just one seat left – the two-foot by two-foot square of floorboard in between the legs of other passengers. Not picky, I squatted, and over the course of a few blocks, I uncoiled. The bus augured through the Ramadan rush hour that precedes the 5 o’clock breaking of the fast, arrived at the 26th of July bridge over the Nile, and plunged further.

From the floor I gazed through the van windows and took in the scene.

Men walking on the thin median, walking between lanes of car traffic for the whole length of the bridge. Who are they? Did they think it odd that they had to find their sidewalk inches away from cars, unbuffered?

A gallabeya-clad old man bikes between the cars, a crate carrying oranges behind his seat painted with orange and green concentric circles.

In the opposite lanes, a blue late-’80s car is stopped, hood up, smoke bubbling up under the stoic gaze of a well-groomed owner. The left side rear-view mirror hangs lifelessly, broken. In the background on the far bank of the river, another dusty cinderblock apartment building where a few tenants have tried to break up the grey by painting their balconies in colors now faded, pale green, dirty pink.

A fat gallabeyeen on a motorbike.

And all the cabs and microbuses coasting by like canoes.

Horns. Someone sleeping on a bench on the sidewalk.

Suddenly some woman in a rear seat of our microbus demands to get off, in the middle of the bridge. Bursts of rancor, but not because the location is unusually dangerous or inconvenient; just because people don’t want to have to get up so suddenly. The request is granted; the sliding door grinds open; the lady jumps out. We resume.

A green pickup truck with its side panels decorated with ’70s-style swoosh decals bumps by, its cargo compartment carrying dark blue plastic barrels. The youthful co-pilot has a smile that radiates freshness.

In front of the green pickup, a blue pickup, also bearing swooshy Evel Knievel-esque decals, this one carrying a stack of chain-link fence sections.

In front of the blue one, a white one, with a giant sawhorse chained down in the back.

Then a tan one with nothing but a spare tire on the roof rack.

Terminus.

 

--December 2002