Shoubra´s noise, is like music to my ears

This blog and it´s name started of as a dual tribute to the City and Country of my heart, Cairo and Egypt alike. I stumbled upon Michael Slackman´s article on the noisy city of Cairo, and yes it´s noisy, but all through the article all i could think of is the fact that the noice is what makes the city into this fantastic metropolis - This last months most western media has been writing reports about the bread crisis and in every article you read, you cant miss the part about bread meaning aish meaning life. But the noice of Cairo is also life to me - Cairo never leaves anyone without a distinct mark of rememberence. You can never be lukewarm to Cairo, either you hate it, or you love it and embrace it.

The people in Michael Slackman´s article live in Rod al Farag(Shoubra) one of my neighboorhoods, and i love to strawl down Sharia Shoubra or al Terrah at night, one of my small corners in the world is geographically pinpointed between Cairo´s railway station at Ramses, through what used to be the Ahmed Helmy bus station for Upper Egypt and down al terrrah, until you reach Cinema Shoubra Palace , and see the badly painted Mare Girguis icon copy on the opposite side, that used to be the landmark to find Sharia al busta, when i was a kid. This is one of the places i call home, i have my barber on Shokolani to cut whatever is left of my hair these days, (Ahmed Badeir is not my relative). I buy my newspapers at the newspaper stand next to the Rod al Farag subway station and my makwagi will always be Amo Abdu on Tussun. And i miss my substitute grandmother dearly who passed away three years ago, she used to live on the very same street. This is my corner of the world.

I´ll leave you with a clip of a great song, a tribute to all the girls in Cairo from the songwriter, what made me post it is the line about Shoubra wa banat Shoubra, for me it´s more a tribute to the people of Cairo. I was very happy to notice when i watched the Lebanese film ¨Caramel¨ or Sukar banat in Arabic(Youtube clip) recently that the song was part of the soundtrack. The film is directed by Nadine Labaki, and a very good one by the way Enjoy Adi Fi´al Maadi!