Why Vicinity is Called Garden City

Garden City: Today, Friday, the first day of Egypt's weekend, I could feel a bit more why the area is called Garden City. It just has a different feel without all the traffic swarming through it. Garden City is most notable for its curved streets. It was originally designed by the British to surround the British embassy in Egypt. Now there are many other embassies in the area. This is a Cairo neighbourhood that once housed the elite of 1930's and 40's Egypt. It is considered, to this day, an upper class place to live. The Vatican in Rome owns the biggest portion of land in Garden City and houses the Mère de Dieu School for Girls. I walk by it every time I go to the small shops close to Kasr el-Aini Street.

Clean Up: No doubt because it's Friday, men were sweeping the streets with palm branch brooms, sometimes using a piece of cardboard for a dustpan. I've seen garbage collected all through the week, once even by a horse-drawn cart. Today, a garbage truck could park right in front of the apartment building. It's strange, some days there are many cars parked in front of the building, even double-parked, and on others there are few. Of course, today is Friday. Tenants put garbage in a chute by the fire escape ladder just outside their apartments. Many times the bags are far too large and plug up the chute. Garbage men then come around and push them through.

Role of Women: I took this picture of a woman shopper. However, a young man signaled his displeasure. I was hoping I wouldn't get caught. Richard Engel of NBC News had some interesting comments in: The Arab Spring is Dead -- and Syria is Writing its Obituary, an article posted September 7, 2012. "The rise of religious tensions started in Egypt, where the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood – a Sunni organization –mobilized and easily hijacked the 2011 revolution started by liberals, anarchists, socialists, students, artists and techno-nerds who were joined by millions of the unemployed and disenfranchised. Sunni Islamists, albeit moderate, took over in Tunisia, too." Hopefully, Egypt's ruling Muslim party veers towards a moderate, pragmatic direction.