City of the Dead

26 September, 2016

Movenpick Hotel, Giza

Yesterday, we drove by the City of the Dead in Cairo. This is a massive cemetery, started when the Arabs conquered the City in 642. It has been growing ever since. Here’s a picture.

This is just one small part of the City of Dead. In the foreground, you see hundreds of two-room buildings. Each structure belongs to a family. When a family member dies, they are buried in the “house”, which functions as a mausoleum.

For many years now, people have been living in these structures. People who have emigrated from the countryside, or who have been displaced from somewhere else in the city, or those who simply have no where else to go, live here. It is a real “city” within a city.

Remi, our local tour guide and fixer was asked whether his family had a mausoleum in the City of the Dead. He said that they did.

This raised the question: If there are people living in your mausoleum, what do you do when someone in your family dies? Remi looked off to the side for a moment. His mouth turned up in a quizzical expression. “We have a gentleman’s agreement with the people who live there. When someone dies, we call them up and tell them we’re coming. They move their furniture and stuff out of one of the rooms, and leave. Then we come in, and have the burial. After that, we call them to say that we are done, and they move back in.”

This seems like a sensible and fair arrangement. Had this been Canada or the United States, could there be any doubt that lawyers and the courts would have been involved? Or that there would have been some attempt to evict the inhabitants? What would that accomplish? If you never visit your family mausoleum, what difference would it make?

“Bread and social justice” was spoken of frequently during the revolution. Food feeds the body, but treating those who have less than you as human beings – that feeds the soul.