I write about Cairo a month and a half after leaving, but very much still within it. I start my days with a morning 'ahwa, placing the cup on a coaster made by Nareng, a community design studio aligned with Megawra, where women from the community design and create bags, coasters, and other decorative items. I write about the city in my essays, focusing this term on the 'geographies of debt'.
My last three weeks flew by, as I continued to create their new GIS system. For those familiar with GIS, it is notorious for crashing. At times, I would spend hours fixing a small detail. But this activity taught me not just beyond the GIS I learned in Oxford, but gave me a new understanding of access to technologies in community. I was afforded the paid version of ARCGIS through Oxford, but sadly this was not extended to the team back. Though they did access ARCGIS Pro, and that too due to Africa GeoPortal, the politics of access were laid bare. After some last-minute changes, I was able to compile all the new documents and layers I'd made, and curated and delivered a presentation teaching the rest of the team on how to continue.
Then came a group trip to Saqqara Pyramids, the earliest of pyramids in Egypt. With colleagues, who included architects and conservators, we made the journey to the outskirts of Cairo, passing through what looked like the Palm villages of Oman I had visited earlier in the summer. Then came some of the most beautiful engravings I had ever seen, red, black and blue. I was lucky to be at these under-explored pyramids, tombs, and landmarks with colleagues so knowledgeable about the histories and the craftmanship that goes into preserving these sites- work that my own organisation does (albeit to a more recent time period, the Ottoman-period's buildings). We then visited the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre, a hand-weaving arts cooperative located in Giza. Here, we learned from Ramses' daughter, the most eloquent Suzanne about the importance of community-creation and art work in Egypt where hand-weaving is a dying practice. But Suzanne knew Megawra, and my colleagues knew her. Even in Africa's largest city, these small places of refuge came alive.
As my departure approached, I became increasingly conscious of how much of Cairo I had come to know through the people I worked with. My understanding of the city was shaped not only by the places I visited, but by conversations in the office, shared meals, journeys through different neighbourhoods, and the ordinary routines of working life. I had arrived with a particular academic interest in urban geography and heritage, but found that some of the most valuable learning happened outside the formal boundaries of my project. There is a difference between studying a city through maps, texts, and lectures, and experiencing the ways in which people navigate, negotiate, and care for it every day.