Bricks and Stones

Cairo is a growing city and so, there's a lot of construction. It seems that as big and full as the city is, there's always room to put up more buildings. Construction's a bit different than I've seen in other places. There's no building with wooden beams and sheet rock here. No nails or plywood. Nothing that crumbles or molds in the first bit of flood. In Cairo, in the middle of the desert, they build with brick and sand and cement and metal. Even apartments are built this way. Nothing shoots up overnight, like the insta-partments I've seen in Austin. There's no building that's going to be rushed to make a faster profit. Egypt is somewhat disorganized and this is a factor in the slower way of building, but it also hints at something more. These buildings are made to last. It makes sense that in an ancient city with ruins thousands of years old, the notion of being only a small part of a greater whole, a tiny speck in an entire universe of time would be a natural way of being. That things are built with the understanding that far after we are gone, generations after us, will be people that are still here; these buildings will be used again and again until they crumble to the ground. When I first set foot in St. Paul's Cathedral in London in 2000, I felt this. And most other parts of Europe. This feeling of being connected to a deep, rich history that we are all a part of. It's not something I think that much about in the U.S. Our buildings are young and built without much thought for the future, it seems to me. It's easy to forget about the rest of time and the world and other people with nothing to remind us. There's no way to forget it here.