Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

The first few notes of ACDC’s “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” belt out of computer situated atop a rickety table covered in a colorful fabric probably purchased at the Tent Maker’s Market in Islamic Cairo.

I sit with my shirt off in the coolness of the living room listening to a song and especially a band that epitomizes summer for me. Instead of sipping beer, I am sipping hot tea with sugar while listening the hum of the air conditioner. Not mine of course, but across the way in the next apartment building. The faint noises of traffic and people reach my ears as I sit here taking it all in.

“It’ll always be rhythms, its never gonna die, never gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll ain’t gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll will survive. (Yes it will, haha.)”

This is life in Cairo. It is hot and sweaty, overwhelming and crowded, and mean and dirty. But there is a rhythm to the street that is different than the rhythm of my suburban neighborhood. I can step out of my apartment, say hi to my doorman, Salama, who sleeps under the stairs (think Harry Potter) and immediately encounter twenty people on street all going somewhere. The shops are open selling their goods, the lady sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by her vegetables is talking loudly on her cell phone, and tourists walk out of a nearby hotel. The active hours are different. People stay up later and sleep in to beat the heat; for me its hard work adjusting my circadian rhythms.

There is plenty of pollution here from the dirt on the street to the stains on my shirt from the other night’s downpour (yes it finally thunderstormed here). When not passing trash on the streets, I watch it pass from people’s hands to the ground. However, I am also polluted with something else: people. The crowds here give Cairo its life whether you pass by the doormen that litter each of the stoops of the apartments, try and brave the traffic crossing Qasr al Aini, or walk into a ful and tamiya shop around eleven o’clock wanting breakfast. We are polluted with humanity.

And Cairo ain’t going anywhere, pollution and all. It will survive, it always has in one form or another, yes it will.

P.S. My roommate just walked in and we both commented on how wonderful a day it is temperature-wise. Then he turned to me and said its 95 degrees. We are getting adjusted.