How did I end up…lost in Cairo?

“Does anyone else find these underwear shops a bit…out of place?” asks my friend Marie. We’re walking through the controlled chaos of downtown Cairo and despite the fact that almost every woman we can see wears a Muslim hijab, we’ve already passed half a dozen brightly-lit storefronts filled with fishnet stockings, sequined bras, and some lace ensembles that wouldn’t look out of place in the red light district of Amsterdam.

Marie’s question is directed at me, given that we’re walking side by side. The three boys we’re travelling with walk a few paces behind us, making it unlikely they heard her over the din of the street. When we asked Fatima, the woman who rented us our apartment two days prior, if we should cover our hair in public, she insisted it wasn’t necessary. There are lots of Christian women in Cairo, she assured us, don’t even worry. After a few hours wandering the streets of our new neighbourhood, however, we found that what drew looks and whistles from male street vendors wasn’t our hair, it was walking with men. We quickly adopted local formation, Marie and I walking together, the boys falling into step behind us, obviously intending to keep a watchful eye on the locals keeping an eye on us. We fawned appreciatively over their gallantry and, now leading our five-person troupe around Cairo, proceeded to get us all soundly lost. As it turns out, bravado backfires.

I agree with Marie that, in a country in the throes of a revolution violently pitting the most conservative branches of Islam against liberal facets of society, sexy underwear stores weren’t exactly what I was expecting to use to get my bearings in the Egyptian capital. Making a mental note to use a particularly loud purple lingerie set on a blond-wigged mannequin as a landmark, I guide our group across the road.

Crossing the street in Cairo is not for the faint of heart. Interspersed with the steady stream of cars is a smattering of donkey-pulled carts towering with crates of lemons and pomegranates and entire families balanced on gravity-defying motorcycles. We have yet to see a set of traffic lights in the city, but have mastered getting to the other side by doing as the Egyptians do, raising a hand to slow – not stop – the oncoming cavalcade and striding into the street with more confidence than we feel. In that way, it’s not unlike playing guide around an unfamiliar city. Maybe the boys weren’t acting out of bravado after all – they just didn’t know where they were going.