Smoky prospects

CAIRO, Egypt – This just in – wildly advanced statistical agencies have pooled their lofty resources and finally reached a verdict: Cairo is ... unhealthy.\nIn other world shockers, the Israel-Palestine conflict continues to look bleak, Roger Federer looks good this year, and the new Celine Dion album sucks.\nMiddle East news hub Al-Jazeera recently popularized findings by the World Health Organization that people living in Cairo will be exposed to “20 times the acceptable level of air pollution” per day – the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. The article goes on to stress the general lack of health in the region, seemingly stemming from this air pollution. \nWhich leaves me wondering: “Only a pack a day?”\nThey miss the point. Even skipping over the more top-down political aspects of general health (like economic well-being, access to health care, etc.), the day-to-day life yields grossly unhealthy living conditions. Diet provides a good example: The average Cairo dweller is very poor – as such, the most common foods consumed here are cheap commodities like foul (Egyptian beans), falafel and meat from a grease-dripping shwarma stick – not exactly the healthiest of fare. \nEven the super-rich Egyptians at American University, sons and daughters of diplomats and high-ranking politicians, hound after junk food such as candy, cookies and greasy pizza. Lattes here are made with full cream as a rule, and wheat bread proves a rare luxury. The little things add up – it’s a far cry from the “American college girl” and her default eating regimen of brown rice and grilled chicken.\nAnd then, yeah, there’s the smoking. If heavy smokers back home put away a pack and a half, it’s not uncommon for Egyptians, especially men, to blow through multiple packs of cigarettes on any given day. \nBut cigarette smoke is a blip on the pollution radar; the main contributor is the type of gas used in industrial production. Mazot, the dense residue left over after crude oil is stripped of its more valuable components, emits alarmingly concentrated doses of greenhouse gases. It’s cheap, it’s low quality, it’s readily available – and it’s being used to fuel the majority of Egyptian factories. \nSo the significant idea we can take from such snapshot statistics is not the statistics themselves – “Living in Cairo is like smoking a pack a day” – but how un-shocking real Egyptians would find statistics that shock tame Americans like crazy. American agencies making claims about foreign cities must remember the audience they’re attempting to impact.\nIt’s this difference – the difference in shock value from “Mr. Average Egyptian” and your “White Suburban Mother” – that really tells of these esoteric “cultural differences” that everyone’s so keen on talking about.