Column: Black clouds appear in Cairo

In case you haven’t heard, Cairo is a pretty big city.

“Pretty big” means that the city itself houses nine million people, and the metropolitan area is the 16th largest in the world, home to 30 million people, Africa’s largest.

Basically, it’s massive.
 
Massive amounts of people come with massive problems, environmentally speaking.

The other day I was really excited because the sky was overcast. I thought to myself, “Is it seriously going to rain today?”

The rainy season in Egypt is in the spring, so this made no sense to me.

Then, I realized those weren’t clouds.

It was smog.

There’s a time of year in Cairo called “black cloud season,” and it begins in late September or early October. It’s a several month period in which a literal black cloud descends over the city, and the smog becomes so thick all of the buildings seem hidden behind a layer of what looks like fog, even when you’re walking.

Black cloud season is caused by farmers burning crops at the end of harvest, creating huge excesses of smoke. This, combined with the fact that most people burn their trash here and cars idle in traffic for hours at a time, makes for some mean pollution.
 
Also, factor in the time of year.

As the seasons change from summer to fall and winter, strong winds blow across the Nile River valley, where Cairo is located. Those winds are so strong that the smog becomes trapped in the canyon, unable to rise.  

Of course, it’s not just air pollution that’s bad in Cairo.

Trash is everywhere, and I’m not talking just litter. I’m talking mountains of trash in the middle of the sidewalk, up to my waist, mixed with animal and human feces and sand.

President Mohammed Morsi has declared an initiative, the “100 day plan” of 64 goals to clean up Cairo he hopes to accomplish in his first 100 days in office.

We’ve yet to see anything in our neighborhood, and ours is one of the nicest in Cairo.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to smell clean, fresh air. I’ve forgotten how blue the sky can be. I always see it through smog here.

It’s become normal to me for the water to literally change color when I wash my hands. Everything I touch is so filthy — the money, especially.

Every time we go out to eat here, I think of my mother. I know she’d be appalled by what she’d see.

Slabs of meat hang outside shops marked for sale, covered in flies and bees. Bread stands are set up right next to the highway, so the exhaust rolls over them. Most of the time, when eating, you can feel the grit of sand or dirt when you chew.

My mother, who wouldn’t even let me eat raw cookie dough as a child, would have a heart attack.

I never realized before exactly how sterile America is when it comes to these things.

We are paranoid about food sanitation to the point of near insanity, and we have a totally different definition of dirty.

It’s hard to get used to, the smog especially. A permanent sore throat and clogged sinuses have become part of the deal with studying here.

Don’t get me wrong. The food is delicious, even though I’ve been sick more times than I can count. The city and culture are beautiful.

But the smog?

There’s really nothing I can say to defend that.