And taverns, gambling-dens, and houses of ill fame. And parading the sidewalks, numerous Levantine damsels who seek by their finery to imitate their fellows of the Paris boulevards. This then is the Cairo of the future, this cosmopolitan fair. Good heavens!
-The Death of Philae, 1909, Pierre Loti
Seventy years after Loti was horrified by Cairene damsels strutting their finery, we joined the young ladies outside the Shoe (Gazma in Arabic) store windows on Tala’at Harb and listened. Ooo’s and Aah’s, Bahibbhum’s (I love them’s) and Yu’gabūnī’s (They delight me’s), Awī’s (Very’s) and Kitīr’s (Lot’s and Lot’s). But Cairo’s sewers were overburdened and often overflowing, so strappy heels and open toes were not practical. Better to go barefoot like a Fellah and rinse your feet in the Nile.