All Mod Cons
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Brasov, where we’ve done absolutely nothing touristy in the week we’ve been here. I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle and finishing a book about Sarajevo that I started while we were there. We’re going for long shady walks and catching up on our favorite podcasts. I bought a huge bunch of flowers and spent an hour arranging them. Some physical (and mental) respite was much needed.
All Mod Cons
Five or six years ago, while dining in a Bedouin tent in the Jordanian desert, Lee and I met an Egyptian woman who had recently moved to New Cairo City. She spent that dinner hour waxing eloquent about how much she loved living there, after years in Cairo.
So of course, when Lee and I were in Egypt a few months ago, we took a taxi out to visit New Cairo City, because we were curious. It’s a brand new city that is being rolled out in the desert. Downtown Cairo was proving to be difficult for Derek-the-new-tendon anyway—broken pavements, uneven curbs, too much traffic, too many people. I was happy to go to a spacious mall and walk and walk, pain-free.
New Cairo City was absolutely fascinating—miles of modern apartment blocks, condos, and shiny new office buildings, totally surrounded by desert.
We see these communities in a lot of the places we go. Either a leader decides to move the capital (like Putrajaya, in Malaysia), or a developer decides to build a brand new suburb (as in North Carolina, where we used to live). And suddenly a new community is rolled out across the landscape.
This isn’t what most people go to see when they’re on vacation. What is the appeal of seeing a suburb if you live in a suburb? Most people would rather ooh and ahh over a quaint historical village. I cast no aspersions—I can ooh and ahhh and selfie with the best. But I’ve always wondered—exactly how charming is that perfectly preserved 16th century farmhouse, if you’re the 21st century owner, just trying to take a hot shower, and hoping the internet doesn’t glitch out during the Zoom call with your boss?
We’re currently in an apartment in Brasov’s old town, and while the interior has been lovingly renovated and beautifully decorated, the building itself is definitely a gentrification work-in-progress. From the outside, the building looks a little creepy—not quite abandoned, but mostly empty. The grand central staircase is poorly lighted and we’re both being extra careful on the concrete stairs. The plumbing is a disaster—the shower basically won’t drain. And yesterday the owner messaged to say that we’ll have to vacate for a couple of days next week, because an upstairs renovation requires digging into our walls. Whatever—I don’t mind, as long as I don’t have to clean up afterward. But I’m not really a fan of standing in ankle-deep water while I shower.
Historical communities, while they are absolutely fascinating and wonderful, are not everything. It may be that the people who live in the 17th century village would prefer to have a modern condo, with air conditioning and running water and reliable internet. I don’t know—it’s not a question I know how to ask in any language other than English, but based on the ubiquity of modern living spaces we see under construction around the world, I’d say there’s more than a little demand.
It may be that the charming historical village is too fragile to withstand human habitation. It may be that preservation is better served by moving the people. Petra is a good case in point. Preserving the ancient Nabatean city has required moving the Bedouins out of the area. Seeing where they live now was just as interesting to me as seeing where the ancient Nabateans lived.
Maybe it’s my American-ness, but I like ‘mod cons.’ We’ve been to a lot of cities where some percentage of buildings are peppered with bullet holes or shell craters (mostly recently Sarajevo, which is just—wow). Of course I understand that rebuilding is a long, slow, expensive process, and I totally get the historical significance, the ‘never again’ message that is conveyed so clearly by a broken building, but to be honest? Sarajevo made me itch for some spackle and paint.
This is why the word ‘authentic’ bothers me. Maybe the people who live in downtown Cairo want their city to stay just as it is—I have no idea. But maybe they’d like things to work better—maybe some nice new roads, with more organized traffic & less horse poo. As a tourist, just passing through, it’s really not up to me to have an opinion.
Take care,
Lisa
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