I'm sitting in a Costa Coffee in Cairo, writing a poli-sci paper. Brittany Spear's Crazy is playing. I just finished a latte. The man at the next table reads The International Herald Tribune. I could be in the US.
Now there's a child, about 6 years old, tapping on the window beside me. He makes the hand-to-his-mouth gesture that is the Cairo symbol for “I'm starving, please give me money.” The doorman of the coffee shop sees him and shoos him off.
At the mosque across the street, located on the basement level of Rose Land flower shop, Ramadan evening prayers are going on. Whenever the door to the coffee shop opens, I hear a moment of the prayers being played over a loudspeaker. Green rugs are spread over the sidewalk outside. Men take off their shoes and pray. On Fridays, the mosque carpets most of the street. Monday night must be slower; they only take over a few feet of the sidewalk.
The music changes to a techno song I've never heard before. I consider switching to my headphones.
The eight employees stand about, considerably more animated than they were when I last saw them, at mid-afternoon, in the final stretch before iftaar.