Cairo: Could Spiderman survive in Cairo — a mega-city bursting at the seams with an estimated 18 million population?
To find a real-life answer, two young Egyptians recently set out on a light-hearted adventure on the streets of the sprawling city notorious for traffic chaos.
For four days, Hossam Atef, a photographer, and his friend Atef Sa’ad boarded the city’s subway, ran after overcrowded and dilapidated public buses, and walked down the windy roads of working-class areas in the Egyptian capital.
“Every day, Egyptians live through such a mix of chaos that they only can handle,” said Atef. “My friend and I one day thought what would happen to Spiderman if he ever came to Cairo,” he told Gulf News.
Atef and Sa’ad decided to go out on the streets with Sa’ad posing as Spiderman.
“We both got on the Metro with Sa’ad wearing a Spiderman costume and I taking photos. At first, people were surprised at seeing Spiderman in their midst, but soon they were happy,” Atef said.
Atef, 21, has documented the pictorial harvest of their journey on a Facebook page, which has attracted many followers in the past few weeks.
“In one incident, some old people thought we were supporters of Al Sissi and kept praying for him and cheering us,” Atef said, referring to President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, who took office in June.
The sight of Spiderman escorted by a photographer on Cairo streets was an unusual one.
In central Cairo, police stopped the pair, searched them and checked their identity cards before letting them go, according to Atef.
Tightened curbs
In recent months, Egyptian authorities have informally tightened curbs on taking photos in public as the country is engaged in a deadly battle against Islamist insurgents.
“For me and Spiderman to get on the Metro without drawing the police’s attention, we had to exercise our minds. Sa’ad wore a ‘jalabiya’ (a flowing traditional gown) over his costume, while I covered my camera with a sweatshirt,” Atef recalled. “Hardly had the Metro moved when Sa’ad removed the ‘jalabiya’ and started to do some Spiderman stunts much to the surprise of people inside the carriage. During this time, I took photos of him.”
Most of the pair’s street fans were children.
“One day, we went upstairs to the rooftop of a building in the [working-class] district of Boulaq Al Dakrour. The building stood next to a school. Once the children saw us, they cheered and called for us to come down. We did. Upon seeing Spiderman on the ground, they surrounded him in joy and chased after him when he tried to run away.”
Cairo ranks among the world’s most populous and polluted cities. Al Sissi’s government recently unveiled an ambitious plan to build an administrative capital for Egypt in an attempt to ease the burden on age-old Cairo by relocating ministries, the parliament and the presidential seat to a new city to be constructed outside the capital, around 60 kilometres from the coastal city of Suez.
“Egyptians are superheroes. Even Spiderman can’t bear the hardships of their daily life or live here for few days,” Atef said. “He could not even bear a shove inside the microbus or the smell of sweat on the Metro.”
