Pavements and institutions
Submitted by mostafa on Mon, 2005-05-16 17:41If you look at segment of a pavement in the street. You will come to a similar conclusion like mine; Pavements mirror the state of Egyptian institutions.
Each segment is being swept and kept clean by a Kanas. Everyday, in the morning, he sweeps pieces of paper and cigarette butts. Finishes a segment and moves to the next. Regardless of his work, the pavement is still as ugly as it was. Still very dusty and looks awful. Every month a group of workers come to fix this pavement. They apply a layer of white and black paint. It will look fresh and bright for one day. The next day, it will look as it used to; poor and ugly. It is the shoddy structure of the pavement which is full of damages and dents that collects dust and dirt very quickly.
The pavement helps very few people. But will be a bad experience for almost everyone. Only few pedestrians use it to walk from one point to another. It is not accessible, it changes sizes and dimensions every few segments and follows no set of rules. For a blind man a pavement might be his worst nightmare. For an old man, it is a mountain to climb, the thought of it sends pain all over his arthritic joints. For a lively kid, it is the place to decorate his knees with wounds. For a toddler, it is exercise in pulling his arm out of its socket, as his mother pulls him upwards every few minutes so he can avoid hurdles.