City of the Dead, Cairo

The Northern Cemetery is to the rest of Cairo what black is to white. Honeycombed with tombs, the narrow streets are car-less and empty. The air here acts as a sponge, soaking up the din that the rest of city is engulfed in. The result is an arid desert silence, clinging onto in each street and corner like mildew on clothes.

Yet here life still finds a way. The homeless and the impoverished make a living for themselves as tomb keepers. The women wash pots and pans with their bare leathery palms; kids patter around in slippers 6 sizes too large for their feet. But say what you will-- this is still their makeshift home, their little patch of the world. It doesn't take a pauper to know Despair, but neither does it take a monarch to rule a land.

The secret to their troubles isn't graffittied in Arabic on the walls; it's written on their faces and you don't need to travel to the backalleys of Cairo to learn it. And though it's untaught in any classroom, it's a familiar sight on any playground. You've most likely seen it in the office pantry, heard it bounce off the walls of a long corridor and been part of it yourself.

It is the language of laughter, and it may be one of the most empowering things we will ever have.

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Cairo has two main "City of the Dead", and the Northern Cemetery is recommended.

This place offers an escape to those who need a break from the endless bustle of the city, for the streets are quiet and the area on the whole seems to live at its own pace. There is an unsual sort of charm here that is enchanting simply because it's so different from the rest of Cairo that stepping into it is akin to discovering another world altogether.

According to my well-travelled Iraqi friend, however, it resembles many other slums in the middle east.

EXTRA TIP: Go with a local and see if he can talk to the swarms of children there and have one of them guide you to a house for a peek at the tombs behind the closed doors.

In the "City of the Dead" on the eastern fringes of Cairo are other structures that feature of Mamluk architecture: the mosque of Farag, the tomb of Barquq , the mosque and tomb of Barsbey , and the impressive madrassa and mausoleum of the Sultan Qait Bey.

Due to housing shortages, overpopulation, and the rising cost of living, the cemeteries have become home to over 5 million of Egypt’s urban poor. They have migrated there in droves turning these tombs of the dead into residences for the living.

this was amazing, we did it with a friend who had been many times before, and was also egyptian. do not do this without a tourguide. due to the housing prblem in cairo a population greater than the population of belfast lives here. you see cables bringing electricity from the mosques to the tombs, washing hanging from tombs, children playing hide and seek around gravestones. you probably will get a small crowd following you.
keep valuables very safe, but it is an excellent experience.

We were 'lucky' enough to find a taxi driver with a family tomb within the City of the Dead - it's a vast cemetry where many people are forced to live amongst the dead in the tombs after a terrible earthquake some years ago (the governements rebuilding plans are very obvious throughout the outskirts.)

Our driver allowed people to live there free of charge, with the proviso that they clean the area whenever the family wish to pay their respects.

I was very humbled my it all; although the people there seemed content and dignified.

I was actually looking for the Citadel walking from Midan El Hussein and ended up on a ring road, after crossing 6 lanes of furious traffic I saw that at my feet was the so-called cities of the Dead. It was the most enchanting afternoon I spent in Egypt, wandering around for several hours.

Cairo has poverty, just as many countries in the world.

In Cairo, there are poor communities that have taken up residency in the old tombs of the buried from centuries ago.

It is eye opening to take a journey through the city's back streets to see how these people live.

Inside Cairo, north of Saladin's Sqare and going to the Islamic Cairo, ther's a cementery used by locals as their home!
The Family's mausoleum are their houses. It's all organized! they even have their post office inside the complex!
It is amazing but truth, living around their deths!