The other day I took my broken blender for repair to the bustling shop where I’d purchased it last year. I handed the plastic pitcher to the man at the maintenance desk, and showed him the problem with the gasket holding down the blade, and with the blade itself, which had dulled considerably. While he checked it, I noticed other people’s blenders on the counter, or more specifically, how dirty they were. We’re not talking a hasty wash job, a speck or two of vegetal substance, but thick accretions resulting from countless careless rinsings, entire realms of bacterial life. Startled, I re-examined my own blender and must confess that, while it was practically antiseptic compared to some of the other specimens, it was nonetheless not what you might call clean.
But clean is a relative, not absolute, condition, especially in Cairo: subject to factors ranging from sandstorms and water shortages to the cleaner’s eyesight, stamina and mood. However exacting the householders, the desert dust will eventually defeat them and many see the wisdom in not putting up too great a fight. My blender suggested I’d joined the ranks of the wise.
