Along the streets in Cairo, Egypt wind always blows. It rarely becomes blustery, but rather oscillates between soft currents and vigorous breezes. Every flat in the city has a clothes line, either outside a window or running parallel to a balcony. Among the tender winds and the sunlight garments dry in an hour or two. It seems there is at least one ironing shop per block in central Cairo, always operated by a man with two or more boards set up, who will expertly press for example six shirts and several pairs of pants for about three U.S. dollars. His son or nephew will then deliver them to your door in plastic for a small tip of fifty or seventy-five cents.

The many floors of colorful clothes lines — and the mysterious women who hang items from them — became for me an essential Cairo image.