Shout out to Muharram Bey

If you find yourself asking, "what the hell is Muharram Bey" its okay, that's what this blog is for. You see, I come from Alexandria, Egypt. And specifically from the district called Muharram Bey (much like New York's Harlem or LA's Beverly Hills or w/e). Muharram Bey literally means "Sir Muharram," Muharram (Mu-har-um) himself was an early leader of the city of Alexandria, way, way, way back in the day. He was a beast from what I hear though. He was ruling Alexandria during the 1920s, back when it was still a really nice, clean place. A lot has changed since, but my small district still remains today to honor his name.

I'm writing this post because I feel like I haven't at all addressed my heritage in this blog, and I just quickly wanted to touch on it. This place is awesome, and not just because I was born and raised there. If anything, being born and raised there is what made me so awesome LOL. Anyway, all BS aside, if any of you ever get a chance to leave the United States, consider coming to Alexandria. But NEVER, consider coming to Muharram Bey. Because you will get owned. They don't like tourists. They don't even like other Egyptians, or other Alexandrians for that matter.

In fact, now that I think about it, these people have beef with everyone. Look at them funny and you might have a razor blade making confetti with your face, true story, freak accidents like this happen ALL THE TIME. Let me tell you guys something else. Alexandrians are really, really superstitious people. Its not uncommon to have a missing family member in each household because they were the victim of some "ghost uprising one night." To add to the mix, Muharram Bey is as old as hell. There are buildings there that are only standing because God hasn't willed them to fall yet, I mean this place is FREAKISHLY old. And at night, its so fricking scary I've peed my pants running home at night once when I was really little. Anyway, so this mix of grotesquely old and haunted seeming buildings and the superstitious nature of Alexandrians, multiplies the whole creepiness factor by over 9000.

Another thing, this place is not for the faint hearted. The Middle East as a whole is considered to be a pretty dirty place by most American peoples' standards who have actually been there before. Well guess what, Muharram Bey is like the SLUM of the Middle East. Just last year, when I was over there for the summer, someone tried flushing slaughtered lamb remains down the toilet, and the ENTIRE PLUMBING SYSTEM OF THE BLOCK FAILED. All the roads were covered in fast moving streams of sewage water for weeks. Which in turn caused people, for reasons I'll never understand, to invite themselves to throw all their garbage on the sidewalks, making it damn near impossible to even think about leaving your house. I was sitting on my stoop with my friends one day, when this insanely fast moving van pancaked the shit out of little kitten that was licking itself peacefully in the middle of the road. It remained there for the better part of a month. The smell got so bad, and the carcass was covered in flies to the point where the only way to get rid of it was to drive over it again, until there would be nothing there to rot.

Now, you might be thinking, wow, this place really sucks man. In a way it does. Yes it sucks when the electricity will go out at random times throughout the day for no reason, yes it sucks that we don't get running water except for a short, two hour period during the day, hell yeah it sucks that most of the dogs there have rabies and are about as big as the average sizes lion and can tear a fully grown man into shreds. But, its still my home, and I still love going back there. I love sitting at the coffee shops until the wee hours of the morning with my long- time friends. I love the fact that everything in Muharram Bey is so ridiculously cheap; I can buy around ten pop cans a day and not feel a dent in my pocket. Most of all, I love Muharram Bey because that's where my family and friends all are, and I can always go back there and be welcomed.


My street in Muharram Bey.