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Egyptians dont call the sprawling cemetery at the eastern edge of Cairo 'City of the Dead.' Only Westerners do. Cairenes prefer to call it simply the arafa, the cemetery,. But what better name than City of the Dead to describe the four-mile-long walled necropolis that now houses thousands of families and countless small businesses. The arafa is a necropolis turned metropolis, where the needs of the living have far outpaced the sanctity of the dead. Here, survival takes precedence over superstition, and the impact of overpopulation and overcrowding wears a human face. The cemetery is filled with refugees from Cairo's housing shortage who became homesteaders in a landscape of tombs and mausoleums.


The Arabic scribble on the window says Alhamdulillah
(الحمد لله), meaning "Praise to God" or "All praise belongs to God. However the word is misspelt here. The single letter on the top is probably "bha", but I could be wrong. The scribble is probably the little girl practising to write her first few words.