Ever actually been here?

While I'm waiting for the car to pick me up to head for the airport, I read this article in the New York Times about an Egyptian play that's traveled to Berlin for staging.

According to this article, the Egyptian government passed a resolution in 2004 to have the call to prayer over the radio and broadcast from mosques at set times. The ministry would choose the best 30 muezzins, and those would be the voices heard floating over Cairo, one at a time.

You could've fooled me. Clearly this hasn't gone into actual effect in Cairo.

Religious arguments aside, the sound of the call can be quite beautiful. My apartment is high up and not terribly close to any particular mosque. I love hearing the singing floating on the breeze from all over the city, especially during the sunset call. I stand on my balcony and watch the river, listening to the music on the air. A mosque somewhere in my neighborhood has recently added a new muezzin and his voice is absolutely splendid (I certainly can't say that about all the local muezzins).

I'm lucky, though. Some friends of mine live in a building that has a mosque in the ground floor. The speakers are mounted outside the building right outside their windows. Five times a day the noise is deafening; plates rattle in shelves and books skitter across tables. It's awful.

Of course, choosing 30 good singers won't help my friends. They'll just have a more melodious deafening racket in their flat 5 times a day.

On a slightly different note (haha), I was extremely puzzled by this part of the article:
"How especially beautiful it sounded here, where, unlike in Cairo, even the busiest neighborhoods are underpopulated and hushed."

I was confused and thought this guy was an idiot - hadn't he ever been to Cairo? But now as I look at the quote again, I see he's talking about Berlin. Of course, I've never been there, but I can't imagine anywhere as busy as Cairo.

Oh, wait, yes I can. Mumbai. Of course. And I'm sure the Chinese are up there somewhere.