ABSTRACT
It was about five p.m. when we entered the Cairo apartment building of the family we were going to interview that afternoon. After being asked to enter a tiny cramped elevator by the doorman, our translator, Mo, and I turned down the doorman’s hospitality and took the stairs. We’d already been in one elevator ride in another apartment building that ended abruptly mid-floor … and in the dark (we later learned that the door person found our presence suspicious enough to cut the power at eight and a half floors).
