Scoring in Tahrir, digital photograph and text, 2013/2016

It was January 2013 and I was visiting my wife in Heliopolis, Cairo while she was clearing up her parent’s estate after their recent deaths. Down the street was a group of anti-Morsi activists camped out across from the presidential palace demonstrating against the Islamist influenced constitution. 

But more importantly we were running out of hash. Arda called the dealer and he arranged to meet us at Tahrir Square. We met up and as we talked he unexpectedly grabbed both of our hands and made a wild dash, with us in tow, across the lanes of traffic to the other side. As we walked down the sidewalk he slipped the hash to Arda. I thought this was a totally crazy place to be buying drugs, as it had to be one of the most heavily monitored spots in the whole city. So, much to my relief, we were able to walk safely away with our little packet of slim slices of not particularly strong hash.