Even Summer Nights Can’t Escape Egypt’s Economic Crisis

Ten p.m. arrives in Cairo’s Sayyida Zeinab neighborhood with the same dogged tenacity as it does anywhere else, but down the fluorescent shopping streets and in the sidewalk cafes, few people used to glance at the clock. It might have been near bedtime in other countries, but Cairo was practically still waking up.

That was summer in the past, season of sweat, and the city adapted its schedule. Days were for cooling inside, or at least avoiding the sun’s blitzkrieg. Nighttime offered mercy. Though the concrete sidewalks still belched up the day’s accumulated heat, the neighborhood came alive only after isha, the last of the five daily Muslim prayers. The day went on long into early morning.

Not this summer. With an energy shortage prompting the government to mandate earlier closing times, 10 p.m. now brings a dimming to Sayyida Zeinab: metal shutters are down or rolling toward the ground, turning the loudly colored, exuberantly lit storefronts to gray.

Years into an economic crunch that has left the government scrambling for dollars and made life a misery for all but the richest, Egypt is short on natural gas and funds to buy more, necessitating daily countrywide blackouts until a few weeks ago.

So, starting in July, orders came from on high: To save electricity, stores must close by 10 p.m. and cafes, restaurants and malls by midnight, slightly later on weekends. Only groceries and pharmacies are exempt.

Wealthy Cairenes in the sprawling suburbs can go from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned malls, or even send their doormen on errands. In the cramped, churning traditional areas of central Cairo, that option does not exist.

“If you go out to shop during the day, you’ll boil yourself,” said Hind Ahmed, 51, who had gone with a friend recently to pick up clothes from a tailor after evening prayers at Sayyida Zeinab’s landmark mosque. “But we end up having to roast, because the stores close early now.”

Her friend Wafaa Ibrahim, 46, barely goes out anymore anyway, late opening times or no. She cannot afford to.

“The minute I run out of money, I lock myself up at home,” she said. “Now I don’t go out shopping because I don’t want to depress myself.”

By that point, it was well past 10 p.m., and signs of halfhearted compliance were appearing. In recent weeks, one shopkeeper who was closing up explained, the police had been driving down the main streets every night, enforcing the order.

No power can mute Cairo entirely. But the volume was uncharacteristically low, the shoppers dwindling even as motorcycles and tuk-tuks blared down the street.

In some ways, the stillness matched the country’s gloom. The all-night hustle of working-class neighborhoods like Sayyida Zeinab, the mahraganat tunes that blare from tuk-tuks and the dazzling displays of nuts and candies can make for a misleading, if jaunty, facade.

Teenage girls peek at windows full of clothed mannequins. Mothers in loose abayas shop for children’s sneakers, their sons and daughters occupied with cups of cold mango-topped pudding. Cafe tables colonize part of the street, lorded over by men who suck at water pipes and nurse coffees until late.

Tourists marvel at the shimmying street, at Egyptians’ famed friendliness and broad humor. But locals say they joke to cope with what they cannot change.

“Egypt is a graveyard,” said Saied Mahmoud, 41, who works from noon until closing time in his father’s small, wedge-shaped clothing shop near the mosque. “Everybody is dead on the inside. They’ve surrendered; they’re down. What you see in front of you is dead people walking.”

He earns barely enough for food, rent and bus fare after years of soaring prices, even if inflation had cooled somewhat in recent months, he said. Like many overeducated, underemployed Egyptians, he cannot find better work despite his master’s degree in business. Marriage? He could only laugh at the thought of what a wedding, wife and children would cost.

It was only getting worse, he said: Despite his sly attempts to stay open past 10 (shutter partly closed, lights dimmed), customers were hardly coming anyway, either driven away by the rows of shut shops or unable to afford new clothes.

Having to close earlier “just made muddy water even muddier,” he said, using an Egyptian expression meaning things had gone from bad to worse.

Since coming to power in a 2013 military takeover, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has promised prosperity for a new, improved Egypt. For most Egyptians, however, most of the past decade has been a downward spiral.

Despite recent infusions of cash from international investors and lenders that have stabilized the economy, analysts say the country may face a new crisis unless it makes major changes.

Though Egypt says it has expanded welfare programs, the most recent official statistics say just under 30 percent of Egyptians live in poverty. But that was before the pandemic and the most recent economic crisis. And International Monetary Fund bailouts have forced the government to cut bread, gas and electricity subsidies vital to many poor Egyptians.

Just last month, Egypt increased electricity prices again.

That means even more of a squeeze for Ahmed Ashour’s barbershop, named for the Yugoslav statesman Josip Broz Tito. Usually, he stays open from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. all summer: It is so hot out that men’s skin gets inflamed if they come for a shave during the day, he explained. Besides, he has a day job from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Finance Ministry — he cannot make ends meet without both.

Side streets, including the one where Tito stood, seemed to escape enforcement of the government order. But the main streets’ early darkening meant fewer people around, period. Between that and customers’ thinning wallets, Mr. Ashour estimated that he had lost 70 percent of his business during the economic crisis.

Customers from around the neighborhood used to drop by for a haircut and stay for hours, he said, hanging out on his worn black chairs with endless cups of coffee and tea. Now they said quick hellos on their way to their own second or third jobs.

People had the new school year to pay for, summer vacations and the ever-rising cost of practically everything. “A man will consider other stuff, he doesn’t pay attention to how he looks,” he said, though he noted that some customers had learned to cut their own hair at home.

“There’s a point where we can’t continue like this,” he said, his forehead dewed with sweat even at 11 p.m. “It’s as if we’re hanging ourselves.”

In a nearby alleyway, Hosni Mohammed, 67, was closing up the optical shop where he earned a small salary. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., he said, almost nobody came in these days.

“Someone taught me that business falls asleep, but never dies completely,” he said, trying to take the long view. “Just like Egypt. It gets tired, but never dies.”

Emad Mekay contributed reporting.