Undeterred by the trek up and down the stairs, she carried buckets with the rest. In the beginning, people used to laugh at us. They called us crazy tree women. People's attitudes changed so much that they started to come and tell us when the trees needed water. From the large balcony of El-Halwagi's apartment, the street looks like a sea of jacaranda trees.
Birds shriek among the clusters of purple blooms.
At different times of the year, different birds come and go. I learned from Safiya that nature has both a will and a way of its own. This is why I tend to favour the English school of landscaping. El-Halwagi, however, has Egypt's specific requirements in mind. What we need here is a desert-scape.