The Roof Dwellers

Every day that I teach, I spend my breaks on the 6th floor balcony of our office building looking out onto Dokki St.

The "view" of the "architecture" is like that you see in news broadcasts of third world nations. This part of the city looks so run down, so exhausted. Buildings are unfinished. Their facades composed of exposed CMU, or concrete masonry unit walls. These walls are dirty, beige-grey, and crumbling. Shoddy patchwork is evidence of relocated AC units, windows, or enclosed balconies. Rooftops are littered with satellite dishes and debris. The buildings all look like the same kind of cheap concrete design that haven't been maintained since the day they were erected. The view is of identical ugliness.

The only parts of these buildings that I find even remotely interesting are their rooftops. Inhabited by satellite dishes, tenants, and rubbish, they are proof that space is so precious in this city, very little of it goes to waste. In fact, finding a home on a building is as demanding as finding an apartment in a building. Once home to chickens and livestock, roof tops are now housing entire families, and their living conditions are not much improved than those of their previous, what's for dinner?, tenants.

These homes are simply made from scraps of plywood and block. Some manage to string power lines for lights. Meals are made on a single burner, fueled by a gas tank. While they do have plumbing, their bathrooms are not much more than outhouses. Laundry is strewn in a rainbow array of colors. There is rubbish and debris accumulating in all corners. I sometimes wonder why they don't tidy up and live in a cleaner space, but I highly doubt that if I were living in those conditions on top of a building, it would make a fraction of a difference to me.

I watch the families that live there, trying to understand their way of life. The children run around their "yard" barefoot, chasing balls between the satellites, playing hide and seek between the clothes and sheets hanging out to dry, and playing with buckets or whatever other rubbish is left lying around. The baby takes his first barefoot steps as his parents clap and cheer him on. The mother chats with her neighbors while she hangs the laundry. The father smokes a cigarette as he watches his children play. They're just normal families, living in incredibly humble circumstances.