Part 1. The Cairo We Carry Within Us

This section establishes the emotional and conceptual foundation of the book by presenting Cairo as a city experienced through memory, fragments, and everyday encounters rather than official monuments. Moving between personal cartography, cinematic evocation, and theoretical reflection, it frames Cairo as a place carried within the self, shaped by cafés, cinemas, schools, and other third places that nurture belonging. I  argues hat home is less a fixed location than a form of recognition forged through repeated gestures and shared spaces, concluding with an intimate vignette in which modest objects from downtown Cairo become vessels of memory, loss, and enduring attachment.