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Childhood eludes Cairo's 'lost boys'
Ahmed knocks.
What will he need today?
"Mister, can you give me 5 pounds for a shirt?"
"Mister, 20 pounds for the hospital."
"Mister, OK, OK, 3 pounds, only 3 pounds for bread."
Every day is a knock and a dance with Ahmed's desperation.
When the door opens he slips into the kitchen and sits, waiting for the supper he knows you've wrapped in a bag, plying his charms. He'll try a trick or a joke, but sometimes he's tired and doesn't say much. He sells baskets in the street. He sleeps under a cart or behind the gates of an abandoned villa in a garden grown ragged and wild.