The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

During the Holy Month of Ramadan, we start remembering those we haven’t seen in a long time. We decide that it’s time to see all our friends and family, and reunite with those we’ve missed. Amid the many “We must have Iftar together” that are fated for failure, there are a number of gatherings that warm our hearts long after the Holy Month is over. Something we may forget though, is extending that same generosity to our neighbours.

This year, Orange is reminding us of how important our neighbours are to us, and show us that despite our possible differences, there are a lot of things to appreciate about them. The neighbourhood feel is something that may have been lacking a bit in recent years, but it’s about time we work to regain it.

What we particularly like about the ad is the sort of two-faces we see of the stars with their neighbours. It seems that before Iftar, our crankiness gets the best of us, and we only see the negatives in our next-door residents. However, after Iftar, we start to see the good they bring, the nice things they do for us, and we actually realise how much we are thankful to have them as neighbours, and how much we appreciate their presence in our lives.

Orange draws on that concept, as they believe that your neighbour is the closest to you, yet you make them the furthest from you. For some reason, we shut ourselves inside our houses and reject any deep communication with our neighbours. We, as Egyptians, have always been known to have strong ties with our neighbours, so why are we letting that go now?

So we’d like to thank Donia Samir Ghanem, Hend Sabry, Dhafer L’Abidine, Hossam Ghaly, Nicole Saba, and Mohamed Mounir for reminding us of how important our neighbours can be. And finally, can we ever get “Gary ya Gary” out of our heads? Think it’s easy? Well, check out the video and tell us if you change your mind.