Cairo β Nestled among several other cemeteries in Old Cairo, sits the only American Cemetery in Egypt's ancient capital. The plots were neglected for years, overgrown and at risk of falling apart, until a small group of "friends" set to work to save it. The Reverend Andrew Watson, an American missionary, asked Egypt's ruler in for a piece of desert land in Old Cairo for an American cemetery, where the dead of any nationality and any religion could be interred.
His request was approved the following year, and he described the cemetery in his book, The American Mission in Egypt, published in He was buried there himself in There are still trees, and the sun still bakes the ground under them, but in recent years the place had started looking rather desolate. In the late s, when American missionaries and many other foreigners were forced out of Egypt due to domestic political changes, the cemetery was turned over to the Evangelical Church of Egypt, which remains responsible for maintaining it today.
But upkeep has been lacking. The cemetery fell into such disrepair that the U. Embassy in Cairo started advising American citizens to bury their loved ones in the nearby British cemetery. Like the German and Swiss cemeteries, which are also nearby, the British site is extremely tidy. Some of the headstones were as recent as this year.
The caretaker explained proudly that the Americans chose his cemetery because their own, "is no good, and too small. In , retired missionary teacher Jean Isteero went to visit the grave of a friend who had died that year in Cairo. The state of the cemetery upset her, so she decided to do something about it.
She started a small group called the "Friends of the American Cemetery. Jean left Egypt for good earlier this year after spending most of the past six decades in the country.
