How About This Weather?
Smalltalk backfires to my advantage.
I am really bad at smalltalk. I hate talking about things that I don’t care about or am not interested in, so I am not good at bringing them up.
Now, we all know that when you have nothing to say, you talk about the weather. Well, I was in a cab today for a rather long time on my way to Medinat Nasr, and I brought up the weather. Mostly, I brought it up because I wanted to know a few things and learn some words that I didn’t know so I asked the cabbie about the recent barrage of rain and storms in Cairo.
Apparently, I wasn’t very clear about what I was asking, or he misunderstood me—both of which are likely—because rather than telling me whether it was normal or not to receive this much rain in Cairo, he told me the average prices for a taxi from almost every point in the city and suburbs to almost any other point. It was all I could do not to get out my notebook and voice recorder. I could write a grid guide for this and make a million dollars. I might still anyway: I retained most of the information in my steel-trap brain.
Apparently, to get from Downtown to Medinat Nasr, 20 LE is normal. Back is about the same. To get from downtown to Zamalek and vice versa: 5 LE. Round trip?: 8-10 LE. Mohandessin to the airport: 40-55 LE depending on traffic. Airport to anywhere else?: 40-70 LE depending on how foreign you look. He actually said that to me, by the way.
Now, this information is particularly valuable because there are no standard prices for anything. The meters in the cabs are never turned on, though each cab has one. You can take cabs that are more like cabs in major cities in the United States, but they are more expensive, and often more comfortable. The only basis that you have for prices in cabs here is what you know and what people have told you.
I thought that maybe this guy might have been inflating the prices a bit for me, but we seemed to have pretty good rapport and his data tracked with what seemed to make everyone happy from my experience haggling over cab fair. So, I figure that he was actually being honest. At the end of the day, the prices are still ridiculously cheap when compared with prices in the United States. Many things are beginning to level out, but cab fare is still one of those things that is just cheaper here.
For instance, for a Chicago cab-ride equivalent to the one that I took today, I would have paid $70-80 US each way. Instead, I paid 50 LE, equivalent to about $9.00 US. I can’t argue with that.
Today was definitely a lesson in “If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, You Can’t Make Mistakes.” If I had stopped the guy and tried to turn the conversation back to the weather, I would never have learned this crucial and potentially valuable information. Instead, I benefited from the mindset of someone who is happy to let information wash over him in waves, just hoping to take in anything he can.
Try it. You might learn something by accident.
1
The weather in Egypt is rather regular. In fact, calendars in Alexandria mark the days when it is expected to rain 12 months in advance (regular gales). That is why Egyptians do not talk about the weather unless they are actually discussing it. here is Egyptian small talk for you: where are you from? Are you married, and if not why? Do you have children? and if not why? then soccor, politics and religion.
Of course, you get the “what do you think of Bush or Iraq” small talk.
Mustafa
2
Good to know. My friend Mo’s dad was telling me about the calendar when I visited the farm last month. They use the Coptic calendar for planting and harvesting and all that.
I will have to start talking about soccer. I have been watching the soccer matches with the Copts at my local pub. Good times. It’s easier to understand than American football, after all.