You Can't Make Mistakes

Two lessons about the kindness of strangers in one week. I am starting to become a little unnerved.

After the incident with the wrong train the other day, I had assumed that my luck was up for the time being. I figured that I had spent all of my good will and happy chance in one blow.

Not so.

I went last night with a friend from University to have a coffee, some food, and to buy some groceries at the local Carrefour. She had just come back from a week in London and was not feeling good about being here by herself and moving around the city alone after dark. I told her that I would join her so she didn’t have to worry.

So we went, did what we intended to do and grabbed a cab back to her place to drop her and her stuff off. When we arrived, the driver severely overcharged us and no amount of arguing and fighting would deter him. Also, we were both sick, tired and just wanted to be done with it. So we gave him the 15 EGP that he asked for, and told him to get lost.

Afterward, I got in another cab and went on my way back home. I started talking to my cabbie, Muhammad, and by the time we got to my place we were laughing and he was telling me dirty jokes and we were having a right good time. He told me about his family and his kids and his wife and he said we should have tea and a sheesha one afternoon. He said he didn’t like to drive too much in the afternoon because it was so busy, but if I needed to go anywhere, to call him. I said that would be cool and we exchanged mobile numbers when we got to my building.

As I got out and pulled my bags from the back seat, I tried handing him a 10 note—which would have been too much for the ride, but I didn’t care. I don’t mind overpaying if the guy is cool. He refused to take my money. At first, I thought that he was just doing the politeness dance where he refuses three times and then I insist and he takes it.

Not this time. After I offered again he said, “Listen. I haven’t laughed while I was working in maybe 10 weeks. Most of the people who get in my cab don’t care at all. Especially the foreigners. You’re different, habibi.”

I almost cried. I was pretty much speechless. I told him to call me this weekend and we’ll have sheesha, thank you and goodnight. He drove off and I called my friend whom I had just dropped off while in my elevator to tell her what had just happened to me. It was in such stark contrast to what had happened just before that that I couldn’t even believe that I was in the same place.

And again, like before, the kindness of strangers is just astounding to me. This is something that I so rarely experience at home. It is weird there for people who you don’t know to just do something unbelievable kind. Most people just turn their heads and pretend not to notice when someone needs help. Forget about random acts of kindness. These are the things that I experience everyday here, amid endless frustration and bureaucratic hoops and other problems.

At the end of the day, though, it is all worth it if I can have a reason to tell someone at home that, “No. It’s not that bad living here as you might think. It’s actually really nice.”

A misadventure teaches us about the kindness of strangers.

I decided to go to Cairo this weekend so visit some American friends who have been living and working there. I am currently on a break from University and have just been cooling my heels a bit in Alexandria and getting some work done on my thesis and another paper that I have to finish up. It was time for some excitement and I wanted to buy books that I can’t seem to find in Alexandria.

Coincidentally, my friend Mamoon had to attend a wedding in Cairo. We decided to make the trip together as he had never been to Cairo before. However, I miscalculated the ease with which we would get a train. I had forgotten that the weekend was starting and the trains would therefore be considerably busier. We had to take a train that was about three hours later than the one that we had wanted to take. No problem.

So, we arrive at Sidi Geber train station early and wait for our 7:30 train. Our train rolls up promptly on time and we get on. Everyone is still sorting out their seats and baggage as the train pulls away and when we get to our seats, we are confronted with to other passengers who want the same seats. Curious.

Assuming that we are simply on the wrong car, we make our way to the next car, only to find that it is unlit. Some of the cars on certain trains are not lit. These are the equivalent of commuter trains. The porter looks at our tickets and mumbles something at us. Another guy then takes the ticket and looks at it, and then about ten other people look at it and yell things to to each other. In the mean time, I am picking out about half of what is being said and not really able to piece the situation together. After some minutes of their inexplicable discussion of French and Spanish trains, the guy looks at me and says, “You are on the wrong train.”

I glance out the window and can still see Sidi Geber as it moves away from us very slowly, thinking: We can just jump out. We won’t die. Apparently, all the trains are running late and though this one arrived at the time specified on my ticket, it is not the right one. I usually can catch announcements about late things or changes with no problem, but there had been no announcement.

The guy tells me that this train is going to Tanta. I know where Tanta is, that is a good start. He suggests that it might be possible for us to get off of this train in Tanta and catch the train that we are actually supposed to be riding there, because it will also stop in Tanta before continuing on to Cairo.

Perfect.

We see two seats open on the unlit car, somehow, and sit down in them. After a few minutes the porter comes and tells us that he has some other seats that we can sit in. We go and sit in them. I give him way too much baqsheesh, but he is helpful, so I don’t care.

We are sitting peacefully and the ticket-checking guy comes around and we show him our tickets. Our new friend pops up and tells him that we made a mistake and got on the wrong train. The guy looks at me and says, “Seven and a half guinea.” I look at him like I don’t know what he is talking about. Our new friend starts explaining the situation in more detail, telling him that we are foreigners, we don’t know what is going on, we don’t understand Arabic, we don’t probably even know where we are most of the time.

He tells our friend, who I later learn is named Muhammad, that he doesn’t care what country we are from, if we are on this train, then we have to pay 7.5 guinea. Then more people get in on the action and start yelling at the guy. Some of them are the people who helped us figure out that we were on the wrong train. A guy in front of us stands in front of him in the aisle and explains that our tickets said 7:30 and the train was in the station at exactly 7:30, so it was an easy mistake to make, especially if you don’t know anything.

Mamoon and I keep glancing over at each other while these guys are trying to explain how this was such a simple mistake for two stupid foreigners, completely understanding everything that they are saying, and trying not to laugh. Though slightly demoralizing, it was a good angle to take: the lost, stupid foreigners.

Eventually, there was a mini-revolution and the people won out. It was a beautiful metaphor for the civil society here. The big difference is that in the wider world, those people’s cries for justice and understanding rather than bureaucracy and silly rules would fall on deaf ears. In this situation, they won, and we won because they won. Everyone felt good in the end.

If I had tried to work the situation out, we probably would have just ended up paying the guy straight-away, because that is what I assumed that we would have to do anyway. Instead, the people around us came together and fought on our behalf. I regularly rely on the kindness of strangers to help me through weird situations. This was the best example that I have yet seen of the kindness of strangers helping someone out.

I am sad to say that most foreigners here have no such experience of this country and its people. They typically live here in one of two starkly different bubbles. They come here and have a completely sanitized experience and view Egypt from behind the glass of a bus window, only leaving the safety of the air-conditioned bubble to move into expensive restaurants or museums, complaining of the heat when they do. These people remark to their friends when they return home about the lack of two-ply toilet paper and the scarcity of their favorite brand of scotch. These people come here thinking that it is dangerous to be here and that you will be pickpocketed and that everyone is out to get you.

The second bubble is, if possible, worse. These people come to Egypt and think that they know the ropes and that they have this place all in the bag. They come here on business, or for school, they go to the same expensive restaurants as the tourists, all-the-while looking down their nose at the fanny-pack wearing rubes around them. Then they retire into private clubs that don’t allow Egyptians and then talk about how great and smart they are and how stupid everyone else is. They typically have no idea where they are because they take taxis everywhere or hire drivers.

Neither of these approaches will provide a person with a clear picture of what this place is like. To be able to live here for years and not be able to speak any Arabic at all is reprehensible. To conceive of and treat Egyptians as either thieves or servants is just disgusting and cruel. The worst thing is that these people believe that because you are foreign as well that you understand their plight and agree whole-heartedly with their rude, racist, neo-imperialist behavior.

There is a third type of person who comes to Egypt. They are often young, sometimes not. They can never give you a reason why they are here, specifically: there is always a long story. They see and recognize the problems with this place, but they realize that people are just doing the best that they can with what they have to work with. They love this place. The love the people that they meet here. They feel gratitude for everything that happens to them, whether it be a near-disaster or triumph: they learn either way. The biggest thing that sets these folks apart from the others is that all of the people whom they meet here like them, probably even love them. Not because they are willing to pay more money for things, or because they are foreign, but because they treat people here like people. They define their own humanity by recognizing the humanity of others.

If we could all strive to be more like this in our everyday lives, whether we are living in Cairo, Paris, Chicago or London, the world would be a starkly different place. This place would be like a new world if the foreigners looked into the people around them rather than at them. The opposite has caused years and years of strife and acceptance of corruption and station as the perpetual concierges to the tourists of the world. It takes a toll.

In the end, we arrived safely in Cairo, a little late, but on the correct train. We had to run full tilt through the station in Tanta and barely made it onto the train, but we did. However, we never would have been able to do it without people we didn’t know who cared about us just because they could.

Jeff told me last night that when he met Diane Rehm last week at a talk that she gave in Kalamazoo he told her that I, his partner, was currently in Alexandria, Egypt studying. She was apparently excited, partially because her mother is Egyptian, and told him to wish me all the best and tell me that she thought that it was wonderful that I was studying here and doing what I do.

I actually got a bit teary-eyed when Jeff related her words. I am terribly sad that I didn’t get to see her speak and meet her in K-zoo, but that was almost as good. It was nice to be wished well by someone who I might even call one of my heroes.

Anyway that just made my day.

Now, a little tidbit for your enjoyment:

Cockroaches are not just a reality living in a city like Alexandria, they get up in the morning and put the coffee on and wait for you to get up and read the news with them. They are everywhere. Thankfully, we don’t have many very regularly in my apartment. This is not to say that we have none: I killed two yesterday. They are, however, manageable. On top of the very occasional cockroach, we have had a terrible ant problem. These are not the big carpenter ants that I am used to, they are little, what my grandfather would refer to as “piss-ants.”

So, we have bought everything from ant traps, to spray, to various poisons and nothing has seemed to work. Until now.

Last week I purchased a packages of these rather large pill-shaped things that are meant to kill crawling bugs like ants and cockroaches. You are just supposed to place them around in cabinets and drawers, in corners and near the places where you see these things coming from.

What follows is the instructions on the back of the package, from which I learned what these magical pills do. I would not call this technical writing so much as poetry. keep in mind that the spelling and punctuation is verbatim.

Enjoy.

Deer Lady

deer lady, put this pills inside kitchen cupboard with out any fear of damages on your kitchen equipment or your food.

deer lady, the result of this pills will show after (24-72 hour) and will be continue for months.

deer lady, after getting rid completelyof the crawling insects, leave this pills at it is still working for months.

deer lady, if you have gaze pipe at your kitchen, you should put this pills under the gaze pipe, because it is the most preferableplace to the insects

I hope that you got a kick out of that as I did. I just would really like to know who the “deer lady” is. Also, I am a little upset at having lived my entire life without a “gaze pipe” in my kitchen. I imagine that this is some sort of device for spying on your neighbors. What a cool idea.

I love that the translator of this passage was word literal to the original. I also that the writer took the liberty of composing a poem to all of the housewives in the world who might use this product, rather than simply writing out instructions in the normal dry, prose of technical terminology. It is the little things that I find beautiful, I guess.

I hope that you all can be graced with poetry on your cleaning products and insecticides today.

Nose to the Grindstone or Into the Grinder

Well, I arrived back in Alexandria early this morning. Classes begin this week. I am in the intermediate level, which I expected. The placement examinations to decide our levels were ridiculous, as always, so I am not even sure what the levels mean. Everything about education is different here, of course. The courses are quite intense. The exams are terribly difficult. But, this is why I came here to study rather than continuing to study in the United States. Everything is easier there.

Honestly though, the place where most of my educations occurs is in the street. Buying groceries, taking taxis, feeding myself, getting my hair cut: these are the things that teach me the most. I attempt to talk to every single person that I meet on a daily basis, and not just to tell them my name and where I am from, but to ask them about their lives and the place that they live in. Honestly, the best advice about how to live here will never come from some silly travel guide, rather, it comes from from the little old lady from whom I buy tomatoes or my new friend Shami who works at the pizza place. These folks know everything about this place. Why would I ask the staff at Lonely Planet when I can ask them.

Now is an especially interesting time because Ramadan is upon us. This has created a whole new series of interactions for me to have with folks. I talk to guys that I meet in the street, in cabs, and at cafés about religion more than ever. I have also met a whole new group of people that I might have had I arrived after Ramadan: Copts. There is a large Coptic Christian population here and during Ramadan they, out of a sense of propriety also adhere to a type of fast wherein they don’t eat in public during the day, though often they will drink water, coffee, and tea as normal. It makes it a little more possible here to cope with the days of not eating, businesses being closed, etc.

I myself have fasted, relatively strictly, over the past three years, but for some reason, I found it very difficult to do so here. I had assumed that I would have an easier time of it being surrounded by many people fasting, but it was actually very difficult to begin. I fasted fully for the first day last week and my roommate and a German friend and I made Iftar at my apartment in the evening, but then the next day, I just couldn’t do it. I was also traveling, about which there are a different set of fasting rules anyway.

I have been a little surprised by my own reaction to fasting. I think that it is a wonderful tradition, typically. It teaches a good lesson. It is good as a way of cleansing the body. It instills discipline. But even with all of these things, I have found it impossible to keep up with here. I think that this has in part to do with my current workload. If I don eat all day and am parched and thirsty, my blood sugar gets terribly out of whack and the next thing I know I have to take a four hour afternoon nap. I can’t afford that much time right now, so, maybe it is for the best.

It is wonderful to experience here, regardless. There is a sense at the end of every day of quiet—though sometimes quite boisterous—celebration. People are in especially good spirits in the evening. I can wait to see the Eid at the end of the month. It should be a great deal of fun. Plus I have a week and a half off school, so it will afford the opportunity to travel around a bit and experience Eid in some other places as well as here.

For now, however, it is into the grind. This week begins the busiest period that I will ahve ever experienced, and I can’t wait. I am doing, right now, all of the things that I love the most. I look around myself everyday and just feel wonder. That is a good feeling to have.

Welcome to Egypt

Well, sorry for the hiatus in writing, but I was busy moving to Egypt and just established a proper internet connection this weekend, sort of. Apparently my wireless router arrived at the apartment this morning. Everything here takes a bit of doing. Nothing is easy, really. This is a phenomenon that I have come to refer to as “Welcome to Egypt.”

“Welcome to Egypt” can be used as a normal daily greeting or as a mode of identification with other foreigners who are clearly in the same boat. When you see people attempting to do something that would normally work just fine at home, but which here works only partially or not at all, you say: “Welcome to Egypt” and everyone smiles and laughs and understands each other. It is a nice way of saying, “I feel the same pain as you. I just want to check my e-mail or go to the grocery store too.”

But it is perhaps not as bad as all that. I love it here. There is so much wonder in everyday life. I, for instance, am currently in Cairo for the weekend visiting American friends who have also just moved here to study and work. Every part of this journey has been frought with complications. I decided to stay an extra day upon realizing that I bought a train ticket for the wrong time of day yesterday and would have had to make my return trip at 8 in the morning rather than 8 at night. The answer to this dilemma: play pool and drink with Brits at the BCA in Mohandiseen. I had a right wonderful time. Everything worked out better than planned.

Getting here was also no big deal. I got on a plane in Detroit and a few Xanax and several hundred drinks later, here I was.

I found an apartment in Roushdy in Alexandria. It looks like the sort of apartment that you woul find in East Berlin in about 1983, but it is quite nice. There is good breeze from the Mediterranean and the light is great. It will be a perfect place to live until next June.

The school is also quite nice. It is a little building inside the Alexandria University compound across the street from the Bibliotheca Alexandria in the Kulayat al-Adab (the College of Literature). We took placement exams last week to put us into classes according to level of proficiency in Arabic. The results are due in today, apparently.

I am excited to start classes, but as usual for me, classes have been going on since I set foot here. Every day is a learning experience. Going to the market. Finding a place to live. Having DSL set up and having someone call you on the phone to deliver your router, only able to speak Arabic. These are the experiences that I live for. Every day is an adventure into the mundane. Living here makes it seem as though commonplace things are extraordinary.

Now, though, I must prepare myself and leave for the train back to Alexandria. I will write again very shortly and include some pictures of my journey.

That dread that I feel about flying to the Middle East has nothing to do with fear of flying

Well, I have two weeks until take-off. On my birthday I will experience the joy of flying and sitting in airports for 20 hours. I complain now, but I am very excited about the trip. What I am not excited about is that the airlines that I am flying keep changing details. I have had one leg of my departure flight changed twice and two legs of my planned return flight changed. Originially, I was to leave at 8:00pm, now I leave at 7:10. Originally I was supposed to depart from Alexandria on the return next spring, now I depart from Cairo—which complicates things greatly, I’ll explain later.

What I can’t figure out is why there haven’t been revolts on planes and in airports based on poor service and bad scheduling. I know that airfare hasn’t really increased over the past 20 years, but that doesn’t mean that the service associated with flying should be totally left by the wayside. I am not talking about in-flight cocktails or pillows or that stuff—though, wouldn’t it be nice to have an included-in-the-price bourbon on an overseas, overnight flight that you just shelled out $1500 for? No. I am talking about keeping the scheduled departure rather than changing it twelve times between booking and take-off or completely canceling the flight entirely.

Part of me believes that this is another example of the cellular phone’s destructive power. The cell phone destroyed the plan. Do you remember when we used to make plans, say “Let’s meet Friday night at 8:30 at the corner bar,” and then actually meet at the agreed time and place? I do. We don’t do that anymore, though. Now we will say, “Hey do you want to get together on Friday night?” and you will hear in response, “Sure, I will call you.” This is really a kind way of saying, “I will hang out with you, if I don’t have anything better to do.”

Airlines are now doing the same thing to us. We are saying, “Hey, I want to fly to Paris on Thursday,” and the major American carriers are saying, “We will take your money for that, and perhaps we will leave at the specified time, but maybe not. Oh yeah, also, you might not have a flight because we may have sold your seat to someone who paid five times as much for it. We’ll call you.” Some people believe that the little phone messages reminding us of our flight times, terminals, and departure gates, delays, changes, and cancellations are a valiant effort on the part of airlines to help us to deal with the harrowing experience of traveling. I say that they are a non-solution, a band-aid that falls off in the pool, or bullshit. If airlines really want to win their customers back, I suggest opening a bottle and proposing a toast to free drinks in the air. At least that way we might not remember why we were so frustrated before we finally got on the plane.

See you next time. I’ll call you.

I had a conversation last night with my good friend Mo who is currently living in Quebec. He is Egyptian, has lived in Canada for 6 years. I always, for some reason, think that Canadian governmental and political structures are similar to those of the United States. However, every time we have these conversations about Canadians, provincial politics, and the Maritimes, I remember that these countries are as different as night and day.

Here are some little-known facts about Canada, which I gleaned from our conversation. All quotes are direct from M. Zakzouk:

1. “Newfie” is not, apparently, a derogatory way to refer to someone from Newfoundland. [CORRECTION: After some thought overnight, Mo decided that "Newfie" must certainly be a derogatory term for Newfoundlanders, and should probably not be used in polite conversation. I would imagine that this term is akin to "Okie" in reference to Oklahomans. Wikipedia has this to say about the term.]
2. Toronto is not like New York City so much as it is like Chicago. A New York Equivalent would be too much for Canada to handle. There is way too much crime and filth.
3. Gun laws in Canada are confusing and ineffective because the provincial laws often counteract the national laws.
4. There is a Ministry of Statistics.
5. “Calgary is in the wrong spot on the map.” – on how Calgary seems like it should be in the United States. Apparently Calgary is the Dallas of Canada.
6. Some provinces dislike other provinces for no reason whatsoever.
7. “It would make more sense for Quebec to take over Labrador.”
8. “Alaska should clearly be a part of Canada.”

This information has been brought to you by the multitude of weird different types of Kit-Kat bars available in Canada. I believe that Canada is the test-market for new flavors of Kit-Kat, but this information cannot be verified by statistical data.

I helped two very good friends pack up and move to Cairo this weekend with their two dogs. My partner and I ended up agreeing to take care of their cat for the next several years that they will be gone, the Chairman Meow—also known now as the Chairman Now!—so named because his meow sounds like he is saying the name of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

While I am not taking dogs or other people, helping my friends get rid of their stuff, figure out what to do with the cat, get stuff from one place to another, get papers dropped off and phones canceled reminded me that I have a scant five weeks left before I move to Alexandria for the year. It reminded me that I am nowhere near ready to leave. I have about a million things that I need to do before I go. Even when thinking about completing all of the things that I need to complete before leaving makes me lie awake at night. And yet, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night so excited and thrilled in anticipation of the move.

I can’t wait to be back in Alexandria. Not because it is better there, not because it is an easy or comfortable place to live, but because I love the feeling of freedom that I get when I am living in a place other than my home, totally out of my element. Don’t get me wrong: I can find my way around, I feel very comfortable there. I don’t have too many culture shock issues, but Alexandria is not my home, and it probably never will be—at least not full time.

I find this feeling to be pretty ineffable, but others do not. My dear friend Wanda gave me a wonderful passage from Pico Iyer which fully and perfectly sums up the expatriate experience:

There is no reason to go further, but I will. When I am in a totally foreign environment, I feel not as though I am no longer myself, but as though I am only then fully myself. I am not required to put on the persona which I wear in my everyday life, but am free to be completely candid all the time. My needs are simpler, and therefore much simpler to fulfill. Every day is a challenge, or an adventure, and I learn quickly to take a great deal of comfort in the simple things that make me happy.

When else can we live in such a state.

———
¹ p. 23, Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East. New York:
Vintage Departures, 1988.