On money, or taking things for granted

In Cairo, taxicabs don’t have meters, and there are no set fares. After your driver has taken you to your destination, you’re supposed to get out of the car and hand him a wad of cash through the window. The passenger decides the amount of payment, but must do so within an appropriate range.
We’ve learned quickly that if a driver tries to negotiate a price with us when we get into the car, he’s attempting to overcharge us. We generally become furious that our status as Westerners invites this behavior. “Ana mish chawaga!” Jess often yells as we scramble to get out of the car. “I am not a stupid tourist!”
Because we use taxicabs almost daily, it’s from their backseats that we most frequently encounter the Cairene proclivity for swindling foreigners. However, almost all our monetary exchanges are tinged by the feeling that we’re being taken advantage of.
And it isn’t just paranoia. Caitlin, Jess and I have become friendly with an Indian family who lives on the same floor of our building. During an elevator ride recently, the father asked us how much we’re paying for our place. We told him, and his eyes widened in incredulity. They’re paying much less.
Between these everyday frustrations and our eviction from the apartment, I have become distrustful and often angry when spending any money in Cairo. It's exhausting.

But I had a reality check the other night.

I left Cilantro, a local café, around one o’clock, eager to get home. As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, I saw a little boy of about five sitting on the curb. His chin resting in his palm, he looked up and quickly rose to approach me. I didn’t know if he was homeless and alone or if an adult had left him there to beg. Not wishing to be party to the latter possibility, I took him into the nearby Pizza Hut for a slice and a juice.
I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but I cried a little as I walked home. I was suddenly ashamed for all my complaints and frustrations. Every day, millions of Cairenes have to fight extreme poverty, navigate a venal bureaucracy and fear imprisonment and even torture if they question an official or voice opposition to the government. Rampant corruption and nepotism at the top have created outrageous wealth disparity. An here I am, clutching my daddy’s credit card and whining about a few dollars lost here and there and a few inconveniences.

Who here knows what a piranha is?

Jess and I have been teaching English through a program called STAR (Student Action for Refugees). Our class is a mix of Iraqi, Ethiopian, Guinean and Sudanese nationals. At first they would sit segregated according to their country of origin, but they have now begun hobnobbing with the others, too.

There's Mustafa, who's 21 years old and from Iraq. Cairo is just a sojourn on his way to the U.S. He and his father worked as engineers for the U.S. army for five years. His uncle and two other family members were killed, so apparently the Americans told them to leave, promising to get them into the U.S. Now Mustafa is learning English and American football in his spare time. The latter, he says, so he can get a scholarship for college.

The other Mohamed is from Ethiopia. He's working for an Egyptian petrol company here and gave us a ride home from class in his brand new company SUV last week. He complains about the Egyptian food and says that it's impossible to fast for Lent here. When he and Kebre, who is also Ethiopian, found out I'm Orthodox they invited me to come to church with them.

When we told our class about our eviction and our cockroaches, Mohammed laughed and noted, "Well, this is Africa!"

Thierno is from Guinea and seems to have taken a liking to me. One of his sentences for a homework assignment was: "Anna and I are going to the cinema next week." He writes in beautiful, loopy handwriting.

I sometimes use French to explain English words to him. Often the exchange will go something like this:

"Anna, what is this word, 'adventure' en français?

"Um, aventure."

"Ah, aventure!"

And he nods vigorously.

Abdel Aziz, might just be my favorite student. He hasn't missed a class yet, he always does his homework, and he isn't afraid to ask questions. He's an Iraqi gentleman from Baghdad, probably in his early to mid sixties. With his wire frame glasses, leather jacket, beige sweaters and brown leather shoes, he's the snappiest dresser around. He used to have a bushy mustache, which was half red and gray at the roots, but he just got a haircut and trimmed his beard.

"Your hair looks good!" I told him.

"I know," he said.

When he wants to get our attention, he yells, "Teacher!" across the room, and then he argues with us about the meanings of words and sentence structure.

After class, around eight p.m., he goes home and to bed. Then he gets up at six every morning, even though he doesn't work.

As he leaves the classroom, he waves and says, "Thank you, teachers."

Oppressed peoples... and extraterrestrials

And I thought Wesleyan was bad.

Flyers around the AUC campus are advertising this lecture:

"Aliens, Arabs and Women: Colonizing Outer Space in Popular Culture"

Look!

I've taken some pictures. Maybe you'd like to see them.

Here they are: www.flickr.com/photos/35871812@N03

More to be added soon.

A Model Citizen

A couple of weeks ago, I finally decided to submit my application for an Egyptian student visa. 

The last time I had sat for a passport photo, a frenzied Chinese lady in a tiny shop in New York City had pushed me up against a grimy wall and snapped a shot of me with her polaroid camera. Another woman in the back room had quickly processed the picture with her blow dryer. I was expecting my experience in Cairo to be similar, but I was mistaken.

I entered the store, and the photographer, a short man in glasses, ushered me up the stairs to the studio.

I was suddenly surrounded by giant teddy bears, magnificent armchairs with gilt wooden trimmings, corners of medieval parapets and lush patches of plastic vegetation. 

"Sit down here," the photographer ordered, gesturing to a stool. 

He scurried away. The next thing I knew, the lights had been turned off and two spotlights were illuminating my face. All around, white screens and umbrella-shaped appliances were either reflecting or producing light. (I clearly know nothing about photography). He positioned his tripod and camera at a 45 degree angle from my face and spent the next five minutes explaining to me how to tilt my head. 

The camera flashed, and he dashed to the back of the room to fiddle with the backdrop. He finally picked a dark brown velvet curtain and said, "One more!"

"No," I said, unable to stop laughing. "No thank you. I just need the one."

"One more!" He insisted. "It's free."

He replaced the stool with a strange contraption, which I assumed I was intended to straddle. When I proceeded to do so, he shook his head violently and told me to rest one foot on the bottom bar and rest my crossed arms on the top bar. 

I realized that I was posing for a glamour shot, and could not contain my laughter any longer.

When I was finally done with my photo shoot, he spent another fifteen minutes editing my visa photo with Photoshop, printed out 20 copies (I needed one) and one of my glamour shot, which he proceeded to frame. The brown background blends with my dark hair, so the picture shows nothing but my face, framed by darkness. But at least I'm smiling.

Brief update

Forgive me, dear readers, for having dropped off the face of the earth for a while. What with being forced to move, finding a new apartment, moving all my worldly possessions to our new home in hundreds of plastic supermarket bags and escaping to a beautiful desert oasis for a few days, only to return with horrible food poisoning and cockroaches in our new kitchen, I have been rather busy. Oh, and I also have midterms.

But all in all, I'm quite happy lately. Cairo is finally warming up, and I have discovered that I have been tanning slightly through my clothing. 

The Difference is in the Details

The other morning on my way to the bus, I passed three boys who were probably around twelve years old.
When they caught sight of me, they began laughing and pointing.
"Sabah al-kheir, gamal!" or "Good morning, camel!" they shouted. I realized that they were mocking me for my overstuffed backpack that was causing me to bend forward slightly and must indeed have looked like a hump.



Egyptians don't wear backpacks to school, but carry their books under one arm. Older girls and women usually put them in their purses. I felt more embarrassed than I probably should have, but it is these small cultural differences that can make one stand out as a foreigner and make one horribly self-conscious.

EVICTION NOTICE

"Does a contract mean nothing to you people?" I screamed. "You signed! We signed! We gave you a deposit!" 

"Anna, please. Calm down," Caitlin said. "You're foaming at the mouth."

Ok, so that didn't really happen, but it could have. 

A couple of days ago, a real estate agent brought by a small group of people to see the apartment. I was puzzled when he handed me his business card with a flourish and said, "If you need an apartment anytime soon." 

I really should have known.

Yesterday our landlord called me to ask when he could pop by to "talk about the apartment." He waltzed in just after nine in the evening, wearing a snappy tweed suit. He declined the cup of peppermint tea I offered him. 

"This will only take two minutes," he said, sitting down. He tugged at his pants to lift them just above his ankles.

"Listen, Anna, I need a lot of money for my business soon, so I need to sell the apartment by the end of the month."

He promised to find us a new place and was gone in a flash.

Good bye Nile views. Good bye Metro Market. Good bye Yassin. Good bye big windows. Good bye king sized bed. Good bye friendly neighbors. Good bye internet connection. Good bye embroidered pastoral scenes.

To the Holy Mountain

And now, for something completely different.

St. Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai

Friday morning at 5:30, the minibus we had rented picked us up in Zamalek, and we set off on our trip to Mt. Sinai and St. Catherine's Monastery.

The eight hour trip was broken up by a series of rest stops and short sightseeing excursions, which our two friendly drivers picked out for us. First among them was the sight of the Twelve Wells of Moses, where Moses struck his staff into the ground and twelve wells for the twelve tribes of the Sinai appeared. (Not a story with which I was familiar).

It just so happens that a formation of trees nearby spells out the word الله (Allah). Yeah, I don't see it either...

Next, we saw a cave right by the Red Sea (which is gorgeous, by the way) that emits mysterious steam. I think there might be a demon inside, or perhaps a djinn.

One rest stop was home to a whole flock of adorable goats. A kid had its head stuck in a fence, so I helped it out.

Slowly, the landscape changed from flat desert to dune-shaped hills to craggy rocks to mountains. We had to go through several check points on the Sinai, but we finally got to our hotel, which had spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. 

We hauled our luggage into our warm cabins and napped before and after dinner. At 2 a.m., we got a wake-up call from the reception and began donning every item of clothing we owned. 

Our drivers picked us up and took us to the entrance point, where we had to pay for a guide and go through security (the Egyptians love their metal detectors, as I learned at the New York consulate, where they use one as a doorbell).

We trudged along towards the foot of the mountain on a sandy path, accompanied by several hundred hardened Teutons and Norsemen, many with miners' flashlights strapped to their foreheads. Only one of our party had thought to bring a light, so we stumbled about in the dark for the most part. The icy wind threatened to unravel the many scarves wrapped around our heads, and my sweat was quickly freezing my neoprene suit to my torso.

We soon passed by a group of men in the dark, who offered, "Camel?" 

"Pah," I scoffed, as I tripped over a rock. "We will climb this mountain!" 

"Camel?" they suggested again.

We got to the first rest stop, our toes and fingers frozen, with the prospect of seven more kilometers of steep, rocky, freezing (!) hike ahead. So, after much deliberation, Jess and I left Farrell, Sarah and Simone and paid for camels to take us the rest of the way up. (Embarrassing, I know.)

Even so, a starry sky worthy of the biblical setting was the only distraction from the cold, and I spent the undulating ride picking out constellations I had never seen before.

Finally near the top, we were let off our beasts of burden, and proceeded to the nearest shelter, where we waited for the sun to rise. Bundled up in camel hair blankets, we drank tea and chatted with one of the Egyptian guides, who questioned us at great length about Christian doctrine.

Allow me to paraphrase some of his queries.

"Where do you get the face of Jesus?"

"The Orthodox love the Virgin Mary. The Catholics do not, I think. Yes?"

"Is it true that the Virgin Mary never married Joseph? Who then was her husband?"

We were so engaged in conversation that we almost missed the sunrise. But we clambered up onto a nearby crag and gazed out over the mountain tops in time to see Eos emerge. Meanwhile, the frostbite claimed our last toes.

On the way down, the sun was a welcome companion after the coldest night of our lives. We breakfasted back at the hotel and then made our way to the monastery, which is home to both Jethro's Well--where Moses first met his wife--and the Burning Bush, which, according to my guidebook, is a kind of bramble.

The Burning Bush

It also houses a collection of remarkable icons, including some from the time of the iconoclast controversy, which survived because the prohibition in Byzantium did not reach Egypt. I addressed the monk at the door in Greek and was consequently let in for FREE, which was extremely exciting. I was also able to get my "xeni" friends a discount price.

The monk then asked me for my camera. I handed it over, thinking he wanted to make sure I wouldn't break the ban on photography. It later turned out, however, that he had taken a picture of the famous icon of Christ the Pantokrator for me. He also invited me to stay for the liturgy at twelve, which was when the monastery closed to non-Orthodox visitors. Genuinely regretful, I had to decline, as I couldn't bring my friends along. But I wistfully pictured myself amidst a flock of robed and bearded Greek men, who crossed themselves continuously and swung silver incense burners in a collective frenzy. 

Christos Pantokrator

We embarked on the return journey, this time accompanied by a greasy government official, whose substantial private arsenal was revealed whenever the wind lifted the corners of his tan pin-stripe suit. The recent attacks on tourists have unnerved the authorities, it seems.

Our drivers had one more surprise in store for us: We stopped at Israeli barracks from the occupation in 1967, which had been converted into a "museum." The Egyptian soldier who showed us around asked our drivers to walk ahead of us with him, "just in case there are any land mines."

Former Israeli barracks. Please note the sign.

Our drivers and the government lackey excitedly examined dusty machine guns, tubes of toothpaste with Hebrew lettering and embroidered Yarmulkas. We nervously tiptoed about, expecting to be blown up at any moment. 

Finally, the soldier asked if there were any Jews among us. It wouldn't matter, he told us. He just wanted to show off Egypt's strength.

But there was really no need. The holy mountain had done so already.

Revenge is cheap

"Ooh, also, I figured out a way to get the toilet paper out of the holders in the stalls," proclaimed Jess, wagging a triumphant finger. "They have keys, but they don't actually lock them!"

But perhaps a clarification of the above is necessary. To vent our rage at the "university" for its numerous shortcomings and to save a good bit of money, my roommates and I have taken to pocketing toilet paper rolls at school.

Anna, a more interesting post next time, if you would?

If I must.

Mummified Molars

I require only two things of my toothpaste: 

1. That it be cheap.

2. That it at least claim to whiten my teeth, so I can delude myself into believing my pearly-whites will bedazzle any potential mates and employers.

Two weeks ago, I bought toothpaste at our local Metromarket. The only kind that fulfilled both my demands was "Pepsodent," a brand discontinued in the United States in the 1960s and in South Africa in the 1970s, but still popular throughout the southeast Asian realm today. (According to Wikipedia).

I began questioning my "Pasta Gigi" (as the Indonesian label reads) a few days after I started using it. A squeeze of the tube produced a series of large bubbles before the extremely viscose paste itself emerged, and I detected a slightly soapy flavor. I related these phenomena to my flatmates.

Jess snatched the tube from my hands and muttered to herself as she scanned the list of ingredients. 

"Formaldehyde!" she finally cried out. 

"Well, doesn't your toothpaste have it too?" I asked.

"No," she said, exasperated. "No it doesn't." 

"What about Caitlin's?"

Jess groaned and shuffled out of the bathroom to get her own tube of Crest and Caitlin's Colgate.

"Listen, this toothpaste doesn't have any of the ingredients in either of our toothpastes."

"Hm," I said. "Hm."

We googled all of the other ingredients later, only to find that two-thirds of them are considered carcinogens. It also turns out that the EU recently banned all use of formaldehyde.

Jess tried to convince me to buy a nice old tube of Arm & Hammer, but I resisted. More than money was at stake here.

"Just think," I said, brandishing my Pepsodent. "In 2000 years, I'll be the only human specimen in North America with a fully preserved set of teeth and gums. I'll be an archaeological marvel!"

She wasn't convinced, however, and in the end I had to admit that the short-term disadvantages outweighed the long-term benefits. As Jake might say, the toothpaste was out of the tube.

Merchandise Update

I would just briefly like to update you, my dear readers, on the state of my beloved fake fowl salesmen. Most likely in a desperate attempt to widen their appeal, they have added new stock to their inventory. In addition to the bobbing penguins, they now carry inflatable babies. That's right, my friends, inflatable babies are now for sale on the Egyptian freeway. I will try to capture the phenomenon on camera this week.

The Cave of Wonders

We're trying to avoid doing laundry for as long as we possibly can, as we still haven't figured out how to work our washing machine (circa 1893). So, yesterday Jess, Caitlin and I decided to leave our humble abode for the evening to expand our wardrobes. Instead of trying our luck at dear old Khan al-Khalidi (the horrible tourist market, where we were hassled to no end) again, we went to the only place in Egypt where prices are fixed and unaffordable.

A setting oddly reminiscent of that which saw Augustus Gloop's tragic downfall

Yes my friends, Cairo has its very own luxury mega-mall. It's located between districts on the outskirts of al-Qahira, called Heliopolis and Nasr City, where wealthy Cairenes move to get away from the grime, noise and lower classes of the inner city.

Now, to my shame, I have been to the third largest mall in America, but it looks like a village marketplace compared to City Stars.

The Egyptian elite on escalators

Raised by a mother bred in post-war Germany, I have been trained in thrift to the extreme. I am therefore generally keen to avoid paying high prices for anything and have rejoiced at the affordability of life in Cairo. Confronted with American price tags in City Stars, I backed out of any store I entered, horrified.

What struck me as extraordinary, however, was the mass of Egyptians clutching Prada bags and wearing Omega watches, who dished out thousands of pounds in an evening without blinking an eye.

Perhaps it is naive of me to wonder where Egyptian wealth comes from. Every country has its upper class. I suppose I simply didn't expect it to be so very rich in Egypt, where bread costs a few cents and many live on less than $50 a month. There is no real middle class, it seems, and the rich hardly mix with the poor.

Don't get Kerried away with activism in Egypt

Protests for a Protester

A recent protest in Cairo, meant to raise awareness for the situation in Gaza, ended in the arrest of a German-Egyptian AUC student, Philip Rizk, by the Egyptian authorities. The latter seem to be reacting to increased pressure from internal critics of Egypt's Gaza policy. Among other things, vocal Egyptians are protesting the closing of the Rafah border, the only border between the Palestinian territories and a country other than Israel, which is therefore Gaza's only land passageway to outside aid.

AUC students have started a campaign demanding Philip's release from an undisclosed location. "Where is Philip Rizk?" signs read, displaying their authors' incisiveness. The New York Times published a short piece on the arrest yesterday.

My friend Kerry can be seen in a bright green "Guiness" shirt in the background. I'm not sure if he actually attended the protest and was looking intentionally grim, or if he just happened to be standing nearby and was quietly expressing his bewilderment over the goings on. (Just to clarify, the picture posted above was taken from the NYTimes piece. And for future reference, any good pictures posted here will in all likelihood not have been taken by myself.)

Roadside Bizarre

Outside of markets and regular shops, some Egyptians sell their goods by walking up to cars on busy roads. Women in full hijab yell "Madam, madam!" (I am often "ma'amed" in the States, and apparently even here people take me for a middle-aged, married woman) and try to sell me their vegetables. Young children press their faces against the windows of taxicabs, clutching wilted herbs. Old men in wheelchairs roll up to the driver's side and offer up tissues for sale. Though slightly irritating at times, these attempts at making a living seem remotely feasible.

I witness a much stranger enterprise on my way to school every morning: A pair of men standing in the middle of a busy highway, waving inflatable penguins at passing motorists. The articles in question come in a variety of sizes for all your household needs, and a small flock of them bobbles merrily to and fro on the cement median between opposing traffic lanes. 

Now, I ask myself, why, why would these grown men set out every day to try and sell inflatable penguins to other grown men and women? Did they win a lifetime supply through a sweepstakes, for which they simply have no room or use? Do they really think they have found a viable niche market in the Egyptian economy? Of course, perhaps they have, and I will be proven horribly wrong when they emerge as Egypt's next multimillionaires, but I doubt it.

And on that note, more on Egyptian wealth to come.

I have class.

Here is the list of courses I'm taking.

-Intro to Colloquial Arabic
-Art and Architecture of Cairo (we go on a lot of field trips to Islamic monuments and buildings)
-Modern Movements in Islam (turns out you need a solid background in Islamic history and theology for this class, neither of which I possess)
-Israeli Politics and Society (taught by an Egyptian professor...)
-Mediterranean Legends (includes Greek, Mesopotamian, Ancient Egyptian and Roman mythology)

Since my commute is 2-3 hours a day, I worked very hard to have only four days of class a week, which limited my options, but so far I'm quite pleased with my schedule.

Hello, my name is...

In Arabic, the word "ana" means "I" or "me." I knew this coming to Egypt. I did not, however, realize how hilarious the Egyptians would find this. When I was asked my name for the first time in the market I simply said, "Anna." The salesman smiled and nodded. Yes, he wanted to know my name. I repeated it, and he just nodded again, waiting for me to give him my name. "Ismi Anna," I said, which means "my name is Anna" (or "my name is me"). 

He laughed and said "ismuki..." ("your name is..."), expectantly. It went on like this for a while, until another shopkeeper nearby, who apparently knew some English, explained the situation. The first man began to cackle, pointed at me and, unable to contain his glee, broke out in raucous laughter. I have encountered similar situations on an almost daily basis since. 

Some Egyptians feel the need to educate me as to the meaning of my name, most just laugh after they figure it out. Our dear bawab (doorman) Yassin actually made me write it out before he believed me. Two baristas at our local coffee place assured me that "it's a beautiful name," which is also interesting.

Well, at least I don't suffer the fate of my friend Caitlin, whom most Egyptians refer to as Kevin.

Bartering School Part I

Sorry for the hiatus. I haven't had internet access. 

Finding an apartment in Cairo mostly involves walking around aimlessly and sticking one's head into the doorways of random apartment buildings. One then has to find the bawab, or doorman and ask for a "sha'a" or apartment. Most of the time they'll say no. 

In our case, we were quickly picked up by a Simsar, or real-estate agent, who led us around Zamalek, the leafy island in the Nile. We fell in love with the second apartment we saw and wanted to sign for it right away, hoping to avoid an exhausting day of flat-hunting.

The owner, Ashraf, met us in the apartment's living room and shook hands with me and my flatmates, Jess from Univ. of Rochester and Caitlin from UMich.  

Ashraf embodies what I would imagine an Egyptian mafia boss to look like. His hair is slicked back and he wears shiny, shiny shoes that end in points. His cigarette bobs up and down between his lips as he runs wads of cash through his hands, counting the bills in record time. He uses his deep voice sparingly, clearly aware of its intimidating effect.

He offered us the place for more than we were willing to pay, saying he had previously made an agreement with three boys also studying at AUC for that price. We had to decline and left, crest-fallen. 

We spent the remainder of the day trudging from one dissatisfying place to another. We finally collapsed at GAD, our favorite downtown Egyptian diner, for dinner and sat in frustrated silence, considering our options.

Suddenly, I saw that I had a missed phone call. It was Ashraf. All troubles were forgotten instantaneously and we tried to come up with a bargaining plan. 

It turned out that the three boys had found the apartment too expensive and that he was now willing to give it to us for less (a likely story, as this logic not only didn't make sense, but he now claimed that they went to Cairo University, not AUC). We arranged a meeting for the next day, where we finally sealed the deal.

Lesson learned: never assume that the price given in Egypt is the actual price or that it cannot be bartered down. Sometimes leaving and showing no further interest can work in your favor.

My last few days have been spent settling into the new apartment, which has Nile-views from all three bedrooms and both balconies. It's light and airy and the bathrooms are comparatively clean. Of course, there are always hidden problems. The kitchen smells like there's a decomposing body under the sink (a thorough cleaning of the cabinets and walls has helped this somewhat), and showers are only sometimes warm and rarely hot. But I'm not complaining because living off-campus was the best decision I could have made. The students in the dorms are under strict surveillance, cannot have visits from members of the opposite sex and those on-campus have NOTHING to do, as they're in the middle of the desert.

To get to the other side

Traffic in Downtown Cairo is ridiculous. To cross a street, you have to dodge bicyclists balancing giant trays of bread loafs on their heads, honking taxis and speeding buses and trucks. Traffic lights and signs are universally ignored, and pedestrians simply dart in and out between cars that show no sign of stopping until they are about an inch away from you.
At first, my fellow lodgers at the hostel and I would run two meters, shrieking at the top of our lungs, stopping briefly in front of an oncoming car, panic-stricken, and would then continue on in a fit of hysterical giggles. We've gotten better, but not by much.
The daytime host at the King Tut has made several illuminating remarks about traffic accidents in Cairo over the last few days. In chronological order:
1. "People get hit all the time."
2. "Just cross, the cars will always stop for you."
3. When I suggested, "I guess you just have to look non-chalant and self-assured," he shook his head. "The cars never stop."

I give you this as an example of the inconsistency in Egyptian stories. Information changes all the time.

Why are Americans always afraid?

I got into Cairo and spent the first two nights in the King Tut hostel in Downtown by myself, waiting for other AUC students to arrive. Yesterday I decided to venture out alone for a while and get an Egyptian cell phone, a power converter and something to eat.

When I was waiting to cross the street on the grand Tahrir Square, a young man approached me and said, "You look like you could be Egyptian." (I wondered why he addressed me in English, but didn't mention it.)

I tried to fend him off, but he insisted that he didn't want to sell me anything and just wanted to engage in a "cultural exchange." We talked for a bit, and then he asked, "Do you see that KFC? I want to show you something." "Yes," I said, hesitantly.

So, I followed him (his name turned out to be Salem, and he's a 28-year-old student of Ancient Egyptian history at the University of Cairo) to this coffee shop, where we had hibiscus tea and Arabic coffee and he introduced topics of conversation ranging from Hillary's chances at still becoming president to the value of astronomical predictions, to his thoughts on the afterlife.

Finally, he said, "I must ask you a question which you should answer honestly."

"Ok," I said, taking a rather large gulp of tea.

"Why are Americans always afraid? When I talked to you on the street, you looked so nervous, and I asked myself all these questions in my head. Why are Americans always afraid?"

He proceeded to mime an American tourist looking up, down and behind himself in utter terror. 

I considered his question and gave a rather long-winded response, which amounted roughly to: "I'm always cautious in places I don't know. I'm not afraid in New York because I know how to handle myself and my surroundings there. Here, I am unsure of customs, etc."

He was unimpressed by my explanation and assured me that crime is virtually nonexistent in Egypt. 

"But it's different for women," I said. "What about harassment?"

"Oh, that," he waved his hand in polite dismissal. "That happens to Egyptian women too."

Not feeling at all reassured, I gave up trying to explain my position.

So, I'd like to consider a few questions:

1. Is it ok to be slightly nervous walking around alone as a woman on one's first day in Cairo?

2. Was it a good idea for me to follow Salem to the coffee shop?

3. Are Americans really more afraid than other foreigners?

4. Why didn't he understand my problem?