Gayyash Al 'Aatifa

ISBN

2009-03-31T13:32:00.012+02:00

I had first gotten just the regular raqam eeda'a (standard book number) but then when I asked about the bar code the lady asked if the book was going abroad. I got paranoid and said "maybe, I don't know, it's likely but not certain". I was worried by the prospect of paperwork and delay, censorship drama, who knows. She snatched my copy of the receipt and stuck it with a sheet of carbon paper back into the pad. From the shelf beside her she took down a big old logbook that she opened to a marked page. Its yellow sheets held a great long list of ten-digit numbers. The lady followed the list with her finger and stopped at the first unchecked number. She crossed it with a pencil and penned it onto my receipt.

The lady had wondered aloud while fiddling with the carbon paper what all the fuss was with this ISBN thing anyway. "Some will tell you," she muttered, without looking up, "that it's to protect the authors and then others come and say it makes a book pretty." A man waiting his turn leaned over and whispered to her that ISBNs (as opposed to 'regular' standard book numbers) were for showoffs, mere posturing.

She had also said earlier that all books except for those written for children had to be at least fifty pages long in order to qualify for getting a number. "What about books of poetry?" I asked. "They're usually quite short."
"That's their problem," she said. "These are the rules, like it or not."

I had remembered from a previous visit something about books having to be a certain size. I asked the lady and she said yes, they had to be at least eighteen centimeters by twenty-four centimeters. I pointed across the room to a stack of new-looking books that clearly did not meet those specifications. "Okay," she said, "fine, it's just we don't want people coming in with like really really tiny books, you know. Nothing smaller than the palm of your hand," she said, holding up her outstretched palm like a printer's sample.

"So you're saying, then, that these rules are flexible?" I asked.
"Sort of, yes," she said.
"So you're saying I can bring a book that's, say, forty-nine pages long?"
"Forty-nine pages? Sure," she said, her eyelids drooping cheekily.
"Okay, how about forty pages?"
"No, not a chance," she replied, and with pursed lips she looked down, aligning gently the loose sheets before her with the desk's edge. I asked again, as I had several times, what the logic was behind these rules, and several times she answered, like a wartime statesman, that the logic was that These Were The Rules.

Ramadan Kareem

2008-09-17T03:42:00.003+02:00

The Land of Milk and Play

2007-07-17T17:06:00.000+03:00

My flight back to Cairo included a stopover in Kuwait. Waiting at the terminal before getting on the plane, I was surrounded by the largest number of Egyptians I had seen since February. I smiled at people, said salamo3aleiko, masa2 el kheir, eh el akhbar, ezay el 7al to whoever I felt I might connect with. I was so excited to be back in a space where I could talk freely to people. People are friendly in the US and India but there was no play in either. I was so happy to be heading back, and here it was, beginning.

Inside the plane I had gotten comfortable in my seat and others were still boarding. It was a Kuwait Airways flight but the cabin crew were all European looking and didn't seem to speak much Arabic. I later leanerd they were Swedish and had been hired through a personnel company on a four month contract. Or something.

A tall young man came down the aisle looking for his seat, his gym bag in one hand and his boarding pass in the other. "mesh 7ayenfa3 ma3ana el kalam da," he said out loud (this won't do). "el nabi 3arabi we kan byakol be2eedo. wenti 3ammala te2olelna 'twenty five'? mesh 7ayenfa3 keda." (The Prophet was an Arab, he used to eat with his hand. And you're here telling us 'twenty five'? This just won't do.)

His friend responded from the other aisle, several rows down. "wallahi enta bas elli shaklak mabsoot 3ashan 7atshoof ommak ennaharda." (I swear, I bet you're just all happy because you're seeing your mother today.)

A Shot At My Foot

2007-05-28T04:20:00.000+03:00

I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Berkeley, or Oakland, I'm not sure. It's a quiet, cool grey day, long weekend. The day/city seems sleepy and vulnerable, like this is the day it's caught unawares by some major event. Anyway. Beside me are two young guys who've been chatting for a few hours. One of them has a software text book open before him, but they look too old to be university students. They're talking about big things, about having given up trying to change the world and stuff. Their conversation is very meta. Also very synergistic, that is they agree on a deep level and they're just getting off on the verbal rally, confirming and building on one another's ideas. I'm getting a very Atlas Shrugged vibe, even though I haven't read the book, but I have an idea what it's about. They're talking about the interplay of capitalism and the spread of democracy, reminding me why I don't like clever business types. They seem to have snappy articulate definitions and positons for everything and their whole story seems to fit together so nicely. And it's making me sick, partly because I think they're wrong and missing the point. But also because I'm sick of having similar conversations myself, albeit at the fluffier, warmer end of things. I think things are coming to a head in my life, except I'm not quite sure which things. Either way, I want to shut up.

I was just in New York city and I filled my little note book with many cute observations, like I did in India. And now I don't think it matters at all. I want to stop worrying about writing. But not all writing, just whatever this flaneur attitude to which I seem inclined is seeming to inspire in me outside of Egypt. I feel like my meditations on the mundane are meaningful in Egypt and critically less so elsewhere, except for situations in which I was personally very involved, like the time I thought I was getting kidnapped in Udaipur, or the week I nearly lost my mind with frustration about getting ripped off.

But things still stimulated me in New York and I thought about them and chatted with friends and took notes. I'm increasingly coming to see a certain deep discomfort within me to be partly my longing for more direct engagement with the content of things I end up writing about. And the question remains/returns: writing/discourse as practice? I don't know, not for me at least. I have that drive, and I've learned to act on it, but then the feeling of accomplishment fizzles, and I'm left feeling empty and useless in a way I' m increasingly feeling the need to act on as well. And not by writing more to replenish that risky sort of contentment.

Groups of Hacidic Jewish men and boys patrolled the very late night streets in south Williamsburg in Brooklyn. They were everywhere, all dressed the same, walking in groups, walking alone. I was enchanted and I pulled out my notebook and scribbled, in the cab on our way to a club where we saw a group I loved, the Crystal Castles, who I also took notes on. I think I'm driven to write about the late night patrol and the group and so many others because I ultimately want to be them, or at least to partake of the beauty and import I see in them. Maybe I should focus on doing just that. Who knows. Gatni neela and/or Rabenna yesahhel.

For the Sake of Posting

2007-04-27T08:17:00.000+03:00

I read Amnesiac's post yesterday and was sent reeling by the last passage, where she recounts one of those Cairo moments that are both mundane and profoundly cool. I felt an overwhelming, if somewhat retarded, urge to fly back and jog through the city clapping, snorting it all in and living all superstimulated again. I've travelled a fair bit over the past three years and I feel like other places just aren't inspiring me that much. Or at least not as much as I get back home. I'm fortunate that I'm not bothered in Egypt or sick of it, unlike the many good people who decide or hope to seek gentler, more reliable lives elsewhere. I feel that because I've nurtured so intently my comfort and fluency with the ways of my city (not just as a flaneur but by constantly imposing a desire for meaningfulness on my interactions with the city's public elements), other places just don't end up hitting the spot (in a general human experience sort of way) the way I know they can. The only way they have done so for me is through an indulgence that I've come to find unsustainable. You can only have your mind blown so many times before you realize 'wi ba3dein' (now what).

Yesterday was one of my most enjoyable days yet in India. In the morning, Sunny called me out to the courtyard at Shikshantar and asked me to put my ear to a bloated cloth pouch hanging from a clothes line. He'd soaked some moong beans the day before and then hung them outside bundled in a wet cloth so they could sprout (good for salad, healthier in general). I put my ear on the cloth and heard a faint crackling sound. Without thinking I asked him what the sound was. "Beans sprouting." It didn't exactly make me euphoric but to actually hear something grow is I think enough to check a very big, if unglamorous, box on the list of things-to-do-as-a-human. Later in the day we took a whole bunch of things (coconut shell jewellery workshop, cotton thread spinning, paper bag making, herbal medicines, tasty oil-free sugar-free snacks, etc,) down to Sunny's neighborhood as part of our TV Turn-Off Week program. We set up our stalls on the corners and along walls and chatted with the neighborhood crowd. I've been trying to put together a percussion group with some of the people here, with old buckets, tin cans and steel pipes. I'm not a particularly good drummer but I can keep a beat and I can tinker with one, enough to make people want to dance, which is enough in general, I think. So I took up a spot started some beats with Jasmine and when the kids flock to see I hand them some junk and invite them to bang along. Some kids, usually boys aged eight to twelve, are real assholes banging as hard and fast as they can, not caring to actually participate. But you can't just be an asshole back, or tell them get lost. You just can't, and I've learned over the past while that there are indeed ways of making them not want to be a nuisance. (Of course sometimes I do give up and walk away, waiting for them to get bored and hop back on their bikes). Then there are some kids that are just so talented and keen as to make you look actually think positively about the future. I feel there's little that needs to be said. My Hindi's not that good but all I ever need to say with these kids is together and gently. Gestures suffice for everything else. Jamming with kids... some as young as six getting a beat right from the first try, or taking a second to think up their own and leading the rest of the group. We've been doing this all over the city. I wonder if it'll work in Cairo. I hear it already... "aywa ya kabtin... taba3 meen... beta2tak." Someday I'll have the guts to actually say "ma3lesh ya 3ammo".

Gayyash Abducted in India

2007-04-14T07:21:00.000+02:00

I've been in Udaipur, India for nearly two months now, interning (for lack of a better word) at Shikshantar. Throughout my life I've been mistaken for an Indian many many times and have always felt a strange intuitive sort of familiarity with many things Indian. It's probably for this reason that I haven't been blown away or super-stimulated as many visitors are here. Instead my stay has been very serene, it's like I've found a second home with all the perks of my own and far fewer annoyances. I'm alone here, noone calls me, my circle of friends is small, I get to read a lot and talk about things that really matter to me. Udaipur is a beautiful, pleasant, easygoing city. The food is wonderful, especially the sweets. I haven't seen anyone get angry (in public) yet and I've been marvelling at how different that is to Cairo. It's because I'm not from here, though, that my daily interactions are far less colorful than they are back home, where the opportunities for play and creative engagement are what gave rise to this blog in the first place. That said, there have been many experiences worth writing about, some that inspired me to reflect on issues of wider social concern and others of the good old zany variety (like the grandmother of a friend who accused me of stealing her spoon after I put a plate of ba2lawa on her bedside table... she said I was narrow minded and didn't like to share; she had no teeth and carried a little dagger [Sikh tradition, I later learned]).

I've been writing long emails back to friends and am thinking it might be good to post them up here, even though I don't intend this blog to be about my life as such. In any case, this is just to check in. I miss fuul.

P.S. The title of this post is just a ploy to draw more readers through the aggregator. Ha2aw.

A Wrong Number

2007-02-05T00:44:00.000+02:00

My family, like many, is one that worries. I was in my room reading when my mother's mobile rang last night. It was three in the morning and she was asleep, my father away and my brother sleeping in the bed beside me. I darted quietly to her room and found her squinting into the lit screen of her now silent phone. She couldn't recognize the number so I asked her to hand me the phone so I could call back and see what the deal was. I dialled the number and a quiet young voice answered. "aywa fee 7ad ettasal beena mel raqam da," I said (somebody called us from this number). "ah, di mish nemret mohammed?" (yes, isn't this mohammed's number?) "la2 el nemra ghalat." (no you have the wrong number.) The caller apologised, "ma3lesh byet-haya2li el raqam kan zero etnashar wana darabt zero 3ashra, ma3lesh asfeen." (sorry, i think the number began with 012 and I dialled 010, sorry about that.) "mish moshkela, ma3al salama." (it's ok, goodbye.)

I kept the phone with me and my mother went back to sleep. Minutes later the same number called, ringing only twice. I went and sat in the living room and called back, wondering what to do in case I found the caller to be deliberately bothersome. The person picked up and I said this was the number they had just dialled and that they did not know anyone here. "ana kont batesel be sara, ma3lesh," was the response (I was calling for Sara, sorry). I said there was no Saras here and that it was too late to be calling wrong numbers. I ended my sentence with 'yabni' (son), thinking the caller an insomniac schoolboy. Further apologies were readily provided and I responded "Mashi, khalas yabni, ma3assalama," (Ok, that's fine, good bye). The caller paused before responding with a lighthearted tone "ma3lesh, howa 7adretak leh 3ammal te2ool yabni? ana bint," (sorry but why do you keep saying yabni when i'm a girl). I sensed in the back of my mind a longish sentence about the voices of prepubescent boys being similar to those of women, but opted instead for another "mashi, mish moshkela, ma3assalama" (ok, no problem, good bye). I went back to my room and continued reading with my mother's mobile beside me, worried the person would call again, in which case I would switch the phone off, I decided.

When I was 16 our phone rang and when I picked up it was a woman. I asked who she wanted. She asked who I was. I said she was the one calling so she should tell me her name. Jacqueline, she said, with a sultriness that was almost silly. I thought for a second and figured she wasn't being genuine so I hung up. When I told my father about this he didn't think it was very significant, implying instead that I needn't have ended the conversation so abruptly.

Fuul on Safeya Zaghloul

2007-01-04T16:52:00.000+02:00

I made my way home early on the morning of the 3rd, having been up for a good day and half trying to meet deadlines (NOT after-after-after-partying as some clever souls might infer). Exhausted and freezing to the point of misery I found a parking spot far from my building and walked through the throngs of civil servants making their way to work. I needed to eat but could bare neither the cold nor my too-heavy laptop bag much longer. I realised, though, that the special fuul place I always miss would be open. It would be good to get some food, especially fuul with zeit 7aar (linseed oil) and shatta (chilli powder).

I walked over and the little shop was buzzing and I dreaded having to wait so I just shouted my order repeatedly at one of the two guys behind the counter. He prepared a little dish and held it out towards me. I said 'what, me?' and he said 'yes, zeit 7aar and shatta, no?'. I said 'yes' and he said 'well here you go'. I stepped outside and found a clear spot on the makeshift table (a large board on a barrel top) among the empty plates, half-eaten onions, pickles and bits of bread. I asked a fellow diner where the bread was and he pointed behind me, to a palm-wood lattice on the sidewalk heaped with fresh baladi bread. I reached down and the first one I picked was warm and soft. I ate with gusto, reflecting on the significance of a person's fuul preference as I watched others bring their fresh aluminum bowls. The nice thing about such eateries is you get to see how everyone likes their dish: chilli or no, lemon or no, which oil, how much salt, how much tehina, whether they mash the beans, what they do with the salad, etc. Regardless of what a person's preference 'means', merely noting the particular tastes of strangers is somehow pleasantly intimate.

My eyes fixed on the eating hand of my neighbour to the left. His thumbnail was all dark and funky-looking. Being a connoisseur and frequenter of juice shops I remembered the disconcerting waterlogged (at best) look of the fingernails of juice professionals and wondered how people's nails get so unhealthy. Just then the man looked up and shook his head and said "homma el masreyeen keda: yeb2a oddamhom keteer weyet7asweko wemaye3gebhomsh 7aga, welamma mayeb2oosh la2yeen teshofhom yaklo ay 7aga oddamhom. bos wennabi, el 3eish da kollo zay el foll wallahi, zay foll, lessa tale3, we bos 3ammaleen yefa33aso weyrammo fee ezzay... mafeesh fayda..." (Its just like Egyptians to do this: when there's plenty they get all finicky and when things are scare you'll see them eat whatever crap they can find; just look, all this bread, i swear it's fine, it just left the oven, totally fine bread, and here they are poking at the loaves and tossing them around. There's no hope...) I tried to tell him it's ok, with a but-of-course-life-sucks/ the-sooner-there's-patience-the-better approach. He didn't respond and I wished him a happy meal and went back inside to pay.

It was still really crowded and there were two profoundly archetypal mowazzafat (civil servants) sparring , each unwaveringly insitent on footing their 2-pound bill. A colourful looking old man with a big beard and embroidered upright ta2eyya (scullcap) milled around the patrons as if waiting for his order and when he called to the fuul guy the guy responded "emshi ghoor men hena ya 3ammena, we khalli feloosak di" and threw his 5 pound note back at him (get the hell out of here old man, and keep your money). Just then I heard muffled screechy exclamations coming from deep within the snug mob to my left. I poked my head in and saw a petite cherub-faced white-haired mute protesting to a much taller man behind him. Seeing this, the fuul guy reached over the counter and gently knocked the mute's head, like he was knocking on a door. He turned around with a look of absolute incredulity and rage, only for the fuul guy to sate him with a "shhhhh!", gesturing the same and adding "matza3a2sh, seebak menhom we khaleek ma3aya. olli 3ayez eh." (Don't shout, forget about them, just stick with me. Now tell me what you want.)

Borger Max

2006-12-27T01:39:00.000+02:00

___________________Agouza corniche
___________________pities Heliopolis. For
___________________Quick holds no candle.

Maurice from Bikya

2006-12-25T19:09:00.000+02:00

At SOS, flicking a cigarette butt

Dairy Prayers

2006-12-14T16:48:00.000+02:00

I wandered around Mobtadayan street today, stuck between plans, awaiting a phone call from the mechanic. I walked to the fuul shop on Kasr el Nil and it was crowded, then stepped into the koshari place up the street, only to find the guy behind the counter resting his bare nail-bitten palm on the actual lentils. And my favourite Mounira fuul stand (which is attached to an ahwa, perfect) was closed (it was noon) so I kept walking.

A supermarket at the intersection with Falaki street caught my attention with it's jutting Cocal Cola glass-front fridge. I scanned its contents and spotted a stack of baladi (more wholesome, non-corporate) yoghurt cups. Inside, the dusty wooden cabinets, shelves and counter bore poorly stacked supermarket crap in silence, not even the hum of a fridge, the knocking of a cheese knife nor the grind of a basterma slicer, not even a lit bulb, just a single large beam of grey, incidental natural light. The middle-aged proprietor would not return my smiles nor my good morning, how are you. He wiped clean for me the single-portion honey packet and stepped outside, to daydream it seemed.

I took a (recycled-) plastic spoon from the ice cream fridge and ate the yoghurt with the honey, in the quiet shop alone. I imagined I was eating roz b laban (rice pudding) at Saber in Alexandria, for where else do people eat from sweet cups in public, standing? There is much to be said for baladi yoghurt. Today's was typical, each spoonful filling me with a deep and overwhelming joy without indulging my propensity for fiend-like delight in the sensory; it made me want to wake up earlier, to make myself more like I imagined it would be, were it a person. I thought to thank the man and say good bye but feared a repeat cold response, so I left quietly but look forward to returning.

Ave Baby Maria

2006-12-07T16:29:00.000+02:00

Born with good fortune to Tarek and Rahma
Sunday, December 3rd, 2006
Cairo

- esma3i kalam ommik, matesma3eesh kalam abooki -

Islamic Holidays Don't Kill Fish

2006-11-27T00:09:00.000+02:00

Mounira Morning

2006-11-18T20:01:00.000+02:00

Drunk Driver of a Donkey-Drawn Fruit Cart

2006-11-16T02:04:00.000+02:00

Heading home an hour past midnight on Wednesday, I turned right off of Bab El Louq street (also known as Tahrir street) and onto Falaki, where midan El Falaki/Bab El Louq begins. Many shops were closed and the street had that calm late-night emptiness; there were still some cars, but it was better than in the morning (the road is flanked by a large produce market on its left and AUC on its right), but still not as nice as where I live now, at the other end of Falaki, by Mobtadayan street near the French Cultural Center. At night I can park my car anywhere. It's right beside the Ministries of Education and Health and Military Production and several other major government offices, so some mornings I find the car blocked in, and twice I've found it scratched badly, by other cars.

There's a traffic policeman who holds the intersection of Falaki and Safeya Zaghloul (the CiC road) which is where I often park. One morning several months ago I had gotten into the car and began to drive off when I heard "mamnoo3 hena yaskendereyya!" (not allowed here, Alexandria). I looked up and saw the policeman across the street perched on the sidewalk, pen in hand and with the citations booklet clearly visible. He stood with a foot-tapping gangster- or parent-like look of indignation. "Howa mamnoo3 a2of hena?" (Am I not allowed to park here?) I asked, with my head deferentially stuck out the window. "Tab3an mamnoo3, danta 3amalt moshkela kbeera..." (Of course it's prohibited, you've caused quite a problem, you know...) He said something else that, combined with his subtly farcical demeanor, hinted he was joking. I shouted back something just as insolent and over the top and such has been our rapport to this day. He addresses me like I've committed a major infraction and I respond like I own the country, like rules don't apply to me and that he can hit his head on the wall, as we say, and he pretends to let me off the hook out of sheer magnanimity. He does apply a real pressure, though, and I relent, giving him chewing gum or mints or mineral water or whatever small genuine treat I have in the car. I do so because on one hand it's his due but also because it seems to bring grace to an otherwise absurd relationship.

Last week the road was blocked, cars were double parked but that's the norm; something was wrong. It was around noon and the streets were crowded with government employees heading home (it seemed). There were people shouting and it turned out they were shouting at the policeman. They crowded around him as he walked, alternately shouting at and pleading with him, I didn't understand. People were shouting his name, drivers who knew him it seemed, but they also sounded very frustrated and helpless. The policeman was silent but clearly agitated, walking off, violently swinging his arm out of people's grasp, with an I've-made-up-my-mind air of rigidity and indifference. A woman came up and had a go at him, shouting her head off, he snapped at her and told her to 'go back to the car'. She returned to a seven-seater Peugot and complained to other middle-aged women in a heavy rural accent. I soon figured out that he had sneakily appropriated the key to that car and one of the men shouting at him was its driver. Things calmed down and I wanted to leave so I walked up to him and asked what was up. He said something to the effect that these people were idiots who didn't understand that there are laws. I told him not to let them go and that he was doing the right thing, in a show-no-mercy sort of tone. He responded 'wenta fakerni 7asebhom?' (what, you think I'm going to let them go?). I hadn't noticed his accent before. It was heavy and rural except more Se3eedi, more distant, easier somehow.

So, soon after I turned off of Bab El Louq street and onto Falaki the other night I noticed a fruit cart up ahead. The cart was yoked to a bright white donkey facing me and was large, at least a meter and a half across and on it was a big heap of light yellow oranges. Beside the donkey stood a small skinny old man wearing an uncommonly grubby galabeyya. He looked more like a mentally ill street person than a 3arbagy. The cart was parked (only half in the parking lane) in front of a neon-lit supermarket with a few men idling outside, they seemed to be associates of the shopkeeper. I stopped my car and waited for the old man to either come forward, back up or instruct me to do something. I waited and he wasn't moving so I stepped out and shouted "ya 7ag" (old man) and he didn't really respond, just moving erraticly within a 20cm radius about himself. First I thought he might be physically handicapped then I realised he was just extremely drunk. He motioned me to proceed and I shouted back telling him the space was too tight. He insisted, not seeming to understand what I was saying, so I told him that I was going to back up and that he should come forward and park in the empty space behind me. I got back in the car and started backing up. A middle-aged bystander discreetly said "khalli balak da sakran teena" (watch out, he's totally drunk). I told him I knew and asked the man what he thought the man had been drinking. The man shrugged his shoulders and wipe-slapped his palms in disapproval.

I had to drive a good twenty meters in reverse. I did so at roughly the same speed at which the man led the donkey pulling the cart. Twisted in my seat and facing the road behind me, all I could hear was the creaking of the cart's wooden wheels and a strange loud rhythmic hum. My mind must have registered it as a generator that had just turned on, and it took a moment before I consciously wondered what the sound was. By this point I had slowed to a halt and the old man was turning into the empty space and leading his donkey past me. The window was down and as he approached I realised it was him making the sound, which was somewhere between the moan of a man who's just suffered a severe blow to the chest, and the rolling stream-like mantras of Buddhist monks (to whom I mean no offense by this comparison).

I drove off, waving at bystanders, all chuckles at our bizzare collective encounter. I got to the police check point on Sheikh Rihan street and wondered whether they would give me a hard time, because sometimes they did and somtimes they didn't. I wondered if I should tell them there was a drunk 3arbagi blocking the street a block away. They'd mess him up for sure, I thought. I wondered what might lead such a man to get as drunk as he was, thinking how much more interesting it would be if this was rare for him, as opposed to him being a regular alcoholic. And I wondered where and what he drank; I couldn't stop imagining him to have downed straight gasoline.

Footprint Taxi

2006-11-13T03:30:00.000+02:00

On Saturday I was downtown with a friend and took a taxi to Ramsis to catch a train to Alex, and shortly after getting into the back seat I noticed what you see in the picture above. My first response was disapproval. We are of the foot-phobic cultures and it is deeply ingrained in our minds, beyond the reach of our intellect, that the soles of feet should neither be on things nor face them. Even if I personally am not so bothered by the forays of feet beyond their common uses or spaces, I am still prone to expecting that others should be, or at least that they acknowledge the general public’s (which might as well be no one) position on the matter. My feelings then shifted to appreciation, within the same framework nonetheless. The perceived valuing of comfort over notions of propriety (traditional not bourgeois) indicated the sort of freedom of spirit that always leaves a pleasant feeling when detected in the trace of another person. What’s more, this wasn’t just someone who put his, or her (better still), feet up in the back of taxi, relaxing care-free, but someone with extremely dusty feet to begin with. Feet dusty to the point of resisting the moisture typically produced by foot-slipper contact. I remembered the classic Disney cartoon Snow White, the scene where she prepares a pie and friendly birds hop in and decorate the pie’s surface with choreographed little footprints. Flour was involved, and the white powder surface of the prints before me on the back of the chair reminisced of that. I though it might be plaster—a construction worker. Look at the prints and see if you can tell by their form how the person was sitting. Notice how there’s no smudging or indication of movement.

The taxi driver told the story of a money-loving old ahwa owner who was scammed into paying 100,000 pounds for a wolf. It was an elaborate scheme, involving several people and actual exchanges of several thousands of pounds, all designed to trick the ahwa owner into seeking to buy the wolf himself to sell to khawagas . He had been tricked into believing they come and pay big money for local wolves to sell back in Europe for up to 150,000 Euros. In the end the man lost his money and is said to have wailed loudly. People told him “Eh ya 3am el 7ag? Deeb ya 7am el 7ag, deeb?! Da mafeesh aktar mel deyaba 3andena fel gabal ya 3am el 7ag!” (Come on, old man*, a wolf? They’re all over the hills back home, old man.)

*'3am el 7ag' is a little bit more reverent and affectionate than 'old man' but is just as informal.

Better Than a Thousand Months

2006-10-19T13:51:00.000+02:00

The Ramadan Opera House Mounir Concert

2006-10-14T01:25:00.000+02:00

Stepping through the metal detector I instinctively patted my own pockets: keys, wallet, mobile, etc. "Damn, I don't have a pen, do you have a pen?" I asked R, an old dear friend. She asked why and I said in case I felt like writing something during the concert. It didn't sound right so I added that I might want to do that thing where I pretend to review cultural events. She laughed appropriately, with indifference. I am close to losing faith in the value of such frivolous talk as cultural reportage, at least as I do it. I know. It's just that I really don't feel it any more. What, cultural production as a nexus of the social, political, economic etc. forces of the day? So what; if one is so inclined, why not address such issues directly (as opposed to 'by za way')? (And shame on this day 3ammatan.) As historical document? Maybe. I consider microhistory and remember that any and every peep has potential historiographic value. But then how much ay kalam will historians of the future really care to handle? Imagine the mental nausea of reading, for example, page after page of those SMS messages that stream across the bottom of Arab music satellite channels... as a scholar. Then again, novelty being central as it is to contemporary Western academia (surely a bad sign in a big way), there will always be some professor or graduate student ready to discourse on the finest dust from deep in the grooves of the sole of someone's Coochi Shoe. Personally, I've been underwhelmed, seeing profoundly low discursive value in an increasing number of... things. And I don't mean small simple things (c.f. Neruda's Odes), I mean just plain lame and/or stupid things, which is most of what you get if you watch TV or live with people in the city. I should say, I suspect this is just a phase .

So what does one say about a Mounir concert? Should one drift coolly between logistics and sociological talk and reflections on the singer's history, his musicians and lyricists and his place in pop culture? As I mentioned, I'm finding myself simply not caring, but even the most heartfelt report is seeming so formulaic, if still challenging to produce. I concede that, done well, such writing does reward (see Nur El Messiri's memorable review of a Mounir show in 2002), largely because it connects phenomena and contexts in a way that satisfies. Why I am not seeing a bigger picture through the lens of Thursday night's concert remains a mystery to me, but somehow a positive one at that. And if I'm so blase about the whole affair, why am I writing now? I'm writing because the event happened and because I find the indifference with which it left me amusing, and simply because I thought about writing enough to have to do it.

At the entrance gate a tall moustachioed man in a suit shook his walkie talkie before my windshield. I rolled down my window and, with disgust and vulgarity, the man asked where I was going. "Raye7 fein" (where are you going) are simple words, except when they're hurled forth like the base of a palm to the nose, less so when the lower jaw that produced them droops with irreverent lethargy. I said "7aflet Mohammed Mounir" and he said "khosh hena" (go here) and dismissively threw his hand towards the car park by the Hanager theater. I was only coming to meet friends I hadn't seen in a while; I wasn't really interested in seeing Mounir in concert (nor in person, for that matter, despite my deep fondness for some of his music) and this made the man's rudeness that much harder to suffer. Good practice for the spirit, I thought. Maybe I'd done something wrong, maybe I'd ignored him, giggling instead with my female friend unaware of his first attempt at communication. In any case he really upset me and it took a while to regain composure without resorting to violent fantasy; this is Ramadan after all.

We parked and got tickets and walked into the crowd of police officers and Opera House staff checking people's tickets before the metal detectors. The guy who frisked me wore a similar suit to the rude man at the gate but was extremely pleasant, managing to joke continuously without getting on our nerves. His assistant, a young plain-clothed nervous looking guy with straightened hair looked through the pockets of a guy behind me. He opened a box of cigarettes and shook it upside down onto his palm. I was dying to ask what he'd do if he found something, whether he'd report it to the policemen nearby.

The crowd was mostly guys of course, most of them aged 15 to 30, some foreigners, some young women, moslty veiled, lots of couples. Lots of caps, some afro's. Everyone expected the show to start a couple of hours late and it did. Each time a musician appeared on stage to check his instrument with a little riff the crowd went wild. There were at least 2,000 people, but I'm bad at estimating crowd numbers.

People were singing Mounir's songs, as if that was the most appropriate thing to do while waiting at his concert. It sort of made sense but was still incredibly cheesy. They sang in twos and threes with upturned eyebrows and shakey heads. Mounir does that, his music is delicate, easily reducible to cheese. Some would say it's essentially cheesy, but none who've ever really been moved would say such a thing, at least not out loud.

Bango and hashish smoke wafted through the crowd, borne by the cool evening breeze. It was actually somewhat pleasant, the fragrant smoke indicating scattered clumps of heightened emotion. I saw two instances of joints being offered to strangers. Halfway through his first song (3alli Sotak), Mounir gestured disapproval to some audience members near the stage. Moments later the music stopped and he stood frozen in a dramatic pose, with one hand on his hip and the other holding the microphone over his bowed head. This lasted for about thirty seconds and the singer walked slowly across the stage, shook his head a bit then the music resumed. After the song he greeted the audience and wished them a Ramadan Kareem. He then said "Uh... el nas el henak..." pointing to the same group of people before pausing again in a lost-for-words sort of way "...mish betoo3i." (The people over there... they're not my people). The crowed roared, clapping and cheering, and strangers bonded, wondering aloud what the man was on about. He continued, saying "el 7afalat beta3ti... mafihash... keda," (my concerts... they don't have... this stuff). The people around where I was standing arrived at a consensus that he meant joint-smoking. This elicited an implicit 'whatever, man' from those present. His music goes too well with canabbis for him to reasonably expect the youth of Egypt to abstain at his concert. I imagine he said what he did (if that was indeed what he meant) just to clear himself with the authorities and/or the organizers. Either way, people kept on with the smoking and the singer mentioned the matter no more.

It was very refreshing seeing the way in which young guys danced and sang along to the music. Their ecstasy seemed directed inwards and really genuine, like they were singing alone in their rooms or in the shower. It struck me as being very different to the way people appear at rave-type events with a similar festive outdoor decadent vibe, but where enjoyment is so often projected outwards, worn like an indicator (which it often is) of what people are on, how much they feel the music, where they've been, all this naturally encouraging a attitude of deliberateness towards experience as such. Generally, 'other people' matters at raves and it's not just that romanticised altruism thing either, not to discredit it; there is a self-conscioussness (at once vain, frail and juvenile) with which many carry themselves. It tends towards gracelessness and is often grating. Mounir, on the other hand already belongs to everyone (he is mainstream and absolutely accessbile) and thus has no currency, so to speak, as an identity accessory (who's ever heard of Mounir fan wannabe's?). Indulgence in a live Mounir performance does not grant access to a socieconomic or cultural group as does indulgence in live house music (or its affiliate drug scene). Instead, it is more the consummation of a previously cultivated affliction, namely, that of having been moved by his music, which, with its mix of jovial catchiness and existential themes, tends to resonate strongly with the majority of free-spirited young Egyptians. There were of course exceptions, namely, shabab who seemed to be forcing their experience, hands clasped, eyes closed, swaying side to side... for 10 second stretches, between which they hit their friends and laughed heartily.

It got really packed where we were standing. A young guy squeezed in front of us, making his way across to the refreshments stand to our right. Trailing behind him was an attractive veiled young woman who excused her way through the crowd with pursed lips. Our eyes met and I smiled back, only to see her face turn, as we say, to a look of pained horror. Still holding her friend's hand and moving forward, she looked behind her and said "hayawan!" (animal!) Someone had grabbed her. She disappeared and I looked to my left and saw the guy who'd done it. A sketchy looking young man with a tall neck, beady eyes and inflamed gums. He had a horizontal scar on his cheek and I spent the rest of the show marvelling at him and his friends, all of whom (possibly by association) exuded similar vileness. I couldn't get over the casualness with which he did what he did and I grappled with the question of appropriate response. What if he'd done that to a girl who was with me. Would I have responded violently (and gotten my ass kicked by his larger and clearly tougher group of friends)? I really didn't know. Either way I was thankful for it not being my problem in a direct way. I'm still haunted and I invite all those who care to do something about sexual harassment to check out the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights'* initiative on the matter. And we pray, initiate discussion and blow whistles. Much as Mounir himself might have done were he still with pre-Shokolata vitality. For, despite his words, it's not stoners but guys who grab girls about whom he should sulk on stage.

* The ECWR's website has been rickety recently and the sexual harassment page isn't loading. If you have questions, stories or ideas please write to ECWR@link.net. Their e-mail checker/responder is efficient, friendly and attractive, so please do mention where you heard about them.

Heads and/or Shoulders in Cairo

2006-09-27T02:03:00.001+02:00

[The following exchange is taken from mindbleed, the blogging home of Dumb North African. It begins with the eighth in a series of comments on his post hez ya wez.]

----

So may I assume that you left your diaspora and are back to Egypt for good? Though I think that Egypt is the biggest diaspora for Egyptians!

comment by M — Saturday 9.09.2006 #

No, not back in Egypt yet, but it’s inevitable. Egypt - and going back - is like dandruff. If you don’t look hard enough, you’ll forget about it, but it’s still there. And there’s no long-term cure, just “shampoo.”

comment by DNA — Saturday 9.09.2006 #

‘And there’s no long-term cure, just “shampoo.”’
damn. i’m a big sucker for mil akher-isms and this is a good one. i’d written a longer comment but it got a bitt too long and i realised this was actually your blog not mine so i thought i’d better take it and just post it on my own blog. as we say, el wa7ed mabye3rafsh el kheir byeegi menin. 3ammatan eshta, i expect to be using your phrase at parties, with relatives and/or in taxi cabs law mafeesh mane3. merci moqadaman.

comment by gayyash — Thursday 21.09.2006 #

Gayyash.

Please feel free to post long unreasonable comments because they compensate for my blog’ recent lack of substantial content.

comment by DNA — Thursday 21.09.2006 #

eshta. even though my blog could do with the same.

so what i was going go to say was that the whole ‘no long term cure, just shampoo’ thing reminded me of something my friend H once said. we were driving (on the 15th May bridge coming from midan libnan, exiting onto gezira, heading for kasr el nil bridge and downtown) and he had just smoked up and was talking about how pleasant he felt and how hash just made cairo so much better. he continued with the claim that living in cairo provides a totally legitimate excuse for ta7sheesh, and that ta7sheesh actually makes life here better. he added that it wasn’t the escapism or the numbing effect (which it typically doesn’t really have, the numbness is more a pharmaceuticals [kemya] thing) but more the way hash helps you play with the city and with its crap, how it helps make you pateint, appreciative and unfazed(sp?) all at the same time, ultimately granting you access to it’s good stuff (vibes, details, etc.). he then said that if you live in cairo and you want to do it right and really get into the marrow of things and find harmony, ‘yat7ashesh yatmasheeha 3ebada w baraka’ (either get high or tap into the spiritual thing). he pointed out that within our extended shella in cairo, those who were most at peace were either stoners or they systematically nourished their spirits through religious practice. interestingly, just as kemya makes for a sort of rejectionary, darker, more grim relationship with the city while hash keeps things generally jolly and a tad more lucid, there seem to be two similarly different sorts of religiosity. the first, the kemya kind is dark, resentful of this life, slapping religion onto life like petrol on a tree stump, seemingly looking to death and the afterlife as a sort of getting back at the shit hand one’s dealt in this life. it’s adherents seem to jar with the world and with other people who aren’t like them and they don’t come off as being particularly concerned with beauty. the other sort of religiosity is a funkier more mystical sort that sees this life as being littered with tricks and mysteries and providence and pockets of grace and much to nourish the spirit. this kind of religiosity is also big in cairo, it’s like the religiosity of laid back people who are religious because they have faith that actually engages and enriches and does not sedate them or demonise life. This is the religiosity that H was talking about–that old-cairo, moulid, azhar lectures, saintly strangers vibe that’s so rich and there for the taking here. him, he swings between that and the hash and doesn’t seem too bothered by it. it just occured to me that two other spiritually charged cities, marrakech in morocco and varanasi in india, also have a formidable hash-smoking culture. our other friend K, who at one time knew his psychoactives like the best of them and is now sudying to become a priest, once said that drugs are to spiritual practice what masturbation is to sex. i really liked that. in his defense i’ll presume he was talking about abrahamic religions, as i think he’d agree that traditional indigenous spiritual systems seem to know how to work the drug thing properly.

so… this is to say my friend H said that in cairo hash-smoking and/or spiritual practice are the way to go–they are his example of shampoo, if i understood you correctly. ramadan kareem.

comment by gayyash — Sunday 24.09.2006 #

Gayyash.

You REALLY should post that on your blog. Better yet, tell H to start up his own blog.

Familiar ideas, but it’s nice seeing them described so well. And yes, ’shampoo’ was the executive summary of all of that. Ramadan kareem to you too.

comment by DNA — Tuesday 26.09.2006 #

thanks for your compliment, i will post. H wouldn’t blog. he lives in america now. he’s happy but wants to come back. ciao.

comment by gayyash — Wednesday 27.09.2006 #

Let Them Eat Shibsy

2006-09-20T13:14:00.000+03:00

Hatchet Hani

2006-08-01T18:34:00.000+03:00

When History Talks in its Sleep, Say On Leadership

2006-07-13T01:37:00.000+03:00

A recent news item from the BBC:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his controversial kissing of a boy on the stomach was just a spontaneous gesture of affection.

Mr Putin came across Nikita, five, in the Kremlin last week, lifted up his T-shirt and suddenly kissed him.

"He seemed very independent and serious... I wanted to cuddle him like a kitten and it came out in this gesture. He seemed so nice," he said.

The kiss - shown on Russian television - triggered huge public interest.

"There is nothing behind it", Mr Putin told the BBC in a live webcast on Thursday, explaining that the encounter on 28 June was quite spontaneous.

Nikita was among a group of tourists visiting the Kremlin.

The kiss triggered intense speculation in the Russian and foreign media, with questions being raised about the president's motivation.

More than 11,000 people asked Mr Putin to explain what prompted his act during the webcast organised by the BBC and Russia's Yandex website.

Russia's Izvestia newspaper, which later found Nikita, reported that he had refused to wash after the kiss.

"I just liked him [Mr Putin] and he liked me very much. I want to be president myself," the boy was quoted by the daily as saying.

***

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had arrived at Badr with his composite army of early converts from Mecca (Muhajirah) and later ones from Medina (Ansar). It was decided that they would enter into battle with the army of Quraysh.

"The Prophet now drew up his army, and he passed in front of each man to give them good heart and to straighten the ranks, bearing an arrow in his hands. 'Stand in line, O Sawad,' he said to one of the Helpers [Ansar] who was too far forward, and he gave him a slight prick in the belly with his arrow. 'O Messenger of God, thou hast hurt me," said Sawad, "and God hath sent thee with truth and justice, so give me my requital.' 'Take it,' said the Prophet, laying bare his own belly and handing him the arrow whereupon Sawad stooped and imprinted a kiss where it was his due to place the point of the shaft. 'What made thee do this?' said the Prophet. And he answered: 'O Messenger of God, we are now faced with what thou seest; and I desired that at my last moment with thee--if so it be--my skin should touch thy skin;' and the Prophet prayed for him and blessed him"

(from Muhhamad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings)

Sincerity is Coherent

2006-04-04T19:05:00.000+02:00

Law Lam Akon, Lawadidt

2006-03-29T17:37:00.000+02:00

Booz El Biss-sa

2006-03-29T17:31:00.000+02:00

Kick Cat

2006-03-27T21:48:00.000+02:00

When you turn to walk away and find that you're stepping on your kitten or that you've flung it across the room, there is a feeling of horror at having kicked the thing. But deep down it also flatters, that the cat's followed you despite your indifference, or that something chooses to follow you at all.

Fuul Rejection

2006-03-27T17:04:00.000+02:00

It was nearly noon and I hadn't had breakfast and was craving fuul--outdoor, aluminum saucer street fuul, specifically. I was on Hoda Shaarawi by Felfela downtown and I headed towards the makeshift fuul stand/station some meters past Ka7lawi (or Afifi to those in the know), the kibda and sogo2 guy (sausages and garlic-chilli stir-fry liver).

The requisite loose crowd was gathered around the fuul stand and around the dining zones that flank it (meter square plywood boards on rusty barrel-tops). There seemed to be more clearing than eating going on, and one man was violently throwing cupfuls of water into what looked like the salad bucket. I noticed that the guy behind the counter was mashing up a seasoned batch of beans in the large transit bowl so I went and stood before him. He looked up and made a quick sun-rises-sun-sets swipe with his hand and said "7amdollah" (Praise be to God) and promptly returned to his seemingly strenuous task.

I asked him, "7amdollah 3ammatan, walla 7amdollah amshi?" (7amdollah in general, or 7amdollah thus I should leave?)

"3ammatan emshi," he said, without looking up (in general you should leave). I said "mashi" (fine) in the most dramatic victimized voice I could produce and walked back to Afifi's for undesired kibda.

Update: Post has been edited, based on Forsoothsayer's comment.

Thy Neighbour's 504

2006-03-22T00:48:00.000+02:00

The garage was packed with cars and the old man led me to a makeshift slot on the exit ramp. His steps were jittery and gestured me to wait and then squeezed himself between the front of my car and the back of a parked Peugot 504, staring at me as he put his back side to the car and leaned with all his weight. The car was not moving, but it was meant to be, and knowing this relieved our eye-to-eye of some awkwardness. Sure enough, the car eventually budged, but veered sharply to the left. He got up and walked towards his little station some meters behind where we were, muttering something about a key and getting in trouble as he passed my window. He returned with a small keychain and stooped at the 504’s drivers’-side door and in the dim light I could see him poke into the door handle, shake his head, shake the keychain and poke the other key into and around the chrome strip. He repeated the process shaking and cursing before finally giving up and walking towards me, holding the keychain before him, indicating me to take care of the situation myself. I got out and gently swung my door back into its slot, the soft rattle of cassette tapes, lighters and Halls mints ringing through the breezy hall. “Khosh e3delha enta layeegi yesawwatlena sa7ebha; e3del el 3agal wetalla3ha oddam.” (You get in and park it properly lest the owner give us hell; make the wheels straight and bring it forward.)

The car was in good condition, the paint job seemed recent and the fittings on the outside looked neat. It had two license plates, one was Malaaki El Fayuum and the other an EU plate. I walked over and noticed the key-slot about an inch below the door handle. I tried one of the two keys and it didn’t seem to fit. Examining the other key, I realised the keychain was one of those remote locking/unlocking devices. On it was printed a tiny open padlock and when I pressed the corresponding rubber stub the car came to life, as might a modest lady stepping into a Marilyn Monroe upward gust of air. Its front and tail lights flashed orange and its cabin filled with a flash of blue and the plastic whack of unlocking doors pierced the ‘peep peep’ trumpet-like horn, a sound so shrill on noisy streets but somehow majestic in calm concrete rooms. I got in and gently pulled the door shut and felt around the left side of the steering column, having recalled the various wrong-way-round controls of my grandfather’s old pastel-blue beauty. I found the slot and inserted the smallish key, twisting it backwards not forwards. There followed two raspy coughs and a soft rumble.

I took a moment to feel the car and looked at the gear stick to check the reverse-gear position. The car smelled good. There were no hints of grease, cigarette smoke or leaked petrol. It smelled wholesome and had that subtle perfume of very clean unperfumed skin. It somehow smelled of good people, people who cared and took care and favored freshness over syrupy accessorising. The velvety beige upholstery was spotless and looked new. There was no dog-eared battered tissue box, no cassette cases or sooty crumpled tissues, chocolate wrappers, screwdrivers, wiping cloths or water bottles. Only a dark jacket on the back seat and a single folded white piece of paper on the dash board. On the top passenger-side corner of the windscreen was a Judiciary sticker (scales in a circle with two diagonal stripes, one red and one green) and a Police one (el nesr, the eagle from the national flag), the latter looking fake like the kind sold in accessory shops.

I eased my foot off the clutch and let the car roll back till it came parallel with the wall. I shifted gear and brought it forward, gently pulling on the ribbed right side of the steering wheel to leave things aligned and neat.

My late grandfather had tired of driving just months after buying the 504, and I grew up knowing it simply as that car we used for long trips. It enjoyed a similar respect to the sort my grandfather commanded as patriarch of our very small clan, what with its sensible, reliable machinery and modest jowly look. In time, I too came to use it when there was no other car for an errand. It felt like boat to drive, like it wasn’t actually on the street but tethered to it, floating a foot above on rushing water. It also had a wood-like feel—a firm suppleness, slow spirit and warmth.

I stepped out and locked the car and walked over to mine, got in and moved it some feet forward. I locked the door and walked off but stopped when I realized I’d forgotten to leave my key with the old man. “Ah! Ma3lesh, neseit khales adeek el mofta7,” (Oops, I totally forgot about leaving you the key).

“Ya beih walla yhemmak, di 3arabeeti,” he said (oh, don’t worry, I treat it as my own).

Michaelangelo's Om Yasser

2006-03-15T19:39:00.000+02:00

Booz El Ersh

2006-03-12T16:19:00.000+02:00

Rapturous Balteem

2006-03-12T16:12:00.000+02:00

Venomous Beggary

2006-03-08T15:52:00.000+02:00

I was stopped at a red light at around ten in the evening, where Kasr el Nil ends at Tahrir. I threw my mobile onto the passenger seat, repeating to myself the words of a text message I'd just received. The message was critical and I had to word my response carefully but wasn't in the mood to do so. I hurriedly connected my music player and rushed to the song I wanted, only to get a 'battery empty' message and then a dim grey screen. A woman walked up to my window, young and slim and dressed in black with a baby slumped over her shoulder and a pack of tissues bobbing in her hand. "Allah ysahhel-lak, sa3edna b2ay 7aga," she said, in that wobbly imploring tone so popular with the career types, career beggars, that is. (God help you, spare us something.) I turned to her with a quick "shokran, Rabbena ysahhel-lik," (thank you, may God ease things for you) and looked back at the blank music screen, trying to remember whether the charger was in the trunk or in my laptop bag at home. "Ay 7aga tayeb," she said (anything). I responded "shokran," and returned to thoughts about the wire, between which I glanced in my mind at a draft reply to the text message. "We7yat ommak hat 7aga," (by/for your mother's life give us something.) It worked, her words turned my stomach and hurt me. I had, in effect, given her my deaf ear, as we say, and she slapped me on it. She didn't say it like the vulgar figure of speech that it is, she spoke like she meant the words themselves. Your mother, this is for your mother, your mother's life. I turned to see her face, to taste and ingest it with my eyes, to furnish my anger with a figure on which to hang its hooks, and to ease for myself the task of forgiveness. But I know that this was my violence. I looked her in the eyes and she knew what she'd done. Her walleyed stare was not that of someone still expecting money. It was the look of a person who'd just beaten a provoker to the ground in an uncontrolled fit of rage. 'I can make you listen,' she must have thought. She had deserved no more than what I gave her and for that I curse the feeling of irked entitlement that drove her jab. But who knows, I might have been the last straw, and it could be that she'd thought to herself 'damn you and your pathetic little world'.

Elation, Fill Us All

2006-03-05T22:06:00.000+02:00

The Mantis Also Dances

2006-03-01T23:34:00.000+02:00

There Is Only One Fanella

2006-03-01T00:53:00.000+02:00

When Alley Cats Chat

2006-02-27T19:01:00.000+02:00

After Eight, the club, lends its name to an ahwa (coffeshop) and the alley that runs between Kasr El Nil and Mohammed Bassiouni streets. In there you can buy flowers and a mobile phone, check your email, photocopy your ID, mend clothes, iron them, smoke shisha, drink tea and eat fuul. There is also home-style food, over at Om Dahab's little stall.

Om Dahab is an asshole, an endearingly artful and deliberate one, and therein lies her genius. She can be mean and difficult, but always in a way that uplifts, charms and invites for play. You leave having grown closer to her and she to you. I asked for "kromb ma7shi" (cabbage leaves stuffed with rice) and she refused my order and made fun of me to the other patrons. I waited and she eventually returned, asking if I'd meant "ma7shi kromb", her maternal indulgent eyes drilling me with reconciliation. She then said that I had to pay up front because she didn't trust me. I asked whether I needed to prove myself to earn her trust. She said yes then pointed to a seated man and said that he's from Aswan and that she knows him and his mother and his father and his entire family. I told her that I was from Alex and that I'd make sure to bring my brother when he visits. And then I paid.

I sat and waited next to the man from Aswan, who looked in his late thirties, had a moustache and wore an elegant suit. Om Dahab had shouted over telling him he was unlucky and that he'd have to wait a bit for the kofta. He said it was ok and got someone to bring him a shisha from the adjoining ahwa. A few minutes into his puffing of the me3assel half-smoke, a smiling girl of about twenty walked up and removed the thimble-shaped hood of his shisha and placed it on the table beside him. She wore jeans and a denim shirt embroidered with colored thread on the pockets and lapels and her hair was up in a bun, her faced lightly made up. She leaned forward and with theatrical slowness removed the clay bowl from the pipe stem and dumped its contents—the tobacco and lit coal—onto the pipe's collar tray. The man made a single frustrated tutt and took a long deep breath with closed eyes. The girl straightened her back and made a 'hmph' sound. She turned on her heel and walked off. I couldn't see her from where I sat but she must have looked back at the man because he had moved to the edge of his seat and was saying "Mashy mashy, ana hawareeki, ha2oll leee .... ha2oll leee..." (No, fine, I'll show you, I'm going to tell... I'm going to tell...) and he silently spoke a name, accentuating his facial movements to compensate for the discretionary measure. He leaned back in his seat smiling, clearly thinking wicked thoughts. A moment later he was hunched over the pipe trying to fix himself a new 7agar, mumbling as he did so.

The new bowl was in full smoking swing and the man from Aswan had his head resting on the wall behind him and the pipe's brass bit glued to his lips. He produced an old Siemens mobile from his jacket pocket, punched some numbers and held the phone to his ear. "Aywa... ba2ollak... ba2ollak... isma3ni bas... ba2ollak... ya 3am istanna bas, 2ollaha... 2ollaha... bos bos 2ollaha bas 'we7yat khaltik Magda, el wel3a elli wa22a3teeha di 7atedfa3i tamanha ghaali,' mashi? 'We7yat. Khaltik. Magda. El wel3a elli wa22a3teeha di 7atedfa3i tamanha ghaaaali,' bas keda... heyya 3arfa... yalla salam." (Yeah, listen... listen... hold on a sec, just listen... will you just fuckin listen to me... yeah, tell her she's going to pay dearly for spilling that tobacco, ok? She knows what it's about... yeah, talk to you later.) He put the phone on the table and shuffled in his seat, smiling again.

Some minutes passed and our food was not yet ready. I sat motionless, having forgotten to bring a newspaper and followed the bustle instead, the scene of which felt all the more special because it was a Thursday night. Nothing was different, but the spring in people's steps and alley's air and sounds all mysteriously smacked of leisure. It felt good to fein coyness about Thursday night, to be alone in this ahwa and not out worrying with the city's clubbing classes.

The girl returned and walked up to the man from Aswan and stood intimidatingly close to his shisha. The pipe remained on his lips and his head remained on the wall. He lifted his eyes and when they met hers she pointed towards his face with an aggressively arched wrist. She bellowed, from the gut: "Inta mateshtekeneesh le7ad! Ana maleesh 7ad wa-leyy amri hena teshtekeeni 3ando, fahim?! Lamma t3ooz te2ool 7aga t2olhali ana, mateshtekeneesh le7ad!" (Don't you be reporting me to anyone! I'm responsible for myself here, got it?! If you have something to say you say it to me!). The man didn't budge and simply took longer pulls from his pipe, his face sagging with forced aloofness and his eyes locked on something distant. The girl walked off and the man lay the pipe across his lap and leaned forward to rearrange his ashy dying coals.

Om Dahab's teenage son emerged from nowhere and joined the man from Aswan, plying him with idle talk and a dumb grin. The girl returned and hurriedly implored the man, "hat el mobile bas a-ren 3ala 7ad." (Give me the mobile, I need to give somene a missed call.) Motionless, the man responded "La2." (No.)
"Hato bas." (Just give it to me.)
"La2."
"Ah." (Yes.)
"La2."
"Ah."
"La2."
"Ah."
"Tab we7yat ommi la2." (On my mother's life I'm not giving it to you.)

Om Dahab's son guffawed and waved is hand in the girl's face, saying "Shayfa? 2al 'we7yat ommi' khalaas!" (See, he swore by his mother's life, forget about it!). The girl turned fast and wacked the boy on his chest with the back of her hand, shouting "Wenta maalak yaud! Makottesh goz OMMI?!" (It's none of your business! And who the fuck are you, my stepfather?!"

I eventually got my ma7shi (to go) and the man from Aswan got his (in house). I ate it straight from the styrofoam plate with washed hands, alone in a dimly lit living room. It was good, but, truth be said, not humbling brothy good. Just good--moist, spicy and dense. As many good things tend to be.

A Hit of Crack for Egypt

2006-02-14T22:20:00.000+02:00

Suzanne kissed Mohammed and she and Nazif waved their flags. I had been going nuts on the reload button, forced to follow the game on Filgoal.com because we don’t get the terrestrial stations or ART at home in Alex. Extra time had neared its end and I couldn’t bear not seeing the action so I threw on a jacket and ran to the supermarket downstairs. As I approached I heard noise and saw the cashier and an older patron do arthritic jumping-jacks in the middle of the shop, their eyes fixed to the TV screen perched atop the Fairuz fridge, the cashier shouting “Khalas khelset! Khelset keda khalas!” (It’s over, it’s all over!) I lept in and looked to the screen, only to see Abo Treika dash past the goal, his arms spread in jubilation, a mild roar emanating from inside the TV and from everywhere around us.

The cameras switched to a cascading choppy sea of red, black and white, the throngs at the stadium writhing, leaping and waving in celebration. “Da rez2 el nas el ghalaaba dol elli raa7o el stad… 3ashan mayrawwa7oosh ma2horeen.” (This is all the bounty of those poor folk who went to the stadium, so they wouldn’t go home sad.)

The old man responded “Ya 3am dol khanafes Masr, dil taskara bi toltomeet geneih. El naas barra fil shaware3. Di gamaheer sakka ya raagel.” (What are you talking about? These are Egypt’s hippie-kids/brats, the tickets cost 300 pounds. The people are out on the streets, not in there. These fans suck.)

A middle-aged woman entered the shop; she might have been a maid or a bawwab’s wife, judging by her dress and the haphazard aloofness with which she carried herself. She was holding a pack of Chipsy, asking the cashier whether it was spicy, “7arraa2 da? Ma2darsh akhod 7arraa2. 3andak eih mish 7arraa2? Ma2darsh akol ay 7aga 7arra2a…” She settled on a packet and paid and as she walked out she asked “3amalna eih?” (How did we do?). “Kesebna,” said the cashier (we won). “El 7amdullah,” she replied, “wel sood kesbo 7aga?” (and did the blacks win anything?). “No,” said the cashier. “El 7amdolla ya Rab,” she said, walking off (praise be to God).

I looked at the cashier who was now back behind the counter and he chuckled. The old man was watching the TV, following the celebrations taking place on and around the pitch. It was Al Jazeera and they were interviewing Abo Treika and a teary-eyed assistant coach who’d carried the African cup as a player many years ago. The cashier amusedly said ‘did you hear what she said, she asked if the blacks won anything and when I told her no she say el 7amdollah ya Rab.’ The old man shook his head once and kept his eyes on the TV while the cashier leaned over to pick up a mobile that had just beeped with a message alert.

“Mobinil ba3etlak resaala. Bet2ool mabrook lemasr,” he said, with an ain’t-that-nice but also a if-it-isn't-fuckin-Mobinil smirk (Mobinil sent you a message, it says Congratulations Egypt). “Rodd 3aleih we2ollo Allah yebarek feek. We kheff 3aleina fel 7esaab shwayya.” (Reply and tell him congratulations indeed… and tell him to go easy on us with the bills.”

I was resting on the counter, scribbling dialogue into a little notebook with the cashier’s pen. “Inta btekteb el natayeg?” he asked (are you writing the results?). I wasn’t, and I wasn’t prepared enough to lie or play along, so I said a simple no, finished writing the sentence and put away the notebook. I couldn’t just tell him that I’d been recording snippets of conversation, that I was writing about him. I pointed to the TV and mentioned how funny it was that Egyptians were celebrating everywhere. (Al Jazeera had three little windows onscreen with live feeds of street scenes from Cairo, Doha and Alex.) The cashier nodded, concurring with a toneless “aah”. It was clear from the slight pinch of his lower eyelids that he was unconvinced by my words and bit jarred. Nobody likes a voyeur, but the severely afflicted rarely care. Shame is a better deterrent.

Presence, as in feeling really present, is generally a good thing. Presence is lucidity, connectedness, “eternity in an instant” and an overall freshness of being. The football these past two weeks made me feel very present on more than one occasion. Or, more precisely, it made for a present-ness outside of me that I saw, felt and eventually connected to. It was like the entire country had come out for a debutantes’ ball, like everyone had crawled out of their little dens and stepped wholly into something that was wholly public, and that this new public realm—the stadium, the forecasting, the gossip, the flag and hat sellers, the TV ads, the merchandising and the names and faces of our players—belonged to everyone and was knowable to everyone. We were all somewhere together, somewhere new, somewhere exciting and glorious, and then we won. And as we nurse the throats that we scoured with all the chanting and cheering and honking and waving, there remains an unsatisfactory aftertaste of proverbial wafers.

Any occasion to congratulate strangers is nice. But what does it mean to congratulate, and why are we so happy? Our team isn’t really that good, at the end of the day. Granted, they truly did work hard and for that they deserve much praise indeed. But what does that have to do with us, the Egyptians? We haven’t actually earned much; it could have been any other team, any one of the many teams that played better than we did. But there is no justice in football, especially when the refereeing is such shit as was the case in this tournament. Our joy does not match our ‘achievement’. Instead, it stands on a crust-like title(s)—Winner of the African Cup, Guardian Uncle of Arabia, Land of the Pharaohs. Of course, loving and getting excited for one’s team is integral to football, and I, for one, totally relate to that. But is it not tragic, the hollowness of this rampant national joy? This is to say nothing of the knee-jerk (situational) appreciation for the president and for all things State, or of the note-worthy, if not all-out embarrassing contrast between our own painted-cheek, flag-waving, co-ed mobs and those of Lebanon’s cedar revolution. Would so many Egyptians speak out together with such vigor for such a cause as justice or democracy? Because only then would this sweet break from the shittiness of things be truly welcome. Till then, we would do well to confront ourselves politely and let our disapproval simmer. Excuse this. Who am I kidding? Doom is nigh and salvation lies in the details, of which there are plenty. Forget Us for now, wa a3oozobelLah men kelmet Me.

Girl's Back Yakhooya

2006-02-04T16:11:00.000+02:00

Sinai Solar Plexus

2006-01-30T22:15:00.000+02:00

Microprofile #6

2006-01-30T14:26:00.000+02:00

"I won't call them 3arab, 3iraqis or Muslims until they start acting like it. Until then they're A-rabs, I-raqis and Moslems."

- Nuri F.

Gifted Maadi love poet and notorious discursive thug; American master of Egyptian bedaanisms, Egyptian champion of the personal space cause; connoisseur of the popular and the posh in food, etc.

PanArab SCUBA

2006-01-23T15:42:00.000+02:00

حسين التافه

2006-01-17T16:13:00.000+02:00

Monrovia, April 14th 1980

2006-01-17T15:39:00.000+02:00

One of these men paid for my education, took me fishing and taught me the words ekhras, etreze3, etfa7 and etkhemed.

Those Fake Bedouins Again

2006-01-17T15:35:00.000+02:00

Cold Shoulder

2006-01-17T15:33:00.000+02:00

El 3eed Far7a, Hei! Heiii!

2006-01-15T13:50:00.000+02:00

(3 encounters with children, Wa2fa Monday, Slaughter Tuesday)

***

K and I were heading for Maadi on Monday around lunchtime when, after seeing the big billboard on the Moneeb bridge, we decided (like sheep) to hit Carrefour instead. That neither of us had been to that one was a good enough reason to cancel plans for a lavish lunch at Dragon House on road 9. So we went to Carrefour and had lousy oily food at the food court, bumped into our friend 3emeira (lapsed student of Japanese literature we'd met and partied with in Tokyo) and weaved in and out of shops, giggling as we poked at whatever products struck our fancy.

I was in the Adidas shop by the hat and cap rack trying on gloves when I noticed this little kid inching towards me. "Law sama7t...law sama7t..." (excuse me) he said feebly, like he was about to tell me he was lost. I looked at him, not quite sure whether to smile like I do with adults or to affect some cool maternal smirk instead. "Howwa fee T-shirt Reyal Madreed 3ala ma2aasi?" (Is there a Real Madrid jersey that's my size?)

In my mind I thought "howwa mabda2eyyan fil ghaaleb mafeesh..." (well there probably isn't...). This kid was tiny and it was funny imagining him try to modify one of those little team jerseys that have suction cups and stick to car windows. Awkward as I am, I responded with a gentle "bas ana mish bashtaghal hena," (but I don't work here), only to be met with extreme stillness and a look of suspended despair. "Istanna," I said (wait), and looked up. There was a young guy running across the shop without lifting his feet from the ground, swinging a shoe-box back and forth as he ran. "Law sama7t!" I called out, and when the guy looked over I pointed to the kid then turned to the kid and told him "roo7 es2al da" (go ask that guy).

The kid walked over and stood beside the guy who was now noisily disemboweling a fresh shoe for a seated middle-aged woman. Ignored, the kid persited, "Law sama7t, fee T-shirt Reyal Madreed 3ala ma2aasi?" Gada3 yala, ew3a tseebo.

***

Driving back to Haram with K, we took a left off of 'Ba7r el A3zam and dove into 3omraneyya. There were few cars and we were driving slow. Pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes and animals littered the way as usual and there was no rush. We approached the flyover that would take us to Ter3et el 3omraneyya and about twenty meters before it there were three small scruffy-looking girls on the left side of the road waiting to cross. They looked like they were six or seven but of course they could have been fifteen, what with the malnutrition thing.

Their steps faltered as we slowed to a smooth halt. They began to cross and the one nearest to us was looking at me and shaking her hand back and forth in my direction, fingertips and thumb all touching, making a tulip shape, as if gesturing 'wait'. I could see that she was saying "ya kalb" (you dog) and when I rolled down my window I heard as much. She walked with aggressive slowness, waving her hand as she continued, "ya kalb ya ebn el kalb ya 7ayawaan ya ebn el kalb..." (you piece of shit son of a bitch animal son of a bitch...)

K was cracking up and I was enraged. I frantically rolled down my window and stuck my mouth out, shouting "beteshtemi leih ya 7ayawaana ya m3afenna ya sghannan-anti?!" (why are you swearing you little piece of shit?) She looked back and gave a snarling frowning tongue-out grimace and, with arms horizontal bellydancer-style, she shook her hips once, twice, before giving me her back, no doubt sharing with her friends another "ebn el kalb" and more obscenities.

***

K's brother (soon to be microprofiled) has a flat in the same building where K lives with his mother on Fatma Roushdy street (it connects Share3 el Haram to Khatem el Morsaleen). The flat had done well over the years, serving as a Shabab R&R Center par excellence, with its Ping-Pong table, fridge, liveable rooms, DVD player, kicking sound system and a key-locked little cupboard always rich with various nice things. I'd been bumming there for a longish while before I (recently) moved to my current place and I was back for Sunday and Monday night because my flat was being fumigated.

The virtuous teet teet of N's SMS had me up at 0650, Tuesday morning. I washed, prayed, had a yoghurt, took some chest medicine and donned my scarf and shoes before heading for the neighborhood mosque nearby. I stepped out of the flat and found a groggy-looking 5 year old (middle class...probably better fed...easier age estimation) standing bundled up beside the elevator door. I said "Koll sana winta tayyeb". His response was slurred and looked painful. A tall, big-headed moustachioed man (presumably the kid's father) emerged from the flat at the other end of the hall. I said "Saba7 el kheir, koll sana w 7adretak tayyeb," (good morning, happy Eid). He said "3aleikom el salam wa ra7matullah, koll sana winta tayyeb". Rabbena yehdeeni, I thought to myself. We descended in silence.

After the prayer I walked back to the building and decided to take the stairs. When I got to my floor I found the little kid standing by the elevator again, this time looking much more animated. He was struggling with a toy gun and whimpered as he fiddled with it, all agitated. He turned to me and said "Law sama7t ya 3ammo momken te3ammarly el mosaddas?" (can you please load the gun for me?) I took the gun and pulled back the top part till I heard a click. It felt really good and for a second I wondered what would happen if I just ran off with the gun and played with it for a while and brought it back later. (There are/were kids who actually do that.)

I handed back the loaded gun and the kid let out a gurgly sinister chuckle that seem to originate in his notably large gut. He raised his arm and pointed the pistol at my face and said "ana hamawwetak, pchew pchew pchew..." (I'm going to kill you, bang bang bang...) and stuck the gun-barrel to my chin with each pretend shot. Shit. I like guns when I hold them but really hate them when others do. I thought it was likely that some idiot had given this kid one of those plastic pellet-firing pistols for Eid and the prospect of his firing a pellet into my eye or my nostril was making me very uncomfortable. I pushed the gun away and said "la2 la2 balash t7ot el mosadas fwesh 7ad" (no no, don't point the gun at someone's face), not letting go of the gun till he desisted.

There was a moment of silence and before I could turn to put my key to the door, the kid looked up with droopy eyelids and a wide toothless smile and asked "Sallet-ha?" (Did you pray it?)
"Aah, Sallet-ha." (Yes, I prayed it)
"Gameela," he said (it's beautiful), shaking his head in a it's-really-something-isn't-it way.
"Aah, gameela tab3an," (Yes, it truly is)
"Bass khallooha za7ma," he added, squinting with nostalgic disapproval. (But they've let it get all crowded)
"Bas ana byethayya2li kanet dayman za7ma. Tab mal gom3a bteb2a za7ma bardo." (I think it's always been crowded...look at Friday prayers, they're always crowded.)
"Maho koll yom za7ma," he said, flicking his head in a to-hell-with-it gesture (every frickin day it's crowded), "welly byeshtaghal byeshtaghal, welly bya3mel bya3mel, wahei mashya..." (and whoever's working works and whoever's doing does, and I guess it just goes on..."

The kid spoke with the kind of aloofness and muffled disgust one might expect of very old and very disgruntled cab drivers in very rickety greasy cabs, not a relatively affluent young child on the first day of Eid. Also his gestures were eerily in sync with his words. I didn't quite know how to respond and couldn't at that moment forsee any benefit in standing there and talking to this kid. It could only get weirder. I nodded "Aah, aah," smilingly said Kol sana wenta tayyeb, and turned away to let myself into the flat. I didn't look out the peep-hole once inside, but I should have.

Setting aside the possibility of genius or sainthood, I'd say the kid didn't actually genuinely sense an ultimate sadness of things, contrary to what his words implied. It is a given rule of thumb for adults to mind their language and their mannerisms around young children. Of course, what the kid said wasn't rude or inappropriate as such, but his words, as well as the spirit with which he spoke them, seemed to come directly from adults. How much of that shit had he been exposed to, to make him fluent as he was? Having a young cousin myself, I've also learned about the dangers of giving young kids free access to fuckin tamseleyyat (TV soaps). Now those things are very much sources of rudeness and inappropriateness, as such (the tamseleyyat). Could it be that the presence of a stranger (me) is what triggered the kid's affectation? Or is he one of many compulsive little talk-the-talkers? There was this show on TV the year before last in Ramadan called 3aalam Doreid where the Syrian comedian Doreid La7am would interview these young children from different Arab countries. There was this one Egyptian girl who was, well, moseeba, radda7a, fedee7a, m3allema (catty and gangster-like). Aside from the things she actual revealed about herself and her family, her demeanor was incredible, in a bad way that is. Imagine Sherihan in her meanest, most coquettish role. This girl talked something like that.

Critics of schooling ask: does a child really have more to learn by spending half his day in a room with 20 (let alone 100... 3amaar ya Masr) of his peers than he does out in society where he engages with children as well as adults, adolescents and people of old age in a variety of situations? When he/she is removed from the world of adults in this way (school), and comes to see adults primarily as wielders of power, what does this do to his/her understanding of himself as an adult-in-the-making, as something he already is and needn't pretend to be? Critics also hold that contemporary schooling practices delay maturity. (Consider the eminent leaders and thinkers of pre-modern times and note the ages at which they began doing things of value...pick just about anyone ...and contrast that to the tepid existential crises of 22 year-old university graduates today...'who am I? what do I like? what am I good at? what is my role in the world?...tfoo!). I shudder to think of kids who've gotten so good at parroting the resolve of adulthood that they end up missing the very process that confers it. Imagine pandemic immaturity. Wilkam Wilkam.

Coptic Christmas Eid El Ad7a Taxi Taxi Taxi Taxi

2006-01-14T03:18:00.000+02:00

(4 Taxi chats, Christmas Saturday through Wa2fa Monday)

"Mohandiseen!" The Fiat 128 leaned forward as it quickly slowed to a stop. I got in the front and said Salamo3aleiko. The driver was young, mid to late twenties and wore a white galabeyya and had fair, wavy, heavily gelled hair. He looked bedouin. He said 3aleikomelsalam and laughed, speeding his way to second gear, and then looked back towards me and said "Ma3lesh asli lessa taafi segaret 7asheesh add keda," (sorry, I just finished a hash joint this big) and he pointed to his right hand wrist while extending its index finger. "Eshta," I said, and produced a chuckle of camraderie.

"Maho lazem," he said (it's necessary), "asl fee nas fel donya di etkhala2et 3ashan te3aknenak; fee naas lazem ye2refook fe3eshtak." (there are people, you see, who were created just to give you a hard time.) "3andak masalan el sittaat..." (take women, for example)

I asked "El sitaat el 3awageez masalan? Elli by2oolo 'dana badfa3 keda kol marra'?" (You mean those old women who say 'I always pay this much'?"

"La2 khaales, da law 7ad kebeer mabahtammesh, ba3teber el tawseela 3amal kheir ya3ni, bastanaash mennaha floos. Ana azdi 3al sittaat min sen khamsa w talateen keda laghayet sen khamsa w arbe3een khamseen. Byeb2bo labat labat, yetalla3o 3einak. Tla2i wa7da 3ayzaak tewassalha bab el sha22a, tetalla3ha beltax el sellem. Wetkoon eih, medakhalaak 7awaari gowwa 7awaari, to3odlak rob3 sa3a mashy bdahrak 3ashan tetla3 mennaha." (Not at all, I don't worry about money with old people, I see it more as an act of kindness. I'm talking about women aged thirty five to forty five, fifty...man, those ones'll really give you a hard time. They expect you to drive them right to their apartment door. And that's after she's taken you through winding alleys so tight it takes you spend a quarter of an hour backing out of them...in reverse!)

I chuckled some more, trying to cheer on his rant.

"Aah ya 3am, 3ashan tet3aamel ma3al nas di lazem tekoon kwayyes, ana maba7ebbesh a7rem nafsi men 7aga abadan, a7eb ana dayman akoon kwayyes," he said, clearly getting off on the decadent zaniness of his words (Yeah, man, to deal with these people you have to be doing ok. I don't like to deprive myself of anything, I like to be doing ok all the time.)

He started laughing. "Bakallemak gad, ennaharda segaret 7asheesh, law mish mawgood momken aroo7 darebly wa7det tamanya fel meyya, aw 7atta aroo7 wagebly men 3and el ashwal rob3 abyad keda yzabbatni el leil kollo. Keda ya3ni." (I'm serious, today it's a hash joint, if not then maybe I'll go have me an eight percent [high alcohol beer], or ever pop into the Ashwal's [popular liquor shop called Bazaar el Ashwal, Lefty's Bazaar, on Sudan street]
and get a quarter litre bottle [of Zebiba] and be set for the whole night. That kind of thing.)

My brother took a cab from Korba to somewhere in Marghani. The driver looked like he was in his forties and was hunched over the steering wheel and mumbling to himself for a few while before he turned to my brother and said "ana lessa mala2etsh el shanta." (I still haven't found the bag.)

"Shantet eih?" (What bag?)
"El Shanta." (The bag.)
"Ya3ni shantet eih ya3ni?" (What bag are you talking about?)
"Shantet el Floos." (The money bag.)
My brother laughed.
"We 3amel 7esabak 3ala kam?" (And how much are you planning for?)
"Melyon 7elw." (A million would be ok.)
My brother laughed again, and the driver interrupted, "bas enta 3aref melyon eh?" (do you know a million what, though?)
"Eih?"
"Euro."
More laughter.

My brother got out and gave the guy a couple of pounds extra. The guy leaned towards the window and said, "3ala fekra, ana lamma ala2i-l-shanta… 7a3od khamas tiyam... barakkeb nas bebalash," (By the way, when I find the bag I’ll go for five days taking people round for free). And then he raised an open palm showing five fingers, emphasizing his promise.

I got in a cab downtown around midnight and headed for Haram. We took Tahrir street and eventually got onto Sudan. We were going fast and somewhere near Cairo University there was a donkey cart, tottering against the flow traffic. The driver kept his speed and only swerved at the last second, the cart just a hair’s width from my side of the cab. I gasped with pursed lips and made an alarmed hiss as we brushed past.

The driver, who looked in his mid twenties, told me not to worry. I said ok, but told him that we’d gotten pretty close to the donkey cart and that it was only natural that I’d jump like that. He agreed. I then volunteered some trivia:

“Bas enta 3aref, by2oolo en el ensan howwal 7ayawaan el barri el wa7eed elli lamma byetkhadd byesh-ha2 keda. We by2oolo enn da wa7ed mil dala2el 3ala ennena aslan tarkebetna barr-ma2eyya, en el ensan 3ando momayazat keteer betkhaleeh ye3eesh fe bee2a maa2eyya, we mish bas barreya.” (You know, they say man is the only land mammal that gasps when surprised, and that it’s one indicator that we have some amphibious qualities and that we’re particularly well-suited to aquatic environments, not just terrestrial ones.)

The driver nodded with a confused look on his face and let out a few disingenuous-sounding grunts of approval. He said “Ana… mish 3aref, int-aslak… itaghfarullah ya3ni bet2ool el ensaan el 7ayawan el wa7eed we istaghfarullah barr-maa2i we 7ayawanaat barreya w… mish 3aref…”

Shit. Now I’m no proponent of Darwinism, but I do think it’s cool to conceive of ourselves (humans) as the primates and land mammals that we happen to be, if only to better understand some of our physiological characteristics. I’d just been trying to share some Aquatic Ape Theory bits with the driver. Die-hard proponents (who tend to be die-hard evolutionists, I imagine) claim that there is evidence to support the claim that a major portion of man’s evolution happened 3al blaaj, on riverbanks, by lakes and around tide-pools, and that there’s all sorts of fun evidence to support his being adapted to such environments (best swimming land mammal, water-savvy infants, the gasping thing, etc…Google it and check it out). Me, I just like being in the water and enjoy fancying myself an amphibious being, and so it can only be expected that I’ll eventually bring up these speculations with strangers. In any case, there was work to be done.

“La ya 3am, ana mish ba2ool el ensaan 7ayawan, ana azdi ya3ni en min demn el makhlo2aat elli teshbehlena shwayya wel bee2a bta3et-ha orayyeba min beta3etna, zay el orood masalan, maho edeina shabah edein el orood we fee 7agat moshtaraka benna w benhom, 3adi ya3ni. Fa min demn el 7ayawanaat di el insaan 3ando shwayyet 7agat betmayyezo feta3amlo ma3al mayya. Ya3ni fekret en el wa7ed yesh-ha2 lamma yetkhadd di…fee wa7ed eqtara7 en yemken kel ensaan kan et3awwed yehrab mil 7ayawanat el moftaresa aw men a3daa2o weyeghtas aw yestakhaba fil mayya masalan…fasa3et-ha kan yeb2a monaseb enn el khadda tkhalleeh yakhod nafas kibeer yegahhezo lel ghats 3ala tool. Masalan ya3ni…di nazareyaat kollaha.” (No wait, I’m not saying man’s an animal, just that, compared to other creatures that have similar features [like monkeys for example, our hands are like theirs and we have a lot in common, it’s no big deal], he has an advantage when it comes to water. Take this whole gasping thing… there’s this theory that gasping makes humans better prepared for an aquatic escape from land predators.)

The guy went on to recite the traditionally understood differences between humans, animals and angels (desire plus intellect, desire only, intellect only). His tone was one of you-do-know-this-is-the-case-of-course. I nodded and was glad the situation was settled, if still a bit tickled at the extent to which my initial statement seemed to take him by surprise.

We got to share3 Faisal and the driver turned to face me with a curious smile, asking what I’d studied. I told him economics but also that I didn’t think it had much to do with how I thought or what I was into. He said he felt the same, that he’d studied commerce at some institute (ma3had) but that he’d dropped out. I asked him why and he said so he could get married. I said nice and laughed a sinister laugh to show him support and to spite the commerce institute he’d given his back to. He shone with confidence and had a hell-yeah! look on his face, adding that it was his childhood sweetheart he’d married too, that he’d done it, that he’d gotten the nicest deal possible. I asked if they had a baby yet and he nodded with glee, “Laila”, and raised his hands to demonstrate her size. She was as tall as a 2 litre Pepsi bottle. I told him that marriage seemed to make a lot of my friends feel more centered. He nodded and made of-course sounds, but after we made the U-turn on Haram and prepared to take the right at KFC, he shook his head and said that he was upset, that there was something wrong, that he was, at the end of the day, still the same. I asked him what he meant.

“Modmen 7asheesh.” (Hashish addict.)
“La ya sheikh. Eih ba2a, mate3rafsh teftar men gheiro ba2a w mabto3odsh sa3tein 3ala ba3dohom min gheir mateshrab w keda? Mintayyil khales ya3ni?” (Shit, man. So what, you need it to start your day and you can’t go a couple of hours without smoking? Are you having a really hard time with it?)
“La mish awi keda, bashrab bileil, bas koll yom wi kteer. Maba2darsh, goz2 mennaha shoghl bardo, mabab2aash taye2 ata3amal ma3 7ad wana faye2 sa3at.” (No it’s not that bad, I just smoke at night, but daily and intensively. I have a hard time dealing with customers sometimes if I’m just sober.)
“Bas mish moseeba ya3ni el 7asheesh, manta law khafeft momken yeb2a zareef ya3ni yekhaleek tendamig aktar ma3a mratak we bentak we bta3. Ana faker kam marra zaman rege3t el beit wana mastool we a3adt ma3 ommi we kan 3andi 7anaan kiteer awi wi heyya kat 7assa beeh we da kan mofeed awi le3elaqetna. Tab3an heyya makatsh bteb2a 3arfa en ana m7ashish bas oltelha men orayyeb we maze3letsh awi. Oltelha bardo en kol 7ad fiskendereyya by-7ashish w 3adi ya3ni, da ibn tant folan we ibn uncle folan wel kabtin folan we 3am folan, kollohom by7ashisho, 3aadi ya3ni.” (It’s not such a big deal, hashish. If you go easy it can be ok, it could be nice for your relationship with your wife or your daughter. I remember a few times long ago when I came home stoned and sat and chilled out with my mom. I had a lot of affection in me and she could feel it and I think it was really good for our relationship. Of course, at the time she didn’t know I was stoned, I told her about it later, and she didn’t get to upset about it. I also told her that everyone in Alex smokes, uncle so-and-so’s son and tante so-and-so’s son and this guy and that guy, and that it wasn’t such a big deal.)

We arrived at my destination and the driver pulled over.

“Hahaha…la, el 7ashish mo2adab bardo, ma2olnash 7aga. Mish zay el kemya masalan. El kemya ellet adab. Bas ana delwa2ti 3andi bent soghayara we 3ayz ab2a mawgood ma3aaha, we law afdal 3al 7al el ana fee da, mish 7atawwil… ana el 7ashish mebawwazli el se77a khaales.” (No, hashish is polite, unlike pharmaceuticals, they’re impolite. No man, I have a daughter and I want to be there for her and if I stay like this I won’t be here for long…it’s really ruining my health.)
“Tab di moshkela. 7ata3mel eih? 3andak riyaada kont btel3abha masalan, momken tekhaleek matedrabsh kteer we fnafs el wa2t tragga3lak se77etak shwayya?” (That’s serious, man. Don’t you have like a sport or something you could get back into that’ll make you smoke less and get you back in shape?)
“Riyaada, la mafeesh riyaada…bas baneek koll yom,” he said, laughing (No, I don’t have any sports, but I do have sex every day,), “wema2darsh aneek aktar men keda 3ashan khaater a2allel 7ashish. Rabbena ysahhil ya 3am, we koll sana winta tayyeb.” (And I can’t be having more sex just get myself to smoke less. Whatever man, it’s all good. Koll sana winta tayyib.)

I got out and wished the guy well as I handed him the cab fare. He thanked me and told me where I could find him if I ever needed anything or if I wanted to have a smoke. Koll sana winta tayyeb, I said, and he drove off waving goodbye.

Got into a cab Sunday evening and headed to share3 Shehab from downtown. I soon started telling the driver about what happened on the train from Alex just an hour before. I had boarded the 7pm train without a ticket. As usual, I waited till everyone got on before looking for empty seats. I found a place and took it and waited anxiously for the train to depart, hoping noone would come to (rightfully) claim my seat. A couple came and took the empty seat next to me and when the conductor eventually passed by to check our tickets I was reading and he got distracted with the couple. He printed their tickets and gave them back their change and walked on. I thought cool, I get to ride for free. It had happened once before and felt great. The couple didn’t seem to notice that the conductor missed me, and I didn’t mention anything or act like anything was amiss.

They were speaking in Arabic and the guy turned and glanced at what I was reading. He was facing me slightly, and after—I think—he recognizeded the language on my pages to be English, he switched languages midsentence, inserting some idiom (I don’t remember what exactly but I think it was ‘for what it’s worth’ or ‘for better or for worse’). He was, in effect, speaking into my ear, and I wondered what would become of our newfound bond, a bond the both of us no doubt recognized and no doubt responded to with different forms of isti3baat. He spoke extra English to his girlfriend, and I spent the rest of the train ride making sure to utter no word of English in his vicinity. I masochistically reminded myself that I have been this guy before and probably will be again.

Incidentally, I didn’t tell the cab driver all this, I just told him about how I’d gotten on the train and that the conductor missed me and that after a while he walked by again, this time without the guy who worked the little ticket printer (who was actually a higher rank I think).

He didn’t seem to notice me and I had to decide whether to play it cool and relish the sneakiness factor that was creeping into my free ride, or call the man over and explain to him that I owed ticket money. I thought about how I was, at the end of the day, thankful for Sekak 7adeed Masr (Egyptian Railways) and how I was actually getting a decent service, and I felt it would be uncool of me to not pay for my ride. (Also, I think when it happened years ago I had much more to gain by saving the 30 or so pounds I did by not paying.)

So I raised my hand and said Law sama7t. The guy stopped and I explained the situation and he responded with perplexed looks and ambiguous statements, making the situation unnecessarily confusing and unpleasant. The guy said he’d have to go get my ticket from the big guy with the machine and that he’d get in trouble for having missed me the first time and I told him I was sorry but that I hadn’t paid and thought that I should. I asked him how much the ticket was and he said forty. I gave him forty and asked if I should wait for him to bring me my ticket. Again, there was more weirdness and confusion as he seemed to fumble with my request for a printed ticket in exchange for my money. I started losing my cool, thinking “matet3del wetkhallasni’ (why don’t you fuckin’ get on with it). Before he walked off, he paused, gave that stupid smirk that often precedes this question in such situations, and asked where I was from. Angry and regrettably having lost some self-restraint, I asked him whether this would affect the price of my ticket. He looked a bit confused and shaken about, just like the asshole in me had intended. I thought to make amends and quickly answered his question, telling him my neighborhood in Alex and following with a gentler ‘why’. He shook his head and said that it was nothing, that he just wanted to know, that maybe I lived near him. He spoke with surprise and seemed let down and hurt yet ultimately unperturbed as might a child. I said that I didn’t mean anything (3ady), that he should excuse me (lamo2akhza) and that we’re neighbors even though he hadn’t said where he was from (da7na graan). I felt like a real piece of shit for having been suspicious and impatient with this simple man. I said Kul sana winta tayeb awkwardly before leaning back into my seat to send him off. The couple beside me was out at the end of the carriage smoking with their Nescafe’s (the guy brought his own Nescafé Gold sachets and repeatedly over-enunciated the word Gold as he spoke to the beverage-cart man). I thought about how the ticket guy was “ya 3abeet ya ebn setteen a7ba, we Rabbena yostor” (either plain stupid or a real son of a bitch).

I considered the matter done and read continuously till about 15 minutes before arrival time, looking only out the window to rest my eyes and my brain every few pages. It seemed strange that the guy would take so long. Shit. I got up and went to the end of the carriage and asked the porter where to find him. I sped down three more carriages with no luck and realized we were close to the station and suddenly people started getting up and crowding the aisles. I panicked and shoved and apologized my way back, arriving at my seat and bags just as the train came to a halt under the big skylight ceiling at Ramses.

I immediately started explaining my situation to the couple, only to find the conductor walking by. I looked towards him and put forward empty palms as I shook my head, gesturing ‘what the fuck?’ He said “eh, el komsary magablaksh el taskara?’ (what, the porter didn’t brig you the ticket?). Er, no, he didn’t, where’s my ticket? “Magablaksh el taskara? Danaddet-halo, lazem eddaha lwa7ed ghalat” (He must have given it to the wrong guy). Dantal l-2ommak weldetak ghalat, I grumbled in my mind, fein mayeteen om eltaskara?

“Ana 3ayez taskara,” (I want a ticket), I said.
“Lazem ageblak el taskara ya3ni,” (do I need to get you the ticket?) he asked, putting the tip of his thumb to where is fingers meet his palm, hinting at the pettiness of so small a thing.
“Aah lazim.” (Yes you need to.) He started to look around, checking out the now empty seats around where we were standing, the conductor, myself and the couple, we were the last people in the carriage. I realized the conductor was looking for someone else’s ticket to give to me and knew he might project a ‘you need your ticket for travel reimbursement from work or something’ slant on the situation so I quickly intervened.
“La2 istanna, ana 3ayez taskarti ana.” (No, wait. I want my ticket.)
“Azdak eih sa3adtak?” (What do you mean?)
“Ana 3ayez taskarti ana, 7a2 el feloos elli eddet-haalak.” (I want the ticket that’s mine, the one I gave you money for.” This didn’t seem to register with him and his face remained in limbo.
The guy from the couple intervened, “La la la, da be3eed 3an elli fmokhak khaales. Ana 3aref inta azdak eih… bas mish hena sadda2ni, la2, hena el omoor mateb2ash zay manta faker, mate2la2sh.” (No no, its far from what you have in mind. I know what you’re thinking but no, trust me, it wouldn’t happen here, don’t worry.) Nice one. Thanks for casually stating that I suspected this man of ripping me off. I was hearing the guy and I wanted to believe him but the facts were all pointing elsewhere. Also this wasn’t the kind of situation where one takes vague sentimental bits of advice too seriously. In any case, he ruined it for me. The conductor picked up on what the guy was saying and rode the wave well and came crashing down on my head.
“Enta betfakkar fi eih bas,” he said (what are you thinking,), his face losing all naiveté and gaining all sarcasm as he took a step towards me and squeezed past, only looking back to add “danta Iskandarani 7atta,” (come on, you’re Alexandrian for God’s sake) before walking to the end of the carriage and through the door, out the train. I gathered my bags and said Kul sana winto tayebeen to the couple, genuinely hoping to end things with good festive spirit. I got off the train and worried myself with the task of getting home.

So I told the story to the driver and we identified some key issues. Actually I did all the identifying, and the analysis, and I even coerced him into providing reactions when he would have none. But he was a really friendly, kind-hearted guy and it was very soothing to whine to him, and whine like I was on speed, too. He didn’t seem to mind, or even care much either, which was great.

We got to Khan Younis street, parallel to Shehab. The driver stopped a couple of buildings down from the sketchy Commodore Hotel. He turned off his car engine and chuckled to himself. I said “Eih?”
“A7keelak ana 3an ser2a sa7.” (Let me tell you about a real theft.)

He told me how he was in Giza when he picked up this guy who asked to be taken somewhere past the Malek El Saleh tunnel. They go there and when they emerged from the tunnel the guy asked him to stop and back up to a side street they’d passed. The driver said he refused, telling the passenger he didn’t like to back up busy streets on principle. He said they argued for a while and the guy even got out to get change and paid him and got back in the car, insisting on the guy backing up. Eventually the driver conceded and twisted himself around to look out the back window, his hand anchored behind the passenger seat head rest. He arrived at the street and the guy said thank you and walked off. The driver took off and before he reached the next sidestreet he noticed something was wrong. His mobile wasn’t where he’d left it, between his steering wheel and the dashboard. He parked at the cab and got out and called his phone from a nearby koshk.

“Alo.”
“Awya ya 3am, eih el 7ekaya, elli bye7sal?” (Ok man, what’s the deal, what’s going on?)
“Eih da howwanta? Tsadda2 ennak asra3 wa7ed yekallemni ba3deeha. Mafeesh 7ad byetessel 3ala tool keda. Fee sawwa2een beto3od saa3a, fee byo3odo yom kamel. Ana asli bafdal sayeb el sharee7a fel telefon laghayet masa7bo yettesel, 3ashan neb2a etkallemna bas kelmetein.” (Oh, it’s you. You know, you’re the quickest person to call back afterwards. Some drivers call an hour later, some take a whole day. I like to keep the SIM card in till the owner calls back, so we can talk a bit.)
“Wetsadda2 enta ba2a ennak aktar wa7ed eedo khafeefa ana shofto? Fashoof hana3mel eih delwa2ti?” (And you have the quickest hands I’ve ever seen. Ok so what are we going to do now?)
“Hana3mel eh? Mish hana3mel 7aga. Rabbena y3awwadhaalak yasta. Koll sana winta tayyib.” (What are we going to do? We’re not going to do anything, that’s what. Better luck next time, man. Koll sana winta tayyib.)

Made in Zift El Teen

2006-01-05T21:36:00.000+02:00

I was in a stationery shop downtown waiting for photocopies when in walked a tall middle-aged man wearing a galabeyya and a 3emma. He asked the guy behind the counter "3andoko el 7aseb el 2aali bta3 el sanaweyya el 3amma da?" (Do you have that calculator they use in secondary school?)

The man pointed to a box on the shelf behind him and said "Ah, dah, sitta w 3eshreen geneih." (Yeah, this one, twenty six pounds.) It was a Casio FX 82 something something, I had similar one back in the day. Good stuff.

"Aaah," said the visitor, and with knee-jerk fataka (misinformed coy familiarity with esoteric knowledge) added in a perfectly semi-questioning tone, "Seeni da..." (Yeah...so it's Chinese, this one...)

***

There was a talk-show show on TV during Ramadan the year before last where they would host celebrities and stage these pranks, like having criminals storm the set or the host suffer a heart attack. One unlucky victim was the talented, alluring and gruff actress, Noha el Amrousy. They brought to the set this woman they presented as a Japanese advertising director who'd used footage of Amrousy in ads for funny products. I can't remember what but they were like rat poison and diapers, maybe, or something along those lines. Anyway, so Amrousy gets upset and starts flipping out on the host and on the woman and at some point says something like "Yaban eh di?! Danti matgeesh Taiwani 7atta!" (Japan Schmapan! [To even be made in] Taiwan is beyond you!)

***

About a week ago I was on an evening train to Alex working on my laptop (which actually was on my lap). I had a single seat on the right hand side of the carriage and I could see from the corner of my eye that the middle-aged man in the cheap suit seated across the aisle to my left was staring. I think I was writing an account of an event I'd witnessed and thought hey, if he can read this then good for him, he might even have comments for me. But he didn't, he just shifted in his seat, coughed occasionally and kept staring.

About 45 minutes into my typing (and distraction and Solitaire) session I felt a quick firm tap on my elbow. It was as if a little rubber-toothed snake had lunged and nipped at my pullover really fast, returning immediately to its, well, its seat across the aisle. I looked up at the seat in front of me and looked back down, not quite knowing how to respond. 3amalt 3abeet.

I then saw with the whole side of my eye a hand waving, reaching randomly in my direction, and heard my neighbor clear is throat and say uhm, uhm. So I turned to face him, smiling, of course. He squinted his eyes (again, with fataka, plus a forced look of seriousness and engrossement), pursed his lips and raised eyebrows, and pointed at my computer. "Bekam da," (how much is this?) he asked.

I took a deep breath and couldn't but remain silent with contemplative annoyance a few seconds longer than I would have liked. To be fair to myself, I was at a loss, somewhat, because I didn't know where to begin. I told him that my computer was old and that it had cost this much that many years ago and that he was asking the wrong question. So he repeated it "Aywa, bekam el laptop ya3ni?" (Ok, so how much is the laptop then?)

I said that there were different brands, some being more expensive than others. I started with the cheapest, I told him about HP and Compaq models and then about Toshiba and Dell ones and their prices. He was very focused and nodded slowly as I listed prices and ad-libbed (bullshitted) user profiles for each price range. I then told him that Sony laptops were the most expensive ones and they were considered the best and that they could cost up to twenty thousand pounds. The look on his face seemed to sharpen in proportion to the slickness of the laptop I was describing.

I was plodding along with my slapshod user profile for those high-end Sony's when the man lifted his hand to interrupt me. I stopped and he shifted anxiously in his seat, his face acquiring a look that said 'hold on a second, there's something I not quite clear on...'

"El Sony da..." (this Sony), he said, pausing as the hand pointing towards my computer bobbed repeatedly, as if the extent of his mental focus had put his motor skills on hold, "Yabani tab3an..." (is made in Japan, of course).

Mahmoudeya Canal, Summer '96

2005-12-28T15:50:00.000+02:00

Yadi-k Kosoof / Ya Lahwi Ya Lahwi

2005-12-25T17:51:00.000+02:00

Snug, We Are Taught

2005-12-25T17:48:00.000+02:00

Netmakhtar Sawa

2005-12-25T15:01:00.000+02:00

I spend the first half of most weekdays in a small, well lit, white-tiled office in Boulaq el Dakrour, where my window overlooks a small and not-so-busy street. It is paved but always sandy, and the sound of cars rolling by is lush and pleasant. Sometimes I hear music; it gets louder and at its loudest so is the raspy hum of tires squashing sand, and then the music fades.

I was busy today and didn’t pay much attention to the world beyond my desk. The sound of the street outside did seem unusual, though, and I eventually realized there was loud music being played somewhere nearby. I thought it might be a new business ribbon-cutting thing—DeeJee, big matriarchs in black nursing Pepsi cans (7aga sa23a kanz) on maroon felt aluminum pipe chairs, some echoey Quran soon, the whole deal. But it was only noon; also I knew the neighborhood well and couldn’t figure out where the new shop could be, as I remembered the shop strip to be fully-occupied. I wondered how the straggly beard gratuitous-fus7a-speakers were taking it. Maliciously, I enjoyed considering the prospect of this bothering them to the point of confronting whoever it was blasting Loay into the cold, dusty, grey-sky air: “Ba2a ya3ni 3ashaan, 7abbeito ya leili yegraali ma garaali...”

I went out for a walk, thought I’d treat myself to some Rayeb and Kabab-flavored Funky (much better than that Mini-Cheetos crap). I bumped into 3amm Hamed, a smiley comforting old man from southern Se3eed and caretaker of the local mosque. I asked him what was going on. “7add byetgawwiz,” he said, pointing to a little gathering up the road, looking discontent. (Someone’s getting married).

New bride’s trousseau on display. The large black object above the woman’s head is a speaker box; the yellow thing on the pillow pyramid is a frightened-looking stuffed bear.

He shook his head and said something to the effect of “when will people ever get over those silly customs?” 3amm Hamed comes off as a traditional man, a man glad to honor the ways of his forebears. It might have been that, seeing the astonishment on my face, he intuitively thought to complement me—the friendly modern-looking neighbor—by denouncing the peculiar spectacle before us. That said, he did seem genuinely perturbed, and I would think anyone with some sense would at least have found the sight of a made bed by the side of a road odd. But I wondered how he defined these particular “people”. How was he himself different? Was he referring to Egyptians in general or just these urban baladi folk?

I told 3amm Hamed about George, an acquaintance of mine from Assiut. George had once told me about this relative of theirs from the countryside, an older man who refused to attend his own daughter’s wedding. “Ezay ragel mo7taram yeroo7 weysa22af weyed7ak we fee wa7ed 7ay-khosh 3ala bento lelet-ha?” (How can a self-respecting man go and celebrate knowing someone’s soon to sleep with his daughter?) According to George, it is customary in some communities for the father-in-law to maintain a sulky aloofness towards his daughter’s husband, as of her wedding day. It then falls upon the son-in-law to bury the hatchet by visiting his in-laws with his first-born child, seeking their blessings. I wonder if the fathers-in-law involved ever make it look like it’s the babies’ cuteness that softens their hearts. It would be nice to attend such a visit. I wonder if they actually say anything special, or if it’s all just body language, like some noble sort of isti3baat.

3amm Hamed shook his head again and wipe-slapped his palms with frustration. “Leh ya3ni yez3al, howa mish mitgawwezeen ya3ni? Dana lamma benti etgawwezet fere7t awi. Dalmafrood yeshkor el ragel 7atta 3ashan shaal 3anno 3aar!” (Why on earth should he get upset, they’re married now, aren’t they? I mean, I was so happy when my daughter got married. He should be thankful, even, to the young man for relieving him of this 3ar, this dishonor-potential!)

When I first looked there had been several women standing around the bed. Conveniently for me, they were gathered a few meters before “Sheikh” Sayed’s little grocery. Sayed is twenty years old and a brat but you couldn’t tell if you saw a photograph of him. So I walked towards his shop, passing by the bed-set spectacle trying to get as good a look as I could without seeming to ogle at the neighborhood women.

I got to Sayed’s shop and there he was, stepping out from behind his cheese fridge, sleeves and trousers rolled up, past his elbows, below his knees. “Tomn Lanshon,” he shouted, tucking in each end of the small paper package before handing it to a scrawny middle-aged man in ultra-thick glasses (An eighth of luncheon meat). “Mashy ya Sheikh, Salamo 3aleiko,” said the man as he walked off. “Semro7motolLahbrkato,” said Sayed, turning to me with a look that said “yes, son”.

He was in a bad mood and didn’t respond well to my “so, what do you think of all this?”. Ignoring my question he asked “wento btetgawwezo ezay ba2a?” (so how do your people get married?). It took me a second to figure out who my people were, and I ended up giving some lousy generic examples that didn’t seem to impress him. A few months ago he'd boasted about being a liad back shab like any other; he told me about his outings with his wife (in the time between their signing of the marriage contract and their wedding), how he took her on felucca and Ferris-wheel rides. According to Sayed, getting married means signing an agreement contract and announcing cohabitation to those that matter to you. Anything else is superflous, extravagant, frowned upon.

He asked where I was from, because he knew I was in Boulaq just for work. I said Alex and he asked if I knew Shaykh so-and-so (no), Dr. so-and-so (no), listing about five names before he mentioned Wagdy Ghoneim. I paused before I said yes. Slowly my face began to wilt and this made Sayed smile. “3aalem 3azeem,” he said (a great scholar). I shrugged and with my eyebrows tried to say you might think so, I might not. About 5 years ago an evangelical friend at university had taken me to a shop downtown and bought me two of his tapes as a gift: “Al 3elmaneya” (Secularism) for me and “Al Mar2a Fil Islam” (Women in Islam) for my girlfriend. The cover design on my tape consisted of an open skull exposing a serpent coiled around a brain, all set against a background of fire; I don’t remember what the other tape looked like, but my girlfriend did report some factual errors in its content. The man’s hysterical sermon had provided much amusement over the years, but it also left me with a serious concern about the growing appeal that Ghoneim’s grimy and resentful brand of Islam had for so many, including guys like Sayed.

We’d argued and debated over various issues before, Sayed and I, but today neither of us was in the mood. I nodded and end to our conversation, bought some mineral water and headed back to the office (where I eventually borrowed a camera phone and returned to take the picture). Walking back, I took one last look at the bed and realised I was just being a fiendish voyeur. Who wouldn't be? Was this not, after all, the very site of conjugal union?

For what it’s worth:

This past Ramadan a friend came back from a Mohandiseen extended-family iftar and told of how upset his father got with one of his second cousins. The twenty-something mother of two had confidently stated, before her breakfasting affluent clan, that having children was the only good reason to get married.

Tradition and Mazag

2005-12-21T21:13:00.000+02:00

A great man, the late father of a dear friend.

My friend got in trouble once, his mother had found an aromatic date-sized clump of flora* while emptying his trouser pockets for the wash. She knew what it was. The next day his father sat him down for a Talk.

Lovingly, he reassured my friend: "Lamma kont addak we fel gam3a zamaan ma7na konna 3aysheen bardo. Konna bno3od a3daat we beera w feseekh we banaat, ah, tab3an, maho tabee3i fil fatra di..."(When I was young and going to university we liked our good times too, you know. We'd get together and there'd be beer and feseekh* and girls, yes, it's natural at this age...)

*Salted putrid grey mullet. Egyptian delicacy said to date back millenia; usually consumed with fresh watercress, lettuce and squeezed lemons on Sham el Neseem (ancient feast of spring); categorised as impure by religious authorities--consumption is technically unlawful. Its taste combines extreme fishiness and the grating sting of sharp hard cheese.

Trailblazers Inspire

2005-12-19T01:56:00.000+02:00

Hormone treatment set Om Yasser free to leave the city and pursue her dream of being a life-guard in Dahab.

Tab Aho...Tab Khalaas

2005-12-14T11:16:00.000+02:00

Yesterday this person was in the same room as someone I was on the phone with. He shouted "tell him to go to X... that's a real blog!"

Update: Picture and title have been edited, in accordance with this blog's policy of non-violence.

About Shatby Fresh

2005-12-13T15:16:00.000+02:00

The shot was taken at Bahari, not Shatby. I don't know why I wrote Shatby. Maybe because my friends always make fun of "Shatby Etnein". Anyway, so it was Bahari. Here's some background:

If you're headed west along the corniche, towards Qait Bey, you might see this:

And if you walk over to the old wall and stand with the crowd, you might see this (check out the shoes):

They pull the loaded nets in through the wave-breakers (check out the shorts) and then sort their catch into tubs.

And if you're lucky you might even see Osta Hani the Shrimp Whisperer...

"Mish 3aref...7ases...7ases en 7ayati 7atetghayyar orayyib...enni 7a3mel 7aga 3azeema, 7aga gameela...zay makoon 3ayez aghanni aw amassil aw arsim bereesha kbeera kbeera w alwan zahya awi..."

"Ghona meen we rasmet meen ya 7maar...we lamma-bee3ak lelli wa2feen dol...eb2a wareeni 7atersem ezzay wenta marzoo3 fel taagin gatak neela f-khebtak..."

Khodary Fresh

2005-12-01T14:17:00.000+02:00

Shatby Fresh

2005-12-01T14:11:00.000+02:00

The Reveries of a Fatalist

2005-11-30T19:55:00.000+02:00

The old man flipped one floating ta’meyya patty after another, and when he finished he threw his pincers to the side of the frying station with a loud clang. He started humming and turned to the young man beside me, a neighbor no doubt who was waiting like me with an empty paper cone in one hand and a bag of hot fuul in the other. The old man motioned comically with his hand like Um Kulthoum, his eyebrows contorting for added effect. He then leaned back, arms flailing like a drunk belly-dancer, singing “Mabalash netkallim fil maady/ Dal maady da kan kollo geraa7…”*

“La Ilaha Illa Lah…matkhallasna ya 3am Yaseen,” said the young guy (for God’s sake, 3amm Yaseen, just get on with it).

The old man picked up his giant ladle-sieve and scooped a dozen patties from the dark crackling oil, carrying them over the counter behind him and depositing them by the sandwich man. He turned back and looked up to notice a smiling middle-aged passer-by coming his way. “Boss akheena da,” he shouted, (this guy, this guy right here,) pointing to the young man, “by2olli La Ilaha Illa lLah!” The visitor chuckled and threw the young man a bemused look.

“Wana3mellak eh ya 3amm Yaseen, manta mokhak fawwett khalaas,” the young guy replied (you’re losing it already, 3amm Yaseen, so don’t be giving me shit).

The old man turned to me, likely drawn by my presumptuously friendly smirk, “da K— omaha!” he snapped, before turning back to the young guy, his eyelids droopy and mouth still agape with the force of ‘omaha’. “K— om el donya di yabni…inta btitkallim f eh?!” (Fuck it, son... to hell with it all…what are you on about!”

The young guy grinned while the old man gave his friend a cool know-what-I'm-saying glance. The other man frowned like a clown, drew a large arc with his hand pointed like a pistol, and poked an assertive column of air hard into the ground, his pistol hand coming back up like a question mark: “taaaab3an yabni,” he said (of course, kid), eyes bulging, “we tedeeeeha bel bolgha 3ala dmagh-ha kamaan” (and smack it with a slipper on its frickin head, too) and then he mimed a vigorous smacking of some short being with a shoe from up high.

3amm Yaseen was back on the ta3meyya, swiping lime-green blobs of batter from a big bowl and tossing them into the hot oil, one after the other, his whole body gyrating with his arm’s back-and-forth. “Boss yabni,” he said (look, son,), “ana lamma dafant abooya tle3t ba3deeha 3al beit wetfaragt 3ala felm,” (when I laid my father to rest I went home afterwards and watched a movie). He then turned to me and added, looking wonderstruck and humbled at the same time, “we tle3t fo2 el dolaab,” (and I climbed on top of the cupboard).

“Tle3t fo2 el dulaab?” I asked, not quite satisfyed with the image of him curled into a ball, perched atop his cupboard grieving. I was, however, totally ready to accept the fact, but still thought it best to confirm what I’d heard.

“Aywa tle3t fo2 el dulaab,” said 3amm Yaseen, his eyes fixed on the froth of boiling oil kicked up by the new batch of ta'meyya.

“Mish fahim…ya3ni eh tle3t fo2 el dulab?” (I don’t understand, what do you mean you climbed on top of the cupboard?)

He looked to his friend and laughed, “maye3rafsh ya3ni eh tle3t fo2 el dulaab,” (he doesn’t know what ‘climb on top of the cupboard’ means), and he looked back at me, adding, “lamma tetgawwiz 7ate3raf,” (you’ll know when you get married). He laughed again as he threw his ladle-sieve onto the floating patties, sinking them deep into the oil. He lifted it, bounced it once against the edge of the pot to clear it of excess oil, and threw it noisily onto the aluminum counter beside him.

Eyebrows raised, I responded in the affirmative: “tle3t fo2 el dulaaaaab...”

“Aaaaaywa,” he said, nodding with a now-we’re-talking grin. The young guy beside me seemed neither interested nor perturbed.

“Ah wallaahi, bakallemak gadd,” he continued, addressing his friend (I swear, man, seriously), “da 7atta M7amma 'Braheem geh w khabbat 3aleyya w2oltelo ‘emshi ana fo2 el dolaab’. 2alli ‘ya ragil 7araam 3aleik dana gayy ba2addi l-waagib, gayy a3azzeek.’ Oltelo ‘motshakereen awi bas ana mish 3ayez ashoof 7ad, ana fo2 el dolaab.’ Ah wallaahi.” (You know, even Mohammed Ibrahim passed by and I told him ‘go away I’m on top of the cupboard’. He said ‘come on, man, I came here to pay my respects’. I said ‘we thank you very much but I don’t want to see anyone, I’m on top of the cupboard.’ I swear, man.”

The ta'meyya was ready and 3amm Yaseen scooped it out and tossed it into the round, perforated aluminum tray. He took a deep breath, exhaled quick and closed his eyes. “Ha... 3ayez bekaam?” (Ok... how many do you want?)

*From a popular old Amr Diab song

Agouza Rooftops #2

2005-11-30T17:00:00.000+02:00

Downtown Hints of Mortality

2005-11-25T23:07:00.000+02:00

The other day I was walking up Talaat Harb mid-morning when I caught this scent, a very sweet, early nineties-smelling cologne, lots of it. I quickly determined the source--a middle-aged man in a suit, walking briskly before me and carrying a gift-wrapped dessert-platter (permed ribbons and the works). The sun shone and the air was cool and I inhaled for as long as I could, overwhelmed by the ecstasy of it all. I felt alive and followed him fast, darting through pedestrians and hanging desperately to his saccharine wake like the shameless fiend I am. Then out of nowhere I heard myself address him, 'you might die just like that and I'll still be here'. Of course, it followed that 'wow, I'm also going to die any moment, and this'll remain without me either'. I stopped walking and, just as randomly, stuck my head into an apartment building, scanning the aged and elegant brass plaques and nameplates that lined the entrance, marvelling from the bottom of my heart at my sheer insignificance.

Failed Tomato

2005-11-21T17:10:00.000+02:00

Well-Lit Ear

2005-11-21T00:35:00.000+02:00

Fake Sinai Bedouins

2005-11-21T00:32:00.000+02:00

Agouza Rooftops #1

2005-11-21T00:13:00.000+02:00

Microprofile #5

2005-11-19T17:51:00.000+02:00

"Stop your judgementalism man... open your eyes... khaleek fresh... kollena different... bas inshallah kollena peace..."

- Karim B.
Former successful thespian and submersible sewage-pump merchant; currently interned at a self-defense school in China

Dionysus in Qena

2005-11-17T03:37:00.001+02:00

A bell rings deep and the sound of shuffling feet trickles in through a broken-glass window. They charge the door and some dig their heels loitering, setting up. A fleeing hooded wild-eyed boy collides with carried bags and warm beige aprons at the door and bounces back indifferent, howling with joy through desks and fallen chairs, he is agile and indiscriminate like a kicked rubber ball. The mass by the door thins and the boy shoots out into the cold kicked-dust air.

A yard strewn with milling fiends, an ever-morphing matrix of standing-room, room for fighting and running and playing anything with anything. Running nowhere at speed is a joy in itself and many run, smiling, alone. Alone like the docile wanderers, comb-haired doe-eyed retainers of common sense, their bags on their backs they walk in the sun nibbling at thin-cheese tongues of bread, delighting in the crystalline timbre of the gibberish they dribble at prayer-volume, inching entranced along shaded walls, skipping and striding half-cautious through the mire, its shouts and screams.

In corners boys gyrate snatching prize empty bottles and sharp splintery sticks, they are rackets and batons and swords and clubs, and pacifiers for the stupefied when consciousness recoils. They thumb their noses at the nightmares of adults while their deference to the laws of other worlds keeps the swinging bottles from noses and brick walls and the sharp ends from their eyes.

A boy stands pondering engaged, on his shoulder a small mate perched like a wooden beam huffing protest. They are blindsided by a chuckling deliberate hot-limbed tumbler who tumbles on, still fiending for marrow, his trip on this day. Slapstick violence and curious torment, colored sugars sticking teeth and tempering the frenzy. A boy crashes, shoulder and temple to the ground, a kicked rock stopped before the goal.

Girls giggle crammed in a breezy dim corner like ducks, one lunges to whack a dissenter with love, come here. The loner turns her eyes shooting daggers, nyeh nyeh nyeh. She is punished. A circle is drawn with her steps, another girl its center and outstretched arms the diameter hands locked on the clever girl's dress, they swing her round till vengeance is had. Enemies and brethren are one, and crying not an issue. Compassion abounds. Cry alone and they might find you and avenge your pain, anyone.

A bell rings and men with long sticks billow, swoop and strike, sweeping chatter from the yard and into spent-air holes, but one or two remain. Kicking a ball into the calm. Running, drinking Fanta.

Microprofile This

2005-11-10T03:18:00.000+02:00

- Gayyash A.

Half-hearted blogger

I am Donkey

2005-11-09T22:15:00.000+02:00

I was near the back gate of the Balloon Theater in Agouza, on a narrow street that leads onto Gam’et el Dowal, when I came face to face with a donkey-drawn cart that had turned off of Gam’et el Dowal and onto the narrow street. Yaadi-n-neela, I veered to the right and prepared to smile at the ‘arbagy as he passed me by. He had a woman and small child seated next to him and there was something behind them on the cart but I couldn’t tell what. Looked like a bunch of empty sacks.

The guy approached with the reins on his donkey all slack and when my eyes shifted to his cargo I saw what appeared to be testicles and a tail, a donkey’s tail. Damn. Horizontal donkey, could only mean one thing, the National Circus a block away, lions. When I used to live nearby I would often see cartloads of bloody bones, donkey-sized bones, leaving the back gate of the circus grounds. And from my balcony I could see the small pen in the corner of the grounds where there were always a few donkeys, taking it easy, eating, milling about in the shade. At night and at dawn you would hear lions roar. Guests would always freak out. It was great.

Years ago my father had the honor of meeting the man behind Qaryet el Asad, Lion’s Village, that restaurant with the massive tower advertising specialty meats on the Cairo-Alex desert road about 60 kilometers from Alex. His story with lions started when he worked in his youth at a circus in Mansoura. My father asked him what they fed the lions, and what he fed his own at the Village. “7emeer kasr ya doktor, a7san 7aaga” (‘defective’ donkeys). Apparently, there are men who collect old, sick and injured donkeys from around the Delta and sell them to the region’s circuses. He said they cost about 20 pounds each. Damaged horses, about 40 pounds. (This was in 2000 so they probably cost more these days.) He also said that the lions didn’t get their feed live, that it had to be butchered first by circus employees.

The donkey’s hips were bony and chafed; it looked emaciated all over. I shivered when I wondered if it was already dead. It might have been, it had a funny color, lots of purple stains, it was probably that variant of microchrome. Poor beast must have been covered in sores by the time his owner threw in the towel.

My car inching forward, I arrived at the donkey’s face and braced myself for the sight of closed eyes, maybe a long tongue hanging from the side of a mouth. I looked at the eyes and the donkey looked back and blinked several times. Big beautiful ebony glass eyes and quick blinks bursting with vitality. With no body to serve, the donkey’s great spirit seemed distilled and fully present in that gaze. I’d never before seen a donkey with such a look of concern. In my mind I heard it speak: “eih ya 3amm, da,” (what the hell, man).

Microprofile #4

2005-11-04T00:28:00.000+02:00

"Bedengan qua mesa2a3a...it's...SO good."

- Ahmed A.

Exiled, enraptured Cairene built for quieter, less modern times; one of the greatest phenomenologists to come out of Dokki

House of Bain

2005-10-21T15:15:00.000+02:00

My 5 year-old cousin is in his second year at a supposedly high-end school called the House of English. Guess what langauge he doesn't speak, save the few words and phrases he's gleaned from the cartoons, nursery rhymes and story books at home? My uncle should storm the school administration... "raga3ooly floosy w-hato el wad ya kaddabeen ya fashala," (gimme back my money and my kid, you lying fools!)

Microprofile #3

2005-10-20T15:53:00.000+02:00

"Ana 'booya Domyati yala..."

- Karim H.

Alleged free spirit and reckless Cairo-connoisseur

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Askary

2005-10-19T15:23:00.000+02:00

[An Alexandrian episode, June 2004]

I had been swimming at the club and was off to my grandmother's for lunch. I turned off of the tramway where Sporting meets Cleopatra, and took a right onto Aqaba Street towards Abu Qir, which I planned to cut across to reach Smouha. I just missed the green light and found myself waiting first-in-line at one of the city's most avoided traffic stops.

Beside my car stood a young askary, looking laid-back and serene, his weight rested on one leg and body bent at the hip. He looked to me with a generous smile and said "matsamma3na 7aga 7elwa keda," (how about a nice tune?). Without hesitation I turned up the volume as loud as I could comfortably bare and, to his luck, a song was just beginning. It was Fairuz's Shayif Il Ba7r, its unmistakeable leading violin hook arriving with the arresting might of a royal procession.

It was sunny and the young askary stood calm in the breeze, smiling at passing cars and to the sun-drenched buildings and deep blue sky beyond, tapping his thick hand on his white trousered lap in time with the cymbal-filled beat. Every few moments he'd glance over and we'd share an involuntary dumb grin, overwhelmed by the song's magnificence like children offered undeserved mounds of ice cream.

Just as the song finished the light turned green and the askary stepped into the middle of the road waving us through with his baton, still smiling as he bid me well with a quick reversed nod.

Microprofile #2

2005-10-19T13:01:00.000+02:00

"'Saka-baaaaaaba...'Saka-7abeeeeeeby?"

- Ahmed "Hamada Destruction" Sh.

Family-size father figure and acclaimed celebrator of imbecility

Microprofile #1

2005-10-17T22:24:00.000+02:00

"To eat a bar of chocolate and say al-hamdulillah is itself a great thing."

- Ahmed S. M.

Long-time soft-spoken hater of Cairo and 'easy-game' aspirant to goodness

Correction: Ahmed also loves Cairo.

A Ramadan of Fury and Grace

2005-10-12T10:45:00.000+02:00

Nerves of Konafa

Ramadan Kareem. I saw one fight on each day of the three days I spent in Alexandria for the sixth of October weekend. They were special fights, Ramadan fights. That is, unlike the year-round scuffles in which men lunge to teach one another lessons (da ana 7awareek/7atalla3----/7arabeek, ta3ala ya ebn el ----, etc.), these altercations are far more personal, focused, pre-pedagogic. They rarely ever involve more than the two people fighting, and those who do intervene seem to have a difficult time making good. This needs little explaining, as fasting makes some people angry and, in the context of slow heavy traffic where tempers are easy to lose, the pared down mind of a faster becomes all the more like an airtight tunnel, channelling such initially simple knee-jerk reactions to annoyance with the force and determination of a lead pellet channeled through the barrel of a gun. This is, of course, not considering that Ramadan offers us a chance for reflecting on and working to cleanse our temperaments.

The first fight I saw was by the foot bridge at Sidi Gaber on Abu Qir Street (or Horreya Avenue, bleh) next to a group of Microbuses unloading commuters. Red-faced, the two men were choking one another by the collars of their shirts. The less built man held the other with both hands while the larger one had one hand at his opponent’s neck and another held in a fist by his own ear, his arm cocked like the trigger of a gun. On his face was the agonized tango of "'gonna hit you hard you son of a ----" and "won’t do it", his ready arm twitching back and forth accordingly, partly, perhaps, for aggressive show. The smaller man’s shirt was half way up his back, marking a solid step outside the circle of collectedness and into the square of bahdala (dramatic untidiness, destitution).

The second one wasn’t really a fight but it counts. It was at that detour-like traffic light taken to enter Sidi Gaber station by those heading west on Abu Qir Street. It involved a young man flipping out, screaming into the window of a middle-aged man seated in a red Fiat 128. The young man had stepped out of the passenger side of a large and luxurious car (driven by a young woman in a headscarf) waiting behind the Fiat at a red light. He was yelling something about the other man being an animal ("inta hayawan?!") and about him not hearing ("atrash?! mabteshma3sh?!"). And with each of the older man’s shocked and modest mumblings, the younger one grew more shrill and agitated, his whole body eventually gyrating like a child’s might, mid-tantrum. He reached into the car repeatedly, knocking the side-mirror and punching the older man’s hands as they gestured apology and explanation. He must have been audible to at least a thousand people. The old man resorted to a somber "Rabbena ysam7ak yabni," (may God forgive you, my son). A large middle-aged man got out of a third car, his mobile held to his ear, and calmly pulled away the still-shouting youngster, who parted with a final "7ayawan!" and a loud and visible tfoo, spat over his shoulder onto the spot where he’d been standing.

The third fight was by the sea. There were two small cars stalled behind one another in the middle lane headed west along the Corniche at Laurent (Loraan). Next to the cars was one man bent over another, pounding his back with his fists. What desolation! And the awkwardness of it all. In this society where people hold each other back, the social element figures prominent in fights, except with children maybe, as they seem more prone to fight silent spectator-less fights. And so to actually be allowed one’s fill of carnal vengeance (as were these two men), there may result, one imagines, a diluting of rage into little more than an anxious self-conscious squint. And so, having driven past, I pictured the Corniche fighters walking back to their cars shaken and bruised, with neither comforting nor critical a word, from anyone.

Does the fasting man, as he punches and snarls, consider his fall, feel the same way towards it, as does a person in the midst of an untimely (i.e. pre-dusk) lustful encounter with his or her spouse? Perhaps there is little merit in contrasting two such defeats of a faster’s will. In comparison, both instances involve engrossment, but also reflexivity. If there weren’t the latter, people wouldn’t have resorted so often to that eerily intimate accusation: "fattarteni 3aleik," (you made me break-fast on you).

A Hungry Public's Finest Hour

In the minutes around maghreb the city streets are a sight to behold. The cars are few and even those who rush, their faces seem serene. It is a slice of the day when the nods of taxi drivers impart a sweeter scent of duty. The nods are borne of the same spirit as the forgiving smiles of those seeking rides home, as they receive the raised apologetic palms of passing drivers in home-bound cabs. Many drivers will stop to hand the hailing person dry dates for an immediate breaking of their fast. Just like the men, young and old, alone and in groups, who patrol on foot the lanes of busy streets bearing boxes of dates and trays of plastic-cup water and juice, briskly meting out portions to passers by, themselves jubilant in simple ways as they thank through their windows. The sky is a soft color and the city glows beige in the gentlest total light possible. On some streets the street-lights come on; they hang striking and dainty like a necklace of gold circles threading the cityscape, around the city’s neck, or in some parts her brow. One taxi driver called it ‘the hour of reda, contentment’. Asked why, he said matter-of-factly, as he pointed an open palm to the city flying by, "3ashan kollo yekhdem kollo bel shakl da, lazim yeb2a fee reda; reda mabein el nas, we reda min Rabbena," (for all to serve one another like this there must be contentment; contentment among people, and contentment from God).

Garage Noon (Farargy el Sa3ada)

2005-08-31T14:48:00.001+03:00

Having finished my downtown errand, I returned to the garage and found the old attendant standing by a large blue barrel a few meters inside the entrance. He looked up at me, squinting, the glare of his peculiarly white skin and his silver hair lending intensity to an otherwise blank expression. He was nearly albino, and through his low unbuttoned collar I saw the flushed redness of his chest and wondered if pressing my thumb against it would leave such a brilliant white stamp as it did on my father's when I was a child. The old man stared, following my walk by turning his head, his hands having paused their plucking of the steaming slaughtered chicken slumped over the barrel's edge.

He said nothing as I approached so I greeted him and said that I was leaving. The chicken fell to the bottom of the barrel with a thud and the man's hands fell to his sides before he turned to follow me deeper into the garage, still silent except for the gravelly scrape of his slippers against the concrete floor. I, too, walked in silence, wondering what to think about chicken.

Seated in my car I rolled down the window while the old man stood with his back hunched towards me and his eyes following my hands as they searched my wallet for exact change. By the time I realised I was short on small bills, the smell of chicken and the man's raggedy galabeyya had fully occupied my lungs. He had not yet said a word but his breathing was loud and I could swear I felt his scent in my eye.

I looked up and told him I only had a five. He made a small private grunt and reached into his galabeyya, pulling a wad of money from a vest pocket that, given the peculiar shrug of his shoulder, seemed unusually close to his armpit.

I now watched his old hands sort through crumpled single notes. Girthy, shaky hands, they looked soft, as if they'd been soaked, and were covered to the wrists in small wet feathers. His galabeyya was like that of a baladi butcher's, blood-speckled at the belly but less so, for his operation, clandestine as it likey was, involved the shedding of much less blood.

"One," he said, as he reached forward with a pound note. I took it, noticing a feather on his thumbnail, half of it still fluffy and voluminous--defiant, as if saluting its slain chicken's honour. I kept my palm open and the man said "two," handing over another crumpled note before he returned the money-wad to his body and took a slow intuitive step back.

I started the engine and said thank you. The old man raised his arm in the direction of the garage exit, mumbled something and walked off, dragging his feet as he had on the way over. I held my change in cupped hands and examined the notes and now with everything silent and still I easily imagined the notes breathing. They were warm, moist and covered in feathers, quivering with my pulse. I thought of the blue barrel and wondered how many chickens he slaughtered each day.

Auto Sambateek

2005-07-30T21:58:00.000+03:00

My car is a smallish ten year old Renault. Today I took it to the petrol station to have the interior cleaned. I left the car, went to have lunch and came back an hour later to find the guy still cleaning it. I made a sarcastic reference to his having told me it would only take half an hour and he quickly replied, also with sarcasm, saying that my car was very neat and tidy. He then said that I should throw the car away, to begin with, aslan.

I told him that was a mean thing to say and that it was a lovely car that has treated me well and taken my abuse for years and that it was still running fine. He said no no, it's not about that. "Ya beih aslaha lamo2akhza mish mashya ma3al hay2a keda." That is, it didn't jive with the overall hay2a, meaning both authority (as in the Cairo Transportation Authority) but also, and more likely in this case, all of the following: form, shape; exterior, appearance, guise, aspect, bearing; air mien, physiognomy; attitude, position; situation, condition, state; group, (social) class.*

I asked "what hay2a, to be exact?" The man, still weaving in and out of the car with my nearly empty container of dashbord polish in hand, made limp but not subtle references to my and my deceptively sophisticated-looking companion's entitlement to a classier ride. I felt no emotion save the desire to remedy what I saw as this man's ignorance regarding the correlations between cars, class and cool. So I went off on a very short and failed tirade about why my car was indeed cool and commendable and how no shab need 'deserve' a better car.

The guy just shook his head and then looked at me silently for a couple of seconds, a glimmer in his eye betraying the sweet treats filling his imagination. Smiling, his eyes now somewhere else, speaking from a place of pure mazag, he said "Ya beih enta terkab keda Nubeira", 'tis a Daewoo Nubeira you should drive, and dove into the car, coming out the other side grinning still, "aw Leganza masalan," his head indulgently bobbing from side to side like those taxicab dashboard tigers and puppies. He then came up beside me and, sensing my disagreement, grimaced and simply said "Nissan." That is "even a Nissan would do, man, anything but this."

I asked why and his face turned poetic again as he shook his head softly, a smirk and eyebrows raised, authoritative: "3arabeetak mish 3aatefeya." My car is not emotional? No, I shouldn't criticise his use of the word 3atefeya, as it actually is generally taken to mean sentimental when used describe inanimate objects, like ringtones, stuffed animals or sunglasses.

On that note, I invite whoever reads this to join me in reflecting on the correlation of sentimentality to form. Ay, 3atefeyyet el shei2 wa se7net man yamlokoh.

*From Hans Wier's Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 1980 edition.

Bemonasbet Don Judj

2005-07-21T21:57:00.000+03:00

Many years ago I was with my family at Master, the famous rest stop on the Cairo-Alex desert road. My brother and I, probably around 6 and 9 at the time, were wandering around the shop beside the restaraunt area, marvelling at the large variety of imported goodies. We read labels and sniffed wrappers, adding pokes and squeezes for items that were hard to identify. We were, simply, happily gathering information, like chickens collecting the units of their feed, strewn across a small expanse.

We filled our heads with inanimate characters and bizzare names from all around the world. In a light trance, we forgot about our parents, knowing in the backs of our minds that when the time came to leave they would fetch us anyway. There was also, of course, the ever-present anxiety that came with being around so many sweets.

At a certain point the shop attendant left his seat at the cash register and walked over to where my brother and I were standing. He stopped, squared his feet (as if fearing that we might push him over) and said with a serious look on his face something that sounded like "Notashjustalo." My brother looked at me and I think that for a second each of us thought the man was addressing the other for something he had been doing on his own. Having established from one other's eyes that neither of us knew what was going on, we were free to be giggly about the man's gibberish, for it was still just that. I, being the elder, swiftly intervened to keep the ball in play, directing an "eh?" back to the man. He repeated, a little bit firm and impatient this time, "No Tush. Just Lok," before turning away and walking back, his bony chest arched forward, deliberate arms swinging by his sides like an undernourished general pacing the war room.

"Oh," we thought in tandem, "he was speaking English; he must have heard us speaking; what an idiot."

Each of us returned whatever he was holding to its rightful place in the display. We marched coolly out of the shop and headed towards where my parents were seated, all the while holding back the urge to accelerate and yelp with mischief as our insticts commanded.

For the following several months my brother and I enjoyed the man's words as our always-available failsafe method for inducing laughter. Sometimes we would just take turns saying it and still end up in stiches.

P.S. Maybe it would be a good slogan for use in an anti-harassment (of women in public in Egypt) campaign. We could even print it on poster and put them up in metro stations. Or maybe not.

Re: Nile FM

2005-07-21T17:53:00.000+03:00

On the other hand, I must credit Nile FM for helping remind me this morning about the genius of U2. They have this trademark galloping anthemic beat at the start of so many songs like "Where the streets have no name" and "Still haven't found what I'm looking for" that just floors me every time. Makes me wish I was older when those songs came out, when young people around the world would attend their concerts, so novel and full of euphoria. Thousands in the open air, rushing with that deep and crisp rock gallop.

What came first, the spirit of the day or the sound that came to represent it?

I also heard the song "Fantasy" by Earth Wind and Fire. Oof. Let's just say it made me move like I've never moved before while driving though Dokki.

Remember now, don't judge.

Esma3oo Wa3oo, Nile FM Bywazza3o

2005-07-21T17:29:00.000+03:00

Did you know that on Nile FM's competitions, the ones where you sms them the answer to a question they ask, you have a higher chance of winning the more smses you send? Not because they choose the person with the most correct answers (di teb2a habala bgad) but because there's a higher probability that the number they choose at random will be yours.

There are now people who flood the station each day with their smses in their frenzied efforts to win the free DVD's and CD's being given away. I don't know what each sms to the station costs, but i'm sure it's no 50pt. Somebody is making lots of money directly off of these competitions, be it the station or the company providing the sms service (I wonder if its the same one that does all the 0900 numbers).

What strikes me is that if I were a conscientious radio station, on the most basic administrative level even, I would find a way to have the entries feed into a simple program that gives each number only one vote, or one chance of being selected. But that's just me.

I'd really like to know what other people think about this.

Shawerma Hazard

2005-07-21T03:10:00.000+03:00

I took a long walk with a friend around my neighborhood this evening, and when he left I found myself craving shawerma--plain old, lousy local-style, oily reddish crumbly chicken shawerma Kaiser. So I walked to a place nearby, ordered and stood waiting by the big shawerma grill.

The guy on the grill was struggling with a well-sealed 4-pack of Faransawi bread when his hand jerked and hit a big knife that was on the counter, sending it hurtling to the ground. It bounced twice, twisting and spinning as it did, before landing on the side of my foot. I was wearing a shebsheb zanouba.

I looked up immediately and all eyes were upon me, curious and indifferent. I looked at the shawerma guy and said "Ana 3ayez ta3weeed," easily keeping a straight face.

He took a step towards me, bent down and picked the knife up, tossing it carelessly onto the now-torn Faransawi pack, before rearranging the sizzling shawerma heap before him with the ubiquitous sekeenet ma3goun used in all such restaurants.

Eyes fixed on the chicken column before him, the shawerma guy took a deep breath and huffed, his shoulders sagging as he did so. He then let his head fall to one side, barely facing me, and made his offer. "Azawwedlak te7eena?"

"Fee tomeyya?"

"Ah."

"Yeb2a zawedly tomeyya."

Without a word, he did just that and handed me my sandwich, wrapped and bagged. I said "Shokran".

"Shokr lelLah, " he said, still facing the chicken.

Thomas Friedman, tefafa 3ala raseef al sa7afa al dawleya

2005-07-20T18:13:00.000+03:00

Tfoo tfoo tfoo. It really would blasé to write angrily about Thomas Freidman and to call more attention to his journalistic misdeeds. His racist, arrogant, incendiary writings do speak for themselves. But I just couldn't help it.

The other day I saw him on TV speaking at the National Governors Association, a big American thing. It really was hard to watch. He said so much shit. He spoke of India , the second largest Muslim country (he meant country with the second largest Muslim population) as being an anomaly in the Muslim and Arab world. Because, said Thomas, it was a place that lets Islam do its thing and flourish (he pointed to the fact that India's richest man is a Muslim) while still "providing a context, a political context, where a young person doesn't have to go and bribe the judge with a goat when he has a legal problem." Ya 2aleel el zo2 ya 7ayawan, el me3za di tla2eeha shafet 3adala w karama w adab aktar melle feek kollak 3ala ba3dak, enta wel orood elli byesma3o kalamak.*

He also gleefuly cited a nationally televised debate, also in India, between a senior Shaykh and a Muslim female film star on whether or not Indians should go stand by their brethren in Afghanistan in their resistance to the American invasion. With much vitriol, he wrapped up his mention of the debate saying that the flim star was "basically telling the Shaykh to shove it." And then a silence, as he drew back slowly from the microphone, leaving his elite audience to bob their heads, vindicated, likely reapeating the phrase "shove it" in their minds.

I'm not so good at expository writing, I really wish I was. I'm thankful that some people (Baheyya, Matt Taibbi, Greg Palast) are and that he has been criticised strongly in many instances. It would seem a worthwhile full-time job to counter all that he says and writes, on the spot. In the mean time I stand by my initial position: tfoo.

*You unrefined, tasteless beast of a man! That goat has probably known more justice, dignity and decency than is contained in your whole self and in the selves of all your monkey readers.

Amani w Dasani

2005-07-19T03:18:00.000+03:00

There's a Dasani (tfoo) mineral water ad on Nile FM (104.2) where the voice of Allison Esprit of the Nile FM family begins with the phrase "Water, the most natural of natural resources..."

La ya sheikha.

This is why advertising is so important. Important, that is, to those of us who in our overwhelmedness by the crises in the various realms of our lives (moral, aesthetic, social, etc.), have fallen into a state of perpetual curiosity, fuelled largely by a feeling of disenchantment with many of the values, concepts, structures and categories with which mainstream society functions. In advertising we see so many of these values and concepts reinforced and propagated, all this being the by-product of a process, the central aim of which is to stimulate consumption. Look at Nile FM.

To say that water is the most natural of natural resources is just unforgiveably stupid. It is however effective in that the word 'natural' is said twice, helping to emphasise the special status of water and thus sets up the product, Dasani, quite nicely. This is a language that speaks to a cruder part of the mind. It is the same part that has so many Cairo listeners, one imagines, spellbound with dumb light grins as their ears fill with the authoritative and effortless Britain-flavoured ramblings of the Nile FM team. The joy of hearing Allison speak the way she does has value and the advertisers know to use it in promoting products. If I say "water...most natural...Dasani..." most listeners would likely react with a mental "bas yala, balash kalam faudi". But when Allison speaks, I imagine a mighty chorus of responses from Madinet Nasr to Helwan to Imbaba with thoughts like "la2, begad?", "hmmm, bet2ool eih di?" "sheek awi Dasani", "ba7eb awi-l mayya ana, dana 3ayz ashrab 7atta", etc."

Nile FM means a lot to a lot of people and I think that it speaks a language similar to that of advertising in many ways. It is a language that often plays on insecurity, aspiration, and the satisfying pull of certain superficial markers of coolness. I feel this needs more elaboration but I'm really not up to it right now. I'm thinking this would be a good theme to explore here. I can even quote little items from their programming. That would be fun.

Second Post

2005-07-18T23:11:00.000+03:00

So much for a first post. I'm consoled by the fact that, given the impossibility of continuous editing and revising of previous posts, I might learn how to not fret so much about things I said or wrote. It's also nice to think that by preventing myself from making retroactive adjustments I might find my effort applied more squarely to the present, thus helping my expression to evolve more solidly. That said, all this might just be in my head, i.e. ay kalam.

But I will not prevent myself from putting forth the disclaimer that maybe my using the word lucid to describe my commentary was a little bit presumptuous. It doesn't matter, I feel a bit uncomfortable about it anyway and so I said what I just did.

Also I don't know what to do about language. I need to incorporate Arabic into my posts but also want the posts to be fully accessible to a non-Arabic speakers and the idea of having little translations of all the 3ammeya phrases doesn't seem so inviting. Rabbena ysahhel.

First post

2005-07-15T07:30:00.000+03:00

A couple of friends recently told me that I tend to give a first impression of being reserved and proper ("hadi keda w gadd awi") before revealing my self as a generally laid back and exciteable guy.

My interest in having this blog has to do with my feeling the need for a kind of hysterical and lucid commentary on what goes on around us, mostly here in Egypt. That commentary already exists very much in my own life and in the lives of those around me. But why not concretise it a bit, put it up for others to see, make a routine out of it?

And so it is. Yesterday I called my friend H and told him it was time to start a blog. He said of course and told me to give him a day to think about a good name for it. He smsed me gayyash last night and here I am.

Now, I mentioned the bit about first impressions because I'm feeling quite shy as I write this first post. But this is no place to be shy. I want to be ecstatic. That said, I don't care to shock or be sensationalist either. My line is simple: there is actually very little to be embarassed about in life and there is very little that truly compromises one's dignity. An honest look at lives lived from the heart should yield no shame. What's more, I am believing more each day that it is morally imperative in these times to actively seek a new grace in the world, about the city, on Channel 2, with the asshole lady at the koshk, in a smashed up packet of sham3edan. And as this grace comes to the fore, so can we laugh louder in unison at so many of the current markers of rogoola, moroo2a, teeba, shiyaka, gad3ana, asaala, shahama, 7alawa, nadafa, re22a, zuo2 etc. as the hollowness of these markers rings louder too, like a tabla riff leading this blessed state of inner shakhla3a.

So let's see where this goes.

Ne2ra el Fat7a.