Muhammad Stuart Living

“Fourty”, I said with a wink. He nodded. After a quick reassuring squeeze of my knife, I tossed my bag in the Egyptian taxi bound for the armpit of Cairo. The cabs final destination was a location on the fringe of downtown and the slums, where the nights are untamed, dark, dingy, cheep. It’s a place where the white boys don’t roam.

The cab driver, like most in the third world, brought up an awkward conversation dealing with sex. I ceased his banter by telling him the cost of my hostel room. (which was $2.66)

“Impossible! NO hotel in Cairo  under 50 Egyptian Pounds!($9.35)”

I put my overused, cocky, I know everything look on my face and attempted to bet him half the cab fare. We shook upon it, but I knew he was confused about the word hostel and would never pay up.

At one look at me, the guy at the front desk called over his companion who could translate into English.

“22 pounds. Own room,” his interpreter said.
“Anything cheaper?” I inquired.
“With 6 person. 14.25 pounds.”
“I’ll Take it!”

I entered a dorm room filled with loud men yelling in Arabic and they were instantly silenced. “Hi”, I said weakly, to break the silence. They just stared.

“Crap! What the heck am I doing!” I thought, “Of course, the one very important phrase I forgot to ask the cab driver was a greeting! What am I going to do… Damnnit, I should’ve paid the extra 2 bits for my own room.” 

I just stood there in the doorway, staring into the five sets of blinking unbelieving eyes. Finally, an older gentleman stepped forward. He was heavy set man with a round sweaty face, his blank slightly open mouth changed quickly into a smile and with a strong English accent, he offered some relief.

“Welcome, where are you from?”
Not realizing I’ve been holding my breath, I gasped, “California!”
“Aww, Hotel California!”

I’ve been saying California the entire trip to ease ideas of USA’s terrible foreign policy and Bush’s war mongering in Iraq and my California crutch leaves foreigners with thoughts of surfing, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hollywood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as he just mentioned the hotel you can check out from but never leave.

Further discussion with this guy reviled that this dormitory was mainly used by students attending the local university and generally tourists like myself never come this far outside town, although, I don’t remember much of what he said… as I was focused on remembering a word that sounded like ef-en, which is Arabic for lock.  There were lockers in each room perfectly sized for a bag as large as mine, but I didn’t have an ef-en lock, and it was getting ef-en late.

The man at the front desk said, “say ef-en to him.” Then pointed to a scraggly man across the street, hidden in the shadows like a drug dealer. I approached cautiously with an expectation of getting murdered or handed drugs, but I did as exactly instructed. Without a glance my way, change of expression, or any words, the scraggly character pointed down a dark empty corridor and my ef-en feet feebly followed his filthy ef-en finger.

“Crap! What the heck am I doing!” I thought, “Damnnit, I should’ve paid the extra 2 bits for my own room.”

The alley led me to a plump kid covered in dirt. “ef-en?” He looked up and smiled with the whitest teeth I’ve seen in this country. He shouted ef-en! and grabbed my hand dragging me further down the dark alley. At a wild run he would make random turns down different corridors, knocking me through crowds of people, and and occasionally turn and shout ef-en! I had no idea where he was ef-en taking me or if I would be able find the ef-en way back.

It was an hour later when I stepped triumphantly through the hostel doors. I now had a lock and a full belly of street food.

That night I sat on the top bunk of my bed and answered questions from the boys in the room using some of the English speaking men as personal translators. The questions were mainly the same as that of the cab driver: What are the women like in America? Sex? Dating? and anything related to topics concerning relations. Recalling information absorbed from sitcoms and books with Fabio on the cover, I would tell long descriptive tales of my made up sex life. Most of the boys just listened with big watery eyes and some occasional called others into the room to listen. Word traveled fast and by the end of the night I was talking to more than 15 guys packed into the tiny room. Talking about sex to a crowd of men, this must be what diplomacy is.

“Glad I didn’t pay the extra two bits for my own room.”

June 2nd, 2008