Stu's visit to Egypt.
09/22/01
I am happy to report that I am having more successful taxi
rides. Tonight, I
managed to organize and direct a group of eight people to a
French restaurant
in Zamalek. That meant getting two taxis and directing
one driver, hoping
the other would be able to follow the first. And this
was for a forty-minute
ride through downtown and over one of three identical
bridges.
Imagine any major US city that has a river flowing through
it. Skyscrapers
on the waterfront, elevated highways, six lane bridges, lots
of lights and
hustle and bustle. Now multiply the hustle by ten and
the bustle by twenty,
throw in five million people and you have Zamalek. It is
the fashion
district, nightclub hopping, trendy section of the city.
L'ouborgine is a
small restaurant buried somewhere on a small alley, off a
small street, off a
major busy avenue. I had never been there but someone
explained to me how to
go.
If this was a horror film you would be yelling at the screen.
"No Stu! Don't
get in the taxi! You know you'll get
lost!" I know because that was what I
was screaming silently to myself. On the other hand, I
had several factors
in my favor.
I was using Mohamed as my main driver. He understands
some English, is very
trustworthy, and drives a clean air-conditioned taxi.
(If I'm going to spend
an hour lost in a cab, I may as well be comfortable.) He parks
his cab at the
corner near my apartment and waits for fares. He is
better off than most
drivers so he doesn't need to drive around looking for
passengers.
I also had a poorly sketched map and the name of the
restaurant. Believe me,
this is more to go on than usual. Sometimes people will
say, "Meet me at
that Tai place near that midan that has a
fountain." They won't know the
name of the Tai restaurant, the street names leading into the
midan, or an
address. If you are lucky they'll describe nearby
shops, mosques, or trees.
Zamalek is a common destination. Any taxi driver can get
us there even if
they don't know the name of the restaurant. Once
in Zamalek we could likely
badger people until we found one that could help us find
L'ouborgine's.
(I
was told it was near a shoe store under an overpass.)
I was pacing and muttering to myself when people started to
arrive at my
place. I had the drawn map in my hand and I was
practicing how to say,
"Where is a shoe store, please?" in Arabic. My
stomach churned with the
thought of leading eight friends into the bowels of an urban
chasm armed only
with a scribbled on piece of scrap paper. Then Lucia
walked into my life.
Lucia was the only returning teacher in our group that
night. She spoke
Arabic well, she is smart and friendly. But her most
endearing quality this
night was that she had been to L'ouborgine's
several times before. She gave
Mohamed names of streets, nearby hotels, and even the name of
the bridge we
had to take. I was saved. It turned out to be a
very low stress journey.
The only disconcerting thing about it was that I didn't
recognize a single
landmark from my map. I didn't even realize we
had gone over a bridge. And
I never did find that shoe store.
I gladly paid Lucia's bill for the whole night. She
didn't let me pay just
because she had given a cab driver some directions. But
she did let me pay
because her bank card was eaten by a malfunctioning ATM
earlier that day and
being a Friday it was impossible to get cash
otherwise. Nothing is easy
here. But it sure is an adventure.