For you. . .

            It’s easy to be marked as a tourist here.  I like to think of myself more as a traveler than a tourist, because I stay around longer than most tourists.  With that distinction in mind, I had to deal with and sometimes downright ignore most hawkers and vendors who don’t make that same distinction.  The only difference that these sharp-eyed Egyptian vendors see in foreigners can be grouped into two categories:  those who live in Egypt and have heard all the catch phrases already, and those with such a look of bewilderment on their faces proving how new and fascinating this country is to them.   

            The latter are the prime and most desirable targets for the hawkers and vendors, but they aren’t below going after the other foreigners anyway.  Sometimes these venders in the guise of a small child, all dirty, and in ill-fitting clothes.  I imagine them spending countless hours in front of a mirror trying to get the perfect pleading look of helplessness into their eyes so tourists become overwhelmed with pity and offer the child something out of the wholesome goodness of their hearts. They feel good about this, and walk away with a lighter step, thinking, “Gosh. I helped a poor innocent waif today.” And they feel all warm and gushy inside while the little child with tear stained eyes is thinking, “Ha! Another sucker! I just may break my record of twenty-five foreigners today!”

            Other beggars include people like the old decrepit man who barely shuffles along with his over burdened pack of wares selling cards, stickers, and a bunch of broken watches and opera glasses that only God knows where he picked them up.  One often thinks that this stuff stopped selling in the States around the end of the seventies.  Sometimes beggars come in the guise of women,  and what Texan out there can say “no” to a woman who looks down on her luck?  It’s a sad sight to see a withered woman bent over, crying.  Sometimes she might be sitting against a wall holding out their hands and making a gesture of eating food while a little child lays comatose in their lap.

            There is also the hawker who has a relative working down the street at a merchant’s house.  These two are good friends, and are very pleasant towards you and your wallet.  They will tell you about the time they almost made it to America, but for some excuse they ended up in England instead.  Some of these hawkers come in the form of teachers and offer you coffee— be prepared to pay— and get on the subject of what American money looks like, and boy if they wouldn’t like to take some to show their class.  Others, you just know they are intent on selling you any type of trinket.  If you take an interest in what they have to offer, it is a major offensive strategy to sell anything to you before you have time to set up any defense, and nothing less will do.  Because of this, I devised a five second rule.  This rule lets me look at things for no longer than five seconds.  If I look any longer, they’ll assume I’m interested and try to give it to me for a good price.  Their strategy is to invite you in for tea, give you cookies, even talk to you in English— whatever it takes.  And when, out of curiosity, you ask them for a price: their eyes light up, their arms outstretch, their palms face upward in symbolic helplessness, an angelic smile appears on their face, and they say, “Ahhhh, for you, good price!”

            Reeling from the direct insult to your intelligence, you stagger backwards a few steps as if a donkey came out of nowhere and kicked you in the guts.  Inhaling sharply, as if to regain some sort of equilibrium and stop the blood pressure from rising any further, you put out a hand to steady yourself.  For me?!?  Just for me?  As if the taxi driver, and half the city hasn’t already told me that in these past five months?  Did they honestly think I would assume their unfailing alliance to my wallet is an actual act of friendship, and not some device to get me to buy a carved bust of an Egyptian god?  A good price for whom?

            I had heard it said countless times before, and each time I would shudder and ignore the speaker, knowing that whatever he had to offer was going to be over-priced.  I had been in Egypt for almost five months, and every day I had to turn down some offer that was assumed should never be passed up by anyone with a thick wallet and bad taste.

            It’s easy to become sick of this selling ploy, and I learned quickly to end all conversations right there.  Now who in their right mind would believe anyone who would give you a line like that!  It is a direct insult to anybody with the sense to know better.  Sometimes I would develop a better refusal of a gaudy trinket and each time a retort was sent my way that I hadn’t heard yet.  There was an endless stream of rebuttals that I couldn’t keep up with, and with each one I had to harden myself for the next.

            I can see the thought process of: “He’s foreign; he must’ve taken a plane to get here, therefore he must be rich.”  However, I am a student, and I had to get a loan to pay for the plane ticket over here.  For me, a good dining out experience is when my foot doesn’t stick to a sticky rattrap under the table at the restaurant!

            For tourists, their duty and drive is to learn nothing about cultural differences while scurrying around to do their shopping before their cruise ship leaves port in two hours.  Most thought processes are interspersed with such phrases as, “Well, I am on vacation, and I did come to spend money.” or “I don’t care what they have, I have to buy your damn mother a gift!”  We students usually bide our time looking at all sorts of shops.  We select a target and begin by making friends with the owners, coming around a lot and looking interested while immersing ourselves within the country and its culture.  But students usually have more time to play out this strategy.

            For my ancient Egyptian art class I had to go to the museum to write a description analysis paper on a certain art piece.  Having a meticulous as well as intelligent teacher, we were required to do extensive research and provide a picture of the piece.  After choosing a wooden sculpture, I spent hours in front of it, writing down every last detail that I could find. Because I was standing directly in front of the statue for long periods, I was getting all sorts of weird looks from the guards (I was lucky—not being female, no one was interested in marrying me).  I got in the way of tour guides, and I listened to each as they crowded around me, some giving me dirty looks for being in their way.   The guides would turn on flashlights and shine it into the polished quartz eyes of the statue and rant about their life-like qualities.  After a few seconds, the light would snap off, and the well-rehearsed speech that the guides would give ended leaving a harried group of tourists less than a minute to admire the statue before moving on.  I noticed with each passing group, the speech given by the guides was what was written on the placard in the display case. 

            When I was finished with a small description of the statue, I pulled out my drawing pad and sketched the statue from a variety of angles.  This seemed to arouse the curiosity of the passing tourists, who looked more at my sketchpad than at the statue.  I even tolerated the occasional curious comments from the other Americans who were passing through the museum.  With the occasional remarks of, “That sure is nice. Thompson, come and look at what the nice boy is doing,” or, “Ohhh. There’s another one in the corner with a funny looking head that you would like to draw.”  How did she know that I would like to draw it?  I smiled, saying little and being polite until they left me alone. One statue per class was enough to draw.

            I felt a presence behind me before I noticed the shadow as it fell across the base of the display case.  This becomes disgruntling when you know someone is behind you, but feel weird turning around, thinking it may be your nightmarish Aunt Selma in Bermuda shorts and loud print shirt that will hug and kiss you until your face is smeared with her lipstick.  After awhile I could stand it no longer, and I turned around, ready to be nice to whomever my observer was.  A security guard, his curiosity piqued, had come over and stood behind me while I sketched.

            I smiled and greeted him.  “Salam aleikum.”

            He seemed impressed.  “Ah, you speak Arabic goodly.  Inta mineen?”  Where are you from?

            I told him I was from America, and his face lit up with recognition.  “Ah!  I speak England!  I have cousin who live in California!  Bad, bad place.  You like?”

            I shook my head.  “No. I am from Texas.”

            Once more, a hint of recognition.  “Ah,  Dallas.”

            I nodded, and decided to leave it at that.  I went back to sketching while he stood and looked over my shoulder.  Behind him a child had broken free from a bored, and tired parent and was banging on a display case.  I winced inwardly at each slap, and waiting for the guard to excuse himself to cart the child off to jail.  Instead, he chose to look even more intently at my almost finished drawing.  He looked up at me, pointing between the drawing and me, saying something I couldn’t understand.

            I looked quizzically at him and said, “mish faahim.”  I don’t understand.

            Finally, through elaborate gestures of sketching motions made with his hands and pointing to the drawing, he gave me his approval of my work.  “kwais.”

            Now my time had come and the tables had turned.  “Ahh,” I said, smiling warmly at him, and opening my arms like a grandfather welcoming home his grandchildren for Christmas dinner,  “for you, good price.”